Annika & Björn , Moon , www.sailaround.info
Japan to Alaska 1367nm
5 -15 June 2016 Week 23-24
5 June Sunday – All four of us ready to go. Paperwork was already done last Friday.
Shuang Yu, Kea and Liv left some hours ahead of us.
We left at 1500 hours into a quite flat sea and grey skies.
6 June Monday – Day 1
Cold morning after a clear night without moonshine.
The water temperature is only four degrees and the air temp during the night was 6 degrees C.
Yesterday we all four foreign boats left Kushiro for Alaska. Shuang Yu around lunch time, Kéa and Liv some hours later and Moon even later at three o’clock. No wind made the speed for the various boats very similar and we kept in VHF range all night. We were told by the Coast Guard not to stay closer to shore then four miles because of fishing nets, but still there were lots of nets further out. Our radar picks up the markers for the nets, luckily, because during the night we had to manoeuvre to pass at least three on our route.
Early in the morning we heard Shuang Yu calling a fishing boat and we understood they had been caught in a fishing net. We tried to call them but no success. Shuang Yu had chosen to go even further out from shore, obviously not always good. Later via our SSB radio net we got information that they were free but could not use the engine. Pam who usually jumps into the sea and fix anything around the prop, tried but it could have ended in a tragedy in the bitterly cold water. She almost couldn’t come back up into the boat and then she was shivering for half an hour before she could breath normally. With no working propeller they started to sail towards the closest Japanese port. Kea’, the French catamaran was closest and volunteered to go back and assist. Diving gears and dry suits solved the problem and later the two continued northeast, Shuang Yu chose later to sail due east.
The wind that was predicted became a no show, which of course was a blessing for the rescue operation. We tried to do some sailing in the few gusts that appeared, but the whole day was more or less engine on all the time.
At the evening SSB net we got all the good results from Kea’s diving.
We have motored 130 nm of the 1300 to Attu in bright sunshine the whole day.
7 June Tuesday – Day 2
Cold and clear night with fog a few hours after sunset.
No moon but lots of stars. The nights get shorter every day! We are travelling north east, which means not only shorter, the morning comes even earlier every mile. We have already adjusted the time two hours to have daylight during “daytime”.
Our routines for 24 hours sailing are starting to get in place and we sleep ok, although the sea state is a bit rolly and the engine makes lots of (normal) noise.
This is the second time we start a passage with running the engine for days, knowing that the weather will be calm for the first days. Last time it was between Tasmania and South Island, New Zealand. That time we were overcompensated with wind the last days of the passage, arriving in Bluff, only beating the arrival of the storm with some hours. This time we hope the approaching low will not be that nasty.
We have Fredrik, newly graduated Captain of the sea, the son of our friends back home, helping us with the overall view of the weather pattern. Hopefully we will be able to come north of the strongest winds and be able to continue towards Attu despite the low.
We can only communicate with “the rest of the world” via SSB and Pactor modem, not a very fast connection that only allows short messages.
We will probably not have internet for another three weeks.
In the mean time we enjoy the sunshine and the unusual situation in this area, no fog! But the high pressure has obviously very dry air and in spite of the cold current from Bering Sea, the little humidity in the air doesn’t condensate as fog. We have studied a blog from this area written last year, and they didn’t see much of the sun for the whole summer!
On our port side we have snow covered Russian islands south of Kamchatka 30 nm west of our route. Very beautiful in the light of the morning sunrise. The south running current from Bering Sea, now only three degrees C, slow us down on average almost one knot, making our progress a bit slower than usual under engine. But thanks to our big diesel tank, 900 litres, we have no restriction on using diesel. Our friends further back have “normal” diesel tanks and have to be more carefully using the engine. Despite the sun and no wind, it’s bitterly cold. Lots of extra clothes and of course wind breaker on top. In the sun and in leeward of the dodger it’s ok with only one layer, but “outside” and at night time…
Inside Moon we have normal 18-20 degrees thanks to our water born heating system with eight radiators, heated either by the engine or the Whisper Gen if we are sailing. Daytime with the sun through our big windows it’s almost too much…
Our friends have more normal boats with little extra heating, except for the HR yacht Liv, which in the Swedish way is equipped with air heater. But having shortage of diesel due to lack of wind, the use of the heater is of course restricted. But we have not heard any complaints over the radio net yet…
Distance mad good today so far 125 nm.
8 June Wednesday – Day 3
Another cold night with no moon but lots of stars.
Just after sunset we saw the new moon for a short while before it disappeared under the horizon. During the evening radio net, Liv told us about a dead whale they passed during the day. Birds were plentiful and happy…
The night was lit up by our glooming stream from the propeller. Really amazing, like some flashlight under the boat pointing backwards. No wind during the night and until lunchtime, when we could sail for a short while before the engine had to be engaged again. A few hours during the night we had some swell, but they disappeared in the morning and we got a flat, oily like water around us, all the way to the Russian snow covered island on our port side.
Not to be surprised by new swell building up, we had a shower before lunch. The humidity is very low inside Moon. The teak grid in the shower was dry already an hour after we showered.
The sunrise was amazing, but got competition from some fog. The sun did win and we had a very sunny day until late evening when the fog surrounded us completely.
Water temperature is only 2 degrees! But we have 17 – 20 “indoors” in Moon.
The water is not only cold, it is running south, slowing us down in average one knot. The water running south from Bering Sound is of course the reason for the “icy” temperature.
Our “fleet” of four boats heading out of Kushiro have become quite spread due to different approach to the coming low and shortage of diesel. We will try to go to Attu and believe that heading direct as fast as possible, using great circle, will give us the best circumstances during the passage of the low. Future will tell.
Today we saw our first Tufted Puffin. They are really cute!
Distance made good since yesterday 123 nm (under engine 98%)
9 June Thursday – Day 4
Fog all night, the “normal” weather have reach us…
Early morning the fog was more light drizzle and poor visibility. We saw big passing ships almost three miles from Moon.
The morning radio net had no news, more than positions (even more apart) and passing ships. We had two close calls during the night, the first came before midnight and had a CPA (closest point of approach) less than 100 m. We called the ship when they were 10 nm north of us and asked if they were aware of sailing yacht Moon on their route. Obviously they were not (eventually the AIS alarm was set closer than 10 nm), but no problem; they changed course five degrees to starboard, and resumed their course once Moon was astern of them. The next one was more alert and had already seen Moon on the AIS monitor and, because we called him closer, changed course 10 degrees to starboard. All other boats have had their courses well off Moon.
Do we have to tell you that the AIS is a most essential tool on board any ship.
It’s such a relief to be able to call an approaching ship by name or MMSI number, they most certainly reply, which not always was the case in the old days when we sailors were calling “big ship”….
The wind is still very weak, but now from south east, meaning we can motor sail with the wind almost close haul on our northeast course, making Moon a much more stabilized boat.
The current have changed since early morning. We are now with the new wind direction making 6,5 knots through water and often adding 0,5 to 1 knot of current. The previous days with weak tail wind and counter current we were doing 5,5 minus 0,5 to 1 knot. This sum up to the great speed of three knots! When you are slow this means hell of a difference!
This morning we even had an hour without the engine running. Sailing at 6,5 knots steering with the wind vane. Absolutely quiet. But it did not last for long. Before we started the engine we rinsed the water strainer from krill. No wonder there are more wildlife in this part of the world.
Aside from writing blog we have used the day to make bread, cook, listen to audio bocks and sleep, preparing for the night.
Motoring 98%
Distance made good 143 nm.
Just as we were ready to send this blog we had a little to close visit from big big Sperm whale. It came up less than 20 meters from Moon. In fact a little too close…
10 June Friday – Day 5
Fog the whole day, cold and part of the day drizzle.
Close hauled in 14-20 knots apparent wind. Swell and waves moderate because the true wind is only 10 -15 knots, in other words perfect conditions for sailing.
HF radio communication is “mysterious”, sometime it is none existing, and sometimes, like this morning the conditions were great. Very fast download of grib files. We have a low passing tomorrow and because of that it is extra important with fresh grib files. The radio net between the four of us yesterday evening had no alarming news, but no good news either. We are all preparing for the coming low. We have been sailing the whole night and day! Yes we shut down the engine only a couple of minutes into this 5th day. Very nice and quiet. The wind vane is doing a great job keeping Moon on course as long as the wind exceeds 6-8 knots. Another advantage is that we don’t have to hand steer when using the HF radio. HF interferes with the rudder sensor to the autopilot computer so we can’t use it when transmitting.
When running the engine we can’t use the wind vane because the prop wash overrides the vanes influence on the paddle. So radio under engine still means hand steering out in the cold… When HF conditions are bad an email download can take “forever”.
The Whisper generator works well, meaning full heat and full electricity in Moon. Cocking, making bread, radar, nav PC and all other nav instruments have no restrictions, which is a relief in this dense fog.
The morning radio net had some bad information. Liv could not get their air heater to start, giving them a very cold boat. Kéa, the Frech cat, had hit something during the night (probably a log they think) and got a 20 cm scratch through the outer skin of their composite fibre glass hull. No leakage, and there is some sort of stiffener/support inside the hull where the scratch is. They were complaining more about the cold environment inside the boat and had no second thoughts about continuing towards Attu due to the damage.
Three out of four boats have chosen to aim directly at Attu, and Shuang Yu, the US boat, decided to try to stay south of the low, making the trip several days, up to a week longer. After the trip we will discuss what was the best decision, but fact is that the more days you are out here, the greater risk to be hit by another low…
Distance made good 136 nm , sums up to 657 nm so far, close to 50% of the great circle route distance Kushiro – Attu.
Sailing all day!
11 June Saturday – Day 6
Fog all night but not much rain.
Wind from southeast -east 15-20 knots. Day time no rain and visibility more than three miles. We are pointing as high as comfortable as possible to the wind, 45 – 50 degrees apparent wind, which gave us most of the day between 35 to 45 degrees over ground almost on the great circle to Attu. During the night, the swell and the wind didn’t cooperate at all times, making Moon a bit uncomfortable. But compared to what we had expected from the predicted low, this was “nothing”, almost an anticlimax after all our discussions over the “Alaska radio net”.
The conditions stabilised in the morning and kept throughout the day, making the sailing both comfortable and relatively fast in spit of our reefed main sail. When wind is over the bow (in front of across), Moon is almost as fast with full head sails and a reefed main, as with a full main, providing it blows more then 10 knots. If below ten knots and wind from behind we have to motor sail due to swell and waves rolling Moon, and the mainsail “flops” from one side to the other, giving no contribution to the speed. Before noon the wind had become more easterly and the wind vane “followed”, giving us a course more like 25 – 30 degrees over ground. Much of the time we still have current against, but seldom more than half a knot.
Our Whispergen had been running for 36 hours started to get to warm, resulting in a stopping procedure by the micro processor. Probably caused by lack of Nitrogen, which we couldn’t top up enough before leaving Japan. So now we are almost in the same “club” as the others, although we still get a warm boat when we are motoring. Meaning, when it’s to cold we turn the engine on for some hours, especially during the night. The temperature kept above 16 degrees during daytime, in spite no heating.
The evening net showed that Liv and Moon, thirty miles apart, have made almost the same distance during the day, and Kéa, the cat, have used their gennaker and made great progress. Shuang Yu are far south due to their decision to sail east for the first days, their effort to stay south of the low has not been a success. They have had 30 knots and four meters swell and are now pointing north in the building swell and no wind.
The wearing wind has brought us into the shipping lane again, and now and then we call ships that have CPA less than a mile to make sure they are aware of us. So far no problem, they are all very polite and all of them have altered their course to give us room enough to feel comfortable. Remember we are steering with the wind vane which gives us a course that is “flexing” five to ten degrees, which we of course inform the ships we are calling.
Distance made good 148 nm. From Kushiro 798 nm.
Sailing all 24 hours!
12 June Sunday – Day 7
Fog but no rain during the night and decreasing wind until ten o’clock in the evening when we had to engage the engine. Daytime no rain and visibility more than three miles. Very weak wind made us motor the whole day. The evening radio net gave no news, but as they say, no news is good news! The three of us sailing north have similar approach and planning. Shuang Yu in the south has got absolutely “wrong” weather. They have now tried to go north, and are close to our position three days ago! But they seemed to be happy in spite of that.
The wind disappeared late in the evening and the engine came in use. Not a bad thing now when the gen-set isn’t working and it’s getting cold. Daytime the temperature inside Moon keeps around 16 degrees without using heating more than occasionally, but at night time it falls rapidly. When we engage the engine at 22.00 we were down to 16 degrees.
There is a new low with stronger wind within a day or two, but until then we probably have to use the engine.
During the night we had one ship in front of us with CPA less than 100 m. We called as usual when we were 10 nm apart. After some trouble with understanding, they confirmed that they saw our AIS and they were going to alter course to starboard. We had no preference on which side they wanted to pass us, but thought it was a bit odd because they were on our starboard side. Sure enough, when the change of course came on AIS it was to port! giving us a wider berth on our starboard side. When we were talking on VHF they probably hadn’t seen us on AIS and the reflex was to alter course to starboard to pass port to port.
Coming around the language barrier it’s obviously important to use simple but exact expressions. “Maintain course” is preferable to “continue this course” and that solved the problem this time. We will use “maintain” to avoid misunderstandings in the future. There is another reason for “maintain” as we are a sailing boat. “Maintain” makes it clear that we are aware of the rules and that the other ship can count on us keeping our course.
Big ships have A-transponder and we see them normally 30 miles away. B-transponder on pleasure boats and some fishing boats are not that strong and we see most of them only 10-15 miles away. Surprisingly Liv can sometimes see Moon’s B-transponder 30-35 miles away. The brand True Heading is obviously good AIS equipment.
The radio net this morning showed our positions with similar distance as yesterday, mainly because all had use the engine more or less the whole night.
Sadly Shuang Yu reported problems with their new Raymarine autopilot. Without a working autopilot they saw no alternative but turning back to Japan. Hopefully they will find out what’s wrong.
We had a close encounter with a Fin- or Sei whale during the radio net, not at all that close as the sperm whale the other day, more relaxing 50 metres…
During the late morning we started the WaterMaker for the first time since we preserved it in Tannowa marina in November. Did “test running” for 45 minutes to get rid of preservation residuals and then we got water production of absolutely top quality. Surprisingly we got normal 50 l/h with pressure still well below 800 psi in spit we have very cold sea water. Eventually the high capacity is because of our five-six meter hose and three filters between the intake and the high pressure pump are in warm areas. We had postponed the first restart until we have clean sea water around Moon, and of course we had to have at least one tank empty before start.
Very convenient to be able to use the engine water strainer with glass lid to check the amount of krill and other small sea creatures. The pre filter for the WM will certainly clog if we have lots of krill. It looks like landfall Attu on Thursday 16th, counting our Japan time. We will soon cross the date line and will gain one day, making us arriving on the 15th to the most west (and east) spot in US.
Distance made good 135 nm. Total since Kushiro 833 nm
Engine in use 18 hours out of 24.
13 June Monday – Day 8
The first part of the night we actually saw the moon for a short time before the clouds and fog came back throughout the night. Early morning the fog eased and at dawn we had red skies to east for half an hour. After lunch we got partly clear sky and sunshine for some hours. Good visibility from early morning.
Motor sailing until early morning, when the wind backed and we had to lower the cutter and only use a reefed mainsail, motoring in 4-5 knots of dead headwind until evening. We hope to be able to maintain course to north east until tomorrow when the wind is predicted to back further north and increase and then we tack and sail east/south east through the low.
Evening radio net had one positive info. Shuang Yu has found a way to use the autopilot and is continuing towards Dutch Harbour. The big question is who will arrive at DH first?
All three boats in the north had weak south easterly winds and are under engine and all are pointing well north of Attu to “give way” for the low passing north across Attu. A very easy night. Cutter and reefed main under engine gave us 6 – 6,5 knots in 12 -14 knots apparent wind.
Morning radio net had information that Kéa got a net in one of their propellers. They have diving equippement (they helped Shuang Yu with a net the first day) and were going to dive and cut. In spite diving suits, it’s very cold! All through the night we had seen Russian fishing boats on the AIS in the area where Kéa caught a net. We kept on motoring into the weak headwind the rest of the day.
Distance made good 128 nm. Total since Kushiro 961 nm
Engine in use 24 hours out of 24…
14 June Tuesday – Day 9
Light fog and warmer water, 6-7 degrees…
Light wind from northeast, but a very rough sea state. Swell from east and waves from northeast from the low. This together with our heading northeast into the waves makes life onboard uncomfortable, and progress very slow in the “stopping” sea. Motored at slow speed with a reefed main in little wind into the swell all night and day, heading east towards Attu.
During the evening radio net, Shuang Yu in the south could not hear us, but we heard them. Later we send them an e-mail (using HF) to inform them that we could hear them.
The rest of the radio net was about Kéa’s adventure with the fishing net in the prop. They had managed to get most of the net of the prop, but in between the prop and the sail drive, around the shaft, was still nylon that in the cold water was close to impossible to get out. Not good. Hopefully it was clean enough, not to damage the seal around the shaft to the gearbox, thus preventing water to penetrate into the gearbox oil.
Kéa was still 30 nm northwest of us motor sailing southeast, and Liv 60 to south-southwest. Liv had more wind and sailed east-southeast in building sea.
During the night we saw only one ship in our 30 nm control zone, very relaxing.
At the morning net we had contact with all boats. Shuang Yu has very slow progress and is now 500 nm south of us. Kéa had motor sailed southeast during the whole night and is now 30 nm southwest of us, and Liv 70 nm south. We were surprised to find that our slow motor sailing east-northeast had brought us so much closer Attu, compared with the other two during the night. The wind backed some degrees during the morning and we changed course to due east and brought out the cutter and got better speed and angle to the waves.
Hopefully we will have more wind and wind from north in the evening. It would be nice to be able to shut off the engine, although we for the moment don’t have any heat in Moon without the engine… We have since a few days been looking for a diesel leak, due to some smell in the technical room. While cleaning around the shaft seal, Annika got a small amount of diesel in her hair. The diesel day tank is above the bilge and the shaft, and getting there she touch the bottom of the day tank and there it was. We have lately got suspicious that the automatic filling of the day tank isn’t working as previous and have engaged the pump manually. The day tank has diesel enough for two full days, making manual filling not a great problem.
Around the lower sensor in the tank we could see traces of diesel, yes only that. But that’s enough to make the surface below the sensor greasy and smelly. Might have something to do with the eventually malfunction of the sensor? We have to deal with that at anchor in Attu.
Less than 200 nm left to arrival Attu.
Distance made good 99 nm. Totally 1060 nm since leaving Japan
Motor sailing almost 24 hours in confused swell…
14 June Wednesday – Day 10
No moon, no sunshine and some drizzle now and then.
The wind came as predicted in strength but the change of direction came a lot later.
At the evening radio net we where the northerly most boat having Kea 30 nm in south-southwest and Liv in the same direction almost 90 nm away. Shuang Yu had made some progress but very slowly.
The night watch was not a pleasant time as the swell came from where we are heading. On top of that a short and steep wind driven sea made us stop every so often – so we motor sailed for a long time to get any progress. Shortly before the morning radio we saw Kea’s AIS signal within five miles to the south and still during the afternoon they are there.
Liv hade been able to sail during the night and were now 50 miles away in the ssw. We and Kea had slowed down not to risk making landfall during dark. It looks like we all three will anchor before noon tomorrow.
During the night and morning we have passed two borderlines, first the territorial border between Russia and USA and some hours later the date line. The crossing of the date line makes it hard for us to really find out what time and date it is.
In short this is it – this Day 10 will be reported on Tuesday June 14 local time. Same as Day 9…
Last time we passed the date line was on route to Alaska from New Zealand in 2011, and one more time was heading west across the South Pacific Ocean in 2008.
On top of the border and date line crossing we will after leaving Attu cross the 180E to 180W.
All this is a bit confusing but as long the sun rises east of us we are safe…
Back to now – the wind have eased as well as the swell so we are running the engine again to get the heating system warming up the boat again.
Distance made good 127 nm. Totally so far 1187 nm.
Sailing half time since yesterday.
15 June Thursday – Day 11
Arrived safely at Attu and we still have the same weather as yesterday…
At the evening radio net it was clear that the three of us in the north will make landfall tomorrow at the same time. The morning net was cancelled as we probably will be occupied anchoring. The timing became true as we saw all three boats AIS for the last 70 nm. There are not that many bays to anchor safely and we all had chosen the same bay.
During the last 20 miles we could now and then see the partly snow covered slopes while the sun made some heroic attempts to chase away the low laying clouds. But instead sometimes the boats behind us disappeared in light fog.
At 10 in the morning we finally shut down the engine after having dropped the anchor. Shortly after, both Kea and Liv were resting close by.
We chose a wide bay to be able to anchor all of us quite close as we invited both crews on a sundowner in Moon in time for the evening net as we will try to get contact with Shuang Yu.
On our way in to the bay Kea saw two small vehicles moving, obviously there are people living at the station on land. We plan to visit them tomorrow.
The low that should have moved on by now seems to have stopped right over Attu so it may be too much to hope for sunshine… Late afternoon we hade some light rain.
For a long time we could see a vehicle and four people near us on the beach. They stood with there backs to us looking at something we couldn’t see. They didn’t seem at all interested in us. Tomorrow we will find out.
Do we need to describe the, in spite some drizzle, beautiful scenery with snow patches at the foot of the nearby slopes. Overall very green but absolutely no trees. We have to wait until Kodiak to see some forest.
After some rest, a day or two, depending on the weather we plan to continue east. It is a little too far between the islands to go day hopping so it will be one or more over night sailings. The time and route is all up to the wind.
Some facts from the trip from Japan to Attu, Alaska:
Time – 10 x 24 hours plus 16 hours
Great circle distance – 1300 nm
Our track – 1367 nm (over ground, no current included)
Our track through water – probably 1500 nm
This gave as an average speed over ground of 5.33 knots.
Annika & Björn , Moon , www.sailaround.info
Japan to Alaska 1367nm
5 -15 June 2016 Week 23-24