4th of July 2021 Race to Hanalei

July 3rd met us with enough blue skies between some white and gray clouds that it looked pretty sure that the NYC race to Hanalei was going to take place. As Memorial Day race had been cancelled due to lack of winds, I was happy (most likely not the only one!) that we had some blustery winds up to 25-30 knots and it looked like it was going to be a good sail. Three boats had crews ready by nine o’clock and the race was on. Jim Saylor had gotten enough crew for Fast Company, John and Charlotte Ross were on Lisa Rae and Dick was on Speedy with Steve, Mike, Mavis and I. We set one reef into the main sail and hoisted the #3 jib. Good call as the boat was heeling a lot as we exited the Nawiliwili Harbor heading into 8 foot waves coming at us in close intervals. It felt so good! Wind and the waves were directly from the East.

Little bit past the Ninini buoy, we saw Fast Company change course toward North, but soon thereafter they were heading South with only their main. Puzzled, we wondered if something had broken… Over the radio we heard some crackling noise, somebody mentioned not wanting to break anything, and then Lisa Rae seemed to be heading back to the harbor. I stole a little nervous glance at Dick, who was unfazed standing at the tiller steering like any other day. He actually chuckled, that if the other boats really turned back, we were the winners! I guessed, no worries then, Speedy could handle this raucous weather.

As the day progressed, and we inched our way past the beautiful, now familiar shores of Kauai, the weather improved. Wave action got much more comfortable as we turned toward Hanalei. Waves flattened out to about 5 feet and they were spaced much further apart. After rounding Kilauea point we had them coming from quarter aft, and we sometimes even caught little surfing. We did not have adequately experienced crew to hoist the spinnaker as the winds never let down much below 20 knots, however we made good time and sailed past the roofline of Hanalei pier at 14:02. That made it to be a nice 30 nm sail in 5 hrs 2 min. Inside Hanalei Bay the winds became very flukey and strong gusts had us pick up a lot of speed By 3 pm we had dropped the anchor and got Speedy ready to wait for the return on Monday.

We had decided to stay on our boat, Halekai, for the weekend and settled in. John had worked hard to make sure we had everything we would need for the weekend. Some things that are etched in my mind about those two nights and this 4th of July are: frequent rain showers (aka opening and closing of hatches constantly), and the rolling of the boat sideways in the incoming swells. That was annoying to say the least! So naturally a flopper stopper is on order…

Monday morning, though not a race, as we had nobody to compete with, met us with some Hanalei mistiness. We finally got ourselves out of there by 9:20 and heading back needed to tack for a while. We got a great squall and with it winds up to 30-35 knots, but waves were not that bad, maybe about 5-6 feet. For a bit the island disappeared and we were enveloped in glowing wet grayness, a magical feeling. On the boat were Dick, Steve, Mike and I and it was like we were the only ones in the whole world. Speedy was being pulled by the winds and gliding – or slamming – on the waves, so fun! Port tack was much more uncomfortable because of the wave direction but fortunately it was the shorter tack. We ended up much farther off the shore for the whole way back. Outside of Secrets a pod of playful dolphins followed us and then started to swim in front of the bow. They seemed to have as much fun as we did 🙂

Right past Wailua, the winds dropped to about 12 knots, and we started to see some Southern swell also. For a while it felt like we were not making much progress forward but little by little we inched our way and finally crossed the “finish line” (not really, as it was not a race) around 4 pm. Tired, with sunburnt lips and sore bodies we slipped into our home dock. Not much fanfare, but the happiness of few more days at sea in our memory banks. I am already looking forward to the Labor Day Race 🙂

-Kristiina

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