Nonstop Solo Circumnavigation from Long Beach, CA

[Moody Buccaneer]

No update in 9 days?

Dec 20th he was at 43.25S and 113.36WIf he has managed to keep his 80 mile a day average, he should be at 52.28S, 102.02WWith the current forcast he should find the wind and current favourable and he should be able to make well over 150 miles a day.

 

[Ross]

I sent ??? to his email. I haven't yet had a reply

so there is no way to say what is happening. I hope that all is well.

 

[Ross]

I wish that there was a way to keep some threads

on the active list longer. Sometimes five days isn't enough.The Wooden boat forum is powered by a different system that moves active threads to the top of the page.

 

[Ross]

Ten days and no report,

No responce from his Email addy.

 

[David10790]

At least the weather is good

Weather reports from Punta Arenas at the bottom of Chile are moderate winds from the West and temps in the 40s and 50s, so ideal conditions for rounding the Horn.

 

[Big Joe]

Skydiving and perfectly good airplanes

I'm a skydiver. And as for critisism of folks who jumpo out of "perfectly good airplanes", well, you aint seen our airplanes.happy New year all.

 

[Ross]

Big Joe, People jump outta perfectly good

airplanes with perfectly good parachutes alla time. Happy new year to you too

 

[David10790]

Kinda worried about Ken

I would have expected a Christmas or New Years post. Eleven days and no news. Anybody hear anything?

 

[Ross]

I sent ???? to his email "Chopper@kensolo.com

but have received no reply. With all of the redundancy that he has I am astonished by the absence of contact. It is of no use to speculate as to the reasons but the imagination can paint all manner of scenes.

 

[Ross]

He has up dated his status report

position on dec 28 50.55S - 100.50W.By my calculations about 650 miles in 8 days.

 

[Franklin]

hmmmm

Shouldn't he be able to make more then 80 a day?

 

[Franklin]

Eastern side of currents

I read somewhere once that all oceans have a circular current and that the western side is narrow, near the shore and strong but the eastern side is very wide, offshore and weaker. Considering that he is almost a 1,000 miles from shore, that backs that up. However, my mentor tells me that the current is the same on both sides. He's wrong, right? If so, how far does one need to get away from the western shore of South America to get out of the current?I was thinking on my trip I would sail along the coast line to Chilli and then cut across to Pitcarn Islands. That's why I ask...one day I will be going south down there.

 

[Franklin]

Found a definition of the current.

" The Humboldt Current system contains cold, low salinity waters that flow in the direction of the Equator and can extend 1,000 kilometers offshore."(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Current)According to the cordinates and this definition, he should be west of the current.

 

[henkmeuzelaar]

My bad; you're absolutely right, Franklin!

A couple of days ago I was watching some other position data on the web that were much closer to the coast. In my mind I ended up associating that with Ken's voyage. However, just plotting his Dec 28 position data suggests he is still more than 1000 NM away and that he was much, much further away on Dec 20th. So the Humboldt (aka Peru) current has nothing to do with it (so I will remove my previous post to avoid confusion). Although my Google Earth program suggests that he covered 800+ NM in 8 days (i.e. between Dec. 20th and 28th), which is a bit more than Ross came up with. Even at 100 NM per day, however, he is still going a bit slower than one would expect.Right now the wind and seas in that area are pretty rough, according to the FNMOC South-America models. So, perhaps Ken has even been towing warps to slow the boat down a bit. The long-range forecast for the next 5-6 days has conditions moderating quite a bit, only to return to pretty rough conditions again by the middle of next week.With some luck, he might be able to worry about his telecom chores again in a few days.Flying Dutchman

 

[Ken Honeycutt]

Franklin - 82nd or 101st?

FranklinI was in the 82nd back in the late 70's. Remember one night jump (same thing - loaded down with 80lbs of gear with rifle scabard). I was the last man out of the stick and they put me smack down on the edge of the jump zone - landed on the asphalt roadway that skirted the drop zone (didn't see it until it was too late to slip away) - still have knee problems today because of that jump - but I just put the pain out of my mind back then and carried on - guess we were pretty crazy when we were younger.

 

[Tim Welsh]

Kens EPIRB just went off

At 5:00pm PST the coast guard just recieved a signal from Kens EPIRB. The site says it'll keep us postedTim WelshHunter 34S/V Cabo Wabo

 

[Ross]

Hank , I made hasty calculations this morning

Allowing 60 miles per degree southing and cosine 48 degrees*(12.46degrees) easting gave me 438 miles south and 500 miles easting. squaring and adding these two legs and taking the square root gave me 664 miles on a course SE. There is probably some error because I chose an arbitrary 48 degrees for latitude.

 

[Ross]

It looks like he covered 590 miles in less than

five days.

 

[Franklin]

Ken....

I was in 319th MI (funny huh...but I was a greese monkey, not an MI guy). After I got out, I went into an infantry guard unit and studied in ROTC for 3 years. Just before graduation I had realized the military had gotten too political for me so I opted for civilian life instead. Sometimes I think I made a bad choice. Sometimes I don't.

 

[Moody Buccaneer]

I hope he is rescued ...

I do. I want him to be safe.I will also point out that some of us thought he and the boat were not prepared to make this voyage.Since his December 20th position report he has had favourable current of a knot or more. Just drifting he should have make 20+miles a day. To average 80, means he is getting only 60 miles of sailing in 24 hours ... 2.5 knots ... in a 40+ foot boat?Concerns about his qualifications and the possible rescue attempts have come true.Just having the dream isn't enough. Every solo-sailor I know spends waking hours actively sailing the boat, Ken was acting like a passenger and his string of 80 mile days caught up with him. My routing software shows that he should have been well out of that area by now. The latest weather file for the South Pacific shows 30-35 knot winds at the EPIB location.Post #6: "Sitting and reading with ear muffs on while the gear chafes itself to pieces? Why not actively sail the boat and get some speed on to quiet things down?Sorry, this guy looks like a yahoo to me."Now people are risking their lives to rescue the dreamer. I hope everyone returns safely. I truly do.