Pacing My Approach
Day: 121 — Position: N15 01’ E147 22’
Odometer since Waikiki: about 3,375M
Distance to Apra Harbor entrance on Guam: 192M
Sea surface temperature: 83.3F - 28.5C
OCEAN ROWING RECORDS AS RUNNING TOTALS
Solo career total in days: 1,046 (New World Record)
Overall career total in days: 1,130 (New World Record)
Solo career total in miles by Waikiki: 22,173M now about 25,310M (New World Record)
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Overall career total in miles by Waikiki: 25,153M now about 28,290M
* Ralph Tuijn (NL) leads this with 35,635M
** Circumference of the Earth along the equator is 21,600M long
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It helps to have well meaning and competent members on one’s shore team. They provide logistical and emotional support in addition to timely access to critical information. I can still exchange messages readily with them despite failure of various communication equipment thanks to the redundant solutions that I brought along. I honor the pioneers of our sport who ventured out on the ocean before the times of desalinators and satellite phones using early stage rowboats with stored potable water to last their crossing and only an SSB radio to communicate.
I am on a vessel which effectively is “restricted in her ability to maneuver.” That designation refers to a vessel’s nature of work (including dredging, laying cables, surveying, tending to buoys, towing cumbersome loads, clearing mines, launching or receiving aircraft, transferring between two vessels supplies or personnel while underway) and it gives that same vessel privileges over other more agile vessels who must give way during encounters while underway.
My rowboat does not qualify as such a vessel by definition, however her lack of power when stacked against the might of the ocean makes me just as committed to a narrow corridor to navigate and I raise other vessels by VHF to ask them to navigate around me. When navigating toward a destination, I can make limited course changes on this rowboat beginning incrementally weeks in advance, and my options for course changes are constrained by the likes of sea state, climatology and bathymetry. This was one very good reason for me to change course so early away from Hong Kong in favor of this landfall on Guam.
Since that decision that I took around Jan 18th, I was able to position my rowboat to where it is today, which set me up to take advantage of the NE trade winds and an increasingly SW trend in currents toward Guam. As the bathymetry under me changes with depths gradually diminishing from over 8000m now in the Mariana Trench to the shoals just below the surface between Rota and Guam, those currents will both align with the ridge of Mariana islands and also accelerate to 1-3 knots as I route from Rota to Guam.
As I was suggesting above, timely information is critical to safely conduct an ocean crossing by an underpowered vessel such as my rowboat. To handle what nature will throw against me, I approach these crossings much like a special chess game with my Yellow Queen moving one day at a time on a vast blue game board versus multiple game pieces at the disposal of my mighty foe, The Ocean.
To be granted passage is to win in this unique game that I play. For that, I rely on a statistical understanding of historical climatological data, ever improving wind and current forecasts, my own willingness to invest sweat equity and, as Nancy puts it, my ability to suffer well. .
Flow of timely and accurate information improves my ability to make informed decisions about how to apply my limited horsepower to move this Yellow Queen down course toward my destination. What I cannot control let alone anticipate, are the curveballs that humanity throws at me to derail my best laid plans.
We already observed this with tightening arrival procedures at Hong Kong and ever closed Chinese borders both on account of the pandemic. Now try: “major live fire events in the area north of Guam between Guam and Rota on Feb 10th and 11th, none on the 12th or 13th.” This is a unique example to the stick-in-my-spokes sort of problem that humanity often creates on my journeys. Only after NOAA Commander (ret) Mark Miller on my shore team, felt justifiably frustrated and escalated his requests for information up the chain of command, eventually talking to Navy Chief Gee, were we able to obtain this accurate bit of information.
My ETA at Guam was Feb 10th. I was planning to route between Rota and Guam. This information could not have arrived any later. I had just enough time and distance to slow my pace to gain time so that we could evaluate my options with help from Jason Christensen (https://racingthewind.com) and drift model input from Prof Nikolai Maximenko at the University of Hawaii.
In the parlance of International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS), I was able to “take early and substantial action” defined as “positive action made in ample time with due regard to the observance of good seamanship.” However The Ocean never stops; it is not trivial to slow a rowboat and to maintain control over one’s course over ground at the same time.
Starting a couple days ago I exclusively used my para anchor to drop my pace to 0.5-0.9 knots. When the seas conspired to carry me more south than west, yesterday during the day I tried shuffle rowing due west. I kept the pace at or under 1-knot due west but even that bit of corrective rowing added speed. Late afternoon when my speed reached 1.3 knots, I redeployed my para anchor. Over the last 16 hours, the boat has set favorably so I remained on para anchor.
If I can control my pace to arrive at my waypoint just southeast of Rota Island in the wee hours of the 12th, I will follow my original plans to round the shoals CCW then fight to settle on a course due SSW toward Apra Harbor entrance on Guam. From that waypoint to the Apra Harbor entrance is about 52M. I am told to expect 1-3 knots current; so that remaining distance may take anywhere from 12 to 26 hours, awake and dodging shoals and multiple FAD (Fish Aggregation Device) buoys the whole time!
On the other hand if my pace appears too fast despite my generous use of the para anchor, I intend to pass north of Rota, following its coastline to an exposed anchorage by the settlement of Songsong on its SW corner. Failing that anchorage I would have to run SW to remain outside the live fire zone the box for which I still don’t know!!! Assuming I get the western extent of the live fire zone, there may be some hope of turning toward Guam but the current also sets SW around there, so Guam could be unlikely.
If my boat is tracking fast and too far south to pass north of Rota, I would have to get on my oars and either commit to reaching Songsong by brawn or take the lazy option, turning SW to aim for another desperate anchorage by Balang Point at the south end of Guam.
I don’t like either of these last two options. Failing at either will mean resupply at sea for a nonstop crossing, or taking a tow should I feel that I must, by then.
Stay tuned.
Erden