Vanuatu to Hawaii

[Flyingriki]

Will be crewing on a sailboat doing this trip next week. Is anyone out there on this forum currently along the same route, or just finished this passage or stopped at Palmyra or......?
Any advice or news would be appreciated!
Thanks.

[Flyingriki]

.... it looks like it's pretty empty out there. Hope to run into some cruisers along the way and find out where they post their trips and tips.....

[Paul Elliott]

Sorry, I don't have any info for you, but I am curious about your planned route. I would assume that you would work your way upwind from Vanuatu to perhaps Tahiti, then cross the equator and head towards Hawaii, possibly visiting Christmas Island on the way? It's got to be hard to make all that easting against the trades.

I sailed on a friend's boat from Fiji to Vanuatu last year, and would love to go back there some day.

Bon Voyage!

[Flyingriki]

Paul, you hit the nail on the head. It was a hell of a beat into the trades. We took 22 days at sea from Vanuatu to Oahu. We stopped after 5 days at Funafuti Atoll to drop off a guy that wanted to fly home. The captain/owner and I made the next 17 days alone. Always had the autopilot set to sail as close to the wind as we could given the sea and wind condtions. Motored east every time the winds died down. Saw seas from huge and confused to so flat we could see the clouds reflected in the surface of the water. We came across 3 boats in 3000 miles and only two visually. Passed by Howland Island in the dark and paid our respects to Amelia in the moonlight. Tried to stop at Palmyra but got blown off. Finally saw some boat traffic near Hawaii and got buzzed by a Navy Intruder coming in form the open ocean (probably a carrier group scout) and then he made a slow turning fly by while we hoisted the stars and stripes and waved like crazy. What an adventure. Can't wait to go again!

[Amgine]

I'm very curious about this trip as well. How far south did you go? How far east? Any chance you could post, say, a list of waypoints for each day? What was your general route?

[Flyingriki]

We started out of Port Vila, Vanuatu late one evening and made Funafuti Atoll in about 5.5 days, arriving early AM at the pass into the Atoll. We left there 3 days later and sailed as close to the wind as we could toward Hawaii. We passed close to the west shore of Howland Island one night. Several days later we were about 250 miles west of Palmyra when the winds shifted again to the north and the decision was made to keep on toward HI intead of stopping which would of entailed a couple days out of the way. In the end it would have been a good idea as the break would have have been nice and the winds shifted again. Oh well, 20-20 hindsight! Made it into Oahu in 17 days out of Funafuti at 3 AM for a total of exactly 22 days from Port Vila.
I have a few of our Lat/Long coordinates documented in some emails posted during the passage but the points listed above will give you the general route. NOT a cruising route, only something to do in a delivery! Won't do it again any time soon! We could have easily ended up near Midway with 1200 mile to sail back to the Islands.....