Destroyer of worlds.” – J. Robert Oppenheimer, Director of the Manhattan Project, which developed the world’s first nuclear weapons. We crossed the Tropic Of Cancer several days ago and then the wind picked up, curiously from the south. That was all right because it gave us a nice tailwind by which to sail and kept us sailing before the seas, which is much more comfortable. We could have gone more directly toward Seattle by sailing more easterly, but there was usually an upper level trough northwest of Hawaii, called the Kona Low, that we could catch and ride to North America. The wind was heading that way anyway, so we didn’t fight it. We sailed at a heading of seventy degrees (or east-northeast), and the wind was at a perfect two-hundred degrees (or south-southwest) between ten and twelve knots. The physics of sailing is such that a tailwind is, counter intuitively, not optimal—at least if speed is your goal. Sailboats attain their maximum hull speed when the sails are correctly trimmed and the wind blows approximately perpendicular to the keel.
