Hilton Head Island: GANNET’s circumnavigation days sailed; What?!!

Yesterday I was asked how many miles GANNET sailed during her circumnavigation.  I knew I had added up her daily runs to a total of about 30,000 and thought I had posted that, but in running a search of this journal cannot find it and it is not recorded in the passage log on the main site.  Finally I did find the Pages document and to be precise the number is 29,989 nautical miles.  I record day’s runs as the straight line distance between noon positions.  Obviously when I tack or gybe or otherwise deviate from the straight line I sail farther over the bottom but that is too complicated to keep track of, so 30,000 miles for GANNET’s circumnavigation is less than the actual distance she sailed.

Studying the list of her daily runs caused me to wonder about how many sailing days her circumnavigation took, so I added them up.

I began the circumnavigation on May 20, 2014 and completed it almost five years later on April 29, 2019.  However as you will see I sailed little two of those years.  In 2015 GANNET remained on a mooring in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands because I had to have physical therapy due to an injury to the rotator cuff in my left shoulder and because the Bay of Islands is my favorite place in the world to have a boat; and in 2018 when we bought this condo I sailed up from Marathon, Florida, where the little boat then was, and kept her here for the year.  During her time in the Bay of Islands I sailed GANNET locally and during her year here at Hilton Head Island I sailed locally and also up to St. Michael’s, Maryland, and back; but I don’t count those as part of the circumnavigation.

Here is the breakdown.

2014  San Diego to Bay of Islands                    56 days

2015  in Bay of Islands                                         0

2016  Bay of Islands to Durban                          96

2017  Durban to Marathon                                  80

2018  Marathon to Hilton Head Island                   4

2019  Hilton Head Island to San Diego                46

Total                                                                    282

That total may be a few days off due to partial days at the beginning and end of passages.

By comparison my first circumnavigation in EGREGIOUS took 202 sailing days which was then the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation in a monohull.  The record now is about a quarter of that.  My fifth circumnavigation in THE HAWKE OF TUONELA took 191 sailing days.  The EGREGIOUS voyage was completed in less than twelve months.  THE HAWKE OF TUONELA in eighteen months.  Obviously I am slowing down with age.

This is the forecast for the marsh next Wednesday.  I don’t know when I am ever going to get out of here.