Ka Puana: The Wall of Death

A true sailing adventure, excerpted from The Hawaiian Voyages of the Ono Jimmy, by Big Island author Steve Dixon

This story is about one of the two later passages, after that night crossing from Lanai, that Tony and I tried to sail the Ono Jimmy back to Hilo from Kona. This is the time we faced “The Wall of Death.” And this is why the boat came to live in Kona and not in Hilo anymore.

We left the boat in Honokohau Harbor, in Kona, after that first failed attempt to sail from Maui to Hilo. The boat was spic and span and ship-shape when I arrived Friday. In the morning the Kona wind was strong out of the southwest. We cleared the Honokohau Harbor about 0930 (9:30 a.m.). Making good time, we were about three miles west of Kawaihae by 1430 (2:30 p.m.)

Since it was early in the day yet, we decided to sail on around Upolu Point on the northwestern corner of the Big Island and see how the way to Hilo looked. The weather was unsettled and the report called for northeast trades to 25 knots. I naively thought that perhaps we could make the southeast beat to Hilo against the northeast trades.

After we rounded Upolu Point, the wind was gusty and unstable. We were motor-sailing under the 110-percent working jib and full mainsail. The wind began to pick up and came around to a port beam reach, and the seas began to stack up and break on the bow. We were going fast. We talked about whether we should shorten sail. We had learned the lesson about reefing; reef as soon as you think about whether you should or not. It was good to talk it out and validate our lessons with one another. How do you do that when you sail solo? We agreed to reef the main and shorten the foresail to the 80-percent storm jib. I was at the helm and we were hauling ass.

The motor was screaming and the boat careening up and down at full speed. I was exhilarated, manic, laughing wildly into the wind and spray. I can still see Tony, hanging on, wrapped arms and legs around the bow, clutching the forestay while trying to get the 110-percent working jib down and bend the 80-percent storm jib hanks on to the forestay. He was bucking high in the air as we careened up the waves. Then he disappeared into white foam when the bow plunged down into the breaking seas.

He finally yelled back, “HOW FAST ARE WE GOING?” I looked at the speed display on Jeeps (GPS). “Seven nine!” I yelled back. Oh, if looks could kill, I was dead right there. Then he disappeared into another wave.

Eventually we got sail shortened and the motor turned off. We sailed about five miles toard Hilo. Then we saw IT!

There appeared before us a solid wall of roiling black and froth white at the bottom. It was a black and grey monster boiling up to the top of the sky. It stretched from a place where the horizon, the sea, and the Hamakua coast joined, many miles off our starboard bow, to somewhere in frothing hell off to the northwest behind our port stern, across the dreaded Alenuihaha Channel.

Tony’s jaw dropped and his eyes bugged out. “WHAT IS THAT?” he yelled. “IT IS THE WALL OF DEATH,” I said through clenched teeth. “Do you want to sail into that?” “NOOOOOOooooooOOOOOO!” he screamed.

So we turned tail back to Kona and back to the lee side of Upolu Point, to find a safe place to spend the night in the rising wind. We had seen the “Wall of Death,” that boat-breaking line of heavy weather that often spans the Alenuihaha Channel between the Big Island and Maui. And we were glad to be safe. Captain Cook saw the “Wall of Death” a couple of hundred years ago. It dismasted his ship and sent him back to Kealakekua Bay with his tail tucked between his legs. He died there. We were glad to have seen it and lived.

The Hawaiian Voyages of the Ono Jimmy is available at Amazon and HawaiiSailing.com.