Oh sailor's life for me.
John
The squalls clear out in the afternoon and it is pretty easy and enjoyable sailing for a few hours. Around 5 O'clock we are approaching the milestone of 500 miles to go to the finish and the skipper treats us to a nice cold beer in celebration. It's probably the best tasting beer any of us have had in a long time.
After dark the squalls return. We work a long line of them, ricocheting from one to the next doing 10-12 knots straight down the course to Diamond Head. Three hours later when I come on watch the wild sleigh ride continues. My watch works downwind for another two hours in front of the squalls. We even see a "moon rainbow". The moon is so bright it has created a horizon to horizon rainbow in the dark. It's silver in color but has faint tinges of red and yellow. We exit the last squall on port jibe and the wind continues to build, which is unusual. We're blasting down swells in the dark at full speed with our 2S spinnaker and full mainsail and we are on the ragged edge of control, hoping not to crash the boat. Finally, about midnight, I cry uncle and get the rest of the crew up to change down. We drop the 2S spinnaker, reef the mainsail, and hoist the heavy weather 4S spinnaker. We promptly round up out of control, but avoid putting the mast in the water. A few minute later, we get the boat on its feet and sailing again - this time under much better control. I pass the helm to John and head for a few winks of sleep. "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" continued all night and well into this morning. Today the seas have really stacked up making steering and sailing very arduous. Between the difficult steering and many sail changes, along with chronic lack of sleep, real fatigue is setting in on all the crew.
Dinner last night was left-overs of three other meals. Breakfast this morning was oatmeal and hash browns. Lunch was chicken salad on hamburger buns. The menu is definitely starting to suffer. We're starting to fantasize about that first meal in Waikiki.
330 miles to go.
-Jeff
(raig
Jim
To execute a gybe(jibe) the boat, traveling down wind, will turn approximately 60 degrees and the mainsail and spinnaker will swap sides allowing the boat to sail efficiently in another direction. "TRIP!" is my signal to pull the trip line, causing the outboard end of the spinnaker pole to be released. As the loose end of the pole travels towards me at the bow, Lord Jim lowers the "topper" allowing me to reach the pole end and put the guy in the jaws. Jim's job done perfectly(and i'm not just brown nosin'), I yell "MADE" and the crew complete the gybe by setting the pole, sheets and guys into their new positions. Done well it's a thing of beauty, not so well and it will cost time, money, a finger or more.
Just a brief moment in a string of moments that has been this Transpac race.
Chris
Well, all our prayers and sacrifices have apparently appeased Shifty. Savauge is humming and the winds have built to a steady 12 to 16 kts. It could have possibly been the Boyscout's secret offering. He truly lived up to his name and was prepared. Who else would have thought to bring along something to give up to a wind goddess that didn't even exist when he packed it. We had a somber ceremony this morning and out of an inside out Dorritos bag came a Captain Morgan's rum plastic medallion hanging from a red bead necklace. We offered this up and have enjoyed a breeze ever since. The other part of the prayer was that this wind was for us alone and would shut off after we crossed the finish line. You never know. In any case we have less than 700 miles to go and are in 2nd place. We have our work cut out for us.
Advanced fatigue has settled onto the crew of Savauge. With only 4 hrs out every 7 hrs off, having to use that time for all other than sailing activities and then being called up for jibes. Getting back to sleep is sometimes difficult. Slowly the rest bank gets depleted. I knew I was getting pretty tired when in the darkness of this morning I had my right shoe on my left foot and was trying to get the left on the right. I couldn't figure out why it was hard to my shoes on. When I figured it out I realized I better be careful on deck, I could hurt someone. Last night I found Yosemite Sam asleep on the nav station and Bigfoot is walking around like a zombie. The only one holding up well is Buzzsaw, who can be snoring 30 seconds after closing his eyes.
We hope Shifty graces us with some nice squalls tonight. A squall can give us 18 to 22 kts of wind and boat speeds of 9+ kt average and surges up to 12. Sometimes we'll ride these for up to 2 hrs. Its a hairy ride but fast and right at the finish. Its what we will need to hang on to our position.
Oh a sailor's life for me.
Spanky
Andy
Nights one and two involved getting offshore, but still using familiar references. Catalina Island, Santa Rosa and San Miguel were discussed, even though all we ever saw was Catalina.
At night is when the vastness of the ocean, faith in your skills, and the self sufficiency required, kick in big time. Clipping in to the boat with your safety harness is mandatory at night, knowing going overboard would likely have a bad result. Plus, it would be inconsiderate to not clip iin and spoil the race for your crew mates.
After multiple watch changes and sleep deprivation, I can't put the night sails in order even now.
Initially, we reached offshore with our regatta #1 genoa with the lead forward to capture the breeze., into the darkness. A couple of nights later the true wind was in the 'teens, and our blast reacher and genoa staysail, offshore sails, launched us into the blackness. Guided by wind angle and knotmeter guages, and low tech masthead wind vane and rushing phosphorescence of the water we calculated our progress, or our lack therof.
Andy
As we battle the light, fickle winds of this part of the pacific right now the crew of Sauvage is devolving into a small tribe, of sorts. We have decided to embrace polytheism as a whole and pantheism as a flavor. Our pantheon of gods really has but one god we pray to: Shifty, the god of the wind. As our tribe is new at this we don't really know how to get Shifty's attention, let alone her favor. We met in our prayer circle with our drums and rattles and tried to discern what would please Shifty and have decided animal and/or human sacrifice would not be appropriate, too messy. Our spiritual leader, Lord Jim, has decided power over fire would get Shifty's good graces. We have a number of left over birthday candles that we light in the cabin and then we make a wish for air and hold the candle up in the companion way for Shifty to blow out. Sometimes it takes a while and Boyscout has received hot wax burns more than once. Eventually Shifty notices our little tribute and puffs out the candle and the boat goes forward. This is also our wish, our only wish. So far this ritual has had limited success. Apparently the Boyscout has a one wish, one time use present for Shifty that he guarantees will work, and work big. The problem is we're not sure when to pull the trigger on this gift, nor do we now the price that be extracted from us upon usage. Boyscout refuses to tell what this offering is and frankly we kind of think he's bluffing. In any case we haven't gotten that desperate yet and now we're riding a squall front that is pushing us along in the 9's in the right direction. The tribe tends to become less devout when there is wind. So we barrel along in the hopes that Shifty will continue smile. Oh, wait, the wind is lightening right now, Sam get the candles!!
Oh a sailor's life for me.
Spanky
Oh a sailor's life for all of us.
-Brian
Those who have competed in the Transpac know that it is best thought of as five linked races. The first race is short and encompasses the start to the west end of Catalina. We did well and positioned ourselves for the second section, the race to the synoptic wind. This is pressure generated wind that begins anywhere from 60 to 100 miles offshore in normal times. This year was not normal and it took us almost two days of sailing due west to finally get to the winds that eventually evolve into the trades. Once in this wind the race becomes a challenge of sailing as directly as one can toward Hawaii while monitoring forecast wind strengths in order to position the boat in the strongest wind lanes. The fourth "race within a race" is to set up the boat for the sprint to the finish. Again based on wind forecasts, we need to align the boat into the shortest and fastest lanes to the finish line, a process that begins about 200 miles from the finish. Finally, and probably the most exciting part of the race, is the last 50 miles to the finish line.
The first island to be seen will be Molokai, and if you see the island during the day you will finish at night, and vice versa. When the boat clears the west end of the island of Molokai it begins the roller coaster ride down the Molokai Channel. The wind and waves compress between the islands of Molokai and Oahu and create large swells that the boats will surf downwind toward the finish. It can definitely be an exciting, white knuckle ride to Diamond Head. The actual finish line extends seaward from the Diamond Head Light House to the Diamond Head navigational buoy. We cross the line leaving the buoy on the starboard side of the boat, and when the buoy aligns with the light house we have finished the race.
Let the party begin! The racing sails come down and we will make a right turn and sail along Waikiki Beach to the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor. Once there the boats are tied up in the order of their finish and individual dock parties begin that last for hours. It is a wonderful feeling of accomplishment made even better if we take home a trophy, but we have four to five hard days of sailing ahead of us to reach our goal.
I wasn't going to write today because I wasn't really feeling it. We were up all night in light wind and then a series of jibes. What changed my mind was something we missed, and a nap. What's been missing today is Sauvage's hum.
Sauvage, like many boats, develops a hum at speed. Most boats have to be going pretty darn fast to manifest a hum, like 14+ kts. sauvage is much more liberal with her hum. At about 7.5 kts she starts a very low vibration like a guy dragging his bow on the biggest string on a base fiddle. Its a very comforting sound and we have learned to love it. It means we're starting to move. You can hear this sound anywhere on the boat. As speed increases the pitch increases to the next higher note. So you get this see saw cadence as the boat catches a wave and surges forward then slows slightly as the wave passes under. As the boat approaches 9 kts the pitch takes a dramatic hike and continues to rise until around 10.5 kts when it gets into the area where only dogs can hear it. The usual speed between 7 to 8 kts produces this soothing wave like oscillation that we've all learned to love. Today in the light winds we find ourselves Sauvage has lost her hum. We all miss it dearly. It looks like another day of this before our hum will be back. Tomorrow, with any luck, Sauvage will become a hummer again.
The sun's just now setting and its pretty mellow around here. We continue to try and figure what course position will set us up to trophy.
Oh, a sailor's life for me.
John
Today, or rather this morning at 4AM, on my shift after what I thought to be a respectable 45 minute term at the wheel the wind went catiwhompers and virtually died. Keep in mind that I am Captain in name only (and because it's my d___ boat!) and that this has nothing to do with my competence as a downwind racer. Which is virtually none. My frustration must have been evident as "go faster than the wind" Jeff and the "second most interesting man in the world" Spille, offered to 'let me take a break'. Well to my unsubdued glee neither of them were able to make it go any faster. With that, I couldn't help but sardonically comment with a smile "Having fun Spille?". With that, Craig, my fellow watch mate and I proceeded to give him a taste of his own medicine = 'go left', 'go right', pointing their finger in the desired direction', etc. "'World Class' teamwork on this boat is dead", I thereupon declared, "It's now about retribution and payback".
Crew morale on a long sailboat race not surprisingly has a lot to do with whether you're winning and/or going fast -- even if it's not in the right direction. Plodding along at 4 knots and hoping that your competition is suffering the same fate is not particularly uplifting. So we make up for it with attempts at humor usually at someone's expense. Oh and did I mention that it brings forth heretofore unknown recollections. With me it was recalling the entire script of the Old Spice cologne commercial. "Yo ho, yo ho" says the captain to the bosum, "Old Spice means sailing like a ship upon the ocean, so look for the bottle with the ship upon the ocean". I think people still buy that stuff. After a morning when we were visited by numerous dead squid on the deck, we substituted 'dead squid' for 'Old Spice'. Sleep deprivation helps.
Seeking a new inspiration for World Class teamwork. Jim Eisenhart
This morning, our eighth day on the water, dawned with almost no wind and just over a 1000 miles yet to go to Diamond Head buoy that the finish. It is said that this mid-point between California and Hawaii if the farthest point from land anywhere on the planet. It is more than a 1000 miles in any direction to any kind of land. It appears that we have ventured too close to the dreaded Pacific High and have run out of wind. We aren't the only boat to do so, but that doesn't make us feel any better. Rumor has it that the captain has deemed that the culprit will be hung from the yardarm at sunset tonight. I'm not sure that will help us get to there any faster, but we'll have an extra beer to share. We are still in second place for our fleet with several boats way back in the fleet now hot on our heels to catch up.
Recent menu items: Ham and cheese on English muffins for breakfast, Dodger hotdogs for lunch, and a tasty lamb curry for dinner (thanks Dori!). Tomorrow is the last of our pre-cooked frozen dinners and then it's into our canned goods for survival rations. The visions of our first meal in Waikiki are now part of our daily fantasies. Beer and pizza seem to be at the top of the list.
Ah, a sailor's life for me (as the Hobbit would say).
-Jeff
P.S. My apologies to anyone who thought they were going to read a blog anything like our "A Taste of Cruising Mexico"!
Brian's dinner, served at 7pm, consisted of sautéed zucchini followed by garlic shrimp and mushrooms over pasta- ummmm goood! As usual I was in charge of making sure that none of the food was wasted. We've enjoyed some beautiful weather these last two days with intermittent sun and squalls dancing on the horizon. Send us positive thoughts for more wind as we have the potential to win this if the weather allows.
John's nicknames: The crew has tried to give John a nickname but none have stuck. Turns out that he's overly sensitive about the subject. Who would have guessed? Let the open discussion begin with some of the names that I've heard.
Spanky- he reminds us of a Little Rascals character and because spanking is how we wake him for his watch
Commode Jockey- we have to thank John for being the one willing to sit while urinating
The Tick- those who know John get it and I mean it affectionately
Let the contest begin
Chris-Bigfoot-
Imagine too rough to go to the rail to pee. This means we have to use the head. In these conditions just standing in the head is hard let alone trying to do your business. I don't think it dawns on any of to actually do the smart thing and sit so concentration and control are called for. I think most do the best they can but one person, no one will cop to it, is known as the water weasel. Maybe you're old enough to remember that toy that attached to the end of a garden hose and chased you around the yard spaying water everywhere? Anyway, Andy "Boy scout" Clark is amazingly nice and stays on top of keeping the head under control. Even so it contributes a fair amount of stench to the overall cacophony of smells in this place we call home. I truly believe a small dog could live a full and happy life just on the rich atmosphere we've created.
So we're wallowing along in light trades trying outsmart our competition and move from second place to first by the time we finish at Diamond Head. We're half way and I like our chances.
Oh, a sailor's life for me.
John
We set the kite Yesterday for the first time in anger. We'll probably have some sort of colorful sail in front of the boat for the rest of the race, right now we're flying the 2S "Lips of Fire". Mighty fine. But back to yesterday.
We launched the new 2S at 0800. The conditions were good if you discount the lumpy confused seas. The 2S was quickly replaced by the 4S which is a heavier, flatter spinnaker. We now begin the "Mr Toads Wild Ride" part of the race. I hate to keep harping on the motion of the boat down below, but you really have to experience it to know how far you can get thrown inside such a small space. The words "Maytag" and "wash cycle" come to mind. A personal experience may help illustrate. After the set I was down below talking and standing in the main salon. All of a sudden the boat's not under me and I'm flying across the cabin. I'm leaving marks across the cabin ceiling as I try to self arrest. I come up short with my arm looking for purchase up by the windows on the side of the inside of th cabin. I think I have it under control. Oh, did I mention Jeff "Yosemite Sam" Beller was laying on the bunk reading a magazine right under where I was now standing? Anyway the boat's not down with me, or Jeff, just yet. The boat lurches just so and I'm artfully flipped around and positioned just right to sit on Jeff's face. There were no physical damages, but I think Jeff sustained some scarring that he'll have for life. And his reading glasses look kind of funny now.
Outside, the race goes on. But looking up at the main later an observant crew member notices the upper spreader tip is trying its damnedest to poke a hole in the sail. We decide to reef and send a guy up to do a prophylactic repair while continuing to fly the shute. I'd like to say lots were drawn or the deck was cut but it didn't go down that way. Yosemite was down below, possibly still trying to cope with his recent trauma, and not present when the decision was made. Also he's the lightest crew and absolutely loves heights. Jeff suits up in his climbing harness and gathers various bits of towel, sticky back sail repair tape and a couple roles of duct tape and readies himself for the job. We gather at the base of the mast and have short ceremony. Cups of sake are tossed back, Jeff swears allegiance to the emperor and we haul his ass up on the jib halyard. The kite is still flying and Jeff has called for Brian "Buzzsaw" McKenna, The Orical of the Atmosphere, to drive while he is aloft. As he is emplimenting his repair, a cunning combination the towels, tape and sticky back, the boat is doing its best to beat him to death with its mast and rig. Lucky for Jeff the boat fails and down he comes no worst for wear. And the race goes on.
We have 4 crew members on board who haven't had the experience of racing under spinnaker in the trades at night. Andy "Boy scout" Clark, who never met a sail he couldn't trim into submission. Lord Jim, "The Nighthawk" Eisenhart, master of nighttime helmsmanship. Craig "Frogman" Leverault, almost as good as Lord Jim at nocturnal wheelsmanship and Chris "Bigfoot" Thompson the electron whisperer. These guys are about to get their cherries popped.
The sun goes down and the wind goes up and the main gets reefed. All is good. The moon is half full and the clouds scattered and scudding across the starry sky. In other words, there is enough light to see. Sometime before 2400 during a helm change Bigfoot and the Orical do a little dance of death behind the wheel culminating in the boat rounding up and the steering getting forced over to the point of the chain jumped the sprocket and now the top dead center indicator on the wheel is 90 degrees out of wack. I might point out, which I believe I already have, Frog already had crashed the boat earlier in the day so that part was nothing new. About 0130 this same first night, Bigfoot managed to get the kite wrapped around the headstay and the topping lift so tight the whole shebang had to come down. This is the usual fire drill with the entire crew called on deck, eventually, and the shute is repacked and all the strings are sorted out on deck and aloft and the spinnaker is re hoisted. All done at warp speed, we are racing, after all. Did I mention it was dark but we could still kind of see? The reef goes into the main and the reef comes out. And then the moon sets.... Its really dark now. You can't see the sails. You can't see the boat. You can't see the ocean or your cremates. But you can see the instruments. I guess this is where a youth of video game playing would come in handy. We have no such experience and thus the new guys get to learn on the job. Fortunately the rest of the night goes relatively smoothly and other than racing hearts and maybe some knocking knees all nuggets passed their first lessons. More lessons to follow, for all of us.
Oh a sailors life for me.
John
It's strange to be in the middle of the ocean for days, seven of us on this 40 foot oasis. We're having a great time and we're NOT as stinky as we thought we would be! Truly amazing to be curled up in a bunk sleeping like a KITTEN while so much is going on around me (snoring, screaming, laughing and playful bickering).
We're currently in third place with aspirations of running down the two in front.
Chris
I always find it interesting how little life one sees out here on the ocean. We had the usual dolphins and birds getting of shore. Of note is the humpback whales we ran into 2 days out. One was apparently a juvenile and took an interest in us. It kept approaching and going by. At one point it swam along side about 15' off just below the surface so we could see it through the clear water, that was pretty neat. The next day just before dusk a pod of dolphins came by. By comparison these were not the close in small weak lethargic dolphins we get inside the islands. These were free range, open ocean robust specimens. They fairly rippled with muscle and were very large. When they came out of the water they just didn't stick their head up, they jumped out and cleared the surface by 4 feet in unison and took a good look at us. Then they came over and played in the bow wave before going off to do what dolphins do. Other than about 5 birds over as many days that's about it for fauna sightings.
Now a word about our watch schedule and how that works. We have 7 guys and stand 3 hour watches with 4 hours off. You come up when its your turn and spend the lst hour trimming the sails. The 2nd hour you steer the boat and the 3rd hour you do what ever needs doing, chatting, helping trim or preparing a meal. The 3rd hour of the watch that falls on 6am, 12 noon or 6 pm fixes chow. The big one is dinner. Last night was my turn and I fixed Marsha's (thanks Marsha) chili verde. Generally we have frozen, pre prepared meals for dinner and the process is thus: get a big pot and boil a couple gallons of sea water to heat the pouches of vacuum packed dinner. Last night the seas were confused and the boat was really moving so I had to strap myself in front of the stove so as not to go flying across the cabin. So now you're strapped in front of a couple of gallons that swing wildly on the gimbaled stove. The stove and the pot swings one way and the opening of the pot is pointed right at your crotch then swings the other way under the cabinet behind. I had the pouch of rice and one of chili verde meat in the water heating up. When I deemed the food sufficiently hot I took the rice out and put it in the sink to stay put, then I tried to lift the chili pouch out. Well, the pouch seal failed and bunch of sauce and meat went into the hot salt water. Crap, I thought I lost half of the dinner. I decided to try to salvage what was left in the bag and probably got half in a bowl undiluted. The half was plenty diluted. I thought maybe the meat chunks would still be good and fished one out to try. Not too bad. Fished the rest out with a strainer and added it to the surviving chili. It proved good with compliments all around and there was still enough for burritos this morning. Clean up is the usual fight to keep things from flying across the cabin while trying to clean them.
While I'm thinking about it, thanks Marsha, Tamara, Dori, Diana, Doris and Liz (in no particular order) for all the prep work on the food and the support to make it possible for us men folk to be able to torture ourselves like this in the name of fun. See you all in Hawaii.
Oh, a sailor's life for me.
John
Speaking of the inside of a bull, I suspect our cabin may have similar smells, in intensity if nothing else. Imagine the living quarters of the boat closed up and sealed with duct tape so no water in crouches. Now increase the heat and humidity and throw in 7 unwashed male bodies. A science project gone wild, and not in a good way. Actually the aft cabin isn't so bad yet, but the forward part of the main cabin up by the mast has an odor akin to a dead rotten rat, or possibly an opossum. The stench is pervasive and we have been unable to locate it, or maybe nobody cares at this point and we let it stink.
Another manifestation of all this atmosphere and motion is that the rest of the crew, myself excluded, has become addicted to these little drug patches they put behind their ears. They may not be puking but I think the drugs are allowing the signals from the mother ship to affect the voices in their heads. Last night Lord Jim, the nighthawk, was just taking the wheel for his hour long stint driving when the clouds broke giving the signals a straight shot at his skull. The voices took over and ensuing boat gyrations had to experienced to be believed. Lets just say the entire off watch was crowded in the companionway looking concerned and asking if we were ok before the clouds covered the signal and Nighthawk gained control. Something that is happening right now is Frenchy Leverault, who cooked lunch, is in galley giving me the stink eye while fingering a steak knife. I may go forward and barricade myself in the forepeak until his voices subside. I guess I either fashion little foil caps for them of start sticking those patches behind my ears. If you can't beat em join em. Oh a sailor's life for me.
John
The morning's report has us clawing back to 4th place. The consensus here is that the two boats in 1st and 2nd place will not have a chance against us when we start flying the spinnaker in the trade winds and going more downwind. Right now our competition is "Between the Sheets". We both had the best day's run at 167 for our fleet. We are hoping that today will be a 200 mile day and we will find the tradewinds.
We seem to be out of the coastal marine layer and into more of a tropical sky with lots of cumulus clouds. The sun is poking through. No more whales have been sighted, but we have seen two packs of dolphins leaping out of the water around Sauvage.
Dinner last night was a very hearty minestrone soup prepared by Diana. It got inhaled by the crew with no leftovers. Breakfast this morning was simple instant oatmeal and coffee. The motion of the boat in these seas is too much for serious cooking.
-Jeff
It's hard to believe its been 18 years since the last time I did this race. I'd like to think I wore a younger man's clothes back then but as I look over my attire I see 50% of it is the same gear I was back in '93. I guess its hard to part with stuff that works even if its stained and patched. Something else that hasn't changed is the camaraderie that develops between guys in close quarters who share a common goal. We're all getting along well and I'm fairly amazed at the depth of experience and talent that this bunch of bozos possess. Not only can we sail the boat but we could take it apart and put it back together better than it was. Nicknames have also started to be assigned, we have Bigfoot, Lord Jim and Buzzsaw so far. Buzzsaw is remarkable in that he can back out screws from the woodwork with his snoring alone.
The tip so far has been light winds. Today is the first day of consistent synoptic winds. We have the code zero up right now and are probably averaging 7 kts. We are sailing as to our game plan and have positioned ourselves on the course to take advantage of the stronger winds which are to the north. The next several days will show if our plan worked.
In parting I'll try to describe a part of night sailing that is interesting when you are a little tired. Last night the moon went down about 2300 hrs., the sky was overcast and therefore very little ambient light was available. We were sailing at about 6kts. The helmsmen's reality is a completely black background with 2 instruments, a knot meter to say how fast we're going and a wind gauge which shows wind direction and speed. The only other thing visible is the compass which is mounted directly in front of a little below the wheel. As the boat sails through the blackness the helmsman has to see and interpret the input from the instruments and steer the boat with out tacking (or in my case jibing). As you become more tired these gauges start to make less sense and putting everything together to steer a proper course become more interesting. Throw in a crew or two telling you to steer up or down and the real fun starts.
Anyway its all fun so far and we haven't had the bejeezus scared out of us,...yet.
John
Conditions are looking better – the wind is up and we are holding 7 knots of boatspeed. Our noon position on Thursday, July 11, is 32° 42' N x 123° 20' W giving us a 24 hour run of 112 miles. That is not a great distance but definitely better than our two previous days. If you check the Transpac website it will show that we are in 5th place in our class. However, the position reports during the first several days of the race can be misleading since the fleet spreads out north to south in search of wind rather than aiming directly at Hawaii. In about one week the reports will be more accurate.
For us the wind held all night for the first time, and in the morning we decided to take down the #1 headsail and hoist the Code 0 – a type of close reaching spinnaker. The wind continued to build and down came the Code 0 to be replaced with the blast reacher and genoa staysail. Right now we are sailing a course of approximately 240° magnetic and moving along at 7.5 knots. The race is starting to get much better with improved sailing conditions.
-Brian
As most of you know, the wind is not cooperating with us. Our daily gains have been modest but crew morale is very high. Our morale is certainly tied to our full belly's. They say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach and boy do our wives know it. I want to thank Tamara, Dori, Liz, Doris and Marsha for the great treats that they packed for us.
Looking forward to a good breeze and seeing everyone after the finish.
-Chris
Two days of sailing and we are on course for a new record – slowest Transpac. Our noon position was 33°15.6' N x 121°13.4' W. After two difficult days of sailing we are 152 miles closer to Hawaii. For our last 24 hours we logged 83.1 nautical miles. At this point in the race we should be averaging about 150 nm per day. The good side of this is that based on reported positions we have moved up into third place in our class. The two boats ahead of us are Catalina 38's who sail well in these conditions, but when the wind moves aft and we start surfing in the tradewinds we feel confident that we will begin to pull ahead. Right now the conditions are very mellow with no more than 10 knots of wind.
Today's lunch featured Old Guy Hot Dogs in honor of Chris whose birthday we celebrated today. When Chris came on deck this morning at 4:00 a.m. to begin his watch those of us already on deck greeted him with an awful rendition of "Happy Birthday".
So far we have enjoyed three whale sightings, lots of sea lions, and several Mola Mola (sunfish) appearances.
All things considered all of us are glad we chose to compete in the Transpac Race.
-Brian
-Brian
Dinner last night was Brian bowtie pasta special, followed by Liz' apricot cookies. The cookies were a hit. Thanks Liz.
-Jeff
