Big Ocean Small Boat

From a sailing perspective, today is almost identical to the two before.

Today is no caffeine day. There are about 10 chocolate espresso beans left, but they got doused with salt water at one point. We drank 2 pounds of coffee, a box of tea, and a case of Red Bull. The next few night watches are going to be tough.

Boats are beginning to finish. I suspect the first from our division will be tomorrow.

The wind is almost directly down our course (about 248 Mag). We are making about 20 gybes a day or so, to either take advantage of a wind shift or get in line with a squall.

-JE

Since the only way to get to the wives and Mai Tais is to find some wind, we’ve become nocturnal squall hunters.

The drill is that we start looking for a squall line (which looks like a series of mushroom clouds marching along one horizon) around sunset and make for any one that’s close enough for us to intercept without heading away from Hawaii. Inside and in front of the squall is a converging 20kt wind that we plant ourselves in and start gybing across until we lose the wind, or our nerve. Behind the squall is a calm area that we try to time our final gybe to put us outside of.

We are doing mostly double-handed gybes now, so the off watch can sleep, but over 20, we pull someone else up on deck.

The main problem with this theory is that there are not enough squalls (or nerves) that you can ride at night to make up for a full day of slogging along at hull speed.

-JE

Back to light air. The highest paid navigators in the fleet just sailed by 75 miles to the north of us, the wiliest old salts in the fleet are steaming to Hawaii 100 miles to the south of us, and we are surrounded by a disc of beautiful picnic weather.

Yesterday was LBD: Last Beer Day. We are now a dry boat.

We have storm sails, 3 bilge pumps, a liferaft, 3 radios, locater beacons, harnesses, tethers, strobe lights, an extra spinnaker pole,
materials to start IVs, splint broken bones, repair booms, rudders, and ripped sails. Except, besides one 25kt squall per night, you’d think it never blew above 11 knots anywhere in the pacific. We are not in the dreaded pacific high, just in a random corner of the ocean where a 30′ boat can only go about the speed that Bill Clinton jogs.

Luckily we have enough spare food and water (especially water) that we are not in any trouble. Garth made the last of the “planned” meals last night: Spaghetti with canned clams. Now it’s leftovers and extras until we break out the freeze-dried emergency rations later in the week.

-JE

This is the Transpac, finally. 20kt breeze and big swells. We paid our
toll getting in, but this is good hard sailing now.

We finally got our breeze as I went off watch to bed last night. Next
thing I know, I’m on the foredeck in my shorts and sea boots, dropping
the 3/4 oz spinnaker in a 30kt squall. It was really dark, really windy,
and really rolly. Woke up early to spell Garth, who was seasick and
drove about 4 hours in full wooly conditions, but at least we are
moving finally. We spent all day today with wind, beautiful wind.

Lovely sunset tonight, our watches are back in order, everybody feels
better.

-JE

Another barely 100+ mile day. Weird, completely opposite weather from everything you read about the TP. We have 7-10 kt wind directly down the rhumbline, rain squalls without increased wind, rollers coming in from the opposite direction of the breeze…

We’re about to cross the halfway mark from a mileage perspective, and hopefully hit the “normal” wind that will allow us to cover more ground.

We stayed north of the fleet (everyone but several of the cruising class boats). Clearly we wish we hadn’t, but it seemed reasonable at the time.

We heard on the radio that the Hurricane hanging around Hawaii (Cosme) has been downgraded to a tropical storm and should be no factor. But the weatherman also told us that we should be broad reaching in 20kts under blue skies and puffy white clouds right now…

-JE

Very frustrating to be the smallest boat in a race that is taking twice as long as normal. Especially since this race is 100% about getting to the breeze first and every other strategy is secondary. So far, we are constantly showing up late to the wind party and getting creamed.

Also, it’s raining.

On the other hand, “talk like a pirate hour” from 1000-1100 is a huge hit with the crew.

-JE

GPS: 25°42′ 129°49′ 239T 7.8kts

140nm day yesterday, making big S shapes through the ocean. Night watches are eye-crossing, pitch black, compass staring sloppy-ness. We are driving for 2 hours each, and we’re all bleary after 45 minutes at night.

Today, with 1500 something sea miles to go, Colin says, “I think I see a sail”. 8 days out, and we cross within 500 yards of a bigger boat flying a red chute.

Chafed clean through the jacket on our #1 guy after running last night on mostly port gybe. Swapped it out on the move and kept trucking.

-JE

We are finally really sailing, with 1m swells and wind above 15kts. Last night was a grind: No stars, fluky wind, confused seas, and a 2AM spinnaker peel. We’ve fallen behind the fleet in a slow race that doesn’t favor us. Intensity is high, let’s see what today brings.
-JE

As someone else put it in another blog, we have become creatures of the sea at this point. Our lives revolve around the wind, the watches, and one warm Heineken a day.

The current positions come out once a day over the SSB at about 9AM, which has become our one real connection with the race against the others, as opposed to our constant concentration on making the boat go fast to Hawaii.

We’ve been under Spinnaker for the last 2-3 days in light-moderate air, constantly hoping for headers to get the broad reach angles we need to maintain hull speed.

I forgot my headphones, so I’m listening to the RC Comms boat on my ipod earbuds plugged into the HF set.

-JE

We are north of most of the fleet. The wind is 7kts@245Mag, we are “rhumbline to the ridge”, positioning us to either start running to Hawaii or start wallowing in the pacific high.

The team is really together, the boat is behaving like a solid little dream.

Last night was like sailing at 3kts through space. The boat hung between the stars and their reflections, with just our bow wave rippling between them.

-Jon