the last 50 miles!

This is it folks. After going over 2000 nautical miles from San Francisco, Maggie is in the home stretch. The crew is on deck, watching our final tropical sunset from the boat with only 45 miles to go to Oahu. Our scheduled arrival in Kaneohe is tonight at 04:00 PDT or 1:00 am Hawaiian time. After we cross the finish line, a pilot boat from the Kaneohe Yacht Club will greet us to guide us through the reef laden channel to the back bay. As navigator, this makes my job a lot easier but still will require careful attention by the crew as we anxiously await meeting our significant others who will be greeting us with a mai tai and a lei. On top of that, we’ve carried two bottles of champagne for the moment we cross the finish line, adding to the challenge and celebration! The bar is open all night and hopefully our starry-eyed crew will be able to stand a few hours of partying before likely crashing for most of tomorrow. The last few days of trade wind sailing have been amazing. Thanks to everyone for following our voyage and your well wishes.

-Navigator Mike

almost there

Sorry for the long delay between posts. As many of you probably have noticed, our position has slipped from nearly third to fifth over the past few days. Many reasons exist for the degradation of performance. Crew fatigue has certainly been the largest factor. A spinnaker round down on Day 6th, 1000 miles from shore left several of the crew shell shocked and quite afraid of more spinnaker flying. Others were unaffected and yearned for more adventure and to push the boat. This divergence in the crew made it tough to maintain a unified watch and morale.

One mistake we definitely made was flying our 3/4 oz spinnaker all night on Day 5. We now refer to this night as “Speed Racer Night”, because of the insane attention to wind direction and wild helmsmanship that it took to keep to boat from rounding up/down or blowing up the kit. While we gained three hours on our competition, we burned the crew out. In retrospect, I think the kite was simply untrimmed and squirrely. If we were going to fly spinnaker all night, we should have flowing our heavy and flat, 1.5 oz spinnaker (affectionately known as Georgia Pacific because she’s as tough and as flat as a piece of plywood). We made 191 miles that day but really burned up the crew.

In the last two days, we’ve changed our watch schedule of dramatically. Three of us did 14 hour watches during the day, playing with the kite up in beautiful tropical weather and trade wind swells. Yesterday we took bucket baths and drove in our underwear. Kind of the living the life. The other poor souls had a shorter, but much tougher night watch from 10:00 pm – 8:00 am. The original idea was that these crew would just sail on the easier/safer white sails, which they did the first night. Sailing downwind on white sails is ridiculously slow and requires too much attention. On night two, they decided to fly spinnaker with additional help from the day team. This worked ok but at 4:00 am this morning, as I was coming on watch to help the night crew, they flogged Georgia Pacific and we blew out the Ronstan shackle on the spinnaker guy (don’t ever buy Ronstan shackels, as I’ve seen three of the just pull apart in the last two months).

With over 1600 tough ocean miles under our belt, we’ve obviously learned a lot. Six dudes, living for 11 days in a space about the size of two prison cells. Despite our challenges, everyone is getting along pretty good and we’ve learned so much about our teammates, the ocean, and most importantly ourselves. As all of our significant others have now arrived in Hawaii (except one guy who is dating another racer in the race), we’re anxiously pushing the boat 24 hours per day with spinnaker up. Crew and boat willing, we’ll make it there early Tuesday morning.

-Navigator Mike

Maggie just passed the half-way!

After an exciting day of ocean racing (you’ll most certainly hear the story at a later date), Maggie just passed the half-way point to Hawaii at 6:48 pm! Only 1035 miles to go!

rough and speedy night

We had our biggest gain and most challenging night last night. Winds gusting to 30 knots, varying from between 20-25 knots steady plus large wind waves and NW swell along with our lightweight spinnaker up made for one fast and wild ride. Nobody slept more than a few minutes off watch. Clouds made it pitch black, hiding the moon that had finally showed up for the first time on our journey. The drivers we had could not take their attention off the wind instrument for less than a split second or risk a round up (or worse, round down). Our 20 year old, 0.75 oz lightweight spinnaker survived countless snappings. We constantly surfed at speeds of 10-11 knots. Our average speed yesterday was 8.0 knots. I made my first ever accidental gybe and was saved by the boom brake. I was able to gybe back before rounding down. It was then that I had only slept a three hours in the last 24.

The clouds last night were incredibly beautiful cumulus clouds that looked all kinds of animals. It feels pretty remote out here. Today we woke up to hear two boats that we we’re hoping to be competitive with in our VHF radio range, Lightspeed and Kotuku; a good sign.

Today is sunny and it is always getting warmer. We just took stock of our water supply and found out we’re half way through with more than 50% of the miles to go. While we’re sailing a lot faster, we’re implementing prudent rationing to make sure we have enough.

Time to change out to the half oz spinnaker and give our 0.75 oz workhorse a rest.

-Navigator Mike

Five days out

Greetings from some 700 miles west of continental California. The sun is setting, we have one of our kites up, we’re making miles and life if good. We’ve made better mileage each day. Today we also got quite a bit of sun. When the sun comes out, the ocean turns an amazing shade of blue… something you just never see closer to land. Clouds skid along the horizon, beams of light fall through the gaps, and the blue sea has the occasional punctuation of small white caps. We’re sailing through a beautiful bit of the planet, and it doesn’t cease to amaze.

The ocean has served up a few interesting tidbits. We’ve seen quite a few fishing floats. Some have entire ecosystems growing beneath them. A bearded soccer ball floated by on Friday (saluted by cries of “Wilson!”). The largest thing we’ve seen was a large blue plastic container the size of a porta-potty. On the SSB, we heard of a 4 by something building panel. No way to know from where any of it came. It’s a bit of a crap-shoot sailing at night. No way we could see something floating that could damage the boat. However, this is one really big ocean, and the chance of hitting something that matters is incredibly small. On the ocean, we can only worry about the things we can actually do something about.

Not much visible wildlife out here. Bob G spotted what we think was an albatross (given it’s huge wingspan). A pod of porpoise came by for a look yesterday, but after a few rides on our bow wave, they took off again. That’s pretty much it. We’ve heard on the SSB that some other race boats have caught fish which quickly became sushi and poke. That’s about it for ocean life. Oh yea, the bio-luminescence. At night, our wake it illuminated by darts of light as the algae are agitated into glowing for a split second. Sometimes the small breaking waves also glow from the life within. Further down the line, we may see whales, or more porpoise, perhaps some pelagic fish. No matter what, we just keep moving down that line to Hawaii.

As a newbie to this world west of the Faralones, I’ve found the routines easy to fall into. Sail, eat, sleep, repeat. When not sleeping, there is always something to be done. Preparing food. Cleaning up. Cleaning one’s self (not an easy task out here). Fixing things is also important. We’ve broken very little so far, but that always could change. I’ve patched a couple of kites, but they’re all still intact. Non-sailors would think this is all crazy, and maybe it is. However, if you have the bug, you just have to do it when given a chance. Even though we’re well prepared, and the race is well run, we’re all on the edge out here. I feel lucky to have such competent crew mates, and we’re all getting along with good humor. We place our trust, indeed our lives, in each other hands. I trust these guys without hesitation. Live has become very predictable and simple. Do your job, trust the boat, trust your mates, and try not to be late for the parties in Kaneohe!

Dave P. Electrical guru and sail patch guy

In tune with the boat

Last night’s hairy ride under the light spinnaker in 30 knot breezes was an adventure for all of us. For me, it stepped up my game in driving considerably. Without more than a minimal view of the spinnaker, main, water, and boat, the helmsman must rely almost exclusively on instruments. The instruments we have are the compass at the binnacle, a wind direction/speed indicator, a digital display of the flux gate compass, and the knotmeter (aka the “fun meter”). The flux gate compass proves to be useless under these conditions because it has a lag time of about 10 seconds – way too long. So we use the compass and wind direction, shifting our focus from one to the other every few seconds, in intense concentration.
The other “instrument” we have is the feel of the boat. During the daytime, one can see the boat get picked up by a wave; at night we get the same information by feeling the boat’s motion through our feet. It rotates side to side, pitches forward and aft, and tips, all at once in a complex dance on the waves. After some time on the helm, we learn to understand what each motion means, and how we must respond with the wheel to keep it on its feet.
Last night I spent a few turns on the wheel, 30 minutes each, then went below at the end of my watch. I collapsed in my bunk, still fully dressed in case I was needed again above decks. Closing my eyes, I could still feel the boat moving, and picture how the sails respond to each push from the water and wind. I could picture exactly how I would respond on the helm. It only lasted 10 minutes or so, but it was an amazing feeling to be so in tune with the boat. For me, that’s what sailing is all about: getting in tune with wind and waves, and the boat itself, as a way to touch some small part of the universe.
So we continue on, still with the same trusty spinnaker up, though we will have to change it to examine the gear, including the spinnaker halyard. The spinnaker sheet chafed on the lifeline all night and we cannot trust it; we re-rigged the guy as a sheet, ensuring it ran clear of the lifeline and other chafe points. We’re making excellent time and have good spirits. — Bob G, steering guru

Another Saturday Night

Greetings all on my first blog entry!

Day 4 has me breaking through the wall of offshore sailing. At this point, the transition back to land will be much harder then staying on the boat. I’m off sea meds and eating well. Quick kudos to Caitlin for the awesome food! Folks are well fed and smiling. I’m sleeping well and keeping a smile on my face.

Earlier this afternoon, we had a school of dolphins circling the boat. It was spectacular. They dove and crossed enjoying our company. The water is so blue and clear that I could see each of them as they approached the surface.

Elan has been our wonderful neighbor crossing paths all day. It’s weird to be 500 miles off shore and be pacing with our competitor close enough to toss them a beer.

The sun is currently setting in the overcast sky. The boat moves along smoothly as I listen to the crew discuss tips and tricks of sailing the kite at night. The water rush’s past the fiberglass walls and all I can think is, “There is no place I would rather be.” I hope your all in that place right now, and if not… Get there!

Greetings and Good-night

John Douglas, Purser