Center Sound Series

Spring has had plenty of wind for Puget Sound racing. For the Center Sound series, we started with a light/moderate wind Blakely Rock and finished third in class behind Flash and the TP52.

Possession Point was an awesome race that saw us hitting 20+ knots of boat speed in 35 knot gusts. Lots or carnage due to the strong conditions. Two boats aground, a man overboard (thankfully not from our boat), and a heart attack victim that needed a medivac kept the coast guard busy. We blew out our 2A spinnaker within a few minutes of the start, hoisted the 4A and took off, passing the bigger boats and rounding the buoy well ahead of everyone. We held off the bigger boats for most of the beat back in 25-35 knots of breeze until Flash (OD 48) and Artemis (Andrews 53) passed us near the finish but we still corrected out to first in class and first overall (out of 70 boats). Great time for all!

Pully Point was a moderate air race in which we were mixing it up with Artemis but couldn't hang with Flash. We finished second in class behind Flash and ended the series tied for first with Flash in points they win on the tiebreaker. We were 4th overall out of about 70 boats.

Next up, Puget Sound Spring Regatta (PSSR).

Spring sailing starts now!

This is a cool pic from our Round the County race last November. Thanks to Sean from PacificFog for the pic.

We saw over 30 knots of wind on Saturday and over 20 knots of boat speed to finish first in class and overall. Sunday, not so good. The wind died and after over 20 miles of near drifting conditions, we reached the time limit about 1 mile from finish (3 boats finished within time limit).

Up next is the Slam Center Sound Series:

Mar 7 - Blakely Rock
Mar 14 - Possession Point
Mar 28 - Pully Point

Race info: http://cycseattle.org/2009_specific/center.php

Relaxing after finishing ordeal

We've been a bit slow in updating our blog as we've been lounging around the Kaneohe Yacht Club and enjoying the simple pleasures of life on the hard.

We were the seventh boat to finish at 24:22 Sunday morning and then had a bit of an ordeal getting in. There are two ways into Kaneohe Bay. One is short but shallow (Sampan channel), the other is deep but takes us over an hour out of the way. We consulted with our escort boat and they ensured us there was adequate depth for our 8 foot draft. We were motoring slowly as our alternator belt was slipping (a problem that had been developing over the last several days). We watched the depth show 9.5, 9.0, 8.5, 8.2, 7.6 then whump. We hit bottom. The crew scrambled to the starboard side to heel the boat and reduce our draft. It helped slightly as we bounced along the bottom deciding to turn around take the long way in. We tried backing and immediately the engine died. Someone immediately noticed that our boom vang line was pulled tight. During our scrambling to heal the boat, the line had fallen overboard and fouled the prop. So here we are after 2070 miles, 9 days and 8 hours of sailing stuck on the bottom a few hundred yards from the comfort of the harbor with a line wrapped around our prop. We cut the line and started the engine and we were able to motor at reduced speeds with the line wrapped around the prop.

We finally pulled into our slip to be meet by the Pac Cup welcoming committee and our very welcome Mai Tais at about 3:30 AM.

It is Tuesday now and we're about to sail the boat around the tip of Oahu to get the boat hauled out in Honolulu. We'll disassemble the boat for shipping on Wednesday and Thursday we have the Mount Gay party and then the Awards party on Friday night before flying home on Saturday.

Last Post Before Finish

It is 4:30 Saturday afternoon and we're just over 100 miles out and sailing at 11-12 knots of boat speed. It is a beautiful Hawaiian day and we're digging through our remaining food looking for the treats. We're also digging around our gear bags trying to find clothes that are worthy of something other than the incinerator.

We hope to finish today (Saturday) before midnight but it will be close. Either way we should be in shortly before or after midnight. It looks like we will be fourth or fifth boat across the line. We're looking forward to our Mai Tai greeting and a shower.

High winds on the high seas

Friday 6pm

We're now 330 miles from the finish and we can smell the Mai Tais. Today as been awesome sailing in 16-22 knots of wind. This morning it was a bit too awesome as a squall came through and gave us 27 knots while we had our big spinnaker up. It was a hairy ride and we almost lost two sails overboard but when things finally calmed down, there were no casualties. It's been mostly sunny and hot the last couple days with an occasional quick rain shower. The fresh water is great but it seems only a few minutes go by before a wave washes over us and we get soaked in salt water again.

Everyone is a little tired and hot and wet and stinky but loving it and getting lots of chances to drive at blazing speeds (for a sailboat). John had an hour this afternoon where the speed never dropped below 14 knots. We have lots of pics and videos to share when we get back. Our corrected position in the standings is not what we hoped for but we should be among the first 5 or 6 boats to finish. In our fleet only Hula Girl is ahead of us on the water and we've passed almost all of the boats that started in front of us. Current ETA in Kaneohe is early Sunday morning. We'll be celebrating no matter what.

Half way there!

Tuesday Jul 22

We crossed the halfway point this morning around 8AM. We are now more than 1000 miles from land in any direction. We delayed the celebration until midday and had champagne and other treats. It is a spectacular day with moderate breeze and bright sunshine. This is our first day that is mostly sunny so far.

Everyone is doing great. We are a little disappointed in our performance the last couple days as it appears going south to find more wind did not work out. We are south of everyone so if there is more breeze down here we should see some gains in the next couple days.

We've been seeing lots of flying fish and had one land in the cockpit last evening. We debated flying fish sashimi but everyone decided to pass on it. We fished a bit last night and this morning without luck so far. Maybe tonight.

Spirits high, crew reeks

Monday 1:00 PM.

Yesterday saw light winds so we tried to get south to better breeze. It seems to have worked as we're sailing fast in 15-20 knots of breeze. We're now southernmost boat in our class We hope to make up lost ground today. Hula Girl also took a dive south. We finally saw another boat this morning as passed one that started a day in front of us. We're trailing only Hula Girl boat for boat in our classbut 2 other boats are currently correcting in front of us.
Steve is wearing a speedo. Apparently he didn't get the dress code memo. We had a bit of drama last night as we wrapped a spinnaker around the forestay during a jibe. Ian had to go up the mast twice to unwind it. That's not fast. But everyone is now having great time in excellent sailing conditions even if we are a bit smelly.
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Those of you checking Roxanne's progress on Flagship Tracking Services (http://trackinfo.fistracking.com/pc2008/) have probably noticed that Roxanne's position hasn't been updated since 10:30pm on July 17th. As Greg's post suggests, they're still very much in the race! Their transponder stopped working due to water intrusion and their attempts to repair have been unsuccessful.

You can at least get a daily update by checking the Daily Standings on the Pacific Cup 2008's home page: http://www.pacificcup.org/. This is updated at 9am daily.