Reconnaissance

I just arrived in Maui (by plane, not boat). I'm here for spousal harmony and a high school graduation celebration for my son, Kyle.

I'm watching Vic Maui with interest. If they arrive before I leave on July 7th, I plan to watch Strum finish. She is from our neck of the woods and we've raced against her a few times. It's a very cool boat. The Vic Maui tracker shows Strum heading slightly north of west. Not sure why they would be doing that.

Winds are unusually light here and across the course. I hope conditions improve by the time we start.

Meanwhile Bob and Steve are in Richmond to greet Roxanne. Bob reported a little damage to Roxanne. One of the pads was carrying too much of the load and wore through. Repairs are underway.

Blog started

We've been planning for the Pacific Cup for over a year. I've been planning on starting a blog for most of that year and finally got around to it.

Roxanne was built in 1999 and she is in excellent condition. The amount of preparation has been staggering. Bob has led the charge here spending countless hours repairing, replacing or tweaking just about everything on the boat. She is almost ready but a few final items will have to wait until we are in San Francisco. She was finally loaded on a truck and left Seattle yesterday. She should be in Richmond on Monday.

Roxanne is rated as the fasted boat in class E starting July 17th. There are several boats in our class loaded with talent including Hula Girl, a turboed Santa Cruz 50 with Paul Cayard and his son and daughter. We may be a bit outclassed, but Roxanne is a great boat and we're going to have fun.

Our crew has been sailing together over much of the last year and three of us have raced together for over 10 years. Most recently we were all together for Swiftsure at the end of May where we finished 2nd in class. We pooched the start and played the Canadian shore while the boats going left found more breeze. The second half of the race was a screaming fast run over 18 knots at times and we gained back most of what we had lost but not quite enough. Pics on the right.

Now we're turning our focus to the weather. Picking the right course will be critical. Our friend Gay is a meteorologist by training and has a couple of Pac Cups under his belt and he is helping us figure it out. More on that later. We tried hard to get Gay to join us for the race but he said he had to spend his vacation time with his wife this year. What's up with that?