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.

Roxanne, Day 3

Day 3 and it is now warming up. Wind is down a bit and we're headed more off the wind so it is pleasant sailing. We've been making better time than our software predicted. Just can't keep up with Hula Girl.

People are in shorts and in good humor. Ian says, "Room service sucks but the views are nice." He had a good birthday yesterday but a little wet. John says, "The boat really isn't bigger than it looks." Chuck says, "The first two days weren't in the brochure."
- The Roxanne crew

Putting miles in the bank -- update from Greg!

We had a wild night. Winds 20-30 with confused seas and constant waves washing the boat. We made good distance (about 166 as of 8AM)averaging around 11 knots. Hula Girl is well out in front but this point of sail is not our strongest. We're flying a small jib and reefed main. When the wind clocks further north as expected, we can fly a chute and see if we can make up ground on them. We're all wet and a little cold but everyone feeling good.

Everything coming together

After over a year of planning, we have less than 24 hours to our start and everything is finally coming together. We watched the start of the D class today and then sailed out behind them under the Golden Gate. We saw Criminal Mischief sailing back in as we were going out. Criminal Mischief is a Reichel Pugh 45 that is very cool. We get a two day head start on those guys and that may not be enough.

We had a great sail back in hitting 18 knots in 20-22 knots of breeze. All of us are anxious to get on our way to Hawaii. The forecast is looking good showing a stiff breeze for the first 24 hours and then moderate breeze most of the way to Kaneohe.

Glad to see another Northwest boat -- Raindrop with skipper Joby Easton -- doing well. They are double handing and were leading all boats as of this morning. Joby was crew on Reinrag for Transpac and is a great sailor and good guy.

We're collecting lots of weather info and routing advice. Right now conditions look good for a pretty fast crossing so we're optimistic.

This is our last post before casting off tomorrow. Send us your comments and they will get forwarded to us at sea.

-The Roxanne Crew

Technological Wonders

Like most of the boats, Roxanne will have a large array of high tech wonders. We have GPS, satellite phone, SSB radio, computer and the ability to gather weather information over the SSB or satellite phone. We can get the latest weather forecasts, plug them into our navigation software and it will tell us the optimum course to sail taking into account our boats performance and the forecast winds. At least that is how it is suppose to work, but we all know how reliable weather forecasts are beyond a day or two. So most boats rely more on the human navigator than the computer. In our case Bob is the naviguesser having done this race three times previously.

Click the picture above and you will see the current weather along with the "optimum course" forecast by our software. If we started today, conditions are relatively mild and the computer forecasts that we would take just under 11 days. The forecast for late next week shows stronger winds over much of the course so things are looking pretty good.

S Wright Optical Engineering

As a result of an industrial incident involving gravity and a hard surface, our main hatch required extensive maintenance. Here you see our chief optical engineer thermo-forming the new hatch to precise tolerances under cloak of darkness at KKMI.

Strum in Lahaina

I got a few pics of Strum as they took line honors in the Vic-Maui race. They finished around 6:30 Hawaii time July 4th on a beautiful evening right before the fireworks in Lahaina. Here they are about 7 miles before finish off the Maui shore near Kapalua.














Here they are just after arriving at the dock in Lahaina:














And getting decked out: