Day 5 - The slows - Bugs

The last thing you want in an ocean race is a beautiful, calm day with a
glassy sea. So that's what we have. We know that as we sit around trying to
nurse another tenth of a knot out of the sails, to the south of us boats are
speeding along to Hawaii. But the weather can change again, and reverse
fortunes.

Basically everything is fine aboard. The food is awesome -- fresh peaches at
breakfast today, with another of Robin Hubbard's creations now defrosting
for dinner. Everyone's mood is good. I'd say we are just a bit bored waiting
for the wind to reappear.

Back on watch soon.

Bugs

Day 5 - fun in the sun

If you recall the previous post about slogging all day and night, you might
re-read it, as it pretty well describes our Day 4 night if you add in cooler
temperatures, fog, mist, and light rain. With a little less than zero wind
for a good part of the night, it's safe to say that no one was looking
forward to going on watch.
The maneuver of the night went to the starboard watch, who learned when
coming off watch that they'd turned a complete loop without realizing it.
The only evidence was the track on the gps chart plotter. Just goes to show
you how difficult conditions can be out here. On the other hand it provided
a good laugh when the tale was told, which was just the ticket when you're
going on deck at 2AM, knowing that you're going to be struggling to do
anything but stay in the same spot for the next 3 hours. As it turned out,
we had enough wind to a make slow but sure progress down the track. Which
just goes to show you how a little humour can go a long way.
Day 5 dawned cool and misty, and the sun struggled to make its usual
appearance. We emerged from a fog bank and found ourselves in the clear,
looking back at the wall of mist we'd just come from and looking forward to
some warmer, sunnier weather for the day. A partial rainbow formed off our
port bow and the day began.
As the morning wore on, the mist wore off, leaving us in sparkling blue
Pacific waters on a brilliantly sunny day. The only issue was the
continuing lack of wind. On board weather analysis showed us in the middle
of a high pressure area that had formed around us in a most unfortunate turn
of the weather systems we'd be tracking. What had started out as a very
advantageous track had now turned against us and our job now is to find the
fastest way out of the high pressure zone to better winds at its edges.
While we're disappointed at this turn of events, we're still driving the
boat as hard as possible and morale remains high. There's still a long way
to go and much can happen in the coming days.
In the mean time, a dip in the pure ocean water, some clean clothes, and fun
in the sun will do nicely until favorable winds fill our sails again.

24 hour mileage: 120nm

Jay

Hi Honey

Laurie,
Having a great time floating in the middle of the ocean. Say hi to Ollie!
Love,
Eric

Day 4 - Bugs

What's the opposite of speed? Because that's what has developed over the
last day. We didn't expect the srong winds early, or the light winds that
control us now. Such is the randomness of the wind that the biggest boats
that started today enjoyed very strong wind, launching them after us at high
speed

Aboard our boat, navigator Steve Steiner and I wrestled with the old
technology of celestial navigation. We have half a dozen GPS receivers
aboard, which give us our position within twenty feet. Neither of us has
done a star sight in a decade. But at the end of the race, each boat is
required to show four successful position fixes by shooting the stars.

So this was our first attempt. The conditions were poor, but clouds can
cover the entire course, and we needed to get our shots in while we could.
Last night, clouds covered about three quarters of the sky, leaving only
scattered openings in which to fund bright navigation stars. I used the
do-the-best-you-can technique of shooting whatever I could see, without
knowing the name of star. Then a little calculator program helps you figure
out the star later. After hours of stuggling to re-learn the calculator
system, we figured out that we had decent shots of Vega and Polaris. We
plotted them on the chart and found out that we were within twenty miles of
our actual position. To us, it was a triumph, even though it was five
thousands times as far away as our GPS receivers cold tell us. We will get
better.

Our fleet position report at 0600 today (Sunday) still had us second in
class and third in fleet. But by tomorrow we will be more scrambled. Wind is
blowing stronger in some areas than in others, and our slow winds today are
likely to drop us back.

Food report: A continuing delight. Pasta Bolognese for dinner, accompanied
by grated Parmesan cheese, a full salad with tomatoes, and for dessert:
homemade lemon cake. If the clement weather continues, this will be my first
race ever where I returned heavier than when I started.

Health report: The Big Cold found a fourth victim. Ashley Perrin laughed
when she went over to the galley sink and found lined up Dayquil, Vitamin C,
NyQuil, and dishwashing liquid.

This is a very congenial crew, and everyone is having a good time. Sounds
like a cliche, but it's true.

Bugs

Slogging all day and night.

After a few great days of sailing, we've finally been let down by the wind
gods. Our friendly strong breeze departed in the early morning hours as
Saturday dawned mostly overcast with light and highly variable winds.
Driving the boat became a game of cat and mouse, trying to keep our boat
speed up while trimming the sails to maximize whatever wind came our way.
With wind direction swinging unpredictably through a range of 40 degrees,
and speeds running up and down from 5 knots to a maximum of 13 knots it was
a challenge to stay ahead of the changes and keep the boat pointing
correctly to keep the speed up. As each helmsman took his and her trick at
the wheel, there was always an initial learning curve as they settled in as
best and as quickly as they could. After dark, this would lead to the
occasional major mistake...
During the afternoon, the skies opened up a bit and let some welcome
sunlight down to light up the Pacific blue water. A gorgeous sunset came
through the broken clouds on the horizon to become the highlight of a day
that was spent in slow motion gyrations as the boat rose slowly on the
swells, hunting for much needed wind.
Bugs broke out the sextant and looked quite the old salt; standing tall next
to the binnacle with the sextant held high, taking star sights in the
gathering twilight. With the clouds closing the bit of open sky left over
from the afternoon, this became quite a challenge, but Bugs perservered and
managed a couple of sights and then the night closed in around us.
And close in it did. The clouds gathered dark and low and the night became
one of those pitch black affairs, with no visible horizon at all. Though we
were blessed with no rain, it was even more the driver's nightmare. The
winds refused to cooperate, and with no reference points to drive by, and
virtually no feel in the wheel, the strain of vertigo, dyslexia, and the
tendency to just go plain bonkers staring at all the performance numbers
would have been evident on every wheelman's face, though it was quite
impossible to see that in the overwhelming darkness.
Switching helmsman was occasionally accompanied by a comedy of errors,
sometimes major ones, though each event was always a slow motion affair that
was never truly dangerous. Call of "head up, head up, head up NOW" were
quickly followed by "NO, THE OTHER UP", as new helmsman were tricked by the
orange performance numbers into going the wrong way. Everyone eventually
settled down and got down to the business keeping on keeping on. And so we
did, all night long and well into the next day. It's been a slow slog, 175
hard driven miles down the track.

Jay

Day 1 24-hour report

We made 220 nautical miles for an average of 9.2 knots.

Day3 - Noonish - Bugs

I am sure that by now everyone has discovered that the satellite tracking
system does not work. It seems not to have been tested . We understand that
the Race Committee is posting positions once a day based on our 0600
reports. Great.

Jay Sacco's first report told you about the terrifying start. Let me tell
you about the Curse of California: kelp. Kelp is a long, thick variety of
seaweed that is ecologically very valuable. It is the spawning area of many,
many types of fish. It is also the spawning ground of many a sailor's
curses. Some of it gets loose from the bottom and floats up to the surface.
Because it is so long and somewhat sticky, it can wrap itself around
sailboat's keels and rudders, crating huge drag.

To most of us East Coast sailors, kelp is a non-existent problem. But off
the Pacific coast, it is a never-ending source of problems. We were advised
by the West Coast sailors in our crew to stop the boat and drive backwards
for a short distance to clean off any kelp we might have picked up on the
7-mile run to the start. We did it. But about thirty minutes into the race,
we started losing speed compared to the boats around us. Two of our West
Coast crew leaned far over the side and looked down. There was something tan
around our keel, and big. So we stopped the boat, set the sails to go
backward, and saw a big yellow-tan blob float off in front of us. Then back
to business, racing. We lost perhaps a half mile of distance in that
episode. Just the breaks.

The boat is settled down. We all know how to handle the sails, who has each
job, how the meals appear, where to sleep.We can focus entirely in the
racing.

To the average urban dweller, "weather" means will it rain? How hot will it
be? How humid will it be? What's the pollen count? To the racing sailor,
rain, humidity, temperature an pollen are completely irrelevant. Only the
direction and force of the wind mean anything. The wind is our engine.

Steve Steiner, our navigator, knows as much about the weather in this race
as anybody. He's done this race four times before, including winning the
race once, and has sailed over 250,000 miles. He has been analyzing the
weather since long before the start.During the first day, he explained to us
with a weather chart exactly why were enjoying a fine, strong breeze. "There
is no explanation. This wind should not exist. We're in a high. The wind
should be light. It's just happening." See how valuable it is to have an
experienced navigator?

We do have a strategy. Right now we are second in class and third in
fleet.There are two competitors from our division about 30-40 miles north
and slightly ahead. The rest of the fleet is south of us, including most of
our class. So now we are aiming further south to stay between the bulk of
our class and the finishing line. We are leaving our two competitors to the
north in the expectation that their wind will become light sooner than ours.
Time will tell.

Thus far we have had 24-hour runs of 220 and 218 miles. A splendid
beginning. The race has three main stages left: about 200 miles to the
tradewinds, then 1500 miles in the tradewinds, and the final hundred miles
in the wild and wooly approach to the finish line along the coast of
Molokai, where boats surf down 12-15 foot waves in howling winds.

Health report: three of the crew came down with heavy colds just before and
just after the start. They seem to have largely gone away.No bangs, scrapes,
burns, or punctures yet. So far, so good.

Food report: Robin Hubbard played den mother to us, preparing pre-race food
and party-makings. And she prepared eleven full dinners that have been
frozen and packed in dry ice. First night: a wonderful quiche in two
styles -- with steak, and with salmon. Second night: a memorable paella with
giant shrimp and scallops. To die for (not of). You burn a lot of extra
energy in a race like this, so Robin's copious and wonderful dinners are a
marvelous addition not just to our calorie intake, but to our enjoyment of
the whole Transpac experience.

Our electronics seem to be working perfectly, thanks to Jay Sacco's
month-long prerace preparation. We get government weather charts and
forecast as easily as you turn on your TV at home. For you techies, we have
moved out of the range of close-to-shore Globalstar, and are now using an
Iridium phone.

Bugs