BLACK FEATHERS and FERAL have made Ko-Olina Marina on Oahu and been loaded via Travel Lift on their delivery trailer. POLAR BEAR and RAGTIME are presumably also being unrigged and loaded at Ala Wai Marine. It was not an easy Kauai Channel Crossing for any of these four, with 25 knot winds and 8 foot cresting seas forward of abeam. But all are safe.

Eight boats from the SHTP remain at Hanalei: HARRIER, KALI-O, CARROL E, DREAM CHASER, FEOLENA, NA NA, WILDFLOWER, and SPARKY. The rest are at sea, with DOGBARK leading the pack home through the Pacific High.

~WILDFLOWER

This is my last log report that I'll write on his behalf. He asked me to share his excitement! He feels great and is truly enlightened by this experience.

On the home front, we're anticipating his arrival. His parents flew in yesterday and his brother will be here tomorrow. This is a surprise for him, he has no idea that they are here to greet him!

Today we're shopping for fresh juices, fruit, vegetables, pepperoni pizza and of course spiced rum. I plan to also bake chocolate chip cookies since I didn't get them in his halfway gift and have regretted it every day.

Thank you so much to the race committee and fleet for helping to arrange all the details of his homecoming! It means the world to him.

Yesterday I received a very touching description of Ruben from his dear friend DG, who was the skipper of the first boat he crewed on.

"From the first time that I met Ruben, when he presented himself as crew to work and learn, I felt his desire. This greatness in Ruben can be sensed upon the first meeting. His forthright demeanor and candid response is a sign of internal strength. He just needed to prove it to himself. He has now come through the dark tunnel of despair and dismal sights. The air of the many best wishes has reached its goal. New life has been breathed into the soul of our hero. With spirits exalted by a daily drink from the cup of his love he flies back to greetings well earned."

Thank you for all the support and encouragement for Ruben, he's almost here!

• Ken's wind dance includes Freckles, his cocker spaniel who after doing the wind dance was almost hit by lightening and was followed by wind gusts and a half inch of rain.
• Tom and Susan did their wind dance with a couple glasses of wine and we're pretty sure that it worked, because they almost fell over in their enthusiasm.
• Che Che's dance includes... inhale, EXHALE... send that wind.
• George's wife is doing her wind dance which is adjusted to 15-20kts.
• Karen and Bill are doing their wind dance like Tom & Susan, and doing it every day until he arrives.

George and Gracie are still guarding over him. Last night he decided to release Kermit (the military ball reported previously) back into the great blue.

This has been quite the journey for him. In the last couple of days he's focused on patience and hope. Last night he said he had to let go and just accepted that there was no wind at the moment, and knew eventually he would get it. He understands that his situation could be much worst, and he's thankful that he's okay and is finishing the race. He said this experience is very humbling for him.

The encouragement sent to http://www.sparkysfo.com/comments from people all over the country has truly been an inspiration to him. I've read every comment, we've cried, and he's overwhelmed and thankful for the generosity, love, and strength sent his way.

The SSTP fleet is truly an amazing group of people. I've also shared the log reports, comments, and the support shared during tree time and the awards dinner. It means so much to him.

Please keep the positive thoughts coming his way as he completes this part of his journey and crosses that finish line!

Thank you from Ruben's shore contact, Robbie

Here I sit in the Honolulu airport, my mind and heart a turmoil of emotion. I run the past few days through my mind, over and over.

The last night of the race was not as hard as I thought it would be. The skies cleared and I had no squalls after midnight, just a few overhead clouds. Before midnight was another matter, we got rained on, hard, three times in an hour! I got a couple of naps the afternoon before the last night at sea and I slept off and on during the early morning hours so I wasn't tired. I wrote in my log "I am nervous, nervous about "Karma" and nervous about the landfall. We're so close, yet something still could break and end it all. I think I will not relax until I cross the finish line and am at anchor in the Bay".

That was how the last night passed. I charted my position frequently from midnight, onwards. It was a big deal when I pulled out the "Hawaiian Chain" chart and stopped plotting on the chart of the whole north Pacific. I talked to Joan on the sat phone briefly at about 7:30. The old reliable autohelm ST 2000 that I bought for the 2004 race finally gave up the ghost at 9:45 PM in a big roundup and and a shower of spray down my back. It carried me 2/3rds of the way to Hawaii. I put one of the replacement ST 1000's up in it's place and that steered most of the rest of the way.

At 4:00 AM Pacific Time I spotted a smudge of light on the horizon, right about when and whereI thought I would....the loom of lights from Lihue. I took a reading from the GPS and plotted my position on the chart. At 4:09 I caught the first glimpse of the flash of the Kiluea lighthouse. The different flash of the Nawiliwili light showed up a little bit later. It was dark, but it was going well. I saw two shooting stars that night.

6:15 AM....I could smell the island. I remembered the powerful scent of a tropical island after so long at sea from my crossing in 1996. This was more subtle. I plotted my position again from the GPS readout. I called up the Race Committee on the VHF when I was 18 miles out and talked to Sylvia, let her know my eta and told her to go back and take a nap on the couch. She wanted to know if I was reading her mind!

7:00 AM Pacific Time....The Nawiliwili lighthouse has slipped behind us, and I can see the lights of the Princeville resort condos. Finally, finally in my log I wrote the words "This is really going to happen. Really, actually going to come true"

7:30 talked to Sylvia on the VHF again, and asked her about the specific loation of the finish line. I'm wondering if that line of green lights I'm seeing is on the bluffs of Princeville, or on the other side of the Bay.

8:00 AM, the skies are lightening, dawn is on it's way. The green lights are on the bluffs, NOT on the other side of the Bay....don't get too close! I put on my harness and tidied up a bit, got out the anchor and rode and put it on the cabin sole. I shook out the reefs in the mainsail and changed course so I was reaching for the finish line, both mainsail and headsail pulling.

8:15 Pacific Time: I'm hand-steering with full main and high clew #3 and starting to stress out about being far enough off the shore so as to not pile up on the reefs. The sky is lightening, there are clouds behind me and a magical nearly-new sliver of a moon is rising. It is unspeakably beautiful. I whisper a prayer of thanks.

8:30 Approaching the shore...talking to Sylvia, hearing Synthia "going mobile" to get the dinghy out to meet me... the sky lightens further and the mountains of Kauai change from shapes and shadows to color; the green fastnesses that I remember.

And then.

"Congratulations, Alan. You have just finished the 2008 Singlehanded TransPacific Race."

I had thought for hours about what I would say when I heard those words......and this is what I said.

"Never, ever let go of your dreams. You never know when you might be able to make them come true."

*********************************************

The sun came up above the clouds behind me a few minutes after I crossed the line. Ankle Biter and I sailed into Hanalei Bay in the light of dawn. I will never forget it. I told myself that I could never forget these last couple of hours, I don't think that will ever happen. Skip Allen motored out to meet me in Wildflower, it was good to see him! I talked to Synthia on the VHF radio and dropped the headsail. The dinghy came out with Joan on board. Joan climbed on, so did Synthia and Rich...there was beer, a scented washcloth, laughter, friends, hugs and kisses....the whole ritual. Johnathan video'd it all from the dinghy. I was a little bit giddy as we sailed down the center of the Bay in the flat water and lightening wind.

We anchored by Hecla, and rode ashore with "Mitch-Boy" driving his family business inflatable dinghy. We went ashore by the pier. I was in Hanalei, again, only this time, I sailed there.

The next few days were busy. Ankle Biter was "sold" and the new owner, Pete Rutkowski from Oahu was coming on Friday. Thursday was spent unbolting this bit and that part is blistering heat and transferring solar panels and emergency rudders and flares to Hecla aboard my "rubber ducky dinghy". THANK YOU Jeff for the kind service of letting George and Greg pile all that stuff in your after cabin and schlepping it home for me! It was hot in Hanalei....Pete and his friend Dan arrived on Friday and I spent the morning with Pete, going over the boat systems and kayaking back and forth to shore. Pete came to Friday "Tree Time" and got to know the fleet. He's a great guy, Ankle Biter is going to a good home.

Memories: Being there as Chris on Carroll E. pulled in, and congratualating him on the radio.....sweating like a pig in the cabin of Ankle Biter as I removed "stuff".......paddling my cheap little dinghy back and forth over the sometimes tranquil, sometimes windy water of Hanalei Bay. The Tree Times... laughter, beer, chips, stories and good fellowship.... diinner with Joan......interviews with LaDonna and Johnathan about the race....talking to Dean Euser as he worried so painfully about Barbara....hugging Ruben Gabriels girlfriend, Robbie to help her through the rough hours as she waited for Ruben and Sparky to arrive...... the "high" at seeing Barbara Euser after she finally arrived....snorkeling with Joan at Tunnels beach....kissing the lighthouse at Kiluea Point......the three fingers of Johnnie Walker Black Label, my Christmas Present from Joan, at the Tahiti Nui.

The dinner....hugging Synthia, talking to Connie and Bob Johnson and their kids at dinner.... laughing with Tom on Feral and Don from Warriors Wish who also had runs-ins with that determined sea lion at the beginning of the race...clapping for each and every skipper as they collected trophies and belt buckles. Taking pictures of everybody.....and maybe biggest of all, twenty one Singlehanded TransPac skippers up on the awards dais for the massed picture chanting "SPARKY, SPARKY, SPARKY"...over and over. One of us was still out there. He'll cross that line, he's gonna make it. He IS one of us.

In the middle of all that, it was my turn. I didn't win any trophy, I would guess that in the overall standings I'm probably second or third from "last place". I actually haven't looked yet because it doesn't matter. There's a belt buckle in my pocket as I write this. I guess I choked up a little bit when I accepted it. It's been a long, long road.. When it was all over Joan and I went back to our little house and finished getting packed up. That done, I went to the race committee headquarters, "the dorm" and hung out with folks for a little while. I finally walked down to the Bay to say goodbye to Hanalei. On the road to the Beach Pavilion and the Tree is the house where I slept on the veranda in 1996. Rob MacFarlane and Terry McKelvey rented that house in 1996 and they let me crash there after I came in. Rob rented the place in 2004 and I hung out with them in the carport, watching Tatia grill burgers for Robs return trip. Nobody rented that house this year, so it was dark and silent as I walked around, remembering.. I walked through town for a while, sat down at the table where Mike Jefferson and I had a heart-to-heart talk in 1996 about Life and this race. Mike said it was just a race, that it wouldn't change you. Well, Mike, you were both right and wrong. It IS just a sail to the Islands. It IS "just a sailboat race".

But it has changed me.

I walked down to the beach and sat for a long time under the cloudless sky, filled with stars. Anchor lights bobbed on the still Bay, there was almost no wind. The little waves sounded loud on the sand. I just sat there for a long time alone, playing my whistle, or not, and looking around and remembering the years and the times I've been there, and saying goodbye to the Hanalei that I knew.

It's over. Hanalei is not, for me, what it was a week ago. The goal is achieved, the passage done, the crossing crossed. The beauty remains, but the drive, and the ache that goes with it is gone. I will go back someday and sit on the beach again and remember the three times I came here, once thinking I had achieved dreams, once with ruined dreams, and once with dreams that came true. Goodbye, Hanalei Bay. If I had to fixate on someplace to go, someplace to be, someplace to build dreams on, I could have done a lot worse than to pick the blue waters, green mountains and magical sky of Hanalei Bay.

I sit in the Honolulu airport, and remember all the years that Hanalei and this race have been a part of, I remember the past couple of days. Go, Sparky! Life moves on, and while I rejoice and hurt....while there's both joy in my success and a huge empty space in my heart where the Singlehanded TransPac has been for about fifteen years, life goes on. I have music to make, kilts to sew, a kitchen to remodel, church to get back to..............Life After TransPac.

So what do I have to say, now that it's all over?

*****

"Never, ever let go of your dreams. You never know when you might be able to make them come true."

******

Aloha,

Alan

Sometimes in life we are fortunate to be part of magic happening. SHTP '08 has been an incredible coming together of energy, creativity, friendship, and just plain hard work. Every competitor has faced and overcome challenges to arrive here. It is in overcoming these challenges, often with help from others in the fleet, that we have forged friendships that will last a lifetime.

It was a fitting conclusion to the evening as all gathered on stage for a final photo, and a spontaneous chant erupted: "SPARKY!" "SPARKY!" "SPARKY!"

The fleet will begin to leave Hanalei on Tuesday, with twice/day radio sked being maintained between boats by those who are sailing home.

Yesterday, he only went 7 miles in 12 hours, Ruben defined this as torture. The good news was a rain shower in the afternoon, which didn't provide any wind, but did give him the opportunity to pull out the soap and take a shower.

He's also still enjoying the company of George and Gracie, the two fish on his bow reported earlier. They are still with him after 3 days. His father has called them his guardian angels.

The good news Thursday was the lack of wind and small seas so he had the opportunity to accomplish Operation Sparky Phase 3 - but enough already!!! It's now day 3 with no wind!

PLEASE - everyone reading this, go outside, take off your shoes, flap your arms, twirl around, and do a wind dance for Ruben and Sparky, it would mean the world to us!

You can also send encouragement and support to Ruben and Sparky by going to http://sparkysfo.com/comments/.

As the glass ball came abeam, HAULBACK snagged it's "nest" of rope with the boathook and held on to the shrouds with one hand. For a moment he was spread eagled outside the lifelines, but his logging experience helped gain the upper hand and HAULBACK landed the glass ball without being torn limb from limb.

The glass ball is beautiful green, without a seam, handblown, and about 6" in diameter. It had likely been drifting for many months, if not years.

A rare find in this day of plastic,

CARROLL E, FEOLENA, and SUNQUEST all finished this afternoon. There are five boats left at sea: KALI-O, FERAL, BLACK FEATHERS, ISLANDER, and SPARKEY. The race officially ends noon on Saturday.

~skip

Tom heard explosions and thinks he saw gunfire exercises last night. He kept a careful watch for naval and other ships a lot last night. He said he knew he was getting closer to the islands and wanted to avoid their path. He hasn't seen land yet.

He said yesterday around 8 pm (California time) he had a rigging issue, as a pole fell down. He fixed it, but couldn't understand why that happened. Tom said he has a beard and looks like a Rabbi or a terrorist or an Indian Hindu. Won't be able to shave until he arrives on land.

When he called in 4am this morning, he was pretty tired and said he is usually pretty tired getting up for the 4am coordinates call (it is Hawaii time zone). He has used the Sat phone to communicate but doesn't understand why it has been spotty reception, as the phones advertise that they work quite well. He goes up on deck to use the phone, to maximize reception. He will look forward to comparing notes on arrival, to find out how he could have improved its reception.

He is really glad he caught a fish today because he really didn't want to look at any more dried food. The fish was beautiful, at 2 to 3 feet long, green with spots. The coloration disappears quickly once out of water. It wasn't very bony and was large enough for two or more persons. He said is definitely looking forward to dining at one of the restaurants on the island.

His wife and elder daughter will enjoy greeting him, along with the race committee, when they venture out to his boat at the finish line and escort him into the Bay... no matter what hour he arrives! And yes, he will also surprise his mother with a call, as soon as he arrives !!!

LD told me that the RC was wondering why I seem to be going faster at night than during the day, especially since I roll in the jib and slow down a bit to sleep well. I reminded her that they were probably not taking into account that I'd been checking in through her at 7 p.m. while the rest of the fleet checked in at 9 p.m. So my morning run is only 10 hours worth of miles while the evening run is 14 hours. Hope that makes sense!

See you in Hanalei!

He caught an evil looking fish today. It was five feet long and very narrow. Looked like a predator. Skin was too tough to prepare and eat.

Polar Bear and Eric have arrived in Kauai safe and sound. Looks to be that I won my class and did well in the overall standings as well. Nothing official yet as we still have several boats on the course. The finish was a hoot as I flew the kite all the way in from dawn through check in till the finish at 11 am local time. The island in classic King Kong fashion came out of the mist mid morning as the squall that was chewing on me in the am moved forward and engulfed the island. I had the closest reaching of the whole race in the last two hours as the trades bent around the edge of the island. Had the pole just off the headstay and had to hand steer to keep up on course to make the finish line. Had no problem with the reef as it was daylight and was easy to see. The crags and spires of the island are pretty awe inspiring as they come out of the clouds. The first words I spoke to myself for the whole run were then muttered " finally something to look at!" not that the ocean wasn't a thrill to study (stare) at but you got to hand it to the land of the the world for providing some scenic variety.

A few friends wondered if my arrival would mirror the evolution of man up onto land with me swimming in towards the tree and slowly slithering up onto the beach and into the bushes. Not q uite. I finished under spinnaker in the sun, even had a clean Hawaiian shirt my sister made on, met up with Sarah and the RC who had come out with Mitch the Zodiac driver to get the finish inspection done. We sailed up into the anchorage and dropped the hook in the front row just off the beach. Sarah and I closed the boat down and got it set to sit for a week at anchor, I snorkeled down in crystal clear water to check the anchor in 12 feet of water. While in the water I also checked on the rudder bearing that began to clunk on the last few days, nothing out of the ordinary. The bottom of the boat is clean as a whistle with now growth or fouling. I also checked for scrapes and gouges as there were a few things that went bump in the night one is not sure what they were. The water temp is 87. The air temp is also 87.

Many have asked what the hardest part of the trip was? Keeping your spirits up and mentally pushing through the "dark" times whether they were tiredness or fear was the thing I had to get over. The scope of the trip, being 1000 miles from shore was a new and very big wall to climb that caught me a bit off guard. One really is on there own out there, not unlike many things on shore that have consequences but a new feeling to deal with. There is more to this mental aspect that will take time to flush out. I will20see what I can come up with, but in terms of racing it is a big part of the skipper and boats overall performance.

We have spent the days snorkeling and taking in the sights while meeting every evening with the growing crowd at the tree. I have to say that friendliness and hospitality of the SSS group has been great. Everyone has been generous with advice and support. It makes one realize that Northern California really is just a little slice of Minnesota! Now if only we could explain where the Great Lakes are located! Now on shore we keep a vigil on the logs and reports hoping for a safe passage for those still out there. Sarah is still rooting for Sparky and we watch his and Black Feathers posts and updates on jury rigging with the thought of "the little boats that could" enthusiasm.

As the final boats near the finish many thoughts turn to getting boats ready to sail or ship back to the mainland. Everyone is giving advice, tools and spare parts back and forth around the fleet. Bits and pieces of Polar Bear may sail back on other boats as I have spare parts that are common among the fleet and will help others. You have to give a big hand to the RC for putting up with a group like this, its kind of like herding cats.

Early next week we will sail Polar Bear=2 0over to Honolulu to be hauled out and loaded onto its trailer. It will then travel in the hold of a Ro Ro car-carrying ship to San Diego, that trip takes only 5 days! My father and a friend will then fly out and drive the boat back to Minnesota on August 22nd.

A big thanks to everyone who helped out in this venture. It has been a busy 10 months since I decided to go. There as been support and help from all sorts of people in every sector of my life. I will seek you all out and give you a hardy thanks in various ways as the summer wears on. I may just have to get a billboard on Interstate 35 near the Bong Bridge and 21st Ave East.

Aloha and Mahalo
Eric

I can't say enough about RC: Syn, Sylvia, Rich, and JR from Lat.-38 welcome all the boats and climb aboard from Mitch's inflatable at the entrance to the Bay. How they manage to greet the boats, handle the radio communications, makes trips up to the Princeville finish line, update the website, make wonderful meals for the fleet at RC headquarters, answer a million questions, and still get some sleep is a marvel to behold. Heck, they were out there last night in the pitch dark to greet NA NA's arrival. HUGE kudos to RC!

The fleet has been incredibly supportive of each other, and the gatherings under the Tree are much fun, with new friends and old sharing stories. Rich backs up the CopperTop rent-a-car which he has wired with radio equipment, and we all get to hear Roll Call while sipping drinks under the Hanalai Tree.

This group of friends is the best, and we are all richer for being able to share this incredible experience.

Aloha!

skip/WILDFLOWER 7/30/08

The sun has been out for a couple of days which is brightening his spirits! Well, actually... that's not all that's brightening his spirits!

Today was the launch of phase two of his new jury rig. He topped his current rig by opening up the mangled, squished portion of the piece of mast he was using for phase one, and inserting the twisted, crooked, piece of what's left of a spinnaker pole. He then ran a jib halyard up the pole.

The successful, phase two, is now 8 to 9 feet tall running twin headsails. While talking to him on the phone tonight, he hit the downside of a swell at 6.6 knots! His speed is ranging from 3.5 to 5.5 knots.

Tonight he's ingeniously formulating the next phase of his creation which will get him closer to Hanalei Bay! While devising his plan he's thinking about Synthia's comment to him when the mast came down, "you're a single handed sailor, so you'll figure it out!" - thanks Synthia!

Today he enjoyed the company of two 3 foot long shark looking fish who stayed on his bow. He named them George and Gracie. These friends will join the military ball named "Kermit" which he found on the first week of his trip.

He's so excited about his journey now. Tomorrow he might follow the advice of our friends Karen and Bill and actually throw the hook out!

Today, he also warded off a potentially serious problem. Tom noticed the control lines on the monitor were chafed through. He replaced them while underway; problem resolved. His side band radio receiver still not working either due to water damage or accidentally touching the wind vane or other item to it during this trek and shorting it out, but the vhf and vhf handheld and sat phone still work. All energy is via solar power. He is in good spirits.

With the hope of increasing his speed, tomorrow he plans to replace the current jury rig with the larger portion of his mast which is approximately 12 feet high. He's feeling better and his spirits are high.

This afternoon he was able to regain communication with his friend, Chris Humann which was encouraging and, as always, Chris was unselfishly supportive. Chris and Ruben have worked out a communication schedule via the SAT phone until the SSB antenna is stabilized. He also hopes to speak to Ken Roper (The General) this evening, who also lost his rig in 2004 and finished the race. He's commented many times on the inspiration that Ken brings, and is looking forward to the conversation, encouragement, and the amazing amount of experience that Ken can advise him with. He also has heard the love and support from the fleet, friends and family which has meant so much to him and is providing him strength and energy to keep going.

He has plenty of food and water, the only concern is the fuel for his generator. His solar panel is charging the battery, but he's using the generator for the SAT phone. So he plans to try and conserve the fuel and will limit communication to just reporting coordinates and hopefully short log reports.

Thank you for everyone's support, as his father said during his qualifier - "Ruben is tough as nails and when he makes up his mind about doing something, he will do it".

He heard a loud noise on the boat earlier, like young boys throwing balls against a wall. He then noticed the side of his boat was filled with black ink. He ate the culprits and swabbed the deck. I asked how he cooked the fish he ate yesterday... a frying pan, a little olive oil and lemon. He has seen some birds but none have tried to come on deck. A fish had flown into his dodger the other day; he had heard the noise but didn't realize what had occurred. Found it today; and so explains the lingering fish smell in the cockpit. As of this evening, he is 434 miles to finish.

Two solid days of good sun have both replenished my spirits and pumped up the batteries. I even indulged in the ridiculous and extravaganza of charging the laptop so that I could write this blog entry.

Today there has not been ONE squall to dodge. (I'm gonna get hammered, now that I've written that). It's been sunny all day with lines of clouds coming by overhead. It's Beautiful! The wind is about sixteen knots *exactly* from astern, which is a nuisance. With the seas running I can't sail straight for Kauai, the seas cause us to crash gybe every three minutes so I'm heading a bit south on one course (where I am right now), then gybing over and heading a bit west on the other course. I'm going to emphasize the "south" because I'd like to be reaching in to the finish, and that means aiming for the east end of Kauai.....well...the lighthouse at Kiluea, but youo get my point. Aiming for a light house from 230 miles out is kind of silly. CRASH...even on this heading we crash gybe a couple of times an hour. Crash gybes break things, and considering Sparky and the Generals problems....and Bob on Ragtime!'s autopilots, I am chary of "breakage".

It's been a laid-back day despite the gybes. I've driven the boat for about 5-6 hours, like yesterday. This gives me something to do, I'm sometimes a tiny bit faster than the autopilot and it saves more electrons for the autopilot, later. This morning it occurred to me that I'm only 48 hours away from finishing. Somehow, putting the number into "hours" made it more real. It's now 5:00 (Pacific time/ 17:00) so that 48 hours is now 40 hours. I was 484 miles from Kauai at this mornings check-in, I'm making almost exactly 140 miles a day, there are only two days to go, so it's pretty logical that I will finish....God willing and I don't break anything.... around 9:00 AM Pacific time (just after dawn out here) morning after next.

The end is in sight. You know, I've played my whistles a bit on this trip, but I haven't read a single line in the two books I brought. In 1996 I read everything on the boat, twice. I am down to my last Chefs 5-Minute heater meals...MRE. It's cans for dinner tomorrow! I will divulge a little secret. I shaved yesterday, but I'm going to have new facial .....ahh....adornment in Hanalei. This means I shaved twice on this trip and I *might* do it again so as to be presentable when I arrive. I even took video of myself brushing my teeth for Johnathans movie. Nothing like the mundane to keep you grounded.

About the whistles, Jeannie, tell Bob I've been working on: The Hag with the Money, Drowsy Maggie, The Boys of Bluehull, Off to California, The Redhaired Boy, The Rights of Man, Swallowtail Jig, Morrison's Jig, The Maid Behind the Bar, and The Ashokan Farewell....I know he marked a lot more tunes but these are the ones I've "taken" to.

On the subject of breaking things, I'm really upset and worried about Ruben on Sparky, since he was dismasted. My heart goes out to his girlfriend Robbie as well. I'm sure she's a wreck. At least she's with other sailors who understand what Ruben is going through, and with other wives and girlfriends in Hanalei. It's one thing to break your mast 200 miles from port, it's entirely something else to break the rig 650 miles from your destination. At his current rate of speed, as reported on this mornings SSB chat, it will take him 20-25 more days to get to Hanalei. I know Ruben saved a lot of "parts" from the rig so he's surely got something cobbled together by now, but whether Hanalei is still his destination is a big decision he'll have to make. Much will depend on what charts he has on board.

Hang tough, Ruben. My thoughts and prayers and the thoughts of dozens of other sailors, and sailors friends and SO's are with you. Everybody is pulling for you...fix the rig, get some sail up and sail to safety. Next time I see you I want to see Robbie's arms around you in a big hug, and the beer I bought you in your hand..eh?

Alan

July 28 0700:
Tom sounded great today. His phone reception was better than it had been in a long time, with no interference at all. When asked if the trip was what he had expected, he said it was more than he had expected, with rain squalls over 30 feet...but too many squalls to deal with. The roller coaster quickly returned since the prior blog entries and it's been quite a ride! He is deliberately trying to keep the boat out of overdrive to avoid serious problems, not become stranded, etc. He was sorry to hear about Sparky's mishaps and will be glad to hear that Ruben is managing okay at this point. He was not yet aware of Wildflower's recent travails but sensed the Kali must be going through the squalls that the Feral is encountering.

Tom finally caught a fish last night! It was too beautiful to eat, but those dried meals leave a lot to be desired...and so he dined. He also said a flying fish landed in the boat. This fish was six inches long, with a wingspan of eight inches; the fish was translucent and beautiful. It was so gorgeous that Tom threw it back into the ocean. The cockpit still smells of the fish.

Tom said that just before this race began, while he was in San Francisco, his engine had conked out. So he has no engine and has had to rely on only solar power for all the permitted uses of energy on board.

Addendum:
Tom's wife and older daughter arrived in Kauai this afternoon. The latter will join Tom in sailing the boat back from Kauai to Honolulu after the race, and help prepare the boat to be shipped to Southern Calif.

Gayle is pleased to report that Jen Socrates arrived by plane from London's Heathrow airport last night. It was truly an honor to return to the airport last night to get her and have her join Tom's family for dinner that eve, as she is a very special, incredibly passionate and gifted sailor, who recently completed 15 months of circumnavigating the globe single-handed! She also raced in the solo transpac to Kauai two years ago. I'm sure everyone involved in the race here in Kauai is delighted to she is joining them again!

The primary pilot steered through the night with nary a hitch but I napped fitfully, sitting braced against the companionway ladder and ready to grab the tiller in an instant. The autopilot would indeed give me one more scare but it was saving it for after I finished.

Finally at 0940, a half-hour into my 15th day of the race: "This is the Race Committee. Congratulations, Ragtime!, you have finished the 2008 Singlehanded Transpac." There are few moments over my 50+ years that compare with hearing these words and like in 2006, they brought a wave of emotion and relief.

This race has been a different challenge. Last time the challenge was getting to the starting line. I had to learn many things about the boat and its systems - electrical, communications, navigation, sail handling, etc. The 2006 race itself had gone very smoothly and I had no breakdowns. This race speaks for itself with the spinnaker problems and frequent autopilot repairs. My desire to be more competitive also added an urgency and stress, which made the equipment problems all the more frustrating. But at last it was over - almost.

Avoiding the reef that claimed a Hobie 33 in a prior race, I turned the corner into Hanalei Bay. I had no choice but to leave the pilot engaged at this point, since I would need to furl the jib and prepare the boat for arrival. Exiting the bay was a large cruising boat. He was sailing on starboard tack and had the right-of-way, so I pushed a button to bear off slightly and go below him. Just as we passed, the autopilot dropped out one last time and my boat rounded up sharply. I was heading straight for the side of the cruiser. I hit the "Auto" and "+10" buttons on the pilot and the pilot re-engaged, and I just cleared the cruiser's stern. The skipper's eyes were wide, as were mine! We traded waves.

Godspeed, Sparky.

After spending time bobbing around, he's managed to use the bottom portion of the mast and the lower shrouds, forestay, and a halyard on the stern to jury rig a new mast. Using his jib, he's able to steer a steady course going between 1.8 and 3.5 knots.

He said the mess on his boat is unbelievable and is doing his best to clean it up. He's tired, but now with the new rig he's feeling better.

Very sad to hear about Sparky's dismasting this morning. Rueben is a very cool dude and I hope he can get a jury rig set up and continue on - so relieved he wasn't hurt. Good news that Wen Lin made it back to the dock and is apparently in good health.

You all haven't heard from me for a while because we've beren pretty electronically challenged. There hasn't been that much sun until today, and I discovered yesterday that my generator doesn't work. It ran for about 40 minutes, probably pumped 25-30 amps into the #2 battery, and died. I've tried everything; it's getting a spaark, it's getting fuel, it's getting air, and the cylinder turns over but it won't start.

That setback started....to be honest....a long 24+ hours of depression. I'd been midldly "down" before that because I didn't want to use the stinky old loud generator at all...which turned out to not be so bad after all, for the 40 minutes it was running.. In 1996 I was younger, maybe more cheerful, I don't know what. But I don't remember going through such emotional roller coasters out here. This morning in the gray skies I was having to tell myself that I WAS going to frinish, and that if I had to hand steer for 48 hours to do it, I would just sleep when I could and DO IT.

Which of course, I would since I have no other option, but still...my mood was down. With the sunshine, full batteries, and the more-or-less certainty of an autopilot for the next two days, My mood has lifted. I'm charging the satellite phone right now so I can send this blog report.

I'm really sorry about Wenlemir, I'm glad hes' OK, but I am very worried about Barbara Euser on Islander. Very worried.

I guess I worry a lot.

I'm annoyed that for some reason I can't call Joan on Kauai with the Iridium phone. It won't connect to her cell phone number. I have no idea why..

My closest competitior, Dream Chaser has put some miles on me. He's figured out how to go fast, which is to do next to nothing...get out of the boats way....wing out a genoa and let the Monitor Windvane do the driving. While he was fussing with this and that we were dead -even. Now he got 30+ miles on me. Ah, well.

The radio check-ins are the highlight of the day. The rest of the time is spent fixing this, adjusting that, putting in a reef, shaking out a reef, changing headsails, gybing. etc. etc. etc. over and over again.

Hey, there's some more wind...a line of clouds approaches. Best tend to the sails. This may be my last blog entry of the race, we'll see how it goes. Oh and for those of you who are sending mail, and I'm not answering....I'm sorry, but your mail IS read and appreciated! I'll answer in Hanalei!

Alan

The breeze (no anemometer aboard, but guessing 35-40 knots) had evidently overwhelmed the wind vane and the boat had rounded up, causing the misadventure. As I stood tugging on the tiller to get her back down off the wind, a medium sized flying fish, not wanting to be left out of the party, bounced off my chest and disappeared into the maze of line on the cockpit floor.

Several minutes later we had things semi under control: we sheeted the port side twin to the boom end and secured the outer half of the broken pole. But what about the other half of the pole dangling like a giant wind chime from the radar dome? Appying the Jim Tallet principle, I climbed the mast 12 feet to the radome, and untangled the pole.

Just don't tell my doc I didn't have time to put on the knee brace.

Back in the cockpit, the MIA flying fish was still flapping and shedding oily scales. With a headlamp, I was able to return him overboard.

164 miles to go at 10 a.m. We've got the hacksaw, spicing kit, and rivet gun to put the broken pole back together. The wind has moderated to 18-20. Wild FLEUR is off and running for the final lap.
~skip

Remember the Squall article in the July issue of LATITUDE 38? Great article and obviously very timely. In the segment Max Ebb discusses the etiology of Squalls and how to take advantage of them while racing. Max made it all seem so obvious and effortless. Well maybe on a well crewed Pacific Cup boat. I'm not so sure it all applies to Single Handed Racers. So here are some excerpts from Skip Allen's report this morning. I apologize to Skip for any mistakes.

At 03:00 Skip was struck by a particularly strong Squall. He was using two poles to fly his two headsails. A wind gust managed to overpower his Windvane and his boat headed up into the wind. As a consequence I believe his port pole dipped into the ocean causing it to snap in two. half the pole went flying over head and wrapped in his outer shroud. The other end flew up and smashed his radar dome. Where all the pieces ultimately landed I'm not sure. The Radar is useless. Skip has a whisker pole and is doing some repairs on other damaged goods. So it's 03:00, raining, wind gusts to 30 knots, seas are like a roller coaster, your all alone, and all H-ll has broken loose on your boat. Hmmmmmmmm....are we having fun yet? Oh....I forgot one important little ditty....while all this is happening Skip was struck by a flying fish. Come Again....while all this was happening Skip was hit by a flying fish. Now I know I'm having fun!

This is my first ocean passage, single handed or otherwise...I don't like squalls.

Joshua
Sunquest

While at 1900 hours last night he reported being on deck in a bathing suit, going 6.2 knots.... it was fortuitous he also happened to be on deck when a surge began at 10 pm lat night. He found himself going 10 knots even after reefing down to almost no sail and almost bare pole. It was raining and pitch dark. It wasn't too cold, but he did have on polar tech pants and a windbreaker.

This morning it is still blowing hard, with the wiind whistling and his boat going 7.8 knots as we spoke. At time of taking coordinates the Feral was going 5.7 knots, but he said it fluctuates constantly. He said that with the twin sails on in his boat, you don't jib through a surge, you just let the lines out. He agreed with some of the other racers, who have commented that when you do get a surge and end up increasing your speed momentarily, it doesn't always give you a boost or edge, pushing you on you on ahead.. The increased speed can be a false progress. He also added that if the latest surge hadn't happened in the middle of the night and if you didn't have over 600 miles to go, it would be a lot of fun! It is clear that at this point, he is definitely looking forward to arriving in Hanalei.

Gayle
Tom did see a spectacular moonrise last night!

There is a Tom Petty Song, I think its "Major Tom" thats starts out, "Is anybody out there?". Thats I felt today. Great day in the trades, 159 miles covered with only the mainsail up, and one gybe early this morning. Not exactly hard work. I have not seen a sole though. Not that I am complaining, its just that usually you see a freighter go by, or an airplane contrail. Nothing, ain't it great?

I have now finished my seventh book of the trip and down to the last one (With the Old Breed, thank you Dennis). I need to stretch it at least two days. I think tonight I will stretch out in the cockpit on the bean bag and let the ipod do the entertaining. Something real smooth to set the tone of the evening. Hopefully midnight won't bring a bunch of squalls, some of the guys have been talking about some big ones.

For you Ragtime fans, Bob had some autopilot issues this morning but has been able to repair both units.

Guess thats it from the Wish. Shout out to Kyle and Jordan and the Manning Clan, sorry I missed your Birthday Kyle.

Don

Today is the end of week 2 - bringing better daily runs averaging a hair over 140 miles per day (noon-to-noon). A vast improvement on the first 3 days of the race, that's for sure!!!

Well into the tradewinds now, and bearing down (relentlessly??) on the island of Kauai, I am projecting an ETA in Hanalei Bay sometime between 9:00 pm and midnight Pacific Daylight Time Tuesday July 29. Even with the 3 hour time difference between the west coast and Hawaii, this still makes it a night-time entrance into the Bay, not my favourite thing to do, but I have the advantage of having been there 3 times previously.

As long as I don't blow out any sails between here and the finish, I am looking good.

A few of the faster, lighter boats have finished already, but the bulk of the fleet is still out here, with new arrivals in Hanalei now expected daily. As usual I am looking forward to landfall, although right now, I would be just as happy if it were another week or two further west. These are very pleasant sailing conditions along this latitude and in this part of the ocean. I think this last week or so of the race is one of the reasons people keep returning time and again every couple of years to do the Singlehanded Transpac. Once you leave the coast of California well behind, there are few ocean passages that provide such near-perfect conditions.

Sad to admit this, but fishing has not been going quite well. That is to say, that the actual 'catching' part has not been as successful as the 'fishing' part. I have indeed been doing lots of fishing, but no actual catching. So far.....

Fair winds and straight wakes.....

Bye for now........Jim

I know it's been a couple of days since I wrote. I continue to be plagued with autopilot problems and somehow steering the boat towards Hanalei takes first priority.

My last backup A/P unit got me through a very rough and windy night but broke this morning. Hand-steering the last 30 hours appeared inevitable. I decided to attempt to revive the primary pilot, if only to give me temporary steering so I could perhaps repair the broken backup. This worked. In fact, at this writing the primary pilot (still with broken pin) is driving the boat and I have taken apart and repaired the little backup unit. This is a big relief. Realistically, it is very difficult to drive through the squalls and stay on the helm for that many hours.

Alchera finished this morning but if my math is right, nothing else breaks, the wind and skipper hold up, etc., I still might be able to nip him for third. I think I have to finish by 1124 HST tomorrow (Sunday).

I'm pretty beat and not feeling very creative, so this will have to do it.

Tree-time, here I come!

Tom said that sailing his boat last night was like being on a thriller roller coaster. It was also very, very dark and dismal; darker than ever before. He traveled 130 miles again. He did slow a bit and took in some of the main sail so as not to put the boat in overdrive and to catch some rest. He continues to call in coordinates on Calif time, but his actual coordinates put him at Hawaii time now, so when he calls in during the morning, it is really 4am for him.

At 1900 hours, he feels fine but the sky is overcast. He anticipates arriving in Hanalei within the deadline, but in the wee hours of the morning.

Concerned about Wen on Wenlemir. Hope he's ok and returning to port under his own power. Can only listen in the evenings as nobody can hear me when I talk - not sure why we switched from 8 mhz back down to 4 but whatever. They can hear me in the mornings and LD sends my evening reports. Rolling a bit as I'm DDW now but otherwise life is great!

Yesterday was a beautiful day of sailing, mostly sunny and steady winds. Many more birds were seen as I came closer to the island, though thankfully none tried to land on me. I had finally gotten a workable spinnaker halyard chafe management program and had some nice long runs with that, but with Dogbark already over the line there was no chance of reeling him in! While line honors would have been nice, my top goal has been met, to get a SHTP belt buckle. While simple financial analysis shows I could have gotten a dinner plate size diamond studded buckle for less money than the modest SSS buckle, that was not the point. As the saying goes, "there is only one way to get one of these." The rigorous preparation required, under the well crafted SSS race safety rules, gave me a boat well found for a singlehanded passage. Best of all is the successful execution of the very complex process of singlehanded ocean racing.

The night time landfall was very beautiful. At sunset, about 35 miles out, I still could not see the island because of clouds, but if clear the volcanic island should have stood out. Then at 20 miles, under a brilliantly clear sky and stunning Milky Way, the first blink of the lighthouse light became visible. Gradually more shore lights came into view, and by the time I crossed the finish line there were so many confusing shore lights I had to generally block them out and steer by GPS. Shortly thereafter the race committee came on board, and with their help and Al on Dogbark giving steering advice on the radio, we navigated the many unlit anchored boats to a safe spot. In the morning it looked so easy, sure did not feel that way last night.

And yes my hands are fit for holding a beer glass, and I will join my first "tree time" social in an hour from now.

Cheers! Jeff

Trade wind sailing, what can you say. 20 plus on the stern, not touching a sail for hours. Havana Day Dreaming!!!

I have chosen not to put my one remaining spinnaker up since its was built as a light air reacher (note to Mark I am refering to the old UK Code 0)and I have had enough fun blowing up kites this trip. Although when the speedo climbs above 12 and you only have a main up damn you get tempted. Flip Wilson use to use the line, " The Devil made me do it" Well he was wispering in my ear today. Eric on board Polar Bear said he saw 17+ on one surf, get some Eric.

Skip Allan skipper of Wildflower, wrote an article in practical sailer about equipment for single handed sailing. He mentioned bean bag chairs and I thought good idea. Note to Skip, fantastic idea!! Think about it high side, low side or down below they conform to any nook and cranny comfortable and safe. Its rock and roll city on board today and I sit in my bean back chair writing on a lap top. Bring back the 50's or where they popular in the 60's?

Need to keep this short, those sat phone minutes are not cheap. Let me say Hi to the family I know my mother must be wonderng whats going on out here. Call Michael he can interpret. Dad I finished Jim Webbs book today, good stuff. Linda I am sure this bores you but at least you have something to talk about at work. Hi to Jenn and the kids, I hope they are following the Wish. Sprae hope your having fun in Sac, will call tomorrow night.

Warriors Wish

Had an interesting experience last night. Sometime around 4 in the morning I got up, noticed the wind had shifted slightly, so I decided to gybe the boat to put it on a more favorable course to the finish. I put on my headlamp and went into the cockpit, keeping my head down so as to shine the light on the various lines I needed to avoid tripping over to get behind the wheel. As I got behind the wheel, head still down with the light still pointed down, I noticed an incredible stench, so foul it startled me. I raised up my head and came face to face with a Booby bird sitting on the stern pushpit, looking at me with an expression which clearly said 'What's your problem?'

It's not the first time I've had a Booby hitch a ride during a TransPac. They seem to be quite fearless. This one maintained his position all through the gybe, even though I was working within feet of him. Eventually I think he tired of me shining the light in his face, and he flew off. But I could still smell the stench from him on my clothes after I went back down below. This morning I noticed he must have made a tour of the entire cockpit before settling in on the pushpit, because he left little 'presents' all around.

I've started running the radar at night now to watch for ships. Up to now, I've relied mainly on AIS to notify me of any nearby ship traffic. But I recalled from previous TransPacs that the US Navy often does fleet maneuvers in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands, and I'm pretty sure they don't use AIS, since they typically don't want anyone to know where they are. Several times during past trips I've found myself in the middle of a fleet of 5 or 10 US Navy ships in the dark, and it's been really useful to have the radar to be able to keep clear of them.

Mark/Alchera

The mission was to clean up a bit but I found some remnants of the monster cookies my sister sent out with me weeks ago and I had to stop and eat the rest of them, then on to cleaning. Well I found yet another dried italian salami! I still have triscuits so more use of the rigging knife, bless the guys who built this boat with a cutting board. Now for a question to my brother in law Ted, If the family size italian salami says "refrigerate after opening" on the package must one eat the entire salami without delay when on a boat with no icebox?

I got through about half the salami, I will likely have a sodium nitrate hangover for days.

Took a bath and washed some clothes this am felt pretty clean, then took a full on wave while steering this afternoon and am again a damp salted nut.

Water temp is 85.1 this evening

Eric

Still managed to get his 60 miles in today!!! What a guy.

Jeanne

Since I passed the halfway mark some time in the night, I opened the big box LaDonna brought on board the day before the race started. She said I could open it whenever I wanted, and I did dip into it (thanks for all the great stuff, Chris - I've been reading a couple of the books you sent!) early on, but then decided to wait till I got over the 'hump'. It took me a couple of hours to open all the little packages and read all the notes from friends and family. But I have to say that I had a very surreal moment when I read a note from Lin & Larry Pardey - I'm sitting here in the middle of the Pacific on a borrowed boat eating freeze dried ice cream from friends Rich & Edie while reading a personal note from my sailing heroes! Totally surreal!

I'm still wing on wing, averaging about 5.5 knots, having a great ride. Nobeltec puts me into Hanalei sometime around the 1st but a lot can happen in a week!

Nice day aboard the Wish today. Awoke to a small squall that left a great rainbow. Not much of a rainbow guy here but I don't think I have ever seen both ends of a rainbow before. Colors were pretty cool looked like it came off a computer, Ma nature can really knock you down sometimes. Last night I relaxed in cthe cockpit cruising along listening to the rush of the water off the boat and looking at the sky, alive with stars. I wish I had a star guide on board. When I used celestial navigation I kept up with knowing the stars and constellations. Now I just look at the gps, not as awe inspiring but a lot safer and easier. Note to Lee: When you come to visit your Dad and if you have time would you pick up a star guide. Another note for Lee, the General had some halyard, spinnaker wrap problems on board. Last night he said he had them halfway sorted out and could now fly a kite. I am surprised he didn't order the messed cleaned up.

This week is the gathering of G 2/7 my unit from Vietnam. This is a time for the guys and their families to gather and appreciate being home, remember those that did not come home and kill what few remaining brain cells they have left. I haven't missed one in a while and will do some remembering on my own out here. Nothing like being alone like this for a couple of weeks to be able to reflect on the past. I have truly been a very fortunate person in the people I have known and my family.

Thats it for today, thanks for reading.

Semper Fi Marines

Eric

Nice sailing today, have a workable plan on spinnaker halyard maintenance that lets me fly it 8 or more hours per day. Hard on my hands though, but after tonight I only need them to sign for the bar tab.

Looks like I have drawn a black card from the finish time card deck; nothing like a midnight instrument landing into an unfamiliar anchorage to top off a great adventure.

Kim called this morning and wondered what the other human voice was that she heard. I thought only I was seeing and hearing phantoms! Actually it was Jim Dale, narrator of the great Harry Potter books on tape series.

Some of you gathered from my writing yesterday that I was tired; yup. So last night I took a bit of a sleep penalty, putting the boat in "squall-safe" mode and got good sleep. Squall-safe for this boat in these conditions is one reef in the main, no head sails, set autopilot to near DDW steering. The ride is good, the VMG penalty is only 20%, and the boat will steer around as necessary with squall wind shifts to stay pointed down-wind. Sleep safe to over 30 knots wind. Go ahead, ask me how I know.

Now with Dogbark finished, there is no other boat I can reach reliably by radio. It was always enjoyable to chat for a bit with Al. I did manage to connect with morning check in

This is probably my last post while underway. I will add another one tomorrow with a wrap-up.

Cheers, Jeff

They call Kauai the "Garden Isle." It is indeed lush, and it stays that way because of the never-ending parade of trade wind squalls that march directly down our race course to the island. You can usually see a squall coming and despite the sudden veering of the wind and increase in its strength, squalls aren't too bad. Some fully-crewed Transpac boats even gybe to stay in front of them, benefitting from the extra wind for several hours if their boat is fast enough.

The downside to a squall is that it usually leaves no wind behind it, leaving you in a lurch(ing boat). This is especially true at dawn. So at 0500 HST I look aft to see this big squall bearing down on me. I'd had several pass over during the night with no consequence, but I knew once this one passed, the oxygen masks would be falling out of the overhead compartments and I would face the ultimate ridicule - having to report at check-in (an hour hence) that my speed was way down. So I gybed over (moving the sails to the other side of the boat by changing direction), and attempted to reach away from the gathering gloom. It worked and my pride at roll-call was salvaged.

Now about beeps. I seem to have a lot of them aboard and they are the enemy - I hate them and say bad words when they go off. There is the beep from the AIS, which means there is a big moving wall of steel in the vicinity (ship). There is the beep from the autopilot, which means the wind has shifted more than 15 degrees. There is the beep from the CARD, which means there is a radar transmitting nearby (usually from a smaller vessel) - I usually keep it off until closer to shore, but still. Then there is the self-induced beep from the kitchen timer.

One might think that these devices work independently, each alerting me to its own little area of worry, but I have determined that this is not so. They conspire. Through their little wires they tell each other when I am just drifting off to sleep and they take an electronic straw poll to see whose turn it is to jar me awake. This happened several times last night. I want to rip their little wires out of the boat! But then I would be laying awake worrying if a ship was bearing down on me, or if the autopilot was working, or if I might awaken after too long to some calamity on deck.

I need to sleep.

Well I did put up my spiffy new UK AirX spinnaker yesterday and played cat and mouse with the squalls for about 6 hours. I think we topped out at about 14 knots, on a long surf. We were certainly going ast enough to blow the chute back into the mast, many times. In six hours we only had two round-ups despite the stiff breeze and not a drop of water int he cockpit, what an adrrenaline rush.

But.

It takes 45 minutes to get the chute set up, and 45 minutes to drop it and then get the #2 genoa poled out again. Everything takes forever when you're singlehanded. I also got a snotty spinnaker wrap in the morning during a gybe that took another 45 minutes to sail out of. So for all that adrenalin, I didn't make up one single mile Dream Chaser. Harrumph!

Still and all, I feel lucky, my little spinnaker wrap is nothing compared to what The General is dealing weith: 2/3rd of his spinnker wrapped up around the halyards, spinnaker sock lines and so on....and little hope of getting it unwound before Hanalei. He's still bombing along, though, the guy is amazing.

We had some breakage last night. It was Pretty Darned Windy, probablly 20-25. It was e nough to get Ankle Biter surfing with just the @3 genoa poled out and a single-reefed main. Anyway, sometime during the night I broke the lower batten in the mainsail, which I discovered this morning after the SSB check-in. So now the sail is lashed to the boom, half of it is in the cabin, and I'm waiting for the 5-minute epoxy to completely cure on the repaired batten. I had a number of dinghy battens on the boat....they came with the boat I don't know why they're here, but I sistered two of them on to the real batten, eposied it all together, put a gob of epoxy in the gap where the original battens "filler" was and we shall see. I won't stress it at first.

The batten pocket was ripped, but not too baadly. Two layers of sticky-back dacron tape are on that right now. We're bombing along under #2 genoa, smaack-cab on course for Hanalei and doing 5.5 - 6 knots. I don't even NEED the mainsail up!

I was pretty darned tired this morning, didn't get going until 8:30, since I didn't get much sleep during Mr Toads Wild Ride last night. George, time to readjust Gwens Wind Dance settings back down to 15 knots.

Every day, Hanalei is a little bit closer!

Alan

He misses not hearing all the racers communicate on the radio; still no reception, but he is holding his own.

He described one moment last night that was striking. It was pitch black on the water and its surroundings, and it felt as if one was sailing through a dark tunnel, but it was open on top to a gorgeous, immense, milky way.

A gourmet dinner tonight...calamari!

I understand other boat's have been 'practicing' their fishing for the last couple days. That must be why I haven't caught anything today - I'm practicing! A squid did land on deck during the night but it was pretty dried up by the time I found it. And that albatross was back today.

The rest of the fleet doesn't seem to be able to hear me on the evening check ins so I just listen at night since LaDonna sends in my position. Dwight on NaNa is really rolling up the track, making up for his two lost days at the beginning. I guess The General had a spinnaker wrap this morning and was 'flying bald'. I'm sure he's sorted it all out by now.

I'll be passing my halfway mark sometime tonight. I've dipped into the package LD sent along but haven't touched it for about a week. I've been waiting so tomorrow will open all the little packages and notes friends and family sent along. There must be 100 of them! Meanwhile, I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing and get to Hanalei as quickly as I can.

A get a few hours of smooth sailing and think, "Ahhhhh, it will be like this for the next 5 days." Then I snap to and wonder what the next challenge is going to be. This morning it arrived on schedule. A rain Squall caused the wind to shift quickly and strongly...rendering my sails a hazard rather then friends. I jumped right to and reduced the sails when I noticed my Aries Wind Vane had broken just as the additional wind forces applied more stress. Well, all hell broke loose...boat out of control swinging through a 120 degree arc and bouncing like a bronco. One hour later...wind vane repaired, sails restored and all is well....until next time. I should have taken a picture of my boats cabin. Looked like a hurricane went through it as I raced around for tools and spare parts.

Made it to morning "Roll Call." My night was easy compared to Harrier, skippered by Ken Roper, aka, "The General" Retired General US Army, Age 78 and sailor with 100 gazillion sea miles under his keel. We should all be so stout at his age. He wrapped his spinnaker sail around his forestay ( the cable in front of the mast), the mast, and all the ropes used to haul up the sails. A total mess. He hadn't untangled them by roll call. He enjoys talking but cut it short to attend to his sails. How can I describe what it's like being on the deck of a boat, bouncing around, wind blowing, massive sails snapping in the wind making a horrific screaming noise. And there you are...no choice...hold on with one hand and start untangling...maybe it will take 20 minutes, maybe it will take 3 hours. No choice. No help. Got to get it done.

This morning everyone sounded a bit weary at roll call. There has been little sun and few stars; the things one looks forward to crossing the Eastern Pacific in the summer. Everyone, best I can tell, spends countless hours dealing with innumerable problems. Skip Allen...the most experienced sailor in the fleet seems to roll on effortlessly. I'm curious to know what difficulties he faced, if any. For a guy with his experience perhaps it's ..."been there, done that"... I doubt it.

Well, there was a bit of a lull in the winds but they've started to pick up. Back up on deck.

Love to the family and friends.

Joshua

Today though, is another sparkling sunny day with puffy clouds - very upbeat. The wind has been in the 18-20 knot range all afternoon, higher than what was forecast. Alchera is grinding down the miles at a steady 8-9 knots of boatspeed with occasional surfs in the 10-11 range. What I would *really* like to see would be sustained winds in the 25 knot range, that would kick things up a notch and keep the surfing constant. But I'm happy for what we have.

I'm definitely looking forward to finishing the race though, and then hanging out under 'the tree' and greeting each of the skippers as they arrive each day. Should be another 2-3 days roughly. I hope I cross the finish in the daylight - anchoring in beautiful Hanalei Bay with its backdrop of mountains, rainbows, and waterfalls is a sight not to miss.

Mark/Alchera

Alchera, Ragtime and I are in agreement that all of our moods shift with the sun, clouds and dark.

For those back in the far North one observation I just made while looking for some shade is that the sun is just about directly overhead down here at Latitude 25 working our way down to 22.

Time for a late lunch of dry salami and tricuits. Have to laugh the big old rigging knife on my waist mainly gets used to cut string and salami.

No ship taffic, same white bird with a long white straw for a tail that flies slow and watches the wake.

One very small dried out flying fish on the deck about 1"

ET

In the home stretch here, happy for that. My hands look and feel like lobster claws, and are nearly as stiff as my salty shorts. The weather is fair today and the sailing is dry, but it is a bit of a struggle to make good time directly downwind with limited use of the spinnaker. I have a mix of emotions, certainly exacerbated by lack of sleep. Some nights are good for sleepinng, others not so. Now down nere closer to Hawaii I try to shift more sleep to the daytime, since nights usually have a number of squalls that usually require a lookout and reaction. But it is hot in the cabin, so sleep is never easy.

I saw 5 magnificent birds today, dark brown with long slender wings, I guess these must be albatross, so far from land. Also flying fish are plentiful, and they are always entertaining.

It does not look like I can finish in the daytime tomorrow, but at least Dogbark will be in and can help me to find a good anchorage.

Best for now, Jeff

I was talking on the SSB with Mark (Alchera) and Eric (Polar Bear) this morning. We agreed that we are much affected by the mostly-overcast skies. But there have been several nice days and now that we're farther South, the air has warmed up. I have also enjoyed a couple of spectacular nights looking at the endless stars. With all the lights on land, you don't see them like this!

The night before last as I was enjoying the stars, a couple of bright lights appeared off my starboard bow, close together. There was no target on the AIS indicating a large ship and at over 900 miles from nearest land it didn't seem likely to be a fishing boat. Whatever it was, I wanted to know which way it was going and at what speed! I was able to raise them on the VHF - it turned out they were in fact fishing and wanted to know if I was too. I told them no, I was racing a sailboat solo to Hawaii. After a long pause to which I've become accustomed, the fisherman called back and wished me luck.

Speaking of fishing, I'm sure you've heard it here already but Haulback and Alchera continue to "practice." Neither one is ready to move on to actually fishing - both keep saying they need more practice first.

Yesterday I had a more serious autopilot failure, one that could not be resolved by simply dropping in a spare drive unit. All the drive units attach to the tiller (steering arm) the same way - by dropping onto a steel pin that acts as a universal joint. The usual installation is to drill a hole in the wooden tiller and then epoxy the pin into the hole. Due to the stresses involved in offshore racing, I had the pin welded into a steel plate and then attached to the tiller with four large screws. It was robust and very unlikely to break - but it did.

I put the pilot on standby and started hand-steering, giving myself time to figure out what to do. The stresses on this pin are remarkable and a cobbled-together repair with duct tape wasn't going to work. After about an hour I had fashioned a repair out of a short length of tubing, two hose clamps and a length of spectra. So far it has held. Because of the A/P's weakened state I should no longer fly a spinnaker and will have to finish the race under non-free-flying sails.

I think there is no better example of what this race is all about.

I hope to hold off Alchera for third place, and my current ETA is Sunday afternoon.

Better mood on board the Wish today. Sun came out shortly after noon and I spent the afternoon in 6-10 knots of wind under spinnaker and beautiful sky's. Not a typo we now have a new spinnaker halyard and if fate be with us and the skipper doesn't screw up it will stay with us till Hanelei Bay. How you ask, duct tape, clothes hanger, electrical tape, seal repeller formerly known as boat hook, a little pre wax and a couple of wire ties, and one new halyard. No bailing wire (Jimmy Buffet doesn't sing about farmers) and no chewing gum (pirates don't chew gum).

Looking forward to nice sail tonight. Getting in the area of night time squalls so will sleep in the cockpit.

Time to check on the radio so need to go.

Found the water in my spare water tank tastes alot like the rubber tank it is in so it has been sealed off to use for emergency only, should go well with the freeze dried food. I have plenty of water in sealed jugs that is still good. I sarted the race with nearly double the required amount, I am used to dipping it out of the lake along the way and was pretty worried about that.

Just finished roll call, lost a little gained a little, just sailing. Many people have had some sort of break down or scare at this point. Some are starting to be more conservative relising how far from anywhere they are and the consequences that has. I was doing all those calculations in my head a few days ago and it really gets you down. Not that they are bad, they are real. So one has to calculate the risks in all actions. I always where my harness, I sleep in the damn thing. I am clipped on whenever I am out of the cabin. My big worry has been the rig and the fact that losing it would make this a really long down wind race, Black Feathers would eat me for lunch! Luckily the wind blows towards Hawaii and one would eventually get there. Enough rambling time to tighten the tiller head fitting on the rudder post, its starting to work loose. got to get done before dark and do a general scout around the deck before night fall to remember where the halyards are and straighten up for the coming squalls.

622 miles to go

Eric

Sorry about no report earlier today, things are going pretty well and I am working things as best I can without overdriving the machine, so lots of hand steering in these big seas. It is a wild ride now, with seas towering over my head at times and salt water spray everywhere. I continue to be impressed with the Hammerhead, learning new ways to go fast and the boat never gets out of control. I surf regularly to 17 and occasionally 20. I did pull a pull a mainsheet vang block out of the beam earlier, had to repair that at speed, which was under constant deluge water flying through the nets. Since the air and water are warm enough I just took my clothes off and got a pressure bath at the same time (tied in of course). I have kept my spinnaker on deck all day, and many others are having spinnaker problems, too.

I am looking at a Thursday tree-time finish, can't wait to see other humans.

I had a scare the other day coming on deck, thinking someone was standing in my cockpit, when it was just my foul weather pants hanging to dry.

Cheers, Jeff

At dawn this morning, right after experiencing a squall, there was a gorgeous,large rainbow. Looked as if you were going to go right through it, though it was obviously far away.

Tuesday July 22 - sometime after morning roll-call.

This morning finds us rolling along quite nicely, having passed the mythical 'half-way barge' sometime during the night. This is where all racers who stop there get ice cream, pizza, hot showers and other not-to-be-mentioned worldly delights. I, of course, slept through the opportunity!!! Ahhh well, Hanalei awaits....

Won another round of Russian Roulette this morning. I have been told (but have never put it to the test) that yogurt keeps for long period without refrigeration, which sort of makes sense as it is created by bacterial growth in the first place. Anyway, I tossed a bunch of small containers of it into the bilge (this is a no-refrigerator boat) before I left, to use on my Red River Cereal for breakfast. I have since made it a point of honour NOT to check before dumping in on and stirring it in, so would not know until the first bite if it had 'gone off' or not - So far have begun every day with a small victory..... Way to go , Jim!!!!

A couple nights ago, went on deck sometime during the wee hours to check on things. A clear, warm night; really, the first one of the trip, there were few clouds drifting across a sky that was otherwise full of brilliant, bright pin-pricks of stars. I stood there overcome by the wonder of it all. You know, how you see the same thing all the time and after a while, begin to take it for granted - then for one moment of time it all somehow gets suspended and you can only say 'WOW' at the beauty of it all?? Well this was one of those times.

Then to cap off this absolutely perfect moment, a meteor went blazing across the exact center of my field of vision. A bright white/orange head dragging a long tapering tail across the night sky - the whole length of the tail was sending off little points of light, sort of like the wick of a firecracker when you first light it. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, it passed behind a cloud and was seen no more..... A few seconds of pure magic that will stay with me for many years to come.

..Well over an hour later......Had to go on deck for some sail-drill.

Looks like another great day - how quickly we adapt to not wearing layers of damp clothes - blue sky, light to moderate breeze and smooth seas. Nice going!!! While not breaking any speed records as far as daily runs are concerned, Haulback is doing OK - but things would be a bit better if I could gain a few more miles on Harrier. It looks like the General and I are in the running for first place in our division. He owes me a bit of time, but I still need to pick up a few more miles on him before we get to the islands. We have been 'trading ' 3 or 4 miles between each other every check-in for the last few days - I get a couple up on him, then he takes them back later on. Keeps it interesting.

Talking about interesting...now have aboard a glass ball - about 4 inches in diameter - found floating in the Pacific. Who says they're not out here, Mark??

For me, it looks like a quick turnaround in Hanalei Bay this year, no more than a week, possibly less, due to a slower than anticipated passage across. But I am looking better than the boats who are at the back of the fleet, I just hope they can all make it in time for the big wind-up awards dinner on August 2nd. Go Guy.......and Islander!!!!!

Bye for now...Jim/Haulback

All eyes are on the barometer. The risk with sailing the rhumb line has been made all too apparent given the distances made good over the past several days. The High has been relatively strong with a central pressure of 1030mb, we've been trying to stay below the 1024mb iso-contour line. It's a slippery slope: sail too high North and the High may expand, taking your wind; sail South to find wind, you sail extra miles and lose VMG. I anticipate the morning weather faxes like the morning paper. "The only news I need is the weather report" ~ Paul Simon.

These past several, "cruising" days have been somewhat of a blessing in disguise. Saturday I banged up my arm pretty well, I think a couple tendons shy of dislocation. A squall caught us off guard sailing dead-down-wind with all canvas up, full main and twin 150% genoas poled out, forcing the boat to round up and then down as I over compensated on the tiller. Stupidly I grabbed the main sheet where it loops between the boom bale and fiddle block on the traveler thinking I could dampen the load as the boat crashed jybed, sending the whole lot headed for leeward at mach 10; not succesful, OUCH. On the bright side I've discovered that generic ibuprofin works and that I CAN sail the boat singlehanded, literally.

As I write this, the arm is feeling 80% better, the boats moving along nicely at 5.5 kts dead-down-wind under twin head sails, and the fishing lurer is trailing the boat just below the surface. We'll see what, if any thing, comes to the surface....fish, weather and all.

Bye for now.

Chris on Carroll E

With the Olympics only days away, we remember the ex-Olympic sport of "Club Swinging" was retired in 1909. No, this was not gay chasing by royal princes through Olympic Village pubs. Rather, Club Swinging is described in the history books as rhythmic gymnastics with a large bat/club twirling around your head. Exactly akin to our SHTP fleet acrobatics on the foredeck each time we jibe. Just don't hit yourself in the head with your spinnnaker pole or main boom, errr "club."

Or maybe "dead" comes from the deal that with enough midnight jibes, we are "dead" on our feet. Stan didn't touch on this at the weather briefing, but this is where he and Robbie win the Race by calling up the off watch and jibing, on average, every six minutes, 13 seconds, on shifts of 4.7 degrees or greater, as registered on PYEWACKET computers.

In the real world of single handed Transpacking, DDW means successfully getting to Hanalei without accidently jibing and hurting something. May all our jibes be intentional. Use those boom preventers, team.

~sleddog

No wildlife to report found on the deck this morning, there is a stain from some squid ink on the port rail as it looks like it got caught in the the toerail before washing away. Yesterday had a dozen little flying fish that were slightly larger than minnows glued to things all over. Lots of them in the water still jumping about.

Mark on Alchera asked me yesterday if I herd voices yet attached to boat noices. I replied yes that I had Prince the 80's rocker in the back of the boat continuously doing the same bass and trebble line over and over and over ( the autopilot ) which sounds like a continuous drill reversing over and over and over lets see every 3 seconds it does a full cycle along with little adjustments throuwn in to the bass line. He said he has a subway station I think and a ticket taker in the bow.

Salt Crystals are growing on everything on the deck that does not get continuously dowsed. Pretty good ones on the spin blocks at the back end of the boat. Still have to keep the hatch slid shut as every now and then we auger into the back of a wave and take it over the deck all the way into the cockpit, this tends to wake one up a bit from a cat nap.

Chased down the source of a small leak, the old bow eye on the stem of the boat from its former life on a mooring leaks a bit when the bow buries (every wave) so I pump about a gallon out a day.

Last nights radio call in had me rolling in laughter as Haulback and Harrier were disusing cutting the heads off chickens, technique, tools consequences. It was the first good hard laugh in quite a while.

Just set out the spare solar panel so I have enough power to run the blender and the George Foreman grill master for lunch!

Eric

Well, yet another Monday on my self inflicted 24/7 work schedule. Still no time for reading. In fact, not enough time for the things I *want* to do......... How could this be, you ask???? I am just sitting here watching the boat sail itself, right??????? WRONG!!!!!! This morning is pretty much indicative of how "my" life at sea has been so far. I got up a little before 7 AM and made tea and went out to check the sails, wind, etc. since I made almost no progress last night even after adjusting things twice for an hour or so each in the middle of the night. Winds were light, so I tried different headings, sail trims, to no avail. Then it was time to try to catch Jan on the Ham Radio. This too was to no avail. We heard each other but the band was really noisy so we couldn't "talk." This took about a half hour. Then it was time to check email and download the reports for morning roll call received by the shore station via satellite phone and prepare for the morning roll call, since I am currently the comm boat and the person responsible for that. Roll call and typing up and emailing the report to the shore station took over an hour. Then back outside to see about getting some speed on so I didn't arrive in HI after everybody I know that came to see me has already left. This is what I have been doing since then and it's now 12:40 PM. What's the big deal, just trim and go, right??? Wrong again!! The seas are pretty lumpy and the swells are from a really bad direction. I was trying to run DDW (dead downwind) wing on wing (jib on one side, main on the other) and the winds are really light, so the tip of the mast when the boat rocks side to side was moving faster than the winds around it and this made sail trim problematic, to say the least. About this time there was a Pacific Cup boat that came up dead behind me, flying their spinnaker, and motivated me. (What is a sailboat race? Two boats going roughly the same direction) Well, I decided two can play this spinnaker game, so I got ready to fly mine and switched on the autopilot. Well, I tried to switch on the autopilot, but it didn't come on. I wiggled wires here and there and finally two big ones going to the brain came off in my hand. Could this be my problem??? Perhaps???? I knew this could turn into a can of worms, so I decided to go to plan B. I decided to try again to go wing on wing. No good, the seas were too lumpy and the jib just wouldn't stay filled, so I had no choice but to try the Evil Whisker Pole. The Whisker Pole is "evil" because the last time I tried to use it, a support line holding it up came loose and it came down on my head. I didn't lose consciousness, but it screwed up my neck, big time, and I spent most of the next 36 hours sleeping as much as I could. It still hurts a lot and I am still taking Advil. I am sure that continuing to do things like fly spinnakers and deploy whisker poles doesn't help the recovery process, but one thing about singlehanding; no one to delegate to.......... Back to the Evil Whisker Pole. I went forward (carefully) and managed to deploy the whisker pole safely and much more easily this time using a different technique. Then there was a good 30 minutes of tweaking settings and then I came down below and had a beer and grabbed the camera and took pictures of the boat I am racing. I just looked and they must "hate it". They are flying a spinnaker and I am wing on wing. I am headed directly to Hanalei and they are going quite a bit South and I am going faster than they are!!!! A couple more advil and here we are at 1 PM and I haven't managed to eat anything yet. I originally planned to send this to my family alone, but as I reread it, I thought it is pretty indicative of what it's like out here, for many of us anyway. Remember too, I haven't even emptied the lazarette so I can get down into it and investigate the wiring to see if I can get my autopilot going again. This is not to mention re-hanging the radar detector that came crashing down about 3 AM. Then there's plotting everybodies positions from last night and this morning, down loading weatherfaxes and a host of other things. Reading???? Not anytime soon.........

Yesterday was really slow. I think I averaged about 2-3 knots all day. I tried hard for hours to get south and away from the North Pacific High, but it was just impossible. I wound up going wing and wing towards Hanalei ( course 235). Last night we had wind and got run over by a couple of squalls. I even got up and gybed over at the end of one of them and exited left, which kept us int he wind longer. But this morning has turned into another sail-slatter. The boom is smacking around again and the GPS says I'm doing 2.6 knots.

This is going to be a 20-day race for me. I'm not even at the halfway point and there are boats 200 miles behind me, so it will be 22-23 days for them if things don't change Even Dogbark has several hundred miles to go, he's going to finish in 15 or 16 days. That's what the usual time is for the 30-35 footers. From some stuff Jim on Haulback has said on the morning chat, according to the GRIB files, we're looking at the same stuff for the next couple of days. I've sent in a request for more GRIBs myself t his morning, so I'll see. . It's time to start rationing the last of the peanuts and ginger cookies.

Pete R., if you're reading this, please readjust plans accordingly. George, get Gwen dancing her wind dance ASAP. Adjust Gwens settings to 15 knots.

Signs of the times, climate-wise?

One very good thing is that my solar array is doing a great job of keeping up with the power demands on board. I run the batteries down to about 12.35 - 12.5 volts by the end of the nights run. By 7:00 PM after a day of charging they're usually up to 13 or close to it. If that keeps up I won't ever have to run my generator.

Anyway, tonight if I'm lucky I'll get to open my halfway present, which will be fun. Hopefully there will be a charm in it for some breeze.

Now, another big thing....

Now , Synthia's the ChairWoman of the Race;
about which she turns red in the face.
She was born on this day,
how many years past, don't say.
But the fleet is buying Synthia an herbal wrap, nine gallons of sweet iced tea shaved ice, a week in the Caribbean
and a gallon of good rum, just in case.

Happy Birthday Synthia!

Hey, look...a little breeze just came up. I'm reaching south-ish-west-ish at 4.5 knots and the sails have stopped slatting!

Alan

On a more intelligent level, the ocean surface is covered with Vellela Vellela, also called "By the Wind Sailors." These 3" gelatinous jellies sport a vertical fathead membrane sail. They all seem to be on starboard tack at the moment, and sailing towards an unknown destination over the horizon.

All well aboard. I found the missing spoon under the bunk cushion, but the stove clicker has gone MIA.

Post rollcall chat was off the mark last night, with a discussion how best to dispatch a chicken for the cooking pot. Perhaps there is a need to schedule an appointment with the fleet psychiatrist.

~sleddog, FLEUR, and kitty too.

Nothing new on the Wish today. I parked head to wind for a while this morning and managed to remove the final spinnaker and spinnaker sock debry. The bad news is the spinnaker halyard that had remained attached the past 5 days had broken free. Very disappointing since I had planned to bring it down with the spinnaker sock. I hope to figure out a way to bring it down tomorrow. It currently swings around wildly at the level of the top spreaders.

I wish I was still in the race but the sailing is nice and relaxing. I still hope to see some whales, in fact have not seen much wildlife at all.

Hello to Lexi and Jacob

Goodnight from Warriors Wish

Tom said he is still learning to use the twin sails. You can't practice using it in his boat in the San Francisco Bay, because they are too large for the conditions there. So you have to put them up in an open ocean, and this experience, doing it all solo, is invaluable for him.

The Feral got its first tropical rain squall. It was a pretty big shower and got Tom pretty wet. Last night the air was light and the ocean was like a lake. He could see the stars out for the first time; quite lovely. The wind came up at noon today, but it is light air again now. Very frustrating. He said he is going only 4.2 knots this evening and would like to get to Hawaii in time. Between the first few days of no wind and the current minimal wind conditions, it is concerning, though he is aware that it usually picks up as you get closer to the island.

He broke a block shackle. today, but replaced it. Short wave radio is still not working, so he has had no idea how the other boats are doing, and no boats are in sight. Again, he said he's not real depressed and the sat phone sometimes drawls out his voice, which I noticed. He is quite concerbed about making it to Hawaii by the race deadline due to minimal wind. Gayle

Not much to report on today. I've had a fishing line strung out but no luck yet. The skies are partially blue, partially overcast, but nice. The air temperature is quite comfortable. I took the time to shave, give myself a haircut, and take a shower. Also, put on some clean clothes - shorts and a tshirt now. Fired up the watermaker since my tanks were getting empty, just enough to keep going for a few days, not so much as to affect the weight of the boat!

Jim on Haulback found a green glass ball fishing float today. It's been my objective ever since I started doing these Transpacs to find a glass ball. I had given up on them, thinking there were no more to be had, that they had all been replaced by plastic. Apparently not. I guess there's still hope for me. I've seen my share of other stuff in the water though, plenty of plastic floats, and today a mass of rope and debris went by the side of the boat so large that had I struck it head on it probably would have stopped the boat dead in the water.

I've started hearing voices. Again. Seems to happen every TransPac at some point. I could swear there's a radio with a talk show tuned in located somewhere in the forward berth under the spinnaker I have spread out drying from the last dunking it took. And in the sound of the water going by outside the hull I hear what sounds like party conversations going on very faintly.

No visual hallucinations though. Not yet.

Mark/Alchera

Last night at 2030 I passed the half-way point (1,060 miles to go). I missed the turn into the Half Way Barge so no hot shower or Starbucks for me until Hanalei. But I had a great half-way party aboard, thanks to the big package prepared by Connie and the kids. Besides a crazy talking "Congratulations" card, there were four packages inside, labeled "Something to Wear at Your Party," "Something to Eat at Your Party," "Something to Do at Your Party" and "Something to Read if the Party Gets Dull." Connie's creativity is always bubbling just beneath the surface so I knew this would be good.

"Something to Wear" contained a pair of "party pants" and beer glass sunglasses. These might get modeled at a Hanalei Tree party. "Something to Eat" included brownies and half a box of my favorite selection of See's candies. The "half a box" means that each piece was sliced in two and half was removed. An enclosed note stated that I had to sail the other half of the race to get the remainder! "Something to Do" included a fishy paddle ball, harmonica and a small photo album. Finally, "Something to Read if the Party Gets Dull" was a Motor Boating magazine. No doubt Connie anticipated that a true sailboater would never read such a thing - she had carefully glued the cover to the latest issue of "Mental Floss" magazine. So there you go!

It's still a bit early but if Ragtime! is any example, on-board calculators are whizzing with ETA calculations and PCR allowances, trying to see where each boat stands. It appears to me that (no surprise) Wildflower has a nearly insurmountable lead, Polar Bear is second, and Alchera and Ragtime! are neck-and-neck for third. But believe me, my brain is running on deep reserves and I could be off a bunch.

Best to all!

Couple of notes to self.....NEXT TIME (there won't be one but you get my point)

Bring more Cheeze-its stay away from the dried peaches. Emphasis...STAY AWAY from the dried peaches. Oh dear. couple more pairs of polypro long pants type things

I haven't read a single word in the two books I brought. Not one. Who'd a thunk it? I haven't practicised Bob's whistle tunes for a couple of days, either, but I bet I will, today. It sure was good to hear that an a-mail had been received from Barbara last night, even if it was incomplete and didn't have her position. We were all getting worried.

It's slow out here. Down south, two of my competitors are rocketing away on Polar Bear and Ragtime but up north 60-70 miles there's not a lot of wind. I am in a dilemma. Yesterday I flew a spinnaker all day. It took me a while to get going in the morning, but I did fly it from about 11:00 AM to 7:15 PM. I probably wasted and hour yesterday asiling around in cirlces, trying to sail out of spinnaker wraps around the headstay. I lay claim to one of them, but the two bads ones were whent he autopilot was driving. So now it's today and the conditions arre about the same.

I've packed the 1/2 ounce chute....good thing I didn't go just put it up, even though the corners were all nicely laid on top it was a twisted mess inside the bag. Anyway, so I'm doing about 5 knots, going rather south of west to get away fromt eh Big Bad Paacific High and this light air. I don't dare sail this deep in this light air with a chute up. If it was for an hour or two, fine, but not for seven hours. I simply can't concentrate at the tiller that long. In repetetive conditions I get bored, lose focus and get sleepy and then it's spinnaker wrap time. Considering the grief that Don on Warriors Wish is having with the spinaker wrap from hell, I gotta say I'm not interested. So that means no deep-downwind stuff with the light air chute. THAT means I have to reach up to induce some apparrent wind in the sail. But if I do that, and reach up to starboard, I'm heading right back into the High pressure, which is the source of the slowsies. If I reach down, I'm sailing for Chile.

I could gybe back and forth all day long....45 minutes on one heading, 45 minutes on the other. It'd be good exercise. Andit MMIGHT be half a knot faster than going wing-on-wing with the poled out #2 headsail, more or less right down the pipe.

If I DON'T have the spinnaker up, I'll wash up (for the first time) in the cockpit. I AM getting kinda tired of smelling this bad and my hair redfines the word "lank".

Anyway, so I'm dithering.What to do, what do do? I know, lets go write a blog entry!

Day ten and I'm not even halfway yet. I'm in good company, too. Oooooh, boy. Will this be a twenty-day SHTP for me?

Alan

Eric

Having now entered the region of consistent stronger winds the seas have built accordingly, at times 10 foot swells. They are smooth and widely spaced, fun to rise up and down slowly, and surf when possible. It does present challenges... Steerng at any angle other than straight down is challenging for human or machine, and the spinnaker does not tolerate steering errors very well. I am having difficulty sleeping when I cannot relax, subconciously alert to signs of a steering anomoly that would send the boat into a screaming reach. Finally putting these two clues together, last night I set the boat to steer dead-down-wind, which is normally slower for a light displacement reaching boat such as Hecla. However, the VMG was good, the ride very good, and I got caught up on sleep. Today is looking better.

While early on I was the primary communications boat, collecting position reports and emailing to shore, I am now too far from the fleet to talk to most, and have passed the comm boat job to DreamChaser. Dogbark and I talk regularly, sometimes within VHF range. Al has been encouraging me to work through my problems and stay in the hunt.

I worked the spinnaker yesterday for 4 hours, and the halyard cover had chafed through completely again and this time got stuck at the mast head. No way I could free it even with a knive, or flare, as another boat supposedly did to free a tangled spinnaker. This was a potential problem, but with enough jumping and cursing it finally came down. Not sure I can risk it again.

My family should be in Hanalei now, looking forward to seeing them!

Cheers, Jeff

Islander has some battery problems. She attempts to call but only partial data is recorded before losing radio contact. She's frustrated, but very much in the race. With more sunshine, she should be able to charge some of her equipment with solar battery packs and report her position regularly again. Please let the fleet know.

Caught a bonita tuna today. It's oilier and darker than the albacore but a change might be nice. I set the handline just before roll call started this morning and as it was finishing up, I looked out to see the tripline tripped! I had to call Chris on Carroll E to brag a little.

We're all a little worried about Islander as Barbara hasn't checked in for a couple days. Most likely her charging problems are the cause but we can't help but worry about one of our own.

This morning after the roll call I gybed the boat over to head more south. The winds are weakening to the north and the east, and the area of weak winds will continue to move south and west. So it's a case of trying to outrun the weakening winds. If they catch you, the winds get weak, the boat slows down, and the area of weak winds catches up even faster. The boats further back in the fleet are already seeing less wind. It's the classic case of the 'rich get richer and the poor get poorer'. The boats in the front stay in the good wind and continue to go fast, while the boats at the back lose the wind and continue to go slower. Life just ain't fair, and sailboat racing is no different.

When you've been on one particular gybe, or tack, for day after day, you learn certain ways to do things on the boat because of the way the boat is heeled. For example, when you prepare meals, you learn certain places to put things so they don't spill or skid away, and you learn certain ways to brace your body and where to hang on to things to give you the proper support. You also learn how to pour liquids at the proper angle so they end up in whatever container you intend. When the boat switches to a new tack or gybe, everything is leaning over the other way. So everything must be relearned with a new whole new set of handholds, and favorite places to put things. This also applies to the head (toilet) as well. Not to put too fine a point on it, but, well, certain carefully computed trajectories need to be recalculated.

Sometime last night Alchera crossed the halfway point to the finish! I don't know when or how the tradition got started, but many of the skippers receive a 'halfway gift' before leaving which is opened only after crossing the halfway point to the finish line at Kauai. Books are always a welcome gift to the skipper going stir-crazy after a week of isolation. Chocolate or a special liqueur are also favorites, as well as the occasional dirty magazines or silly joke presents. In my case, Carla got my gift all wrapped up weeks before I left, and seemed to be more excited about my opening it than I was! An email from her yesterday said 'are you there yet'? So I have to admit I was more than curious to find out what she had picked out. Imagine my surprise when I opened the package to find a pair of harmonicas, plus instruction booklets and CDs! They are beautifully crafted and sound wonderful. It's a really great gift since I've been getting into music more and more lately, and a small instrument that can be easily carried onboard a boat is a perfect gift. But there's more to the story. It turns out when Carla was ordering the instrument she explained to the distributor on the phone about the SSS TransPac race and the tradition of the halfway gift. Well, he got all excited, and the next thing that happens is Carla gets a call from the President of Seydel USA (the company), and they spoke at length. Included in my package is a letter from the President to me, explaining that the particular model he recommended for me would be the perfect 'sailor's harmonica' because it is the first harmonica designed and constructed to be corrosion free! So he wants me to put his products to the test in the marine environment offshore and let him know what I think. He also included a personal instruction course with literature and CDs, and threw in an extra harmonica in a different key as well! Very cool. Thank you very much Carla, and thanks also to Mr. Rupert Oysler, the President of Seydel USA.

Mark/Alchera

Eric

It is a glorious day today and Tom said it makes you want to just stick around and savor the beauty, but he does need to get to Hawaii. He saw Sparky last night, so they chatted on the radio. He said it felt great to do that! Sparky had a bit of a challenge of its own last night, as Ruben found himself bailing out 30 gallons of water that had come in over Sparky's bow. Tom thinks all is fine now. Both tried to keep a watch on each other's boat last night, but it was hard to wake up at the right time to accomplish that fully, due to tiredness. Tom almost slept in past the morning coordinates call.

Feral is currently sailing with reefed main; couldn't hear more due to poor reception. Tom isn't sure why the phone reception is so poor, with phone fading in and out or shutting off so often. Yesterday he spent 15 minutes just trying to call in to give his coordinates, before he could even get a connection. Before ending his call today, he did say both boats seem fine now.

If you ever wonder why we do this stand beside me tonight. The moon has risen high above the clouds, its light dancing off the waves. The big dipper hangs directly above me as the wind and waves push me on my way to Hanalei Bay. This is not my first sailing trip upon the open ocean but time seems to dull memories until moments like this bring them back alive again. I do remember the upwind trip back home but I assure you I will pay the bill for momemnts like this.

A pirate life for me, yo ho yo ho

Jeff on Hecla hasn't been able to fix his spinnaker halyard issue permanently so it remains to be seen if that is our gain. He was going awfully fast when fully powered up. Meanwhile Mark on Alchera has taken his usual place pushing the leaders. I admire his skillful sailing but it is his preparation that stands out to me. He hardly ever has a problem with his boat or which way to go in a certain situation. I am sure he will among the top finishers in Hanalei. Polar Bear/Eric have had the best race so far for me though Skip/ Wildflower has also put on a show, outstanding performances by both for the first half of the race. For me it was back to the Indian foods tonight with Paneer Makhani on rice for dinner. Cheers, Al

Today, Tom decided to push it a bit more and put up the twin sails. This maneuvering was a first for him to do, solo, in open ocean and he figured that although he was not going directly downwind, conditions were good to put it to the test.

He put up the first of the twin sails, with the main deeply reefed. Sailing solo, he could only put up one at a time. The first sail went up on the windward side and was so powerful that it just pulled the boat around and pulled the sheet turning block out of the deck! The deeply reefed main was in the way of the 2nd twin sail so he couldnt get the 2nd one up fast enough., or at all.

He will spend early evening getting the "pole" back in place, putting up the working jib again, and coiling the lines. Right now the cabin looks like spaghetti; lines everywhere. Tomorrow he replaces the torn out sheet turning block. He said, however, that it is reassuring that the boat has been able to sail even beyond hull speed without having to coax it further with use of the twin sails.

We are all a bit worried out here about Nick on Kali O Kalani, as there's not been a check-in from him for a while. Hopefully ttonight will change that. I think I actually saw K O K about three-four days back. There was a tiny sail on the horizon and the position made sense. Since I might be the closest one to K O K I agreed to try to contact him on VHF today, but two tries...no luck. I'll try again right before check-in. We all talked to John on Dream Chaser last night and this morning on the SSB and he says he's much better, so that's great. He sounds just like himself on the radio, and even got up topsides for a while yesterday to set the boat up for some more off-the-wind sailing, as he was concerned about being so far north.

I shot some video for Johnathan Gutoff today. In there I explained my personal goals for the race. Since many of you won't see the video, I supposed I'll explain it, now. The SHTP is a RACE, not a rally of a cruise, but it's unique in that people come to the race with many goals. Some want to win it.....well, we ALL want to win it, nobody out here is just galumphing along, but some folks are really serious about that. Other folks see it as a way to tune up and prepare for cruising. For me, the SHTP has been a personal goal for over 15 years. My goal is to get there with the boat in one piece, have a smile on my face, and not finish last. Regarding winning....anybody that prepares their boat as thoroughly as you have to do, to do this race....anybody who gets on board and sails alone from San Francisco to Hawaii is a winner.

What, someone is going to tell me (or you) that only the person who finishes first on handicap ...or who is "first to finish" is a "winner" and everybody else is a "loser"? That's the stupidest thing I ever heard.

BTW, It's a good thing I'm not all keen to beat the other sportboats, 'cause there's not a snowballs chance in Arabia of me doing that now!

So today was a "vigorous day" characterized by breakage. After the morning SSB chat I decided that I'd hook up the Navik vane again and went outside to do that. Imagine my dismay to see that the servo-pendulum oar was destroyed! The stainless steel shaftr was still there, but the molded polycarbonate oar and the trim tab were gone. It looked like it had just exploded. I expect it got overloaded in a big surge last night and just disintigrated. Anyway, I pulled it out of the water and it's on the boat now, under the berth. I hadn't planned on using it any more, but losing the Navik removes an option and that's always a drag.

I then got us going a bit faster by shaking out the second reef and we took off, wing and wing downwind. About an hour later I heard a *bang*, looked forward and the tack of the headsail was just hanging, with the remains of the stemhead shackle dangling from it! That was a suprise, that's a pretty beefy piece of equipment. Anyway, I crawled up forward, took it off and shackled the sail to the other shackle that's up there. Hopefully all that won't happen again. I have some stuff that will work as a jury rig replacement if that one goes, but it'd be easier if it did't.

Finally, today in one of the twenty-something gybes we did with the autopilot driving, the shackle that's screwed to the traveler car,that holds the lower mainsheet block to the car blew up. It was fine, the sail just plastered itself against the spreaders and I rigged up a quuick fix. Those screws have been in that piece of equipment so long, though, that NOTHING is taking them out, so I cut off the jagged edges, hammered them flat and lashed the block to the car with three winds of 3/16 spectra. That's brutally strong, it'll be fine.

And so, all told at the end of the day, we are booming along 7 knots, surging to 8.5, under double reefed main (to ease the autopilot) and the 1.5 ounce spinnaker. It's smallish, which pleases the autopilot no end. I also have "Synthia's Thong" on that spinnaker, and we're THONG ON! She was right, ti does make the sail easier to control. Thanks, Synthia!

Last but not least, it was gray and overcast all morning, but all afternoon SUNSHINE! NOt only that, but it looks like a clear night ahead.. There will be stars.

BTW, it seems to be much easier for me to send mail than receive it, and e-mail to Joan seems to not be going out, I'm getting TTLS and SMTP errors.

OK, SSB check in time approaches, time to go hang with the guys!

Alan

NOTE TO TIMO: You are perfectly wlecome to edit these for typos, I'm sure there's a zillion of 'em.

But it's not all bad. The sun shone most of the day so I was able to take off my thermals for the first time and put on shorts. All of a sudden it's summer! I've been thinking a lot about self-reliance today - there's nothing like being on a boat 700 miles from shore to really feel it, and I feel it. You gotta do for yourself cuz no one else will. It's awesome!

Alls quite on the Wish today. Since I came out of race mode and have settled into cruise mode life is more relaxing. I worked a short while on retrieving the rest of the spinnaker from the mast head and have a plan in place to finish the job if the seas calm down and I can go aloft. I also believe I know what cause the jam and why the damaged kite would not come down. I might have to stop using the spinnaker socks to launch and deploy they are great in normal conditions but have a weak link when a boat is moving around a lot.

I am also looking at this trip a little different today after having a serious conversation with myself yesterday. Here I am living a dream for many and all I could do was piss and moan about how bad things were going for me. The Wish is named after a great program within Hope for the Warriors that supports wounded veterans. These kids and their families are having to readjust their lives due to severe injuries and I am bitching about having a bad day doing something I love. ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT!!!!

Weather was great today, bright sunshine most of the day, winds 15-20 knots and temperature in the mid 70's. Took a bath, worked on the all over tan. A great day to be a pirate on the Black Pearl........maybe I need to get a parrot.

Hey Lee got a pep talk from the General today, all is well on Harrier. For you Polar Bear fans Eric said he hit 17 knots on one surf. Fishing tournament appears to be going well.

To the guys and girls at the shop....Boat Babe is looking good!

Don

I've put the fishing gear out. I was trying to think of what I wanted to eat for lunch today. All of my choices seemed unappetizing. Then I thought, 'I would like some fish!' So out goes the fishing gear. I have pretty basic handline rig, just a lure on the end of some 300 lb test monofilament on the spool it came on, which attaches to the boat with a bungie cord to absorb the shock of a strike. When I catch a fish, I drag him along behind the boat until there's no fight left in him, and then it's possible to bring it in by hand and swing it aboard. Before he can recover and start flapping around, I subdue the fish with a shot of cheap vodka to both gills to avoid making a bloody mess in the cockpit.

I've been 'practicing' fishing now for most of the afternoon. When I've practiced enough then I'll start fishing for real and catch one. (Jim on Haulback taught us to fish that way...)

Quote from Polar Bear after hitting 17+ knots during a surf: 'I'm liking these swells, we don't get them like this out on the Lakes!'

Mark/Alchera

ET

The start in San Francisco 7 days ago is just a bleary memory now.

Update on the spinaker halyard: I was able to repair the chafe points but not prevent further damage. A workable plan is to cover the area with half a roll of electrical tape, hoist the sail, ease the halyard a bit every 45 minutes, then take down and repair again within 3 ot 4 hours. But frankly I don't have the stamina and hand strength to do that for days, plus I need to slow the boat to set or take down the sail, so that eats into the gain of using this big sail. Yesterday's performance was poor. I am giving the spinaker a rest for today, fortunately the wind is good and I am still making good time.

The talk among the fleet is "when will the sun come out so I can take a bath?" I broke the rule and just went for it; did laundry too (with the bath water).

Started to experience the nighttime squall weather last night, and believe me I will be better prepared tonight. It is difficult to see the squall because of complete cloud cover. It obscured the fine full moon, too.

I should be reaching my halfway point this evening, and expect much quicker time on the second half than the first.

Cheers, Jeff

I finally found some wind, but it was a long wait. Looking back at previous races, I see that this year it took me 3 days to cover just slightly more than I had on Day 1 in the '04 race. If there was a bright side to it all, I guess it would have to be that I finally got a chance to see the Farallon Islands, 30 miles (more or less) due west of San Francisco Bay - as I drifted in circles to the south of them. But all that is behind me now (I hope!!). Day's runs so far have been 60, 32, 76, 122, 159, 162 & 162 nautical miles, plotted from noon-to-noon positions.

Still no sunshine, but have been able to shed long underwear and temperature has gone up to t-shirt conditions. Everything seems to be working well, and apart from a few small items, no serious gear failures - so far, at least. I did get a wrap in the snuffer of my 1 1/2 ounce Reaching Chute the other day so had to unpack in (in the cabin) and sort all that out. Unpacking, sorting-out and repacking a 46 foot long sail into a 42 foot long cloth tube, in a 10 foot long cabin is an interesting exercise!!!

Had to go up the rig at 0-dark-30 last night to retrieve a pole topping lift (the shackle had broken) - made me very happy to have steps up the mast. It is really not much different than climbing a ladder - mind you the higher you go, the more of a arc the ladder is swinging through on every roll of the boat, but still all very convenient.

So far two boats are, at least periodicly, out of communication with the rest of us, most likely due to electrical problems of some sort or another; one guy hurt his neck when a line slipped through a jam-cleat and dropped the whisker pole on his head. Otherwise we all seem to be in fine fettle...apart from emotional faults, personality defects and mental health issues that make us sail alone in the first place, but that's a whole other story....

So, why do people sign up for this race? Worse yet, what makes them keep coming back, time after time?

To sail across half of an ocean by yourself (racing across just compounds the problem) takes a certain mindset; it's really got very little to do with wanting to win a sailboat race. It is more about breaking bonds that shackle you - it is about taking - and accepting - a certain level of risk. Have no illusions...this is not a particularly 'safe' place to be.

Other racers ,I am sure will give any one of dozens of excuses, but really I think they all just want to "step off the edge" for a while........Perfectly sensible to one of us, but I know lots of regular people have difficulties understanding the attractions of singlehanded ocean sailing.

Haulback if swooping along on a course of 235 degrees under poled-out twin headsails and full mainsail. The sun is now trying to peek through the persistant could cover, the sea has that lovely shade of blue I've been looking forward to. White caps speckle the surface in all directions. All in all a wonderful day.

Oh yes...a small squid was found during morning deck patrol just after daylight. Can flying fish be too far away now????

Bye for now....Jim/Haulback

Mark grew up sailing on his family's boat and became a world class skipper and navigator, whose talents were sought by the best. His seamanship and navigational expertise helped EF LANGUAGE win the Volvo Around the World Race, the pinnacle of the sport.

Mark always had time to talk sailing and life in general. He will be much missed. As the full moon rose last night, it beamed a bright spotlight through a hole in the clouds on Mark's accomplishments.

Sailors everywhere send their condolences to wife Lori and Mark's family, and we Singlehanded Transpacers dedicate this Race to Mark.

Another tough day on board the Wish. What started with a brisk dip into the Pacific to unleash the final piece on yesterdays spinnaker debacle, is ending with me writing about todays spinnaker disaster. The morning was going well sun was out and I was perched on my beanbag chair trimming the kite when the first serious puff came through. Anything above 20 is consider serious to me and while I thought about is it time to take it down or shall I go for some speed the first rip appeared and quickly spread across the kite about a third of the way down. I eased the sheet ( too much) and raced for the halyard (not fast enough). The excess ease (in retrospect) allowed the kite to start its death spiral around the head stay. At this time I enjoyed one of solo sailing benefits as I cursed ever thing and anything that I looked at. You have to understand that I consider my cursing to be above average especially when I feel the entire planet has turned against me. Once that tirade was over and I quit feeling sorry for myself and went to work to clean up the mess. The kite was trashed and had wrapped itself around the head stay in such a fashion as to make any python envious. I attempted to climb the mast got as far as the first spreaders (using the atn mast climber) and said no more. Back on deck feeling sorry for my self again I came up with plan number two. Knife taped onto former pole saw extension (previous referred to as seal defender or boat hook. Kinda worked but not good enough standing on a pitching fore deck. Idea number three was the charm. Handheld flare taped onto previous mentioned extension pole burned enough of the kite off the head stay to get a jib in the air missing the top three hanks. So tonight I sail onto Hanelei Bay looking like the the Black Pearl from Pirates of the Caribbean with shards of spinnaker flying from my masthead.

Aye Matey its a long way to Hanlei Bay

Looks like my email problems are finally solved now if I could sort out my race course management. Looks like I have put myself in in position to get trapped by the Pacific High. I heard all the warnings just failed to execute a plan. I did have one just paniced when I sat in a windless hole while a competitor made up 27 hard earned miles and I went looking for wind. Having a nice sail 15-23 knots out of the north. Full main and small fractional kite. Averaging close to 8 with a high of 11.2 knots. The autopilot is able to handle all but the biggest puffs so the sailing is pleasant. Have not seen the sun in at least 3 days. Lots of clouds and wind but if I don't get south I suspect the wind part is going to go away and I will limp into Hanalei Bay. My weather info is lacking but improving. I took a new communication system with me and have not worked out all of the bugs. Not all bad news though the 20 old single sideband I bought off of ebay is working great. Help from my friend Doug who found an old manual from a similar radio and the "General" who I believe knew Marcaoni personally and I have pretty good rig.

Nothing to report on wildlife, my only siteing is the seal that chased Ankle Biter. A couple of boats have seen whales which I would enjoy. Life is getting repetative which is what happens on board a 30' fiberglass shell. Food is okay glad I stayed with all freezed dried. I am stretching for things to say, so let me sign off.

Hello to family and friends, sorry I missed the Hope for the Warrior Board meeting.

Don

July 18 1900 (7:30pm)
Feral is almost 600 miles off of the Golden Gate now. As of 7:30pm the seas are calm, but things typically come up at night. Last night was tough, and bitter cold. He said that even Jim (Haulback)complained of the cold and he is from Canada. There was a "crossing sea" last night, and that made the boat roll all night long. Hard to get sleep. Frustrating. Boat was rocking like mad and he couldnt make the vane hold course. He thinks he figured out what to do differently.

He continues to travel with reefed sails since he said the boat is going maximum speed anyway. He said he's made nice progress, but that just about everyone lost the first few days because they were all just sailing around in a circle looking for wind.

As for the leak in the cabin window, he said it will be okay.

Tom notes that now Sparky and Carroll E claim they are ahead of him, but based on the time variance in the communication of positions, he respectfully thinks in fact that the opposite is true. There's a definite competitive spirit lurking beneath his recent, difficult and annoying preoccupations of the day.

In any event, today is a first for this race; he has had to put on sun glasses!

I cooked up the last of yesterday's tuna with some rice today and figured I'd have the leftovers for dinner. There wasn't much going on this afternoon so I reset the handline. After a couple hours of nothing, I went down to take a nap. I came up to 'fish on!' I must have dragged it for awhile because the poor guy was barely twitching by the time I pulled him in. This one was about the same size as yesterday's - perfect for one person. It's like they're out there just waiting to feed me!

ET

The boom vang broke. During a gyration of the boat with a swell coming from astern the mainsail popped back and out again, and I heard a 'bang' topside. When I went to investigate, the steel cables which make up the multipart purchase system on the vang had snapped. I don't have any spare steel cable on board, at some point you have to call a halt to all the spare parts you might need for every possible failure. However, I did have some handy dandy vectran cord, which I jury-rigged in place and so far seems to be working OK. I also spent some time working on the mast, reinforcing the whisker pole track with some steel bands. During the last TransPac the track started coming loose with all of the stress over the many miles. I had it repaired, but I figured a little preventative medicine wouldn't hurt. That's also when it finally sunk in and I got my revelation about the relationship between my exposure on the foredeck and the strength of the winds.

Took my first shower of the trip last night. Nice to have such luxuries aboard. Didn't mention it at roll call though. There would be no end to the grief I would get from my fellow competitors if I were to mention something like that! Particularly those brave souls in the really little boats. Though I may save the comment for later on in the race if I need some psychological advantage. Showers, and ice cream in the freezer, those are the really big psychological guns to pull out if you're going for blood.

The sky is overcast again. When it's nice outside I can spend hours just watching the ocean go by. Or at night, in the dark there's always the stars and the moon reflecting on the water. When it's dreary and grey that's not as much of an attraction. I've got lots of books onboard, and I've been doing a lot of reading this trip. But I've also discovered I can blow bubbles with the container of dish soap I have in the galley. The first time was quite accidental, but I was able to produce 5 or 6 little bubbles that floated around the cabin for several minutes. So then the objective became to see how full I could fill the cabin with floating bubbles at any one time. Quite a few, as it turns out.

Mark/Alchera

Anyway greetings from the good little but extremely untidy ship, Ankle Biter, who has finally found the sun. Last night I signed on to the SSB chat hour as "Radio Free Ankle Biter, participating in the Singlehanded Sailing Societies solo race to Norway". However patience has paid off, and today there's sun......and my solar panels "be crankin' da juice".

Eric on Polar Bear says his panels have been keeping up with his electrical loads, which is pretty darned good, as he's sailing fast an exclusively using an autopilot. I checked my batteries early this afternoon and they're at 13.25 and 13.52 volts, each w hich means they're pretty well juiced up. So my strategy of using the windvane as long as I could and not yakking TOO much on the SSB has worked out.

But now the wind is coming behind us, the sun is out and the Navik Windvane, while it's still hooked up, is in semi-retirement. The Autohelm ..

WOOHOOOO just hit 12 knots, and that's just with poling out the #2.

Anyway, story time!

Last night was Windy with a capital W and the fleet had a litany of stories at 9:00 PM. Bob on Ragtime shrimped his spinnaker. The General had a complete autopilot meltdown in 25 knots of wind with the spinnaker up. This follows his earlier spinnaker joys, where the spinnaker sock only went part way up two nights ago and he sailed with it that way, that night. The next morning he discovered ithad wrapped itself up about 30 times, sock, lines sail and all and he had to haul it down "the old fashioned way">....which is what I do all the time.

Dwight on Na-Na is back in the race! He's way back there, but it turned out his battery problems were due to a corroded terminal and a loose fuse associated with his Ample Power charge controller. He's charging up his electrical system and back on the course. It sounded like he got hammered pretty hard in the Gulf of the FArallones with some heavy weather, but hopefully he's past that and hot on our heels.

John on Dream Chaser had a bad accident. He was up on the foredeck the other day, setting a whisker pole on his Valiant 40, and the brand new line on the inboard end of the pole riser slipped out of the cam cleat that holds it, and the pole came down on Johns head. Last night he said he's spent 18 hours in his bunk taking Advil and eating Famous AMos cookies. John sounded entirely coherent on the radio and is not reporting seeing double or anything. HE had quite a chat with Jim on Haulback. He says the pain is in his neck, not his head....no concussion, but maybe some squashed vertebrae and disks. He can move his head but it hurts a lot. John has a good, and very steady boat in that Valiant 40 so hopefullly with some rest and maybe a towel-neck brace he'll be just fine. We'll all be listening for him to come up on the radio tonight.

My disaster the other night gave me a good scare. It was Pretty Darned Windy and the Navik windvane just couldn't keep Ankle Biter on course. It had done well in similar, but not quite as windy conditions a few days ago, but this was too much. Even two reefs in the main, combined with the #2 headsail overpowered it and we were carving big S-turns all over the ocean and gybing every 4-5-6 minutes. So I decided to change down to a small headsail after hearing a lot of sail flogging going on after the SSB chat.

I went up on deck and got everything ready, centered the clew of the sail by tightening both sheets, and released the halyard. As I hustled (figure of speech, nobody "hustles" anywhere on whippy little Ankle Biter, especially in any sort of seaway...we CRAWL) I watched in dismay as the head of the sail pulled down and out of the headfoil, and land in the water. I heaved and strained, screamed and grunted an got about 2/3 of the sail back on deck, where I got it under some bungee cords. I then went back to the cockpit and looked over the side. To my horror, the sail, halyard and chaser line were around the rudder! This is at 10:00 PM, with 25 knots of wind and about 4 foot seas. I heaved and strained, put the halyard on a winch and managed to get the rest of the sail aboard after about a half an hour of work.. I promptly sutffed it down the hatch, which got everything wet down below. But now the BIG problem.....a halyard around the rudder.

The rudder still moved so I spent about 2 1/2 hours pulling on the halyard...I tied on a prussic knot and put the extra line on a winch. I thought hard about what the configuration probably was down below, exactly HOW did the line wrap the rudder? Had it slipped up and jammed between the rudder body and the hull? Probably. Finally, a combination of turning the rudder 360 degrees one way, and the back the other gave me some purchase. I heaved it up, soaking wet with sweat. I spun the rudder around again, and then again. Finally the shackle appeared at the waterline, and I reached over and cut the little "chaser" line that I use to retrieve the halyard from the masthead in case it ever flies up there. Another 3-4 turns of the rudder and the chaser line came free in my hands.

Whew.... If it hadn't I would have had no option but to wait until morning and go over the side to try to free itl....that or take a HUGE chance, cut the halyard, and try sailing to Hanalei with a good bit of rope around my rudder. I'd never know when it was going to really jam the rudder up.

In the end, the incident cost me a lot of wet clothes, a very wet cabin, a wet sail, and mess of blue bottom paint on the halyard and the head of my #2, and about four hours of race time.....Oh and a lot of angst and upset. By 2:30 am I had the high-clew #3 up along with the double-reefed mainsail and we were going again.

OK, so much for adventures on the high seas. I'll post this and get back to driving the boat!

Alan

What did I write yesterday, "fraught with calamaties?" Things were going along just ducky, and I was practicing coming off of 15 knot swell surfs without crashing in the trough and burning all of my momentum in massive water fountains through the nets, when I noticed the spinnaker going limp. Quick investigation revealed that the jacket of the halyard had parted somewhere, allowing the core to slip through the clutch, bunching up the cover below the clutch making it near impossible to douse the sail. Eventually I got it down, though a bit salty. Plus, during this mess, skipper forgot to reengage the pilot, so my "go down" remote button was as useful as my garage door opener, and instead the boat did a high speed round-up, me clinging to the leeward rail, thereafter requiring a visit the clean underwear drawer. And like I promised Mom, through all of this mild panic I was properly tied into my safety lines.

Found a squid on deck this morning, and for the first time have not needed my long underwear. Great to hear Na Na back in.

The Iridium SMS is not working quite as advertised. I have received a few messages, most are truncated, and a few I cannot identify the sender. It is best now to use my offshore email for general use, and save the SMS for fast response message "call me now."

Cheers, Jeff

We had a visitor around sunset yesterday (note: the latter is merely a relative term because the "sun" no longer exists in these parts, seriously). I was sitting in the cockpit fiddling with sail trim when I was greeted with a "ti-ti-ti-ti." A lone bird was flying 8 feet off the transom. He/she then proceeded to to fly circles around and through the rigging and then up to the mast head in attempt to find purchase and make its perch. By all appearances this was a shore bird, "wader," and hardly equipped for the task. I bring this up primarily because it made me think of my grandmother, a keen ornithologist who at 91 would give Ken "the General" on Harrier a run for his money on wit and charm. She would have identified this bird in an instant. I can only surmise, given its greyish, off white color and long, decurved bill (and Mr. Peterson's field guide) that this was a Whimbrel...a 500 mile away-from-shore bird. Hope he/she finds its way.

Back to the pursuit of those elusive "small" boats.

Happy Friday.

Chris on Carroll E

Yesterday the surfin' safari continued, with our best speed reaching 14.6 knots. On a good day in the Bay I might see 10 knots but with the ocean swells lifting us and carrying us down their faces, we can really accelerate. The problem with enjoying all this fun and frivolity is my need to get farther South. With the assymetric spinnaker on Ragtime! I can't sail any "deeper" than about 160 degrees relative true wind (180 degrees would be coming directly from behind). Since the trade winds will bend and come more from the East as I get closer to Hawaii, I need to set myself up to come into the islands a bit from the South. Also, it appears there are light winds directly in my path. So alas, I must dig South and forgo some of the "hotter" angles that would have me sailing faster in the short run. (Some may argue with this analysis but hey, I'm driving!)

On the other boats, Warrior's Wish reports that the water is COLD. Don went shrimping yesterday and caught part of his favorite spinnaker on Wish's keel. He could not free it last night (this stuff always happens at 0200) so he had to swim under the boat this morning. I also did some shrimping yesterday but was able to recover the chute* without incident (but no shrimp). Dream Chaser missed check-in last night so I wondered what was up with John. He reported this morning that he had hit his head on the boom or one of his whisker poles and had to take it easy for awhile. (Excedrin headache #178.)

The ice is gone so I had my last seal-a-meal last night - Mongolian Beef on Rice. Now it's Heater Meals (be still my beating heart). During the 2006 race/return I lost 20 pounds. So far I don't think I've lost any weight this trip, but maybe now I will.

Finally, a follow-up on yesterday's discussion of PCR's. One may ask, "Since it has such a big effect on the race's outcome, how does a boat receive its rating?" Ah, THERE'S the rub! For some boats that's where the beer gets stuck in the screen door and for others "yes, Victoria, there really IS a Santa Claus!" I could quote you all the fancy formulae but that's the gist of it.

Well, I'm off to retrieve a GRIB so I can decide where to sail for the next bit.

Tom reports that during the day, he relaxed, ate and slept, to make up for Tuesday night. This respite has helped him maintain a good perspective. He kept a shortened sail all day.

Tom saw one container ship, but said it wasn't a bother. He doesn't see other racing boats right now but sees their coordinates from radio and other communications. He didn't see Sparky today; did try to locate him on the horizon.

July 17 0700 hours
For the first time, the ocean is actually blue! It is a cold morning and he is going almost 7 knots at this time. He stayed in the cabin all night, due to the cold. Minimal phone reception...he will try to call his office colleagues today.

July 17 1900 hours
It is now very pleasant in this late afternoon/early evening. The sea is a beautiful, aquamarine blue. It got sunny today and he made excellent progress, traveling 137 miles in one day! He is currently traveling 6.2 knots, with shortened sail.

Yesterday evening began calm, but soon changed into a "wild night", as the boat traveled faster than hull speed. Folk boats are equipped to do that well, but he said it feels like being in a race car. It gets noisy too, sounding as if the entire boat is being beaten up (though it actually held its own well) He was able to get a fair amount of sleep last night and also this morning even during all of that. The waves were steep and boat was lurching so he stayed in the cabin. The wind vane sailed the boat and he barely came on deck. He said if you go any faster than this, it feels like a roller coaster ride. So, rather than push it any further, he let the boat and vane do the sailing and kept a short sail. He sounded pretty at ease about it all.

There was a leaking cabin window last night so he put some caulking on it and put plastic bags in the storage lockers to keep things dry, moving what he needed to remove.

Though he can't see them, he knows Sparky is just ahead and that Carroll E is just behind, trying hard to creep up on him. He heard Christian asking for a repeat of Feral's coordinates several times on the radio. So the "arch enemies" are closing in on each other. Gayle

When I woke up this morning, I set my tuna rig (handline) and went below to make some eggs and toast. As the toast was browning, I glanced outside to see the bungee/trip line stretched tight. I figured I caught some kelp because there was no way I could catch a fish in less than 10 minutes. I was wrong! I managed to pull it into the boat and got some video and pix before having a nice chunk for breakfast. It was a 2-ft long albacore - not very long but really FAT!

I've been taking it easy out here as I don't really have the racer mentality. I know a lot of these guys are really pushing their boats but I guess I'm just too lazy. It's funny, every time I come out and look around, I'm in the same place. But then I look at Nobeltec and I've really covered some ground! Now if the cloud cover would just burn off.

I unrolled the jib and went below to rest for awhile. After breakfast and morning roll call, it was time to decide what to do. Put the spinnaker back up and keep going too far north? Bob on Ragtime remarked that it seemed we had missed the middle spinnaker reaching part of the race which typically happens about now. Instead, after getting out of the light winds along the coast, the winds filled from the NNE, meaning the direction to go was now downwind, which usually happens later in the race. In past years, I would wait until Alchera finished the spinnaker reaching section and entered the light wind ridge of the high pressure zone to drop the standard jib and put up the downwind twin jibs that have been so effective in past races. It's not an easy task getting the main jib off the furler (no hanks) and keeping it from going overboard in the limited area of the foredeck, and then doing the opposite by putting up the twin jibs. But now I really wanted to have the twin jibs available, but how to do it in 15-20 knots of wind? I decided I would rather do my best to get the twin jibs on the furler rather than spend another day sailing fast in the wrong direction. The first job, the hardest, was to get the jib down in the current wind. I rigged up every spare halyard I have on the downwind side of the jib to keep the jib onboard as it came down. Fortunately, that worked rather well. Folding the sail was another matter. The best I could hope for was to put as many sail ties around it as possible to keep it from blowing overboard, and then roll it up best I could all bunched up and tie it up like a big bundle. Which it was. Since it wasn't flaked properly, it's huge! I could barely drag it back to the cockpit and pry it down the companionway hatch. I managed to just barely fit it through the door to the aft quarterberth, where it now sits taking up every inch of available space. Guess I won't be sleeping back there from now on.

Getting the twin jibs on deck was much easier, since they were flaked down properly to a compact package. Getting the luff fed into the groove of the furler was a problem - I can't reach the halyard from the furler, so it's almost impossible to feed the sail into the furling groove and run back to the halyard before the sail slips out of the groove. What's that definition of insanity again - doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? That was me with the sail and the furling groove. Sometimes insanity works though, because eventually I got it in. The next part was tricky - there was still a lot of wind, so I needed to head the boat into the wind and get the sail up fast enough so that the first part of the sail didn't come ripping out of the groove. There was a point at which I thought I was going to lose the sail overboard before I could get it raised high enough, but fortunately that didn't happen. I got the sail up and furled, and turned the boat downwind again.

The third and final step to this operation is to rig the poles to the jib. This is easy in light air, but difficult when there's more wind. I was able to get the poles attached, and then rig up the foreguys I use on the poles to help control the shape and angle of the jib to the wind. Nothing too difficult, just a lot of little details. The whole operation - jib down, twins up and rigged, must have taken about 4 hours.

So now Alchera is pointing where I want to go, further south and downwind. I could definitely be moving faster with the spinnaker up right now, but I would not be happy about the direction. Having the twins on the furler means I can switch off between the twins and a spinnaker depending on which is the most appropriate and which gives me the best progress in the right direction. And also importantly, how much work I want to do.

Sometime during this process the boom vang broke. There's a steel cable which is part of the multipart purchase (block and tackle) that simply snapped. I'll have to figure out how to jury rig something.

Good news - there is sun now! And blue skies! And the ocean is blue! I was beginning to forget what that looked like. Yay.

Mark/Alchera

Wow what a difference in 36 hours. Now we are in trade-wnid conditions, although farther north than one would normally find that. The weather charts show 12 to 20 knots of wind blowing +/-30 degrees to Hanalei all the way. So make that a 1500 mile spinnaker run.

In all of my life I have less than an hour of spinnaker experience. I have this nice new roller furling spin, better described as a "code A," it cost plenty so time to use it. However spinnaker set and douse are often fraught with calamities, so I was hesitant. I reviewed the procedure, layed things out carefully, up it went without a hitch. And WOW what a kick in the butt power-wise. Precision steering is required to keep it full but not overpowered; autopilot energy consumption is way up plus I spend a lot of time at the wheel.

I took it down for the night, the wind was building and I did not want to sleep with the turbo on. It came down fine, too, even doing it after dark.

I sleep on my navigation station bench where I have a pillow level view of critical instruments and alarms. But just as important is the sound. My head is just a few inches from the hull, and I can hear the water hissing, churninig, slamming against the hull. All good. When the boat gets above 13 knots, something underwater humms. I don't want that kind of speed if I am not at the wheel, so if I hear a hum I get up and do something to slow down the boat.

And the best news of the day is El Sol. For the first time on the trip, we are looking for sunscreen!

Cheers, Jeff

Also first squid on deck this morning. One part of me says, poor guy and part says, inky bastard because they are a little bit of a mess to clean up after. I don't know if the wash on board in a wave and get stuck or the jump out of the water because they think the boat is prey but they rarely live because it almost always the middle of the night when it happens.

Cheers, Al

Despite my best efforts at rigging the many lines for the reaching "kite" (spinnaker), it went up wrong - twice. The problem was the control lines that allow me to unfurl and furl it from the cockpit. These are a safety feature when it is rough since with them rigged, I don't have to stand on the foredeck wrestling with 1,000 square feet of rebellious nylon. However, when one or more of the regular sheets or halyards gets twisted on the furling lines as happened yesterday, the "cure becomes worse than the disease." Henceforth I'll run the dousing "sock" from the foredeck like the rest of the world! No damage was done but I lost at least an hour sorting out the mess.

I decided the reacher was being bad so I left it sopping wet in its bag (problems with spinnakers always end with them wet). Then I set the big runner. It was grand, sailor's nirvana! Big, no, bodacious surfs up into the teens with the Doobies singing "Oh, runnin' down the highway . . . I can't stop, no I can't stop . . ." I doused it just in time for roll call at 2100 and put it back up for a couple more hours afterwards. This proved to be too much of a good thing so we went back to jib reaching at midnight, heading back up to rhumbline.

Unless something changes it will be more of the same for the next 9-10 days until I finish in Hanalei Bay. This is why sailors do Hawaii races!

In yesterday's post I mentioned the handicaps. Connie (my wife) said this was helpful so here's how you figure the time allowances at the finish. The handicap for each boat is its "PCR" shown on the "Divisions" page of this SHTP site, and this race is handicapped using "Time-on Distance." To see the time allowance between any two boats, take the difference in their PCR's and multiply that difference by 2,120 (miles, the length of the race). This gives you the allowance in seconds. Divide by 3,600 to get it in hours. Or of course you could shorten this and just multiply the difference in the two boat's PCR's by .59

For example, using Ragtime! and my closest division rival, Polar Bear: My PCR is 121, his is 99. The difference of 22, multiplied by .59, shows that he has to finish 13 hours ahead of me to beat me.

Okay, my brain hurts now. I think I'll make the coffee, eat some breakfast and get cleaned up for roll call. Then more surfing!

To leeward is the Jib Top and Genoa Staysail. Poled to windward is the #2 genoa. Even with full main, the helm is neutral, and the wind vane steers easily as we cream along.

The next bump in the road to Hanalei is 130 degrees W longitude, which we should cross tonight at the watch change.

Thank Buddha for WILDFLOWER's AIS radio receiver: It has warned us of three ships that did their best to scare the wits out of us. The first, CANTOPEX REDEMPTION II had us in its sights, and didn't alter until I pleaded on the VHF, crossing us less than 100 yards ahead. The next came at night, the containership MSC TEXAS, and altered to pass less than 1/8 mile astern. The last came out of the grey this morning, the MSC TEXAS. We had the flare gun aimed at his bridge if he tried the same stunt.

What a treat to have so many friends at CYC to send us off. A special thanks to my loving sister Marilee for helping make this possible. And to Tom Wylie for giving us a stout little ship.

~sleddog

Now that we've switched frequencies for check ins, I can hear everyone and apparently they can hear me. The General said that, after we switched up, this morning was the first time he'd heard me since the start of the race! Islander and Sunquest both reported seeing some Pac Cup boats passing them but I haven't seen anyone at all.

No fishing today. Ate homemade beef stew last night instead of the other half of my big steak - saved that for lunch. More beef stew tonight. I'm going to set the tuna rig tomorrow.

This will be my last blog entry until we get some sunshine and I have more confidence that my solar panels are actually charging my batteries. Actually, I know they're charging my batteries because my SSB radio is still working great, but still. I could run my little gasoline generator, but it stinks!

It's still gray, gray gray. We'rre power reaching along under reefed main and #2 headsail. I argued with myself all day as to whether to put up a spinnaker today or not. I even got out the lines and the sail and was ready to do it then a little wind shift made it unfeasible. It's probably a good thing I didn't, I'd have been wrestling with it all day, and that would have been a drag, though it probably would have been really fast. As it is we're booming along at over seven knots...not bad at all.

I'm hoping/planning to cross 130 degrees west between 34 - 35 degrees North. I was surprised to see that Mark on Alchera crossed well above 35 North. This really is a "rhumb-line" year. My divison mates are further down south, where us ultralights are "supposed" to go. I'm not as fast as they are so I'm hoping that sailing a shorter course will pay off, since my gamble to sail west from the start and "get to the wind" didn't pay off at all.

Nothing of great import has happened today, though I did shoot a mess of video for Johnathan Gutoff, including me making dinner. Academy Award materail, for sure. OK, well there are petrel sflying around, thatt's something....just nothing of import with ME. Since that's the case I will got back to the second day after the start, when the dolphins paid me a visit.

I've seen them many times, but these were different; daqrk upper body, white undersides, white on their tails and dorsal fins....beautiful! There were three of them and they played around the boat for 45 minutes. They came so close I could almost touch them, coming up to the surface and blowing with an explosive *whoot*, which is so distinctive. Even though the boat was hardly moving, they zoomed baack and forth underneath it, nearly brushing the keel and doing three-dimensional figure-eights under the bow. It was wonderful! It's things like this that make coming out here like no other experience.

Thje whole fleet is disappointed to hear of Dwights battery problems that have forced him to make the prudent decision and withdraw. Having had to back out of a SHTP myself, I particularly relate.We also all arre waiting for tonights SSB chat to hear if Barbara has solved her battery charging issues on Islander. Fingers crossed! Oh, for anybody listening in, we've moved up to the 8 meter band.

Last blog entry from Ankle Biter until sunshine, so pray for sunshine!

Alan

The "little" boats (i.e. Sparky, Ferrel and Black Feathers) are moving along the course nicely, causing concern among the "bigger" boat in the division. After morning roll call I figured it time to throw up the asymmetrical spinnaker and take some of the hurt out of the miles lost to them (the total net weight of the three together is just a little more than that of Carroll E, and she's only a 24 foot boat!). After five hours of hand steering, several round ups and a growling stomach I threw in the towel only to find that the combination of 110% genoa and staysail steered under the control of the windvane drove the boat as fast and certainly more elegantly. OK, lesson learned.

I can still recall from the '06 race several distinct, mental images of what I can only call "sea scapes." You know, the way the sun, sky, water and swell coalesce to form an impression of a place and time. Well, so far there's only been one sea scape this race; uniformly overcast, grey skies and seas varying only in value. The sun would be a welcome sight, if for no other reason than to have the solar panels take care of the battery charging. Ah, but the "promised land" still awaits.

Bye for now.

Chris on Carroll E

Last night was less challenging than the previous, the wind was good so we kept moving, but there were frequent wide variations in speed and direction that made for some work. Also the sea state has come up, no more dry and balmy foredeck naps. By mid morning I was able to get the boat into a nice groove, beam reaching at 10 knots in 13 knots wind on a perfect course, and stayed this way for hours. The weather looks stable all the way now, just waiting for the sun to come out. It is about full moon too, and not really able to enjoy it with the 100% cloud cover.

I've heard reports about food bragging in the skipper blogs, so I'll mention mine, fresh baked bread every other day. Mmmm, pungent rye bread and a hunk of hard cheese, washed down with a Fat Tire. No freeze dried food on this boat. I am about out of other fresh food though, just some yogurt and bananas left.

Al on Dogbark mentioned a really great sighting of a large whale plus possible killer whales in a cooperative pod, very interesting but could not make positive identification. I have not seen any whales, but am trying to keep more whale watches.

Best for now, Jeff

White caps, cold soft spray
Single reef at 3 a.m.
Strong wind steeds me on.

Winds are decent and seas are comfortable. I have had a Code 0 Spinnaker up for 10 hours and am averaging over 5 knots now the breeze has filled in. Breeze seems to be south of rumb line right now, Harrier and Wildflower are in my wake easily saving their time but its a long way to Hanalei Bay. Since that rhymes I hereby declare a copy right on that phrase its a "long way to Hanalei Bay for the duration of this race.

Please let you your friends know about this site and introduce them to the "Bug Light". Its good water cooler stuff until the Olympics start.

The problem I've found is that it's often difficult to fall asleep right away, so that when I actually do, the timer to wake up is already going off. The other problem is that during the night, waking up every 20 minutes makes for a very long night, and usually the boat doesn't really require that much close attention. So I've experimented with longer nap periods, and settled on 35 minutes for a short nap, and 45 minutes for a long nap. I'm a little more groggy when I wake up, but not so much that it doesn't pass very quickly. Unlike the shorter naps, I can always fall asleep at least some of the time with the longer naps. So I feel more rested with fewer naps. And the nights go by more rapidly, which is less tedious.

Another reason I'm more comfortable with the longer naps is that I'm less concerned than I used to be about large ship traffic. I have two AIS systems on board which will set off alarms when ships are detected. I also have radar with its own alarm. And I can run a strobe as well, which is hard to miss seeing out on the dark ocean. Often the strobes can be seen by ships well before they detect you on their own radar. Masthead strobes are a requirement to enter the SSS Transpac. Some skippers like myself use them fairly regularly on the open ocean, others don't.

Last night there was plenty of wind, around 15 knots or so. Alchera was reaching along quite nicely doing 8 plus knots pretty much all night. In the morning the wind had shifted more to the north and was now aft of the beam, so before check-in I put up the spinnaker. It's an asymmetric, which means I can't run very deep, but at the moment it's working OK. There are a lot of swells from the stern that cause the boat to yaw around a lot and makes keeping the spinnaker full a little difficult, but so far the autopilot has been up to the task.

Today at check-in it was becoming difficult for all the boats to communicate. So we all switched over to the higher, longer range, 8 Meg frequency. Everyone sounded a lot better, though I was getting some sort of background interference which was not too bad. So the plan is that tonight we will start out on the lower frequency we have been using, and then switch up to the higher frequency after telling everyone that's what we're doing. There was more grumbling about the trash and recycling requirements, but everyone is resigned to do what they've been told. Last night I asked Eric on Polar Bear how this compared to the Great Lakes racing he was used to. He said pretty similar, he has to wear thermal underwear when he races up north, and so far he's had to wear them this trip as well! Hopefully that will change. I'll be sure to ask him when the thermals come off.

Quote from Haulback: 'Nothing but the truth comes off this boat.'
Quote from Harrier: 'What recycling bag do I put the banana peel in?'

Got to go tend the boat. I heard a new noise I don't recognize.

Mark/Alchera

The competition is just as intense in the back of the fleet, with the slowest boats working hard to eek out gains. Since we're racing on handicap, It is quite possible that one of the slowest boats will win overall. For example, I need to finish 97.2 hours before Sparky to beat him. Similarly, Dogbark needs to finish 105.4 hours before Ragtime! to correct out ahead.

Well, it ain't gonna happen with me typing on the computer, so back on deck!

July 16 0715 hours:
Tom reports no high seas, but it is rough and lumpy. Boat is rolling side to side. He was going 6.5 knots last night and had to evade a number of container ships. He reefed down; now only main sail is up, to keep auto pilot going. He is fine; phone is fully charged but reception is poor this morning. AS of call, he reports going 5.6 knots.

Its continued to be dreary gray overcast skies with some light mist. It gets a little cold at night, making it that much harder to drop off quickly to get sleep when you need it. I'll be happy when we get further down the course and it starts to warm up a bit. And get some sun! Enough of these gray skies!

Unfortunately we heard this morning that Dwight on NaNa is turning back again. He had turned back once already because of battery problems, but quickly made repairs and restarted. When he checked in this morning he said the problem with the batteries not holding a charge had continued, and he was forced to turn back again. You could tell his batteries were low because his SSB was breaking up. Barbara on Islander continues to have problems charging or keeping a charge in her batteries, it wasn't clear which. Apparently just running the tricolor navigation lights will run the batteries down overnight. The fleet gave her a number of suggestions to try, hopefully one of them will work.

Things corrode very quickly out here in the salty marine environment. Particularly razor blades. I found that out rather quickly when I went to shave the 4 day growth off my neck, which had started to get scratchy. I had put a new blade in my razor just before leaving and had only used it once, so I figured it would still be just fine. Not so. The first swipe of the razor against my neck took off a nice layer of skin. So now instead of a scratchy beard, I have a perfect rectangular section of skin missing on my neck. At least it bothers me less than the beard did.

Mark/Alchera

Been working on a few boat projects, finished up the stereo installation which sounds very good, though I might wish I had a second iPod. With the early low-wind and cloudy conditions I have had no battery charging from wind or solar, so I blew the no-diesel consumption goal on the second day. I was even worried about not having enough fuel to finish without turning off the autopilot and refrigerator, but renewable energy production was up today and the batteries held steady. Two boats have had worse luck on the electrical issue, looks like Na Na has dropped out for that reason and Islander has some problems, which may have been worked out in the morning chat session.

Looking forward to hearing upbeat comments from the fleet in the evening checkin, one hour from now.

Cheers, Jeff

I had a nice steak to eat today - half for breakfast (steak and eggs) and half for dinner - so I didn't fish. Will put the pole back out tomorrow. Right now I'm just enjoying sailing comfortably with a reef in my main.

The other night we had a discussion during roll call on whether or not it was important, when drifting about waiting for wind, to have the boat at least pointed in the direction you wanted (prayed, wished, begged, etc) to go. Unfortunately it degraded into pure silliness and there never was a consensus formed around the topic.

But, for today at least, life here at the back end of the fleet is good. Haulback is sailing along under full main and code '0' - a very flat-cut asymmetric spinnaker sort of sail, that has been a saviour for me so far along in the race (Thanks Seaspan!!) It behaves somewhat like a large genoa, but it is set flying instead of being attached to the forestay. And if I cannot hold a course quite as close to the wind as with a conventional headsail, at least it allows me, especially in flat seas, to lay a very tight close reach.... Maybe for next race I will have to get a big light-air genoa made for the boat - or maybe not- there can't be 3 light air races in a row...can there???

I have started tracking the boats in my division, and some others I am interested in, on a set of NIMA plotting charts that I brought along for this purpose. They show each degree of Latitude (therefore, 60 nautical miles) as 2 inches, large enough a scale to track multiple boats without their courses overlapping too much. Always entertaining and a good way to get an good idea of where exactly the competition is. I am somewhat chagrined to find that Sparky and Feral both appear to be ahead of me at this point. They are both sailing a good race so far. Good job, guys!!!

Weather so far has been cool and overcast - I am waiting for the sun to show a little further along a little further along - but my new solar array appears to be up to the job of keeping me supplied in amp-hours. Bravo!! And new autopilot working a charm. Another Bravo!!!

As usual, the 0900 and 2100 roll call provide a big part of the day's entertainment. Seeing as things are pretty slow for everyone so far, there is a fair bit of chit-chat after the position reports have been taken. I have noticed other years that the fresher the conditions, the less the chatter, as people want to get back on deck to deal with some new catastrophe or another. There are usual litany of radio problems, charging difficulties, and quandaries amongst the fleet about how to program that new piece of equipment you put on the boat, but have never really used yet....this is all normal. We haven't got on to the 'recipe hour' yet - this will happen in the second week out- but don't get your hopes up, there are only so many ways to cook Dinty Moore stew!!!

That's about it for today.....Jim/Haulback

Nonetheless, it has been a pleasant day so far. I had some slack-key guitar playing on the IPOD, enjoyed my morning coffee sitting in the companionway, and watched a gentle drizzle rinse the salt off of everything. With the boat sailing along in light air it is easier to move around the cabin without banging into things. I got some bits of decent sleep last night, which always helps!

Dinner was beef brisket on a sourdough roll, breakfast was peaches and frosted mini-wheats with some still-coolish milk. (Meal reports will cease when I'm just eating Heater Meals and other boring stuff.)

Probably a repeat, but Sparky picked up a military-looking ball from the water. The General suggested he NOT pull the pin. Several assured him it was not a prized glass fishing float.

It's time to tack (yet again) and try to keep a decent VMG to Hawaii, so that's it for today.

Hmmm. Downwind. I think I've fallen prey to a bait and switch, 'cause I sure haven't seen any "downwind" yet!

The last two days have been gray, gray, gray. This morning it's threatening rain, but so far it's just been drizzle. The wind is smack dab out of the compass heading we all want to go, southwest, so we've all been tacking back and forth between slightly north of west.....and let me tell you, it is seriously annoying to have to sail "north" on a race to Hawaii....and slightly east of south. Somehow, for me, sailing slightly east on a race to Hawaii is less annoying than sailing north. Go figure.

I am in serious electron-saving mode. I check in and listen to the whole SSB check-in, and sometimes say a few things but I sign off early. The Navik windvane is doing nearly all the steering. She has a name, did you know? Her name is Vanessa, and I sometimes talk to her. She never talks back, but she's clearly feeling cranky because I was up and down all night last night dealing with a disconnected oar, slipped linkages and general lack of course-keeping abillity. However, she's been going like a champ since sunup, and steered just g reat yesterday even though we had quite a bit of light stuff. I haven't had the autopilot on since Saturday. Yesterday afternoon there was probably enough sun to generate a few amps, but I'm sure I'm running in electricity debt with the radio and the running lights, so I'm being as conservative as I can.

This was all in the plan, of course.

Today is the day the NW wind is supposed to make an appearrance. It will be interesting to see if Dogbark and Hecla are in it already. Their course and speed should show it, in the 9:00 AM check-in.

Other random facts: I've now eaten all my fresh food. Breakfast this morning was my last apple, and I have a third of a bag of carrot bits left I opened a can of Chef Boyardee overstuffed ravioli for dinner last night as I was out of salami and mozarella sandwiches. I've discovered that I don't like sleeping in the leeward bunk. The noise of the water going by, about 3/8ths of an inch away through the fiberglass bugs me. So I slept on the cabin sole last night and that's wretched uncomfortable. My masthead strobe l.ight isn't working so I took my pigstick strobe and hung it off of the backstay about 10 feet off the water and hooked it up to one of the 6-volt lantern batteries. Worked great.

I supposed you all know that NaNa and Dwight went back to San Francisco with battery problems. IT sure was great to hear Dwight, back with us again, at the chek-in last night!

I understand that my encounter with the seal on Saturday has made it to the blog. Here's the story. I passed quite close to the yellow "S" entrance buoy to the Gulf of the Farallones on Saturday. Several sea lions hopped off as I went by. About 20-30 minutes later, right about 4:30 I noticed a small-to-medium sized female sea lion swimming 'round the boat. WHAT FUN! I thought....until it became quite clear that she was thinking about joining me on board! I yelled and waved my arms, but she kept trying. I was seriously worried shed' try to jump up on one of my solar panels and destroy it. This went on for ten minutes. I grabbed the air horn and gave her a blast in the face from about a foot away, even that didn't dissuade her. Finally she swam off, porpoising towards Warriors Wish.

That didn't last though, Dons boat has a lot more freeboard than Ankle Biter and she was back in five minutes. She finally made a half-hearted attempt to get on the boat and I literallly whacked at her with my foul. weather gear bottoms. She had both flippers and her head under the lifelines, heading for the cockpit exactly where I was standing!

Evidently that was enough because she prowled around for a while, then spotted Wildflower a few hundred yards away and went over to harrass Skip.

Back to "real-time"...the 9:00 AM check-in showed that I got my hiney kicked by the fleet last night. I spent so much time going North of west...the wind - windvane simply wouldn't let me sail higher...that I didn't make very many miles towards Hanalei, and I lost ground to Dream Chaser (my closest rated competition) and the other sportboats. Grrrrr. Barbara is having battery problems, but I think John is right when he tells her that she's not charging the batteries when she tries to run the engine on idle. She needs to crank up the RPM's and then the alternator will put out enough voltage to shove charge back in the batteries. Her house battery is running down, but her starting battery seems to be OK. If that's not it, I'd guess she has a short somewhere, probably in her masthead tricolor wiring.

OK enough writing, and back to sailing!

Alan

Shortly after filing the evening position report to base, and verifying that the hot-off-of-the-press 10pm GRIB weather files did not match actual conditions other than to say that things are a mess, I tried to sleep. Then every few minutes, the wind would stop, the boat would spin out into some random direction, and the autopilot would signal me with an alarm that it was my turn to steer and sort out this mess. No sleep at all. This morning the wind speed is staying so far above 2 knots, I can type and fix some coffee and keep moving, though I would have better performance if I was hand steering.

MOre after the morning checkin,

Best, Jeff

July 13 am
Sails full through the Gate!
6 p.m. wind sail, sails limp;
Drift, flog, night alone.

July 13 pm
Exhausted this morn -
Too near shipping lane to sleep,
Praying for fair winds.

July 14 am
Post adrenaline,
Flat seas; time to rest,
Reflect opportunity.

July 14 pm
Fair west wind arrives,
Water gurgling along hull,
Whispers dreams to me.

Visibility is clear but it has been overcast and cold. After some prodding, he noted that he was wearing long johns, ski pants, polar tech parka and foul weather gear and he is moving around the boat a lot, and yes, it is still very cold.

There is a bit of wind out of the southwest, but that is the direction of Hawaii, so he has had to tack back and forth all day.

Last night he talked to one ship and was pleased to hear that the ship could see him fine on radar. Otherwise, it has been quiet. He has used autopilot a lot and the electrical system has been fine so far, with apparent minimal usage, as it is still fully charged.

At night you can see the lights of competitor boats and they have all frequently communicated with each other.. He reports that it was pitch dark last night except for an amazing, and eerie expanse of phosphorescence in the water, emanating from many, large jellyfish. Apparently some of the other competitors noted this, as well. Tom also reported that the Farallones were full of life during his earlier sighting of them; seeing whales, dolphins, ducks and other similarly identified species mentioned by others, in and around the the islands.

Earlier, Sparky came up almost next to the Feral.

With no wind all day to turn the wind gen and no sun for the solar panels, I'm conserving energy tonight and will only be listening to roll call. Caught another fish today - I think it was a baby tuna. It was only about 10" long - half as long as yesterday's mackerel but it gave me just as much meat. I got video of that one too, in case anyone doubts my 'fish story'!

Then the fleet got into a whole discussion and much grumbling about the recycling and trash retention requirements of the race this time. Polar Bear remarked that he was having difficulty getting in and out of the cockpit companionway now with the big blue bag he's got for storing recyclable waste in the way. The question came up as to exactly what was recyclable versus what was simply trash. Another boat mentioned that the race committee had said that nothing was to be thrown overboard that wasn't used to wipe your butt. Well, of course, then the obvious retort was to wipe your butt with whatever you felt was OK to throw overboard, including cans. In jest I'm sure, I don't believe anyone is really planning to do that. You could hurt yourself that way, and it would be embarrassing to explain to the clinic in Hanalei exactly what happened. And I'm sure the Race Committee would take a dim view of that particular practice.

After I dropped the mainsail and went to take my standard 30 minute nap, I woke up two hours later with my backup timer in my hand, meaning I had not only shut off the primary timer but the backup as well before going back to sleep. This has happened before in previous races, and it's why I carry a third timer. The third timer is placed in a different part of the boat, so I have to physically get up and go get it to turn it off. Obviously it's time to bring out the third timer.

At the moment I have about 5-6 knots of wind from the south, so Alchera is gliding along in smooth seas at about 5 knots in a WNW direction. Planning any kind of a routing strategy right now is pretty difficult - if enough wind comes up to get the boat to sail in some direction, you take it - so long as there's at least some westerly component to it.

Mark/Alchera

Spent an hour after roll call this am hacking away at the "content" in my ice box trying to extricate a sealed bag of chili for tonight's dinner. Seems the dry ice in conjunction with with the block ice has fused all contents into one massive glacier. Lunch will be sucking on a frozen, hard boiled egg. Funny, didn't have this problem last time? Ahh, the luxuries of ocean passages.

Bye for now.

Chris on Carroll E

Yesterday afternoon Wildflower came into view to the South. Skip was a welcome sight since with his experience (read the Racer Profiles), I figured I must be doing something right. According to the GRIBs, the 15-20 knot breeze should hit us from the N in another day or two, so I wanted to position myself to get there first. Apparently Skip was thinking the same thing. However, the boats ahead and S are getting this light SW breeze first and legging out a bit on us, so we'll hope to make up for that when the good wind gets here.

As you've probably read in other posts, Feolena claims to have caught the first fish of the trip. After considerable doubts were expressed by Haulback and Alchera, Rob said he had the video to prove it.

One way to make up for poor sailing is with good food (the cruise lines make their living at this)! So last night's dinner was Kung Pao chicken and rice (thanks, Connie) and today's breakfast was bacon and pancakes with blueberry topping.

Hi to Lois, Susan and Renee at the office - thanks again for covering for me.

Time to grab another grib and get this on its way.

Otherwise life out here is settling in to a simple routine. The weather is cool, cloudy, with occasional drizzle. Yesterday saw many commercial ships pass through the fleet, but last night was quiet in that respect. My radar detector sometimes picks up signals from ships that I cannot see visually or with AIS; I need to remind myself that I do like these alarms.

Best, Jeff

He reported passing under the Golden Gate about 1pm and near the HEKLA trimaran. He said the sail to the Bridge was pleasant and uneventful, with plenty of wind.

At about 25 miles off of the Golden Gate Bridge he reported a sea lion tried to come on board. He called in Sat. eve near the "S" buoy while in sight of a lot of boats of fellow racers; all becalmed. He reported also seeing dolphins, but none tried to come aboard. He slept a little. Weather was clear and not very cold, with a little haze. For several hours he had very little wind, with the boat barely moving. Most boats have since tried to head west, scattering in search of some wind. He did see some ships, but it wasn't too bad; not very many of them around.

July 13 morning: Tom can see Faralon islands and the Carol E. Last night all boats were in sight of each other; now all have dispersed.

July 13 eve: Tom is 75 miles off of the Golden Gate and 100 miles off of Half Moon Bay. Visibility is good but weather very overcast; he expects drizzle or rain in the night. So far it is not as bitter cold as it was in the last July Long Pac he participated in.

I had Tuna pad thai tonight, thanks Lou. Hopefully we will find some wind with some north in it before tomorrow is out. Al

I've had light wind all day (no more than 10 knots) and have dodged a few freighters. The AIS has paid for itself yet again. I was able to call one of the closer freighters to let them know I was nearby. They'd seen me on the radar but it was a relief to know they were aware of me. Haulback was within sight most of the day but disappeared a few hours ago. I'm drifting right now but a windline is moving toward me from the south.

The solar panels and wind generator have been keeping up with my loud stereo and computer usage. I've really enjoyed the chats with the other racers too. For the record, I won my bet with Carroll E for who would catch the first fish. I hooked four Spanish Mackerel this morning but shook a baby off and two others shook themselves free. Finally landed the fourth - it was about two feet long but only gave me two small filets. It was enough for a great lunch - a little olive oil and salt & pepper. We have 'double or nothing'd our bet - now it's for who catches the largest fish (as measured by a spoon next to it in a photo)!

Just off the Farallons I was able to watch two whales breech and play around on the surface for several minutes before they dove as the boat approached. And at night, during one of the many times when I was nursing the boat along, I saw the brightest display of phosphorescence in the water that I have ever seen, truly amazing.

Come the morning, the wind picked up enough to move along OK, from about 5 to 8 knots. The wind is still from the south, caused by a small low pressure system that is causing the weak winds. The prediction is for another band of weak winds ahead before crossing into the NE winds, so the struggles are not over yet. It's a bit ironic, since the race committee moved the start date into July primarily to allow the pacific high and the winds to stabilize after the fiasco from the 2006 race when half the fleet got stuck with no wind for days. But, clearly Mother Nature had other plans in mind for this race! I've tried to make some kind of sense out of what's happening and come up with a plan to get through it, but if it works it will be more by luck than anything else. I'm sure in retrospect it will be clear and those boats that chose correctly will rack up some nice gains over the rest of the fleet and will win the awe and admiration of all for their brilliant strategy. I can hear the stories being told under the tree already.

My food consumption so far: A can of Beanie Weenies for lunch the first day. Then a rather large and scrumptious dinner salad with lettuce, tomatoes, ham, mushrooms, cheese, green peppers, and scallions, topped with a cheese and garlic Italian dressing. An apple turnover for breakfast with orange juice. Then a melted cheese sandwich to add to the breakfast. A can of ravioli for lunch with some pepperoni. I would have had some Italian salami instead of the pepperoni, but the two salamis I thought I brought along have gone missing. I'm pretty sure they are onboard, but I must have found a really good hiding place for them because for the life of me I can't find them now. Probably years from now I'll dig into some recess of the boat, discover a pile of moldy black stuff and wonder, 'what the hell is that'?

My little sleep alarms are working like a charm. I have three industrial strength alarms called 'Screaming Meanies' which I use to make sure I get up every 30 minutes. They have three different settings: soft, loud, and way too loud. I generally set one on loud, and a backup for 10 minutes later on way too loud. Just the threat of the backup going off is usually enough to make me get up when the first one goes off. However, more than once I've been so tired that when the first alarm goes off, I grab it, shut it off, and then fall asleep again with it in my hand. When the second one goes off, I wake up, see the alarm in my hand and try to turn it off, which of course doesn't work since it's the wrong alarm.

This year Alchera is equipped with AIS, a recent technology with allows small craft like ours to pick up name and position information from large ships. In the past, only those boats with expensive and power hungry radars had the ability to 'watch' for ships while the skipper was below resting. Now with a fairly inexpensive unit, singlehanders have another way to make sure they stay clear of dangerous encounters with large ships. A number of boats in the fleet this year are so equipped. In fact just as I was typing this, I heard Skip on Wildflower hail a ship he had tracked on AIS that was coming too close. This scenario has repeated itself several times already during this race alone. Since I've installed it I find myself using the radar much less, which cuts down on my power consumption quite at bit.

Mark/Alchera

All night I could see Helca, Alchera and (I think) Polar Bear, so I'm in the hunt. The boats just S of me had more wind earlier but that extra breeze has reached me now. Na Na was just behind me all night. It's most unfortunate that Dwight has to turn back (due to charging problems) but he hopes to restart after he gets the electrons flowing again.

There were lots of little black ducks around the Farallones. They have a strange-sounding call, like a cat's meow. I also saw a large dolphin jump near me. The Gulf of the Farallones is full of life!

Dinner last night was a "Zesty Barbeque Beef" Heater-Meal and peaches. Breakfast this morning was Raisin Bran with some milk poured into the zip-lock bag - thanks Carrie for bagging up my cereal again for the race!

The time in Tiburon was fun. I was better prepared when I arrived and was able to relax and enjoy it more. My whole family was there to see us off. Connie and our kids had hoped to get out on the Golden Gate Bridge to holler as I sailed under (as they had done in 2006) but due to better breeze after the start, I was already passing Mile Rock when they were crossing the bridge. Connie said that I would have to turn around and sail back under the GG if that happened. Uh, no.

It's time to download the morning GRIB (weather) file, so I'll cue this up now to go out with that query.

So Jim... from whom I'm borrowing my liferaft...I'm having a lot better time than I thought I would! George, Gwen's wind dance has done something because while it's quiet out here, there have only been spotty minutes here and there where I was drifting. Except for a few short bits, I've been moving along at at least 2 knots since exiting the Golden Gate, and mostly -at about 4-5 knots. I want to see video of this dance!

It's gray and overcast, like we figured. The Navik windvane is driving, which saves electrons, though I let the tiller pilot do the work last night. The SSB radio is working well, especially now that the fleet has gently coached me into not shoving the microphone down my throat when I talk into it! The only oddity is that I can see a good sized ship off to the north. He's loafing along, I've been watching him for 45 minutes but he's not showing up on my AIS. Actually, it'sw Georges AIS, that would be George the piper who came to the Corinthian YC to pipe us all out....However, Bob on Ragtime says this ships AIS signal was "iffy" and "intermittent" so I won't stress over it.

OK, enough introspection, it's time to eat my morning salami and mozarella sandwich, plot my position on real paper charts and enjoy another day of sailing!

Alan

Some fleet news for the RC, no one has any contact with Wenlemir at any check-in so far and Dwight on Na Na reported to me after check-in this morning that he is returning to SF because his batteries will not hold a charge. He will not be on the check-in this evening. He hopes to be able to restart and still complete the race.

Al

[note from Timo: We got a email check-in from Wenlemir on Saturday PM and a late check-in on Sunday AM]

I finally did it, after 6 years working towards this goal I have sucessfully started the Singlehanded Transpac! The start itself was a bit chaotic, in large part because I was not allowed dock space at the host yacht club ("too big"), so I was stuck on a mooring just outside the breakwater, requiring a shuttle boat. Kim, Nick, and Greg came out to the boat with me in the morning to help get organized and underway. However, at still one hour before my start, the harbormaster began insisting that he get the extra people off of my boat because he was needed at another event. Mild chaos ensued, tangled mooring lines and sailing in circles while still tied to the mooring, surely to the amusement of the other competitors already sailing about waiting for their start time. Kim and Nick left the boat so quickly that there was almost no time for an emotional aloha. All of that ended well though with a clean start and brisk beat through the San Francisco Bay packed with spectator and other recreational boats.

Once out of the gate, as forecast, the winds became very light. The weather was otherwise nice and sunny, plenty of sea life to view. The night was difficult; unable to sleep much because I am not in the solo sailing sleeping "groove" yet, there were 5 other competitor boats nearby and some commercial traffic to monitor, and the winds were very light and variable requiring frequent attention. The morning dawned cloudy with 7 knots wind from the south, and 6.5 knots boat speed aimed directly at Hanalei.

Cheers! Jeff