Archive for the ‘Jon Fowkes’ Category
Day 6 Post By Jon
Sailing the Moon Beam
Day 6 8:00 A.M. (1593 Nautical Miles (NM) from Hawaii)
91 NM made good over last 24 Hours
We celebrated Nico’s Birthday in fine fashion last evening. At the 8 p.m. watch change we were all up for the festivities and it turned out that the Skipper’s plan was excellent. The dinner that had been placed on deck early in the morning was Hungarian Gulosh from Tom’s favorite deli in Palo Alto. But before the dinner was served Tom cut up some cheese and salami which he served with crackers. While we were passing that around he gave Nico a present and while Nico was struggling getting all of the tape, paper and packaging off of it Tom explained that his family has a tradition of delayed gratification when it came to presents and Nico understood completely while in anticipation of what turned out to be extremely gratifying. There turns out to be a tequila from Mexico called Avion, so what better way to celebrate Nico’s Birthday than to have a shot of excellent Avion Tequila on Avion watching a spectacular sunset while eating a delicious meal. The weather could not have cooperated better; the over cast skies were gone but remained enough clouds in the distance to make the sunset stunning and the winds were steady at 8 knots and the seas were flat. Just as we were beginning to have sensory overload from the magnificent views of the sunset David turned to the east and was greeted by the very top edge of a huge full moon graciously exposing itself to his amazed eyes. He let out a hollow that could only be compared to a child having just seeing his favorite gift under the Christmas tree. We all turned to see what all the excitement was and were able to watch the big orange ball slowly rise out of the water. When I asked John if he knew why the moon looks so much larger on the horizon. He made it very logical. He said that it is overly plump from having absorbed all of the water while rising up from the Ocean and as it rises it drips the water out thus the reason it gets smaller (less plump) as it gets further into the sky!
I took the helm shortly after the sunset and our course took us directly up the moonbeam. For those of you that have never had the pleasure of sailing the moonbeam it is a great experience. The illusion is that you are travelling much faster than during the day time because of the way the moon light reflects off of the water. Last night’s sail was one of the best I have ever had. They had to pry me away from the helm after 2 hours, twice our standard helm time. The winds were blowing 8 to 12 knots and the boat was speeding along nicely at 6 plus knots with occasionally reaching 7. What made it so spectacular was the combination of the moonbeam, the illusion of more speed, and the smoothness of the seas. One advantage of coming off light winds for an extended period of time the seas haven’t had a chance to rebuild with the increased wind.
At 9:30 P.M. last night we crossed Longitude 130 W at 33 Degrees 26 minutes which is where I predicted yesterday afternoon but because of the increased winds we crossed it much sooner than I had guess. I didn’t think we would get there before this morning.
Day 6 5;30 P.M. (1513 Nautical Miles from Hawaii)
137 NM made good over last 24 Hours
The Children’s Hour just concluded and we are still holding strong in 3 place.
When I told friends and family that I was racing to Hawaii, typically the first question was; “How long will that take”. Having never raced to Hawaii I could only pass on what I had heard and typically for the type of boats in Avion class it takes between 12 to 14 days. To analyze this further the distance between San Francisco Bay and Kaneohe Bay is 2070 so in order to make those times we will have to average between 148 to 172 nautical miles per day. Through 8 am this morning we have averaged only 95 miles per day which keeping that average would take us over 21 days which is way past the deadline on the 25th of July. I think it would be good to show not only our progress to Hawaii but what has been the last 24 hour progress. So as I log the date and time I will include both the distance from Hawaii and the distance made good over the past 24 hours if I have a reading for that particular time 24 hours ago.
To start this new information base I have provided the following which chart of our24 hour period:
Start 1:40 A.M to Day 2 8:00 A.M. 50 NM
Day 2 8:00 A.M. to Day 3 88:00 A.M. 101 NM
Day 3 8:00 A.M. to Day 4 8:00 A.M. 164 NM
Day 4 8:00 A.M. to Day 5 8:00 A.M 91 NM
Day 6 10:00 P.M. (1478 NM from Hawaii)
I just came off my 4 hour watch and wanted to make a quick post before hitting the sack. Over the past 6 hours we have been averaging close to 8 knots with winds in the 15 to 20 knot range. So far I have come closest to the Rocket Club by surfing down a wave at 9.44 knots during my latest hour at the helm, a definite E Ticket Ride! I just heard down from the cockpit that Kent is a close second with a reported 9.20 knots. The Rocket Club if you are wondering, is the helmsman that drives the boat faster than 10 knots, I have seen it happen a few times. The fastest I have seen her go was a little over 13 knots surfing down a wave at Point Conception while racing to LA last summer. I have a good feeling that we will surpass that speed. The more we do the sooner we will be in Hawaii and the broader our smiles! We may just have a record day tomorrow.
Day 5
Nico’s Birthday
Day 5 6:00 A.M. (1677 Nautical Miles from Hawaii)
When Nico came on watch this morning at midnight I heard Tom wish him a happy birthday. This great young man just turned 24 today and I am happy and proud to call him my friend; Happy Birthday Nico! Skipper Tom has something planned for us later in the day so I’m looking forward to the fun.
Tom and I got our watch schedule a little out of whack just as my body was getting used to the routine. I guess it is good to keep it guessing! Through the course of the day the wind steadily decrease, so much for the short lived vengeance of yesterday. We are not in the doldrums as before but less than 5 knots of wind isn’t that much fun. What happened to the “Fun” in the Fun Race to Hawaii. Based on the Children’s Hour yesterday afternoon we are not the only frustrated boat out here. Personally I am amazed at Avion crew’s temperament; it speaks well to their character and it is having a great impact on my goal of improving my patience; yes Lindi, you should be pleased!
As to why our schedule got out of sync? Tom was up 10 straight hours working on an engine issue. We have been running the engine a little over an hour a day, without it in gear of course, to charge the batteries. With the constant overcast skies the solar panel has not been able to stay up with the load. David decided to fix the navigation seat that sits right in front of the engine cover. He removed the engine cover to get a better look at the receiver hole and decided to check the oil while he had the cover was off and saw a big puddle of oil in the oil pan under the engine. This was not a good sign, besides be problematic for the engine we also have a limited supply of oil. The engine hasn’t had a history of oil consumption and oil was the last thing on Tom’s shopping list the morning of the start. There were only two quarts of diesel oil on the shelf, he wasn’t worried and was running late so he didn’t want to take the time for them to look more. Upon checking the engine oil after less than 5 hours of runtime David discovered it to be one quart low, leaving us now with only one quart. It now became essential that we figure out the cause of the leak. Dave and Tom stripped down to their shorts to perform the dirty job of cleaning up the oil and figuring where was the leak. They were able to determine that the leak came from the connection for the new oil hoses we just installed based on the recommendation of the diesel mechanic that checked out the engine a weak ago. Unfortunately the hose kit we purchased did not come with new copper washer seals so we reused the old ones. Turned out that wasn’t a good decision because they were torqued out of shape and were unable to hold a new seal. Not to worry, resourceful David had two plans. First he had purchased a set of copper washers of variable diameters for this type of purpose. Unfortunately, one of the fittings had a diameter that had no matching washer so he improvised. He cut out aluminum washers from the casserole pan Kent used for the delicious dinner we had last night. This option turned out to be unnecessary because one of the slightly larger copper washers seemed to hold the seal just fine. When the engine was fired up we all were happy when David and Tom reported no leaks found. After Tom cleaned up he was exhausted so I told him I could stay on watch a little longer for him to get some sleep, as a result we are now 2 hours different in our rotation and my body seemed to adjust just fine.
Day 5 8:00 A.M (1674 Nautical Miles from Hawaii)
As you can see from our progress since 6 A.M. we have only traveled an additional 3 nautical miles closer to Hawaii for the past 2 hours, comparable to a very slow stroll. In sailing terms this is known as distance made good, or in our case distance made not so good! We may well have traveled further than 3 miles in those 2 hours but we were only able to get 3 miles closer to Hawaii. Typically vessels that are dependent on wind cannot travel directly to its destination known as the rhumb line (not the Mount Gay type) or great circle route (so named due to the curvature of the earth). So let’s take a few minutes to talk about navigation. If you remember back when I discuss the 5 races within the Pacific Cup Race, we are currently in race number 2. The first race was getting out of the San Francisco Bay and the thermal effect of the temperature differentiation between the Central and Southern Valleys and the Pacific Ocean. We are now trying to get over the Pacific High Pressure Ridge so we can get that sling shot ride to the Trades. Unfortunately the Pacific High has filled stronger than we would like which is the result of the light winds and slow progress.
During one of the many seminars we attended in preparation for this race it was suggested that the boat that crosses longitude 130 West at the proper Latitude will win the race. The big question is what that “proper latitude” is. We are currently less than 30 miles from that Longitude with our current lat/long position of 34 Degrees 00 Minutes North by 129 Degrees 30 Minutes West. Just like a clock there is 60 minutes in a degree and for latitudes a minute is 1 nautical mile, however, for longitudes a minute is 1 nautical mile only at the equator. Without getting too technical think of longitudes lines running around the earth parallel to the equator and as they get closer to either poles they become smaller in length but have the same number of degrees and minutes. As a result the length of a longitudinal minute at latitude 34 is less than one mile but don’t ask me to verify what that distance is. So with us only being less than 30 nautical miles away from Longitude 130 W we are looking at crossing it somewhere north of Latitude 33 North hopefully tomorrow. Only time will tell how effective that decision will pan out for Avion and her crew.
Day 5 5:30 P.M. (1650 miles from Hawaii)
We are averaging a little better the remainder of the day than we were during the early morning hours, but not by much. We only averaged 2 nautical miles per hour and for us to get to Hawaii to have some time to enjoy the festivities that number has to rise to an average of 6 miles an hour. Hopefully the pressure gradients will start to compress causing stronger winds and the trade winds fill in soon or we may be out here for a while. Oh well, I can think of a lot worst places to be. The water is warm, the sun is starting to peek through the clouds, the temperature is steadily raising and the water is a beautiful gun barrel blue. Having just listened to the Children’ss Hour on the SSB we are being consistent from the boats progress reports; we have placed third in the 24 hour distance made good category in our fleet for the past 4 days. We are happy with those results but are striving to do better. The good news is that we are currently sailing close to 6 knots in only 8 knots of wind so it looks like all we need is at least 8 knots of wind between here and Hawaii and we can enjoy the house we rented for the week of our arrival on Kaneohe Bay, but now we need to celebrate Nico’s birthday.
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Day 4
Getting Into the Routine of Things
Day 4 6:00 A.M. (1765 Miles to Hawaii)
I’m not sure if my body has gotten used to this 4 hours on 4 hours off rotation or has simply given in to what it realizes as an inevitability. I awoke in a great mood and immediately started telling stories to Kent and David, my two watch mates. I explained to Kent that he had accidentally found himself last night in the middle of the only excitement of the night, he vaguely remembered something happening when he went to use the head in the middle of his rest period. Awe, an opportunity to embellish a story!
After coming on watch at 100 P.M. the winds were decreasing from 15 knots fluctuating around 10 knots. We were still in a broad reach running the jib topper. The sky is still overcast with an occasional large dark cloud kicking up some turbulence so every now and then the winds would gust up to 18 to 20 knots. In the dark it was hard to tell which cloud was a thin lower level cloud and which were the larger cumulous with weather generating capacity. Kent had gone down replaced by Nico and was in the process of embellishing his own story about a family every 4th of July that was learning how to sink a kit sailboat and year after year he would come to his rescue. In the middle of the story I asked if he would like to relieve me at the helm since I had been driving for close to 1 hours and was getting a little bug eyed trying to concentrate on the compass reading and wind direction to maximize boat speed. Nico said that he was just about ready to go change out the jib top with the A 1 /2 (our largest asymmetrical spinnaker). The reason for the suggested change was because during Nico’s entire story the wind was consistently blowing around 7.5 knots causing the jib topper to flog more than we would like (a flogging sail is a slow sail). Again the process is to raise the spinnaker then douse the jib top. The jib top is a very large sail requiring two people foredeck to secure it. Luckily we had an extra hand with John on deck so he went forward to help Nico while Dave controlled the lines and I attempted to keep the boat under control. Why would that be a problem with only 7.5 knots of wind?
Unfortunately this proved to be a major challenge because just as the spinnaker went up the wind increased to 20 knots due to one of those unseen cumulus clouds. This sail is rated for no more than 12 knots; obviously we were way over powered by a significant amount. When a boat is over powered its normal behavior is to round up and with that much sail area (remember the largest sail package we could have at the time) she tends to heal significantly. While Nico and John were struggling to secure the large flapping sail coming down onto the deck they kept yelling for me to turn further down wind to keep the boat from healing so much. This becomes a challenge for the helmsman because to do that he needs helm relief because the boat is wanting to go in the opposite direction and is fighting the helm like a spoiled child making a fuss for not getting his way. I was finally able to turn down wind, east of south, not the direction to Hawaii which is significantly west of south. Nico came back to the cockpit and looked over the situation and suggested strongly that we should immediately take down the spinnaker and put the jip top back up, he received no arguments from the crew. Again Nico review the same plan as the night before for this particular head sail change but I couldn’t do the squirrel job because I was at the helm. In the meantime, unbeknown to us, Kent was woken by the flogging of the sails and listing of the boat so he thought it would be a good opportunity to go to the head to relieve himself. So as John ran forward to squirrel the spinnaker he had to go through the head to get to the peak of the boat to pull it into the boat. Unfortunately for Kent he discovered first hand that there isn’t much privacy on a race boat while in the middle of a race; certain things have priority, Mother Nature calling has to take a second fiddle to cumulus clouds exerting their authority! As soon as Nico came back to the cockpit he picked up his story right where he left off as if nothing happened.
Day 4 6:00 A.M. (1755 Miles from Hawaii)
Since I was on watch and Tom was in the bunk I told him that I would handle reporting our positions to the race committee. This is an important task because not doing so can result in a 1 hour time penalty added to your elapsed time and many races are won and lost with less than an hour differential. I reported the position via email and then verified it again during the roll call at 9:30 A.M. One of the boats in the race gets all of the boats positions and then reports the location of every boat with a verification from those boats having a SSB radio and are on frequency. I wrote down every boats position and from what we can tell there is one boat in our fleet that is definitely ahead of us but we are not sure about the others. We will find out at the children’s hour later this afternoon.
Day 3
The Wind Has finally arrived with Vengeance
Day 3 8:00 A.M. (1919 Miles to Hawaii)
At 10 P.M. when I came on my watch Avion had just crossed longitude 124 and true to John’s prediction the wind was filling. I got some decent sleep on my down time so I was willing and able to contribute. Kent and David were on top side and had big grins because we were finally making way. The winds were moderate in the low teens and continued build during my shift. By the end of my shift the asymmetrical spinnaker was too much power for the boat so we planned to take advantage of the extra hand to raise the jib topper and lower the spinnaker. This is the order because you do not want have a bare head while racing, that tends to be slow. Nico in his normal coaching fashion went over the procedure we were to follow and who was going to do what. Since I was already below and had partially taken off my foul weather gear I was selected to be the squirrel, this is the person below the fore hatch that frantically pulls the spinnaker down into the peak berth where we store all of the sails. So the jib topper went up and the spinnaker came down without a hitch. After two hours of my 4 hour watch at the tiller I was tired and ready for bed.
By the time of my next watch at 6 A.M came on the wind had continued to build to up to 25 knots. Before I came up they had put a reef in the main sail and we were seeing consistently 8 knots of boat speed. Our peek speed while I was at the helm was 9.50 knots, this is infinitely better than 24 hours earlier when we were measuring our boat speed in 4 100th of a knot. We may just make it to Hawaii with some time to party before we have to sail back.
Day 3 5:00 P.M. (1850 miles to Hawaii)
We raised the rope antenna for the SSB and tuned into the Children’s Hour to see if our position has improved. The logic here is that is that being a medium displacement boat that is relatively heavy has a more difficult time making its speed rating than the lighter boats in our fleet. We have been hoping for stronger winds where we can realize her full potential. As suspect we did improve our position by 1 so we are now in 3rd place. Our goal is to continue to improve all the way to Hawaii.
All is good on board with only a few minor mishaps. We are all healthy, eating well and in good spirits. The boat listing to port with the increased speed is causing it a little more difficult to maneuver around and getting all the foul weather gear on to go up onto watch. It also makes it difficult to write and one of the issues was that the inverter I brought doesn’t want to charge my laptop that was easy to use in my berth. Now I’m having to us the onboard computer at the nav station with a strap holding me from falling over backwards with the list of the boat. We did see a few minor squalls today that spit a little rain and increased our wind by about 5 knots periodically but basically steady winds with a slight decrease over the course of the day. Currently we are seeing 12 to 13 knots of wind with 7 knots of boat speed with a reefed main. At this rate we should be able to finish around our estimated time.
Day 2
The Doldrums
Day 2 8:00 A.M. (2020 Miles to Hawaii)
Every morning at 8:00 A.M. we are required to provide our position to the race committee. They have accurate transponder information off of Yellow Brick Road which isn’t delayed the 6 hours everyone else sees, so the check in is to verify that position. The boats can provide the information one of four ways; call in on a Sat Phone, Email via Sat Phone, SSB Email or provided it at the Roll Call over SSB at 9:30 A.M. I was on watch but Tom got up and sent it via email on his Sat Phone then I verified it during the Roll Call on the new SSB that works so well! So now we are officially legal by following the rules and regulations set forth by the Pacific Cup Race Committee. The cool thing about the roll call is that the provide all of the positions so having an SSB is helpful so we can determine exactly where the competition is.
Last night was brutal; no #@$% wind. The only wind we seemed to generate was the flogging of the sails as the mast swung back and forth every time a wave passed. The only good news out of all of that was that everyone else was in the same position. This morning at sunrise we had 4 boats all in a row spread out over less than a mile. Our fellow Encinal Yacht Club member boat Red Cloud and Avion must have passed each other a half a dozen times during the night. You have to stay at least 3 boat lengths clear of a boat while overtaking at night and there were times it was difficult to do that because of the lack of steerage due to no boat speed as the result of no wind. Though this is very frustrating it really fine tunes your ability to sail, the adjustments of the sails and at the helm has to be smooth and slight or you easily stall the boat.
We are settling into our watch schedule. The first day is tough because everyone is up for the start and stays up for a while because all the boats are close and the competition is exciting. We had to force the rotation to start around 1 P.M. yesterday The way it works is that we always have 3 crew members awake at all times. Depending on the conditions usually 2 can handle the boat, one at the helm and one controlling the sails. That gives an extra hand to help out with trimming sails, cooking, cleaning, navigating or working the radio. We have 3 comfortable berths on Avion and 2 not so comfortable pipe berths. With all of the practice sailing and the longer offshore races we figured the best option is to use the 2 pipe berths for storage and then we would have 2 crew share one bed call Hot Bunking. Just before it is time for you to be off watch after 4 hours you wake your Hot Bunk mate and once he is out and dressed the nice warm bunk is yours to sleep in; thus the reason it is called Hot Bunking. I share the aft bunk with Tom, Nico is sharing the port bunk with Kent and David and John have the starboard bunk. We started out with 2 teams changing watches at the same time and we felt that got a little crowded so we have adjusted 2 teams an hour and now we only have one watch set coming up at a time.
So after the Roll Call at 9:30 I woke Tom up at 10:00 A.M and he will be on watch until 2:00 P.M. (giving me time now to write this post). Tom is working on downloading grib files that show weather patterns now and in predictions. He put those into a software package that takes the statistics for Avion and plots a suggested course. This should only be used as a guide because we see exact conditions that the forecast only predicted so we will adjust accordingly. He just mentioned that the wind should increase later this afternoon at @ 5:00 P.M. This is good news because right now we are only seeing @ 3.5 knots of wind and less than 2 knots of boat speed. At this rate it will take us a month to arrive in Hawaii. The pressure differences out here right now are not favorable for a fast ride to Hawaii. Hopefully this will change.
Currently on watch are John and Nico. Nico came on at 6 am and is taking an extra hour to get our watch rotation in sync, so Kent will relieve him at 11 A.M. John came on at 9 A.M. and will be relieved by Dave at 1 P.M. and then I will relieve Tom at 2 P.M. and the cycle starts all over.
Last night we had a fabulous casserole prepared by Kent and his wife Joann. They cooked up about 8 dinners for us, froze them and then placed them on dry ice. We have no refrigeration but do have a propane oven. This morning Nico fixed us all hot oatmeal. We plan to have 2 hot meals per day, once the casseroles run out we will be fixing freeze dried meals that Nico has assembled. We will be eating well. As a matter of fact after the Coastal Cup Race from San Francisco to LA last summer we had the reputation of the boat that ate best, unfortunately not for sailing the fastest, those guys seem to only eat freeze dried because casseroles and dry ice weighs too much!
All for now, I need to get some shut-eye; a tired crew is an ineffective crew! Hopefully by the time my watch starts we will have a little more wind.
Day 2 6:00 P.M. (2002 Miles from Hawaii)
Still no wind, currently we have around 2.5 knots of wind and less than 1 knot of boat speed, oh we there are at least 4 other boats still in site that are in the same situation. For the last 10 hours we have only made 18 knots, which is averaging about the same as a really slow walk. We need to get west of longitude 124, and currently we are at 123.56, we are only 4 miles away at which time we should be getting into wind. I’ve got my fingers crossed (makes it hard to type) that we will be in the wind by the start of my next watch at 10 P.M. We did have some excitement today, we saw a few whales, one within 10 meters of the boat, awesome but also scary. John said that he was on a boat racing to Hawaii that actually got hit by a whale. I subscribe to the big mammal rule; if the mammal is larger than your boat stay clear!
There is a radio happy hour every day at 5 they call the Children’s Hour. Today we talked about food and broken heads (not human but toilets) strange combination but in a way they are related. I told the group that we some beef stew from a fancy restaurant in Palo Alto defrosting in the cockpit, so we are maintaining our reputation of eating well and about mid-stream in the competition, after the first day we are in 4th place in our fleet. We reported the exact same position as Red Cloud but because of the handicap they are in 1st and we are in 4th. Oh well, hopefully when the wind picks up we can take advantage of our superior speed.
Day 1
The Start and out to the Farallons
Day 1 9:45 A.M. (2080 Miles to Hawaii)
I was just a tad bit worried this morning when we hadn’t left the dock at our designated hour of 9:30 am to give us enough time to make it to the start line for our 11:30 start. The time was rapidly approaching 10 am about our drop dead time because it is about 1 hours from our slip in Alameda all the way across the bay to the St Francis Yacht Club that is located on the City waterfront just before the Golden Gate . And we do not have our skipper. 45 minutes ago he left to pick up the last items on his shopping list, a new halyard, engine oil and block ice. Just before he left at 8:45 I suggested that he get going because my guess was the list would take at least 45 minutes. Finally I saw him come through the marina gate so we still have a chance to make the start on time.
We had a good contingent of friends and family on the dock to send us off. John’s daughter and grandson came to drop off John and check out the boat. Kent’s wife Joann and son Shawn came for the sendoff Of course my sweetie Lindi was there and had gone and bought us all breakfast sandwiches so we weren’t leaving on an empty stomach. Our good friends Al and Michelle Leonard were there to take anyone interested out on their sailboat Blue Passion to watch the start, they had 6 onboard. Nico’s parents were at the breakwater in front of St. Francis waiting to watch the start from shore, seems his mother doesn’t enjoy being on sailboats. Nico sailing genes must have come from his dad!
We finally got everything stowed, at least well enough to get underway, and shuved off the dock at 9:55 giving us an estimated 5 minutes to spare. I fired up my GPS and put the starting coordinants in and with the engine at full throttle it was showing we were going to have 12 minutes to spare.
11:30 A.M. Day 1 (2070 miles to Hawaii)
As we approached the starting line the winds were building to 16 knots. Since this is a marathon and not a sprint we decided on a conservative sail plan with the smaller # 3 Jib and a reefed main. The #3 jib is about 100% which means that it fills all of the area between the bow of the boat to the mast, our #1 Jib is @150% which in the building winds close to 20 knots we would be way over powered. The reef main means that we lower the sail to a reefing point that reduces the sail area about 20%l, we have a second reefing point that we will only use when we experience winds above 30 knots. With only 6 boats starting we figured our best starting position would be close to shore on a port take which would get us out the gate without having to tack over to starboard. Port tack means the wind is coming off of the port side of the boat (left hand facing the front of the boat). Unfortunately a port tack boat has to give rights to any starboard tack boat but we felt the rest of the fleet taking a starboard tack were not on the line and we could smoke them if we got to the line right at the start. Kent calling tactics told us to tack with 1 minute to the start. We got through our tack with 45 seconds remaining to the start and Nico on the bow indicates that we are too early, we must slow the boat, Tom at the helm turned the boat slightly into the wind as Kent calls out 30 seconds. Nico still says we are too early. We continue to luff the sails for another 15 seconds and then powered up and hit the line at full speed right with the gun sounded. We heard over the radio, “All Clear” and the entire Avion Crew gave out a simultaneous yell. Kent said great start and as we predicted we were out in front of all the starboard boats with a clear path through the gate. I thought to myself not bad for thinking we weren’t even going to make the start on time. As we approach the Gate, still in first place the winds continued to build, I saw over 21 Knots of wind, our smaller sail plan proved to be the right choice because we continued to walk away from the other boats that had a more aggressive plan and were struggling keeping their boats under control. We crossed under the bridge still in first place feeling really good about the start and thinking this was a great omen.
5:00 P.m. Day 1 (2045 Miles to Hawaii)
My hot bunk mate is Tom had gone to bed at 1 and I told him I would wake him in 4 hours. But first I needed to make sure all of our efforts on putting together a Single Side Band (SSB) worked. I needed a new radio and modem for Antigua so I told Tom that I would purchase one and install it on Avion for the race and then move it to Antigua later. He loved the idea because it gave us an opportunity to have a backup to the Sat Phone for communications both for safety and for getting weather information and exchange emails. I was familiar with this technology because I used it while cruising in Mexico back in 2000. It still has the same technology just faster communication speed. Unfortunately we were unable to test the transmission quality of the installation prior to leaving the dock. I was a bit anxious about this because I was getting different feedback on the system we choose for transmission. In the marina with all of the electrical noise it is virtually impossible to test it while in the slip and we didn’t have an opportunity to take her out because of all the last minute stuff we were doing to the boat. At 5 pm every day of the race they have an SSB net for the racers called the Children’s Hour. At 5 we hoisted the rope antenna for the radio and I dialed into the designated channel and I heard someone speaking and identified themselves as one of our fellow racers. After all of the announcement they asked for any questions and I keyed the microphone and said, “This is Avion and we are hoping for a radio check.” The response back was, “your radio is loud and clear”. I responded with, “That is great because we just installed the radio and this is the first opportunity we have had to test it.” He responded, “Well you did something right because that usually isn’t the case for first time installations.” The crew of Avoin made their second yell of joy and Juan’s was the loudest!
The wind continued to drop as predicted, we kept a course to West and could see the Farallon Island. As we approached I saw two whale spout blows and Nico saw a big tail fin as one whale made a dive. With the winds light we had plenty of time to watch the wildlife.
9:00 P.M. Day 1 (2036 to Hawaii)
Someone just turned off the wind! It’s my turn to go to bed and while climbing in I was thinking to myself that the wave action with no wind in the middle of the ocean is similar to sitting on anchor in the bay, A gentle rocking motion that put me to sleep.
The Pacific Cup will start in a little over 12 hours and the boat is in a state of disarray. All of the last minute projects undertaken have left the boat in a major mess. The food needs to be stowed, all the gear needs to put away and somewhere along the way we need to find some time to get some sleep. This will be the last opportunity to get more than 3 hours at a time for quite a while. There isn’t enough room in the boat for all of us so I decided to come back to my boat to add more to the blog. This is very convenient since by boat Antigua is on A Dock at Gate 8 of Marina Village Harbor while Avion is B dock at the same gate.
I haven’t had much of an opportunity to talk about the crew. I have introduced everyone but let me take a few minutes to tell you a little about each member. During the last post I talked about Hugh, who started out as a crew member a couple of years ago. He sailed the 2012 and part of the 2013 sailing season on Avion. Mid-season he opted out of the crew for personal reasons and sense then has gotten married and had a child so probably opting out was a good call, he had a lot on his plate. Tom had talked to a lot of potential crew members but settled on an excellent choice to replace Huge. John Dillow was a great catch for Avion. John has sailed the Pacific Cup 9 times. Since the Pacific Cup is ran every other year, he has been doing this race for the past 20 years. Obviously he brings an amazing amount of experience onto the boat. He has raced the Pacific Cup as both skipper and crew. John is also a certified sailing instructor at one of the local sailing schools and a math teacher by profession. John will be the navigator and trimmer and has a great touch on the helm.
David Lyons has been crewing for Avion for a few years now. He is a Coast Guard Certified Captain and has made a couple of return deliveries from Hawaii but has never raced to Hawaii. David is very handy and has a wealth of sailing knowledge and carries a lot of respect from the crew. Tom has asked David to be the skipper on the return trip since he will be unable to help bring the boat back. David typically is the main trimmer but also will be helping me with trimming the spinnaker. Besides sailing David passion is Kite Boarding and has shipped over 2 Kite boards with kites and a couple of surf boards in the container to Hawaii. He plans to have some fun in Hawaii. He is an electrical engineer and computer chip designer by trade.
Nico Colomb is the youngest crew member by a long ways. He is in his early 20’s while the rest of the crew are all over 50, three of which are over 60. Nico is very mature for his age and is an amazing sailor. He has been a sailing instructor and currently works at the Berkeley Marine Center. He was responsible for the haul out today at his employer, they were gracious enough to allow us to haul out and use their facility at no charge. They must be very high on him. When he started a few months ago he told them that he will be gone for 6 weeks, and they hired him anyway. Like I said he is amazing. Nico will do foredeck work, not just because he is the youngest…..
Kent Bliven is the offset to Juan; Juan breaks it and Kent fixes it. Kent has grown up around sailing and has raced a Hobie Cats for many years. I first met Kent at the Hobie Cat Midwinter West regatta in Mexico in the mid 90’s. He has an amazing understanding of the physics of sailing and typically calls the tactics because of his vast sailing knowledge and understanding of sailing in the bay. Kent, along with Nico and John can basically handle every position on the boat Kent is a contractor by trade thus the reason why he is a MacIver.
Previously I have talked about our Skipper, Tom Abbott. This trip is Tom’s dream and has made the financial commitment to make this trip possible. During the 2010 Pacific Cup Tom crewed on Hula Girl, a fast Santana 50. Tom will navigate with John and will be the primary helmsman. Since Avion is a tiller steered boat verses Wheel steering, we will all be trading off at the helm because of fatigue.
I’ve talked about my sailing experience but basically I started racing Hobie Cats in 1983 and went cruising in Mexico from 1998 to 2002. I have lived aboard a sailboat all but 3 years since 1998, so you can say that sailing is a huge part of my life. I will be trimming and working the helm from time to time.
I now need to get some sleep because it is right at 12 hours from the start.
I wrote the following story last year shortly after a practice sail on Avion in April 2013. Tom posted a video yesterday that he took during that practice. The incident discussed at the end of the story happened a few minutes after Tom took that video so you can have visual of what it was like out there at the time.
We have only 24 Hours until the start!
Broken Boat Parts
(Practice, Practice, Practice)
4/27/2013 3:45 A.M.
The boat was pitching and rolling like a carnival ride gimbaled to allow movement on all three axes. As I was attempting to keep my balance while ineffectively struggling to put on my new heavy weather foulies, I saw Tom coming down the companion way. Realizing I was already up he said, “Oh I see you are up, no hurry, take your time”. Good thing! There was no way I was going to get my gear on, relieve myself and replace him on watch by my scheduled 4:00 a.m. I was amazed that even with my 10,000 plus hours of sailing, I couldn’t remember experiencing rougher conditions than this. And “this” was merely a practice run. Avion was pounding along at 7 knots in 15 plus knots of wind carrying a 30 degree list to starboard while beating to weather and pitching in 3 to 4 foot wind waves over 6 to 8 foot swells, I asked myself, “what the hell have I gotten myself into?”
The infamous “this” was practice # 4, where we had planned to go out the Golden Gate turn to weather and sail at least 50 miles and then run back flying a shoot (sorry for the sailing slang, a shoot is a spinnaker, the big billowing sail out in front of the boat while sailing downwind). The direction didn’t matter as long as it didn’t involve land and was initially beating into the wind. The time frame we allowed was no less than 24 hours but no more than 36 from portal to portal. Our goal was to see how we worked as a team through 4 hour shifts, and learn how to sail Avion as fast as we can offshorer.
We couldn’t have picked a better weather window, 10 to 20 knots of wind were predicted through the weekend coming out of the West, Northwest. Our 5:30 P.M. planned departure time was close to max ebb tide going out the gate so we could easily pass under that beautiful orange bridge before sunset and head out into the channel with all the other ship traffic coming and going in one of the busiest ports on the west coast. No problem, the crew was up for a little challenge, after all this was nothing compared to the 12 to 14 days to race to Hawaii that we all signed on for; not to mention the estimated three week delivery back.
I just couldn’t find a place to sit and pull on my bibs, sailing boots and heavy parka. I tried leaning against the bulkhead but the pitching of the boat made that impossible. I tried sitting in the berth but it was too short to effectively sit and tug at clothing. Getting dressed was like a cowboy trying to put on his Tony Lama boots and leather chaps while riding the rodeo’s champion bull. Somehow I found a way to crawl into my gear and while attempting to put on my life jacket and tether, I felt the first sign of nausea coming on. This is impossible I thought to myself, I have never gotten seasick, even when I was making that delivery to Mazatlan and I was the only one on board that was not incapacitated! I was thinking that this was not good and I had just told everyone aboard while knocking on a piece of wood that I had never been seasick. Oops, maybe that was fiberglass I was knocking on rather than wood! I needed to stick my head out the companionway to breathe some cool night air and look at the horizon, and do it soon. Great, what horizon? All I could see were mountains of waves and three crew members sitting tightly together in the cockpit with grins on their faces asking if I got any sleep. Sleep? Yea right! Try and sleep in constant motion in all direction with all of the amazing sounds a boat makes while rushing through water with every slight rigging noise amplified 10 fold through the amazing sound enhancing qualities of fiberglass; the Bose acoustic engineers could learn a thing or two from sailboat manufacturers. Oh well, they say you normally get used to it in a few days, that is, I was thinking, if you don’t go stark raving mad first. Too bad we will only be out for a little over a day; at least it shouldn’t be enough time to go crazy, as if that was going to be a problem for me. The mere fact that I was out here in the first place proved that theory wrong!
Back to my question; what the hell was I doing here? Well to answer that we have to go back a ways. A year or so after the loss of my wife I decided it was time to get out and about in the world. Yes I had dated, though not very successfully, and I had a great support group of friends and family, but I felt a need to get more engaged in the sailing community. I decided to join the Encinal Yacht Club just down the street from the gate to my boat. I figured at least I wouldn’t run the risk of a DWI; all I had to do was stager a few hundred yards back to my boat if I found myself drinking a few too many beers while embellishing stories to my fellow club members. Though the yacht club experience wasn’t quite what I had hoped, I did meet some interesting sailors. There was one in particular I was drawn to, not initially due to sailing, but more from having similar life challenges that we all face, some time or another, while experiencing the human condition. I was introduced to Tom Abbott by a mutual friend that I was dating at the time. Tom and I immediately hit it off. We would meet periodically at the club, which were never planned, and talk about how things were going with our lives outside of sailing. We would always talk about getting together away from the club to go sailing or some other fun activity as new friends typically do, however, nothing seemed to progress. This went on for nearly a year when by chance we ran into each other at a bike show at Jack London Square in Oakland. I was there with my new love, Morgan, and he was meeting a friend for dinner. This seemed to be the occasion that broke the ice and I decided to ask Tom to go out on my sailboat, Antigua, to watch the America Cup 45 races and the Blue Angles performing during fleet week. He accepted and joined 8 of my friends for a wonderful day on the bay.
A few months later Tom called me and asked if I would be interested in joining the crew he was putting together to race the Pacific Cup in July of 2014. He said that he was impressed with the way I handle Antigua in what he called “controlled chaos” where I wove through at least a thousand boats all jockeying for position to get the best view of the races and of the Blue Angles. He said it was obvious that I knew my way around a boat. As if he needed to convince me further to join him he continued to explain that he liked my life experiences of going cruising for 4 years in Mexico and riding my mountain bike across the US from Canada to Mexico paralleling the Continental Divide. He explained that he felt I understood what was needed for conditioning, endurance, planning and successfully undertaking extreme challenges like racing a sailboat to Hawaii. Obviously I was flattered and very much interested in coming aboard but I needed to think about it and asked if I could give him an answer the following day. He said there was no hurry and to take whatever time I needed but he stressed the commitment also required the return trip back to San Francisco and that there was a sailing opportunity this coming weekend; it turned out he was shorthanded for that race.
I hung up the phone and said out loud with no one around, “WOW”. I live for this kind of thing and what did I need time to think about. This was an opportunity that doesn’t come around often and besides I can do this. I have a job that has the flexibility to allow being gone for an extended period of time; this was proven when I took care of my late wife, 24/7 for 6 months. I have a girlfriend that loves the fact that I do fun stuff and live life to the fullest. I have a family that emotionally supports me and confident in my capabilities, after all I have done some pretty extreme adventures. And besides I’m a fair sailor with quite a bit of experience. So I asked myself, “why not?”
The unknown here was the crew and the boat and that was the potential “not” in the “why not” question. I had confidence in Tom but I didn’t know much about his boat or the other crew members he was assembling. The phone call was made on a Thursday and he was planning to race in the Mid Winters Race that weekend and wanted me to come along and join the crew to determine if the boat and her crew would work for me and vice versa. He knew the timing was short and he had been thinking about getting me involved earlier but now was the time and apologized for such short notice. I called him back the next day and told him I had nothing planned that weekend so I could commit to the race that weekend and see how it goes before the making the broader commitment to Hawaii. He said that was what he preferred, though he had seen me in action he needed to see how I interacted with the other crew members before we both made that commitment.
My goal for the weekend was to learn as much about the boat and crew as possible. I had a plan. I would talk to each crew member about how he met Tom and why he got involved in the adventure, the key ingredient here was the relationship with Tom. My plans are to create a character development for each crew member as the story unfolds but for now I just wanted to introduce the primary characters. The first crew member I met was Nico Colomb when I picked him up at his dock where he lives aboard a boat in Oakland, in the same Marina Tom keeps Avion. Nico is in his early 20’s and teaches sailing for a living. When we arrived in Marin to join Tom I met David Lyons. David is in his early 50’s and is a systems engineer for Cisco. Then a short time later Hugh Fields arrived off of his boat in the same Marina Tom had moved Avion over for the race. So we were all assembled for our first race together with literally no experience as a team. As we left the marina and I was below stowing gear I felt the boat slightly shudder as it briefly scrapped the bottom and I remember think to myself, I hope this isn’t an omen of things to come!
Considering the crew was green as a team we actually did fairly well with in the race. We placed 8th out of 17 boats in our fleet, however in reality this wasn’t really important. My competitive sailing friends would probably think this as an odd statement. How can you race a sailboat without caring how well you did against your fellow competitors? To answer that question you have to understand the skipper’s philosophy of the process of building a team. His profession is in the high tech field where he wants his staff to fail early and fail often. He takes the same position in developing his racing team. He wants us to initially fail and fail often so we know where our issues lie. I’ve got to say we didn’t disappoint Tom.
Tom felt 6 crew members would be the ideal crew size for the race to Hawaii on the Bianca 414, Avion, a Danish manufactured 41 foot sloop. He had some thoughts on the 6th crew member but was open to suggestions. I told him I had a friend, Kent Bliven that grew up around sailboats, races, has always dreamt of sailing in the Pacific Cup and can fix anything. My thought here was that he would be a perfect balance to Juan, who can break anything.
With all my gear on and outside in the cockpit trying to get my bearings Tom proceeded to explain what had transpired during the 4 hours I was attempting to get some sleep. He explained that we were trying to stay clear of the northern shipping channel and stay clear of Point Reyes. We had come within 3 miles of the point and tacked off to avoid being a victim of that particular ship graveyard. Now I understood what the entire ruckus was about earlier that threw me from one side of the berth to the other, not that it woke me up or anything! Tom asked me to make sure Kent was up and that he and David were ready to get some shut eye; good luck with that!
Nico had come on his watch 2 hours earlier and was at the helm. Earlier in the week Tom had emailed a recommended 4 hours by 4 hours crew rotation that he wanted to try out for this practice. As I studied the spreadsheet I saw that it called for 2 team members to rotate together replacing 2 other team members and then 1 individual members would replace another individual member half way into the 2 crew team shift. This would always allow 3 crew members on deck and there would be a crew change every 2 hours. Tom indicated that there were other crew rotations we could experiment with but he wanted to test this particular one this weekend. As I studied the rotation I thought about who would work best together as 2 person team members and who would be the best for individual rotations. I thought Tom and I shouldn’t be on the same team. We were the oldest members and the least mobile of the group. I thought Tom and David would work well together while Kent and I, for obvious reasons; I break it Kent fixes it and no one is the wiser! The individual rotations then would be Hugh and Nico, whom I referred to as rogues. They are youngest of the crew, most mobile and willing to perform foredeck work whenever needed. In my mind referring to them as rogues was a term of endearment; their personalities are such that they are fun loving free spirits that aren’t ones to follow the crowd. Tom suggested that we call them watch captains. I’m not sure but I think that they preferred being referred to as rogues because the term watch captains carried an implied responsibility!
The first thing I realized was that it was cold. I figured that when I was trying to fight off the nausea and poked my head out the companion way and saw Tom, David and Hugh tightly squeezed in the cockpit, conserving warmth. The wind was blowing a good 15 knots, the water and air temperature was hovering around 45 and it was spitting rain while Avion was tossing up spray at nearly every wave. This is when I was happy about my expenditures the prior weekend at the Strictly Sail Boat Show. I took advantage of the show deal to purchase heavy weather offshore parka, bibs, boots and glove in addition to an offshore inflatable life preserver and a tether line. Just to give you an idea what it takes to acquire the proper gear for offshore racing, by purchasing the gear at the show I saved over $500; good gear is expensive and times like this is when the cost benefit analysis of that gear should be performed not while you are in the comfort of the store.
Thank goodness our 4 hour watch was uneventful. Avion was beating to weather well and our only concern was staying out of the shipping channel to avoid the container ships coming and going to San Francisco Bay. We were running a reefed main with the number 4 jib, basically a storm jib, carrying 7 knots of hull speed with less than 15 knots of wind. Avion seems happiest to weather with a conservative sail plan. I was glad to see Tom struggling with putting on his gear for two reasons; he was about to relieve me on my watch and he was having as difficult a time as I was 4 hours earlier. He did explain later that he was having seasickness issues and recommended to the crew that we all be pro-active in preparation for that possibility during our offshore racing. A sick crew member is ineffective which causes the boat to sail slower than its competition unless of course the competitors are suffering with the same symptoms.
One of the purposes of the practice was to plan and prepare meals for racing. Hugh loves to cook and volunteered to provide the Saturday morning breakfast. He had planned a gourmet breakfast with eggs, mushrooms, green peppers, onions, cheese and sausage served with Peets coffee. If you think this sounds ambitious, you are entirely correct, because he had nothing prepared. One thing we learned on this practice run was that chopping onions, peppers and mushrooms are better served in the comfort of your Kitchen at home. His first obstacle was to figure out how to hold on at a 30 degree list bucking through 6 to 10 foot seas while operating sharp objects. The stove and cutting surface was to the high side of the list so he managed by leaning back against a strap he tied to the cabinet frame and the bulkhead freeing his hands to chop the vegetables. While watching all of this unfold Tom decided the prudent thing to do would be to fall off the wind, leveling the boat and start the run back home giving Hugh an easier go at preparing breakfast. Besides we were over 50 miles out and beating to weather for 14 hours out of the Gate was sufficient practice.
When I got up an hour before the end of my shift the spinnaker was flying and so was Avion. I discovered that putting on foul weather gear with the boat level and loping through waves rather than bashing was infinitely easier and less nauseous. For a medium displacement boat she is very capable of surfing. The theoretical hull speed of a displacement boat is a function of its waterline because of the wake the boat creates, the longer the waterline the faster the hull speed. When a boat starts to surf it can overcome the effects of that wake and run faster than the formula calculates. This is all well and good but a displacement boat isn’t supposed to surf! We discovered that flying the largest spinnaker in 20 knots of wind with 10 foot following seas allows the boat to surf down the backside of the wave. We also learn the importance of the term “all hands on deck”. During the shift change of Hugh and Nico we decided that we would jib the spinnaker. We knew at some point we would have to do so and we thought this would be a good time. Well it turns out that we were wrong! We discovered that it either takes more crew members than 4 to jibe the spinnaker in 20 knots of wind or a more experienced crew of 4. After we regained control of the broached boat and doused the spinnaker, Tom and David came up the companionway to find out why they were so rudely ejected from their comfortable berths. We also discovered that the boat jibes much smoother running on a reefed main only! Now with all 6 crew members wide awake with adrenaline coursing through their vanes it was decided to see how really fast we could make Avion surf. We quickly learned something else during this practice run; how much wind and speed Avion can carry before something breaks.
Nico had just taken the helm from Kent, Hugh and I were running the spinnaker trim, Dave and Tom were available for help, and Avion was flying. While watching the knot meter showing boat speed through the water, Tom hollered “9.6, 9.8, 10, 10.3, 10.5, 10.77, WOW”. As that wave passed, the boat speed lowered back to around 8.5 knots and as the next wave filled under the hull her speed began to rise to 10 knots, Nico called for helm relief. As the boat picks up speed and surfs down the back side of the wave the boat naturally wants to head into the wind. The helmsman’s responsibility to keep her pointed downwind but if the force is too great on the rudder to control with the tiller the crew has to start spilling wind. The first thing to go is the Cunningham that reduces the downward pressure on the boom allowing the top of the main sail to twist off allowing air to spill off. If this doesn’t control the help the main sheet and spinnaker sheets have to be eased out. If this doesn’t work then the sheets have to be let all the way out as quickly as possible or the boat starts laying on her side at which time the rudder has no bight on the water and the boat becomes a really big wind vane. After letting the spinnaker sheet go I had nothing left to do but to hand on and scramble to the high side of the boat, which at that point was straight up. I knew I wasn’t going to be separated from the boat because I was tethered. At that moment I was very happy about Tom’s rule that once we are out the Gate we were all required to be tethered either directly to the boat or to the life line that ran from the cockpit to the bow.
With all the sheets blown and the sails flogging, Nico was able to regain control of the helm and the crew worked at getting the sheets back in proper trim and once again Avion was loping through the waves. With her under control we discussed why we had broached and agreed that the Cunningham has to be in some ones hand at all times in these conditions to be released at the first indication by the helmsman for helm relief. With more experience we all knew that the crew will be able to anticipate the need for helm relief simply by the action of the boat, not the excitement of the helmsman. A short time later when the adrenaline stopped flowing and we were in a nice grove of riding the waves but still seeing close to 10 knots of boat speed, I heard a loud bang and saw the spinnaker pole slam into the forestay and the spinnaker violently flap in the wind. I heard someone say, “What the hell just happened?” The question was greeted by silence from the crew and incredible racket from Avion. At first no one knew, and then it became apparent that the ½ inch double bradded Kevlar core line, called a guy, that was holding the spinnaker pole back and attached to the tack of the symmetrical spinnaker, parted. I have never personally seen anything like this, which was a top quality line, rated for a far greater loads capacity it was experiencing while under load on a 41 foot sailboat. After we recovered the spinnaker and secured it down below we put up the storm jib and agreed that it was time to collect our wits and limp on home. Tom got his wish; fail soon and fail often. Hopefully by the start of the race we will have all of these type of issues resolved.
Why do the organizers call the Pacific Cup the Fun Race to Hawaii? To understand that answer you have to be able to understand the weather patterns between San Francisco and Hawaii.
This time of year the predominant weather system in our area is the Pacific High that sits off the San Francisco Bay, about 500 miles or more. A great way to visualize how this High Pressure System works is to go check out the Earth Wind Model http://earth.nullschool.net/. This app is basically a google earth image that shows the outline of land masses and wind lines that move in the direction of the wind, their color shows intensity. Highs move in a clockwise direction while Lows moves counter clockwise. The pacific high right now is a ridge that covers a couple of thousand miles west southwest of San Francisco. The trick is to use that high to your best advantage which would be the sling shot effect; shooting the boat like a boomerang around the bottom side of that high. As us Cowboys from Wyoming would say, Yeeee Haaa!!!!
The Pacific Cup is basically 5 races in one. In full disclosure you have to understand this information is coming from me, who has never done this race but has tried to understand it the best as I can. I do have some cruising experience. The first race is getting out of the thermal effect off the coast. The thermals are created by the hot California central and southern valleys that heat the air causing it to rise which is then back filled by cooler air coming off the water. This affect can last for a few hundred miles off shore, typically moving north to south. So the first race is a sailing reach across the wind out of the gate for a couple of days or so. The next obstacle is to get over the ridge of high pressure that runs west/northwest to east/southeast. You can see this ridge as solid blue image surrounded by wind lines moving clockwise in the model. At the time of this writing the ridge is bow shape coming out of the northwest running southeast but then curving to the east/northeast. This ridge right now would be easy to cross without having to go too far south. This is critical because the race is usually won by the boat that crosses Longitude 130 at the correct latitude. The big question is; which latitude? Usually somewhere between latitude 28 to latitude 35 (San Francisco is latitude 38). In the Earth Wind App you can click on your mouse or touch the screen and it will display the Latitude/Longitude. You can also see a grid under the wind lines, the first grid line off the California coast is Longitude 130. My guess would be the current correct tactic would probably dictate crossing Longitude 130 at a higher latitude, leaving the boat setup for a nice run to Hawaii but then again this will probably change by the time we get out there.
The third race begins when you first enter the trades and start running downwind to Hawaii. Again the Earth Wind Model shows a steady flow of wind lines moving directly to Hawaii from that ridge. This is where the “FUN” part begins. If the conditions are right this is where the term fair winds and following seas originated. The trade wind swells are high and wide and going in the same direction. Those sailors that do this year after year, do it for this experience. I have never had this type of ride in all of my sailing; I am soooo looking forward to this.
Hopefully at this point we will be around the half way mark or better and by then we should have the rhythm down of 4 hours on and 4 hours off watches and pushing the boat as fast as we can, 24 hours per day. This ride will go for a while and as we start approaching the Island, the squalls start arriving. Now we are into race No. 4; weaving through the squalls. Again this is not an experience I have had, but my best guess would be they are like the thunderstorms that cross the plains of Wyoming. Big billowing Cumulus Clouds holding a lot of moisture that from time to time needs to be dropped. When that rather violent necessity occurs, there will be a large down draft created by the momentum of the rain falling. You always want to leave the squall to the left, otherwise you get caught in their vortex and simply sit for a long while, which isn’t moving very fast to the finish line. The 5th and final race is close to that finish line inside the Kaneohe Bay which can be tricky especially at night; then the party begins!
Check out the Pacific Cup web site, to learn more about the event. Yellow Brick Road website so you can following our track as compared to our competitors. The Earth Wind Model so you can see the wind that drives us. Then you may start to understand why; they call this the Fun Race To Hawaii!
When I tell friends and family that I am racing a sailboat to Hawaii their initial reaction is one of concern for my well being. Since safety should be our first and foremost concern I thought I would start the blog with a discussion of what we are doing to keep us safe.
Any discussion about safety as it applies to Avion has to start with a brief discussion of the 2012 OYRC Farallon Race. This is a popular race that is scheduled every year to race around the Farallon islands located 25 miles off the San Francisco coast. That year one of the yachts in the race, Slow Speed Chase, was hit by a set of waves while rounding the west side of the island in shallow waters and washed 7 crew members off the boat and 5 members perished. Avion was in that race and took the last picture of the boat before their fatal encounter with that wave set. The entire San Francisco Bay sailing community was devastated by this tragic loss. Soon after there were two additional sailboat fatal accidents off the coast of California and the US Coast Guard placed a hold on all off shore races pending investigation of the cause of these accidents. The crew of Avion stayed in close communication with the investigation team primarily to make sure that whatever went wrong couldn’t happen aboard Avion. Prior to these tragedies safety was always important but now it became paramount.
So what has the skipper and crew of Avion done about making the boat as safe as possible? Safety starts with the understanding of both the boat’s and crew’s limitations; don’t force past those limitations. From the racing and offshore practice sailing we have pushed the boat and ourselves to our limits. One thing we discovered is the boat is awesome. We have broached her multiple times, we have sailed in 40+ knot of winds with 20 foot seas, we have surfed down waves with 25 plus winds flying the spinnaker reaching speeds in excess of 13 knots and mostly she has came through the experience without incident (wait for the next post for the one exception). In the process of pushing the boat we have learned a lot about our abilities, but more importantly where we need improvement. Most of our efforts over the past year and a half has been to discover our short comings and improve our sailing ability, not just to make the boat go faster but also keeping her under control.
Each boat that enters the Pacific Cup must go through a rigorous inspection. When the inspector showed up for our initial review he brought a 34 page document listing in detail all of the items that are required. This particular inspector had a connection to Avion, he was a crew member of our closest competition during the 2013 offshore racing series. He has been doing the inspections for the Pacific Cup for a long time so he knew what he was doing and had great suggestions for us to adjust our systems to optimize our safety. At the end of the inspection he stated that this was his first inspection for this year and we have set the bar high. My comment was that we will continue that high bar all the way to the finish line.
In addition to passing the Pacific Cup inspection, skipper Tom had an insurance inspection that listed over 60 items to address. At first glance this could be interpreted that Avion had issues, but not really, they were mainly minor items that needed to be addressed so they wouldn’t become major issues. The crew spent months working on each and every item which accomplished two objectives; cleared all items off the list and allowed the crew to become intimately familiar with the boat. We now know every nook and cranny on the boat. The bottom line is that we have addressed all of Avion’s issues identified by multiple inspectors, acquired all of the safety equipment required for the race and we have performed all of the required safety drills.
Besides the boat safety equipment the Pacific Cup requires all of the crew to have personal safety gear and 30% of the crew have safety at sea certification. All Avion crew members have acquired that certification. The personal equipment that we have is the top of the line personal flotation devices, with crotch straps to keep them from hiking up over the head when deployed, whistle and a strobe light. We all have tethers that will be required to be deployed from start to finish, in other words we will be connected to the boat at all times. On the off chance that I am separated from the boat I have a personal VHF radio that has the latest technology called Digital Select Calling (DSC). Once the DSC is activated it sends a VHF signal of my current GPS location to all DSC radios within VHF radio range, which of coarse Avion is equipped.
Clothing is also an important component of safety. At the start of the race the weather will be cold and wet and at the end of the race the weather will be hot and wet. The key components here are wet and extreme conditions. Sailing is an active sport so that moisture comes from both inside and outside the gear. Waterproof, breathable, wickable and sun resistant becomes common terms when talking with fellow crew members about personal gear.
The crew on Avion has placed safety as our number one priority. Not only have I personally made that my most important priority I also tend to be hedge on the down side risk. In stead of making the best possible outcome the highest possible priority I tend to evaluate what is the worst that can happen and make sure it doesn’t. So friends and family I am doing everything possible to be as safe as I can.
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