Eat, Sleep, Sail
Return Day 2 21:00 Boat Time (1944 Miles to Golden Gate Bridge)
This is a completely different animal than the downwind race; this is much harder! I read a book about the Great Divide Ride from Canada to Mexico paralleling the Continental Divide call Eat, Sleep, Ride. I rode that route on my mountain bike and though we are a mere 24 Hours into this adventure I do believe it is going to test my will far greater than that ride. I can go into great detail as to why but you all will be spared my embellished verbosity because it is just too damn difficult to do anything other than Eat, Sleep, Sail.
Return Day 3 15:00 Boat Time (1859 Miles to Golden Gate Bridge)
We are calling PDT Boat time because we have two times, what the boat says and what we have been living the past 2 weeks; Hawaii time. We ran into a small squall this morning right at the end of my watch. Our schedule is 4 on and 6 off and our skipper David has Lindi replacing me on my on watch. Not sure why David picked that combination, so that we are not on watch together, but I think he was concerned about Lindi still wanting to marry me at the end of this adventure! So being the kind considerate future husband I suggested to her that she ware her rain jacket when she replaces me topside rather than deprive her of the opportunity to take a shower. I have to say that I am totally amazed how well she is handling this difficult bash. She calls herself Wrong Way Lindi because all of her deliveries have been bashes.
So let me explain why this is so difficult. A bash is a sailors term for slogging upwind. The first week or more of this delivery will be just that. If you are following us on Yellow Brick Road by following the link off of Pacific Cup Web site, you will see that we are heading North by Northwest; across the trade winds. The plan is to sail as high on starboard tack, as comfortable as we can, until the wind dies. At that point we will be on the Western edge of the Pacific High. If everything holds to form we will then motor east across the high, then cross the synoptic winds that parallel the California Coast and then into San Francisco Bay. We approximately have 14 days of fuel so every day we do not run the engine we are putting fuel in the bank since we are planning 21 days for the trip. Our rule is not to run the engine until we are unable to sail at 4 knots. So far we only had to run the engine this morning for about 15 minutes when the squall came through and temporarily killed the trade winds. The engine alarm promptly came on. By this time I was in bed with Lindi and Nico on watch. Liindi took the helm and Nico tore into the engine to determine why the heat sensor alarm was sounding. During this process the winds came up so Lindi had to deal with the changing weather conditions and helping Nico with starting and stopping the engine when necessary. Juan did put on his pants just in case he was needed and went back to sleep. Nico with David’s help managed to determine the issue with the engine so we hope it is resolved for the next time we drop below 4 knots.
The difficulty comes from the heat, the constant motion and the perpetual list of 30 degrees to port. It has taken me almost 2 days to get acclimated. First off I was nauseous because of the heat and the motion. This is very unusual for me; I have never been seasick with all of the sailing I have done, which is substantial considering I went cruising for 4 years. The motion is completely different going against the waves then with the waves; thus the reason they say fair winds and following seas. We are experiencing fair winds, 12 to 15 knots with fairly small waves 4 to 6 feet with the occasional 10 footer that throws us around like a cork in a stream. You never know when that is going to hit so you pray that it doesn’t happen while using the head. Bracing against the 30 degree list is starting to take its toll on my legs and arms. The mountain bike riding helps with the legs but I can see where my arms are going to have some difficult adjusting thus the reason why so much sleep. The fatigue is amazing and explains why the blog postings will be short and sweet and not as often. I will try and keep up but you will understand when they are spread out more than they were during the race.
I did have a sighting of a really big fish yesterday. It was bigger than a dolphin but smaller than a baby whale. II knew it wasn’t a mammal because when it surfaced there was no spout. I didn’t see a prominent dorsal fin so we are not sure what it was, Nico thinks Shark, David thought Blue Marlin, Juan was just glad there wasn’t a fishing line out!
I will leave with a positive note. The good news is that we are making better progress than we had expected. We were planning for an average of 100 miles made good each day and our first 24 hours was made 125 miles. We all are getting plenty of rest, plenty to eat, plenty to drink and are all in good spirits, especially Lindi. Like I said she is amazing.
Day 14 Post By Jon
4 Over 10
Day 14 July 21 8:00 A.M. (154 Nautical Miles (NM) from Hawaii)
204 NM Made Good to Hawaii over the past 24 Hours. Another record for Avion!
Day 14 3:25 P.M. (911.8 NM from Hawaii)
GPS is indicating 14 hours to destination @ 3:00 A.M. Local Time
The wind has dropped considerable since I left the helm 1 hours ago; from 20 to 25 down o 15 to 16 Knots. It is hot, humid and the nav station bench broke so this post will be a relatively short one.
Juan woke for his morning watch at Noon. and felt totally miserable. He got very little sleep because the boat had been pitching from side to side navigation the 10 foot swells for the past two off watches. Every muscle in his body ached so he grabbed the vitamin I bottle (Ibeiprophin) and popped 4 pills and took a health gulp of water. Everything was wet, his shirt, his pants, his body and his sole; it is now crunch time. As he struggled to get on his wet gear he realized that he was bonking; a biking term when your body runs out of fuel and water. Before going up on deck he decided to scrounge around for some food, his portion of the small Mahi Mahi last night wasn’t cutting it. While filling his bottle from the second water bladder he discovered it too was empty, time to break into the backup water supply. They included an additional 22 gallons 1 gallon jugs strategically placed throughout the boat to create the most bodily harm as he discovered the previous morning. As a requirement of the race they have to make sure that there is 6 gallons remaining when Avion crosses the finish line or she will be disqualified. Now for food, all of the bagels are gone, he wasn’t up for making oatmeal, too hot, so he settled on fixing himself two salami burritos. After eating the burritos and downing a bottle of water, the Vitamin I was kicking in and he started to feel human again. As he came on deck he could see over cast skies, 3 fellow crew members huddled together on the high side of the cockpit and all still managing a smile, but all looking like Juan was feeling. As in any long distance race the last portion is always the hardest. There is the psychological aspect of getting closer to the finish line which tends to appear to not get any closer. There is the fatigue factor where the lack of sleep and constantly supporting yourself due to the perpetual listing. There is the emotional factor where any little task becomes a monumental challenge. For example last night the crew had a difficult sail change that resulted in a lively discussion about us all being sure to be even more safety conscious because now is the time accidents will happen. So far so good and the entire crew, especially Juan, is being very careful.
While on watch the crew were talking about last night’s Children’s Hour. While the crew was munching on the Dorado that sacrificed it’s life for their dinner nourishment, Skipper Tom, paid Juan a supreme compliment. He placed Juan’s name as Avion’s nomination into the Outstanding Crew competition. This should cause some consternation with the Pacific Cup’s Race Committee because there is not a Juan on Avion’s crew list. Tom explained the Juan was a stowaway and was being nominated for providing entertainment for the crew and his eloquent, verbose and embellished blog posts that had very little concerned for accuracy. Tom then made a shameless plug for his avionbianca.com web site.
After an hour on watch it was Juan’s turn at the helm. At this point Juan is a bit anxious. Could it have anything to do with 20 to 25 wind, 2 foot wind waves over 10 foot swells, 9 plus knots of boat speed, the fact that the display on the digital campus he has grown accustom to lost its display or that fact that he is totally exahausted? Juan gingerly scoots back behind the main sheet traveler and gets into helm position just in front of John as he is concentrating on the new conditions and displays while John explains the apparent wind angles for the course that is making Avion sound like a freight train. John hollers, “Do you have the tiller”, as he slowly releases his pressure on the helm. Juan yells “No”. Both Juan and Jon simultaneously pulled the teller as hard as possible as Avion started to round up. They managed to recover her before she went into a broach. By this time Juan had been acclimated to the conditions and was ready to take the helm. Over the course of his hour at the helm he reached a personal best in the Rocket Club to 11.20 Knots with 3 other entries into the club; 4 over 10 knots in an hour not bad. Nico commented that during that time Juan’s expression oscillated from deep concentration to big ass smiles. John is still the Chairman of the Rocket Club with 11.76 Knots, Nico Vice Chairman with 11.4 knots and Juan holding the Secretary slot with his 11.2 knots.
Day 14 5:00 P.M. (80 NM from Hawaii)
We just replaced the smaller spinnaker with our largest with wind speeds around 15 knots. Nicco now has 26 marks on his forearm, if any more he will need to go up to his biceps. Juan explained to him that Avion will not have enough headsail changes during this race for him to worry about the tattoo marks going across his face.
So much for the short post, the nomination must have gone to his head.
avionbianca 