7/9/22 update

Good morning! Excellent news - we finally have a spinnaker up and are pointing directly at the finish! We spent yesterday still close reaching with either the jib or the Code 0. We ran the Code 0 all night and the wind finally backed enough this morning to put up the A2. Props to the crew that dropped the Code 0 and put up the A2 while I slept through the whole thing! My penalty was to pack the Code 0 when I got up. On the nature side, we were visiting by a pod of dolphins a couple of times yesterday and last night. Sure looked like they had fun swimming around the boat and along the bow wake. We got some good video of that. Winds should continue to build and send us towards Kaneohe. Aloha, Tracy & crew.

7/8/22 update

Good morning! Yesterday was a frustrating day wind wise, especially through mid day. We were never not moving but we were going pretty slow. There are a remarkable number of commercial ships out here just idling before they head to port. All have been very polite to move if need be to let us pass. Always fun to talk to them on the radio. We had completely clear skies and used that to take full advantage of our solar power generation - didn't even need to run the engine to charge batteries last night. The clear sky gave us a knife edge horizon with and outstanding sunset. Mark and I saw our first green flash - it was amazing! Today we'll continue to position ourselves to be in the right place when the northerly wind fills in. Southwest casserole was a hit last night. Love to all. Aloha, Tracy & crew.

7/7/22 update

Hi all,

We had a very nice day and night yesterday. Sunny skies for the most past, although we did have one short rain squall pass overhead. We put the Code 0 up at 0800 and ran with that until 1800. Winds 8-13kts, AWA between 55-75 degrees, making about 7-8 knots. The wind shifted and we had to drop the Code 0 and go with a headsail, but had good breeze in the low double digits, occasionally up to 16 knots and made good speed all night. We were able to put the Code 0 back up this morning around 0730 and ran with that until the wind pretty much shut off around 1000. We bobbed around for a few hours dodging commercial traffic until a light westerly filled in. We've chosen to take that in a just NW direction hoping to avoid a big wind hole in the south and be early to the anticipated northerly breeze when it fills in over the next day or two. The ocean is a beautiful deep blue and we've got perfect conditions for the solar panel to fully charge up our batteries. The food has been great - thanks Cindy! Everyone's doing great and trying to stay up on their sleep (yes, me too!). Love to all. Aloha, Tracy & crew.

7/6/22 update

Hi all,

Just about 24 hours under the keel. We had nice wind for the start and our fleet was well behaved crossing the line. We quickly tacked on to port and headed right out under the Golden Gate Bridge. From there it was pretty slow. We got to about 4nm from the Farallones before we started heading south in the late afternoon. Tons of whales, porpoises, sea lions, etc. Although it was light we kept the boat moving all night and were greeted by nice winds at sunrise. By 1000 this morning though we're back down to low single digit winds again. Everyone is getting used to the watch schedule and we truck along waiting for better wind! Love to all. Tracy & crew

Race tracking

Last Saturday we loaded our return gear (delivery main sail, fuel jugs, some provisioning) on to the shipping container that the PacCup YC will be sending to Kaneohe.  PacCup has published a link to our Yellow Brick trackers.  You can follow the race here:  https://yb.tl/paccup2022.  Optionally, you can get the Yellow Brick app and then add the race once it's listed (the app works pretty well).

The crew and I started our evening weather and routing reviews (via Zoom, what else).  We'll be doing this every night leading up to the start.  Everyone is getting pretty excited.  One week to go!!

blog post email

Hi all - one of our final land-based updates. Start times have been posted and our start is Tuesday, July 5th, at 11:10am. Most equipment has been loaded on the boat and we are finalizing provisioning. The countdown is real now!

Final practice race in the books.

Last Saturday we completed our final practice race, the OYRA crewed Farallones race, before we head off to Hawaii.  While it was a beautiful, mostly clear day, on the ocean - the one thing we could have used more of was wind.  The forecast SW breeze didn't fill in until the middle of the afternoon, and even then it was barely over 10kts.  It took us over 6 hours to make it out the SE Farallon Island, but it was pretty much a straight shot back with a southerly breeze that was a bit too far forward to set the spinnaker.  As the wind bent to go under the Golden Gate bridge we could set the spinnaker at about Pt. Bonita and carry it to the finish line.  There were three of us sailing some pretty high apparent wind angles with our spinnakers to get across the finish line.  We left the dock at 0730 and got back at 2200.  A long day!

You can see the race video here:  https://youtu.be/X--o25DytpA

Next up will be the 2022 Pacific Cup Race.  Our start will be Tuesday, July 5th, at 1110.  We're nailing down all the provisioning to be loaded onto the boat in a few weeks.  I've got a test going with our new cooler (a COSTCO knockoff of a Yeti cooler) to see how long dry ice will last.

Next posts likely from the race!!