7/17 update

Good afternoon everyone. Last night was nasty until the moon came up. We had winds in the 20's, completely dark, and crazy seas thanks to Darby. That lasted about 3 long hours. At this stage the crew is pretty tired so to make life a bit easier and to take it easy on the rudder bearing, we went blast reaching with white sails pretty much directly towards the finish at good speed. Today has been more of the same, gusty winds and big seas from a variety of directions. We've been power reaching and having some amazing surfing runs. Killer VMG. Looks like we'll be hitting 100 miles to go around sunset and finishing early tomorrow morning. Can't wait to get to KYC. To give an indication how loopy we're getting, John has been enjoying listening to Mark and me quoting lines from our favorite movies. Probably best kept on the boat…

7/16 update

Hi all, we continue to drive hard. Maybe too hard? Our lower rudder bearing is not happy. Not much we can do about it other that to be less aggressive in our driving and make sure it lasts to Kaneohe. We hit a top speed of 15.4 knots last night in the midst of out running a squall. The boat was lit up! Fuel for the engine is starting to run low and I'd like to rely mainly on solar to keep our batteries charged up. So, goodbye refrigerator - biggest energy hog on board. We finished our last prepared meal last night so the only things in there were luxuries at this point. We can last a couple of days without them being cold. Makes the arrival that much better. Looking like something on Monday at this point. See you soon! Tracy & crew

7/15 update

Yesterday afternoon at 5:30 we made our long anticipated move and jibed south looking for the trades. We sailed just west of south and then we're able to run directly at the finish line (granted, at the time over 600nm away). Since then we've made good speed going almost directly where we want to go. All the models say decent easterly breeze for the next few days, getting us in there late Sunday or early Monday. We'll see what we can do to shorten that! Aloha, Tracy & crew

7/13-14 update

Sorry folks, yesterday was a busy day. We've been pushing the boat as hard as we can in the conditions we have. One of our spinnakers has been up 24/7 the last 5 days. Each day brings a new speed record. Yesterday we hit 14 knots. That record will likely fall before we reach Hawaii. We had a bit of a scare yesterday when the bottom rudder bearing started making unusual noises. We dropped the spinnaker temporarily in order to check it out. We weren't able to definitively determine what was going on, but literally three phone calls got me in touch with the NA distributor, who I originally purchased the bearing from. We diagnosed it to a dry bearing from spending so much time on one tack. We broke into the medical kit and used a syringe to inject soapy water into the bearing. This appears to have cleared up the problem. Phil, at PYI, was also kind enough to follow up with several text messages this morning to confirm everything was okay. In the middle of the Pacific, that's customer service! Yesterday we got passed by two of the late week starters, waved our hellos and they were on their way. We keep jamming along, hoping to make our jibe towards the finish later today, early tomorrow. Aloha, Tracy & crew

7/12/22 update

Good morning! We have spent the last 72+ hours under spinnaker, usually the A2 during the day and the A4 at night. As the winds have allowed we've been trying to point at Hawaii. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not. If conditions continue as forecast for the rest of the day, we will be having our halfway party at dinner tonight. We are all excited to see what Stacy has packed for us! Last night to improve wind speed we went squall chasing and got some good rides, sticking with some squalls for over an hour. The downside? We got pretty wet. We're hoping for good sunshine today to help dry things out. Aloha, Tracy & crew

7/11/22 update

Hi all, we've been moving pretty well yesterday and last night. Pretty slow going today. Our excitement in the last 24 hours was the lashing failing on the low friction ring that holds our tack line for the spinnaker. When did this happen you might ask? At 0230 last night of course. The good news is that I had the insight to add a safety strop around the bow sprit and the tack line. This way the load gets transferred to the strop rather than the bow pulpit (like in 2018). Disaster averted. We got the kite down, replaced the block and got the kite back up in relatively short order and off we went. Things are definitely getting hotter weather wise. Foulies, boots, etc are a thing of the past. Sunscreen, hats, shorts are now the clothing of choice. Half way should be Wednesday (less than 1,035 nm to go) and we hope our pace will pick up from there. Aloha, Tracy & crew

7/10/22 update

Good afternoon everyone,

What to say about yesterday? Let's see, we worked our way through the sail inventory - we went all night with the Code 0, changed to the A2 at 0800, then to the A3 in the early afternoon, followed by the A4 at 0330 last night. We've been running with the A4 since. All smooth changes even in the night with very tired crew. On the wild life side, we haven't seen much lately, not even the ever present flying fish we've seen on previous races. We were contacted via email by the USCG SAR folks asking us o see if we could reach SV Perplexity on our VHF. Unfortunately, while we were probably within hailing distance early in the day, our courses had diverged since and we could no longer raise them. Glad to read in this mornings race news that there is no serious trouble. Looks like Pyewacket will blast by us sometime today but probably too far away for us to see them. We transferred the contents of our dry ice cooler to the refrigerator today and had the still cold, but a bit soft serve, ice cream after lunch. A nice treat on a warm day. That's it for today. Aloha, Tracy & crew.