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Shorthanded Racing in San Francisco Bay

2002 TRANSPAC News and Position Reports

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Tuesday June 25

0900 hours radio check in

via SailMail from Steve Wilson on board Westerly

YachtLatitudeLongitudeDTFNotes
Rusalka25.58148.11660
Alchera24.21151.09478
Tease24.46148.21633
Endangered Species25.53146.40737
Seabird24.00147.35667
Zapped   attempted VHF check in, could not copy position
Westerly24.18146.20737
Haulback24.56145.27790
DTF = distance to finish, nautical miles

2100 hours radio check in

from Steve Wilson on board Westerly

YachtLatitudeLongitudeDTFNotes
Rusalka25.46149.00614
Alchera23.55152.17411
Tease24.30149.18578
Endangered Species25.35147.24694
Seabird23.47148.48599
Zapped   did not check in
Westerly24.03147.36666
Haulback24.35146.29731
DTF = distance to finish, nautical miles

from Mark Deppe on board Alchera

Alchera Log 6/25/02 1309 Hours
Postion N24 05 W151 30

Having lots of poles and preventers on your sails is really useful when there's little or no wind and the action of the waves is causing everything to slat around. With double poles on the twin headsails and a boom brake on the main, I can tighten everything down to the point where the noise and action isn't too bad. The sails look crappy, but there's no wind for them anyway. Another benefit, the action of the waves rocking the boat back and forth gives a certain amount of thrust from the sails when then are locked down this way - it's like they are flapping, or 'sculling' through the air. With only 3 knots of wind, I was getting 3 knots of boatspeed, mostly from this flapping action I think.

The boom brake chafed through it's lashing to the boom with all the movement, and came crashing down on deck. But no permanent damage, and it was easily rigged up again. I had seen the chafe before, I just thought it would make it to Kauai. Course, that was before all this really light air.

These light air conditions really suck. The tradewinds that we all came out here to go surfing on have not materialized, and the high pressure zone dominates. Westerly in the back of the fleet was up most of the night trying to pull strings to get some sort of speed on but finally gave up after awhile. Seabird was down to the last cigar and a half, and was begining to search the boat for some old hemp rope. Alchera had light wind yesterday, good wind last night, no wind this morning, and now light winds again. I think being further along the course and further south has provided some relief from the light winds. But it's still a constant struggle to keep the boat moving.

The moon last night was really incredible. There was no need for lights to see by, the ocean and everything else was lit up fairly brightly. It was nice to just sit in the cockpit and experience it for awhile before getting back into race mode once again.

Got to go, it sounds like there's an argument going on in the forward berth, and someone else is knocking on the outside of the hull for attention. There's another voice that keeps saying 'Got Milk?' 'Got Milk?' over and over again, I wish it would get it's milk and shut up.

- Alchera

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