173 miles yesterday on Seazed Asset

From July 14th 0800 hours to today 0800, I covered 173 miles. Not record setting by any standards, but a great 24 hour run. I even had about 3 hours in the middle of yesterday going DDW in 9-10 knots of wind, at a boat speed of 5-5.5 knots. That was frustrating slow, and noisy. Then last night was a bad one for squalls, coming every 30-45 minutes apart. I had the .75 chute up and would bear of 20-30 degrees and go like a freight train, most of the time. Came close to rounding up several times but held it. The about 1130 a big on got me, ran off 30 degrees could not get the boat on its feet. Then rounded up, boom tip in the water and the spinnaker was shaking the rig so much, I thought I was going to lose it. That did, down came the chute. Up went a white sails for the rest of the night. The winds had shifted a bit and even with white sails and on my course, I was on a beam reach at 6-7 knots, all night long. Only 210 miles to go as I write this. Could be HI about dusk tomorrow:)

Vance Seazed Asset

Pit Stop

I have a brand new fuel tank, and a newish fuel level sender that I’m not sure I trust. Because of the weird shape of the tank, when the indicator says half full it is probably well under half. I think. Because I knew my electricity consumption was expected to be high, I took some advice and brought a 6 gal jerry can of diesel in the cabin as backup. As of this morning I have run the engine 25.2 hours since filling the tank. The gauge said slightly under half. The wind and seas seemed as light as they would likely be. So for peace of mind, I decided to transfer the fuel to the main tank. This involved getting the 36 lb jug on deck, secured with a tether to the jacklines, and working it up the side deck to where it could be lashed to a stanchion and lifelines. Then use the siphon gizmo to do the transfer. With the motion of the boat and the need to keep all secure, this was over an hour to do a job that would be just a few minutes in the slip. But now I have all the amp-hours I might desire, and won’t have to do this operation while on short approach to landfall. Maybe I will run the fridge and chill some drinks to celebrate.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation


The wind had held to the mid to upper teens all day and boat speed was not great under mainsail alone. There hadn’t been and squalls last night or yesterday day, and the seas were reasonable. Time to nerve up and try another spin run. I had stripped all the spin gear after the blowup of several days ago, and it took nearly 4 hours for me to get everything out, sorted, led properly , untangled, re-led, checked, detangled, uncoiled, recoiled, and ready to launch. One of my twing line/blocks had apparently gone overboard, perhaps at night after all the fun of last time, so I had to make up a new one. I was taking frequent water and heat breaks, as it was blazing hot. The shy kite was dead; that left the next choices the near-new Quantum medium reacher S3, and the very old red 3/4 oz (?) runner. In modkerate air I used the S3 fairly deep, notably in the LongPac, and I though it was OK to use in the teens. Finally, after a lot of sweaty work and careful checking, I hoisted in about 17 kts. So far so good, though kind of floppy and unstable compared to the shy kite. It is also kind of hard to get the jib back down without crew to help ease the halyard in a controlled way. I got a pretty bad wrap, but was able to tease it out in about 5 minutes. No spin net up. I needed to sail deep, so I set up heading and trim for best course to the finish. I popped down below to get the camera to take the picture above, and also saw from the instrument log that the DDW spin-speed was not much better than main alone. I got another wrap, worse than the last, and screwed around and finally got it out. And then I felt the raindrops. Squall. A small one, only going to 25 kts, and it didn’t last long, but hard to manage with that sail. I had a bad roundup with me on the low side, water coming in, hanging on to the tiller for dear life. I thought I wasn’t clipped in, although in fact I was. OK, enough of this. At some point the spin sheet had again magically jumped out of the twing snatch block, and the sail was more unstable than ever. Also, on the spin sheet a place where the cover was badly chafed broke, although the line core held. I probably should have put the healthier sheet on that side. As soon as the wind dropped below 20 and things settled down, I went forward to prep the jib for raising. Jib up, lazy guy in hand, and a more or less successful conventional douse. Then I tried to lower the jib while still running very deep, and this time it was the jib’s turn to wrap its top. I forgot you can’t do that without a crew to manage the drop. More trips to the bow. To add insult to injury, by the time all this was all done the wind was back down to 13kts. I guess I can say I tried. I’m not sure about that red 3/4 oz runner, and now I seem to be short a proper spin sheet. I know that most people regard these Hawaii races as spinnaker Nirvana, but without that shy kite I don’t think I can handle conditions over 20 kts, which can pounce at almost any time. And it doesn’t always work to say, well I’ll just hang on till it drops, because sometimes it doesn’t drop for many hours. So I guess I will be back to grinding along straight DDW for now. I’ve still got those twins to try.

David Nabors s/v Temerity

Althea SHTP: Day 12 – All wrapped up in sailing


The last few days have been pretty focused on sailing and Althea and less on gourmet meals. Things are going pretty well as I push to have a solid finish. We need to keep driving hard to get west of Celia before she rolls over the course, otherwise I am afraid we’ll be caught in her calms or in her nasty backside. This mornings breakfast was a large helping of spinnaker wrap. 5am, bright and early, the foreguy slips of the primary winch jaw and the pole slams into the headstay. Althea rounds up, then backs off a little to agressively after she gains her feet and we gybe. Sheet was wrapped pretty high up not allowing me to bear off and have it sorted itself out. Within 90 minutes the kite was hoisted again and we were on our way. I was pretty happy about that all things considered. The patched up kite has otherwise been doing well. The guy has been banished to a cleat. I’ve also been fighting with the autopilot who seems hell bent on returning us to San Francisco. Everytime the wind hits near 20 she gets afraid and tries to turn around. Not helping our cause for sure. This has led to a hand steering when the blow picks up. There’s an ingress of water through the shaft log leading to needing to pump out the bilge at least twice a day. I don’t leave the pump on as to not wear through my battery with all the cycling and have been pretty good about remembering. I’m not crazy about crawling back there to tighten the gland so it’ll just be. Saw the port nav light was ripped off this morning. What took that so long? All minor things considering how well Althea is doing. It’s amazing the ammount of force exerted on her… I know my buttocks are seized up from all the clinching. Listening to: Van Morrison and the Chieftons

400 to go on Seazed Asset

Only 400 more miles. My best finish time guess is late Saturday night to early Sunday morning. In the dark:( Hey, that ok, its time to get the trip over with. Set the 1.5 chute yesterday at 0900, carried it all night. Winds kept shifting after sunset, so I was up most the night trimming sails. Switched to the .75 chute at 1100 today. Need the bigger sail and its only blowing 14 knots. I figure is good for .25 knots and that is 5 hours at this distance. Last night was the FIRST night without fleece! Hot and humid today, I am hiding in the shade. What I want when I finish, in no particular order. A bed that is not constantly in motion, cold drink, my girlfriend, and of course a shower:) Right now its pretty darn calm, no surfing at all. I had a bit yesterday, today no big swells. Good boat speed, 7-7.5 steady. Good for the longer waterline boats like me. The anorexia (ULDB) boats cannot surf in these conditions. Need to get a GRIB, tried this am was unsuccessful. Bad conditions for the SSB. Lasts nights GRIB has me on port pole to the finish, yea! Here to aiming at the Palm Trees!!:) Vance Seazed Asset ————————————————- Do not push the “reply” button to respond to this message if that includes the text of this original message in your response. Messages are sent over a very low-speed radio link. The most concise way to reply is to send a NEW message to: wdi6622@sailmail.com If you DO use your reply button, be sure to delete the original message text and these instructions from your reply. Replies should not contain attachments and should be less than 5 kBytes (2 text pages) in length. This email was delivered by an HF private coast station in the Maritime Mobile Radio Service, operated by the SailMail Association, a non-profit association of yacht owners. For more information on this service or on the SailMail Association, please see the web site at: www.sailmail.com

End Game?

temerity DavidNabors_1306 4c_160

As the leading wave of the fleet approaches Kauai, it is starting to feel like endgame as boats set up for their most favored jibes to finish. The scale of the race makes it easy to forget looking at the chart how far the race still has to run. For me, at 400nm from the finish, I still have the equivalent of an entire LongPac to run. And a lot can happen in that time and distance. Last night I experienced a pretty big lefty wind shift, which woke me with the banging of a near jibe. So I suited up, jibed, and got more on a VMG course, whereas before I had been cutting over north to hopefully get set up for a better angle on the extended forecast Easterly. Of course GRIBs are often not so accurate, and I make many mistakes in eyeball-routing off them. Wind now is light, about 15 kts. Other news from last night — not a single squall. Clearly we are in a different air mass. The sky was about 50% clear, it was nice to start seeing stars, and the moon is more than half full and waxing. I am so beat though that I slept through my alarm on three separate occasions — even using my new trick of setting up the alarm on the iPod and playing the alarm tone through my earplugs. I really should have found something louder or more violent, perhaps involving electric shock. For most of the race a simple kitchen timer has allowed my to wake up every half hour to two hours to check wind direction and so forth. It’s also getting pretty warm, and spending time in foulies is pretty uncomfortable. Some goretex rainpaints or other superlight wear would also have been a good idea. OK, off to see how I can get sailing faster.

Giant Slayer smells the barn

My preparations for finishing and navigating towards the finish line are done. The finish is very near shore, as might be expected, but I have had a lot of room to play out here and now real navigation and routing is needed. I have both the nav computer and the ship gps programmed, and I have a plan in case one or the other sail will not come down. I have had the same spinnaker up now for 4 days, so 1 day out, it will come down, and then right back up, or depending on actual wind, I may switch to the Little Man spinnaker just for the last 12 miles. I plan on jibing for the finish to port tack at 12 miles from the finish. This puts me close to Maui for many hours of sailing. Remarkably no wild life this trip, just a few birds. None came buy to visit. Today I dumped more water, had a bath, and cleaned up the boat and crew. Everyone is happy about that. Winds have moderated, and I’m contemplating the bigger spinnaker, but I will observe the conditions, as swapping up and then back in the night could be trouble. With under 500 miles to go, which is still a very very long way to go mind you, mistakes and risk must be weighed. I am getting a very nice sunset tonight, the first nice one of the trip. Tomorrow being Thursday, a new adventure may be reveled in the fortune cookie. I sense that the fortune cookies fortunes on board have been sifted to make sure they are all happy, good for someone at sea, and may not be as guiding as the normal cookie. My 27 feet of world is doing fine, and all the technology is working which is fantastic. I have had just one shackle fail, and that was in my hand as I was attaching it to a sail, which i think i mentioned already. Somehow, i managed to not have any candy, chocolate, or any sweets at all. How is that possible? No ding-dongs, cupcakes, nothing. 🙁 So, we on the boat have been telling stories, and keeping ourselves entertained, and thinking up new fun adventures, and new shirts, you know t-shirts like “Every Dave is a new opportunity”, and “Don’t let one Dave go by that you don’t try something new”. I think I have about 200 more Dave Shirts. As the weather is changing, and not matching the forecast, I will down load a fresh one, and I can always just look outside too, check the barometer, it is raising when the forecast has it falling, usually, that means that Marry Poppins will be coming to dinner, or that the forecasted low is stalling. The GRIBS tell all. OK, planning on hand driving and I may switch up the XL spinnaker, or I may just keep reading all the books i brought. haha.