Category: Racer News

Mike Reflects…

one of the great challenges of this race is to understand far you can push your boat without breaking her or you.

i am finding the experience from my first shtp to be invaluable in this regard. i am much more comfortable with how the boat will perform in various conditions and this gives me a little more mental space to optimize and experiment with various configurations.

i look back and wonder why i did or did not do certain things and realize i was just set up with a pair of training wheels the last race.

Mike complains. And complains. And complains

blowing 22 to 25 kts out here while you guys schmooze and drink mai tais. thats not right. to add insult to injury, i am back to the third reef. come on, i am 200 short miles from the garden isle, give me a break. and no cold beer. and no internet…….the humanity and lots of squalls too, and crappy food

Day 13 Summary – back to the trades

Today saw the finishes of Passages and Nightmare, congrats to them!  The rest of the fleet saw lighter more manageable conditions and sentiment traded back to how great the sailing is, except for the poor sods who have AP or electric issues.  They kinda stayed at the “just get me to Hanalei” mindset.  Folks in this category are Crinan II, who hand steers and stops to rest, Riff Rider is doing the same, and Fugu who, with full sun, did manage to get some power and some rest from hand steering to conserve amp hours.  The latter two crossed paths with each other today.  Crinan II will be the next to finish tonight.

The comfort clump continued to enjoy great conditions and they are still seeing good wind.  Dark Horse continued sprinting ahead and now has fewer miles to go than JouJou – quite a show. Morning Star has less than 550 miles to go and then this race will move into history.  Winds are forecast to lighten up over the next few days, lets hope a lot of distance is traveled before then.

First Three Finishers

Learning he was first to finish: Philippe on Double Espresso

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Under the surfboard at the Little Yellow House

Second to finish: David Clark, happy in the Yellow House

Third to finish is Greg Ashby, photo still to come. Greg arrived early in the morning of July 6 on his Wilderness 30 Nightmare. Synthia just paddleboarded out to the Sea Squirrel and Greg just hailed her on 69 for a ride back inshore. When he hailed her, Rob MacFarlane, s/v Tiger Beetle responded, offered Greg a ride in on his dinghy. We’ll have a photo soon …

Latitude 38 article here:  http://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/lectronicday.lasso?date=2018-07-06#Story4

David Clark and s/v Passages finished

David finished the 2018 Singlehanded Transpacific Yacht Race on July 5, 2018 @ 23:08:01 PDT.

http://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/lectronicday.lasso?date=2018-07-06#Story4

The race committee drove to Princeville and found a place overlooking the cliffs where we could see that little tiny white sail far away!!!

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See movie of Passages above, upload it to your big screen tv and you’ll be able to see David’s Olson 30 passing the light on Kilauea Point.

We were able to make radio contact and learned that Passages was approximately 9 nm out.

Excellent!!!

 

The parties in Mike’s head

another morning of sailing dead down wind. its a little challenging because my boat begins to dislike the full main at about 21 kts tws depending a bit on sea state. last night i was humming along with full main 20 kts reasonable sea state good boat speed so decided to get some sack time. rude awakening sometime later with my tws alarm going off, the boat jumping and complaining and me sitting there in the bunk thinking “remind me where i am again” answer, you are in a sailboat about to do another reef Mr. Cunningham…NOW WOULD BE GOOD!
You untangled those reefing lines earlier right? Sir, yes Sir.
by now you may be wondering how many actual people are on the boat. well there’s Mr. Yellowcoat protecting the forward cabin, a Marine Drill Instructor kicking my ass,  and a bunch of talking chipmunks who get pretty chatty when i get short on sleep. i also continue to be on board and am, in fact, doing all the work.
rcvs 9:38am PDT 7/6