The last couple days have been fast and furious!
Five boats arrived Fourth of July starting with,
Nozomi at 12:51:30
Mountain at 15:26:08
Green Buffalo at 18:28:25
Siren at 2223:24
Perplexity at 22:51:25
Made for a long day for the chase boat crew!!

This morning brought us ,
Rainbow at 12:23:18

Presently awaiting Shark On Bluegrass due in around 21:00

Shark on Bluegrass finished at 20:16:50
Being outboard powered and sailing without the engine mounted on the transom, required a tow to the anchorage. We circled the anchorage twice while bleary eyed Falk untangled the anchor rode. 

7/6/21
Hula, 09:14:08, arrived with the spinnaker wrapped having the middle 1/3 still drawing. We put his wife Darlene aboard and they did circles to finish the wrap and head into anchor.

17:27:40 brought us Northern Star with a spinnaker wrap as well.
Chase boat crew Synthia boarded to assist with anchoring.

Sea Wisdom finished at 21:52:24 with a faulty rudder using the Hydrovane as backup rudder. Greg boarded from the chase boat to assist with anchoring.

All times listed here are HST

Our first finisher arrived this morning just after 10am HST
Kyle Vanderspek aboard the Hobie 33, Aloha. Aloooha Aloha!

Four boats are due to arrive July 4, here’s what they’re up to.

Green Buffalo, 7/2/21, 09:18
After a bit of an uncomfortable night with wind direction and velocity shifts, was run over by a day time squall this morning. Nothing dramatic but it was drizzly (flet good) saw 30k of wind – at the very upper limit of the autopilot when the big kite is up. Its a warning… time for me to shift down to the shy kite before sunset tonight (forewarned is forearmed). Now Siren is right on my tail… so gearing down may “hurt” but c’est la vie as I try to avoid any “night time dramas”.

Two days and change to go… about the length of the LongPac. Will likely finish an hour or two after sunset Sunday – but I can hope its at sunset – or at least I see the island before sunset!

Sunday is going to be a busy one for the race committee… 3 or 4 of us finishing.

Cheers,
Jim
Green Buffalo

Perplexity,7/2/21, 15:06
beautiful day with lots of wind. starting to figure the squalls out but nights are a nightmare – can’t see anything!

Hula, 7/2/21, 18:17
Note to self: Always keep enough halyard tension so that jib doesn’t start coming out of foil. It’s really hard in 25k to rehoist and keep it in the groove!

20:50
I could feel my luck change the moment I saw that the pressure cooker had landed right side up.

Aloha,
(This is Kyle’s last report prior to finishing!)

7/4/21, 03:43
Day 14 Update
Today has been a very rough and tiring day aboard Aloha, and though we will make it out the other side alive, today has proven that at times we have done so by nothing more than endless will power and at times a heavy dose of sheer luck. This will be a brief update as the weather is not exactly conducive to typing out extended articles, but i will gladly fill in the details tomorrow from what i hope to be the shores of a calm harbor or pool.

After an early chicken and dumpling dinner (think home made chicken pot pie), it was an early night in fairly moderate winds. i proceeded to fall asleep a little too soundly and woke short of midnight to the unsettling sound of silence coming from the spinnaker., once again it had gotten wrapped around the forestay and the staysail, this time i was lucky and was able to get it freed without too much effort, however about 45 minutes later it decided to happen again. The second time was a bad one which required lots of effort and the lowering and eventual re rigging of both sails before they could be re set about a half an hour later. In that time after about midnight west coast time, the wind had begun to pick up and the autopilot could no longer keep up with the building wind and wave. This meant it would be me who would be driving for the remainder of the night and morning.

A large number of squalls brought building winds into the mid 20 knot range and some light rain which was just enough to make it a bit chilly on deck as i was very much underprepared to be on deck driving all night. Not too long after day break, i was steering along and noted that i was at 217 miles to go when much to my surprise the forestay came tumbling down from the top the mast, this left the only think keeping the mast from falling back into my lap being the continued wind pressure on the main and spinnaker. To help with this situation, i threw it on auto for a sec and ran forward to attach a spare jib halyard t the deck and act as a stand in for the now gone forestay. At the time the staysail was on that halyard and it was hastily dropped on deck to be dealt with later as and prolonged absence from the helm would lead to catastrophe as the boat would surely round up and the sails would no longer be keeping the mast held forward. Then 17 miles later at exactly 200 from home the spinnaker that i had up exploded leaving me no choice but to once again surrender the boat to the auto pilot and collect the bits of spinnaker and shove them down the companionway.

Not had much sleep in the last few days and being up solidly attentive to the needs of the boat since before midning (it was around 8 or 9 by now) i needed a rest. So i turned the boat straight downwind under the auto, rigged up the second standby jib halyard to again act in place of the forestay along with the other one and i went inside to collect my thoughts and clean up the mess of spinnaker and staysail that was littered throughout the cabin. After getting myself sorted and pointing straight at the finish line, i laid down for a few minutes and weighed my options.

First and foremost is of course to get there in one piece, preferably with the mast still pointed in the vertical direction. With that in mind and having taken some time to recupperate, i decided that setting the smallest A5 spinnaker would both help speed up the process of getting home as well as stabilize that ride and perhaps keep me in contention while not adding any stresses or strains to the jury rigged forestay situation. So i set the A5 which is hoisted in a handy sock to fascilitate setting and dousing in al conditions and have been following it towards the finish line for the past few hours.

An added bonus of this spinnaker and these conditions at present is that the autopilot seems up to the task of keeping a straight course in the heavy sea state and decent winds. With everything back to running well for the time being, i took the time to handle my first pre arrival task which was to shave my face, and without a proper mirror onboard, it will be interesting to find out how i did tomorrow when i get in. Not too long ago I ticked past 150 miles to go and expect to be safely into Hanalei bay sometime during the daylight hours of tomorrow barring another serious catastrophe.

So with that, i ask everyone please hold their breath and cross all their fingers in hopes of a uneventful night and morning aboard Aloha. And for those wondering, i have pre decided dinner tonight will be beef stroganoff and breakfast tomorrow will be biscuits and gravy, two of my personal favorites for last meals onboard. I love you all and let’s hope for a safe last few hours onboard this rocket ship. ALOHHHAAAA!

With the trade winds fully established our racers are ticking off the miles and posting some good 24 hour averages.

Mountain, 12:54
Hello friends,
It”s been a busy few days aboard Mountain.Aside from the routine small maintenance chores that popped up (they always do) I had the distinct pleasure of fishing a couple of my sails out of the sea. This type of thing happens from time to time, one prefers it not to happen in a race though. Nothing damaged, just a bruised ego and a loss of a few miles to my competitors. We will bounce back! I remind myself that each of the other ten yachts is also having their share of minor misfortunes. It”s how we handle them that makes the difference .
Ever onward!

Aloha, 01:37
Day 13 Update
Today is the first report I never hoped to have to type, at least not from a moving boat anyway. Generally, most predictions for a Hawaii race onboard a Hobie 33 have you finishing on day 12, not still being a couple hundred miles away (just under 350 as I type). But that’s not the case with this crossing, thanks to two adverse weather patterns that slowed the initial push away from the west coast with the “southerly surge” and then the very pronounced and unavoidable hole in the middle of the course.

Thankfully after all the trials and tribulations of the beginning parts of the course, Hawaii has finally delivered on the champagne trade wind sailing which we all sign up for these races eager to do.

Last night after MH spaghetti and meat sauce, I turned in early with an eye towards building winds throughout the night likely pulling me from my rack to hand steer when the auto would get overwhelmed by the winds and the waves. This did indeed happen not too long after midnight when the autopilot had finally rounded up after threatening to do so a number of times throughout the earlier hours of the evening. For the rest of the night I was either standing by in the cockpit to take over at a moment’s notice and eventually just steering myself.

With winds slowly building into the low 20s, boat speed was good and the headers that I had hoped for and expected were beginning to roll down with them each puff of wind and squall pushing me lower and lower towards Kauai. Not too long after day break I saw the highest winds of the day coupled with the highest boat speeds with a velocity made good towards Hanalei bay of 15.5 knots in short bursts while riding down the face of some good Hawaiian waves. The size of the waves unfortunately is not quite large enough to really sustain extended surfing nor connecting of multiple waves to keep speeds up in the mid teens for extended periods of time, but it is always nice when the boat gets powered up and comes screaming down the face of a wave.

A couple waves caused me some issues as I plowed the bow into the backside of one while surfing the one behind it sending water all the way back to the cockpit and with the hatch wide open, quite a bit made it inside Aloha. Fortunately I had taken the time to move all the family heirlooms up to dryer areas of the boat as the companionway has been ground zero for water splashing in from any and every conceivable angle.

Around 9 or 10, winds eased up and i was able to do my morning breakfast routine of eating and downloading the latest weather files as well as getting the position information of the rest of the fleet. Not long thereafter the sun broke through and with the decreased wind speeds i felt it might be a good time to try to get some rest. Try of course being the opportune word as i lay in my bunk for seemingly forever without a wink of proper rest. That being said, any time horizontal when not consumed by worries of sail trim and heading are still considered quite restful in my book. Even as I write this email I am able to take my mind off of sailing, enjoy a snack of beef jerky and rest my mind if not my body. Again tonight I suspect an early dinner and more rack time to follow as winds will surely build through the night and keep pushing me ever faster towards a cold drink, warm shower and soft bed in Hanalei.

With that I bid thee farewell. Alooohaaa!