Category: Jacqueline

Day 14,15, 16 Summary – Playing Catch Up

So the summary posts have been delayed by finishes!!  Nine of them between the two days.  Clearly the bell curve bunch.  Saturday saw the winds fill back in for the back end of the fleet and the middle of the pack approached the island.   First were Rainbow, during the day, and Fugu and Riff Rider, during the night.  All the while the comfort clump is sneaking up.  Thankfully, daylight greeted the first of the next six finishers roughly each an hour or two apart.  Dark Horse lead the pack, with JouJou, Jacqueline, Dolfin, Iris, and finally Crazy Rhythm finishing off the day just before Tree Time.

The next due in would be the following morning.  Sleep for RC.  Kyntanna followed a couple of hours by the Owl.  All are well and in safe.  We are now only awaiting our dear keeper of the east Morning Star.  We expect him possibly tomorrow afternoon.  Remnant rain of a tropical depression is moving through the area to day with light winds forecast offshore.  They may slow Morning Star somewhat, but we look forward to his finish.

Mike Preps for Arrival

OK, the SSS transpac keeps on giving. Was squirming around on the bow getting the anchor rode sorted. Squirmed right through a 5 day old squid (guess i didn’t save em all) so now, after taking a shower with great difficulty earlier, i now smell like 5 day old squid. I don’t want to hear any snarky comments about any odors you may encounter.

And with that, I intend to finish this race and see if boschma bought more beer. cold beer.

Mike’s Lists

Last night at sea, knock on wood. Easy to find aboard Jacqueline because every last piece is squeaking.

Beautiful evening with Dolfin’s lights in sight. Hard to believe we can see each other after 2144 nm at sea.

Now I have turned my attention to obsessing about finish to do’s. I often wonder if I am some sort of to do list obsessive/compulsive. No to do list? Get that on a to do list pronto. I have little scraps of paper all over the boat with cryptic tasks which i cant even remember what they are. My handwriting doesn’t help. “go get the tractor fabricated” what the hell was that?  probably important.

New to do…Improve handwriting.

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.