Thursday, July 26, 2007

TranspacBlog II-28: Crossing tacks

A most amazing race, indeed. The race is over, and we STILL keep running into Farfar. Last night the Psyche crew (not Charlie) and friends enjoyed a luscious dinner party at the Outrigger Canoe Club, right on the Diamond Head side of Waikiki, courtesy of our captain, Steve Calhoun. His generosity overflowed. While we drank our Mai Tai's at sunset, the canoeists were racing down the waves and putting their outriggers away against the wall right next to us. A beautiful tropical sunset, not at sea, but over the hills around Pearl Harbor.

While we stood around enjoying absolutely sumptuous hors d'oeuvres, who should walk in, but the crew of Farfar and their friends. Looking smart and trim, with beautiful wives/girlfriends, we all guffawed and growled, and shook hands yet again. Vonnegut talks about people in your Karass, and how you can't control it. That's the Psyche and Farfar crew. I wonder how many years we will continue to cross tacks.

Then we sat at a long table in the sand, and ate the best meal I've eaten in a very long time.

I am STILL rocking, 30 hours after the race. My muscles are sore all over from the winch grinding and just holding on, in that rocky rolly sea. The callouses are starting to peel off my hands.

I can't help wondering how I would feel about this race if we had sailed 10 minutes slower across 2+ weeks, and lost to the Farfar crew. It is hard to imagine. But I THINK by this long afterward, I'd be getting a sense of perspective.

Bird (my love who came to greet me) and I are sitting in our room in the Bamboo right off Waikiki, considering that we have NO plans, no watch system, no must do, no nothing. It is a real vacation. My colleagues at Chapman call the race a "sailing vacation". Our college president runs in marathons. I'm doubting that his colleagues call it a "running vacation", but maybe they do.

My dad's death memory comes in waves now, not often, but often enough. An emptiness hole feeling that comes to a peak and then dies down over the course of a few minutes. We will be having a memorial service on the 4 August. There will be a gazillion people there; my parents are incredibly social animals, and they've had a pile of years to accumulate close friends. My mom chose the yacht club to honor the primary avocation of my dad, i.e., sailing. I am truly looking forward to hearing from all these old friends, whose stories and humor will help me transform this hole to a fabric of shared memories.

So, that is the last transpac blog. I guess we'll let this series of blogs stand for a while to accumulate your comments. Also, please feel free to comment or email me at wwright at chapman dot edu. Like two years ago, I feel a sense of gratitude to those of you who have told me what fun you had reading the blog. Knowing that you were reading it made it very, very fulfilling to write.

Dad


Dad 50
Originally uploaded by Sticky Tiny

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

TranspacBlogII-27D: WE WON!!

Last email (sent the day after, but you can read it for effect) found us with a big question mark.

Farfar racing along to save her time. We struggling not to let them do it.

Beautiful moonlit night. Smooth sea. Wind, 18-24 knots. High tension on board. To sail all this way and not be able to beat them, had us all dry mouthed. The focus of the last 6 hours of the race was downright unhealthy (in the long run).

We realized that what made us fast on that point of sail was the "trimmer", the person on the spinnaker sheet. Andrew and Charlie traded off. They know when to trim and how fast. They caught bunches and bunches of spinnaker collapses. Each collapse is probably worth 10 seconds; too many and we lose.

We Won.

We did it. We saved our time. 9 minutes (90 spinnaker collapses; 40 spinnaker changes; an hour on the wrong jibe), after more than two weeks of match racing.

I can't imagine any other set of opponents grappling for that long.

At the welcome party, we talked with the father/son pair (Mark and Peter English) of the four crew on Farfar. They were just as keyed up and stressed as we were. Bottom line is that we made each other's experience incredibly intense. Take away Farfar, and the race was a mellow slow passage. Add them back in, and we had the experience of a life time. I don't know if any of them or their friends read this blog, but I want to thank them for basically kicking our butts. We saved our time, but they beat us to the barn. But we still...

WON!

Such a crazy scene at the dock. The goofy Psyche crew and their loved ones. Surprises. Charlie's family showed up unannounced (they couldn't stay away). Tom Jorgensen and son Rob flew over just to see the scene. Press people wondering how we did it.

But here's the big thing. My sweet Bird came with layer upon layer of leis. I finally got to experience a little piece of those old black and white photos of my dad in Honolulu, after having won all the trophies and breaking the record in 1951. Leis up to my chin, as happy and relieved as ever could be.

I'll send one more blog tomorrow from our hotel.

Ta Da (Hawaiian for seeyalater)

TranspacBlogII-27C: Farfar Sighted?

Just charging along the north coast of Molokai. Green lush, waterfalls, stark, lonely.

Each of us taking 15 min steering turns, trying to break our records. Nobody does, but everyone is having fun. Gusts of 24.

But we are always looking at the horizon, trying to find Farfar. Which of us is going to be the Division 6 winner, and which will be second?

Oops, there's a white light in front of us. I think it is them. Steve says no.

If so, they are ahead, but within handicap reach. Jim thinks it is them.

We are listening to the radio, where we should hear them give their 25 mile check in. We have 10 miles to go to our 25 mile check in. We think we can cover 9 miles.

If that IS them, then they shouldn't be more than 5 miles ahead. We can cover that, unless the wind shuts off.

The suspense is KILLING us.

Farfar just called in. Asking whether Psyche has checked in.

Transpac says no. Farfar says thank you.

We call. Farfar gave their 25 mile check in 30 minutes ago. We are behind them, but can we save our 70 minutes?

We checked in 56 minutes later. That leaves 14 minutes!

If we can keep them from stretching their lead by 14 minutes, we can do it.

Aaarggh, is the wind dying? If it does we're doomed.

I'm sending this to you all, and I'll write another one from land tomorrow.

Sara, my daughter. I want to thank you for relaying all of these messages, and posting them on the blog.

Thanks also, to all of you who sent us your well-wishes.

Ta Ta (Hawaiian for seeyalater)

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

TranspacBlogII-27B:Delayed Gratification

It is 8:31 PM, California time, making it 5:31 in the afternoon here in Hawaii.

Our present updated ETA is around midnight.

We jibed our way toward Molokai all morning. We barreled through a particularly long and rainy squall, and when it cleared, viola, there was Haleakala, the volcano of the island of Maui, rising up out of the clouds. We are presently sailing down this amazing coast. Charlie says that it has the highest sea cliffs in the world, even higher than the cliffs of Dover. Unbelievably high water falls. Molokai was a leper colony back when, and the entire island has remained pretty much off limits ever since. Not sure why that is now. Kaleapapa point is where the colony once was. Charlie says there is a great surfing spot directly inshore of us, but you have to come in by boat. Most every day the trades are blowing, but when they aren't out goes Charlie looking for some uncrowded tubes.

Still no Farfar sighting. She checked in for the 100 mile check in earlier than we (by the equivalent of 3 miles), indicating that she is still slightly ahead. We thought they would aim their boat for the island of Molokai, and we would see them here. The intensified trade wind along this north coast of Molokai is world famous, and most sailors come in close to Kaleapapa. We are just about to pass it as I write. The wind has increased to 18-20 knots, hardly the 35 knots we got last time we were here. But HOPEFULLY, it is enough to slide us past Farfar. We think we will sight them in the Molokai channel, but who knows.

One more update to come.

TranspacBlogII-27: Homestretch handicap

Finish time: a bit after midnight tonight, Honolulu time

Place your bets folks the horses have just rounded the backstretch, and are heading to the finish line.

I have to give the newbies among you a little information on handicap for today's blog. Every boat in this race has a handicap. This is a number that determines how much time other boats "give" them. Psyche has a great handicap because she is so old and pokey, relative to the other newer boats in the race. The handicap is determined by a special committee, who come and measure everything from mast height to water-line length to sail area, to net tonnage, etc. They are pretty good at predicting expected performance based on these measurements..

For example, an Express 37, like Brown Sugar, is so light that she gives us something like 30 hours. Thus even if she beats us, we place higher, unless she beats us by more than 30 hours. Likewise, a Beneteau 42, like Inspired Environment has a longer water line and therefore gives us lots of time. All the boats in our class, except Shanti and Lady Liberty, give us time.

Now there are 3 Cal 40's in this race. They are identical in size and shape, so you would think that they don't give each other time. But, in fact, there is some variation in tonnage and rig, such that some boats give other boats a slight handicap. For example Farfar (funny I should choose this boat) gives us 70 minutes handicap. Thus, they can finish the race ahead of us, and yet lose, if we can finish with 70 minutes of their finish time.

So right now, Farfar' lead is so small that the Transpac computers put her second behind us.

Farfar DID take a flyer. You should look on the Transpac web site to try to see this. She is 19 miles north of us. Her distance to the finish at Diamond head is 3 miles shorter than ours, but the range in wind directions she needs for the next 6 hours is very narrow. By contrast, because we are in the middle of the course, we can profit from many different wind directions. Bottom line, I wouldn't trade places with her.

Last night was even more dramatic than two nights ago. These things all seem to happen when the kids, Andrew (age 20) and Charlie (age 42, not really a kid but just the same) are on watch. I woke up to the sound of "chop chop. We've got to get the half oz chute down and jibe, right now!" I crawled out of a deep sleep, and looked at the readout of windspeed we have inside the cabin. "Holy shit, it's blowing 24." We all just scrambled out of the cabin to get that light spinnaker out of that weather. Guess what I forgot to take with me.

I forgot my glasses. I didn't tell anyone. Hell I drove before, I can do it again. I can just concentrate on the instruments on the cockpit panel. Shit the instruments are out. Something happened and they all just show "error". Ok. Fine. No instruments. Just the compass and that fuzzy wildly bucking spinnaker out there somewhere by the bow.

But the real heroics was on the foredeck, where Andrew and Steve were bouncing around like hell, trying to pull that poor little spinnaker on out of the sky. They did this, and then horsed all the gear to the opposite sides of the boat so they could set the 3/4 oz spinnaker on port tack. They did this remarkably fast, while Jim and Charlie and I jibed the main sail. When the sail came crashing across the midline, and Jim let the sheet pay out, it hissed out through its blocks.

In a remarkably short time, Andrew and Steve had fastened up the 3/4 oz chute, and we hauled it up, and off we went. I handed over the helm, and went down to get my glasses.

Now we are headed in toward Kaleapapa, a significant point on the north side of the island of Molokai. We slide past this island into the Molokai channel to our finish sometime around midnight tonight. But this will almost certainly be a wild ride. The wind is blowing around 20 here now, and if 2005 and all the Transpac lore are any indication, we will have significantly more wind as we approach Kaleapapa. It is there we must jibe from port tack to starboard tack. We did this in 27 knots last time, and the memory is still quite vivid. But this time the jibe will be in the daylight, making the maneuver somewhat more straightforward.

Regardless, there is a lot of anticipation on board Psyche. If we screw up anything, it could easily mean the race. If we do it all right, I think it will be hard for Farfar to beat us. Let's put it this way. If they do beat us, they did a hell of a job (that's how my dad would say it).

But the bottom line is that it is pretty damn amazing to race a match race across 2000+ miles and be locked in a dead heat in the last hours.

I will send another blog as we approach the finish line, so you don't have to wait in suspense.

Monday, July 23, 2007

TranspacBlogII-26: Privilege vs heart

Ok. When I left you yesterday, we were power reaching with the 1.5 oz bullet proof spinnaker, our bow aimed like a cannon at the transom of Farfar. We also had the spinnaker staysail up. All sails flying as we closed on our query. We were getting closer and closer. The wind was howling. Certainly the four crew on Farfar weren't as heroic as the five of us. We made countless sail changes, as the squalls came and went. 1/2 oz chute in the light stuff, 3/4 oz in the heavy stuff, and the 1.5 oz when in the really heavy stuff.

Then the wind died. To the usual 10 knots.

Farfar started to move out on us. But we could see her clear as day, meaning she couldn't be more than 3 miles from us. The 6 AM role call position put us within 3 miles of her.

This means we are officially ahead of Farfar on corrected time. First in class, and 22nd in fleet. Wooohoooooo!!!!!

Then, after role call the shift we expected tonight, started happening. So we jibed to port tack, diverging from Farfar. Her sail sank below the horizon a scant hour later. I must admit to some separation anxiety.

Now it is normally not a good idea, to leave our competition, whom we think we are beating, out on a flyer that might see them pick up an advantagious private wind that could slide them right past us.

But three things made us choose to do this. First, it is the closest jibe to the course home, by 10 degrees. Second, the wind is light, and we don't dominate Farfar in these conditions. Staying with her in these conditions might just backfire. She could just slip away if we did this. Third, there is usually an intensified trade wind as we make landfall on the island of Molokai. We want to be there first.

Besides, this is our last time to test the adage, "Pass on the left."

But of course, 4 hours later, the wind shifted back to the north, forcing us to jibe back to starboard tack, and wonder what happened to Farfar, and if they left us in the dust.

Been thinking a lot about fathers, lately. This has got me to thinking about the various ways the crew of the Psyche came to be sailors.

Jim and I and Charlie are all children of privilege. Our dads encouraged us to sail at an early age. They bought us sailboats, and arranged for us to be trained by our yacht clubs' junior programs. Charlie had the distinct advantage of living in Newport Beach all summer long. Jimmy and I had to commute (in car pools) to LA harbor to be in the junior progam. This meant that we didn't spend as much time racing dinghies, and when it is time to jibe at midnight, Charlie's early childhood results in perfect reactions to vagaries of wind and sea. Jim's and my reactions are good, but not quite as natural.

Now, the remaining two crew members are the peoples' sailors. Steve learned to sail by the seat of his pants. Not because of any junior program, but rather because he just loved it. He was hooked in college, partly because his roomate at USC, Rob Hambleton, another Newport brat just like Charlie, took him out for a race. Steve got so excited, he bought his own boat and has been sailing ever since.

I haven't spoken at all about Andrew Campbell, our snotty nosed, 20 year old bowman. He is perhaps the most remarkable of the five of us. His early sailing experience was as a crew on a variety of keel boats. At some point he told his mom he wanted to be bowman, andshe responded by actually laying out all the lines and pole for him, and taking him through the various maneuvers step by step. I think he was 8 years old. He still remembers the day. But the most likely explanation for Andrew's success lies not primarily with his mom, but with his desire. He just wants to sail keeps on seeking more crew positions. Word of mouth is a powerful messenger, and people have begun to hear that Andrew is an excellent bowman. The reason is that he just loves to sail. He likes all the gadgets and gilhickies that sailors employ, and is really kind of sailing wonk. A bit obsessed with sailing, and especially doing the foredeck work.

But here's an interesting observation. Andrew can steer. Really. He has taken all his steering turns, and some of these have been in very challenging conditions. Now, his reactions to wind changes and seas may not be quite as quick and natural as are Charlie's, but he is damn good. I believe it is because from his various foredeck experiences, he has seen how the skippers of these boats screw it up. But I would never have guessed that a kid with NO dinghy racing experience could be a good helmsman.

I was wrong.

ETA

I meant to tell you all in yesterday's blog.

Our estimated time of arrival at diamond head is Tuesday 24 July, around 9:30 PM local time. We are going to try like hell to make that a little earlier, so we can finish in the light, but the ocean is fickle.

Hope to see any and all of you that are in Honolulu when we come in.

Bill

TranspacBlogII-25: Transpac Dads

22July07

We've got Farfar in our sites. Just off the weather bow. We are both sailing on starboard tack, headed for a Molokai rendezvous day after tomorrow. She is sailing a slow low course, apparently blocking the "passing lane". Knowing that the easterly shift in two days will favor boats on the right of the course, we are inclined to let her get to our left. "No!", you all are crying. "Don't do it. Haven't you learned? Pass on the left!"

We did learn. We got this close two days ago, because we took a disadvantageous jibe to the south, searching for better winds, winds the GRIBs said would be there. Winds we ALL knew would be there. The winds WERE there, even stronger than predicted, and that brought us to this point. But now, the GRIBS don't show any advantage to the south for the next two days. When in doubt, point the boat right at the mark and go as fast as you can.

We are.

Well, I'm still thinking a lot these days about dads. There are some truly astounding connections between the dads of the crew of Psyche; connections that none of us suspected. It turns out that the dads of Jim and Charlie and Bill were all good friends. Furthermore, they all sailed Transpac on the same craft, the famous 98 foot ketch Morning Star. The hub of the Transpac connection was my Grandad, Howard W. Wright Sr. He was the navigator on Morning Star in 1949, 51,53, and 55 (actually he assisted my dad who was navigating in 55), and Jim's and Charlie's dads knew him well. Don Barber sailed on Morning Star in 49, and 51. Dad and Henry Buckingham sailed together on the record breaking run of 1955. I knew none of this before we started this race.

Can't help wondering what it must have been like, a bunch of good friends, part of a 16 man crew on an awesomely powerful ketch. The photos of these guys when they arrived in Honolulu in 1955, after sweeping all the trophies and the record, are really cool. They are wearing leis upon leis upon leis. Their eyes just barely peek out over the top of the stack of leis. You can just imagine how they smell. Heady stuff.

And here, in 2007, are their descendants, sailing once again to Honolulu, all on the same boat.

Now it is six hours since I described our position with Farfar. About noon, they started "heating up", heading a bit more to the right. They probably realize that going left is not going to be good when the easterly shift the weather Gribs are predicting takes place. But just now the wind has really piped up, topping 23 knots, but from 040, just a tad north of Northeast. This is a really unusual wind for this part of the course, which generally shows an easterly trade wind. This wind is from 50 degrees farther north. We can only just barely carry our spinnaker on starboard tack. We changed from the 1/2 oz, to the 3/4 oz, and now, by golly, we just changed to the "bullet proof" 1.5 oz spinnaker. This is good for a good deal more wind than this.

Meanwhile, Farfar has given up their quest to go north, and are sailing from right to left, right on our track for home. They are very close, probably three miles dead ahead.

Ok, 2 hours and 4 spinnaker changes later. The wind is howling from North North East. The only sail we can hold is the 1.5. Farfar is wallowing in a calm spot after the last squall. We are coming up on them.

More tomorrow.

P.s. Jim Barber found my glasses in the bilge under my bunk. Yay.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

TranspacBlogII-25: Gribs and Gurus

Two of the most important resources for getting to Hawaii ahead of our competition are the weather files (called GRIBS), which we download a couple of times a day by satellite telephone, and words of wisdom from the Guru of the Transpac, Stan Honey.

On Psyche, in my blog yesterday, I admitted to being somewhat discouraged. Farfar was 30 miles ahead. That's 4 hours at 7 knots. That's a long way. Furthermore, the newest GRIB file predicted that, if they and we maintained our present parallel but 60 miles separate courses, Farfar would have 2.3 more knots of wind today. We were to have 14, they 16.3 (or thereabouts). Because these GRIBS have been marvelously accurate so far, this prediction, and Farfar's 30-mile lead, was pretty discouraging.

But yesterday's beautiful weather, and fresh 18-20 knots that we kept all day, consoled us significantly. Yesterday was the day that we were to have a bit more wind than Farfar. Today was when the 60 mile separation would favor them. And our fresh breeze seemed to support the GRIBS's prediction. We wondered at what time our breeze would start to look like the 14 knots predicted for today. That was a couple of hours before sunset yesterday.

Now the other great source of information, besides the GRIB weather files, for this race, is Stan Honey's gem of wisdom in the Transpac brochure and elsewhere. Among his pieces of advice is the best strategy for dealing with "squalls", local rain storms that roll over you from noon to the wee hours, creating locally very windy conditions, and just creating havoc. Stan's advice for the "slow boats", of which the Cal 40 is the prototype, is to take the most efficient track AWAY from the squall. He says that even though you might have wind in the front, the dead wind extending for miles behind these squalls is a real killer. So, if a squall captures you, Stan says jibe to port tack and head at a 90 degree angle and get the hell out of there.

But, this isn't any fun. Squalls are really cool. The wind in front of them blows much harder than the ambient wind. You can go really fast. So we have all been sort of torn by this advice. Instead of jibing out of the squall, the kid in us says, "ride that damn thing as far as you can!"

Yesterday, we got our first chance to put these paradigms (Guru vs Kid)to a test. On starboard tack, we saw a squall creeping right down our wake toward us. It looked pretty rainy, although not pitch black or anything close to it. It started to rain, and the wind backed counter clockwise, all like Guru Honey's descriptions. We talked for a while about what we should do, and then, we took the conservative approach, and decided to put Guru Honey's algorithm to use. We jibed to port (blowing our new 1/2 oz chute in the process, though we did nothing to cause it. Andrew says it was a classic pressure blow-out of a panel. Too much thrashing about in 20+ knots). This jibe took us rapidly out of the rain, and into the sunshine, exactly as advertised. Well, by this time it was Andrew and Charlie's watch, and the old guys just went to bed. I'll tell you what they did while we older gentlemen slept (you can probably guess) in a second, but first the action:

I woke up to the cry of all hands on deck. We need to change to the heavier 3/4 oz spinnaker. I reached for my glasses, which I always hook on an eye on the wall above my head. Not there. Ok, maybe I put them in my pouch. Got out of bed and checked. Not there. Everyone else was scrambling into their shoes and safety harnesses, which I also did, all the while puzzling over where my glasses were.

Up on deck, the scene was mayhem. The wind was really blowing, with gusts to 25. We needed to get our precious 1/2 oz chute down before it to blew up. Pouring rain. Ok, everyone takes their positions, I at the helm without my glasses. Charlie handling the spinnaker sheet and halyard release; Jim let's the spinnaker pole forward. Andrew and Steve are on the fordeck, hauling in the spinnaker, reattaching the lines to the new spinnaker, and then hoisting it.

I had just a little problem with my job. I couldn't see.

Well, that's not really right. I could at least see the compass. But the all-important wind direction (which changes substantially even within minutes) was out of my reach, except by the behavior of he oscillating spinnaker. Well, I managed my job passably (only one "head down Billy" from Charlie). But the foredeck crew was truly stellar. Pitch black, pouring rain, wind HOWLING, down comes the 1/2 oz chute, up goes the 3/4 oz. It fills with a pop, and we are off and running.

Big sigh of relief. The off watch goes back down to bed. Five minutes later, Charlie calls out, "it's too windy. We have to change to the 1.5 oz spinnaker." He saw 27+ knots on the anemometer. He said later the boatspeed was solid on 13.5 knots for tens of seconds at a time We only have one 3/4 oz spinnaker. Have to preserve that one too. Up on deck we go. I again without my glasses. Everyone in position, but by then the wind had abated to 21 knots. "Hold on!" came the cry. Ok. The wind is down to the low 20s. The squall has passed. Ok, back to bed.

So, as you might have guessed, this whole series of actions followed Charlie and Andrew NOT jibing away from the squall. They just let the bugger have its way with us! And did it work! We were sailing at 10+ knots for a several hours. Just flying along. The wind never died at all. After the squall, it went down to 20-24 knots, which made this one of the most exhilarating nights of sailing in my memory. I came on watch an hour later, and my turns at the helm were just as sweet as you can imagine. The wind held all the way through the night, and has been plenty strong even today, when we were supposed to be down in the 14 knot range. 18 knots average is closer to the truth.

Ok, the bottom line of this narrative, is that the GRIBS and gurus took a drubbing last night. First, the weather GRIBS gave us NO indication we would be sailing in 20+ knots for the entire night. They said 16.8 knots or something, a laughable under-estimate.

Second, a major squall gave us hours of good winds, and no wake effects, thus turning the Honey paradigm for slow boats on its ear.

We made 186 miles in 24 hours. We kept the spinnakers flying in the thick of some pretty windy squalls.

You can imagine we listened with anticipation to the role call positions at 8 AM. More particularly, how had Farfar done, 60 miles to our north. The answer was 164 miles, 22 miles fewer than we! We are within 10 miles of them. We ALMOST caught up with them (they give us 70 minutes handicap, so in principle they could finish before us, and we could still win). If we can close the gap to 5 miles, or better pass the suckers, we can win.

And guess what. They are to the right of us. That means we are in.......

The Passing Lane!

The GRIBS and gurus be damned. Here we come.

TranspacBlogII-24:The Motley Crew

What kind of crazies would take a 40+ year old boat and race her to Hawaii?

A Motley Crew.

Steve Calhoun, the owner; Jim Barber and Bill Wright (the author of this blog) from Psyche's old transpac crew; Charlie Buckingham; and Andrew Campbell. We have a wide array of backgrounds. It is actually really interesting to consider what experience would lead a person to into a venture like this.

Take Charlie Buckingham, for example. Charlie has been sailing longer than he has been potty trained. He is a shining example of the kind of sailors a thriving junior program can produce. I am referring to the Newport Harbor Yacht Club. This club has arguably produced more world class sailors than any other. Why? Because of their junior program. Newport Beach is a wonderful beach town, full of sand, and sailboats, and great surf,and romance. Newport Harbor Yacht Club is right in the middle of it. Many of the people that belong to the club, and learned to sail in its junior program, have summer houses in the area, and parents happily drop off their kids there, where the kids have a ball. Typically a 7 or 8 year old begins by learning the rudiments of sailing (chalk talk)and then the instructors usually put them into a sabot (an 8 foot long dinghy that looks a lot like a wooden shoe) much more quickly than their parents would want to know. Then they sail and sail. But much more significantly, they race and race and race.

This was Charlie's early life. His family had a house in Newport Beach. I'm sure his mother was all too happy to get this little trouble-maker out of the house down to the club. Sailing and racing and racing. Every day, all summer long, he and his buddies would start 2,3,4, or more races. Maneuvering, strategy, tactics. How to beat you rivals to the start line. Then after the gun, how to make the boat go fast. You are the only person in the dinghy, so there are no excuses. If your friend beats you, she beat you. You have to just figure out what to do differently so you can beat her the next time. Eventually, the boat becomes an effortless extension of your mind. You don't even think about what you are doing, it just happens. Beating to windward, tacking, jibing, rounding marks, all of it becomes fluid and easy.

Often these clubs have really cool games, like tag, that further improve these little kids sense of their boats.

Charlie has sailed one bizillion hours in dinghies: sabots, Lehmans, Lasers, 505's, and on and on. I think of myself as a reasonably experience sailor (more on me and Jim Barber, whose early experience is quite similar, later). Charlie has sailed 10-100 times as many races as I have. He is 42 years old, with a wife and 3 kids and a steady job, but he still races a ton of races each year. They all live on Maui, where the sailing is pretty exciting because of the strong trade winds there. But it isn't enough for Charlie to sail. He has to race.

So he flies to the mainland to do some serious racing. Lasers, for the most part. He isn't really happy unless there are 20 or more boats starting the race. He LOVES competition. He has raced to win for 35 of his 42 years.

All of this means, Charlie is really, really good. In short, he is a ringer. I had never sailed with him 9 days ago when we started this race. He has already taught me a ton.

BreakBreak. Wow a full rainbow straddling the stern, and Jim in his skivies, tailing for his buddy Steve (tailing, means you are handling the sails while your watch mate steers; what did you think?). 16 knots of northeasterly, we're going 8-9 knots, chasing the elusive FarFar. They fooled us again last night. They stayed north, for chrissake! We woke up to them being 30 miles ahead, but they were way north. They left a passing lane on their left side! Hmmmm, thinks we. There must be something fishy going on here. We checked the weather update, and got our answer. We are now sailing down latitude 22, Farfar latitude 23. Today's weather, unlike yesterday's, now predicts that tomorrow our latitude will have almost 3 knots less wind than Farfar's latitude. How they got this update before we did I'll never know, but there they are.

Curses, foiled again.

Our only possible saving grace is not the speed of the wind, but the direction. The weather predicts it holding steady from the northeast for the next 4 days all the way down the course. This means Farfar will have to jibe at an awkward angle, and we figure this will let us close the gap to 20 miles. The rest is up to us. We have to sail fast, and not make mistakes. We just blew up our brand new 1/2 oz spinnaker an hour ago. We had sailed it in a few too many 20+ knot gusts. We need to nurture the old half ounce so it will last a few more days. Remember, there are other boats in this race, we could lose our second place standing, if we don't keep the pedal to the metal. So we definitely are looking to beat Farfar, even with their 30 mile lead, but we won't be taking any wild-ass flyers to pull it off.

So, to continue, having someone like Charlie on board means everyone learns something. For example, I've been steering Psyche during jibes, since the 2005 transpac. Although these jibes aren't always pretty, I had pretty much found a way of steering that just worked. Charlie, who has also raced in a good many large keelboats like Psyche, described how I should time the shout of "trip", which cues Andrew to release the spinnaker pole from the spinnaker, with the natural oscillation of Psyche's downwind course. "One fluid motion, man," says he. Ok. I'll try it. I tried it, and it fucking WORKED. Charlie has both of the sheets of the spinnaker when it sails for a few moments without a pole. He "flies the kite" by letting out a little on this sheet, and a little on that sheet, to keep the spinnaker full of wind throughout the jibe. It is just a little magical, as the spinnaker starts to get farther and farther away from the boat (out on this sheet, out on that sheet, this sheet, that sheet), till you think it will just lift the Psyche on out of the water.

Charlie was the first of our crew to hit 12 knots, five days before anyone else got there. Finally Andrew attained this feather, after being coached by Charlie. Because he has sailed so many hours in so many different boats, Charlie just naturally knows how to make them go fast.

But that's not all. This 42 year old likes "tow-in" surfing. This entails having a buddy pull you on your surfboard behind his jet-ski into monstrous waves. Charlie says it's easy. Somehow I'm betting this isn't entirely true.

Hmm..., reading this description, I fear it is entirely too glowing. Ok here's a bad trait. Charlie has really long, loud, and smelly farts. Well, that is one of the few things he has done longer than sail, so I guess he is pretty good at that too.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

TranspacBlogII-23: Daily Life on Psyche.

I haven't written much about everyday life on Psyche. Ok.

Take today, for example. Steve Calhoun is off watch and is just now up on deck taking a bath. This is a pretty exciting affair. Not Steve, the bath. You go up on deck with a bucket and a bottle of camp suds and Prell (I just take camp suds), half, or completely, naked, depending on your level of insecurity. Ok, just so you know, Steve wears speedos, Bill and Andrew wear swim trunks, Charlie wears boxer shorts, and Jim goes stark raving naked. This matters, of course, because the on-watch pair are avidly watching the spinnaker and mainsail and sailing direction.

But actually, the bath is quite a treat. First, just the act of standing on the foredeck of a bucking seahorse which is catching waves and going 11 knots and jumping back and forth and making a huge racket, is really amazing. When the wind is high (hasn't done that yet), it is quite a trick to keep standing. So much so, that sometimes you have to just sit down. So first, you take a bucket with a strong rope, tied to your hand, and fetch some water. First time you ever try this, the force of the ocean rushing past either pulls the bucket out of your hand, or knocks you down or both. But we are all pretty used to it, and brace properly. Then you pour the bucket over your head. This feels REALLY good. Cool tropical water. Then you get the camp suds and cover yourself. I still haven't learned that you should fetch another bucket of water BEFORE the camp suds. Instead, eyes closed, I grope around for the edge of the boat and throw the bucket in.

This reminds me of one time on Bokonon, my brother's 32 foot wooden sloop. We were just leaving from the outer Antilles to head for Panama. Big following sea, but virtually calm wind. I lost the fucking bucket. I looked at Howard. You cannot survive without a bucket on a boat. You use it for EVERYTHING. "Should I dive for it?" He shrugged. I dove. My dad told me later I was a damn fool to do that, not the last time he would say that. I had to free dive about 15 feet in the crystal clear water to catch up with the sinking bucket. I remember two moments of panic in this adventure. The first was when I turned back toward the surface, while holding the bucket by its rope. It acted like a parachute. I wasn't going to make it up there before I lost my breath. I quickly grabbed the bucket itself, and turned it bottom up, and this enabled me to swim it to the surface. The second moment of panic was looking for Bokonon. At first I didn't know where to look. When I did see her, all I could see was half of the sail. The rest of the boat was hidden by the big swell. Luckily, Howard and I hadn't fought recently. He turned Bokonon back toward me and I climbed aboard with the bucket. Whew. I think I may have referred to this misadventure previously, but that is the whole sordid story. Why we didn't have an EXTRA bucket on board , like Steve does on Psyche, is completely beyond me.

Anyway, back to the bath. After a couple of suds, rinses, you are ready to rinse yourself with fresh water. Steve has one of those amazingly simple inventions called a solar shower. Nothing more than a plastic sac, clear on one side, and black on the other, full of freshly freshly made water. After a surprisingly short time of this sac sitting on the deck with its clear side up, the water is piping hot. Hoist the sack on the spinnaker pole and open its spigot on the bottom, and out pours really nice hot water for the final rinse. Do it completely, because we are making new water every day. What a luxury this is. On Bokonon, which took a month to go from the Canaries to Barbados, we each had a cup of fresh water for washing per day. Water was very scarce on long passages then. The advent of the water maker, makes those days obsolete.

At night we have 2 hour watches. 2 hours on 3 off. I come on and relieve Steve, and sail with Jim for 1 hour. Then he wakes up Andrew, who sails with me the next hour. Then I wake up Charlie and thereby get to go to bed. While I sleep for 3 hours, Charlie and Andrew sail an hour. Then Andrew wakes up Jim to sail with Charlie an hour, then Charlie wakes up Steve to sail with Jim an hour. Then Steve wakes me up, and we start all over again.

During the day it is the same algorithm, but double the time, i.e., 4 hours on, 6 off.

Thus, having 5 guys instead of 4 means you get much more sleep. Farfar has 4 guys. Don't know their watch system, but we get more sleep than they do.

This may pay off in the end, but so far, they are kicking our butts. Yesterday's role call put them ahead of us, but only a couple of miles south. We figured they must be heading north. We stayed on starboard tack with them, but the weather download seemed to significantly favor 60 miles south, so we jibed over around 2AM last night and headed south again.

Damned if they weren't 20-some miles south of us at this morning's role call. They totally faked us out (Charlie lost 20 bucks to Steve on this one; I lost a Mai Tai to Jim)! They made it look like they were coming north, and then suddenly headed the other direction with a vengeance. And still they are 12 miles closer to Hawaii than we are. How the hell are we going to catch these tricksters?

Part of our problem catching up with these guys, is that there has been an East-West wind gradient as well. This means that whoever is ahead has a little more wind than the next boat. But the weatherman says that the east-west gradient is getting weaker, so our chance may yet come.

But until then, I've got a bath to take.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

TranspacBlogII-22: Sea stories

So, my Dad dying yesterday, changes the hue of this race. Deeper blue.

But beautiful as beautiful can be. We are on this planet for so short a time.

Here's what I would like you all to do, those that know my Dad, Howard W. Wright Jr.

I would like you to post a narrative about Dad.

On the web page.

Because now that he is no longer my dying father through my eyes, I would like to know more about who he was through the eyes of others.

Here's an example story (they don't have to be sailing stories for you, but they do for me).

Back in the 80's, I sailed on Al Martin's Sumatra in the now-defunct Los Angeles to Mazatlan race. Dad and his friend Willard Bell (one of the saltiest warmhearts on this planet). Dad, Willard and I were one watch; Willie Bell(Willard's son), Howard (my brother), and Doug Jorgensen on the other. Al floated onto all the watches. Rosie Bell (Willard's daughter) was cook.

So I thoroughly enjoyed being on watch with Willard and Dad. We sailed hard, and had a good time. Willard and Dad both smoked cigars at the time, and they weren't allowed to do it down below, so naturally they did while we were on watch. Luckily it wasn't too rough, or I would have puked, for sure. There wasn't much wind, so we were doing very poorly (last third of the fleet) going into Cabo San Lucas, on the tip of Baja. Now for those of you that don't know, Cabo San Lucas has a hole many times larger than the one I described at the east end of Catalina in an earlier blog. It is HUGE. It takes infinite patience to get through it.

The best way through the lee, is to have "one foot on the shore." In other words, sail as absolutely close to the shore as you dare. So in we roared from the Pacific Ocean into the hole at Cabo San Lucas. There, we found many tens of sailboats, all previously ahead of us, trying desperately to sail through the hole. It was just starting to be evening as we came into the cape, and added our boat to the frustrated fleet trying to get through to the wind some 15 miles east.

We had three things in our favor. A good fathometer, to tell how deep it was, and a desperate set of helmsmen willing to sail the boat closer to shore than any other boat. But the REAL secret weapon was Willard and Dad's cigars.

Why, you might ask?

Because the wind was so light that it wouldn't affect a tell-tale ribbon. It couldn't be felt on your face. In short, it was almost impossible to detect where this tiniest wisps of air movement were coming from.

Unless you smoked a cigar. So Willard and Dad traded off smoking cigars for our entire 4 hour watch. We sailed the boat SOO close to shore, any of us could easily have swum to it at any time. Water depth got as shallow as 15 feet. NOBODY else dared sail that close to shore.

But, in addition to this daredevil approach to the sea-land interface, we also knew much more precisely than the other boats, where the wind was coming from.
The cigar smoke was an unequivocal read-out of these air wisps, and even though we couldn't feel air, we adjusted the sails according to the smoke read out. It was always right, and we ghosted by virtually every boat in the hole. We got to the Northerlies in the gulf before most of the other boats, and ended up 3rd in our class.

One final note. All that smoking made Willard and Dad snore like buzz-saws.

In unison. Dougie has a tape recording to prove it. My brother Howard had his harmonica with him, and played "On top of old smokie" in time with their snores.

The need for cigar smoke is far behind us on Psyche as I write. We sailed just slightly south of our course to Hawaii, yesterday, pretty much giving up on our plan to get farther south than Farfar. The reason for this is that the tropical depression is breaking up much faster than anticipated, so the intensification of the trade winds is much smaller than we thought. They reported themselves 15 miles ahead of us, but instead of being 13 miles south of us, they were only 3 miles south. And ahead. We need to pour on more coal!



Transpac Blog II-21: Sea Witches.

The tricksters were out last night. The sun went down, and and the goblins had their way with us.

The dark-as-pitchness was worse. The swell was the same. The wind around 15 knots. Really challenging keeping a boat under spinnaker on one track. At 4:30AM we went by the lee, and backwinded the mainsail, causing the boat to tip the WRONG way (away from the boom), like it was completely possessed. Psyche laid over, the eye holding the mainsail onto the rail was badly damaged, but the bullet was dodged. No other damage.

This, just before my watch. I hadn't been handling the spinnaker sheet more than 5 minutes, when I just let go of the damn thing to move over to adjust another line. The sheet ran around the winch and through all the blocks like a piece of spaghetti. I have no idea what I was thinking. I just let go of it. All hands were called, we snagged the thing and got the flogging spinnaker under control without damage. I apologized profusely. The rest of the crew tried to psychoanalyze me (separation anxiety was the consensus).

But all this was caused by the sea witches. Nothing but mischief.

I heard this afternoon that my dad died at home of kidney failure. He was 86 years old. He is the reason I am here, on Psyche, racing to Honolulu. He has always loved hearing my stories about messing up on boats, and everywhere else. He is a good friend of those sea witches. I don't know when he died, but I'm betting he was watching me screw up, egging the sea witches to greater heights.

Dad, I'll be watching for you tonight.

Contacting the Psyche

You can email the Psyche, but please remember to keep your messages short, with no attachments (the signal is pretty wimpy), and don't be offended if they don't write you back. I guess they're busy or something...

The address (in spam-deterring format) is: WDB9896 at sailmail dot com

Sara

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Transpac Blog II-20: Moment in the sun.

5:30 PM, 16 July, 2007

Well the very good news is that we moved into 1st place in our class this morning.

The bad news is we only made 169 miles to Farfar's 181. This clearly supports the idea that she has more wind, 50 miles to the south. The weather charts support that idea.

And they are to our left, of course. You can't pass on the right on this course, remember? Well, maybe you can, but not until the very end at the offramp. We have now jibed over to port jibe. Don't tell anyone, but we are heading for a rendezvous with Farfar tonight (or maybe tomorrow. or the next day; we don't know cause we can't predict their behavior)! Keep yer powder dry, me mateys.

Last night we sailed our asses off. It was PITCH dark (thick overcast from the depression?). We were sailing as DEEP as we could on starboard tack, trying to make distance to the south without jibing over to port and going too far out of our way. There is a significant short swell out here from just about every conceivable direction. This swell throws poor Psyche into the most erratic motions you can possibly imagine. No horizon, no stars, just a bunch of digital readouts, and the mechanical compass. Jimmy and I were on the first watch in the dark last night. Jimmy steered first, and we were constantly collapsing the spinnaker. Jim was completely perplexed. I asked him how he was maintaining his course. He said by the digital compass. I suggested he try the mechanical one, and the frequency of collapses went way down. The digital compass has an inbuilt delay, that is normally perfectly ok. But because our 40 degree lurches were so fast, the digital compass couldn't keep up, and could only report to you AFTER your boat had lurched one way or another and collapsed the spinnaker.

But even the old-school mechanical compass is a difficult fix. You have to STARE at it as if you had never sailed a compass course in your life. The reason for this was that if you looked up, at some other instrument, or whatever, the boat was liable to lurch a full 30 degrees. What I realized is that the compass has 30 degree intervals between labels, and if the boat lurches around 30 degrees, when you look down you think nothing has happened. You neglect to notice that the writing is 210, not 240, and you go by the lee, and the spinnaker collapses and you just swear, "What the hell?"

Jimmy and I decided that some sea witch was just having her way with Psyche, AND us, last night. It was kind of like being in a haunted house. You know, they let you walk in total silence down a dark corridor, and then you walk some more, and the suspense builds,and then, BOOM someone scares you half to death. Same thing here. Sailing along with just 12-15 knots of wind, as smooth as silk, then BOOM, a series of waves hits you broadside, and all hell breaks loose.

But we kept it together enough to pass the boats to our right, and not quite let Farfar pass us on our left.

So now we are sailing south. It is sunny, and warm. The sea is warmer. The petrels are flying. The debris (not from us) is in the water (sorry, I just had to throw that in, cause there is significant amounts of debris in this water that was so pristine just 20 years ago).

We are having fun. Our spinnaker changes have gone smoothly, as have the jibes (knock on wood). We are DIGGING your emails, so please feel free to send more. No more mangling stories, Gloria, I promise (don't read the earlier blogs, cause there is some scary stuff in there, too).

Monday, July 16, 2007

TranspacBlogII-19: depression

We are clinging to our third place in class, and our narrow lead over Farfar. Worrying about whether to sail even further south to cover Farfar, wondering if the rest of the fleet would just pass us by.

Suddenly things have gotten interesting.

We knew there was a bit more wind to the south. Today the weather maps showed that there was substantially more wind to the south. More specifically, there is a disturbance (is it a depression?). Actually, I don't even know if it rates as a disturbance. It's maximum predicted winds are 30 knots (well south of our course), but it's northern perimeter is reachable with some serious southerly sailing, so down we go.

We jibed over to port and headed south. We used the touted "two-pole jibe", which I won't bore you with. We had never tried it (any of us), and we weren't all that impressed about how much easier it was. So when the wind shifted again, we did the same one-pole jibe we had always done. We did it flawlessly, so we decided if the wind got too strong for that, we would do a "chicken jibe", take down the spinnaker on one side, then put it up on the other after changing course.

So we are determined to meet this depression as it arrives south of us in about 2 days. The wind predictions look like it will carry us like a surfboard for at least a couple of days. It is only moving at 5-10 knots, so we THINK we can meet it at the pass.

Gotta go sail.

See ya.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

TranspacBlogII-18: Mangle-day

July 14: 3PM
Writing in the leeward bunk. We really are in the trade winds now. Wind is coming from the NE, gusting to 18 knots! We love the trade winds. We have 1717 miles to go. That is a lot of spinnaker work.

What's more, I am clean, and shaven, with nothing but clean clothes. Food is becoming a source of interest on the boat. Jimmy saw Steve eating one of the pounds of cookies laying around in the galley, and said "Steve, you've got to stop eating that shit food, here let me make you some macaroni and cheese." Steve and Charlie are on deck, the wind lightening to 12 knots. I have the distinction of being the first driver to hit 10 knots, while surfing on a fortunate combination of waves. Wee Hee!

We decided yesterday evening while sipping our box wine during happy hour that we were tired of going south. "Let's go to Hawaii!". So while FarFar sailed cold, we sailed hot. Farfar is going south, south. They are the farthest boat south. We say, let's stop fiddling around, and head for Hawaii. Naturally we are second guessing this decision. We are trying to pass Farfar to the right. Hmmm... But, everyone else in the fleet is north of us. The early west-makers (Brown Sugar, Xdream) are laying a HUGE egg; the others look pretty good.

Earlier today, after we got a gust of 16 knots, we traded spinnakers from the lightest sail, the half ounce (ounces refers to the weight of the cloth per square yard)for the stronger 3/4 oz spinnaker.

To do this, we first set a little jib to keep the boat going, but most of all to prevent the spinnakers from getting tangled. Then down with half oz, re-tie the sheets and halyards to the 3/4 oz, and up it goes. The boat is without a spinnaker for perhaps 2 min while the crew does the operation.

This maneuver we executed flawlessly. Yesterday's maneuvers were not so smooth.

We jibed twice yesterday. Once when the wind suddenly shifted to the east, portending the edge of the high. This allowed us to really sail away from the bad winds I described in yesterday's blog. The second jibe came when we sighted Farfar and decided to 'cover' her, i.e., stay within sight of her and see if we can just beat her. Charlie just commented after a bizarre debate of jibing angles, "I hate thinking about sailing. It hurts my head."

We are in 3rd place in the class today. The mood is upbeat.

Meanwhile, Charlie made one of the best dried dinners I have ever tasted last night. "Taco Surprise". I sliced a half an avocado on my casserole, and was it ever gooooood. Tonight, Jim has promised a very special "chicken-rice" dinner. The water-maker is the reason we are eating these meals. Being able to turn seawater into delicious drinking water means dried meals are the call. It also means we can minimize the amount of fresh water we carry with us. Everything to reduce weight.

The two jibes we did yesterday were very awkward, even though the 12 knot breeze was ideal. This was the first jibe for the five of us, which makes things a little awkward to begin with. No one is quite sure what to do, and what others are to do. See the 2005 blog for more details about jibing. Our first jibe looked to be almost perfect, until we noticed that a cylindrical structure, called a reaching strut, was in the way of the boom when it came over, and the force of the boom put a major kink in the strut. We will need our mangled reaching strut coming into Diamond Head, but not until then. We are discussing work-arounds. The second jibe was also awkward. We had a couple of false starts, and one of the lines didn't fall free like it should have. Our rhythm sucked, and in the confusion, Jimmy caught his thumb in the spinnaker guy (the line that pulls back the pole). It was a minor injury (not really a mangle), but it gave us all pause for thought.

An injury on a long ocean race is a very serious issue. This is because you are not minutes, not hours, but days from shore-side assistance. Every boat has her own first-aid kit, but sometimes these are woefully inadequate.

In 1969, I was the deckhand on Dick and Betty Steele's 55 foot motor sailor, the Bon Homme Richard, on one of the windiest Transpacs ever. This was an amazing summer job for a new high-school graduate. About 4 days out, with the wind gusting over 35, we got a "may day" call on the radio. A sailor on a 36 foot boat had been standing on the downwind side of the mast when the spinnaker pole, which holds, under great compression, the spinnaker out on one side of the boat, sheared from the mast and speared him square in the head. We answered the may day, fired up the engine and headed the "Bonnie Dick" upwind (sea-sickness an immediate consequence) for a half day. I'll never forget the sight of one of the crew members as we approached the stricken vessel. The ocean was so very big. 20 foot seas with big fat white caps on them. The little sailboat rolling like crazy. One of the crew members was hailing us from the foredeck. His shirt was completely covered in blood, sheer despair on his face. We put the doctor on board, 60-year old Bill Schuman into a rubber dinghy and paid out a few hundred feet of line so he could drift down to the racers without endangering either boat. He climbed on board. 15 minutes later, Schuman came on the radio. "I've patched him up as best I can, but this is an extremely dangerous wound. We will need to call for assistance, immediately." His skull had been caved in by the impact of the pole. 10 hours later a Navy destroyer showed up, hove to upwind of the tiny sailboat, creating an eerie calm, and loaded the injured sailor on board. They steamed post-haste toward San Diego, and a helicopter met them 300 miles out to airlift him to the hospital. I heard second hand that this sailor, although he survived, was partially paralyzed. I'm not sure what became of him, but the thought of a serious injury at sea is a lonely, sobering one.

10PM: Just going to send this email. We had another amazing rice and chicken casserole. And blueberry muffins. Jim's wife Andrea was instrumental in organizing these dinners. Thank you Andrea.

We've jibed twice more. We're getting better. Nothing else mangled.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Editorial Note

Happy Anniversary, Charlie!

TranspacBlogII-17: Pass on the left.

Friday, the 13th July.

I spend a lot of my workday in Los Angeles on the freeway. I know I've become a grump, but when I learned to drive, I learned that all slower traffic is supposed to stay to the right, and passing is to be done on the left. So why do all the SUV's sit in the left lane and go slow? Haven't they learned? Slower traffic to the right!!

Well we seem to be slow to learn to pass on the left as well. But first, some Milky Way.

After yesterday's meditation on beating to windward toward the stars, and our amazingly improved position in the fleet at role call, the southwesterly we had been beating into turned way north, and we set the spinnaker, the curvy cantankerous ballooning sail that festoons the sailing magazines. This sail is what we go on transpac for. In a normal transpac, we have been slamming into big waves for two days, and setting the spinnaker means no more spray, very little seasickness, and much warmer. Yesterday was crystal clear all day, not a cloud anywhere. Once the spinnaker went up, things got much warmer. Actually, with the wind as light as it was (5-8 knots), it was baking hot. The only crew out in this oven are those on watch.

We have five crew-members (more on each in the future). Only two are on watch at a time. The other three are free to do what they please. Jimmy Barber, Andrew Campbell, and I tend to sleep during our off watch. Jimmy and I and Steve Calhoun spend a lot of time looking at the weather reports. Steve also spends massive amounts of time tinkering with his boat. He is always fixing things, adjusting things, checking things; water maker, navigation gear, etc. Most boat owners, including me, like to do this in our spare time on our own boat.

Charlie Buckingham is a reader. He brought several books, and is devouring them. Jimmy is starting to read too.

I'm just a bit too nervous to do anything but figure out how to make this bucket move faster.

So we patted ourselves on the back for our improved fortunes and sailed the spinnaker along our track. At first the wind was very light, but gradually it increased. All night long, it slowly increased. It is early afternoon, as I write, and the wind is 12-14 knots, and we are scooting along at 6-7 knots, substantially faster than the first 4 days, which averaged about 4 knots.

So it is a slow race, as advertised.

So where does the freeway rant come into this blog?

Well, as you heard yesterday, we passed Farfar. On her left. Interestingly, she changed her course radically and ended up behind us on our left. Sound familiar? They were setting up to do to us what we had done to them the previous 24 hours. We knew this, we faded a little more to the left as we went down the course. But not enough. This morning there they were 5 miles due south of us. They passed us on the left. Again.

What is mystically eerie about this hypothesis, is that right after rounding Catalina Island, Farfar passed us not more than 1/2 mile away to the left. Within an hour we did the same thing. Pass to the left. Pass to the left.

Last night, Farfar converged on our course from the left, got a look at us this morning, and now have just veered to the left again, disappearing over the horizon at 153 degrees magnetic. I wouldn't be surprised if we see them again.

But not if we stay to the right. So, after much discussion, and hand-wringing, we have also shifted our sails and headed as far to the left as our spinnaker will let us. We are chasing Farfar, even though we are closer than she is to Hawaii.

Why are we sailing south, you might ask when Hawaii is to our west southwest?

Because that is where the wind is. This transpac will go down in history as the race that was started without a pacific high. The Pacific high usually sits well north and east of Hawaii, and it is the fulcrum around which the winds of the north pacific blow. They circulate around the high in a clockwise direction, down the right side, from east to west on the bottom, and from south to north on the west, etc. You can think of the high as a big plateau. It is the sides of this plateau that a sailor wants to head for.

But this year, there is no obvious plateau, but a rather amoeba-looking hill that is centered, precious few miles to the west of us. At the risk of a fatal metaphor mix, sailing onto that hill is like sailing off the edge of the earth. Several boats in our fleet (Brown Sugar, Xdream) have ignored the weathermen and sailed onto the amoeba. We are avoiding the amoeba like the plague (another mixed metaphor).

But for the last 24 hours, Farfar has avoided the amoeba even better than we have. That is why we are chasing them. This is a discouraging time. We really don't want this Cal 40 to the left of us.

So when, you might ask do we stop this nonsense and turn toward Hawaii? That is a very good question. When we find the south side of this amoeba, and turn gingerly around its pseudopodia and head for Waikiki

Fraught with uncertainty about the big picture, we are still sailing the small picture with conviction. We are keeping Psyche moving, no sheet is tied down for very long; we egg each other on to keep concentrating at the helm. As we converged on Farfar to our south this morning, we were beating her pretty handily. Then she veered south to get away.

So we definitely think we can beat her boat-for-boat with the spinnaker up.

If only we can remember to pass on the left.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

TranspacBlogII-15: A beautiful beat.

7AM, 12 July 07

Sitting to leeward in the forepeak just before the morning role call. Many of you know that this is a coded way of telling you that there isn't much wind.

We have been beating or close reaching on starboard tack all night with a miraculously constant, but weak breeze.

I wrote of beating to windward in 2005, but I simply must relate last night as an addendum. To remind you, beating is what you do when the wind is coming at you. When where you want to go is where the wind is coming from, meaning you have to sail a bit away from the direct course. Beating to windward is what sets apart really good sailors from mediocre sailors. There is a magic to solving the yin-yang problem of sailing as close to your course as you can but still keep the boat sailing fast.

Old boats, like Psyche, sail best at a true angle of about 45 degrees to the wind, newer boats can sail much closer. There are various ways that sailors decide whether they have pointed their boat too close to the wind (this slows their progress, till they turn a tad away from the wind). Some sail up until the jib 'luffs', that is till it gets a bubble in its front end, as the wind comes around on the wrong side of the sail. Some sailors approach that turn-away point by watching the tell-tales on the front of the jib. If the windward tell-tail flutters skyward, you are heading too close to the wind and need to head a little away. Good sailors keep track of more than whether the tell-tales are fluttering. Most importantly, they sense the boat's speed. If the boat is going really fast for the amount of wind, you can turn a bit closer to the wind for a while; if the boat is going too slow, don't sail so close to the wind.

A really good sailor, but an even more successful father of sailors, named Bob Allen, once suggested to a very young me back in 1967 that I should try steering the boat in an oscillatory course, e.g., 50 degrees from the wind for a while till I hear the boat's bow wave and hear more bubbles hissing by, both indicating increased speed, and then turn the boat ever-so-slightly toward the wind for a spell, then a smooth return to 50 degrees for more speed, and so on. To paraphrase a recent unmentionable quote, you bank your boat-speed 'capital' in yards to windward.

My dad doesn't sail that way. He just finds a very narrow optimal groove and keeps his boat there. When I was first learning how sail to windward in my grandad's old wooden dyer dinghy, my dad told me to "just feel the boat, son."

I didn't feel anything then, but I do now (thanks for telling me that I would, Dad).

The point of all this, is that last night would have been the prototype evening for teaching a youngster what my dad meant. Normally, there are a myriad of sensory inputs that prevent you from "feeling" how fast you are going. Waves come at you in frustrating clumps abruptly slowing you down and changing your course. Other boats are distracting you. A crew member talks and you lose your concentration.

Last night there was wind direction and speed, boat direction and speed, and nothing else; no waves, no wind changes, no crew noise.

I shouldn't say nothing else. Last night was the clearest I can remember in a very long time. Bizillions of stars, and a dominant Milky Way. So much structure to the heavens, that you only needed to refer to your compass now and then, to check in. I used the Milky Way as if it were a palm tree on the shore. There were NO waves. At all. Truly the calmest sea I have seen in a very long time. The wind was incredibly constant, 3.5-5.0 knots. The boat speed ranged between 4.0 and 5.5 knots. These are amazing numbers for an old sailor like me. In these rarified conditions, the boat was actually moving faster than the wind. In these conditions, it was so easy to see the relationship between boat speed and wind angle. You needed hardly move the tiller at all. I must say that I experimented (are you surprised?) with both my dad's stable equilibrium algorithm, and Bob Allen's oscillatory one. The latter is better for me, because I'm never quite sure where the "groove" is, unless I try out everything else. Moving back and forth between a little too high (as evidenced by reduced boat speed), and a little too low (as evidenced by the wider wind angle)lets you sample the sailing space, and get an idea of the morphology of the process. Anyone sailing last night, would have quickly come to understand all this.

This intense meditation on beating to windward alternated with a different kind of meditation when I gave over the helm to my watch mate. The sight of brilliant stars reflected on a barely ruffled sea, was kind of a reunion with the night sky I used to see as a kid, sleeping on the deck of the Siwash, staring up and wondering what it was all about. Last night, the big dipper pointed out the North star, which was right in our wake, reminding us of the radical departure our course is from previous transpackers.

Blah, blah,blah
BREAK BREAK BREAK
News flash. Round 3 to Psyche!
We have KICKED ASS! The role call is in.
We moved from 6th in class, 11th in fleet yesterday to 2nd in class, 3rd in fleet today.
Just like that. We made up something like 35 miles in 24 hours over Farfar, who really tanked. She is behind the other Cal 40, California girl, who is 15 miles behind us. Wow. Amazing. We know that Farfar has as good or better boat speed than we do: the first day convinced us of that. Somehow the different oceans we sailed in treated us very differently.

Now I haven't been completely straight with you. I've been holding our strategy very close to the chest. Some of you, who have been tracking the boats already know what our strategy is. I'll come out with it in words tomorrow.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

TranspacBlogII-15: We Lose the First Round.

It has been said of this ocean race that it is really three races: the beginning is the race to get to the corner of the great high pressure zone. The middle part is just sailing down-wind in the trades, choosing jibe angles, and making clean jibes. The end is dealing with the intensified trade winds during the last day.

I think of it as a prize fight. We've fought three of 15 rounds, we won the round to Catalina, but Far Far has beaten us pretty clearly since then. We had Far Far in our sites yesterday, but since then, she has hidden just a bit beyond the horizon, a whopping 12 miles ahead of us according to this morning's report.

How the hell did they do that? Well last night, as you may have predicted from the last blog, was a frustrating series of 30-60 min 8 knot breezes from various directions, interspersed with utter calms of the same duration. No 360's (see last blog), but almost.

We have a crew of amazing sailors, each of whom loves the challenge of figuring out how to make a boat go faster. But right now, there isn't much to do. Right now, we are reaching with the wind over our starboard beam at around 5-7 knots , the big jib pulling very well. When the wind drops into the 2 knot range, we set the drifter. Then if it comes up again over 7 knots we change back to the big jib (called a genoa). These sail changes are relatively routine.

Far Far seems to be doing this all better than we. Our favorite alternate hypothesis is that she has a "light-weight genoa", very like ours, but half the thickness, making it ideal for the 0-8 knot breezes we have been having. This hypothesis posits that it isn't her crew-work, or helmsmanship, but her equipment, that gives her the edge. We thought, like last race, that we might have snagged a piece of the numerous sea-weed patties floating all over the place. Also, like last race, we threw Steve Calhoun, the captain of Psyche over to inspect the keel. It wasn't nearly as dramatic as last year, because even with all the sails pulling we were making just under 2 knots of breeze. So we slowed her down. Steve jumped and looked, and we hauled him aboard. We all hoped he'd have found a piece of kelp, because then we'd have an excuse. Like last year, he didn't, so it looks like we just have to sail harder.

The other Cal-40,California Girl, is behind both of us, but well within striking distance.

The main topic of conversation, on Psyche, is our global strategy. Some of you may have noticed on the web that we, as well as most of our competitors, are not sailing toward Hawaii, but rather toward New Zealand, i.e., well to the left of the shortest course to Honolulu. We are actually not all that far off the coast of Mexico! Why are we all doing this?

I'll tell you tomorrow.

Editorial Note: How to Track the Psyche

You can follow the Psyche's progress on the official Transpac website (link is over on the links sidebar of this blog). Go to the sidebar on the lefthand side, and click on Track Charts, and follow directions from there. Psyche is in Division 6.

This is from the website: "Unlike previous Transpac Race the entire fleet has been provided Satellite Transponders from FIS Tracking Services LLC. These position charts are generated automatically. Rather than publish position charts once a day this service will continuously monitor the progress of each yacht in the race. However, at first the positions shown will not be the current position for the yachts. Reports for the first start boats (i.e., Monday, 9 July, 2007) are every 3 hours, the 2nd (12 July, 2007) and 3rd (15 July, 2007) starts the reports will be every 2 hours. The delay is set at 6 hours. On Saturday the 21st the delay is removed and all positions will be reported in real time."

Enjoy!

-Sara

TranspacBlogII-14; Adrift.

Have you imagined yourself a sole survivor of a ship wreck in a small vessel with no power, drifting alone in the Pacific?

Do it now.

That's the Psyche most of last night and this morning. Calculating how many years until we would arrive in Honolulu at our various very low speeds. The best one was this morning. We had "goose eggs" on our knot-meter, but the Global Positioning System computer told us what our real progress was: East-southeast. We were heading for a rendezvous with land half-way down the Baja Peninsula.

Well, Billy, you KNEW you were headed for trouble. You could have said, no way, not this year. But somehow our sense of fate forces us to go anyway. Kind of like the way Charlie Brown always lets Lucy hold the ball for him to kick it. He hopes that she will let him kick it, even though he knows that she will pull the ball away, and he will miss it, falling flat on his back.

Well, here we are kicking that damn ball. The last blog ended last evening, when we had finished a romp to Catalina, a dos-y-do of passing and repassing with our rival, Far Far, and a basically cheery blog about the sea.

Today's blog has very little of that. In fact, the wind died RIGHT after I finished that cheery blog, and my superstitious ways dictate that the next few blogs are not so cheery.

Night fell, and so did the wind. Teasing us with 6 knot gusts, and then dropping to nil. Our first goose eggs on the knot-meter occurred about midnight. This is the second most discouraging event, consequent to the wind dropping. The first most discouraging, yet to occur this year, is the "360", which refers to what happens to a sailboat when the wind is SO absolutely zero that the boat is no longer moving forward.

At all.

But life could be worse. We are presently sipping wine and watching the sun go down with Far Far on the horizon.

It starts when someone on the crew shouts out, "where are you going, Mr. Helmsman?"

The embarrassed helmsman just blushes and shows how pushing the tiller this way or that has NO effect on the direction the boat is facing.

Back in 1979, I sailed aboard Sumatra, an old Lapworth 50 owned by Al Martin, a lovely soul with a sense of adventure. Doug Jorgensen was our navigator that year. He was at the dock yesterday wishing us well. He reminded me that it was his blunder (he sailed into the infamous Pacific High, more later)that led to us doing a long series of several 360's in the absolute MIDDLE of the course (a 360 takes anywhere from 15 min to an hour). We actually made the best of that by jumping into the crystal clear water and taking a very refreshing swim. I'm looking forward to doing that again this year (NOT).

So the weather and it's uncertain future has put us in a superstitious mood. I won't tell you what the wind is like right now, for fear of tempting fate. The crew would kill me. So don't ask.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

9July07
N 33 degr 25.9 min
W 118 degr 35 min
Yacht Psyche.

We are off. A very nice sail to the west end of Catalina.

We laid a big egg at the start. Blanketed by a 70 foot old school
yawl, no wind 30 secs to the start gun. For those of you unfamiliar
with race starts, the race committee throws an anchor down for two
buoys, and then shoots a gun. 10 minutes later, the start is on. You
must be on the mainland side of the line that lies between the two
buoys (the starting line),until just before the second gun. Then you
may sail through. Of course there is a crazy amount of jostling and
maneuvering just before the start, everybody wants to be just barely
behind the line and moving fast when the start gun fires. There is
usually a favored end of the line that is closer to where you want to
go. Lots of boats go for that. The favored end this time was the
starboard end, and we tried to go there for the start, but a big giant
yawl, Alsomar, launched in 1934, was just sitting there stopped, with
all her sails up. Her big sails blanketed our little ones to the
point that we too, stopped.

Aarrgghh, say we. Time to tack, mateys. So over we went, sailed
parallel to the line till we saw a clearing and headed for the line
again. This time it went fine, but we were way behind a lot of boats.

My dad calls this "laying an egg." It is bad to lay an egg at the
start for two reasons. Number one, you are almost dead last. Number
two, sailing past 27 boats is almost impossible, inasmuch as they
block the wind and make things difficult.

Recognizing the latter issue, we opted to come about and head up the
coast toward Marineland. Marineland used to be a cool version of Sea
World in San Diego. It had walruses and white-sided dolphins, but it
is dead, now.

So we sailed toward Marineland's ghost for about 30 min and then
tacked back to starboard tack (wind coming over the right side) and
headed for Catalina.

Now, if you recall, I've been whining about our expected light winds
for several days now, but damned if we didn't have a lovely sail out
to Catalina. The prevailing westerly wind came up, perhaps a bit more
on the Marineland side of the course, and we came into Catalina well
ahead of one of the two other Cal 40s, and just a few boatlengths
ahead of the other. The former Cal 40 is California Girl. The latter
is our old nemesis from 2005, Far Far.

We stayed ahead of Far Far in a lovely tacking duel up the north side
of Catalina from Arrow Point to the west end. We made good tacks and
so did Far Far. We beat her to the West end, a symbolic victory.

Within a half hour of passing the West end of Catalina, Far Far had
the temerity to sail to one side of us, not more than 1/2 mile away
and passed us!

Well, not to be outdone, we've now headed to the left of Far Far, and
seem to be passing her!

There are some weird winds out here.

But, guess what, we have come double the distance in the same amount
of time as in 2005. We are ghosting along with 3-10 knots of wind,
but the sea is smooth and we are averaging 3-5 knots boat speed.

So life is good, we are going where we want to go, Far Far in our
sights. This keeps us on our toes. Racing again.

Charlie says. It's all about momentum. If you lose it, you lose 6 or
seven boat lengths, and your screwed.

Recall the early blog on the Catalina Island race. That is where we ended up.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

TranspacBlogII-12: ghosting to Hawaii

Aaarghhhh.
No wind on the horizon.

Went to the Transpac Dinner tonight. Amazing dancers, but I hardly saw them. I had the distinct honor of sitting with Kurt Holland, who had just given an amazing weather briefing to the crews of the 70 sailboats heading to Honolulu over the next 6 days. Kurt's brilliance was matched by his brevity. No long-winded explanations of thermals, and lows and highs. But just a crystal clear discussion of our wind situation.

It sucks.

But our conversation over dinner was great. I learned about Omega blocks on the 500 millibar charts, about low pressures forming in Monterey, about verification of weather charts.

Tons of new information I had not heard before, splitting my poor brain even more than have my recent struggles with the arcane language of weather-map queries. In order to get a chart of the weather at sea, we have to send an email query (via our satellite telephone) to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the national weather people. The chart must be written in very precise language. One comma out of place and you get nothing. But if you do it right, you get back a series of weather charts that tells you volumes. In short, these charts tell you where the wind is likely to be strongest, and what direction it will be blowing. Critical information.

But the hard part is trying to decide where to point the boat.

Well, we don't have to worry TOO very much about that because with tomorrow's wind forecast we'll be lucky if we make 60 miles in our first 24 hours. That will put us in the outer channel islands.

With only 2165 miles to go. You do the math.

Bottom line, don't expect things to happen too fast on this transpac.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

TranspacBlogII-11: Getting out of town.

Went body surfing the last 4 days in a row (this after a surfing hiatus of more than 2 weeks!) with my one true love.

Two things about that:
1) the south swell is gradually increasing, from the southern hemisphere.
2) the wind swell is decreasing to almost nothing.

We are so close that my surf-report web page, Wetsand is issuing their forecast for the wind on our start day and the next.

Oh, my does it look grim. Notice the swath of 100 miles of 4 knot winds. YUCH

But here's a reason for hope. 2 years ago the same 5-day prediction looked like this:

A little light till we passed Catalina, and then whoosh, away we'd fly in 28 knots of wind. This prediction became the laughing stock of our first 3 days. We never had more than 4 knots of wind and let the fleet eat up our excellent start for lack of a light-weather jib "drifter" (See transpac 05 blog for more).

The lesson we learned is that 5-day predictions are not very reliable. So here's hoping the converse reversal occurs this time, and we get the strong northwesterlies this race is famous for.

Here's the bigger picture of the California coast out maybe 800 miles. Both Monday's and Tuesday's predicted wind. Dark blue is ZERO fucking knots of wind. Light blue is 4 knots. Notice how far out from the coast these blue splotches extend. Yuchadoodle. If this prediction holds, it's going to be a very long trip.


So cross your fingers, campers. We need to turn this prediction around!
TranspacBlogII-10: Ok this really is the last shark blog.

Sharks really are amazing creatures. I give a shark lecture in my zoology class. It is a pretty popular lecture. Rob Rebstock's experience is one of the substories (see II-8), but there is another cool shark story that I tell my students. I heard this story from a young professor of vertebrate biology, Jim Ha, whose father was a famous shark expert from Hawaii. Now I'm not sure who was studying what, but the Navy had this problem of how to keep downed jet pilots alive in a tropical sea. This problem came to a head when helicopter rescue pilots reported again and again the following scenario. After many hours, even days of searching, a rescue helicopter would finally sight and fly over the downed pilot, who was usually actively waving at them. Shockingly, by the time they had circled around to pull the pilot up to the helicopter, they often pulled up only half a body, the rest of it was apparently in some sharks. This all seemed too bizarre until they consulted Jim's father, or perhaps one of his associates. Recent research on sharks had explored how their lateral line system worked. Now the lateral line of sharks and other fish is how these animals detect vibrations in the water.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/shark2.htm

It is essentially a trough that runs down each side, filled with exquisitely sensitive hairs that are tuned to important vibrations. One of these is the sound of a wounded fish. I don't know how many of you have ever spear-fished, but even if you haven't, you can imagine how an severely injured fish swims away. Say "thup-thup-thup-thup" as fast as your mouth will let you, and that is about how fast an injured fish swims away. So it shouldn't be surprising to find out the lateral line of sharks is highly tuned to that particular sound. Furthermore, a shark that hears that sound will be readying itself to eat.

Now go in your mind back to the downed fighter pilot, who has miraculously survived days in the ocean. He has seen sharks, but none have attacked him. Then he sees the rescue helicopter in the distance, perhaps simultaneously with his hearing the familiar sound of a rescue helicopter's roters. "Thup-thup-thup-thup". Next thing he knows all the sharks within miles of him are zeroing in for the kill. That's about it for him.

So, what did Dr. Ha suggest? Change the frequency of the rotors when you sight a person in the water. They simply changed the pitch of the rotors so they went with a "whirr" instead of a "thup-thup-thup-thup", and the problem was solved!

Now this is the story I heard from Dr. Ha's son, Dr. Jim Ha. But the more I think about it, the more skeptical I've become. I've got an email into Jim, so I'll let you know what he says. Perhaps he will comment on this blog (hint, hint)!

Anyway, this story adds one more thing to worry about if you're lost at sea. The rescue helicopter itself. Hopefully, they've taken the proper measures, and your shark friends don't become foes.

Finally, if all of these ravings about man overboard and sharks seem to be those of a guy with an overactive imagination, consider the 1951 Transpac Yacht race. 800 miles short of Honolulu, in stormy tropical seas, the second-place boat, L'Apache, a 73-foot cutter, lost crewmember Ted Sierkes overboard. Now this seems like a long time ago, but I remember seeing the sail-master of the L'Apache, a remarkable woman named Peggy Slater at various regattas etc (she should be the subject of books, much less blogs). Knowing who she is connects me personally to this story. Peggy and the rest of the L'Apache were UNABLE to find Sierkes, so virtually all of the front runners (famous boats like EVENING STAR, and SKYLARK) stopped the race and joined the hunt for this poor guy. They didn't find him. He floated in the tropical waters for 29 hours, by which time he was 50 miles from where he fell overboard. Lucky for everyone, but especially Ted, a navy destroyer, one of several vessels (including a helicopter; think about that!) involved in the search, actually found this poor guy on the verge of death. He survived, and had some interesting things to say about the experience:

About having given up, and just wanting to die (I wonder if he might be a descendent of the Berra lineage): "It's hard to drown when you know how to swim."

About being attacked by a shark: "I grabbed his tail, flipped him over and ripped up the belly with my knife."

About his thoughts while he treaded water: "I thought about how I was messing up the race for a lot of people."

About what to do, now that he actually survived this ordeal: "Now that I've been rescued, I figure there must have been a reason. There must be something for me to do. I'll have to try and find out what it is."

This last quote leads to a post-script; whose significance is not lost on me or any other person who sails in blue water; two years later, Ted Sierkes tripped and fell in a freak accident and died on the spot.