Pacific Cup Day 5 – Extra! Extra! Edition

Today has been so much fun I had to write about it. Early this morning we were bombing along with the #2 sheeted to rail for the first time, actually doing that windy reach thing the “Pacific Cup brochure” talks about, then we switched to the gennaker and staysail and as the breeze built to 15-20 that configuration started working really well and we were knocking off 8-9 knots. Early on we could see a boat behind us with a blue spinnaker. I suspect it was Thirsty again, given the 8am position reports, but too far too be certain. Once the breeze picked up we put our waterline to work and after a few hours couldn’t see the boat behind anymore. The breeze has been stronger than forecast today, which is fine. Around 3pm we had been lifted enough that we made the switch to the A4 spinnaker. That was probably an hour long process even without issues. First, there was the 15 minute discussion of whether we should put up the A2 (bigger, lighter) or the A4 (smaller, heavier). In the end we settled on the A4 and then went to work unfurling and dousing the genoa, putting up the spinnaker net, furling and dousing the gennaker, and then hoisting the A4. Since it has been up it has been an amusement park ride. We are still trying to sail high as the breeze is straight out of the north, so reaching hard still has us sagging south of the rhumbline to Hawaii, but we are flying (for a J/120 anyway). The breeze has been pretty constant around 20 knots and our boat speed has been consistently 9-10 knots with some steady periods above 10 knots. Finally making some serious tracks. It is almost 8pm and it looks like our 8am-8pm run will be 99 miles. The A4 was definitely the right call, Chris.

I’m really interested to see the 8am position reports tomorrow. If things are well on California Condor and War Pony I wouldn’t be surprised if they have 300 mile days. I’m really curious to see how things play out with Wolfpack. They bore off yesterday crossing in front of us it appears, probably to set a kite, and went way south. Now in this stronger breeze that is still northerly they will be faced with either continuing on further south, which doesn’t sound promising, or close reaching, which doesn’t sound fast in a 30 footer. Bill & Melinda probably have some trick to make that work out to their advantage, but my fingers are crossed that we are having a good day today comparatively. There are no swells today and only small wind waves so nothing to surf on yet, so we are at terminal velocity for a J/120 and headed pretty close to directly at Hawaii, not sure how we could improve on that.

I thought we might see some bigger boats today. I suspect most of them passed us by. Bummer that our two day head start was erased in 3 days.

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