Pacific Cup Day 10 Recap – Moonwalking and Squalls

We’re slowly regaining some of the much needed rest that we’ve been missing the past few days, which helps moods – the start of last night was nearly perfect, but we’ve decided that the breeze turns on a turbo switch at happy hour, and then in the wee hours of the morning. The turbo switch is fine at happy hour, since it is easy to see. During the wee hours, it isn’t – the real issue is that the sudden increase of a few knots of wind means that the combination of wind and slightly bigger waves makes steering with the kite really, really difficult – and carries the risk of equipment damage. I was down below sleeping on a modified offwatch schedule (we decided on 2 on/2 off for the first part of last night to try to get each of us a “fair” allotment of sleep) and started to feel the boat doing the surfer with an itch thing. Sidenote – the boat does a few things when it is going fast: 1) the freight train thing, where the waves and noise are so loud that you can’t hear yourself think, but the boat feels like it is steady on rails, so no concerns except to watch how fast the boat is really going; 2) the surfer with an itch thing, where the boat is sliding down waves but puffs and offc-amber waves are causing the boat to slide unpredictably one way or another, and the concern is rounding up.

I raced up on deck, just as we started a round-up – we were able to ease the spin sheet and mainsheet and regain control, but I could tell Justin was mad-mad-mad at the situation. He doesn’t normally spew curses, but he was a fountain at that moment and certainly understandable. It was the third (or more – losing count now) night where we were yet again dealing with another issue. Our new issue was to get the A4 down yet again – really not too big of a deal, except that the waves and reinforced breeze were causing the boat to be in surfer with an itch mode, rather than the nice, comfortable freight train mode. We had no choice though, so when the breeze eased to 20 knots, we went into the motions that we’ve practiced SO MANY TIMES now during this race and dumped the chute with no issues. Whew.

We left the chute down and steamrolled along with the main only – the plan was to wait an hour for daybreak and put everything back up to be on our merry way again. At sun-up, we had the A-2 (our larger kite) up since we were seeing a steady 15 knots of breeze. Soon enough though, we realized we were being chased by the biggest squall we have ever seen. It was seriously ominous, and I swear it was drooling at the sight of our chute to add to its victim list. We took the A-2 down and ran along with the main for a while as the squall passed – it was a revelation, as my expectation of a proper squall has been colored by the freakish scary lightning storms in Florida and in the Gulf Stream where you see sudden 20 knot increases in breeze and await being charbroiled by a lightning strike. What we’ve seen so far with these small storms are additional 5-10 knots of breeze and spitting rain. Since we’ve not been able to see much at night due to cloud cover, I think we’ve been wandering along each night hitting various squalls or the “wee hour turbo” wind puffs that make life complicated enough as it is. The seriously irritating aspect of these squalls is something we discovered today, and even worse, something we were told and should have remembered – there is a serious vacuum that is left after the squall passes. So, we did our prudent sail reductions, sat out the squall to see what it would really be like to be conservative, and then were rewarded with 30 minutes of slatting sails and slamming as we waited for the breeze to fill back in.

Our moods are a bit raw out here. We have small celebrations of great teamwork and overcoming challenges, but the difficulty is always what we don’t have control over and how we choose to deal with that. Some days are easier than others to roll with the situations. It helps both of us to have the daily routine where we can take care of things that need to be done and feel some sense of accomplishment of doing that, even if the weather conditions are driving us crazy. We’ve both been so tired that if we’re not dealing with a situation together, one or the other is trying to rest. At mealtimes, though, we have snippet conversations which are getting more philosophical, as you can tell from the exchange below:

C: So, where does “moonwalking” come from anyway?

J: No se*. (*vestiges of living in Madrid remain in both of our vernaculars)

C: You know what I’m talking about, right?

J: Yeah. Michael Jackson.

C: But, why would it be called “moonwalking”? Is it about the shoes he wore – like they looked kind of astro or something? Or is it the way the feet stay attached to the ground? Like it’s a gravity grabbing thing?

J: Definitely it’s the gravity thing.

Hoping today’s a lovely day – it looks promising.

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