CyberCruise Report Hi everybody, Shayna, Ryan, and I arrived at the GG Bridge at 9:30 yesterday. We watched La Adriana and the rest of the ships sail around for nearly an hour and a half before the race started. We had binoculors so we could see them well. We walked to the middle of the bridge and waited. It was very exciting. We all had butterflies in our stomachs. Darwin, Mary, and Craig showed up with their hand-helds just as the race started so they got to talk to some of the crews. The race started and nearly all the boats that sailed under the bridge heard our screams and waved at us. The happy faces were clear. Even Doug on Pelican sailed under the bridge and was clearly talking and waving at us. None of us could believe how fast La Adriana made it to the bridge though and they were on a very different tack than anybody else. I suddenly realized that if we didn't RUN as fast as we could over to their side we wouldn't be able to see them, wave to them, or even get a picture. I ran, Ryan ran past me, but I didn't make it. Ryan and even Shayna got to wave and yell at Dudley and the rest of the crew, not me. I was able to get a picture just as they were going under the bridge, but we will mostly just see the sails in the photo. I stood their in complete disbelief that after all that waiting and anticipation of being able to see them as clearly as I could everyone else that I didn't get that satisfaction with La Adriana. Absolutely unbelievable. Darwin handed me his radio and I talked to Shellie. When I told her that they were TOO fast, she did remind me that "we are racing you know". Oh, that's right. Well, we discovered that Dudley was at the helm, so maybe he is getting into the race spirit after all...She handed the radio to Dudley, so we got to say a few words. They were pretty busy. You should have seen the white caps far out...bumpy ride ahead...The News helicopter flew under the bridge and hovered above them, so I told Dudley to wave at the News. We watched them as long as we could. A part of me wished I was with them, but a part of me knew it wasn't for me. I am really looking forward to being in Hawaii though and enjoying the warmth. I walked outside last night and gazed at the moon and stars and thought about them. They are very lucky. Love to you all. See you soon, Teresa ----- The following is an e-mail message recieved from La Adriana at 14:07 (or 2:07 PM) today, July 4th. It was sent about 2 days before I recieved it, so expect the rest of the sailmail messages to have about the same time delay. Please note that I am the designated sailmail master and I will be the only one sending messages directly to La Adriana and Crew. If you want a message sent to the boat, please sent it to me at this address (sdownie@best.com) and I will summarize several messages into one so they will be able to recieve it faster. The Sailmail Master, Chris Downie _______________________________________ The crew is fine. The boat is fine. We are having engine problems... Conserving power. Check the www.pacificcup.org page to plot our progress. Everyone sends love and best regards. Capt. Sam and Crew ----- Pacific Cup Race, Day 2. Well, we got off to a good start, but boy! The ocean is hard on electronics. We lost one computer, and I'm using the backup to compose this. As a matter fact, don't worry if you don't get mail from us for a few days or even the rest of the race. Check http://www.pacificcup.org for the latest positions of all the boats. If this last laptop goes, or something else breaks, they should still have our position. We check in with them each day about 9am Pacific time, and they post everyone's position to the web site a few hours later. Whoa! Shellie just fell off the bunk! Oof! Well, Steve lived (Shellie fell on him.) We've got 6-8 foot seas with 3-4 foot wind waves. When we hit a wind wave just right, it sounds like a car crash. The wave flies up in the air, and then there's a huge waterfall on the boat as it comes back down. So, right now (1950, July 2) We're at: 35deg 44' 19" 126deg 45' 15" We're reaching in 30 knots of wind, with partially-furled jib and double-reefed main. Boatspeed 7.4-7.6 kts or so, course 220 deg magnetic. 235 is the course for Hawaii, but we're trying to avoid the high pressure area (low wind) moving in font of us. Just had our first real meal - lasgana! Half of us have been really sick, and noone's felt like eating much til now. So far we've had trail mix, hard-boiled eggs, granola bars, and instan flaavored mashed potatoes. BTW ignore the typing mistakes - I'm haveing a hard time. There's only one place on the boat dry enough to use the computer, and I'm hunched over typing in the dark (it's 2053 now). Y&es, sailboat racing is fun! Hawaii beter be good. Well, I'm on watch at midnite, so I've got to turn in. I'll send this as soon as I can. Everybody's fine, and says "Sea of ANarchy Rules!" Charles Reynolds La Adriana Somewhere in the Pacific ----- I finally took a shower today! What a thrill. We've been driving, sleeping, eating, fixing the boat, driving, and trying not to fall into too many things below. We've got some good bruises, and several band-aids. Yesterday Sam cleaned the aft cabin and decleared that well dressed sailors no longer got to wear foulie bottoms. (It's been getting warmer - 72 today.) Lessee - today was Fish Day. Steve and Dudley caught a 52" Mahi-Mahi. Then they had to figure out what to do with it. After they got it on deck and it flapped around everywhere, they had to kill it. Jason knew to rip its gills out. Steve did, it bled everywhere, and didn't die. So Dudley started whacking it in the head with a winch handle. Not the metal part - the handle part. Cracked the handle. Yesterday was "Why is the shaft coming out of the boat" Day. The day before that was "Let's work on the engine. Let's start it. It runs! Yay! Oh, shit, it quit." Repeat until tired. The day before - I dunno. I think more engine stuff, and lots of leaks. Today is the driest day we've had. Wind on the starboard quarter, mizzen, main, and poled-out genoa up. Even opened some hatches, and I changed out of my long johns into shorts. We had Chicken Cordon Bleu with StoveTop Stuffing last night. I cooked. Yes, really. Barbecued fish with lemon and garlic for lunch today, so nobody's hungry for dinner. Well, it's getting time to send this, so Aloha from 30deg 48.931',138deg 56.659' at 2119 pacific time, July 7. 1157 miles to go - almost halfway. -Charles and La Adriana ----- We made it! Now we just have to do it again. We're halfway - 1035 (well, 1023, now at 1840 on 6 July) miles to go! Thanks, Sarita and Rob, for the halfway gifts! Playdough, Bubbles, wooden puzzles, Mutiny on tyhe Bounty ("In a specially illustrated edition for young readers by Deborah Kestel") and... Guiness! Half a can each. Yum! Tried the 1.5 oz spinnaker today. Crappy swells and light wind made it flap and do little good. Went back to wing-and-wing, and now we're making 5.5-6.0 dead downwind in 16 kts wind. Sun finally came out. Been cloudy for days. Hear it's not sunny in Hawaii, even. Beautiful BLUE water, wide horizon, clear air. No animals but an albatross every day or so. Great hanging out in the cockpit. Even getting some reading done. Til next time! -Charles and La Adriana ----- Hello from the middle of the Pacific. We are now into day 8 of our Pacific Cup adventure. Our position at the time I am typing this email is: 29 11.812' N 142 59.723' W We expect to arrive in Kaneohe sometime late Monday/early Tuesday given our present course and average speed. I'll try to keep you updated as we get closer, but check at: http://www.pacificcup.org/ This will have our daily position updates. Weather is now warming, and our foulies are now retired. Water temperature has climbed to 68 degrees and will continue to warm as we get further west. We have been running watches 2 persons every 2 hours, so we get 2 hours on and 6 hours off watch. We still haven't seen stars, due to clouds and we're told to expect it to remain cloudy most of the way to Hawaii. Hopefully the weather will get better as we approach Oahu. We have caught one large mahi-mahi, which was served for lunch on day 6. (tell Roger his lemons went over - big time!). I'm hoping for more as the water gets warmer. The crew is well and have all had their sea "legs" for several days. Winds have ranged from 25 - 35+ knots for the first 3 days and now have settled into the 14 - 25 knot range. For the last 24 hours we have been sailing wing-on-wing with the mainsail on starboard, in order to put us closer to the rhumb line course toward Kaneohe. No squalls yet, although we've sailed through several light rainshowers each day and evening. Sleep is much harder to come by our here. With the constant, sometimes violent motion of the boat, along with the staggered watch schedules we get to sleep for much shorter periods than usual and each try to get in 3 or more of these "naps" each day to keep fresh. Time for my watch. Type to you again soon. Aloha, Crew of "La Adriana" in the middle of the Pacific ----- N 30deg16min w140deg43min Cap'n of POP here -- I bet you all thought I'd forgotten you here in the balmy trades, drinking Mai Tais on the fantail, hauling mahi mahi in over the stern, languidly trimming a spinnaker under tropical skies. Hah. The communcations boat is calling Hawaii to see if anybody THERE has seen sun. For sure nobody on the race has. Grumble. The trades are real, though. For the first two days we were so disoriented nobody could talk let alone write. DAY 1 Crossed the starting line at 10:50. The Pacific Cup Puke Festival began at 11:31. Charles and Shellie the only ones not throwing up. DAY 2 There is probably somewhere on this boat that doesn't leak. It is raining on the nav station; fried one computer. DAY 3 Semiliterate again. First two days I was useless (yeah, yeah, I can here it from here...). I've never been so baffled by my own socks. Pick up a socki Hold the sock, think about it for 5 minutes. 5 more struggling to get the sock on. Lay down and recver for 15 mihnutes. Pick up the other sock. Look at it for a while and figure out that it goes on the foot that doesn't have one yet. My boots completely defeated me. The only reason I didn't go barefoot is because Dudley took pity on me and dressed my feet. Clean underwear, a gift from God. I can't decide whether to put the old ones in a sealed biohazard container, or burn them. Don thinks if he smoked his socks they'd be hallucinogenic. DAY 4 Crew member looking at GPS: "Wow, whatever just kicked us registered a 10 on the richter scale!" (10 kts speed over ground) Dry voice from navigator: "This is the same GPS that thinks we're at 316' elevation." Typical bloody sailboat race. A list of today's challenges: 1. The windvane tried to fall off the boat, but we were too quick for it. Barely. 2. Broke a lifeline. Put it back together with duct tape, the universal solution to everything. 3. Engine sucked saltwater in through the exhaust. Salt water in the cylinders, salt water in the oil (gallons of it) turned it into frothy grey sludge. Have filters. Have belts. Have lots of parts. Do not have oil. Resident mechanical geniuses Sam and Charles ran the oil through the Racors to separate out the water. Engine prognosis grim. There goes our power, except for the solar panel which only puts out a couple of amps, and only in the daytime, and we haven't seen the sun yet on this trip. 4. So: no navigation software, no weather fax, no instruments except for compass light, no lights, no sailmail, no refrigeration, soon no communication (SSB, VHF, sailmail). 5. Salt water in the solar panel connector shorted and fused it. Don and Steve rewired around it; lights one cabin light dimly with no sun. But all thhe sailing equipment works marvelously! Making 185 miles on our best do far. Anything with an electron in it went south before we did... Steve and Dudley just threw a fishing line off the stern. Our resident commercial fisherman says if they catch one they'll have to throw ther foulies away and can never be allowed belowdecks again. Unless they drag it on board naked (the fishermen, we figure the fish will already be naked). There are eight cameras on board. Hee. Oh -- the gaff went overboard, so they have to bring it on board hand over hand. Repeat: eight cameras. Our resident fisherman is gleefully anticipating. He's approximately half the age of the rest of us, says we brought him for heavy lifting, is the best driver on the boat, and says he deserves all this for hanging out with old people. Jason, we dub thee Sundance Kid. Sam is CB (Captain Blight), Charles is Spiderman (fashion statement involving polypros, I think), Rui is Shaft. DAY 5 Got our daily heart-stopping experience over with at 9:30 this morning: a horrible grinding vibration shook the boat, and Sam leaped to the engine compartment just in time to see the shaft escape the engine and boogie toward the Pacific Ocean in 1-foot increments, spinning madly. Stopped momentarily by the rudder. Rui grabbed it (brave man, now known as "Shaft") by hand to stop its rotation so they could retrieve it before it got completely away and left a biiiiig hole in the boat. Now reattached. To our shock the engine actually started after several hours of major surgery, and ran for seconds and seconds. In spite of sails down and lying ahull (VIOLENT boat movement!) for an hour and a half reattaching the shaft, we made 162 miles in 24 hrs. the Fishing Fools caught a 3" squid, so somthing lives out here. DAY 6 52.5", approximately 40 pounds. Dorado a.k.a mahi mahi a.k.a dolphin fish. Never was a dorado screamed over with more enthusiasm. Or eaten fresher! The guys agreed I should be told it's eight feet long since as the resident woman I can't be expected to know the difference and will duly report it so. I immediately put on my "Real Women Never Lie About the Size" t-shirt. Anyhow, for all the anonymous sceptics out there, there are too fish out here a thousand miles from the nearest land, Scott Newkirk! I love four a.m. watch. Stars! Pulled a double watch this morning. Just as it started to get light, a big black looming nothing crept up behind us and ate all the stars (Sam's description). Our first precursor to a squall, we think. Started the engine at 10:20. That engine deserves a medal. DAY 6-1/2 We're in the trades, banshee wail of a barely controlled boat running downwind in panic, convinced the next dorado is going to bite her stern off. I awoke to the bass thud of the contents of every locker being rhythmically flung from one side to the other and back again. I'm afraid to look in some of those lockers. I know there's an anvil down there somewhere, probably next to the pallet of bricks... I understand of white-knucke driving. White-knuckle sleeping, on the other hand, seems sort of pointless. So I went up to snipe at the driver and see if I could tell why we hadn't all died yet. Charles was driving, which explains the kinetic violence of the locker contents. (Note: I can no longer tell in my sleep when Charles is driving downwind, see what a difference a few hundred sea miles can make in a man's driving?) DAY 7 Crack...WHAM. Crack...WHAM. That's the sound of alternately backwinding and refilling main and jib. WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE. This is because it's 4:00 watch and it's pitch black and I'm driving ddw, wing on wing in a following sea with a poled-out jib and prevented main in 25 kts of wind, and the middle of absolutely nowhere at all, in the middle of the night. My watchmate has fallen asleep just as though these were not his last moments of life. Stupid watchmate. Yesterday I was feeling pretty good about driving in 13 kts of wind with jib poled out on the same side as the main, and quartering seas. See? 13 kts and I'm doing it. Can I be a sailor now? Then Sam pointed out I was bragging over the battery voltage. The wind was 25 kts. Sigh. I don't think I'm going to be allowed to forget this one. We feel cheated when the wind falls below 20 kts. 25-35 is best, the boat motion is much easier when we're fully powered, and it's much easier to drive. Boy, what a change for a bunch of whiny, candy-ass bay sailors. We're going to be dangerous when we get home. We're 130,000 boat lengths from the coast. Do we still have to give way at the mark? It's day 8, but I have to go on watch now. More later. Hugs, Cap'n of POP (Shellie) ----- Finally warming up! Jeans and Tshirt weather. Water temp 68 deg. Been hand steering the whole time - 2hours on, 6 off. No windvane self steering - just emergenct rudder capability. Could be hooked up w/o too much trouble in harbor. Some rain, wind still 20 kts. Having to head more southerly to keep the sails happy. Not running spinnaker because the rolly seas mad it really difficult to cary when we put it up a few days ago. still making 6.5kts plus. Read a Sam Lewellyn novel, Wired magazine, a Gregory Benford SF novel, and I'm in the middle of Ocean Navigator magazine. Sunny about half the time. Warm, lots of clouds. Greetings from 26deg 55'N, 144deg 55'W. Boat speed 6.8 course 200. - Charles and La Adriana ----- Greetings from La Adriana, Day 9 We finally have sunny weather after spending over a week under cloudy skies. Water temperature has warmed to 68 degrees, air temperature is around 77-80 degrees. Due to prevailing winds and seas, we are on a track of about 200 degrees magnetic which points us just south of the big island of Hawaii. We plan to gybe 90 degrees as we appoach Hawaii, to turn us up and towards Kaneohe. We plan to stick with the course over the next 2 days, and then see where we're at. We did suffer a surprise squid attack late yesterday afternoon. The 5 crew on deck suddenly saw the ocean boiling and dozens of squid began leaping from the water, to escape an even worse fate. About 15-20 of them landed on deck, in various peculiar places. We think they all suffered simultaneous nervous breakdowns, as each of them ejected their loads of black ink on whatever they were sitting. The down side was that we cleaned them off the decks by throwing them back to the ocean, realizing, in retrospect, that we just thown away a great lunch. We still waiting for our second fish. Gotta go. I'm due on watch.. Steve ----- T H E Y M A D E I T ! ! ! T H E Y A R E I N K A N E O H E ! ! ! They arrived this morning at 10:38 Pacific time, completing the race in just under 13 days. They were greeted with mai tais and flower leis. The weather is typically tropical, alternating hourly between sunny and rainy. Everyone is fine. The race is done; the party begins. -Jennifer Friend and transcriber for Charles, who reports that they couldn't get shortwave radio and sail mail to play together today. This message courtesy of a *phone.* Yes, they're back in touch. ----- Colin and I arrived home last night. We didn't want to leave Oahu! Adriana is in fine form and the return crew is prepared to sail her out of Kanehoe Bay in the next hour or so. In the last couple days Sam and crew caulked some pesky leaks, installed a new SSB which transmits and receives MUCH better than the old one, set up the new laptop, provisioned, and installed a new exhaust system that won't back-siphon. I think Sam did some other stuff but I'm not sure exactly what that was. Darwin promised to send sail mail often. At least seven boats sailed out yesterday, including TaMana, and more are leaving today. One of the boats will act as communications vessel so boats can check-in daily. Sam couldn't find any more crew so the return will consist of the original suspects - Sam, Elise, Lane, Ruth, and Darwin. Darwin, Colin and myself managed to have a great vacation between Adriana work sessions. Our bed and breakfast was located within walking distance of Kailua Beach. Each morning we woke up to a breakfast served in the sun room overlooking the golf course. After breakfast, we swam and played at Kailua Beach Park. Colin liked being chased by the gentle waves and Darwin snorkeled. Later in the day we headed over to the yacht club so Darwin could work on the boat. Colin and I played in the pool or socialized with other families until Darwin finished. Then we headed to the bar to drink Mai Tais-yummy! Between the dinners, the drinks, and the dancing, the Kanehoe Yacht Club proved to be quite the party place. Oh, the weather? It was in the low 80's every day with just enough humidity to be uncomfortable - nothing a mai tai couldn't cure. The awards banquet was fun - all boats received a gift from West Marine. Adriana received a dinghy lift thingy. Chuck recounted the 'gambling' email joke Don sent out and raised quite a laugh. They also caught the largest fish! It was an ONO, considered a prize fish. It was 54 inches long and fed them for three days. Other boats got garmin gps', flares, handhelds, and other stuff related to their individual mishaps. Many funny stories I won't retell here - just check your Latitude next month. Steve and family and Don and Terri are now aboard a 54' Hunter cruising around the islands. Dudley and family are hanging out near Kailua Beach Park for awhile. They were hoping to be at the dock this morning to send-off the return crew (mai-tais will be included I imagine!) Shellie and Charles flew off to the big island for a vacation. Steve had quite a laceration over his right eye - he was accidently hit by the mainsheet during an accidental jibe out there after the preventer broke (!). His sunglasses shattered and gave his a nasty gash - but without them he might have lost his eye! Rui gave him first aid and he is fine now. Darwin and Sam assure me Adriana will be a more comfortable boat on the return because she enjoys going to weather more than downwind. I'll forward any posts I receive from Adriana. One more thing: is that tsunami gone or is it still rolling around out there? Mer -----
