TransPac 2015

We had a really good race on the good ship Wizard.  It was a strange race not the normal weather.  To start with, we started in a South Easterly!!, Had Spinnakers up by Catalina.  The forecast was for little to no wind, be we made it out well, leading our class and at one point 100 miles into the race was ahead of 2 out 3 100 footers.

We had a near miss with a very large Blue Whale, I would say 1 meter.  He came up from the port side, surfaced on the starboard side.  One of the crew thought the tail slapped the boat...


The hard problem for this race was boats were so different in speed they took different routes..  Ragamuffin took the way north course, getting up to San Francisco's latitude.  We were 200 miles south of them looking to connect to the high and good wind.  We did, and took off and look very good in the race, till the wind died on us the last 36 hrs and the little boats were able to sail directly to the mark with wind...

Raggs sailed 2576 miles
Rio sailed 2441 miles
Wizard sailed 2472
and the Race winner GI sailed 2315

You can re-live the race at http://yb.tl/transpac2015

Such is Ocean Racing...

We had a great trip, we all could have sailed another 2000 miles.

Next week on the to Finland to sail the 2.4 open worlds with 108 other boat!!
First time in my new boat

TransPac start today for Wizard and crew

Wizard winning the Barn Door in 2013

Today we tack off for Hawaii.  Most of the time it is a very nice fast race in the trade winds.  But not today.  There is ex hurricane making a mess of the trades.  You might think we should get south and hit it hard, but it is not moving toward HI, it is going to fizzle out and kill the trades.  In fact, we might have rain around the start.  The first 300 miles will be the hardest with light winds from everywhere.  

Follow the race at http://yb.tl/transpac2015

There has been two starts already, the classes that started first are in good normal winds and will most likely win the race.  Lending Club, decided not to start the race today and went off on a record run leaving on Wednesday and they are over 1/2 way and will break the record for the crossing.  The boats that started Thursday, are in little wind and are stuck...

Here you have our routing, finish is around 8 days.  Wizard when it was Bella Mente has the non power mono hull record of 6 days 19 hrs..  No chance for that this year.

Busy week.

After finishing up the Clagett regatta, I had a chance to sail 2.4 against Paul Tingley, gold medalist in the 2008.  Paul was very helpful and we had about 3 hrs on the water in Newport.  What came out of the last two weeks is I am getting used to the boat and can sail it much better and more consistently.  Confidence is going up.  I now can trust my speed and can turn my attention to the race course.

On the way to JFK, we were able to stop by and see our friends at Oakcliff Sailing Center.  http://www.oakcliffsailing.org/ This is a fantastic place to get out on the water.  They are helping all sorts of people get better at sailing.  First class.  I was talked into sailing on the Thursday night classic regatta with founder Hunt Lawrence.  We had a nice light air battle with some of these beautiful boats around the bay.

The Windmark Olympic Sailing Foundation is supporting my Road to Rio campaign.  It is a 501(3)c tax deductible foundation.  The foundation is supporting the USA sailing team.  Please help. 

I was able to spend the fourth of July in Kokkola, Finland.  Where my new 2.4 is being built.  Charger builds about 50-60 boats a year and does a very good job.   The boat builders are very good there.  Yards like Swan and Baltic do a big business there.  The 2.4 has just as much going on as a big boat, but just takes less time to  put it together. 

 

They had a boat ready for me most of it done, but after seeing all the little changes I wanted to make we took the next boat out of the mold.  I was then able to place everything where I wanted.  

 

This is the table where all the lines go, so many cleats

I have a few ideas that I am bringing from the big boats to the 2.4.  I will see how they work, next month when I pick up the boat in Rauma, Finland.  The 2.4 open worlds are there 8/8-15.  They expect more that 110 boats...  Both able and disable bodies.  A very big challenge, to sail against the best in the world in these boats in an area that I have not seen.

 

Deck right out of the mold

 

My boat with foam and bulkheads going in.

Coming back to Newport from Finland, we worked on Ted Green's 2.4 to make some of the rigging changes I put into my new boat.  After a day and half of work we got sailing with a supper spar in.  This was my first try with this type of rig and a new learning curve started.  Felt pretty good and matched my new sails well from both Quantum and North.  In the Newport Regatta out of Sail Newport, I used each set on one day of racing.  Both set of sails did well, winning all the races I finished.  Had a small break down and lost my back stay in one race.

All in all, ready to go back to Finland to race the worlds, just after I sail to Hawaii on Wizard one more time....