We did it. We shattered the double handed record from San Francisco by over one day and a half. We also were the fastest boat to Hawaii out of all the Pacific Cup boats. That in itself is a remarkable achievement: Two in a fifty footer took on and prevailed over fully crewed racing yachts from sizes 52 to 79 feet boat for boat.

Lady-Luck smiled upon us. Rudi, wherever you are, Sail Fast!

Sunset 100 miles from Honolulu

It's time to report our position to the Race Committee on our HF Radio. We're nervous. Yes we were ahead this morning, but what if the opposition has been sailing 3 knots faster all the time? Nobody will tell us anything until we cross the finish line. What we know is that we are inside the course record. That's a huge achievement.

Now we have some tough choices to make: One option is to sail our line into the Molokai channel, gybe on a lee-shore at Kalaupapa and take advantage of the shift and the compression. Another is to take a couple of unfavorable shifts and finish safely. If we were fully crewed we'd head straight for the high speed gybe. If only we knew where the big boats are. Their last known position is from 9am this morning; they could have gained on us.

Tonight is going to be darker than last night. The moon rises 30 minutes later and is smaller. We haven't seen big squalls forming yet and the trades seem to have moderated to 20 knots.

Beautiful sunset and interesting choices. Apparently our opposition is reading this blog, so I can't share our decision quite yet. We used MotionX to roll the decision. Apparently we are also where no iPhone has gone before!

If you are wondering about the soundtrack for our adventure: The stereo system failed on the second day. So the iPhone and a pair of Plantronics headsets gave us individual soundtracks. We have the best water-proof case for the iPhone: It's called a ziplock bag! We each have our own, use them in Airplane mode (after all we are a flying horse) and charge them using iTunes running on the Toughbook. Of course, we roll MotionX to decide who takes which watch, which shift we will take and all other activities familiar to offshore sailors. After all we are very superstitious. Seriously.

Time to get ready for the last night of racing. In sailing, anything can happen. We will fight to make sure that only good things happen and hope to see Lady-Luck smiling again upon us.

Safe and Fast, Pegasus, Safe and Fast!

Sailing the Tradewinds

Roll call is the only time that we get to find out how the fleet is positioned each morning. We check in with the fleet's relative positions and their performance. This morning we are pleased. Our tactics, strategy and hard work seem to have netted a good report: The closest fully crewed race boat is about 45 miles behind us on a similar line. Riding those squalls and a good geographic right hand shift has been of great help. There is a lot of racing left. However I am pleased to report that we are inside the course record. That's very exciting for us.

I have been asked what gear we are using for telecommunications and navigation as well as making the blog and taking pictures for the blog.

Telecommunications:
Iridium satellite phone and Inmarsat mini dome. ICOM M802 Single Side Band.

Navigation:
Vetus barometer, Suunto Barometer, Panasonic Toughbook running Expedition and Deckman.

Pictures:
Pentax Optio W30 (Waterproof).

We have a lot of work to do. Right now we have had essentially no sleep in 24 hours and have to push the boat hard. Yet in 24 hours we could be at the dock if we push hard, and stay smart.

 

Last night was a tough night. It was pitch-black, with massive squalls packing cold and dry 28 knot gusts. There was no horizon, with boat-speeds sustained in the high teens. The waves were still there, but you couldn't see them.

I took the first watch, Richard is passed out recuperating. There's a huge bang like an explosion, and the boom points up. The vang block just exploded. Richard has it; I continue pushing the boat while he rebuilds a new vang. Ten minutes later he's done. It's amazing how good Richard is at fixing things on board. The repair has given us our stability back.

Everything is dark, there's no horizon and this huge squall hunts us down. I am steering blind, with spray everywhere, the speedometer hits and sustains 23 knots. Richard tells me to "Slow down!" I say, "How do you do that?". He says, "Just stick the bow into the next wave and sail a bit lower…" We like speed. Then he leaves deck and goes to sleep. I mean, I'm shocked: Richard trusts my steering and managing this rocket-ship more than I trust myself. I'm steering through pitch-black waves, terrorized at what could happen at any moment.

When the next squall hits, I grab a winch handle and start banging on the deck to wake him up. I tell him, "You are coming on deck and sleeping on deck, or you are steering, this is insane". I found my limit. Too much to lose.

Three hours later, we are pointing right at the finish line. Jupiter is so bright that the planet is dominating the summer night sky. Now that the moon has risen everything seems so much easier.

We survived a difficult night. We're still racing. We think that at least one of the fully crewed big race boats may have passed us. But we are all in one piece. Tomorrow is another day.

Riding Down the Hawaiian Roller Coaster, 25 knots of wind, 25 knots of boat-speed!

The waves are massive and the surfs sometime last over a minute as we connect multiple waves. That's why we do this. It's like surfing Maverick's except there are two of us keeping the boat perfectly balanced as we sustain boat-speeds of over 21 knots for minutes at a time. The boat just hums and the increase in speed is proportional to the increase in pitch. One of us on deck steering around these giants, the other one sleeping in the bunk in order to be able to take over in a couple of hours. You never get enough sleep, you never get enough speed.

There is only one way to get to Honolulu in style: You have to surf your way to Honolulu! Tonight is going to be a darker night than last night as the moon will rise another 30 minutes later. I'm about to go on watch. We finished eating lots of protein. Together with water and fresh oranges we're all set for a wet and wild night.

Surf Pegasus Surf!

 

Beautiful Kaneohe Bay (the finish line) is about 500 nautical miles away on a magnetic bearing of 222. We're getting closer. The morning roll call yielded some interesting surprises: We are in the upper right corner of the course, with a lot of leverage. That's what we wanted. There is a persistent right shift when you get to the islands to between 70 and 90 degrees magnetic. Right now Flash is on our left on a 30 degrees magnetic even split so we are ahead as the wind has been averaging 45 degrees. Holua (with Dave and Adrienne aboard) are about 80 miles behind us at a similar latitude. They are also betting on the right shift and worked hard to get leverage on Flash. When the wind shifts, Holua could get ahead of Flash.

It's now 6 days that we've been going day and night, and we have serious sleep deprivation. We'll sleep once we get there and have some delicious island sashimi, fresh Poke, and chilled fresh sliced mangoes. That sounds awesome. Turn on Iz Kamakawiwo'ole!

 

This morning the sunrise was spectacular, right above the deflated Squalls of last night. The wind maxed out at 28 knots last night so things were relatively mild throughout. It was very dark and we sailed conservatively yet fast. Roll call will be interesting. We assume that we got passed by the big crewed boats.

 

"Turn on the radio quick…Channel 16…There's a sailboat to Starboard flashing lights." I emerge. Not my watch time quite yet, but on our boat it doesn't matter because we're both always on watch. A few switches flicked, "This is vessel Pegasus Whisky Delta Delta niner one seven eight hailing sailing vessel at 27:13 North by 148:58 West" That's exciting, our first encounter for the last 6 days. It's a fully crewed J-35 called "Urban Renewal". We chat a bit, they've gotten stuck in the back of squall and a few light spots and seem happy to have found the wind. We're going by fast. We will see them in Kaneohe Bay. Nice team.

The night has been fast. It is still night as the sun rises around 7 am PST here. I'll give Richard a break. We sailed through a couple of 28 knot squalls and some light spots. It's been a good night. We stuck to our plan. Favoring starboard at night.

Transpacific races like Pacific Cup are all about squalls and cloud management: This picture taken during a lull at 4 PM, you can see the squalls starting to form.

By now we are totally desensitized. Thirty knot puffs, bring it on! 25 knots of boat-speed, while taking a bite out of an apple. 3 days ago we would have been terrorized and shaking in our boots. Yes if we crash, that Navy Blackhawk chopper better come and get us because there won't be much of anything left. We checked the life-raft and the grab-bag, it's there ready to go. We're racing Adrienne and Dave for a one-dollar bet and the record. As of this morning we have a shot at both. But until tomorrow morning, we won't know if our Karver lock failure and the couple of hours we lost didn't do us in for both the dollar (very important) and the record (they come and go - we held the fully crewed one for a decade from 1986 to 1996).

Night is coming and the squalls are towering. Many people think that this race is about GRIBs, routers, electronics, weather maps, quikSCAT charts, and technology. I think that these Transpacific races are won or lost with good old fashioned navigation skills. It's all about clouds and squalls. The GRIBs and weather maps can't help with them. The last third of this race is like a dinghy race downwind to the leeward mark with lots of squalls throwing you curve balls, or giving you an opportunity to ride them for hours on end. I learned that from Mark Rudiger. Rudi would get on the boat and bring all his notes from his prior crossings. When we'd get to the squalls, he'd study at the nav station, then get on deck and ask questions to the crew. What's the bearing of this one? How about that one? How high is it already at 8 PM? Wow that's going to be a killer around 3 am when it collapses after the air has cooled and the sea surface temperature has remained fairly constant. Rudi was the master. And in looking at all those squalls as the sun sinks into the West Pacific like a ball of fire we both get pretty quiet and introspective.

We're settling down for the night. It's going to be a windy dark night with the moon at our longitude not rising until 1 am. With the thick squall cover we won't see much of it. We're tying everything down, cleaning everything and going through all of our contingency plans. A big part of the race lies in the night ahead.

Fly Pegasus Fly!

Richard off watch sleeping in our one bunk. Did I mention that our toilet is a white plastic bucket, our lights are headlamps, and our water is in the bottles that we took with us. Evolutionary survival it is!

Today we got lucky, in a strange way. Luck is everything. You do all you can to prepare, you work twice as hard as anyone, but without luck you are nobody, nowhere, nothing. Luck is everything. You don't make your own luck; it's in the stars, in the waves, in the wind and in the net that you get wrapped in. And we were in many ways lucky. And the series of apparently unfortunate events keeps on unfolding.

Once we cut loose we put our A6 fractional up, longing for our big A2. But that's greedy when it's blowing 25 and gusty. We notice that this kite is just fine and then the big 30+ squall hits and we ride it. I mean we sail it, we carve it, we are flying and we are safe. With the big A2 up...ouch. But then we are stubborn and don't quite 'listen' and this morning we decide to put our backup A2 kite up. We want the big thing; it's a drag race to Hawaii and we can't let that crew of eleven beat us. We figure, let's take the A6 down and hoist the backup A2. Never mind the effort required to hoist 200 pounds 80 feet straight up. We have to do it. Heck, what do we do Olympic weight lifting for? What's the point of that snatch and that clean-and-jerk? Not just an Olympic medal at the Beijing games.

So it's blowing 20 to 25 and we're not thinking. All set-up for the change. Got to have it. We use Karver locks for the halyards which are a great piece of technology. No need to climb the rig, all nice and safe! So we try to unlock the lock. Nothing happens, nada. We gave it 25 tries in all positions for the snuffer. Nada, nein, niente! So we lost at least another hour and realized that the A6 was our kite to the finish because neither Richard nor I was going to climb the 80 foot mast in these very windy and wavy conditions. We get back on our way and within 30 minutes we hit this line of squalls with 27 knots of wind at it's leading edge. Thank you Lady Luck for the malfunctioning Karver lock. It worked to our advantage today.

Now getting this kite down... That's another story for another day. One day at a time. One wind shift at a time, one wave at a time. But the time will come!

We discovered at this morning's roll call that we are still leading all the big crewed boats, boat for boat. Wow, that is a lucky surprise! We are also still inside the course record and that is an even greater and more exciting surprise. Lady Luck is smiling on us.

A dark night and a miracle recovery, we are very lucky.

We limped along all night. That piece of kite still wrapped around the top of the keel interferes with the carefully architected flow of the water under the hull. You can feel it at the helm and at high speeds it's unstable making it even tougher to control our high speed ride. Richard took the first watch from Midnight to 3 am, and I took the second one from 3 am to 6 am. Now we're both up. Its dark. The squalls have all collapsed in the early morning and so all that we have above us is a deep overcast.

All in all we are very lucky: We have a kite up and are sailing at 90% of our potential. In the 20 to 25 knot puffs we're happily sitting on more than 16 knots of boat-speed. That's great. Now for the 9 am position report. We know we are now probably trailing all the competitors. We're half-way to Honolulu so there is plenty of runway left.

Night busters, auto-portrait. A few scratches and scars, proof that we are doing well.

Never, ever give up. It took 11 tries and then we were able to get free of this mess. We're wet, yet warm from the pulling, pushing, grinding, cutting, name-calling, yanking, hosting, winching, towing, moving and finally succeeding. Almost, but not quite. We feel that we have a piece of the kite wrapped at the articulation between the hull and the keel. It should be safe and we'll tell how much drag it is fairly quickly. For sure we'll be 10 percent slower. But we're happy. Very happy. It's not over for us. So we hoisted our smaller kite and we just sent it! Straight down the track. This is not as fast as soon as the wind ranges under 25 knots. Right now we are sitting on 13.5 knots in 17 knots of wind. Pointing to Honolulu. We are very happy. We are the night busters!

It's now pitch dark and the moon hasn't risen yet. We were lucky that that huge net didn't rip our keel off. Or we'd be in the life-raft right now. We're still trying to sort this out. We may end-up with a piece of the spinnaker around the keel. At night we can't see well underwater. We now have lost our lead and are sitting in waves the size of small buildings like a cork on the water going nowhere. It's wet. But we have a plan. We will try one more time and then do two back downs and try to sail. We will cut anything that we have to cut. We both have our headlights on. Night busters, probably busted by the squall. Luck is on our side, it could have been much worse. More later....

25 knots, we're heaving to in big waves… We ran over a net, it wrapped around the keel at high speed, Wooosh……. In stopping the boat and trying to back down, the kite went in the water and wrapped around the keel. Now we are trying to get things figured out. With just two on the boat and night coming fast, safety is #1. No swimming under the boat to get rid of it. Can't sail with the stuff on the keel or we may lose it and the boat would be upside down in a few seconds. That may be the end of our race. More later. We'll be safe, checking on each other.

Squall busting on a Wednesday afternoon one thousand miles away from any landmass.

Motion is life and everything is in motion. The wind, the clouds, the waves, the swells, the squalls, everything moves. Everything is in motion all the time - always - whether we look, notice, or not. Everything is moving and there is no better place to realize that than here, where our motion needs to be in tune with everything. It's mission critical. Especially with only the two of us. It's about drinking enough water, it's about managing our sleep, it's about keeping everything going. There isn't anyone out here to help us. Yes, we both are emergency room trained, we can put in stitches on a wet and jiggly boat (that comes in handy too often), we can dress a wound, or give ourselves and each other shots if needed (and we avoid that very carefully). But, the most important part is to avoid those extreme situations. Being 'boat-fit' is critical. That means being one with the motion of the waves, the wind, and the boat; moving with it all - because motion is life.

This afternoon while squall busting (punching through squalls packing more than 27 knots of wind to use their energy to move us down the track faster), a school of flying fish swarmed over the boat. They were clearly evading a predator. Usually that would be a school of tuna or a pod of dolphins. But here the mighty Pegasus was the predator, charging at 20 knots down the waves. Several landed on deck. Unfortunately no pregnant females or else we would have had tobiko for dinner! There is a huge world and universe moving under the surface. Think about those tuna eyeing those flying fish like they were in a giant sushi bar.

 

Richard keeping the speed up in between squalls.

We are now half way. The GPS range reads 999 Nautical Miles, and we are happy. Almost all of our systems are back to working normally after the first wild and wet 36 hours and it seems that the open ocean makes wounds and bruises heal faster. So on-board the good ship Pegasus, despite chronic sleep deprivation, all is better all the time.

Something that was really better is when we got the position reports over the HF radio. Our hard work of gybing on every reasonable shift during the night to get down in front of our competitors worked out like a charm. We now have positioned ourselves between our competition and the finish line. We are really focused on one thing: to have us double handling this 50 foot boat beat all the fully crewed bigger boats, boat for boat. Meaning, crossing the finish line first.

That’s going to be tough and exhausting. We’re up for it and looking forward to helping out from the dock in Kanehoe Bay by casting a dock line to Dave and Adrienne! A real worthy and huge goal. Let’s give it all we have!

 

I sleep at the navigation station so that we can get as much information as possible. Everything is low-power and runs on 12 volts.

It’s night, and a very dark night because the moon hasn’t risen yet. Around midnight we'll get to see. With the clouds, the waves and the squalls, it looks like one of those paintings sold at tourist galleries in Waikiki. If you want to see the real thing, you've got to sail a thousand miles to the middle of the North East Pacific. Buying the painting is probably more cost effective! It looks "just like that."

I’m going to catch some sleep while Richard runs the boat. It's a perfect 20 knots, we’ve got the big kite up, and the staysail, sitting on 14 knots of boatspeed, running. In a couple of hours we’ll switch. Time to get some rest.

Squall looming, the wind is going to pick up... Time to gybe to starboard.

Squall, after squall, after hole, after squall, after….. And every time there is pretty much a gybe. Now we feel like two silly humans gybing this 50 foot powerful machine, just the two of us. No crew. 20+ knots and trying to get the performance of a fully crewed boat. They have us racing fully crewed boats. That is also 'interesting'. Like our 2 person team on our 50 footer should compete with a Santa Cruz 70 or a brand new TP 52 crewed by 11 sailors. And good ones too. I think that Richard is a super-hero. He's got super natural powers. So it inspires me and we both rise to the challenge. A few bruises, cuts, wipe outs, but after three days we are still ahead of those fully crewed racing machines.

Dave Ullman, one of my all time sailing heroes and mentors, is doing tactics on Holua. Dave and I made a dockside bet before the start: The bet is one US Dollar for the one who wins boat-for-boat.

Rudi used to navigate on the Holua for Dave. So it's a strange feeling on the HF radio when 'Holua speaks'. It's like 'Good morning, this is sailing vessel Holua, Whisky Delta Delta niner one seven niner reporting our niner hundred position….' But it's not Rudi's voice. And every time it gives us both a pause. Like getting an email from the account of someone that passed away.

That voice now is that of another very good friend of ours: Adrienne Calahan. Adrienne is one of the great navigators of our time, she's also a maritime lawyer in Sydney and just had a beautiful little girl. Adrienne has gone around the world many times on racing sailboats and is one of the toughest people that I know: When all hell breaks loose aboard, everyone is incapacitated, rocked, bruised, scared, Adrienne has a smile on her face: 'Can I help you mate?' Rudi would surely approve and of course now we've got to outsmart both Dave Ullman and Adrienne if we want to win that one Dollar bet.

Right now there is another squall looming so I have to stop typing and skip sleeping. Time for another gybe!

This has been a wild night. Our dice are cast and we are betting on a Northerly route, close to our rumbline. For the next couple of days we will make losses and then our bet is that we will get both a big right shift, and more wind than the Southerly competitors.

The night started pitch black, with the moon rising later. Having gone through 4 degrees of longitude, everything happens a bit later out here, including the moon. No big deal. But then came squalls. Not one of them, but lines of them. Packing 25 knots of wind or more with massive holes in between. Now that's a challenge for a double handed boat! We've seen boat speeds from 5 knots to sustained 21 knots with everything in between. Go figure, this was supposed to be a non–squally year. So much for the forecasts, we're doing battle with North Pacific squalls on day three. So now we're curious as to what was the lot of our Southerly competitors. Fifty miles South could make a huge difference.

Auto-portrait while Richard is sleeping. The big kite is up!

Kite is up and wind is down!
We’re both catching up on sleep. After roll call this morning (the mandatory HF Radio check-in with the race committee), Richard told me that I fell asleep with the mike in my hand, only to wake up 2 hours later. That felt great. We’ve accumulated total sleep deficit between steering all the time, constant sail changes, and fixing messed up things.

We’re still licking our wounds. The total is a bruised ankle, a bruised knee, three cuts, a bloody nose and a big bump on the forehead. That's the legacy of a wild 18 hours. Now it’s all gone, we feel great and the big kite is up.

Richard is now napping so I took the picture myself. Double handed we don’t see much of each other: One goes to sleep when the other wakes up. We meet by the munchies bag. That is until the conditions are such that we both need to be there and then nobody gets to sleep. The water is still cold, but the sun popping out from behind the cloud cover helps us feel drier. So we need to also constantly watch out for each other.

From the race perspective we are doing well. How well is a surprise to us given that the two of us are competing against fully crewed racing machines. We got in-front in the storm (our survival skills were apparently fast) and extended our lead in the last 24 hours by picking our way well (and making constant sail changes). This is a navigation race at this point. It’s all about finding the balance between sailing minimal distance and extending South to find more breeze. I’ve been in this exact place nine times before. A quarter of the way to Honolulu where the Pacific high ridges. Every time it’s a little different. Everest climbers tell it to you in the same words: It’s the same mountain, but every time it’s different. I've been here with Rudi four times and I find myself constantly thinking of him and wondering where would Rudi go? Rudi, this one is for you!

Licking our wounds, getting some sleep, and still trying to make headway. We've made several sail changes along the way to a giant Code 3 that is flying from our bowsprit. It's a beautiful sail, with 8 knots of wind we’re doing 9 knots of boatspeed. The waves are still significant. The barometer made a giant leap up. We are entering the ridge of high pressure. The axis is South East. I’m downloading satellite imagery to help us make a few key decisions.

This boat is awesome. Our Team is doing a stellar job. Everything is PERFECT! And it needed to be… Last night we saw over 40 in the puffs with very fast side waves breaking… Very dangerous. I would have been worried in any other boat with only two team members! Now it’s moderated down to 20-25, we’re sitting on 15-17 of boat speed, full main, genoa and staysail.

A rare light and dry moment.

 

At 5am PST we are right where that little box says 'gale'.... No wonder the waves are like buildings and the boat is acting like a submarine. It's so rough that typing is just about impossible. Just two of us is a challenge; no sleep, all sailing, all survival. Pegasus is flying and swimming deep. We are clipped in and hanging on as we ride the Pacific extreme roller coaster.

This is definitely a cold, wet, windy, wild, extreme night. The wind is gusting at 37 knots and we're showing 23-25 knots of boat speed. The waves are very fast and feel like buildings are crashing on us. What are two perfectly reasonable human beings doing here...? Feeling alive at the edge.

Gale warnings are up still with very big fast waves. There are puffs over 35 knots. The south bar may be breaking and we need sea-room. This is when double handed racing becomes a challenge. It would be nice to be fully crewed tonight! This boat is a handful! Fly Pegasus Fly!

Pacific Cup 2008
Double-Handed San Francisco to Hawaii record attempt

Here is our first weather chart. It's going to be a wild, wet, and fast ride for the first 48 hours. We have a gale warning for our start and a dissipating tropical storm to the South, in between lots of wind and big waves. The challenge is going to be keeping the boat together in one piece during the first 48 hours, keeping both Richard and I safe and onboard.

Mark Rudiger, Rudi 1000 nm from Honolulu, July 2002

Rudi, Mark Rudiger, passed away today. We sailed over 10,000 miles together. Rudi always knows the best and fastest way to sail "all the way". Many of us learned most of what we know, from Rudi. I learned celestial navigation, current, waves from Rudi and just the simple magic of being out there, offshore. Rudi, I know that you are safe and fast wherever you're sailing. Until we meet again, surfing down a wave, or riding down the snow, I'll be missing you. This Pacific Cup ride is for you Rudi, Lori and Zayle. Be in peace. Sail fast.

The final finishing touches before the great race: