Emails from the fleet

[Philpott]

Green Buffalo POL (and more ;-) )

June 26th
Day 1

Beam reaching in 20k-25k of wind and moderate seas. AWA 76-100 degrees... "almost" spinnaker time but too bumpy and too windy for this tight a reach when alone. Crossing the North Asia to Panama Canal shipping route... saw three ships today and one "quite close" (consider a half mile is 3 boat lengths for a large ship). John on Perplexity is right behind me maybe a mile back... as he has been since the start... which makes using the AIS Alarm tricky as it keeps going off because John is so close.



Started eating a wee bit... sardine sandwich... swiss cheese on crackers... trail mix. This is "early" for me as usually I need to avoid food for 2-3 days to avoid mal de mer... the meclazine I started taking the day before the race must be working.

Weather forecasts has me going further south then first planned as the High in the middle of the track is delaying going NW as originally expected. And how close to pass the High pressure ridge? The secret to the Universe like 42.

Spinnaker tomorrow? Maybe. By Wednesday the wind lightens and backs another 20 degrees so Wednesday for sure.

Cheers,
Jim Q

 

[Philpott]

Tales from the Deck of Tortuga
Sunday, June 25th

It was a misty morning at the start of the day.
I had finished most of my last to-do projects at about 9 pm the previous night. The last things to take care of after the swirl of the emergency haul out (oh yeah, that’s right, I had to haul the boat on Friday and splashed Saturday morning to fix my max prop that came loose and made it to the skippers meeting just in time!) were to finish installing the boom pieces and lines for the 3rd reef, get the dingy secured, and remove the last minute things off the boat I didn’t need. The saying that getting to the starting line is the hardest part of this race couldn’t be more true!
Admiral Dani and Sailor, the dog, were there in the morning, as well as Jim from W32 Resolve and his sister, who came by to wish me well at the dock at Pier 39 along with Chris from the Pork Chop Express and his wife Charlotte who are my dock neighbors; we also got to wish each other a safe passage.

I wasn’t sure which head sail to start with as the forecast was for a lighter breeze outside the gate. I’m so glad I didn’t try to fly a larger jib! It was a breeze getting out of the gate. I had a terrible start and got caught in the counterflood current that had started to flow. I was trying to start with just the staysail to make it easy to tack back and forth as needed, but then I realized I had to get the jib up to get enough speed to make it across! The other 2 Westsails pulled away from me and made it under the bridge before me. The nice consolation was the pics Dani sent me of my friends from onshore who came out to GGYC and friends that came to see me off from the water and the day before at RYC; THANK YOU!
It was a washing machine ride out with the last of the ebb pushing us out under the bridge and past point Bonita doing almost 9 knots! It lit up a bit, and I knew the breeze would eventually pick up, so I was torn about expanding the energy to put up a bigger headsail or not. I decided to leave it as it was and made some decent progress in the lighter breeze and nap. I could see about eight other boats just to the north of me, so that was good. The breeze did fill in, so we were bounding along at 6.5 knots later in the afternoon. It was a bouncy night with lots of shipping traffic, so I was eventually down to a double reefed main with the working jib and staysail.
A pesto margherita pizza from the oven with fresh basil topped off the evening!

Team Tortuga


On Sat, Jun 24, 2023 at 10:11 PM randy leasure <[email protected]> wrote:

Ahoy!
Tortuga and I depart for the Singlehanded Transpacific Yacht Race on tomorrow Sunday June 25th!



The race tracking page will be available to view here:



https://www.jibeset.net/tv.php



I will be sending update to the race committee and they will be posting all the racer updates on the Singlehanded Sailing Society site:



https://www.sfbaysss.org/main/



Note that this tracking is not 100% real time for all boats and there could be delays or times when trackers stop working. Fear not, if the tracker stops working it’s probably just some tech gremlins at work.



The race starts on tomorrow Sunday at 10am off the Golden Gate Yacht Club for those that want to see the start.



I’ve had a crazy 24 hours! The bottom cleaning diver found a bunch of play in the max prop moving fore and aft on Friday am. I was able to get an emergency haul out yesterday and got the problem fixed with the bolt holding the hub on the shaft had worked loose. I splashed again yesterday afternoon but the blades weren’t aligned right. We got the blades aligned properly and back in the water before low tide this morning when they couldn’t launch me.

It couldn’t have been that easy though….

The line holding the lifting straps got caught in the prop in the sling. In a flash, the boat yard hero Mohammed dove in the water to cut it away! all good and was able to make it to the skippers meeting this afternoon.

All provisions loaded and ready!



A big thank you to my north star Danielle for her patience and help as I’ve been working non stop on boat projects the last few months!



Thank you to all the others who have supported Team Tortuga with advice and help prepping the boat! I wouldn’t be able to race without you!



Randy

W32 Tortuga

 

[Philpott]

Reverie daily report 6/26
Inbox

[email protected]
5:56 PM (3 hours ago)
to racereporting, maricelly_vargas

Hi all!

This is a communications test as well as a report of the first two days of the 2023 SHTP.



6/25/23

Reverie started the race at 10:15 (Group B - Lono division - also Green Buffalo (Cal 40), Solstice (Cal 40) and Circe (Freedom 40)).

Winds on the nose W 12-18 coming out of the Golden Gate. Ebb tide about 2kts. Doing over 9 kts SOG for a while!! Got out of the shipping lanes by 11 am. Light winds NW 10 kts. Following Solstice and Green Buffalo.

Big pod of grey whales (short dorsal fin like a little hook) before the South Faralones, spouting on both port and starboard - looked like they were swimming in circles (maybe feeding?)

Light winds Sun afternoon, 6-12 kts. Flew code Zero for a couple of hours (inspired by Perplexity who passed me flying his code 0 around 14:00). By 16:00 it was getting to about 15 kts so the code 0 had to come down.


Sunday evening and through the night the winds continued to build, eventually topping at NNW 25 kts, with a couple of periods above 25. Beam to broad reaching under full main and 150 genoa furled in to about 100%, doing 8-9 kts. I don’t think I’ve ever gone this fast in Reverie. Pelagic autopilot was struggling (expectedly) on the beam reach point of sail, I had to adjust sail a few times during the night. Had a better time after the wind backed so that we had 100-105 deg true wind.

Fast, bumpy, and wet ride, lots of water in the cabin (leaks and showering down the companionway), sleeping in my foulies. No sea sickness (took Bonine), but not much appetite. Just ate some bananas and power bars for dinner.

On AIS, Green Buffalo, Jamani, and Solstice ahead of Reverie, and Circe, Siren, Elmach, Gwendolyn, and Pork Chop Express just behind. Perplexity was also ahead but disappeared from AIS during the night. Until early evening also saw Such Fast peeling off to the south, and Elisabeth Ann, Horizon, and Eos South.

6/26/23

The winds abated some but still NNW 17-23 though out the day, Reverie averaging around 8 kts on beam to broad reach. By the morning only Green Buffalo, Solstice and Jamani ahead and Siren behind could be seen on AIS.

 

[Philpott]

From Christophe Delange

D1 ELMACH : close call with a buoy on the start (there is a picture) and a whale indulging me with the smell of her breath. Happy with my position in the pack

D1 ELMACH : Cold, 20 to 25 Kts, waves cross beam. A sense of deja vue with the recent crossing from BC, at least I knew where to find the tuque

[Editing provided here: According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, "In Canada a tuque (sometimes spelled toque or touque) refers to a warm knitted cap, traditionally made of wool and usually worn in winter."] Latitude provided a billed cap, as it has done for years. A prescient gift by the Latitude marketing department, since they will all be wearing the branded sunhat by the time they pose for their arrival photos.



In order, front right, then clockwise: Whoever guesses every sailor gets macapuna ice cream at the Capitola Boat Club. My treat.

 

[Philpott]

[email protected]
7:22 PM (30 minutes ago)
to racereporting, maricelly_vargas

Tuesday 6/27/2023

Daily report from aboard Reverie

Winds steady all day in 12-18 kts range, backing from NNW in the morning to N in the evening. Seas calmer, much more comfortable ride, still pretty fast, averaging 7-7.5 kts. Have been following Solstice, who is about 10 nm ahead, in VHF contact. His AIS receiver is not working, while I have non-functioning AIS transponder. So between the two of us we have a fully functional AIS system This was useful as there were a couple of close crossings (within a few nm) with tankers going SE towards the Panama Canal.

 

[Philpott]

Green Buffalo POL (and more ;-) )

June 27th
Day 2

Still beam reaching but in a much easier 10k-16k of wind... gave me the chance to flake and brick the #1 that has been on deck since yesterday. Bit of an ordeal as the #1 is maybe 50 pounds dry but 100 pounds wet (want to get the deck clear for possible spinnaker launch tomorrow and dropping the jib top on deck). AWA 76-100 degrees same as yesterday. All entrants are now far enough away I can properly set my AIS alarms without the worry of frequent false alarms.

The solar panels (280W)run the boat maybe 6 hours a day (albeit its still a bit overcast with a bit of sun hear and there)... the other 18 hours means running the engine to keep the batteries charged... and I have the "large" autopilot ram which is a real power hog... so running the engine 3 times a day.

Ate some more but not much... swiss cheese and ramen... why so little when I feel just great?... mostly about the hassle of preparing food when at an angle with an occasional "large surprise bump" from the thrice an hour large wave from the north. Tomorrow comes "real food"... will it be Mac and Cheese or Tortellini with marinara sauce?

Did I mention how much I have been sleeping/napping? Beam reaching there isn't much to do. Check the sail trim and maybe tweak the autopilot a degree or two once every hour or so. I probably slept 10 hours in the last 24.

The weather folks cannot make up their mind on where and when the High in front of us is going to head northwest. Yesterday the forecast had me head a bit lower... this morning a bit higher... what will I see this evening?

Four years ago my wife Mary bought me a book for my 60th birthday titled "Sixty" - which I have now taken up reading (the writer is a literary sort so a lot of soul searching about what one has done with one's life). Given I am retiring next year... an interesting read.

Cheers,
Jim Q

 

[Philpott]

Christophe Desage (via inReach)
9:34 AM (4 minutes ago)
to racereporting

D2 ELMACH: 14C in the cabin, tuque on, that old sleeping bag shows up unexpected ... from Tibet to the Pacific Ocean, who would have guessed ?

 

[Philpott]

Race Chair David Herrigel just spoke with Tony Bourque s/v Circe:

He is OK, if a little bruised... and disappointed of course, but he feels solid about the decision. What happened was a crash jibe, sounds like the boat went up on a wave and effectively rounded down - either poor reaction on the AP, or the rudder came out on the crest. End result was 2 broken AP's, which he wasn't sure he could resurrect, and he didn't want to continue past the point when he could hand steer home.

 

[Philpott]

June 28th 8am

Hello and good day from Such Fast. It has been cloudy the past few days, which is normal, and the race for me to date has been keeping up with sail changes, navigating around a big high pressure and deciding whether to stay south or stick closer to rumb line. Same question as every race to Hawaii.

You can see from the tracker where I went and for the first night and second day, I was totally overpowered with 2 reefs in the main and the reefed J4. I guess a J5? Toe rail in the water and any course the autopilot could drive, which was south, was more than I wanted. Sailing at 30 degrees makes everything but laying in the pipe birth hard.

I've seen a few whales and lots of boats until the sunset June 25th, then at sunset we spread out into the dark. Nights have been the darkest black, black-black. You are in a tiny bubble of the lights from the autopilot control...and how do I turn those lights down again? Two layers of black tape I guess.

Today the boat told me to check the water tanks, and I started in the aft most tank, a hose clamp had fallen off the tank, I lost about 3 gallons but was able to put the clamp back on. I still have plenty of water onboard for the entire trip.

My getto solar panels are hanging in there. I give the two outside panels 90% chance and the center one 60% chance of making it the entire way. Extra parts are on board just in case. Always have back ups to my back ups.
My sailing plan for the first part is to keep the toe rail in the water, keeping the boat powered up, which is not hard to do. This boat is light and tippy. It requires lots of reefing and letting out of reefs and going between the J2 and J4.

For those of you wondering, I have not been seasick too much and today the patch came off, unintentionally. No idea where it went. The sea ate it.

Water has not been coming into the boat, only 2.5 gallons to date, and I found the source of about 2 of those gallons. This boat has been pretty wet in the past. I have a new under the floor pump system version 3 for those who know what I'm talking about. It has been sending water from the port underworld overboard and that seems to be keeping the boat dry.

I'm catching up on my sleep and have been eating and drinking. The food is great, especially all the fresh food like salads, which are amazing. I still have some ice in the water bottles. That is about it for this morning.

David/Such Fast

 

[Philpott]

From EOS
To: <[email protected]>


Running a knife edge here on the isobars using that barometer you like. The wind and pressure is actually a little better than expected. Maybe I’ll be lucky, I fear not! Hope I don’t complete screw up and stall for days. Sorry in advance. Fixing a lot of stuff as I go along. Figuring out a lot of stuff too. I am having fun though and that was your last bit of advice.

 

[Philpott]

Wednesday check in from Siren. Gonna re charge until 5pm. This old Garmin isn't energy efficient apparently.

 

[Philpott]

From Horizon: Race report: if I could send a photo it would say warm sun, blue water, shorts, t shirt. Slow going for the next two days unfortunately. But I’ll take it.

 

[Philpott]

Reverie daily report Wed 6/28

Winds light and shifty all night, but I decided not to put up Code 0 and get some sleep instead. As a result, Solstice sailed away from me and out of AIS range. Elmach caught up and passed me in the morning. Grey skies and occasional drizzle. Put up code 0 after breakfast (around 09:00 - I slept in , as the winds were fluctuating every 30 min from less then 10 to over 16 (and getting headed as wind piped up). Got hit by a ‘micro squall’ - wind headed about 30 deg and got up to 17-18 kts for about 5 min. After that wind abated to 9-12 kts and code 0 was not enough. Finally (after much wondering if I’ll get hit by another wind shift) put up A2 at 12:30 after waiting out a squall to pass behind me.

After that, it’s like someone flipped a switch - felt like a completely different world. Going downwind, sunny, and much warmer than the previous couple of days.

Awaiting the afternoon position report - I think I slipped down a few places due to procrastinating with the code 0/spinnaker. I feel I need a lot more experience sailing downwind - trying to figure things out as I go.

 

[Philpott]

Tales from the Deck of Tortuga
Tuesday, June 27th

Got some decent rest on and off throughout the night. Woke up early to light conditions and shook out the reefs in the main. Sleeping conditions are great with the port settee on the low side and a great place to nestle in. Some things are money well spent, i.e., the world's most expensive sleeping bag from Ocean Sleepwear. They make them for the extreme survival ocean races like Vendee-type conditions etc. A nice thick fleece liner with an amazing outer shell. Doesn’t seem to mind if you’re wet. You’re still warm and cozy. I call mine The Revenant. If you’ve seen the movie, you understand.

Made some blueberry pancakes to kick off the day and then switched out to my super Yankee, and we’ve been flying along all day at 6.5/7 knots in 12/14 knots. Could use some more sun to top off the house bank. The new AP is a bit power-hungry. Got the folding solar panels out on deck for the goal zero battery that I use to charge all the devices etc. Hope I’m sailing down south enough of the high-pressure zone. Could actually be out on deck today without getting soaked. A welcome change, and I think we are out of the “windy reach”.

I set up the Monitor Windvane to start steering this afternoon to give the AP a break and conserve more battery power. If the wind backs up a bit more tomorrow, I will fly the code 808.

Looks flat up ahead. Hope I don’t sail over the edge…

️Team Tortuga
~~~_/)~~~

 

[Philpott]

Green Buffalo POL (and more ;-) )

Wednesday
June 28th
Day 3

The wind swung aft at 5am early this morning... AWA went from 70-90 to 100-120 degrees... 14k-16k... spinnaker weather! Watched the wind direction oscillate a bit over a few hours while prepping for the hoist. Getting pole setup. 3/4 oz AP on deck and hooked up to sheets, guys and halyard. Double checking everything to insure a clean "first hoist" (nothing worse then making a mess of the first hoist ). So at 730am up it went. Clean and easy. Had plenty of yarn on the chute including frogs legs so it was all the way up before it opened. Then hustling to get some basic trim while getting the jib top down on deck. Took two hours to settle everything down... tweaking sheets, tweaking autopilot, tweaking heading... till it got to the point I could stop and take a rest (yes a nap).

All day the wind "occasionally" swings back (a header) and I have to trim the sheet and guy and head off a tad... currently heading off a bit more then I want but I believe the extra speed from the spinnaker makes it worth it. Now hoping the night quiets down a bit... having seen 18k at times on a header (okay but uncomfortable being on the beam)- so I can get more sleep (yes I like my sleep).

Real food today (though not everyone would call it that)... mac and cheese with a can of tuna thrown in (I should have thrown in a can of string beans but forgot). It was a lot of mac and cheese so had it for both lunch and dinner (waste not want not). As some of you know I am not a foodie... really just need to get some calories on board after "not much" the first two days.

Had my first bowel movement. Now non sailors might wonder why I would mention this. But when going offshore, ones first BM is a good sign that "all systems are go". The bump, food and sleep disruptions can make one a bit irregular... and constipation offshore can be a serious thing.

Stripped down to just my longjohns as the boat heated up quite a bit today... foulies and boots are put away till the next time I have to go on the foredeck (as I was this afternoon to flake and brick the jib top and get the spinnaker net set).

T-shirt and bathing suit tomorrow and maybe a shower?

And when is that High going to leave in a NW direction so I can just "point the boat to the palm trees"?

Cheers,
Jim Q

 

[Philpott]

The Race Committee is beginning to relax. No boats have fallen off the end of the horizon, everyone has sent in Proof Of Life and David Herrigel might finally get a solid night's sleep. Here is his most recent memo to the rest of us:

We have crossed the ridge and are settling in


Good night, sailors. Good night, moon.

 

[Philpott]

Christophe Desage (via inReach)
9:02 PM (2 hours ago)
to racereporting

End of D4 - ELMACH: Enfin du soleil ! Shorts, a bit of Gennaker, still catching-up on some sleep. Sea state much easier with .5 to 1m waves.

 

[Philpott]

Thursday 6/29 - all good aboard Reverie, beautiful warm day but slow going due to light winds

 

[Philpott]

Horizon, Day 1: It's been one day since I cast off. The sea was angry with me all night. Chastising me for a bad start? Washing off my sins? Horizon and the yet-to-be-named Windvane did me a solid. I tended to their needs and they kept me safe. 30 kn gusts, went south a bit. Daylight reveals the carnage, but also gives me back my confidence.

Horizon, Day 2: Sometimes I have more choices than I need. For example, all my gloves are either damp, a little wet, or wet. If I choose the damp ones they might get wet, so I decided to wear the wet gloves. That's a problem I was solving last night. Bummed to see my friend turn around. This morning seas are relaxed, feeling good. Morning made better by chocolate covered almonds.

Horizon, Day 4: SSDD = Spinnaker set, Deep downwind. I'm trying to get out of low wind as quickly as possible. Working a lot harder today than any other day trying to get the boat to move. Finally moving at 6, with 8 on my back. Not in the direction that I want to go, but I'll take it.

 

[Philpott]

Green Buffalo POL (and more ;-) )

Thursday
June 29th
Day 4

Restless night last night. Wind speed as low as 7k and as high as 12k (yes liht). Wind direction oscillating from 95 to 170 AWA. Up down. Trim the spinny and tweak Otto (the autopilot). All night long. And then the morning was light somewhat frustrating 6k-9k though with less oscillations. I think I am now across the High pressure "ridge" as the wind has built to 10k-13k and rarely changes directions... and settled in at a great 100-120 AWA (ie fast given these lightish winds).

Hooked up the outgrabber (sheets the spinnaker to near the end of the bottom while also reducing "boom bang"). Moved a few sails that were on deck to down below (grunt... that heavy #1 and jib top).

Over the next day the course takes us over the "Moonless Mountains" which is a bit of an oxymoron as the moon is out most of the night and you can just about read a book by the moonlight. The Moonless Mountains are near 4000 feet tall... but off a "plain" that is over 5000 feet below sea level. So that makes them about the same size as Mt Tamalpais, Mt Diablo and the Santa Cruz mountains (but yes their "tops" are still well over 1000 feet below the surface). Pull out your chart and take a look at 30 degrees Lat by 140 degrees Long.

Finally got to that tortellini (cheese and spinach) with marinara and parmesan. mmm mmm good! (despite not being Campbells ).

Did a little sunbathing in my birthday suit (just 15 minutes) to help me feel a bit more human (all the time below deck makes one start to feel like those subterranean people in the "Time Traveler"). Though I hoped to shower today... that will wait till tomorrow (boy am I looking forward to it).

The boat is "almost pointed at the palm trees now... but that is premature... it will likely be two days on this spinnaker run with the wind slowly lifting before the first jibe (140 ish?).

Cheers,
Jim Q