Cirrus 2010 Pacific Cup

"Anticrepuscular Rays"

2010-08-14T15:47:00.001-07:00

Some of you may recall that one evening during the race we saw some beautiful rays of light coming up into the sky from the setting sun. (The photo is actually of a similar very pretty sunset taken during the delivery.)

But the really interesting thing about the sunset we saw during the race was that there were similar rays of light coming up from the horizion in the opposite direction (away from the sun).

This is hard to see in the photo, but it was perfectly clear with the naked eye. I said that I would submit it to the Q & A section of the "New Scientist" (a popular science magazine that I get), but I've been dragging my feet and probably would never have gotten around to doing it.

However, just by accident I came across the explanation in an old APOD.
As you know, “Chance favors the prepared mind”—Louis Pasteur.
So check it out.

What we saw were "Anticrepuscular Rays"

I had similar good fortune in 2007 when we saw a white rainbow. Not too much later the explanation showed up in an APOD.

Cirrusblog Analytics - The Final Count

2010-08-14T13:23:00.000-07:00

by Ulli

what does Google tell us about the visitors to our blog, how many? from where? and what were they looking at? I did a first assessment here, and now that the number of visitors is down to a trickle of around a dozen per day, I'll give the final overview:

Since a few days into the delivery up to now we got some 20,000 pageviews on the blog, from 2528 "Absolute Unique Visitors" (Google terminology), coming from all over the world, most from the USA - dominated by CA, followed by HI - then from Germany ;-)) , Canada, Portugal, and 44 more countries.

The most looked-up page was our "Crews" page with 536 pageviews. Which makes me feel guilty, as I probably have not included all of the folks who should have been mentioned under the Support heading. Anyone, give me a hint, and I will complete the page - you can reach me by email via the "Contact us" tab of the blog!

Pageviews peaked at 1635 on July 15, with overall total of over 20200:

Visitors peaked at 441 on July 15, with overall total of over 2500:

Duh, nobody from Greenland? And China? Africa?

Let me see: 4 states of the US did not visit the blog, but 48 regions, incl. Wash.DC, did? That sums up to 52. ... 52? Has something happened while we were out at sea?

Quite a few places in CA participated:

and a busy crowd on Oahu,HI:

... and finally Germany. I have no idea who was watching in all those places:

Finally - we have the Halfway-Video up and running!

2010-08-12T11:08:00.001-07:00

So, here is it, exactly as we had prepared it on the boat, and sent to
the blog exactly as we did during the race, same file, same format, same
everything, no changes whatsoever - except that it now was send from a
Linux computer. Ulli

Guten Tag !

2010-08-12T10:59:00.000-07:00

see, this is the problem: you are away from the islands for a few days, and you already forget a decent greeting, like Aloha!

While Bill is busy cleaning up the left-over triple-S (shoes, socks, and shirts), I have my own clean-ups to do, like videos, and blog stats. It will come real soon, I promise.

Reading the after-race blog posts, I sometimes felt like reading the confessions given at a meeting of the "Anonymous Sailoholics". Amazing how despite this mix of people there is always a happy ending on every passage on Cirrus!

Only a few people are still looking at the blog, as i will show you shortly, but I have no idea who these hardcore Cirrutistas might be.

Ulli

The Cirrus Academy of Literature, Science, and Personal Hygiene

2010-07-28T17:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, this was a great trip. I will get into that.

But first, we had a huge brain-trust on Cirrus. An intellectual surplus way beyond what is reasonably needed to get a boat from California to Hawaii. Stimulating conversation? Sure, if you can keep up!

Need to know why your colloidal particles are agglomerating? Worried about Flocculating? Other issues in the field of Bio-chemistry? Go wake up Ulli.

You have a poem in 18th century Portuguese and want it translated into Spanish, but it has to RHYME WHILE TRANSLATED IN REAL TIME. Then go get Ric out of the head, if that is even remotely possible.

Caroline doesn’t have as many advanced degrees, but may be the smartest of all…especially if you are one of those people who needs to EAT FOOD, or GO FAST ON A SAILBOAT.Without her, we would have been a boat full of skinny, starving people, slowly drifting towards Hawaii while discussing Victor Hugo and String Theory.

Of all Pac Cup sailors, Kathy must be the best-read, and most loving of the written word. Her literary knowledge is a resource for all. But I have to confess, I liked to secretly watch her wince each time I used a split infinitive.

And of course Bill: the ultimate scientist-mariner, whose passion for the two disciplines (among others) has merged into a mastery of the ocean going vessel, and voyaging itself. Here is an example from on-board: I wanted to make the boat go faster, so I offered one of my favored solutions…to go in the cabin, and run forward as fast as possible, flinging my body against the main bulkhead to move the boat forward the way a hammer forces a nail. He buried his head in some calculations and soon corrected me. No, this would actually REDUCE forward momentum because the aft-ward force of running to the front would MORE THAN OFFSET the impact of striking the main bulkhead at full speed. He suggested staying on deck, moving all the way to the bow, and running aft at maximum velocity. “What do I do when I reach the transom?” “Just keep going”, said Bill.

So yes, it was a brainy crowd, very stimulating and fun to be with. Bill, many thanks for inviting me into the extended Cirrus family, with so many new friendships and memories. I hope I did my part. The 2010 Pacific Cup is atop my short list of epic passages on the water, and in life, to be recounted and cherished forever.

Yes, I will prepare for next trip by delving a little deeper into the New York Times best seller list, if one of you guys will just watch a few episodes of The Simpsons to even the score.

Mark Denzer

Caroline Heinrich

2010-07-27T23:09:00.000-07:00

Aloha Cirrus and Family and Friends who supported us during our voyage across the great blue Pacific Ocean.....whew!

This is my 3rd passage on Cirrus with Bill and each one of them has been awesome and unique in their own way. This crew of ours was fabulous. I've sailed with Ulli in the 2004 PacCup and he is so straight forward. However, when he starts to cut up his business pants to look like a rag tag pirate shorts...watch out, cuz he gets pretty hilarious then....awesome watch partner and thanks for getting us home Navigator Boy!!

Rick was our green horn/Rookie. He did an awesome job communicating to the world...really...the world...I never felt so much celebrity status then knowing people from Columbia, Portugal, Spain, Germany, etc where watching our every move. Thanks Rick for staying on the helm 30 minutes more during my dinner cooking... I'm sure it was worth it!! Love Ya!

Mark was our "hands on", fix it..kinda of guy. Nothing was too hard and he fix it fast...no questions ask. He was also the winch on board...I'm the cleaning boy.....After I cook, he was there cleaning up the dishing and then some. Very cheerful, full of energy.. total energizer bunny. Thanks Mark for clean the head too. esp with the shi shi everywhere!!

Kathy holds a special place in my time on Cirrus. She was a trooper. She not only did the race, but delivered the boat with Bill and Kate and Chris to San Fran. I would never do that. Princess that I am...too hard.......and they had a tough trip over. I heard about her sickness....ugh...I wanted to make ever effort to be in San Fran early to help her out with the food prep. She did an awesome job. None of the food that I cooked or served would have been there if it was not for her provisioning sheet. Very detail and I added more junk food than necessary, but Hey, I don't live on the mainland...so a few extra Trader Joes...well, didn't kill anyone!!! ha ha ha . Thanks Kathy for your willingness to come out early on your watch to let me off and sleep and for taking care of my Hot Potatoe bunk each night. It really did help to sleep where I slept....all because of your thoughtfulness....yeah and you wanted the food too!!!!!! Hope to see you and the Berkeley gang soon.

Last but not least....Bill.....I truely enjoy sailing with Bill. There is no other person in this world who is the smartest, caring, thoughtfull person I know. And, he is willing to put up with my "Bag Lady" status.

You're the best Bill.
Aloha to all and Guten Tag
Shalom, Adios, Aufwiedersehen

Wonderful Start Photos

2010-07-27T09:37:00.000-07:00

Randy Riddle has posted a great set of start photos onto the web. Some photos from the Golden Gate looking down. Push the button for a sideshow.

Kathy McGraw

2010-07-26T15:02:00.000-07:00

I go back on Cirrus now and can't believe I just spent a month of days confined to its 40 foot space--because it was not confining. It's this unmoving ground that seems too solid. I like a deck beneath my feet, a floaty bed with the water rushing by nearby, the ultimate planetarium just a step away, my needs limited to what's already on the boat. To want what you have--seems easier on a boat.

I am no survivalist purist. Yes, I struggled at times to keep down enough water to keep my pee from coming out brown (and succeeded! Key to this--sleep with your water bottle and drink every time you go to bed or wake up.) The trip from Hawaii to California included days of seasickness, intense heat, no wind, glassy seas, lots of motoring, and then lots of hand steering in high seas. It also included watching episodes of "West Wing" on my iPad and finishing "Pale Fire" by Nabokov. It included nights of stargazing, of identifying constellations with skipper Bill--Scorpio, Cygnus, the Summer Triangle.

The race from California was more comfortable and more focused on sailing fast--but there were still nights I could fit in cultural juxtapositions--we had a couple days of light winds, and Bill shortened the watch schedule from four hours to two and let us stand watch alone. One starless night, standing watch alone, zipping along into the blackness, watching the phosphorescence in the wake, I listened to show tunes. "If I Were a Rich Man" and "Cabaret"--such moments are so Evelyn Waugh-esque--because I held two thoughts in my head--my remoteness from civilization, my responsibility to my crew and the possibility of things going quickly and catastrophically wrong, contrasted with the utter frivolity of show tunes memorializing diaspora and forshadowing holocaust. "What good is sitting alone in your bunk . . . " I believe I sang out loud, but softly, as to not wake anyone.

Clearly, I was not the strongest crew member, or the funniest, or the most helpful. My attitude at times lagged. At times, I watched episodes of "Firefly" in my bunk, and requested breakfast in bed. I didn't wash very many dishes, but I washed some. I was not quick to hand steer when I knew that "Auto" could do better, and, yes, I did get overconfident after several turns at the helm under spinnaker and accidentally jibed (but then recovered! No breakages or injuries!)

I take some credit on the delivery that when the winds and waves were high and lives were at stake (when are they not at stake?) I came through and dragged myself on deck for multiple watches, but those laurels only last as long as the next race.

Yesterday, my older sister asked me what I learned from these trips. Other than becoming more intensely aware of where I fall short, I also became aware of where I want to do better. I fall a little in love with each of my crewmates on these lengthy trips, become impressed by their positive qualities, and want to become a better person. I listen to their stories, learn the names of the people important to them. For a time, the heaviness of one's own story lifts and we share in the ur story--a group of people slowly traveling from here to there.

I will always treasure the memory of Chris singing "Bird on a Wire;" the night Bill and I talked about the novels of Neal Stephenson; Kate laughing in her bunk at my jokes; Ulli slowly revealing his shapely legs, cutting his long pants with dull scissors slightly shorter each day as the weather got warmer; Caroline's catching, cleaning, and cooking up several meals of Mahi Mahi; Mark's spot on speculations regarding Pegasus' plans to sabotage Cirrus by sending remote controlled attack flying fish; Ric's reciting lines from Pablo Neruda in Spanish.

Thanks so much to everyone who made these trips possible for all of us. But let it be known--those of us who were there were the lucky ones.

Cirrus has Finished!

2010-07-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday morning, at around Oh-dark-thirty (0200 actually), several "friends of Cirrus" were at KYC listening to the VHF radio. We heard the KYC escort vessel Nore hail Cirrus on channel 68, saying welcome to Kaneohe Yacht Club. About a half hour later, the crowd assembled at slip G54 to peer into the darkness and wait for the lights of Cirrus to appear. As the lights ghosted closer and closer, we began to be able to make out her distinctive pointed bow and gray hull, and the cheering started. And here she is, sliding into the slip, with camera flashes exploding in all directions. Welcome Home Cirrus, and, to the crew, welcome back into the warm embrace of friends and family. Well done.

Arrival time: 02:05 HST

2010-07-20T01:50:00.000-07:00

At the 25 miles check-in I reported an ETA of 02:05 Hawaiian Standard Time. We still intend to use the Sampan Channel, and it currently seems likely that there is no delay due to perhaps too low water.

We were told the finish line buoy is missing, so we need to go to the virtual "Midpoint" as provided in the race instructions.

See you in, like, 4 hours,
Aloha, Ulli

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Perhaps our most Beautiful Day

2010-07-19T21:34:00.000-07:00

by Rick:

Its Monday afternoon and we are around 75 miles from Oahu. The boat is moving along softly at around 7 knots. The seas are very mild, perhaps two feet, while the wind is a little over 10 knots. The sun is out and the sky is an incredible blue with white clouds visible off in the distance but not above us. The color of the water is a pure indigo blue. It all adds up to perhaps the most wonderful day we have had in the whole trip; its a great way to end the voyage. Some of the crewmembers are sleeping in the mild heat of the cabin and away from the sun. The others are up on deck casually and quietly talking about a thousand different things. The ship's atmosphere is one of slowness and laziness.

Its funny how each day has a tone of its own, the other day when we were catching fish we were all bustling with energy and activity. Today we are very relaxed and placidly enjoying the beauty that is all around us.

Several have bathed out on deck taking advantage of the easy conditions and the warm sun; everyone one wants to be looking their best for our arrival.

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A Finish for the Real Men Among Us

2010-07-19T21:24:00.000-07:00

Sunrise saw a boat slowly crossing minor waves and low wind. It shouldn't stay this way. Conditions were just right to get the spinnaker up. Shortly after, the wind picked up, the waves increased, and we were flying through the water. It continued. We were at the limit. Waves crashed over the bow, jumping the dodger, filling the cockpit; fish flying through the air, tuna and mahi-mahi bouncing their heads at the hull. Rogue waves all over the place, playing ping-pong with that little float called Cirrus. Skipper was a bit concerned, but on we went. The kite almost exploding, we needed three men for the spinnaker trim alone. We sure made a good time, taken off an hour at least from the finish time. The photo shows us hard at work at the helm.

NO! NOT THIS PHOTO! THE OTHER, THE ONE WITH THE PHOTOSHOP EXTENSION! DON'T SEND THIS ONE ! ..... Too late.

Well, now that you know I do admit that I may have not have been completely thruthfull in describing all the nuances of our final day at sea. But what can you say about a day in mellow weather, with beamy wind blowing into white sails? I let Rick give the answer. The Sarong-Bimini is Caroline's work - whose else? I am so ashamed.

But it is true that we are making good progress; the low waves allow decent speed even at low wind. And Otto is driving, which at beam reach he is doing really well. Currently we are 1 hour 15 min ahead of expectations, and may even get better. So arrival time closer to 2 a.m. Hawaiian time (not 3 am as reported earlier). Be aware that things may still change up or down! Watch for our 25 miles forecast in about 4 hours.
Ulli

P.S. The 100 mile check-in was a real problem. There was so much noise that I could understand basically nothing. And vice-versa. Despite that I could make out that it was Valerie, who was talking. Don't know on what grounds, but I was sure about that. Some 30 min later, after recharging the batteries - though this has not been the problem - it worked still poorly, but at least we finally got all the info across. Hopefully 25 miles is easier.

A Few Witty Phrases Captured During our Trip

2010-07-19T20:19:00.000-07:00

All gatherings of small groups for an extended period of time give place to witty or funny phrases that stand out from among all the conversation. Here are a few selections from the latest voyage of the sailing sloop Cirrus:

- While discussing tactics early on in the race:

"We need not focus on going fast on this race, we just have to avoid being slow."

- In describing bouts of sea sickness and moments of peak vulnerability, a crew member made a comment her husband hopes does not hold true once back home:

"I only throw up when I'm taking off my clothing."

- The hot bunk system depends on fairness and solicitude on behalf of the crew; no one should linger in the bunk while others, tired and just off watch need to have their rest. One male crew member, still groggy from sleep, did not measure his words carefully when he offered his bunk to a female crewmember:

"Want to get in?" he said motioning at his bunk where he laid. The female crewmember promptly set things straight by responding "Are you getting out?"

- There was a great and fruitful day of fishing where three Mahi Mahi were brought on board. The fish would land and flap around presenting a bit of a danger to the crew and a greater chance of ending back in the water. An old trick is to pour some alcohol in their gills which kills the fish almost immediately. This being a strictly dry boat at all times during this voyage, the only alcohol on board was a bit of ceremonial Hawaiian drink used by the skipper when he departs and arrives at ports. This small vial was called for and used on all three fish. A member of the crew, strongly missing libations over these two weeks of sailing had this observation:

"It's ironic that on this boat only the fish are having Schnapps."

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Cirrus in Dismay - Crew deteriorating

2010-07-19T12:01:00.000-07:00

Clear the channel! Send the ambulance! Gosh, the race has taken too long.

The Final Stretch

2010-07-19T08:54:00.000-07:00

by Ulli:

we currently have a big rain shower, the first real one in this race. We needed to not only close the hatch, but also put the door-window in the companionway. Going at a good clip now.

The ETA remains unchanged at 3 a.m. Hawaiian time. Only in the best of circumstances will it be a 1/2 hour earlier. However, since we have a low low tide at about 3 a.m., we may have to hang out a while until the flood comes in and we can go through the Sampan channel. We were discussing hanging the crew out at the end of the boom to give the boat heel and let us go through the channel immediately. After all these good meals, this should have an impact :->. We want to avoid the shipping channel, as it take even more time.

Is there some official advice for the ebb/flood situation? As this is outside the race, you may just as well also give your own info and/or recommendation.

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In Memoriam of the King

2010-07-18T21:16:00.000-07:00

The sad news reached us this morning: Pegasus had crossed the finish line. A quick calculation showed that apart from airlifting Cirrus there was no way to catch up with them. We had to face the reality that we will soon be separated from the King!

The crew broke out in tears during this morning's mourning in the crypta of Cirrus with the cloud paintings on the blue walls, and some needed to drown their sorrow in alcohol (bummer, had only apple cider left; also note the horizon - we had a bit of heel in the washing machine).

What would happen to the King now? Will they take equally good care of HIM as we did? And give HIM the place of honor HE so richly deserves? Questions over questions came to our minds, which we couldn't answer, but only hope for the best.

A last thing remains to be said:
From the crew of Cirrus - Congratulations to Pegasus!

Mahalo to all Friends of Cirrus, who were so supportive in the lost fight,
Aloha, Ulli

No Two Alike

2010-07-18T20:18:00.001-07:00

From Bill

1820, Sunday, July 18th, 2010

24-56, 155-14, speed 6, course 205m with 250 nm to go,

Looks like we will be there early Tuesday. Really early if the wind holds up, later if we slow down (probable).

No race is like any other. What a slow start we had. Then a long hard reach on starboard followed by a week of reaching on port tack.

Hardly any spinnaker. Skipper's getting old (er). I can remember when it was a point of pride to blow out $10,000 worth of sails on just about every race. Seems like yesterday.

Crew is shifting gears. Thinking about being home, seeing loved ones, not having to be on edge every moment and available. Single minded dedication to the group is starting to fade into individual concerns.

The last couple days have been really rough. Not big dangerous stormy waves but medium sized waves that seem to come from many different directions. Jumps, lurches, drops, slides............. If you are not holding on most of the time (even when sitting) you will probably get hurt. Bruises are accumulating. How Caroline cooks in these conditions is a marvel. Fresh fish tacos again for lunch today. Lasagna for dinner, dessert, appetizers, etc.

She is so good at it that she is going to miss it once we hit the dock. A special skill.

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En La Recta Final

2010-07-18T20:18:00.000-07:00

Faltan 242 millas nauticas para llegar a Oahu, habiendo recorrido 1900 millas mas o menos. Estimamos cruzar la meta a las tres de la manana del Martes 20 y atracaremos una hora y mas tarde en el Kaneohe Yacht Club. Todos estamos muy contentos con nuestra aventura y llegar despues de dos semanas en este gran mar nos presenta con sentimientos encontrados. Queria ahora aprovechar para enviar un saludo muy especial a los familiares y amigos de Puerto Rico, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, y Espana que han estado pendiente de nosotros y enviados saludos y deseos de exito. Junto a los amigos de EEUU, Portugal y Alemania, le han dado a esta empresa Hawaiiana un matiz de confraternidad internacional que le ha brindado un gran estimulo a la tripulacion del velero Cirrus.

Reciban un gran abrazo,

Rick

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Yawn, 'nother one

2010-07-17T14:55:00.001-07:00

that is it for the day.

still driving in a washing machine,
ETA estimate: Tuesday, 20th, 3am Hawaiian time (at least we get that thing with the night arrival right :> )
Ulli

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What Could Be More Obvious?

2010-07-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

From Bill

What could be more obvious? Right in front of our faces.

We have been speculating and wondering and discussing, all in the wrong directions, trying to figure out why we are having these crazy weather patterns,

Well. Duh!

The only thing it could be is the planetary alignment that everyone is talking about. After all, think about it, is it possible for Venus, Mars and Saturn to line up between the sun and the moon without it having some profound effect.

With that problem behind us let's move on to a discussion of communications.

At the start of the trip we were using a satellite telephone with world wide coverage. (Maybe even the whole solar system.)Then when it was clear that we were going to stick to the Pacific Ocean we switched to the SSB radio and used it to make our daily check in reports and to send email by Sailmail. Now that we are getting closer to the land we are going to switch to to the VHF radio that is only good for line of sight communications (or a little more). Then, of course, we'll fire up the cell phones. As we approach the dock there will be a lot of waving and shouting. Finally, there will be body contact and then ............

FLASH! FLASH! FLASH!

After downing wonderful snacks of raw fish and then wonderful fresh fish tacos from this morning's Mahi Mahi catch up went the cry: "Hit On The Line!"

Another Mahi-Mahi at least twice as big as the first. It has been filleted and is in the cooler. The Skipper has set an arbitrary limit of 3 fish per day. (And already there are discussions: "Did he really mean 3 Mahi-Mahi or was that a 3 fish total?")

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Firecrackers

2010-07-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

by Ulli:
The last day was partially clouded, but enough sun came through to make for a hot day and a sunburn at my arms. In the evening the clouds were back as a solid, thick cover, ruining our attempts for watching the celestial party of moon, Venus, Mars, and Saturn. Hence we had another pitch black night. Makes for fun driving. Especially when in addition with up to 20 kn of wind the waves seem to come from all sides. It was like in a washing machine. Nobody slept too well in those very bumpy conditions.

But the deep blackness enhances the magic effects of the ocean, which you come to see only on a vessel at sea. When Cirrus breaks through the waves, she creates whitecaps on the water around her, and in particular in the water running away from the stern. This rough stirring of the water activates all bio-fluorescence available in living organism or in animal and plant debris, and as a result, we have little flashes of greenish-white light in the water. Thousands of them, in an endless stream. My favorite visualization is a Chinese man sitting in the cockpit and throwing his rice-grain sized firecrackers in the water by the handful. Upon contact with water they explode.

In more scientific terms it is about the presence of "Green Fluorescence Protein (GFP)" which can be activated simply mechanically, here by the boat movement through the waves. This protein has become an important tool in every genetic engineering lab. But here on the water it is simply the magic of firecrackers.

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got fish?

2010-07-17T11:56:00.000-07:00

we do!

Even before dawn Caroline put out the fishing lines, two of them. At 10:30am PDT the sounding voice of a hunter, signaling success in the efforts to feed her cubs, boomed through the boat. Otto was doing the driving, Caroline had her eyes on firmly on the prey, which was still fighting in the water. Some 20 min later we had Sashimi on the plates! Delicious. And now, sitting at the computer on the nav station, which is next to the galley, I smell pan fried fish for lunch.

Now let's the race begin, Aloha, Ulli

Moon and Planets

2010-07-16T21:33:00.000-07:00

by Ulli:
Today and tomorrow you can see an interesting constellation in the sky:
After sunset, look West. You see a bright evening star, which is Venus. Further to your left you see the waxing (increasing) moon. Tonight you see halfway between the two the planet Mars, which has a slightly reddish tint. Again halfway between Mars and Moon you see planet Saturn (the one with the rings; possibly difficult to identify without telescope). Tomorrow the moon will have moved a bit further to the left. Mars is now approx. 1/3rd the distance on the line from Venus to Moon, and Saturn almost exactly on the midpoint from Venus to moon.

It was a semi-clear sky during the day, but now it has become cloudy again. We probably have no chance of seeing it. Enjoy.

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Endlich, Finalmente, Finally

2010-07-16T20:51:00.000-07:00

From Bill

Around noon today, under blue skies and fluffy white clouds, with the wind behind us and the boldness of destiny before us it happened. Yes, make no mistake, The chute was launched. You heard right: "THE SPINNAKER IS IN THE AIR!!!!!!!"

A cry went up from the assembled throng, "LET OUR DEEDS BE WORTH A SONG."

As a line formed for the privilege of driving the boat in these trying conditions grown men were seen elbowing the weaker of their colleagues out of the way. Women were observed abandoning their children by the wayside.

Finally, as some semblance of order was being imposed on the process another cry went up "A Squall Approaches. Clear a path for the Skipper." And so it went, from one adventure to another until all were sated. Reluctantly, around 1630 the fun came to an end and we put the chute away for the night. More tales tomorrow.

Visitors to this site often ask what they can bring for the crew, what have they been missing: ice cream, pickles, whatever.

A casual pole reveals that the most desired reception of all would be a luncheon (perhaps on the next day) consisting of perfectly ripe fruit, soft french cheeses, pate, crudites, sliced baggette, and a dipping sauce of extra virgin olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar. A suitable, crisply cooled, white wine (or two) would be nice. Don't go to any trouble. We were thinking mostly WHOLE FOODS. For dessert, a variety of gelato--lemon grass flavor is a particular favorite of the skipper.

Video in the works

2010-07-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

Hello Dear Readers. Ulli sent me a short video of the halfway party, but it needs to be converted to a format that Google Blogger will recognize before I can post it. Since I am scrambling to leave for Hawaii, I can't work on it right now, but I'll get it posted as soon as I can. Thanks for your patience. ~~Chris

talkstory with Caroline

2010-07-15T20:23:00.003-07:00

Aloha everyone! Caroline Here. Now that I have some time on my hand, I thought you all would like to know what my day is like. First, let me tell you that the Crew of Cirrus are awesome!!
I've made it my most important task to "FEED the CREW". Thanks to the great provisioning of Kathy and myself, we have some substantial goodies on board. Breakfast is on your own, but when Lunch and Dinner come around, I step in and prepare the most delightful meals that a King and Queen would court on. Deserts are no excepts...esp. when all have come from Costco or (my favorite place) Trader Joes. Pupus are a must on this Hawaiian boat....yesterday we had our half way party and I toss out some shrimp, crackers and cheese, wasabi nuts, and edamane crackers and crunchy seaweed! I'm thinking culinary school might be in order for me at KCC.
I've put out the fishing lines every morning now since yesterday and Yes, 2 of them. Double the pleasure or double the trouble....either way "GOT FISH?"
As you may know, 6 people with no shower can be a--- well, smelly venture (yikes!!!). But we brought plenty of "Big Baby Wipes" and we all have taken a bottled shower at least twice in the last 10 days out here. I've taken at least 5...don't tell anyone...however, they can tell when my hair comes out wet and smells like herbal essence..ha ha ha....At night while everyone is asleep, I take out the disinfectant spray and do a spray dance to kill any menehuenes on board...you know the stowaway stinkies that move and lurk throughout the air (scary stuff!). When I'm not feeding, cleaning, on watch, driving, throwing out the fish lines...I'm sleeping.....The most important thing the cook needs is her beauty sleep..if not, who knows what this crew would do if no food was prepared.....Kathy is my most perfect servant...she will come on watch earlier so that I can prepare the meals for the day...and let me tell you...she is eating very well.....she even might have gain some weight,although she lost her cookies the first couple of days..but she is recovery well..Lots of Carbs and dark chocolate pretzels are a good remedy. Ok got to go and sleep, cuz dinner is coming and I making shepherd pie tonight. Well let you know when fish cometh.
Caio
caroline

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On Eating Well

2010-07-15T20:23:00.002-07:00

By Kathy

Yes, I am Caroline's servant. I move all my stuff over to her preferred bunk before she goes off watch, so she can have it all when she gets off watch. This is not much of an effort as she uses two airfoam mattresses on top of the already comfy boat cushions. Plus, she cooks all the meals that need cooking, and yes, I will stand watches for food. Every single item was shopped for my Caroline and myself, so we have all our favorite foods and snacks and beverages. I have eaten every meal and extras, above and below decks. I have made offerings to the sea gods, but not since Mark slapped a scopalamine patch on my neck. And here I am typing this!

I even managed to watch several episodes of "Firefly" on my iPad today. I have let Caroline watch them as well. I will trade iPad time for food. On occasion, I will even watch dishes!

Most people are up for my 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. watch. In the afternoon, I take a nap, and then get up for dinner at six. Then I take another nap until 10 p.m., changing over to "Caroline's bunk" when she goes on at 6 p.m., so she can have it when I start my watch at 10. It all seems to work out. Tonight we are having Shepard's Pie for dinner. I may have to stop soon to eat. OK, I'm stopping.

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Aos Amigos Portugueses

2010-07-15T20:23:00.001-07:00

E uma delicia ter noticias vossas e ver as vossas messagems no Blog de Cirrus. Ficou grato de terem a acompanhar esta a nossa gran aventura. Ainda temos ums 5 dias de viagem, a entre nos quem disse nao anchorar em Hawaii e continuar direito a Tahiti (mas si faco isso a Maria Lucia envia um torpedo a nosso encontro!). Fica para o ano. Agora mesmo ficamos a 756 milhas nauticas (X 1.8 = Km) da Ilha de Oahu em Hawaii. O sol saiu e hoje estreiamos as calcas curtas, finalmente. Ja temos 6 dias de nao ver barco nenhumo, e esta uma gran solidao; mas tambem nao temos TM, noticiario, o trabalho, e uma maravilha de sol e bom ar.

Mais uma vez obrigado por acompanhar e aliciar a nossa viagem,

Rick

1933 Hora de California, Julhio 15
Posicao N31 30 979 W149 19 190 (No meio da nada)

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On the Edge

2010-07-15T20:23:00.000-07:00

From Bill

Kim Ickler inquires about how does the boat smell. This prompts the crew to point out that she will soon know (from personal observation) when we cross the finish line. Or, depending on the direction of the wind, substantially before that.

The wind and sea remains painfully just a bit out of the skipper's spinnaker range. And he has become more cautious because of:

1. Old age (well maybe OLDER age)
2. Desire to end the trip without major breakage
3. Great crew but half have never really spinnakered on Cirrus
4. The experience of a few days ago in similar conditions

The wind is pretty steady 15-17 gusts to 20. The sea is not bad with 0ne and a half meter rolling swells and occasional sets of bigger waves that twist and turn the boat about for half a minute or so every 10-12 minutes. The smooth parts would be great the bumpy parts would almost surely require more people on deck for recovery. We are right on the edge. During the lulls we all ache to have the spinnaker up. During the rough spots we avert our eyes and discuss restaurants in Paris or skiing in Switzerland.

Still even with the "wing on wing" white sails that we currently carry we average 7-8 knots and set daily records for distance traveled so fun is clearly being had.

The Skipper's primary responsibility.

1500, Thursday, July 15, 2010
31-53, 148-50 with course 210 and speed 7.5

Too bad Ulli's video failed. One rule in this business is that "It will not work if you haven't tried it at the dock."
Well ahead of time.

by Ulli:
we decided that the next flying fish landing in the boat will be kept in the boat. Just to improve on the average smell.

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Ooops!

2010-07-15T12:41:00.000-07:00

[update] We finally have it on the blog - see here: Finally - we have the Halfway-Video up and running! [/update]

by Ulli:
So it was Sarkozy, the man in high heels, who removed the movie. Gee, and I almost blamed Google for it. It went through the shortwave radio based sailmail just fine. Imagine, a video over sailmail, which is as slow as an old IBM electric typewriter. I had verified the video posting methodology when still at home, and it worked well, so I simply used the same setup (a netbook running Ubuntu Linux) for processing the video. Best transmission times are in the evening, I carefully selected best radio station, and successfully transferred all mails - it seems Rick is writing a book every day - the video, and received all comments - what a load! we enjoy those just as much as you - and the GRIB weather files, all in one shot in about 1 hour. Despite all shortcomings of sailmail via radio due to the physical limitations of the atmosphere (ionosphere to be more precise) my compliments to the makers of sailmail. And then Sarkozy messed up.
Maybe our able seaman, on-shore crew member Chris finds a way into Google for some advice of how to post a 'video.mkv' file (ffmpeg to compress video as H.264 and audio as flaac, put into Matroska container). The video must have arrived on the google server, since the text part of the message went there.
Well, I really don't want to burden sailmail again with that load, but we do have the sat-phone, which can transfer faster. But what a bummer: the software only accepts pictures as attachments and only as *.jpg and *.png, not even *gif, and no word, excel, pdf, and no video files! Can anyone help? We are using the UUPlus Software SPS-Mail Version 6.0.076-W. In the Settings->Setup->Account Settings dialog box is a button 'Allowed Attachments', but is is greyed out, and if it is activatable, I don't know how. Anyone knows?
As an apology to the pain inflicted by promising a video but not delivering, I am attaching an extra big still picture of the halfway party!
And as you can see, we are not as lightly dressed as we usually during this time of the race. Which leads me to the question about all these northerly routes, the boats have taken. Reason for this? The wind. In normal races, like those since at least 1998, the most northerly route taken by the boats was basically the Great Circle from San Francisco to Hawaii. One example for an opposite, an extreme southerly route, was actually Cirrus in the transpac 2007, which yielded Cirrus 1st place in division. This year, almost all boats "went North" with the exception of Dart. Dart may have missed the news and went South, which yields them last place in fleet. They have moved north 2 days ago, but it will be too late. And going north made for a cold ride. I tell you, have we had problems with the icicles on the spreaders! Initially I climbed the mast, removed them for better sail performance, and simply threw them into the water. Later, we used them to make Margarita on the Rocks and like stuff. Icicles from the boat do give a nice salty flavor to the drinks.
These times are over. It is warmer. In the daytime we are now in t-shirts, but during the night we still wear foul weather gear over multiple layers of sweater. The sky is still fully cloud covered, no stars visible, and the moon is still in New moon phase, so not visible and it is really dark at night. During daytime, the sun is barely peeking through the clouds. This is also unusual for race; at least partially clouded on a blue sky is the norm for this part of the race. It never is a crisp clear sky; some haze is always present. Even the night a few days ago was breathtaking mainly because of its full dome, 360 degree view, but because of clarity. You can see a really clear sky only over dry land, high up, like in the Sierra. A little bit of sun would be nice, is that too much to ask?
By the way: since we were outside of the Golden Gate Bridge, we have not seen a single ship (= big boats), nor boat (= small boat) during the last 5(?) days. No racer in our vicinity.

URGENT URGENT Urgent

2010-07-15T08:53:00.001-07:00

WE have an emergency message for:

Tina
Jan
Johanna
Donna
Lindsey
Marie-Pierre
Jorgen
Peter
George and Sue
Judith and RB
Elke
Greg
George
Larry
Dave
Emory
Lots of others

Just kidding. NO EMERGENCY. It's just that we would like to hear from you if you are out there.
Comments to the blog come to the boat as email. We love to get mail.

Bill

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Shoot the Chute.

2010-07-15T08:53:00.000-07:00

From Bill 0030PDT, 32-56, 147-14, speed 8, course 220m.

Around noon yesterday we gave it a try. Boy did we ever. Up went the spinnaker (often called a chute because it is a really big light weight sail that looks a lot like a parachute). It was windy and bumpy, but "What the hell!" we are, after all, out here for adventure. So let'er rip.

It soon became clear that we were in way over our heads and that even with all five crew members in the cockpit doing their best and me still on the foredeck we never did have control over the sail. The only person smiling was Mark who loves to tell tales of sailing disasters that he has participated in. He was clearly gathering data for some story to be told in the future.

We didn't even get the sail launched properly. When I felt that the cockpit crew were ready I started to raise the sock only to have it torn out of my hands and go blasting up into the sky. Once up it was the job of the cockpit crew to get it trimmed, but it never happened. Once or twice we thought we had it but a twisting burst wind would collapse the sail and it would refill suddenly pulling the control of the boat out of the hands of the person at the wheel.

When I had enough of being thrown about and shouted aft that I wanted to take the sail down the command was met with disbelief. A discussion group was formed to determine if they had really heard what they thought they heard. It was decided that "Take down the spinnaker," was unnecessarily vague. A representative was dispatched to inquire if what I really meant was "Douse the chute."

Finally, down she came and we pulled the sail below to repack the sock and sail combination. Ready to go again.

Meanwhile we poke along at 8 knots, or so, with the main all the way out and the jib on a pole to the other side.

A serious half way party took place soon afterward and this has resulted in every single subsequent watch stander (Skipper included) sleeping through his (or her) wakeup call.

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Halfway Party

2010-07-14T20:08:00.000-07:00

Sending a video; not sure that it works. more separately, ulli

[update] We finally have it on the blog - see here: Finally - we have the Halfway-Video up and running! [/update]

Harsh Measures Have to be Taken

2010-07-14T00:42:00.000-07:00

From Bill

Beyond half way. 34-06, 144-21, at 0030, Wednesday, July 14, 2010. 1040 miles to go.

A day ago we had an accidental jibe with the jib polled out to stbd. That was the occasion when the boom brake actually melted the line and we had a tough time getting it unstuck and functioning again. A conservation overheard later in the day revealed that "I could see that coming. The driver was having a harder and harder time keeping things under control." AND AND AND no one said a word to the skipper until after the accident happened. Unacceptable. So we have instituted a system that we hope will prevent this problem in the future.

Klabautermann is having a party in the fleet

2010-07-13T20:39:00.000-07:00

by Ulli:

More vessels have reported failures in this morning's roll call. Recidivist now has not only a broken headstay, but also a broken boom vang (the thing which holds the boom down). Trial has a crack in the boom near the goose neck (where the boom connects to the mast; compare this with Cirrus' "Gilligan's Gooseneck" from 2006). Rhum Boogie has problems also with their backstay, can't fly a spinnaker, and can go 'only' 8 kn. California Condor has rudder problems, and can use only one of their 2 rudders. Deception is taking on water at the rate of 20-30 gallons/min, but are continuing the race. Rapid Transit retired from the race, returning home, no reason given.

This won't happen on Cirrus. Na, puh, nevah. Ok, we had a few broken sails and things on a few races, like in 2008, 2007, 2006, 2004, 2000, and 1998. And admittedly, some Deliveries also faced a weeny bit of a challenge. But hang loose, mast, backstay, forestay, shrouds, keel, water supply, lights, engine, batteries, life raft, radio, are solid and won't break. We have scared Klabautermann away. I think.

But what if Ben, Professor of Klabautermania, were right, and we will soon have, maybe have them already, myriads of little Klabautermaennchen? Gee, let's get outta here, put even the underwear up for more sail! And of course, do not sleep; it is highly overrated anyway.

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Cirrus Attacked and Boarded!

2010-07-13T12:45:00.000-07:00

by Rick:

The attack came out of nowhere. It was early Tuesday morning, around the times roosters crow and we would surely have heard them if the nearest rooster were not a thousand miles away.

Ulli and Rick were on watch while the rest of the crew placidly slept in the rolling, jumping, cold, and humid vessel. Despite numerous reassurances that the cold weather would only last the first three days out of San Francisco, we are now on day 8 and the weather is still cold and gray. (There sure are a lot of things I was not told before I hired onto this here crew!) So while some of us brought plenty of warm weather clothing and just a bit of cold clothing, we now find out that the proportions should have been reversed. Someone asked what should we do with the dirty laundry; another crewmember said, "I dont have that problem I am wearing mine." The reason for the change is that the wind conditions have forced us to go north so as to have more favorable conditions, as opposed to the traditional atmospherics where you tend to get into the tropical climate more quickly.

Its a hard chore to steer a vessel at night. The points of reference are gone, not that there are many in the open ocean. On this night we could see barely out to the bow of the boat, the rest was somewhat of a blur. We steered only by out instruments trying to maintain a particular position relative to the wind, we wanted speed if not necessarily an optimum heading. So we followed the instruments and steered left and corrected right which once in a while led to an overcorrection and then back left, and so it was for a good portion of the night.

The noise of the sea was continuous, both the waves coming against the boat and the occasional wave breaking and rushing towards the boat with a fast approaching and loud liquid swoosh. The waves crashing on the bow mixed in with the green and red light of the navigation lights which tell other vessels of our position and direction. Very often we would see explosions of green or red ahead of us.

Ulli and Rick took turns at the wheel. The never stopping turning of the wheel has a way of taking its toll, especially at 4 in the morning. Ulli in an analogy to be expected from a national of an Alpine country, says that staying on your feet while at the wheel while the the boat is jumping underneath requires the agility of a skier. And indeed the comparison is apt; your legs and knees flex left and right and up and down to maintain a balance and avoid falling and catastrophically turning the wheel as you go down.

This time it was Rick at the helm. It was he who became the target. Off to the right over the water there was a fluttering in the dark, it seemed green and red as it went through the loom of our navigation lights. The mind registered the movement and thought of a bird, and then quickly countered itself saying but a bird so far out?

The impact came all of a sudden, direct and hard, smack on the right side of the chest. Any pain was dulled by the hit being square on the life vest, over the metal automatic inflation capsule. Rick exclaimed out in surprise, Ulli asked what was that? A loud flutter and flapping was taking place on the floor of the cockpit. Rick cried out that a bird had flown into him. Ulli asked if Rick was hurt; the answer was no. Then the flapping creature was illuminated by the light off the compass and we saw, just as we smelled, the largest, Mother-Of-All-Flying-Fish we had ever seen. It was about a foot long, Ulli said it was like a Trout, Rick thought it weighed around two pounds. And it flapped and struggled trying to get back in the water, spewing scales and the most horrendous imaginable stink. Rick held onto the helm as Ulli pursued the fish. There was a quick comment by Rick about keeping keeping it for eating. Ulli, who was doing the chasing and getting smeared with slime and smell, got the creature in hand, and proving that possession is nine tenths of the law, gave a strong no, did not bother to further discuss the issue, and the fish went over the side.

Ulli went of to wash, Rick later followed and found a most propitious and surely providentially placed bottle of FeBreeze with which to douse clothing, foul weather gear, and flotation device.

The next morning, as the sun came up we saw a cockpit full of fish scales, the remnants of the attack. Cleaning them removed much of the smell but the memory of the attack remains. A rumor runs among the crew that this was a trial assault by sinister competitors, we remain alert for any eventuality.

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Half Way Party Tonight

2010-07-13T08:47:00.000-07:00

Hey guys party time!

We are coming up on our half way longitude. Next is half way distance (the traditional half way point) and then the half way latitude. We must also be pretty close to the half way elapsed time point. Then there is the half way attitude point where people start asking, "Are we there yet."

One small miracle (given the strong personalities and sense of entitlement of this crew) is the fact that the "hot bunk" system works so well. For those of you for whom this might be a new idea, let me explain: We have six people and four beds. Only four beds are required since two people are always on watch. But that means that no bed is ever empty and the occupant changes every eight hours. Each person has a personal sleeping bag that they roll up when they get up. For most of us this is a pretty spartan process. Caroline is the exception. When she occupies a bunk it is converted into a combination "bag lady" cacoon and gypsy encampment. Sorry, No foto today, maybe later. First she lines the bunk with inflated pads, under and up the wall, then there is a hanging drape so others can not see in. (Hard to guess what might be going on in there.) In addition there are a dozen objects hanging from the handhold bar in the ceiling: a fan, sun glasses, a woven Mexican style bag full of hand cream and other similar stuff, an iPod, etc, usw. Who knows where all this stuff goes when she is on watch. Probably spread in a thin layer all over the boat so it sort of blends in.

Bill

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Klabautermann acting up

2010-07-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

by Ulli:

Mark the Tweaker has always an idea for improvements. The latest was to go wing-on-wing, that means the mainsail goes out one side of the boat, and the jib the other side. This works only by keeping the jib steady with a pole, like our spinnaker pole. Worked beautifully! Rarely ever were we below 8 kn. But you have to drive pretty much deep down wind, which increases the chances for an accidental jibe. And sure enough, it happened. Not a big deal thanks to Bill's boom breaker. But Klabautermann must have sneaked on board, how else could we explain it: This naughty boy made the line in the breaker heat up so much by the (intended) friction within the breaker rolls, that the line partially melted and glued itself to these rolls.

You should have seen me. In my furor I jumped across the dodger, grabbed Klabautermann at his ears - of cause they are invisible, but as any Harry Potter fan can tell you, invisible does not mean ungrabbable - and threw him over the stern of the boat into the sea. What a monster splash!

Now, whaddayouknow, the naughty boy kicked back! He threw a bathtub of water over the stern into the cockpit, and I, then standing at the helm, stood up to my ankles in water! And some water splashed down into the galley and extinguished the pilot light in the oven. Well, I understand that he is jealous about our food, but we could have easily shared; we have plenty. But splashing along in the water he just garbled something like "... going to Pega..." but I could not understand the rest.

Skipper Bill masterfully fixed the breaker, but this stuff is annoying. Can't we have some royal words to keep the naughty boy in check?

Klabautermann must have been on other boats too. Recidivist reported a broken headstay, which is the steel cable which ties the top of the mast to the bow of the boat. A pretty important piece on the boat. They continue sailing without it; wonder how this works out. Bequia reported a steering failure. They return home. As they are in our division and had been ahead of us, we moved ahead one rank for free :-). Tiki Blue had previously retired from the race because of electrical problems. They also were in our division; another freebee :-)).

This is all true, as true as me following orders and are not going to bed to sleep!

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Sunset Photo

2010-07-12T20:11:00.000-07:00

While the crew of Cirrus works to make the boat go fast, I thought I'd contribute a picture I took on the delivery. The open ocean is a very special place. Enjoy ~~Chris

PS: You can click on the picture for a larger version.

Cirrus Ahead of Pegasus in the Fleet Ranks!

2010-07-12T15:29:00.001-07:00

by Ulli:
Today's official position report, consistent with our Cirrugator results, sees Cirrus on fleet rank 28, and Pegasus on 42, i.e. 14 ranks behind us! Let's celebrate while it's hot, who knows how long this will last.

Pegasus is suffering from the same disease which had caught Cirrus: a Low blocking the exit from the San Francisco bay. Their performance was a 'dismal' 220 nm, while their expected performance is some 320 nm. However, they are catching up.

More surprisingly is the track they are taking: so far they are exactly on the track which Cirrus was going. Big deal, they are too lazy to navigate, and are just sniffing out our path. You can probably see it on the iridium tracking page, when selecting only Cirrus and Pegasus.

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190 nm Daily Run sets new record for Cirrus

2010-07-12T09:30:00.000-07:00

Pleasant news this morning: Cirrus made her best daily run ever with 190 nm (nautical miles)!
We're happy; but Chief Commander wants more.

Yes, M'me Chief Commander, understood. No more sleeping until at the dock.

Gosh, I already fulfilled the order. Barely slept this night due to commotion on deck; it still is a wild ride. Had planned to have chute up this morning, but postponed at the moment. Gusts reach 25 kn, seas still heavy.

Aloha, Ulli

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Sailing on the Wild Ride

2010-07-11T21:13:00.001-07:00

by Ulli:

At 8 am PDT this morning, our 24h-run was an awesome 187 nm (nautical miles); this ties the record for a daily run for Cirrus from 2008, but this time we were under white sails only! This didn't come from nothing. It was a wild ride, let me tell you:

The day begin with a gorgeous sunset. After the night had been so crystal clear over the complete sky, the morning continued. First the moon rose, only a thin sliver, because we are going into New moon. Then, about an hour later, the sun followed. And not only did we get a full 360 degree view, also nothing near, at the horizon or beyond, not a single cloud, obstructed the view of the sun, coming out first as an red glowing pin head, quickly widening to a bar, and then becoming a fiery orange fireball. I don't recall having seen a sunrise like that ever in my life.

The day continued with good and increasing wind. The waves also increased, up to a typical wave height of about 2 meter. Whitecaps on the waves were then everywhere. And as sudden as the sky had changed from a full cloud coverage to completely open on the previous day, it changed back to a complete and thick cover within less than 3 minutes! Wind hovered around 20 kn. We didn't put a reef in, following the orders of Chief Commander Kim. (Well, we were thinking that this is what the order said, but apparently the race committee censor had stepped in and blackened out some words (wink, wink) as they might have seen it as 'outside help'. We should not discuss this and keep it a secret on the blog, where nobody can see it! Just kidding.)

Anyway, we continued to run in full gown. Wind went even beyond 20 kn. So all you wind dancers out there: No more Pffft, Pffft, and whatever you were doing. We have enough wind for now. With a full cloud cover and a New moon, the night was pitch black. You couldn't make out the difference between water and sky; the horizon was nothing but a diffuse dark grey area. To top this, the tricolor navigation light on the top of the mast went dead, and we continued with the position light on the bow. This 'illuminated' the waves near the bow, but only their white caps. Obviously, even if we had been able to somehow respond to any incoming waves, it would have been to late to react. The lights had one advantage: they marked the bow. It was so dark that we couldn't even see the bow from our position at the helm, and observing the movement of the bow is one thing which helps in steering. The one really trusty thing is still the compass, glowing red in the light of an LED. The conditions were such that we no longer used Otto (our nickname for the Autohelm, the mechanical self steering device) but steered manually.

What a workout! The waves were mostly from the starboard aft quarter, but of course, you couldn't see anything anyway in the darkness. You had to act on the wave action and anticipation. Every ten minutes a big wave would hit the bow, and throwing a few buckets full of water over the full length of the boat onto the helmsmen. It was wet in the cockpit and began to become wet down below. The instruments over the companionway also became clouded by condensed water, and were no longer of any help, as you simply couldn't see them the position at the helm. The water is rushing along the boat with a roaring sound, turning into thunder when the wrong wave hits the boat, and slams us broadside into he leeward water, and the wind howling in the shrouds further underlines the might of water and waves.

Is it better down below? Not by much. When you are in bed, you are being slammed around with the boat movement. Best way to handle it, I found, is to press your back to the leeward side of the bunk (the side to which the boat will lean over) and raise your knees to lock you into that position. At least you won't fly around in bed. But in your semi-sleep you are getting in, the sound of the water gushing by at a distance of 1 1/2 inch combined with the howling wind and rattling of blocks, lines and more, sound more terrifying than it actually is. I think I slept better at other occasions.

Last thing: how to get around on the boat? Carefully! And with one hand always, always, always holding on to something very, very firmly. Growing 'sea legs' won't help; there is just no way to maintain balance, when the suddenly jumps up, or down, or left, or right. Putting on pants is an artistic endeavor - step your feet against something solid, and then lean over for like 45 degrees, and for a few fractions of a seconds you might get away with using both hands. Might. Imagine what it means to use the head (uhm, no, this has nothing to do with using your brain, which is largely optional in this case, and more related to the other end of the human body. The head in mariners language is the toilet).

Isn't that all wonderful? Cirrus likes it, and so do we. Aloha

Pictures are coming by sailmail. we had to shrivel them down in size
Black night ahead again, wind up to 25 kn. lat/lon: 35N05/ 136w45, course 240M, speed: 8.1kn, completely overcast.

Devil Is In the Detaiils

2010-07-11T21:13:00.000-07:00

Bill
later, 1610, Sunday, July 11, 2010. At 35-15, 135-58, course 240, speed 9.

Some little tales without comment:

Earlier in the trip we noticed that Mark's PFD had a red flag showing. The auto pill cage had been used and the CO2 cylinder expended. In a word, it was useless (except as a safety harness. He had vague recollections of having loaned it in the past so there is no way to know how long ago someone set it off and then returned it to him without comment. We have adequate spares for this sort of thing, so we were able to rearm it for him.

I was telling the crew that a double tether (3 ft and 6 ft)was required to leave the cockpit. Caroline's tether caught my eye. Sure enough, it is the same one she used in the 2007 Transpac. On that occasion I remember looking on with amazement one afternoon when she took out her knife and cut off the 3 ft tether and threw it away. "It tends to get caught on things." she said.

Kathie and Caroline have done a fantastic job on the provisions. Caroline is doing all the cooking since Kathy fights sea sickness and the guys can't be trusted not to make a mess of things.

Rick and Mark took part of the boat apart (in pitching seas) to check the water level in the forward battery bank. One cell was completely dry. That has been fixed and even if it does not solve the battery problem it needed to be done none the less.

De Ju Vu (Spelling?)

2010-07-11T08:47:00.001-07:00

Bill from 35-48, 133-52, sailing 240m at 9 knots or more, wind dead on the beam over 20 knots most of the time.

Fast hard sailing in the pitch black darkness of night that is both moonless and heavily overcast. The last 4 hours of driving in these conditions is a wonderful antidote for the annoyance I expressed in my last post over the battery problem. It feels like roaring down a ski slope in the black of night in a school bus with the lights off. Cleansing for the soul.

Funny how things that were high drama yesterday are now routine.

0310 Sunday, July 11th. Thinking about breakfast and reading the Sunday paper. I wonder if it is possible to subscribe to the New York Times Sunday only, and have it delivered once every three months. That is about how long it takes me to read one.

By the way, we have 1520 miles to go. So, we are roughly one quarter of the way.

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Let's See. If This Is Saturday, We Must Be Half Way To........................

2010-07-10T20:20:00.000-07:00

From Bill.

At 36-17, 132-25 on Saturday, July 10, 2010. Making 7-8+ knots at 245m in 17-20 knots of wind, dead on the beam.
Boy O Boy no change in hardly anything except that the wonderful blue sky and bright sun have disappeared once again into cold, cold and grey. Funny how it comes and goes in a flash.

Lots of electrical problems. Apparently the batteries are getting tired. Occupies more and more of my time each day. Not what I want to be doing. Rather be sailing and enjoying my companions. Unfortunately there is no choice. Once committed to all this technology you have to try and keep it running.

That's it for now. Sorry to cut this short but I smell dinner. Big event of the day.

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A Night to Remember

2010-07-10T09:34:00.000-07:00

by Rick:
The clouds left us last evening. After nothing but gray skies since the voyage began, the clouds disappeared in a matter of minutes leaving only blue skies. When the night watch came on deck, there was nothing but wonder in their eyes as millions of stars shone with delicate blue-white light. It was very dark and clear and one could also see the milky way. To our starboard side was the Ursa Maior or Big Dipper; low on the horizon and so big and close that some crewmembers did not recall ever seeing it so near. It was easy to find Polaris, the North Star and just a bit to its left there was a remarkably brilliant celestial body, which Bill said was probably Jupiter; Ulli thought it could be Venus. We spent much of the night, with our heads up looking at the night. Once in awhile we looked down and admired the sea and the 360 degree horizon as well as our very white and luminescent wake. The air was cool and fresh.

At one moment it got much too cool, the wind picked up to over 20 knots with a few gusts higher. The boat was moving fast, at over 8.5 knots, and increasing its angle of heel (leaning over). At around 0400 the decision was made to reduce sail and a great operation ensued. Bill of course led the effort; as usual he clearly planned what was to be done and carefully instructed those in the cockpit what each of their roles would be. Bill and Mark would climb on deck but not before hooking themselves to the boat to ensure they would not fall overboard. Ulli would operate the lines in the cockpit and Rick would steer the boat, trying to slow it down by keeping it close to the wind but not so close that it would stall or tack.

The first thing done was to reduce the size of the headsail, this cut some of our speed and made the boat stand up straighter in the water. Nevertheless we kept on moving forward quickly and crashing through the waves. Bill and Mark moved forward, holding on for balance, and moving through the dark. We were intentionally avoiding the use of artificial light so as to make use of the ambient light and not damage our night vision. It was amazing how much you could see by starlight.

Bill and Mark reached the mast and began to work the various lines to reduce the size of the main sail. They held on as the boat bounced around quite lively in the surf. The crewmembers off duty and who were trying to sleep below decks were having a tough time. As the boat speed through the waves and bounced around, the people in their bunks were being tossed around and around. One crewmember below said that if she had been in a bathtub with shampoo she would have had a wonderful churning bubble bath.

Back on deck Mark called out to Rick to steer the boat into the wind thus slowing it down, reducing heeling, the crashing through the waves and the wind in the sail and their faces. Rick steered into the northeastern wind, careful to come up far enough to slow down but not so close to the wind that the boat would stop. Given the darkness and the significant wave action this required concentration. Ulli worked the various lines in the cockpit in response to what the crewdeck was doing and while Rick may have wanted to help Ulli, there waa no taking the eyes off the wind instruments and compass.

Instructions were yelled out back and forth through the noise of the wind and the waves. Eventually, Bill and Mark on deck and Ulli in the cockpit reduced the size of the mainsail and the boat slowed down to just over 7 knots; it also sailed more on an even keel. Bill and Mark came back to the cockpit and sat down, a bit out of breath. Bill looked out in the dark at the crew and, in his understated way, gave them the best of all compliments: "That went without a hitch."

The sun soon started to appear and with the clear skies it was a beautiful sunrise, the wind started to die down and Ulli saw that our boat speed started to go down below his level of comfort for this race. Bravely he asked Bill, who was just getting out of his gear from having reduced sail, to come back and undo all that was done. Bill just said "There's some people who can never be pleased." A while later everything was done in reverse and the sail was raised to full size.

Its now about 0900 and there is sun everywhere and the cabin is alive with movement getting ready for the day ahead. In reality, the activity never stops, the boat activity goes on 24 hours.

by Ulli:
putting a reef in the sail was really a bad idea. more than 2 hours at a speed in the low 7 kn. Now back up to high 7 kn and even some low 8kn! Wind at maximum of 20 kn, typically 15kn apparent, right on the beam. Whitecaps now everywhere, waves are building
time: 0930PDT, lat/lon 36N29 / 131W15, clear blue sky, sunny

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Skipper has a Friend

2010-07-09T20:05:00.000-07:00

by Bill:

The ship's cat, who has never missed crossing, seems to have developed a new friendship. I wish I could say that she seemed to be happy about it. But no, resigned seems to be a more accurate description. Still looking sort of kittenish she has none the less seen a lot. (And there have been moments when she has averted her eyes.)

At the moment Cirrus is really rolling. 7.5 knots boatspeed and kind of bumpy. Wind is around 15 knots and the seas (pretty quiet until now) are starting to build. We slipped back in our fleet standings recently, probably because Cirrus always performs better than expected in light air and is only average when it gets really windy.

Having a dingy sailor on board is a new experience. Earlier, when it was not so windy, he was suggesting ouching (a technical term for running around on the boat to rock it and thus cause it to move even when there is no wind. Then pumping the main (It would have taken two people in coordination.) and other esoteric ideas were suggested.

It is currently 1800 on Friday, July 9th, 2010. We are at 36-57, 126-56, course 245m and speed 7.

by Ulli:
it is still cold. And given our northerly route, this is not surprising. I have been up the mast a few times, removing the icicles from the spreader for better performance. Given the good speed, mood is up. All is well on Cirrus.

Hail to the King!

2010-07-09T14:07:00.000-07:00

HE is speaking to us! The king himself comments on our blog - I am re-attaching his mighty words at the end of this post - and commands us to save HIM. We fell on our knees immediately and praised his words (and at this occasion were inspecting the bilge for the best place to reside in for the rest of the trip). The skipper immediately - well, not quite, he took a nap first - decided what to do:

We must sail faster!

What a wise decision, only a seasoned skipper would be able to arrive at. Unfortunately, there appear to be seasoned skippers on many other boats too. The wind has picked up over night, coming to 10 kn and peaking at 15 kn. The boat was heeling over, with the port rail (the left side, for you land lubbers) in the water, and waves on occasion jumping over the bow and washing the foredeck. After some sail trimming we reached 7+ kn of boat speed. That's the way to go! Now the wind is down again, and boat speed to around 6 kn. Still, it is much better than waltz dancing on glassy seas. We expect the wind to increase, and wind angle to change, to allow flying the spinnaker in 2 days, and probably jibe in 6 days, then pointing directly to Kaneohe.

In the meantime, the glassy hole we got stuck in got plugged with wind, and the consequences are best seen in the attached little graph from Cirrugator. If all boats were going as fast as expected, their tracks would form a vertical line from the top to the bottom at corrected time 0 (zero). However, while this applies to the Thursday starters, all of the Monday, Tuesday (that included us) and Wednesday starters veer off to the right, i.e. are significantly underperforming. The weather forecast suggest that the fast boats starting on Saturday will enjoy conditions as good as or better than the lucky Thursday starters did.

Only a miracle will Save the King! Make miracles happen, dear Readers, the bilge smells really bad!

Aloha,
Ulli

HIS words: (I may have to ask my friend Ben for a proper translation,
he may be more familiar with that antique style than I am. A whole lot more)
========================================================================
"What this means for the King"? How dare you! I command thou to take
back those scoundrel words that would render asunder my union with
dearest Bill lest I relegate thee to finishing this voyage residing in
the bilge! Art thou not on board to defend my honor? Art thou not on
board to sail? Shall we rename thee "cargo"? Blaspheme, I say! Now I
command thee, end these pointless words of defeat and get out there and
sail, man, sail!

Under my seal on this 9th day of July
The King
========================================================================

Like Dancing a Waltz

2010-07-08T20:33:00.000-07:00

It is 1740 on July 8th, 2010 and we are located at 37-41, 126-24 with a wind of zero and speed of zero. The boat turns slowly this way and that. Like dancing.

For a couple hours the haze above got a lot thinner and the combination of sun and no wind produced a heat wave that threw people into a panic to remove the 6-8 layers of heavy clothing that they were wearing. It is still kind of warm and most people are in shorts and tee shirts.

The quantity and quality of cuisine rivals that of Berkeley's finest restaurants. For lunch we had perfectly warmed Costco chicken tacos and Amy's burritos with salsa and guacamole, with apple juice to drink. Dinner is spaghetti with Ikea meatballs in red tomato basal sauce. Loaves of Costco fresh baked multigrain bread with real butter, green and red cabbage salad with tomato's, carrots, apples, red bell peppers in Trader Joe's Tuscan Italian dressing. After this meal we expect to be treated to Joe-Joes chocolate and vanilla bean cream desert. WOW!

There is talk of circling Oahu (after crossing the finish line) until the food runs out.

Dinner. Gotta go................
Bill

We are slowly getting out of the hole. The afternoon was spend with a lot of tweaking the sails, with some benefit, but only minor one. A little satisfaction comes from having pulled ahead of Scaramouche. The are suffering from the same problem that we have: a heavy boat in light wind. Wind is picking up and we are moving, although only at about 6 kn. But it will get better with wind speeds going up to 15 - 20 kn and stay there until the last 5 days, when it drops to 10 - 15 kn. But there is also a sad story in the forecast. On Saturday, when the fast boats will start, the hole, in which we are/were stuck will be gone. That is, these boats, including Pegasus, will have almost smooth riding from start to finish. You know what this means for the King? Sigh.
Ulli

P.S. Picture that: Breakfast in bed. Is that a service or what?

P.S. P.S. Someone is sending pictures to our sat-phone email. This is a burden to us and is burning up minutes, so please don't. We would, however, very much like to receive the photos on a CD or stick or SD card or else, and I can make them available to others. Full resolution is preferred over reduced sizes.

We Have to Stop Meeting Like This.

2010-07-08T07:27:00.000-07:00

It is Wednesday morning around 0500 and we are at 37-35, 126-07. Wind about zero, boat speed about zero, wandering around. Early in the evening I decided that there was not anything to do on watch except lookout, so we could change to one person on watch at a time. Like we did on the delivery. (Where there was a lot to do but not enough people.)

That worked for awhile, but I just looked (in the middle of the night) and all three of the male crew members are in the cockpit, each one adjusting something different to make the boat go faster even though there is no wind. Many heated discussions. I pointed out that if all discussions take place while facing aft it might help.

The boat approaching us that I mentioned in my previous blog was "Scaramouche V" from Canada. We spoke with them on the VHF radio. As they were passing us a half mile away we found ourselves in a big pod of whales. They were all over the place. Then we got a call from Scaramouche that they were also seeing a lot of whales. Busy place out here. After the other boat passed they seemed to slow down. We could see their lights all night. Another smaller boat also went by but they seemed to be heading in a strange direction. Not sure what they were up to.

There is so little to report that I am going to have to start making up stuff. Actually, we did see some aliens from outer space, but I'll tell you more about that next time.

Bill

P.S. Just an aside about the unexpected pleasures of trips like these. As many of you know the water is often phosphorescent and lights up brightly as the boat pushes its way through. Sometimes there are bright single flashes from individual little jelly fish. You haven't lived until you are flushing the toilet in the dark, as I did recently, and the flush water lights up the whole room. Pretty cool.

by Ulli:
This is beginning as a really slow race, much like it was in 2000. I guess the only reason why we can't see land any more is because it is so foggy and cloudy. No sun, no moon, no stars, just a grey dark mass of something. Celestial navigation? Forget it. We sure appreciate to have a compass. Not to mention the GPS. Unfortunately, there is nothing to navigate to, as we are basically standing still. Bill just did an experiment, throwing a paper towel in the water and watching it disappear. And whattayuknow, after 5 min it was 20 feet behind us! Well, I always wanted to celebrate Christmas in Hawaii, maybe I get a chance now!

As indicated by Bill, we had yesterday evening a threesome of racers, Cirrus, Scaramouche, and Sea Reine from the first double-handers division. A really rare event, as most of the time you don't even see a single boat around you. The latter two were really close together, they could probably speak directly with each other. When I called Sea Reine on the radio, they didn't answer, but Scaramouche told me their name on the radio. Sea Reine's course however, was due north, which could only mean that they were quitting the race. We'll find out today. Scaramouche is the fastest boat in our division, now that Pneuma hasn't started (don't know why), owing us almost 23 hours at the finish line. The fact that they are still within sight gives a little comfort; at least we aren't on last place in our division. We expect the slow conditions to last for another day, and then improving significantly.

Yesterday we had big, long swells, overlaid with small waves. The swells look like mountains of water, moving towards you, but when they reach you, they only lift Cirrus up very gently, and setting her down equally gently. You barely notice them on the boat. The small waves, however, mostly less than 1 meter, sometimes collaborate to form a nasty ditch and let Cirrus dive her nose into the water, scooping up a bathtub full of water, which upon rising, is gushed towards the cockpit. The sea right now is very calm and flat, an appearance of molten lead.

It is surprisingly warm this year, just the regular double-polar underwear and your foulies (foul weather clothing)on top, plus a hat and ski gloves, and you are fine!

Just this moment we were passed by a school of dolphins. They weren't interested in us and went along. Which reminds me that in addition to the whales we also saw porpoises yesterday. Yeah, more like visiting a zoo than racing.
Aloha, Ulli

time: 7:16am PDT, lat/lon: 37N36.8/ 126W08.3, course: none, speed: none, heading: all over the place

P.S. Does the Iridium tracker work, can we be seen on the PCup tracking website?

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Who Would've EverThought

2010-07-07T15:52:00.000-07:00

Day two and still in sight of Pt. Reyes. (Well. Not really. It is 10-12 miles away but lost in fog.) I am writing this at 1515 and we are at: 37-53, 124-47. Morning found us drifting around with barely enough wind to keep the boat pointed in the right direction. So, I amused my self by running around putting bungee cords on all the sail control lines to take the slack when puffs of wind came and went. Made the boat quieter. By now things have picked up a lot and we are sort of actually headed toward Hawaii. Absolutely nothing to see today, up, down or around. Grey, grey and grey.

Ho! Just as I am writing this a sail has appeared behind us and is getting closer. Big excitement for the day,

I will keep you posted.

We have had to scrap the Spartan menu that Kathy and Caroline prepared for us so we could power through the first couple difficult days. Since the days aren't difficult everyone is sitting around thinking about their stomach. So, we have had to break out Mexican casserole, the shrimp and lobster pasta, the Pad Thai chicken, etc. Right now there is a spirited debate about what movie to watch tonight. Kathy favors some reruns of "West Wing" that she has brought along.

Bill, on Wednesday afternoon, July 7th, 2010.

by Ulli: as if it weren't bad enough, our fans provided us the soccer results that Germany had lost to Spain. Sigh, it just fits into the grey around us. And no rum on board for a little compensation.

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Pictures from yesterday.

2010-07-07T09:40:00.000-07:00

Randy took 100 pictures yesterday. Here are a few.

The first one is a classic photo-op: From left to right: Mark, Rick, Kathy, Bill, with Ulli in the back, and Caroline in the front.

Second is an overhead shot of Cirrus blasting under the Golden Gate Bridge.

Third, Kathy's buddy, Paul Kamen, paid us a visit at the dock as he departed for a seven-day sail to Stockton in his El Toro. What a guy!

These are high-resolution images. Click on a picture to see a larger view.

If you want to see all of Randy's pictures. go here: http://albums.phanfare.com/isolated/g1wXS0Ff/1/4739777

We're off Like a Rocket. Well................

2010-07-06T16:03:00.000-07:00

On the button. 9:40 am, Tuesday morning, July 6th, 2010. Off the dock at RYC and on our way to the starting line at the St. Francis YC. Lots of action around the start line. There was a huge white catamaran with no mast or sails that was flying a really big kite. Then the San Francisco Fire Boat put on a wonderful water display. We took out one of the two reefs that were left over from the delivery. Wind was gusty 15-25 knots and coming in the Golden Gate. My crew made me promise to not be aggressive in the start and get us in trouble. So, I started a minute or two behind the others.

It was really blowing out under the bridge and bumpy waves. Serious sailing. Then in a matter of minutes the wind dropped off and we took out the other reef. The direction of the wind would not let us head toward Hawaii and we ended up drifting up the coast past Stinson Beach and at the moment we are headed for Point Reyes at a speed of about 4 knots in a wind of 5-6 knots. We have a lot of company, especially the double handers in tiny fast little boats. They are sort of zipping around us, but aren't really going anywhere either.

We went inside the Bolinas buoy. At one point Kathy's iPad said we should be in 60 feet of water and so we were.

Sure not like any thing I have ever seen before. We'll keep you posted. Bill
-----
At 7/4/2010 10:13 PM (utc) our position was 37°54.48'N 122°22.97'W

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Bon Voyage! Fair Winds, Cirrus.

2010-07-06T10:06:00.000-07:00

Cirrus left the RYC dock at 9:30 this morning. Everyone was suited up and ready for the start. I didn't get a picture of the send-off committee, but I know several people did and I'll post those pictures when I get them. Don't forget to check for the latest info at http://www.pacificcup.org/ including access to live video of the start. Stay tuned for more soon. ~Chris

Germany and the Soccer Championship

2010-07-05T19:29:00.000-07:00

by Ulli

Boy, you readers will be busy; not only the King challenge, but you now must also keep fingers crossed for Germany. But hey, when our cats can do it, so can you!

Do I sense a little attachment to the King?

2010-07-05T19:17:00.000-07:00

by Ulli

No need to comment any further but to remind you: Go, tell your friends to help save the king! Take guidance from this page: Save the King - Challenge

Watch our Start per live-video over the Internet

2010-07-05T12:44:00.000-07:00

The Pacific Cup organizer have set up a live webcam, so you can watch our start live on the internet. Go here:

http://www.livestream.com/pacificcup

We will start on Tuesday, July 6, at 12:15 Pacific Daylight Time, or 21:15h in Germany.
Ulli

The masthead "tricolor" navigation lights

2010-07-04T21:58:00.000-07:00

As Ulli mentioned, Bill recently repaired the masthead navigation lights. These lights were not operative during the delivery in June. As a result, we had to use the deck-level lights, red and green at the bow, and white at the stern. I can tell you from personal experience that the white stern light throws a lot of bright white light all over the back of the boat and into the cockpit. This dramatically reduces your night vision and makes it very difficult to see outside of the boat at night. So it's a huge improvement to have the mast head light available for the race as now the deck level-lights will not need to be used. Once again, I have to commend Bill for his amazing perseverance; it took him many hours, and many trips up the mast, to get this problem solved. And I know that the entire crew will very much appreciate his efforts. ~~Chris

Power Full

2010-07-03T08:05:00.000-07:00

by Ulli

You'd think a sailboat can do well without any electricity, and it sure can as long as you don't want to communicate with people on shore or on other boats.

The last days of the delivery had shown a shortcoming on Cirrus with respect to electricity generation. From the battery to the starter motor to the engine with its fuel pump, fuel injectors, cylinders, belts, valves, to the alternator, to the regulator, and back to the batteries, a single failure anywhere in that long chain of technology will result in a complete failure with respect to electricity generation. And once the batteries are empty, the radio is useless, and even the sat phone will not run. If an emergency occurred, you would be out of luck calling for help.

At least that hole has been plugged. We now have a flexible, roll-up solar panel on board (from West Marine, 60" by 14"), which delivers up to 21W and 1.35A, and fits nicely on top of the dodger. The picture shows Mike (on the left, our CEA, Chief Electrical Adviser) and me holding the solar panel, and, look closely, I have the working sat-phone in one hand and its battery in the other!

But can you actually make a call with only the solar panel connected? Uhm, no. The moment the phone starts transmitting, the power breaks down and the phone switches off. So you can use it only to accumulate charge in the battery, and the make a call. But that suffices.

We actually also have Plan C and D for power failure in the form of a 12V booster battery (its intended primary use is as a backup battery to start the engine) which is permanently trickle charged. It might even allow to use the radio for some time. And we have 2 jury rigged 6V batteries, which would also last for a while if used only for the sat phone.

All in all, we now seem to be prepared - and therefore probably will never need those resources ;-). Anyway, we have Power Full!

In the future I see a fuel cell on board, running on propane. Maybe next race.

I'd be interested in reader comments on emergency power. Anyone having experience with a propane powered generator? How good is a gasoline powered generator?

At last a picture of Bill hugging the mast top. He seems to like going up the mast; at least this is what I have to conclude, seeing him going up a half dozen times in the short period that I was here. Being up there in the cold, 15-20kn winds here in Richmond is nothing enjoyable. Note the fancy ladder! But, we now have a new wind meter installed, and a working tricolor light on the mast top. What a luxury, we will now know the wind speed, and we will not be light flooded from the stern light, when at the helm during the night! By the way, we will have a New moon in the middle of the race, promising some pitch black nights, and dark nights for the rest of the trip.

New Crew Member Mark Denzer

2010-07-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

Mark is the one on the right (I think).

This is sort of a loose Resume since (for example) he neglects to mention that he has previously crewed in a Pacific Cup race on a Division winning boat "Ghost".

Interisland racing and cruising on family boats since teenage years back in the 70’s
Crewed to Australia from Hawaii in 1976

Have owned several offshore boats, and raced and cruised them around Hawaii
-Pacific Seacraft 25, Zaraga
-Beneteau 29, Bon Temps
-J24, Mei Lan
-Sonoma 30, Cowabunga!!

Lots of dinghy racing experience on Lasers and El Toros
Participated in most of the offshore races around Hawaii from time to time.
Kaneohe Yacht Club Treasurer and Board of Directors member, 2002 to 2005
Offshore and Inshore racing Fleet Captain on various occasions

Sailed a modified El Toro around Oahu in 2008 as a commemoration for my Late Father and as a fundraiser for the National Parkinson’s Foundation

Friends of Cirrus - Save the King !

2010-06-28T20:03:00.000-07:00

The nicest award to Cirrus in the Pacific Cup 2008 was the statue of King Kamehameha, 3 foot high, carved in wood, given to the fastest (in corrected time) Hawaiian boat. Too bad this is a challenge trophy, which needs to be defended again this year.

So let's see who our Hawaiian competitors are this year ... Oh no!

There are only two Hawaiian boats sailing this year, one is Cirrus, and the other is - Pegasus! She will probably be the fastest sailboat on the Pacific, this summer. Sure, we are being rated on corrected time, but Philipp Kahn and his crew are highly seasoned sailors!

Is there still a chance for us? How did we fare in the past against Pegasus? My Cirrugator database has only two races with data on both boats, the Pacific Cup 2008, and the transpac 2007. Graph (13) from Cirrugator compares the runs in the two races on corrected time. As can be seen, in 2007 Pegasus beat Cirrus by a good margin, but in 2008 Cirrus actually beat Pegasus! And in more detail, the first starters in the transpac, like Cirrus, but to some degree even the late starters, like Pegasus, experienced poor to very poor wind conditions at the start (the curves go right, and Cirrus' curve goes way to the right) but later on, the curves are basically parallel. Actually, within both sets the curves are pretty much parallel apart from the beginning, and being parallel here indicates that on a corrected basis, the two boats eventually performed comparably.

I can't help but present this little treat: In 2007 Cirrus had beaten Pegasus on ABSOLUTE time! Yes, no denying, we the slow boat were faster than the turbo! Ok, let's not study the details too much, but it sure felt good at least on this single day ;-).

Conclusion: we are the underdog, but after all, we do have a chance!

But we will need all the help we can get, and a generous serving of good luck! We therefore call upon all Friends of Cirrus for their support during the race. Save the King, as the King undoubtedly belongs into the hands of Cirrus!

Therefore, line the cyberspace waves along our route, and let's hear your cheers to make us sail better than ever! See the flyers below? Download them and forward by eamil, or print them out, and hand them to your friends and neighbors, your newspaper editor, and radio station, and TV station, and, and, and, ... well, you get the picture. Whatever may come out, I am sure it will be exciting,

Aloha,
Ulli

	Flyer in English Left-click for large version, Right-click to download
	Flugblatt auf Deutsch / Flyer in German Links-Klick für Grossbild, Rechts-Klick zum Download

WE'RE BACK ON THE BLOG

2010-06-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

From Bill -- Some notes in passing and an update.

Let’s see where was I? Oh yes, now I remember. We were sailing along at latitude 38 and enjoying unseasonable good weather, sunny and warm. We had been flying the spinnaker and were looking forward to the predicted stiff northerly winds that were going to drive us at high speed straight into San Francisco in record time. We were full of ourselves. (Read the blog.) Hubris is the key word here

At some point Bill walked into the boom (There was no damage.) and somewhat later a totally rotted hose clamp turned up in a routine inspection of the bilge pump system. Always something!

At about this time we were celebrating one or the other of half a dozen different half way events. The champagne flowed like water. Actually, some of the time it was water. We had a lot of Martinelli and that also came in handy for celebrations. Even Kate, who got pretty sick later, was feeling pretty chipper.

We had to motor through some light air to reach the northerlies, but every thing went like clockwork, with wind shifts appearing right on schedule. Pretty soon it was clear that we needed a reef in the main and not too much later came the big event.

The starter motor on the engine failed and we lost our ability to charge the batteries. That meant no more refrigeration, no more autopilot, no more SSB radio, limited use of the ship’s GPS, etc. Eventually even the bilge pumps, and running light and other stuff began to fail as the voltage fell. Even though lots of stuff shut down, some other things lasted to the very end. The satellite phone runs off its own battery as does the hand held VHF radio. For some reason the cabin lights continued to work and so did the bilge pump water alarm. Once or twice a day it would go off and we would pump the bilge by hand. No problem. Of course Kathie’s iPad (with detailed charts and GPS) continued to work (and it would have guided us in the SF shipping channel if I had not fallen asleep on the cockpit sole in the beautiful warm sun in the soaking wet foulies that I hadn’t taken off in four days). Fortunately, at that point after what we had been through, coming in through the “potato patch” was a piece of cake.

Losing the auto pilot was serious. The wind was picking up. It was probably over 20 knots all the way to SF. Seas were mostly 12-15 feet and bigger on occasion. We were close reaching to start with but it settled into a beam reach. At some point it seemed that a second reef was called for, and most of the time we completely furled the jib.

Picking the course and sail plan is a Skipper’s dilemma. We could have gone faster with more sail up but the additional speed adds to the violence the boat encounters plowing its way through the big choppy seas. On the other hand, “Isn’t it always better to get there sooner?” There is also the concern that the crew members may be pushed beyond their limits driving in the cold windy darkness with seas breaking over the boat. A balance of difficulty versus endurance. It is my guess that anyone else in my position might have made slightly different choices.

In the middle of all this the distaff part of the crew (when off watch, of course) was below decks watching TV.

Then came the cry. “Land ho.” Right on schedule almost to the minute. The Farallon Islands have never been so beautiful. A couple hours later we blasted under the Golden Gate on the peak of a full bore tidal flood. We called RYC on the phone and said, “We’ll be there in an hour.” After a pause, came the reply, “There is no wind in the bay. Give us a call when you get closer.”

Dammed if they weren’t right. We had just sailed 5-6 days in 25 knot winds and big breaking seas, right up to Mile Rock and Point Bonita. Then, minutes later, as the tidal current swept us into the bay the wind died completely the sky was blue and the sun so hot that people were removing clothes in a panic and ending up in shorts and tee shirts. What a day! We were so glad to be home, even if they had to send out a boat to fetch us, (Just off Red Rock as the tidal current was sweeping us off to Sacramento.) Greetings included a “Certificate of Congratulations” from the mayor of Richmond.

I’m writing this a week after our arrival and a lot has been accomplished toward getting the boat ready for the return trip. The diesel engine starter motor has been replaced and it works beautifully. The bottom has been cleaned and painted. The cutlass bearing has been replaced. I’ve been up the mast 3-4 times for various issues. The torn spinnaker is at the sailmaker. The life raft is being re-certified. The 2nd EPIRB is getting a new battery. I’ve started refueling to get the tanks back up to where they should be for the race. The garbage and deposit plastic bottles have been unloaded. Kathy picked up some of the provisioning boxes. Arrangements have been made for dry ice for the return trip. On the schedule for tomorrow is the maintenance of a couple winches that developed problems during the delivery. And there is a page long ToDo list as usual.

From Bill from the dock at RYC.

Cirrusblog Analytics

2010-06-25T05:53:00.000-07:00

Remember the days of web pages with hit counters in the shape of car odometers? It would be a bit embarrassing to show them these days, yet the interest to understand what traffic your pages have remains strong. Actually, it is a key consideration for commercial sites. My playing around showed me how difficult it is to come up with meanigful results, distinguishing between hits, visits, unique visitors, originating countries, etc, etc. But I should have known - the master of the web search, Google, has it already in an easy-to-use form, called Google Analyics. I implemented this during delivery, and can show some first results now:

Some 300 unique visitors came to this blog about 1600 times over the last two weeks. The highest visitor activity occured when Cirrus was struggling in bad weather, some 150 visits per day. Since Cirrus' arrival several dozen people are still watching the blog (a special hello to you!). A good number of you are probably sailors, as our weather page is some of the favorites among you!

You also get some rough ideas about where your visitors are located, though you don't get more detail than regional analysis. Predominantly they are from the United States, most from CA, closely followed by HI, plus others from a total of 23 US-states. Next in line is Germany - someone there is hammering the blog; wish I'd knew who that is ;-)) - and then in order of frequency of visits: Canada, Portugal, American Samoa, Brazil, UK, Panama, New Zealand, Colombia, Peru, Taiwan, Thailand, Mexico, Australia.

Who would have known. Welcome to everyone, wherever on the world you may be!

I have a wish : during the race we on the boat have no access to fancy web analysis, all we can see are the comments to the blog, which are being transferred back to us on the boat. I want you to speak-up, so to say, and cheer us up by posting comments. Of course you can do it anonymously, if you prefer, but seeing a name with a comment makes it even more enjoyable for us.

Aloha, Ulli

Divisions, Ratings and Performance

2010-06-22T10:07:00.000-07:00

by Ulli

The Pacific Cup organizers have published their updated "believed final" Divisions and Ratings for 2010, which have changed quite a bit over the previous semi-final ratings, not the least in Cirrus' division. Nevertheless, from a broader perspective the overall pattern is the same.

The PCR (Pacific Cup Rating) is the expected performance of a boat in s/nm (seconds per nautical mile; the smaller the number the faster the boat). The expected total sailing time of a boat is therefore PCR * distance, where the official distance is 2070 nm. For the final ranking of the boats the corrected time is determined as:

corrected time =
(actual time sailed) minus (PCR * 2070)

Any boat sailing exactly at her expected performance would then have a corrected time of 0h (zero hours), and if it were faster, the corrected time would be negative. This is why graph (13) on the Cirrugator front page is so helpful to judge performance.

The graph in this post shows all boats of 2010 by division and their expected sailing time in days. By this token the slowest boat is Victoria in Div A with 15.79 days, and the fastest position is shared by Limit and Pegasus in Div E, both at 8.65 days. They would sail 7 days 3 hours faster, almost twice as fast as the slowest. That's why they start 5 days later.

The biggest differences of up to ~20% between fast and slow within one division are in Div E, followed by the double handers in Div DH2; in both cases this is easy to understand because of the limited number of boats. The other divisions are quite well balanced.

Cirrus is at the bottom of performance in Div B. The difference to the next boats Bequia and Relentless is 8h 37.5min, and to the fastest, Pneuma, it is 24h 9min. So if Pneuma were to cross the finish line first, and Cirrus would cross as much as 1 day and 8 minutes later, it would have beaten Pneuma.

If Cirrus were in Div A it would be the fastest boat in that division, but only 3.6h ahead of the next fastest, Brainwaves. But Div A is currently already 10 boats, and Div B only 9.

While I think it feels a little bit better to actually (hopefully) be ahead of the pack and not just by numbers, I'll settle for Kim & Lou's earlier comments: "Cirrus is the benchmark in Div B"!

Cirrugator is set for the race

2010-06-20T05:05:00.000-07:00

I have changed the default setting of Cirrugator for the race - but you can always look at previous passages by 'Select'-ing for them. Obviously you won't see race data, but you can do the routing. Routing results are also copied to the Demo page, which most people do seem to prefer. Interpretation is as before: "if you were starting today on Cirrus, this is the route you would want to take, and the Time-to-go is how long it would take".
Ulli

Cirrus Greeting Party

2010-06-18T19:48:00.001-07:00

On hand to greet the crew of Cirrus were Agnes Doutre, Uta Swiatecki, Sam Kim, Randy Riddle, and Randy and Kathy’s son, Levan, and Tina Crabtree (from the Cirrus delivery crew of 2008). Cirrus arrived at 6:00 pm and we all went to the Yacht club for a welcome celebration. Once we got there, there was a lineup (literally, a lineup!) of people who wanted to welcome and congratulate Bill for his crossing.

We passed the computer around so everyone on the crew could send their own greeting. Here they are:

Bill: Bill’s so glad that he decided to do this again. He’s really glad to be here in Richmond. More later when he has more time.

Kate: I’ve never been so happy to finish a “sail”!

Kathy: A Corona has never tasted so good.

Chris (Left him until last because he’s been hogging the blogging throughout the trip) I’d like to thank my agent; no, my crew-mates, for making this the voyage of a lifetime.

We’ll provide details of the welcome party when we have more time to type.

-Agnes

[update by Ulli: Don't miss the slideshow by Randy ! Everyone is back smiling and no damage to the boat at all!]

[update 2 by Ulli: More pictures, this time from Dave]

Just heard from Cirrus!

2010-06-18T15:52:00.001-07:00

Great news! Cirrus is AT the Golden Gate as of 3:30 pm (PDT). So we're
looking forward to seeing them very soon. Chris said that the sun has come
out and they're all warming up (Except for Bill, who is at the helm). If I
can get the computer online at the Yacht Club, I'll get the crew themselves
to provide updates!

More very soon!
-Agnes

How to contact us:

2010-06-18T10:01:00.000-07:00

by Ulli

During the excitement of the last few days several people tried to contact us and were leaving e.g. their email addresses in plain sight as comments - which I think is a bad idea, as spam robots will find it and get you even more spam than you already get. But there weren't really other options. Here now a partial solution, which we'll improve over time:

First, notice the new "Contact us" tab in the tab bar (right under the heading). Click and find more info on how to send a message.

Second, if you must / want leave your email address on the blog, I recommend,
- NOT to do it like this: mymail@somewhere.xyz
- but rather in hacker-style like this: mymail (at) somewhere (dot) xyz

Humans can still read it, but most spam robots have a problem.

[Update: Wow, that support crew is faster than even Cirrus! Despite a discussion crossing 12 time zones, we already got a final solution, suitable for the race, only 4 hours later]

Day 18 - prepare for a successful finish!

2010-06-18T09:29:00.000-07:00

by Agnes

Here's Chris's sat phone report from today:

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: CIRRUS10
TIME: 2010/06/18 16:10
LATITUDE: 37-32.000N
LONGITUDE: 123-17.990W
COURSE: 045T
SPEED: 5.5
WIND_SPEED: 25
WIND_DIR: N
COMMENT: 42.7 miles to the Golden Gate. ETA at GG 5:00 pm.

Kate's condition: Kate is doing well. She needs lots of sleep, but she is
happy with her progress.

The crew is doing a one-hour on and two hours off. They will do this for the
rest of the way. They said that they will definitely want hot tea when they
arrive. I guess they're still feeling the chill!

I reminded them that their cell phones should all start working soon, and
that we'd all enjoy a long conversation if possible.

To the welcoming committee (and you know who you are): Many of us will be at
the Yacht Club by 6:00 pm. We are hopeful for a 7:00 arrival of Cirrus. See
you all there!

Day 17 - Things are smoothing out

2010-06-17T11:06:00.000-07:00

by Ulli

Things are getting better as you can see from below. I also see that Cirrus' average speed over the last 24h went up to 5.7kn, which is good.

Anyone with plans for a Welcome-Party note that destination is now changed back to Richmond Yacht Club! I suppose 8pm is PDT, but better look at this blog again before you leave.

I can tell you that there is quite some scrambling behind the scenes, but I'll let those deeper involved tell the story later.

from Chris by Sat-Phone call to Agnes, by email to me. Agnes says:

Chris called me on the Sat Phone today, and gave me this information. I've
sent it to YOTREPS.

TIME: 2010/06/17 15:55
LATITUDE: 37-32.575N
LONGITUDE: 126-09.855W
COURSE: 065T
SPEED: 5.0
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 25
WIND_DIR: N
SWELL_DIR: N
SWELL_HT: 3.7M
SWELL_PER: 8
CLOUDS: 100%
VISIBILITY: 8
COMMENT:

He told me that Kate is doing well. She is responding to her medicine, and
she is up eating food and drinking tea. She is not dehydrated, and she
should continue to improve.

He reported that Bill confirmed that they are going to the Richmond Yacht
Club, not to KKMI. They have 175 miles to the Golden Gate, and at about 5
knots, which is what Chris reports that they are doing, they will get to the
GG in 35 hours (8 pm Friday) and then they should get to the RYC an hour or
so after that. I will be bringing them warm clothes and hot drinks in
addition to the picnic I have planned.

Cirrus Blog's New Clothing

2010-06-16T13:21:00.000-07:00

Different from the fairy tale story, this new clothing is real. How do you like it?

I took advantage of Google's new Template Designer and cheap labor (my daughter is a graphics designer) and put a fresher look on the blog, though it might be more the real Cirrus, which at this very moment is in need of a touch-up.

You may notice a few technical improvements. One is a broader width - just enough so that the hot selling netbooks with their limited-width screens can be used easily. Using the new template also makes it easier for looking at the blog with smart phones. All that by some genius programmer(s) at Google.

The tab bar right underneath the header is also new, and will be filled with easy-access info.

For any suggestions, complaints, ideas add a comment to the post, Ulli

P.S. no further update since Chris' last post; Cirrus was built with those conditions in mind, so the boat will be fine, but the crew might be a bit shaken.

Position Report

2010-06-16T09:48:00.000-07:00

TIME: 2010/06/16 16:39 (09:39 PDT)
LATITUDE: 37-15.91N
LONGITUDE: 128-54.51W
COURSE: 092T
SPEED: 5.0

Kate is responding to the seasickness remedy; she was feeling pretty lousy, but is getting better now.

Dave, our sat phone is not reliable; could you please contact Sector at 415-399-3524. Give them our position and say it's a PAN-PAN; Engine out, dead batteries, no autopilot, no radio except handheld, sailing OK;' ETA SF 60 hours; One crew is sick but seems to be recovering.

4 Pob; we have an epirb if it comes to that; we're ok for now.

Chris

Hanging in there

2010-06-15T14:18:00.000-07:00

TIME: 2010/06/15 21:09UTC (That's 2:10 pm PDT)
LATITUDE: 37-15.21N
LONGITUDE: 130-53.70W
COURSE: 101T
SPEED: 6.8
402 miles to go to the Golden Gate

The main challenge with losing the motor is losing the battery-powered autopilot. So now we are hand-steering. That means four-hours on deck, four hours off, two people on deck at a time. Each person takes 30 minutes at the helm, exposed to the 25 knot winds, and the cold, and the spray, while the other person hunkers under the dodger trying to warm up for 30 minutes. Then they switch.

If we can maintain our 5.5 average, we'll be at the GG in three days. Then two hours to KKMI, our probably new destination.

I presume the first order of business, after one glass of something, will be hot showers and dry clothes at RYC. See you soon. ~~Chris

Engine Problems

2010-06-15T09:50:00.000-07:00

by Ulli

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named apparently got a little bit of an upper hand on this tough crew. The engine refuses to start, so they can't charge the batteries, so they can't post neither stories nor position reports.

How do I know? Chris had called Agnes on the Sat-phone, and she send me an email.

Nothing to worry, as they surely have enough wind to sail into Richmond. Their expectation for arrival is still Friday morning. We'll keep you updated for as long as the Sat-phone batteries last ;-)

Update from Bill via Kim:
Cirrus' current position: 37 16 North, 131 20 West. Course 090, hand steering. Speed 5.0 knots. 20 foot seas. Golden Gate 424 miles. ETA still Friday morning.

Update by Ulli:
When you click now on the weather chart on the bottom-right of this blog you get the chart I am showing here with Cirrus' current position shown as a square and a rhumb line to the Golden Gate bridge. You see the isobars being closely spaced, which means it sure is windy.
You will recognize the same info on the Cirrugator Demo site.

YOTREPS 2010/06/15 16:44

2010-06-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: CIRRUS10
TIME: 2010/06/15 16:44
LATITUDE: 37-17.06N
LONGITUDE: 131-24.92W
COURSE: 083T
SPEED: 5.7
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 20
WIND_DIR: N
SWELL_DIR: N
SWELL_HT: 3.7M
SWELL_PER: 8
CLOUDS: 100%
VISIBILITY: 8
COMMENT: Engine won't start; sailing with plenty of wind; hand steering; all is well.

So It's a Little Bumpy. Big Deal!

2010-06-14T19:25:00.000-07:00

Actually, it is kind of a big deal. Folks who thought that their Mal du Mer was behind them have had a shock. Once the little lull preceding the run downhill to San Francisco we locked into northerly winds in excess of 20 knots. That might not sound like much to the YC Bar experts out there but, given sufficient fetch, serious seas can result. For the last couple days it has been mostly 10-12 feet with prolonged episodes of 12-15 feet. You haven't lived until you are on watch alone in the cockpit and you experience one of those suckers coming aboard in the middle night. Sometimes when I"m standing in the cockpit looking around Cirrus will climb one of these special waves and just before she launches herself off down the face you can glance back into a 20 foot deep abyss between waves. It is even dark down there.

I may have have seen my first "rogue" wave. It was way off on the port quarter and just kept getting bigger until it was about 90 feet tall and looked like Mt. Fuji with white breaking foam on top for snow. (Computational details available on request.)

I think we managed the second of Kim's meat loafs just before the weather set in. Great stuff. Since then it has been impossible to do anything other than fill a pot with whatever comes to the top of the pile. Rice cooked in chicken soup and peas, remainder combined with more soup and then the remainder of that combined with clam chowder. Since enchiladas don't combine well We will probably have to start fresh tonight.

Typing at 30 degrees is for the birds. See you later.

Bill
-----
At 6/14/2010 8:36 PM (utc) our position was 37°39.45'N 133°36.97'W

Day 14 - Hunkered Down

2010-06-14T13:55:00.000-07:00

[Edit by Ulli: this is actually an exact duplicate of day 12. They might have miscopied. Once they send me what they really wanted to write, I'll replace]

This was written yesterday.

Well. I should have known that sooner or later it would come to this. We have been drifting along toward San Francisco in a bubble of perfect wind, perfect seas, perfect weather, perfect camaraderie and companionship. This morning's sunrise lit up the sky with a Maxfield Parrish kind of pink and blue perfection. One of the crew took me aside and confessed that because it had been so long they could no longer remember how to trim the sails. I had to reassure them that the skills would come back (probably) when needed.

A friend at KYC recently sailed his El Toro around Oahu in conditions much worse than what we have been experiencing. I hope he doesn't get wind of our current conditions. Otherwise, he'll probably be setting out for San Francisco.

In a strange way Kathy's iPad contributes to the sense of unreality. Last night (moonless, cloudless) we held it out at arm's length and the screen blended in so it seemed as if the illustrated constellations were actually part of the sky. I had to catch my breath when, at one point, I turned to look back and there was the earth behind us and below. Virtual reality is fun and all that, but enough is enough. I thought my heart would stop.

This morning I realized that I was baking in the cockpit. I was wearing a polypro long john layer, a fleece layer, my foul weather gear, boots, gloves, a hat with ear flaps, etc. Why? Because we are at Latitude 38, and that is what you do at Latitude 38.

Turns out to be a dumb idea. So it is back to shorts and tee shirts. There is one new twist to things. Earlier it was so warm and stuffy below that we would have to escape to the cockpit to cool off. Now it is so pleasant and warm in the cockpit that we have to occasionally escape down into the cabin to cool off. The cabin is actually a little chilly because of the dropping water temperature. ~~Bill

About our ETA

2010-06-13T18:34:00.000-07:00

Everyone who has been following Cirrugator, including me, is of course very excited that we will apparently be landing sometime very late on the night of the 16th. But we have a new wrinkle. Cirrugator calculated that we would be making about 8 knots through this band of 20+ knot winds, and we certainly have the wind. But we also have a severe 6-foot chop with interspersed breaking 9- and 12-foot swells. So, not only are we on our ears, but we are really being thrown around a lot. So, for the welfare of vessel and crew, we have throttled back to an average of about 5.5 knots. Sometimes we hit a wave and stop; sometimes we get a smooth spot and shoot ahead at 6+ knots. But let's assume 5.5 knots for the moment.

It is approximately 6:00 pm on Sunday evening and we are showing 631 miles to the Golden Gate Bridge. At 5.5 knots, that's 115 hours. If we add an hour to get to Richmond, that's 116 hours, or 4 days and 20 hours. That puts us in Richmond on Friday the 18th at 2:00 pm. If anything changes, we'll be sure to let you know.

It's a bummer for all of us who are waiting to be reunited with loved ones, but I guess the Wednesday arrival was not to be. At least we now have a somewhat realistic expectation to work with. Stay tuned. ~~Chris

How I learned to love SPS mail, and live with the QRM

2010-06-12T20:49:00.000-07:00

Definitions:
SPS = Satellite Phone Store
QRM = Radio Interference from Man-made Sources (as opposed to QRN = Natural Sources; e.g., lightning)

When Bill and I first started making plans to rent an Iridium satellite phone, way back in March, it was with the idea that it would give us a way to make phone calls from the boat in an emergency. At $1.25 a minute, we certainly wouldn't use it for everyday chit-chat and email. But something happened during the shopping process. I found lots of places that would rent us a phone for $60 a week, with $1.95 a minute airtime. For a ten-week rental, that would be $600 just for the phone, then you would need to rent the external antenna and the data kit for connecting the phone to the computer (as a modem), and then buy a SIM card for $975 (500 minutes x $1.95 per minute). Plus tax ($$$), two-way-shipping ($$$), and insurance ($$$). Then I discovered the Satellite Phone Store in Florida that was selling used phones outright for $695 and offering a 500-minute SIM card for $625 ($1.25 per minute). So I emailed them and we made a deal, phone, 500 minutes, and all accessories included, for $1700. The phone arrived, with all accessories, a week later. But it was DOA. So I called them up and, after playing phone tag for about a day, they agreed that the phone was defective and they would repair it if I sent it back, which I did. In due time, the repaired phone arrived and it did work, for voice. I did not test its data capabilities until I got to Hawaii.

Long story short (I know, too late!), when I got to Hawaii, I hooked the phone up to Bill's computer and, lo-and-behold, the data capability did not work. Since departure date was about a week away, too short to get a new phone, I was freaking out. I spent hours researching this problem on the Internet and leaving panicked messages at SPS. I even went over to Rick's house to try it on his computer, and Bill and I went to Radio Shack to buy replacement data kit parts, but nothing worked. Finally, primarily through guesswork, I changed a modem setting and got it to work, but not at the full specified speed of 19,200 bits-per-second. Does anyone remember an era when dialup modems were rated at less than 56 kbps? Anyway, it was working well enough at 9600 bps that we could shov e off and be reasonably confident that our SPS email (spsmail.net) would work for us.

However, this left me hugely anxious, but not for the obvious reason. The obvious reason would be that I had bought what I thought was a 19,200 bps modem and all I got was 9600; in effect, I was baited and switched. True, but no big deal. What really concerned me was the possibility that this symptom indicated a more serious hidden problem and that the whole thing might fail at any moment. That was eating at me.

Once we were at sea, I had two three-hour watches every day when I was mostly alone, inventing mental tricks to stay awake, and stewing about this modem situation. Finally, one day after my watch, I sat down and wrote a long scathing email to SPS about how unhappy I was. That led to a series of tech support email exchanges that eventually involved the company UU+, the Morro Bay software vendor for SPSmail. I had determined that I could force the modem into the 19,200 bps mode, and it would work, but just until I ran SPSmail, which would then cause it to fail. At this point, one of the UU+ tech support guys recognized this lower data rate as a characteristic of an older generation of satellite phones, one that cannot be upgraded in the field. But at least it reassured me that this was a known problem and this was normal operation and the whole thing was probably not going to fail at any moment. So I was able to accept that this phone is working perfectly, albeit at 9600 bps, in total accordance with its (dated) specification. Whew!

During this whole interaction with SPS and UU+, I developed a new theory about how SPSmail relates to Sailmail. As I said previously, I had no expectation that I would be using SPSmail all day every day, but that's what happened, and here's why.

The satellite phone can be left on 24/7; it has its own internal battery and its cigarette lighter charger draws almost no power. While it is on, it can receive text messages, which are free and which cause the phone to ring. The HF radio draws more power from the main ship's battery so we leave it off most of the time.

The satellite phone can be used any time without any planning or preparation. It is always ready to go and it is immune to ship-board QRM. The HF radio doesn't work very well when the ship's battery is low, and it doesn't work at all when the engine is running, due to QRM from the alternator. Plus, even when the battery is up, and the engine is off, the HF radio is plagued by QRM from the autopilot, so the on-watch crew (usually Kathy) has to hand steer while I use the radio. Note that this will not be an issue during the race, where autopilots are not used.

The satellite phone is a dedicated service, just like a land line, not shared. Each Sailmail shore station is shared among all users in range, like a giant party line (you've heard of those?). While Sailmail has lots of shore stations, only one or two are reachable at any one time from any one location. So all vessels in your area will be using the same few shore stations. This has not been an issue during the delivery because there's nobody else out here. It's very rare that I hear another station sending email. But I can remember in previous races, with 25 boats sailing more or less in formation to Hawaii, when we would have to wait an hour or more, listening to the radio, before we would be able to use that frequency. And sometimes I just waited until three o'clock in the morning to improve our chances of getting in.

Finally, satellite phone email is much faster than Sailmail and its file size limitations are higher. If you are willing to pay for the airtime, you can send very large files like digital photos and videos.

But what about cost? Sailmail is $250 a year, for up to 90 minutes a week usage. If you can use it year-round, as a world cruiser might, and you have no urgent email requirements, it's a smoking deal. But if you jam all your offshore email activity into two three-week trips, like we do, that's $125 a trip. SPSmail is $15 a month, or $15 a trip, plus airtime, say $75 a trip.

Conclusion: Cirrus is already equipped for Sailmail, to the tune of several thousand dollars in HF radio and PACTOR modem equipment, plus an extensive antenna system that works extremely well. So I am very happy that we have paid the annual Sailmail membership fee and I will happily use Sailmail whenever I can, like for collecting comments from all our blog readers. I especially like that it's a little more technical, including the Morse code signoff. But for the emails that have big files attached, like our blog entries, and for emails that just that have to go out now, like tech support exchanges, or dock party arrangements, even when the ship's battery is half dead, or, like today, when the motor will be running for 24 hours because we have no wind, I'm very happy to have SPSmail too.

This is my current opinion, based on what I think I know. I am always open to other opinions, and to being further educated. Comments? ~~Chris

Day 12 - Hot Weather - Cold Weather

2010-06-12T20:43:00.000-07:00

Ten hours later, we have entered the twilight zone. Completely overcast dark gray skies, with the cold sun barely visible, give the day a definite winter look. The temperature has dropped to 60 and the winds and seas are building. We are pounding into the building swell with the wind almost on the nose. Hopefully, we'll be able to sail later tonight. We have 746 miles to go to the Golden Gate.

We have switched to Pacific Daylight Time on the boat. It is now 8:38 pm and Bill is about to go on watch, relieving Kathy. By the way, we had tamales for lunch. Yum. ~~Chris

At 6/13/2010 3:39 AM (utc) our position was 37°47.12'N 138°10.97'W

Day 11 - Dream On!

2010-06-11T11:04:00.000-07:00

Recently we had a query from Rick, who is doing the race but not the delivery. He asked us:

"Is there any advice on quality of life things to make sure to bring along for the return trip? You probably have said a dozen times "Gee, I sure could use such and such or wish I had brought this or that.""

Up to this point we hadn't given it much thought, but after some discussion several ideas immerged. One of things we all miss is a particular hors-d'oeuvre (puu-puu), the one where you start with a slice of a small red skinned potato that has been boiled. You add a dollop of sour cream and a generous dab of caviar. (We couldn't agree on the best caviar to use but I could send you a list of suggestions if you are interested.)
Another place that there was not universal agreement was what to drink with it. Even champagne was mentioned. (Yuk!) Myself, I lean toward a particular Danish aquavit. Others had vodka suggestions.

Another thing we miss is live chamber music. Recordings are not the same. Alas, not very practical during a sailing trip. If someone wanted to do something really cool they could arrange a greeting at RYC consisting, for example, of a violin, viola, cello and flute. The score could be just about anything, with a slight preference for Mozart.

At the last minute Kate said that a climbing wall would be nice. Once again, not so practical. A trip up the mast, just for fun, is in the works but we have agreed that it would be more interesting to do it during the day when it is light so you can look around.

As far as learning, literature, navigation, etc. Kathy's new iPad has taken care of that. Its GPS navigation and charts are better than what we have on the boat. It seems to contain just about every book that comes up in discussions. (This is a bookish group.) Classics included!
We spent part of the early evening on a Periodic Table app that even has 112 properly named. Half the night was spent using its animated star charts to find and name various constellations. Thank goodness it was my watch and I had to be up anyway. ~~ Bill

Break, break.

Bill and I may agree on a lot of stuff, but caviar and chamber music are not among them. Bruschetta and Billy (ZZ Topp) are more to my taste. While we were discussing this topic (early, very early) this morning, I added my suggestion that a mobile shower room would really add to the dock party. One thing led to another and I hallucinated on a music video with ZZ Topp playing Sharp Dressed Man in this huge luxurious locker room with the sights and sounds of showers in the background. Maybe have the showering sailors and their groupies doing some kind of "Thriller" dance behind the shower curtains. Man, I gotta get some sleep!

Seriously though, to answer Rick's question, one thing that would have added comfort to this delivery would have been a cockpit cushion. We were very fortunate that we had benign conditions and we were able to keep the bean bag on deck almost all the time; extremely comfortable. I mean EXTREMELY! You have no idea how hard the fiberglass feels after several hours of having your backside jammed in place against it. If condition had been wet on this trip, the bean bag would have been kept below and there would have been a lot of really sore butts (aka monkey-butt; Google it!).

I think the time has come to start discussing our landfall. Here on the boat, we have a local copy of Cirrugator running. In theory, it should give us the same results you see on the Cirrugator website. However, our results may be slightly different because I might be using slightly different weather data from Ulli, and because Ulli knows what he's doing and I don't (Time offset = 17, right Ulli?). So, allowing for those variations, our copy of Cirrugator says that we will land at 7:27 pm on the evening of the 16th. Of course, that's completely bogus; we all know that Cirrus always lands between midnight and four am. The other thing we have just started looking at is the tide data for the Golden Gate. If you are not familiar with the Golden Gate Bridge, it is known for its very strong tidal currents, currents that are strong enough to overwhelm the forward movement of sailboats, and currents that are strong enough to create a violent washing-machine effect if they flow against strong winds. Ideally, we will arrive at the GG on a strong flood tide with the wind behind us. Alternatively, we would look for a slack current regardless of wind. Anything else can be very slow and extremely scary. So stay tuned for updates as we get closer.

The other big deal in current events aboard Cirrus occurred yesterday. We were equally distant from Hawaii and the mainland, 1089 nautical miles. Kathy and Kate organized a hell of a bash (see photos). And gourmet delights included tuna salad for lunch (my favorite), pasta for dinner (my other favorite) and various goodies like giant chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, accompanied by real champagne. I want to stress to all our friends at Sea Life Conservation that all champagne corks (all one of them) were noisily popped but kept safely aboard. Kathy also provided the ribbon corsages and bubble pipes. The bubble-blowing competition was pretty muted though. I think Kate was first in the big bubble class, and Kathy and I were distant thirds, totally incompetent. Bill declined to compete; that man knows how to blow a bubble!

That's all for now. Smoke 'em if you got 'em! Thanks for your comments yesterday; keep them coming. ~~Chris

Day 10 - Half Way Party!

2010-06-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

We've already had two half-way parties: one for getting half-way to our target latitude, and one for getting half-way to our projected total time at sea. Today is the day when our GPS indicated that we were equally distant from the Golden Gate Bridge and Makani Kai Marina. So Bill wanted to me to quote a famous person on this topic: "It is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning." ~~ Winston Churchill.

Specifically, at 07:58:58 this morning, we noted that we were 1089 miles from both the Golden Gate Bridge and Makani Kai Marina. Kathy already passed the cookies and cream candies. Coffee candies to come later, along with some bubbley, and maybe pictures. Stay tuned.

Yesterday, I forgot to post the pictures that accompanied the "Guest Blogger" item. Here they are.

Sailing yesterday afternoon was a blast. During my watch, the wind started to build and our speed started to climb. By about 5:30, we had been screaming along at about 8.5 knots for about an hour. But sunset was coming and we decided to reef for the night. So we furled the jib, started the motor, headed up about 50 degrees, and Bill and Kate went forward to work on the reef, all while the boat was bouncing and swerving in the swell. Just as we were wrapping up, a cargo ship came over the horizon and hailed us on the VHF. We were busy, so we ignored the first few calls, but eventually, I was free to go below and call him back. On the other end of the line was a very polite man who spoke perfect English with what sounded like an Indian or Pakistani accent. We was calling to ask if we were OK. I guess he had seen our wild course changes on his radar and maybe even used powerful binoculars to see Bill and Kate dancing on the foredeck and concluded that we might be in some difficulty. I assured him we were completely normal sailors performing a completely normal maneuver to reduce our speed. And I thanked him for his concern. He assured me that his vessel would pass well ahead of ours and wished us a good evening and a good voyage. "Gee, what a nice guy!" ~~ Madeline Kahn.

Hopefully, we'll have an extra blog item today, after the party. ~~Chris

At 6/10/2010 4:45 PM (utc) our position was 35°42.05'N 145°09.52'W

Day 9 - Guest Blogger Day

2010-06-09T22:32:00.000-07:00

Chris is taking the day off, so here are the words of Cirrus's other crew members.

From Bill: What a wonderful trip so far. And to think that I came close to canceling out this year. The weather and sailing conditions are mellow beyond belief. For example, right now we are drifting along at 4-5 knots of wind to the ENE just like Cirrugator suggests. Making 4-5 knots to weather in very light air and seas that are kind of bumpy but OK.

I have always had interesting people as delivery crew and this group gets 4 stars. The chit chat hits a pretty high plane when books and reading are being discussed.
There is a lot of talk about travel and outdoor adventures. Real life doesn't come close to being as much fun. Guess that's why we do it.

A couple days ago we put our first halfway Point (party) behind us. That was halfway (Latitude). Yesterday's party was halfway (chronological) where the elapsed time and predicted time to finish were equal (8 days). (Oops. Forgot to open the sparkling cider.) The next halfway will be spatial, when the distance to SF is the same as the distance to home. That's coming up tomorrow, about 100 miles from now. The final party (unless someone can help us out with more suggestions) will be the halfway (Longitude).

I don't know if this was previously mentioned but a couple days ago when things were really quiet I decided on a crew training session consisting of races (tethered) around the deck. First up to the bow, switch sides and back to the cockpit. The best time was 27 seconds but the awards are being held up on a technical point. (One of the competitors was heard practicing while on watch the night before.) The new crew members did well but declined to join the subsequent blindfolded competition.

I opened up the engine compartment yesterday to take a look and most everything was fine: oil, coolant, belts, shaft seal, no fuel or oil drips. BUT. The damnned sea water coolant hose had a little drip that coated stuff with salt and required an hour or so of cleanup. Seems to be ok now.

From Kate: Hi Everyone. It became apparent that some of us were not contributing to the blog. Personally, I thought Chris was doing a great job, and sure that he won't have as many spelling errors as me. But here goes. This trip seems kind of like a vacation! Lots of naps, food, and general relaxation. Occasionally, we have to trim sails, etc. but overall it's been quiet. We were well provisioned and have a buffet to choose from each lunch and dinner. Last night we had shrimp scampi with pasta and a veggie to keep our Mom's happy. Cookies for dessert. Lunch today was chili on top of rice with apples on the side. I still get slammed around, though. There is a safety strap in the galley that goes around your back that keeps most of a person's body in the galley area (some appendages exempt).

From Kathy: Today I cooked, served, and ate an entire meal at sea. Those who know me will realize this is quite an accomplishment. They will be more amazed that although I was "in charge" of provisioning, the crew has not starved. Many a meal has been what I have mentally called "man meals"—I set out the cans, they are opened, the contents thrown into a pot and heated, and we eat the results. Clam chowder, canned corn, and canned chicken has been a favorite, we have had it twice. Chris says "Mmmm, delicious!" every time.

Some have asked about our shipboard rituals. I take a lot of naps. A lot. After every meal and every watch. I am well rested. After my really long nap, from ten p.m. to five a.m., excluding checking in on Kate's watch at 2 a.m. (the milky way is finest at that hour) I take out my trusty individual packaged face wipes (first product placement of the day), wash my face, do some leg stretches and bicycle moves, heave myself out of bed, and I'm good to go.

The first few days, those who had them wore the Pacific Cup's "Performance Shirt" incessantly. Perfect to keep the sun off and the air in during those tropical days. Still available on-line.

Also, among the numerous coffees available on board, the coffee of choice has been Starbuck's instant coffee in a tube. Other great items: bandanas. Those headlamps with the red lights on them. Long's over-your-prescription-glasses polarized sunglasses. If you don't have them, get them.

After dinner, Kate and I do foredeck drills. We try to beat Bill's time around the foredeck, totally clipped in the entire time, of course. We couldn't even beat his eyes closed time.

My watch is from 6 to 9, a.m. and p.m., the sunset and sunrise watches. There is absolutely nothing so nice as to be on watch at night, the rest of the crew busy or slumbering below. I look forward to my watches, I look forward to getting home, but first, chicken pot pie for dinner (Costco, Marie Callender's, individual servings, just heat and serve.)

Also, grapefruit, oranges, apples, and cabbage last a lot longer than you'd expect—it's day nine and they are still good. And they are easily peelable/sliceable on deck.

That's all for today. Thanks for your comments. ~ The Crew of s/v Cirrus

Reply to Ulli's Commnet on Day 8 - Long Johns

2010-06-09T17:28:00.000-07:00

Hi Ulli,

Thanks for the comment. You were correct. It immediately got warm again for a few hours. But last night was fleece night. And I sewed three inches of cloth onto the bottom of my shorts. I'm going to do that every day so that I'll have long pants by the time we get to SF.

Regarding the sails, the wedding dress is slightly shredded around the ankles but, otherwise, all is well. The "Dalmation" sail is doing very well. No more giant squid ink so far.

Klau says Hi. He's been very quiet. I think he's planning something.

Chris

Day 8 - Long Johns

2010-06-08T10:02:00.000-07:00

OK, last night we crossed into the arctic latitudes; the air temperatures dropped from the 70's and 80's into the 60's. As you can see from the photo, Kathy is in full foulies this morning; quite a contrast to the "showers" picture. As she says, "Ah, typical summer [San Francisco] bay weather!" I would add, "Except it's not blowing 30!" Rick mentioned that there are no pictures of me in the blog, so here's a picture of me. There are two significant items in this picture. First, the fan blades are stationary. Until last night, this fan ran almost continuously from the moment we went aboard in Makani Kai. Second, I'm wearing a shirt while below. Again, a first since we left Hawaii. Tomorrow, we'll probably be wearing our parkas to bed.

At 0645, Hawaii Time, we were at latitude N33-01.414, longitude W148-51.219, on a course of 045M, sailing at a speed of about 4 knots, with our GPS showing 1320 miles to go. We are hoping to see more wind later today or tomorrow. We still have plenty of coffee, so all is well. BTW, the sea temperature has dropped a lot too. On "showers" day, it was 76, today it is 66! Brrr!

BTW, BTW, we have sighted three ships since leaving Hawaii, all of them we pretty big cargo container ships, all steaming at 20+ knots. Bill spoke to two of them on the VHF. One guy was Japanese, and had an extremely thick accent, but spoke to Bill in excellent English. Then he disappeared over the horizon on his way to Yokohama. Now we're all alone again. See you tomorrow. ~~Chris

Day 7 - Scampi

2010-06-07T22:00:00.000-07:00

Today seems almost uneventful. I guess we are really getting into the routine. Last night, we sailed wing-on-wing all night under a poled-out jib in light winds. The ride was relatively smooth and reasonably fast. Today, we remembered to turn the navigation lights off at dawn, unlike yesterday. Imagine our surprise when, yesterday at dusk, we went to turn on the lights and found them all already on. No wonder the batteries were low. Dinner tonight was boiled ziti with a garlic shrimp sauce. Last night was New England clam chowder, fortified with canned chicken and canned peas. This was our no-effort dinner after three nights of oven-baked gourmet delights: meat loaf with mashed potatoes, roast turkey with mashed potatoes, and roast bbq beef with mashed potatoes. Each of these dinners was cooked by either Kate of Kathy, with Bill's supervision. I have to hand it to Kate and Kathy for sticking it out in the tiny galley in spite of the incredible heat (Cirrus has zero ventilation), and less than stable working conditions. OSHA would have a fit. I'm gonna cut this short tonight because I got sunscreen in my right eye today and it hurts like heck. That will also explain why I was not on the radio tonight; my apologies to Lou and Steve for not checking in. Hopefully tomorrow. In the meantime, thanks again for your comments. Good night all. ~~Chris
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At 6/8/2010 5:00 AM (utc) our position was 32°25.66'N 149°51.04'W

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Day 6 - Happiness is Seven Knots in a Light Breeze

2010-06-06T13:01:00.000-07:00

For those of you asking about today's position report, it was transmitted about an hour later than usual. As mentioned below, the wind was building as I came off watch and we decided that dowsing the chute was a priority task. But, by the time you read this, our latest position should be available on YOTREPS. FYI, below is what a position report looks like; it is a machine-generated email that is addressed to, and read by, a machine. Our Sailmail software reads our position, and course and speed, and the time, from our GPS unit. It fills in those blanks on a form input window. For the other items, I look out a window, and/or stick a wet finger in the air, and come up with my best guess for each of the blanks. Then I click on "Send to YOTREPS" and all that info gets converted into the emails you see below.

This is today's report:

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: CIRRUS10
TIME: 2010/06/06 17:49 (Note from Chris: this is 0749 HST)
LATITUDE: 30-07.55N
LONGITUDE: 152-52.25W
COURSE: 072T
SPEED: 6.5
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 12
WIND_DIR: SE
SWELL_DIR: SW
SWELL_HT: 1.8M
SWELL_PER: 12
CLOUDS: 20%
VISIBILITY: 10
COMMENT:

This is yesterday's report:

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: CIRRUS10
TIME: 2010/06/05 16:49 (Note from Chris: this is 0649 HST)
LATITUDE: 28-41.44N
LONGITUDE: 154-10.88W
COURSE: 031T
SPEED: 6.6
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 8
WIND_DIR: SW
SWELL_DIR: W
SWELL_HT: 1.8M
SWELL_PER: 12
CLOUDS: 10%
VISIBILITY: 10
COMMENT:

If, after reading all this, you still see a discrepancy on YOTREPS, please let me know and I'll contact Mr. Yotreps.

Back to today's blog entry, already in progress: Last night, at sunset, we were still flying the "wedding dress", but the wind was getting light and our speed was dropping into the two knot range. So we had to make a decision: leave the chute up and hope for the best, or take it down so we could fire up the d-sail. So we decided to defer the decision for a half-hour. At the end of the half-hour we saw that the average speed had climbed into the three-knot range, which was good enough for overnight. We agreed that, if the wind died, we'd do what we had to do, but, if the breeze filled in, we would look like geniuses, at least in our own eyes. And guess what; throughout the night, the breeze was light but steady and it gradually filled in. When I went on watch at 0300, our speed had been in the fours for a while and was occasionally in the fives. During my watch, it built further until we were routinely in the sixes, with plenty of sevens thrown in. I even saw an 8.00. But once Kathy was in the saddle, and I was below reading your emails, Bill decided that, since we hadn't yet had a knockdown, but the wind was still building, it was inevitable that we'd get a surprise sooner rather than later. In fact, the GPS was hitting 8.5 knots from time-to-time, with lots of big rolls. So, all hands on deck, let's get the chute down and stowed, let's get the spinnaker fence down and stowed, let's get the jib out and drawing, and then let's, the off watch, go below for coffee and cookies.

BTW, in the spinnaker photo, if you look carefully around the bottom of the "wedding dress", you'll see that it's slightly shredded in a few spots. That's why it's flying on two poles. Before we launched the second (leeward) pole, the chute was tending to drag on the bow pulpit occasionally and we think that's what started the shredding action. Of course, when it comes to expensive sails, once it starts shredding, nobody knows where it will stop. Well, actually, we do know; at the sail maker's front door.

Today's other "stop the presses" photo is from yesterday, when it was incredibly hot and sunny, and 76 degree saltwater was deemed to be the ideal stuff for a beachfront shower. Very cooling. Of course, I, the on-watch crew, was hunkered in the shade under the dodger wearing my technical long-sleeve Pacific Cup sun-shirt, and my long-legged convertible REI sun-pants, with my brimmed camo sun-hat and with 45-proof sunscreen running into my eyes. Really pleasant. And somewhat warm too. Of course, I wasn't hunkered when I took the picture, but otherwise, definitely hunkered.

OK, enough for now. As I leave you, here is our position report:TIME: 2010/06/06 19:56 (That's UTC, 0956 in Hawaii)
LATITUDE: 30-12.23N
LONGITUDE: 152-37.38W
COURSE: 067T
SPEED: 6.6
It's sunny and clear here. ~~Chris

Question about time stamps on the blog

2010-06-05T16:43:00.001-07:00

Hi Rick,

Thanks for your question. That email was time-stamped here on the boat at 1209, which is Hawaii time, which is what you use for all activities on board. I can only speculate that the blog server is in the PDT time zone and it time-stamped the message at 1509 local time. Any thing else? keep 'em coming. ~~Chris
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At 6/5/2010 11:37 PM (utc) our position was 29°09.47'N 153°55.96'W

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Position Reports at the end of some blog posts

2010-06-05T16:43:00.000-07:00

Hi all, we've gotten some questions about this. Here's the answer: There are three ways to get an item posted to the blog. If it's a short item, like this one, we use SailMail to send it via short wave radio and the position report is automatically included. That's a feature of SailMail and SailMail only. If it's an item that includes video or photos, it's a much bigger file so we use the satellite phone email software UUPlus to send it, which does not append a position report. And third, if the item is posted by Ulli, our shoreside system administrator and tech guru, using normal Internet mail, the position report is not appended. Even if Ulli were using SailMail, which he could, from his home in Germany, his position report would not be of much value in determining where Cirrus is. Does that solve the mystery? Any other items of burning curiosity? Inquiring minds, etc. ~~Chris
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At 6/5/2010 11:31 PM (utc) our position was 29°09.21'N 153°56.29'W

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Day Five - The Garbage Files

2010-06-05T15:09:00.000-07:00

For all fans of marine debris studies, we have data. In the first 240 miles north of Oahu, we did not take waypoint coordinates, but during those several days we encountered one crab pot float, three gray plastic fishing ball floats (see photo), and something that looked like a urethane foam corn-on-the-cob; I speculate that it's a crab pot buoy that's lost its shell and has been battered for a while until it's just a nub of its former functional shape. Since then we have recorded three waypoints with the following inventory: WP1 - polyethylene 6-pack ring, styrofoam blob, larger styrofoam sheet (2 ft x 3 ft); WP2 - one crab pot float, three unidentified chunks of plastic, 2 blocks of styro (like a small stereo might be packed in), and a 20-foot piece of polypropylene line; and WP3 - one more small piece of unidentified trash. We haven't spotted Garbage Island yet, but we remain optimistic.

This morning, while sailing at about 3 knots in extremely light wind, we decided to try the spinnaker. So, we began the drill: furl the jib (speed dropped to 1.5 knots), attach the snatch blocks, hoist the spinnaker fence, run the guy and sheet, hoist and position the pole, and, finally, hoist the spinnaker. At first there was no discernible speed improvement, but gradually we picked up a tenth, then another tenth, and so on until we were up to about 4 knots. So, we are now sailing under spinnaker, and the average has climbed to about 5 knots, but we see the occasional 6 knot burst (see photo).

Ham radio wise, I have had some recent success, now that we are no longer motoring. Previously, with the engine running, the alternator created so much electrical noise that it was impossible to use the radio. But last night, while sailing with the motor off, I was able to reach Tom, W7ISU, one of the operators of the Pacific Seafarer's ham radio network, and he was able to contact my buddy Steve, N6TGM, in Santa Cruz. The way this works is that Tom, with his "million-dollar" radio, and 100-foot antenna tower, located on a 3300-foot mountaintop in the western Washington Cascades, can talk to anyone, anywhere, any time. That's why he is a "Net Control" operator, like a volunteer phone company. Both Steve and I have puny "thousand-dollar" radios, and we have puny 30-foot antennas, which are located a puny 12 feet above the water, 1700 miles apart. So there is absolutely no way that Steve and I could talk to each other directly under normal circumstances. And most sailors around the world are in the same boat, as it were, when trying to use ham radio to communicate with friends and family. We all depend on this "asymmetric" model in which dedicated ham radio volunteers like Tom spend a ton of time and money setting up professional grade shoreside radio stations so that people like us can communicate. Anyway, it was great to hear Tom's voice come booming in through the static and I could hear him calling Steve and repeating to him that we sailing in light wind and that all was well. If you're a ham and you want to listen in, we'll be on 14.300 at 1815 Hawaii Time.

As I write this, our position is N 29d 03.472, W 154d 01.417, course is 027T, and speed is about 5 knots. The sky is 95% clear, the winds are light from the southwest, and the water temperature is 82 degrees F. We saw our friendly albatross again today; that's at least three days in a row. I actually have video. I also have pictures of the crew taking (cold) saltwater showers. So far, I'm the only unwashed one, but then again, I was asleep during the great tarball cleanup exercise. Stay tuned.

BTW, I have just learned that our Pacific Cup start date has been moved from July 5th to July 6th. So if you are making plans to be in town for the start, you have been warned. See you there.

Remember, we look forward to your comments. Thanks to everyone who has written to us so far. ~~Chris

Surprise Change of Start Date

2010-06-05T02:49:00.000-07:00

Cirrus's start has been moved to Tuesday, July 6. While officially still a draft, the PCup organizers expect this to be pretty much final. Not sure if that means that Cirrus' rating has changed, I will follow up on this.
Ulli

Division: B Tuesday, July 6
Cirrus    Bill Myers B 40 feet Standfast 40
Tiki J    Scott Dickinson B 42 feet J/42
Coyote    Connie & St B 42.6 feet Beneteau First 42
Bequia    Dennis B. Ronk B 40.6 feet Beneteau 411
Relentless   Greg Paxton/Arn B 32 feet Sydney32
Sweet Okole   Dean Treadway B 36 feet Custom Farr 36
Scaramouche V   Peter M. Heiber B 49 feet PalmerJohnson
Tiki Blue   Gary Troxel B 41.8 feet Beneteau 423

Day Four - Still a Lake, but with Some Wind

2010-06-04T17:35:00.000-07:00

Hi Gang: Well, we turned the motor off today, after motoring for 37 hours. We also emptied five of our eight fuel cans into the starboard tank. The swell is tiny but the ride is very lumpy due to the light winds. We are sailing at about five knots, sometimes more, sometimes less. The pictures are from yesterday. The third one shows how truly flat and calm the ocean was, and the other two show the efforts required to remove the giant squid ink blotches from the deck. Apparently these blotches are made of some other-worldly material; It took a strong cleaner and plenty of scrubbing to get them off. So now, as Bill says, half the deck is clean. The mal-de-mer status seems definitive: no symptoms for two days. In fact, just the opposite. Kathy and Kate have become positively bright-eyed and enthusiastic. 1740 miles to go. 12 more days. See you later. ~~Chris

Reply to Ulli's comment

2010-06-03T11:01:00.000-07:00

Hi Ulli. Thanks for your kind words. Cirrugator is AWESOME! Yes, we have the latest GRIB, and yes, we can see all the bad news in our future, including a lot of motoring. Good thing Cirrus has wing tanks (see photo). ~~Chris

PS: While is attaching the wing tank photo, I discovered a bunch of cool pictures. So here are a couple more.

Day 3: It's Like a Lake Out Here, or "Out Damn Spot!"

2010-06-03T10:23:00.000-07:00

Good morning everyone. We've been motoring since 11:30 last night. Just enough breeze to give us one knot extra, but not enough to sail on. The air temperature is a balmy 76 degrees. The swell is gone; just long faint ripples. When the sun came up this morning, I noticed something strange on the deck (see the photo). I did not recognize it, so I pointed it out to Bill. He acknowledged that it was a mysterious and unexplained scientific anomaly. So, we are appealing to you, our readers, to respond if you have any ideas (real or imaginary) about what it is. There are dozens of these on the deck, some as small as an quarter, several as big as Bill's hand. We have already considered, and discarded, the idea that it came from the Gulf oil spill. It does sorta have a black, tarry look to it. Maybe an albatross on his way back from the Gulf, etc. Bill also mentioned that the magazine "New Scientist" accepts this kind of puzzle for its readers. If anyone would like to submit it, please feel free. In other news, completely unrelated I assure you, we are learning to eat liquid peanut butter. Instead of a knife, you have to use a spoon to spread it. And a little goes a long way. It's Kirkland Organic "Creamy" Peanut Butter, and it tastes great, and we think it's fully homogenized and mixed, but it still comes out of the jar, well, creamy, and it kinda goes everywhere. Good thing we're wearing foulie bottoms. That's all for now. Please have a look at our new tracking site: http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=CIRRUS10, and please send us news from home. The easiest way is to write a comment on this blog entry and include all your latest news. Your comments come to us as email messages over our shortwave radio. Very slow, but effective in the middle of the ocean. Fair winds; ~~Chris
Position at 0720 HST: 25d07.795N, 156d51.522W

This is Your Captain Speaking

2010-06-02T23:01:00.000-07:00

It is mid afternoon on day 2 of Delivery 2010. We are 140 nautical miles almost dead north (very little latitude change) of home. The scheduled 1000 departure looked like it was going to slip a little but a cold gusty rain shower speeded things up. The blessing was rushed as people scattered for shelter. It cleared quickly and we pushed off the dock an hour late and were on our way.

It is wonderful to be the focus of so much care and concern. Every one was wonderful and helpful without reservation. People brought us so many last minute gifts of food that we had a hard time finding places to put things. We sure aren't going to be hungry. Donna Austin and Kim Ickler stand out as people who carried us on their shoulders and launched us on our way.

The tide was low when we left the dock and we needed time to settle in and impose some order below on the chaos of the last minute provisioning push, so we motored over to the main shipping channel. Out in the ocean it was gusty and squally, with 15-20 knot winds and hard short bumpy seas. It felt like we were a rag doll being shaken to pieces by a puppy. Pretty rough way to get started. We just plugged along with a reef in the main and furled the jib in and out to accommodate to conditions. Finally around noon today conditions mellowed out and now we have the full main and jib, and the wind and sea are smooth and the sky is blue. We are cooking along at 6.5-7 knots. (Still straight north.)
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At 6/2/2010 8:15 PM (utc) our position was 23°10.84'N 157°22.77'W

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Day Two

2010-06-02T17:05:00.000-07:00

First item of business: Kathy wants it to be known by all that, yes, she tossed her cookies on day one, but she still stood her 6-9 watch last night. Frankly, the sailing has been challenging, especially for the off watches. Seas are lumpy and confused, with the occasional big breaking wave, and it's all on the beam. And strong gusty winds, with the occasional squall thrown in for excitement, keep us busy furling and unfurling the jib. Moving about below is somewhat hazardous because the boat can jump or lurch violently at any moment. Every move has to be planned, gripping every available hand-hold with white knuckles. The only safe place is wedged in the cockpit, or in your bunk. Fortunately, our stalwart helmsman, Otto, is up to his task so we are able to focus on hanging on. We expect to be sailing into an area of weaker winds soon, so Bill has mentioned that we will probably shake the reef out of the main. Dinner last night was chicken noodle soup fortified with a can of chicken. Excellent choice given the uncertain state of our sea legs at that point. Even now, I am absolutely not in the mood to be taking pictures or videos. I just want to find a cool, secure corner to hide in. So that's why this blog entry is so short. Stay tuned for more later. Meanwhile, thanks for all your comments. I compiled them all into a two-page newsletter and printed one copy for all to read: The Daily Cirrus.

Wait! Bill and I just shook out the reef. Kate is on watch and she reports fair winds and calm seas. And I just took a picture of Bill at the mast. Everybody's smiling again. I guess for a sailor, good weather is central to good mental health. ~~Chris
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At 6/2/2010 8:15 PM (utc) our position was 23°10.84'N 157°22.77'W

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Bon Voyage!

2010-06-02T08:51:00.000-07:00

by Rick

Under gray skies and a light rain, Cirrus left its berth on its way to San Francisco. It was precisely 1056 am when the lines were untied and the crew waved as they slowly backed out and started on their long way. All seemed very happy and thrilled with the upcoming adventure. Kate, Kathy, and Chris were beaming lovely smiles. Bill was at the helm and had a more serious demeanor, all the months of preparations had come to a head; he was off to face the sea and had much on his mind.

He was also overwhelmed by the display of affection from the numerous people that came to see him and the crew leave on their trip. Of course there were leis of lovely colors and aromas for the crew members and there was also a man of the cloth who gave traditional Hawaiian blessings followed by Christian prayers. The boat was adorned with Ti leaves, the traditional Hawaiian offering for good luck. Everyone openly wished them well and also quietly offered a prayer in their name.

At least one person watched on until they were a couple of miles away and turned around Coconut Island disappearing from view; the person watched with a terrible regret of not being on board.

The delivery crew: from left to right:
Chris, Kate, Kathy, Bill

The extended crews: from left to right:
Chris, Donna, Caroline, Kate, Kathy, Bill, Rick, Maria-Lucia

Blessing of the boat

The farewell committee: from left to right:
Kim, ?, Lou, ?, ?, Nancy

Cirrus is on her way. Fair winds!

We're Away!

2010-06-01T15:38:00.001-07:00

Just before 10:00 am Hawaii Time, a small group gathered at the dock for our send off. It was really nice in spite of the light rain. It was especially nice for me to see Nancy Piper after all these years since we sailed together in Cirrus. Ti leaves were affixed fore and aft by Bill, and Donna installed a ti leaf lei on the forward pulpit. After Chaplain Bill did the blessing, it was hugs all around and everyone said goodbye (except Rick, who secretly wants to come with us). Then we went below to stash the dry ice that Donna had brought. It was a joy to behold Kathy and Kate as they ran down their checklists and placed layers of dry ice and food in the ice locker in reverse order of its intended consumption. Finally we said goodbye to Rick as he cast off our lines and we motored away. As I write this, we are passing Chinaman's hat in the Kaneohe Bay shipping channel. We have eaten the turkey sandwiches (Thank you Kim!) and it's now only 2071 nautical miles to the Golden Gate Bridge. It's already getting bumpy and the wind is quite light. Time to go on deck for some fresh air. ~~Chris
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At 6/1/2010 7:05 PM (utc) our position was 21°25.13'N 157°47.41'W

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Departure Day

2010-06-01T10:15:00.000-07:00

It's June 1st, at 6:30 in the morning and it's blowing 30 knots. Wait! Well, it was blowing 30 knots a few minutes ago, and it's still forecast to blow 30 knots, but it's only about 10 knots at the moment (see the picture). Kathy and I spent a quiet night on the boat and we're sitting here drinking Starbucks instant coffee. Not bad. We are expecting Bill to arrive any minute now with all the frozen stuff, at which point will commence the fire drill to get it all stowed, with dry ice, in the refrigerated locker. We will then seal the locker with packing tape and we won't open it for about two days. As the anticipation to depart builds, I'll just mention that we successfully connected our GPS to the computer and now our position reports will be semi-automated. I still have to fill in all the weather data, which you will not see on YOTREPS, but the lat and long, and course and speed, will be filled in automatically from the GPS data. That's a big help; manually copying your position and course from the GPS, and then entering the data into another screen, is somewhat error prone. Speaking of GPS, ours says that the Golden Gate Bridge is 2073 nautical miles away. Meanwhile provisioning has been a massive job. Donna and Kathy went to Costco on Saturday and bought enough stuff to fill eight big plastic totes. Some of it went to live in Kim Ickler's freezer for a few days, but most of it came here to the boat. Since then, Kathy has been sorting and labeling everything so that meal preparation, while still a lot of work on a heeling boat, will be at least simplified by not having to look all over the place for ingredients. Well, I think Bill is here so I need to get back to work. Stay tuned, and fair winds. ~~Chris

Cirrus 2010 Pacific Cup

"Anticrepuscular Rays"

Cirrusblog Analytics - The Final Count

More video

Finally - we have the Halfway-Video up and running!

Guten Tag !

The Cirrus Academy of Literature, Science, and Personal Hygiene

Caroline Heinrich

Wonderful Start Photos

Kathy McGraw

Cirrus has Finished!

Arrival time: 02:05 HST

Perhaps our most Beautiful Day

A Finish for the Real Men Among Us

A Few Witty Phrases Captured During our Trip

Cirrus in Dismay - Crew deteriorating

The Final Stretch

In Memoriam of the King

No Two Alike

En La Recta Final

Yawn, 'nother one

What Could Be More Obvious?

Firecrackers

got fish?

Moon and Planets

Endlich, Finalmente, Finally

Video in the works

talkstory with Caroline

On Eating Well

Aos Amigos Portugueses

On the Edge

Ooops!

URGENT URGENT Urgent

Shoot the Chute.

Halfway Party

Harsh Measures Have to be Taken

Klabautermann is having a party in the fleet

Cirrus Attacked and Boarded!

Half Way Party Tonight

Klabautermann acting up

Sunset Photo

Cirrus Ahead of Pegasus in the Fleet Ranks!

190 nm Daily Run sets new record for Cirrus

Sailing on the Wild Ride

Devil Is In the Detaiils

De Ju Vu (Spelling?)

Let's See. If This Is Saturday, We Must Be Half Way To........................

A Night to Remember

Skipper has a Friend

Hail to the King!

Like Dancing a Waltz

We Have to Stop Meeting Like This.

Who Would've EverThought

Pictures from yesterday.

We're off Like a Rocket. Well................

Bon Voyage! Fair Winds, Cirrus.

Germany and the Soccer Championship

Do I sense a little attachment to the King?

Watch our Start per live-video over the Internet

The masthead "tricolor" navigation lights

Power Full

New Crew Member Mark Denzer

Friends of Cirrus - Save the King !

WE'RE BACK ON THE BLOG

Cirrusblog Analytics

Divisions, Ratings and Performance

Cirrugator is set for the race

Cirrus Greeting Party

Just heard from Cirrus!

How to contact us:

Day 18 - prepare for a successful finish!

Day 17 - Things are smoothing out

Cirrus Blog's New Clothing

Position Report

Hanging in there

Engine Problems

YOTREPS 2010/06/15 16:44

So It's a Little Bumpy. Big Deal!

Day 14 - Hunkered Down

About our ETA