Question about time stamps on the blog

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
-----
At 6/5/2010 11:37 PM (utc) our position was 29°09.47'N 153°55.96'W

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Position Reports at the end of some blog posts

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
-----
At 6/5/2010 11:31 PM (utc) our position was 29°09.21'N 153°56.29'W

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Day Five - The Garbage Files

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

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

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

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!"

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

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.)
-----
At 6/2/2010 8:15 PM (utc) our position was 23°10.84'N 157°22.77'W

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Day Two

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
-----
At 6/2/2010 8:15 PM (utc) our position was 23°10.84'N 157°22.77'W

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Bon Voyage!

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!

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
-----
At 6/1/2010 7:05 PM (utc) our position was 21°25.13'N 157°47.41'W

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Departure Day

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

Mast- und Schotbruch, Cirrus Crew!

Have a good trip and make sure that Klabautermann doesn't get on board. And here is a special routing from Cirrugator.

P.S. It is a real route

Frauline Caroline Heinrich

USSailing Instructor 2004 to present
Behavioral Instructor and Teacher for Austism and Challenged Children of Hawaii (2002 to present)

Past Commodore of the Hawaii Women's Yacht Racing Association 2004-2008
Past Commodore of the Pearl Harbor Yacht Club 2004-2008
1st Place skipper of the Hawaii Yacht Club "Wahine Regatta" 2002 "NO BRAKES (Spinnaker Division)
Ist Place skipper of the Hawaii Yacht Club "Wahine Regatta 2003 on "ADDICTION (Spinnaker Division)
Delivery Crew for Transpac boat 2003 "VICKI" from Honolulu to Santa Barbara/Long Beach.
Race Crew for 2004 PacCup "Cirrus"
Race Crew for 2007 Transpacific Yacht Race on Cirrus.
Winner of the Aloha B Class all women crew.
Race Crew for 2010 Paccup on "Cirrus"

Love to catch and eat fresh fish from God's Sea!!!!!!!

YotReps: 2010/05/31 18:17:53

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: WCX9983
TIME: 2010/05/31 18:17
LATITUDE: 21-25.13N
LONGITUDE: 157-47.41W
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 12
WIND_DIR: E
WAVE_HT: 0.6M
WAVE_PER: 14
SWELL_DIR: 090
SWELL_HT: 1.8M
SWELL_PER: 15
CLOUDS: 0%
VISIBILITY: 10
BARO: 1035
TREND: -5
AIR_TEMP: 27.8C
SEA_TEMP: 24.4C
COMMENT: This Position Report is a test of our GPS-generated position data. ~Chris

Kaneohe Yacht Club runs story on Cirrus

KYC, Kaneohe Yacht Club, home of Cirrus and once again host of the Pacific Cup finish line and a wealth of activities around the Cup, has a report on Cirrus and Bill in their recent newsletter Telltales. Cirrus is KYC's only entry in the Pacific Cup.

Click on the graph to enlarge and the text might be legible, or get a pdf of their full newsletter from their website.

2010 Cirrus Crew Shirts

As promised, here is a picture the 2010 Cirrus crew shirt, expertly modeled by our friend Maria-Lucia.

The 12-Day-Delivery Relief

After realizing Bill's despair about a too short 12-Day-Delivery I rushed along and spared no effort so I could assure him that this won't be the case ;-))

I looked at all my routings from this year for the delivery, and assembled them into this graph, showing how the predicted Time-to-go changed over the last 40 days. A 12 day delivery is on the list, but clearly not his most pressing problem. The range is from 12.5 to 18 days. The red lines are closer together today as they were in the beginning, so is the range narrowing, perhaps due to - on average - more wind? Possible, but no real indication for this. And keep in mind that Cirrugator is routing with racing in mind, while delivery is supposed to be more relaxed AND BEING REALLY CAREFUL WHEN USING THE SPINNAKER, therefore at least an extra half day has to be granted.

My bet is 15days 9hours, which means when departing at noon on the 1st, they will arrive exactly at midnight of the 16th. In the dark. Of course.

Anyone else betting?
Ulli

Endlich, Fertig, Vollständig (This time I'm serious.)

The ToDo list is down to a handful of items. Chris is on the communications and technology full time, Donna and Kathy are committed to the provisioning, the tanks are full, there is a blue sky and a stiff wind. Kim Ickler is giving a Bon Voyage party tonight for everyone associated with the preparations. Life is good.

Ulli's routing calculations continue to amaze. (If you haven't already done so, go to the bottom of the right hand column on this page and click on the link.) He is predicting 12 day delivery times. I hope he is wrong. I have been looking forward to this trip and would hate to have it over so quickly.

One of the photos here shows a piece of the wood trim on the galley sink. The small hole with a plug in it used to be where an absolutely ancient bronze pump was located. For the first couple crossings the crew used to have to pump out the sink with this little pump. It was a real pain. There was a plunger with a leather seal that leaked, and sometimes it would not want to prime or get stuffed up with debris, etc. I can't recall that anyone ever complained. Still, it was nice when the hand pump was replaced by the electric automatic sump pump system shown in the next photo. This unit has to be replaced fairly often because it gets jammed up with crud even if people are fairly careful to screen out the big pieces from the waste water.

The bottom of the steering pedestal was showing some corrosion and by the time I got it wire brushed and cleaned up it also needed to be re-caulked. Been done.

The jib sheet fairleads were next on the list. They are another example of the historic nature of the rigging. They are made of a solid block of glass cloth and resin (with a very characteristic smell when being machined.). My dad called this stuff "macarta". Big panels of it were used for mounting electrical equipment because it is a good insulator. Today, knowledgeable people call this stuff "phenolic". The sheaves were starting to show their age so I gave them a coat of epoxy. Hope that was a good idea.

Another sign that we are getting closer to cast off time is that Kate moved all her stuff aboard. She is used to making trips like this in a kayak, so even though she brought two or three times the normal amount of stuff (for her) it still didn't fill the space that was available.

Yes, we have the technology

Hi Gang. This is my first blog entry since I arrived in Hawaii on Monday. A few weeks ago, I bought a satellite phone on Bill's behalf and I spent yesterday and today setting it up. The first picture shows our magnetic "car" antenna, as adapted for a boat. Since we do not have a steel dodger, I acquired a 12" pizza pan at Foodland and attached it to the dodger handrails with parachute cord. This gives us a spot to "stick" our antenna. The second picture shows the phone in its stand at the nav station with its rat's nest of umbilical cords attacked. There is an antenna cable at the top, a data cable in front near the bottom, and the charger cable sticks out of the bottom. Yesterday, I had a lot of trouble getting the phone to make data calls, but with plenty of support from several people, we got it working. It's about 4800 baud, so it should allow us to upload big files like photos and videos to this blog. But it costs $1.25 a minute, so we will probably not be using it for normal emails. For that, we'll probably stick to Sailmail which is much slower, but it's already paid for. So, enjoy the pictures, and stay tuned for more. Your comments are aways welcome. ~Chris Doutre