2013JUL17 - 1130PDT

From all reports it has been a boringly fantastic race for the Can Am team onboard West Coast Warrior.  No drama or terror from the high seas to report and which I rely on to sell advertising here on the Blog!

Sometime late yesterday they passed the half way mark which simple math suggests would put them into the Ala Wai Yacht basin in Waikiki sometime Sunday the 21st, for a respectable 10 plus days crossing time.  But to make sure my audience doesn't miss their (hopefully dramatic) finish however I would like to caution you that the second half of this race will be faster and, assuming the weather remains so agreeable to fast sailing, it would not surprise me to see them shave a day of that estimate and arrive on Saturday the 20th - or a sizzling (for a 40 footer) 9 plus days crossing!

In the interest of full disclosure your correspondent notes that Warrior was about 20 miles off the pace set by other boats in her fleet yesterday.  The first thought that springs to my mind was maybe the half way party was a raging success!

As regards comments that may be taken out of context to sesationalize the Blog here is one from Helen (Chuggy's Wife), already ensconced in Hawaii:

     "Quite windy today so I hope you are getting it out there too."

I am sure she doesn't really hope that Chuggy is "getting it out there too"!  And what does she mean by "too"?

Here is an entire report from DCB on the boat yesterday:
 

Lovely day at sea today. Folks are mostly upstairs this afternoon enjoying the sun and visiting. We are coasting along at about 9 knots with about 12  (edit: read between the lines - the after party is already begun?)

14 knots of wind. We had some good news and some bad news on the recent Transpac reports. Bad news was the dismasting of Phaedo, the Gunboat 66 which is truly a beautiful boat --- one which I had most hoped to visit in Hawaii, or at least admire.

 Good news was that the J125s were sitting first and second in our class.

This is truly amazing when you think of who we are racing against. Although the wrong J is in front right now Chuggy is pretty happy with the situation overall.

Early morning we had a couple of squalls pass through. This is early in the race for squalls but we appreciated the fresh water douse just the same. We had a couple of gusts of 28 to 30 knots which is a handful with the 4A up but we sailing attentively and were able to travel 10 miles in 30 minutes.

This afternoon we caught sight of a boat on the horizon and closed with them much more quickly than we imagined we might. This turned out to be Aquarius which is the first of the Monday Aloha class starters. We were close enough to converse by VHF and had a nice but short visit. We passed feeling sorry for them that it would be another 10 days before they enjoyed a cold Mai Tai in Hawaii and them feeling sorry for us that we could not enjoy a cold beer TODAY!

Cheers everyone, today is a great day to be at sea!

Doug

 

It sounds like the great ride continues,

 

Blogmiester out.