Well, we are finally home and wading through a huge pile of spam, junk mail and junk faxes. John Warren made a disk of some of his shots, and those are posted here on the site.

The boat (remember the boat? there's a song about the boat) is at Keehi, presumably being loaded the trucking company onto the Matson ship. This is being overseen by retired Command Sergeant Major Frank, so I have little doubt of its success.

The cat still loves us, and the house is in better shape than when we left, thanks to the careful oversight of our house-sitter, Michael off of Cloud 9. See his site for more information about Cloud 9's trip.

There will be post-race analysis. Well, here is the gist of it: not enuf wind. We maybe could have picked up a few hours here and there doing this and that differently, but our course decisions were sound and did not turn out to be stupid. There was just not enough wind to let Cayenne do her thing. Still, third place is something to be proud of, and so we are!

You heard right folks. We took time out from gloating over our third-place clock and pile of loot generously donated by West Marine Vendors to go to the boatyard to load Cayenne.

Well, actually we left really early in the morning, and Lou shouted "what about breakfast?" We stopped at McDonald's. Nobody had the courage to order the local plate. Spam, eggs, rice. But after we ate, we went to prepare the boat. We were done and ready to load on the trailer by nine.

No trailer.

Ooopsie. The freight guy forgot to tellt he truckers.

I sent the crew home and spend the day at the yard, hanging out with some friends. Trailer arrived too late to load. We'll try monday morning. Oh well. Had some great food. Maybe too much.

More later, but we finished yesterday, Monday July 13, 2004 at 16:46:40. Pretty good time given the light winds we faced and the long course we had to follow.

We finished first. If there had been a gun to fire, they would have fired it. Alas, no gun. And also, positions are determined by handicap ratings. We have placed third, like last time. Ghost with their very bold north strategy has taken first place, and First Light who sailed nicely better than their rating has taken second. Bravo and Island Time trailed us by a bit.

But it was a great sail. The crew worked together nicely and we are all still pals. The boat broke virtually nothing (we remain astonished by this fact.) The food was good and we harmed no fish. Actually, we annoyed two fish pretty badly, but we threw them back in the water.

Lou and I straightened up the boat today. Not a whole lotta stuff to do. I cannot remember why I decided we did not need the binnacle cover, so we have wrapped it up with a leecloth. We are all well rested. The watch schedule worked brilliantly. I wonder if I can patent it?

Babbling, maybe. The mai-tais at Kanehoe are good and frequent. That may have something to do with it. Now, I have 10,000 messages, mostly spam. I will wade through them and get back to you.

Monday Morning

Last night was WILD. Finally the trade winds blew like they supposed to: 23 knots true. Our boatspeed went up into the nines and we had a good days' run of 180 miles. We figure to arrive at about 4:30 Hawaii Time.

This is not without its costs, of course. The brand new spinnaker halyard had to give up the ghost at about 1 am. Its cover parted right at the clutch that held it and dropped the chute about 4 feet. We had to cut the line to get the sail down, but had another back up in short order. Nice work by our foredeck crew: David, Rich, Lou.

Experienced sailors will point out that the line should have been on a cleat, to which I say: "Oh look, isn't that Miss Hawaii?"

Aaah. The comforts of land beckon. Warm wives and iced drinks. Food that someone else cooked. Pillows only drooled on by the aforementioned warm wives.

We have hopes for a good placement. We'll be first to finish in our division, but the proof comes out in the ratings. Ghost seems a lock, which is nice. Lou and Kim are great folks, and they deserve huge credit for a very gutsy course. First light has been correcting out ahead of us too, but we are hoping that our very good runs of yesterday and today put them slightly more astern of us than before, possibly garnering a deuce. [Update: Ghost and First Light each had a GREAT run. We are now focussing on drinks and wives, and only in that order because propriety demands it.)

The rest of the fleet is closely grouped, and if any of them managed to surf their big boats, well, we'll just keep looking over our shoulders.

Thanks again are in order

To our families for once again supporting the dream
Jack Bieda for the loan of many go-fast and go-comfy items
Phil and Debra for "Drumroll" the shy kite
Lee for pre-departure weather consultation
Kame and the gang at pineapple for a splendid set of sails, particularly the #1 and the two GP's
Pac Cup committee and volunteers
West Marine, the sponsor!
Kaneohe YC
Corinthian YC

The list goes on, and I need to get on-line for a position report. We've had a splendid time. The boat, with the exception of two lines and one fuse, has had no breakage, no leakage, and no whineage. We are happy.

Aloha

Cayenne

Finally! The trades like we remember them. Good strong winds. A run of 165 miles. Maybe we are still in the race after all. Who knows?

Still have food, water, and blank video cassettes. We'll come in when we run out.

We awakened to a horrible crash last night. I had only just (finally) gotten to sleep after several hours rolling around when the boat took a big lurch and Crash-Bang!

I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter, certain that we had lost the boom or a spar. To make matters worse, there was water running all over the floor, excuse me, sole, of the cabin.

Well, it was not the pole, or the boom, or even the mast.

No, it was the air-pot, taking a header off of the countertop. Even though it had been tied, it made the mighty leap to the sole, imploding its glass vacuum flask liner and spreading water and glass all over. We set to work wiping it up.

We will miss that little air-pot. Fourteen bucks at Linens n Things. Every morning, a crewman would boil water and fill the little air-pot. One person would make tea. Another oatmeal. Sometimes even coffee. Spencer was recently delighted to fine that there is cocoa, though it may be too hot for that now. In any case, the air-pot is with us no more, and cannot share the joy of our finally getting enough wind to have a grasp at a podium finish.

Rest in peace, little air-pot.

Okay. These are the trade winds. Key word is WIND. However, the winds are quite light. Nonetheless, we got a comparatively good run, likely to move us up in fleet standings. We are still hoping for Ghost to make a boo-boo.

John has caught two smallish mahi. We'll eat any tuna, but we are letting the mahi go.

We are beginning to have dreams about drinks with ice in them. Mai-tais. Pina coladas. Gin'n'tonic. Slurpees. This would be nice. However, the fridge is keeping stuff cold, so we had cold beers with lunch.

John has just concluded that little lures catch little fish and big lures catch big fish, so he is reloading. John owns a Passport 47.

There is a special place in Hell for engineers who place a simple 5 amp fuse behind 45 screws that are over-tightened in the first place.

But we are back on-line.

Unfortunately, the wind is not. we work and work to get a few extra miles out of the light variable stuff we are getting during the day. An night, the winds pick up and we scoot. Given the closeness of the boats (we are, I project, 19 minutes away from First Light) I think the game will be won during the day.

We are wearing our sunscreen and hats and glasses and shirts. Not shoes. I burned the tops of my toes a little.

We wave at the contrails since wave one of the wives flies overhead today. Hi Honey! How's first class these days? Cool?

Spencer has found a new way of motivating me to steer properly. He sits behind me and gives me an M&M whenever I do something right. They are sort of few and far between. I think he's giving me the green ones just to punish me.

We forgot to pack salt. So we have been making salt in a dark baking dish. David was surprized to see all the crystals suddenly come out of solution yesterday (salt day 3). A squall set us back a day on the salt project. We hope for salt today. As it is, the salt looks like little prehypertensive diamonds on a velvet tray.

Pineapple Sails' new number 1, delivered in the nick of time, did quite well, drawing us along just when we needed it. There have been three reaches in this race, not including the present broad reach on port pole, so it was great to have it. Meanwhile our Pineapple 3/4 ounce spinnaker pulls quite nicely. We switch to the 1.5 ounce when it looks blowy. We have had the 3/4 up for two straight days.

Okay, projecting late Monday arrival. Save us a maitai please.

We had a good night.

A good run, considering the light and variable winds. Best in the fleet, actually. Which we need in order to sail to our rating.

The offishul program forecasts us as placing third. Our own software (well, it's actually Bill gates' hawk-ptooie) show that if all boats continue their progress of the last 24 hours, we will place second, finishing 2.4 hours (corrected) behind Ghost at 8 pm pacific time (5 pm Hst) on July 12. So, we need to (a) keep up our pace and (b) collect 2.4 hours off Ghost.

Riddle: How do you beat a ghost in a race?
Answer: Wait for him to make a boo-boo.

Okay. They are above the great circle course. Maybe that will count as a boo-boo. Time will tell.

Food remains great. The dry ice is long gone, and we are relying on the refrigerator, which is doing its best. When refrigerated food is gone, we have about 20 days of hard food, so no worries there.

We run the watermaker every day. The new watch schedule is working splendidly! We sleep like dogs in the sun all day and sail like rabid ferrets at night.

My sister writes:

Wind is not your friend. Unless, of course, you know where it is. Hey, remember that year you decided to take the northern route because it was the shortest way to get to Hawaii? Except for there was no wind? Guess what! There is wind there now. Weird, huh? Ain't life a crazy b....

Well, enough from her. She has a daughter entering the terrible twos in three days, and she is a bit ahead of time, so we may forgive her.

We have wind here, now, finally. We are moving at a pretty good clip, logging 7.5 to 8 knots directly toward Hawaii. This is pretty good. And the count-down meter on the cockpit radar finally got off reading 999.9 (meaning "dat's too faaaaar") to a reasonable figure, a mere 993 miles to go.

Forecast arrival for Monday, sometime between midnight and 3 pm.

We held our half-way party. Several of us showered first, making the boat seem bigger. We started with a green salad (Survivor edition: made from apples, carrots, and the few shreds of lettuce who escaped the Lou Dietz vegetable holocaust of freezer doom). This was accompanied by a delightful turley 2002 juvenile zinfandel. This lush, young vine wine, provided a delightful complement to our first course.

Second course was the savory boeuf bourgignon made by my sweet Noelle. Excellent as always, dear! John and Sharon provided a wonderful 1993 old vine Turley zin, which we sucked down with the boeurf. They went well together; the latter wine has developed a fine taste, somewhat tart to start, but with a little breathing (wind!) showed itself as a balanced and delicious glass. At this point, culinary discipline broke down a bit. Both turleys go well with Laura's great brownies, corn nuts and other things.

We opened our half-way presents. Thank you all. They were very thoughtful. Lou especially appreciated the clean clothes. We will make him shower again before he can wear them.

Clobbered! We got clobbered by the entire fleet last night. Oh how smugly we went beddie-bye, secure in our long, manly waterline and the ever-building wind. We were sure, nay, confident that our miniscule lead would burgeon into a commanding first place.

Oh how wrong we were.

The wind was only teasing. It "just wanted to be friends." It said we were a "nice boat" but did not want a long-term commitment. And so it left us to wallow in our slothful torpor. Oh, the wind came back long enough to break the shackle off the spinnaker guy, but it was just a flirtation. No we had limited wind and put in the worst showing of the fleet.

And so today, we have gone off to find another wind. A wind that will appreciate us for what we truly are: A big, heavy, boat that needs, say, 15-18 knots. We are still in the hunt. The differences between the boats are pretty small.

Everything else, though is going great! Food is still good, plumbing works, etc. We miss you all and hope to see you soon in Hawaii. Um, maybe not the 10th, though. And I would not buy any ice sculptures for the 11th either.

Ghost, the canny Morgan 38-2, announced that Skipper/Owners Lou and Kim Ickler are celebrating their fifteenth anniversary today. Congratulations from around the Pacific Cup fleet interrupted the usually orderly roll call.

Lou and Kim are looking to beat the weather-watching rest of the fleet by sailing the great-circle course, which is the shortest route to Hawaii. The rest of the fleet, duly impressed by the large buildings and expensive computers owned by the National Weather Service, has taken a longer route, more to the south, to avoid some truly slow predicted weather.

Perhaps as an anniversary present, the weather is starting to cooperate with Lou and Kim, moving into a position northward that may pay off on their strategy. Time will tell.

At the other end of the fleet, the "honeymoon boat", Mirage, is doublehanded by Lucie van Breen and Ben Mewes, who married shortly (we're talking just a few days) before the race. Lucie and Ben met at the Corinthian YC Midwinters just four years ago and are celebrating their honeymoon afloat. We presume that they have registered for a first place trophy if anyone wants to give them a gift. Time and the weather will tell.

Meanwhile, back on Cayenne, the wind has risen enough to drive us to 7 knots, which is good. We saw a spinnaker pass behind us, which we hope is not a competitor gaining on us. But we are moving, the breeze is freshening. Perhaps all this love in the air will do us some good.

As we drift along on Cayenne, we are acutely sensible of how lucky we are to be here. Everything is working the best it ever has. John fixed the fanbelt, and we added some oil to the engine, so that's all good.

There's very little wind, however. We're drifting along at 4.5 knots over ground. This is not a good thing. Our competitors are going a little slower, but not enough to justify the ratings difference. We request all our friends to go to the beach and blow west. Thank you.

There does seem to be no limit of spare time on board. One crewmember, whom I shall not name so as not to embarrass John, has apparently set up a small lumber mill and spent the whole night loudly sawing logs in the leeward bunk. This has met with disapprobation from the rest of the crew. I shall continue to cultivate the belief that he is the only snorer on board.

Whee! the bigger sail has made us go faster! Five knots now. Hmmm. Maybe that's why we brought it.

Cayenne continues to be very dry inside. This is a wonderful change. Even the head, whose bowl would fill with fresh water till it was rather alarming on a tack, is only filling to a reasonable level now. I read the manual, which told how to adjust the level. Interesting things, these manuals. I may have to read more of them.

Okay, that's all for now.

After several hundred miles of running south, we took a look at the weatherfax, and our competitors, and decided to make a sharp turn right. This will skirt the high pressure zone, risking a period of light winds, which we are presently (8 am, jul 2) enduring. However, we have high hopes that the wind will pick up a bit in a few hours. Otherwise, we slog along at 3 knots.

And that's OK. Either our main competition has gone far south of us, or they are in the same wind.

And then there's Ghost. We'll be interested to hear her position report.

The race, at least in the early starters, has become a test of weather guessing. We believe that the High will shift enough North to let us move. Others have less faith and will duck farther south. Some believe that the weather will shift back into its traditional summer pattern (which it well may), making their rhumb line and possibly great circle routes look brilliant.

Solar Power Rocks
We deployed the solar panels yesterday, what with the sun coming out and all. 8 amps net into the batteries. Woo hoo. That is great. We could do this whole trip without even replacing the alternator belt which wore out yesterday. Of course, we will replace it, because some of like the sound of the diesel every day. Yes, we have four spares.

Moon Power Rocks
There was a near full moon last night and will be a full one tonight. With the clouds gone, at least for a while, we sailed as if in daylight. What a beautiful sight!

The only animals we've seen since day 1 are shearwaters skimming the waves. Oh, and a stowaway spider. That's it. We're hoping for a pod or two of dolphins. In the meanwhile, we continue to confound the local sea life with offerings such as chicken bones and leftover salad.

Cayenne is now the southernmost boat in Fleet A. We think this is a good thing, since it means we are ahead if going south is a good thing. We think that because of the weather patterns, which say that there is only wind in the south.

Y'all.

So we are getting in the mood for a southerly passage. Delicious jambalaya for dinner, and ath first bottle of truly excellent Tilden Peak syrah that John Lynch sent us. We are looking forward to finishing the half case!

The boat is DRY! That is right folks, and especially Cayenne vets! No window leaks, no chainplate leaks (just a little), no hatch leaks. Dry dry dry. Huzzah. And none of those disconcerting rivulets of water across the cabin sole.

As if to celebrate, the mystery leak in the bilge has stopped too.

We are pondering the weather map, charting our moment to bake a break for hawaii. Maybe today is the day!

In other news, refrigerator temperature is now 15 degrees. We bought a cheap clock with a remote rf temperature sensor at walgreens. Put the sensor in a plastic bag and dumped it in the freezer. When first loaded with dry ice, it reported -54 degrees. Okay, off-watch monitoring the freezer temperature is about as fun as it gets folks!

Well, boatspeed is up to a steady 8 knots. we are 1716 miles from the finish line. That's about 9 days to finish from.....NOW. If we keep it up. And nothing else happens. See you at Kaneohe.

Whoops, speed just dropped to 7.0. We'll be late for lunch.