Elise SHTP Update, July 11

(by Nathan after a phone call with Nat)

Elise is about 430 miles from the finish line as of 1300 Pacific time.

Nat has been getting by on what she says is 4 to 5 hours of sleep a day
and is starting to be exhausted. I suspect the real number is
considerably smaller given the number of distractions she's facing that
prevent quality sleep time.

I hope that she's getting enough water and food.

She pretty much drove the whole of last night. There was also a big
spinnaker cleanup after the sail basically ran out to the end of the sheet
but was still too loaded up to pull in.

The solar cells still don't seem to be keeping her batteries charging.
The fuel cell is running constantly and is down to half a jug of methanol.
She's distressed about that but doing some math after hanging up I think
she'll be ok. She had one full and one not-full jug when she started.
I'm guessing the not-full one was about 3/4 full. So, assuming that she's
gone through 1.25 to 1.5 jugs since she started that implies about a tenth
of a jug per day. Three days to go should leave a small reserve if
consumption is about the same rate as it's been in the past. That second
part is hard to judge- the heavy weather tight reach was probably pretty
heavy on power consumption (matched by her discription of how hard it was
working) but surfing downwind can also give it a workout.

Anyway... she's trying to connect the solar panels directly to the
batteries now because she doesn't think the solar charge controler is
working. That should be fine because it's not as if she's going to be
able to overcharge them starting from a low level and using the autopilot
consistently.

She probably has about three days to go: 430 miles / (6 nm/hr) / (24
hr/day). The six knot assumption isn't for peak speeds but average made
good speed including light air, going slow during sail changes, etc.

It's likely that the winds near the islands will be a strong push in the
right direction so it could turn out to be sooner if she can get the boat
in shape and herself rested enough to take advantage of it.