SHTP stories - July 7th - day time tales

I am off. Now marks the time I first start racing. My head is clear. My mission is simple. Elise is last (I picked up every position report) and my goal is to finish 2nd in my division. I may pick up other boats along the way. I have a long way to go as I am way behind, as the Brits would say, faffing around with other things that didn't have anything to do with the race. It was useful time for other reasons but not a fast time.

If we make abstraction of the halfway party and my clearing phone call, my day starting with a nice night :)

I move everything aft to help the boat surf and be fast so the storm sails go meet the #4. Next time, that's where I will put it. There is a lot of unused space aft which could be put to better use.

I rush down below and pick up Mike and not Libra. I want the best spinnaker I have that I'd be happy to fly singlehanded. Mike comes from Desperado, another Express 27, it has a nice wide shoulder and is a fast sail. I remember that the first race we used it on Elise, we actually beat Desperado to the finish. It was a Vallejo race.

Unfortunately, as I walk forward, somehow the kite falls overboard. I turn around and don't see the launch bag, I look up and here it is in the water! I rush forward now to take the twin sails down but I lose visual contact. I turn the boat around and hope to see the kite and its bag re-appear so I can pick it up. I call out 'Mike', which of course is only met with silence. After a few long minutes of scanning the ocean, I can't see anything and I have to give up the search. Mike will be floating around the other debries. Hopefully someone will pick it up and have fun with the sail. Hopefully it won't be ruined completely.

I feel down, this was a great sail, and an expensive one...and I also lost a great launch bag.

I turn the boat downwind, walk forward to hoist the net and I go down below to grab Libra. Within minutes, Libra is hoisted, behind the main and proudly taking the boat places. I check my watch (in my pocket now) for the time. Doyle has a big hole so I can't use it without fixing it which I will do if the other spinnakers also fail but right now, the simplest thing to do is just hoist the next one. I notice a teeny tear at the bottom of Libra but nothing to worry about. If it becomes worse, I can always switch spinnaker and in the heavy stuff, I'll fly France anyway.

The autopilot can handle the conditions fine so I decide to do some cleanup below to have everything I need accessible and move things around to improve the speed of the boat. I also want to do some more checkups on that electrical situation but find nothing new...

In order to make sure that there is no loose connection below deck, I tighten up all the screw-on connectors and add electrical grease to make sure that everything is fine. I check every single connecting point along the way and treat it the same way.

Moving every heavy aft.

I am starting to hate the twin headsails. They are a bitch to set up - two poles take forever, and they have to be run around the forestay. The boat though is more directionally stable and it helps lower the power required for the autopilot to steer. Something that required a gain of 7 to steer with the kite up required only a gain of 4 with the twinsails. Since I am power limited with Mr Fusion, I will have to fly the twin sails if the conditions are up in order to get a break, sleep and eat.

The wind is picking up, it looks like the forecast might be accurate - and if that is the case, it also looked even across the course so all the other racers should have wind. I remain on port tack which is now the side that takes me straight to the islands, according to my GPS and compass.



I have about 900 miles to go. I estimate this to take me a week or so if the wind holds. The skies are still cloudy but the boat is now sailing a very decent 7 knots, toward Kauai. I do my chafe patrol around noon, as I usually do as the AP can still steer with the kite up without any problem. The sheets are a bit used up but nothing to worry about. I have a spare set of sheets but I will probably just shorten them up if they chafe through (and swap out the share set while I do that) to keep my most up to date lines up as much as I can.





After a short while, the wind increases further and the boat now starts to do 8 knots mini surfs. It still isn't the trade winds but it feels pretty cool. My head is still clear. My eyes are constantly on the spinnaker and I steer and sheet, mainly for power reasons - and because it is easy right now.




The boat will continue to do 7 to 8 knots most of the day - the helm is light. Boat is stable and it is great to feel the power of the spinnaker pull Elise. The surf isn't very big so there isn't much surfing but she does have some nice accelerations.

Teeny bit of surf. I am loving the day. I am focused solely on boat speed at any moment and all my thinking goes toward maximizing the miles I can sail for the day and closing the distance between Elise and the other boats. I talk to the boat (still in French) 'let's go Elise. We've been doing enough soul searching. Let's show them what we can do. This is what you like, we are entering Express 27 territory'

I dearly hope that the wind keeps increasing. This is where both the boat and I are strong. I can drive the boat with the kite up in 40 knot winds in a nice surf - and Elise has perfect surfing characteristics. Meanwhile all the heavier displacement boats will have to shorten sails as they reach hull speed, if they can't surf much.

Libra is also a surfer, but I have a symmetrical kite and I can go deeper for similar speeds. I feel that I have a chance. In any case, it doesn't affect my decisions minute after minute, whatever I do to optimize my race is all I can do in order to achieve this come back. This is what will keep me focused for the remaining of the race.

I only spent time at the bow to make a short video. I don't want to spend too much time up there as it slows down the boat.

As soon as the sun manages to pierce through the cover of clouds, the ocean is fantastically blue. The rest of the time, it is just light grey.

I wasn't wearing my gloves at the beginning of the day but the wind picked up to really decent speeds and I got rope burned! Putting some ice on it before it becomes bad. You can see one of the cuts on my fingers above the nail that had gotten infected You can also see the size of my thumb which is still red and swollen from that mystery infection. Much much better though. I only wear neosporine bandage when I sleep now and it seems fine.

Actively racing. In a long distance race, it is about daily average speed. I know I will have to fly the twin sails, or a poled out blast reacher in order to sleep for power reason as the wind has picked up (which is great!) and I will have to do more hand steering than if I had full solar power. The key is to try to keep the kite up as much as possible as there is now a noticeable difference in boat speed. So all my efforts will be such that I can maximize my kite time. I feel the wave patterns in order to anticipate. I follow the kite in order to follow apparent wind, in this case mostly with the sheet (as the boat accelerate the apparent wind goes forward)