Transpac 2007

The Men of TOWER are back, they worked it as best they could this was such a sleeper, lots of 12-18knots day sail wind. Not the breeze TOWER desired. The BOYZ are FOB (Flat on Backs) now but will recover soon. ALLLLOOOOHHHAA thanks for all the well wishes on the TP site!

Some evil morning Drinks start early and passout on AlaWai beach like the other locals do - no one will tell the difference as long as you do not have any valuables leave those in the room! “Aloha Nui Loa Brudduha”  See you at lifeguard shack ….

Today at about 6pm boat time, 3pm Hawaii time, we can see some of the big island through the clouds pushed up over it. We are about 138 miles from the Diamond Head finish line. The wind has been pretty steady and light today. Since 6am roll call, we have sailed about 100 miles directly towards the Molokai Channel. With 138 miles to go at 6pm, is seems we could finish in about 16 more hours. That would be 3pm (Hawaii time)+16 hours= 7am Hawaii time, Tuesday morning. Doug called Don Clothier today via Iridium, and it looks like we may get moored at D dock, WYC. But it would probably be the case that we will get announced at HYC coming into the Ala Wai. I’m not sure how you will figure all this out, but I’m sure you will.

Well, last night was really just about perfect. We had clear skies, steady breeze of around 20k, and fairly smooth seas. We had some great angles for many hours. It was shirts and shorts on deck, lots of stars, and the water is 76. This is why we race Transpac.But this morning at roll call, we found Rancho to our north and west. They gained 13 miles on us in what had to be similar conditions. It is interesting that they moved west to cover our long standing position outside. It appears Rancho is faster than Tower in these easy running conditions which do not have the large swells and mid twenties wind to really drive a boat fast. Chewy reminds us their rig is taller, their pole about 3 feet longer, and they are fast boats. It seems our success has been to sail the shorter course than them through the majority of this race. We found them at the start to be able to sail away from us to weather on our way to Catalina. So I feel the handicap difference between boats is not correct for this Transpac wind condition. It is possible we would sail faster than them in more breeze, but I doubt we will do that experiment this year. It is 9:30 Monday morning Hawaii time and we are 186 miles from Diamond Head. Things can happen between here and the finish, so we are very diligently trying to sail Tower as well as possible. Currently our port pole has us aiming very close to the mid-Molokai target for a classic approach into the Molokai Channel. We can now receive local weather VHF and are hearing the trade wind particulars.

Boat had some repair issues but it is in and it freaked this race up as usual. Look at the cute boyz and Girlz! FIRST over all First First First this is the POSTER CHILD for 2009!

There she is, OK one more Disney boat to go.  Mike Howard and Erin are always the best! Rick Weather Guy Shema dissed me at the party but hey I will get him for that,  He was really busy social butterfly he is.

My bet is 3:00 AM it is always a favorite finishing time for Chewy.

The thrill ride continues on Tower. This morning found us holding onto first in Division, but by the slimmest of margins possible. Yesterday provided a few hours of decent wind and angle, but the night served up several hours of horrible angle and low wind (along with the showers). Roll call showed Rancho had us by 1 mile, so we lost something like 12 miles to them yesterday. Today we have had 20 knot winds so far and the angle is heading us down now, which is what our positioning was planning for. We are trying to focus on sailing the boat as fast and accurately as possible. It looks like Rancho has tried to climb somewhat towards us. I feel we are getting into position for a close match race to the finish with them. It ought to be very exciting. What a race for Doug as skipper! It still looks like a Tuesday finish for us. No idea yet if it will be light or dark, etc. We will update with a prediction tomorrow sometime. The boat continues to sail very well and we have not succeeded in breaking anything yet. The halyards do not chafe and the boat is just a great sailing machine. GO TOWER! See everyone soon. Your best wishes are keeping us powered up. Thank you. Aloha, Tower

I really do not know what is going on out there, but to my blind and sunburnt eye  it seems Rancho has a better hotter faster angle on the finish.  So the miles are going away to them very quickly.  Sorry to be saying this but that is what I see, Tower may be more DDW and not so speedy or just not have the same wind.  What ever it is the boat is not hauling right now and RD is.  They have slipped in miles and time so we are now very anxious and hope that is all that is at issues with the boat speed, perhaps a change of wind or something will prove better for TOWER soon.  All we can do is wait.