Tuesday, July 31, 2007

THE PARTY - 2am July 24





The PACIFIC Yacht club threw a smashing party for the Peregrine. Nick Reingold was one of the many guests and provided the following photos of the crew's arrival in Honolulu:
Departing the ship.





Up the Gangplank.



Simon, Nigel, Jeff & Andy.





























3rd for Division 6 official standings - first boat to arrive for Division 6

For those that want the details, visit: http://www.transpacificyc.org/
click on the 'July 29 Final Standings' to see that Peregrine was listed as offiical 3rd for Division 6.
But they arrived FIRST so we think of them as the winners (we are biased).
Click on "Daily Arrivals" to see pictures of the Peregrine Crew on arrival in Honolulu.

We had a LOOOOOOONG trip back from Hawaii (but of course, not as long as their trip there).
More details later.
Tama for the Peregrine crew.

Monday, July 23, 2007

They are in cell phone range!

The Peregrine was within 100miles from the finish around 1:30pm today.

Just heard from Navigator Westbrook. They expect to cross the finish line around 2am and land in Hawaii around 3am. Nick Reingold is hoping to be there for the big 'landing'. I (Tama) am flying out tomorrow and so will be missing the big event. But we are sure that our friends at the Pacific Yacht club have a grand reception planned!

A lot of photos and stories will be coming soon!

Arriving Tuesday morning - 2 am

We are within 150 miles of the finish, poking along in light morning breeze towards Molokai and the finish off Diamond Head. Yesterday, the stove broke, so we've been reduced to salads and "ice" coffee. We added more miles on the Cal 40's overnight, but still not enough. If only we had two more days of racing. Except then we'd still be racing.

Beautiful moon and stars last night, with a brief squall after dawn that we exited stage left as per the instruction manual.

See everyone soon!!

5 days to shore

Friday: "Being Not for the Benefit of Mr. Kite."
The day was sticky with light showers as we approached what we think was a frontal zone between the warm moist tropical air being rotated up from the South around tropical storm Cosme and the drier air of the Pacific high. As night approached, we penetrated a squall line and the winds began to build. At first we were excited, since we'd resolved to sail aggressively to try and get ahead of the Cal 40's. So we left the big spinnaker up. The first squall was great, with Nigel at the helm as 27-28K winds began driving us through the water at 12K. In complete darkness, Andy took us through the second with precision at top speed of 15K, water shooting past the gunwales on either side like a firehose. Then it was Jeff's turn on the helm. The breeze picked up to 30+ knots, and we hit 16.5K. Then we wiped out. No problem, ease the sheets, boat comes up, off we go again. Then we wiped out again. This time, the spinnaker sheet got tangled over the back of the mainsail boom, and in trying to get it free, the wildly flopping kite got nicked on the mast or something, and quickly ripped itself to shreds. We dropped it down, poled out a blast reacher, and motored directly down the great circle, rather chastened.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

WEEK 2 News from the Peregrine: Day 8, 9, 10 and 11

They are sailing on in! Here is the recent news from the Peregrine:

Monday:
When we got down to 24N, we hit some good breeze and turned the boat west. She began surfing down waves, getting the crew all excited, and they couldn't be deterred from heading west all day, even though there was a tropical storm approaching from the south that would bring more breeze to our course if we just headed down to it. The result, we ended up sneaking back into the lower part of the still troublesome Pacific high, and ran out of speed.

Tuesday:
Turned south in light breezes and fought our way back down to 23N, once again just sneaking in ahead of the CAL 40's. The last of the frozen spaghetti was inspected, sniffed, and tossed.

Major catastrophe on Wednesday:
Jeff lost the toilet overboard. We're traveling light, so the toilet was only a large plastic bucket, but it's not the cash value that concerns us. A broadcast was made on ship-to-ship channel 4A warning all vessels in the vicinity to be on guard for a partially submerged PVC container labeled "Shit".

Thursday:
Trade winds continue to build. We're now getting 20K regular breeze and surfing down long rollers at a top speed achieved (by your humble correspondent) of 14.7K, accompanied by a yell of "yikes!" 14K seems like a lot of speed for one's bedroom.Our VMG (velocity made good to Hawaii) is finally coming up, and we anticipate arrival in around 96 hours (sometime on Monday). It's a drag race to the finish. At this point, a feat of magic would be required to beat the cal 40's in our division, who have motored down the course beautifully.We were sighted by a 60 footer from the Thursday start, Topango, who jibed to port and slid down to leeward to inspect us. The took some photos of us, we took some photos of them, we chatted on the VHF radio, and they powered off over the horizon.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Day 6: Message from the Peregrine

Fresh from the Peregrine:

It's Sunday! We've been sailing for almost a week, and only now are we beginning to see signs of the developing trade winds.The boats in the later starting groups, having the benefit of better initial breezes, are roaring up our tails, but we are still fighting hard within our division, against the cannily sailed Brilliant and the tough Cal40's Far Far and Psyche, who are shooting around behind us to the south.

Last night we drank our last two cans of Tecate, the excuse being it was Saturday night and if we didn't drink them now, they wouldn't be cold anymore. The rum is also going mysteriously fast. Is someone a secret off-watch grog tippler? Perhaps.

We continue to eat well and stay healthy, and the boat is a dental hygenist's dream. The crew appears to be egging each other on in a kind of flossing contest. Strands of used floss are caught in the rigging and flutter like fairies in the night. Yesterday we were visited by an albatross, and today we saw two tiny birds fluttering above the waves, only to realize they were flying fish. Cool! Love from all to all.