Hula Girl always buys a round - never just one...

Hula Girl visits Hula Girl

Brainwaves in the lineup at Kaneohe

more crew shots

Hula Girl at the KYC pool

Brainwaves in the lineup at Kaneohe

They finished!

They officially finished at 12:43 a.m. tonight (or is it this morning?). They're tired, happy. They pushed hard these last few days and are glad to be on land (even if it is moving). Can't wait to hear the stories.

100 mile check in

We are only about 100 miles from the finish and after over 2000 miles and 12 day of fast and smelly sailing, we are ready for Hawaii. It has been a fantastic morning, we have a fast night surfing the trades under Capt'n America. tons of shooting stars, moonlight, and great wind and weather. This morning, after an awesome sunrise, we noticed we had been standing on a flying fish for the last several hours. Fish oil and wings smeared all over the deck. Yummy. Andrew thinks he got his flying fish picture, and we keep on moving. Disappointingly, it looks like our competitors had an even better night, but we haven't finished yet. We've changed places about 5 times in the last 6 days, and there just might be another position change left in us. What an awesome division! Brainwaves has behaved nearly flawlessly. We have had on 2 outright breakages (the topping lift and a block on the twing) and both were functionally repaired within minutes. Capt'n Jimmy and the shore team really did a marvelous job of getting her ready for a safe and fast race to Hawaii. The crew did work flawlessly. No troubles, awesome manuvers, nobody sitting on each other's hands. nearly 2 weeks in a 35ft sailboat is a long time not to get on each other's nerves, but everyone stayed focused, friendly, and fun. Here comes Hawaii!

100 miles away!

Brainwaves just checked in saying that they are 100 miles out. The end is near! The Hawaii based shore crew is readying themselves for a middle of the night wake up so we can go greet them when they arrive at Kaneohe Yacht Club. The young ones (4-8) are certainly excited that they get to get up in the middle of the night. Probably no one, on the boat or on shore, will be getting much sleep tonight. Can't wait to hug our guys in person!

Email from Bob - 29 July

Yahoo, a very fast and fun night sailing. After a relatively slow/mellow/disappointing day, the breeze filled near dark tonight. The moon has been up until just recently, so we were able to see the waves to surf. Conditions have been just right for a lot of fast surfing with the big kite up, which is a cool way to spend the last full night out. I have no idea if our competitors have had the same great conditions or they've gotten unlucky with squalls, but I guess we'll see in the morning. Have had several instances of minutes-long surfs at >10 knots, which is wild in the dark. No wipeouts, broaches, etc., just smooth fast sailing:-).

Birthday Call

224 course on the compass to Kaneohe - only 300 miles to go !!!

Hula Girl climbing the rig

Hula Girl sunbathing

Sushi Breakfast

assorted shots

Hula Girl with new 50kt rated Spectra Hula Skirt

rainbow and sunset

fresh water shower

assorted sailing shots

Hula Girl after 40kt gusts the other night

Email from Bob - 27 July

...This evening started out wild and is slowly calming down. A big wipeout during a 30 knot squall rolled me 360 degrees in my bunk, pretty much ending my off watch. No way to sleep during that. Follow that wipeout a with a couple more, and now you have the flavor of it. We had all hands up for a while, making sure there was no damage, then started sending people off to bed. Unfortunately, the big squall was followed by an even bigger lull, with the wind dropping down as low as 5 knots. After an hour of wallowing, we're pretty much moving normally and trying to get back on the watch schedule.

almost tears at the bottom

Good night of sailing. Had a massive squall that started with some stained 14kts and ended in tears. Not really but after Jim and Blaine and Andrew survived for about 45 minutes of 30-40 knot winds with Nancy-boy still up, we has a series of three knock downs that we a small pain in the ass. No harm, no foul, and we continued grinding down some good miles. Less than 500 to go.

Quotes of the day:

"I think next time we are in 30 knots with the spinnaker up at night, we should not worry so much about sticking to the lay line"

"We would have taken that spinnaker down over my dead body"

"I need to brush my teeth, I feel like a magpie S**t in my mouth"

adventure of a lifetime, topping lift, body odor

We are continuing to have the adventure of a lifetime. Brainwaves is staying strong with remarkably few breakages and down time for repair. Our crew work is tight and changing spinnakers requires only a command. The navigation has been awesome.

Although early in the race we were knocking out peals so smoothly that we couldn't even detect it when reviewing the boat speed data, our broken topping lift means we have to go bare headed. Now that we've done it a couple of times, it is only taking us a minute or two without a headsail.

It is unfortunate to report that Brainwaves seems to have a bi-modal odor distribution. Everyone but Andy smelled really bad after about day 3 of the trip after they had 3 days in their wet nasty foulies. It was a nice mix of wet cat and B.O. and bob. Then we got a little warmer as we headed south and dried out. Now it is hot and everyone but Andy is smelling even more bob-like than before. We are looking forward to a shower. Do you think we could convince bob to take one once he navigates us to Hawaii?

Brainwaves

Another good night

Another good night. No disasters and fast times. 

half-way party yesterday and meatballs today. Tasty as always and probably the best two meals. The last of the cold food is gone and we are down to backpacker stuff.

Chill night last night. Surfed through a couple of good squalls but no fire drills and people were "rested" today by flying the monster. Did some preventative maintenance, patch Capt'n America, and changed our a halyard.

We just doused the monster and launched Nancy-Boy in about 45 seconds. It was true Fineline style.

We are on our lay-line surfing towards Hawaii. See you soon!

Well, as you may have guess from the last email, we had a little pandemonium last night.

The wind was 25kt, building to 30 with huge following seas. Capt'n America was holding up well, but the occasional roundup required an active vang and pretty active mainsheet.

It started with a nice surf at 13 knot with Blaine yelling "take that, Andy" and was followed 5 minutes later with Blaine crying to his mama after his massive broach. Bob and I hopped on deck to help Andrew and Blain sort the lines and get brainwaves back on her feet.

we had a brief discussion about taking down Capt'n America, we decided that these gusts to the high 30's were temporary and that we could handle it. Bob took the helm and the wind continued to build into the 40's.  As we were deciding the best method for taking down Capt'n America we had a MASSIVE roundup and got totally pinned on our ear.

We eventually came back up, I ran forward and spiked the spinnaker off the pole and Andrew and Blaine dropped spinnaker back through the pit. It was a thin of beauty. We dropped the pole, and I hooked up our backup, smaller spinnaker "Nancy Boy"

Brainwaves stood up and bob started surfing again at 8knots under main alone. Capt'n Jimbo woke up and poked his head up like a groundhog and asked how we were doing, we told him what happened and he say's "Well, I guess we better launch "Nancy Boy"

to be continued...

He said/He said

Let's play double-game where we mix an match some quotes from last night to the person who said them and once you've done that you can get a pretty big picture out how our night went yesterday:

Here are the people:

Bob

Blain

Andrew

Andy

Jim

Ken Read

Here are the quotes:

"It seems to me that a broach once an hour is an acceptable risk"

"We might lose the rig. Let's get this mother down!"

"This topping lift seems really sticky" followed by "I guess we'll have to look at it in the morning." (two people, double points)

"Well, that was pretty fun" followed by "Yeah, that was kinda like "shit your pants" fun"

"ZZZZZZ'zzzzzzz,snore" during and after a massive wipeout at 15 knots

"I'll tell you this much, no one on this boat lacks cajones"

"Going 40 knots is the stupidest thing you can do in one of these boats" 

"Hey, could someone get me some dental floss? I've got some jerky caught here", said by a helmsman during a 30 knot gust.

"Wow, I am *so* glad to finally see the ocean!", said at first light after a very intense night.

Ass over teacups

We just finished a minor little broach that started with a squall, followed by a massive humming noise as brainwaves accelerated to 14+m followed by a "take that 13.7" and and maniacal laughter. Then came the broach as brainwaves fell over. We were only down a couple of seconds as the vang and the mainsheet were released and we stood back up. Bob, who had just come off watch, and I, who wasn't sleeping anyway geared up and went on deck.

No damage. No Injuries. No Foul. Jimmy didn't even wake up.

I'm now down below ready to spring into action, with our 3 up 2 down but I think the plan is to just continue kicking ass and chewing up the miles. If we keep having trouble, we might switch to Nancy-boy, or put in a reef, or just sail deep for awhile.

Exciting stuff. Stay tuned.

23/7/2012

2300

We got the monster up and when the wind fills in it really cooks. We are now heading down on our down-wind polars.  Not too hard to manage and everyone is pretty good on the helm.

Last night we had Capt'n America up all night. It started out as a glorious night surfing down waves imagining that we were rolling in the competition. The wind was pretty high and we spend much of the time finding nice surfs and pulling the strings. Once the moon went down, it became much harder in the lulls. It is an odd thing that the boat is almost always easier to sail in the higher winds. I'd guess the reason is that the wind provides more drive the control te boat vs's the waves. Anyway, fun stuff.

The crew is still doing great. There have been a remarkablly few ouchies. No one has even banged their head on the companionway too badly. We did have a nice case of a crew member with sudden onset vision difficulties, with some loss of visual acuity and almost complete loss of accommodation. It's all fixed now, but do any of you medical types have an idea what could have happened (hint: it is a reasonable board question).

Alright, signing off. I've got to return to the head and do something with that pound cake.

7/23/2012 1200

Sunset

Hula Girl packs the chute

Mmmmmm - tri-tip

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Scandahovian Watch

Green means you're on deck - gray means you can sleep

Hula Girl trims the Kite

Sailing and Navigation

Pic for Tim...

Post from Bob 7/22/12

We've been having plenty of fun, cruising along under spinnaker for the last couple of days now. We've seen boats along the course almost the entire race. We got to see one our competitors recover a pretty solid broach this morning but we were not quick enough to get pictures to send to them--perhaps they would be kind enough to capture one of ours on film. Our two Media Crew Members have been snapping away so I am sure there will be plenty of pictures of water waves, water droplets, splashing water, rain water, and perhaps water in cloud form. And an increasingly ripe crew (I think people would pay for some scratch 'n' sniff pics if we could figure out how to make them). I suspect one of our crew (to remain nameless) has been sending out blog postings. Just a warning--any claims of speed record ownership, extreme handsomeness, or lack of body odor are suspect. I'm jus' sayin'...

We have a great night last night. Sailing hot with Capt'n America in pretty high winds. Surfing 10-12 most of the time. Somebody special now holds the record for highest top speed of 13.7 kt. (Here is a hint: we is also handsomest and has the biggest  biceps.)  I'm not sure the speed record should really count, since I was driving down a wave at about 45 degrees.

Everyone rotated through our schedule last night and was tearing it up on the helm. No particularly bad wipe outs last night even though both bob and I tried to give the capt'n a chocolate broach or a lemonade roundup when he was using the head.

The wind is up to 20 knots with are largest spinnaker. I think I'm going to have to go on deck and show bob how to drive. Maybe with some instruction he can brake the 13 knot barrier.

Andy

from Andy - wee hrs of 7/22

Second night with the spinnaker up and we are flying. We can see a couple of lights ahead of us and hope they are in our division, but the might be double-handers or division "C" boats. It is really fun to race real-time. You guys would probably know better from the yellow-tracker.

The true wind speed is up to 25 and we are managing to fly the Capt'n overnight. I still in my nigth deck gear, which is my long sleeve T-shirt, polar fleece and my padded long underwear, padded shorts, headlamp around neck, sailing gloves, lifejacket, and tether.

Bob is on the helm and blain is pulling the strings while Jim and Andrew try and get some well deserved rest after eating some home-cooked lasagna and carrot cake.

Earlier, the wind came up to 25-30 while I was on the helm and we thought about changing to our smaller Nancy-Boy spinnaker, but since I was hauling so much ass that we changed our minds before I could run forward and prepare fo the drop.

No "all hands on deck moments yet this race (but we did do a nice spinnaker peel this morning with only three of us). I'm currently figuring out how to do another one that included the outgrabber and the twing.

Almost time for Andrew to get up and then Bob will take over as standby and I will try and sleep for 2 hours before taking the helm again.

Notable firsts:

10kt boat speed- Jimbo

11kt boat speed- Blain

12kt boat speed- Jimbo

13kt boat speed- Andy

Fist broach=- Jimbo

The Happy Hat

mmmm - lasasgne

and carrot cake

Gentlemen's sailing (Andy 7/21/12-ish)

I can't emphasize enough how much more comfortable this race is than the last one. The boat is humming along nicely, the weather is warm, and the crew is doing a great job.

Last night we were fast. We flew our Asym all night long through some pretty good wind and then at first light we peeled to a .75 Ounce all purpose which looks alot like Capt'n America. Then we had a couple of gybes to try and miss the lulls that usually follow squalls. I don't think we had enough boat speed, and ended up getting hosed in a lull for a couple hours.

Due to the early morning maneuvers and some logistical issues, we missed our scheduled breakfast (breakfast burritos) and got an opportunity to finish off some of our leftovers of a bean-cheese-sun chips salad. It was fantastic and I'm looking forward to the breakfast burrito tomorrow.

So far, the only major incident was when our engine failed to start yesterdeay wen we tried to charge the batteries. It was a pretty tense 30 minutes of looking at the diesel and planning on how we were going to conserve electricity before Jimbo found the issue. It was a simple fix (the starter switch seems to only work some of the time.

We are back into some wind (bob and I each got our first 10's) and I'm about to take a nap. Hopefully we will chop some more miles off the competition.

This is your world at night

Hula Girl makes lunch

Hula Girl, Capt America, and a Rainbow

Just a brief one before a mid day snooze (Andy)

things are still going good here on brainwaves. When tHe position reports came in this morning we we a little surprised to see that a couple of our competitors had slipped by us overnight. There is still a long way to go, and once we cruise past these light winds and hit the trades we still might have a chance to make our way to the podium. We have our torpedoes loaded ifyouknowwhatimsaying. Still chowing down on the food. I peaked at today's dinner any noticed that there was pound cake in there somehow. Smartly, I scratched it out and think I might be able to hide it in the head and eat it all myself when no-one is looking. Actually, we already have a extra day's supply of food so I'm not worried about going hungry. We haven't broken anything on the boat but Bob lost his sunglasses over the side and I lost part of a camera bracket over the side(we have spares for both). Alright, ready for a little nappy.

Email from Andy 7/29@11:30

Long day today with a couple sail changes a little rest and I'm off shift now after doing a couple "crazy Ivan's" in the fluky wind and getting myself all hot-and-bothered. There were many instances of perfect sailing conditions. We even reached with the Spinnaker for awhile today (that I launched from the bow wearing shorts). No more wildlife sightings except for a bird that tried to land on our masthead. The team is working overtime to figure out how to get out of this light air. Bob has banned the term "naviguesser," but he doesn't seem to mind the equally accurate term of "navimoron" Tasty food again today- Mahi Mahi dish and your new zealand boat-baked cookies are hitting the spot. No leftovers. We have a couple of first for this trip:
First Shooting star: Capt'n Jimbo
First Whale Tail: Andrew
First Man overboard: Nobody
First Sunburn: Andy's Lips
Thanks for watching.

Email from Andrew 7/18/12

Here's part of an email that Andrew sent out the other day.  Looks like warmer than expected conditions if he's already in shorts!

We're having a good sail so far.  saw a bunch of whales last night.  We've seen a bunch of dolphins. There are a ton of jelly fish.  Also saw a shooting star last night.

The conditions are really mild - I sailed all day in shorts.

I'll see you soon...  (ok - not too soon...)

A.

Trimming the Kite

Foulies - Fireman Style

Driving like Tim

'Standing' Watch

Email from Bob 7/19/12

Here's part of the email we received from Bob today:

Thanks for coming to see me off and going out on Crew's Nest. R & T--did you guys have fun on the boat? I could hear you all cheering right before the start. Thanks!

First 24 hrs were a bit painful because we had no wind. We made it around Pt. Bonita fine, but the wind died later in the evening. We pretty much just floated around the whole night wondering if our competitors had found wind somewhere else. When the sun came up we could still see several boats, but perhaps 2 of them got west of the Farallones. What can you do? The wind started to fill in the early afternoon and finally we could move. Since then we've been going ~7 knots fairly close to the rhumbline. It's been very pleasant so far--no one seasick and warmer than expected. Have seen a lot of wildlife; 15-20 whales, lots of dolphins, seals, etc. We are settling into the routine.

I'm glad they could hear us from Crew's Nest. We certainly were loud, but they were upwind of us. Guess it didn't matter.

Things are going great on board. The wind has filled in nd we are now going XX knots in XX amount of wind from the XXX. We've got the XX sails up and they are behaving pretty well. Bob has changed his underwear XX times. The weather stayed warm, and even though we had little wind in the early part of the day, we still managed to move a little. Andrew was in shorts all day. This has certainly been te most comfortable offshore race in awhile. We cracked open the first deb-cooked meal today and is we a pretty tasty little chicken dish. We haven't identified anything we have forgotten and haven't managed to break anything. The crew is in high spirits and looking forward to meeting our Hawaii welcoming crew. Love Andy

Driving & Sunscreen

There's the wind!

Navigation

A Lovely Evening

floating around the Farallones

Beautiful night last night floating around the Farallones

In Deb's words:

Glassy sea, capricious wind,
Entertainment--mammals finned,
Time for tonic, highly ginned!

We are out here floating around looking for wind. Beautiful view of the Farallones. Around sunset last night we saw a bunch a whales (including lots of tails) We've also seen a bunch of dolphins. The Pacific is living up to its name if not its reputation.
more later...

First at-sea post

We had a great start. We stayed away from the traffic at the other end of the line and managed to cross with speed and clear air. We had a bunch of nice tacks and good tactics while playing with the tide and, although we didn't win the "first under the bridge" prize, we claim we won the first past mile rock prize.

It was nice sailing, sunny, tons of dolphins, more whales than I've ever seen, and variable wind from 7-13 kt. We had a beautiful sunset on glassy water, with whale bellowing and flukes a-splashing . The wind then really died and now we are doing 0.00 kt speed over water. The seas are so flat that we can't even really use our ultra-secret swell drive.

After some soup and crackers (we expected to be a little sea-sick by now) and some fresh-baked  ginger cookies, it was time for a couple awkward headsail changes, and a nap on the rail… from which I was awoken by a whale spout that startled me awake because it was so close.  It was a little nutty.

Andy

07/18/2012 0030 

Good news/bad news

Here's a video of a whale Bob sent me from his phone.  Its kinda hard to see (easier to hear).  Good news - they've already seen some cool wildlife.  Bad news - this means that they were still in cell phone range at 7 pm.  And it doesn't look very windy out there.  Keeping our fingers crossed that it fills in soon.

They're off!!

Brainwaves is off!  

Each boat receives a leaf that has been blessed in Hawaii.  Here's hoping for smooth sailing.

There were plenty of people who came by to say their goodbyes.

It looks like we might have a future PacCup skipper here!

Thanks to Ray and Patti, the CA based support crew and friends were able to cheer on Brainwaves from the Catalina-34 Crew's Nest.  THANKS SO MUCH!  It was a great way to say goodbye.  Here's Brainwaves giving us a drive by right before the start:

Brainwaves had a good start and the sun even came out to help send them on their way.  In this picture Brainwaves, and the rest of the fleet, make their way under the Golden Gate Bridge:

Bon Voyage sailors.  Here's to a safe and fun sailing adventure.