The boys are having a nice delivery back to the West Coast. They are headed for San Francisco where the boat will be hauled out at KKMI. The trip is taking a little longer than hoped but they are catching plenty of fish.
Deck
Eastbound
The Bella Mente has left Hawaii and is in route to San Francisco in the first leg of it’s trip back to the East coast to the Merchant Marines. The current Bella Mente is ours no more. Pirate, JV, and Matt are bringing the boat back to the West Coast with a few of the cadets. All of our focus now goes into the new boat. Our containers will head to Newport where one will go to the Merchant Marines, and the other one will get gutted and refit for the new boat. We have received a new container which will have to get fitted out.
Doogie
More Finish Photos
Race over
By now, most of you would have seen that we finished this morning, over 2 hours ahead of Magnitude. The team was ecstatic with the victory. It has been a long road.
We sailed hard all day yesterday and night, doing a few changes to keep the boat on course and pointing towards the mark. Magnitude had to gybe down to the line while we hauled straight to the mark. I’ll try and add a few tid bits of the race that we did not post during the race for various reasons.
For example, on the second night with the kite up, we blew up one of our primary kites for the moderate air. So we had to be careful with the other kites to make sure we conserved our assets.
We are all tired and looking forward to some rest and nice meals.
Arrival Photos
The Finish Line
Grinding Towards the Finish
We are in the final stretches of the race. We hooked up with a nice squall last night that picked up to about 28 knots of wind speed. It was all hands on deck to get the weight moved aft and all the crew weight. We gybed and have been aiming from Hawaii. It’s a very close race with Magnitude right now.
Everything becomes a little more difficult when we are trying to figure out where they are with a six hour delay on the tracking. They have been doing a good job to use that delay to their advantage and sneak away from us. The outcome of this race will probably be decided in the next 12 hours depending on wind direction and strength. The boys are working really hard on the handles and the drivers are taking every wave they can. The boat is settled into a nice groove right now and the off watch is trying to get some rest before a bug push tonight. We have ETA of tomorrow morning. Wish us luck on this last push and hopefully the next update will be from land.
By the way, the tracker will go live when we hit 100 miles from the finish. So west coasters, get up early and check it out! And east coasters, enjoy a nice breakfast while we make final gybes down the Molokai Chanel and into Diamond head!
http://live.adventuretracking.com/transpac2011
Thanks,
Doogie
Pre-Race Team Photo
Transpac Update
We definitely have a race on our hands. Magnitude found something last night that we did not have. They used some leverage and now we are working hard to figure out what the next phase of the race will be. Everyone is putting in the extra effort to keep the boat going at full pace. Moving the stack, trimming hard, and making sure all our maneuvers are all hands.
The mood on the boat is good but focused on working hard and getting there. We can all start to feel that Hawaii is arriving.
Oh and is it getting hot. The inside of the boat is getting unbearable – especially after moving the stack and getting a full sweat on.
See you all in a coupe of days.
Doogie
Zio enjoying some authentic freeze dried Mac and cheese. The freeze dried pasta meals are especially tough on the Italians!
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