Slow start

We've been racing for two days now, and still apear to be leading our class as of this morning's roll call. There's one boat straight ahead in the other class that started on our day- we passed them yesterday and they've made ground on us overnight. Working to fix that now.

Food has been very good- the first night was Joan's baked pasta with meatballs, last night was James the wonder chef's Jamaican chicken with pasta primavera. I know the freeze dried stuff is going to be awful once the frozen stuff runs out...

Weather has been very light, with lumpy cross-seas, and a low that seem unnaturally attracted to us- we just can't get away from it. Every forecast has us taking longer to finish, but they've all been wrong to a large extent anyway.

Otherwise Friction Loss is treating us well, no breakages, just two lost butt cushions over the side. Tying lanyards on the ones we have left...
-C

and we're off

Ole's waffles for breakfast, Burmese for dinner, Alameda has treated us nicely.

There's a few more jugs of water to get, Doug's probably furiously downloading gribs from his hotel, Shawn is doing some clean up, but Friction Loss looks surprisingly roomy inside, even after all the stuff has been stored. Makes me think we've missed something...

Next update from the water.

Up the 5 beats up the coast

We didn't make it to SF on Tuesday, but we didn't bust either. We pulled into the boatyard around 2am Wednesday, had a beer, and conked out on the boat. To be awakened at too-early-thirty by diesel trucks, a dog shelter waking up, grinders on fiberglass, and even raw unfiltered sunshine.

Tuesday morning we had spent almost a full day in the yard getting the boat fitted to the trailer, moving it forward (and readjusting everything to fit) twice to get the correct weight distribution. And then we had to futz with getting the rig secured to the deck in a way that wouldn't be higher than our permit "suggested"...

In the end it was worth it since the boat tracked nicely behind Malcom's truck, and Friction Loss was nicely coddled for the occasionally bumpy trip north.

The boat yard in Alameda treated us nicely, and after reassembling (and cleaning) the rig, we splashed into SF waters around 2pm and motored over to Oakland Yacht Club where we expect to remain until the race start.

Shawn is taking the trailer down to San Diego this morning, where it will be loaded onto Pasha's westbound ship. Other than that, we have two days at home to get last minute chores done, pack bags, review lists, do some additional non-perishable food shopping, and get some family time. Then we're all making our way up to the boat on Saturday for a frenzied two days of stuffing too much stuff into a too small boat.

Weather (this is through the 4th when I wrote) isn't looking as nice as we'd like at the moment according to some folks that have looked at the longer range gribs, but it's not looking as light as the singlehanders have had to deal with. We'll see- the long range stuff is usually off a bit.

-C

Finished in MdR, SF or bust on Tuesday

The chore list has been eradicated (for the most part), and the boat gets pulled out of the water tomorrow morning to go on its trailer for the trip up to Alameda. We'll be going to The Boat Yard at Grand Marina, and then likely staying at Grand Marina until race time next Monday.

Not sure yet on a tracking website, but I know we'll have transponders. I'm sure anybody with less than three thumbs can find it once it is posted on the Pacific Cup site.

The weather is starting to look a little more interesting, and we're certainly hoping the Singlehanders have used up all the bad luck in that department.

Doug has found a chef to prepare and freeze six really good (sounding) meals, leaving me to offer up the backpacking freeze dried stuff for the 2nd half (or 3rd third, we hope not!) of the trip. Pretty sure his contribution will be better appreciated in this regard.

In the final stretch,
-C

More parts

Shawn has been putting in lots of hours on the boat, and it is looking really good. We never seem to have a camera while there though, so I'll update progress here a little.

Even CNC-cut foils from Phil's need fairing. After 3 rounds of fill-and-sand (the point in the process where the pic was taken), I added 2 coats of primer and 4 coats of hard epoxy/teflon finish, wetsanding them all and buffing the last.

We need an emergency tiller, as well as an emergency rudder. This fitting allows the tiller for the emergency rudder (an aluminum tube) to be used on the primary rudder. More fun uses for scrap carbon!

The completed emergency rudder cassette. The emergency rudder from Phil's didn't have a shape conducive to a typical slide-in cassette, so we came up with this. The cassette part mounts to the transom like a typical cassette would, using J24 gudgeons already mounted on the transom. Then the rudder is held near the top, guided into the open cassette, an the top pivot/cross pin pushed into its slot. The buoyant rudder blade floats aft of the boat, and once the top is captured in the cassette, the rudder is pivoted on the top pin until the bottom pin lines up, and it all slides down and locks in place with the pins and a wrap of line, cleated.

We wanted to be able to sleep two bodies in the main salon, so we're adding a pipe berth to the starboard side. The 1 1/2" thin wall aluminum tubing is the pivot, attaching to bulkheads fore and aft, and the carbon U-shape makes up the other 3-sides of the berth. This isn't necessarily made of carbon because we're such hard-core racers that anything less would be spurned, but because metal working is not my thing and wood would be a little too heavy. Besides, it's fun to try new things...

Shawn is getting lots of mechanical stuff done this week- new motor mounts and exhaust water-lift and such, and with the new panel for the electrical bits almost made (the old one had a bunch of obsolete cutouts, and there's new bits to be cut in), we'll put the boat's electrics together next weekend perhaps, so Doug can come check whether his laptop plays nicely with the boat's instruments.

We may even go sailing on Wednesday, last I heard...

-C

Parts, parts, parts

A shop (ok, garage) full of J30 stuff.

From left to right: trailer cradle, new rudder- longboarded and filled, companionway trim with varnish (there's more pieces out of view), emergency rudder cassette almost done, and the emergency rudder with pins added to slot into the cassette.

The two rudders are from Phil's Foils.

-C

Bunch of NA's pics

We were on Simply Sailing, with the high red waterline, main #289.