The Shortest Line between Two Points

by Bob

Going from Los Angeles to Hawaii is pretty simple. You set a waypoint in the GPS for Hawaii and press "DirectTo." But that doesn't
work very well in a sailboat. It's usually faster to go south and pick up the trade winds that blow west. At the moment, the wind is
a little weird because a high pressure center is misbehaving.

In other words, we're not sure which way is the best to Hawaii. We just look at the predicted winds and pick a route. Occasionally
we have a look at a weather map to make sure there's not a hurricane between here and there. The wind data comes from NOAA Wave
Watch III.

The first couple of days we did what we considered very respectable. I haven't done the ciphering yet, but we may have gone over 240
miles in 24 hours. I realize that's not a lot unless you're on a horse, but it's pretty good for Mike and I on a sailboat.

A man overboard pole is required on all boats for this race. It's a pole that sticks 6 feet up out of the water. When someone falls
in, you throw this pole in so you can find the person among the ocean waves. It sounded like a good idea to me, so we bought a man
overboard pole and put it on the boat.

But it turns out we already had one. We noticed that most boats at the harbor before the race didn't have man overboard poles. I
asked someone about it, and he said they're in the MOM Man Overboard Modules, and they're inflatable. So I took our new Man
Overboard Pole and stored it in the front hold.

We have lots of sails on this boat. We generally the mainsail and one other at a time. We have a mainsail, a small jib (solent), a
large jib (gennaker or reacher), three spinnakers, and two storm sails.

Spinnakers are a little unstable. They don't have anything to hold them tight except the wind. Our exceptional spinnaker handling
makes our spinnakers exceptionally unstable.

We started the race with three spinnakers. Now we have four. One tore in two this morning. Whomper, our giant sail for light wind,
has divided. We flew it in 15-25 knots of wind all last night. Early this morning about 10:00 or 11:00, Mike and I were sitting in
the living room sailing when the sail ripped into two pieces, attached to one another by a thread.

One of the spinnaker halves was in the water behind the boat. We tried to pull it up but couldn't until we slowed the boat to about
one knot. Spinnakers probably make excellent sea anchors.

We agreed that from now on, we should use this sail only in very light wind. This is the third time we've ripped it. Sometimes you
just get excited -- we were doing 10-12 knots with peaks to 14 and 15 knots with that sail last night. It was fun! We even passed a
couple of other boats. But I'm sure they passed us today when we were thrashing around with the sails.

The raising and lowering of a spinnaker can be exciting. Being the skilled and experienced sailors we are, it's no problem for us.
Yesterday we launched Thumper, our medium spinnaker. It has a sock, a neat device that makes spinnaker handling simple. It's
essentially a long skinny bag that holds the sail, with a rope and pulley that allows the bag to slip to the top of the mast and
release the sail from its confines.

When I pulled on the rope to launch thumper, the sail went up. So did the rope. Rather than skin a finger or fly into the water, I
turned loose. The rope was snagged on something inside the bag. But we needed that rope when it was time to lower the spinnaker.
It's not absolutely necessary, but it's easier that way.

We decided to lower the spinnaker and straighten things out, so we could get it down quickly if something broke or if Mike decided
to go swimming. The problem was that the rope to pull the sock down was just out of reach of the boat hook, hanging in the air about
15 feet above the trampoline.

We spent quite a while throwing a metal ring on a string trying to get it through the errant rope. It didn't work. Eventually we
tied our superfluous man overboard pole to a boat hook and threaded a string through the spinnaker sock rope. Even this involved a
lot of failed attempts. Then we managed to pull it down. It would have been much faster to lower it the old-fashioned manual way. (I
think the racers avoid the socks because they add weight to the top of the mast and they make the sail a little less efficient.)

It appeared that the rope on the sock was too short, so we added to it with another rope. After we raised it again, the rest of the
original rope came out of the sock. It took more than an hour to get that sail up and going. Today we raised Thumper and snagged the
halyard in the new radar reflector not once, but twice. We're good with spinnakers. I guess I'd better move that radar reflector.

We still have Thumper up tonight. We're going to get down south and see if the trade winds really do exist.

Last night there were six boats in sight. Tonight there are zero. Maybe we're headed to Siberia?

Real racing sailboats generally have a driver driving the boat and someone outside to adjust the spinnaker sheet (the rope at the
back of the spinnaker). Mike and I are purists. We set the spinnaker and the autopilot, and leave them alone for the night
(hopefully). That's REAL sailing. One of us stays up, but we don't usually stay outside. It's cold out there. (Actually, I did
adjust the spinnaker, mainsail, and autopilot a little bit tonight, but I'm not sure I improved anything.)

At 10:40 PM PDT 7/14 we are at 26°44'N 123°18W. We're going 8 knots generally to the south (170° to 220°). Our direction changes a
lot because the autopilot is set to follow the apparent wind. Water temperature is 67°. Air temperature is 67°. Indoor temperature
is 75°. The generator is generating. We haven't used our engines and won't until Hawaii unless there is an emergency. Mike is
sleeping. Tonight's movie was Tomb Raider.

Our iBoat satellite tracker will be out of range soon. They don't have satellite coverage in Hawaii. The Flagship tracker should
still work. It's inside one of the kayaks.