10/13/23 7:13 PM, Central time
We’re looking to finish sometime in the early morning. Just terrible. I took a couple of watches off, got some decent sleep, and feel much better.
10/13/23 5:06 PM, Central time
OMG. After 7500 nm UNICEF is 300 yards behind us! I don’t expect us to finish until early morning. Very disappointing to have not done well. I would have been very happy with 5th place.
10/13/23 9:08 AM, Central time
Today is much better, but light winds. Just unbelievable how long it’s taking to do 200 nm. I took a couple of watches off to get some rest. Was just exhausted. Will be back on my 1pm watch. Good news is that we were able to get the engine running. It was just a loose valve cover gasket.
10/12/23 3:52 PM Central time
Hellish sailing conditions last 24 hours. Having problems making the final 200 miles. Steering broke this morning and just drifted in 20 ft seas until we fixed it. Boat and crew are being pushed way to hard.
10/10/23 8:48 PM Central time
Today started out wonderfully. The weather was just perfect with sunshine. My watch started at 7am. We had light winds with the code 1 up. Zhuhai had passed us overnight, unfortunately, and was about three miles away. I was able to wash clothes and take a bucket shower which was a treat. The water is much colder now. Maybe 70 degrees, which was very refreshing. On the afternoon watch, the winds really picked up. We took down the code 1 and put up the code 2. Our crew work was flawless. We are really coming together well as a crew. Jono hit 18+ several times and we really clicked off some miles. We had dinner in the cockpit during the watch changeover. My watch took over and almost immediately the winds picked up strongly into the low 40s. We had already gone to the #2 Yankee, but with a full main were very overpowered. The staysail came untied from the deck and actually blew up the mast. We struggled to secure that and put two reefs in the main while trying not to round up. Finally, with the reefed main, things were much more controllable. We have less that 300 nm to go as midnight. An arrival in Punta on the 12th looking good!
10/10/23 10:48 AM, Central time
The wind has finally picked up. We just dropped the code 1 and put up the code 2. It’s just absolutely the most perfect day for sailing. The weather is just beautiful, the temperature is perfect, the boat is flat, and everything is drying out after the stormy weather. I just took a shower on the back of the boat and washed enough clothes to get me to Punta.
10/10/23 6:53 AM, Central time
Absolutely beautiful this morning. Chasing Zhuhai towards Punta. Light winds, but picking up.
10/9/23 12:36 PM, Central time
Qingdao passed us in the early morning hours. They had a code 3 up and had two knots better boat speed than us. We had taken our code 3 down due to high winds and rough seas and put up a Yankee 2. Cam talked to them on the VHF and found that they had ripped the entire head off their code 1 and the entire clew off their code 2. Despite that, they were pushing their code 3 very hard. Less than an hour later, they broached and wrapped the code 3 around the forestay. Their AQP told Cam that it was so violent a roundup that the bow almost went through the wind. When we last saw them, they were headed due east. After a frustrating night trying to sail deep downwind, our watch woke to winds in the upper 20s and full main only. Even with no foresails or spinnaker, we did double-digit speeds directly to our waypoint near Punta. As the winds picked up into the upper 30s, we began doing 11-14 knots, with some surfing to 16+ knots. The seas built to 15-18 feet coming from the stern, which made helming very hard. We saw a whale broach about 300 yards off the port bow and then again about a quarter mile behind us. No idea what type, but very large. I went to the nav station at noon to do the log. Hannah was there and had unfortunately left the hatch open for some air. Just at hat time a wave broke over the stern and water poured through the open hatch soaking the entire nav station. We immediately smelled an electric burning smell and Cam powered everything off. Nav displays at the steering stations are still working, but the Dell monitor and crew email system are out. They winds finally moderated and we were able set the code 3 about 4:30 in the afternoon.
10/6/23 5:07 PM, Central time
A frustrating day today. The port Yankee halyard went to the top of the mast last night, then the spinnaker anti-wrap net wrapped itself on the forestay, and finally the lower attachment point for the port running backstay caught the spinnaker halyard. All required someone to go up the mast which slowed us down. We did have quite a ride again with the code 3 spinnaker in the afternoon. We finally took it down when the winds increased over 30 knots. The good news is that we have less than 1000 nm to go! We should be in Punta on the 12th if we can manage 8 knots. Everyone seems ready to wrap up this race.
10/6/23 7:44 AM, Central time
The code 2 spinnaker was somehow blown off the deck and under the boat on the other watch. Luckily, it was attached at the tack and not lost. That is a bad, bad situation. We use two spinnaker halyards so that the spinnaker doesn’t go forward under the bow if the halyard parts. Eventually, they were able to get it out from under the boat and back on deck without any damage. A minor miracle. They are also having issues getting their spinnakers wooled and packed back in bags so they can be hoisted again. This has been a long race and tempers are a bit frayed. Things are a bit better on our watch, but we’ll all be happy to arrive in Punta. We can be there by the 12th if we can average 8 knots.
10/5/23 11:27 AM, Central time
The wind finally backed two days ago and we were able to set a spinnaker. We’re now in the third day of what will probably become a 1,000 nm port gybe spin at reach to our gybe point about 500-600 nm from Punta. We’ve been doing 10+ knots in moderate wind and seas, however after daybreak today the wind started increasing. Hannah made the call to drop the code 2 spinnaker and go to the code 3. Thank goodness she did. The wind increased first to the mid 20s and then to the low 30s. Vasi helmed while it was in the 20s as the seas increased to 15 feet. I was check helming for her and she did a great job. Hannah took over once the winds reached the 30s. Just as I was thinking I was glad I wasn’t helming, Hannah asked if I would like five minutes on the helm to see what it was like. I agreed as long as she stayed very close by. Surprisingly, it was not so bad as long as I kept the apparent wind direction at 120 degrees or less. It became scary if I let it get towards 90 degrees (on the beam). Things were going okay, so I got 30 minutes, then a full hour on the helm. Hannah and Cam started talking about dropping the spinnaker ASAP as the wind stayed in the low 30s. The sooner the better for me! Hannah had hit 18+ knots earlier. I hit speeds in the 17s several times, then 18.1 and then 18.5. Yikes, lots or adrenaline kicking in. Too much wind and the end of the boom was skipping on the water. It became very hard to hold the bow down. Definitely a broach very soon if we didn’t do something quickly. Hannah called to blow the spinnaker and Cam released the spinnaker tack line which automatically releases the spinnaker from the bow of the boat. The spinnaker peeled back and was recovered with no damage. Instantly, everything slowed down with just the full mainsail up. Whew! That was just way too exciting! We quickly got the Yankee #2 up and were doing 11+ knots. Slower, but much more controllable. Later at the mid-day meeting, Hannah announced the we had done 277 nm in the previous 24 hours. That averages to 11.5 knots. That’s a new record for Team Washington DC!
10/2/23 3:43 PM, Central time
A beautiful day in the South Atlantic today. We are still in the Ocean Sprint and hopefully doing well. We have kept moving with mostly double-digit speeds for the last couple of days. We have about 138 nm until the end of the Sprint. We are in stealth mode so our competitors can’t see our speed and position. Not sure if we show up on the race tracker when in stealth mode. Based on what I see on the last position report, we are probably in 5th place. The four boats in front of us appear to have given up on the Ocean Sprint points and taken a hard right turn towards the coast—possibly looking for a favorable current along the shore. I took a “shower” on the stern and changed clothes for the first time since our swim in the ocean. Jean-Marc and Hill are making a cold bean salad for lunch. Not sure it will compare to yours. We’re still close reaching and waiting for the wind to back to the east so we can set a spinnaker. Hoping the final 1000 nm will be a fast spinnaker run. The swell has picked up today—about 15 ft. It’s caused by a low pressure system about 1000 nm south of us. Foreshadowing what we’ll see in the Southern Ocean, I think. I was on engineering duty today, so I checked the engine and generator. Raymond will like to know that the generator uses a Kubota diesel engine. Bets are for us to arrive on the 13th. Fingers crossed!
10/1/23 10:39 AM, Central time
We are about 12 nm from the start of the ocean sprint. Very excited because we have good wind for it. We’re looking forward to the wind backing east in a couple of days and being able to fly spinnakers the final 900 nm to Punta. Hard to believe that on Race 2 we will have sailed a distance just over 1/3 the circumference of the Earth.
9/30/23 6:32 PM, Central time
I had an exhausting day cooking today. I cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner with Dan handling clean up. Finally in my bunk to get some rest. Thank goodness the boat was relatively flat. I actually got lots of compliments on my food. We had an Equator Crossing ceremony. Cam dressed up as King Neptune and one by one asked the crew for our “sins” and gets atonement by dumping gross food over your head. Mine was that I’m “slow cooker” to which I plead absolutely guilty. When it was Dan’s turn, I shouted out “He’s a low talker!” He of course said something that no one could hear and as immediately pronounced guilty.
9/29/23. 11:37 PM, Central time
I drove the boat over the equator just before midnight!
9/29/23 1:23 PM, Central time
We are crossing the equator tonight and will do the crossing ceremony tomorrow. We’re having canned duck for dinner tonight to celebrate. Fingers crossed, we’re looking okay for an arrival about the 12. Last night was rough. We had lots of wind and had the rail in the water. It was almost impossible to sleep. My bunk is on the port side, which means it will on the high side in the southeast trade winds. Very hard to get into and STAY in my bunk. I have cooking duty again tomorrow. Not looking forward to that! However, the winds are lighter now and not nearly as rough. You can’t go strictly by the race tracker. The standings are based on the distance from a boat straight to Punta. However, for some boats that line crosses land. They would have to tack to get to a point where they could go straight to Punta. There are boats to the west of us that are ahead of us in the standings, but are actually far behind. We’re guessing, but still think we are fifth. It will be more clear once everyone is off the South American coast and can sail directly to Punta.
9/28/23. 2:45 PM, Central time
Up on my 7am watch. Another beautiful day. Very excited to finally stop motoring in about an hour! The true wind is 10-12 knots, but right on the nose as we head due south. We have started racing again! 13 knots TWS with a full main, staysail, and yankee #1 doing about 8 knots boat speed. We were into the full southeast trade winds within a hour-135 TWD at 15 knots.
9/27/23 11:02 PM, Central time
Todd Looney (9 yrs.) asked me to present Bill with a question: what animals do you see in the middle of the ocean and have you seen any sharks? In addition to the dolphins, flying fish, and birds — Bill added the following:
No sharks! We’ve also seen sea turtles and found squid on the deck. Tell him about the phosphorescent wake. That is caused by some sort of critter. Also about the orca exclusion zone off Portugal and Spain. Just got off watch and headed to my bunk. Sailing again soon!
9/27/23 4:23 PM, Central time
We had an interesting day today. At noon, we stopped the boat and went for a swim! Yes, in the middle of the Atlantic, in 8-foot slow-rolling swells, and in water over 13,000 feet deep. I combined that with my first real wash up of Race. Just before sunset, we rendezvoused with Our Isles and Oceans to give them a replacement belt for their generator. We, in turn, got wool for our spinnakers (badly needed) and M&Ms. We stop motoring tomorrow morning at 9am. The wind forecast for that time has been bleak until just a few hours ago. It’s looking much better now, but the winds are notoriously hard to predict in the doldrums. We are going back into full-time race mode once sailing again! As of our dinner-time briefing, we are less than 3000 nm from Punta. It’s hard to believe, but we will have sailed roughly one-third of the circumference of the Earth when we arrive at Punta!
9/27/23 3:52 AM, Central time
I am so tired of motoring! So boring! There is not a bit of wind today. Looking forward to crossing the equator, meeting King Neptune, and changing from a lowly pollywog to a shellback. You probably need to google that to understand!
9/26/23 12:03 PM, Central time
I slept on the foredeck last night on sails we have piled on deck. The temperature was almost chilly after another blistering day in the doldrums. The moon was just over half full and low clouds, glowing from moonlight, scudded by. After my 11am to 3pm watch, I slept in the sail locker again to get away from the engine room which is across from my bunk. I overslept my first watch, but no worries since we’re motoring. Not much for the watches to do, so we’re doing some cleaning and working on maintenance items. Several birds have visited the boat—some even landing. Oddly, this included two that appeared to be doves or pigeons. In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean! I took photos and videos and will try to ID them. We’re roughly 1/3 through out 60-hour motoring period. I will be so glad when we turn it off! That should be around 4 degrees north latitude. We’ve picked up a swell from the southeast, which may be a confirmation of good southeast trade winds south of the doldrums. Once in the trades, we should enjoy reaching off the coast of South America to Punta.
9/25/23 3:44 PM, Central time
We are in the ITCZ (doldrums) motoring corridor. Each boat can use its engine for 60 hours. We have chosen to start motoring tonight. The weather here in the ITCZ is a bit strange. Weird cloud formations, very fluky winds, etc. The Coriolis force is zero at the equator, and changes sign in the southern hemisphere, so weather highs and lows will spin in opposite directions once we’re south of it. We did have a rain shower this afternoon which was very nice and really cooled things off. We did nine sail evolutions (changes) in the fluky winds after the rain. We should be through the UTCZ in 60 hours when we should pick up the southeast trade winds.
9/24/23 7:13 PM, Central time
We’ve had a wonderful couple of days sailing! Currently in 5th place having passed Our Isles and Oceans overnight. Last night was just beautiful. There was a half moon and puffy clouds which made “islands” of moonlight around us. We had the music cranked up in the cockpit while sailing fast with the code 2 spinnaker. Today was very hot. The temp in the galley while cooking was 117F. I slept forward in the sail locker with the large hatch open to escape the heat. Thankfully, we had a rain shower in the afternoon. It cooled things off and most of us took a “shower” on deck. We then entered the “doldrums corridor” where we are able motor for 60 hours, if necessary. Despite being in the doldrums, we have plenty of wind, but are having to sail upwind for the first time in several days. We actually hit 16 knots tonight going upwind with a yankee #1, staysail, and full main. Hannah has never gone faster than 13 knots upwind, so I attribute it to my near godlike helming skills. All joking aside, I am steering better and better the more practice I get. All of offshore trips I have done in the past five years have been on cats with autopilots.
9/23/23 7:13 AM, Central time
I helmed or check helmed all last night’s watch. Getting better on the helm. It’s very hard when there are no stars or moon to steer by. We always have a check helm that stands behind the helm to help.
9/22/23 10:13 AM, Central time
Yes, there are two medical evacs to the Cape Verdes. An eye injury on David’s boat and possibly appendicitis on UNICEF. Only minor injuries here. I cooked yesterday. It is the most horrible experience imaginable. Possibly a new circle of hell for me. I was too exhausted to email.
Last night, the spinnaker wrapped around the forestay and, ironically, the anti-wrap net which should prevent that from happening. Cam was up the mast for about two hours getting it sorted. Imagine that in 25-30 knot winds and 10-12 seas. No sure how, but I seem to have lost my nice new Musto rain jacket. 🙁 Lots of flying fish. The girls onboard are absolutely freaked out when the find them dead on deck. Like you and snakes.
Starting to feel the doldrums coming on. Very hazy and getting hotter each day. Not the beautiful, puffy-cloud days we had been having. Winds are very constant and about 20-30 knots. We are typically doing 8-12 knots on average and 14-20 knots when surfing the swells. We do about the equivalent of an entire Chicago to Mac Island race every 24 hours. That normally takes two and and a half days with Miles on his Schock 35, so 2.5 times faster.
Today is officially Underwear Change Day. It’s so very exciting! One pair per week. Will be doing laundry in Punta. Dan is very subdued. I’m a bit worried about him. He and I shared cooking duties yesterday and he was absolutely wiped out. I did most of the cooking.
9/20/23 2:52 PM, Central time
We had another broach and knockdown yesterday courtesy of the other watch. Full blown boom-in-the-water, boat-on-its-side, rudders-out-of-the-water, completely out of control kinda broach. Only minor tears in the spinnaker, but required getting out the sewing machine again.
The other watch also had an all-hands-on-deck, emergency spinnaker drop in the middle of last night. Not a big deal except that both heavy-air went overboard. We’ll have to take a 1 point per thousand pound penalty. We also have just 1/4 the amount of wool yarn that we need for this race. It’s used to tie up the spinnakers when we set them. It’s actually hard or impossible to set them otherwise. We’re try to come up with workarounds.
My plan to be helm so that I avoid the hard jobs is working well. 🙂 Nobody except Michael and me wants to helm when it’s rough, especially at night. So I can helm as much as I’d like.
Dan is very useful with his medical skills He actually did minor surgery on Brian’s finger today to drain an abscess.
A pod of about 100 dolphins just swam by chasing fish.
9/19/23 3:35 PM, Central time
Forgot to add that we set the boat speed record today while I was helming. 20.4 knots!
9/19/23 2:45 PM, Central time
Going east of the Canaries seems to have paid off. However, it’s still a long, long race! I just came off watch when we were knocked down / broached. Boom was in the water. Winds went to 35 knots quickly and the code 2 spinnaker was torn again. We have the Yankee #1 headsail up now instead of a spinnaker. It will take hours to get things sorted.
Race 2, Day 5. This picture was posted on The Clipper’s Facebook page.
9/18/23 10:20 PM, Central Time
We had a wild 11pm-13am watch sailing between the Canary Islands and Africa. The winds were 20-26 knots and we flew the code 3 spinnaker. Top speed was 17.5 knots ! knots. The lead boats went to the west of the Canaries, which added an extra 20 nm. We’re going to gain on them by going east of the islands. We’re definitely in the NE Tradewinds now
9/18/23 2:08 PM, Central Time
Today has been wonderful sailing. We are going by the Canary Islands now. Winds have picked up and we are going fast downwind. We it a few holes the the code 2 spinnaker. Not sure how, but Vasi and I got out the sewing machine and patched them. The wake of the boat is phosphorescent at night. It looks like hundreds of fireflies behind the boat. We next come to the Cape Verde islands and have to decide how to pass them: east, west, of through. There is a scoring gate that complicates that decision.
9/18/23 7:15 AM, Central time
Nothing much new happening here. The weather is wonderful, but we could use a bit more wind. Have been on starboard gybe with the code 2 spinnaker for over 24 hours. Much easier going downwind since the boat is much flatter compared to beating go windward. Getting ready to go on my 6-hour afternoon watch. We’re making good progress.
9/17/23 9:04 AM, Central time
We’ve had a very nice 24 hours. We’ve had the Yankee #1, staysail, and full main up the entire time with no sai changes. The weather is very nice. Winds a 10-15 knots and we’re close reaching so the boat is fairly flat. Speed has been 7-12 knots. There’s a light chop on ocean swells of 10-12. I saw a small sea turtle while I was on the helm. We’re waiting for the wind to clock around so we can set the code 1 spinnaker and GO FAST!
9/16/23 6:56 AM, Central time
Hard watch last night. Still beating. Changed from #1 Yankee to #2. Flaked and packed away the #1. Getting ready for a 6-hour watch. Raining. Understand that we were in 5th place last night.
9/15/23. 5:57 PM, Central time
Just finished helming for three hours on the first full watch after the start. Not a great start. We crossed the line one minute late, but it’s a long race. We’re back to beating at 45 deg unfortunately. I was hoping for more downwind. I believe I see the lights of Tunisia in the distance. We’re working hard get offshore enough to bear away and go south towards the Cape Verde Islands.