Don't forget the sunscreen

July 7, 2010

We are now less than 1500 miles from Maui sailing roughly the Rhumb line – the shortest line between two points on the globe (as opposed to a great circle route which is passing through every meridian at the same angle). The winds have abated to 20 knots and shifted a little which has brought down our speed ever so slightly -199 nm noon to noon. Just before the wind moved forward we had brought up a spinnaker to set. A small trip line at the top of the mast used to release a halyard lock had become fouled in the spinnaker halyard and one of the foredeck crew, Tim was sent aloft in the climbing harness. Going up sixty feet when a boat is pitching is fraught with the potential for harm so it was all hands on deck. Tim did his work quickly and came back down. Now if only the wind would cooperate by moving aft so we could hoist the kite and catch up some ground on the other boats. Kudos once again to Naomi for suggesting that Tim go up before we launched. It was the right decision and avoided a much thornier situation.

Turicum is at 37 degrees 46 minutes north as I write and the outside temperature is getting pretty warm. The heavy foul weather gear will probably be stowed for the duration tomorrow and the shorts will be out in a day or two. Our route will likely not take us into the trade winds until three or perhaps four days out of Maui, but we will still be in fairly intense heat (especially below decks) very soon. We have all been quite wet for the past few days as the rain has come and gone and a few large rollers invaded the cockpit yesterday. One also finds that the intensive work of taming a mainsail coming down in a large breeze or hauling sails up and down bring the heart rate and body temperature up very quickly. Then when you return to the cockpit and sit or stand in the breeze you cool off very quickly and get a chill. It appears that there is not much in between too hot and too cold although at the start of a watch when you are properly attired and not yet required to exert yourself it can be quite pleasant.

To sleep, per chance to dream. – or to hallucinate. I believe the type of sleep we get – no more than 4-5 hours at a time leads to some very vivid dreams. They are actually a great diversion in an otherwise very set routine. Everyone is now able to get to sleep quite quickly, largely due to the fact that the work and watch shifts (0600 – 1200; 1200 – 1800; 1800 – 2200; 2200 – 0200 and 0200 – 0600) wear you down so much in the first few days that it is impossible not to sleep. This may be a tough routine to break once back to life on land.

As mentioned in an earlier entry, driving the boat to the finish line is the goal. Each watch crew of four tries to beat their own best miles per shift and compete against the other watch crew to do better. The intercrew rivalry is good natured and a real positive in terms of overall relations aboard. Of course we would like to win, but we accomplish that by doing our best for ourselves and our team. I have no doubt that we will be unanimous in our view that we have certainly accomplished the latter even if the former eludes us.


As you read yesterday, Naomi contributed to the blog and I hope that others may find time to as well. You all ought to be very proud to be the spouse, parent, child, friend, workmate or whatever relationship you are to these people. They are all competent, passionate and compassionate individuals. It is quite remarkable to participate in one activity for six months, do a couple of overnight races together and then set off across an ocean with seven other people you only sort of know. Some crews have terrible conflicts which is extremely unfortunate. I believe what we collectively have done is played to each other’s strengths, avoided confrontation on issues where we may disagree and go the extra mile to lighten each other’s load. It is an interesting way of approaching relationships that should translate well into many, albeit not all situations. As the iconic petty criminal Rodney King said – why can’t we all just get along?

Over and out for now.

Turicum 74257