2011 Newport to Cabo Race, Day 3

Dia Diablos,

Ok, it was a devil of a day out here on the 2011 Newport to Cabo Race.
Early in the morning, the breeze died on us, as predicted.  The
remainder of the morning and mid afternoon was spent trying to squeeze
every ounce of power out of every whiff of breeze.  Sailing in this
light stuff can be a remarkable test of patience and finesse… and
our team did a great job persevering, and we’ll see how it pays off.

The breeze stabilized in the late afternoon and started a gradual
build from the south east…  not the direction we were expecting or
hoping for, but we have a couple plans on how we might turn this
development into an advantage and gain some on our fleet.
We now have about 7-8 knots of wind, and are trucking along pretty
much close-hauled at 7-8 knots.  Nice.  The Hula Girl is happy again.
And the whole crew is so relieved to have wind again, no one has even
complained that we aren’t getting the classic spinnaker runs that this
leg of the race usually delivers.

The sun just set.  Dinner has been wrapped up.   We are slipping right
along, making good progress towards Cabo.  And while we had plenty of
fun out here, I’m not too sorry to put this long day to bed…

Cheers all, and we’ll give you a position report in the morning…

Wayne Zittel & the Hula Girl Team