What have we missed??  What possible wind speed, sail combination, and/or wind angle have we NOT seen in the past 700 miles since leaving California  four days ago in the 2011 Newport to Cabo Race?  From upwind in ghostlike zephyrs, scarcely moving a ripple on the face of the Pacific, with every stitch of canvas we can set flying, to charging along on a reach in 20 knots, peeling to the A4 to keep the wheels on the wagon, so to speak.

As I write this we are just a tick over 60 miles from Cabo.  Our fleet is pretty tight, with the SC50 Horizon leading our class, and overall.  We’ve been hammering at the fleet since paying some dues early in the race and are slowly getting back into it.  While we were happy to see the fourth place at roll call this morning, I was also surprised to see that Locomotion really found some wheels overnight and slipped in front of us (I had been optimistically hoping for a third).

But it ain’t over yet.  And with the tight grouping in our fleet and the unstable conditions we’ve been dealing with, anything remains possible!  We are gambling a bit (going to have to to get past the extremely well sailed  likes of Bad Pak and Loco), and it’s all coming down to the next five hours…  if our westerly shift comes in early enough, we can stand to make up some time, but if she’s late coming to the dance, we’ll be reaching hard to the finish…

Beyond that, life is great onboard Hula Girl.  At the moment, nearly our whole crew is on deck.  Drew is driving, mark is trimming, Bev is grinding.  Eric was just good enough to do the dishes after a superb shift driving.  Now it looks like nap time for him.  We have 16-18 knots of breeze and are scooting along at 10-12 (with spikes over 14 in the puffs).  Everyone is hanging tough, and the spectacular night sailing we have been having has blown away most of our crew.  Maneuvers and sail changes are getting better, the driving smoother.  And it shows.  We are hanging pretty close to some teams who have been sailing together for many years, and  thousands of  open ocean miles.  And we’re pretty happy to be here…  this race has been a challenge, and a hoot.  I’m not sure which has been more fun, sailing a challenging event like this against some great teams, or sailing with a group of sailors and watching them become a great team.

Anyway, I have to get going…  I’m going to go on deck and look for signs of that lefty we’re banking on.  For the moment, I’m tired, but happy, and I suspect that’s a sentiment which runs thru our whole team.  That’s not to say a couple simple things like a shower and a Margarita won’t make me happier, but for a stinky, sleep deprived, dehydrated, sun-blasted, wind-chapped, bruised and battered sailor, I’m surprisingly gratified.  And that will stand, leftie or not…

Wayne Zittel and the Hula Girl Crew

Hoping to get an update from on the boat, but in the meantime, we can guess a little bit…

It appears that contrary to one of the professional weather forecasts obtained by many participants at the start of the race,  including us, the wind is better offshore.  At least, it seems that once around Cedros Island, boats on the outside are making gains on boats to the inside.

Hula Girl, appears to be averaging +1 knot of boatspeed on Horizon for the last couple of hours…  That’s good!  Similarly, Sarasvati appears to be in a band of good pressure, moving along at 8 knots and beginning to compress on the fleet.

Date: Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 8:33 PM
Subject: Back in Mexico….

Hola from Hula….
Well all right now.  This morning, the intrepid Team J World started
the 800 mile sprint down the West Coast from Newport Beach, CA to Cabo
San Lucas….. Land’s end, Baja California!  Our gang of nine started
about a half mile off the end of the Newport pier into a light
westerly.  With the big #1 jib up, we were able to punch out at the
start and seemed to have great boatspeed.  We climbed away from the
coast in an attempt to get to a bit more breeze offshore, and it
seemed to be working great.

Then there came a bit of a bluffing and waiting game…  all the boats
around us knew that as the wind freshened, it would shift around
behind us, and it would be time to hoist the bigger sails, and the
“Code Zero” would be the call.  We were poised and ready and wanted to
make the move with the first boat, but no earlier since we didn’t want
to separate from the pack.  Horizon, another SC50,  was the first to
go…  they got the sail most of the way up, then had a bit of a
problem, but sorted it out quickly.  By that point, we were going up
with ours too, and suddenly we has almost the same problem they had…
except we weren’t able to sort our out as easily.  The top of the
sail came unfurled during the hoist, making the sail impossible to
unfurl all the way.  We were forced to go back to the #1 jib and drop
the code zero to sort out the issue…  as we watched all the boats we
had managed to get behind us sail right by…  Before long, we got the
code zero up, dropped the jib, and set a genoa staysail.  Five or 6
knots of breeeze, sailing at 7-8 knots.  Nice.

The wind shifted farther behind us, and it was time again to change
sails…  down with the code zero, up with the 2A spinnaker.  We stuck
with that sail until about 5:30-, when the wind shifted back towards
the south a bit, and we changed to the 1A with a spinnaker staysail.
So that’s where we are right now.  True wind is about 12 knots.  We
are doing 9 to 10 knots, and we just crossed the border into Mexico.
We are picking a lane to keep us outside the light coastal breezes,
but a bit inside out competition…  it’s tough to say no to the nice
header we are getting right now, and we need to make up some of the
time we lost with the sail snafu earlier.

And we need to push south quickly.  There’s a cold front moving into
the area tomorrow, brining with is some strong headwinds.   We want to
be well down the Baja Coast before it gets here.  Andele!
We have just finished a full rotation on the helm (everyone has had a
chance to drive).  And the stew dinner wend down nicely, just as the
(nearly) full moon came up.  Man, it is beautiful outside right now.
Seriously beautiful.  The moon, the shimmering reflections on the
water, the distant coastal glow of San Diego, Tijuana, the Hula Girl
scooting along into the night.

Time to take a look at weather, then maybe go sit in the cockpit for a
while.  I’ll be in touch again soon…

All the best,

Wayne Zittel & the Hula Girl Crew
32° 27N 117° 33W

So our program for the 2011 Transpac, the legendary race from LA to Hawaii every other year, has been sold out since last September…  BUT we have just had a couple cancel, so we now have two berths available on the 50 foot turbo sled, Hula Girl.  

The Transpac is arguably the world’s most famous offshore yacht race.  And one of the best.  Two-thousand miles of (mostly) downwind surfing through crystal clear waters and the warm trades.  There are already 65 entries signed up, including SIX Santa Cruz 50s…  this is going to be an epic fleet in an epic race.

J/World’s Hula Girl Reaching into Hawaii

Our Hula Girl programs set off with six crew and three of our world-class coaches.  Everyone gets an opportunity to participate in everything aboard, including navigating, trimming, and driving.  Our offshore racing programs have earned quite the reputation for being a ton of fun and tremendously beneficial…  and if you miss out on this opportunity, the next chance to get aboard won’t be until 2012.

For more about Hula Girl, visit here.  For more about the Transpac with J/World, go here.

To learn about specifics or get a copy of the Team brief, contact us!

Wayne Zittel and the J World Team