Well all right now. It’s straight up midnight, and it looks it.
Pitch black at the moment, even though we know there is a nearly full
moon up there, somewhere. Just a couple hours ago, we passed the
halfway mark in the 2014 Pacific Cup. At this point, we are farther
from dry land than you can get anywhere else on the place of the
planet. California is over 1000 miles away on one side, and Hawaii
more than 1000 miles on the other. North and south of us there is a
whole lot of nothing for a long ways. But calling this ‘nothing’ out
here would be a true error. True, we are but a spec in the ocean, but
the ocean is a great thing and (for the moment) our playground.

The breeze came up again around sunset, as it did last night. We were
a little better prepared for it this time, and shifted down to the
heavier 4A spinnaker (last night we had the big/lighter 2A up the
whole time, which caused yours truly undue stress). Shifting down was
definitely the right call. We are seeing sustained 20-25 knots, and
the lovely Hula Girl is in her element, scooting along at steady 12-14
knots. The driving right now is difficult, to be sure. But our team
has been getting great practice in the past couple of days and I’m
really pleased with how everyone is doing!

Our fall from 2nd to 6th in the standings two days ago was a bit
disappointing, and after a great run yesterday we were sorry to see we
hadn’t picked up anyone by roll call this morning, but by our
calculations we have narrowed the margin a good ways and we think that
we are in a great lane to make some good moves. We don’t think the
boats way south of us will get good angles into the islands (plus, it
could get a bit lighter down there). We think the boat north of us
have gotten more lift earlier on our way out towards the layline to
Hawaii. So we are pretty happy where we are. The light planing boats
are, as expected, untouchable in this stuff, so we are targeting a
respectable finish amongst the displacement members of our fleet. Now
we just have to sail like rockstars!

Everyone has been behaving wonderfully. Now, with the boat flatter,
we did a bit of house-cleaning today. Most of the crew have enjoyed
showers in the cockpit, and things are remarkably civilized! It’s
pretty warm now too… hot in the sun during the days, and welcomely
cool at night.

The crew also wants to thank Sue for the phenomenal batch of
cookies… I’m not sure what we did to deserve being recipients of
her baked specialties (not only for the Pac Cup, but earlier in the
year we received cookies and milk just before the SD to PV Race!), but
boy we are are highly appreciative! Especially me, as I have taken
to using the treats as rewards to keep instructors inline. Especially
that Jasper character… he has taken to making things up, just for
attention, I think, I mean dolphins sleeping with one eye closed and
half a brain?? Really Jasper, where do you get this stuff?!? I
think he was in the sun too long today. But seriously Sue, thank you
from all of us. Please let us know your shirt size so we can send you
a Hula Girl team shirt!

That’s it from me for now. I’m going to go on deck to get some cool
fresh air and take Hula Girl for a spin. Enjoy your feather beds
tonight, friends, It’s a bit more ‘sporty’ out here tonight, and
that’s working well for me at the moment!

All the best,

Wayne Zittel and the J World Team

Well, sometimes the wind does what it is forecast to do, and other
times it doesn’t. And sometimes it doesn’t at first, and then later
does. And sometimes it doesn’t at all, unless you are looking at a
different forecast, then it pretty much does until later when it
doesn’t at all. You get the picture. Sometimes the breeze can be as
fickle as, well, the wind. And so it has been for many of the racers
out here in the 2014 Pacific Cup thus far. With our start aboard J
World’s Hula Girl not until Thursday (many of the smaller and slower

On Port?

boats started as early as the previous Sunday in an effort to get us
all to Hawaii about the same time), we watched the earlier fleets work
their way from the California coast with no small degree of
difficulty. LIght and shifty breezes kept things challenging. And
weather patterns were in no rush to go back to ‘normal’ so it was into
this uncertainty that we sailed on Thursday.

We expected that the natural wind-generating geography of San
Francisco Bay and the (in)famous ‘slot’ thorugh which seabreezes are
accelerated would give us good wind at the start, and such was
certainly the case. Team Hula Girl shot out the Golden Gate and into
the Pacific where we met the first windshift to the south (as
expected), and away we went, heading (more or less) towards Hawaii on
port (!?!) tack. Conditions held into the first night, where things
started to get lighter and shifty. We use two weather models to
forecast the wind: COAMPS and GFS. The former takes into account
geography and the impact of land, so since we were just off the coast,
this one should have made moire sense. But COAMPS hadn’t been dealing
with the weird weather patterns of the last week terribly well, go it
had a high uncertainty rate. Which left GFS. It did ok, but not
great. The bottom line was that both of them told us to expect the
unexpected, and hence we resolved to stay close to the straight line
track (the rhumbline) , and keep moving towards Hawaii. That was our
basic exit strategy. I know it seems logical, but it’s easy to get
tempted to a side of the course, sometimes realizing short term gains
but at a cost down the line.

We were able to see maybe half our fleet spread out around us the
first night, some fairly distant and a couple close by. And we
crossed tacks with Delicate Balance a couple boat lengths away a
couple hours after sunrise on Friday. The morning roll call had us in
a good bunch, too early to have too much separation and still anyone’s
race! Conditions since leaving the Gate had been 5-10 knots, mostly
upwind, and we carried the #1 jib since Thursday afternoon and all day
Friday. The breeze was blowing anywhere from east of south to to just
north of west. Reflecting the instability of the winds, the
conflicting swell patterns make it a bit lumpy out here… especially
when it gets light! Early this morning the wind veered a little bit
and so just after first light we shifted to the Code 0 and staysail.
Been sailing like that all day as we work a touch south to avoid a
patch of high pressure in front of us and to keep with our fleet a
bit. We were second in our class as of the roll call this morning.
Not that it means too much this early in the race, but it’s
encouraging!

Life on board is great. Everyone is getting acclimated to life on
board, and accumulating lots of practice sailing the Hula Girl with a
jib up, which will pay dividends later as the spinnakers go up! We
have a fun bunch of people on board for this race, including three
veteran ‘Huligans’ which is actually making life easier for coaches
myself, Geoff, and Jasper. One Sunfish spotting. A small turtle. A
number of fishing net floats, all plastic (no glass ones), Some
lonely seabirds. And that’s been about it for the day. Not much else
to report, which is good news!

I think it’s time to start up dinner, so I’ll sign off for now but
will be beck in touch shortly…

All the best to our friends and family ashore, and we’ll see you in the morning!

Wayne Zittel & Team Hula Girl

Yachting Cup is a fantastic Spring event which draws a great fleet each year.  The 2014 running goes down May 3-4, hosted by San Diego Yacht Club.  J/World San Diego runs a three day racing clinic aboard our J/80s on the Wed-Fri prior to the event, then the teams compete in the regatta with a J World coach aboard.  Want to sharpen your racing skills?  Maybe chip off the winter rust and get ready for the upcoming season?  Or just have a fun time in beautiful southern California?

We have limited spaces for individuals remaining, and one boat available for charter to a qualified team.  Visit here or contact us for more info.

Wayne Zittel and the J World Team