San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Report – J World’s Hula Girl – Evil Monday….

/in /by

Evil Monday….

We didn’t just park it. We valet parked it, lost the stub, the valet lost the keys, got fired, and went home early. By the time we got our ride back, it was looking pretty ugly.

Monday was unkind to us aboard Hula Girl in the Sand Diego to PV Race. Hula Girls goin’ ’round the outside (for a variety of reasons explained earlier) got punished. We kind of expected everyone to be sitting in the light patchy stuff, slatting for a while, then catching a puff for an hour or two, then slatting for a couple hours all over again. It looked to us like the whole are was to be plagued with these unstable conditions. But, apparently, we were quite wrong. Blue Blazes put some 40+ more miles on us, as did Ocelot. And we only put 12 on Miramar?!? And that doesn’t even touch on the beating the big boats gave to us. The reports from other boats were for nice 8-9 knots conditions…. while we were having a hard time keeping our bow pointed towards PV due to a lack of steerage.

This is precisely what makes Mexico races sooo challenging (and fun). We went from scary fast rides to a swim in a pond. We used almost every sail we brought along. We went form third, to fourth, to second, to fifth,.,… and it still ain’t over yet!

As our buddy Mike put it: If you can’t be with the wind you love, love the wind you’re with.

We finally got into the prevailing breeze just a couple hours ago and are finally in 12 knots of breeze, just peeled from the 1A to the 2A a bit ago, making good tracks towards Puerto Vallarta. Roll call will be interesting in the morning, if only to see if anyone else found any of the killer holes, or if we were solo in our miseries!

BUT there is this too: I just sat in the cockpit for an hour with, at various points, Rob and Lee and Drew and Mark and Josh. It is absolutely fantastic right now. The moon is high,. The boat is hissing along,. The seas are flat. The weather is warm. Midnight right now (2am local time, actually, in the Sea of Cortez, in shorts and T-shirts and diggin’ it.

Ok. Going to crash now. Unless the wind goes right as forecasted, we’ll have to gybe south of the Marias (the prison islands) to give them the required clearance. I suppose sitting in a Mexican prison would make sitting in a wind hole look like a vacation at the Four Seasons. I think we’ll skip that, and get to the Margaritas waiting in PV…

See you all in the morning…

Wayne Zittel and the Hula Girl Team…

———-
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

SD to PV Race Report – Hula Girl – Nowhere Slow

/in /by

My head hurts. This stuff is grueling.

It’s a drifter out here as we dig into day five of the PV Race. By our math, we did something in the neighborhood of 92 miles from 7am to 7am yesterday… by race committee math and distance down the course figuring, it was shy of that by a dozen or so. Either way you slice it, it was a slow day. And today is no different… worse, in fact, if the first 12 hours is any indication. We’ve been upwind and downwind on both port and starboard tack. Every puff brings a sail change, then hope (for persistence), then disappointment. Kids, it;s a primer for life! But we know that there is an end to this, and it’s all gonna be all right… the wind will blow again!

I think we are still sitting ok. Good shot at second, and in this stuff, no lead is safe, so we’ll keep chomping at the J/125 Timeshaver. Looks like they jibed/tacked/drifted/teleported (whatever the fluky conditions would permit) south with us to defend their substantial lead… Blue Blazes caught a bit in terms of straightline distance, but we have still been working south when the opportunity presents itself, so I think we sacrificed mileage for positioning and I’m ok with that. Not sure what happened to Ocelot… they have dropped back, while Miramar has actually scooted up… with all the time we all owe them, they will benefit with the light stuff in this time-on-time scoring (as will the J125)… when we are all stopped, they are both kicking our butts!

In the meantime: house (boat) cleaning, drying out, repacking sails, showers, and general reorganization. Lots of sea turtles. Sea lions. Some small dolphins, bored with us ’cause we are poking along so slowly. The little red crabs came back for a bit. And one friendly big yellowfin who followed our rudder all morning. Got right up next to it with the waterproof camera Were there wasabi aboard, that fish wouldn’t have stood a chance, but in the spirit of oneness with our environment (Grasshopper), we simply admired it and welcomed it’s company, and aquatic Albatross, we hope. Plus, would have been tough to filet with a rigging knife. And as Joel was saying today, all this stuff we would have missed had we come flying thru here at 10, 15, 20 knots, so there is a positive side to this light stuff, this slowing-down-and-smelling-the-roses thing….

But enough already. We want the breeze back. It would have been a looonnnggg day, but for the company aboard. Seriously having a great time with this crew. It hurts from laughing so much. That’s one of the fun things about doing so many events with new crews… getting to meet and get to know all kinds of sailors from all over. This team is mostly from San Diego, my home town, so it’s been particularly fun.

Almost 8pm now. A couple hours ago it shifted to the NW and started to fill ever so slightly… 4,5, occasional 6 now… but the really good news is that this, finally, is the prevailing direction and we hope it will stabilize now. We’re not supposed to see much build over the next couple days, but slow and steady is a far cry better than what we’ve been doing.

That’s all I got, for now… have a good watch, and see you in the a.m.

Wayne Zittel and the Hula Girl Team

———-
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

San Diego to Puerto Vallara Race – Feast Turns to Famine…

/1 Comment/in /by

Feast or famine indeed.

This morning, as expected, the breeze for us out here in the 2012 San Diego to Puerto Vallarta race began to die. It was a prolonged, slow death, which gave us time to go from the jib top, to the code 0, to the 2A, to the 1A, and in the early evening, to the ultimate in agony, to slatting mode. We expect it’s the same inshore. At the morning roll call, the boats along the beach were reporting 4-5 knots while we still carried 8-10… so hopefully we have had a bit more out here than on the inside. And now our breeze has shifted around to the West (5 knots from 270 at the moment) and filled a touch and we are scooting along on perfectly flat seas doing some 1.4 times windspeed straight at Puerto Vallarta, 400 miles to go.

Thanks again MIke for yet another addition to the soundtrack for this race: If you can’t be with the wind you love, love the wind you’re with. At this point, we love any wind.

As far as standings, who knows what’s going to happen. The big boats are going to hit a wall (but honestly I haven;t been looking too closely at their weather, since what’s going on locally has been keeping me busy). The J/125 is sitting pretty in first. We were actually second in class, second overall at roll call, but Ocelot didn’t check in and I suspect they have been rumbling. We were pretty much boat-for-boat with Blue Blazes in terms of distance to finish and they are well inside us so that will provide a good benchmark for what is working at tomorrow morning’s roll call.

Not much else to report…. a long day with lots of concentration from the team. Weird little red crabs all around the boat. Yours truly took a dive off the bow to snatch a piece of stubborn kelp form the keel as she skid by at a not very intimidating 1 knot. A care package sent along from Barrett ion San Diego scheduled for opening today at 5 pm couldn’t have been better timed. We were essentially parked and were able to enjoy the sunset right about then. But, I was shocked to find contraband in there, which I of course immediately attempted to confiscate for the the good of the crew, but was outnumbered, so the gang got their grog. And we drifted into a beautiful evening, Really nice out here, quiet like no place else on earth. You find yourself talking in whispers. And when the water stars slipping by the hull and you hear the winches starting to click-click, it’s music to a sailor’s ears and our own little symphony of sorts.

But now the breeze is back: so iPod and Ramones, here we come… got to keep this ride moving!

All the best, and we’ll see you at the 11pm weather fax broadcast, or roll call in the morning….

Wayne Zittel and the Hula Girl Team

———-
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

SD to PV Race – Day three begins…

/2 Comments/in /by

So this isn’t normal. But, then, what is in a Mexico Race? The typical experience is to expect the atypical.

We are now about 5 hours into Day 3 of the San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Race. Not more than 10 minutes after I posted last night’s midnight report, the breeze veered right about 15 degrees, and to keep from sailing even farther outside, we dropped the 4A spinnaker and went with the Jib Top. Well, almost. A snafu ripped the top two feet of luff tape out of the sail, so we went with the #3 instead. We power reached thru the night in 20-25 from the NNE. In the morning, we got the repaired JT up, added a staysail for good measure, and rolled along.

You know those morning roll calls where you just know the news ain’t going to look to great? Where you are sure you have taken lumps (deserved or otherwise) and now all your pain will be revealed? But somehow, miraculously, when the roll call happens, you are relieved and thrilled to find out that all is actually ok? Well, this wasn’t one of those. Looks like Ocelot is launched, and the J/125 is not far behind. It was their weather, that breeze those waves… Blue Blazes didn’t check in, and Serena is apparently out of the race (we don’t know why). As expected, with our outside route, our miles to go looks a lot worse…

As Mike put it: Buffalo Girls go round the outside, round the outside… So what will the Hula Girl do?

We’ve pretty much hung our shingle out here, so we’ll see what happens. It’s supposed to get really funky and really light here pretty soon, and for a good while. If Ocelot and Timeshaver hit the beach (which it looks like they are) they might be able to play the shore breeze and drift along … or, they might get parked. We could find the breeze we need to make it around out here in the deepwater, or we may get skunked on the shore breeze. We have out theories, and our hopes, so we’ll see what happens. Not content to reach up behind them and fall into place in a reaching race, that’s for sure. Where would the fun be in that?

Behind us, it looks like our class did more miles the first day out than any of the big boats, so it’s clearly softer breeze back there. That helps us overall for the time being, but… well, you know, our turn is coming….

So the breeze lightened and backed in the afternoon. It’s sunset right now, and we are seeing about 14 from the north. A couple hours ago we changed to the Code 0 and staysail combo and are now trucking along nicely in that configuration. Expected to drop even more tonight…by morning we are supposed to be in the 6 knot range. Ouch.

But we are having a fantastic time out here. Everyone on the team is solid, enthusiastic, and a lot of fun to sail with… in fact, everyone is out in the cockpit watching sunset, and dinner is almost ready, so I am signing off for the time being. All the best to everyone shoreside…

Wayne Zittel and the Hula Girl Team

———-
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Race – 36 hours in…

/1 Comment/in /by

Well all right now.
It’s middle of the night here off Baja. All the sensible people are at home in bed. But us head cases, well, we are now some 36 hours into the San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Race. We still have breeze and are still trucking along. It’s pretty spectacular out here tonight.
So we are now on port gybe with the breeze NNE. In the last hour or two we’ve seen a big right shift, almost 20 degrees… to think we could be beam (or close) reaching along the lower bight of Baja.in a day or two. Interesting times… but I am getting ahead of myself.
Nice day. Really nice day. occasional punches past the 20 knot barrier. Not frequent, but also not rare. The 4A is still up. Been up all day with a brief drop to back down and clear something unruly off the rudder, which turns out to have been nothing at all. It seems that, after charging the batteries this morning, in an honest mistake, one of our gang thought the engine was off when they put it in reverse. Going 15 knots. Ouch. The engine shook and shimmied and otherwise objected. And in the process we broke a shifter cable to the motor right off the binnacle and apparently jammed the prop open (or one blade or???). Who knows, but it was causing the turbulence that felt like rudder drag. We let the prop freewheel for a second, popped it into gear (had to shift down at the transmission), and got her sweet and smooth again. And that was the excitement for the day.
Actually, that was the intermission. The excitement was the sailing. Man, this is some fun boat. Long and lean, she really gets going. The strut/bulb ‘T’ keel really feel great at speed… low drag and the Girl doesn’t want to trip over it on the big surfs. You hang that bulb off to the side as the boat heels when you head up slightly to catch the wave, and you feel it’s weight lever against the rig, against the sailpaln. If you can resist the temptation to crank the rudder over to turn down the wave (effectively killing your speed and hope of catching it), if you can just have confidence in the boat, you can feel the weight out there stand the boat upright, turn her down the face of the wave, and in an instant, you are off to the races…
We’ve hung it out here to the right side of the course…. partially due to intent, partially due to sail choices made early to help keep the wheels on the wagon for a crew who are mostly unfamiliar with the boat. But I’m ok with it. It’s going to go soft,,, we could spend a couple of days in winds close to 5 knots and we are hoping that we 1) might have a better shot at maintaining some breeze and 2) get a better reaching angle in the light stuff. So we are rolling the dice, but when playing against boats as well sailed at Ocelot and Blue Blazes, we have to take our calculated risks.
Now the crew slumbers. Wind 20 knots, plus or minus 2 (although here at the nav table I just looked up and saw a 26 knot puff) from about 010 magnetic. The moon just rose off to starboard. As it gets a bit higher, it’s going to make the ride even more fun… you forget how fast you are going when it’s really dark, but when the light plays off the waves, well, you are ripping across a lunar surface. That all I got for now. Going to grab something warm to drink and get into the cockpit as this nav table is killing the sailor in me. Well, right after I look at the latest weather report… that’s the competitor kicking in…
Cheers all, have a good night and we’ll see you in the morning…
Wayne Zittel and Team Hula Girl
———-
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

PV Race – Day 1 Fun…

/1 Comment/in /by

So, here’s the deal.

We are just 24 hours into the 2012 San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Race, and we’ve already been having a blast of a trip! when we shoved off the docks at SDYC yesterday, we know we were in for a fast ride, then a slow ride. We started yesterday at noon off Shelter Island into a SW breeze… upwind with #1 genoa in a pleasant 8 knots or so out past the point.

Now for the FAST part:…

With the wind angle so far south, no one could lay the Coronados and we all went to the East of the islands. The J125 stayed low, down along the shore, as did Miramar. Blue Blazes was above us for a while, but right at the islands dropped down towards the rhumbline. Looks like Serena, the Thompson 1150, stayed seaward with us, and Ocelot split the difference. When we got to the building breeze, we changed to the jib top and genoa staysail, and carried that into the evening. The wind built offshore (as expected) to a pretty solid 25. Even though it looks solid inside of us too, I like being here as I think it should give us a pretty good angle down the course when the breeze goes light and right.

In the early morning, we set the 4A spinnaker, and are now sailing along at a steady 15 knots, with surfs up into the low 20 in breeze from 22-30 knots. Just awesome out here. As usual for us on J World’s Hula Girl, we have a mostly new crew for this event, so everyone has been putting in the overtime to figure out how to sail this girl… and the team is doing really well. It’s been a windy, wet, somewhat lumpy start to a long race on an unfamiliar boat, but so far I’ve been really impressed. Everyone is settling into onboard life well here. The dial got wound up pretty quickly yesterday. If we can keep in touch with the other boats in the fast early stages, I think these guys and gal will be able to really post a challenge later in the race.

As of 0700 positions, Blue Blazes was on about the same latitude, but a good way inside us. I imagine they set earlier and were able to sail deeper through much of the night. Ocelot is between us, and a bit punched out… those guys were probably screaming all last night. Those are there conditions… we should stand a bit of a better chance against them when it gets lighter. The J/125 Timshaver posted a morning roll call somewhere between Las Vegas and Santa Fe, so clearly that’s a bad position… and just as dubious is Serena’s. It has them over 100 miles in front of the next boat, but as of sunset we could see them behind and inside us, and through much of the night we saw lights over there, so I’m pretty sure their position is erroneous.

So that’s the report for the first 24 hours in the PV race. The ‘big boys’ start today so we are happy to have clocked some miles before they start reeling us in. Supposed to go softer (then soft) starting anytime from 8pm to midnight, depending on what model you believe.

I’ll try uploading some pictures later, but our Sat phone connection has been poor (to say the least). I’ll send this via SSB… then I think it’s time for some sandwiches, and I really need to go sit in the cockpit for a while, maybe do a bit of driving out there… it is pretty nearly perfect right now.

Cheers everyone, more soon…
Wayne Zittel & Team Hula Girl

———-
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

PV Race and MEXORC preview…

/2 Comments/in /by

Had a great weekend in San Diego preparing for the SD to PV Race.  Hula Girl is feeling fast and chomping at the bit to head south.   FYI, There are still a couple of spaces left aboard for the MEXORC regatta from March 10-17, which is some serious fun in Puerto Vallarta:  racing in the warm waters of Banderas Bay during the day, a full agenda of great after-sailing parties/dinners/events, then slumber in a beautiful oceanfront (all inclusive) resort in the evenings.  More info here.  

Hula Girl in San Diego…
Everyone keeping an eye on spinnaker trim…   Matt (on the pedestal) better be careful:
if he keeps sailing like he did with us, we’ll enlist him as full time crew!
Nice job team, and I can’t wait to get this race going!  We’ll be posting updates here on the blog, of course, so stay tuned.  Our start is March 1.
All the best,
Wayne Zittel and the J World Team

 

Vallarta Cup Report

/1 Comment/in /by
Hey everyone…  I hope you all are having as great a winter as we are down here in Puerto Vallarta.  The weather has been stunning, the whales are literally all over the place, and the sailing…  well, see for yourself:

This was from the final race of the 2012 Vallarta Cup, a regatta consisting of a race a day every Saturday in January.  We went out with a pile of great people and friends on Profligate, a 65 foot cat…  there was a whopping total of 29 people onboard…  but it didn’t feel crowded at all.  And thanks to a great crew, yours truly was able to kick back, chat with old (and new friends), hoist a couple of cervezas, and catch some of the action on video.  There are a lot of shots of Kevin and Sandy’s new-to-PV J/133 Paladin just ’cause she’s a sexy looking boat.  And a couple nice views of the always well sailed Bright Star and newcomer Olas Lindas.  And dig that techno soundtrack!

Sooo… if this looks like your kind of racing, we still have a couple options for you this winter.  Even though the San Diego to PV Race and the annual Banderas Bay Regatta are both sold out, two spaces remain onboard our 50 footer Hula Girl for the fantastic MEXORC regatta in March, and there is a great racing clinic aboard our J/80s the week of April 2.

Cheers!

Wayne Zittel and the J World Team

 

Props

/in /by

We here at J World have been working hard at our offshore racing and cruising programs.  These special events take a tremendous amount of work, time, money, and energy to put together and pull off in “J/World” style.  That’s why it’s always fun and gratifying after the fact to hear how much everyone enjoyed it…  and we keep in touch with alumni from years (and decades!) past, so it’s good to know that what we are doing is working.

And now it’s cool to hear the the ‘main-stream’ sailing media has heard the news about what we are doing.  In fact, SAIL Magazine featured us in their November issue in an article on Pay-to-Play Programs…  and they ran a great shot of our Hula Girl reaching into Hawaii (thanks again for the photo, Rob Grant!).

Our offshore programs are like no others I know of.  The number of clients aboard is extremely low.  And the level of participation is incredibly high.  You are a truly active and integral member of the team.  We don’t load the boat with clients to the point where no one gets to do anything.  We won’t just park you over a grinding pedestal.   And we aren’t just  taking you for a ride like so many other big boat programs.  You are sailing the boat.  You get to drive, trim, navigate…  whatever your interests are, we’ll be sure that you get to exercise that muscle.
And we are competitive…  3rd in the Pacific Cup, 4th in Transpac, 3rd in Cabo Race…  and stay tuned for the San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Race, MEXORC, and the next Pac Cup!
If you have ever dreamed of getting aboard a turboed offshore boat and really sailing her, get in touch with us and we’ll be happy to discuss how to take your sailing to the next level, and how to have the adventure of a lifetime in the process…
All the best,
Wayne Zittel and the J World Team