So as the spray settles and I am on the eve of leaving Hawaii and the 2011 Transpac in my wake, I have a couple of final things to add…

First off, a huge congratulations to James McDowell and the whole crew of Grand Illusion for their first-in-class and first overall in the 2011 Transpac.  It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.  I met James years ago when he came to one of our J World Racing Weeks.  He’s one of the nice guys in the sport, and clearly one of the fast guys.  The string of GI successes is long and strong, so the win in the 2011 is not terribly surprising.  And I have to say, not only is is great to see the success he has had in sailing, but it’s also great to hear that he still has fond memories of his positive experiences with J/World…  thanks for the kind words, James, and a seriously huge congratulations to you and your crew!

The SC52 Prevail entering the Molokai Channel

As we prepare to take leave of Hawaii and sail Hula Girl back to California, I want to thank all the people who made this event so memorable.  The crew of Hula Girl were all (as I have mentioned numerous times already) fantastic.  Thanks to all the family and friends who sent notes of encouragement, and who let their loved ones skip out on their work and home responsibilities for the sake of adventure.  Of course there are the Transpac volunteers who work so tirelessly to run the event.  And the fabulous Waikiki Yacht Club who accommodated Hula Girl at their wonderful facility.

Of course, thank you to our sponsors:  title sponsors Waterfront Hotel in Jack London Square and Miss Pearl’s Jam House…  when you come visit J World in San Francisco Bay, this is definitely the place to be!  West Marine, Atlantis Weather Gear, Spinlock, McLube, and Expedition Software.  These are the suppliers that help the best sailing teams in the world, and the most fun boat you’ll sail this weekend (yours!).

A huge and special thank you goes out to our hosts in Hawaii, Joe and Christin Shacat.  When we came ashore late at night, they had a reception waiting that outdid anything I have ever seen before.  Let me paint the picture:  after nine+ days of offshore racing, of freeze-dried dinners and sleep deprivation, of showers-in-a-can and stinky clothes, we flake the sails, fire up the iron genoa, and follow our guide boat to the marina.  Much to our delight, Geoff’s wife Debbie and the crew had a cooler of icy beers and tequila which they passed off to us to take the edge off the trip!  As you motor into the marina, the Hawaii Yacht Club announces your arrival over the PA system, and a cheer goes up from all the revelers waiting…  Aloha indeed!

When you tie up at the reception dock on the Waikiki side of the marina, there is a flurry of activity: paperwork gets checked, agricultural compliance verified, boat inspectors do their thing…. the boat gets lei’d, each crew gets lei’d, there are photos going off everywhere, and somehow a Mai Tai appears in every hand.  As if that isn’t enough, you barely have a chance to peel your lifejacket off, and you are whisked away to the yacht club where the spread that Joe and Christin had arranged is waiting.  This was a serious spread.  We’re talking platters of food, sushi, veggies, drinks, and every delicacy that we’d been dreaming of!  We were thrilled to see our good friend Jeff acting as BBQ master (this man cooks some seriously amazing things!), and all the friends and family of our team there to welcome us.  It was impressive.  We didn’t get our gracious hosts out sailing on the Hula Girl during this visit since the quadrant issues consumed unexpected time, but they have a standing offer, and we sure hope they’ll take us up on it…  they are a real pleasure, and we owe ’em!

And on a personal note, thanks to my lovely wife Lisa for putting up with my sailing habits, and my parents for the continual support my life aquatic…  but I know they ‘get it’ and they have more than a little salt water in their veins too!

Aloha!

Wayne Zittel
s/v Hula Girl, Honolulu, Hawaii

Sail it like it’s Stolen…

That became the motto amongst the crew yesterday when we realized that it was show-time. We had a fantastically close race going in the 2011 Transpac Race, and after 9 days of open ocean racing, it was all up for grabs.

We had a phenomenal night, blasting along an ocean alive with moonlight and swells. Some 18-22 knots of breeze had us getting many back-to-back prolonged surfs at 15, 16 , 17 knots. It’s almost impossible to describe the sensation with any justice. Water searing by with a steady hiss. Spray sheeting off the bows as the helm grows light and the boat lunges down the wave. It’s one of my favorite things in the world. It is a complete rush and requires full concentration. It’s part science, part art. Park me in the back of a fast boat on a moonlit run anytime!

Dawn broke and were were all a bit tired, and we were faced with a need to gybe. That’s where things started to go south. In short, we botched it and blew up our 2A spinnaker, yes, the one that so faithfully dragged us nearly all the way across the Eastern Pacific. We got that sorted, and were off with the 4A chute when we got the morning standings… we had dropped to fourth in class, but 2nd place was still right there, so we certainly weren’t out of it.

Then the final straw: while blasting along on a great broad reach expecting to see Molokai at any moment and report in with our “100 mile to the finish” required check-in, the steering went out. The boat rounded up, and the crew did a fantastic job of rallying to get the spinnaker down in trying conditions. A quick look below revealed that a corner of the steering quadrant had broken off, allowing the steering cables to go slack and rendering them useless. So. After 2125 miles, we are now proceeding to the finish line with reduced sail area and our emergency tiller rigged.

What a roller coaster ride! As we reach toward the finish, after all the great surfs, and after all the trials and tribulations, the thing I am most thankful for is the great crew we have aboard Hula Girl. Coaches Josh and Geoff worked tirelessly to make sure things went smoothly, and to make sure all of our guests had an enjoyable and beneficial time. Thanks to Mark, Jason, David, Tom, Tom, and Tom. It truly was a pleasure sailing with each and every one of you!

Anyway, that’s it for now. Going to go sit on deck in the sun, maybe take a nap, or watch Molokai slip by, or just let the whole experience soak in. I’ll post some great pictures and a wrap-up in a couple of days.

All the best,

Wayne Zittel and the J World Team

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Wound Up…

Well now, a lot has changed since my last posting from Hula Girl, out here in the mid-Pacific in the 2011 Transpac race from LA to Hawaii. After a string of days with light to moderate breezes, the real winds that make this race so famous have finally come out to play. We knew they were coming. We’ve been watching it for days now. So yesterday afternoon when the breeze slowly climbed from 10, to 14, to 17, to over 20 knots we shifted Hula Girl into high gear. All night was spent in 20-24 knots of breeze, tearing across a moon lit sea. And what a moon. It somehow seems bigger out here. Or maybe we feel so small. ‘Carbon’ was saying that at any given moment we can see about 600 square miles of ocean around us, and it’s pretty rare that we see anything at all taking up space out here. Only the march of squalls, each one with its own personality. We try to line them up, to flirt with the beautiful increase in wind along the font edge but not get caught in the light breezes and the vacuum behind them. Like a woman, observed one of our crew. Ok, clearly we have been out here too long.

Anyhow, last night was a wild an lumpy ride. We’d take off on prolonged surfs of the north swells at 15, 16, 17 knots, then go bouncing across the remnants of a southerly swell. I hear our top speed was close to 20 (Josh), but didn’t crack the barrier. I was below (but at 20 knots in this stuff, I can guarantee I wasn’t sleeping). We have a real race on our hands, so we kept up the big A2 spinnaker and I’m quite relieved (and a bit surprised) to say that she made it thru the night in great shape. She’s our MVP at the moment… the big White and Red and Blue chute that we hoisted last Sunday… yes, SUNDAY… and haven’t taken down yet. She’s done us right for some serious sea miles!

So the race: yep the Barn Door (fastest elapsed time) was claimed by Bella Mente early this morning, but most of us are still out here in quite the slugfest. In our class, we dropped a position that we had gained yesterday, but the whole fleet tightened up. While Horizon has maintained their best in fleet position and are proving extremely difficult to gain any more miles on, there are four boats in a very close race for places 2 through 5… at this point there is about 1.5 hours (corrected time) between all four boats! And that’s after a full week of non-stop ocean racing! And no one is rolling over. Two nights ago, we saw Allure (one of our fleet) about 12 miles off, south and east of us. Two days later, they are still down there… albeit a bit farther off and out of view, but we know they are still close…

So that’s where we are right now. This wraps up the week… our second Friday night at sea. And we all really need a weekend. Mark is lightly snoring atop a pile of sails here in cabin. Josh is dipping pretzel sticks in a spoonful of mustard (??). Tom K. is driving us at a steady 11 knots towards the west and hopefully a nice right shift to bring us to the islands sometime on Monday.

You all have a great weekend. We’ll keep you posted from our here.

All the best,

Wayne Zittel and the J World Team

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Ok, now it’s getting interesting. We here aboard J World’s Hula Girl are about 850 miles into the 2225 mile race from LA to Hawaii, and last night things started changing. We knew it was coming. We knew when it was coming. But it still can be nerve wracking. The barometer has been rising, and the breeze finally went light, and shifted to the east. By light, we are talking 8-12 knots, so it’s not boat-stopping, going-fishing light, but anytime the progress slows, we get nervous. The big questions is what’s happening to the boats to the north of us? The weather forecasts we have been seeing are indicating that it should be lighter up there. That means that the majority of our fleet “up there” should be going slower and/or sailing higher to maintain speed.

But we just don’t know, yet. We get position reports for the other boats, but it is delayed six hours (supposedly… the reports we have been getting have been more along the lines of eight hours old… not sure why this is). So the impacts of last night won’t be seen on the relative positions and tracks of the other boats until well into the game today. We get one (near) real time report each day, and that comes a bit after 7am via email. We were encouraged to see that we traveled more distance than all but one of our fleet over the past 24 hours.

Even though the breeze has for the moment stabilized and freshened a bit (steady 12 knots at the moment), we expect that it’s going to get more interesting over the next couple of days. Expedition, our high tech routing software, has been offering numerous suggestions as to the optimal route, varying with each new weather forecast, so if it is challenging the silicon chips, it’s frying my little brain.

So shipboard nothing could be too much better. Mark is crashed out on tip of the #4 jib in the main salon (not sure why he didn’t make it to a bunk?). Geoff and Jason are getting rack time in the aft bunks. Sug just ‘freshened up’ and is sporting clean clothes (I was going to say something…). Dave is driving with Carbo, T.K., and Josh on deck. Josh is getting reprimanded for forgetting what they had talked about yesterday: fruit in the morning, beef jerky in the afternoon/evening. Apparently he was busted gnawing on a big beefstick before finishing his Grape Nuts. Bad bowman! No boy! Bad bowman! Now get up there and bag that sail…

It was a bit gloomy and drizzly out early this morning, but is getting sunny now and we are moving along nicely at 9 knots-ish, and that’s what’s important.

Comment from Tom “Sug”:
Hey guys…into the middle of it all! Its like camping in a car flying across the ocean. All crew on board keen and poised. Bye for now. Good luck “Lively” in the 300/Youngstown!!

Than’s all for now… we hope all is well shoreside, and we’ll be broadcasting from mid Pacific again soon…

Wayne Zittel and the J World Team

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So.  Been hanging out down here in Long Beach for a bit as we are preparing for the 2011 Transpac Race.  Yep, 2225 miles from Los Angles in California (wanna be tropical) to the finish line off Diamond Head, Oahu in Hawaii (the truly tropical).  Here is J World’s Hula Girl in the staging area as we prep for the race:

The smaller boats and cruising class took off yesterday (4th of July).  They get a four day head start on the rest of the fleet of larger, faster boats.  So the rest of us leave on Friday, and we’ll do our best to catch the early starters, but they will have a pretty good jump on us so it won’t be easy!  Hula Girl is racing in a fleet of 6 Santa Cruz 50s, with a team comprised of three J World coaches and six crew from all over the world (London, Hong Kong, Canada, and the good ol’ USA).  If you keep tuned into this blog, you’ll meet everyone (virtually) as we progress.  For now, we are deep into preparations, safety briefings, boat orientations, etc. etc…  but we did take a break last night to enjoy the show:

Ok, that’s it for now.  More soon….

Wayne Zittel and the J World Team