Rolling along, beautiful day here in the deep Pacific Hula Girl in the 2015 Transpac Race from Los Angeles to Honolulu. We are currently on day 5 of our race, and have some 1500 miles to go. Yep, we have averaged somewhere around 140 miles a day up until this point. And for a boat like Hula Girl in a race like the Transpac, that’s not really very good at all.

It’s been an unusual race. We have been struggling with the remnants of the hurricane Dolores that have spun up our way from Mexico. And there are the remnants of another depression along our track, a bit farther west, that is messing up the usual Tradewinds that carry us seamlessly to the Islands. It’s an El Nino year, and the water in the Eastern Pacific is warmer than usual so these tropical disturbances that feed off warm water are working their way farther north than is typical. So even though we were able to set the spinnakers with the wind shifting behind us a couple days ago, we knew there was instability ahead. Early Sunday night, a bit after sunset, our breeze backed to the North, and then even to the West of North, so we dropped our trusty 2A spin and went back to the Code 0. Our breeze has stayed forward on us through the night, and through all of Monday, and now into midday Tuesday. We are tight reaching to Hawaii, and not even able to lay Oahu. And no way we are going back to the #1 jib… if it’s not actually against the rules in a Transpac, it’s certainly against the ethos of the race. And actually the sailing under the zero is really nice… we are able to consistently sail at double windspeed of faster. The only bummer being that windspeed is somewhere between 3 and 4 knots! We hit one big ‘glue pot,’ a patch of light and unstable wind behind a squall, yesterday and the breeze has been a little light, but other than that we have been pointed more or less at Hawaii and moving along ok. But is it enough?

We got away from the California Coast a bit slower than some of our fleet and are struggling to make back some of the distance. We don’t want to just follow them, so we have opted to get a bit of leverage to the south. And now we are in a different wind angle, and stuck down here. Our breeze is averaging NW (about 285 magnetic). The benefit: better wind angle in the light stuff, maybe a bit less distance to sail. The danger: less wind down here. At roll call this morning, is seemed a wash as to which was better. Three boats gained distance on us. We gained on four boats.

Either way, we have been having a brilliant sail. Yesterday evening we sailed out from under a ceiling of clouds and into a stunning sunset. It looked like the end of the sky, and sun dropped down into and through this sliver of space between cloud and water, then vanished into a fiery sea. Pretty spectacular, but no green flash, sorry Bjug!. Now we are into sunny weather with brilliant blue water… it is absolutely gorgeous. Sad to report that there is a lot of trash out here. We’ve only seen small stuff, although we caught a part of a fishing net on the keel this morning. We slowed down by rolling up the Code 0, and yours truly went for a quick swim to clear the debris. The water was great and I needed the shower…. and once I was smelling like roses the rest of the crew realized how much they stunk, and a round of morning showers commenced. Far too civilized. I don’t recognize most of the crew anymore.

The light breezes mean that everything is dry, and we are keeping pretty organized. We counted slices of bread today, making sure we have enough for this long, slow race. All good, but there might be a meal of Cup O Noodles somewhere along the line! The team is doing great… and we are ready for more wind! It should be shifting around to the North, then the Northeast later today and into the night. Forecast is for 10 knots by sunset. If you convert that to Canadian knots, we should be at something like 14 knots… at least that’s the calculation David made, and I’m buying it. Ok, Bruce is making lunch so I’m going to sign off. Then I’m going to go sit on the rail and soak in some beautiful Pacific sailing.

Wayne Zittel and the Hulagains

And we are off in the 2015 Transpac Race from LA to Hawaii!

J/World’s Hula Girl got a nice start a couple of boatlengths down from the committee boat, with a wide lane and good speed. The beat to Catalina Island was pretty much normal, although maybe a bit lighter than usual. We had a nice 10 knots, and carried our heavy #1 jib all the way. For a while it looked like we might lay the island, but it ended up taking a couple tacks to get around the West End. Then we were off on the starboard tack drag race, pushing out to sea, through the last of the Channel islands and into the beautiful Pacific.. The breeze held wonderfully through the night, and we had a fantastic sail…. but in the morning, well, it was a different story.

The Pacific is certainly living up to her name. We knew it was going to get light. Everyone out here did. So it was absolutely no surprise as the breeze tapered off and left us struggling to nurse every once of power, every drop of speed, from our sails and our boats. It’s now late Friday night (well, early Saturday morning), and it has been a tough day. The unstable, light, shifty breeze has taken a consistently high level of attention and focus. I have always argued that it is tougher to sail a boat efficiently when it is light than when it is heavy. then throw in an ocean swell that is coming from an entirely different direction than the wind, and well, you have a bit of a challenge on your hands. What little breeze there is seems to always come straight from where we want to go, straight from Hawaii. and so we try to play the huge shifts to make any progress at all towards the islands, but our tacking angles in these light breezes are huge, and the tacks are slow and painful. Regardless, the crew has been doing a great job in these challenging conditions. It’s a new boat (to them), a new team, a new event, and, well, even a new ocean for most of them! So while it isn’t your typical Transpac so far, we are pretty much rolling with it and we’ll see what shakes out. Still have over 2000 miles to go! There is the tropical storm Dolores pushing up form the south, and then the typical tradewind flow that should try to develop again, well, hopefully before this race ends, so who knows where the breeze will be, and when it will get here? We all have our guesses, I am sure, and it will be interesting to see everyone’s position tomorrow morning after this instability has shuffled up the fleet. I would expect there to be a pretty big spread in things….

Life onboard is good. We have seen whales and dolphins, little jellyfish and lots of nice blue water. Had to back down in the middle of the night when we landed on a kelp island in an apparent attempt by the on-watch crew to claim it for King and Country. I am glad I have hidden/rationed much of the snack food onboard since everyone just grazes when it gets light. It’s dark out tonight, clouds covering the sky and soaking up what little light there is…. and while it sure makes the phosphorescence in the water something wild, it also makes the sailing really, really tough. Anyway, that’s it for now… our preliminary report for this running of the Transpac, Stay tuned for more!

Wayne Zittel and the Hulagains

J/World’s Hula Girl