On Your Marks…

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