Pacific Cup – Day 2

Well, as the morning arrives on this third day of the Pacific Cup, we are starting to feel the joy. But it wasn’t always like this. Wednesday afternoon, shortly after 2pm, team J World charged across the starting line in front of the St. Francis Yacht Club. A good starboard end start and an early tack out into the building flood had us leading our fleet under the Golden Gate into a 20+ knot westerly.
Once outside, we changed up to the #1 job expecting it to lighten a bit. The breeze backed off a bit, but by the time we were at the Farallones it had come on again, but it has also shifted around to the north a bit, so we eased the sheets, pressed the bow down, and said goodbye to (not so) sunny California.

By evening, the winds had built a bit, and the seas were quite lumpy. We throttled back and changed back to the #3, and rolled into the first night. Confused seas and some unrelenting breezes made it a tough night, and day two saw similar conditions until the later afternoon. But then, as if on cue, the wind eased down below the 20 knot mark, and began veering, so with sheets eased we charged into the second night with a much more comfortable situation.

At this morning’s radio check in, we discovered that a couple of our fleet are close by, but we still haven’t bee able to spot them. But they are too close for our liking, so with the wind getting farther behind is, we were able to get the spinnaker up, and now we are surfing along under mostly cloudy skies at about 8-12 knots. Yes indeed.

So that’s the immediate update. I think some of the team here will be adding their two cents worth in a bit too…

Aloha,

Wayne