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

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

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