The race that will end up with 200-mile days for many, 300 (more?) for some started a bit slowly for the boats in the first start.
Check out the race tracker here: http://www.vicmaui.org/tracker. Don’t forget there may be a delay of up to 40 mins for the positions.
I’ll be assembling some race coverage from various sources. Right now I’m traveling in a very different time zone, but I’ll get the word out as fast as I can. Look for tidbits from Vic-Maui central command, some of the brain trust of Crossfire (Bruce Hedrick), some of the braintrust at Swiftsure Yachts (Brad Baker) and some others. I’ll dredge up some pictures and screen shots
We’ll kick it off with a report from Joe Gaffney, skipper of the Jeanneau 36 Canard. Incidentally, a shipmate of mine is onboard, the one and only Sheridan Ferguson on board.
Here’s from Joe:
As you know, fickle first day here getting out the Strait. No consistent pressure for more than an hour or so with each change typically led in by an extended calm period. Regardless, plenty of fun sailing and a great time with the Canard crew so far. It was a nice way to start the race leading our fleet through Race Rocks.
Everyone is happy, well fed and in really good spirits. We’re a crew of six – Joe, Meg, Adam, Lara, Steve and Sheridan – all of which are first time Vic Maui participants so we have this really cool shared understanding that we don’t know what we don’t know yet so I think that’s going to help keep all of humble and relying on each other. So far – that’s the case.
We had a 0130 battle this morning with the mother of all kelp balls…the style that traps wood the size of what you’d burn in your fireplace – it stretched the entire length of our boat and was determined to hug our keel to Lahaina. We eventually dragged it on two deck in three big sections and cut it into throwable pieces to get it far enough away from the boat to ensure it didn’t reach up and drag us again. Although we won it stole our boat hook to the depths 🙁 but we substituted in the GoPro and a rudder broom (aka our MOB pole turned upside down) and finished off the final stoways early this morning once the sun lit up the water enough to get a look with the GoPro. All in all…that cost us about 4 miles on our fleet but we’ve taken most of that back in the past 5 1/2 hours.
As of now, we’re just north of flattery with Duntze at a bearing of 207 magnetic. We have Raindrop just to our north (I’m not using windward b/c well…there is no wind again. 0.00 kts to be exact :)), Expresso to our south close in to Duntze with Mountain about a mile ahead of them. They’re both making what seems to be good time hugging the coast but we’re going to continue to push out a few miles and then we’ll make our call. Ion is to our stern.
That’s all for now. Off to the bunk for some sleep (finally).
And from Kurt – stay tuned, lots of weather and tactical discussions coming up!
Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.
So great to get updates from the course Kurt. The kelp ball explains what we saw on the tracker. What a tough start for the fleet, and it looks like the light air will continue for a few days.
Hi Dave, so glad that Sheridan’s out there for us to root for. As soon as I have a few minutes I’ll try to assemble thoughts from all those smart people to make sense of it all. Thanks for dropping by the site.