Vic-Maui

Vic-Maui and Pacific Cup Updates

Kurt Hoehne Pacific Cup, Vic-Maui, Vic-Maui Race , 0 Comment
Vic-Maui and Pacific Cup Updates

As this year’s “weird” Vic-Maui Race heads toward a conclusion and the Pacific Cup racers get into their offshore routines en route to Hawaii, here’s a quick look at the current situations.

Vic-Maui

Bob Strong’s Morris 45 Firefly is just over 400 miles from claiming another navigator’s first-to-finish title for Brad Baker. Giving chase is John Murkowski’s J/122E Joy Ride. With 5′ less waterline but displacing 9000 lbs less, Joy Ride doesn’t seem to be making inroads on Firefly’s lead but appears to be on track for the corrected time honors. Tracker here. There may be an interesting race to the finish for the two Beneteau 40.7s, Kraken and Salient. Salient is coming from a far western position and is ahead as the crow flies, but there could be a one-design finish. Gemini’s Dream is nearly home, entering the Strait of Juan de Fuca now after retiring and heading back

Pacific Cup

It’s way too early to say much about the Pacific Cup beyond what Bruce said yesterday. The early-starting smaller and cruising boats are out front enjoying good speeds. Of yesterday’s starters, Poke and Destroy is doing quite well among the boats that chose the northerly course (chasing the legendary Sweet Okole), but the Tacoma-based Shearwater and the southern boats that seemed to fall behind earlier have come on stronger of late. Blue (even though it’s a Milwaukee boat it has a number of Northwesters listed as crew including Dalton Bergan, Jonathan McKee and Kris Bundy. And after all it is a Paul Bieker design) is starting today, about now in fact.

 

Here’s the report from the Pacific Cup organizers:

THURSDAY JULY 12 RACE REPORT

Thursday morning in the Pacific Cup shows much of the same among the Monday starters, while the Wednesday starters proved the forecast accurate by getting off to a slow start. As a result, most divisional and overall rankings remain somewhat the same as yesterday and are generally unaffected by the Wednesday starters, as they are all very deep on corrected time. As the Pasha Hawaii D division prepares to start today on Thursday and the BMW of San Rafael E division on Friday, it’s become more and more apparent that the Monday starters have indeed won the weather lottery – at least in these early stages – as originally predicted as early as last week.

Wednesday’s two starts saw a total of seventeen boats begin their own 2,000+ mile journeys to Hawaii under mostly sunny skies and a brisk, puffy breeze. The Weems & Plath B division saw 10 racer cruisers between 40 and 57 feet in length cross the start while the Alaska Airlines C division saw an incredibly competitive fleet of seven 30-something race boats charge the line like a buoy start with Kyle Vanderspek’s Hobie 33 Aloha winning a dramatic start. Shortly after crossing outside the Gate however, the fun factor surely began to dwindle, as did the breeze with competitors flopping around in the Gulf of the Farallones for much of the night. Most boats took a northern route to try to play the shore breeze and punch out to the  synoptic winds first, while just two boats took the more direct rhumb line route. In the end, there’s not much in it as the fleet has now generally compressed along the rhumb line with a few outliers sailing a more southerly course and the Archambault 35 Mirthmaker blazing her own trail far north.

Up at the front of the fleet with the Wednesday starters, A Fond le Girafon continues to lead the race for line honors, and has committed themselves firmly to the north, the furthest boat north of rhumb line. As of this writing, A Fond le Girafon is 1,433 miles to the finish. A quartet of boats are sailing in the foiling Beneteau’s wake including overall race leader, the Cal 40 Green Buffalo. A bit further south along the rhumb line, the Hanse 505 Outremer leads the cruisers while the J/120 Jamani continues to impress and lead the Mount Gay Rum DH2 division. Motorcycle Irene continues leading Pau Maui Vodka / DH1, and continues to pull away at a steady pace, now some 26 miles ahead of second placed Loose Cannon.

All of the Monday starters are still making excellent speed, while the Wednesday starters are at least moving again, though comparatively much slower than her Monday rivals who almost  immediately set out into heavy and fast reaching conditions. The course should continue to get lighter and lighter over the next few days, hampering all of the later starting divisions and eventually catching up to the Monday starters. The north-south split among Monday’s starters continues to grow with some boats sailing towards the pent house, and some towards the poor house, though no one quite knows which at this very point in time. We can only watch on with bated breath as this situation unfolds.

The Big Turtle Save

Kurt Hoehne Environment and Wildlife, Vic-Maui 0 Comment
The Big Turtle Save

Doug Frazer and his crew on OxoMoxo aren’t likely to win this year’s Vic-Maui, but they have had the race’s biggest moment. Deservedly so. If you haven’t already heard, the crew of the Seattle based Swan 391 saved a sea turtle from a fishing net in mid ocean. It’s testimony both to the state of the Pacific Gyre and the stance we as sailors must make in defense of the oceans. Social media has enthusiastically picked up the story, which is great. Read on – it was a well-done big deal to save the turtle. Here’s the scoop from the Vic-Maui Race website and OxoMoxo’s navigator. -KH

OxoMoxo and the Lucky Turtle

Today, July 10, Vic-Maui International Yacht Race competitor OxoMoxo saw a sea turtle entangled in a ghost fishing net, took down the spinnaker, stopped the boat mid-ocean over 900 miles North-North-East of Hawaii, freed the turtle from the net, and removed the net from the water so it could not continue ‘fishing’.

Congratulations from Vic-Maui to skipper Doug Frazer and the crew of OxoMoxo, a Swan 39 sailboat from the Corinthian Yacht Club of Seattle.

Caring for our ocean environment is a high priority for all sailors, and for our sport governing bodies including Sail Canada, US Sailing, and World Sailing.  If we don’t, who will?

The longer version of the story, courtesy of the boat’s navigator Marc-Andrea Klimaschewski, with some editing:

I was down below at the laptop (hoping to find a Snickers bar which was still cold enough to eat – we were following the old rule of navigation – if the butter starts melting you are too close to the center of the High) when I heard a call from the cockpit that we had just sailed past a sea turtle which was alive and stuck in a fishing net.

Our skipper, Doug Frazer, decided very quickly that we were going to go back to free the turtle. We were beam reaching (90 degree apparent wind angle) with our spinnaker and genoa staysail in 12 knots of wind at the time, making 6.5 – 7 knots of boat speed.  I stepped up the ladder in the companionway and got the lazy spinnaker sheet handed to me in preparation for a letterbox takedown.  We letterboxed the kite, turned the boat around 180 degrees, and sailed upwind with the staysail and main.  I got swim fins and a diving mask ready for Doug, and we pretty much executed our standard man overboard drill.  Reinhard Freywald was driving, and he positioned the boat just to leeward of the turtle and stopped the boat.

Doug donned the mask and fins, and jumped in the water (he had mentioned he wanted to take an ocean swim but had missed his chance yesterday evening when we were becalmed), grabbed onto the fishing net and pulled himself back towards the boat using the Lifesling that we had deployed.  When Doug made contact with the boat, he handed off the fishing net to Preston Morgan on deck who was able to pull the net off the turtle’s flipper.  We didn’t want to get too close to the turtle since he looked angry and wanted to bite.  Doug climbed back aboard the boat using the swim ladder.  That’s the last we saw of the turtle, as he swam away from the boat.  We turned back to our original course, packed and re-set the spinnaker.  Once we were back sailing in the right direction, we had a round of rum and have been sailing on a reach since.

We have a video of the operation which we can share when we reach shore; the limited bandwidth of our satellite uplink does not allow us to upload it now.

The entire rescue was (in my opinion) performed in a very seamanlike manner and completely under sail.  Great crew work.

As far as the back story goes: Doug’s sister Sherry’s spirit animal was the Honu, or sea turtle.  Doug used to live in Hawaii for a while.  When Doug’s sister passed away from cancer he got into sailing (and back into boating) and bought his first sailboat boat (a Hunter H170) which he sailed with Stefan Damstrom (who is also aboard).  After the Hunter, Doug bought an international H-Boat (Sisu) which Stefan now owns and sails on Lake Washington and Lake Union.  After outgrowing the H-Boat, Doug bought Oxomoxo 4 or 5 years ago, already thinking about doing Vic Maui. You know the rest of the story… here we are in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean, racing to Maui in the Vic-Maui International Yacht Race.

Bruce’s Brief for Tough Vic Maui Start

Bruce Hedrick Bruce's Briefs, PNW sailors around the world, Vic-Maui 0 Comment
Bruce’s Brief for Tough Vic Maui Start

This will be a fast start for the Vic-Maui group and will have the effect of quickly sorting out who’s ready and who’s not. There will be strong onshore flow with 25-30 knots of westerly coming down the Straits tomorrow. You could see 12-18 in the starting area building to 15-20+ at Race Rocks. Combined with a five knot ebb in Race Passage, seas will be quite lumpy taking a toll on boats and crews. The wind will ease slightly after Clallam Bay only to build again from the NW once you clear Cape Flattery. The course out will be just like sailing a Swiftsure. With the big ebb and plenty of time to make it through the Race, it will pay to sail the short course. After the Race head to the US side and beat your way out the Straits. At Cape Flattery you’ll want to hold a course that will get you offshore and away from area of light air that develops along the coast after sunset.

As you can see from the surface charts, the Pacific High is building nicely but note the low pushing across from the west. This will provide a challenge to navigators who most certainly will be trying to get south as fast as possible but then trying to figure out how to avoid beating while still getting to the west and into a strong area of tail winds that should hold all the way to the Islands as this high will continue build and stabilize. How much? This high could be a 1040MB monster centering at 40N and 160W. This would provide a 28MB gradient difference from the center of the High to the Islands. Plenty of breeze and plenty of squall action. This will keep crews plenty busy keeping spinnakers, halyards, sheets and guys intact.

Good luck, stay safe and enjoy what will certainly be a great adventure.

(Ed. Note I’m off in the Midwest right now and I’ve got limited leeway to get things posted. I’ll be back in about a week and will catch up with both Vic-Maui and Pacific Cup. -KH)