13 July 2016

Gutted

We had to withdraw from the race this afternoon, due to a contaminated water supply.

I had stuffed a rag into the anchor hawsepipe, to stop water from entering into the anchor locker, as it so often does. Unfortunately, some wave pushed it out of the way, and down into the anchor locker, where it promptly blocked the drain holes. The locker filled to the brim. Also unfortunate is that the vents for the two water tanks are in there, so the water forced its way downhill and into the tanks.

I thought I had two independent water supplies, but it turns out they do have a point of commonality: both vent into the anchor locker. Classic example of cascading sequence of events.

We are deeply disappointed.

We are heading to Monterey, the closest port.
Good morning!

Very rough out here --- 25-30 knots on the beam. About 6pm last night, I noticed water over the floorboards! The thruhull for the sink in the forward head was open. We are leaning so far over, that the sink was below the waterline, so it just overflowed into the bilge and over the floorboards.

So, I closed it. Curious thing, the water kept rising anyway. So, we kept bailing with a bucket. Later, I noticed water dripping down from the headliner in the forward cabin. Naturally, this is all happening in the middle of the night, as all boat things tend to do, so I wasn't going to go up on deck and look for a source of water.

At dawn, Jeff and I went forward and discovered the anchor locker was completely filled with water. No wonder there was a leak! So, what happened? Before passages I stuff a rag into the anchor hawsepipe, to prevent water from going in there. It was so rough yesterday, that one of the waves blew the rag out, and onto the bottom of the anchor locker, where it found the one and only drainhole, and blocked it. Mystery solved!

So, Jeff and I retrieved the rag with a boathook, then bailed the thing out until it was nice and dry.

The boat was completely transformed! There was probably 800+ pounds of water in there. Without all that weight, the bow is rising nicely, so we aren't getting as wet.

We're moving fast and may have a 200 nm day!

SMS from 881623488980@msg.iridium.com

Lat+36deg43'46" Lon-125deg0'8" Alt+126ft GPS Sats seen: 08 2016-07-13 12:51UTC http://map.iridium.com/m?lat=36.729478&lon=-125.002310 Sent via Iridium GO!

12 July 2016

Doing well

We had a great start (first under the Bridge), but then blew a couple of tacks and gave up the lead. But, we're still doing well.

In one of those tacks, we tore off the starboard Dorade guard off the deck. In calmer days ahead, I'll figure out how to put it back on, but, for now, I took off the Dorade "snorkel" so it won't catch any lines.

Winds very gusty. We've already done 4 sail changes!

As far as I can tell, no tender stomachs this first afternoon out. The sub sandwiches Jeff got for us sure went down quickly and without complaint!

09 July 2016

08 July 2016

Tracker info

The race committee has finally announced the URL for the tracker, as well as the daily standings. Find them here:

Tracker (up to six hour delay)

Standings (updated daily)

These won't be active until the race start on Monday, 11 July. Our start is the next day, on Tuesday.