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!

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!

SMS from 881623488980@msg.iridium.com

Lat+37deg47'8" Lon-122deg16'1" Alt+103ft GPS Sats seen: 10 2016-07-10 02:42UTC http://map.iridium.com/m?lat=37.785677&lon=-122.267165 Sent via Iridium GO!

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.

Video of the passage from Portland to San Francisco

Chris did a great little video of our passage from Portland to the Bay Area. Check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aWVPuHT8aI

Is my stern fat?

It's not required by the Pacific Cup, but I decided that if I'm going to do this, I might as well go all the way and get a certified downwind rating. That involves weighing the boat. Besides, I was curious what the boat weighed.

The rating rules require that the boat be weighed "empty," and they mean empty. Everything comes off: sails, anchors, most running rigging, dishes, clothes, lifejackets, ... everything. As an out of town boat, we wondered, "Where are we going to put all this stuff?" So, we rented a U-Haul truck for the day.

First, everything had to go into a box. That took us a long day.

Preparing for the weigh-in. Everything had to go in a box.

After offloading a few hundred pounds of equipment, Velocity sat a lot higher in the water!

Then, all the boxes, as well as the sails, anchors, liferaft, etc., had to go into the truck

This is what it takes to race to Hawaii. The back of the 15' U-Haul truck.

Then it was time to go to the weigh-in site at the Berkeley Marine Center. Out of prudent seamanship, we left a few things on the boat for the trip over to Berkeley: 3 lifejackets, a toolbag, one anchor, and some water bottles. It was a beautiful day, with a nice breeze blowing in off the ocean, but without a single sail on board, we had to motor the whole 9 miles.

On our way to Berkeley, motoring. The boat looked forlorn without her sails.

When we got there, we were second in line, so we tied up to the fuel dock and offloaded the few remaining items then waited for our turn. 

First, the boat had to be inspected to make sure that everything was truly off, and we hadn't left a few gold bricks down in the bilge.

Then it was time for the weighing! We had to back down a long, skinny channel lined with expensive looking boats, then squeeze into the tight fitting ways that the Travelift used.

The load cell sits in its own frame, slung under the normal Travelift frame, so there was not a lot of room underneath it. It took some careful maneuvering to slip the radar pole under the frame and out of the way, but the crew manning the lift were skilled and took great care.

Velocity hanging in the slings. The load cell is the strap-like thing with a wire sticking out of it, a few feet above the boom.

A minute or two later, and boat was hanging in mid-air, supported at a single point, where the load cell was located. And, we had our answer:

18,340 pounds

That's nearly a 1,000 lbs less than any other J/42 I've heard of. I'm not quite sure why, but it may be because the boat is still pretty simple: no arch, no watermaker, no genset, etc.

As part of the process, the team also measured the waterline length and overhangs.

My thanks to the great volunteer team that handled the weighing. They were fast, efficient, and careful with the boat.

And, a special thanks to Bjorn and Jeff from the Velocity crew for taking the time off to fly down and help me with this chore!

Under the Bridge

Sailed under the Bridge in 30 knots of breeze and a 3 knot favourable tide at 4:40pm.  Speed over ground about 10 knots.

Update 6/11/16. Forgot to mention, that just as we went under the Bridge, Chris called out from the bow, "There's a whale in front of us!!" Sure enough, 100 feet in front of the boat, was a surfacing Humpback, oblivious to our presence in all that turbulence. I couldn't turn right without gybing the boat, so I turned hard left, in the same direction as the whale and, holding my breath, hoped for the best. 

Fortunately for both the whale and us, we narrowly missed a collision.

Dawn at Point Reyes

Making great time. After motoring all day Wednesday and Thursday morning, we finally hit the breeze. It's been blowing 20+ since, occasionally 30+.

We've been eating well, thanks to chef Mark.

200 nm days, and holed up in Coos Bay

The good news is that we had a awesome sail through Monday and into Tuesday morning. Winds were consistently 20+ knots, gusting to 30, right over the transom. So, we flew down the coast, averaging 8+ knots, for a 200+ nm day --- my first.

But, then we started getting disturbing weather forecasts from farther down the coast. A low had broken off the California thermal trough, and was sitting in our path. Unless we are willing to go 100 nm offshore, it will be generating 30+ knot winds from the South. I love 30 knots over the stern, 30 knots right on the nose? Ummm,... not so much.

So, we decided to put into Coos Bay.

We'll be stuck here until the winds abate, probably tomorrow (Wednesday) early afternoon.

Gives us plenty of time to catch up on our sleep (we had to hand-steer the whole way) and do a few boat chores (what's that funny sound coming out of the engine???).

Dawn at Astoria

Beautiful morning for a sail. We will go out on the last of the ebb, crossing the bar at the slack, about 10AM.

Looks like terrific winds for the first day and a half --- 20 knots over the transom.

-tk

Fat-fingered from my Android

Sea-trialing the new emergency rudder

Welding up the stainless steel version of the emergency rudder frame went surprisingly smoothly. Allen and I (mostly Allen) had it done by early afternoon!

So, the next day I took it in to the boat, and with the help of Mike, Carl, and Bjorn, mounted it on the boat and took it for a spin.

Here's a video of it in action.

The rudder has a "reverse tiller." That is, unlike a regular tiller, which points forward, this one points backwards. To turn it, we used long control lines that led forward and, ultimately, tied to a boat hook stuck in a socket in the cockpit sole. The boat hook acted as a kind of "joy stick." The lines crossed along the way so when you pushed the stick starboard, the boat went starboard, and vice-versa.

We didn't have a lot of wind (maybe 8-10 knots), and only had the main up, but it worked great. It was a lot of fun to play with. I hope we never have to use it, but, if we do, I'm confident it will work.

View looking down on the new e-rudder.

New e-rudder

I was never able to mount the Scanmar emergency rudder on the back of the boat anywhere except at the docks. The problem is the high, flat transom of the J/42 that made it difficult to swing the rudder into position, the backstay, which got in the way, and the stern pushpit railing, which also got in the way. You were forced to drop the rudder straight down and then, with the thing wildly bouncing around, line up four tubes with four brackets, then put a pin in each one. It takes flat calm conditions, or a dinghy, to pull that off!

So, I took advantage of the low Canadian dollar and ordered a cassette-style e-rudder from Phil's Foils. With cassette rudders, rather than trying to attach a whole rudder frame to the boat, you need only attach the cassette, which is much easier to handle. Once it's in place, then you slide the blade into it.

Made out of carbon-fiber on a wood core, it is a fraction of the weight of the old rudder, and much easier to handle.

Yesterday, my buddy Allen and I mocked up a frame out of 2x2s. Allen's friend Steve wandered by and made a terrific suggestion of how we could reuse the existing brackets from the Scanmar rudder to hold the frame. This will save me a couple of days of crawling around the lazarette installing new brackets.

Here's what we came up with:

Wooden frame to hold the cassette. In the final steel version, the horizontal posts holding the cassette will be reinforced with some braces. Depending on how tough it is to weld the compound joint, we may even do away with the post completely and rely solely on the braces. The foil is not pushed down all the way.

This is the last major project before heading south to California for the Pacific Cup.