News
July 19, 2019, 0800
The big attraction of Transpac is the downwind sailing for days and days. Big swells,sunshine and big spinnakers in strong tradewinds. At least that's the theory. It does not always work out that way. For example of the seven Transpac races and five Pac cup races that I've done so far, only two Transpacs and two Pac Cups were truly windy. That said, we still often get great days and nights of spinnaker sailing at speeds that make grown men and women squeal like little children. It also means that the race attracts a wide and varied assortment of yachts prepared by their owners and crews to perform at full potential 24/7 for the whole race, pushing as hard as they can whenever they can. It is a race of "run what you brung" . Take Fast Exit. We have a kitchenette, small bathroom, some cabins with bunks and a saloon with convertible settee/bunks. A sort of Sprinter van with a really big engine, in the form a tall Carbon Fiber mast, big mainsail and big spinnakers. Now, also in our class are boats akin to a large sport station wagon. Think Cadillac CTS-V or Mercedes AMG, decent size with a stupidly big engine. You could sleep in it, but would you really want to? And, so we race, in handicap style. They have to beat us to Hawaii by a certain amount of time to win. Get to the wind first, be in the right lane and put up the biggest kite you can. Sheet in, hold on and drive. Shooting down big rollers with spray flying about all over the place, half the time in daylight half the time at night. If you're lucky, like this year you get a full moon, if not, it's pitch black. No matter what, you don't back off. Ever. Days two and three the Turbo Camper team pulled off 24 hour runs of 278 and 288 miles. Pretty good for a fully powered up Turbo Camper.
Every now and then you crash, lay the boat over, scare the willies out of everyone for bit, then gather yourselves together and get going again. Sometimes not so much. At 5am this morning blasting along in the high teens, the driver was giving the Turbo Camper all that, when a puff came in and he lost it. Laid the boat over and spun out. Lots of mayhem ensued and as the boat came up again, the big kite, flogging in the wind, thought, to hell with this and exploded into several pieces. All hands on deck. Gather the bits and pieces and get a new kite up. A pretty quick recovery actually. As the boat bore away and the new kite filled, the running top mast back stay decided to part company with the mast. Now this is a race killer. No top mast back stay means no rig, means no sails, means no go and that's on a good day. So kite down and straight into recovery mode. One of the deals with ocean racing is you have to be self sufficient and resourceful. A quick examination of the remaining parts, a team brainstorm in the cockpit and a plan was concocted. Zack, our chief speed guy put on the harness, gathered up the parts and we pulled him up the mast. Many uncomfortable minutes passed painfully slowly, until he yelled to be let down again. He was happy. We were happy and up went the new kite. As we started sailing and cleaning up the mess, we could immediately tell something else was wrong. The boat would not accelerate properly and there was a strong vibration from the keel. Apparently not all the remaining parts of the kite were in the boat. One part was wrapped around the keel. Only one solution. Kite down again and back the boat down. We got very lucky and only had to do this once. The last part of the dead spinnaker was fished out of the water, the new one re-hoisted and we were finally off again, some three hours later. Down, but certainly not out.
It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a team to race a yacht. This is one strong team. Zack has been up the rig so many times, that we've named the second spreader intersection after him. Shane was at several places on the boat at seemingly the same time. Alan was director of damage control in a calm and clear manner. The rest of us did our jobs as needed and then some. No one got hurt, too much anyway, battered and bruised may be, but otherwise intact. And, we're still racing. Job well done, I'd say.
Many speed records fell last night, with Alan Andrews the yacht's designer fittingly enough topping the team with a 20.28!
Oh, and the driver who was sending it at 5 am? Well, we don't need to name names, let's just say he's a really good driver, all around bon vivant, who makes good choices, most of the time and is looking to become a successful Pine Cone farmer in Utah!
That's all from the Turbo Camper.