News
Finished! Sunday, July 9, 2023
Good afternoon to those who have followed us on this crazy journey and supported the Wolf Pack so completely. Night’s Watch finished the race yesterday around 11:00 am HST and were greeted by several of our loved ones on the “Follow Me Boat” near the finish line. At this point, it looks like we took third in our division with a tight battle between Night’s Watch, Lenny, Macondo, Wings and Favonius for the Division.
The entire team wants to thank my darling editor, Risa, for taking the helm on getting information out to everyone when we started experiencing our communication issues from the boat. One would think that getting all of us on dry land (although walking on terra firma is challenging after being on a pitching boat for 11 days) the communications issues would be minimized. We entered the battle between the late Steve Jobs and Bill Gates as Risa could not retrieve her distribution list from her iPad as that list was locked in her Google account. She wants to apologize for not getting the ‘Finish Line’ news out sooner, but we have finally resolved the stalemate and will get more information out over the next few days.
The final 24 hours of the race was exciting, with the end result being that we took third in Division 7 which means that we will be standing on the podium Saturday night with our skipper Dean holding the beautiful sterling silver trophy over his head. The irony of that is that immediately after walking off the podium with the trophy and getting some pictures, they take the trophy away from you, lock it in storage for two years and then repeat the process. Except that in 2025, I will be a spectator for that process.
Our last night of racing (Friday night) was exciting and crazy as the winds were up as they had been much of the race. Sometime in the middle of the night, we blew the yellow spinnaker up (nicknamed Big Bird because it was solid yellow) and if we had tried to repair it, we would still be working on hand stitching it back together. We went to the red spinnaker (Clifford) as it is as heavy material as the yellow one but cut slightly different. We were able to finish with Clifford still in one (repaired) piece. For the final approach to Oahu, we were in sight of “Wings”, a boat in our division. Based on ratings, they owed us time, but we were able to beat them to the finish line assuring ourselves of a podium place. They finished right behind us, and we were able to share the finish party with them, competitors on the water but comrades in the bar!
I still must read all the posts that Risa wrote during my “communications blackout”, and I will add some color to them if I can. I will send out additional posts this week as we get caught up on communications. Also, I am planning on leaving next Sunday (7/16/23) to bring Night’s Watch back to her slip in Long Beach. We will have the same YB tracker on the boat so if you choose to keep an eye on us, you can. I will also attempt to write during the trip, although deliveries are usually less exciting (my fervent hope) than the race.
Thanks again for following us and sending us positive energy, it was very humbling knowing so many were watching us and rooting us on!
Day 9, Thursday, July 6th, 2023
Notes from our crew on Night’s Watch…
*** Correction on Day – I actually counted 6/27 as Day 1 and I got ahead of myself. Today is actually Day 9 instead of Day 10… Stephen had predicted finishing in 11 days, and I think his prediction may be accurate!
Wednesday evening, we blew up the repair that we had made to Big Bird (heavy yellow spinnaker), so we will be running with Clifford through the night, and we will spend most of tomorrow sewing (again!). 
This ride can end anytime now…
Thursday… awake to about 450 miles to the finish. A little sleep helped the perspective. More sleep is needed by everyone and sleep ‘reserves’ are at 0… Work on repairing Big Bird will likely take most of the day. Debbie and Stephen will tag team the work. Fingers crossed.
Stephen took a few minutes from sewing to answer a few questions from ‘inquiring minds’.
“Were you able to save the wind instruments that were knocked off on the jibe?” – We did not save the anemometer as it is wireless and so there wasn’t anything to stop it when it got knocked off. There is a new waiting for us at West Marine Honolulu!