Traveler Race Blog

Eyes on the Ilio Aukai Trophy

July 16, 1029, 0830

As I like to say on ocean voyages like this, "It is all good, except for the bad parts." This 50th Transpac race of 2,225 nautical miles from LA to Honolulu is no exception. First the bad news: 

1. Drinking water problems. We have two water tanks and were surprised on Day 3 of a 14-day race to learn that we were out of water. We discussed dropping out of the race and returning home. The aft tank's gauge indicated it was full, but the gauge was actually just stuck in the full position, and that reserve tank has really been empty since leaving Newport Beach. We have a water maker, but it requires a working water pump, and the new pump we just installed before the race was having a difficult time priming because both tanks were so low and there was some air in the lines. But why was the forward tank also nearly empty? We tried making water anyway with the faulty water pump, even though there was an error message on the water maker that read, "Reject," (which meant we should shut it down.) We managed to verify that it was making good water, so we decided to continue on to Honolulu. We made five hours of water (50 gallons) and put it into the forward tank only to learn a few hours later that that tank had a leak!  We have it all sorted out now and made enough water, storing in the aft tank, to finish the race comfortably, including taking showers.
    
2. Sail problems.  The halyard on our roller furling jib chaffed through at the masthead and the sail came crashing down into the water. The top piece of the roller furler slid down the headstay freely and with such force that it jammed into the feed track at the bottom so tightly that it took a metal hammer and much force to free it. We put up our asymmetrical spinnaker, but within an hour or so it blew up from too much wind and it, too, fell into the water. Eventually, we were able to use the spare jib halyard to put our headsail back up. All of this took several hours while we ran at a much slower speed with just our main sail for a while and then with our storm jib on the staysail stay temporarily, losing precious time to our competitors in the race. These two snafus put us firmly in fourth place in our class (out of just four boats), with not much hope of catching up.
    
3. Mark and Fraser got seasick and Barbara felt queasy during the first couple of days, while the seas were a bit rough. All that is behind us and we are feeling great!

Now for the good news:

We are all well hydrated and having a great time.  We hoisted our “Big Red”.85 oz. symmetrical spinnaker and it is performing well. We caught a yellow fin tuna and had sashimi, then fish with scrambled egg burritos. This is a great crew and we are working very well together, each with many special talents.  The weather is good, with 15 to 18 knots of wind behind us. The meals are delicious. We listen to Frank Sinatra during our happy hour and are amazed at the gorgeous sunsets. Our top speed, while surfing a wave, was 11.2 knots. One of the fastest boats in the race, “Argo,” a 70 ft. trimaran, passed us this morning doing about 20 knots. Argo has a professional navigator, so that put smiles on all of us, especially our navigator Jim, because it shows that we picked the right route, steering just the right distance south below the Pacific High. We invite you to check out the website: “Transpac 2019” to follow our progress across the Pacific to the finish of Diamond Head. 

www.transpacyc.com 
https://yb.tl/transpac2019

Even if we are the last boat to finish (which appears likely now), we were told we will receive a trophy for the oldest average crew, at age 61.5. That’s not exactly the prize we were hoping for, but we will gladly take it!  We will always be able to tell our grandchildren that we “trophied the 50th Transpac” and leave it at that.

Michael and Barbara Lawler, Jim Palmer, Fraser McClellan, Bob Wiegand and Mark Dorius aboard the good ship “Traveler.”