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Bela Bartok Rescue

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FlAGalleryEarly this morning, Derk Wolmuth on the Vindo 40 Bela Bartok activated his EPIRB about 450 miles off the finish line at Hanalei Bay on Kauai, and broadcast on the SSB that he was requesting a medical evacuation. The Coast Guard en

listed the help of a ro-ro cargo ship that was about 80 miles away to effect the rescue. Around dawn, Wolmuth was safely taken aboard the ship and is scheduled to arrive in Oakland on Wednesday. The Coast Guard reports that Wolmuth had been ill for three days with what he suspects is a staph infection. Bela Bartok is currently adrift, or possibly sailing slowly toward Kauai thanks to her windvane, but the race tracker on the boat will continue to send position reports, which will be helpful in salvaging the boat as well as keeping mariners

-- including the 46 entries in the Pacific Cup -- updated on her position.

TAZ!! – George Lythcott – 7/15 1200

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FlAGalleryThe stars are magnificent! This is only the 2nd night where the beauty of the night sky has really shown. When there are no other lights to dampen its brightness, the night sky is really impressive. It appears to be 3D. It actually is 3D.

I\[CloseCurlyQuote]m looking at his dome of endless brilliance. Wow. This is only the 2nd night when stars were visible. All the other nights were either overcast, full of squalls or both. All in all it has been an unpleasant ride. The seas have been lumpy with cross waves. I\[CloseCurlyQuote]m willing to bet some of the cross waves are from tropical storm \[OpenCurlyDoubleQuote]Daniel\[CloseCurlyDoubleQuote] which was down just above the equator. We were given a warning about it just in case it decided to travel Nortit didn\[CloseCurlyQuote]t.

I can\[CloseCurlyQuote]t say enough about this trip in spite its being so uncomfortable. As usual for me, isolation (and good, long vacations) allows me to reevaluate myself, my life, my direction. I think it\[CloseCurlyQuote]s time to give up doing the Singlehanded Transpac in a small boat. At 65, it\[CloseCurlyQuote]s not where I belong. My physical strength is/was fine. Certainly my sailing skills are fine. It\[CloseCurlyQuote]s buy cheap cialis online the gut drive to bang it out for 15 days that is missing. I knew it from the start but tried to ignore it. I love competing with skilled opponents. That got me out here. But when it came time to do a sail change at 4:00 AM I said \[OpenCurlyDoubleQuote]Nah\[CloseCurlyDoubleQuote], it can wait until later in the morning when the sun is up. I also found myself deciding not to fly the spinny and fly the twins instead when the spinny would have given me 2 extra knots of speed (in trade for a lot more work). For instance, I\[CloseCurlyQuote]m flying the twins now when the spinny would be faster, but I\[CloseCurlyQuote]m writing this. Any excuse will do It\[CloseCurlyQuote]s about gently shifting gears with the passage of time. It\[CloseCurlyQuote]s time for me to be more gentle. This is getting a little \[OpenCurlyDoubleQuote]heady\[CloseCurlyDoubleQuote] but just perhaps it\[CloseCurlyQuote]s time for that too.

I\[CloseCurlyQuote]m not thinking of giving up TAZ!!. She is a fine boat and She can sail the Bay and coastal waters quite well. She\[CloseCurlyQuote]s just not an ocean racer. The Bay has more than enough competition. The bottom line is that if I want to win, then I need to go out and put 100% into it. I could also give up on this winning thing and just sail. Wouldn\[CloseCurlyQuote]t THAT be a change.

I also want to spend time more with my immediate family in NY, NJ, MA, OH and SC. I\[CloseCurlyQuote]ve got nieces and nephews I can torment. Lord knows they have tormented me. Besides think they may be ready to breed and there will be kids to paly with.

As best as I can figure out, I should cross the finish line around 1:00 AM California time or 10:00 PM Hawaii time. If I remember, the wind lightens up as you near Kauai so I could come in hour later.

I think I\[CloseCurlyQuote]ll hoist the spinny after I eat breakfast.

Idefix – Adrian Johnson – 7/14 2300

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Idefix is in Hanalei, rafted up to Green Buffalo (thanks Jim!). Got in shortly after midnight last night. The last day was an incredible white-knuckle ride. During the night I’d taken down the spinnaker in a squall, just left main up and gone to sleep for 5 or 6 hours. I woke up on Friday and the wind had finally arrived. The waves had picked up quite a bit too. The boat was moving at 6 or 7 knots with just the main. I did some quick time-distance-speed calculations and was faced with a conundrum. I was 150 miles away, and I could slow down some and get there early Saturday morning, as planned, but I would’ve felt stupid trying to slow the boat further. I didn’t want to

arrive in the pre-dawn hours, because I’ve been falling asleep at 3am like clockwork. But I see that if I average 8 knots, I can get there at midnight. So I decide I’m going to put the pedal to the metal and try to get there as early as possible. The catch is that there’s no way the autopilot is going to handle the boat with a chute up in 20-knot winds and messy 10-foot seas. So I finish breakfast, toss an armful of snacks and drinks into the cockpit, crank up the music, hoist the chute and am off on a wild ride that’ll last 16 hours. I was doing mental math the whole way and calculated an average 10 knots for the first hour, and 9-9.5 for the rest of the day. I got drenched by waves breaking into the cockpit within the first 10 minutes, so needless to say it was not a comfortable ride. I managed to leave the tiller 5 or 6 times to fuel up on food, water or caffeine, but that often ended in a broach or accidental jibe. At some point I went past the research ship Kilo Moana, which was hoding station 85 miles from Hanalei, and chatted them up on the VHF. They mentioned they’d seen another sailboat go by five days ago, by the name of Truth, and he was hauling like me. I was pretty flattered that they thought I was anywhere near Truth in speed! Eventually the sun went down, and the Kilauea lighthouse came into view. Then it was down to the last few miles, and soon I was trying to pick out the lights of the condo, and trying to reach the race committee on the VHF, and getting run over by squalls. Last time I had cleaned up and shaved before the finish. This time I took one last big gulp of coffee and managed to spill it all over myself. Oh well. Finally just pulled out my cellphone and called the race deck. Last couple miles the wind shifts a ton. I’d been expecting it, but then forgot. Fighting to keep the chute up, eyes riveted to the GPS to make sure I cross the line without hitting the reef. Finally I’m there.

Darwind – Tom Watson – 7/14 1200

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FlAGalleryDay 15
Yesterday I had my Dark and Stormy and sipped it underneath a squall. I had an amazing run all day today and laid down 150miles.

I got the news durning the checkin last night, Ronnie laid down an 184 mile day and averaged 7.8kn

ots. It seemed like I couldn’t beat him at that pace. I ran the numbers quickly and there was almost no way I could catch him. The thought of flying the spinnaker again all night and fighting squalls the rest of the way, it was too much. I went and took down the kite. I was exhausted from days of non-stop pushing to the edge.

Strangely we didn’t slow down. We were at the funny point where the wave action with spinnaker versus the poled out #1 stability made up for each other.

I looked at the numbers again; If he keeps going at this pace, he will finish on 7-15-12 00:51am. He owes me 2days 3hours and 48minutes of time which means I would have to finish by 7-17-12 04:39am to beat him. That means I would have 79hours to sail 454 miles exactly on course or I have to make 5.74knots velocity made good for the next 79hours. It turned out, I made a mistake in my quick initial calculation!

I reset the trip meter, it was still showing 6.2 knots from the last 12 hour leg. I had to look twice, still reading 6.2… It’s like Darwind told me, look buddy, its my turn. You have sailed for all you got, let me handle this one. Get some sleep.

So that is exactly what I did. I slept for 6 hours straight! I got up and launched the kite and laid down a 2.5 hour run at 6.5 knots this morning. The wind is building and forecast to continue to build all the way home. I pulled down the kite and we’re back to wing on wing still doing 6.5knots. (My rule of thumb is three wipeouts in 30 minutes and its time to take the kite down)

I am going to keep pressing for all Ive got. If I can keep it over 6.2 the rest of the way home, there is 3rd place overall, 1st in class elapsed time, 1st in class corrected waiting for me in Hanalei!

Frankenkite is coming along nicely. I have about 20 more feet of sail to sew back together. I don’t

really know why I am bothering. I am just going to throw the damn thing away when I get to Hanalei but I guess it’s the principal of it. It’s symbolic of overcoming the hurdles out here. I came close to just letting it go overboard but I pulled it in. I started to access the damage, and it was so overwhelming I just curled it in a ball and stuffed it up front. But then the racer on the top of my shoulder said, “Tommy, you need that kite! What if its light overnight, you cant win going slow! Do you want to lose to Ronnie because your lazy ass didn’t at least TRY and fix that busted kite?” Damn it all! I pulled the kite out and started tacking it back together. I convinced myself after a few hours that this was pointless and again I almost threw it over.

That is when the other kite tore. I tried to tape that repair and it just blew off and ripped more on the next launch. I was so frustrated with spinnakers and the blown apart one in particular, I cut a big chunk out of it (assuming of course I would never fix it) to fix little red.

Little Red has been flying like a champ ever since…

So the little racer guy still kept nagging, fix the kite, fix me fix me. (now the kite was talking to me). Fine, so I duct taped all the torn edges giving the thread more to bite into without tearing the cloth under load and started sewing…. and sewing… and sewing.

I have sewn up the point where I cut the chunk out. I could kick myself for that. I remembered I have my battle flag material (nothing but white spinnaker cloth) that I can use to fix it.

Going back to sewing…

RushMoore – Ruben Gabriel – 7/14 1200

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FlAGalleryYesterday evening around 18:00 Ruben called on his satellite phone. He had just spent his first 24 hours of the race with the twins up and finally relaxing a little. We talked about the book he just finished, how the boat sailed that day

, and how excited we are for him to finish the race and enjoy our time together on Kauai.

About 18:30 he called back. When I answered the phone he asked, \[OpenCurlyDoubleQuote]do you have a minute to talk\[CloseCurlyDoubleQuote]? My heart dropped. Immediately I thought of 2008 when he called with the devastating news that he was dismasted. In fact, in 2008 when it happened, it was the first day he put his twins up and began to relax a little.

This morning, his message was better news, he told me

that he broke his second spinnaker pole and then followed with...curse, expletive, curse, and more expletives.

Early this morning he called back. He said last night the boat was rocking and rolling from rail to rail. He couldn\[CloseCurlyQuote]t sleep again and got up early with a plan, which again like 2008, involved a hacksaw.

Before dawn he pulled out his headlamp and hacked off the area on the pole where it was bent. Then, using his spare tiller he attached the two halves of the spinnaker pole and hammered the cut end pieces around the tiller. Next step, \[OpenCurlyDoubleQuote]I duck taped the shit out of them\[CloseCurlyDoubleQuote]!

He had is twins back up and can fly spinnaker again. He kept saying, \[OpenCurlyDoubleQuote]this *&$!#@ race isn\[CloseCurlyQuote]t going to let me finish without jury rigging something!\[CloseCurlyDoubleQuote]

Go Ruben! Go!

TAZ!! – George Lythcott – 7/14 1000

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FlAGallery

Yesterday was a weird, frustrating day. I had broken both my poles and the prospect of limping into Hanalei Bay was depressing. I spent the day sailing downwind under a main sail only. Hoisting a jib didn\[CloseCurlyQuote]t make sense because I wou

ld have to reach up (or down) too far away from the finish line. So I pointed TAZ!! about 15 degrees up (to generate a little apparent wind) and cruised at 6

knots. I worked through my self pity and started thinking about making a pole. Hell, I should try at least. I spent the whole day making a wisker pole that was 14,, shorter than the 9, 6,, one I had. Not satisfied with that, I spliced together a spinnaker pole that was only 4,, shorter than the 9, 6,, length. I used a hack saw, the hand drill Dan (thanks) let me borrow, drill bits, some sand paper, a measuring tape, duct tape, various nuts bolts and washers I found or scavenged from places that didn\[CloseCurlyQuote]t see to need them as badly as I did.. I actually didn\[CloseCurlyQuote]t finish the spinny pole. The parts are cut and fitted. All that is left is to drill and bold the pieces together. I did fly the twins today with the wisker pole and it worked perfectly. I was surfing again all day consistently cruising at 7 knots with bursts up to 10. It was very satisfying. Squalls appeared all day. I took the pole down every time a squall hit me. I\[CloseCurlyQuote]m not offering any more sacrifices. It\[CloseCurlyQuote]s someone else\[CloseCurlyQuote]s turn. I\[CloseCurlyQuote]ll assemble the spinny pole tonight. I would like to fly one before the end of the race. Oh, it looks like I\[CloseCurlyQuote]ll finish on Sunday or Monday. I am currently 367 nm out. I\[CloseCurlyQuote]m looking forward to a shower and a large eggs/bacon/toast breakfast. It\[CloseCurlyQuote]s funny, I\[CloseCurlyQuote]m not looking forward to the news, TV shows or all the babble we get bombarded with. It will be real nice to see family waiting for me. Brother Mike and Jenita are there and Sister Ngina and Byllye arrive tomorrow. There will be great hugs and smiles all around.

This has been a particularly nasty Transpac compared to previous ones. The squalls and overcast have been painful for all the participants. This has come out in the evening chatter along with who is eating what, boat projects (like my poles), when and to where are people going after the race. People seemed surprised that I could rebuild my two poles from what I could find on my relatively little boat. People who know me aren\[CloseCurlyQuote]t.

That reminds me, the evening chatter has taken an interesting turnit\[CloseCurlyQuote]s dropped way off. There\[CloseCurlyQuote]s still chatter but it involves just of few of the racers. The rest check in with their Lat, Lon, speed, course over ground and distance to finish. Then they just go away (or they could be listening quietly like I do). Also as we get further and further apart, it\[CloseCurlyQuote]s harder to hear each other. There are also fewer of us as some racers are starting to finish.

In total, the day was satisfying except for the rain that seems to serve no purpose other than to be annoying. Birds are starting to show up. I\[CloseCurlyQuote]m going to miss this.

Team Open Sailing – Jerome Sammarcelli – 7/14 1000

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FlAGalleryJerome Sammarcelli of Team Open Sailing has just completed the 2,120 nautical mile solo-voyage across the Pacific Ocean aboard the smallest boat in the fleet, a 21-foot Pogo 2, built in his own manufacturing facility. Jerome has been at se

a for about two weeks, but has arrived safely at the finish line near Hanalei Bay, island of Kauai. Everyone at Team Open Sailing is more than proud of his accomplishment and delighted that the boat is as stout and reliable as was expected.
Photo: Yeah!

Now Jerome will reunite with his wife Alisha and young son Luca and spend some relaxing time in the gorgeous setting of Kauai, although he\[CloseCurlyQuote]ll probably be asleep for a lot of the time! Hey Jerome, we all hope you enjoy a nice hot meal and some food that\[CloseCurlyQuote]s not vacuum packed and dehydrated.

Congratulations from everyone back home in Marina del Rey!

Green Buffalo – Jim Quanci – 7/14 0330

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FlAGallery

The Wind Has Arrived

After a few squalls each of the last few nights “pushing” the ability of the 3/4, it was time to go to a heavy kite. As my wife Mary always says, mother nature always seems to save the best for last – so wi

th that in mind I swapped out the 3/4 for the new/old (“used” from Minney’s Surplus)1.5 oz shy kite. Aside from both the 3/4 coming done and shy kite going up ending up in too much water for a while (not quite shrimping… but was headed that way for a second), it was a good call going to the shy kite. The big 1.5 kite tends to lead the boat around by its leash whereas the boat leads around the shy kite.

But first a “something new under the sun”… I at first couldn’t get the Tylaska shackles off the 3/4 oz chute – all three were “stuck” (head and both clews). I eventually pried them open (they are are supposed to snap open). On closer inspection, the head and clew rings had been wearing on the Tylaska shackles, right at the joint, for 7 straight days without a break. The head/clew rings had wore grooves across the shackle joint! I’ll need to talk to my local sail maker on who decides who gets to used the hardest metal – the sailmaker of the shackle maker. Who wins in a “wear out” fight?

So with the shy kite up, I was hoping to get some sleep – getting a ;little shut eye in 20k-22k of wind. Come 2am one of those “super clusters” of squalls runs right over the top of us. It blew 25k-32k for an hour and a half. Having a full size chute up would have been a handful, with the shy kite, Otto drove away with just an occasional adjustment as the wind shifted. Otto put in his passage record speed of 16k during one of those 32k wind gusts. Immediately after the super cluster passed, when I though I might get some sleep, two more squalls in a row hit. Short 30 minutes ones – with only modest 25k winds (though you could imagine I was not exactly relaxed as they hit, till I saw winds were modest). The boat is squeaky clean now – a good thing as there is no hose at Hanalei.

Turned in an 182 mile day (course made good) this last 24 hours – compared to 165 miles the previous two days (the boats “all time best” day set in 2010 PacCup is 193 miles). Its all this wind… and its still blowing. Just did what might be the last jibe (I am dreaming thinking I can pick a leeward layline from 30 miles out) in 25k of wind. I thought carefully if maybe I should chicken jibe – to avoid any last minute “train wrecks” – but my concerns where all in my head. Did the jibe – smooth – no complications.

The End Is Near

Getting ready to finish… shaved, brushed my teeth, took a hot fresh water shower (SunShower) – and put on some fresh clothes. You want to finish a race looking good – not looking (and smelling) like a Fraternity house on a Sunday morning. Think of the people the have to give you a hug when you arrive!

28 miles to go. Wind has moderated a bit to 20k… maybe 4 to 4.5

hours. Maybe 3-330pm Hawaiian time. I guess I’ll have to take a pass on that sunset finish – and Rob and LaDonna will make their dinner appointment – and I just might have a big red juicy rare steak for dinner tonight!

Post Mortem
Finished about 229pm Hawaiian time. 13 days and 2 hours (or so) after the start in San Francisco.

Next… preparing for the return trip that starts on or about July 22nd!

RushMoore – Ruben Gabriel – 7/13 1700

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FlAGalleryRuben is getting closer and closer to the finish line. He\[CloseCurlyQuote]s tried and tried to sleep but every time he dozes off, something happens with the boat and he wakes up. He sets the egg timer for 50 minutes and he said every 30 minutes he\[CloseCurlyQuote]s awa

kened. Despite the lack of

sleep, he said he feels really good.

He finally picked up his new Nook from his halfway gift box and started reading. It sounds like he is enjoying a good story.

He set the twins this morning and is heading straight for finish line. As of Friday afternoon, he has less than 300 miles to go!

Hopefully he will finish on Sunday.