Friday 08 Jul 2011

Friday 08 Jul 2011
0600 PDT Position: 31 20 N, 124 50 W

07:13 AM We made some very good progress over the past day. The wind and seas have been building... but we're not in the trades yet. We've been hitting over 8 knots on a beam reach. We took a more SW route than the other boats because Second Chance doesn't sail as high into the wind as the other boats in light air. We hope to have gained on the fleet last night. Hopefully we'll hit the trades today so that we can launch our spinnaker.

I ate oatmeal and a pickled egg for breakfast. I've been on watch with Randy and Graham. We sailed on a beam to close reach on a course of 240-270 degrees at 6.5-8.3 kts with winds at 9-15 kts. Randy has been doing an excellent job of trimming to maximize our speed. We had 4-6 foot swells and the sky is cloudy with some mist.

Around noon we raised the spinnaker for the first time! We had to take it down after a few minutes due to the heavy seas and bad wind angle. We've been sailing with a single reefed main and 120 Genoa. The boat is behaving nicely and making good speed with this configuration.

Our main out-haul also stopped working to we used the second reef line as an out-haul to flatten the main.

Randy made another great meal of chicken and vegetable stir fry. We have plenty of food and have been enjoying the treats that Bunni, Trish, and others made.

With regards to the weather info that Dave sent, we were already past the coordinates by the time we got his e-mail. I passed on the weather info to Harry. We've been getting the GRIB weather reports daily..

The built-in diesel generator is overheating and will not run for more than a few minutes. We changed the cooling water impeller but that did not fix the problem as hoped. We think the heat exchanger (like a radiator for a car) is clogged and we will be unable to fix it at sea (it needs to be boiled or soaked in acid). The generator was inspected by a mechanic before the race and given a clean bill of health. It turned out to be a little low on oil, had a dirty air filter, was missing its zinc anode, and obviously was not tested at normal operating temperature. A trip like this requires a working generator to keep the batteries changed for running essential equipment such as the refrigeration unit, water maker, navigation lights, navigation instruments, and powerful single side band radio (SSB). We'll have to use the auxiliary engine for charging the batteries. Fortunately we have plenty of fuel.

It remained overcast all afternoon. We're all doing well... nobody has got seasick.