Wednesday 06 Jul 2011

Wednesday 06 Jul 2011
0600 PDT Position: 33.01 N, 120.14 W

In the morning we still had light and variable winds. We did not make much progress overnight. We tacked several times and had trouble maintaining a steady course of 240 degrees. The daily position report showed us in last place.

I ate an apple, some dried fruit and nuts for breakfast and a turkey and cheese sandwich with banana for lunch. We saw some blue whales. A baby whale came very close to our bow and another surfaced at a distance.

Tom fixed the short in our nav lights while Harry worked on the generator. At first he thought he fixed it by removing the dirty air filter and adding oil. Unfortunately, this did not fix the problem and the generator would shut down after running for just a few minutes.

Meanwhile, Curt and Ed continued to work on the water maker. They used various techniques to clean the filters and membranes; however, it still would not produce potable fresh water. Our water tanks were down to 50 gallons so we really needed to get the water maker working soon or we’d have to abort the race. I was getting concerned since during the SAS class, Chuck Hawley said that every race has a boat or two that must abort due to malfunctioning water makers.

Ed got an updated weather report in the morning so we were able to determine where the trade winds were (300 miles west). By afternoon, we were able to head just above our rhumb line in an effort to hit the trades a bit sooner and then swing down to Hawai’i at a hotter angle.

Tom patched a hole that ripped open on the foot of the No 1 jib where it chafed against a roller furling line block. We all hoped the No 1 jib would hold out long enough for us to reach the trade winds where we could launch a spinnaker.

Later in the afternoon we were able to adjust our heading to 240 degrees and sail at 6-7 knots with 10-15 knot winds. We took down the thrashed No 1 job and replaced it with the smaller and heavier No 2 jib.

Randy made another great dinner of chicken Tomatio and rice. By the way, all of our meals were served in stainless steel dog bowls since they’re indestructible, stay put with their rubber ringed bottoms, and are easy to clean. Eating out of a dog bowl never tasted so good!

I had the 10:00 PM shift with Randy and Graham, my new watch crew member. Phil joined Harry’s watch crew along with Tom.