Transpac is Starting to Make Sense

Hello Westward Fans!

It's about 1030 Pacific time Friday morning as this is being written and we couldn't be happier. Since our first spinnaker set on Wednesday, the wind has moved aft, the boat has flattened out, the sun has shown itself more often, clean clothes have come out of bags and been put on, and all kinds of competitions have started on board Westward (other than, of course, the actual race). As Graham remarked "Transpac is starting to make sense!"

Last night was a good night for anyone who wanted to do a lot of work. We decided to douse the 2.2 oz reacher in favor of our 1.5 oz downwind runner and after that was set, discovered that we needed to switch to our .75 oz kite (aka the Steve Dair Special). In under an hour, we'd set, doused, and packed twice. Over the course of about four hours, we'd also switched the staysail for a spinnaker staysail, flaked and stored all the jibs that had been used, rigged the preventer (to keep the boom from accidentally gybing), rigged the 35 year old spinnaker net (to prevent wraps around the forestay), reran some of the sheets, and covered sharp bits on the bow pulpit to prevent chaffing. At this point, everyone has enjoyed the fruits of our labor by driving Westward under full spinnaker in lovely sailing conditions.

We have been playing a bit of cat and mouse with Dorade, who is off our stern currently. It's a little exciting to have our competition within our sights and definitely helps us remember that we're in a race. Our team of expert navigators has indicated that yesterday's run was better than the previous day's. Crew morale is high and we're having fun. There was even a formal uncle (Sam) niece (Alli) waltz on bow.

Aloha!

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