Holy Balls!

Another update from the boat...seems they're going a little slap happy out there. Also, many things in this post make me fee a little happier that I'm not actually on the boat this time. Wait, no, not happy, just less sad:

Holy balls! We are still in 1st in class/2nd overall according our latest position report from the race committee. Waking up this morning dreading the results after our 1st watch of the night averaged 12 miles in 4 hours. We ran hard into a lull and couldn't get out. We tried wing on wing, the 1/2 oz, the 3/4 oz, the drifter and the staysail! You know the only thing that worked, pointing the boat in the direction of waves and letting the current take us. It was completly debilitating. On the plus side the moon didn't come up til late so we had a beautiful canopy of stars to occupy our time. I think we started to go a bit stir crazy. Steve was so impressed with the moon he tried, with his cellphone, to capture the perfect shot with moon barely over the bow. It didn't help as he would set up to take the picture, I would go hard over to port. He would readjust and try and take a picture from the starboard side. I would then throw the helm over to starboard just moving the moon behind the mast and thwarting his photo attempts. This, no joke, went on for a solid 5 minutes back and forth before we broke down and busted up laughing. From the mainland I know this must sounds crazy, but anything to pass the time in 4 knots of breeze and 4 hours left on watch.

We have smiley faces all over the boat. This is a Steve Dair special. What I mean by smiley faces is you take a piece of yarn, say 3 feet long, and tie both ends about 1 ft apart to the lifelines so that the middle droops between the two ends. This is our tailtell. Sailing on the wind will "make Smiley happy" and the drooping part will rise. When "Smiley is sad" it is sagging and static. Leave it up to Sam Bell for coming up with the "Smiley Cyrus" catchphase and boom, it caught on like wildfire. In fact we are still talking about making Smiley Cyrus happy and the term is at least said 20 times an hour. Who would have thought our crew, average age 58, would have such topical references? The boat is full of surprises. 

Last night we had our head, the toilet, breakdown and another project commenced. Sam busted out the rebuilt kit and shuffled down to work on the head. Only to emerge 30 minutes later with this gem, "Shit you heart out, boys!". He had the whole crew laughing with that one. We are extremely mature. Please refer to average age in previous paragraph. Since we started to seriously work on Westward in preparation for Transpac, about 13 months ago, I have keep running tally of Sam-isms. That one definitely goes down on the list. To any wives/girlfriend's reading this, I am just kidding. This never happened.

Willie also had a revelation last night as he was digging through the icebox, bacon! The promise of bacon and eggs tomorrow for breakfast has really been a compelling factor for the crew. The other motivating factor, besides gold dimes of course, is the two handles of Mount Gay Rum, large chunks of ice, and cold coke waiting for at sunset. This trip so far as been very responsible as we have 1 bottle of wine for dinner of Monday. A beer for happy hour on Tuesday. With Wednesday having no wind, we passed. A far cry from my memories of Newport Beach - Ensenada and the other Catalina races I had as a kid. These I remember clearly as I was a few months younger than Rob Jorgensen and held the esteemed position of Beer Boy. What has changed you ask? Good question, don't know yet. I'll keep you posted.

Currently we are 70 miles due south of the tip of Cabo with about 281 miles left to the barn door. Averaging 6.5 knots and bearing 84 degrees, a little high, but we will let it slide as we just got out of another 5 hour hole and boat speed is boat speed. The seas are calm with less than 2' of swell and the pressure is dropping. The door is open and we have a good chance at a podium finish if we keep out boat speed up. 

Everyone is really excited as we coming into our home stretch.

Cheers!