60 Miles!

Buenos Tardes Westward Fans!

As I'm sitting here writing this, we are about 60 miles from finishing this race. Just a few days ago, I would have said for sure we would be motoring into Cabo after giving it our best effort, but at this point, it looks like we have a real chance at beating the finish time limit. This thanks to two days of great wind and us beating our target boatspeeds. Westward has clearly been stretching her legs and loving it.

When you approach the end of a race like this, it's funny to see how the attitudes aboard change. Today, at about 5 o'clock, Sam emerged from the after cabin in a boisterous mood. He had entered "King of the Cove" mode. In this mode, he's jolly and full of stories about the days of yore racing Westward. This is a change from the normal conversations about VMG and calculus to find the best route to the finish. Today, we had a surprise of the most amazing bubbles you've ever seen. These bubbles skipped over the waves and lasted at least a couple hundred yards away from the boat. Dana--we did a good job of picking those out.

When Westward approaches the finish, there is a lot of clean up to do...both of boat and of crew. Today was shower day, which entails standing on the back deck with some Prell and a bucket and giving yourself a good ol' seawater wash down. The important thing about shower time is to keep your eyes forward or else you might see something you don't want to. Alli for sure spent the day carefully keeping her eyes forward. Westward also is getting cleaned up and ready for the finish.

Sailing-wise, today was beautiful sailing...the kind where you never wanted to let go of the wheel. Of course, there was always a line of people waiting for their turn, so you didn't get to be on a minute longer than your allotted time. Around mid-day, we gybed to keep from getting too close to shore and ended up also switching sails. Unfortunately, another sail is out of commission and Alli's cabin, where the broken sails are stored, is getting a little fuller. Quick crew work ensured that an unfortunate situation didn't turn into a bad one, and we had a new sail up and flying within about 10 minutes. Ever since, we've been averaging 8-9 knots in about 12-16 knots of breeze.

We're planning our approach to Cabo and the finish. There was just a meeting of the minds around the GPS and chart table. The decision? Well, can't give that away on a public blog, but track us on Yellowbrck to see how we did!

With any luck, we'll be finishing shortly and we'll send our final blog margaritas and tacos in hand!

Shauneen, Rosey and the Martins, we're looking forward to seeing you at the dock!

Team Westward

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