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Traffic jam near Cabo! Monday 3/14

Writer's picture: David GarmanDavid Garman

Someone turned the wind machine down and the boats are piling up just outside of Cabo. I‘ve heard from four of the six crew members today and it sounds like it’s been a fun day of sailing! I can definitely tell the crew is feeling more energized.

Journaled notes from some of the crew Monday.

Adam C on board chimed in…

Just finished up a fun morning shift.  Weather's great and the crew's in a good mood.  We chewed up a lot of course this morning and

now we're about to round Cabo!  That's a big milestone that puts us on the final stretch to PV.  Looking forward to some good wind and fun

sailing for the last few hundred miles.


Tara Lee shared…

We just 360 the boat to back down and fill the main sail the wrong way to shake off the kelp.

There was a pod of dolphins hunting/playing with us in the night shift. Popping up like ninjas.

And, the moon is great for sail trim, like a spot light and reflective mercury puddles of light on the ocean.


Nathan de Vries shared…

Yet another shift change rolls by, this time it's noon Monday March 14.

David, Tara Lee and I swap in, taking over from Adam, Bunker and Stuart.


The last couple of days have been a bit demoralizing with two major problems.


The first issue took the form of a huge forest of kelp hanging off the keel, streaming back over the rudder and causing the whole boat to shake

with turbulence and cavitation. The long, smooth glides down the back of waves are replaced with lurching, short lived surges; helm shuddering,

energy stifled.


Typically this is an easy problem to solve - just drop the kite and back down with the main and the kelp falls off. This brings us to our second

issue.


Our spinnaker halyard was stuck, so we couldn't drop the kite. We have decent pressure and we're still above our polar targets for the most

part, so in spite of the difficult steering and danger of a kite that can't come down in an emergency, we make the decision to keep going

while we come up with a plan to fix both problems. Unfortunately these problems went unfixed for over 24 hours, and our position in the fleet quickly dropped back.


A new day brought calmer seas, lighter winds, and an opportunity to execute our plan. We spiked the tack off the pole, bringing the foot of

the spinnaker behind the main and letterboxing the bottom to keep it from inflating. With the boat under main only, we sent Bunker up the rig

to make an assessment. Unfortunately the anti-chafing on the halyard had worked its way into the mast, and would not budge. We opted to spike the head of the kite, and quickly completed the letterbox douse of the kite.

We still have a spare kite halyard, so we're good to go on the stuck kite problem.


With the kite down we could now back down the boat - a couple of a attempts and the forest detached. A weight dropped off the boat, and off

our minds. We'd lost a lot of time, but now there are no excuses!


That all went down yesterday. Today, there's an immediate change in the outlook of our crew. We're back in the game. We're sailing fast. We

worked together to get it done, and we did.


That's why today, under full sun, calm following seas and 12-14kts of breeze, when the shift changed there was no rush to hand off, stow gear

and hit the hay. Today there's time to soak up the sun and share snacks and terrible jokes.


Focus is now 100% on sailing fast, and at this time I can report that as we approach the Southernmost point of the Baha Peninsula, we are doing just that.






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