S/V Acacia

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Day 15
Date: 28 Jul 2008 17:57:00 -0000

Good morning!

We have a very nice night.  Our concerns about the weather were unfounded.  Most of the night was clear without any significant squalls.  My personal theory about the weather is that the low that was spawning a lot of the earlier weather passed us by.  In any case, it was great sailing last night with no fire drills.  Everyone got a good night sleep and we made good time.

Last night was wonderful.  For a lot of the evening almost all of the sky was clear and very dark.  We could see all of the night sky except for a band of clouds around the base.  It was the best night we had on the ocean.  A great ending for what should be our last night of this voyage.  We may not have been first in the race, but we had the best view last night.  We plan to use that at the bar at KYC with the people who missed last night on the ocean.

The big change we made for last night was to take down the spinnaker (yes, I know it is a race, etc., etc.) and pole out the genoa on the spinnaker pole and run downwind “wing and wing”.  This worked much better than we expected in that with the winds in the 15 to 25+ knot range we went almost as fast (7+ knots) but everything was under control.  We have continued a good pace without the difficulty of running the spinnaker in high winds.  It also seems like a much easier motion for the boat.  It’s as if Acacia isn’t having to push as much water out of the way as when we fly the spinnaker.  Had we know this this would have been a better way of getting through the earlier big squalls.

We did our 100 mile checking at about 5am and have about 60 miles to go to the finish line.  It will be a while before we can see the Island of Oahu, but we know it is ahead.  Everyone is looking forward to landfall.

Bob
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At 7/28/2008 (utc) our position was 21°50.83′N 156°47.88′W

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Day 14
Date: 28 Jul 2008 00:49:00 -0000

Hello from 180 miles to go,

We think tonight may be our last night on the water.  We also hope it wasn’t like last night.  We have had a lot of squalls and winds up to 35 knots.  It made for an exciting evening.  Brett had some interesting driving in the middle of a squall in the dark part of the night.  We hope tonight is somewhat smoother.  To make it more interesting we are also getting rain in the day time.  Let’s just that the outside of the boat is a lot cleaner.  I wish I could say the same for the inside. Everything and everyone has gotten a bit damp.  It will be nice to dry out when we arrive!

Everyone is excited to be close to Kaneohe.  It’s been a long and rewarding trip.  Everyone in the crew had done very well and have gotten along very well.  It’s been a lot of fun for me to be with all of them.  I plan to send a longer email to the list summarizing the trip

Bob
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At 7/28/2008 (utc) our position was 22°48.35′N 154°51.86′W

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Thirtheen Day
Date: 27 Jul 2008 00:57:00 -0000

We continue to make good progress.  The wind has been consistent and we are making good time.  If this keeps up we should make it in in about two days.  I probably shouldn’t make predictions, but we will see what happens.

We had some fun on the fore deck today.  While Chris and I were at the mast looking at resetting a few of the mast wedges that had come loose, the spinnaker pole decided to release the after guy from the pole end. Becca was driving and did the right thing by going down wind so the spinnaker could be taken down.  While this was happening the squall hit and we all got soaked.  Everything happened at once!  We did get the spinnaker down, fixed the pole, reinstalled the mast wedges and got dried out.  It was a lot of excitement and fun.  At least it didn’t happen in the middle of the night.

Everyone is well and looking forward to getting to Kaneohe.

Bob
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At 7/25/2008 (utc) our position was 26°28.97′N 149°21.35′W

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Day 12
Date: 26 Jul 2008 01:08:00 -0000

It’s our 12th day on the ocean.  We are seeing a lot of squalls in the late afternoon, at night, and in the morning.  We are told we are only supposed to get squalls at night, but that doesn’t appear to be our experience.  It keeps us on our toes.  This morning Steve and I got a good soaking.  At least it was fresh water and not too cold.  It makes Steve feel just like home in Vancouver.

We are about 12 miles from the 500 mile mark.  Half way on the second half, a another milestone.

At our current speed, we hope to get to the finish sometime late Monday.  The exact time will depend a lot on the wind speed and direction.  We are hoping that the wind will shift to have us going more directly to Kaneohe, but only time will tell.

Bob
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At 7/25/2008 (utc) our position was 26°28.97′N 149°21.35′W

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Day 10
Date: 23 Jul 2008 23:37:00 -0000

The big news for today was that we found the wind.  Might be better to say that the wind found us.  In any case, we are now moving well over 7 knots with the new 3/4 oz spinnaker.

Thinking of the new 3/4 oz spinnaker.  The two new spinnakers are labeled R2 and R4.  The R2 is a 1/2 oz light air spinnaker and the R4 is a 3/4 oz full size spinnaker.  Both are white with colored borders.  At one point a few days ago when we were running the old 3/4 oz “big pink” spinnaker, Brett and Becca wanted to change to the light air spinnaker.  They got the numbers mixed up and ended up flying the R4 instead. They didn’t realize this until two days later.  They did think that the new 3/4 oz did work better than the old one

We had a great half way part last night.  We had leis, sparkling wine, Becca’s home made lasagna, and Beth’s home made macaroons.  To add the the levity we has two new CD of music and the Hawaiian slack guitar. Many thanks to Maryann and everyone else who helped prepare it.

Overall it feels great to be making good progress toward our destination.  Everyone is in great spirits and looking forward to landfall.

Bob
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At 7/23/2008 (utc) our position was 26°56.16′N 143°38.57′W

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Day 8
Date: 22 Jul 2008 02:58:00 -0000

Last night we had a nice sunset and clear sky for about half the night.  The view of the stars was amazing!  It’s nice to be reminded what the world really looks like.  The milky way was very prominent.  It’s hard to believe how many stars there are.  Then the moon came up.  After the dark night the moon made it very bright.  Hardly dark at all.

It gotten a lot warmer.  Everyone has changed out of their warm clothes and into shorts and short sleeve shirts.  The boat’s dry and very comfortable.

We had our first flying fish sightings and one squid on deck.  Becca tried to use it to catch a fish without any luck.  Might have been better to use it for calamari.

The down side has been light winds.  We have not gotten to the half way mark yet.  At our present speed we will reach the half way point about 10 hours from now (6am PDT).  We could have a half way breakfast party!  We have gotten below 30 degrees north latitude and are close to 140 degrees west longitude.

The first part of the trip has been slower than we had hoped for.  As we get fruther south we hope to find the trade winds and pick up our pace a bit.

Bob
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At 7/22/2008 (utc) our position was 29°45.40′N 139°58.83′W