Duxship Race April 24 and Pac Cup Prep Continues

I was out of town all last week and did not have a chance to post anything on the Duxship race.  It was a fairly rough day out on the ocean and we managed to place DFL in our division!  (that is Dead F- Last.)  It was a good experience, however, to go out in 20-30 knot winds and steep, heavy seas to feel how the boat handled. 


We had four of our seven Pac Cup crew (the other three were at a family event in Texas) and we all walked away confident in the boat and ourselves.  We also had two crew along just for the day.  They both tend towards seasickness.  One had started on Bonine two days in advance and had taken a double dose the morning of the race.  He was absolutely fine.  The other took Bonine that morning only and she was sick the entire way.  The rest of us did okay, though I felt extremely queasy after spending 15-20 minutes below, using the head, checking on strange clanging noises (something swinging in the hanging locker) and digging out the smaller jib when we decided that having the bigger (and nicer) jib partially furled in the 25-30 knot winds we were in at that time was not really working out so well.  We had hesitated to change headsails before because nobody wanted to go up on the foredeck and do it!  It got to the point where we really had to though and Matt and Vince went up there and wrestled the big sail down and lashed it to the deck / lifelines and got the other one hoisted.  Matt thought it took them 30 minutes to do.  I don't think it was quite that bad but I am sure it felt like an eternity to them. 


The course took us out the Golden Gate into the Pacific (ha ha, who named it that), North to the Duxberry Reef light, back down to the lightship (aka SF approach buoy, Light bucket) and back in.  On the way from the lightship to the golden gate we saw 12.9 knots boat speed--we were on a flood tide so our over the bottom speed was higher.  That was pretty good under main and 100% jib!  We watched a 30' Wylie surfing with their bow out of the water to the front of their keel!  It was quite a sight and they surged past us.  They were on the edge of control and we saw them lose control a few times.  We are a bigger, heavier boat and never got out of control.  We debated raising the spinnaker as the wind was lightening up as we got to the gate.  Our foredeck team decided they did not have the energy for it, though we did raise it pretty much as we crossed the finish line!  We ended up flying it for over an hour on the way home.  The beautiful sail home was a nice respite from the challenging conditions on the race course!  We were all exhausted and the idea of whipping up the chicken enchiladas from the canned chicken did not appeal at all!  We went up to the yacht club (Coyote Point) and caught the tail end of the spaghetti feed they had put on for the BAMA open boat event and the Peninsula Yacht Club Cruise in.  We did make the enchiladas the next day and the canned chicken was just fine!


This past Saturday we had a work day on the boat to work on our Pac Cup prep.  Matt and Scott went through the whole electrical system and plugged data into our electrical budget.  Matt had never understood why I unplug chargers when they are not charging, don't like to leave the computer on standby, etc.  He finally got it when he saw how much juice things were drawing just from being plugged in, not even turned on--particularly when we turned on the inverter and turned on the power to the port side outlets where the TV is powered.  He couldn't believe the juice it was drawing on standby.  Suddenly the whole "vampire appliance" thing made sense to him!


I finally got the shelf support mounted in the reefer.  We had it made (at Tap Plastics) last November!  It is going to make it a LOT easier to organize things in there.  We got a couple of other little odds and ends done and will spend the weekend of the 15th and 16th on the finishing touches before the inspection on the 22nd.  This Saturday is the Farallones race.  I hope the conditions will be a bit more benign than they were for the Duxship!  The Farallones race last year was very calm.