Transpac 2019 | Part 1 – The Journey to Transpac

Part 1 - The Journey to Transpac

Part 2 - Preparing the Boat and Crew

Part 3 - The Race

Part 4 - Winning Transpac

We are all about adventures. In the world of sailboat racing, participating in a Transpac (Trans Pacific) yacht race from Long Beach, CA to Oahu, Hawaii is one of the ultimate adventures. The bi-annual race covers 2260 miles of distance and attracts the biggest boats and most accomplished sailors from around the world. In March we entered our J/125 Hamachi into the 2019 Transpac, which is the 50th edition of this classic race. 

Our Transpac campaign is the latest destination on a long sailing voyage that began in 2012. In 2011, during a rough patch in our family business, we seriously considered selling it all and sailing to far off destinations with the family. I grew up around water in Seattle and learned to sail on a dinghy skiff during summers in the San Juan Islands. In highschool and college I commercial fished on a small boat in Alaska and after college spent three months crewing on a 120 ft schooner in Long Island Sound. However, neither I nor the family had spent any time on a larger keelboat.  During fishing outings in the San Juan Islands my good friend Shawn and I discussed my desire to buy a sailboat and head out. These conversations lead to each of us becoming one third share owners in a local J/36, which seemed like a good way to explore sailing with the family. This J/36, named Monkeybones, was owned by Shawn’s neighbor and had been in the PNW for 5-6 years. The owner occasionally raced at the Elliott Bay Downtown Sailing Series and was trying to sell the boat. We came in as part owners and breathed new life into the boat, and the program. 

The boat itself was pretty tired. It was shipped up from Houston and had clearly suffered at the hands of a hurricane (or two). The J/36 has a “woody” interior and the cabin had water damage clearly indicating it had been flooded at one point. The engine was recently replaced, but the boat had no working instruments, needed new electrical, and had a meager sail inventory. Our very first local race was the 2012 Race to the Straits, which is a double handed race. I had never been in a sailboat race before, nor ever set a spinnaker. Luckily Shawn spent several of his formative years racing sailboats and even did a delivery back from Hawaii to Seattle. As a result, he drove and I did everything else. The boat had no working instruments so we relied on the wind index for trimming. In hindsight we probably shouldn’t have started with a double handed race, but that also defines our attitude towards life” “go big or go home”. We finished bottom third and discovered we both loved the adventure of sailboat racing. 

Monkeybones was a great boat to learn with. We made A LOT of mistakes, but we learned from them and got better each race.

The J/36 was one of the first large keelboats made by brothers Rod and Bob Johnstone. Around 55 J/36’s were produced during 1981-1984 and they quickly discovered that the boat was too expensive to produce.  As a result they kept the same hull mold and modified the rig (fractional to masthead) and steering (wheel to tiller) and renamed it the J/35, which went on to be one of the best selling racer / cruiser sailboats of its era. For Shawn and I, the J/36 was a great learning platform. It had a PHRF rating of 81, which meant we had the same rating as Dos, Different Drummer, and (the original) Absolutely. We chased those boats around the course for years, frustrated that we couldn’t catch them. Only now do we appreciated that those are the best boats in the fleet.  I’m sure our early sailing forays were comical to the rest of the fleet, but it was the best way to get a crash course on all aspects of sailboats and racing and sailing head to head with those top boats made us better sailors. Each year we expanded the number of races as well as participated in bigger and bigger events. 

Monkeybones ahead of the 2015 Round the County race

By 2015 Monkeybones was a regular on the race course and even competitive. Shawn and I had built a crew and settled into our usual roles – he drove and I ran the boat. The highlights of every season were the double handed races: the STYC’s Race to the Straits and the AYC’s Northern Century. As the deck guy these were exhilarating but exhausting events and I began to talk about buying a new boat that would be easier to double hand. I was tired of the heavy spinnaker pole and sometimes dicey double handed spinnaker jibes. “Let’s get a sprit boat,” I would say, “and while we are at it let’s get one that planes.” 

By 2016 we were starting to look around and do serious window shopping. We had also concluded that Shawn and I love racing, and the family does indeed enjoy cruising, but they prefer catamarans in warm tropical waters.  As a result our focus was to find a true racing boat that met our simple design requirements and also allowed us to do bigger sailing adventures. Everyone in the PNW knows Paul Bieker’s Riptide 35 Terremoto and I started investigating what it would take to buy a Bieker boat. We made a run at Terremoto’s sister ship Ripple, which is languishing in Long Beach, but got the same response from the owner as everyone else: “not selling”. We started looking at other J/boats and got interested in the J/125.

Most J/boats are dual purpose racer / cruisers. In the late 1990’s J/boats developed the J/125 as a true racer. It was built entirely of carbon composite with a long narrow “canoe hull” designed to punch through offshore waves. It had a long carbon sprit and a short powerful rig. The boat was many year ahead of its time technologically and an excellent performer. However, it was too expensive for the racer/cruiser J/boat community and true racers looked down their noses at J/boats (it was like buying a sports car from Volkswagen). As a result it was a commercial disaster and only 16 were produced. Since the end of production their value and reputation has steadily increased and they rarely came on the market. In the summer of 2016 we watched Double Trouble, which was a very accomplished Bay Area J/125, go on the market and get sold. Several months later Greg Slyngstad put the local J/125 Hamachi on the market. 

In many ways, we had no business jumping into a program like Hamachi. Greg is a very accomplished businessman who built Hamachi into a world class racing program. He won his class in the 2014 PacCup and 2015 Transpac with a crew of professionals that included local legends Jonathan McKee, Fritz Lanzinger and others. He invested heavily in Hamachi to make it the best boat in its fleet complete with the infrastructure to campaign it all around the Northern Hemisphere. In 2016 he was just launching Fujin, the now famous Bieker 53 ft catamaran, and was turning his sailing focus to that program. 

We completed the purchase of Hamachi three days before the 2016 Round the County Race. We had no experience with the boat, but sailed the boat north anyway and a day later found ourselves on the start line off Lydia shoal in 30-35 kts of wind. We were no longer in the middle PHRF fleet, but instead in the top ORC fleet screaming alongside the TP52s. It was like going from a family sedan to a Ferrari. Shawn and I looked at each other with nervous grins – “go big or go home!” Luckily one J/boat isn’t too different from another and we survived that race and didn’t break anything. 

Hamachi on Day 1 of the 2016 Round the County Race – our second day ever sailing the boat.

Over the next two years we learned the boat and how to sail it, and continued to expand our program and crew. In 2017 we committed to all of the local races and set out on our next adventure: the VanIsle 360, which is a two week 600 mile race around Vancouver Island. We were on a very steep learning curve. The J/125 was built as an offshore race boat and optimized for fast downwind sailing. Unfortunately that is a rare occurrence around Puget Sound so we have spent the vast majority of our time honing our upwind and light air skills. We finally got opportunities to “send it” down the race course on Legs 5 and 8 of the VanIsle 360. Leg 5 was a white knuckled downwind blast in a gale from Telegraph Cove to Port Hudson. Hamachi nearly beat the committee boat to the finish line and set a new course record of 2.5 hours, breaking Icon’s old record by almost two hours. We then got the offshore sleigh ride the boat was designed for from Ucluelet to Victoria.  It was after that race that Shawn and I started seriously discussing a race to Hawaii.

The race that made us want to sail to Hawaii – let’s do more of this!

Knowing that we needed more experience we discussed entering the Newport to Puerto Vallarta race in 2018. Life events conspired to make that impossible. Instead we have a friend who runs a successful J/109 program in Chicago and wound up crewing on Callisto for the 115th race from Chicago to Mackinac Island (Chicago Mac). The race is 330 miles across the length of Lake Michigan and is the largest “offshore” race in America, with over 300 boats participating. The lake has a reputation for nasty weather and the 115th edition delivered. A weather front made it a three day upwind slog in heavy weather with sketchy conditions at the start that unfortunately claimed one sailor’s life. It was great training on boat safety, navigation and establishing a high misery index.

As 2018 drew to a close we began to get serious about Transpac. Timing wasn’t great for either of us, but it was the 50th edition with the largest fleet in race history and what appeared to be the largest gathering of J/125’s in any race to date. We finally committed by submitting our application in the last hour to avoid the higher late entry penalties. And thus began a very rushed campaign to assemble our boat and crew.

VanIsle 360 Recap

What an epic event.  This was our first VanIsle 360, and we did it because it has been described as an amazing race and adventure.  It delivered in full and Team Hamachi is a convert – we will do this again.  We’ve been told that Jonathan McKee, a world renowned sailor who has done nearly every event, described the VanIsle 360 as one of the hardest and most amazing races he’s ever done. 

For the 2017 edition we put together a game plan without really knowing what we had signed up for.  We rented a 25 ft RV and hooked up a gear trailer.  We didn’t know what to bring, so we brought everything.  We recruited Wayne Palmer, the father of a fraternity brother, to drive it around the island.  We didn’t have great maps, the routes were sketchy, and communications were limited.  But somehow it all came together for an amazing two week adventure.  There are far too many stories to share here, and we have endless pictures, many of which are on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/sailhamachi/.

With any team event, it comes down to the people, and we had a great team.  Team Hamachi had two people: Shawn and Alyosha, who did all nine legs.  Jason did the first eight, then had to fly back to Seattle because he was hosting his parent’s 50^th wedding anniversary.  Steve Bronson, who originally signed up for just two legs, got so into the event that he sailed the first six legs.  Max and Mike sailed the first five legs, while Lucas sailed the first four.  Pete Wagner arrived in Port Hardy and raced the last four legs.  Joshua Weinstein jumped on in Port Hardy for Leg 6 around to Winter Harbor.  John Hogan jumped on in Victoria for the final Leg 9 to Nanaimo.  As with any adventure, nothing goes as planned.  One of the competitors in ORC1, a J/111 named 65 Red Roses, lost their rudder in a gale during Leg 5 to Port Hardy.  Two of their crew: Maddy and Nicole, jumped on with Team Hamachi and sailed the last four legs and were a huge addition.  Finally, holding down the fort, was Road Boss Wayne who circumnavigated Vancouver Island in our land yacht. Here's a shot of Team Hamachi at the start in Nanaimo, and celebrating our Leg 7 victory in Ucluelet.

There were 32 boats that started the 2017 edition of the VanIsle 360 and 30 finished.  Hamachi was the fastest boat in ORC1, which had a total of nine boats.  The race committee used a “time on time” scoring system that adjusted everyone’s finish time in our Division based on Hamachi’s time.  If you look at the results, we always get the same time we finished with, and other boats are adjusted up and down based on the conditions and their rating.  We, and everyone else, struggled with the rating system, never sure how the final results were tallied.  Hamachi is a downwind boat, and this was a mostly upwind race, with 7 of the 9 legs being to weather.  We did get two great sleigh rides downwind: Leg 5 and Leg 8.  Despite playing to our weakness, Hamachi was able to finish 2^nd overall in our Division.  We took Division line honors on Legs 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9.  We took VanIsle fleet line honors on Legs 5 and 9.  We had an amazing VanIsle and, given the wind conditions and rating system, it’s not clear that we could have beaten Joy Ride in any scenario.  The final results are below:

 

Here's a recap of each leg:

Leg 1: Nanaimo to Comox

Distance: 37.4 nm

Crew: Jason, Shawn, Max, Mike, Lucas, Steve, Alyosha

Summary:  Hamachi started slow and it took us the first half of the race to get dialed in.  We learned quickly who had done this race previously, as they always seemed to be in the right place on the course.  We started in front of the committee vehicle, only to have the wind fill in first on the other side of the line.  We quickly caught up but had a lot of traffic to maneuver through.  The wind was 6-8 kts and built to 12 kts, and we got overpowered with the LtMed J1.  We learned over the course of the next two weeks that we need to shift up to the Heavy J1 between 8-10 kts.  But because it was still early and we hadn’t fully learned that lesson, we struggled against the fleet and then got caught on the left side in a wind hole.  This first appeared to be to our benefit, but the veterans knew to stay right and sail across the channel to Lasqueti Island and then tack back.  After a terrible first half, we got into a groove and reeled a lot of boats back in.  We worked the wind shifts to the end and finished below the beautiful lighthouse on the south end of Denman Island.  We then had a 2 hour cruise into Comox, and we didn’t have enough alcohol on board.  That became a common theme...

Working through the ORC1 fleet off Lasqueti Island

On corrected time we finished 7^th out of 9 boats due to our poor start and rating.  We arrived late in Comox and found that most people were camping in the marina parking lot, not at the RV park 15 minutes away.  We decided to change our plans, collected our gear trailer, and set up in the parking lot near the fleet.  We quickly found that each day was an adventure and each night a party.  Sleep was hard to come by but the memories will last forever.

Leg 2: Comox to Campbell River

Distance: 27.6 nm

Crew: Jason, Shawn, Max, Mike, Lucas, Steve, Alyosha

Summary: Another beautiful day on the Salish Sea.  We started outside the Comox harbor and raced around Point Lazo and up to Campbell River, where the waters narrow and the currents build.  It was beautiful blue skies and the wind was 5-9 kts from the north.  We were told that the current switched at 3pm, and if we weren’t across the line, then we might not finish.  

  

 Comox Harbor

Beautiful location for a race.... Race Committee boat and Jack Rabbit

We had a mediocre start but again sailed quickly through the fleet.  We switched between our LtMed J1 and Heavy J1 and tried to find the shifts.  We held even with our fleet and were in the lead group of boats as we approached Campbell River around 2pm, and then the wind shut off.  We drifted about and then the current started to flip, and suddenly we were going backwards.  The veteran slower boats made for the shore and current relief, while the leaders (us included) spun in the eddies.  We were able to work our drifter and A1.5 to guide the boat into shore, and then put up our LtMed J1 and worked the back eddies towards the finish.  By this time there was a swarm of 8 forty footers tacking between the shore (literally) and the raging current (5-6 kts).  This lane was initially several hundred yards wide but narrowed to around 60 feet wide near the finish.  Team Hamachi threw in around 20 tacks over the course of 45 minutes in extremely tight quarters to maneuver through all of these boats.  100 yards from the finish we were in 20 feet of water until we weren’t, and hit a rock spire with our keel.  We bounced over it and kept going to finish in front of all these boats.  We motored into port and took fifth in our fleet on corrected time.  We spent the night in the Thunderbird RV park near our new road crew friends from 65 Red Roses.

Leg 3: Campbell River to Hardwicke Island

Distance: 24.2 nm

Crew: Jason, Shawn, Max, Mike, Lucas, Steve, Alyosha

Summary:  We were up super early because we had to motor 10 nm to Deepwater Bay, the start of the race, which was on the other side of the Seymore Narrows.  We were off the dock at 6:30 and it was a beautiful morning cruise. Jason was doing work in the bow on the satellite phone while the crew was trying to get ready for the race and he kept having them turn the boat downwind (to avoid the wind noise) so he could conclude a deal.  The race started at 9am and the wind was building fast into the 17-20 kts range.  We started with full main and J3 but got boxed out at the start, and then wrapped our jib around the forestay.  By the time we cleared everything, we were the very last boat to start, but quickly powered up the left side of the course.  We worked through the fleet and rode the massive ebb tide down the fjords.  The stiff wind stacked up the counterflowing current into steep waves and it was a very rough ride.  We rode the veins of current and finished near the front of our fleet as the fourth boat across the line.  Somehow we corrected out to 7^th, which is odd given the strong upwind conditions.  

That night we all rafted up to the salmon farm off Hardwicke Island and spent the evening walking the docs and getting to know the other crews.  We had planned ahead on food and alcohol, but our 17 year old bowman and weight nazi decided at the last minute that the half gallon of gin was too heavy, so he left it in the gear trailer.  We ended up “borrowing” bottles from our competitimates that we would pay back later.  The fish hatchery itself was a wild operation in a beautiful location.  It consisted of 10 pens, each holding 75,000 fish.  The feed tubes are running 24/7 to bulk the fish up.  It was an interesting lesson in industrial farming and re-emphasizes the idea of eating wild salmon.

Leg 4: Hardwicke Island to Telegraph Cove

Distance: 41.0 nm

Crew: Jason, Shawn, Max, Mike, Lucas, Steve, Alyosha

Summary:  It started off sunny, but we were heading into cloudy conditions.  This was the longest leg to date and it had the complicating factor that Jason and Lucas had to meet a Kenmore Air seaplane in Telegraph cove by 4:15 pm.  This meant we had to average a VMG of 6 kts over the entire course, which is nearly impossible.  However, we had favorable current.  To cover any contingencies, Jason chartered a fishing boat to come get them off in the event we came up short.  It was an added complication to a long leg.

The wind was again forecast to blow down the Johnstone Strait and into the fjords.  We started with full main and J3 and had a great start mid-line and were the first to reach the river of ebb tide.  This allowed us to lift up around the fleet and were quickly near the front.  The wind backed down into the 12-14 range and we peeled to the J2, which worked until the wind cranked back up to 15-20 kts.  But this occurred as we were riding a massive river of current (5-6 kts) which had us feeling more like white water rafters instead of sailors.  We had to clear the white water before we could peel back to the J3.  We searched for some current on the right side of the course, and missed a shift left, so we gave up a lot of hard fought ground.  We settled in to a long day of upwind but beautiful sailing, and we had the added excitement of sailing with two of the lead boats from Race to Alaska (R2AK).  Interestingly, Hamachi was faster, which made us start thinking of future adventures…

White Water Rafting...

 Commercial traffic on Johnstone Strait

Racing with the R2AK boys (and girls)...

The wind slowly backed off and we shifted down to our J1 Heavy, and then eventually the J1 LtMed.  We were locked into tacking duels at the front of the ORC1 fleet with Constellation, White Cloud, Jack Rabbit and Occam’s Razor.  10 miles from the finish we got out of phase with them and initially lost ground, but then found a great shift / lift on the right side of the fjord while everyone else was left and sailed up and over them.  Now leading we approached a wind hole 7 miles from the finish and the fleet split again.  Everyone first went right and we then saw a wind line on the left shore, and pivoted back.  White Cloud followed us and it turned out to be the defining move, as we were able to catch it first and lead everyone to the finish.  We took ORC1 line honors, but corrected out to 4^th place.  At this point we had pretty much given up on ORC scoring – we didn’t see how a bunch of boats with the same waterline length were really different in 8-12 kts of wind.

Amazingly we crossed the line around 4:00 pm so the fishing charter came alongside immediately and Jason and Lucas jumped off.  The charter ran them into port while the rest of the crew broke down the boat, and then ran them out to meet the Cessna 180 circling overhead.  Lucas headed home, while Jason went back to Seattle for a morning investor meeting, and then returned the following afternoon via another plane.  The crew spent the next 24 hours in Telegraph Cove exploring the cool little community, and working on boat and gear repairs.  This was the first break in the sailing and it was much needed time to get organized.

Leg 5: Telegraph Cove to Port Hardy

Distance: 28.7 nm

Crew: Jason, Shawn, Max, Mike, Steve, Alyosha

Summary:  A strong low pressure had been moving up the coast offshore and it's right hand punch turned the northwesterly into a southeasterly, with the forecast for a nuking downwind for Leg 5.  Mother nature delivered and it was gale conditions blowing 25-35 kts at the start.

Hamachi heading out to race in a gale.

Hamachi and fleet at the start (we are racing at this point)

We put on our offshore main with two reefs (although we only rigged one) and set out with a reefed main and J4.  Smoke (TP/52) had a full main up, which they split two minutes before the start.  This was the heaviest downwind sailing we’d done so we played in conservative.  The fleet had to maneuver between several islands and very narrow channels (some less than 100 yards wide) and we were worried about our ability to navigate the hazards with too much sail area up.  We started conservatively mid line and watched Joy Ride put up their A4, and then wipe out.  We went right, then jibed back left to clear the fleet, then jibed again to set up our line through the channels and islands and set our A3.  The boat immediately powered up to 17-19 kts and we were flying.  The team did a great job and we had many jibes.  The fleet quickly disappeared and we eventually worked our way out into Queen Charlotte Sound where the waves built.  During one of these times we got stuck in a wave trough and the A3 started flapping, and the batten on the J4 poked a hole that split the spinnaker near the top.  However, it seemed to hold mostly together and we were doing 15 kts so we kept it up for another 7nm.  Once we had to jibe to lay the finish we took it down and sailed into Port Hardy under reefed main and J4, and then pulled the reef once the wind backed off in the harbor.  We were the first boat across the line for the entire VanIsle fleet.  We covered the 29 nm leg in 2.5 hours setting a new course record, which was previously held by Icon at just over 4 hours.  Despite this epic performance, Joy Ride somehow corrected out over us to take 1st in ORC1.  

Video clip of our sleigh ride to Port Hardy

It took a while to secure the boat(s) because the initial moorage was getting hammered by the wind.  We eventually found refuge in the primary marina and retired to the Pub at the top of the dock to celebrate Max’s 30^th birthday.  There was lots of chatter on the VHF and we heard about gear failures across the fleet.  We later learned about 65 Red Roses losing their rudder, while other boats broke spreaders, sails, pulpits, etc.  While unfortunately for Red Roses, we ended up securing two new crew members for the rest of the race: Maddy and Nicole.

Leg 6: Port Hardy to Winter Harbor

Distance: 69.1 nm

Crew: Jason, Shawn, Nicole, Maddy, Steve, Pete, Alyosha, Joshua

Summary:  This is the leg where you sail out over the top of Vancouver Island and into the Pacific Ocean.  The winds were light for the start and it was a very slow – meaning long – leg.  The morning consisted of alternating between drifting and upwind in 5-6 kts.  Porpoises swam alongside as we worked past Bull Island and into the Pacific Ocean.  By early afternoon the wind was steady at 4-6 kts which allowed us to round Cape Scott by 9pm.  We set the spinnaker, but it was only marginally effective in the light breeze and large rolling ocean swell.  We had a beautiful sunset and jibed down the west Vancouver Island coast.  

Hamachi with Cape Scott in background 

White Cloud hidden by the swell of the Pacific Ocean

It was difficult sailing initially in the dark and rolling seas and seasickness was a challenge for a few.  We struck the spinnaker and put up the drifter as the wind shifted, faded, and shifted again.  We were behind the usual suspects of Jack Rabbit, White Cloud and Occam’s Razor, but caught them on the graveyard watch around 2 am.  It was a long day and cold night on the water.  By 4 am the light returned and we found ourselves a few miles from the finish chasing White Cloud.  We crossed the line 2^nd in our Division and finished in the same spot based on corrected time.  The team had only a few cold hours of sleep so we came into Winter Harbor where Wayne was waiting for us and, as you would expect, had cocktails and a breakfast comprised of chili.  We all crashed for a few hours while Steve and Joshua took a cab back to Port Hardy for a flight home.  We spent the rest of the day cleaning the boat and devising a better watch system, which would prove very valuable for the next leg.

Leg 7: Winter Harbor to Ucluelet

Distance: 138.1 nm

Crew: Jason, Shawn, Nicole, Maddy, Steve, Pete, Alyosha

Summary:  Leg 7 is the longest and most dangerous leg of the race down the outside of Vancouver Island and around the Brooks Peninsula.  We were dreaming of a downwind sleigh ride, which is often the case this time of year.  Unfortunately, another low pressure was rolling up the coast and gale conditions (30-45 kts) were forecast and the fleet was going to take it on the nose.  We were not looking forward to this and considered not racing.  However, by morning the forecast was down from 35 kts to 25 kts so we headed out with all of the other boats.  

Leaving Winter Harbor with the rugged West Vancouver Island shoreline before the wind built

The winds were supposed to be stronger offshore, and initially we all started under spinnaker as the wind was flowing out of the fjords and out to sea. However, we all quickly hit the transition zone and flopped about for a few minutes until the ocean breeze took hold, and then built.  Pretty quickly we were sailing into 25-30 kts with steep wind waves on top of steep swells.  We reefed the offshore main and continued with the J3.  We were taking water over the boat and Jason went below to find we had 60 gallons sloshing about, coming in from every available crack.  While the team pounded upwind (and it was POUNDING) Jason bailed.  After several hours the wind started to back off and we found that Hamachi rode along beautifully under reefed main and J3 in the rough conditions.  During the pounding we lost our mast head VHF antenna so plugged in the backup antenna and contacted the fleet to let the Coast Guard know.  At the time we were sailing alongside White Cloud, and their request is that we stick with them.  The thing was, we were passing them and sailing faster with our reduced sail area.  We all sailed into a rain squall and we lost sight of everyone, so we continued on with limited comms and no visibility.  After sailing in a straight line for 40 nm we put the blinkers on and made a left hand turn, and sailed another 30 nm, before taking right and then left one more time.  We sailed for about 12 hours without seeing anyone, and not knowing where anyone else was.  We had pre-planned to break our six person crew into three two person watches, and set up a watch system that started at 4pm.  This worked well as it was very cold and wet.  We kept Hamachi trucking all day and all night with this system, and made a lot of hot drinks.  Seasickness was still a challenge for a few and “puke and rally” became the theme and I have to give a lot of credit to those who did!  By 9 am the next morning the wind backed down and the fog lifted and suddenly we could see our competition again.  It was amazing to see we were leading everyone!  We organized the boat after 24 hours of being in a washing machine and inspected things, only to find that we still had our VHF antenna (no one could see it the previous day in the crazy conditions).  The wind started shifting and suddenly we could set our A1.5 in 5 kts of building wind.  This allowed Hamachi to sail away from everyone and we were able to gain a few miles on our competition, which we protected until we finished around 5:30 pm, which was over 32 hours of sailing.  Hamachi took Division line honors and correct out in first place ahead of White Cloud by 21 seconds!!

Leg 8: Ucluelet to Victoria

Distance: 98.2 nm

Crew: Jason, Shawn, Nicole, Maddy, Steve, Pete, Alyosha

Summary:  After the low pressures passed, the high FINALLY settled in (wishing it had done it 4 days earlier!) and the northerly was projected to blow us the whole way to Victoria in 20-25 kts.  It was a beautiful day and the fleet was happy to be on the water.  Our goal was to keep in contact with Smoke, so we put up as much sail area as we had and went with full main, big staysail and A4.  We were flying for the first few hours, and then the wind backed down.  It was a beautiful day but suddenly 10-12 kts of boat speed seemed so slow…  The humpback whales were playing at the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and gave us a great show.  We sailed past Cape Flattery on the US side, and then hugged the Canadian shore up the straight to catch the building afternoon thermal breeze.  We powered up the final part of the Strait in 17-20 kts of wind and 12-14 kts of boat speed.  We sailed through race rocks and jibed a few times into the finish around 8:55 pm.

Video of our sleigh ride to Victoria

Leg 9: Victoria to Nanaimo

Distance: 59.9 nm

Crew: Shawn, Nicole, Maddy, Steve, Pete, Alyosha, John

Summary:  It was a brilliant day for the final leg of the VanIsle 360.  Hamachi had a very slow start and had to work through the fleet, which it did quickly, and then lead the drag race through the Gulf Islands up to Nanaimo.  Smoke and Westerly (who did only this leg) got stuck in a wind hole between Sydney and San Juan Islands and Team Hamachi lead a group of boats up the inside, and the fleet followed.  As a result, Hamachi was the lead boat for about 50 of the 60 nm of the race.  There were adventures drifting through Active Pass amongst the commercial traffic and the constant effort to stay in front of the fleet.  The wind was 6-11 kts and on the lighter side near the finish.  Hamachi was able to hold everyone off except Westerly and was the second boat across the line, but taking line honors with the core VanIsle fleet.  Hamachi finished at 12:20 am and then partied at the dock with everyone until 3:30 am.  The crew dispersed and then Shawn and Pete motored the boat all the way back to Seattle with a brief stop in Roche Harbor, eventually arriving in Seattle at 5:30 am on Sunday (the next morning).  In parallel Wayne guided our land yacht home via Anacortes and then Seattle.  It took most of Sunday to process the mounds of wet and dirty gear, but it was also a great time to reflect.  It was an epic VanIsle 360!

Swiftsure 2017

There are beautiful weekends in the Pacific Northwest, and then there are epic amazing weekends.  Swiftsure 2017 fell on one of those epic amazing weekends with clear blue skies and low to mid 80 deg temps.  Team Hamachi comprised of Shawn, Jason, Chris, Max, Mike, Pete and Alyosha.  The eight of us, our limit under our current ORC rating, set out Saturday morning to compete on the Hein Bank ORC course.  The 118 nm course left Victoria BC and boats sailed west to Neah Bay near the entrance to the Pacific Ocean, and then returned back east passing Victoria to a buoy near Hein Bank, then a quick 10 nm beat home to Victoria inner harbor and the finish line.  The Hein Bank ORC fleet was comprised of all the fast boats including the big sleds (three TP52s, R/P 55, SC 70).  Hamachi was one of the faster boats in Class 2.

Hamachi in Victoria Inner Harbor

For Swiftsure 2017 there were 175 boats on the line competing on four different courses.  The first fleet was off at 9:00 and the Hein Bank ORC fleet of 16 boats started near the back at 9:30.  Hamachi had a conservative start which left us dealing with lots of traffic and bad air.  The wind was light (4-6 kts) out of the S/SE and the current ebbing, so we started on port tack and pushed south with the tide carrying us down the course.  We found the left edge of the fleet and traded tacks with Occam’s Razor (Farr 40) and several other boats.  Due to our starting position we were near the back of the ORC fleet and had over 100 boats in front of us.  We kept our patience and stepped up and to the south, eventually finding a river of ebbing current on the left side before everyone else, except Smoke (TP52) which had done the same and was rapidly escaping to the S/SW.  This river gave us a 20 deg COG advantage and at least a 2kt SOG advantage and allowed us to drive right up and around the entire fleet.  We rapidly gained a half mile on many boats and a few (like Terremoto) tried to come out to join us.  We decided to tack to catch the conveyor running past Race Rocks, versus continuing on to the outside.  By Race Rocks we were nearing the front echelon of a dozen or so boats who were tacking back and forth to stay in the current and avoid the swirling back eddies on each side, which had trapped several boats.  On the other side of race rocks the wind started to fade and boats were left to guess at what to do next.  We saw Neptune’s Car push south across the Strait in the faint breeze while most of the sleds decided to press the north shore.  We chose to push south with Neptune and KineticV (TP52) and were able to hold some boat speed in 3-4 kts of wind.  Both Neptune and Kinetic tacked back in, presumably to cover their competition, while we continued on, since we were now at the head of our fleet.  It was light and we downshifted to the drifter enjoying our little bit of pressure and seeing more ripples ahead of us.  We eventually reached the ripples and set the A1.5 and continued to put the hammer down on the entire fleet as we chased the fleet leader Smoke ahead of us.  The tide was going to shift soon to a big flood and our goal was to reach across to the other side, making as much time as we could in the wind we had.  Further, we saw that a westerly was filling in from the mouth of the Strait and that we would have to pass through a transition zone from our SE.  

Race Tracker screen shot at 1pm - around our point of maximum separation from the fleet.

Team Hamachi enjoying our Saturday

Soon after our wind died and we struck the asym and switched back to the drifter.  We floated amongst the swells for 20 minutes until the westerly reached us and continued on with first our drifter, and then our Lt/Med #1.  We pressed S/SW as the wind built up to 5-6 kts making for the southern shore as the flood began in earnest.  We made landfall around Pillar Point where we were caught by the big sleds Westerly and Crossfire, as well as Dragonfly (unlimited 40 cat).  We all tacked up the southern shore as the wind continued to build.  We held our own until we made the mistake of tacking into Clallam Bay where the wind was light, and we missed a shift on the outside.  This cost us at least 15 minutes and dropped us back a half mile relative to our competition.  We pressed back out into the Strait where the wind was stronger and got into a tacking duel with Absolutely and Dark Star.  We were a little late shifting to our Heavy #1, but once we did we accelerated and put distance on those boats.  The wind built to 15 kts as we tacked up and rounded the Neah Bay mark at 8:50 pm.

 Alyosha taking a turn at the helm

Max and Shawn wish there were...right where they were....

Trading tacks with the big dogs at Pillar Point (4:15 pm) - Smoke on left, Crossfire center, Dragonfly on right.

We rounded Neah Bay first in class as well as first overall in ORC and hoped we could protect that lead downwind.  We set the A2.0 and stay sail, and headed back east.  We made for the north side of the course and had a nervous crossing as we maneuvered through lots of shipping lane traffic as darkness fell and the fog thickened.  The wind was backing off at that point and we sailed to Hein Bank in 9-13 kts, which was unfortunate as Hamachi really likes 17 kts plus to get up on a step.  This was our first night sailing on Hamachi so it took us a bit to get into a groove and we gave up some ground early but made up ground later.  It was a beautiful night and the watch crew enjoyed the northern lights around 1:30 am.  We unfortunately had to listen to Terremoto getting into trouble behind us around 3:30 am and there was nothing we could do – it’s never good to hear the DSC alarm go off in the middle of the night.  We passed Race Rocks on the outside around 4:00 am enjoying the last of the flood, and made for Hein Bank.  The sky was brightening behind Mt Baker as we rounded the eastern mark at 5:00 am and we pressed home as the seventh boat on our course.  

As we approached the finish at Victoria we saw from the race tracker that there was a huge wind hole that has swallowed the fleet leaders.  Smoke, who had lead everyone from the start, was stuck against the shore and had to watch helplessly as their competition, learning from their misfortune, sailed out and around them.  We stayed off the shore but struggled with our own fading wind conditions.  At Hein Bank we were pretty sure we were still winning ORC outright and knew that this compression would further consolidate this lead.  But now the tables had turned and the slower boats were sailing up behind us.  The tide had switched to an ebb and we didn’t want it to sweep us past the finish so we avoided going outside.  We struggled in using our drifter and a few puffs to make some headway.  We eventually created 1.5 kts of boat speed 500 yards from the finish and were on a good line to pass Westerly at the line, but then a big cruiser came out of the harbor and his wake killed all momentum.  We never recreated it and limped across the line to finish at 7:52 am.  A few puffs were filling in which allowed the other boats in ORC 2, ones that were 20-40 minutes behind us at Hein Bank, to finish 5-10 minutes behind us.

We tumbled a few spots down to finish 3^rd in Class and 4^th in ORC, which was still very respectable given the competition. After the finish, and our safety inspection, Hamachi made its way to the San Juans where it will stay for the next two weeks, and then off to VanIsle 360!!