Early morning watch from Al

While the rubber duck was up getting the latest weather gribs via the radio, I was talking with Graeme about how nice his children's artwork was and I was finally aware of how sophisticated Savai's drawing was.  I totally missed the significance of Tokuku's silver gray and rainbow wings.  It's the heavy air kites dummy, Doh!  We haven't seen any dolphins or whales lately but the probabilities should increase as we approach the islands a little closer.  Talia and Savai, we need your help with any fishing suggestions you have.  We seem totally inept.  What do you think the best colors are for catching a Mahi.  We have blue and white, red and white with feathers, green with some red and yellow tassels, grey white with silver specks or our homemade candy wrapper and red rag lures.  What should we use the most do you think?  Also, please remind your mom to bring another pair of shorts for your Dad along with two rolls of weather fax paper which should be in the garage (good luck with that search).  Ducky

Day 8 Evening from Al

Things have settled down a bit.  We are back to chasing Lightspeed ( 3mi ahead )with the 1.5 oz kite, 730 miles to go, winds ENE 15-25 with gusts to 30, but not 35 thank you very much.  Eli fixed Awesome Tuna Deluxe wraps for dinner.  Graeme made Tabouli and hummous wraps for lunch.  Crew and skipper are all well after this mornings adventure.  Lots of time spent cleaning, drying, and straightening up aboard Kotuku.  Hoping for an uneventful restful evening, Al

The Price of Speed

Quick update to Al's last email.  Last night we were very conservative with our sailing, changing down from the kite to the poled out jib.  This morning as Al mentioned, we were rocking out to Led Zeppelin and the Presidents (Little Blue Dune Buggy) and absolutely flying.  One of those "moments we all live for".  Unfortunately the wind continued to build and with yours truly at the helm (absolutely ripping it, by the way) we got caught sideways and ended up damaging our spinnaker pole.  This slowed us down a bit, in case you noticed that on the tracker.  We switched to our other pole and waited for the wind to die down to a more normal 15-20 knots and then set the kite again.  Wind is lighter now, so I expect that our boatspeed will be a little down.  We also put a governor on the speedometer, because when one is leading the race one should not take unnecessary risks.  I expect this will mean that the Bats have locked down the top speed for the trip--19.6 knots.  Go Bats!  G BTW we think we have video of the aforementioned incident  Al

Day 8 Morning from Al

Right now (0830) Alex and Nick are driving in a downpour with 33 knots with the S4 and a PORT pole (yes our first jibe) pointed at the finish line doing 9-12 knots boatspeed with Led Zeppelin cranked on the stereo and Emily cooking oatmeal for breakfast.  Life is good once again! Crew morale took a little sag when we decided to go to the poled out jib late last night.  I believe it was the right thing to do even though Lightspeed passed us back again.  We are just going to have to chase them down again.  I think Kotuku and crew is up to the task.   Thanks for all the comments, Al

Day 7 Evening from Al

After all the celebrating this morning it looks like another wild ride tonight, winds are shifty and gusting up to 35 knots, way different than forecast.  We are flying the S4 right now, but the call was just made to drop it and go wing on wing with the heavy one jib.  We will wait and see what the wind does later this morning.  Sorry for the late posting, I will send an update in the morning, Al A note from Janna: Sorry for the confusion with Day 7 post titles. I mistook all the halfway merriment for an official update, and Al's email didn't come through till after my bedtime (which is actually pretty late these days). Also, sorry about double posts, poor formatting, etc. Mobile technology is amazing...just not perfect. (Then again maybe it's that wine I'm drinking until that late bedtime. :)

Halfway, baby! from Graeme

Wow, what a day.  Spent the night doing terrifying drops off of large waves in the pitch blackness of a cloudy, squally night with winds 25-35 knots.  Definitely some hero driving, Alex being the real hero of the day.  He put together three straight hours of surfs, cliff jumps, and non-stop acts of boat preservation.  Al and I got the rest of it done until it got light, but the whole crew battled the night through trimming and grinding frantically just to keep the boat from rounding up or rolling down as we flew through the darkness.  We were exhausted by the time the sun finally showed up.  But we were past the halfway point, and still in first place.  Matt then served up smoked salmon benedict and we opened the half way boxes.  A civilized ending to an otherwise brutal night. And what fun were they!  We played the wonderful CD prepared by Talia and Savai (and sung beautifully, it brought a tear to my eye!)  We fired off the poppers and the Canadian breath spray.  We admired the bacon salt, hung the aloha sign, the Hafway Kotuku picture with the smiling sun, and the Coconut air freshener in the head.  Then we ate the smoked herring, read our mail (Emily isn't sure what to do about the utility bill!) and generally had a great party which I later bragged about on the radio to the fleet during the evening check-in.  The image of Emily driving with the white boa streaming behind her in 25 knots of breeze will stick with me awhile.  Thank you so much friends and family for all the thoughtful gifts!  Not sure what do do with the reindeer, but we taped it to the steering pedestal with the Smile bracelet around its neck.  On Dasher, to Kaneohe!  

Halfway, baby! From Graeme

Wow, what a day.  Spent the night doing terrifying drops off of large waves in the pitch blackness of a cloudy, squally night with winds 25-35 knots.  Definitely some hero driving, Alex being the real hero of the day.  He put together three straight hours of surfs, cliff jumps, and non-stop acts of boat preservation.  Al and I got the rest of it done until it got light, but the whole crew battled the night through trimming and grinding frantically just to keep the boat from rounding up or rolling down as we flew through the darkness.  We were exhausted by the time the sun finally showed up.  But we were past the halfway point, and still in first place.  Matt then served up smoked salmon benedict and we opened the half way boxes.  A civilized ending to an otherwise brutal night. And what fun were they!  We played the wonderful CD prepared by Talia and Savai (and sung beautifully, it brought a tear to my eye!)  We fired off the poppers and the Canadian breath spray.  We admired the bacon salt, hung the aloha sign, the Hafway Kotuku picture with the smiling sun, and the Coconut air freshener in the head.  Then we ate the smoked herring, read our mail (Emily isn't sure what to do about the utility bill!) and generally had a great party which I later bragged about on the radio to the fleet during the evening check-in.  The image of Emily driving with the white boa streaming behind her in 25 knots of breeze will stick with me awhile.  Thank you so much friends and family for all the thoughtful gifts!  Not sure what do do with the reindeer, but we taped it to the steering pedestal with the Smile bracelet around its neck.  On Dasher, to Kaneohe!