We started with a #3 (small headsail), then went to the #1 (bigger headsail), then to the jib top, then took a reef in the main as we hit some low 20s, early this morning we shook the reef off and an hour ago we hoisted the spinnaker!!!  We are sailing a tight reach (200 degree Magnetic) in a steady 15 knot breeze, and doing 9 knots of boat speed.  The weather situation is quite tricky as the Pacific High is not yet in its regular summer pattern so we're going south to look for more wind.  Longer route to Hawaii but we hope it will pay off later.

We're all living and sleeping on one side of the boat to keep the weight on the high side (about 15 degrees of heel).  Everybody has found their rhythm and is adjusting to the motion of the boat.  Last night we had some cold pizza for dinner; it was more like eating the card box of the pizza as the toppings had fallen at the bottom of the bag.  Anyway, it hit the spot during my first night watch.

I had forgotten about some of the little pleasures of rinsing your teeth with saltwater ;-)  We haven't started our freeze dried food diet yet, that is for tomorrow.  Until then we have more cold sandwiches and cold pizza to eat... hmmm.    Showers will be for later, probably when it gets warmer and when the boat flattens out.  Life is good aboard, simple life but all we need after all.

We have a competitor (Tango) less than 2 miles on our starboard quarter and we can see another boat on our port side, much further south.  We'll find out who that is once we plot the coordinates of the boats from the 7:30am roll call.  Hopefully our transponder is working and you can follow our track more regularly.

Today I raised the French flag and played the French anthem, no fireworks though :-(  It was the fun moment of the day in these light air sailing conditions.

The sky has been overcast since yesterday evening.  It made for an interesting night sail with no stars and no moon for bearings.  It is sailing by the instruments and feel only...  Trying to process all those different numbers: bearing, boat speed, apparent wind, true wind speed, true wind direction to keep the boat moving fast in the right direction.

It is quite exhilarating to sail a boat fast in a pitch dark night.  We were high reaching with the shy kite in 20 knots of wind, trying to cut the corner a bit to sail less distance towards Hawaii.  Hard to tell if we cut it too close or not but today was a light air day (10 to 12 knots of wind) and we had to sail as low as possible to make sure we stay away from the High Pressure and its light air winds.

It is quite challenging sailing as the waves make the boat roll and try to collapse the spinnaker.  You make the best of what you have and hope your competitors, which you don't see, are in similar conditions.

We started the freeze dried food with Mexican rice and beef.  It was not too bad but I'm sure anything hot would have tasted good after those 2 days of cold pizza.  Tonight will be Turkey Stroganoff.  Sounds delicious...

Today was the first time we sailed the boat flat.  It makes life aboard a little easier, plus now we can start spreading on the boat to level the weight.  If the conditions remain the same during the night it will be perfect to get some sleep.  My night watches are from 10-12pm and from 4-6am.

Still a lot of racing to do before we get to Honolulu, HI...

It is midnight on Sunday July 15, just got off watch.  The sky is less overcast but it is still pretty dark out there.  Waiting for this moon to show up to help a bit with the driving.  We're continuing with our southerly option, hoping to catch stronger winds from the tropical storm below us which is moving NW towards Hawaii.  Inside us (north) it looks pretty bad for the next few days but most of the fleet made this move yesterday.  They must see something we don't.  We've had a steady 12-16 knots all day and have been able to move quite nicely.  The temperature at night is really pleasant.  You can be in short, bare foot, with a light jacket on top.

This afternoon we saw a boat dead astern from us.  It was quite a surprise to everybody as it is a big ocean.  We looked through the binoculars but we couldn't guess which boat it was.  They crossed our path as they were headed on a northern course.  Tomorrow when we log the boat positions we'll probably find out which one it was.

Recidivist (which by the way means 'repeat offender' - original name since the boat was built) is a custom 39 ft boat.  The inside is pretty simple.  Picture a dorm room with 6 guys living in it: 4 bunk beds, a navigation table, a motor, a sink with fresh and salt water, a camping stove, a head (toilet), and that's pretty much it.  Nothing extra.

As you can imagine it is quite interesting to try to sleep in a such environment.  Right now it's pretty pleasant, you hear the waves along the hull and not too much trimming is going on.  At times it is quite different.  For example, at 6 am I get off my second night watch.  Well, at 6:30am we turn on the engine for 1 hour to charge the batteries.  Then at 7:30am it is roll call to report our position and get the position of the other boats.  You could hear the winches getting cranked and the sheets being released.  Then sometimes you have the music going on.  You try to make abstraction of all those noises but it is quite difficult so you kind of sleep on and off.

At this morning roll call we were still at 1,800+ miles from Hawaii.  The race is 2,250 miles but since we're sailing way south to find wind we'll probably sail more like 2,500+ miles.  So far we're pretty pleased about our progress and our option but we'll have to wait another 3-4 days to know for sure.

Going to find a bunk to get some sleep... 

Today 2 big news:

1- We all took our first showers.  That means a bucket of cold salt water at the back of the boat.  Very refreshing!
2- The tropical storm we were monitoring and were trying to sail closer to for more wind has now been updated to a hurricane.  This afternoon we jibed onto port pole to go South for more wind but jibed back when we found out about it.  Right now the forecast shows that we'll cross path 3 days from now about 300 miles from the center.  Of course it is just a forecast and things will probably change.  We just hope the hurricane stays on its forecasted heading and doesn't bear further north.

More tomorrow...

The risk of hurricane is gone, it's been downgraded to a tropical storm.  We're going south again to look for more wind.  We're on a heading further south than Hawaii at the moment.  Just the way sailboats work, the straight line is not the fastest way to go.

Yesterday night we saw the moon, still quite small, and then it disappeared behind the clouds.  Sailing by the instruments is clearly not as enjoyable as sailing under the moon.  We're waiting for those moments...

My first watch last night was incredible.  It was only 15-16 knots of wind but the sea state was perfect so you could do no wrong.  The boat was catching waves after waves like a big giant surfboard.  You wished it would never stop...

We saw the first flying fish.  Always incredible to see those fishes fly like birds (literally) just above the water.  A sign we're headed in the right direction ;-)

The team spirit is excellent.  Everybody is working well together.  It's important when you spend that many days together in a small space.

Point to point we have over 1,200 nm left to the finish line.  We're thinking at the moment that we might arrive Wednesday next week.  So far it's been quite a difficult race hunting for wind; we had to sail way south, adding many many miles to this already long crossing.

Looks like we'll be good for gas (which we need to recharge the batteries for powering the electronics), food and water but we're monitoring it in case the forecasted wind to the finish doesn't show up.

We're currently 4th in our division and 16th overall.  We hope our current southern position is going to help us climb couple spots in a day or so.

It's been exactly one week since we left Long Beach, and still 1,100 nm to go...   The remaining part of the race looks promising, just 15 knots of wind but we're finally making good headway towards Hawaii.  I guess at one point we have to do it ;-)

At this morning roll call we found out that our direct competition had decided to make a move west, on our side we kept going further south hoping for more wind.  Time will tell who made the most right moves along the course.

Today we finally had blue sky with those beautiful high level white clouds.  It was a perfect day for a shower.  It feels pretty good.  Most likely we've entered squall territory.  Those are big dark clouds passing by during the night and bringing sudden strong winds and sometimes rain.  Hopefully the sky will be mostly clear so we can see them coming.

We'll have a half way celebration party tonight.  Not quite the furthest point away from any land on earth but almost. For the occasion a bottle of wine will be opened.

Tonight was magical...  We had a beautiful sunset, followed by the moon ahead of our track, 16-18 knots of wind and a gentle sea.

Everything was so perfect! ... until a flying fish hit me in the arm :-(  That's easily a 4 foot jump to land on deck.  Those guys are simply amazing to watch, they sometimes skip on a wave and change direction.  They can easily fly 50 yards making sharp turns.  This is their defensive mechanism so when we get close to them they get scared and take off.  But they stink!  We had to rinse the deck and I had to remove my t-shirt when I came off watch, that means laundry tomorrow :-(

No squalls to report tonight so everything has been pretty mellow overall.  We continue to make some good distance directly towards Hawaii, this is good for the moral.

Continued...
Today we had a good day with 16-18 knots of wind.  We expect the conditions to be similar until the finish, at least we hope...

I thought I'll explain how we're organized aboard.  We always have 2 people on deck: one person driving, one person trimming the sails.  The driver and trimmer switch job every 30 minutes.  During the day the watches are 4 hours long with a person being replaced every 2 hours.  During the night the watches are 2 hours long with a replacement coming on deck every hour.  During maneuvers (change of sail, jibes...) all 6 people come on deck.  The rest of the tasks are loosely defined, everybody contributes to the organization of the boat by helping with the cooking, cleaning...

It is difficult to have good hours of sleep because of the constant noises around so you end up spending a lot of time resting to try to recover.  Our bodies have adjusted to this rhythm as it has already been 8 days we've been doing it.

9 days of racing and it looks like the finish is going to be pretty close in our division.  No major strategic options anymore, kind of 4 days of drag racing playing shifts and getting the best of each squall.

Yesterday, the boats up north had a very good day and they put more distance on us.  We were expecting the opposite based on our wind forecast.  Bad news!

It's been a beautiful afternoon but right now it's raining.  Last night we got hit by few squalls and tonight we'll probably see many more.  It's always quite a thrill to ride through one with the spinnaker up.  It always bring some very intense moments during the night, for both the crew 'sleeping' down below and the 2 crew on deck.  And those squalls build in strength as the night goes by...

For safety reasons we always wear a life jacket while on deck and during the night we attach ourselves to the boat with a tether. 

And then, eventually, the morning comes and things lighten up :-)

Sunday midnight - we have 468nm to go (straight line to Honolulu).  Our ETA is still Wednesday in the evening Pacific Time.

One sign we're getting closer is that now when I get on watch at 10pm it is still day light as it is only 7pm Hawaiian time (HT).
We're looking forward to sailing through the Molokai Channel in mid-afternoon (HT) when it typically blows the most and the waves are big.  The finish should give all of us some exciting sailing memories...

The first boats crossed the finish line today.  Obviously those are much faster boats than us.  With 39ft we're kind of a small boat in the TransPac.  A custom 94ft boat which was heavily modified to beat the TransPac crossing (6d 16h) couldn't succeed in their quest because of the unfavorable weather conditions.  A lot of sailing stories to be told over the next few days as boats keep arriving in Honolulu.  Sailors are famous for embellishing those stories ;-)

The days and nights continue to be so unbelievably beautiful: amazing clouds, gorgeous colors, millions of stars, the moon lighting up the waves...  It is hard to explain those moments in the middle of the ocean.  You try to soak it up as much as possible; before you have to get back to civilization.

11 days at sea and 2 more days to go...  if the wind keeps blowing as part of today was very light.  Perfect for cruising but very stressful for racing.  Let's hope it was even lighter for our competition ;-) but as we all converge to Hawaii it is most likely we have similar conditions.  Our southern option doesn't look so good anymore, we're running out of days and options to come back.  Regardless, we'll continue to race the boat hard until we cross this finish line.

The freeze dried food gets 2 thumbs up.  Everyone gives high marks to the 'Backpacker's Pantry' brand (much better than 'Mountain House', just in case you plan to try it).  The food is quite tasty and the portions are generous.  We're all experts at boiling water, mixing, waiting for 13 minutes, et voila.

Just wanted to let you know that I received aboard all your emails.  I truly enjoyed reading them.  Thank you.
Note: I don't reply from the boat as we have limited bandwidth, which we also use to download our weather files.

My watch is in 5 minutes and apparently a squall is about to hit us, meaning I'm going to get a fresh water shower ;-)

Well, it looks like tonight won't be the last night at sea...  Right now, at best, we'll get to Honolulu on Thursday morning.  The past few days the wind has been very light and shifty.  Last night we must have jibed 10 times to take advantage of those shifts.  Sometimes you're so tired that it takes a minute to really wake up and understand what's going on.  Then you grab your life jacket and get on deck for the maneuver.  At least in those latitudes a short and a t-shirt are enough, no need for foulies.  Everything is done in the dark to not blind the driver.  Anyway, you've done it so many times that you know where everything is on the boat and after a while your eyes start adjusting to the night.

Everybody is starting to dream about a nice meal, a cold beer, an ice cream...  I'm sure those are going to taste unbelievably good.  Food is going to be ok as we had prepared for 13 days of food, plus we have some left over as when it's hot you don't end up eating as much.  Suddenly the back of the boat looks pretty empty without all those bags of food.  Those bags have now moved forward and are in the forepeak as trash bags.  At least we have plenty of water left to keep ourselves hydrated.

We saw the blinking light of an airplane tonight.  A sign that we're getting closer to Hawaii.  Maybe at some time during the day tomorrow we'll start seeing the islands from very far away.  Maybe we'll see some other competitors as we converge towards the finish line.  Something to look forward to...

I'm writting this email from LAT 21 deg 17' 17'' N / LONG 157 deg 50' 31" W.  We crossed the finish line past midnight PST last night.  We got rewarded with great winds in the Molokai Channel so we ended up switching helm every 20 minutes so every one could enjoy those last magical moments of surfing in 20+ knots.

Coming to port was surreal as there was a party at the Hawaii Yacht Club and about 200 people gave us a warm welcome reception.  People truly appreciate what it means to sail from the mainland to Hawaii. Those cheers still give chills through my body.  What a contrast with what our life has been for the past 2 weeks.

We finished 5th in our division and 18th overall (out of 70+ boats). Not exactly where we wanted to finish but we're satisfied with our performance.  It was a very tricky year weather wise and many boats are still out there.  The last boats might arrive as late as Tuesday next week (over a 3 week crossing), after the award ceremony :-(  Tough...

This morning we woke up at 8am (HST) to clean up the boat and prep it for the delivery crew arriving on Sunday.  They are in charge of sailing Recidivist back to the Bay Area.  Not as much fun as it will be mostly upwind sailing.

We're slowly adjusting back to life on land.  The boat is now so quiet to sleep in.  The boat doesn't move anymore, no more noises... it is like a 5 star hotel.

It is now the beginning of a new and bigger challenge.  Next year JP and I will sail our Moore 24 (24 foot boat) double handed (2 people) in the Pacific Cup 2008 (from San Francisco to Kaneohe Bay, HI).  This will be the ultimate challenge!  We'll use this incredible adventure to raise money for a soon to be announced charity.  Stay tuned...

Hope you have enjoyed reading those emails and that it gave you a taste of what offshore racing is about.

Stephane