July 28, 2014

We left off the tale of the doublehanded Moore 24 Absinthe, sailed by Dan Nitake and Tony English, on July 10, so we have a lot of catching up to do.

Day 5

From Absinthe:

Basically we had a really crappy night – lack of wind is a big issue for all boats. So far the causalities have been the laptop battery and my glasses. The sat phone continues to work fine. Dan has a backup which is identical to mine so we might pull out the phone numbers just in case mine crashes.

Started using autopilot yesterday afternoon and set a spinnaker and ran that all afternoon. Probably went a little more south than we wanted to but made some distance to the west which is good.

Dan was on deck watching the autopilot and catnapping during the day while I slept. At 8:00 p.m. shift change we got rid of the kite and went to the #3 jib. I took over and ran a 12-hour shift. We’ve each had 8-10 hours of sleep at a time and will continue this until the wind picks up again. Will store up on rest while we can and push the boat and ourselves like hell once the wind starts up again.

Around 1:00 a.m. I heard water spray and saw a pod of dolphins playing in Absinthe’s wake trying to get the boat to play. This is what I love about open ocean sailing. We’ve also seen an albatross every day so far.

We’ve been eating all of the fresh food; carrots, celery and pre-sliced apples are gone. Have some fruit left and the rest of the chicken but will switch to the freeze-dried food in the next day or two. Brought enough food to get to the 20th, so we’ll back off on food just in case it takes an extra day or two longer to reach Hawaii. We have plenty of water. Our biggest worry at this point is TP – we may run out.

Day 6

From Absinthe:

Wind direction has been changing a lot, so we’re working hard to keep up. One minute it’s coming from the north, the next minute it’s coming from the south. At this point we’re trying to draw a straight line to Kaneohe and hoping that works in our favor since we can’t seem to get out of the slow wind.

Simon was able to contact Samsung tech support for us (thank you!) and the only option we have to bring the laptop battery back to life is to use the boat battery to charge it. The only problem is that the laptop battery requires a 16V battery and the boat battery is a 12V. We run the risk of overheating/killing our boat battery so we haven’t tried it yet, but we’re giving it serious thought.

We spent part of yesterday afternoon doing laundry. Might as well use the downtime for something productive.

Day 8

I bet there are a lot more happy sailors in the Pacific now that the wind is returning. Now we're hoping for smooth sailing with roughly 1,400 miles to go for Absinthe.

Toilet Paper Watch update: The outlook continues to look a little crappy – especially with the introduction of Cup-o-noodles (see below)…but luckily for Absinthe we have a team of experts on land consulting them on their toilet paper issue (The Great Shortage). Bowel expert Michael Schaumburg has recommended they tea bag the anus with their feet in transom steps – which he says is good exercise for the legs and colon. I'll keep you updated – hopefully things firm up a bit.

From Absinthe:

We decided to jibe back to the west. Spent all night going south so today’s position report will look bad. There’s more wind to the south and we want to get into the wind. Right now we’re averaging 7 to 7.5 knots and it doesn’t look like it will drop – we’re finally getting some wind in our sails and pointed in the right direction. Now let’s just hope we get to Hawaii before our families have to go home.

Dan discovered the case of Cup O Noodles we brought and has been living on them. Only problem is that they make him poop – four times a day! That doesn’t help our TP situation much. We’ve been doing baby stuff…eat sleep poop and a little sailing mixed in there. Or in Dan’s case, eat, poop, sleep, poop, eat, poop, sleep, poop.

Day 9

Absinthe officially reached the halfway mark today – so they broke out their party box prepped by their families. Some poppers, snacks and even a little booze (if you start to see some extra wiggly lines on Yellowbrick now you'll know why). It's all downwind from here!

From Absinthe:

The headstay separated from the boat. We’re now using the jib halyard as a headstay. Hoping to put up the spinnaker and then the staysail.

Last night’s sailing was in pitch black – couldn’t see the water or the sky. Worked our way through squalls most of the night. Without the laptop and in the darkness, we use the compass to navigate and listen for the sails (drive by ear). Even for me, who is hard of hearing, this boat is loud enough and tells us what she needs. If the sails started to flutter we test different positions based on the sound of the her sails.

Looking around the cabin, everything is damp (humid) and a bit of a mess. Reached the halfway mark today and opened our party box. We’ll be sounding off the poppers tonight.

Day 10

Absinthe has hit the dreaded dog days – the excitement of the start has faded and not yet close enough to taste the Mai Tais at the finish line.

I spoke with Tony yesterday evening – he said it's been a long two days. They've been slowed down in part by the last couple of nights – Tony's had to do more of the night driving than anticipated just because Dan hasn't been sleeping as much (likes to putter around the boat when he should be sleeping – according to Tony), which has hurt them a bit as Dan's the better driver at night. The moon has been gorgeous – when you can see it. The last few nights have turned out to be pitch black – with clouds snuffing out any light from the moon, and the squalls active, making night driving very difficult.

When they check in during the morning on the sat phone, you leave a recording and they play it back as a sort of confirmation. Tony realized it was pretty bad when he heard his recording being played back this morning – he said he sounded like an old drunkard! He promised he hadn't been hitting the bottle.

They've been impressed with Snafu's (the other Moore 24) progress – Tony said they'd have to buy those young guys a drink when they make it in.

Talking to Tony reminded me of the book The Old Man and the Sea: "A man can be destroyed but he can’t be defeated."

Day 11

From Absinthe:

Last night was a really scary night. The clouds closed off the sky and there were squalls from the left and the right with very lumpy seas and the waves were huge. So we decided to change to the small spinnaker. In the process the halyards all got crossed at the top of the mast. We’ll probably have to stop the boat at some point today and climb up and fix it. It wasn’t safe to straighten then so haven’t yet. We are now back to rolling along with the spinnaker up and expect to be in Kaneohe in the next 4-5 days so long as we don’t break anything else.

We are bummed about our positioning, but this still beats the hell out of going to work! We enjoyed the midway party favors. Had our sparkler party last night, popped the favors today and had rum for breakfast this morning. Dan was scouring the boat for more rum, yelling, “Where did Linda hide the rest of the rum – I know there's more!”

Day 12

From Absinthe:

We’re still cruising along. Looks like there is a tropical storm that’s supposed to hit the islands on Saturday/Sunday. The only issue we may encounter as a result of it is the dead air on the back side of the storm. Had dolphins play with the boat for about 15 minutes today.

Day ?

Absinthe's net nanny has been found – according to the bartender, pitchers of mai tais at the Kaneohe Yacht Club bring good wind for your boat so we were just trying to do our part. If true, Absinthe is in the middle of a hurricane right now...

Absinthe is making progress to the finish and its final sprint – about 135 miles out. We briefly spoke with them yesterday (or was it the day before?) and they had hit another light wind patch, but seemed in good spirits. Tropical storm Wali hit the islands on Saturday night and about blew our rented house down, but Tony said they didn't feel a thing.

Absinthe docks in Kaneohe. Photo courtesy Absinthe

Finished!

Congrats to Absinthe! Tony and Dan arrived this morning at around 2:00 a.m. – their families were eagerly awaiting with snacks and beverages. Both looked a little wobbly upon arrival, and had probably lost a few pounds, but were otherwise in pretty good shape.

– Kevin Jacobson, Absinthe Shore Crew

Tony was looking forward to this mai tai. Photo courtesy Absinthe

Tony and Dan pose for the paparazzi. Photo courtesy Absinthe

Absinthe finished on Wednesday, July 23, at 02:05:10 HST. You can find Absinthe on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Absinthe14PC. For complete results from the Pacific Cup, see www.pacificcup.org.

Tostitos and POG make a light midnight snack for the night-time arrivals. Photo courtesy Absinthe