Sunday, July 15, 2007

Rancho Deluxe heads south Transpac 2007


Photo by Jim Diepenbrock
Big Ocean Theory
07/15/2007, 26 14.686n:125 56.667


This morning's post could have a number of different titles, but let's start with the "Big Ocean Theory". Last night we had another moonless, starless night with 15-20 knots of wind. Blasting along aboard the Rancho Deluxe freight train at 9 - 13 knots of boat speed into a horizonless ocean, one begins to wonder if there's anything out there to hit. The general hope/theory is that it a big Ocean out there, gotta be room for us.

While that might be great as a theory, it doesn't provide a heck of a lot of comfort when you're over 500 miles from a beach and can't see what you're driving into. Also, yesterday we had to change course to avoid hitting, in the words of Seadon; "the biggest whale I've even seen."Another theme for today could be, "The Trend is Your Friend". We have gone from yesterday's 7th in class to today's 3rd in class. Our drive South is working, we hope the trend continues.

Currently, we have the A2 spinnaker up, spinnaker staysail and the world's biggest main on a 45 foot boat. The A2 has been up for 2 1/2 days and could be called "money". 10kts of boatspeed and 17 kts of wind and we have yet to tack or gybe...just know I'm gonna regret saying that.

- Jim Diepenbrock

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