News
July 7, 2017
All is well on Loco-motive. Daily position report has us still in 1st and gained a bit in our division. Wind has been progressively getting better with more consistent 14+ knots. Our best 24 hour run is 188 nautical miles and we are pushing to get 200+ for tomorrow. Top boat speed currently goes to Larry, Doug and Charlie who have all hit 12 knots. Previous to that, it was held by Sean and Mickey at 11.8 knots. Still kind of a hazy cloudy day. We’ve had to do 2 back-downs due to getting fishing net stuck on keel. One was this morning at 6am and the other at 3pm. Both requires everyone on deck as we drop the kite and back down the boat by pushing out the mainsail. We are getting fairly proficient at this and getting the whole process done in a couple minutes.
We finally switched over to drinking from the water maker or the many water bottles we brought. Previously, we were drinking from the boat bladders which is hose water – not very good.
Dinner last night was bbq pork and again, very good. Still looking for the clouds to break up and see the sun and especially have a nice moonlit ocean at night.
We’ve seen some more flying fish and had two baby squids jump up on deck and died. Doug argues for us to keep them and cook them up for some nice calamari.
Looking forward to our halfway mark in a day or two.
Mahalo!
Team Loco-motive
July 7, 2017
We are just now starting to get into something resembling trade winds, albeit with no puffy clouds and sunshine. Just a pall of overcast grey that effectively blocks the sun and the moon. Really glad I don’t have to do celestial anymore. There is no real visible object to take a sight on!
We ran over some type of a fishing net this morning, that was wrapped around the keel. So at first real light we got everyone up, dropped the spinnaker and backed the boat down. On the second attempt it cleared and off we went again.
Life onboard is smelly, dank and generally organized chaos. Just like having us at home really! We had been drinking really nasty water out of the tank, only to discover we still had eleven gallons of Crystal Geyser in the bilges. We think Larry got stranded in a desert in a previous life. Anyway,we have now resolved to drink the bottled water and re-fill with the water maker, reserving the tank water for the dishes and the odd shower. Talk about all Mod cons!
Roll calls are all good at the moment, and that’s all I’m going to say about that!
More later.
The Nav.
Almost half-way there and they have been leading the pack since day 1! Go LOCO!
July 7, 2017
Saw our first flying fish and weather starting to get warmer. It looks like we are now in 1st place and plan on holding that. We had a good day yesterday with A3 and A1 up all day and then switched to A2 last night. Swells are just starting to pick up and align and now Mickey has the top speed of 10.7 knots. Still lots of clouds but sunnier. I believe Doug sent a separate email on our head/bidet situation. It turns out that leaving the thru hull open with our jury rigged head causes the water to continuously fill giving you a wet butt if not pumping. Fun stuff!
We’re all getting good sleep and sailing the boat hard. Dinners have been off the hook with Doug’s connection. Incredible lasagna last night. BBQ pork is planned for tonight.
Team Loco-motive
July 6, 2017
Hey Locos and Locettes,
The Transpac Locos are now full into the routine of downwind racing to Hawaii and while the weather is not what we ordered, typical crappy service at this weather restaurant, the team is coalescing into a finely tuned crew of slightly demented misfits. The amazing British Lavac toilet has been defeated by a combined force of the Americans and the French national. After some hard modifications, the toilet is now not only a toilet but a Bidet as well. How typically French. Is it any coincidence that this all happened on the 4th of July? I think not. Btw, on that subject it never ceases to amaze me how happy people can be after working everything out on the head. If you’ve ever seen a toddler in diapers at that key moment, you’ll know exactly what I mean.
Meanwhile, on the racing front, this morning’s Grib shows the promise of building pressure across the course. So we have a A2 spinny up and trying to dig a little more to the left. Let’s see what develops.
The Nav.
July 5, 2017
Sorry that we never said Happy 4th! We almost forgot but Mickey reminded us by wearing his American flag shorts!
All good on boat. Weather is cloudy and we had some misty showers last night. Wind has been in the 8 – 14 knots last night and today. We ran the Code 0 last night and switched to the A3 this morning. Trying to keep at least 8 knots of boat speed. We found some kelp on the sail drive yesterday with Sean’s custom scope and Clement nailed it with the first try of the kelp stick. We got the head fully working with a bit of a jury rig from Clement but that certainly makes things easier and nicer!!
Had major wear with the halyard for the Code 0 so Clement did his rigging magic so we should now all be good with that halyard.
Saw lots of phosphorus jelly fish glowing last night but apart from that, not much wild life.
Food has been good with our pre-made dinners and breakfast burritos in the morning. We are starting to talk about Mai Tais in hopefully 8-10 more days.
Mahalo!
Team Loco-motive
July 4, 2017
All is good onboard! Team is happy with our current position in our fleet. Wind is on the light side at Noon, @ 6 knots and we are sailing with our J1 jib. We had a great day yesterday with a favored boat end start. Although a little late at the start, it worked out perfectly and we were quickly on top of our fleet. We did one short tack to port, tacked back and laid Catalina and we would say first to Catalina. The Japan boat, XP-44, was right with us and above us. We jib reached through the afternoon in 10-12 knots of wind. The night came and we had some awesome sailing with 14-16 knots in the moonlight. Morning came and we had some fun with getting some kelp off the rudder. Wind went far enough right to hang the code zero and we ran with that for most of the morning. Also, some head issues with it not fully working so that sounds like it is typical!
Praying for more wind! Mahalo!
Team Loco-motive