Hey, what's that noise?

July 5th, 2009, 0600 PDT, 27.14 N, 125.47 W, 24 hrs Distance 74 nm, DTG 1784.

July 6th 2009, 0600 PDT, 26.09 N, 128.26 W, 24 hrs distance 156nm, DTG 1637

Both (Groundhog) days! Wind 5 knots @ 295 Cloud Cover 95 percent, Barometer 1017

Is that a bow wave?

I resisted the temptation to post improvement until I had a couple of hours of it (4 hours behind).

Yesterday evening showed some real signs of improvement and today, from what I can see, things are getting engougeous out there.

Lets have some letters from the edge:

Around 1100 yesterday:

Web says to tell you that the head has nicely crowned.
Or Evil may be impressing us with his new found knowledge. For those of us who don't know Evil and Michelle (aka JD) just had a baby boy who they fittingly named Cap't William E. *family show*Stick > Kimmerly after me. I was just glad he turned out to be a "he". It would have been a tough moniker for a little girl - you know how cruel kids can be>.

We have had the 2A up a couple of times over the course of the evening and it is up again and flying now. We are thinking about putting that jibtop into a bag but we don’t want to jinx the project. Boat is moving easily now at 6 or 7 knots in about 8 knots of breeze.

All is well on the Handidart this morning and we are looking forward to a little more wind and some fairing so that we can finally start to turn west to Hawaii.

Just think a week ago we were doing our test run out to Catalina...
Onward,

The Special Olympians.

And about 1700 hrs. yesterday:

Hey Rudy, thanks for your kind words. That was the mother of all calm spots. It was honestly a bit disconcerting to realize that you are in a hole that stretches 50 miles in every direction and not a breath of air anywhere. It was seriously calmer than Maple Bay on a rainy afternoon. Only in this case the only exit plan is to wait for the seasons to change...

As you can imagine spirits are higher this evening as Web is helming on a beam reach with the 2A kite at 9 or 10 knots and I am still able to come downstairs and write a couple of e-mails.
Anyway all is well aboard the “Handidart” this evening and I wanted to say thanks for taking the time to send a note to the cheer us all on.
I am certain that we will catch up with you soon.
All the best,

Doug

And finally around 1200hrs. today:

Grinder
WAHOOOOO!!!!
Finally moving now. We’ve already forgotten about the PFSD (previous six days) Boat speed is steady in the 8,9,10s with flashes of 12s and the odd 14. We’re aiming for a degree of longitude every 6 hour shift.

It’s a running joke on the boat that at the top of the hour when the transponder fires up we always seem to be in a lull or slow down a little. Its our cloaking devise! We don’t wanna alarm the competition. So don’t worry at home we’re averaging much faster than transponder reports.

Its great driving the “mini-sled” under the A2. We head up a bit, lean in to it, and she spools up like a turbocharger. The apparent angle moves forward and we have to drive down about 40deg to keep the sail full. TURN AND BURN!

We would be on the cover of every newspaper in North America if it wasn’t for a pesky 100 footer doing 18 knots stealing all the publicity.

The only thing that concerns us about the PFSD is the time taken away from our elapsed time in relation to other boats in our fleet. This shouldn’t matter with time on distance we think but we’re still unsure how it works. Can you enlighten us on this?

Cheers from the ‘ESCAPE ‘DART.

Not much that I can say that will improve on that post so I will not.

Other than things look very good - hopefully for the remainder - for the boys at sea.

Cap't Grinder