2023 SHTP skippers - Gary Burton on Elizabeth Ann, Bill Stange on Hula and Randy Leasure on Tortuga 

Ahoy! 

Tortuga and I depart for the Singlehanded Transpacific Yacht Race on tomorrow Sunday June 25th! 

The race tracking page will be available to view here:

https://www.jibeset.net/tv.php

I will be sending update to the race committee and they will be posting all the racer updates on the Singlehanded Sailing Society site:

https://www.sfbaysss.org/main/

Note that this tracking is not 100% real time for all boats and there could be delays or times when trackers stop working. Fear not, if the tracker stops working it’s probably just some tech gremlins at work. 

The race starts on tomorrow Sunday at 10am off the Golden Gate Yacht Club for those that want to see the start. 

I’ve had a crazy 24 hours! The bottom cleaning diver found a bunch of play in the max prop moving fore and aft on Friday am. I was able to get an emergency haul out yesterday and got the problem fixed with the bolt holding the hub on the shaft had worked loose. I splashed again yesterday afternoon but the blades weren’t aligned right. We got the blades aligned properly and back in the water before low tide this morning when they couldn’t launch me. 

It couldn’t have been that easy though….

The line holding the lifting straps got caught in the prop in the sling. In a flash, the boat yard hero Mohammed dove in the water to cut it away! all good and was able to make it to the skippers meeting this afternoon. 

All provisions loaded and ready! 

A big thank you to my north star Danielle for her patience and help as I’ve been working non stop on boat projects the last few months!

Thank you to all the others who have supported Team Tortuga with advice and help prepping the boat! I wouldn’t be able to race without you! 

Randy 

W32 Tortuga 

~~~_/)~~~

Post race links 

Latitude 38 

Jibeset  race Summery - the details. 

Dave King analysis:

"A MAGNIFICENT RACE!  Hula, with Bill Stange, crossed the finish about 20 minutes ahead of Elizabeth Ann,  with Gary Burton, BUT, Elizabeth Ann corrected out about 15 minutes ahead of Hula.  Elizabeth Ann has a one second per mile rating advantage over Hula, due to technical differences.    

Hello All - 

General Updates;

All racers have completed their daily POL check-ins for today 06/26/2023 with the exception of SUCH FAST - there is still 6 hours left in the check in window

CIRCE has retired and is returning to San Francisco - Tony is OK and we will track and overwatch until he is inside the Golden Gate

From Randy and Tortuga

Tales from the Deck of Tortuga
Monday, June 26th

A rolly night dodging lots of shipping traffic. There are quite a few big container ships out just marking time and don’t answer their radios on 16 or 13, so you’ve got to try and pass safely while bashing along in the big seas and breeze Working jib, staysail, and double reefed main are the combo today.

Tried to get some naps on and off, keeping a watch. I do a deck walk (more like a crawl) in the am and before the sun goes down to check nothing is working loose or chafed. All good so far.
Some of the wave trains are off the starboard bow and give a great smack and showering of the sea across the whole deck. Amazing the force they have. Had a good breakfast burrito scrambled with fresh spinach, tomato, and cheddar. The sun came out for a few hours, which was nice to feel the warmth and charge the batteries up.

Have not seen any other boats in the fleet, and AIS is not showing anything either. Hard to gauge everyone’s position with the daily update since the pings are not all at the same time. My emails to the RC email aliases are bouncing from my IGO, so there was a little swirl on my Pol checks-in, but that has been sorted now with Dave. If I were doing a LongPac race, I would have hit the turnaround mark today!

Heard about Circe My heart goes out to Tony. I can only imagine how hard that was to have to turn around after having to abandon the PacCup last year too. After the blood, sweat, tears, and boat bucks - that it takes to do this. No easy decision, I am sure. Hope he is safe and back in the bay now.

Eggplant Parmesan and garlic bread are on the menu for dinner tonight. Always fun trying to meal prep at 30deg of heel!
No sea monsters sighted yet.

Team Tortuga

From Randy and Tortuga 6/28

Tales from the Deck of Tortuga
Wednesday, June 28th

It was cloudy with mist on and off through the night with the wind gusting up into the teens. I had put a reef in the main to keep the weather helm to a minimum. I was still doing 6.5 with the reef. The house bank was down to 12.2, so I decided to run the engine in neutral for 45min before going to “sleep” (which consists of a series of 30 to 45min naps). That engine run took the house up to 12.7, so I called that good for the night.

With the cloud coverage, it’s not enough sun to top off the house bank, and I don’t want to run it down too low. Before running the engine, I discovered a coolant leak underneath the heat exchanger. I hope it was just the loose clamp I found. Lost about 1/2 cup of coolant in the small bilge under the engine. Man, a good mechanic is hard to find! Who did such a shotty job?! Oh, wait. that was me. I left the cleanup of that for later in the day.

Heard a VHF response from a container ship in the am and assumed he was responding to another racer; I saw him pass behind me about 3mi with the AIS alarm blaring. I find comfort in that annoying sound.

Looking at the daily gribs it seems like I was about to sail into a small high-pressure zone in the am, so I fell off course quite a bit; it seems like I’ve avoided that high-pressure area and was still moving at 5.5/6knts.

Took the opportunity to clean up the engine room mess and add more coolant with the mellower point of the sail before hardening up again once past the last small high-pressure bit.

I've seen a few more container ships throughout the day with no name on the AIS ID. I thought I was out of most shipping lines, but that’s not the case.

I’ve been about to put up the Asymmetrical spinnaker a few times today, got the sheets ready and run, and pulled the sail from the V berth but each time the wind starts blowing again and we start doing 6.5+ knots and would be overpowered by it.

There has been a parade of mini squalls all day where the wind puffs up and it gets cloudy and misty as it passes over which is helping my speed. Tortuga has been doing 150 mile+ days which is nice and my fastest time so far doing this race at this point. The other times I sailed the race there was a wind hole for a full day on the day of the start offshore and I sailed into a high-pressure zone with no wind for a few days. I just need to keep the boat moving and not break anything except my own record for the crossing.

A mushroom Pizza is in the oven for dinner tonight. A Pacific Crossing menu that includes Pizza multiple times a week is highly recommended! A pizza within a pizza sounds like a good idea = Pizza-ucken. Need to work on the name a bit…
Team Tortuga
~~~_/)~~~

(Sorry this message is out of order Jay Bietz)

Tales from the Deck of Tortuga
Sunday, June 25th

It was a misty morning at the start of the day.
I had finished most of my last to-do projects at about 9 pm the previous night. The last things to take care of after the swirl of the emergency haul out (oh yeah, that’s right, I had to haul the boat on Friday and splashed Saturday morning to fix my max prop that came loose and made it to the skippers meeting just in time!) were to finish installing the boom pieces and lines for the 3rd reef, get the dingy secured, and remove the last minute things off the boat I didn’t need. The saying that getting to the starting line is the hardest part of this race couldn’t be more true!
Admiral Dani and Sailor, the dog, were there in the morning, as well as Jim from W32 Resolve and his sister, who came by to wish me well at the dock at Pier 39 along with Chris from the Pork Chop Express and his wife Charlotte who are my dock neighbors; we also got to wish each other a safe passage.

I wasn’t sure which head sail to start with as the forecast was for a lighter breeze outside the gate. I’m so glad I didn’t try to fly a larger jib! It was a breeze getting out of the gate. I had a terrible start and got caught in the counterflood current that had started to flow. I was trying to start with just the staysail to make it easy to tack back and forth as needed, but then I realized I had to get the jib up to get enough speed to make it across! The other 2 Westsails pulled away from me and made it under the bridge before me. The nice consolation was the pics Dani sent me of my friends from onshore who came out to GGYC and friends that came to see me off from the water and the day before at RYC; THANK YOU!

It was a washing machine ride out with the last of the ebb pushing us out under the bridge and past point Bonita doing almost 9 knots! It lit up a bit, and I knew the breeze would eventually pick up, so I was torn about expanding the energy to put up a bigger headsail or not. I decided to leave it as it was and made some decent progress in the lighter breeze and nap. I could see about eight other boats just to the north of me, so that was good. The breeze did fill in, so we were bounding along at 6.5 knots later in the afternoon. It was a bouncy night with lots of shipping traffic, so I was eventually down to a double reefed main with the working jib and staysail.
A pesto margherita pizza from the oven with fresh basil topped off the evening!

Team Tortuga

From Randy and Tortuga 7/1

Tales from the Deck of Tortuga
Saturday, July 1st

Really, really frustrating morning; the wind shut down around 0200 - 0600. We were ghosting along around 3 knots for most of that time, rolling around in the swell. The squall-type weather affected the forecast of 15 knots, I think. There wasn’t just one, particular, squall; just a large patch of light winds, drizzle, and rolly seas. Was feeling really down about my position when got a note from Elizabeth Ann early morning, and Gary said they were in the same weather pattern, so I felt a little better about not falling even farther behind, but not sure how much it slowed their lead.

Had an actual visible sunrise this morning with a rainbow to cheer me up.
The last the blueberries are gone, with a batch of blueberry pancakes to start the weekend off right. I bought super green avocados and haven’t been able to eat more than one. They’ll be great next week, I bet. Only a few bananas are left, and the oranges and apples are holding strong. Have not started using the lemons yet, so I think I’ll be able to avoid any scurvy outbreaks onboard.

The wind filled in by late morning and started backing more, so I got the staysail down and poled out the super Yankee to port. It’s Day 7 of being on a starboard tack. Been cruising along in the mid 6ks all day. Get bursts into the low 7s with squalls passing over. Still too breezy for me to fly the symmetrical spinnaker comfortably. There was a period when it lightened up, and I thought about it but will see what tomorrow brings. I can cruise at 6.5-7 with no fire drills and ride the squalls passing over with the current sail config. That seems to be working right now.

I’ve been seeing many batches of old fishing gear and netting going past me today. Disheartening to see it, and certainly, I would not want to get caught up in one of those floating islands of debris.

I noticed my bilge pump going off before taking my evening nap. I investigated further and found the starboard cockpit drain thru the hull weeping around its base. There is no seacock or valve; it’s just a straight hull that the cockpit drain hose attaches to and goes overboard just above the waterline (when not moving around). I tried tightening the hose clamps, but it seems it’s weeping at the base. Possibly the inner retaining nut is loose, or something else is the issue with the thru-hull piece. Not sure. I mixed up some splash zone, did some boat yoga to reach it, and put it in the affected area. It’s curing now and seems to have stopped the water. Will try a second application once the first is cured.
“If it was easy everyone would be doing it”.

⛵️Team Tortuga 
~~~_/)~~~