July 17, 2:00PM Lat 29d 11m N, Lon 148d 10m W Speed 7.5 kts, Course 240 deg mag It’s a sunny day out here in the Pacific. The crew is in a great mood, or asleep (even better!). It’s been a busy 24 hours, with two different spinnaker “events”, caused by a slipping guy — […]

Last night we got word via satphone that Pac Cup racer “Tiburon” had lost their rudder. They were taking on a small, managable, amount of water, and were using a drogue to steer. They were not in immediate danger, but they probably did not have sufficient water to last them while they sailed / drifted […]

3:00PM Wednesday, July 16 Lat 30d 13m N, Lon 145d 16m W Speed 7kts, Course 323 deg mag. Yesterday’s half-way party finished off with a great meal of salmon cakes with Hollandaise sauce on a bed of Thai rice, prepared by Lin. As sunset approached we doused the large spinnaker and replaced it with the […]

Tuesday, July 15 — 3:15 PM PDT Lat 31d 17m N, Lon 141d 56m W — Halfway between San Francisco and Kaneohe Bay. Our first clue was the VALIS Tiki Drummer. His spontaneous outburst interrupted our steering, slumber, cooking, etc, and the infectious rhythm soon had the entire crew jumping in time to primitive music. […]

Noon, Monday, July 14 (PDT) Lat 32d 09m N, Lon 138d 08m W Speed 7 kts, Course 240 deg mag Wind 14 kts Yesterday around this time the wind was falling again, but we were in good spirits. Today we’re in even better spirits! After our CHicker Biryani dinner we had another spectacular sunset and […]

July 13, 11:00AM PDT Lat 32d 22m N, Lon 135d 17m W Speed 6 kts, Course 250 d mag. Winds 12 kts Full main and light spinnaker. We had another slow day yesterday — 67 miles — but better than the previous one. Everyone else had a slow day too, and we remain in Division […]

July 12, 4:45 PDT Lat 32d 32m N, Lon 134d 23m W Speed 3 kts, Course 205 deg magnetic. It’s been a slow day here aboard VALIS, but we’ve had sunshine, and have been flying the spinnaker in gentle winds. There are occasional rain showers, with accompanying wind shifts, and we’ve just completed a spinnaker […]

Lat 32d 49m N, Lon 133d 14m W. COG 260d mag, SOG 1.6 kts. We are about 800 nautical miles due west of San Diego, and we’ve got broken, puffy clouds overhead. It’s pretty warm and some of the crew have taken advantage of the gentle conditions to do a little washing up in the […]

Thursday, July 10, 12:30 PM Lat 33d 52m, Lon 131d 11m SOG 7.5 kts, COG 210d mag TWS 15 kts, TWD 335d mag We had a good 24-hour run (8:00AM to 8:00 AM) — 173 miles. The winds have become lighter, and the seas smoother. Last night we had the moon peeking through the cloud […]

See previous entry — I got the date wrong. It should have been “Wednesday, July 9, 11:30 AM PDT” Aloha, Paul / VALIS