Our full Pacific Cup crew — Michael, John, Alan, Rich, Steve, and Paul (me) — took VALIS out on Saturday June 21, for some practice offshore. After breakfast, we left Sausalito around 10:30AM, and headed for the Golden Gate Bridge. On the way we conducted radio checks with several Pac Cup and Singlehanded Transpac boats […]

As I promised, some more musings: During the ’06 race, we made some decisions that in hindsight could have been better. I allowed my optimism to take us too far northwest and into the southeast ridge of the Pacific High. I was following the guideline that “slower boats should sail closer to the rhumbline”, and […]

I have added still more Pacific Cup / return voyage stuff to the VALIS website. In addition to the photos, there are now videos and commentary. www.sailvalis.com -Paul

I’ve finally got the Pacific Cup and return trip photos beaten into shape, and have put them up on the VALIS website. Here is the link: http://www.sailvalis.com/Pac%20Cup%2006/index.htm Best, Paul

Our last day of the voyage home saw VALIS sailing at good speed under patchy clouds and fresh winds. The evening of Aug 12 was cool, and as the sun set, we sailed through a patch of phosphorescent water. This wasn’t the individual pea-sized glowing creatures that we typically see, but instead the water itself […]

Here is a unified trackfile for our voyage from Oahu to San Francisco. I have made a few changes to the format (which I hope are improvements). -Paul HitoSF.kmz

VALIS arrived safely in Sausalito around 3:30PM Sunday, August 13, after a nineteen-day passage from Kaneohe Bay. As we pulled into our slip we were met by friends and family, and toasted to our coming home safely with some very good champagne. Before going our separate ways we all had dinner at the Spinnaker restaurant […]

We have less than 200 miles to go before we tie up in Sausalito, so every indication is that VALIS will be back in her slip on Sunday afternoon or early evening. We have had strong winds and fairly high seas and we continue to charge along towards San Francisco. Our run yesterday (midnight to […]

Greetings from VALIS, making excellent speed towards San Francisco. We are currently (Aug 11, 1:30 PM PDT) at latitude 38deg 57min N, longitude 130deg 10min N. This is 368 nautical miles from the Golden Gate, and about the latitude of Point Arena. Our speed is 7+ knots and we are sailing 100deg true. Wind is […]

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday we were sailing gently downwind, waiting for the wind to swing around and come from the north. Well, in the afternoon it started to swing and within a couple of hours we had our full-blown northerlies. We started with all plain sails flying (main, staysail, genoa), and as […]