Time: 3:40PM PDT Position: 33deg 34min N, 131deg 52min W Speed/Course: 7kts @ 230 deg true Good afternoon from VALIS! We’ve been making good speed towards Hawaii and the crew are in good spirits. We kept the spinnaker flying most of the night, but by 1:30AM in order to keep the big sail happy we […]

We’ve been blasting along under spinnaker, and making good time for Hawaii. We’re aiming a little south to try and avoid the forecast lightening air to the north, but it’s not much of a detour. The wind is on the beam, and our spinnaker isn’t really cut for this job, but it’s doing fine. If […]

We put up the spinnaker this afternoon! The wind is very light, and just a little aft of the beam, so we put up the light-air kite. It’s not really cut for this broad-reaching, but it’s a little better than the Genoa and staysail we had been using. Anyway, it’s good practice. It’s still cloudy, […]

What a difference a day makes! (you will probably see this comment more than once during this race.) Yesterday morning we were again dealing with light or nonexistent winds. At times it took over an hour to just get the boat pointing towards Hawaii, while we were drifting in a completely different direction. It didn’t […]

July 18, 4:00 AM PDT, lat 37 deg 16 min N, lon 124min 54min W. Speed 3 kts, course 262deg T Yesterday was a good ome aboard VALIS. We are getting used to our watch schedule, and are actually making up for the pre-race sleep-deprivation. Our appetites are returning (although none of us were ever […]

12:15PM PDT, lat 37 deg 27 min N, lon 123min 35min W. Speed 5 kts, course 277deg T After a cold and drizzly night, with very light wind, we are now sailing in the sunshine (true, with lots of clouds too, but there’s sun), and feeling pretty good. We’re sailing west at 4.5 kts, which […]

8:00PM PDT, latitude 37deg 40m N, longitude 122deg 58 min W, course 185 true, speed 5.5 kts. Greetings from the good ship VALIS, on our first day of the Pacific Cup race from San Francisco to Hawaii. We are: Paul Elliott (me), Paul Carson, Rich Jones, Michael Moradzadeh, Dick Holm, and Phil Mummah, and of […]

It’s Friday, and we are getting ready for our race. One truckload of provisions + one small boat = controlled chaos. Here’s Phil looking for the crowbar as he tries to fit in just one more bag of beef jerky (the breakfast of champions!). We still have some waterline left, so I guess we’re not […]

test from the slip

Test from VALIS in slip. (attached image)