Zulu Withdraws

by Greg Harms, July 7th, 2008

Now that two days have passed since Strum's perfectly timed entry into Lahaina, Vic Maui watchers are focusing on the on-going struggle amongst the rest of the competitors still at sea. The sophisticated handicapping system to determine the actual winners of the race (on corrected time) is based on a time allowance that the first boat Strum has to give the other racers. The remaining five boats in the fleet are clearly in a race to the finish and you can be assured that they're maximizing every sailing strategy to cross the finish line within their rated time allowance. Stay tuned these coming days as they catch to trade winds and make every attempt to arrive in Maui before the following times:

Turicum: Tuesday, 10:12 HST
Black Watch: Wednesday, 02:14 HST
Passepartout: Wednesday, 03:30 HST
Seeker: Thursday, 00:40 HST
Red Heather is an automatic second place in Division A behind Strum unless she arrives by this evening at 19:23 HST

All have been bedevilled by light winds that have given them speeds of 6 or 7 knots at best for days. Still, Turicum at the most westerly position had steady enough speed in the last 24 hours to pull ahead of the pack. On Sunday, it and Red Heather crossed over Strum's path along the 25th parallel and are aimed at Lahaina. Now Turicum is directly on Strum's path into Lahaina and we'll see if it can find similar winds.

The problem is, as Pete Shainin of Passepartout writes below, right now Maui is surrounded by a dead wind zone.

Meanwhile, Zulu has been unable to get out of the windless high that it entered 2 days ago and has officially withdrawn from the race. In a note with all the sadness and despair of a mariner's tale (read below), the Zulu crew tell of a wind-sucking giant that idled it on the sea.

Passepartout Day 16

The wind was great for most of the last day - 15 to 22 kts behind us so we could carry our largest spinnaker. We covered quite a bit of distance - 358 miles to finish. But, the wind turned very light at the beginning of the last watch (0200 Hawaii Time). Our progress since than has been terrible. The weather charts show 10 kts or less for 1000 miles North and East of Hawaii lasting at least for the next 4 days. If the charts prove correct we might not finish at all. The race times out at midnight on July 10.

We have had a lure out for most of the trip and we say Mahi Mahi jump last night but we have not caught anything. We are prepared with wasabi and saki just in case.

The food is getting down to basics but Marlene managed to dish up eggs, cheese, potatoes and bacon all scrambled together for breakfast today. Marlene is still doing an amazing job considering what she has to work with. We are on our last roll of paper towels. There is still plenty of rum and wine. We are keeping the water full with only one pump but we have to run it very often. We are having trouble keeping the refrigerator as cold as we would like but the freezer is staying very cold. We could have brought ice cream and still be eating it today. It looks like the refrigerator top (the door) will get new weather stripping in Maui.

The crew is getting along great. We now know enough about each other to make much more clever jokes than earlier in the trip.

The only depressing part is the lack of any wind. Since the dead zone surrounds Maui there is no navigating that will fix the problem.

ZULU WITHDRAWS

Vic-Maui friends:

Pull up a stool and I will tell you a tale. A true tale. A tale exactly as I remembers it.

So we started the Vic-Maui 2008 race amongst the fleet, a fair start on a fair day. A day full of expectations and hopes and vigour. A great day for a sailboat race out across the wide sea. A last sad wave to loved ones and the big blue bus was away.

And as we settled into our watches, the conversations were all about adventure and sun and trade winds. About the dinners provided by the ladies of the Sydney North Saanich Yacht Club, about the general preparation of the boat and new gloves and radio checks and the like.

But not about what really mattered.......

As you all know there are many strange denizens of the deep blue sea. Each stranger than the next. Some are spoken of in classrooms, some in small groups and some, some are spoken of in whispers in bars late at night amongst old and trusted friends. But there are some that are never spoken of at all.

The scientists and meteorologists have long since known of the phenomenon called the Pacific High. A fairly predictable region of clear skies and light winds surrounded by a super highway of 15 to 20 kt winds rotating in a clockwise direction. Its seasonal migration is charted and plotted, its every nuance graphed and calibrated. But the essence, the soul of this giant has never before been documented...

As we sailed west the weather became foreboding and ominous. The sky and the sea became one. Helming during the starless nights became a chore and roundups and general directional instability became the norm. It was as if we were in a nautical themed snow globe. We ventured theories as to why the weather was so poor, why the visibility was naught, where the stars has gone and why. But back, back in our minds we knew the who.

Argh but it was day three that we first caught glimpse of the true master of this realm, the angry chirping the threatening circling were his calling cards.

By day he appeared as a petrel, flitting around us, ever watchful. By day five there were several of his minions keeping close tabs on our trespass. Blindly we pressed on, deeper into his watery territory.

As shift rolled into shift, day into day our happy ship slowly became a prison ship, a prison ship trapped in a snow globe, at the whim of the most capricious natural phenomenon ever to be documented.....

SUCKO, the Wind Sucking Ocean Bat.

Oh the irony of us being the communication vessel, bound to record the progress of the rest of the fleet as they sailed on. True, some were trapped as we in the mind melting nullness, but some passed swiftly across the longitudes. It was in pure desperation on day 10 during our half way party that we hatched a plan. With our last ounce of bravado we crafted a scarecrow from a pillow, with wings and soulless eyes. But we couldnt stop there. No, we wrote STAY AWAY SUCKO across its torso and hung it on a noose from the radar tower at the transom of our once proud vessel.

Then there was a change in the weather. The clouds parted, and our spirits we were briefly lifted. The remembered sun dried our gear, but then began to wear us down. The once fierce sea was now a perfect mirror reflecting the indifferent stars by night and the ever burning sun by day. Not a whisper of breeze disturbed its warm embrace.

Finally day 14, still 940 miles to Maui we were through. In the hour before roll call we had drifted 500 metres. Beaten by the clock we said, but now you know the truth of it.

Greg Westerlund
ZULU

Black Watch: Race Day July 5th, 2008

Well, race fans, it's getting down to crunch time. Congratulations to Strum on their early finish -- save some rum for the rest of us. Sorry to hear of Zulu's withdrawal. And then there were six.

The winds continue to evade us although they have not abandoned us completely. Sailed under the 1/2 oz chute all night making headway which is more than can be said for the night before. Unfortunately, tore a nice rip in the lower edge along the foot at about 0730 hrs. Sooo, we became a sailing boat of experimentation limited only by the number of sails we carry and Capt 'Mad Man at the Helm' Dan's warped imagination that had us flying an oz & 1/2 spinnaker, #1 jib, a yankee and the main ALL AT THE SAME TIME! There was even some speculation about flying TWO spinnakers at the same time, but fortunately there were not enough guys, sheets blocks and cars to implement this insanity (I suspect that several members of the foredeck crew managed to hide enough of the afore mentioned hardware to torpedo that insanity -- good job, Foreplay & Shakespeqare). Needless to say, the foredeck crew had abandoned any hope of ever going below again, let alone sleep, as we raised and lowered our entire complement of sails (13 bags!) except for the storm jib and the tri-sail. Finally, FINALLY, we managed to get the wind to fill this humongous spinnaker that has kept us moving right along all night long, surfing the swells w/the occasional burst to 11+ knots. We may not be on course, but boy, are we having fun. Capt Dan may be mad, but he sure knows how to trim a boat.....eventually. (-:

Race Day July 6th
Has it really been two wks at sea? It seems like only yesterday we were drinking mai tais on the dock in Victoria....NOT! Not that anyone is complaining. There was even some scuttlebutt circulating the boat that, considering our present course to who knows where, if we missed Maui we'd just keep going on to the south Pacific.

Unfortunately, our supplies of rum and chocolate have been exhausted, so missing Maui is not an option.

We are adding a new feature to our publication, "ASK CAPT. DAN." This will be a daily feature where Capt Dan 'Rum Runner' Matthieu will answer questions related to maritime trivia posed by you, our reading public. Questions may be forwarded to Capt Dan via e-mail at os634@skymail.com. Any questions Capt Dan is unable to answer will be turned over to the learned' crew of Black Watch, whose combined scholastic and real world accomplishments span a gazillion years.

Today's question was posed by none other than Capt Dan himself. "Why do flying fish fly?" The answer to this puzzling question had troubled Capt Dan for some time. Time and again he has observed scores of flying fish take flight for no apparent reason except that it looks like a really cool thing to do. Today, at approximately 0500 hrs while standing watch at the helm pondering this complex question and all the Darwinian implications that it held, the answer that had eluded him all these years became crystal clear to him as he witnessed a school of flying fish take flight with one large, mean and obviously hungry dorado right behind them! "Eureka!" he exclaimed. Or maybe it was, "That's it!" We'll never know for sure because he was alone at the helm, but what we do know for sure is that Capt Dan has solved another riddle of the sea that has puzzled mariners and marine scientists for centuries. Thank you Capt Dan for clearing up this perplexing and often misunderstood mystery of the sea.

Send your questions to os634@skymail.com for an extensive and well researched answer that will not only amaze you with its insight and clarity, but will amuse you for years to come.

View All Articles