Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Cirrus on Day 8

Another mellow day with little wind, lots of sunshine coming from a cloudy sky, low waves, and Cirrus trying to find her way through. A bit of excitement came up, when a squall hit us. Squalls are rain showers, limited to a rather small area, like a mile or so. You can see them coming in the distance as a grey curtain ranging from the water to the clouds. It is well known that they always come only during the night. Except when they come during the day. They move faster than boats like Cirrus and bring with them wind, sometimes lots of it, and rain, sometimes lots of it. And with bad luck you are being crossed by them and then remain parked in the lull behind them. Faster boats can actually sail ahead of them, taking advantage of the good wind. We were hit by one last night, made good speed in refreshing rain, and escaped without being parked. During the day we saw many squalls passing by in the distance and got only a little bit of wind, if any, from them. We accommodated wind shifts due to the squalls with two extra jibes. Overall, performance is again disappointing, though it seems to be improving a little bit this evening.
Standings from last day had only minor changes overall, still 3rd in division, and 1st among the Hawaiian boats, but the pressure is mounting.
With a bit of luck earliest arrival will be on midnight from Sunday July 27 to Monday, or a few hours later. So we are pleased to say that we are back to arrival in the dark, as Pacific Cup sailing used to be, and regret the unfortunate break with that tradition as it happened the last Pacific Cup.
Tina's Diner served meat loaf with - you guessed right - mashed potatoes a la skipper. Bad news: Tina's Diner will be closed for the season! We noticed that a Cosco Diner has opened around the corner, and will have to go there tomorrow.
Strangely we haven't seen any flying fish yet, with the exception of the few poor fellows who lost their tiny lives after jumping onto Cirrus. One of them, who dried out on the foredeck, is shown in the picture.

Aloha, Ulli

position: July 23, 2008, 2135PDT, lat:27n28, lon:146w28, cog250M, sog7.2kn

3 comments:

Bellavia said...

... there once was a fish who wanted to fly -
"I don't know why he wanted to fly" - I guess he'll die ....
Keep up the good work! I am intrigued by all the grafts on positions, wind, etc - could make some fine art work too!
Eva a Milton

Anonymous said...

Hello Cirrus!

Your arrival committee from Germany(Rositha) arrived in Hawaii. It took her 30 hrs instead of 25, but at least she is finally there...

We have another idea for your dinner plans: what about Sushi? I heard there must me a nice Sushi place somewhere out there were u are-it's called something like "Ocean Sushi". (didn't you guys get the chance to do some fishing on one of the last races?)

Keep up the daily reports-we really enjoy reading them!

sending you a lot of cheers from Germany!
Melanie u Katja

Anonymous said...

Hallo Ulli
Viele Grüße aus Wolfsburg senden dir Petra und Wolfgang. Ich habe gerade mit Katja zusammen diese Seite aufgerufen, damit wir Euch auch mal ein paar Grüße übermitteln können. Wir hoffen, daß euch euer Segelschiff cirrus
gut nach Hawai bringt und ihr einen guten Platz belegt.
Morgen habe ich Geburtstag und die Vorbereitungen laufen auf Hochtouren.Abends wird gegrillt mit unseren Gästen Gabi und Lothar, Nachbarn aus Sülfeld, Eltern und Kindern .
Also alles Gute.Viel Erfolg!
Petra und Wolfgang Lindner