IN FULL RACE MODE

Day 2 – July 8th
We are now out of the Juan de Fuca Strait, into the Pacific Ocean. No more
land in sight – for some of us this is a first. The wind is now blowing from
the southwest, around 10 - 15 knots and it is time to set our first
spinnaker. Zelda, an A- sail, perfect for these conditions goes up and
carries us through much of the day.
We see the occasional Albatross, the swell picks up, allowing us to
occasionally surf down a big wave, yeehaa. The wind veers more and more to
the west and picks up to 20+ knots. This is too hard on Zelda. Out comes
Green Meanie, our general purpose symmetrical spinnaker. A successful hoist
and now we are in fully Vic-Maui mode – racing down the Pacific at 10+ knots
working hard to keep the competitors behind us at a distance and catching up
to the ones in front of us.
It’s quite amazing, blue water as far as the eye can see, a steady breeze
from the West, the sails are full and the waves gently giving us a nice push
every now and then accelerating Turicum to 12+ knots.
It is now time for the roll call, a daily routine where all boats call in
their position and weather.

Off for now – more to come tomorrow.

Aloha.

RACING, AT LAST

Day 1 – July 7th
Finally, 10 am in the morning the start gun marks the beginning of the long
awaited race to Hawaii.. We woke up to a beautiful & sunny day and everybody had a smile on their
face. A last breakfast ashore, a final mug of coffee, hugs & kisses for
family and friends and we are off the dock. Margaridaville, our spectator boat with family and friends follows Turicum for a while after the start. Light winds prevailed initially. Once the wind
picked up we started to gain good speed and waved goodbye.
We are racing, finally. The wind gets stronger and it’s time for our first
sail change. That went smoothly and for the rest of the day we zig-zag along
the American shoreline towards the end of Juan the Fuca Strait.
The spirits are high and everyone is on deck enjoying a wonderful day of
sailing. We now switch our boat clock to Hawaiian time and settle into
watch rhythm where four crew manage the boat while four rest (and eat and
clean): 6 hour watches during the day and 4 hour watches at night.

Finally - the day of departure arrived. We had two spectacular days in Victoria for final preparations.

The boat & crew is now ready for the big event.

The crew, their families and friends were here in Victoria, working relentlessly in getting everything ready. Produce needed to be bought, fresh bread was brought aboard, sails check and re-packed, computers & electronics underwent a final check and the list goes on.

Spinnaker packing in front of the Empress Hotel

Final touches.

The dock party yesterday was a blast - thank you to the race committee for putting on a great event and for the endless stream of Mai Tais :)

Final Scrub

Hawaii - here I come.

See you in Maui.

Aloha!!

Last Practice Weekend.

Last weekend was our last practice. After loading more than 15 sails on the boat the crew was ready for an over night practice sail.

As usual during our last sailing adventures, it started out with light winds. The plan was to hoist all the different sails we have not yet used and practice some more spinnaker sailing.

Just as everybody settled in and we were about to enjoy a quite sunset the wind picked up and steadily increased to above 20 knots. No better time to test our #3 jib and look at different sheeting angles.

Working with our stay sail.

Reefing the main sail.

We sailed all night long and came back to pick up one more crew early morning. After some well deserved coffee, it was off the dock again and we continued with spinnkares and crew overboard training.

A quite sunday morning sail.

All went well and we enjoyed an exiting weekend of sailing.

What a team: Navigator Mort & Skipper Gunnar.

Next stop: Victoria for the start on July 7th.

Aloha!!

Lasqueti Race

Last weekend Team Turicum practiced during the Lasqueti Race. Here are some notes from the weekend: 

"Back from a fantastic Race Around Lasqueti hosted by Schooner Cove Yacht Club. The event is outstanding -- a fantastic "bang for your buck" Free BBQs, pancake breakfasts and even when the wind died and we weren't able to finish until 9:00 pm, the Fairwinds Golf Club kept their staff on to feed us at 10:00 -- 2 hours after closing.

The racing was great the currents were diabolical and it was a blast with 4 boat finishing within 5 min.

Well done Schooner Cove -- see you next year."

Hale

Swiftsure 2012

The events were anything but a ”Driftsure” as the largest Pacific Northwest’s Swiftsure Regatta is often nicknamed.

Our race weekend encounters included a less than stellar start due to no wind and approximately 200 boats chewing up the ghost of wind present.  We were fending boats off from bumping us on both sides.

However, we picked up 2-4 knots of a building westerly within the hour and got the boat moving nicely. The wind continued to build and  we evnuentally were in 20 knots of wind with a reef and a smaller head sail. Bodies on the rail for the next many hours, taking spray off the face and braving the conditions.

One exciting moment for me was hearing the fog horn from something very large and close but not seeing it. A few minutes later a massive freighter appeared less than half a mile from us and moving swiftly. Lots of distance to pass us on starboard but when in thick fog and hearing the horn, it raises your attention to the matter.

Mort, all the power to you. Glad you are looking after us for the Vic-Maui you called the weather and it gets better as we get more wind for the slide home that Sunday.  To initially take us back we decided on a asymetrical spinnaker to pull us back into the Strait and to Race Passage. We were a bit late getting her to fly as you can understand doing this in the dark is no easy chore for a crew that is new together and some unfamiliar with the boat. Communicating is not easy and individual personalities are fading as fatigue starts to set in. But we are happy to no longer trying to slice our way through the salty water and in anticipation of a fast and drier ride home.

This lasted all night and once I crawled out of the bunk at 3:15am Sunday we were in a consistence 20-25 knots and peaking at 28. Way too much power, and our spinnaker would either fill and unbearably pull us over on our ears, or the boat would dive down wind and our spinnaker a would relax behind the main sail. Now riding down the Canadian coast we needed to get that chute down and get the boat settled into something more manageable.  

We lost dearly on this ordeal but all things considered the crew showed some great character and I will take minute to describe the occurance. Don was our fearless driver during all this time, likely wondering wtf on the other end of the boat, but in any event he kept Turicum on her feet the whole time. No wipe outs and peaking the boat speed at 14 knots.  Keep mind mind that while hoisting the heavy #1 the tack tape got torn out of the sail, so it had to come down and packed away.  The #2 was called for and put into place in preparation for hoist.  We are now ready to put our spinnaker to bed after a night of wet and wild partying.  Thank you and we hope we can do the midnight dance again sometime soon.  It will be a valuable sail  for Vic-Maui 2012.  To pull this all off, Chris, Dr. North and Terry, wrestled with a hundred pounds of 3 different sails while others pulled strings and called tactics from the back in a voice you could hear from 500 yards away on a calm day.  Thanks to Gunnar and Hale for helping with the decisions through the night. The crew were all safe, we religiously clipped on to the boat and this is definitely a must in these conditions.

With Mort on the wheel, Tim, Mike, Gunnar trimming we feathered our way through Race Rocks beautifully. The sun was on the bow, hot chocolate in hand on only 2 hours from the finish spirits were lifted and bodies were resting.

We continued to gybe our way into the finish under A-sail and a meager 15 to 17 knots of true wind.  We finished in the fastest time that any crew onboard has ever done, crossing the line at around 7:40 am on Sunday.  While our results were not what an Ocean Warrior would hope for, we all got a good challenge in preparation for the upcoming race to Maui.  Driving the IOR designed boat can be a challenge in the bumps and it was good to have people get used to the amount of work required to keep the stick out of the water.  Most importantly there were no injuries and we all get to do this again someday soon. We had no breakages other a sail or two need some work.

A great week was had and thanks to all onboard for your hard work and laughs.

Terry. 

A lot of work went into Turicum over the last month. The standing rigging was completely replaced and the mast stepped again in April. The mast tower at the Rowing Club, Turicum’s homeport, sure came in very handy.

                                 Our fearless skipper Gunnar....!                 

                

                                  Under the critical eyes of Hale.

Turicum was then delivered to Steveston where she was hauled out. A fancy new bottom paint remover allowed to strip more than a 100 lbs of old paint in just four hours work. Incredible. Stripped right down to the barrier coat, the hull was then faired and new bottom pain applied. 

Baltopate was the product of choice and when wet sanded gave the hull a shiny finish!

Back in the water we sailed to Vancouver in a fresh westerly breeze. Turicum surely was performing better than before. A note from Hale:

“We had a great sail up from Sandheads to Point Grey with the #2 and no main -- even then we hit over 8kts. We did a test run under power and were about 1/2 a knot faster at 1500rpm.

Looking forward to Swiftsure, the Lasqueti race and then the big test Maui.”

The crew took Turicum for a shake down training weekend and sailed almost a 150  miles in 24 hours. Here are some notes from our skipper Gunnar:

“We had an excellent sea trial of the refurbished rig and new bottom. Turicum has benefitted from all our hard work and is going well. We also had a very valuable orientation for the crew, both in terms of sailing Turicum and the the routines of living aboard and keeping watch schedules. We enjoyed having on board some of the students who will help bring Turicum back from Maui and I am confident we will leave her in good hands for the return trip.”

The next trial will be Swiftsure this coming weekend. Follow us during the race on:

http://tracker.swiftsure.org/

Aloha!