Roll up, Stop

Roll up, Stop

We are now 40 miles away from the finish. There is a light fog perched on the horizon that is keeping us from seeing Maui. 

The sun is scorching the decks today. Inside the cabin the temperature is 32 degrees and it is even hotter outside. The team is on half-hour steering rotations to insure that everyone is properly hydrated and there is always a fresh set of hands on the wheel. 

It is looking like we will be finishing somewhere in the neighbourhood of 12:00am-3:00am tonight with most guesses landing on 2:00am, which is eight hours from now.

This will likely be our last blog post until we have our photos wrapped up.

This race has been a tremendous experience and we are all very thankful to have been able to be a part of the team!

But before going we would like to thank:

Helly Hansen Granville - Leo, Krizia, and Tiff did a spectacular job at getting the team coordinated in a  set of spectacular offshore gear.

SEAMOB+
Hank Schut for producing our emergency equipment schematics.

Edward & Jane Karadontis for being gracious hosts as our spector vessel

David and Gaylean Sutcliff for all of the guidance in preparing Turnagain for the trip

First Yacht Services

Catharine McGregor for being our shore side communications controller and blog updater

North Sails for delivering our excellent last two spinnakers in time for the race start

Curtis and Julie who we hear are prepping for our arrival as our official LYC greeters.

We send our best wishes to all our friends and loved ones who we will be seeing very shortly!

The boys on Turnagain

It Starts

I have just left the dock in Coal Harbour to begin the delivery to Victoria.  The last week has been even busier than the previous months of prep. Moving food onto the boat. Final equipment setup and stowage of all the spares etc.

The boat is about as ready as it will get (once we pack the fresh foods in Victoria) and has lowered down closer and closer to the waterline with every trip down to the boat.

The whole trip is really starting to hit home. It is way different talking about sailing to Maui for two years than actually untying and leaving.     There have been many people that have helped get Turnagain ready for this trip including (but not limited to) Catharine – my VERY supportive wife, the team at First Yachts (Brad and Adam mostly, but the rest of the team supporting them), the Turnagain team with a TON of hours from Darin, and the crew at Xprt who have taken a lot of work off of my plate to allow me to focus on this prep, and a lot of support from David and Gaylean Sutcliffe with the VicMaui committee.

We will be in Victoria early Monday am and I hope to have at least once daily updates to this blog from now until Maui and then again on the return.

Travis

OREGON OFFSHORE - OFF TO THE RACES

Just a quick note to update you all. Some of you may know more about this project than others, but most know that we have been preparing Turnagain for some distance racing. Our first official distance race is scheduled to start at 10 am PDT today (May 9,2013).

The delivery crew (Steve C, Jason B, and myself) got the boat to Astoria last weekend with minimal damage and some fantastic sailing. Jason had to return to Vancouver on Monday, but Steve and I spent the week prepping all last minute items. The remainder of the crew arrived Wednesday afternoon (David S, Darin F, Keith A) and after our skippers meeting are ready to tackle the course.

Feel free to follow along on the race tracker at www.oregonoffshore.org

The winds are forecast to be light, so it may be a real struggle to keep the boat moving in the right direction, but we are excited to get the race going.

Travis

OREGON OFFSHORE 2013 - Turnagain's first offshore race!

The crew and the team at First Yachts have been working tirelessly to ready the boat for Oregon Offshore 2013.Turnagain’s first offshore race!!!  You can follow along on any AIS program, or www.oregonoffshore.org. 

With final touches being done on the boat Tuesday and Wednesday (April 30 and May 1, 2013) we will load the life raft and provisions Thursday evening and head out to Victoria. Ion is planning on meeting us in Victoria Saturday for an 1100-1200 departure to Astoria. 

The delivery crew is short consisting of Jason Bowman, Steve Corcoran and myself.  I am sure we will be relying on the autopilot (at least I will be J) to do a portion of the helm work. Current winds look like light NW winds for the trip, hopefully enough to push us along at a reasonable clip.

This winter and spring have brought many projects to Turnagain, including installation of SSB, fine tuning the water maker, an additional solar panel, inner fore stay, second chart plotter, and hardening of multiple items.  Most of the work has been performed flawlessly by First Yachts of North Vancouver with the remainder completed by the boat crew.

We will be using Oregon as a test of multiple systems, including SSB email and weather access.  As the distances and time frame of the trip is not extensive, it is a great time for testing such systems since the reliance of updates is not critical.

Travis