Waikiki

July 28, 2014 9:00pm

After loading the boat and having a quick bite to eat at the Pioneer Inn, we slipped our mooring for Honolulu. Winds were light and "from every direction", so we chose to motor for the first 45minutes to hour. Then there was WIND!!!.. we quickly got the sails out and had steady pressure to 28kts with gusts to 35. Turnagain was in her element, rocketing along at 10-14kts. Slowly the wind built as we got closer to Molokai to a steady 35 and gusts to 38kts. Our top speed for the sail over to Honolulu was into the 16s, but I was not watching as I was busy driving, Dave had a keen eye on the speedo though and was saying something about 16.4kts. Not bad for white sails!

We made quick work of the 75miles to Honolulu and pulled into the Hawaii Yacht Club "Aloha Dock" at 7pm.  We rafted to an Andrews 56 that had completed the Pacific Cup (from San Francisco) around the same time as our Vic-Maui completion. We got straight to sharing beer and swapping war stories.  The furthest in boat of our raft was Tatoosh (sp?), an 80ft wood sailboat that has quite a history, including being owned by Peter Fonda at some point in its history (according to the crew and totally unverified).  The Turnagain crew quickly made for some shore food as we knew we would be on the boat a lot over the next few weeks and ended up eating at the Tropics bar on Waikiki beach.  Service was great, food was average, but I was able to eat way too much.

We will be in Honolulu until Wednesday am, at which time we will leave and head to Ko' Olina for fuel and then around the west side of the island and on to the Strait of Juan De Fuca.

Until tomorrow

Travis

July 28th 7am

Well…. The "event" is over. Most of the race crew have returned to Vancouver, family has left and the delivery crew is meeting me at the harbour this am to start the journey back to our home waters.  

I would like to thank the race crew for an excellent trip with a ton of learning opportunities mixed into a ton of exciting times.  The boat and crew faired very well and I am eager to plan the next big offshore trip.

A very special thank you to Curtis and Julie, who put on a spectacular greeting event on our arrival at 1:30 (to the dock at 2:30) am.  They went above and beyond make our entire crew feel welcome and assisting with shore side chores during our initial days in Lahaina.

Another THANK YOU, goes to David and Gaylean Sutcliffe for being great mentors and really making the even accessible to us. 

Lastly, THANKS!!!! To my lovely wife, two fantastic kids and both sides of our families that made the trip down to Maui to great us and assist with preparing the boat for the trip home.

I am off to meet the delivery crew now and will attempt to have updates at least once per day on the trip home.

Travis

Homeward Bound

Time has passed REALLY quickly since the race officially finished.  Everyone consumed their fair share of mai-tais and coconut shrimp over the past week, and now it's time for the return trip.  Losloper is staying in Hawaii for the season (lucky dogs), and Kahuna will be heading to Honolulu for mast repairs of course!

Ty, Adam, Steve T, Travis, and Jason.
Missing are Steve C and Darin.
In the background is Kinetic with El Ropey...you'll have to
ask them for details!

Callum, Daylie, Sylvia, and Travis with the trophy

The Awards Banquet was perfect....great music, perfect sunset backdrop, and a million trophies to hand out. Turnagain won best in division (never mind the fact it's the slow division...), and of course a few boats cleaned up! (don't need to mention who THEY were...cough cough....Longboard).  Of course Anduril won the trophy for best race to San Fran, wink wink.  Congrats to all!

Five Boats (Avalon, Longboard, Kinetic, Family Affair and Turnagain) will be carrying trackers on the voyage home. Their position can be followed at:  http://yb.tl/vicmaui2014return for the Full Yacht Tracker. Note: this is a different link to the tracker than for the race.  

Turnagain is in blue now

Over the past few days Travis has been joined by MacKenzie, Dave, Eric, and Elisa for the return trip.  Elisa had planned on delivering Kahuna back to the continent, but alas, without a mast that would be difficult so she's joining the guys on Turnagain for the trip back. They left the docks in Lahaina this morning en route to Honolulu for a few days (for provisioning and a better wind angle home).  

Wishing them a safe and fun trip home!

In the wee hours of July 20th...by Catharine

My last illustration....

We just KNEW they were going to arrive in the middle of the night.  We'd been calculating and re-calculating their arrival for days. 

We got the call to head down to the docks around 12:30 am, and from there the phone tree began and we headed down.  We hauled the little ones out of bed, dressed them (and the spouses) in the awesome shirts that Jenn and Roberta made, put on our Aloha gear, and braved the rain.  

At this point the rain wasn't so bad.  And the darkness seemed manageable.  But then we learned that Turnagain was still going to be 1-2 hours away.  There wasn't much point in going back to the hotels to wait, so we roamed around the docks and the Banyan tree in the dark.  Callum sat in the van with Nana and pretended to fly a jet to Hawaii.  Sylvia toured the historical sites and collected a pet rock.  Jenn walked Daylie and Dalton around, trying to get Dalton (a wee 3 months old) to sleep.  Curtis and Julie prepped everything for the boys arrival, and the rest of us just milled about.  

A sleepy Sylvia with her pet rock, waiting
for Turnagain

We got a call that Turnagain had OFFICIALLY crossed the finish line, around 1am.  Curtis was going out by inflatable to deliver beer and help guide them into the dock.  And they'd be here soon!

And then the rains REALLY started.  

I'm talking run-for-your-life-under-cover rains.  

The kind of rain that is SO LOUD you can barely talk to the person next to you and all the gutters are instantly overflowing and there are rivers cascading down the streets.  

And in the torrential downpour Jam arrived at the dock and were greeted by their loved ones.  We all prayed the rains would cease before Turnagain's arrival!

And of course they did.  

All of us with our amazing sign (prepared by
 our greeting crew, watching the boys come in

Approaching the dock.  We hooted and hollered them in!

Enjoying their champagne.  We all got a little
champagne shower to go with our rain shower!

Turnagain all dressed up

After celebrating on the docks we all headed into the Pioneer Inn for a party and feast prepared by Curtis and Julie.  It would be an understatement to say we were all pretty happy to have our guys back!

Pretty awesome way to spend my birthday :)

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

The Home Stretch

On the home stretch... about 60NM to go as of 6pm Hawaii time, currently going about 8.5kts...which puts them across the finish line around 1am (although the wind seems to be getting light out there), and maybe into Lahaina around 2am?  If we're lucky?  Could be later?  We will see....  But we are all ready with our Aloha shirts whenever the boys arrive!

Here's a little song written by Bruce Tays before the race started (he's a friend of Darin and Travis)

Just sit right back and you will hear a tale
a tale of a fateful trip
that started from the BC port
aboard this sailing ship

The mate was a mighty lumber-man
the Skipper brand and sure
five seaman set sail that day
for a 2 week tour
a 2 week tour

The weather started getting rough
the Turnagain was tossed
if not for the fearless crew
the Turnagain would be lost
the Turnagain would be lost

The ship found ground on the shore of this inhabited Hawaiian Isle
with Darin (Gilligan)
the Skipper too (Travis)
5 other clowns
And there shit stained shorts
Looking to get hammered
Here on Darins (Gilligans) isle

The last 240 brought to you by caffeine pills and gatorade

Day 15 - Turnagain by a Nose?

Sailing doesn't get any better than this. As we enter the last 24 hours of the race we are a little over 200 miles from the finish line.

Today the team screamed forward and shattered its previous record by logging 220 miles today. We have clear sunny skies, steady wind, and serious competition keeping us on our toes. After fifteen days and well over 3000 miles under our belt, all that is left is a drag-race to the finish line that will come down to boats crossing within minutes of each other. <queue up Kenny Loggins - Highway to the Danger Zone>

The crew of Turnagain is on red-alert for this last push as we watch the odometer count down to zero. We are keeping our biggest flying sails up around the clock to keep the boat moving in the double digits and the crew is on a strict diet of caffeine pills and Gatorade.

Last night we powered through another matrix of warm rain storms that forced us to steer back and forth violently as we tried to maintain a frantic pace under heavy clouds. Everything went really well aside from getting knocked around a bit and soaked, so, not much to report there.

If you read yesterday's blog, it sounded like we put our rig through its paces, however some of our competitors have experienced more significant damage. According to last night's fleet report:

" Passepartout lost a second kite as well as a steering cable
" Alegria lost its third kite of the race
" Kinetic has wrapped their prop with some sort of debris
" Bedlam II blew a spinnaker halyard block

These minor setbacks have not hindered any of the boats and they are charging hard for the finish. We are very happy to hear that all crews are in great shape.

In previous posts we have requested "a beer" when we get to the dock and spoken about how much we have missed the taste of "a beer". We would like to formally revise all previous statements to "several, ice cold beers".

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

The boys on Turnagain