Day Four

Dawn: Spinnaker Up!

We have finally caught the tradewinds. Bashed to windward more yesterday then broke off into a broad reach. The seas are in a lumpy state though so there is much water coming over the bow and into the cockpit.

Now we are cruising along at 11-13knts with the shy kite (aka chicken chute). We delayed setting it last night in the dark as a chaotic mistake would have cost us far more time than the downwind speed.

We also got out of the cloud cover last night so we were able to steer by the stars. Should be a nice sunny day.

The feeding frenzy has diminished but it is expected to pick up as the real work begins now. Constant trimming and hard driving.

Last night's dinner was voted a 7.5: Tomatoes as a starter, then dried greenbeans, followed by chicken fettuccine with two slices of bread. Despite the ranking, there were no leftovers.

We understand that the fleet has split into a Northern and Southern, and that Urge is in the middle. This is according to plan as it gives us more options. The only real question is how much the other boats gained on us during this waterline contest. Now that we are downwind we think Urge will hold its own.

Expedition is still calling for an arrival on the 18th or 19th.

On corrected time, we owe Rhumboogie 7 hrs, while Por Favor owes us 2 hrs and Jamini 5 hrs.The Synergy1000 owe us approx 14 hrs. In the downwind portion of the race, we have to get 70 miles ahead of Rhumboogie and stay within 140 miles of the Synergies.

The crew is doing great- we even have proper head (toilet) etiquette worked out!

That is it for now- time for a rest.

James

Day Three

Hello from Urge on Day 3 . . .Has been a steady bash to windward the last 24 hours. The boat continues to be dry, no broken equipment, and plenty of food. So much that we cannot eat all of each days menus and so we are getting a small pile of candy bars, oatmeal, and breakfast bars. We have convened one court of the Uncontrollable Urge Water Justice Board where one of the crew was found guilty of not consuming his daily allowance. The member pleaded for leniency, offering multiple excuses and stories. The court was not impressed and sentenced him to one carrot as a first offense.

Brian's tapeworm continues to be the happiest crew member. We hear rumors that it may procreate due to both the wealth and variety of food it is being fed.

Interesting topic of discussion during the late watches: Would you eat an orangutan if it was farmed: what if it was shot in the wild?

Had some more friendly visitors last night (dolphins) and saw quite a few whales.

The skies continue to be grey and with no moon there is no horizon or stars to drive by so the vertigo is intense. You feel like you are steering in circles.

Expedition routing is now projecting us reaching Hawaii on the 19th. Hard to say if that is accurate as the weather system is a mess.

We are very happy with our course and position after Day1- by distance to Hawaii we were 6th, but only 3 miles behind the leader. Not bad for doing all upwind work and with time corrected, we probably would be in first place. However, that will change today as the rest of the fleet waterlines us. It looks like the fleet start on Friday will have excellent weather and will catch us within just a few days.

James

Friday Morning

If we had wanted to spend the first four days to Hawaii sailing upwind

in chop we would have done TransPac.  Pac Cup is supposed to be one day

of reaching and then downwind from there.  Oh well.  We held our own on

day one somehow able to sail upwind with the larger boats.  We don't

think that we were that lucky last night.  We do not expect a pleasant

roll-call standing this morning.  Our time will come.  It looks like we

are about a day and a half from finally setting a spin and heading

downwind.  We packed approx. 4000 cal worth of food per person per day

expecting to work it off trimming downwind.  Instead, each one of us

could probably win Nathan's by the time we get to the islands.

The boat is running well, the new instrument placement makes driving at

night much better.  The weather is cool but not too wet.  Heavy cloud

cover and we don't expect to see the sun til Sunday.

Michael

Day One

We are just finishing the first day...so very little wind that at times we were just drifting, but it was a bash out out of San Francisco. Once we turned the corner though, the wind went away. We saw one whale yesterday, but have heard a few blow during the night. Last night I also saw a dolphin coming straight at us at high speed- it looked just like a torpedo as it was leaving a bioluminescent track. Very cool though and they like to come up and play just under the bow. It was fairly cold last night, causing some shivering and many thoughts of warm Hawaii.

Crew is in great spirits and we have tons of food- even Iceman's tapeworm is happy!

Oh, and don't even get me started on the water. One gallon of water each makes for many peering boys.

This morning has dawned grey and we see four boats from our division around us. We have decided to give them pet names... Por Favor is now "Oh Please". Rhumboogie is slightly red so it is now "Tickle Me Elmo".

- James

More Start Pictures

The Race Begins!

Pre start

Chris

James

Packing

More packing

Applying sunscreen

The Crew's SF Accommodations

Casa de Urge - surprisingly quiet and bedbug free.

-Chris

Crew Rotation Schedule

James' new dinner shirt, courtesy of Costco. Lime green?

- Chris

Preparation Continues

The crew and friends are packaging the meals for each day into separate bags. They will be taking food for fourteen days.

James with the menus

Michael repairing the head.

Predicted Surface Winds for the Start

At this point the preparations for the race include checking the weather that is forecast for the start of the race in an effort to determine the fastest possible route. The picture above is the surface wind map for the start on Wed. Unfortunately the first few days look like the winds will be light.

This is one of the weather charts they will be downloading on the boat 2-4X /day during the race. This is what they use to determine where they want to be as the race progresses. These forecasts are only accurate for 1-2 days. In the past week the predicted race time has varied from 9-13 days.

We'll keep you posted.

The crew is not happy unless they have >15 knots of wind and 10 ft surfable swells. Let's hope for the best!

Provisioning Continues

Christopher Gilmore to James, Brian, Michael

Did another REI run today and dropped $200 on: Smoked Salmon filets x 4 (thinking lunch salad topping or crackers) Regular Salmon filets x4 (thinking lunch salad topping or crackers) Orange Sport Jelly Beans x 8 Fruit Sport Jelly Beans x 8 Cherry caffeinated Sport Jelly Beans x 12 Assorted Sport Jelly Beans x 8 Fruit Power Bars x 12 Freeze dried Buffalo Chicken Wraps x 2 Freeze dried Corn x 2 Freeze dried Western Scramble Ham & Eggs x 4 Freeze dried BBQ Beef Wrap x 2 Freeze dried Mexican Beef Wrap x 2 Freeze dried Peas x 2 I did buy a spare Buffalo Chicken Wrap to test-fly this weekend to see how much it makes. - Chris

Chris at the slip in San Francisco

James

The view from Uncontrollable Urge's slip in SF

Chris and Brian prepping the boat in San Francisco

Michael adding portholes to the rear berths.

Urge in San Francisco

Brian inspecting things up top

Uncontrollable Urge in San Francisco

The crew worked hard this weekend preparing for the race.

Chris and Brian spent Sat and Sun working on the boat.

Michael flew up for the day on Sunday.

The start date is July 7.