Pacific Cup 2016 – By the Numbers

It always fun to look back at the details of the race. Here are few stats to help summarize the race:

• 11 days, 8 hours, 25 minutes – a full 2 days faster than 2014.
• We averaged just over 8 knots for the entire race. That’s 192 nm/day on average.
• Our best day’s run was 215 nm.
• Top speed was 18 knots.
• Lowest wind speed was 10 knots, highest was 34 knots, and we believe the average was about 19 knots
• We saw only one other boat on the course other than on the first and last day.
• We saw only one ship.
• The only whales we saw this time were in the entrance to SF Bay.
• Much less debris in the water than in 2014. This may have been due to our more southern route, bigger waves churning up the sea making the debris harder to see, or just the passage of time allowing the tsunami debris to circle inwards towards the center of gyre.
• We wrapped something around the keel 4 times. Three times we had to stop and back down to clear it. Only once did we see what we hit (fishing net and rope) before we hit it and we saw it come off also. The fourth time we were able to shake it off the keel within a minute by going 17 knots and driving erratically at the same time.
• We brought 40 gallons of water plus 4 gallons or so of other drinks. The minimum requirement is 35 gallons. We ended up using only 14 gallons of our water. So, we carried an extra 200 pounds of water most of way for no reason.
• We used a Jet Boil to heat our freeze dried dinners and hot water for oatmeal, coffee, and tea. We brought 4 of the small canisters and used less than 2.
• We had 160W of solar and a 110ah battery. The battery was fully charged by noon each day. We were using approximately 16ah overnight. It seems we would have been fine with 25% of the solar, but 80W would be a good safe number. Also, it was cloudy more than half the days.
• The main wildlife we saw were flying fish. They were very small, only 2” long or so, and we lost count of how many ended up on the deck or in our cockpit. We tried to throw them back, but most were too wiggly to grab hold of until they expired.
• An “exhaustive” survey of the finishers in Kaneohe indicated that almost all of the double handers heard voices while underway. The general consensus was that we were hearing something like a radio station through the rigging. No idea how that is possible, but something common across multiple boats was happening.

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