This isn't a fast race by any stretch of the imagination, competing in slowness with the 2000 and 2004 races. And having only one sail up doesn't make it faster for us. That is saying you need to have at least one sail up, and here is where our next little problem came up.

In our strive for best use of very limited resources, we decided this morning, about 5am, under a full moon, to jibe the spinnaker to squeeze out another fraction of a knot of speed. It became a long struggle with lines disappearing into the air, the spinnaker guy's shackle opened inadvertently, the spinnaker sock not coming down, then not coming up, and eventually the bottom of the sail ripped from end to end. No problem, Bill, M-P, and Donna fixed it right on the spot on the foredeck using the famous sticky tape, and up the spinnaker went again, only to be also ripped again very soon. It came down again, and the new 3/4 ounce spinnaker went up, which we are driving successfully since then. The whole struggle took almost 2 hours, during which we had basically no sail flying! Klabautermann keeps haunting us.

And imagine our surprise, when we learned later that we still are #3 in our division! California Girl is pulling away, only challenged by Hooligan. Green Buffalo is right behind us, and I am afraid they have a good chance of overtaking us. They certainly will if we continue messing with sails like that. But for now we are doing ok, with 5 - 7 kn at wind speeds down to well under 10 kn. The late-starting, fast boats so far show great performance covering all first dozen places in the overall ranking, but they also may be caught in light air soon. Weather charts do not suggest that any weather changes are imminent.

Greg and M-P are repairing the ripped half ounce spinnaker since about 2 hours. As I said, it is a looooong rip, stitched manually. One is poking the sewing awl through the rim of the sail, the other feeding the second thread through. But if I can manage to post another picture, you will see they obviously are having fun.

I have to apologize, I have completely forgotten to introduce the crew. Some of us have links to their own websites on the the Cirrus blogsite located in the sidebar, which you may want to browse. We probably have the most international crew of the trip. Bill is resident of Hawaii and owner and skipper of Cirrus. He does his 6th race across the Pacific. Dave does his 3rd Pacific Cup race, all of them on Cirrus, and had his own boat on the San Francisco Bay. He lives in the Bay Area. Greg is Canadian of Russian descent; he does his second race, both on Cirrus. He is an avid sailor and cruiser on his own boat, which he currently has stationed in Panama. M-P, or Marie-Pierre as rumors have it is written in her passport, is Canadian of French descent, and currently also resident of Hawaii. She does her first transocean race, but she has done three boat deliveries, including this year's on Cirrus, from Hawaii to the mainland. Donna is also resident of Hawaii, and is also doing a transocean race for the first time, but she has probably done more miles under sail than the rest of us plus extended families combined. For many years she had commercially operated her own 80 foot sailboat, which was used for marine research all over the Pacific. And myself, a German native and resident of Germany, who had lived and worked for many years in the Bay Area, I am doing my 4th Pacific Cup, and the third one on Cirrus, as navigator, radio operator and doing a weeny bit of typing. And not to forget Valerie, wife of the skipper and Boat Nanny of Cirrus. She is the 'chef de cuisine', having prepared almost all of our delicious food aboard, and the unchallenged commander of the whole operation, taking care of all of this from ashore, not from the boat. So now you know; 1 nation per 10 feet of sailboat!

Yet another ship has crossed our bow, but racers still remain invisible. We have seen the first flying fish of the trip. Actually quite big ones, which stayed in the air for quite some time.

We have 1050 miles to go, which means half-time is coming up tonight with some surprise dinners! Something to tell you about tomorrow.

Aloha,
Ulli

position 1400h 28N27, 140W01, COG: 255M, SOG:5.5.kn