Day 4 - Screaming South

News is in from the Turicum crew. If you haven't already done so, then checkout the Saturday blog entries from Les, Naomi and I think Hale. Good to hear from them. So Day 4 and where do they all stand? Take a quick look at the google earth snapshot for an overview. Things are getting interesting.

This report is based on the 0830 (that's 8:30 am pacific time, not GMT or local to the boats) position reports, which is slightly different than previous days because not all of the data was posted for the 0430 time.

Turicum is now furthest West and Pyreneenne have moved further South. In terms of distance to the finish Turicum is marginally closer. Both are trying to find the fastest way around the pacific high and as before the question remains: better to head south first then west or head west sooner ? Stay tuned for the whole race to figure out the answer to that question. The boats are still in fairly close quarters too so it's too early to tell if anyone has an advantage. Pyreneenne is 26 nm south east of Turicum. Sonsie is 22 nm behind Turicum to the NNE. They really are still quite close to each other. Fascinating stuff.

Note also I've plotted Terremoto on the chart. Terremoto is what should be the fastest of the Division 2 boats that started yesterday. What will be interesting is to watch how the other division fares in catching u,p and what courses they choose. Interesting that she is staying closer inshore than the previous courses and will be hunting for stronger faster winds. Makes you wonder if that is what Pyreneenne is doing too, by heading further south than Turicum. Previously Pyreneenne was the most westerly boat. Terremoto is about 175 nm behind the leading pack of Division 1 boats.

And it looks like Black Watch is back on track. After heading out into the pacific she turned around and went back to the Juan de Fuca entrance, and has subsequently resumed sailing SW on the race course and is back in the Pacific. Something happened along the way and it will be interesting to find out what, but it looks like they are back on track.

So that's about it for todays position reports. The boats (Turicum, Sonsie, Pyreneenne) are about 140 nm offshore at about the Washington/Oregon border. They are sailing fast generally in a SSW direction and will probably have another fun day!

Unlike the previous blog entries I'm going to do a separate update on the weather. Some interesting observations there, but I'm going to take a break for now and come back to it. If you have any thoughts, questions, observations or other websites that can give us information please do get in touch with me via this blog or by contacting andyelliott@shaw.ca