Finally on Friday we made it back up from Cabo after probably the longest 800 miles I’ve ever done. The trip went pretty smoothly with little damage and all the crew in one piece. The sea state however was far from smooth. When we left Cabo the sea state was terrible and progress was painfully slow. By the second day things has calmed a little and we were able to find our groove. Five days later we pulled into turtle bay to wait for a storm to clear that was blowing up to 40knots between us and San Diego. Turtle bay was an interesting town with very little going on, people were friendly though and we where able to get everything we needed. A couple of other race boats had stopped In Turtle bay for the same reasons and we all got together for some group meals and made the most of the situation. We didn’t see any Turtles!
I’d like to thank all the delivery crew for a great job and one of the best groups of people I’ve been to sea with.
The second leg of the trip was much easier and we made it with only a couple of tacks. Clearance went smoothly in San Diego and we are now back at Driscoll boat yard and I have started working on tasks that have been highlighted in our post race analysis.
One thing that failed was the charging system on the first night. This was a worry as lithium batteries can not be allowed to drop bellow 20 % or they are finished and can not be charged up again. The sea state was bad and it was already night time so we had to conserve power overnight and wait until first light to do some proper investigation. In the morning we checked everything over and I decided to change the alternator for the spare which is to an easy task even when the boat is on the dock. A couple of hours later after playing with some wiring we were back up and running. The old alternator is getting tested at the moment and it does seem at first glance like the bearing is shot.
Plenty of varnish work needs to be done and some paintwork also. All this racing takes its tole on the boat but that is what she was born to do.
So until the end of the month I’ve got a nice list to keep me busy and fix all the snags before we head back up to San Pedro for some crew practice and Trans Pac preparations.
Ben