Festina Lente Updates

1130 PDT 7/22/24 True Wind Speed (TWS) is up breaking through more often 20 now. The boat wakes up at 12, and becomes alive at 15, so now more frequently over 20 is great to hear. Eric and Tracy are up top keeping it fast and I heard someone call out that we just hit boat speed of 12.7. I'm just awake (and done with a some fruit and sausage egg cheese muffin) getting ready for a cycle in that fun. I was about to comment on appreciating the genius of earplugs, as they quiet the big acoustic drum that we're floating on, with sounds of the water rushing by, creaks, footsteps, winches, tethers being clipped/unclipped, velcro, but then Tracy mentioned that we had pulled the hydro-generator which is also a noisemaker. Like the water rushing by, this noise changes its tune as our speed improves so is something to listen to. With our speed coming come up in better wind, so has the power generation output, so we pulled it for a period to reduce drag.

Dress code objective now is solar protection.

All good.

-- Jeremy --

Before sunset last night in anticipation of more wind over night we replaced the A2 with the A4 spinnaker. The wind touched 21 knots, not more. Just a bit of rain The shrimp pasta was killer last night. Saw a couple of flying fish and a moon rainbow. Now we've got a full moon at our left, sunrise behind our right. 10% low clous coverage. Warm enough, but damp. TWD 050-060*, TWS 10-15. BSP 8s. Over the last few hours, we passed Cascade. We just dropped past 1200 miles to go. We're optimistic to hit half-way today. Craig's stories about from world travel in the superyacht world are hilarious, but I wish he wasn't so careful about keeping names of people and boats out of it. All good.

-- Jeremy --

1540 PDT 7/21/2024 1317 nautical miles to finish. But who is counting? 85% cloud cover. Hoping the clouds clear sufficiently to expose tonight's scheduled programming of a full moon. 75*F. Unless we see rain in squalls, we're likely done with heavy foul wether gear. With cloud cover, the sun has not been too tough... yet. True Wind Speed 11.7 knots now, to 16 True Wind Direction 054*, oscillating to 70+ Boat Speed 8.4, to 11 Pressure 1024 mb For performance metrics, see Yellow Brick. We're accustomed to the watch cycle now. Sadly, we've seen plastic debris floating as frequently as we have seen birds, since away from land. Other than those, we have not seen any sign life on the horizon in the last 24H. No competitors, other boats nor ships. Wind is expected to gradually increase, where by this time tomorrow we should be see a consistent 20 knots. This boat really comes alive in wind greater than 13ish, so that should be really fun. No new equipment issues. Everyone happens to be awake now for the 1600 watch change. Great turkey sandwiches. We had been talking about how much the world will have changed by the time re-engage with it, like time travel. And then we got the headline about Biden's decision to step aside. Big news! Many laughs and stories, some of which may be true. We all look forward to seeing our people, whom we miss. We also look forward to the shrimp and pasta dinner on this evening's menu.

All good.

-- Jeremy --

0920 PDT 7/21/24

For a long time now, winds have been oscillating from TWD 045*-075* and TWS 11-17 knots. Boatspeed is in the 7-11 knot range. Pressing the boat deep enough downwind into a strategic imaginary intermediate waypoint is tough when the wind is anything right of the left extreme of its oscillation cycle. If we go too low we lose too much speed, so we're cheating a bit right of that waypoint in reality. Going right at hotter angles yields better boatspeed, so there is a positive element in the tradeoff when we cut right of the waypoint, which in reality is still serving as a reminder to stay as low as we can without too much speed loss. We're doing well on our Polar/VMG targets.

Awareness from feel as well as routine equipment inspections surfaced a couple of items before they became issues: - steering cable was loose, maybe 1/8". tightened. - hub of starboard steering wheel was loose. tightened. - mast-track for spinnaker pole was showing stress from the lateral load created when the pole was far outboard/aft. repositioned pole vertically to be more towards center of track and swung pole foreward, so compression would be more aligned with the centerline of the boat and less aligned laterally.

The sky last night had still had a thin stratocumulus cloud layer at about 95% coverage. When the moon pierced through the holes, at times you could make out shafts of moonlight, which shone bright on the sea surface in spots. In the distance, it gave great contrast on the horizon. When it hit us, colors of the spinnaker came alive and it was bright enough to read by.

I'm just awake and am about to relieve Tracy to stand watch with Eric for a bit and then later Craig. David is asleep. I have not heard a recent competitive position report, but last word was favorable. The sleep last off-watch was good, as were last night's chicken tika masala dinner and freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

All good.

-- Jeremy --

Getting photos off the boat via the Iridium Go connection is next to impossible, but going to give it a shot anyway -- apologies in advance for the small size. The photos below are from the last 24 hours 600 miles offshore from the nearest land.