Monday Morning Update from Sheri on Sleeper

Here is the Monday morning update from Sheri:

Hello Friends
Yesterday was a momentous day with us passing through the imaginary halfway point.  Just around sunset we moved through mile 1112.5.  We had a small celebration sharing a bottle of Menage a trois and toasting to Neptune and friends not with us. 

Jared shared a personal moment with us in remembrance of his dear friend's Dad 'Joel'.  He shared wonderful stories of his childhcod and Joel's playful spirit and mischievous engagement with his son and his son's friends (Jared).  Joel had the gift of a smile and a contagious sense of humor.  A toast a cheer and then it was back to business: Transpac. 

Sunday night was a roller coaster ride that saw winds ranging from 15-25kts.  The Appethyl A2 spinnaker was superb! Although challenging to keep filled with wind as the boat lurched and rolled on the liquid silver, cloaked in black.  The four most experienced drivers - Ron, Bryan, Chad and Andrew steered us through until dawn's light.  Where the wind didn't let up but the sunshine made the situation seem so much less treacherous.  Jared is on the helm now coaxing beautiful boat to find her true course to Oahu in 20 kts of breeze: FRESH.

We are doing well against our competition, which is tough.  This morning's position report finds us still in second place behind Dorade and ahead of Westward and Between the Sheets.

Perhaps today the wind backs and we make the turn towards Molokai.

Keep us close to your hearts and on your minds.
Cheers
Team Sleeper

Sheri Saturday Morning Update---The Couscous Disaster!

From Sheri Hunt this morning...

Please forward to all you know who may be interested as I have a limited address book.Well we lost our 1st in class and 1st in fleet position to Dorade last night. We are now corrected to 2nd in class and 2nd in fleet. The big boats start today so the race is on. We have about 1200 miles to go and are hoping to make it to a new windline by the end of the weekend.

This morning we were welcomed to the day by a frigate gliding across the wave faces effortlessly. 1000 miles from land and he decided to come to say hi. Circled us twice on his fly by and the off into the sunrise.

A squally night with us seeing winds up to 22kts but with no consistency.  Lots of stars and many of them shooting. The worst part so far is the smell in the house of fermenting couscous!  4 lbs or something like that was lost to the port bilge area due to water in the bilge that was isolated from the pumps due to the heel angle of the boat for the first 3 days.  When if finally splashed into the crew bunk floors it was too late to salvage the dry stores in the port lockers...the boxes were left intact except for soft bottoms and no couscous.  ;)  We bailed the bilge but the little couscous culprits remained in isolated compartments...a proper bath for the boat and crew upon arrival in Honolulu.  

Keep us close in your hearts and on your minds.

CheersTeam Sleeper.

Saturday Racing Update

As we near the near the half way point either late today or tommorrow, Sleeper still seems to be in a good position a little off to the right of the rhumb line...

Division 8 leader Manatea had about a 150 nm lead over Sleeper, but being a 65 foot boat she owes a lot of time to Sleeper. Ron had been keeping near Division 7 entry Gefion for quite some time, however Gefion has now bore off back to the rhumb line. Interesting because division 7 leader Kiho (about 50nm ahead of Sleeper) is starting to head back to the right of the rhumb line. The tactics and battle for wind are obliviously well underway!

Only a few crew updates from the last day or two. Sheri Hunt was able to report that the crew that initially fell victim to seasickness have since recovered and are doing fine. And after a cold and wet first few days the weather is now starting to improve with more sun than clouds and warmer temperatures.

As of the last couple of updates Sleeper had been running first corrected time, but we'll see what the next couple of days bring as Sleeper crosses the halfway point!

Tuesday Noon Race Update

Day one on the ocean is behind us. And things are looking good as most boats in the fleet seem to have been able to find some wind all night long.

Here is the current positional update from Yellowbrick as of this morning...

Most of the boats are steering south of the rhumb line chasing the wind. As you can see, during the night Sleeper turned even further to the left to do this. And from the telemetry it looks like most of the boats were able to keep up 8 knots all night---not too shabby! But even with the various course adjustments, most of the fleet is still within about a 5 nm radius.

If you want to read up more about the pacific high and how it determines the best route to Hawaii, check out this excellent article at Cruising World. 

Sleeper @ the start...

Thanks to our sponsor Vector450 here are some great photos of Sleeper at the start of the Transpac today! It is GO time for Team Sleeper!

Sleeper photos at the start on Facebook

Live Race Results for Team Sleeper

We're counting down the minutes until the start of the 2013 Transpac for Team Sleeper! To keep tabs on Sleeper---as well as all of the other boats---here are some links to the all of the satellite tracking data...

The current leaderboard with all boats

Google Earth link to live race update (Google Earth required)

Race update in a simple format for the web


We will be providing Google map positions for Sleeper every few hours via our twitter feed @team_sleeper as well.

We're twenty minutes from the first start, so it's time to get excited!!