11 Days, The countdown has started!

I realized how fast the start date is coming when I started looking this morning at my list of things to get done around the house before we leave. I'll fly down to the boat from Portland on Tuesday the 8th and help finish any minor projects we need to get done.

Most importantly we'll be doing our last-minute strategic planning. This means I've started watching the weather very closely.

Right now, its looking pretty unpredictable so we'll be micro-monitoring things pretty closely as we get closer so we can finalize our route.

If the 96 hour proves to be accurate we'll start to see a more "normal" settling of the Pacific High. Only time will tell.

Cheers!

Tony

The race committee has shifted things around a bit. We are still starting at 1250 on 14 July but with some new competitors. The Moore 24's have moved to DH Division 2 and Giant Slayer is with us again. She was with us in 2006. Rubicon III is very similar to Plus Sixteen in rating and size. We may see a lot of her on the Ocean

Boat Name	Type	Entrant	Div	LWL	Base	DISP	PHRF	PCR	Allow DA:	HH:MM:SS
Division DH 1 Mon, Jul 14 12:50
Neptune's Daughter	Crealock 34	Ed & Earlinda Polkenhorn	DH 1	26.21	PHRF	13200	195	666	15	22:57:00
Rubicon III	Contessa 33	Rod Percival	DH 1	25.5	PHRF	8289	138	640	15	8:00:00
Plus Sixteen	Olson 911	Paul Disario	DH 1	25	PHRF	8500	129	637	15	6:16:30
Raindrop	Cascade 36	Joby Easton	DH 1	29	PHRF	13000	132	624	14	22:48:00
Dart	Peterson 34	John Crutcher	DH 1	28.3	PHRF	10800	120	624	14	22:48:00
Giant Slayer	Santa Cruz 27	David Garman - Debra Lowell	DH 1	24	PHRF	3300	138	624	14	22:48:00

Well, its official now. We start on July 14th just as we thought.

Our start time is 12:50 and we'll be the first group to lead nearly a week of starts.

We've ended up in the DH1 Division and looking forward to some friendly rivalry,....
....maybe a beer or two for the winners


Now that we have the official start date, I'm realizing how close we are and how much I have to get done on the home-front in the next couple of weeks. A day or two at sea and none of that will matter anyway

I'll have the beautiful island of Oahu to look forward too!!

Cheers!

Tony
Team Plus-Sixteen, Navigator

Gavilan, Green Buffalo and Plus Sixteen have joined together to form RYC Team 109.

Gavilan, a Wylie 39 is on her first Pacific Cup. Skipper Brian Lewis was crew on the 1992 Pacific Cup. Gavilan’s crew is Bruce Nesbit and Marlene Benke. Bruce is a Pacific Cup veteran. This is Marlene’s first long ocean race.

Green Buffalo is a Cal 40. She finished 3^rd in Division A in the 2006 Pacific Cup. She is owned by Jim Quanci, a veteran of many Pacific Cup races. Mary Lovely is skipper, Jim is navigator. Crew Members are Andrew Quanci, Stephen Quanci, Robert Nance and John Dillow, all Pacific Cup veterans.

Plus Sixteen, an Olson 911 is about to begin her second Pacific Cup. She finished 2^nd in the Double Handed Division in 2006 Pacific Cup. Paul Disario is skipper and Tony Porche is navigator. Tony and Paul were together on Plus Sixteen in 2006.

109 in RYC Team109 is the sum of the boats’ Lengths Overall.

GO RYC TEAM 109!

Hello All!

This is Plus-Sixteen's first Blog entry via the Iridium satellite phone.

Paul sent me an email saying the spinnaker pole end is now working properly.
After our spinnaker practice on the bay last weekend we noticed that the pin
was sticking on one end. Paul called Forespar to order a new one and they
said to soak it in white vinegar to see if it would loosen it up first. Sure
enough it did and seems to be working now.

Tony has been busy getting the communications worked out for using the sat
phone to post our logs here while we're at sea. We hope to be able to post
regularly this way while underway..we'll see J

The SSB Radio is installed and seems to be working perfectly. The Fugawi
software is pretty cool, but makes the windows laptop run slooooow! We'll
carry the Mac with MacENC for a back up to the PC .. Well OK I'll probably
just use the Mac anyway since I've managed to get it to work with the
Iridium also.

Paul and Kathy will be showing off Plus-Sixteen at the RYC this Saturday at
the party so stop by and take a look. We have only very minor tasks left
before declaring ourselves ready to go! Me, I'll be stuck in Portland OR.
Cross your fingers I get to see some sunshine before leaving for Hawaii.
It's been pretty rainy up here.

We've also been talking to folks about putting together another RYC team for
the race and hope to make an announcement within the next week.

Cheers!

Tony
Team Plus-Sixteen, Navigator

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in
a pretty and well preserved body, But rather to skid in broadside,
thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming --WOW!-- What a
Ride!"

Tony and I got together for the Drakes Bay Race. We decided to cancel that plan when the ocean wind topped 40 knots. We felt the practice would be limited to storm conditions. We decided to practice spinnaker jibing. We found that we could fly our asymmetric spinnaker speeding at 9 knots nearly down wind with no pole. This made jibing very easy. Of course it was blowing 15-20. We hope this technique will help us jibe in front of squalls on the way to Hawaii.

We finished up minor final projects such as radio installation, radar reflector, etc. We are ready and excited.

Kathy and I are showing off the Plus Sixteen at Richmond Yacht Club on this Saturday from 1400 to 1600. The club is hosting a party for the 14 Pacific Cup entrant from RYC.

Pacific Cup start is 14 July.

The yard (KKMI) installed new batteries, painted the bottom and inspected the rudder. All is well and Plus Sixteen is back at RYC.

Paul has nearly completed installing new propane cook stove. It will be a pleasure to have a new stove for the trip. The old alcohol stove was hard to use and produced less heat than propane.

Tony and Paul are planning to take as much gear off the boat as possible for the race. This is to reduce weight and clutter.

Our next race is Drakes Bay, a 30 mile slog north from the gate to the south side of Pt. Reyes. After anchoring for the evening, we race home with spinnaker set.

Bob Gray, our Pacific Cup Inspector, inspected Plus Sixteen last Friday. He found only a few items for correction:

• We had outdated tethers. They are now replaced with new ones.

• Our anchor chain was too short. We bought more.

• He will re-inspect our SSB radio installation

We were pleased that our preparation was successful.

Our final Prep Race will be the Drakes Bay Race. It is an ocean race featuring a beat from San Francisco Bay to Drakes Bay on Saturday June 7, overnight in Drakes Bay and a spinnaker run home on Sunday June 8.

After Drakes Bay is the Bon Voyage party at the San Francisco Yacht Club (http://www.sfyc.org/) on July 12.

We leave on July 14 for Kaneohe Hawaii.

Plus Sixteen is presently in the yard for bottom painting and final review of all systems. We checked and she fits on her trailer so we ship her back after the race.

The Skipper and Crew of Plus Sixteen are getting excited to be at sea.

Paul sailed as navigator in the 1996 Pacific Cup on Lobo, skippered by the late Julio Magri. We finished 4th in our double handed division. Julio was a native of Chile. His nephew Francisco and his sister Flora traveled from Chile to met us in Hawaii to sail the boat to the mainland with Julio while I flew home. Julio died in December 1996. Flora and Francisco returned to Chile. Last week Francisco called me from Connecticut where he is studying. He plans to meet us in Hawaii for the finish of the the 2008 Pacific Cup, if his studies permit. I would like very much to see him and hope he will be in Hawaii in late July.