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August 08th, 2016

8/8/2016

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297.25
The last shifts, the end is near, we’ll be crossing the finish line later this afternoon, but.... where the heck is Maui...?!!!
It’s odd to know the island is there but you can’t see it and don’t know when you will. Every 10 miles someone brings out the binoculars to see if they can be the first to spot land.
The spinnaker went up at sunrise, as planned, the boat sped up another 1.5 to 2 knots, back to our 8 to 12+ knots of boat speed, we adjusted our course to be more efficient and concentrated on the driving.
The boat was banging back and forth as we fought it’s natural tendency to round up with short, efficient movements of the helm. The boat was screaming along, rushing to get home like a hungry horse heading for its barn, this stallion was going full out.
It wasn’t long before we were in trouble again, the strop bridle finally failed (gotta talk with Dave about that 36 hour “guarantee!”). The spinnaker was saved by the ingenious safety that Steve rigged up but we could no longer fly the spinnaker without building and installing a new bridle (no time). We were only 30 or so miles away and knew we would make good speed under white sails, although the angle wouldn’t be as efficient we’d still make good time.
The call was made, white sails it is. Douse the spinnaker and bag it, we won’t be needing it anymore. As we raced to the finish line the winds were picking up 25, 30, 35+... We knew this would happen as we entered Pailolo Channel and the islands of Maui and Molokai squeezed the wind.


One more jibe then the finish line.


The winds rose, high 30’s at times peaking at 40. The jibe went well, like a well oiled machine, the islands came into view... soon the Ka’anapali resort area was visible and the finish line would be crossed. The finish line is a little odd in that one point of the line is on a balcony in a vacation tower on the shoreline of Ka’anapali and the other is a GPS point out in the strait. It’s a “virtual” line so the crew, always searching for some indication of crossing, constantly was asking if one thing or another was one point of the line. We finally spotted a balcony with a large orange, diamond shaped nautical looking display that could only be the one end of the line. This was confirmed by Gunnar and, with John at the helm, he soon told us we had crossed, the race was done!


We had done it! A great cheer went out, hugs and handshakes all round.


We were quickly greeted by a local pilot with a large cooler bag full of beer and drinks. But no celebrating yet as we needed to drop and secure the sails. Down came the jib, on came the motor. The winds were in the mid 30’s so the turn head to wind under full sail heeling the boat way over, even wetting the toe-rail in the water as the boat came head to wind. Down came the main, all sails secured and soon we were under way by diesel power.


Beers were opened and we toasted to a good, successful, safe trip. 12 days, 9 hours, 25 minutes and 8 seconds... across the finish line, achieving our goal of 13 days or less!
Our handicapped, corrected time was: 8 days, 19 hours 45 minutes with the winning boat achieving: 8 days, 3 hours, 57 minutes.
We soon learned we had secured 1st place in our Division. That’s two Vic-Maui’s, two 1st place finishes, pretty darn good. We also soon learned that our crew mate, Gunnar, won the Navigator’s award as the best navigator of the race. Congratulations Gunnar, an award well deserved.




A bit about 13 – THIRTEEN The word play we do on the boat, it’s an exercise we do as a way to pass the time, keep our minds busy and for camaraderie. The number 13 was chosen as it has a special meaning to all of us this year.
Some people might think it’s an unlucky number but to us it’s a very lucky number.
It was John’s goal to arrive in 13 days or less. He knew it was doable as two years ago the race duration was 14 days and 15 hours, with a good 24 hours in very calm winds and no headway. He wanted to challenge the team to achieve or better a 13 day crossing.
It was also the number of the boat Havoc, owned by Gunnar Jonsson and his wife Ede. Gunnar lost Ede earlier this year to cancer and he also had bypass surgery shortly after. Almost all of us on String Theory, over the years, have sailed on Havoc, sailed with Ede and have been the recipient of the experience and wisdom so generously dispensed by Gunnar.
For us 13 is a lucky number.
We are lucky to have achieved our goal of sailing to Maui in 13 days or less, to have sailed on boat #13, Havoc, to have sailed with Ede and Gunnar and to still be sailing with Gunnar.
13 is a lucky number for us and we are so grateful.






Team String Theory was:
John Mortimer (Skipper/Owner)
Gunnar Jonsson (Navigator/Driver)
Don McFarlane (Driver)
Steve Dillon (Driver/Pit/Mast, Soft-Shackle Maker)
Mike Copps (Driver/Pit/Mast)
Keturah Witter (Driver/Pit/Sailor)
Dan Tresa (Driver/Pit)
Dave Maskell (Driver/Foredeck/Mast Monkey)
Bryan Ekman (Driver/Pit/Mast/Foredeck – whatever needed to be done!)
Tim Mastel-Marr (Driver/Foredeck)


Miles sailed by A team: 1189.9
Miles sailed by B team: 1188.1

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August 08th, 2016

8/8/2016

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288
We’re getting close now... It seems to be taking forever but these last 300 or so miles seem to be the longest we’ve had. With the difficulties from yesterday we’re taking things a little easier on the boat. We sailed on white sails all last night, making good time and saving the last, good spinnaker for the daylight hours when we can watch it closely and sail it carefully. With the tricky winds we’ve been having we didn’t want to risk losing our last spinnaker as we approach our final run to the finish line.


We’re consolidating our lead and first place position in our division. The sun is hot and winds shift, gusty, but generally in a good direction. The seas are easier to take as the waves are down a little but still squirrelly and difficult to drive in.


The blogger had difficulty working at the navigation station today as the heat and movement of the boat was making him nauseous, my apologies for the short entry today.

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August 08th, 2016

8/8/2016

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264
Good winds today, in the 25 – 40 knot range. “A” team is happy to report being the first team to achieve 42 nm’s on their 4 hour shift. That’s an average of 10.5 knots per hour fro the shift. The competition between A and B teams are heating up with each successive watch wanting to “best” the mileage of the previous watch. It’s become quite serious with no one allowing early hand-offs of the helm from one shift to the other in fear of losing a tenth of a mile to the other team. In fact teams are “dragging their feet”, attempting to sneak in extra time on the helm in order to steal just a fraction of extra mileage from the other team. It does get frustrating when you’ve calculated it takes 36 seconds or so to do a tenth of a mile and you saw the odometer click over close to the end of your shift, then to realize that the next team is calling for time to give up the helm and you know there’s almost another tenth about to click over.... just a few seconds more. I’m sure it was about thirty seconds ago that the current one clicked over, if I can just squeeze out another 6 seconds... Yesss!!!


Albatross! A common sea bird, an amazingly agile, very large bird that rarely stops flying and rarely flaps its wings. It’s a master at gliding and taking advantage of the up-drafts created by the large winds, waves and strong breezes. In and out of the waves it weaves itself in a seemingly endless search for food. We’ve had one bird follow us for nearly 24 hours now and decided to name it Eric. I don’t know why, it just sounded good ... Eric the Albatross. A second one appeared late today, we think it’s a female, we named it Erica. They are now Eric and Erica Erickson. All albatross’s are now either Eric or Erica, all from the Erickson family, silly but fun.


Another lunar rainbow, 2nd time this trip, also calling them “moon bows”.


A halyard failure at 2:45 pm today. The primary load one, port side broke and fell to the deck. It had chaffed clean through, probably at or near the turning block at the mast head. This wasn’t a big surprise as we had been keeping a close eye on it, but it’s failure meant that another trip up the mast was in order (the 5th for Dave) to re-run a new halyard, inspect the strop bridle and assess the set-up. We need another 36 hours or so out of it, it’s come such a long ways, our entire effort and placement in the race is dependent on that strop holding up.


As Don said: Three halyards in repair, top engineering effort needed.


Up Dave went, repairs successfully completed he reports that another 36 hours is “guaranteed!”


“All Hands! All Hands!”
The call went out at early in the evening after the start of the 10 till 2 shift. “The spinnaker has blown!” The B shift was on watch, Don on the helm Dave and Brian in the deck trying to pull down a ragged, flogging S4 spinnaker. Dan and Gunnar in the pit working the halyards trying the lower what was left of the sail.
Keturah was the first to spring out of her bed. With her PFD always at the ready she was at the top of the companionway stairs in a flash. Not knowing what exactly what the problem was but clearly knowing a problem had arisen she repeated the “All Hands!” call. Soon we all were topside working to get the boat and the sails under control.
The S4 spinnaker had blown its seams and was tearing itself up at the top of the mast. We needed to get it down! A good five feet of the sail was still flying up at the mast head, which kept pressure on the halyards so the sail wouldn’t drop to the deck, it needed to be pulled down. The problem was there was only a very small, very strong luff chord available to us and it was barely the size of fishing line. We could pull the sail down using this line but it is so thin that the risk of it sliding through our hands, cutting our fingers was very serious. We had to wrap it around something, we needed to take the pressure on something other than our hands and fingers. The extreme wind and flogging of the sail was creating a situation that sustaining an injury was very possible if we were not careful. The solution came in the form of a wrapped up, unused halyard at the base of the mast. We wrapped a section of the thin spinnaker line around this large bundle of halyard and worked the spinnaker to the deck of the boat. Down it came, four to five feet at a time. It wasn’t a quick douse but it was safe and no one was injured.
We had also success with Steve’s safety, it worked to keep the spinnaker from falling into the water in front of the boat. Although the spinnaker failed, the halyards, strop back up and safety had not.
Back to white sails for the night, we’d contemplate going back to our spinnaker “Aqua-man” in the morning when we had light.
Our speeds were still good, only losing .75 to 1 knot under white sails. But that was over the water, our VMG wasn’t as good as we couldn’t point onto the course heading (210) as well under white sails. This is the beauty of a symmetrical spinnaker better down-wind angles.


Gunnar assessed our position and that of the other boats and figured out that if we sailed carefully and reasonably fast we could consolidate our position as first in our division and possibly gain on one or two boats to improve our overall standing. This was our game plan.


Hurricane Darby has been part of our weather considerations for a few days now, but in watching its speed (10 knts +/-) we have determined we can out-run it and be across the finish line before it reaches Lahaina. We are seeing its speed drop and know it will soon be a tropical storm, but it is packing some good winds projected to reach 50+ knots. We don’t want to be in that kind of wind.


208 miles to go, we’ll be over the finish line tomorrow in less than 24 hours!






Quote of the day from Steve: We don’t have problems, we just have solutions!

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August 08th, 2016

8/8/2016

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240
“That ship is 800 feet long and 100 feet wide, it won’t even feel us!”
Those were Gunnar’s words in the early hours of the morning shift today as the consideration about passing a deep sea cargo ship was taking place. This ship was on a collision course with us and closing fast, we needed to alter course. There was talk about steering a course taking us past but in font of the ship, this was quickly and vehemently dismissed by Gunnar as the risk’s are many and not worth the small loss of distance taking the safer route behind the ship. After this short deliberation Don turned us to avoid a collision and we sailed past the enormous ship then worked our way back to the line – 210 degrees. While on this maneuver, in extreme winds, sometimes gusting to 40 knots, Don was able to get the boat up to 18.9 knots, tied with Tim’s speed record.
The night shift also saw very high winds (30 – 40 knots) with Mike twice hitting a boat speed of over 18 knots on one driving shift. The waves were more manageable today, much less squirrelly and not as steep as previous days. Everyone was able to drive today providing good stints of rest and recovery for each person as we cycled through the various work positions on the boat.
Tricky winds were our challenge today. They were very shifty at times and although the wave were more consistent the winds were an extreme challenge at times. On several occasions accidental jibes took place causing the boat to heel over hard and even round up. The crew is experienced at recovering from these unintended maneuvers so there was no damage or injuries, just a lot of noise and flopping around.


The weather is getting noticeably nicer with Dan providing the quote of the day: “All I need to wear today is my PFD!” Wrong Dan!, Very Wrong!!






Another lunar rainbow tonight, we feel very lucky to have the opportunity to see this phenomenal sight.



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August 08th, 2016

8/8/2016

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216


A good day of sailing today. The problems encountered were relatively few (thank God) but our routine inspection of chafe areas and rigging revealed some ongoing issues with the halyards and the strop harness. This rigging is only a fibrous material, although very strong along its length, it can be chewed through quite quickly by small sharp edges of wayward screws or metal plates, of which there are many on a sailboat. The constant back and forth, up and down grind motion of a fast moving sailboat on the ocean are ideal conditions for weak parts to break or fail. The consensus, at the end of the day, was to keep an eye on the strop, not go up the mast, just sail the boat as fast and hard as we could. We had time to make up and miles to put on so we put the peddle to the metal and off we went.


A bit about our skipper and boat owner, John (Mort) Mortimer. He, along with his wife Marie, have prepared String Theory above and beyond our expectation when it comes to boat readiness and provisioning. There is more than enough food to choose from, although we have a set menu there is always the opportunity to improvise and plenty of food to go around. In fact we often found ourselves with more than enough and ended up, shamefully, feeding the fish. Our nightly “grab bags” of snacks (assorted chocolate and granola bars, wagon wheels, gummies, nuts, etc...) were also plentiful and great for that needed bust of energy on the 10 till 2 or 2 till 6 am shifts when it was hard to stay awake.
John, ever the polite Englishman, loves to race. Although he takes good care of his boat, he isn’t afraid to fill the sails and “heat her up” knowing the race is only won by those who go all out to push the boat as hard and as long as necessary. This is how he has prepared ST and this is how he expects us to sail her. This is how he sails her.
One amazing upgrade John made to his boat is he re-built the rudder to a special “racing” spec designed by Farr designers. In what can now only be described as fortunate circumstances, John was able to re-build the rudder of String Theory because of damage incurred when we (the team) put her on some rocks during a training race (Patos Island) earlier this year. A good 10 to 12 inches of the rudder was damaged in the incident causing an insurance claim and the subsequent re-build. John, negotiating with his insurance company, was able to have the new, high performance rudder made from carbon fibre. This performance design was lighter and stronger and designed to enhance the characteristics of the boat under the loads experienced like those we were racing in. And boy, what a difference! This new rudder translates the feel of the boat, through the helm, unlike the old one, in that it literally “stuck” to the water. When the old rudder would cavitate and lose contact and performance, this new one would grab the water, hold it and not let go. It was only when the boat was healing over significantly (30+ degrees) and the performance of the rudder was compromised by the angle of attack into the water, did the rudder feel like it was under-performing. A big reason for our ability to sail the boat fast and hard was the confidence we had in the new rudder and it’s ability to keep good contact with the water.




Tropical heat intensifies, reliable trade-winds enhance exciting nights


No new speed records to report.

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    Team String Theory

    Is a competitive yacht racing team with a focus on offshore sailing. We will compete in the 2016 Vic-Maui International Yacht Race.

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