At Quantum, we love the thrill of being offshore; the beautiful sunsets and sunrises, miles and miles of flying downwind, and putting our skills to the test. We also love the stories that go along with such epic racing. So we asked Quantum team members competing in the 2021 Transpac to keep us updated on their trip to Hawaii. Read the blog post from Rogers 46, Team Lucky Duck below.
7/19/21 Transpac Report from the Nav Station of Lucky Duck
After selfies and check-in, we cleared the start line and heard a bang, looked back and realized Denali had broken her rig. We continued and had a pleasant sail out to Catalina. We cleared the West End and sailed towards the North West winds tacking before sailing under Santa Barbara Island. Dave and I set a mark 5 miles below San Nicolas Island to sail out to the synoptic breeze. As we were lifted we switched to our J0 and sailed West close to the breeze. Everyone was feeling a bit sick as we bounced through the seas until we had a bang of our own. The halyard snapped and the J0 went into the water. A few of us drug the sail back aboard and quickly attached the other masthead halyard to the sail. Less than an hour later, another bang rang out and the sail went back into the drink. This time we pulled the sail onboard and put up a jib. We jib reached through the wee hours of the night and planned how to re-rig the mast. It was decided to go aloft on the fractional halyard and make off the mainsail to the hounds in the reef position. Then our climber would tie off the main to the hounds and ascend the rest of the way on the main halyard. The first time we attempted this things went well. Unfortunately the first climber got too sick to complete the job and came back down. After "working the problem" for a while we fashioned needed tools from a bucket bail and sent up a new climber, Robin Jeffers. This time Robin was able to put in two spliced loops we fashioned and hang two external blocks and halyards. After some discussion we decided that putting up tight luffed code sails was not prudent. So after some more jib reaching we set a kite and headed slightly low of course. Day turned to night and again to day. Which brings us to now and our boat blasting along, south of the fleet, heading towards the finish, looking forward to adventures to come.
Best Wishes,
Pat