2:30 AM Fri 10 Jul 2009 GMT Alfa Romeo has been averaging 16.5 knots, which is over 2 knots faster than the Los Angeles to Hawaii Transpacific Yacht Race previous monohull record pace set by Morning Glory in 2005.
The super maxi clipped off 431 nautical miles over the 24-hour period, breaking the Transpac 24-hour record that it established earlier in the week. Not only are Neville Crichton and his Alfa Romeo team eyeing the course record for monohulls, if they keep it up, they could squeak in under the wire and beat the multihull record. (Don't forget, Murray Spence reported pinning Alfa Romeo's needle at 35 knots during a delivery.)
Philippe Kahn and Mark 'Crusty' Christensen are doing a phenomenal job setting Open 50 speed records, keeping the pedal to the metal so that they clobber the previously held double handed record . by days. Kahn and Christensen are demonstrating to all of us how easy it is to use MotionX to navigate, post their progress to the web and prance through the water faster than Michael Phelps at the US Swimming National Championships.
If you haven't been tuning into www.Pegasus.comand clicking on the videos, we hope that you are finding them directly on YouTube. This is a rare chance to feel as if you are part of small team that is really enjoying their magical ride atop the waves and under the stars from Los Angeles to Hawaii.
The Barn Door is still up for grabs. Akela remains out in the lead with Samba Pa Ti not far behind.
It couldn't be closer among the sleds. Grand Illusion and Pyewacket are just minutes apart on corrected time. Looking at ETA's OEX, Pyewacket and GI are scheduled to cross the line at Diamond Head within 10 minutes of each other. This sled race harkens back to the 1995 Transpac in which Mirage, Evolution, Orient Express and Mongoose finished within 53 minutes of each other. Mirage's finish time for the 1995 Transpac was 10:08:50:46 and she corrected to 9:14:21:02.
For the sleds, Grand Illusion's 1999 elapsed run of 8:02:52:27, which corrected to 7:08:40:10 is a worthy goal to go after. 2009 marks the resurgence of the sleds and many of the 1999 players are bounding across the Pacific 10 years later. It's a tribute to designer, Bill Lee, and all of the fun that the Santa Cruz 70 sailors had during the 1990's. They just can't get enough.
Criminal Mischief is set to pull into Ala Wai a full day ahead of her fellow competitors in Division III and was just ahead of Alfa Romeo at roll call time. Chip Megeath and his RP 45 are used to arriving in Hawaii ahead of the fleet. They've won the fast boat division in the Pacific Cup and look as if they will add a Transpac win their resume.
Bad Pak is looking good in Division IV.
Horizon doesn't quite have a horizon job on the rest of Division V, but they are nearly 20 miles in the lead.
Relentless is nearly two days, and over 150 miles, ahead of the rest of its division.
Roy's Chasch Mer is topping the other Hawaiian entries on corrected time. They are about 50 miles further from Diamond Head than Bloodhound, but the ETA for their Aloha welcome return is two days earlier than Bloodhound's.
'Today we are living within the realm of Squalls. Squalls in the the Northeast sub-tropical Pacific are a bit different. They are small, concentrated and powerful. The rain lasts about 20 minutes under them if you're stationary. We're not.
I love squalls in Honolulu: refreshing, cleansing and replenishing for island precious water.
On Pegasus 50, we move fast at more than half of the squall's speed. My personal interpretation of North East Pacific Squalls is that they are caused by evaporation with subsequent cooling of the rising air and travel with the tradewinds. During their build-up phase, they mostly 'suck' air into them as they are highly active building convective systems. The upper limit comes when the ultra moist air reaches adiabatic balance. Therefore, if you are in front of such a building squall, you loose a lot of wind velocity and get a nasty right shift, but if you have one behind you, she 'sucks air' that heads you if you are on starboard jibe with a great boost in velocity. The longer you ride that squall the better. Mark caught a short video of one that he was riding to a max speed of 28 knots of wind and 22 knots of boat speed this afternoon . Check it out, passing right behind Pegasus 50. Mark is steering and filming with his MotionX iPhone 3GS in one hand.
As the the evening cools, squalls get morphed into the opposite. The building convective energy gets pulled from under the squall around midnight, and then all these squalls start collapsing as major angry 'puffers'. It takes 12 to 18 hours to build a squall and they colapse in about 4 hours. These are efficient entropic thermodynamic systems, so a lot of concentrated energy dissipates very rapidly. Colapsing squalls will have winds of up to 45 knots in the front of them. That's serious business. Tonight's night watch could be interesting, but one thing at a time.
We are in an area of clear now, chewing the miles. Life is good aboard the mighty Pegasus. Dinner time soon!
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