Transpac Race: Another Update from Paul Cayard on board Flash

by Paul Cayard

It has been fairly mild sailing out here about 600 miles off the coast of California for the past 24 hours. There is still a high Marine Layer cover in the sky which is probably a good thing because 8 days of total sunshine would be draining. The winds have been in the 12-18 knot range and backing to the north and northeast.

We are in the middle of our main competitors in the TP 52 class. Samba Pa Ti who has been sailing very fast these first few days is about 20 miles ahead and to the south of us while Valkarie and some of the SC 70's like Pyewacket are 20-40 miles a stern of us. We have made a 5 mile gain on Samba in the last 10 hours... maybe a bit of compression with different winds. The Samba hull shape is very fast reaching which is what we have done in the first three days. They have taken their advantage and leveraged it to the south. They obviously feel there will be more wind in the south in the coming days.

The sea is smooth out here so good sleeping weather.

I am going for some right now.

Cayard Sailing
Transpac Race '09