17.07.17 – Waikiki Yachtclub
We were met at the finish line outside Diamond Head by our hosts here at Oahu, Charity and Tim. They arranged a great welcome party for us on their boat with as much Mai Tai, barbecue food, sushi and all we could think of. When the sun had set again it was time for a couple of hours sleep, which we got woken up by at 10 because it was like being cooked alive inside the Cubaneren. After some cleaning of the boat the rest of the day was spent at Waikiki Yachtclub, lunch with one or two drinks..
The last hours of our Transpac race were very quick. Breeze between 15 and 23 knots which is pretty much perfect for Cubaneren. We crossed the finish line outside Diamond Head at 11 knots of speed. Of course we knew at that time it was going to be a close race with the Cal 40 Azure, but we were quite confident we would beat them on corrected time, and that their compensation for giving assistance to the Santa Cruz 50 – Medusa, would ultimately determine who would be the winner. Now Azure have finished and they have had a fantastic ride at the end of this race. They finished in time to beat us with 37 minutes on corrected time, pretty close after sailing 2225 miles, in a little less than 13 days for us and 20 hours more than that for Azure.
What went wrong? First of all we think that we have competed with very good sailors, they must have pushed the boat at all times and looking back on the route they chose to follow, they have taken the right chances. There is not too much that we would have wished to do differently regarding our route. If we should beat the Cal 40 we needed to be 20-24 hours ahead over the finish line. If we had followed the Azure route up north we would have passed Hawaii before the wind shift to east came and it would simply not work. Looking back on our set up for sails we could probably have done some things. We should probably have sailed with a genoa or jib top. It was very tricky to get the boat going in the light winds from in front of 90 degrees on the boat with our self tacker and our A5 (as
ymmetric). For that reason we had to pick up a lot of miles, actually 18 every day, after we got in to the trade winds. Most of the days we managed that but the last two days Azure had perfect conditions and were able to sail almost as many of miles as us = gaining on us on corrected time. So lesson learned is that you have to carry some upwind sails on this downwind regatta too as up to 30% of the time sailed, although not the miles, are sailed in those conditions.
Today we are not going to stress too much around but we will find Azure, shake their hands and thank them for the fight out here the last 12-13 days. We will slowly turn over to cruising mode again but enjoy the life here with the racing sailors as long as we can.
