Aloha yet again Pipe Dreamers

We continue to rock-n-roll our way towards Hawaii. We have now had good winds for the last few days and are being consistent in doing around 170 nm per 24 hours. We think Genuine Risk is beginning to feel the pressure (they did 393 nm in their first 24 hours, a new Transpac record). All of the fleet boats we are following appear to have had good days yesterday but we may have done a little better against our rating. Our projected corrected arrival time came down by 3 hours. We are trying to improve our position against Plan B, an Aloha A class Choate 48 and Willow Wind, a Cal 40. We are familiar with both of these Long Beach boats. Skipper John offered to be waiting at the arrival party for Willow Wind with an apple pie, assuming any remain.

All of the crew are now well settled in the daily routines although the night shifts can be hard for those who have not caught up on their beauty sleep, some of us needing more than most. The shifts are Lou, Scott and Matt on team Lani and John, Joe and Tony on Team Lei. We have not been tracking mileage by shift as it may result create sailing goals other than the overall aim of reaching the finish line in the shortest time. Days seem to pass by very quickly as there is plenty to do. No one seems to be too antsy to get to the finish line.

We have been doing a few sail changes and gybes the last few days and each one is better than the last. An approaching squall in 20 knots of wind forced a change to the heavy spinnaker last night, only to be followed by a fall in the wind speed to 13 knots. We subsequently managed to get the spinnaker wrapped around the forestay two times as a result of trying to sail the boat on a very deep heading. Both wraps were fixed without problems. We are currently sailing on a heading of 250 degrees in 18+ knots of wind, surfing at 10 knots at times, and averaging over 8 knots. If we could keep this up for 24 hours we would do a run of over 192 miles, a Pipe Dream record.

We have had a food throwing contest while preparing breakfast the last two days. Yesterday Scottie emptied a bowl of gruel on John and today John upped the ante by dropping a dozen uncooked cracked eggs on the floor.
John's Special was a little light on eggs compared to the prior servings. We are so far without any fish for tacos, although we have not had much time to give it our full effort. We are joking that the fish are not fast enough to catch the lures. A flying fish came into the cockpit last night in a desperate attempt to be part of the Pacific food chain, but was a little small to warrant getting out the bbq.
We have been putting the new stern arch on the boat to good use as a
washing line and a rear shower. Unfortunately some of the smelly herbert odors
have been replaced by odors coming from the head after last night's chicken
burritos. There was a code orange evacuation from the berths last night after one crew member visited the head.

We continue to receive e-mails from our supporters throughout the world and know our daily logs are being sent to one of the troops in Iraq. We all took a minute to think about the people not fortunate enough as us to be doing the things we love to do. We are all very blessed. Everyone seems to have got the message to keep any e-mail's short but keep them coming and let us know you are out there. Thank you again to everyone for your support.

In the words of the skipper, Pipe Dream is picking up her skirt and showing off her P F Flyers, running faster and jumping higher.

Pipe Dream clear for now.