July 25, 13:00 PST, Lat 26°50’N, Lon 150°21’W

Beautiful Kaneohe Bay (the finish line) is about 500 nautical miles away on a magnetic bearing of 222. We’re getting closer. The morning roll call yielded some interesting surprises: We are in the upper right corner of the course, with a lot of leverage. That’s what we wanted. There is a persistent right shift when you get to the islands to between 70 and 90 degrees magnetic. Right now Flash is on our left on a 30 degrees magnetic even split so we are ahead as the wind has been averaging 45 degrees. Holua (with Dave and Adrienne aboard) are about 80 miles behind us at a similar latitude. They are also betting on the right shift and worked hard to get leverage on Flash. When the wind shifts, Holua could get ahead of Flash.

It’s now 6 days that we’ve been going day and night, and we have serious sleep deprivation. We’ll sleep once we get there and have some delicious island sashimi, fresh Poke, and chilled fresh sliced mangoes. That sounds awesome. Turn on Iz Kamakawiwo’ole!