Meet the Press

Yesterday was a great day. Mom, Richard and I left the house pretty early and went to Starbucks, then off to Addiction. When we got there, I opened the hatch and see Mike comfortably asleep in a bunk and Chase asleep sitting on a bean bag, wearing his foul weather boots. I thought that was kind of funny, he said that the bunk was really uncomfortable, that the refrigerator was making noise and it was freezing cold. We all pretty much told him that once we get underway there will be so much other noise that he wont be able to hear the refrigerator, and so on.
While we were still dock side Mike set up to go up the mast and Richard and I hulled the brand new Sobstad light wind head sail up ( we have yet to see any light wind ), we needed to mark where we should put the spreader patches. Once we got it hoisted it was obvious there were already patches. So we all just stepped back and enjoyed the brand new sail smell, then we took it down and stowed it away.Then Mike and Chase packed a few spinnakers.

We left the dock at about 0915, the wind was still light, about 13 knots. we motored over to Queen Mary, put up the main then bared off and set our new Sobstad .75 spinnaker. Richard was at the helm for that set, I was sheet, Chase was pit, Mom on pole, Mike on the fore deck. It was so much fun!! Once we got past a the oil islands Mike spiked that shoot, then we set our brand new Sobstad 1.5, we did one jibe, doused, and headed in to Alamitos Bay to fuel up.
The man at the fueling station gave us a bunch of bottled water as a good luck gift. I cant say that i have ever really thought of water as being lucky, but now that you think of it, i feel pretty lucky to have a little extra fresh water. Richard and I worked on fueling the boat, and yes for some reason it was a two person job. As with most boats,the fuel gage on Addiction is a bit ify. So using an odd mathematical formula of it's a 20 gallon tank, so,almost on empty plus 3 gallons back in Hawaii minus one Friday night race, and a 45 minute motor to the Phoenician and a 45 minute run up the coast in Long Beach, plus 5 gallons at the slip in Marina Harbor, minus running dock side for an hour, equals a void of about 13 gallons, give or take. Richard managed to squeeze in a whole 3 1/2 gallons. Nothing was kinking the line, and the breather was breathing, and i really don't think it is possible that my math could be off, so i will have to crack open the inspection porthole today.

Moving on, we set sail out of the channel and headed back up the coast. The wind was a steady 18 knots but for some reason it seems like a hell of a lot more wind. I figured its because of how cold the wind is. Anyways, we had to hurry back to the dock in ordered for us to meet Lynn Fitzpatrick on time. Lynn is the press officer for Transpac. I guess Kristin Royalty did a great job on the press release because we had 3 reporters and Lynn come out for a sail with us, as well as a number of press photographer's in a chase boat. The reporters on Addiction ( pictured ) were, on the left Ron Kilgore, very cool guy, he works for KNX10.70 CBS news radio, he and i did a live radio interview while i was at the helm doing a kite run, I must say that was really hard. Next was Rick Rosen, I think he was with Lynn as the Transpac photographer, then Jeff Gritchen he works for the Press-Telegram and i think the O.C. news paper, or the local news paper. Anyways we all had so much fun!! The one downer of the sail was when the press guys phones started going off with the news that Michael Jackson had died.

Oh and the bonus, Lynn gave me the Transpac program for 2009. Wow it looks good! Addiction is at the top of the competitors list, I think it because we have such a bad ass crew and a hot shit boat. Also the Phoenician ran a killer add wishing the crew of Addiction luck. It's to cool. For those of you that have yet to hear The Phoenician is opening up a marine shop, so you could haul out, at what i think is the best yard in Hawaii, and have all the marine supply you need just a few steps away. Thank you Fred and John. Also the photo of the crew of Cirrus excepting our trophy's for the Aloha B win.

Mom and I were super happy to see our friend and mainland Cirrus crew member Chris Doutre on the Transpac boat Silent Running. He is crewing as the navigator. He is sailing with some shabby digs, A/C, espresso machine, flat screen TV, and a convection oven. Good luck guys. Also a Japanese friend of mine from Tachyon 3 came down to Addiction to say hi, we have a huge language barrier, but the Tachyon 3 crew is one of my favorite crews. Good luck to them too.  

OK i got to go LA