Thursday, July 10th: 02:30 HST

Lat: 25 North
Lon: 135 West
Wind: 14 kts @ 74 Deg
Heading: 220 deg
Boat Speed: 13 knots

We’re sailing in moderate trade winds. The Moon set and it’s pitch dark with the skies mostly overcast. The first part of the night was pure magic: Glittering waters with the reflection of the moon, big skies, bright stars, little trade-wind puffy clouds, lively seas. We gybed a few times taking advantage of the shifts and we are now carrying on port.

The scat chart shows how much the South is favored for pressure. These charts are action direct real-time interpretations of sea surface winds from satellite information. They are very accurate. Every time we plot ourselves at the time of validity of that scat chart and compare what our boat instruments show to what we read on the chart, there is no calibration mis-match.

In the absence of Pyewacket, we could have chosen to just go South, but we decided to do the right thing from a match racing perspective and focus on putting more bearing on them. We’ll know in a few hours how that tactic worked out.

Throughout the night, we’ve made several spinnaker changes in order to always be sailing with the best possible sail combination. That’s where our preparation before the race is paying off: We just look at our detailed cross-over charts and pick the right combination of spinnaker and staysail.
There is no guess-work. Mike Motll has been running our sails program under Crusty’s tutelage and they both have done a fantastic job.

We’re about to have a watch change, all the way into morning roll-call. Life is good on-board the mighty Pegasus.