July 23rd, 22:15 utc – lat 24 09 N, lon 146 38 W

I realize that my last few updates have been short, at best. That’s because things have been full on. No relief. Now we’ve got a breather. The ‘drenched by the cold rain fingers’ (yes, there is a cold front around here coming through) can start typing again after some weather crunching. I figure I would make this a ‘complete’ update to answer some of the questions that you may have.

1. Mangled/tangled blob on the keel: It came back, maybe remnants of the old one or we’re just a magnet for that stuff. In any case in 20 knots of breeze (more on that later), we heeled her as much as we could with full cant to windward. Richard had a go at ‘unbalancing the blob’ so that the high speed surfs would end up pulling it out (we’re seeing surfs in the upper teens). So while yours truly is keeping the boat on a razor’s edge balance, Richard, the mighty blob slayer, is hitting this thing as hard as he can through fast flowing water. Every time he hits the big carbon batten flexes almost out of control. After 10 minutes of this balancing act, we decide that it is not going to happen. So we figure that with all this squall activity, it’s just a matter of time before we stop behind one and then I’ll dive under the boat with our bigger knife and carve through ‘the blob’. Decisions terminate panic. Done.

2. Squalls: They are everywhere and in fact… I’ve got to stop typing because it’s time to jibe in front of one…

3. Progress so far… Here is the chart. Nice track!

Charting Pegasus’s progress