The auto pilot motor is right behind dad's pillow in the master stateroom. As a pilot he has become accustomed to sleeping with earplugs. These little noise blockers may soften the honks and expletives of city traffic but have no effect on the kryptonite that is George. He didn't get much sleep Tuesday night so I made him a fat brunch of pancakes, eggs, and cocktail sausages then sent him back to bed around noon. I thought that I'd do a little hand steering to give George a break and allow the captain some quality zzzzz's. I wound up surfing Sora and breaking our speed record. I rule.

The wind has been coming out of the E SE but at 20-25kn. We've had crazy hull spanking (shhh-POP!) surface chop with at least 12 footer swells. The conditions were perfecto.

He says he didn't get much sleep because, in addition to sweating like a dog in a Wal-mart parking lot, he kept falling on the floor when the big sets came through. I was oblivious cruising along at 9kn hitting 12's on the waves. I had my ipod on and was apparently inspired enough to 'belt out some tunes'. I have no recollection of this. However, I do remember letting a "WHOOO HOOO!" slip when I saw 13.4kn show up on the chart plotter while riding down the backside of a perfect swell. Rather than congratulating me, Dad said I should have gone for 14kn. He's just pissed cause he hasn't seen anything above 12.7kn.

Later in the afternoon we were fighting gravity in the cockpit when we heard a loud "BOOM!" The reacher halyard had chafed through at the top of the mast and snapped. We pulled the sail out of the water and said good bye to our wing wing set up. The wind had been building and it was time to change sail plan anyway. The spinnaker pole that was holding the jib starboard needed to be put away. I was winching the base of the pole up(a pully and a track system on the main mast) and just about a foot from the top the gears in the winch disengaged and the winch handle spun out fiercely, flew across the foredeck, then bounced into the Pacific. I felt awful, those handles are expensive and I ain't got no job, but at least no one got hurt.

Right now we're running the equivalent of a double reef in the main, full jib and mizzen. Sora is maintaining 7.5 to 9.5kn. The hull spankers have been angry this morning. A rogue wave just broke on our hull and one of the hatches in the salon was not dogged down. A wave of water just seeped in, but only the table and floor seem to be wet. Good deal. Most of the time the water tries to hit electronics, like ipods, computers, cameras and the like. Not today, you sneaky waves.

I started reading Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl. It's about a group of 6 men who sailed across the Pacific in a raft made of Balsa wood from Peru to the Marquesas. They averaged 46kn a day. The trip took them 101 days. Ouch.

Cheers to modern nautical engineering, Cass

1150nm to go