Surprise is back in San Francisco! Currently at Richmond Yacht Club, will be back in Alameda later this week.

James Clappier and delivery crew did a great job bringing her back. They had very good weather for a return trip. All are well.

They left WYC around 1pm HST.

After a nice stay at the beautiful Waikiki Yacht Club, Surprise is about to head home.

James Clappier and delivery crew will be bringing her back. They have been working hard to get her ready and expect to leave in a few hours.

It's nice place to stay, but it will be even better when Surprise is back in Alameda. The trip should take about two weeks, depending on the weather. At the moment it looks good, no storms in sight.

Next stop in California!!

Bob

We are flying home to San Francisco. Surprise will be staying at the beautiful Waikiki Yacht Club in Honolulu. We are sad to leave her, but need to get home for a while.

We are working on getting a replacement main sail and a delivery skipper to bring her back to San Francisco.

Here is nice a picture of Becca paddling out for her last surf of our visit.

We are docked at the Waikiki Yacht Club in Honolulu. It's a great place to stay for a while while we get arrangements made to get Surprise back to San Francisco. In addition to the great location and facilities, Becca can go surfing by putting her board in the water and paddle out to a nearby surfing spot.

The current plan is to get a replacement delivery main sail and have a delivery skipper and crew bring her home. This is a work in progress, but we hope to get the arrangements made soon. We will be here through the middle of next week getting Surprise ready to be left here, then fly home for a while.

I am sure there will be another flight back to Honolulu to help the deliver crew get her ready to go, but I don't think that will be too much of a hardship. It's hard to beat Honolulu and the Waikiki Yacht Club.

As I write this dawn is just starting to break as we round diamond head. We had an nice night of sailing, the highlight being the many meteors we saw from the perseid shower. We should be in port in a couple hours.

So....

We left Kaneohe harbor a little over 48 hours ago. We had two beautiful days and nights of sailing and then, this morning, looked up to find our mainsail ripped almost completely apart at the top batten. The sail has seen some use, and seemed tired, but we thought it could stand up to one more trip. The sail disagrees. We are now motor sailing with jib back to Hawaii.

The good news is a beautiful sunset is unfolding and I just caught dinner - a 2 foot beautiful mahi mahi that we had to quell with rum before he would go down.

We hope to reach Honolulu by Friday and figure out the next steps. I'm just glad I've got a surfboard with me.

We did finish the race and arrived in beautiful Kaneohe Bay on the Island of Oahu Hawaii. It was quite a trip, a lot harder than any of the other Pacific Cup races I have done. We ended up with a lot less working spinnakers than when we started, but we did finish flying a spinnaker. It was quite an adventure.

It was a fast race, we finished about a day faster than when we did it on Surprise in 2014. About 9 days and 4 hours. We finished 4th in our Division and 23rd overall. This race had a lot of wind and unlike the other Pac Cups I have done, the smaller boats that started early did very well. We weren't the only boat who tore a number of spinnakers, or worse.

Just when we thought the adventure was over after crossing the finish line and taking down the spinnaker, we had another adventure. Actually two. The first was that due to the approach remnants of tropical storm Darby, instead of going to the dock at KYC and receiving lei's and Mai Tai's, we had to anchor out. The second adventure was that when I started the engine, the starter didn't disengage, and nearly caught the engine on fire. It made a lot of smoke, destroyed the starter, and melted a lot of wires on the engine. This mean we couldn't motor in. Scott Owens did a great job of sailing her in and we dropped anchor under sail. The escort boat told us we did better than a lot of other boats under power!

In the two weeks since we arrive, we have been working very hard to get the damage repaired and getting Surprise ready for the return trip. The engine is now working and we are ready to return to San Francisco tomorrow. Many thanks to Jim Grossberg who did much of the work to repair the engine. He is very highly recommended!

Becca, Chris Parkman, and I plan to leave on Monday August 8th and expect it to take about two weeks. I will plan to do daily reports on the blog, and hopefully the trip won't be too much of an adventure. You can track us here and on the Pac Cup site (looks at Return tracks.

We are about 77 miles to go. We should arrive in the middle of the afternoon HST.

We have two watermelons in the refrigerator and are planning a 25 mile check party. This will be our last check in with the race committee before we finish.

It's been quite a trip and we are looking forward to arriving in Kaneohe Bay.

Bob

We had a very good run yesterday/last night. Did about 240 miles. At that rate we should arrive in Kaneohe around Noon HST on Saturday. It will be great to make landfall in the daylight.

This trip has been a real adventure. I will report on that after we arrive :-)

Saw some dolphins this morning and had a very clear night with lots and lots of stars. Another poor flying fish on deck.

Bob

Good Morning!

About 540 miles to go. If nothing unexpected happens we should arrive on Saturday. Looking forwarding to arriving in Kaneohe.

We had a lot of squalls last night, made an interesting night. We are expecting this to continue for the next few days. Everyone is doing well and Surprise is moving fast.

We saw a few boats during the day yesterday and one this morning. No contact, so we didn't know who they are, but nice to see some other folks out here in the Pacific. A very small flying fish landed this morning, too mall to have for breakfast :-)

Bob

Day 7 and about 750 miles to go.

We had a very nice half way party dinner. Maryann's beef stew and frozen brownie & vanilla ice cream desert. The freezer did a fine job keeping it frozen. A fine meal at sea.

We got to see the full moon and starts last night. It's surprising how bright the moon can be in the ocean where there aren't any other lights. There was talk on deck of "moon glasses" :-)

We also got a good squall last night. Lots of rain and wind. Not sure "good is the right description.

Bob

We now have about 950 nautical miles to go. That is more than half way! It also means we in the middle of the ocean, about a thousand miles to anywhere :-)

To start our half way celebration, the skipper made his special pineapple pancakes, with fresh maple syrup. Everyone was pleased. There will be more festivities around dinner time.

Mixed conditions last night, lots of clouds with the moon breaking trough for a few minutes. A mixture of lighter and good wind.

Bob

Very nice day, lots of sun. Could have been more wind, but we get the weather we get.

Looks like tomorrow will be the half way party. We have about 94 miles to half way.

We also fixed some stuff. The radar mount was coming loose and need to be tightened, a line on the boom needed to be replaced, and possibly the most import I fixed my sun glasses :-)

Bob

Good morning!

Wind got lighter and we changed to our .75 oz runner. We thought we were going to need to jibe, but the wind shifted. We are now set up to jibe, even have the spinnaker net up.

I made Aero press French roast coffee this morning. Very nice to start the day with a great cup of coffee. Maybe it tastes better in the ocean.

We should be at our half way point sometime today. It a little over 2,000 nautical miles from San Francisco to Oahu, and have about 1,163 to go. We been making over 200 miles per day, so we should see the distance to go drop below a thousand miles later today. There is a half way party in our future!

We found a squid on deck this morning. We have been seeing flying fish, but this was the first squid.

Bob

We put up our mast head AP spinnaker this morning. It had gotten a little lighter, so it was time. This is what sailing to Hawaii should be, Sailing down wind with the big spinnaker up.

It's even gotten a little warmer, several of us were able to go on watch without wearing foul weather gear. This is the first time I have felt dry in several days. Surprise is also a lot dryer down below.

We are seeing occasional trash in the water, a mix of white plastic pieces and fishing floats. Not as many as I have seen on other trips, but given the small area we can see, there is a lot of trash in the ocean. It's sad to see.

Everyone feeling well and getting appetites back. We are very appreciative of the meal plan that Maryann put together for us.

Bob

We are moving. Last night was 25-30 knots beam reach. Seeing consistent 8-12 knots. This morning the wind shifted and we put up our new A5 asym spinnaker. Pretty nice getting a spinnaker up this early in the race. We are now moving at 10-18 knots. Should have a very good run today. We are currently in 2nd place in our division!

Everyone who wasn't feeling well, have all improved. Even me! Appetites are improving.

We had clear skies last night, then clouds moved in and it's been grey since then. Hopefully we will get some sun tomorrow.

Bob

Lots of wind, sun and moving fast. Quite a ride.

Folks are slowly getting their sea legs, should be better in the next few days. The sun during the day is very nice, looking forward to stars tonight.

Did say we were moving fast!

Bob

We are off!

We had a great start! Good weather at the start in the bay, then got lighter after we went under the golden gate bridge, now the winds are building.

Everyone well. The only issue we had was that one of the primary winches was not working well. The good part is that we noticed well before the start and we were able to fix it! All good now.

I am just off watch, so want to get some sleep now. Another report tomorrow.

Bob

Sleeping on Surprise tonight. Today has been a blur of putting food on board, cleaning the boat, and crossing off most of the remaining items on our to do list.

All of our crew will show up at Surprise at 8:30am. We will probably leave the dock between 10 and 10:30am. Our start is at 1:10pm off of St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco. Next stop is Hawaii.

The weather continues to look interesting, we are hoping for a fast trip. It will be an adventure!

Bob