"Squallmageddon" was the phrase used by one boat (Gilligan) to describe some of their experiences. Gilligan, perhaps named with less irony than intended, was in the middle of the 2024 Pacific Cup's windy race to Hawaii.
After a deeply frustrating, almost windless first two days of racing, the wind picked up and built to a fairly constant wind strength in the 20s and sometimes 30s. Those of us at home could comfortably click on the wind chart and see a civilized 17 knots, but those at sea found the wind a bit higher.
With sustained winds come a greater sea state, as the wind works to build the swell and waves over time, so those tiny ships were indeed tossed about as they raced to Hawaii. All that tossing can lead to damage, and even injuries.
We're pleased to report that there were very few injuries reported in this passage. Along with the usual nicks and bruises, we got a burn from a spilled coffee pot and a bump on the head that got checked out on land. Our medical advisors at GW provided great support for the affected parties.
The boats, however, did not fare so well! We'll be compiling a more scientific list, but a review of the daily reports from the racers reveals a number of breakages and failures aboard. Our crews, however, dealt with these problems with ingenuity, skill, and when all else failed, grace.
In addition to the four boats that turned back near the start with steering problems, a couple more had steering failures. Second Wind, for example, lost their pedestal (wheel) steering and quickly switched to autopilot for a sort of "drive by wire" passage.
Several boats experienced broken spinnaker poles. These can be noisy and scary as bits of carbon fiber flail about, but the crews tend to be most concerned that the going will be slower without that spar to project the spinnaker out into the wind.
Communications proved very challenging for a good number of boats. In addition to the Crowdstrike glitch that took out some of our well-used mail systems for a while, the heavy winds and waves got salt water everywhere. A boat that shall remain nameless related this to our PRO:
"Well, i got some salt water in the charging port of the iPhone, and I guess that caused a short, because it fried the USB cable. So I tried the other USB cable, and it fried that too. Then [name withheld] decided to try that cable on his phone and it fried his phone. So now we have only one working phone and no way to charge it, and that's the only way we can use the Iridium GO! so we could only get a few messages out."
More potentially alarmingly, several boats had their forestays become disconnected. The forestay is a permanent wire or rod that holds the mast up. FORTUNATELY, a boat sailing downwind places little or no strain on this bit of rigging, and it is possible as happened in each of the two or three cases this came up, to secure the mast with a spare halyard before attending to the forestay itself.
Sophie Mravcova aboard Glass Slipper, pictured above, relates that she heard something on the bow "just flopping around," and it was the bottom end of that boat's forestay. She and another crew dashed forward to secure it. Sophie is not a large person, and we have visions of her being lifted off the deck by the effort, but she and another crew got the job done and the Slipper carried on.
Aboard the catamaran Could Be Worse (and seriously, we need to talk about boat names) it's reported that they have run out of headsails and are carrying on under main sail alone. Yes, this is slower.
Quite a number of sails in the fleet were demolished by the steady winds, of course. It's always expected to lose a few, as sailors take their boats to the edge, but having taken up permanent residence on the edge, the sails destroyed were numerous. Hultaj (pronounced hool-tie, our Polish entry) reported "The tape for gluing spinnakers has already run out. But we still have a mast."
Dogma mournfully reported: "Another fun night with squalls. We lost old faithful, blue white and green A4 spin, in a gust + wave combination ..."
For many racers, this daily report from Outsider sums it up:
"Gear preservation sailing. Worst conditions in our combined 11 crossings. 23-27k sustained for 30 hours. Bald headed [no jib] and reefed mainsail almost too much.
Forecast was for 17-18k."
And yet, and YET, on land at Kaneohe Yacht Club it's all smiles as we await the last batches of finishers. We can already some teams furtively planning their 2026 race!