Hello LA!
We are getting close. Time to say goodbye to the fams and drive down to LA.
After a short night at Bertrand’s, we leave early in the morning for LA. We’re going with Seb R, Bertrand and Arnaud. Fred and Olivier are flying down. The van is packed with gear, wine and food. Hopefully, I have not forgotten anything when I packed last night… We need to hurry up because we need to attend a skippers’ meeting which starts at 3PM in San Pedro. And everyone knows about LA traffic.
When we get to LA, we stop by Charles Devanneaux’s shop in Marina Del Rey. Charles is the owner of NAOS YACHTS, a sailboat dealership. He also nearly is a professional sailor and we soon learn he competed in the Sydney Hobbart in Dantesque conditions. He gives us lots of advice for the passage, having it done a few times. But mostly he lends us a staysail. This is a second foresail that we’ll be using pretty much at all times in combination with our genoa, asymmetric spinnaker and symmetric spinnaker. This means that we will have two sails in the front of the boat (in front of the mast) so that our sail plan suddenly increased by 27 squared meters. This should increase our speed by about 0.7 knots. It’s pretty cool! Thanks, Charlie!
We’re checking-in our Airbnb in San Pedro (this was described as a weekend charmer) and then on to Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club for the skippers/ meeting. With Bertrand and Olivier, we learn a lot of stuff. We are reminded of sailing instructions, and how we’re supposed to communicate, as well as being informed about weather forecasts. In particular, there is a hurricane developing along the Mexican coastline we are asked to keep an eye on.
At the meeting, we find Charlie again since he is also racing the Transpac — double-handed. He is on Rahan (you must love the name), a fast 36 footer. We are also introduced to Fred, his teammate. After a beer, Charlie decides to show us how to rig the staysail. On to Ruby trying it out. Thanks, Charlie!
It’s getting late and we have an aloha party to go to! We also need to meet Seb F, Bertrand’s cousin who’s getting into LA straight from Paris. The Aloha party is on the USS Iowa, a warship which was involved in combat in the pacific during WWII. USS Iowa had 50 years of service! At the party, there is a blessing of the fleet. Each boat, skipper, and crew is introduced. When Ruby is called, we proudly show up on stage.
Time to go to bed. We won’t be sleeping well for a while so let’s charge the batteries to the max before departure.