And they're off!...Pacific Cup 2012

With a few Singlehanded TransPac competitors still en route, the Pacific Cup started today. We've got so many nut cases sailing from San Francisco to Hawaii these days I can barely keep track.

I took a group on Condesa to see Juanita off. I've got to know both boat and owner, Mike Stanton, very well over the last few years of preparation. We added refrigeration, solar panels, electronics, and all manner of new wiring and gadgets to this forty-some-year-old tank of a boat. Mike's crew (with the exception of the younger Mike, who we'll have to call Number 2) are all guys in their sixties, and friends he's known for thirty years. Few of them have much blue water experience, so it is "the adventure of a lifetime," as the Pacific Cup bills itself. They've been training every Monday, rain or shine, for months.

It was a typical San Francisco day out there--cold, overcast, and windy--so we saw them as far as the Golden Gate. The rest of the 2070 miles is all theirs...