Over the Last Night:

Philippe Kahn founded Borland, invented the Camphone, and decodes human motion. He’s also a fellow outdoorsman, splitting time skiing Tahoe and sailing in Santa Cruz. He’ll share his Transpac 2009 sailing race with us live from the Pegasus Open 50. He and Richard Clarke set the race record for a double handed team in 2008 with a time of 7 days, 15 hours, 17 minutes and 50 seconds, besting all boats in overall time for that year.
[Previous Pegasus Sailing posts on Gizmodo, Pegasus]

July 12, 6:17 AM PST
Update: We expect/hope to be fully recovered by Noon. Then we’ll jibe for a lay-line to the tip of Molokai and have our final jibe there. Trying to minimize jibes. Big relief.

July 12, 7:15 AM PST
Engine fix and Katayama-San’ lucky sextant returns

July 12, 6:17 AM PST
Update: We expect/hope to be fully recovered by Noon. Then we’ll jibe for a lay-line to the tip of Molokai and have our final jibe there. Trying to minimize jibes. Big relief.

July 12, 7:15 AM PST
Engine fix and Katayama-San’ lucky sextant returns

July 12, 8:00 AM PST,
MotionX-GPS guiding Pegasus from L.A. to Honolulu

July 12, 8:45 AM PST
Sunrise and Breakfast Burritos

July 12, 10:30 AM PST
Good Morning, Crusty Takes Over for the Day

July 12, 1:00 PM PST
ETA: From what we can tell, with our electrical back, around 9 am PST ( 6 am HST) is a good guess for our finish, just inside 8 days, something like 7 day, 20 hours and something. Sunrise in the Molokai channel.

There is still a lot of sailing to be done. That’s a reasonable guess.

July 12, 5:30 PM PST
Sunshades and generator back running, calling the layline to Kalapapa.

July 12, 7:00 PM PST
Molokai channel

Philippe Kahn founded Borland, invented the Camphone, and decodes human motion. He’s also a fellow outdoorsman, splitting time skiing Tahoe and sailing in Santa Cruz. He’ll share his Transpac 2009 sailing race with us live from the Pegasus Open 50. He and Richard Clarke set the race record for a double handed team in 2008 with a time of 7 days, 15 hours, 17 minutes and 50 seconds, besting all boats in overall time for that year.
[Previous Pegasus Sailing posts on Gizmodo, Pegasus]

July 11, 9:20 PM PST Lost all ways to recharge batteries, down to emergency battery. Just like an aeroplane.

July 11, 9:42 PM PST

July 11, 10:15 PM PST

Just enough power to send emails. We have not regained anything yet. Lost some more. Dark and squalls with no electrical – Bad. Safe but bad.

July 11, 10:28 PM PST
All down – Down to flashlighs, mechanical compass and add-on batteries for iPhone GPS [They've got MotionX GPS apps] and hand held iridium. Trying to fix.

[So they're looking at finishing the race and getting through the nights with no gps and no autopilot. Just celestial navigation using the sextant (which the navy no longer even teaches sailors in annapolis). Philippe is a bit of a math genius, so using a flashlight and the sextant and some paper, he can get it done. And they've got spare charge packs for the iPhone (and its GPS) and the flashlights. But that's about it.-BL]
From earlier in the day, at 5pm PST, a post about navigating with and without electronics:

Philippe Kahn founded Borland, invented the Camphone, and decodes human motion. He’s also a fellow outdoorsman, splitting time skiing Tahoe and sailing in Santa Cruz. He’ll share his Transpac 2009 sailing race with us live from the Pegasus Open 50. He and Richard Clarke set the race record for a double handed team in 2008 with a time of 7 days, 15 hours, 17 minutes and 50 seconds, besting all boats in overall time for that year.
[Previous Pegasus Sailing posts on Gizmodo, Pegasus]

The wind is picking up, and at the same time, the boat has to Jibe to port to adjust its path towards Hawaii.

Philippe Kahn founded Borland, invented the Camphone, and decodes human motion. He’s also a fellow outdoorsman, splitting time skiing Tahoe and sailing in Santa Cruz. He’ll share his Transpac 2009 sailing race with us live from the Pegasus Open 50. He and Richard Clarke set the race record for a double handed team in 2008 with a time of 7 days, 15 hours, 17 minutes and 50 seconds, besting all boats in overall time for that year.
[Previous Pegasus Sailing posts on Gizmodo, Pegasus]

I love squalls in Honolulu: refreshing, cleansing and replenishing for island precious water.

On Pegasus 50, we move fast at more than half of the squall’s speed. My personal interpretation of North East Pacific Squalls is that they are caused by evaporation with subsequent cooling of the rising air and travel with the tradewinds. During their build-up phase, they mostly “suck” air into them as they are highly active building convective systems. The upper limit comes when the ultra moist air reaches adiabatic balance. Therefore, if you are in front of such a building squall, you loose a lot of wind velocity and get a nasty right shift, but if you have one behind you, she “sucks air” that heads you if you are on starboard jibe with a great boost in velocity. The longer you ride that squall the better. Mark caught a short video of one that he was riding to a max speed of 28 knots of wind and 22 knots of boat speed this afternoon . Check it out, passing right behind Pegasus 50. Mark is steering and filming.

Course 270° T, Speed 14 Knots, Lat 25° 54′ N, Lon 139° 36′ W

July 9, 7:00 PM PST
Tradewind sailing with building squalls, pointing right to Diamond Head

Course 270° T, Speed 14 Knots, Lat 25° 52′ N, Lon 139° 40′ W

July 10, 2:30 AM PST
Insomniac sailor with a Transpac purpose!

Philippe Kahn founded Borland, invented the Camphone, and decodes human motion. He’s also a fellow outdoorsman, splitting time skiing Tahoe and sailing in Santa Cruz. He’ll share his Transpac 2009 sailing race with us live from the Pegasus Open 50. He and Richard Clarke set the race record for a double handed team in 2008 with a time of 7 days, 15 hours, 17 minutes and 50 seconds, besting all boats in overall time for that year.
[Previous Pegasus Sailing posts on Gizmodo, Pegasus]

Course 265° T, Speed 13.5 Knots, Lat 26° 03′ N, Lon 135° 00′ W

July 9, 2:15 AM PST
Windy tonight. On edge and don’t trust the pilot on 20+ and big waves. No horizon. Been steering for 3 hours. Crusty is sound asleep. I can’t believe that he trusts me!

July 9, 7:00 AM PST
Trade Winds Sailing at its Best!

Philippe Kahn founded Borland, invented the Camphone, and decodes human motion. He’s also a fellow outdoorsman, splitting time skiing Tahoe and sailing in Santa Cruz. He’ll share his Transpac 2009 sailing race with us live from the Pegasus Open 50. He and Richard Clarke set the race record for a double handed team in 2008 with a time of 7 days, 15 hours, 17 minutes and 50 seconds, besting all boats in overall time for that year.
[Previous Pegasus Sailing posts on Gizmodo, Pegasus]

A short break in the shakey cam tour of the boat’s tech; here’s a clip of the Pegasus Open 50 Sailboat going 16 knots and throwing up the spinnaker (a large, kite like front sail) outside of Santa Cruz, CA, on a pre race trial run.

It looks slightly faster than the race videos posted the other day, but its hard to tell visually, since they could be going against or with the current and wind.

Philippe Kahn founded Borland, invented the Camphone, and decodes human motion. He’s also a fellow outdoorsman, splitting time skiing Tahoe and sailing in Santa Cruz. He’ll share his Transpac 2009 sailing race with us live from the Pegasus Open 50. He and Richard Clarke set the race record for a double handed team in 2008 with a time of 7 days, 15 hours, 17 minutes and 50 seconds, besting all boats in overall time for that year.
[Previous Pegasus Sailing posts on Gizmodo, Pegasus]

All food on the sailboat is heated on a pivoting stove that self rights to true down, no matter how much it’s rocking. It’s also the sink, which spits fresh or salt water. All food is vacuum bag sealed.

Philippe Kahn founded Borland, invented the Camphone, and decodes human motion. He’s also a fellow outdoorsman, splitting time skiing Tahoe and sailing in Santa Cruz. He’ll share his Transpac 2009 sailing race with us live from the Pegasus Open 50. He and Richard Clarke set the race record for a double handed team in 2008 with a time of 7 days, 15 hours, 17 minutes and 50 seconds, besting all boats in overall time for that year.
[Previous Pegasus Sailing posts on Gizmodo, Pegasus]

July 8, 3:30 PM PSTPegasus has been chewing up the miles and we are very lucky for that. Our last two days were 305 and 295 nautical miles respectfully.

We like our heading with a lot of West and a bit of South in it, averaging about 255 true. Tactically and strategically we’re able to achieve our goals.

However, we never take anything for granted and keep on crunching a lot of weather information. We’ve been consistently reading 1019 on the barometer, which means that we are sailing down the 1019 isobar. We feel very comfortable with that.

At this morning’s schedule, we saw that a lot of boats were heading North. That would mean a rapidly rising barometer and ultimately a “spin into the high.” So we like what we are doing. All the automated routing programs seem to point to a Northerly track. We’re contrarians and disagree. We’ll know soon enough. *

We’re settling into that routine where Crusty watches the days and I watch the nights. It’s almost like our day to day schedules! Except that we’re riding the wind fast to Paradise!

Course 243° T, Speed 15 Knots, Lat 26° 25′ N, Lon 133° 12′ W

*Further explanation from Arthur Kinsolving:

Essentially it’s about gauging what the weather is going to do and where to go for the best wind. High pressure systems are fair weather and light winds (i.e. slow sailing). Low pressure systems are stronger winds (potentially stormy). So sailors watch the barometer carefully as indication to how the weather is changing around them and to give them clues on where to go. So it’s a game of how far are you willing to deviate from the shortest straight line path between L.A. and Hawaii to get stronger wind.

Isobars are like contour lines on a topographic map except they indicate regions of equal atmospheric pressure instead of altitude like they do on a topographic map. So when you look at a weather map and see lots of isobars stacked up very close together, it means that there will be lots of wind there due to the big pressure gradient. So sailors watch the barometer as an indication of how the weather is changing and to give clues on where to go.

Philippe Kahn founded Borland, invented the Camphone, and decodes human motion. He’s also a fellow outdoorsman, splitting time skiing Tahoe and sailing in Santa Cruz. He’ll share his Transpac 2009 sailing race with us live from the Pegasus Open 50. He and Richard Clarke set the race record for a double handed team in 2008 with a time of 7 days, 15 hours, 17 minutes and 50 seconds, besting all boats in overall time for that year.
[Previous Pegasus Sailing posts on Gizmodo, Pegasus]

July 8, 0:30 AM PSTWe are clearly entering the realm of the tradewinds. The natural path to Hawaii and it’s rich seafarer’s culture.

The ancient Hawaians were voyaging and navigating thousand of nautical miles in the Pacific ocean while the West was lost in endless gyrations. We are clearly entering the realm of the tradewinds. The natural path to Hawaii and it’s rich seafarer’s culture. The ancient Hawaians were voyaging and navigating thousand of nautical miles in the Pacific ocean while the West was lost in endless gyrations. As we approach the gateway to Polynesia, we must show respect.

Respectfully asking Kane and his brother Kaneloa to grant us safe passage into the tradewind to Honolulu and the house by the Wailupe Streams. All of our technology and our strength can take us there. But without the supernatural we are nothing. As Ulysses found out painfully.

2 AM Update:
These clouds puff or suck. They all look the same at night. With this overcast sky, there are clouds that play with our minds. Especially as I stand watch alone at night, one hand on the helm, the rest of my senses fully in listening mode. As we are sailing downwind on starboard the clouds that matter are on our right back quarter. Like yesterday, the clouds are tricky. Not that I can change the outcome much.. Speed or becalmed. I noticed that I can start to feel some cold air from the puffers. That makes sense: they suck colder upper atmospheric air and “puff it out in front of them”. The suckers seem to do the opposite and becalm a large area around them.

All is well aboard the mighty Pegasus. Challenging sailing conditions. That’s what we enjoy.

Course 260° T, Speed 11 Knots, Lat 27° 08′ N, Lon 129° 48′ W

Philippe Kahn founded Borland, invented the Camphone, and decodes human motion. He’s also a fellow outdoorsman, splitting time skiing Tahoe and sailing in Santa Cruz. He’ll share his Transpac 2009 sailing race with us live from the Pegasus Open 50. He and Richard Clarke set the race record for a double handed team in 2008 with a time of 7 days, 15 hours, 17 minutes and 50 seconds, besting all boats in overall time for that year.
[Previous Pegasus Sailing posts on Gizmodo, Pegasus]