Freja Racing

100 MILES FROM FINISH
Hello!

Didn’t get any middle of the night messages last night so they must have been busy. I did get one from Taylor, short and sweet today saying:

"All is good on freja.

Breeze is up and smiles are big. Just pushing, and keeping focus for the final approach.

Taylor"

And another text, I think maybe from Jon saying:

"About 100 mi from finish. Everything going good & sailing fast!"

Freja has dropped to 3rd place in class on the leaderboard but all bets are off, you never know what could happen!

Lindsey

THEY MIGHT FINISH TOMORROW!!!!
Seems like the crew is starting to feel like steamed broccoli but they are actually on the home stretch!!! I can’t believe it! They are in SECOND PLACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Looks like they just have to scream in front of Surprise – very do-able! OMG OMG
https://yb.tl/paccup2022?fbclid=IwAR1VCXPOrg5OecNX8iW_mSNaPN1Xw-NSUZEwGl5xXadC934tIOTZ63AL27I

Update last night, we heard from Emelie at 10:29pm
Another productive day of marching down the track towards Hawaii. Rumor is we are actually going to pull this off. We are continuing our port jibe trend with good wind strength and direction helping us maintain a good heading towards the mai tais. Temperatures have gotten upsettingly hot for us delicate PNW-ites. we had a group meeting at evening shift change and decided that under no circumstances can we turn the oven on anymore. cold chicken tetrazini suddenly sounds delicious. we are also changing up the watch schedule to break up the time spent in the heat of the day, though consensus is still out as to whether it is better to be on deck in direct sun or inside the sweltering boat trying to sleep. There is added motivation to keep a low heading as to increase on deck shade from the sails. In greater news, the ocean garbage to wildlife ratio continues to improve and we are seeing more and more flying fish and tropic birds, while seeing less styrofoam and yoga pants. we finished playing our "guilty pleasures" playlist today, where poor Jon Cruse was subjected to the worst/best songs the millennial generation has to offer. he is approaching it with both extreme skepticism and attempting to be open minded. he retaliated with 15 minutes of Jimi Hendrix riffing and some ACDC, but unfortunately we still outnumber him and these Taylor swift songs aren't going to listen to themselves. Overall, we've agreed that the challenges of rapidly deteriorating creature comforts and hygiene are outweighed by the exhilaration of surfing down the back of a huge wave in 23 knots of breeze in the middle of the ocean with nothing but the full moon lighting our way in the darkness.

Emelie

And Jon wrote us at 4:51AM
We're in the home stretch with less than 500 nm to go. The winds have been pretty good but with some smaller squalls that either increase to decrease the pressure and require maneuvering.

Otherwise everything going well. With some luck we may finish before sunset on Sunday or overnight.

Aloha, Jon

I imagine they’ll arrive in Hawaii sunburned and super sleepy but SOOOO ready for that Mai Tai! Hopefully they will arrive as winners!!!

Lindsey

Pacific Cup 2022 - YB Tracking Race Viewer Pacific Cup 2022 - YB Tracking Race Viewer

Sorry I forgot to post yesterday's email here:
Hello to all you 86 Frej-heads out there!

• Well looks like Freja and Moonshine didn’t quite cross paths but they got really close. Freja is now heading more south and looking good. From the updates below it sounds like those competitive juices are starting to flow. The communication person from Moonshine found me so now I am on their e-mail list too :)

• Another update from sailish.com with all the local area boats listed: https://sailish.com/

• Also, I haven’t heard back on this, is anybody going to be in Hawaii at the finish line who can take photos of Freja? We have one volunteer but would like to have more.

• And lastly FYI I’m requesting some updates from those crew who we haven’t heard from much if at all yet!! Hope we’ll have some more updates tomorrow.

Update from Molly at 9:11pm last night:
Hello friends and family enjoying the simple pleasures of life at home; fresh water showers, meal prep that doesn't take over the entire living quarters or heat the place up to stifling temperatures or water sans chunks (don't worry, they're small). Anyways, I digress. Life here is going well but we're getting increasingly antsy for land. The "grumps" have been more frequent but are usually curbed by naps or a fresh bag of M&M's- its the little things for us on board.

Breakfast consisted of Cinnamon rolls at 6am which was delightful to wake up to. Christmas morning in the ocean is quite nice. Its really the only time we like to turn the oven on anymore. The question of running out of food came up and there is ZERO concern of this. We are a bit low on fresh veggies but the carrots are holding strong. The freezer still holds 5 meals of casseroles all very hearty. With the end "in sight" we might start to have one for lunch but, that would involve turning the oven on... Trade-offs everywhere. Frozen pineapple and frozen yogurt is saving the day.

Muscles are mostly good, shoulders and arms are feeling it for sure. Depending on the sea state,the driving is more demanding than anything else. Hands have some blisters and sores forming but nothing major. F***y fatigue is the REAL pain for most of us. Nothing else to report from the medical bay.

As an average, the ladies are far better sailors, duh. We have a really nice balance of skill, brawn, and brains aboard. Today we had our first "all hands" situation stemming from a misplaced jibe/ spinnaker wrap. The sail came down in one piece, the jib top was hoisted, the kite repacked and successfully reset. The jib top was struck and re-stowed on the rail for the next occasion. During the recovery, boat speed never dropped below 7 knots, and time from kite wrap to back under full sail on the proper jibe, was under 20 minutes. Not too bad for a bunch of amateurs.

Sailing fast, pushing hard.

Molly, Jake and, Crew

P.S. A note from the Freja test galley,

Peanut M&M's are a fine addition to the venerable PB&J.

And update from Jon at 11:56pm last night:

Ahoy,

We're having another great night of sailing under a near-full moon heading a bit South of rum line with 15 kts of breeze at about 9 kts boat speed.

We had a race port/starboard crossing with another boat - Wolfpack; we crossed in front of course.

Dinner this eve was pasta which was excellent. Everyone is healthy and there has miraculously been no sea sickness.

The race is up for grabs. The way the standings are calculated does not actually depict where everyone is. We have been making gains at night relative to the fleet and the best gage is to look at distance-to-finish - only one boat (Surprise) is closer than us. It will get more interesting as we approach Ohahu.

Stay tuned ...

Jon

sailish.com Sailing on the Salish Sea

We received an early evening update from Taylor

Hello from Freja!

Enchilada casserole is currently in the oven, as we head into pre-dinner happy hour. In answer to a question, we have passed around the Ron Zacapa this trip. We typically gather for a dinner hour debrief/happy hour with a taste of rum (sometimes with cherries, sometimes with gummy bears...). There have been intermittent rain showers this afternoon, providing a nice gear rinse from all of the salt water.

We're currently sailing under the code 0, the rain showers generating 10 knot/40 degree swings in pressure/direction, keeping everyone on their toes. Thus far the race has had a bit more reaching than we were hoping for, but we've gotten really good at changing gears.

Dinner is ready, so time to sign off.

-Taylor

I had some of you asking my connection to Freja, I realized I don’t know if I ever explained who I am. So for those of you who are wondering, I have been a crew member of Freja since pretty early days after Jon bought the boat 5 years ago or so. I don’t race as much these days because I’m so busy with my 2 businesses and my 2.5 year old. [[[I did put a longer bio about me in the e-mail I sent-- I didn't want to have my larger story up on the public page]]]

Ok that is more than enough about me! Let’s check out the tracker:
https://yb.tl/paccup2022?fbclid=IwAR0UBYQDeazArQf1afg48MS4Pq4OIigjC_d5p9zAajDGv1Exbgz_eEm2O5I

I like to look at it with just our class, so open the class filter and un-check everything but the Goslings Rum class (although you know by now that Ron Zacapa, not Goslings, is the preferred rum of Freja on board!) so you can see what the competition looks like. Looks like Freja is doing pretty well, closer to the red course line than anyone else in our class, but not in the lead. Sooo many variables and so much time left in the race still.

-Lindsey

Pacific Cup 2022 - YB Tracking Race Viewer Pacific Cup 2022 - YB Tracking Race Viewer