March 11, 2020
www.facebook.com/FastExitRacing
Hey Race fans. It has all been a bit on for the last two days. Which seems a bit contradictory, given the overall light air and upwind or reaching nature of the race so far. Many have questioned the reasoning for bringing spinnakers. Several have wondered why Mexico is downwind of the US. But, we’re sailing upwind and other have suggested that maybe flying to Puerto Vallarta would have been a lot more sensible. We got rid of that last group though, so now there is plenty of freeze dried food for the rest of us.

Ah yes, the wonders of the freeze dried meal. Basically, you have a package of flavoured Styrofoam. The Styrofoam comes in many inventive flavours. Chili mac, with beef (Styrofoam), Chicken (Styrofoam) Fajitas, Ranch grill breakfast with sausage (Styrofoam) and so on. You then boil water, pour the contents of multiple packages into a large cooler, judiciously stir and then serve to the unsuspecting crew member. It is advisable to add flavouring in the form of your favourite chili sauce, even to the Blueberry granola (Styrofoam).

It does work to fuel the system for more adventuress sailing upwind to Mexico in a downwind race.  It also works have other effects on the system, which we will not go into here. The imagination is a wonderful thing.

Someone asked how the new Fast Exit compares to the old Fast Exit. The old Fast Exit is affectionally nicknamed the Turbo Camper. It has nice modern conveniences for living aboard and the ability to provide exhilarating speed particularly in a real downwind race. The new Fast Exit is a weapon of speed. Plain and simple. It was designed, engineered and built to do one thing only and no one cared one whit about how uncomfortable you would be going very, very fast.  Of course, we have yet to prove the fast part yet, given the light air and mostly upwind nature of this downwind race. But, we are  uncomfortable, pretty much all of the time. So, the guys at the design and engineering end got that part spot on. The builders played their part too, by making the inside as black as possible. But we’ve been through that part already.

March 9, 2020
Race Update from Fast Exit II.
www.facebook.com/FastExitRacing

Hi race fans. We are in the middle early stages of day three counting from the start day at noon. Reaching along with a full main and jib we have so far managed to avoid rain, any real upwind work, well ok a little bit, and any other general discomfort, other than what is normally associated with sailing a high performance carbon race machine with an interior that closely resembles a black hole.

Saturday came with a bleak forecast.  In fact, most everyone at Thursdays send off party agreed that Saturday starters had he short thrift. But, as it turned out it really wasn’t that bad.  We got off the line in San Diego Bay in good order and raced pretty evenly out of Point Loma, with all boats successfully avoiding being obliterated by an incoming stealth destroyer.  Which we could see.  As we reached down the coast, the class one division caught us pretty quickly, but our division raced in fairly close company.  We managed to knock off a 215 nm day noon to noon, with the team working hard through various sail changes and combinations to keep the Exit party rolling. 

Sunday came in with whimper.  Weather models were downloaded and scrutinized closely. But, did nothing to help sort out the route through numerous pitfalls and light air obstacles.  One Grib file in particular, outright lied with generous amounts of freshly brewed locally distributed air along Cedros Island.  We fell for it hook line and sinker and paid the price.  Now into Monday we are playing a game of catch up.

The Black hole. The interior of Fast Exit II, is for most parts Carbon black.  The bow, where no-one ever wants go is black. The main area with sail handling section the kitchen and the dare I call it living room is mostly black with some white here and there.  The bathroom, which really ought to be black is strangely enough white.  The aft section with the bedrooms and navigation area, is black.  Really, really, black.  The sort of aerospace grade black where light just falls into it with no chance of recovery. Sort of like a Black Hole.