Here is a photo from Pyewacket. July 7

>From left to right:
Roy Pat Disney, bathing behind pedestal
Stan Honey, talking on Iridium satellite phone
Rick Brent, grinding
Doug Rastello, steering
Robbie Haines, trimming

It is worth noting that while the photo shows the newest satellite communications technology, Iridium, we had to send this digital image using the oldest communications technology, HF radio.

Best Regards,
Stan

On the Warpath -- Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 14:30:40 0000 Day five on the Warpath. Great sailing in 20-25 knot trades with waves to match. Top speed is held by Scott; 21.1 knots in the middle of pitch black last night, and as Steve said, ''it was boarderline control, we curved off a giant wave with the wheel locked over and then the boat took off down the face.'' Yesterday's 24-hr run was 285 miles, just shy of a 12 knot average, probably a record for a 52-foot boat in Transpac. We had constant surfs in the 16-18 knot range. Up until now, we've been pretty even with our two main rivals, Gone With The Wind and Stealth Chicken. But yesterday gave us our first full day of solid running conditions and we put 15 miles on GWTW and 11 miles on the Chicken. We can see Chicken behind us, just a white dot on the horizon. We owe about five hours of handicap time to GWTW, so she's going to be a tough boat to beat, and will no doubt remain handicap leader of our three boat class for a few more days at least. Actually, we'll have to work hard to beat her boat for boat. Right now we're sailing with the 1.5 ounce kite and staysail, still running along at 12-15 knots. Fred is making sandwiches, Andre ''the sled miester'' is driving, and Joe Buck is buck naked on the transom, taking a shower. Scotty's riding shotgun for Andre, and Steve and Joe Francis are roaming around here somewhere off watch.

CHICKEN DROPPINGS -- DAY 5: STEALTH CHICKEN 7/7/99 @ 26-30N 135-08W;22K 050M;100% 4ft. Spectacular sailing for the last 24hr is helping to keep morale high, despite our inability to chip away at our Div III rival's leads on us. Power kite reaching in fresh northerles has turned into VMG running, permitting the CHICKEN to hit speeds in the low twenties when surfing down the modest swells, which seem to be building by the hour. Still a bit chilly for deck showers but this is not an issue since the CHICKEN has the highest capacity watermakerin the fleet, in addition to a da kine below deck shower. We may not be as fast as the crews of WARPATH & GWTW, but I bet we smell better right now!

On the Warpath, Tue, 06 Jul 1999 21:00:40: I had no idea life on the warpath could be so good. A Santa Cuz 52 is a Swan, California style; fast is fun, and it's even more fun when you're comfortable. Upon stepping aboard, I found my various logo wear neatly folded in my big drawer. The air conditioning was humming. So far, so good. Blue tidy bowl in the heads, great wines under the navigator's seat, and a hundred movies on CD's. Here it was Transpac start morning and not a thing was out of place. The galley was pristine serenity, every item divided up, zip locked, labeled and stowed. Not a gear bag in sight to take up room on the blue ultra suede interior cushions.

Pyewacket, Tuesday the 6th Frustrating day yesterday. We had figured that if we could hold Zephyrus to a reasonable lead over us on the first two days, then we would be ok because we figured we would have an edge running.

We did far better than we could have hoped the first two days, and held Zephyrus to a 2 mile lead, and then were stunned to lose 10 miles yesterday, due in part to four feet of kelp that we discovered on the saildrive.

This morning we finally doused the kite, stopped, backed down, and cleared the kelp. We are all hoping that it makes the difference.

The splitting of the high is also holding our attention and is the subject of periodic onboard discusion.

Pyewacket

Chicken Droppings-Day 4: STEALTH CHICKEN 7/6/99 @ 28-19N 129-39W;23K 020M;90% 3ft. Busy times onboard the CHICKEN, resulting from the combination of effort involved in taking a racing yacht from 3-sail reaching conditions to VMG running, superimposed on minor skirmishes with unexpected engineering FUBARS. Specifically, replacing a blown master drive belt on the genset,a blown kite halyard shackle, and clearing chunks of polypro trapped in the groove of the kelp cutter. We are sailing with a nice strand of 3/8 that has wedged itself in the base of the cutter groove, rendering it inoperable. Luckily we have an exceptioal "flosser" onboard in the person of bowman Jim "Frenchie" Macleod. ROSSI

Peagaus flies high on her own website. www.pegasus70.com featuring some great photos emailed from the high seas.

On the Warpath, Tue, 06 Jul 1999 03:00:40 0000 The half moon doesn't rise until after midnight. Last night it came through the clouds as a perfect triangle, a foreign planet bringing a most welcome light onto our rolling world of black sea ink. Venus
tried to help this evening too, briefly laying a brilliant path off our starboard bow before being swept away by darkness. As red and green spray crosses our bow we look forward into the night, rushing over the sea, guided by all our senses except the one provided by the sun.
-Brad A-

Chicken Droppings-Day 3: STEALTH CHICKEN 7/5/99 @ 30-12N 126-10W;22K 000M;60% 4 ft. Manly stuff this code 4 jibreaching. Blew up main vang cable, but spare spectra line and ol' uncle LeRoy (Dave Thompson) fixed that problem. Now double headsail reaching in very pleasant (read dry) northerlies. Will the Chicken fly south to cover WARPATH and GWTW? If you think about the analogy, the answer is obvious. ROSSI
[Looks like navigator Steve Rossi decided to count the starting day as Day 1. No big thing. -- Ed.]

Chicken Droppings-Day 1: STEALTH CHICKEN 7/04/99 @32-32N120-59W;25K 320M; 6ft. Now that was a different exit from SoCal-passing NORTH of San Nich! Now blasting along with a code 4 jib and 1X reefed main. Got a little nippy pre-dawn as we entered the colder water of the California current. All coop inhabitants (crew) focused on grinding down our Div III rivals, most of whom seemed to have a touch of pace on us in the upwind action yesterday. Rossi