Nicole's tracker has run out of battery power and will be reporting her position to the communication's boat, Rapture. We've now heard from Cetacea, reporting that everyone is well but they suffered a ruddder/steering problem which has now been fixed, but with damage to their emergency rudder they are returning to California.
Friday's starters, BMW of San Rafael Division E, blasted out the Gate, but quickly encountered a hole at the Farallones -- but they're now bombing along and heading into strengthening wind that could still carry them to Hawaii in record time. YB Tracker data is showing 19+kts of boat speed for Rio 100 and 17+ kts for Varuna VI. From the Thursday Starters in the Pasha Hawaii ORR Division, Adrenalin reports beam reaching at 14-17 kts with an occasional 20, under white sails.
Official standings will be published later this morning based on today's check-ins and can be found at PacificCup.org. Follow the racer's blog posts at Racer Words.