The Return of the (Green) Buffalo
“After 16 days and plenty of fresh albacore, Jim Quanci and his crew returned Green Buffalo to her slip on C Dock at the Richmond Yacht Club,” writes Wayne Koide. “They were greeted and escorted back by enthusiastic RYC members in their boats near Pt Bonita. One transferred a bag of goodies to the crew of three. They seemed to enjoy the cannolis!”
“This journey commenced only six days after Jim had completed this year’s Singlehanded Transpacific Race from San Francisco to Hanalei Bay, in Kauai,” explained Wayne. “Amid the champagne and cheers of greeters surrounding his venerable Cal 40, smiling Jimmy Q. took it all in stride. He displayed what was left of his shy kite and a mangled block — he ran into one of eight squalls (in a 24-hour period!) as he approached within 600 miles of the Hawaiian Islands.”
We recap the SHTP race in the August issue of Latitude 38 — hitting the docks today! See results here.
You can look at the sailors’ tracks from five of the return deliveries here, including Green Buffalo. The other four are still offshore as of this morning.
Jim Quanci’s SHTP fleet mate John Wilkerson of the Express 37 Perplexity reached the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the day we posted this story. He writes: “Passed the entrance to the straits of juan de fuca on Friday, 17.5 days after leaving Kauai. The last time I did it (in my Pearson 323) took 25 days. That experience made me decide to buy a faster boat that could go upwind. The Express is such a nice sailing boat. I used half a tank of fuel for the entire trip from Seattle to SF to Kauai to Seattle.”