Another day, another calm morning. Bacon and eggs and truly wonderful Italian coffee got the day rolling along. After a few hours on the water waiting for the breeze to kick in, and after a pleasant swim, we were back in a start sequence for a coastal race. Good start mid line, and a discussion of rules with a British boat who got a fully Johnny Mac explanation of some of the finer points, and we were off upwind. Despite…
After 2 days of getting the old girl ready for racing following her refit, and the crew after their recent racing on the larger and faster Cookson 50, we hit the start line only to be delayed for a while as the wind built from nothing to a little. A tight start with too many boats trying to occupy the same place, and we got moving up the first beat and worked ahead of the majority of out fleet. A…
Porto Cervo here we come. https://www.yccs.it/en/regate-2018/info/rolex_swan_cup-256.html
We’re now motorsailing with 155nm to Newport having crossed the Gulf Stream early this morning. After a long delay departing Bermuda, due to the wildly pessimistic weather forecasts, we set off Wednesday at dawn, and by 8am were heading out to sea from St. Georges. Up went the delivery main with one reef in and a J4 and we took off in the 20 knot breeze. Two days of 20-25 knot winds, big seas, and warm weather had been fast…
After a week in Bermuda we’re now ready to head out to sea again and deliver the race boat back to Newport. A crew of 7 are signed up (Joe, Donald, Jeff, Shelagh, Sean, Casey and Pete), plus any stowaways we discover later. Joe has run out of jobs on the boat and is down to changing the font on all the labels, so we need to drop the dock lines at dawn tomorrow. Looks like plenty of breeze. Here’s…
The fuel for a yacht is the wind, and here we were mounted on a Formula 1 racing machine with only rubbing alcohol for fuel! A light wind race then, after the terror and thrills of the recent Sydney-Hobart crossing. The week spent with coach Andreas was excellent and definitely helped our focus on the racing, especially moving the crew around to balance the boat at all times, even if it meant waking crew to have them move bunks or…
Previous reports of us being out of the wind vacuums may have been premature. However, we seem to be keeping this great ship rocking as fast as she can in smooth flat seas, 4k of breeze, with a combination of wind seeker, occasional J1, or J0 use, depending on the random angle a cloud here, a cloud there, brings us. Just a few moments ago, we were treated to a dozen or so dolphins playing around our keel and bow,…
Keep your fingers crossed fans, after a nice 4 hours or so of wind seeking with a few fellow yachts, we seem to be up and running again, and hey, even in the right direction! With one crew member needing to get to Bermuda in time to fly home for his wedding, we are letting him keep us all focused and in gear 100% of the time. Have I mentioned how much we love our J0 (not to be confused…
What a race! We seem to hanging well with our fleet, some of our new sail inventory has been helping us just put the miles on in light air, absolutely fun to sail 9 knots of boat speed in 6 of wind! We are currently all in the grove, shedding layers as its always impressive how fast things get hot once you hit the gulf stream. Water temp currently 79F (hot hot hot) which makes down bellow a bit of…
Day 6 of training, practice and getting ready for the Newport-Bermuda ocean race. It’s been a tough few days as we meet at the boat at 9, are out on the water for hours of sailing maneuvers, getting data on performance of the sails, and then fix issues and clean up by 6 in time for the daily debrief from our coach. Finally around 730 grab some dinner, relax and ready to start all over again. We’re still climbing the…