Carol went out to watch the start w/ my friends Ian and Cindy who are the captain and crew on an Oyster 655 that was in Newport for the summer; Bibi and Frank, sorta family by marriage went along too.
I head out and check over some of the rigging as well as try to put up my asymmetric spinnaker that was jammed inside the hoisting sock. It was still jammed so I took it down and headed back to the start area.
When it was time for my class to start I was a little lower to the start line then I wanted and then when I went to roll out the jib it wouldn't budge. Damn, I left the assy boot wrapped around the furled jib. Ran forward to take it off and hurry back to the cockpit. Now the wind shifts and I backwind the jib. Damn. Tack real quick and then back again. Meanwhile the rest of my class has started and I'm over a minute behind. Oh well, at least I'm off to Bermuda! Being the scratch boat in my class means I'm faster than the rest of the class. Proving this to be the case I had passed almost everyone in my class by the time I cleared Brenton reef and headed out to sea. I settled down for the afternoon and even tried to catch a few Zzzzzs. Of course by late afternoon my stomach had paid tribute to King Neptune and I was suffering from my usual combination of mal de mer and Scopalamine poisoning. Ugh. Heated up dinner of some soup in a can and shut the hatch as it was drizzling rain. Pulled on my long john pants and settled down for a bit of sleep. Water temp was right around 50 as was the air temp. Brrrr!
Saturday dawned gray with light wind. The wave action caused the sails to slat and crack like a whip; when that happens I just see dollar signs worth of wear on my brand new sail. And of course the noise is real annoying too. I try multiple combinations of restraining the boom, furling the jib, reefing the main, all to no avail. Finally I try setting my small, heavyweight spinnaker and get a little more speed out of the boat. I can see SCALLYWAG in the distance and I close on him but when the apparent wind speed starts getting up into the mid/upper teens I decide it's time to be prudent and take down the chute. Shortly thereafter I reef the main and furl the jib part way; even under this reduced sail I'm making in the 8 knot plus range.
If you look real carefully at the GPS in the lower left you'll see 8.5 knots! All day Saturday the wind continued to gradually build. I was still seeing other sailboats and at one point a freighter passed in front of me. He kindly offered to alter course to keep a safe distance from me. That was the only ship I saw the entire time. Saturday night I realized my masthead Tricolor light was not working and since SCALLYWAG was till nearby I turned on my anchor light for no other reason than so he could see me. My portable, battery powered backup nav lights worked great, but being at deck level I didn't want to count on him seeing them. I hand steered for a good part of that night until we diverged a few miles.
Sunday the wind got even stronger. Over the course of the morning the waves grew from 4-6 footers to 8, to 10-12 footers, some of them even breaking a bit. I was hand steering and one wave caught me a little more on the beam than I would have liked, rolling the boat over a bit and sending water gushing down the leeward deck and tearing out one of the grommets on the starboard weather cloth. WHOA! That got my attention! Aside from the tricolor light and later the anchor light failing, that was my only gear issue on the trip down. I ended up hand steering most of Sunday
I have very little recollection of Monday other than it was pretty much just keeping the boat moving straight to NorthEast breaker off of Bermuda. I did have the opportunity to try out hoisting the storm jib as some dark clouds were approaching and I didn't want to get caught with the jib out. Of course soon after I set the storm jib the clouds moved off and broke up. Sometime around midnight Monday I sacked out and must have overslept because just after 3am I woke to voices on the VHF radio talking about how light the wind was and it was going to be slow going. I could feel the motion of the boat was different too. I jumped up to check the AIS and saw it was MIRARI and HALCYON, two boats that I knew would have trouble in light air. Realizing this could be an opportunity I went topside and headed up a few degrees to give me a better wind angle and get some speed. Debating whether to set a spinnaker I decided to wait the hour or so til it was lighter so I wouldn't risk screwing it up. First I set the heavy reaching spin and after a few hours changed over to the big lightweight Red White and Blue spin. The wind slowly built
Shortly thereafter I passed Mills Breaker Buoy and marked the time. 11:36 EDT (not Bermuda time) for an elapsed time of 96:16. Only faster trip to Bermuda was in the blustery Newport/Bermuda race of 2012 on a 44' boat w/ full crew.
I get the sails down, tidy up a bit and head in the Cut to St. Georges Harbor. Off to Customs to clear in for the first time ever as CAPTAIN! Tried to look a little presentable but 5 days w/o a bath and sweating my buns off the last morning means there's only so much you can do to look good.
After clearing in and departing the Custom's dock, I'm motoring through the mooring field and my phone rings; I run down below, grab the phone and see it's Carol. Answer the phone and say "I can't talk, go to the Dinghy Club"! Arriving at the St. Georges Dinghy and Sport Club I have to stand off the dock for a while til they can fit me into a slip. Finally I pull inside the breakwater and as I'm nosing into my slip, just like in the movies Carol steps out of a cab and is there to take my bow line. WOW. I did it. Singlehanded to BDA!
Of course as soon as I was finished tying up I was handed the obligatory Dark n' Stormy and a very much needed token for the showers! Boy talk about feeling good, and not just from the D/S. I did take some time to hose off the boat as you could have cured a whole pig from all the salt that had accumulated.
Then it was off to find our apartment for the next 5 days that we had rented; it was the second highest house on the hill overlooking St. Georges and the view was stunning.
If you look close you can even see our DIANTHUS battle flag flying just to the right of the Dinghy Club.
Here is a better pic.
Carol and I spent a few days relaxing and running around and even went out for a "three hour cruise"!
Dan, my crew for the double handed leg flew in and was present for the awards ceremony where I got the Brian Oatley Award for the best finish by a first time entrant. While I would have liked to have placed higher in my class I was 7th overall out of 24; not too shabby!
