Thursday is a beautiful Bermuda day w/ wind out of the North and the race will start at the west end of the harbor and we will actually sail out of the Cut into the ocean. Hmmmm. We get a pretty good start as the third boat across the line in our class and quickly move into second. Passing through the Cut we are just barely behind ISLAND GIRL but when we get through the cut and into clear air we quickly leave all the boats in our class behind and are first to Mills Breaker buoy. The first two days are delightful sailing even if we all are tending to go east of the rhumb line. Even saw some dolphin. And we're leading our class. That is until Saturday night when, trying to escape the wicked foul current we take a take to the west, get in even more foul current and two boats in our class leave us in their wake. Damn.
Meanwhile, our friend TS BILL has tracked further south then anticipated and we wake up Sunday morning to the news that he's going to pay us a visit with winds in the 40 knot range. Late that morning I furled the jib and hoisted the storm jib, set flying. Unfortunately we can't point well and while we stayed on course for the next few hours we eventually were forced well off course as the wind veered. Coming on watch at noon, I ended up helming by hand for over 7 hours. By now we were double reefed on the main and just the storm jib. The wind and seas built and by mid afternoon it was blowing in the 30's w/ solid 10 foot waves. Nothing to worry about and even when it rained it wasn't awful. However, this continued and as the wind veered more to the NW the sea state got confused and the wind kept increasing. I guess it was around 6pm or so when I started seeing GPS speeds well into the teens, apparent wind speeds in the high 30's and waves that were pushing 15 feet! When a couple of big waves lifted the boat and we took off surfing down breaking waves and I was thinking "OH SH!T" I decided enough was enough. I called Dan topside and we deployed a couple of 1" thick lines over the stern to slow the boat down which worked great, but then an even bigger wave and a gust that Dan said hit 41 Apparent Wind Speed while I was watching double digit boat speed convinced me we needed to deploy the Galerider drogue. Over the transom it went and worked like a charm.
Only trouble was we were still making 6-7 knots in the direction of Newfoundland! Clipping on in three places I muscled the double reefed main down and lashed it to the boom. Now we were pretty much parked making less than 1.5 knots, which is how we spent the next 10 hours. Early the next morning we set sail and tried to make our way back towards Newport. Unfortunately we were stuck in more foul current and it was an extremely exasperating day.
Here is a screenshot of the tracker showing how several boats got forced off course and suffered the effects of "Bill". DIANTHUS is the highlighted boat in blue.
Here are a few videos from that day and a few pictures of lines/drogue in the water.
I don't really think we hit a max speed of 20.4 knots. I think that's the GPS calculating things in both the vertical and horizontal plane to come up w/ that number! BUT, we definitely were in the teens at times...
Regardless we struggled on knowing that even though the race was pretty much over for us, we had exercised good judgement and kept us and the boat safe.
The last day was interesting in that we had heard parts of a radio conversation between the Coast Guard and another boat in the race. Evidently they were taking on water and having other issues. Not knowing exactly where they were I contacted the Coasties to advise them we were willing to lend a hand if need be but they had things under control. (KONTRADICTION also lost their mast when the backstay broke! They ended up going in to Martha's Vineyard and then motored to Newport a day later.)
The fun wasn't over though as the last full day (Tuesday) we kept listening to weather alerts about thunderstorms. All day the area under alert kept moving further south until about 8pm when Dan stuck his head up and said "we are now in the alert area". Well no kidding Dan, I've been looking at a light show for the past hour and it keeps getting closer. Prudence told me I didn't want to be holding on to that metal wheel with all the lightning so we furled the jib, double reefed the main, lashed the wheel amidships and went below. Dan was lying on the floor and I quickly joined him. (can't fall any further!) Within minutes the first gusts hit and the boat heeled over sending foamy, white water past the cabin windows. Then the rain started. After about an hour and a half things abated, we went topside to find NO DAMAGE whatsoever and started sailing again. About an hour later we're blasting along under reefed jib and single reefed main and I hear a loud BANG, and something hits me in the back. Turns out it was a rachet turning block on the furling line and it just exploded into several pieces. Guess it was one size too small! Amazingly, that was the only gear failure we had on the return leg despite the nasty weather. We sailed through the night and of course, the last few hours had the wind right on our nose but finished just before 0730.
Putting the boat shipshape and getting in to Newport harbor took another 2 hours and then we could relax. Meanwhile Carol was putting together a delivery crew so I didn't have to burn more leave and she and I could go back home together. Dan's lady friend Corinne, a friend of hers, and Doug, a friend of ours that had helped us deliver DIANTHUS from Bristol when we bought her came up. We had a nice couple of days relaxing and then it was time to depart and let Dan bring her home.
While we didn't score any silver on the return leg, it was a great experience. As I told some folks, I had never towed lines in the water, towed a drogue or flown a storm jib in anger. I did all three of those in one day! And 2 days later I lashed the wheel, went below and left the boat to itself; also something I'd never done before. Despite all the racing and the foul weather, Dan and I had a great time, got along swell and the boat came through wonderfully. I never felt like the conditions were going to overwhelm the boat or us. Of course everyone I talked to wanted to know if I was coming back in 2017. My answer was "ask me in January 2017!"
