BERMUDA 1-2 Take II

As noted in the previous post things were a bit hectic in April and May.  Son Zach graduated from college....

and daughter Rigel got married to Andy.

Last minute rush jobs were giving me a huge headache, the weather kept the yard from pouring Spartite around my mast and I hadn't had a chance to program the new instruments.

Finally Carol and I shoved off and headed up the Chesapeake into a foul current and then it started to rain.  I was below when I heard the engine throttle back and immediately popped my head up to see what was going on.  "We have company" Carol said and I see a Coast Guard boat and RIB coming up astern.  One of the Coasties hails me* and asks when was the last time I was boarded.  I chuckle and say NEVER!  He said they'd like to come aboard for a safety inspection.   "Do you have any weapons on board" he asks.  Being the smart-ass that I am, I said, "well, by weapons I assume you mean a firearm, because I have about 5 things in the cockpit alone that can kill a man, but NO, I don't have a gun on board!"  So I open the side gate and they come on board.  I explained that we were on our way to Newport for the 1-2 and I had way more safety gear than necessary.

Carol had throttled back to idle and the guys in the boat had no steerage so they told her she could keep moving.  Good thing too because we're already behind schedule.

USCGC  CROCODILE 

 One to do the inspection, the other to do the paperwork.  First thing he says as he points in to the aft cabin, "well I see you have your OIL discharge placard".  "And over there is my TRASH placard" I said, pointing to the galley.  Next he asks about fire extinguishers...  "Oh, one in the cockpit locker, one in that aft cabin locker by the OIL placard, one there in the galley and one right HERE" as I slapped the one in the hanging locker. He doesn't say much but I can see the gears turning: not going to find anything wrong on this boat!

"How about PFD's".  "Sure, 2 type I with lights and whistle, plus 2 type 3 in the V'berth".  He says "I see your inflatable's hanging there (3, with tethers), you know they...  And I finish his sentence... yeah, they don't count unless you're wearing them".  I think by now he'd figured out where this was going.

Um, okay, how about flares?  Oh, goody I get to pull out my offshore package.  Flares, Parachute rockets, Smoke bombs, more in the ditch bag in the cockpit locker, PLUS that bin over there has more that are expired!

 (I could put on a regular 4th of July party)

Only other thing he asked to see was my horn.  Manual pump up, PLUS the compressed air horn I also carry.  Okay, I think we're done here.  Now the only thing that bugged me is they wanted to see ID and I said, sure, let me get our passports.  No, they wanted to see Driver's Licenses.  They were harder to dig out (where is your license Carol???)  and he phones in to the SECRET WARRANT SEARCH OFFICE and find out that no, we are not wanted or bad, evil hombres.

Meanwhile Coastie #2 is writing down all the info off my USCG Doc paper doing it all longhand (can't they do this more efficiently?) and finally finishes.  He starts up the companionway forgetting that the plexiglass slider was closed because IT'S RAINING and promptly hits his head.  Slides it back, then climbs out, steps on the bridge deck, stands up and cracks his head on the underside of the boom!  Carol just looks at him and matter of factly says,  "it IS a sailboat".  Coastie #1 who was as nice as can be just smiled and shook his head.  I did think to get a pic of them as they were leaving.

While I can't say I'd like to be boarded again... they were very pleasant and professional.  Of course it helps that I run a tight ship and keep things legal.

* When I popped out of the cabin they hailed ME as skipper.  Not Carol who was sitting out in the rain driving the boat.  WTH is that all about?  Like she couldn't happen to be the skipper if I, the male, was on board?

A few hours later as we're transiting the C & D canal we pass the Coasties tied up presumably having dinner.  About 2/3 of the way through the canal we start to get a bit of a push from the current and then start down the Delaware river/bay.  Taking a short cut through the Cape May canal saves a few hours plus we need to stop for fuel as we've motored for almost 20 hours straight. Sitting down to breakfast was a nice treat also.

As we were getting ready to leave I had to walk past the Hinckley Bermuda 40 yawl ANYTIME that was getting ready to depart.  A few hours later as we were sailing up the Jersey coast he called me on the radio and we chatted a bit.  He also was headed to Newport and pulled in a few hours after us 2 days later. (A few days later he stopped by to chat with me at Newport Yacht Club) 

Unfortunately the first several hours of sailing slowly deteriorated as the wind slowly veered to the northeast and the seas got lumpy.  The next 40 hours or so were spent motorsailing and putting up with rain and cold and just crappy conditions.  We got to Newport late in the afternoon on Tuesday and promptly got showers, did laundry and started prepping for the race inspection the next morning.

I, of course made a trip up the mast to check everything over and while there took a few pictures of some of the other race boats.  

PANACEA, MELANTHOS 2, WINDSWEPT

CORDELIA (156), CONCUSSION, VELOCITY GIRL, SERIANA (if front of 156)

This was the first day weather was actually nice.  Newport had been having a lot of cold, dreary, foggy days.

June 2 rolls around for the start and we have a nice day although the wind was SW which means we have to beat out of Narragansett Bay.  Ugh. I get a pretty good start, just seconds after the gun and right behind MELANTHOS who nailed it and PRAIRIE GOLD who can screaming in on a reach. I could have shut the door on him, but that's not nice and we had 635 miles ahead of us.
The first several hours were pretty nice and we were booming along on course.  In this pic below there are 5 boats in my class all probably within 1/4 mile of me.

An hour into the race, leaving Narragansett Bay.

Four hours in.

I fortunately ate dinner early, prior to the 1850-1910 "chat hour" with the other boats.  I say fortunately, because right as we were finishing up, this front blew through and I put in a reef, and then a second. You can see from the clouds in the next few pics that it was a bit blustery.

So the first night was pretty uneventful but cold and I was glad to have my secret weapon; a hot water bottle to stuff inside my foulies!  Saturday morning was spectacular; The spinnaker was up, the seas were calm and I even had some tunes cranked up while eating breakfast.
Evidently though, when that front blew through there was some lightning associated with some of those clouds because the next morning FLYING TURTLE was headed back to Newport with pretty much all of its instruments shot.  He didn't think he took a direct hit, but it must have been close enough to make them wonky.  Turned out to be a good move on his part.

That afternoon the first of the really gusty wind showed up and the sea turned into a washing machine. I had to bear off a few times to keep the apparent wind speed down to avoid blowing out my jib.  After a few hours things quieted down a bit and the next day, Sunday was pretty nice.  The Gulf Stream crossing was almost a non-event.   Unfortunately, I wanted to be further to the west and this was the beginning of the end for my race.  The next day the wind started to blow harder from the SSW and I couldn't make ground to the west of the rhumb line.
While blasting along that Saturday afternoon I saw I was closing on SCALLYWAG II.  And rather quickly too.  WTH?  I called Bob on the VHF and it turned out his autopilot was out.  And his backup went also.  He ended up turning around and bailing out also.  Again, a wise move on his part.

Then, that afternoon I heard Jason on CONCUSSION talking to Justin on SPADEFOOT on the VHF.  Seems SPADEFOOT was concerned about the attachment of his lifting keel and in the rough seas that were developing he was afraid the keel was going to break out of the bottom of the boat in a catastrophic failure.  CONCUSSION texted to shore and received some guidance from the CG.  Justin ended up deploying his liferaft and Noel on SOLARUS picked him up shortly thereafter.  (SPADEFOOT ended up drifting around for 3 weeks before it came near enough to Bermuda to be towed in.)

DIANTHUS is the highlighted boat.  The yellow boat that zig-zagged is SOLARUS after it picked up Justin.  SPADEFOOT is NOT visible now on the tracker as it was put in "hidden" mode after being abandoned.

Here is a link to the SPADEFOOT story.

By now the wind and sea state had increased to the point that I was double reefed and had the storm jib up.  I would remain single or double reefed for the rest of the race.

Now,  being just 10-12 miles north of an abandoned boat with nightfall approaching and wanting to be further west I made the decision to tack to the west.

I tacked west for about 4 hours. You can see how close I came to where SPADEFOOT was abandoned.

While on this tack I took advantage of the slightly more comfortable ride to sack out on the cabin floor in my wet foulies on top of wet sail bags and contemplated my options.  200 miles to go, at least 2 more days of this weather and it was supposed to get worse.  Gee. Isn't this fun.  Briefly it even entered my mind to turn around and run downwind back to Newport.  Nah, 400 miles and who knows what the weather will be.

Around 12:30 am or so I stuck my head out the companionway and the first thing I see is a green Nav light.  AIS said it was Team Wichard.  I'm thinking if Vernon is still out there in a freaking 21' mini, then I'm going on.

Tuesday  morning I see HALCYON on the AIS and call up Dan to ask him if he would call Carol on his satphone and let her know I'm okay but have no communication as my satphone has not worked since Newport.  I didn't think she was too worried since I was obviously still sailing but...

Tuesday was pretty much more of the same and Wednesday was also but obviously getting a bit more wind wind and confused sea state.

Video from Wednesday afternoon.

I finally was on approach to Bermuda Wednesday afternoon and the last 10 miles or so the wind was in the 20's, AWS high 20's and sometimes over 30.  Seas were 6' plus.  In general, it just sucked. I just wanted to get in  At least it was daylight.  Finally I finished (cross within 0.25 miles of Mills Breaker when it bears 270 degrees.

After a couple of days of getting tossed around all I wanted to do was clear in and get cleaned up but NOOOoooooo.   Motoring in the "Cut" Bermuda Radio tells me it's one boat at a time at the Custom's dock because of the high wind and I'll have to wait.  In fact they want me to go anchor in PowderHole.  Uh, you do realize I'm singlehanding, it's blowing 30+ and there are boats anchored/moored EVERYWHERE?
So I ask the pilot boat to give me a hand thinking they could just take a line to my bow and hold me steady while I pull out the anchor, drop it and set it.  Noooooo, they come alongside me with their big flared side and promptly bend three of my stanchions.   So I ixnay that idea and end up motoring around for an hour and a half.  Finally get cleared in and instead of going to the mooring where the Race committee had worked out for me, I ended  up rafting up to another competitor at Town Dock.  Phewww.  Finally, safe and sound.  So I trudge up the hill to the Dinghy club to get a shower and who do I meet there but Steve Pettengill.  He did this race a few times years ago, as well as the OSTAR and came in third in the BOC roundtheworld race in '94.  And Carol and I sailed with him on a mutual friend's boat a few years back.  So off to the WHITE HORSE it was for a late nightmeal.

Next up... a week in Bermuda and the Double Handed leg.

2017: Work on the boat and an answer

Of course everyone I talked to wanted to know if I was coming back in 2017.   My answer was "ask me in January 2017!"

That was from the post race analysis of 2015's Bermuda 1-2.  Well, January 2017 rolled around and I was a bit busy on New Year's Day (racing in the Hangover Regatta on my Laser) but on January 2 I signed up for the 2017 edition!
So this spring the boat got a makeover.  New standing rigging, a new furler, AIS, new instruments and a chartplotter.  I also installed a new shore power inlet in the cockpit.  The boat was made with a standard screw fastened shore power in the anchor locker of all the stupid places to put one.  I got a new Smart Plug kit at the Annapolis Boat Show last fall at a huge discount.  Taking advantage of the warm winter I installed it and relocated the AC power in the nav station and ran proper stranded wire.  

When my son Zach was on Spring Break I put him to work, namely scrubbing the topsides, rinsing, and then waxing the entire hull.  A huge help; THANKS ZACH!


While all this work (and $$$) would have been a big undertaking in and of itself, on the home front we sold the "Tabor Inn" in April and rented a house on the water near Fishing Bay.  This necessitated packing up 3000 sq. ft. of house stuff, plus my complete shop in the 3rd bay of the garage and moving it all 170 miles away.  Oh, and the Porsche, and the Laser, and the less than completely restored wooden Lightning!  And putting it all in a house 2/3 the size of the Inn.   Oh, and let's not forget my son's college graduation and planning for Carol's daughter's wedding (which was incredible!).  In the meantime we're living with my Father-in-law in his apt while I work til the end of July at which time I will be retired!  Yea!

My old instruments on the left, while perfectly serviceable were somewhat limiting and I wanted the capability to program waypoints and course to those waypoints.  When the rigging was taken off it became apparent that the furler also needed to be replaced as it was starting to show signs of cracking on the torsion tube and the fasteners were all frozen in place.  Josh from Oak Harbor did a great job of glassing shut the three existing holes where upon I drilled new smaller holes for the B & G Triton instruments that were going in.

The old Harken Furler.  You can't see it but a crack is starting to develop on the torsion tube.

The old Datamarine instruments that Carol really liked.  I ended up selling them to a gentleman in Baltimore who was happy as could be with them.

New smaller holes I carefully drilled out for the B&G instruments.

Newly installed on the left and making some serious time in the Bermuda 1-2 Single-handed leg.

Meanwhile, also in the yard was a friends Beneteau First 38 that was getting some serious attention, including having the keel blasted.  Well, since they're going to be right next to my boat, what's a few more hundred $$s?
Had the keel blasted and then began the arduous task of filling and fairing all the gouges, divots and dents in the keel to make it more slippery in the water.

Trailing edge looking like something took a bite.

Not visible are the huge gouges on the leading edge of the keel.

Multiple trips to the yard were required to mix epoxy/filler, smear on the keel and then come back and sand and fill some more.  Not perfect but a huge improvement.

Next, the yard rolled on a coating of Epoxy paint and then a coat of red paint.  I then finished w/ the ablative paint I have been using with great success.

Electrical work, sure I do that too.

Last year on the way to Newport for the BDA1-2, my bow lights went out.  Then on the way to Bermuda, my tricolor went out; the anchor light too.  I suspected there was some short somewhere in the boat and wanting to change a few things, plus planning for future work, I decided to rewire the electrical panel.  There was one other consideration and that was that in it's original configuration you had a very small hole to stick your head through to reach the terminal blocks and it was damn near impossible to work on.  What I really wanted was something that would be easy to work on, neater and a little more orderly.  This is what I started with:

The panel as it was when I bought the boat.

After removing everything but before I cut out the plywood.

Next came the fun job of disconnecting everything from the terminal blocks and then tracing all the wiring to verify what went where and if it actually worked.

Oy, what a mess.  The blue tape marks where I cut out the existing plywood.  

My double handed partner from last years BDA 1-2 helped immensely as we spent quite a bit of time testing every wire and circuit to verify if it worked and then labeling everything.  One thing that puzzle us to no end was not having power at the bow for the bow light cable, but getting continuity. then half way between the bow and the panel we had power.  I finally figured it out when I pulled out the wire and found this:

Basically the wire had been compromised at some point and moisture and corrosion did their work on the wire.  Of course some of this damage is from me giving a good hard yank to pull it out and breaking it free from behind the liner.

Oh, and the tricolor went out because it had water in it!  Nothing wrong w the wiring.  Signal Mate replaced it the same week I sent it back.  Kudos to them!

Carol and I then spent several hours one cold February day removing all the solid copper Romex cable for all the 110v outlets on the boat and pulling new stranded wire to bring the wiring up to ABYC code.  While solid wire was standard in the 1980's, it's susceptible to breakage from the vibration and movement on a boat.  Oh, and let's not even talk about the wire nuts that were joining some of the splices!  A HUGE no-no in the marine environment.

I had bought a brand new BLUE SEA DC panel and and AC panel for the boat as well as a piece of 1/2" black Starboard to mount them on.  After drawing out my layout on vellum and carefully measuring multiple times I cut out the openings, drilled and tapped holes for the fasteners and did a trial fit.  Almost perfect and after shaving off a bit here and there it was.  Perfect that is. To further gussy things up and to hide the plywood edges I cut some Brazilian Cherry scrap that I had in my shop and made the trim pieces that go around the edges of the new panel.  With a stainless steel piano hinge so the whole assembly can fold down for ease of working I was ready to move on to the next step.

Next came the really interesting work albeit slow and sometimes tedious.  Mounting terminal blocks on Starboard behind the panel I set to work making all the connections.  Wire runs from the various lights, fixtures, instruments had a label attache with clear shrink tubing and then ring terminals crimped and heat shrinked.  Then I had to do the same going from the terminal blocks to the appropriate breaker on the panel.

While I still have a few things I want to add and tweak, this new panel is so much better than the previous one. Having room to expand and having everything clearly marked is a huge improvement.

We got the gun. No, we got the CANNON!

For the past several years, even before we bought DIANTHUS, Carol and I had raced in the CONSTELLATION CUP, a benefit race into Baltimore's Inner Harbor to benefit the Historic Ships.
Three years on WHARF RAT, the CS 40 I used to race on and the past 4 years on our CS 36M.
In 2014 we came in second but that was tainted by a protest that had no validity, yet left a sour taste in our mouths.  And to really piss us off, we got booed when we were given the 2nd place award.

So in 2015 we went back looking to kick some butt and loaded up with some heavy weight crew (size and sailing ability).  It was a typical CONNIE CUP day; blustery and overcast.  Carol had even asked a young woman from her work to come along.  Caitlin had sailed on dinghys but not big boats and brought her boyfriend who had never sailed.
On the upwind leg towards Ft. McHenry we saw apparent wind speeds in the mid 20's.  Reefing down the main, but not furling the jib we started to pull away from INFRARED which had been catching up.  Turning the mark by the Fort I looked back and saw a Tartan 40 closing rapidly.

Fortunately we made it around the mark with a decent lead and then had to make 11 tacks in a tacking duel to the finish at the Inner Harbor.  Sailing each tack as close as we dared to each side we got a huge lift right at the finish and crossed the line 1 min ahead of the Tartan.  Just about the time I said, "what, no gun?" (first to finish traditionally gets a gun), they fired the cannon off the deck of the CONSTELLATION and the whole harbor shook! Needless to say we were quite happy.  We finished first in the Fin Keel Class, First Overall and got to keep the perpetual trophy half hull model of the Connie for a year.

Oh, and the boyfriend who had never sailed?  Caitlin emailed Carol the next week and said he was terrified... but had a blast!

  

At the post race party....

FINALLY got the trophy 3 months later!

This summer everyone was at our house for our annual summer party so we had to take a picture with the perpetual trophy!  Pete, Greg, me, Carol, Dave, Bob   (l-r)


We will be back looking to defend this year!

Double handed leg to Newport

So Dan and I are prepped to race back to Newport.  All the racers get a weather briefing the day before; nothing unexpected except a low that is the remnants of Tropical Storm BILL is supposed to pass through New England over the weekend and could impact us.

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!"

Single handed leg to Bermuda

Friday morning of the 1-2 is a beautiful sunny, cool June day.  Wind out of the NE and forecast to stay that way for some time.  We putz around the dock doing all the last minute things that always come up; loading the frozen food, checking the weather, making last minute guesstimates about where to hit the Gulf Stream.  Finally it's time for me to dress the part of a racing sailor and shove off.

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

Bermuda on the horizon.  I never get tired of seeing land at the end of a passage.

I meant to take a picture of KITCHEN SHOALS as I approached but was more interested in keeping the boat moving fast and forgot.  I took this pic looking BACK at the mark.
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!