About fifteen hours after leaving the Gulfstream, on the morning of the third day at sea, during the second leg of the Bermuda 1-2, the winds had filled in steady from the northwest at 15 knots. Fred Boursier and I had about 240 miles to the finish line off of Castle Hill at Newport. The breeze overnight had been mostly light and variable, but instead of taking advantage of the conditions and resting up for bad weather, we’d spent most of the time awake, doing anything to keep the boat moving.

By early afternoon, winds had veered to the north and were starting to blow a steady 30 knots. The sea state deteriorated rapidly and some waves were starting to roll over at the top. We were sailing with a reefed jib and a triple-reefed main, on starboard tack, headed upwind, steering about 310 degrees, 40 degrees away from the heading to the finish. In my two years of campaigning Acadia in France and during the Mini Transat, I had never used this sail combination; it was the bare minimum before switching to the storm sails.

Two-hour watches started to grind on, seeming to last the entire evening. A near constant spray covered the boat and it started to rain. Looking forward became increasingly difficult; I found myself gazing to leeward, trying to prevent the full onslaught of water from hitting me in the face. Acadia launched off a wave, fell damn near straight down and then crashed into the trough, jolting me from my dazed state. Abandoning attempts at sleep, Fred moved to the small perch on the aft side of the keel box. I leaned forward and yelled below for him to turn on the shortwave receiver so we could listen to Herb Hilgenberg. Inside the cabin, it was loud and the movement violent…just turning on the radio was a chore, and listening to the static filled voice of a Canadian is not easy, especially if English is your second language, as it is for Fred…we traded places and I went below.

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A bolt of lightning zapped the sea about one mile away. The momentary illumination enabled me to see that the waves were starting to get larger, and chaotic. A second flash, this one muzzled behind the clouds, lit up the sails and I could see that the jib needed trimming; the wind was starting to move from the southwest to the west. A wave slapped the bow and the phosphorescence exploded in the spray and washed aft along the deck. Fascinated by the spectacle, I glanced off the stern to watch the glow streaming off the rudders. Another jagged streak of lightening hit close-by and there was an instantaneous, ear-shattering blast of thunder. It started to rain, hard.

Of the 25-odd times that I had crossed the Gulfstream, all the passages, with the exception of two, had been amazingly smooth; I sensed this one would be interesting. I have always found the Gulfstream a fascinating place. Said to move more water than all the world's rivers combined, the stream lies about 250 miles south of New England and can vary in width from about 60 to 100 miles. The significant temperature difference between Gulfstream waters and Continental Shelf waters to the north can intensify weather systems, and the three to four knots of generally easterly moving current can produce significant, confused waves in any strong winds; in easterLY or northeasterly gales, with the wind counter to the current, the stream can be treacherous.

On the first leg of the Bermuda 1-2, the solo leg, I did not even know I was in the stream except that the compass and course over the ground showed a 30 degree discrepancy and the water temperature had reached an incredible 85 degrees. I was now on the second leg of the race, the double-handed part; my crewmate, Fred Boursier was down below, attempting sleep. According to a three-day-old Gulfstream chart, we had just entered the southern edge of the stream in a position slightly east of the rhumbline from Bermuda to Newport. The current on the way north would generally be against us and pushing us to the east, so we had picked a spot for transit of the stream that seemed to be the narrowest point, roughly 60 miles wide.

Earlier in the day, I had buzzed John Johnstone on the satphone; he had relayed that we were in about fifth place overall, with two boats dead ahead and the others directly behind or slightly to the east and west. In the Mini Transat Race, any sort of phone on the boat would get you banned from the class for life; in the Bermuda 1-2, it was required gear for the Minis and those shoreside were able to relay any information that was publicly available over the internet. John had also indicated that NOAA weather reports were still showing a rather large low pressure system, measuring 970 millibars, parking on the rhumbline.

The race had been delayed for one day to try and avoid sending us into the worst part of the storm. Now it seemed that we would hit it head on, potentially battling it out for three days; winds were predicted to be 25 to 30 knots, with gusts to 45. Initially, there seemed like a possibility of trying to get out to the east, then pushing hard to the north and picking up easterlies and then northeasterlies around the top of the low, though the storm was forecast to move to the rhumbline position rather quickly once it left the coast, meaning the whole fleet would be dealing with northerlies and northwesterlies, upwind to the finish. An area of light air was predicted before the weather started to turn ugly. Minis are designed for reaching and running. Upwind, in a gale, in big waves, for three days? I watched the phosphorescence and tried not to think about it.

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The Bermuda 1-2 second leg start has been delayed do to a strong low pressure system that is moving off the coast on Sunday. The storm system has a pressure of 996 milibars and could produce storm force winds (50+ knots) in the area of the gulfstream and north to the coast, basically on the rhumb line for Newport. Winds are predicated to be from the North, so for the slower boats in the stream, conditions could be treacherous, and for the boats further up the course, heavy upwind conditions would prevail. It looks as though a delay of 24 hours might not help as the low stalls south of Nantucket and then starts to drift in a southerly direction, sitting directly on the rhumb line and producing consistent 30-40 knot winds.

Slightly more than half of the fleet wanted to get going despite the weather forecast... weather conditions until the low would have had us pushing along in reaching to downwind conditions, with 15-25 knot winds, for the next two days. When put out to the racers for a vote, I voted to get going...  though in the end, it was Roy Guay, race director, who made the final decision to delay and it was proper that he made the decision as opposed to a vote by the racers.

Forecasts about the movement of this low will probably change again by this afternoon and tomorrow morning; yesterday at this time it was predicted to move off the coast of New Jersey and head out to the northeast; by this morning the forecast changed to the system stalling and then drifting south. Hopefully, computer models later today will show it again moving off to the northeast. Anyway, there could be worse places to sit and wait than Bermuda.

The race down was fine, depsite a broken spinnaker pole (1st night), broken rudder (2nd day) and an unhappy battery. The internet connections here in Bermuda amazingly seem to be stuck in some time-warp from 10 years ago... I will write a summary log of the whole race when I get back to Stonington and send it along. In the meantime, hunker down becuase it sounds like you are in for some more rain and lots of wind over the weekend, which you should be well use to by now. Here in Bermuda, the weather has been great.

Clay

In two days, I will be on the high seas, really the first time since the Mini Transat.

Sorry, I did not do as I said I would and update the website on a regular basis;  just not enough hours in the day to get everything done. The boat now sits on a dock at Newport Shipyard and she is ready to go. The work I did over the past few months, like the making the rudders kick-up and changing to a floating jib lead system (instead of using jib tracks), all seems to have come out well and I would venture to guess have added a couple of percent to the overall boat speed. In hindsight, I should have tried to do these projects before the Mini Transat, but it is always a matter of time. And there were times over the last few weeks, when trying to finish these jobs, that I thought it was the last thing I needed to be spending time on now.

The first class goes of at 1100 on Friday; the starting line is right off of Goat Island. A total of 43 boats in the race are divided amongst six classes… the Minis are the last to go off at 1150. Unfortunately, only seven Minis will be on the starting line… numerous boats backed-out for technical and financial reasons and others were too optimistic on their completion times of new projects. So the goal is to go out and beat as many boats as possible over the finish line off of St. Georges. There is a complete mixed bag of boats in the race, though the fastest group will be the Class 40s… there are four of them in the race and they are fast; basically 40 foot versions of a Mini. 

The weather should be interesting at the start with winds out of the East-Northeast at up to 30 knots. As of now, it looks like it will turn into a bit of a grap shoot after that, with routing software showing up to a five day passage. Yesterday, it was showing a 3.5 day passage, so I am sure it will change again tomorrow. 

For the return leg from Bermuda to Newport, my crew is Fred Boursier. Fred is a Frenchman who lives in Warren, Maine and currently works in the boat business. In 1995, Fred built his own Mini prototype and finished 5^th in that years Mini Transat. Fred went on to a full-time career in yachting and a few years back was captain of Mari-Cha III, a 140 foot racer/cruiser.

For those of you who want to follow along, click on the I Boat track logo and you will be taken to the race mapping. The mapping is not quite as good as the Mini Transat site was, though the positions are updated automatically every two hours (the Transat site was only updated three times a day), so good for those of you who have nothing to do at work.

I am looking forward to getting out to sea again and will file a report, with some photos, from Bermuda.

Clay