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