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.

Herb Hilgenberg, also known to mariners as South Bound II, has been providing free weather routing services to any sailor in the Atlantic Basin for the past 20 years; all you have to do is sign on and be on the radio everyday at 1600 Atlantic Time. During the busy months, mostly in the spring and fall delivery season, Herb might be conversing with 60 boats a day. On Acadia, we only had a shortwave receiver, no transmitting capabilities, but chances were that Herb would be talking to boats in transit between Newport and Bermuda. In 2000, when moving a 70-footer from England to Newport, I signed on with Herb and I often found myself not following his advice precisely, which can lead to an on-air lecture. Since then, even when I have had the ability to communicate with him, I often stay silent, hoping to piggyback on another boat’s forecast.

 “People who write books about this and recommend these routes should be thrown in jail!” Herb’s all too familiar accent crackled across the radio. He was in the middle of lecturing a cruiser about the risks of riding in the Gulfstream, a common strategy used by sailors going from west to east across the Atlantic. The problem, according to Herb, is that you are constantly subjected to foul weather and this risk far outweighs any benefit from a fair current dragging you across the Atlantic. I had listened to many of Herb’s tirades over the years – often, during deliveries of larger yachts, we’d break out the cheese and crackers and open a bottle of wine for the Herb show. With no such luxuries on Acadia, I just sat and waited. I must admit that Herb’s rather agitated demeanor on that particular day made me laugh and cheer him on. I had also always found the contrast a bit amusing, Herb tucked into his basement in Ontario, Canada, sipping on coffee and looking at computer screens, talking to boats at sea that were getting the shit kicked out of them.

As I waited for Herb to talk to boats in our part of the ocean, I gazed around the inside of Acadia.  I now had around 10,000 miles on her; even for me, it was hard to believe it was possible to sail such a basic shell of a boat that far. I tried to imagine sailing at sea once again on a large boat – one with a galley, nav station, head, floorboards, hell, even a dodger. I felt the boat make a slight dip then move hard to the right; I was caught slightly off-balance and had to grab the steel keel handle that sticks up inside the cabin. Mini sailors often wear helmets inside their boats; I did not bother. While I’d never been injured by being thrown around the cabin, the bare steel that I hung onto had the potential to cause some serious problems in an out-of-control movement; I reminded myself to wrap foam around it for the next offshore trip, though I had begun to question if there would be a next time.

I struggled up to fiddle with the noise blanker on the shortwave radio, hoping to make Herb more lucid;  while
playing with the knobs, I briefly disobeyed the hard and fast rule while underway, especially on a Mini: “One hand for you and one hand for the boat.” Acadia rolled hard to port…I was thrown onto a sail, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Fred totally enveloped in water, hanging on the upper lifeline with one arm, desperately trying to stay on the windward side, which was now almost vertical. Water streamed below through the cockpit door opening, and a small gap in the Spartite, securing the mast in the partners, let the sea pour in. I grabbed a bucket and the sponge and started bailing.

Twenty minutes later, South Bound II, on 12.359 upper-side-band, had conversed with a boat 100 miles ahead, a competitor about 50 miles behind and someone in Bermuda waiting for a weather window to head for Long Island. The low was basically parked near the rhumbline and conditions would persist for a couple of days. Herb indicated that the weather would moderate further west, away from the storm center, though we were racing to Newport, not Cape May. We settled in for a hard upwind battle.

When I came on deck to relieve Fred, we decided it was time to get back to the rhumbline. In preparation for changing tacks, I clipped in with my safety tether and crawled forward to push down the new daggerboard. I then reached below and opened the valves to flood water from the windward ballast tank to the leeward tank, and finally, I freed up the canting keel control lines so the keel swung to leeward. Acadia was now heeling at about 45 degrees, even with the triple-reefed main totally luffing. The purpose of shifting the water and pre-canting the keel prior to coming about was so everything was in the proper position on the new tack. The only thing left to do was move the gear below to the new windward side and pull up the new windward daggerboard. The problem with doing all of this in advance is it makes the boat very hard to maneuver in high winds and big waves. I indicated that I was ready, so Fred jammed the helm over; we barely swung through the wind and onto port tack.

I climbed below and started slinging all the gear to the new windward side. The wave action was more brutal on this tack, and every time I went to grab something I fell against the back of the cabin-house or into the ballast tanks. I wondered how the hell I did this – solo – for 19 days straight in the Mini Transat Race, though in reality, most of the strong winds in that race were reaching and running, a much more manageable point of sail in any conditions. And during the southeast tradewinds in the Transat, for eight days close-hauled towards the coast of Brazil, the winds were 20 knots, not 30. Wind forces increase exponentially with speed, so 30 knots is not 50 percent stronger than 20 knots. In relation to force, it exerts 2.5 times the load on sails, rigging and hull profiles. The increase in wave size between the two wind speeds is also significant; going from an average of 6 feet in 20 knots of wind to 12 to 15 feet in 30 knots.

I crawled into the aft leeward corner of the boat, a narrow dark space, reaching for full water jugs and gear bags. The hull flexed beneath me, and the sound of water and the drum of waves against the carbon skins made me nervous, even though I had experienced it many times before. Water was in all the aft spaces, trapped by the frames, so I studied the rudder fasteners, the escape hatch and support structure for any signs of fatigue. The boat rolled to port and then seemed to punch into a wave, followed by silence. The sound of water flow on the hull had disappeared. I knew what was coming next, so I braced myself in this coffin-like space. Seconds later, Acadia belly-flopped into the trough like she’d fallen off a cliff. A vibration resonated through the hull as the 600 pound keel bulb twisted back and forth on the fin. Imagining that it might be possible for the hull to fracture or the keel to fall off, I scrambled to get out of the confined space, dragging a water jug with me. Crouched over and able to only use my arms for lifting due to lack of headroom, I slung the container to windward. I collapsed and waited two minutes before going back for the next jug. The bow dipped down and Acadia shuddered, a wave enveloped the entire boat.

When I ventured on deck to take over the steering, I remembered the windward daggerboard was still down. Moving forward, I tried to watch the white tops of the waves out of the corner of my eye and untangle my safety tether at the same time. Once over the daggerboard trunk, I quickly stood and pulled on the carbon fiber handle. The board came up 12 inches and stopped. I pushed it back down and pulled again; it stopped with a thump. I glanced over the windward side. The daggerboard, broken and hanging on by a few fibers, was skimming the surface, looking like some horizontal stabilizer, as if it was designed that way. As I debated what to do, the last few fibers let go, and the board disappeared into the deep. It is probably still on the way down.

I consulted with Fred and we decided to partially raise the leeward board, hoping it wouldn’t meet the same fate. When the keel is canted 35 degrees off centerline, there’s minimal lift from the keel fin; the daggerboards are then used to help to keep the boat from making leeway. These airfoil shapes are essential in helping a sailboat perform well to windward, and even in light air, I have found the daggerboards help the boat point, mostly because the profile of the keel fin is so small.

I took over the steering and Fred instructed me to have one arm wrapped around something at all times. I nodded in agreement; my seahood and the Velcro enclosures that secured the front of the drysuit around my face left only enough of a gap for my eyes. I was extremely uncomfortable -- the fleece lining chafed my face, my feet ached from water sores, my ass felt like I was sitting on sandpaper and I was cold; yet despite the high winds, chaotic seas and physical discomfort, I was dead tired. I started talking to myself, repeating absurd phrases over and over again: “Roseanne Roseannadanna…I hear you, Roseanne, Roseannadanna. Give me peace, Roseannadanna.” “Wilson, where the hell are you? Come on Wislon, help me out now.” As every other wave sent sheets of water across the boat, I cursed out loud, trying to use every profanity I could think of, and when I was finished with English, I went on to French and Spanish.

In addition to blathering to myself, I would also think about some horrendous situation, like what it must’ve been like that last hour on the Titanic. In comparison, we had it pretty good. I have played this mind game many times in rough weather and it often helps to bring things into perspective. I have also sailed enough at sea to know this stuff cannot last forever… a time will come when you are dry, rested and gazing at the stars. Though a Mini is an extremely light (2000 pounds, race ready with food, water and safety gear) skittish boat, so it does not take much before you are hanging on for dear-life. When the weather is really snotty, I would imagine the experience to be similar to riding a mechanical bull under a waterfall, for hours and days on end.

It got to the point where a wave would slam the bow every ten seconds and send spray over the entire boat; about every minute, we would submarine into a steep wave and a wall of water would sweep the decks; and every few minutes a breaking wave would appear through the blackness and crash down on the Acadia or pick her up and toss her down sideways.

Falling sideways off a wave is how I suspect the first daggerboard broke, and despite the second one only being partially down, two hours later, when we tacked back to starboard near the rhumbline, we found that one had also broken. It too skimmed the surface for a short while before heading for the abyss. We had about 150 miles to the finish, pretty much dead upwind, and our ability to go to windward was now severely hampered.

It’s at times like these, after damage to the boat or equipment, when you’re beat-up and dead tired, that thoughts of calling it a day enter your stream of consciousness: “How far away is the nearest port, and is it in some direction that’s less brutal than the current one?” “How will I get the boat back home from there?” “What will people think if I throw in the towel and say I’d had enough?” “Is my equipment failure so extreme that no one would question my decision to not carry on?” “Would I be able to live with my decision to call it quits?” These thoughts and more raced through my mind for five or ten minutes as I came to grips with the situation.

After I broke my mast racing from France to the Azores, 600 miles from the finish, I sat on deck for five minutes, frozen, staring at the sea, as hundreds of thoughts sped through my exhausted brain while the broken rig lay over the side. In these situations, it’s a morass of amazement, exhaustion, fear and denial. As your mind weeds out the background noise, you come to the realization that you’re safe and the boat is safe. People often ask me if I am ever afraid on my boat at sea. Fear for my life or my wellbeing seldom enters my thoughts; fear of a major breakdown, and consequently not being able to finish a race because of it, is always present… these races take so much time and money to prepare for and the last thing you want is to be sidelined by mechanical problems. Talk to any Mini sailor and they will always say this is their biggest fear.

Ultimately, your pride and competitiveness kick-in; you begin to look for solutions, options, jury-rig possibilities, whatever it takes to get to the finish. And all the while, in the back of your mind, you know that those who helped make the trip a reality are cheering you on, family and friends watching you suffer on the computer screen and offering up words of encouragement that carry on through the airwaves. In addition, there are the organizations and businesses that have helped every step of the way. For this race, it was the Mystic Seaport who so graciously let me use what was now their boat; they also provided an excellent work space over the past winter and complete access to their equipment and staff. The Stonington Harbor Yacht Club Sailing Foundation Champion’s Fund provided the hard cash for new sails, modifications and entry fees; I would not have been out there without their support. Dodson Boatyard, helping as they have since the beginning of my Mini madness, provided a base of operations, carte blanche in their marine store and full access to equipment and personnel And my partner at the Dog Watch Café, David Eck, fully supported me taking off for three weeks at the beginning of the summer madness in the restaurant business. 

 For all of these reasons, and probably more that I fail to remember, I always try to carry on, not turning back and not deviating, and that decision is never a bad one.

We slogged away on starboard tack, at 300 degrees, about 50 degrees low of the finish. We left the keel mostly centered to try and get some lift from the fin, stacked everything to windward as best we could and made sure the water ballast tanks were full. We were headed for Long Island, pushing to the west of the rhumbline. The following morning, when the finish bore due north, and we were headed off to 290 degrees, we tacked back to port. I looked at the digital compass… it was oscillating between 85 to 90 degrees. With no daggerboards, we had tacked through 160 degrees and were headed due east, pointing back towards the fleet behind us. The seas were running 15 feet and the wave angle was more head-on; the boat speed, 6.5 on starboard tack, struggled to get up to 6 knots on this tack. There are times when you have to take your lumps to get back to an ideal place on the course, but I could not deal with these sort of lumps. We tacked back to starboard, headed for Long Island and waited for the wind to die, hopefully followed by a lucky shift to the west.

Later in the afternoon, the change came. The wind quickly dropped to about ten knots and went northwest, so we flipped over to port. By sunset, the seas had almost gone flat and the wind backed to the west – we were now on a direct course for the finish. By early the next morning, the breeze had become light and variable, shifting northeast, then east and eventually, as we ghosted by Block Island, we were sailing from one small puff to the next, sometimes upwind, then downwind, reaching, tacking. It took ten hours to cover the last eight miles into Newport. We drifted across the line at 2:20 on the morning of the sixth day at sea, the sixth boat to finish, beating many of the larger competitors.

There to great us were [Acadia’s designer] Rod Johnstone, Bob Johnstone, John Johnstone, my mom and their sister, Bobette Johnstone McCracken and my good friend Arturo Pilar. They’d been floating around for seven hours waiting for us to finish! It was the first time that all of the siblings had been together on a boat in 45 years.

Fred and I were relived to have finished, and when we arrived at the Newport Yacht Club around 0400, we stood in the club showers for 45 minutes. I was thankful Fred had been on-board and quite frankly could not have imagined doing the leg without his expertise… Fred has raced Minis across the Atlantic as well, so the pain endured in lousy weather and the difficulty of breakdowns, were not new experiences for him. We both came to the conclusion that it might be time to move up the next size short-handed boat, perhaps the Class 40.

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.

I stared at the instruments, trying to see if we were still fetching Newport, about 350 degrees. The backlighting seemed to be worse than I had remembered; as I leaned forward to get a better view, the boom swung over my head and the mainsheet hit me on the arm. Puzzled, I looked forward to see the jib back-winded. On a dark night with no moon and stars, it is very easy to get disoriented, rather quickly. There have been countless times where I was convinced the boat had not changed course; no sense of leaning or momentum shift, the only way of knowing was by looking at the compass, and if you're tired enough, to the point of hallucinations, it can be relatively easy to convince yourself that the compass is lying. Steering by digital compass can also be rather difficult, and in a moment of confusion, it can be hard to get your bearings back and understand which way you strayed off course. The boat slowed to a stop and started to go in reverse. I yelled for Fred and grabbed the handheld card compass off the cabin house bulkhead; we were headed 180 degrees, back to Bermuda. We released the sails and I attempted to get the boat back on course, feeling rather stupid about my steering screw-up. There was no wind, though; we had sailed into the middle of a thunderstorm cell.

The rain became severe and lightning dropped from the low clouds every ten seconds. Good common sense practice in these conditions is to go below and stay away from the mast and metal objects, but my mast is not grounded, so below in a tight, wet space was probably not a great refuge if lightning struck. On two other occasions, one with Rod Johnstone on the boat during a race in France and the other in the doldrums in the Mini Transat, I had time to imagine some scenario where a strike would wander around the inside of the boat, finally blowing a hole through the bottom to escape to the sea. This in fact happened to a Mini in the Mediterranean, the boat a total loss, but the crew on deck made it safely into a liferaft. When I sailed with Rod, we hit numerous storms cells with dead air. We took advantage of all the light from the lightning bolts to change sails repeatedly and play every little shift, opening miles on our competition; although dancing around the deck and hanging onto halyards and shrouds might not be the best program in those conditions, either. Fred and I sat tight in the cockpit, repeatedly trimming and easing sails, watching the speed over the ground and hoping for something other than .3 knots to the south.

Glimmers of daylight would brighten the clouds at around 430 Eastern Daylight Time, and it was just about then, after one hour of doing circles, that the breeze filled in out of the west-southwest; it came on rather quickly. With any luck, we would avoid a few squall lines on the horizon and stay in the steady breeze, getting through the Gulfstream well before sunset. Fred took over the helm and I went below, hoping to find sleep on a wet bag of sails. I had switched to my drysuit from foul weather gear the day before and now I would basically live in the thing, 24 hours a day. It was a major process getting out of the gear, and down below in a boat you cannot stand up in, living in a space about four feet by six feet that is constantly wet and often moving abruptly, the exercise of taking this stuff off and putting it on again can totally wear you out. The thermal underwear I had on under the suit was the last bit of dry clothing on board, so it made no sense exposing this kit to the harsh elements inside the cabin.

I sponged up water in the bilges for ten minutes, ate a couple cereal bars, transferred water out of large jerry cans into smaller drinking bottles, then curled up in a ball on a wet spinnaker. For ten minutes I would not move, refusing to budge despite something hard jabbing me in the back. It was the anchor, which was stuffed in a duffle. I cursed, mumbled my friend Thomas's favorite words at sea, "People do this for pleasure" and jammed the anchor duffle in the back corner of the boat. Water seemed to be in all of the aft spaces, so I sponged some more before lying down again. This time I packed more wet spinnakers to windward, stretched out full length, and half slept until the boat lurched sideways off a wave, knocking the lower half of my body against the keel. I played this game for 40 minutes and gave up. I fired off the small Jetboil camping burner, boiled some water and made an incredibly powerful, awful-tasting cup of coffee. The coffee gave me an instant jolt and I no longer cared that the last two hours off-watch had basically produced no sleep; hell, it was like every other off-watch - housekeeping, occasionally weather and navigating, sometimes repairs, food periodically, lame attempts at sleep, usually followed by a nasty cup of instant coffee. At least there were two of us on board, so it was possible to be below and not have to worry about jumping on deck to deal with an autopilot that had freaked out.

The real serious solo sailors will not drink coffee because it interrupts their natural rhythm, cycle and routine. I could possibly see this on something like an Open 60 around-the-world boat, but on a Mini - a 21-foot sled not much bigger than a Suburban - there is no rhythm or routine. It's a constantly changing, often violent world, where most everything is shoot-from-the-hip. I have often found that sleep is something I generally learn to live without. If I manage, somehow, to get about two hours of sleep each day, basically with 20-minute catnaps and falling asleep while steering, I can hold off the hallucinations for at least four or five days.

I clambered on deck and noticed that Fred was steering with two hands, pulling hard on the tiller as the boat lurched and rolled; I glanced to windward and noticed the waves had grown extremely large, 15 to 20 feet, and they were starting to come from multiple directions. Some were from the southwest, others from the west and an occasional swell pushed in from the northeast; the bigger waves were starting to break. The sun was poking through, so the sea was bright blue. It was a spectacular, though slightly intimidating scene. I scrambled forward and put a reef in the jib; we were now sailing with a double-reefed main and a reefed solent. I took over the steering and was surprised at how much weather helm there still was.

Acadia is so fat that is has two rudders. I glanced nervously towards the stern and saw that the windward rudder was kicked out of the water; the starboard rudder was laboring away to keep the boat on course. I had broken the starboard rudder on the first leg of the race, during a spinnaker round-up. For four years, the rudders had withstood countless round-ups, round-downs, and loads from sliding down waves in reverse; during that particular round-up, one had finally had enough.

Rudder damage is one of the major breakdowns that prevent boats from finishing the Mini Transat, so I was thankful this had happened in this race and not halfway to Brazil. For the remainder of the first leg, every time I tacked or gybed the boat, I had to lower all sails and swap the remaining good rudder from one side to the other, typically a 20-minute process, longer if there was a short chop. I had given Fred a bell on the satphone the night of the breakage, and he decided to make two new rudders out of wood and carbon and bring them to Bermuda. It was a good thing he decided on two, when I arrived in Bermuda and inspected my remaining rudder, it had significant cracking along the top. Ultimately, it was fortunate that I had snapped one of my original rudders on the first leg. If we had managed to start the second leg with both of these all-carbon blades, I have no doubt they both would have fallen apart, and we'd probably still be out there, steering with my combination boothook/paddle through a plastic oarlock on the stern. So far, Fred's rudders were holding up beautifully.

Hoping we were getting near the northern wall of the stream, I started to watch the temperature reading on a regular basis - 84.2, 84.2, 84.2, 85.6, 85.6, 84.9. It bounced around for over an hour and then settled in at 86 degrees. I assumed we were at northern wall - typically, maximum temperature and consequently maximum current. The speed was down to about 4.5 knots, the compass was reading 350 but the course over the ground was 30, and the waves were very impressive. With any luck, we would be free of the stream's grasp in about two hours.

I looked ahead and noticed a thick, steady line of clouds, extending from west to east. 'Hmm, the end of the Gulfstream,' I thought. I surrendered the helm to Fred and went below, ready to fight it out with the off-watch one more time. I glanced over at the multi-line instruments on the inside bulkhead and noticed that in the last ten minutes, the temperature had dropped to 83; we were definitely on the downhill run of the northern wall. By the time I was back on deck in two hours, the boat speed would be up to 6.5 knots and the compass and COG would both be reading 350 degrees, a direct course for Newport, about 270 miles away. Part of me hoped we'd punch through the light air associated with the center of the low and get into a northeast flow that would let us lay a course directly for the finish. I knew there would be some tough sailing ahead, but little did I know it would be the most difficult sailing I had ever done on Acadia.


To be continued.

Clay
Team Acadia

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

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

During any races, such as the Bermuda One-two, there will be links directly to maps of the race course and regular news updates.

In the meantime, enjoy the new layout and the updated content. On the Photos page, you will find some shots from 2005-2007, with more on the way. The videos are posted throughout the site (one below)... some are clips from onboard cameras, one is a quick splice of material from Nancy Ogden of Campbell & Co. Productions and two, the "Mini Transat" and the "Azores",  Clay produced. You will also find all of the past logs, from 2006-2007, on the Archived Log page.

Mini Transat -- produced by Clay Burkhalter

(footage by Campbell & Co. Productions)