Southbaysail.com
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We crossed the finish line off Lizard on July 16th, 2011 at 15:29:08 UTC. After a year of planning we had completed the Race in 19 days, 21 hours and 29 minutes
Jacqueline IV with a crew of seven sailors had started from Newport- each with a dream. We finished as a closely knit team who had shared a life time experience. For me this was especially special as I had shared this experience with my daughter Kara.
We became one of a small number of sailors who have completed a Transatlantic Race. This was the 29th Transatlantic Race, the first was in 1866. That first race was sailed from New York to the Needles in December, the roughest part of the year. One of the yachts lost six members of their crew when she was struck by a plunging breaker which filled her cockpit and laid her on her side. Six crew members were swept into the sea and never found. This year’s race started in June, a much friendlier time of the year and was between Newport, RI and Lizard which is on the south coast of England just west of Plymouth. In spite of being dealt a poor handicap by IRC we finished third in our class.
Jacqueline IV with a crew of seven sailors had started from Newport- each with a dream. We finished as a closely knit team who had shared a life time experience. For me this was especially special as I had shared this experience with my daughter Kara.
We became one of a small number of sailors who have completed a Transatlantic Race. This was the 29th Transatlantic Race, the first was in 1866. That first race was sailed from New York to the Needles in December, the roughest part of the year. One of the yachts lost six members of their crew when she was struck by a plunging breaker which filled her cockpit and laid her on her side. Six crew members were swept into the sea and never found. This year’s race started in June, a much friendlier time of the year and was between Newport, RI and Lizard which is on the south coast of England just west of Plymouth. In spite of being dealt a poor handicap by IRC we finished third in our class.
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I became intrigued with the idea of sailing the 2011 Transatlantic Race in June 2010. We had just completed our eleventh Bermuda Race. I viewed this Race as a potential logical progression from when we started crewing with Mr. McPherson on his 26’ sailboat in 1966- to racing our own boat a Morgan 28 on the Bay and in the Ocean starting in 1970 and later racing our Morgan 38 beginning in 1977 on the Bay-followed by coastal races and finally competing in Bermuda races beginning in 1990.
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The first step was to gather data on wind, current, air temperature and sea temperatures that we could expect along the 2900 mile route. I used this information to run simulations of the actual race using a software package called Expedition. As a result of this exercise I found that we could expect the trip to take at least 18 days. The air temperatures would range between a low of 47 to a high of 75 with an average temperature of 59 degrees. The average wind speed would be about 16 knots that we should expect winds in the mid 30’s and that we would need to be prepared for winds greatly in excess of that. The sea surface temperatures would vary from a low of 48 degrees to a high of 66 degrees with an average of 57.5.
The graphic above contains the great circle route (shown in black) which is the shortest route, this is the route often used by planes flying between JFK and England.
The colored lines are the optimized routes generated by my Expedition software based on actual wind and currents data from prior years for the time of year we would be racing.
The great circle route is 2765 miles while the optimized routes can vary between 2800 and 3000 miles.
The colored lines are the optimized routes generated by my Expedition software based on actual wind and currents data from prior years for the time of year we would be racing.
The great circle route is 2765 miles while the optimized routes can vary between 2800 and 3000 miles.
Next I spoke to a number of individuals, such as Eric Forsyth, who had done a transatlantic races or passages to get their thoughts on what to expect and their advice on how to provision the boat as well as what clothes/foul weather gear, sail inventory, spare parts and safety equipment etc.that would be needed.
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My daughter took responsibility for provisioning Jacqueline IV with 420 meals that all would all have to fit into a 42 foot boat- would taste good- and provide us the needed nourishment to function at a high level for the duration of the race. We had a six day rotation for the main meal which was served at noon. Two were casseroles, two were freeze dried and two were prepared meals such as spaghetti and meat balls. Kara decided to use a pressure cooker, which reduced the time required to cook the food and eliminated the risk of spilling boiling water.
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We ate like kings, one meal was better than the next. In addition to such traditional Jacqueline IV treats like ice cream, we enjoyed crab cakes with fresh baked bread and bean salad. We also enjoyed chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven
We spent a lot of time thinking about safety. Everyone in the crew had a personal EPIRB. This device put out both an EPIRB signal which could be picked up by a satellite and a tone which could be picked up by a direction finder we carried on board. Six of the seven members of the crew took both the one day theoretical safety at sea and one day of practical hands on training where you learn how to put out actual fires, use flares and go in the water with your foul weather gear and then climb into a life raft... Two members of the crew took the wilderness two day first responder course and a one half day CPR course. In addition to that we sailed Jacqueline IV 800 miles prior to the race in all conditions including a gale.
There were 26 yachts in the 2011 Transatlantic Race ranging is size from Maltese Falcon at 289’ to Class 40’s that were 40 feet. The fastest monohull in the Race was George David’s Rambler 100 which is capable of speeds in excess of 45 knots. In both size and speed we were one of the smallest at 42’ and the second slowest based on ratings.
Jacqueline IV had been designed to be both a good cruising boat and to be competitive in the Bermuda Race. Now she would have to be upgraded for a transatlantic race. In this area I consulted with David Schwartz from GMT who had built the mast and rudder and Peter Smith who was Chief Engineer at Hinckley when I built Jacqueline IV to get their input. Some of the upgrades made to the boat were; the addition of a water maker- an AIS system and a high water alarm, we also changed all interior lighting
to LEDs.
Jacqueline IV had been designed to be both a good cruising boat and to be competitive in the Bermuda Race. Now she would have to be upgraded for a transatlantic race. In this area I consulted with David Schwartz from GMT who had built the mast and rudder and Peter Smith who was Chief Engineer at Hinckley when I built Jacqueline IV to get their input. Some of the upgrades made to the boat were; the addition of a water maker- an AIS system and a high water alarm, we also changed all interior lighting
to LEDs.
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Kara got her usual great port start and we were off to our 2800 mile journey
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This is the actual route we took between Newport and Lizard which was 2860.8 miles. With the exception of the first day when we started at 1400 and the last day when we finished at 1529 the distance covered between each two dots in 24 hours (midnight to midnight). The only exception to this would be the 23 hour days when we advanced the clocks because of a time zone change. We averaged 144.09 miles per day. On our best day we sailed 202.5 miles at an average speed of 8.44 knots. On our slowest day we sailed 77.48 miles and averaged 3.37 knots. Our average speed for the entire race was 6.0 knots
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The first eight days were very foggy and cold with a lot of condensation on everything. When the fog finally lifted we had one spectacular clear night when I steered by lining up the sheave for the check stay with Jupiter. On some of the sunrises the entire sky and ocean lit up
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The amount of marine life that we saw was staggering. We almost always had sea birds with us. We saw a number of whales of different types. We had dolphins with us every day except or two.
The finish of the race was off of Lizard which is on the southern coast of England west of Plymouth. After we finished we put Jacqueline IV on autopilot and since we had 30 knots of wind, we double reefed the main and put up the storm jib. We still had 150 miles to go to get to Cowes. We opened the second bottle of Mount Gay Rum to celebrate the completion of our Transatlantic Race. We had finished the first bottle when we reached the half way point.
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The prizes were awarded at the Royal Yacht Squadron by Princess Anne. It was the first time that I have received a sterling silver trophy in all of my years of sailboat racing.
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Southbaysail.com
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Sailing is such a wonderful sport that we can share with our family and friends. Long distance racing and cruising is at the pinnacle of providing the opportunity to experience the many changing modes of the ocean and the many challenges that it provides us. We can have a tranquil beautiful sunset or a raging gale. We can be beating into heavy seas in a strong breeze or sliding down the face of 10 – 12 foot wave in a Nantucket sleigh ride. It is a team sport where the better our individual mix of skills fit together and the better we work together the more successful and enjoyable the experience will be. I love to compete, so every year we are constantly seeking to improve our program by making Jacqueline IV go a little bit faster while sailing a little less distance with a hotter wind angle. It is a never ending mission.
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2012 was our twelfth Bermuda Race and like all the others had its own personality. The conditions for the race down were dominated by a low that would be north of us that would be pressing up against a high to the south of us. We had a good start and popped the spinnaker as we crossed the line.
We could expect strong northeast winds for a good 48 hours followed by the wind backing to the southwest and dying off. Since we were the slowest boat in our class the challenge would be saving our time on our competition and finishing before the ocean glassed over. |
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Shortly after the start I noticed that we were no longer getting any AIS targets. Upon investigation I discovered that the Edgeport-4 had failed which reduced the number of serial inputs to the computer from 5 down to 1. The two required inputs we needed were the sat phone for internet and weather input and the interface to Ockam for instruments. For the rest of the Race I would have to reconfigure the hardware and software every time I wanted to switch from one to the other - a great distraction and inconvenience.
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Saturday was our best day; we covered 209 miles at an average speed of 8.71 knots with the wind from the northeast at speeds ranging from 16 to 26.5 knots. The seas built to 6 – 8 feet. As the wind built, we dropped the spinnaker and went to the blast reacher which is our work horse in conditions like this. On Sunday, we were still on the port tack which is very unusual for the Bermuda race, the winds continued to be from the northeast but began to diminish from 22.5 to 12 knots. Around 2200 the wind backed to the north and then northwest. As this happened we changed from the blast reacher to first the A5 spinnaker and then the larger A3. We covered 171 miles at an average speed of 7.1 knots.
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The question now was how long would our wind last?
Early Monday morning we jibed onto starboard tack under the A3 spinnaker.
Early Monday morning we jibed onto starboard tack under the A3 spinnaker.
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During the day the wind continued to diminish dropping from 19 to a low of 6.5 knots as we approached Kitchen Shoals which is only about 4 miles from the finish. In spite of the diminishing winds we covered 170 miles at an average speed of 7.1 knots. We were able to do this because of the consistent hot wind angles. Now the real challenge now began, with only 4 miles to the finish the wind continued backing to the southwest and became ever lighter. We were now beating into a dying breeze against lumpy seas on what was the lea side of the island. Victor was down below navigating, my son Trip was driving, I was in the cockpit trimming sails and acting as tactician.
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The rest of the crew was mostly on the lee rail to get Jacqueline IV to heel. At one point Trip cried out that we were going backward. After checking the instruments, I brought to his attention that we were actually doing 2 knots to windward. In light winds on a dark night one really has to trust the instruments. We finished at 1:23 AM. It had taken us 1.5 hours to go the four miles from Kitchen Shoals. We had slipped from 3rd place to 4th but still earned a podium position in our class of 20 boats. Our elapsed time for the race was our best ever 84 hrs 11 min which beats our previous best by almost 12 hours. It had been a very fast race with mostly hot wind angles.
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George David in Rambler, a 90 foot rocket ship, had completed the race is 39 hours at an average speed of 16.28 knots - probably faster than many of the cruise ships and a new Race record.
Now I looked forward to a relaxing family vacation. Jackie flew is with our daughter-in-law Brittainy and our two granddaughters Annabel and Nova. My nephew Lew and his wife Stacey came with their daughter Ella.
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On Wednesday we had a party in our condo for family, the racing crew, return crew and friends. We had cocktails and dinner which we ate on the balconies overlooking Hamilton Harbor and the Great Sound while we watched the sun go down. Roger Daisley had brought his guitar, so after dinner Roger and Mike Saganic took turns leading us in song until the early hours of the morning.
The Return Trip
By Wednesday I began to watch a strong weather system that was scheduled to come off the coast with winds over 50 knots. Our weather window to leave Bermuda ended Friday afternoon. Over the years I have found that the best way to stay out of storm force ugly winds was to pick the right weather window, So the decision was made to leave by Friday noon. My return crew consisted of Roger Daisley, who I met when I was in graduate school at RPI and Roger was a freshman and I was his dorm councilor, John Ziegler who had done 5 return trips from Bermuda with me and actually rowed across the Atlantic in a rowboat race. The fourth member was Mark Smith, a single digit golfer, who had never sailed in the ocean but had gone to culinary school and been a chef – so no matter what we would eat well. We got underway for Bermuda Friday afternoon. We were close reaching with winds from the northwest in the low teens. Our challenge throughout the trip was to not get pushed to far to the east.
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Early Sunday morning, we were treated to one of the best phosphorescence and lightning shows I have ever seen. Ahead of us, from horizon to horizon, we had a continuous lightening show which marked the front of an advancing cold front. Meanwhile the entire ocean was lit up with every breaking wave glowing as if there was a bulb under each one. As far as we could see, ahead of us, astern of us, to port and starboard were these cookie cutter like glowing breaking waves. We tried to get a picture but no success. The only pictures we got were in our minds. All we have to do is figure out how to download the pictures from our brains. Sunday morning we had our first problem, the centerline halyard winch, which was holding up the jib failed. So we furled up the jib and proceeded to disassemble the winch on the inclined deck, while we bounced over 5 foot waves, with the winds in the mid to high teens and blowing salt spray over the decks. It is not hard to fix the problem; the challenge was to prevent any of the small winch parts from flying overboard. With the aid of Roger and John blocking the wind and catching any winch parts as they became airborne, we fixed the winch and were on our way again.
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During the trip we were treated to several visits by pods of dolphins. They would join us, ride our bow wave for and hour or two and then depart. It was amazing how they could swim so fast so close together without interfering with one and other. On Monday morning, as the winds dropped down to the low single digits, Mark cooked us one of the best omelets’s that I have ever had.
On Tuesday the winds built to the mid 20’s and went to the NNW and it became obvious that since the winds were blowing directly from Long Island that Bay Shore was not a possibility and our destination now became Newport. As we bounce along over 6 – 8 foot waves the bracket on top of the mast holding the VHF antenna and the Windex came loose and fortunately wrapped itself around the shrouds preventing it from swinging wildly around the top of the mast.
Looking back, we definitely made the right decision to leave Bermuda early. Those boats that left on Sunday ran into a serious storm with winds gusting to 70 knots. One boat, Avenir a 41’ sloop, was abandoned after rudder failure and on another boat a crew member had to be evacuated to a cruise ship because of medical problems.
On Tuesday the winds built to the mid 20’s and went to the NNW and it became obvious that since the winds were blowing directly from Long Island that Bay Shore was not a possibility and our destination now became Newport. As we bounce along over 6 – 8 foot waves the bracket on top of the mast holding the VHF antenna and the Windex came loose and fortunately wrapped itself around the shrouds preventing it from swinging wildly around the top of the mast.
Looking back, we definitely made the right decision to leave Bermuda early. Those boats that left on Sunday ran into a serious storm with winds gusting to 70 knots. One boat, Avenir a 41’ sloop, was abandoned after rudder failure and on another boat a crew member had to be evacuated to a cruise ship because of medical problems.
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On Wednesday morning we arrived in Newport, my favorite place, and were treated to seeing the new America’s Cup Catamarans. As we came into Newport, the Motor Vessel Slotergrash passed us heading up to Portsmouth with several sailboats on her deck. She was the freighter that had brought JIV home from England last fall after the Transatlantic Race.
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