Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Racing With Dummies, Day 4

by Mike

This morning the sound of engines and the back-and-forth motion of the steering wheel under autopilot greeted me. There was also a
lot of banging on the boat. Further inspection revealed Steve and Doc Fullerton flying kites. The banging noises were their happy
little footsteps all over the deck.

A rudderless boat being towed in waves and swells tends to go back and forth a lot. Thunderbird also had a tendency to surf down
swells, creating slack in the towline. To compensate for this they dragged a bucket with holes in it off of their back left corner
which reduced both problems. Still, we needed to keep our speed at about 7.5 knots through the water to keep these tendencies under
control.

By late morning we were entering the main section of the gulf stream as it heads north between Cuba and Mexico. This meant that that
our progress was a little slower (we were heading generally southwest). And it got a little wavier. The Minnow was happy in these
waves, but Thunderbird behind us was getting skewed and bounced more and more. We slowed a bit to make their ride nicer.

The current in the fastest part of the gulf stream was about 3.5 knots, which is a lot faster than I thought it would be. In the
evening the current ended, the sea flattened, and we sped up again. There was nothing to do except read and recreate.

So we ate supper. We were not allowed to bring red meat into Mexico. Since we had about 2 pounds of hamburger meat we enjoyed 1/2
pound cheeseburgers. They hit the spot.

Towing had advantages and disadvantages. By using our engines, we disqualified ourselves from the race. But since we were out of the
race we got to use the autopilot! We weren't able to use our sails while towing, but that meant easier kite flying! It slowed us
down. But we had plenty of hot water for showers! These were all acceptable tradeoffs.

The most difficult part of it was the inability to fish. There was no acceptable tradeoff for this.

When we were about 8-10 miles from the finish line we talked to the race committee and explained what was going on. This was well
after midnight. They were very helpful and gave great instructions. They had a small boat with a flashing light lead our way across
the finish line and on through the channel to the dock. I think we crossed the finish line about 2:00am, which is about 12 hours
later than we would have finished otherwise. Thunderbird would have finished about noon without the surprise loss of rudder.

At a good spot in the channel we untied from Thunderbird. In the calm water they used their two small outboard motors to take
themselves to dock.

We got ourselves to dock and tied up. The race welcoming committee was all smiles and presented is with a gift of beer and rum. The
immigration official came aboard, did his thing, and officially welcomed us to Mexico. The race was over and the trip to Mexico was
over.

So we played Stars and Stripes on our sousaphones. We also played a few other tunes as we pitched in welcoming a couple of other
boats arriving just after us. At about 4:00am things settled down and found our beds. It was a good trip.

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