Racing with Dummies! Day 1

by Mike

Last night Bob and I attended the mandatory "skippers meeting." There were several people that had some nice and interesting things
to say. Then the boss of the race talked about some rules, starting time, starting line, and things like that. It was probably quite
informative. However, he used a bunch of sailboat and racing terms so neither Bob nor I had much of an idea what he was talking
about.

After the meeting we searched out Mike Boom (one of the race organizers, and a really nice, helpful guy) to find out what to do. We
had read the rules and knew that the race started at 10:00am. "So we just show up before 10:00am and be ready to take off," we
asked? He told us that most of them would leave the dock about 9:00am and gather in the starting area.

So this morning we got up and took off from the dock shortly after 8:00am in order to get out of everyone's way. We couldn't tell
where the starting line was, so we just stayed way behind all the other boats so we could follow them. One of the things they talked
about was being "OCS" in the race. We looked that up on wikipedia later and found out it basically means a false start. In sailboat
racing, if you cross the starting line (which we never precisely located) before the official start time (we thought we could figure
this part out by listening to the radio) then you have to circle back and go through it again.

Anyway … a few minutes before 10:00 they announced on the radio that all racers would motor across the bridge and start near buoy
#17. We found buoy #17 on the map and headed to it. A couple of hours later we noticed the other racers congregating near buoy #70
and realized that #17 was really #70 and we should stay there behind them all.

So we ate lunch. The bologna sandwiches (compliments of Bob) were delicious.

We were truly asea (mentally) at this point. But we persevered and waited. After a pretty long time a lady on the radio said "three
minutes till ????? ????? ????? start ." Something was about to start.

Then she said "two minutes till ????? ????? ????? start." And then proceeded to announce "one minute till …" "45 seconds till …" "30
seconds till …" "15,14, 13, … 3, 2, 1, MARK!" We were getting excited.

We stayed behind all the other boats, expecting them to take off so we could follow. Nothing observable happened. There were still
boats everywhere going in all directions and we stayed away from them.

Then the lady on the radio began another countdown to something else that we could not understand. From "three minutes…" all the way
to "3, 2, 1, MARK!" If any of the boats reacted to this, we could not tell.

After more counting commenced and concluded the boats started pointing in the same direction and took off. We followed behind the
middle of the pack best we could to make sure we didn't miss the starting line. And we were off!

This sailboat racing is not only confusing, it also involves hardships.

Two important things I learned about boat racing. One, they don't let you use powered winches. (One-a: it takes a lot of
hand-cranking to get our mainsail up.) Two, they don't let you use an autopilot.

Today was the first day I have witnessed (I volunteered to drive during that part) our mainsail hand-cranking to the top.

Regarding autopilotless racing, we have crossed the Atlantic twice and sailed a lot of other places. We have used the autopilot more
than 99% of the time that I have been on the boat sailing. Today we used a bungee cord on the steering wheel a lot.

The wind was not particularly cooperative. It was blowing from the south, and we were trying to go south.

So we ate supper. Doc Fullerton had the bad manners to catch a 21 pound black fin tuna just before we ate. So eating was delayed a
bit due to his inconsideration.

We ended up going mostly west and only a little south. But, the sky was clear and the temperature in the 70s. Nice.

Today's News!

Tomorrow Steven Webster and Mike Fullerton join Mike and Bob Webster in Tampa for the start of the great race on Friday morning. The
weather forecast is for very little wind. At least it will be smooth water...

Here's where to track the boats in the race:

http://charthorizon.com/races/2007_tampa_islamujeres/htdocs/

Mike broke a light bulb in the fridge, but he repaired it.

We have safety seminars, weather seminars, and meetings tomorrow. The big safety tip on a trip like this is to stay on the boat.

The Minnow is Moving

This morning the Minnow made it to the St. Petersburg Yacht Club from Key West! Bob drove, and did an excellent job of parking the boat. That means no permanent damage to the boat, and very little visible damage to the dock. (The dock is concrete).

Stowaway:
Sunshine Bridge, Tampa Bay:

day 2

Moving the Minnow from the Eastern Caribbean to Florida, Day 2
by Mike

The wind was light and the sea was mostly calm. Not glassy or anything, just
small waves and swells. It made for a very relaxing day.

The wind eventually died to almost nothing, so we motored most of the
afternoon and evening. We went by several other islands during the morning
hours. In the late evening the Virgin Islands were just coming into view
about 25 miles away. We could see lights from the islands, but no detail.

In order to arrive during daylight, we slowed down. We did this by taking
down the mainsail and leaving up the solent (small jib). That way we will be
able to see where things are when we try to park. Maybe we won't hit things
quite as hard.

Never having been there before, we are suspecting that it will be more
scenic during the day, too.

Today we were lazy on the Minnow. We didn't have urgent repairs or cleaning.
So we read a lot, played chess (see below for scorecard), and I cooked some
things. A chocolate pie, a chocolate cake, a loaf of bread, a
eggs-onions-potatoes-and-cheese breakfast item, chicken parmesan, rice, and
two gallons of tea.

Tomorrow we meet James, Mike, and Bob in St. Thomas.

Fishing Report:
We caught a barracuda and a tuna fish. We think it was a yellow-fin again.
We caught both of them in the morning and then got nothing the rest of the
day.

Arts and Entertainment:
Serge and I played chess off and on today. We had four good games of chess.
Then Serge won the fifth.

The Minnow from Guadeloupe to Florida, Day 1

After crossing the Atlantic with more than 200 other boats we dropped the
Minnow off at a marina in Guadeloupe. Guadeloupe is a French island in the
east end of the Caribbean. We left the boat there since it's easy for Catana
to do work on a boat on a French island.

And yes, after crossing the Atlantic, the Minnow needed a few boat repairs.
And sail repairs. Thanks to Patrick, Yannick, Thierry, Mathieu, and lots of
others, the Minnow is now in pretty good sailing shape again. They did a lot
of work, including removing the mast and some significant rigging
modifications. The also fixed lots of boring things like broken bed slats.

Guadeloupe is a really pretty island. And the people everywhere are very
nice (other than the sour waitress last night). Many of them don't speak any
English (including the sour waitress last night).

Of course I don't communicate all that well in English, or American, or even
Oklahoman. But in Guadeloupe it was easier to skip the McDonald's
drive-through altogether and take the time to park and go inside. That way I
could point at some food item on the wall and say "Coca Cola" and save about
10 minutes on average.

To further indicate the language barrier, I will tell this story. I stopped
to pick up a hitchhiker. He smiled and spoke a lot of French to me. I smiled
and spoke some Oklahoman to him. He smiled more and talked more using lots
of hand gestures. I did the same. This went on for a few minutes. Then,
after failing to understand a single word or gesture, we finally connected.
He hand motioned and shrugged "drive on without me, I'll find another ride."
Oh well.

This morning Serge and I got up early and got everything ready to leave. The
boat was ready and we were ready by 7:30am. All we had to do was turn in a
key and check out with the customs officer. But the marina office and the
customs office did not open until 8:00. So I cooked some pancakes (they were
good) and showed up at the offices at 7:58. And then I waited. Since these
offices operate on "island time" we finally got moving around 9:30.

The sailing was just about perfect. We started upwind. Then beam reached
some. Then we headed downwind some. Then some wing-in-wing. Then . we jibed
(and didn't break anything!). We sailed around the southern and western
sides of Guadeloupe. It was very scenic.

We stopped at pigeon island on the west edge of Guadeloupe to snorkel and
scuba dive. There were around 1 million colorful fish of various sizes.

We are heading to the Virgin Islands to meet Bob, Mike, and James. They are
bringing a dinghy, dinghy motor, two kayaks, marshmallows, and some wasabi.
Then we are all sailing to the Bahamas, then some on to Florida.

The next island on the way from Guadeloupe to the Virgin Islands is
Montserrat. This is a volcano. The charts tell us to stay at least two
kilometers from it. We went by it at night (about 3-4 miles away) and it
looked pretty normal in the dark. We were hoping to see lava or something
interesting, but we didn't.

BUT, there were two interesting things about it. One, the smell. When we got
downwind of the island there was a terrible, strong, burning, sulfury stench
for quite awhile. Two, they still have cell-phone service on the island.

We decided to sail through the night tonight since we are both chicken to
try to anchor or dock at night. And also, sailing at night in these
conditions is an experience that's hard to beat. We both like it a lot.

Fishing Report:
We caught a tuna fish. We think it was a yellow-fin. It was good for supper
and there's still some left for tomorrow.

We Won!

It's official! The Minnow won in the Multihulls Division of the 2005 ARC. We weren't first across the finish line, but the other boats had enough motoring penalties to put The Minnow in first place.

http://www.worldcruising.com/arc/results/ARC05_results_cruising_overall.pdf

Photos!

Photos of the trip acreoss the Atlantic!

St. Lucia!

The Minnow made it to St. Lucia! Some others in the multihull division got there first, but they all have motoring penalties coming. We may end up in 1st or 2nd place because we didn't motor (except for maybe an hour of motoring in the wrong direction when they kicked me off the boat).

Here are the details of my evacuation, with pictures:

http://xpda.com/mutiny



Bob

day 18

“The Minnow” ARC 2005 Atlantic Crossing

Mike’s Exciting Day 18 Update!

The wind picked up slightly, as predicted. Wow. I believe that this is the
first time the weather condition has even remotely resembled the forecast.
So we decided that we would reef the mainsail in the afternoon, while it was
still light outside.

The potential problems with reefing the mainsail were (1) the outside cover
has been bunching up in numerous places so it could get jammed at an
undesirable location and (2) it could easily break. Every time we move the
mainsail we incur a significant risk of one or the other.

With this in mind, we chose to reef the mainsail to the second reef (about ½
way down). This ended up costing us .5 to 1 knot for a few hours in the
afternoon. But by nightfall, we were glad we made that choice as we saw
steady winds in the mid 30s from time to time throughout the night.

Update on the “Bob-gone/boat-not-breaking phenomenon: Bob still gone, still
nothing broken. Hmm…

Things are pretty well back to normal now. We have adjusted to being
Bob-less, and other than the boat not breaking, things are pretty much the
way they were. This morning as normal, Serge was outside listening to
static-filled French news on the portable SSB (he sure misses his native
language). As normal, Jim was asleep on the couch (Melinda, he is competing
for the “maximum hours of sleep per day” record that you currently hold). As
normal, David was reading a book. And, as normal, I was cheerful,
conversational, and dadblasted chipper all morning.

Unless something significant happens, this should be our next to last day of
the ARC 2005 Atlantic Crossing. I think we’re all ready to get there.

Fishing report:

A dolphin a day keeps the tuna away. We got another dolphin today. Cleaned
it, cooked it, ate it.

Today’s Nautical Term:

Mutiny. A mutiny is when you have a really crappy captain and you get rid of
him. Bob catches on quicker than I thought.

He emailed: “After the mutiny, I was cast adrift. After an interminable
period of drifting aimlessly about the Atlantic, I was hoisted aboard the
M/T Patris. This occurred on St. Nicholas day, the holiday for the patron
saint of seagoers, and insured a year of luck for the Patris and its crew.”

So he hasn’t died yet.

Arts and Entertainment:

Serge and I played an energetic game of chess while enjoying highlights from
Verdi’s Aida.

The movie-watching craze continued tonight. “Master and Commander” was the
top bill. The others watched it in two shifts. I opted to read a book since
I had already seen it.

day 17

"The Minnow" ARC 2005 Atlantic Crossing

Mike's Exciting Day 17 Update!

The wind has slightly and steadily increased over the last couple of days.
And it's supposed to keep doing that for the next few days. We are sailing
with a full mainsail and a solent (small jib). We have been alternating
between a lot downwind, and wing-in-wing downwind. That's where we have one
sail pointed to the left and the other sail pointed to the right.

We would be going faster if our gennaker hadn't deserted us. But hopefully
tomorrow we will have plenty of wind for our remaining sails. Tomorrow will
probably be a reef-the-mainsail-day. That's not normally a big deal.
However, when limping along with a chafed main halyard (the rope that holds
the main sail up) that could break at any time, it could be an adventure.

We were all dragging a bit this morning. So I cooked a mess-o-pancakes and
we ate all of 'em. There were a lot of naps that ensued.

We got some updates on Bob through indirect email. Nothing very informative,
but it seemed to indicate he hadn't died or anything yet. I still think he's
a pansy. But I have to hand it to him - he got to get on an enormous VLCC
oil tanker, AND he gets to take a helicopter ride.

OK, I might be a little jealous about the VLCC part .

One thing is very interesting about Bob abandoning ship. Since he left, we
have not broken anything. I will try to keep tabs on this phenomenon.

Fishing report:

We seem to be able to catch one nice dolphin per day. We did that again
today. Cleaned it, too.

Arts and Entertainment:

"The Ref" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" ran multiple times from 6:00am
until . well sometime tomorrow.