1990 Canadian Sailcraft CS34 Shoal Draft
Sail #8268

1982 Catalina 22 Fin Keel
Sail #10506

1994 MUMM 36 ACE
Sail # 29206

Saturday, June 25, 2022

MacIntosh Delivery to Nova Scotia

Our last day in beautiful Bermuda, while we provision the boat to head back to Nova Scotia.

It will be four of us: Durk, Carl, Kevin, and I.

We will leave tomorrow (Sunday) around 08:00.
First stop will be to refuel at the Navy Docks.

Winds will be light, so we will be motoring for much of the day before the winds fill in with 15 knots of breeze behind us.

Route planning software has us getting to Nova Scotia on Friday July 1st.
Just in time for Rita's birthday on July 2nd!


You can follow our progress using this link:


Tracking is done on a Garmin Inreach device over the Iridium satellite network.
Our position should be updated every 10 minutes.

Five of us ventured to the local grocery store to provision


$400US later, we have PLENTY of CHIPS.

I decided to check the 10lb propane tank.
I determined it had less than 1/4 tank left.
Found a place a little over a mile up the rode and walked there.
$10 for a re-fill.
It was a lot heavier coming back!


Tuesday, June 21, 2022

MacIntosh Newport Bermuda Tuesday (Day 5)

Spent the entire day to the finish with full main and 0.75oz red/white chute.

07:00
BTW 158
COG 155
SOG 8.1
AWA 090
DTW 10.73 miles

In the distance (and on AIS) we could see the 125 ft schooner Spirit of Bermuda:


Durk took the wheel for the last part of the race.


We were being pushed away from the Kitchen Shoals mark that we had to pass to starboard:


Very tight wind angles for the symmetric chute.
Here we are still 6 degrees low of the course.
We moved the pole forward to near the forestay and were able to pinch up:



We passed the Kitchen Shoals mark:

Approaching Kitchen Shoals mark

Are we going to make it?




We did with plenty in the bank

We were 5 miles from the finish: time to radio the race committee.
Guy on the VHF had a unique Bermudian accent "I acknowledge your transmission"
HILARIOUS

This is the call for another boat finishing behind us:






The Spirit of Bermuda was reaching down to the finish line with us:



We were able to bear away slightly and crack the sheets for more speed!


Passing another race mark to starboard:


We had to do a gybe to get to the finish (and NAILED it!)




Then onto the finish line:





Finish Time 09:12:25 EST


We doused the chute and motored back near to finish line to see Spirit of Bermuda finish too:
.

We finished 70th across the line of 106 boats in our division

Good enough for 4th in our class of 14.
45th overall in corrected time.



Monday, June 20, 2022

MacIntosh Newport Bermuda Monday (Day 4)

We spent the entire day under full main and the red/white symmetric chute.

We were about 160 miles from Bermuda.  We set a waypoint halfway to Bermuda about 2km east of the rumline.  Bearing to this mark was 144, while Bermuda was 161.

Back home Kevin was texting us weather/wind/position reports through our Iridium Garmin Inreach unit.  His intel said that around dinner time, the winds would diminish and swing from the NW to the N.   Around sunset the winds would turn off and fill in from the NE 10-12 knots.  That we should try and get further east of the rumline to get to the new wind first.

Helming was actually pretty easy:



We took the time to pull up from below and flake the #1 and the jib top reacher, putting them in their bags and stowing below:


Durk admiring his new chute:

Sorry about the little bit of salt spray on the camera on my phone.

Luca and Heather

My turn on the helm

17:00 adjusted course to Bermuda

AWA 130
TWS 12-16 knots
BSP 6-7 knots

20:00 gybed spin 76 miles from Bermuda

BTW 156
COG 149
AWA 100
TWS 12-16 knots
SOG 6.8 knots

We just kept on knocking off the miles!


Sunday, June 19, 2022

MacIntosh Newport Bermuda Sunday (Day 3)

At the 6:00 shift change, winds were diminishing down to about 10 knots and it was hard to get the boat moving more than 6 knots of boat speed.

We decided to hoist the 1.5oz spin and get the boat moving.

Dove into bed, and missing the other crew sailing along in 14 knots of breeze get whacked a gust front with 30+ knots.  Durk did his best to drive the boat down, depowering the chute, but the boat rounded up and stopped.  They went back to the #3 while the winds were howling.  I didn't even stir in my bunk.  Apparently they also got dumped on with heavy rain.

In the mayhem, we lost the port spinnaker sheet/guy overboard (shackle let loose when dousing).

We then went back to the to the jib top reacher:


Another video:


By 6pm shift change, winds were under 12 knots, it was time to go back to the 1.5oz chute.

Hosting a spinnaker on Mac is tough.
The spin halyard has a jam cleat high, so you jump the halyard hoisting the sail with someone else with one wrap on the winch below taking up the slack in the jump.

On this hoist, we got a puff during the hoist, and we got an override on the winch with the sail only about 3/4 of the way up.  Clearing the override, the halyard ran though our hands before we could get the jam cleat set.  The spin shrimped under the boat.

It took us over half an hour to recover the shredded chute:


We were now down two spinnakers!

We hoisted the #3 to get the boat moving again.

Durk: "Now that we are moving, let's have a drink of rum and some potato chips"

LOL carry on


By 19:45, the winds had dropped to 12-14 knots, so up went our LAST symmetric chute:  the brand new red/white Canada chute:



We stayed with this chute for the rest of the night with winds 12-14 knots with the occasional gust to 18 knots true.  When the gusts came, we would drive the boat downwind


.


Saturday, June 18, 2022

MacIntosh Newport Bermuda Saturday (Day 2)

Overnight was very uneventful flying full main and asym chute in 12-15 knots of breeze.

We split up in two groups

  • Luca
  • Me 
  • Heather

  • Derek
  • Kris
  • Carl

Durk floated between the two shifts

Shifts were four hours long.  Luca and I split the driving up on the hour.

As soon as our shift was over, it was zoom down below for a sleep.  Wanted to keep our energy up for the later days.

At 10:15, we hoisted the Asym to get the boat moving. 
In the waves, the sail was collapsing and SNAPPING back into trim.
On one of the snaps, the entire clew blew out.
TWS was only 22 knots.
Sorry, no photos.

Here are some screenshots from the Yellowbrick race tracker:



Most boats were west of the rumline as we were planning.

Wind swung to the north, so we were able to hoist the 1.5oz symmetric cute and drive it down back towards the rumline:


Notice how we left the #3 up to prevent a spin wrap when the spin would collapse in the waves.

13:45
TWS 15 knots
TWA 130
BSP 7.5 knots

Leftover waves made it difficult to set a sail!
The chute constantly collapsing and filling.
You had to steer down/up each wave to maintain speed.
VERY difficult helming.

Saturday afternoon, we noticed that the top batten had poked out of it batten pocket.
We could not send anyone up in a bosun's chair as it was too wavy.
Also mean that we could not gybe to get closer to the rumline.


We thought also about dropping the main and attempting repair but the batten cleared itself and fell into Davey Jones Locker.

Wind also built to over 20 knots, so we took the chute down,  gybed, and hoisted the jib top reacher.

Nice Rainbow!




This is as deep as we could take the sail combination before the main would blanket the foresail.
Much easier to keep set in the waves as it has a heavier cloth.

118 miles to the first waypoint.
We were coving the miles (8 knot average is almost 200miles a day!)

Notice how the SOG from the GPS is more than the boat speed; we were started to enter the gulf stream and getting a 0.5 push.

Notice the Sea Temp number here: this would climb as we entered the gulf stream.

Another moonrise:

We stayed with this sail combination until first light.

At this point, the race leader was just finishing!


Argo is a custom 70ft trimaran

HAMILTON, Bermuda — Jason Carroll of New York City and the crew of the MOD70 Argo outran every elapsed-time record associated with the Newport Bermuda Race when they completed the 52nd edition Saturday night local time.

Argo’s elapsed time of 33 hours, 0 minutes, 9 seconds is more than 30 hours faster than Carroll’s Gunboat 62 Elvis set in the first multihull division in the 2018 Bermuda Race. It is also 1:42:42 faster than the 100-foot monohull Comanche’s Open Division mark of 34:42:53, set in the 2016 race.

And it’s more than 6½ hours faster than Rambler 90’s mark of 39 hours, 39 minutes, which earned owner George David the Schooner Mistress Trophy in 2012 for fastest elapsed time by a monohull in the race's four major divisions.

Argo is the first-ever Saturday night finisher in the history of the storied Bermuda Race, co-organized by the Cruising Club of America and the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club.





Friday, June 17, 2022

MacIntosh Newport Bermuda Friday (Day 1)

Kris and I got down the boat at around 10am.

The start order and class splits were announced; we were in class 12 (10th start) at 14:40.

All of us were stowing gear and getting the boat organized.

We ran a second reefing line in the boom using one of the main battens to push it through:



We next got the battens in the main sail:


Luca and Derek went off to fill the propane tank.




We shoved off the dock at 13:00.



It was about 6 miles to the start area.


We checked in with the registration boat at 13:15:

This is MacIntosh sail number CAN 34539 with 7 souls on board

Near the start line, we hoisted the main a little after 13:30


The motor went off at 13:46.  With almost 200 boats in the harbour PLUS many spectator boats.
A VHF alarm went off advising us of high congestion of boats in Newport Harbour. 

The spectator crowd onshore was HUGE:




I got to take the helm before the start in the mayhem:



The winds were 25+ knots constant, so we decided to put a reef in.

At our 10 minute warning signal, we went to hoist the #3, BUT we had the heavy #1 on deck!
Down she came, stuffed in the hatch, and up with the #3.  Little scrambly, but we had a good midline start:


They say a video is worth 1,024 words:


We were in race mode, close hauled with reef and #3 doing 8 knots!




After clearing Newport Harbour, the winds were down to less than 18 knots, so we shook out the reef:

15:45

We boar away and hoisted the asym:


TWS: 9.4 knots
AWA 100
BSP 6.1

We did a couple of gybes, and only wrapped the asym once.

Water temperature was 59 degrees.

We had a pod of dolphins come check out MacIntosh when we started the motor to charge the batteries and cool the fridge.  Think they heard the noise and came over to investigate.




First night sunset:

First night moonrise:

Time on the last photo was 23:08

40.779N 70.866W