Crossing the Finish Line!

Trillium crew at the Rally dinner before the Start:
Tom F., Tom B. Sherry, Dennis & Ron

We set sail from Nanny Cay, Tortola, BVI on Thursday, May 3, 2012. The Start of the Atlantic Cup Rally to Bermuda was at noon and there was very little wind. In fact, the wind was so light that it took two hours to go two miles with a asymmetrical spinnaker up! Even the two catamarans in the Rally couldn't get enough speed to move!

Putting up the gennaker just before the Start 

   
After two hours at the helm, I asked the Captain if we could drop the gennaker and put on the Iron Genny (i.e. motor). There is a penalty for the time motoring, but we were going to be a day getting out of Sir Francis Drake Channel! A couple of the boats turned on their engines as soon as they crossed the Start line. Since we had nearly 900 miles to go, who cares if we motor a few hours to get outside of the islands!

Trillium at the Start

              There were only nine boats in the Rally this year. The ARC Europe fleet was to leave the dock two days after the Atlantic Cup Rally. The boats ranged in size from a Discovery 55 to a Hallberg-Rassy 39. Since we have never done any racing, we don't really understand the handicapping system. We did know that we should sail and not motor everywhere possible as there is a penalty for hours motored. In the end, we came in with the least number of hours: 34 hours and 37 minutes. That should help us in the final calculations.

Ron with the first catch: Tuna

We have a great crew. Ron was constantly finding things to fix. Tom F. has great sailing skills and even dove under the boat to free the three fishing lines we managed to wrap around our prop! Tom B. kept us entertained with toys: many gadgets and he even flew a kite off the stern.

Of course, another past time while sailing is fishing. Ron caught a tuna the first day out. So they had seared tuna for lunch the next day. Since I like my protein cooked, I passed on it. We had several mahi mahi on the line, but only got on into the boat. So dinner was determined by the catch of the day.


Dennis & Tom B. with mahi mahi dinner!

We celebrated Cinco da Mayo with a Mexican dinner. We also had a "thanksgiving" dinner of turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes with gravy on our final night before crossing the finish line. It is nice to have a crew that is appreciative of my cooking and menu ideas. My corn chowder was a hit with this crew as well as previous crews.

Tom B. flying a kite off the stern

Trillium really loved the winds once we got through the lulls in the Horses Latitudes. She loves a close haul so we were flying most of the time. I had to admit that I was getting tired of living on an angle! There are only so many things you can grab at one time in the galley when they are flying at you. I am bruised all around my hip area from slamming into the galley rails!

Dennis and Tom F. motoring in the Horses Latitudes

All in all, it was a great sail. Everyone had fun. It was a good race to the finish. We were racing against one catamaran who claims we beat him by 30 hours. I don't have a clue as to how he calculated it, but he was running a spread sheet and hoping that we would turn on our motor. We didn't! We were also watching him and recording their hours. We knew were only had two hours on him and were not going to give in to motoring until we heard that he had done so. I never realized how competitive we could be! It was fun!!!

Now we can have some time to clean the boat and catch up on our rest before continuing on to Hampton, VA for the final leg of the Atlantic Cup Rally.We are looking forward to another few days of good sailing. We will leave on Saturday after the storm passes through Bermuda Friday night.