We raced to Bermuda on a very well prepared 40 foot J-120, “Alibi” from Westport, CT which is owned by Gary Grant. After delivering the boat to Newport we had a little time to take in the sights, and competitors were treated to a “Dark & Stormy” party hosted by the Bermuda Department of Tourism at International Yacht Restoration School, Newport the night before the race.

On the way out to the start Friday afternoon we saw the J-Boat Endeavor riding at anchor, 12 meters Columbia, Northern Light, Intrepid, Heritage, Courageous and Freedom. Completing the scene, up ahead in the distance I could see the latest generation IACC yachts Oracle and Alinghi warming up for the UBS Cup races scheduled to begin after we were on our way to Bermuda.

157 yachts set sail that Friday, June 18 from Newport, setting out from Rhode Island Sound under spinnakers in light northerly winds that provided a stern test for navigators and tacticians for the first 18 hours of the 630-mile classic. The core of the fleet was made up of 102 IMS rated cruiser racers, and there were also 27 yachts competing in a separate non-spinnaker class and 12 two-man yachts sailing in the double-handed class.

Capturing line honors in the new “Big Boat Demonstration Division” was Hasso Plattner’s MaxZ86 Morning Glory, which crossed the finish line off St. David’s Lighthouse Sunday at 14:58:31 EDT for an elapsed time of 48hr 28 min 31sec. Roy Disney, sailing his MaxZ86 Pyewacket, finished five hours and 15 minutes later to take second place. Windquest, a MaxZ86 sailed by Dick and Doug DeVos, of Ada, MI, was third.

Plattner’s new maxZ86 Morning Glory has pushed ocean racing into a new era. The radical Reichel/Pugh design, with its patented canting ballast, twin foil underwater keel and rudder configuration (CBTF) reached the St. David’s Lighthouse finish at the end of the 635 mile Newport Bermuda Race, having sliced a massive 5 hours off the existing race record.

Roger Sturgeon from Hyannis, MA and his Rosebud crew led a new group of Trans Pac 52s into Bermuda by 2 hours to post the best corrected time within the entire IMS Racing Division to win the Gibb’s hill Lighthouse Trophy. Richard Breeden’s Bright Star, from Greenwich CT, the second Trans Pac 52 took second overall in the Racing Division.

Our race on the J 120 was more typical of the bulk of the competitors sailing racer / cruisers than those of the Max Z 86 and TP 52 classes; we completed the course in 110 hours with some challenging conditions including two periods of absolutely no wind what so ever when we actually took the mainsail down in attempt to get the chute to fill. On Saturday night we did experience some great heavy air reaching however. The max wind speed we saw was a puff of 33 as a front went through, and great fun it was with the spinnaker up, that is until the halyard broke with a very loud “BANG”!

Long offshore passages can offer some magic moments, the this was no exception. Approaching the Gulf Stream at night a pod of dolphins swam and frolicked along side for hours with their dorsal and tail fins creating contrails of light as they stirred up the phosphorus in the seawater. Shooting stars every night too, lot’s of them too.

The sport really has advanced in the last few years, especially as it relates to technology that has filtered down from the Maxi and Volvo Race boats to the much more numerous racer cruiser classes. Our “Alibi” owner Gary Grant had a complete set of B & G instruments feeding three 20/20 displays on the mast plus a number of other displays about the cockpit. The information gathered by the B & G’s is also fed into an IBM laptop running Deckman for Windows, one of the best tactical routing software programs on the market. Deckman seemed to be an especially useful program for helping to navigate our entry point to the Gulfstream, it’s meander and eddies along the rumbline. Using a lightweight, hand-held Wi-Fi enabled Panasonic Toughbook display; we could see exactly what was on the PC out in the cockpit at night.

Our arrival in Bermuda Tuesday morning was fantastic. We finished just before daybreak off St. Georges on the N.W. tip of the island. The sun was just starting to come up as we furled the sails, coiled sheets and quickly cleaned the boat up. Motoring down around the outside of the island but inside the shoals to the entrance of Hamilton Harbor I was struck by how beautiful Bermuda is. Someone produced a large bottle of cheap white wine that we shared as we motored towards Hamilton Harbor.

Morning arrival of a bunch of boats and sailors at Royal Bermuda Yacht Club had a fun and festive nature to it, due in part to the fact that the bar was open very early. We immediately availed ourselves with breakfast of bacon and eggs, showers and lot’s of chit chat on the patio with other sailors about what their races were like.

Bermuda is a naturally beautiful island, populated by friendly people and expertly administered by the government, unlike so many islands in the Caribbean. On Wednesday we took advantage of the excellent public transport out to Horseshoe Beach on the East side of the island and saw for our own eyes Bermuda’s famous pink sand.

Thursday came too soon and it was time to fly for us, and by doing so we missed the big blow out Gosling’s Rum party at RBYC that evening. Probably just as well too, I subsequently heard reports of wild things happening to the crew that night, but I’m sure they all had good “Alibis” the next day!

On to the UK for the Around Ireland Race on a new DK 46.

The 607 mile Fastnet Race was first held in 1925 along with the Sydney Hobart and Newport Bermuda, it’s a classic ocean race with lots of time on every point of sail. Its’ founders formed the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) which is responsible for running the biennial event.

The Fastnet is really three races in one. The first is from Cowes on the Isle of Wight, heading southwest towards Lands End. From there it’s 170 miles northwest to Fastnet rock off the southwestern tip of Ireland, 154 miles on a reciprocal course to the Bishop Rock lighthouse on the Scilly Isles and 97 miles to the finish in Plymouth at the mouth of the harbor.

This year’s race was atypical with more light air than average, lending the event a real start-stop nature to it because of the weather and many tidal gates. Conditions like this can favor smaller, well-sailed boats because when the air shuts down at a tidal gate the smaller boats have an opportunity to catch up to larger ones.

At the front of the pack were the usual suspects, Alpha Romeo, Zephyrus from San Francisco, Leopard of London, the open 60 Kingfisher and others. Our boat was more typical of the bulk of the entries however, a Beneteau 40.7 that is owned by RORC member Chris Brown and Peter Harding. A well prepared racer cruiser crewed by an experienced, high-spirited group of English sailors who exuded confidence and competency. Of the 11 onboard, only three were doing there first Fastnets – two Greeks and an American. The other 8 had a combined total of 25 Fastnets between them – I had done 3 prior to this race including a Two Handed Round Britain and Ireland Race and five of the crew were under 26.

We sailed with a crew of 11, and due to the “racer-cruiser” configuration of the boat, we could only have a maximum of 3 people off watch while on the wind. This meant for every 9 or 10 hours on deck you could look forward to 3 down below. The pipe berths on a Farr 40 started to seem pretty attractive to me and the joke onboard was that Chris had incorporated SAS sleep deprivation terrorist interrogation techniques into his watch system. It was effective however, everyone sailed hard and my attitude is that I can sleep back onshore.

Three events helped to shape our race. After a light air spinnaker reach out of Cowes, the first night the wind shut off by St. Alban’s point, a major tidal gate with a 2.5 knot foul tide running. Along with all the other boats in our area we dropped anchors in 35m of water (a “kedge” in English sailing parlance…) and had dinner. A major problem developed a couple hours later when the tide subsided, the breeze picked up and we tried to pull up the anchor. It was stuck on something. Cutting it away was ruled out as it was thought that we’d need it later on (we didn’t) and that our other anchor was not as effective. After much winching we got the anchor within a couple feet of the surface, only to see that it was snagged on a fresh piece of nylon line from a fouled fishing net. The skipper jumped in with a knife, cut the line that we had caught away and we were on our way, having lost over an hour in the process.

The second event was a strategic opportunity that occurred early the next morning when another patch of light air off Start Point on the southern English coast created a parking lot. We saw boats inside us on the shore moving with good breeze while ahead of us they were stopped. We headed in for shore and passed about 40 boats, making up for our debacle with the anchor the night before and getting a psychological boost. Late that afternoon I came on deck to a sunny view of Land’s End as we headed into the Irish Sea with a fresh twenty-five knot breeze and a #3 jib up. The Celtic Sea of course was the scene of the tragedy in 1979 when Force 11 winds wreaked havoc and lives were lost.

Our third strategic move came as we approached Ireland. After another parking lot in the Irish Sea, we thought that a high-pressure system would move in a northeasterly direction in front of us and the wind would clock to the right in the process. We stayed well north of rhumbline with the coast of Ireland in clear view. This unorthodox move worked well for us and we rounded Fastnet rock lighthouse just after 2 AM early Wednesday morning, a spectacular sight I shall never forget. Made more beautiful as there was a full moon.

From there we reached 154 miles to the Bishop Rock lighthouse on the Scilly Isles and then the wind shifted to 25 knots on the nose. From there it was 97 mile beat to the finish at Plymouth. Off the famous Plymouth Hoe (where Sir Francis Drake waited for the Spanish Armada while playing bowls) we fell into a windless hole (created by the land and sea breeze fighting for dominance)1 mile from the finish costing us second place they finished 3 minutes ahead on corrected time.

On board Fastwave II we ended up winning Class 1 B for a third in Division 1. While everyone was hopping for a division win, we calculated that even with the episode with the fouled anchor we still would not have beaten Division 1 winner Holmoltro, a very well sailed Grand Solei 44.

by John Zisa

All good parties have two things in common, a live band and an open bar. It’s a given. Add to those vital ingredients a room full of family, friends, shore crew, volunteers and of course the adventurers; legends of the sport and you’ve got one hell of a shindig!

This was no ordinary regatta prize giving; skippers and organizers shook hands like suave newly elected politicians at their victory party, blue bloods positioned themselves to be seen with best of the ‘yachting crowd’, Irishmen translated for the Japanese, English translated for the Irish and free Tommy gear bags hung on the back of chairs ready to claimed. In the background support crews and family breathed a collective sigh of relief, friends and volunteers all happy to relax after months of urgent planning and scheming. Indeed this was less a prize-giving, more a party that was showing signs of finding its groove, and that groove was aimed at the stars.

Dinner was announced and the hungry herd piled under the big tent for a beautifully presented meal of beef and salmon, roasted potatoes and greens complimented by fine Dry Creek Vineyards red or white wine; a far cry from freeze dried grub. Brian Hancock introduced himself as the MC for the evening, thanking everyone in attendance with emphasis on the skippers and sponsors, as proper etiquette would dictate! Moving and amazing yarns of past and present adventurers convinced the crowd that the Around Alone event is more than just a race, but represents a whole way of life for many of the sailing hardcore.

The anticipated award ceremony took a long time coming and upon claiming their prizes each competitor reacted with differences that reflected their character. Two men of imposing presence, Brad Van Liew and Tim Kent shared their exhilaration with the whole assembly giving inspiring speeches; their facial expressions are permanently etched in my memory. Alan Paris professed his love for sailing as the reason for taking his time to finish each leg and laughingly condemned the fastest skippers as impatient sailors who obviously did not love their sport enough! A satellite telephone call to Spirit of Canada’s Derek Hatfield, still at sea enroute to Newport allowed him to give his thanks and give an update on his progress. Alan Paris nodded in approval at a kindred spirit who obviously wanted to spend as much time on his boat as possible and the whole assembly spared a thought to a man who was missing free Tommy gear! Derek was in attendance in every way but physical.

It was time for this gig to fire up and there is nothing better than a drunkard to get everyone into the party mood. Enter, Simone Bianchetti whose hilariously inebriated acceptance speech was coarse enough to make a construction worker cringe. If there was a woman’s leg to be humped, it was. Husbands, sons and boyfriends were advised to go home so he could teach their women how to be women; and that’s close as I can get to a quote! Hat’s off to Bruce Schwab for defending the honor of his mom.

As the tables were cleared, the band was introduced. Having gone down a storm at Emma Richard’s birthday party in England it was decided to fly them out from England to rock Newport. These professional entertainers had the dance floor filled within seconds of taking the stage. A stray passer by would have been impressed by an abundance of white man’s overbite (including mine), flashing arms, gyrating hips, swift footwork and a clumsy Italian “No guilt” approach to dancing from Simone. The party went on full bore for the rest of the evening, in fact there was clearly no desire to stop at mid night as most attended the after hours party which made this a two day party marathon! The massed assembly crowded the bar, dance floor and…..brickhouse, (Yes, the head was actually in a brick house).

The Around Alone race is presented as a professional event, which in a way it is, but what separates it from other high profile sailing events, is its focus on humanity. The race isn’t about winning for every skipper. Some are adventurers racing in highly tuned machines who end up in debt for years if not for life as a result of feeding their passion. The race is also about the shore crews who have traveled the world (and its no paid holiday!) to keep these race boats running, repaired and reliable. And there is the long suffering significant others who allow the skippers to disappear around the world for months at a time. Most important, perhaps are the supporters who cut high dollar value checks to the competitors, with little or absolutely no return apart from the knowledge that they feed a hungry but exhilarating sport with funds.

These people follow a different route in life. By choosing sailing as their occupation they forego following the normal route up the ladder of life, searching for riches, power and authority. Money is simply a necessary tool needed to accomplish a higher goal of pushing their sport to a new limit, making money is not the goal. So what do they get from it? Freedom, solitude, a personal test? Ask the skippers, there are as many different motivations as there are boats in the Around Alone race!

Ocean Planet’s New Boom

By John Zisa www.zedsailing.com

Midway across the Atlantic during the first leg of the Around Alone Ocean Race from Newport, R.I. to Brixham, England, the yacht Ocean Planet, an Open 60 owned and skippered by Bruce Schwab snapped it’s 34′ carbon fiber boom requiring a replacement to be able to continue on the next leg of the race. Bruce called Ted Van Dusen of Composite Engineering in Concord, MA, the “go to” people of custom carbon fiber work. Composite Engineering dropped everything and went to work on building the boom under extremely tight time constraints.

I watched the start of the next race leg and departed for home. This was an awesome adventure. A number of people who had never met worked toward accomplishing a complicated common goal and succeeded. It was team work at its finest. To date I still support Schwab and the Ocean Planet team with logistical and occasional public relations work. This was an experience that I will never forget.
You can follow Ocean Planet’s racing progress at www.oceanplanet.org