Departing St Johns

We depart St Johns Newfoundland bound for Nuuk Greenland. Our original plans to cruise the Prins Christian sound are scuttled by ice. We have learned from Illiusat Control that Air reconnaissance and ground reports show the are completely iced in. This alters our cruise plans significantly, we will now sail approximately 700 miles further north towards 70 N to the Disco Bay area.
Departing St Johns we are armed with the Canadian Ice Reports. These are maps that show the number of large icebergs in a certain lat/long grid. The data is collected by satellite images, air reconnaissance and compulsory ship reporting. We plot a course swinging wide of the densely ice populated areas. Even with the ice data at hand we must be very diligent in our watch keeping. The further north and east we go the more danger their is of ice. The icebergs that show up on the Ice Reports are no the primary concern, these are the size of large houses. These are picked up clearly on radar and also cause a noticeable drop in the water temperature as you close on them. The real danger is the ice that is the size of Volkswagens Bugs.. If we hit one of these doing 9 or 10 knots we will be scrambling for our Ice Immersion Suites and Life Rafts as they will most likely rip a hole in the hull. To be safe when in near any ice threat we slow way down, with the option of heaving to in dark. I would much rather arrive one day latter than take a cold, deadly swim.
The further we go the further we get away from the well worn path of man the more wild life we see. It is common to see whales every few hours, this is a treat. No matter how many you see, you do not get spoiled. It's automatic to stop the boat and admire their massiveness and respect their space. The show lasts until you see their tail go into a "terminal dive" this is the classic photo shot of the wails tail as he waves good bye.

Photo Shoot

First a photo shoot with Onne van der Wal then bound for Newfoundland and Greenland. Onne is one of the top yachting photographers www.vanderwal.com. As we powered down the New York City's East River through Hells Gates past the UN, under the Brooklyn Bridge we are on time for our rendezvous at the Statue of Liberty. We make contact with the helicopter arriving from Newport Rhode Island on VHF Ch 9. We time the approach and hoist the spinnaker for the classic shots of the yacht sailing by the timeless landmark of New York Harbor. The first time I sailed past this I was 18 years old delivering a 35 sail boat from the West End of Lake Erie to the Chesapeake Bay. It was very special then and it is very special now

Ciao Bella - Maine - Cruising World Arricle

Reprinted from Cruising World Magazine February 2004


Meatloaf Cordon Bleu was the Maine Course



The luxurious five-day crewed charter along the Maine coast on a 64-foot Swan was pure decadence, but it took some strategically timed diner chow to put the venture over the top04-Feb-2004By Nim Marsh



As Maine basks in the soft light of a fall afternoon, Ciao Bella's crew seeks the seclusion of Seal Bay wherein to lay on a romantic dinner for their guests.



"Repeat after me," Captain Tim Forderer said to my fiancée, Naomi, in responsorial increments: "It's OK . . . for me . . . to be . . . decadent." Naomi dutifully followed her prompts-although not fully convinced of the righteousness of the mantra-and the skipper of Ciao Bella, the 64-foot Swan we were chartering-complete with first mate/chef-hugged her as though reinforcing one of the 12 steps of Self-Reliants Anonymous. Two days out of Camden, Maine, anchored in placid Smith Cove, south of Castine, we'd been breakfasting in the cockpit, and Naomi had wished out loud for paper napkins so we wouldn't have to soil the cloth ones. Overhearing her, Captain Tim had then sidled over and conducted her pledge of allegiance to this reverse spiritual awakening.
It was hard for Naomi, a mother of three with a full-time job, not to consider such things. And it was impossible for me to feel like some grand old man of cruising who'd paid his corporate dues and was getting his just rewards. Heck, just seven years earlier, I'd hitchhiked around the Atlantic on seven different boats-how else would a journeyman editor see the world?-and here I was stepping aboard a year-old spit-and-polish Swan for a five-day, 150-mile, late-summer, crewed charter in midcoast Maine.
Related Resources

This wouldn't be a simple change of mind-set, but once it had been methodically effected, miraculous transformations would result. For the two of us, this would be a lesson in letting go-in allowing others to do our daily chores, in transferring responsibility for all logistics from our shoulders to those of the crew. Ciao, Ciao BellaFor Naomi, it was her first luxury charter, first domestic charter, first monohull charter, and inaugural Down East cruise-and it would add five more days of sailing to her burgeoning résumé. For me, this would be a homecoming of sorts. I'd lived in Camden in the 1970s, in a Victorian house in the shadow of the Camden Hills, and I'd explored Penobscot Bay in a variety of boats and seasons. Visiting my old haunts was a goal we'd noted on the pre-departure questionnaire about destination, food and drink, and lifestyle preferences. But more important, the next five days would allow me, a dedicated minimalist, to put a handle on the crewed-charter experience.



We joined Ciao Bella at Camden's Wayfarer Marine on a brilliant, fall-like day in mid-September. Tim and his first mate/chef/significant other, Lisa Jouris, greeted us warmly and hefted our duffels aboard. "Ciao Bella is actually a Swan 60," Tim explained during his introductory tour of the boat, "but she has an extended transom, all above the waterline, for more room on deck and more stowage below."



On entering our aft-cabin quarters, Naomi was bowled over by splashes of white, purple, and red in a vase of lilies beside the center-cabin double. "They opened just before you arrived," Lisa offered, as though she'd planned it that way-and she probably had! "How about a Diet Coke, caffeine-free?" Tim asked Naomi, who melted then and there, for this was her soda of choice. Tim knew that. It was on the questionnaire. "The key to a crewed charter," Tim explained, "is the quality of the communication before the charter begins."



Some good crewed-chartering karma was going down, and we hadn't yet left the dock. But after the usual crunch liberating ourselves with clear consciences from our respective offices, the five-hour drive from Rhode Island to Camden, and rapid immersion into a new lifestyle, those vibes needed more time to percolate in the two pilgrims from the south. This was no surprise to Tim. "When guests arrive," he said, "they're still in the mode of their usual lives-furrowed brow, stressed out. In 24 hours, they've shed that skin. By the end of the trip, they're mush."
We cast off, consumed home-made cream-of-broccoli soup and chicken sandwiches on the run, and set sail for Seal Bay, a nearly landlocked anchorage on the east side of Vinalhaven island. During the 20-mile passage, Tim told us about a 16-day windward delivery he and Lisa had made from Hawaii to Los Angeles. "That was our first date," he said as though they'd gone around the corner to Starbucks to get acquainted. Their relationship progressed-Lisa greeted Tim at the finish of a West Marine Pacific Cup race between San Francisco and Hawaii wearing a sundress and a few dabs of intoxicating perfume-but when she met him after the return trip clutching a home-cooked meatloaf, their partnership became a done deal. Tim's very favorite meal, you see, is meatloaf.



Eagle Island PerspectiveWhen I lived in Camden, occasionally I'd volunteer my services to Captain Erland Quinn, who delivered coal and appliances to Penobscot Bay's island residents with his canoe-sterned freighter, Hippocampus. On one such run, in the same season as our charter, we off-loaded coal on Eagle Island, just east of North Haven Island, for a Mrs. Howard, who served us tea and biscuits in her kitchen. I recall looking out a window over the panorama of islands bristling with red and white spruce and remarking how beautiful it all was. "Oh, you should have been here 30 years ago when they logged the islands," Mrs. Howard said. "Back then, without all the trees, you could see forever."



As Ciao Bella reached in a light northeasterly between Bald and Eagle islands and into East Penobscot Bay, I warmly remembered that eye-opening lesson in perspective. The sun was nudging the tops of the evergreens on Vinalhaven as we negotiated the keyhole into Seal Bay and anchored just south of a cruising catboat, a fiberglass sloop, and what appeared to be a classic spoon-bowed wooden Casey yawl rafted up in the middle of the anchorage.



The 80-foot, 121-year-old centerboard schooner Grace Bailey-veteran of the West Indian trade, a timber and granite freighter until 1939, and since then a passenger-carrying windjammer-was tucked up against the east shore of the bay. At dusk, a pulling boat cut a silver ribbon across the mirrored mahogany surface, a spell was cast, and despite the mercury hovering in the high 40s, Naomi and I asked for cocktails in the cockpit. Gin and tonics, cheese and crackers, and a blanket promptly appeared in the companionway, and we quickly warmed up to the temperatures and the concept of a crewed charter.



It was so still and quiet in the bay, it was hard to believe that, in 1880, about 3,300 people (more than twice the current population) lived on Vinalhaven while granite was being cut in its quarries for construction of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and New York's Brooklyn Bridge. And it seemed miraculous that a direct link to that era lay proudly at anchor beside us; well over a century earlier, the Bailey carried Maine granite to city construction sites to the south. After dinner with Tim and Lisa-steak, caramelized onions, sweet-potato mash, asparagus, and fruit-of-the-forest pie, all washed down with a fine red wine-we dragged ourselves aft and, while musing on how decadence can grow on one, crashed.



Our second day's destination was Castine, on the Bagaduce River, a 25-mile sail to the north, and I was on a mini-mission. I have a treasured volume-Maine: A Guide Downeast-with the inscription "To Nim Marsh, shipmate, aboard the State of Maine for OpSail '76. Regards, M.C. Hill, Master, 6/24/76." Castine was picked not only for Ciao Bella to hole up in a protected anchorage should the remnants of Hurricane Isabel pass through but also for me to rendezvous with the State of Maine, the Maine Maritime Academy school ship, on which I'd accompanied the Tall Ships fleet from Bermuda to Newport, Rhode Island, a quarter of a century earlier. But a full day of exploring lay between Ciao Bella and her just-in-case hurricane hole.



After a breakfast of cereal, fresh fruit, and strong coffee, we sailed-again in a light northeast wind-to the Fox Islands Thorofare, which cuts between North Haven and Vinalhaven, scattering rafts of puffins as we approached them. Ciao Bella motored to the roadstead off North Haven village, where we anchored as a small Murray Peterson schooner ghosted through under sail, its solo crew facetiously waving a seat cushion at the mainsail to conjure a zephyr.



A Fox Islands DeceitFox Islands was the name given these two islands by English explorer Martin Pring in 1603, and this moniker, I'm ashamed to say, in the 1970s inspired two young Maine editors with too much time on their hands to contrive a deception. Both of us worked with the late John Gardner, revered dean of small-boat evolution, design, and construction, who was always discovering, in fields, barns, and tidal creeks, missing links between obscure traditional boats-say, a stem rabbet that might relate a Peterborough plank canoe to a Rushton Canadian Model. The links were often so esoteric we wondered if any of National Fisherman's readers would notice if we slipped a totally bogus design into one of John's columns. Thus was born the Fox Islands Carry Boat, a sailing barge, the story went, that removed the excess fox populations from North Haven and Vinalhaven and took them to the mainland for disposal.



"Who'd ever question it?" asked my partner in crime. The statute of limitations on such publishing transgressions has long since passed, so I now could freely admit guilt, if indeed we'd done the deed. But we never did, a decision that I now applauded as I stepped ashore at the little village of North Haven, population 381, and one of the first summer communities in the country. The earnest and pristine Fox Islands didn't deserve association with such deceit. The Rockland ferry, Capt. Neal Burgess, had just departed its slip, and as the rumbling of its big diesel dropped away as it left the thorofare, the village was quickly transported to a century past.



Naomi and I followed the unmistakable aromatic amalgam of paint, varnish, pine tar, and bedding compound down Main Street to its source-J. O. Brown and Son Yacht and Boatbuilder, Est. 1888-where an old coasting schooner was being rebuilt in one of the sheds. Backtracking, we ambled past the ferry slip and followed Main Street up the hill and into a neighborhood of Maine farmhouses with filagreed porch pillars. Returning to the harbor, we stopped on Church Street, where, to capture the feel of a 19th-century community, we spread wide our sensory wings and gathered only the rustle of gentle breezes filtering through the leaves of the honey-locust trees.
After serving home-made pizza and vegetable soup in the cockpit, Lisa hauled up the anchor with the windlass, Tim drove Ciao Bella out the thorofare, and we set sail for Castine in about 12 knots of wind that had by now clocked to the southwest. The National Weather Service informed us that Isabel, packing 50-knot winds, had just arrived on North Carolina's Outer Banks. With Naomi and me getting lots of time on the wheel, we broad-reached at close to seven knots between Butter and Bradbury islands, spotting seals, puffins, cormorants, and loons along the way. We gave Green Ledge, southwest of Cape Rosier, a wide berth, then bore off to the northeast on a course for Castine Harbor. We ran down past Maine Maritime Academy (MMA), the old State of Maine, and the MMA sail-training vessel, the schooner Bowdoin, veteran of 26 voyages to the Arctic. Then we short-tacked into Smith Cove.



Our Hurricane HoleLate in the afternoon, under gathering clouds and a rising wind, we joined six sailing vessels and a trawler yacht already anchored under the lee of Holbrook Island Sanctuary. Among them were three charter boats from my home port of Newport, Rhode Island: the Swan 48 Yellow Drama, the Farr 72 Starr Trail, and the 173-foot Perini Navi megayacht Independence. As Ciao Bella's summer base is Jamestown, Rhode Island, across Narragansett Bay from Newport, this was like the beginning of Old Home Week for the crew of the 64-foot Swan.



Before we went below for a nap, Captain Tim overheard Naomi challenge me to a "one-sump-pump-button" shower the following morning. Sensing his guests were losing the luxury-charter perspective, he donned his figurative captain's hat, told us we'd never use all the water Ciao Bella's 30-gallon-per-hour watermaker could generate, and ordered his recalcitrant charges to get in the shower and stay there until cocktails. Or at least until we were wrinkled like prunes. "You're on a crewed charter. That means you can be totally decadent," he said. "If you were on a bareboat, because of all the work involved, you could be only semidecadent at best."
Despite the worsening weather, the well-scrubbed guests again had their G&Ts in the cockpit, then headed toward the companionway for dinner. Naomi peered through the translucent Lexan hatch, then turned back to me, horrified. "They've only set two places!" she blurted. "Do you think they're annoyed with us?" No, the captain and first mate/chef weren't agitated; they simply wished for us a romantic candlelit dinner of grilled salmon with a pasta dish called puttenesca orzo, mesclun with arugula, cranberries, and goat cheese, and a brownie sundae à la mode for dessert.
That night, we were wakened in the wee hours by driving rain and 25 knots of wind moaning through the rigging, causing Ciao Bella to heel and tug at her rode. By morning, the blow was well on its way east toward Nova Scotia, but with a big sea running outside in the bay, Captain Tim decided to remain in Smith Cove for another day.



A Day AshoreThere was a third reason Tim and Lisa had chosen Castine as a port of call: It was an interesting place for charter guests to be during inclement weather. So rather than killing time on the boat until conditions improved, as we would have had we been sequestered in some remote anchorage, Tim ferried us into Castine in Ciao Bella's RIB, and we spent several hours idling along quiet streets lined with elm, locust, and basswood trees, stopping in small shops, and acquainting ourselves with the town's long, convoluted history.



No tours of the State of Maine were scheduled while we were in town, so I sadly shelved my visit to the vessel that had given me such a Masefield experience so many years ago. Instead, we hiked with Lisa and Tim in Holbrook Island Sanctuary, on the west side of the cove, foraging for treasures with which to fill a shadow box. As I write, displayed under glass in my living room are a crab shell baked orange by the sun, a pair of bayberry-blue mussel shells, two deep-mahogany pinecones, a couple of sleek conjoined acorns, a heart-shaped striped lucky stone, and a natural birchbark scroll on which Lisa inscribed, "Ciao Bella, Maine, September 17-22, 2003."
In late afternoon, Tim took us back to Ciao Bella, then mysteriously sped off toward town. Within an hour, he returned, gleefully bearing eight freshly cooked pound-and-a-quarter lobsters for our dinner. After dinner-two lobsters apiece!-Naomi leaned back, took a deep breath of satisfaction, and sighed, "This certainly has been a full day . . . a wonderful day."
Tim smiled and said, "When the weather's bad, we try to be somewhere where our guests can do other things." And Lisa makes it her business to know what activities are available-kayaks, shopping, museums, hiking-thus, our full day. None of us noticed that we didn't go sailing.
Our fourth day broke with a blanket of fog rolling up Smith Cove, obscuring all around us. But the wind and seas were down, and we hauled anchor, cranked up the 150-horsepower Yanmar Turbo, and with the Furuno radar and B&G GPS showing the way, we backtracked south, our destination the WoodenBoat School of Boatbuilding, established by WoodenBoat magazine in Brooklin, 30 miles to the east as the boat plies.
This was a pilgrimage to our Mecca; during the past two years we'd restored, "by the seat of our pants," a 55-year-old lapstrake English sailing dinghy, and we wanted to learn what we'd done right.



At a point east-northeast of Seal Bay, where we'd spent our first night, we hooked a sharp left and entered narrow Deer Island Thorofare with barely an eighth of a mile of visibility.
Not to worry: At Ciao Bella's port wheel was a KS Bootronik SeaBook M12 cockpit display with Nobeltec electronic-charting software, and at her starboard helm was a Furuno/Navionics radar/ chart plotter with B&G Hydra 2000 series instruments. Not only could we see precisely where we were at any given time in relation to any hazards and how we were being set by the currents; we also knew the ebb and flood times for the tides and their heights and velocities.
All this technology pleased Naomi and me no end, for Don Johnson's Cruising Guide to Maine, Volume II: Rockport to Eastport (1995; Wescott Cove Publishing Company, $35), which our charter broker, Ed Hamilton, had kindly sent us, said about the thorofare: "The main channel is well buoyed, and if you pay close attention to the chart, you should have no problems. However, in fog, with a complete lack of visual reference, it is not as easy a passage as Eggemoggin Reach." Our electronics gave us that visual reference.



A Thorofare GamAs Ciao Bella approached the thorofare's entrance, a sécurité signal bearing a familiar name burst over the VHF. It was Morgan's Cloud, the 56-foot aluminum McCurdy and Rhodes cutter sailed in the high latitudes by CW authors John Harries and Phyllis Nickel (see "Weather To Go in 30 Minutes," December 2003), who'd recently logged a rough Atlantic crossing against the westerlies.



We slowly approached the Billings wharf until Phyllis-standing on it taking lines from John-materialized out of the soup. We learned they were decommissioning Morgan's Cloud at Billings Marine on Moose Island while they attended to land affairs after their four-year voyage. John and I conducted some Cruising World business over the VHF ("We're a relentless lot," I told him), and Ciao Bella continued on her way toward the WoodenBoat School in Brooklin.
Lisa was on lobster-pot watch on the bow, Naomi and I were port and starboard boat spotters in the cockpit, and we ran the gauntlet toward the east end of Eggemoggin Reach in a true Maine "thick o' fog." We anchored just north of Babson Island, and Tim drove us in to one of the WoodenBoat wharves, navigating with a compass on his watch. As the gift shop was about to close, we hit it first, pored over the neat books, woodworking tools, and clothing, grabbed a catalog so we could mail-order for some of it later on, and then headed anxiously for the boat shops and sheds.



Eating Major RavenNow I've eaten a lot of crow in my life, and for me to arrive at WoodenBoat magazine headquarters wide-eyed and hyperventilating is akin to consuming major raven. When the magazine was launched in 1974, the inaugural issue was passed around my Camden editorial office, and I pompously noted something like: "Will never make it. Worships at altar of wood." Nearly three decades down the line, I walked onto the grounds of WoodenBoat magazine, circulation 105,000, and its WoodenBoat School as a zealot within the cult.
For a couple of hours, Naomi and I swooned over Norwegian prams, Swampscott dories, yacht tenders, sea skiffs, Haven 12 1/2s, and kayaks and canoes in various stages of construction, and we were smitten by a 14-foot version of our 10-foot sailing dinghy, Frith. To Naomi, the uncompleted boats seemed even more beautiful than their finished counterparts because you could see the thought and craftsmanship their builders were investing in them. We grabbed a course catalog in the event we'd like to one day build the 14-footer, and Tim ferried us back to Ciao Bella and a dinner of pork chops, squash au gratin, and sautéed spinach, with peach strudel for dessert.



On September 21, two days before the autumnal equinox, we received a sneak preview of fall. Dawn broke with a west-northwest wind, a clear sky, and, with no fog, an entirely different view of our anchorage. Moored just inshore of us were Beetlecats, Haven 12s, classic white Maine launches with bright coamings, a Rozinante yawl, three lobster boats, and assorted dories and tenders, and in the crisp air, the mirage of the Deer Island Bridge loomed surreally over Eggemoggin Reach to the west.



Outward BoundWhen I lived in Camden, I knew the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School (HIOBS) director and several of the instructors and their wives, but I never visited the island. So on the last full day of our charter, we retraced our course through Deer Island Thorofare in 12 to 15 knots of wind, bound for Hurricane, close to 30 miles to the southwest. Long, undulating strings of white-winged scoters skimmed past us as we tore through the thorofare, and our exhilarating reach rendered Stonington village a palette of red, green, yellow, and white splashes.



Captain Tim gave me the helm, and he and Lisa adjusted the sails to course changes and the vicissitudes of the land-distorted breeze, the pawls of our winches emitting staccato protests as sheets were trimmed. Tim, a champion dinghy sailor in his youth and an inveterate racer; Lisa, his disciple and avid sail-set tinkerer; and Ciao Bella, inspired windship with a Class C second-place finish in her first Swan Regatta in Newport, Rhode Island, last summer, were reveling in the lively passage. So were their guests, who still couldn't believe their good fortune.
We picked up a mooring in front of Outward Bound and dinghied in to the old quarrying wharf as three generations of a Massachusetts family drifted in with their tanbark-sailed English Drascombe Lugger. Climbing the long weed and barnacle-encrusted ladder, Naomi and I walked over to the school's main house, thinking about the World War II British program that in 1964 inspired HIOBS. By 1941, so many young British merchant mariners had already died in survival situations after their vessels were sunk by German U-boats, an Outward Bound School was established in Wales to mentally callus new recruits.



Aside from the school, the island is wild and uninhabited today, and it was surprising to learn that by 1880, it was a major granite-quarrying site with a population of 1,200 Italian and Irish immigrants and, according to Taft and Rindlaub's exhaustive and entertaining A Cruising Guide to the Maine Coast (4th edition, 2002; Diamond Pass Publishing, $55, $42 softcover), "It had a post office, six boardinghouses, 40 cottages, a pool hall, bowling green, bandstand, company store, two major quarries, and several smaller ones scattered throughout the island."
Cape Codders on the RocksLisa and Tim followed us off the wharf, carrying curiously bulging knapsacks. They led us to a trail that wound around a sylvan pond and up a gentle incline to a ledge on the island's southwest corner. As we emerged from the underbrush, unfolding before us was a 180-degree panorama of bay and islands, rafting and flying seabirds, lobster boats hauling traps, and a couple of windjammers. We were speechless.



To complete this spectacle, a bald eagle soared over to Little Hurricane Island and lit theatrically on the top of a spruce tree, leaving Naomi and me to wonder how much of this sideshow Tim and Lisa had actually planned.To cap the moment, Lisa then spread the knapsacks' abundant contents on the ledge: Cape Codder sandwiches (turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce), chips, fruit, cookies, and soda-a Ciao Bella picnic.



A Worthy Endeavour"A crewed charter is an amazing way to see out-of-the-way places," said Tim. "If you rent a cottage on the Maine coast, you'll watch the same sunrise and the same sunset for two weeks, but on Ciao Bella, you can have a different view every day, often from a place you can only reach by boat. It's an ever-changing adventure-different places to hike, islands and towns to explore. And the crew does all the worrying."
Our last night on the Swan would be spent in Pulpit Harbor, 10 miles away on the north side of North Haven and an eight-mile hop to the base in Camden Harbor. Ciao Bella motored up Hurricane Sound, through Leadbetter Narrows, and out into West Penobscot Bay. The Camden Hills lay spread before us in the rich, late-afternoon light-lush green in the foreground changing to dusky purple, then coal gray, as they rolled down toward Lincolnville. As we glided into Pulpit Harbor's entrance in a gossamer northerly, the 130-foot J-class sloop Endeavour ghosted down the bay, dropped her sails outside Pulpit Rock's 150-year-old Osprey nest-this day occupied by a bald eagle using it as a fishing camp-and joined us in the deep, protected anchorage.
The jolly crew of the lobster boat Susan Marie, on a Sunday busman's holiday, circled Endeavour in the fading light, offering good-natured jibes to her well-heeled charter guests, then swung over to Ciao Bella and chanted in singsong cadence to her bemused crew, "Their boat's bigger than your boat. . . ."



Well, the Susan Marie crew was right, but 64 feet proved optimal for the two minimalists from Rhode Island on their sailing vacation of a lifetime. After our last dinner aboard-meatloaf (the skipper's favorite, you recall), mashed potatoes, salad, and blueberry pie-Tim raised himself ceremoniously from his chair, looked down at his guests with a Cheshire Cat grin, and said quietly (and smugly, I might add), "You are now in the mush state. The meatloaf was the knockout punch."



We were.



And it was.



Nim Marsh, CW associate editor and ascetic, lives under his upturned 10-foot dinghy on the muddy margins of Narragansett Bay. He accepts no alms.

Back and Forth from Hawaii to California

Reprint from Sailing Anarchy. Written By Seth Radow, Owner of Bull and Glama that I worked with for four years and had some absolutely amazing experiences including three Trans-Pacific Races and Four Hawaii to Los Angeles Deliveries. That is a total of a 16000 hair raising Pacific Ocean miles on a 40 foot sailboat!

http://www.sailinganarchy.com/fringe/2002/bull_summer.htm

Well Scot... another summer and a lot of dollars to be spent on another Pacific Ocean crossing.

Bull Racing has been out of commission most of the year. The boat made it back to MdR from Hawaii in November 2001 after having spent the summer racing the boat in Hawaii. Some of the best and most consistent ocean sailing on the planet is in Hawaii. Pity it's not like that ev
erywhere.

Having changed firms earlier this year, my business life has been keeping me off the water and I have not had much time to get the boat and the crew anywhere near the water this year. I have been pulling 90-hour weeks since February. If it were not for my wife throwing me out of the house and off to Hawaii this summer, I would probably still be in the office 15-16 hours a day. That having been said, we have been able to put together a few practices with the crew. It appears we may be a bit rusty. We will be getting to the water 2-3 days a week until we leave so we should be back up to speed in short order.

After Transpac and the summer's races, we learned that Bull could undoubtedly be faster. Fresh out of the box… any boat can be faster. We knew we had to redistribute some of the boat's internal components to get some weight out of the stern. We did that. We realized we had a few areas where we could take some weight out of the boat... a little here, a little there and before you know it, you have a bit over a hundred pounds of nothing. We knew we needed to reinforce a few areas. Those have been reinforced. We found a few leaks during the summer's races... those have been plugged. We had a few plumbing issues... those have been replumbed.

When you look at a boat, system by system, you can always find a way to improve those systems. On a big, or even a mid sized offshore yacht, there are a heap of systems. Detailed notes in the log from last summer's racing has given us a punch list of well over 100 items to address. It sounds like a lot, but in reality, there is nothing all that extraordinary... just a lot of little things (but they seem to cost a small fortune to correct). Let's be real... the boat goes well... very well. But the fact is that if one is competing against the likes of Pegasus and Zephyrus one needs to mind every single detail. Save a half a second a mile here and half a second a mile there and next thing you know you can pull nearly half a dozen seconds out of your hat. Am I really talking about saving SIX seconds a mile??? It is not improbable and certainly possible. Saving weight, redistributing weight, optimizing systems, improving the sail plan, working on the bottom... sure, you can get at least 6 seconds per mile. It cost a lot of money to pull all this off, but recall what I stated last year about race preparation before Transpac, that "80% of the race is won before you leave the dock". If I am right, then this should be money well spent.

Regarding the sail plan. I have no reason to mess with a very good thing. Halsey Lidgard is as good as anyone and in my mind, the best if the business. Dave Armitage, lead sail designer for Halsey Lidgard, is as good as they get... PERIOD. Andy Halsey, owner of the Halsey half of the loft, is the most honest and ethical guy in the business and he knows the business as well as or better than anyone. He knows cloth better than anyone… PERIOD. Andy is cofounder of the company. He is a true "Class Act".


Bull will sail with a predominantly CF and Carbon upwind inventory and asymmetric kites downwind. We will have no symmetric kites aboard... in fact, I haven't even made one for the boat. It is my experience that a full inventory of asymmetrics are faster that a symmetric inventory for downwind on all points of sail when using articulating spinnaker poles. We are doing a new main for the boat. We have a few thoughts to improve this sail over the previous one. We have been working with Cuben Fiber to improve the fabric for mid size racing applications, particularly for mainsails. We are taking the lead from Playstation in using a Cuben Fiber/ Carbon blend. This should prove to be a bit lighter and a bit stronger… though a bit less durable. We are making a few small changes to the shape too. We should see a bit more power with this new sail and it should save us some time on the racecourse. All other sails will remain the same. We've taken digital photos of every sail on the boat and they all look as good as new. The Cuben Fiber is truly a remarkable material.

Pacific Cup is a bit interesting in that Nor Cal PHRF does the ratings. They do things a bit differently than we do in So Cal. First, they rate boats for 18 knots of wind as opposed to 10 knots in So Cal. Secondly, if you limit headsail size to 125% you get a six second credit. In Pac Cup, you only use the headsails for the first day and maybe the second depending upon conditions. You get a six second credit on your rating for the entire 2000 miles though you really only need headsails for the first 200-400 miles. The whole thing makes very little sense to me. I believe it is a serious disadvantage for any region not to have random leg and off wind ratings for boats.

It is my understanding that very few boats take the big headsails for this race. This saves the 6 seconds and, depending upon inventory, a handful of weight and space. My thoughts for BULL... take the 6 second credit limiting the headsail to 125%, save the weight of the Light #1, Medium/Heavy #1 and the Jibtop leaving them ashore. I am betting for a first few hundred miles of 16-18+ knots of breeze. If we can get that, I will look like a genius for the Pacific Cup sail selection. I guessed right last year (the crew wanted to leave the light #1 on the dock), bringing everything we own in Bull's sail inventory... we used every sail in the inventory at least once. Last year we shifted gears often… very often! In light shifty conditions, you have to be a quick and nimble… doing everything possible to gain an advantage.

Regarding the crew. Most of last year's Transpac winning crew was committed for the summer. This was my fault in starting on the program so late. Although the Transpac crew was busy, I have been able to pull together a strong crew from the rest of the Bull Racing Team. The team has enormous depth in terms of talent and experience. I suspect that this year's team will have more talent in some areas and less in others. The key for me, as skipper, is to put the crew together in such a manner that they remain performance driven for the full 2000 miles, that the crew can work synergistically. Remember, we are all amateur racers. To win, we have to sail like pros. The only way to do that is to have the crew create it's own synergy. They have to be able to sail better together than they can as individuals. The chemistry has to be just right. Having most of us as good friends that have sailed together for years, we definitely have a winning chemistry aboard. Now we have to keep that going for 2000 miles. There is no better feeling in this world to know that you and your friends put together a terrific effort and to know that each and every one aboard contributed to that effort. Winning a race like Transpac is big… and one man cannot do it alone. If any one man on the team did not pull his own weight and a bit extra… there is no way we could have won that race. Now we will have to do it again.


So here's the crew, some of So Cal's finest. Once again, we have a solid amateur crew with exceptional depth in driving and trim. The list follows:

We have Rick Valdes out of Costa Mesa who will be returning this year. He will take over duties at the front of the boat for Mark Van Gessel. He will also drive, offering tremendous talent and experience in that position and well as sail making experience. One thing I have learned... you have to be out of your mind to race offshore without a sailmaker aboard. Sure you can do it... but you cannot win. Doing a race like this without sail making skill is like doing an automobile race without an engine mechanic. You just don't do it.

Dave Clarke of Long Beach has been sailing with me for years and will be a lead trimmer and driver. Dave will pick up for Rick as Rick moves forward on the boat. Dave may be the nicest guy in So Cal sailing and without question, one of the best trimmers. Dave was in charge on entertainment on last Pacific Cup. He did such a good job of entertainment that half the crew forgot we were racing. Dave has been instructed to leave all entertainment at home for this race.

Beau Gayner out of La Jolla will also be a lead trimmer and driver. He will fill in for Vince Valdes. Vince has only recently joined the team late (very late)… I will comment later in the article. Beau has a cast iron stomach if the seas are rough... which is a valuable asset if some of the crew goes down to "mal de mare". Beau raced for USC on the college circuit years ago and brings enormous talent to the boat.

Tim Forderer, a friend of mine and long time sailing partner out of Venice Beach will be trimming, driving, crew chief and watch captain and really anything else he wants to do. Tim is a terrific well-rounded sailor who has really come into his own in big boat offshore sailing during the last few years. He has years of experience in smaller boats and raced on the Mid West College circuit during his college years. Tim has more Pacific Ocean crossings than I do since he's been bringing my boats home for a few years now. Tim will fill the hard to fill shoes of Lee Lewis, one of the best drivers in all of So Cal. Tim knows Bull as well as anyone. Tim has been running the Bull program this season and has been heading up all work on the boat. With Peter Franzen out of town, as the shipwright in charge of Brad Van Liew's Around Alone campaign, Tim has been trying to fill those very big shoes this season. He's been doing a solid job bringing in the right specialists when necessary. I am looking for Tim to fill a handful of shoes this year, including my own, as I have been overloaded at work. He is, has been and will continue to impress all of us on the Bull Racing Team. Tim recently passed his 6-Pack and is now a licensed Captain. A hearty congratulations from each of us for that accomplishment.

We had our Pitman drop out this morning... NOT GOOD (name need not be mentioned). He just had a baby and his wife is not too excited about the prospect of him being gone for a few weeks at sea. We were counting on him as a very solid driver too. We do have a list of backup people for the race and the crew will try to draw a consensus during the next few days.


Last year's Pitman, Joe Dervin is off to Australia and New Zealand with his wife. Off to the Southern Hemisphere with a beautiful lady or stuck as sea with a pack of filthy sailors… it's a tough call!!! Joe is still the best Pitman I have ever sailed with... very tough shoes to fill. The team has had a big loss here with the loss of the current pitman and with Joe being gone. I need to pull a rabbit out of the hat... one that can handle pit, trim and drive... and I need to do it in the next few days.

Regarding navigation... well you didn't like my selection last year and Steve Steiner proved to be "The Man". I would love to have him back again, but Steve is donating a heap of time and effort to Marina del Rey's Leukemia Cup, scheduled for this summer. He will be assisting Lee Lewis (a key driver during Bull's 2001 Transpac campaign). The Leukemia Cup will take both Steve and Lee. For a cause such as that, I don't mind giving them up (what am I saying... yes I do)... but they are both going to be very tough shoes for anyone to fill. These guys are terrific sailors and have a great attitude. You can't replace guys like this using conventional wisdom. (I am hoping that Tim will fill Lee's shoes... I suppose this is somewhat conventional.)

For the Navigator's role, I am using the "less conventional" wisdom. For this year's race, we are going to Hawaii for a Navigator. I figure if he really likes where he lives, misses his family and friends... maybe he'll be in a hurry to get home! Ev Flanders comes so highly recommended by so many people and I have been so impressed with his early work that I am absolutely thrilled to have him. Though I don't know Ev on a personal level, we have mutual friends that speak so highly of him that I am led to believe that he may walk on water. As I understand it, Ev may have more Pacific Ocean crossings than the rest of the crew combined. If he can point us in the right direction and I have every reason to believe that he can, I am confident that the rest of the crew can be very competitive this year.

The one wild card is the Pit position, which we are in the process of filling. This could be our "Achilles Heel".

Other than that, we have been following the weather for the last 4 weeks, at least 3 times a day. I have been routing 3 times a day. The rest of the crew has been following my lead. So long as everyone aboard takes the race seriously, we can and will be competitive. We are going to be exceptionally strict with the weight reduction program this year. Clothing, food and gear will be strictly limited. If every pound off the boat is a minute off the racecourse, then we will be watching every single pound. To compete with the best, you have to think like the best.


Can we win... sure. It's going to be a very tough race with some very tough boats. TP 52's, Pegasus, Zephyrus, Mari Cha III... the list goes on. It looks like we will be the scratch 40 footer, so the goal it to try to out sail the best of the SC 50's and 52's. Don't know that it's possible, but if we can do that then we will win. As I see it, we will have to benchmark ourselves against the larger, faster boats and shoot to beat them boat for boat. Now I know that these boats are faster than Bull, but if we can out hustle the bigger boats, we will have a shot. Trying to benchmark Pegasus and Zephyrus is impossible. They will be so fast on the water that they will be a blur.

The key is to get out of the Bay as quickly and efficiently as possible, crack off a bit and begin the sleigh ride to Hawaii. This race is not nearly as technical as Transpac in that you only have a day or so of upwind work as opposed to three days of upwind work. You have to win the race on the upwind leg but this leg is so short, you really don't have much room to work here. Remember, you win races on the upwind legs... tactics getting out of the bay and to the Farallons will be critical because the passing lanes close quickly as soon as the sleigh ride begins. In Transpac, if you are first in class and first overall by the end of day three, the fleet will have a tough time catching you. By the end of day three, the passing lanes get very narrow and don't open up again until the final approach to the Oahu (the decision as to whether to go north of south of the rhumb line). During Pac Cup, it's a different ball game. The accuracy (or should I say inaccuracy) of handicap ratings play a bigger role here as so much of the race is downwind. Nor Cal PHRF ratings are typically for buoy courses. This is an off wind race... so the ratings seem to be a bit out of whack from what we would expect to see in So Cal. Given that I am no fan of PHRF for races of this magnitude, a single rating system is the worst of all worlds. Granted Pac Cup uses their "formula" to determine the Pac Cup rating... but this is still pretty much nonsense and very much "Mickey Mouse". I would love to see what the ratings would look like under IMS and the new Americap II. Dan Nowlan has all that data. Maybe we can get it. Downwind oriented boats really do have a gift in Pac Cup, at least as I see it.


So... what do I think? Zephyrus and Pegasus will be incredibly tough to beat. Both of these boats will be sailing in Turbo trim... They will be wicked fast. Bull's sail designer, Dave Armitage has been sailing aboard Farr 40 OD, Barking Mad, and will be sailing aboard Zephyrus for this race. Dave is widely considered to be one of the best sail trimmers in the world. He was main trimmer on the NZ America's Cup team that won in SD. He was offered, but turned down the main trimmer spot on Alinghy. Pegasus and Zephyrus will have world-class crews for this race. Both boats can cover this course in under a week... If there is a good blow, I suspect that Zephyrus can cover this course in 5 days and Pegasus in 6. In optimal conditions, Bull can do it in less than 9 days.

I don't know the handicaps for these two boats, nor for the TP 52's, but this course is made for these boat (or really visa versa), and Bull is much better suited for the upwind work on the Transpac course. Bull is optimized for a course content of about 50:50 (upwind:downwind), maybe 40:60. The Sleds (52's, 70's and 80's) are about 20:80 (upwind:downwind). The more upwind work we get on a course, the better we can do. I am not trying to make excuses early, but I am certainly trying to be a realist. We race to win... and we will push the boat hard... very hard, but we have to know the limits of our potential. Bull is not a 40-foot sled. If the course, for some strange reason, turns into a longer than usual upwind slog at the beginning of the race, Pac Cup will be more competitive for Bull. On the other hand, if we dig deep and sail hard, if the wind is just right and the handicappers in Nor Cal did their stuff just right... then this, being "sailing"... anything can happen. Two in a row??? Now that would be nice!!! We were the underdogs going into last years race... we will be the underdogs going into this year's race. I much prefer to be the underdog than the favorite! The pressure is on our competition... not on Bull. That's just about how we like it!!!

5/30/02: Some late breaking news for the team. I sent a rough copy of this to the crew last night. Vince Valdes, trimmer and driver from last years Transpac winning effort has been able to shake free from his previous commitment and is available to race in Pacific Cup. Vince will fill the Pit position for Bull. Vince is the consummate journeyman. He can and did do it all for us last year. A strong trimmer and driver, Vince also offers very solid shipwright skills. Vince is so good and was so valuable to the Transpac effort last year that I would be out of my mind to leave him off the boat. Vince is an "A" team player. He was offered a spot on Bull from day one but back out gracefully. He was forced to decline due to other commitments. That he has been able to shake free is a huge plus for our effort this summer. His re-entry to the team has really pumped the team up. Losing a crewmate this late in the game can be demoralizing. Pulling an "A" team player out of the hat gets everyone right back in the game.

See you on the water!

Seth A. Radow