Conference unifix::sailing

1541.0. "1990 Newport to Bermuda Race" by WRKSYS::NELSEN () Fri Jun 22 1990 18:46

    I'm starting this note for the use of those  who participated in the
    1990 Newport to Bermuda Race.
    
    Rich Buchanan (another noter) and I were on Halcyon, a Benneteau 42. 
    The  boat is owned by Dimitri Antoniadis, on the MIT faculty and a
    consultant  to DEC, and his wife, Jan Montgomery, a DEC employee.  Rich
    was one of the  watch captains, I another, and Dimitri the third -- for
    the three-watch system described later.  Dimitri and I split the
    navigation.
               
    We were the 62nd boat to finish, and, on corrected time were 37th.  The
    IMS  ratings seem to have done strange things to the corrections,
    compressing the finish times seemingly more than I've been accustomed
    to  seeing. On corrected time, for example, we beat maxi Starlight
    Express, and were a couple of minutes short of Boomerang, the first
    boat across the line. 
    
    Overall, the race had a much varied set of conditions:  dense fog the
    first 1.5 days; beating through squalls the next two days, beating in
    gorgeous 20 knot southerly the last day.  In general, we were beating
    all the time except for a short period in the middle of the race when
    we got to fly the chute, partly in the fog.   Peak winds were about 35
    across the deck, in squalls one evening.
    
    The hardest problem was figuring out the cold eddies south of the gulf
    stream.  All boats generally made it through the gulf stream with a 
    favorable boost.  AFter that came the problems.  There were large
    tongues of  warm and cold currents, perhaps a 100 miles long, that were
    not clearly  on any maps or the NOAA current reports.  We got stuck in
    a 2-3 knot  current right on the nose 100-200 miles south of the gulf
    stream, which  stayed with us for about 10 hours.  This hurt us
    tremendously.  To get out of the tongue, we faced a dilemma of having to 
    choose between  staying on the tack we were on, which maximized our
    velocity component to Bermuda (the component to Bermuda was only about
    3 knots at the time, when our speed through the water was 6-7 knots),
    or go over to the other tack which probably would have gotten us out
    sooner, but  would have given us a negative velocity component to
    Bermuda. Most other  boats that we talked to except for some of the
    winners also had the same problem.
    
    It seems that the few boats that did best  went way west of the rhumb
    line after  coming out of the gulf stream.  They apparently did this 
    not for reasons of minimizing current, (some bad eddies were on the current 
    map on in that area), but rather to get a southwesterly that forecast to 
    come in later in the race.  The southwesterly never did materialize in full
    force, and they ended up doing the same beating like everyone else; but 
    they did miss much of that bad current.  
    
    Some highlights - the fog:
    
    I stayed on the VHF during much of my watch time during fog conditions.
    Visibility was about 100 yards at worst.  Whenever I heard another boat
    talking to a freighter or tanker with enough loudness from the large
    vessel to indicate that he might be near me, I would raise him and ask
    for his position and course.  In two cases I explained to the ship that
    he was going through the Newport-Bermuda fleet and suggest that he slow
    down and carefully watch his radar (as the boats would have weak
    reflections and most of the boats would not have radars of their own).  
    One of the ships was a freighter with a Japanese radio operator, to whom
    I had to speak slowly and explicitly.
    
    In all cases, the ships slowed down to 4-6 knots and sounded their fog
    horns, which would be audible for 2 mi distance.  One of the ships 
    passed behind our stern, probably a mile or so away.  Being able to
    hear the foghorn was useful as one could then know whether he was close
    or not, and  if he was, raise the ship on the VHF.  In this case we
    could hear that he  was passing behind our stern.
    
    Starboard Crossing: 
    
    A funny situation was that on the third day out we  encountered a
    port-starboard crossing in which the other boat, Fete Accompli, 
    actually had to bear off to pass under our stern.  We humorously
    shouted "starboard" at  him, and he likewise replied "hold your
    course"!  They had put their entire crew on the windward rail for
    effect.  If my pictures come out well I'm  going to mail them to them. 
    
    We had one boat with us for about a third of the race, which I have
    rarely seen in the past.  Lead changed several times, and, in the end,
    we beat him. It was a good thing to have him there because I'm sure it
    made both of us sail faster.
    
    Three-Watch System:
    
    Our crew of six were divided into three two-man watches.  Each watch
    was three hours long.  There were three watch categories:  ON, STANDBY,
    and OFF.  The standby watch was called up whenever a sail change had to
    be done, leaving the off watch to sleep whenever possible.  When the
    weather was  nice, the standby watch got to sleep as well.
    
    This is the best watch system I've ever used.  I was never exhausted,
    as  I usually get with a four-on/four-off system, or with the various
    Swedish Watch systems I've used.  We usually had good reserve for
    crisis situations.
    
    The Radio Watch System:  
    
    The radio watch system specified by the race rules worked well.  Each
    boat was assigned an hour number, and had to stand an hour of watch
    during the AM and PM occurrences of that hour.  The hour  number was
    selected by the serial number (from fastest to slowest) in  the class
    lists.  This ensured that as the fleet spread apart, there would be
    radio listeners geographically distributed among the fleet to provide
    good coverage.  
    
    All, I believe, of the mishaps that occurred were handled by this radio
    watch system, apparently quite effectively (for the ones I heard).
    
    At each hour, the watch was handed off from the boat on watch to the next
    one sequentially down the list in his class.  By the end of the race
    it was pleasant to personally meet the individuals that I had talked to
    roughly twenty times during the race.
    
    Navigation:  Loran worked well the entire time.  When we finally
    reached Bermuda, a calibration of the Loran against a visual fix showed
    it to be 1.5 miles off.  All relative indications (based on
    differences, such as  VMG, CMG, etc.) seemed to be fully accurate --
    "precision" was good, "accuracy" limited.  We took Weather faxes daily
    from Norfolk and Boston.  These were helpful in determining our
    strategy. Overall our strategy was that of maximizing the velocity
    component toward Bermuda.  If we got headed, we did NOT tack if, when
    headed, our velocity component was still such that the headed tack was
    still producing the larger velocity component toward Bermuda.  This
    seems to have produced wins over the many boats that were around us at
    various times, who did tack on minor headers not large enough to change
    the favored tack to the other one.
    
    The currents did weird things to the speeds. I finally programmed my
    HP28S to do vector solutions, and we then solved for the current
    several times.  In one instance we used the result to tack to get out
    of an eddy; but for the big tongue of current that held us, such
    solutions did not enable a remedy. 
    
    On Using Automatic Steering:  I was mistaken in a previous note a week or
    so before leaving for the race:  automatic steering IS permitted in the 
    race.  It is just not used that often because manual steering with the
    large crews gets better performance out of the boat.
    
    I used it a few times, when we reefed sails, so that I could leave the
    wheel to adjust the main sheet during two-man reef operation.
    
           	**	**	**	**	**	**	**	
    
    All in all, it was a race that required hard sailing, but for which
    there were no severe storms or  squalls.  It was called, by many, a
    "navigator's race." 
     
    I'll now stop and let other participants add to this note.
    
    
    Don Nelsen