We are well on our way.

Friday morning was spent picking up the dinners that I had Laurie Eliot make, sandwiches from Fatulies, and then the massive job of packing the boat. Seeing everything on the dock, no one believed that we could fit it all in. And we have people still helping set up the Kaarver furler for the A0 and A3. We left the dock at noon. Before we left,, we did a renaming ceremony, to appease Neptune, asking him to remove the name Surprise from his rolls of ships, and replace it with Seconhand Lions. So as not to insult him, we used Veuve Cliquot Champagne. To further appease him we poured some on the  four corners of the boat: bow, stern, and amid-ships port and starbord, saving only a few sips for the crew. Fortunately (thanks Francine) we didn’t have to stop for fuel. As  we motored out, we had our safety briefing, our man-overboard drill, harness check, and safety equipment stowage check. In the rush to get things onto the boat, a few lines that would have been useful were left off of the boat. Motoring to the start was the first time I have been on the helm of the boat, (same for the crew).

We had a decent start, with the A3 flying just as we started. For the daylight hours anyway, it seemed like we had decent speed. That didn’t last however. When the wind lightened, our unfamiliarity with the boat showed. We couldn’t seem to make the boat go well at all, plus unfamiliarity with the strings and controls showed as well.

We are getting GPS data which is driving the Expedition software, so we can still plot where our likely best path is. The Newport-Bermuda race is a hard way to shake down the boat though. If it weren’t for the capabilities of the crew, it would be a bad idea to do the race.

Fortunately, our V3 is working flawlessly. I can just pick up the phone and make a call, and our navigator has beeen downloading weather GRIB files from the public sites, and looking at the different weather forecast models available for free. And I’m able to check emails for note from the race committee, and post on this blog.The water temo is 78, and we are in the first warm eddy we were aiming for, east of the rhumbline. We have shifted to a more southerly course, to cross the rhumbline again to pick up our Gulfstream entry point west of Rhumb. That should happen tomorrow, and we are likely to be in the stream for about 90 miles.

It’s still coolish outside, even with the sun out. But every day it should get warmer. Current model for us shows arrival in Bermuda Tuesday eveing.

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