Category Archives: Captain’s BLOG

Québec to St-Malo – BD Update – Day 3

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Hello all,

The sun is shinning for the first time today, but the wind is also dropping; wind=wet and cold, sun=warm and light wind.

Living conditions below are damp, think about what it feels like after an entire family has taken a shower, everything has a light coating of dew on it.

None of us have gotten much sleep in the last 24 hours, we have been going upwind into some pretty choppy waves along the south shore and having to go close to land in order to round the 6 marks they have set up for us.  You are probably wondering why we missed one of the marks and had to go back, chalk it up to finally going fast and concentrating on that and losing track of the how fast we were coving ground, you can eat up a lot of miles hitting speeds of 20 knots

Tonight looks to be a pretty cold night to come, with the cloud cover clearing and and water temps in the low 50’s.

Unfortunately, we’ve been playing Murphy’s Law decision-making for a while, and losing ground quickly, but we’ve managed to make up a lot of it over the last 24 hours, at the expense of sleep so I’m going to try to get a little while I can.

– Matt

 

Québec to St-Malo – BD Update – Day 2

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We’re beginning day two here. The first day was a full one with southerly breezes starting about 10 knots at the start and building through the day to 25. Quite a day of gybing down the race course!! As night came to us, the winds went light and the challenges began. Picking our way thru navigation, tidal currents and holes in the wind made for some frustrating sailing. We’ve managed at this point to round the mark at Roumiski. Coming to the mark we had less than two knots of wind and as we rounded, we were gifted with five knots…..we’re moving now and hoping to make some ground up from those that got past us last night.

Sailing in the peaceful calm last night gave us some interesting experiences. While picking up zephyrs of breeze, we could hear whales sounding around us. We’ve sighted a couple so far—one Beluga. The other wonderful sound that brings back many memories is the lonely cry of the Northern Loon. Throughout the night and early morning hours, on occasion, one would cry out. That and the occasional pine-scented zephyr from shore, let us know we were sailing thru some beautiful wilderness.night.

Well, onward we will charge, planning to reel in some miles on the leaders.  (Follow the race live here.)

– Dave

Bodacious Dream Update (7.21.12)

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It’s the night before the race and all is well.  Bodacious Dream is in great shape for the race thanks to huge efforts from Emma, Matt and Mark. It’s an amazing process that’s hard to explain, but there are various levels of checks and safety checks, loading of water and food, packing and planning…. and then the meetings and events…. all of which are in French, which makes it extra hard to get all the details down….especially for such a detail-orientated guy!!

The actual start is 11:20 EST on Sunday the 22nd, but we’ll be leaving the harbor by 8:45 or thereabouts and do a tour up the river to the starting area.  Once the start goes off, we point the boat to the North East and head for open water…..but wait, not so fast.  There’s about 400 miles of the St. Lawrence to traverse first before we get into the Atlantic and to make things interesting, there are a number of buoys that we have to round on our way there.  This adds excitement to the harbors along the way as the boat come close off their harbors and sail past.

I was a bit challenged by time and a camera, so I really don’t have any exciting photos of the fleet as they set in Quebec City, but I’m sure you can find more photos on the website   at www.transatquebecstmalo.com where you can also find the tracker and follow our progress and our race position along the way.  (Here’s the live link for following the race)

There’s a great group of competitors here and there is a chance that any number of boats could have a great race. I expect lots of lead changes and interesting tactics for the first three or four days after we get out of the river.

In the meantime, to satisfy some visual desires, here’s a photo of one of the spectacular sunsets we saw on our way up here a week ago.  The sun broke through at the horizon and lit up the underside of the clouds as we moved along into the night.  Sometimes these things just take your breath away, and you forget all the trivial things about life and realize how rich and beautiful the world is.

Hope you’re all having a good summer.  The Chicago Mackinac Race started Sunday and all our cohorts are on “Bodacious IV” working their way up the late.  Check in on them too and see how they are doing.

So stay tuned.  We hope to get into a regular rhythm sending out an email post every other day.   Check onto the website www.bodaciousdream.com. We will be putting the news up there with some regularity as well as our Facebook page.

Thanks to everyone for making this a wonderful experience.

Dave, Matt, Emma and Mark

 

Bodacious Dream Update (7.18.12)

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Bodacious Dream arrived in Quebec City on Sunday morning after 11 days of traveling from Newport, Rhode Island around Nova Scotia and up the St. Lawrence Seaway. We are now in a full press to prepare Bodacious Dream for the Quebec to St. Malo Race which will start on Sunday. The Race is almost 3000 miles long sailing the first 400 miles out the St. Lawrence Seaway and then across the North Atlantic finishing in St. Malo, France. (Follow it live here.)

I was fortunate to have good friend and fellow sailor, Kevin Finnegan along on the trip—not only helping out with the work of sailing the boat, but manning the binoculars keeping a watch out for whales, boats and other interesting events along the way.
We left Newport on July 4th in the afternoon, a few hours later than we’d planned, but if I were smart, I’d have waited a few more hours and it would have been a convincing argument that the July 4th celebration and fireworks were a sendoff for us!! Very gentle breezes gave us a chance to catch our breath as we motor/sailed to Halifax where we cleared customs, refueled the boat and spent a night.

From Halifax, you continue east for a hundred miles and then transit the Canso Cut which saves quite a trip around the eastern tip of Nova Scotia. We made a stop there for just a few hours before heading thru the locks and into the outer reaches of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. With Kevin on the binoculars, we spotted our first whale!! Locals told us to keep a close eye out for Whales as we entered the Gulf and we weren’t’ disappointed!!

A great night and following day of sailing got us up around the tip of Gaspe and into Riviera du Renard where we met up with fellow Class 40, Red. We stayed in R du R for a couple of days to wait out bad weather and winds before making the last 350 mile trip to Quebec City.

The trip to Quebec City brought us all sorts of sighting of wildlife, many birds, seals, whales and most exciting was the pod of Beluga Whales that seemed to swim around us as we passed thru their territory off Touldasac. Quite a thrill!!

It’s very busy in Quebec City these days. Kevin left for home yesterday as Emma Creighton arrived. Matt Scharl and Mark Zaranski arrived today and we’ll be a full, four crew strong as we continue to prepare and set up the boat for the race. There seems to be a constant stream of papers and forms to fill out, a list of safety items to locate and purchase, boat repairs and maintenance to do all while meeting and greeting old friends, new friends and the many press people around.

When you get the chance, check out the website www.transatquebecstmalo.com for the race and get your pointers set to the race tracking. This promises to be an interesting and exciting event to follow. There are 21 Class 40 boats in the race, all of which are crewed by top level, international sailors so we’re expecting the competition to be very close and with the currents, winds and interesting navigation challenges of the St. Lawrence, you’re likely to see the lead change many times before we even get to the Atlantic and the crossing to France.

Stay tuned, we’ll have more updates as the start gets closer and we are planning on sending along updates from out on the race course. This will be our first attempt at bringing you right onboard the boat as we are racing.

Dave, Matt, Emma and Mark

Bodacious Dream Update (7.11.12)

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Just a quick note. Been traveling from Newport.. left on the afternoon of July 4th headed towards Quebec City for the Transat Quebec—St. Malo. The first couple of days were spent sailing/motoring towards Halifax, Nova Scotia where we put in for fuel.

Halifax treated us quite nicely and we spent the evening getting some rest and left late morning in order to time our arrival into a strange port and lock system about dawn the follow morning. After getting some fuel and breakfast, we waited until the winds died down from 25 knots to something more civilized like 10 knots in the afternoon, and then we locked thru and out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We had a beautiful night and day of sailing Northwest towards the Gaspe Peninsula where we ran into heavy winds on the nose again, so we’ve pulled into Riviera du Renard.

Here’s a shot of the boat alongside “Red” in Riviera du Renard.

Bodacious Dream & Red at Riviera du Renard
We’re going to catch our breath here and wait for the winds to settle down and leave about dawn tomorrow for the last 330 miles to Quebec City. We’re supposed to be there by Saturday afternoon, but likely at this point it won’t be until Sunday. That’s a disappointment, as many of our other friends have told us of beautiful sails in under six days!! We’re pushing past seven at this point!!

Though it’s slow going, the land is beautiful, the people are friendly and the work list is still long….. but that’s sailing my friends! We have connected up with “Red,” a German Class 40 and our sister ship, Roaring Forty is somewhere near by as we crossed with them near Halifax.

We’re all excited to get going again and get to Quebec City and the race village. Once we arrive there, I’ll fill you in with more particulars and ways to watch and follow the race. As of now, there look to be 21 Class 40 boats in the race. This will be great fun!!

Dave

 

Bodacious Dream Update (7.05.12)

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BIG NEWS!  Bodacious Dream is now entered in the Transat Quebec—St. Malo race which starts on July 22nd!!

After much thought and consideration, we decided to enter the race. Not only will this be good fun, but it will give us the opportunity to make the trans-Atlantic crossing in order to get to France for our other races later this summer.

Check out the race web site at.. www.transatquebecstmalo.com

The race requires a crew minimum of 3 and we are going as a team of 4. Along with Matt Scharl, who you met during the Atlantic Cup Race, we will be adding Emma Creighton, www.emmacreighton.net , a fellow competitor and skipper of Initiatives in the Atlantic Cup and Mark Zaranski, a long time friend and crewmember of Matt’s.

We will be a great and fun team. And, at this point, the only American entry. I’ve heard from so many of you about how much fun it was to watch the racing in the Atlantic Cup, so I hope we will be able to provide you the same fun this time.

My good friend, Kevin Finnegan has just arrived here in Newport to help me transport Bodacious Dream around Nova Scotia, Canada and then back west up the St. Lawrence Seaway to Quebec City for the Start. We are rushing to try to leave the harbor here on July 4th figuring the trip will take us about 8 days—hopefully not too much motoring. We hear this is a wonderful and beautiful passage, and are looking forward to it. I’ll send more pics from the trip later!!

MORE EXCITING NEWS: The announcement of our sponsors.

William Blair, a Chicago based Global Investment and Asset Management Company will bring a great presence to our program.

Earthwatch Institute, an international environmental group that links support to scientist and educators in the environmental field. We will be providing them with raw data and observation while at sea that will be used by scientist and teachers to help with ocean health and awareness.

So… Bodacious Dream is sporting a new look today as we head out to sea.

Bodacious Dream

Hoping those of you in the USA had a great July 4th holiday and everyone is having a great summer…..or winter – if you’re in the southern hemisphere. I’ll send a more detailed update on the whole race in a week or so.
– Dave

 

Bodacious Dream Update (6.20.12)

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Well, my good friend Bodacious Dream is “on the hard” for some attention to maintenance and a thorough inspection before we head across the Atlantic. Periodic maintenance is always important… preparation a must… I’m just too lazy to want to fix things underway so I try to fix or maintain them on shore!!

Bodacious DreamSo this week, I came back out to Newport on Saturday morning and moved the boat up to the friendly folks at Hinckley’s Yard up the bay. Sunday I spent, taking apart all the necessary lines and gear so we could unstep (remove) the mast first thing on Monday morning….

And now its time for me to work on things… lots to do in preparation for the trip. I’ll send more here soon… thought you’d enjoy a pic or two of the process.

I understand the weather is hot back home on the Great Lakes and the winds been howling….a nice lead up to the Solo Mackinac Race that goes off this weekend. That’s a fun race to watch if you’re up for it. The race is 333 miles long from Chicago to Mackinac Island. Here’s the link to it… www.solosailor.org. That race and the Lake Michigan Singlehanded Society are where I cut my teeth as a solo sailor.

More soon,
Dave

Bodacious Dream Update (6.08.12)

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Well Friends, what a ride it’s been so far!!

It’s now been a bit more than week since the end of the Atlantic Cup and I’m back home catching up on everyday life.  Bodacious Dream sits waiting in Jamestown for me to return in a week or so to begin preparing her for our trans-Atlantic crossing as we head over to France to compete in two upcoming races.

What a great time in Newport. The racing was very competitive and as you saw, we had respectable finishes in the inshore racing that kept us in second place overall. We learned a lot about the boat and know we have a lot more to learn about handling these Class 40 boats in inshore races. What’s so interesting is that given the different designs and ages, that there are so many different ways to sail these boats and that any boat on any given day can win a race. It’s obvious that certain boats seem to consistently creep into the top five, but all the boats seem to be of comparable speeds. This makes for some really exciting sailing and great camaraderie after the events.

Bodacious Dream spent three days at the Newport Shipyard among the other boats just relaxing and putting things back in place. Many of the boats headed up to Portland, Maine on their way to Quebec City for the start of the Transat Quebec/St. Malo race which goes off in the middle of July. You can follow our friends in that race at http://www.transatquebecstmalo.com/. When I look at the list of things I want to do before heading to France, it doesn’t appear as though we’d have the time to make the race so we will join our friends in France a bit later in August. Good luck to everyone in that race, and you’ll find Bodacious Dream’s sister ship (same boat) Roaring Forty sailed by Michel Kleinjans in the mix as well.

Here’s what’s coming up for us in Europe.

The first race we will do is over the first weekend in September and is called the Normandy Channel Race. It begins and ends in Caen, France and takes a course across the English Channel and out to Fastnet Rock and back, a distance of 1000 miles. This is a big event in France and no doubt will bring out the best sailors once again.

Late in September and early October, we will be preparing for the Class 40 World Championships in La Rochelle. This will be a series of course races over a weekend and the winner will be the Class 40 Champion.

In the meantime, I will be getting Bodacious Dream ready for her trip across the Atlantic by doing some regular maintenance procedures, checking out the mast, keel structure and making sure all the equipment is working properly.  We’ll also be working on building some water diverting wings for the cockpit, these are very important in rough and fast sailing in order to keep the crew more comfortable from the onrush of water and wind over long periods of time.  We’ve got some new graphics coming up to feature our other sponsors and give us a cooler look…….as if Bodacious Dream isn’t cool enough already!

So, stay tuned.  More to come soon.  Sorry this update is so late in getting out…..I understand from a few of you that you miss regular information. I’ll work on doing better in the coming months.

Dave <rearickd@aol.com>