Drysuits are awesome, I started putting the drysuit on during my watch about 7 days ago, still for the most part dry inside. 2 layers on the bottom, 3 on the top, drysuit to cover. Pretty simple, remove, and repeat every 4 hours. Mark has been doing the same. Dave and Emma have had a hard time dealing with the latex gaskets around the wrists and neck; it must be that we are just used to them from the years of sailing the multihull. Right now I wouldn’t be nearly as happy without it. Right now, it’s my best friend.

Speaking of friends, I started noticing a fly in the cabin 8 days ago, he/ or she is still with us. Is it fair to say we’re sailing with 5? I don’t dare swat him at this point, during the days I don’t see much of him/ or her, but at night she hangs out on the Zeus screen, that is our navigation panel. Two nights ago, I had to get up because I thought theer was a ship nearby on the AIS, turns out it was just fly hanging out.

Other boats, none for the last 7 days, not even a sign of life except for the plastic bottle I saw yesterday. You could easily think we’re the only one’s on the planet right now.

– Matt

I just caught a ballyhoo, got him on the deck and slowly washed him from the front to the cockpit and out the back. Has to be a pretty unlucky fish in this giant ocean to have that happen. Then again, how often does a ballyhoo get the opportunity to sail a class 40?

Been pretty rough with wind, reaching conditions so that the boat healed over 20 degrees; virtually impossible to hit the correct letter on the keyboard.

Right about at the 1000 miles-to-go stage; our routine is pretty well-ingrained. Dave and Mark have been paired together. Being the same age, they have had a fair bit to to chat about – and Emma and I have been working together. We don’t seem to have a whole lot in common other than sailing this cool boat. Usually one of the pair will be steering, and the other sits under the doghouse ready to go if anything needs to be done. I usually just look out the back of the boat, Emma reads and listens to her iPod, I think she’s close to finishing her second book.

We have all taken on the other little jobs that need to be done while racing. I do the weather and computer stuff, Dave and Emma have been doing the thankless job of getting water out of the boat and Mark does more than his share of driving.

Tonight’s a clear beautiful moon-filled night; can’t ask for better or more beautiful conditions.

Looking for an opportunity to catch a few boats, but these reaching conditions make it difficult to move up.

Sleep well,

-Matt

A note from Matt, delayed from Saturday..

Good morning,

The sky and the water is gray with cloud cover and a light rain every so often, good wind and Bo Dream is pointing east.

We hit something like a log or palette last night. All I know is, it was hard.  We hit it, drug it for about 10 seconds and it slipped off the back only hitting the keel and not the rudders. Doesn’t seem to have done anything bad – just a sudden bolt to wake you up.

The only life out here are birds. One is called a Storm Petral and not sure of the other. They fly around behind the boat, though haven’t seen any of them catch anything or stop to land. Seems like a tough way to make a living.

Would like to get back the decision to gybe north yesterday morning, as it doesn’t seem to have helped us at this point. I would guess many of you were wondering why we would do that, as you can see the wind has slowly shifted from 330 degrees to 180. Being on the inside of a header is great, but the extra distance to get there doesn’t appear to be worth it.  Again I need to continue to remind myself that this is a long race, and there will be multiple systems to deal with – not just a shift and your dealing with the Manitu Islands.

Well, we’re going strong now and Bo seems to really like jib reaching. so it’s time for her to make up for my mistakes.

– Matt

Hey Everyone!!

Hope you’re all having as great a time as we are.. so how does damp, tired, and 2200 miles till we see land become a great time?  Well, for Matt, Mark and I, this will be our first Atlantic crossing and that keep us moving!!  This is Emma’s second – her first one was on her mini-a 21 foot class of solo sailors!!  You can imagine how her energy keeps us all going. I’m curious how its going to feel the last day or so coming into European waters and nearing the end of this race.

Matt’s written you much about life onboard.  Pretty clear perspective though maybe a bit understated. Dampness is everywhere and the engine charging hours are a clamor to lay as much wet clothing on or around it to get it dry again.

The racing has been great. These competitors are really tenacious. We’ve been through our ups and downs and have been able to move ahead, as we continue to look for opportunities to climb up the standings even more.  The boat’s taken a lot of punishment the last 5 days and I’m happy to say we’ve only broken a few things…a boom vang line, an inexpensive harken shackle and few other very minor things. I’m sure we could have broken much more if we didn’t have such a top crew onboard when we got the boat racing along at 23 knots with water everywhere and wind increasing, as Matt told you, taking down the spinnaker….whew….could have been ugly if it weren’t for the band – Matt on point, Emma on the helm and Z on the “piano” (the pit where all the lines come into 16 jammers).

So hang in there….more to come soon.

– Dave

Sorry it’s been a day or so since I’ve been able to get out an email. The last 36 hours have been busy and wet.

Started out yesterday (Thursday) early morning 4am’ish coming out on watch to rain, 15 knot winds and thick fog – terrible driving conditions and for the most part the only thing happy were the birds flying around. Then later that morning came strong winds and 6-8 foot seas that resembled a washing machine. This was most uncomfortable for about 5 hours. The wind then picked up and with spinnaker flying, we were finally moving well again, so well that we had to switch to the reaching kite and were off in 30 knots of breeze, heading straight for the Saint-Pierre Island which we had to round at 20+ boat speed.

Getting to the island, the wind lightened and we went forward to a jib reach were we were greeted with mild conditions and about 5 hours of flat seas – not to mention the sight of Mare, EDF and Jack in the Box.

We haven’t been able to get position reports, so seeing them brightened our spirits, cause as any sailor will tell you when you’re floundering around just trying to keep the boat moving, you can’t help think everyone else is leaving you in the dust.

After the island and with the spinnaker flying, dusk soon approached and along with a sudden increase in wind speed up to 35 knots, the A4 kite that we were flying, is as the book would say – good up to 24 knots. We were overpowered and doing everything we could to keep the boat under the kite, and not wipe out.  Emma did an awesome job of keeping the worst from happening, while somewhere in the process, hitting 23 knots of boat speed.

With Dave and I on the bow, it took everything we had to get the spinnaker snuffed and down, which we did with no issue other than my  memory of those set-to-failure workouts we used to do at Michigan, that until you were really used to them would drive you to the locker room puking your brains out from exhaustion. That was me 5 minutes afterwards – but in general now, feeling  just fine.

We throttled back some last night in order to recharge our personal batteries and recover from the hardest 600 miles any of us had ever sailed, mentally and physically.

We’re now sailing under the A4 downwind spinnaker in sunny 65 degree temperatures and 15- 18 knots of wind.  What a difference a day makes. There’s not another boat in sight. We know we lost some distance, but are confident we’ll make it back now that we can let Bo Dream run. We know she’s fast.

Tactically up until now, this has been a lot like the long distance races we do in the Great Lakes, 50 to 300 mile legs where you have to pick a side, deal with one wind change or weather system.  Now with 2300 miles in front of us, this is a new game tactically. Long term decisions aside, for now we’ll be sailing mostly a rum line course, in beautiful sailing conditions.

– Matt, Emma, Mark and Dave

Delayed post from Matt Scharl on Wednesday, July 25th..

Hello from the St. Lawrence Bay.

What a difference a day makes. We’ve had now 10 hours of the same conditions, NNW wind 18 to 25 knots, 10 to 17 knots of boat speed in the direction we want to go.  i can’t see the tracker, but if it shows much detail at all, you can see how many different times we’ve had to make course adjustments. Many of those adjustments or sail changes come during light winds where you’ll see a track that has no rhyme or reason other than the desire to get further down the course. With those changes come the obvious sail changes, but what you don’t see is the moving of what is called the “stack.”  This stack consists of all the sails not being used, unbolted down gear, personal gear, food bins and the required water on board 30 some one- gallon jugs.  So when the boat changes direction or the wind changes, we adjust sails and then adjust the stack, the stack goes to the front, heavy in the back, from the port side it goes to the left and so on until the boat is happy. This stack moving gets old really fast in the variable conditions. We have to really thank Emma for keeping us all in line with this, her diligences regarding this is spectacular. Conditions on board are good, some of the dampness has gone away except for the floor, where the only time my feet are happy is in my boots where its dry. We’re catching up on sleep and overall the happiness meter is on the rise.

Having boats nearby to race is great and the occasional dolphin riding our wake is awesome.

Matt