This is a race that I have wanted to do for a long time and this was the year I had the time to put it together. Its course starts at
Fort Lauderdale, crosses the
Florida Straits, arcs through the
Bahamas, turns around the eastern coast of
Cuba and finishes at
Montego Bay, Jamaica. Since it is usually a 4 or 5 day 811 mile race we decided to sail with a small 7 person crew to keep the weight down from bodies, supplies, and gear. It was important that most of the crew be capable of doing all jobs including steering. It usually starts with a reach and ends with a run past
Cuba.
We had a good start with the wind coming across our port stern. We had a fast night crossing the Florida Straights with the wind blowing out of 315 degrees at about 20 knots. We flew our .75 oz AP spinnaker from our
14:05 start until it just blew up just before sunrise. We had been generally happy with our progress since we knew that the only boat ahead of us was a
Santa Cruz 52 with a 33 second faster PHRF rating than us. Around midnight we kept shorting out our navigation lights. Fortunately it was diagnosed as a short in the bow lights and we snipped off the wires and put up the emergency bow light. We were leading Blue, a 1D48, most of the night along with a J133 from the IRC class. When we reached the northern tip of the
island of Eleuthera in
the morning as the wind dropped to 5 knots out of the northwest directly behind us. The wind was so light the only spinnaker we could fly was the code 0 and took most of the day to sail 20 miles. It took nearly 16 hours to pass the island. It then filled in from 280 degrees and the wind speed went up to 25 to 30 knots. Frank got the boat up to 19.6 knots driving where Karl managed 19.9. It could have been faster but with the water spraying over the cabin top it was difficult to see the instruments. The seas were rough and we found every leak on the boat. Thank goodness for duct tape!
Once past the south point of Long Island, we passed to the west of North Rock, On Monday at
2 am we launched the 1.5 oz spinnaker in 26 knots and destroyed that when the bow sprit extender line snapped. We still averaged 10 to 12 knots per hour with the jib top in heavy air. It was pretty rough to the extent that all hands on deck were tethered on with safety straps at all time. We saw regularly wind speeds up to 33 knots. Since we expected a right wind shift we sailed on starboard until we were approximately 18 miles off shore.
At this point we unrolled the regatta flag since it was pointed out in the regatta premeeting that the Cuban military should leave us alone with it displayed.
We then jibed over and paralleled the shore of Cuba.
We rounded the eastern tip of
Cuba at about
11am with a jibe onto starboard. We then decided to toss up the code 0 and sailed with that successfully for some time, until the shackle blew on the sheet, resulting in a shredded code 0. The jib top went up again. We were sailing along in somewhat civil waves (at least compared to previous night) with wind speeds approximately 20 knots true at a heading of 265 degrees.
After
Cuba we sailed directly for the finish line at
Montego Bay. The winds were pretty much easterly and then went to the northeast at 18 to 22 knots true. We then launched the .6 oz, running chute after sunrise and headed directly to
Jamaica in 18 knots of wind. We were down to our last spinnaker (.6 oz.) and we babied it the entire way. In many cases we tried not to surf on the waves since we would go so fast that the spinnaker would collapse into the spreaders and then the consequential pop when it filled again. We did have one major broach when I was in the bunk and salsa sauce went literally all over the cabin and specifically on Ken’s head. Most of the night we were going at 10 knots with a little bit of surfing we got as high as 16 knots. At about 80 miles out we knew we were not far behind on corrected time the
Santa Cruz 52, Renegade. We needed to make us go faster. The only thing left was to jettison the food and excess water, and ice. Since I had been wearing the same shoes in salt water for 4 days they were really starting to smell bad. I had talked the crew into not jettisoning them. By
13:44 pm on Tuesday our race was over. Upon finishing we knew we had beat Renegade by 54 minutes corrected time. The boat we were worried about the 48 foot schooner, Munequita needed to arrive by 0:930 the following morning to beat us since we owed them a 17 hour handicap. Fortunately the wind moderated in the ocean and they did not arrive until
13:57.
Carinthia, with a quality Bayview crew won 1st Overall in the Pineapple Cup race to
Montego Bay. We beat an impressive combined PHRF & IRC fleet including the new Sjambok, Titan, Blue Yankee and a host of others. Second overall was Cone of Silence which corrected out 28 minutes behind Carinthia. More information can be found at
www.montegobayrace.com. Trophies won include the Arawak Trophy for winning PHRF division, Pineapple Trophy for winning overall, and the Navigators Trophy won by Erik Ryan. Even more satisfying is Carinthia's and my picture and will go on the wall in the Montego Bay Yacht Club with some great sailors and boats that have won this race before such as Escapade, Tenacious
(Ted Turner), Kialoa, Stormy Petrol, and Zephyrus V. Even more amazing are the boats that sailed this regatta in the past and did not get this trophy such as Roy Disney's Pyewacket and Larry Elison's Sayanara. Most of the larger boats used pro crews where we basically got high caliber Bayview racers. What a ride....it does not get better than this!
The crew includes (from left to right) Ken Flaska, Erik Ryan, Karl Kuspa, Frank Kern, Bob Declerq, Colleen Flanagan. Missing from the photo is Jim Best.
One final note: Ted Neesley, a regular Carinthia crew man, managed to land a ride on Munequita, a 48 foot schooner. Since they arrived last he did get the cook's award. This is certainly a more attractive photo than his mug shot. (see below)
This is a race that I have wanted to do for a long time and this was the year I had the time to put it together. Its course starts at 
Once past the south point of Long Island, we passed to the west of North Rock, On Monday at 
We rounded the eastern tip of 
