Miami to Nassau Race - I love Peanut Butter

The course was from Miami to Great Isaac Light and leaving Great Stirrup Island to starboard

Prepping for the start

We has a pretty decent start by owning the left side of the line. It was pretty much a fetch with 16 knots of wind with the heavy#1. We carried this until we could fly the jib top well past Great Isaac Light.

On the way to Great Isaac Light

Upwind in the gulf stream is always a challenge, but the 10-15 degree 'push' you get from the current makes it worthwhile.  Carinthia, who just eked around the Great Isaac Lighthouse, but a number of boats had a hard time getting around and had to throw in multiple tacks to make it.  The right turn we had been looking forward to became more of a labor than we expected as the wind piped up at around 2 am to 27 knots with storm bursts we couldn't see coming. All we could see was low hanging clouds sweeping across. "We sailed a bit more conservatively as we had moments where the wind would go from 15 to 25 knots in seconds." Having a jib top in the sail quiver helped them with their tighter wind angles at the northern most points of the course and they "finally got the kite up about an hour before the finish." Carinthia flew along at 12-13 knots. That seems fast until you see the speed the TP52 Decision was clocking...over 20 knots of boat speed at their peak according to their race tracking page. Congratulations to the big winners of this year's Nassau Cup, Stephen Murray Jr, of the TP52 'Decision' in IRC and Frank Atkinson and crew of the Fast 40 'Different Drummer' in PHRF. The course from Miami to Nassau is made up of three legs - the crossing of the Gulf Stream, Great Isaacs Lighthouse to Great Stirrup in the Bahamas, and then the southward turn from Great Stirrup to the finish in Nassau. 14 of the 15 boats who started finished on Friday, with one boat dropping out early due to equipment failure. The Race Committee could not have asked for better or more challenging conditions - clocking, then backing breeze, velocity from 15 - 27 knots, and 70 - 80 degree temperatures. Tom Lihan, crewing on Decision, said, "we never tacked, but we were constantly thinking, wondering if we should follow the rhumb or look at the current, which sails to use (they had 7 changes and flawless crew work), watching the weather....these were classic conditions for this boat." Part of the Decision team was made up of Morning Light crew, Lihan said, and they've sailed together enough to make the work look effortless. The conditions were just not right for our boat. The wind was too high to fly the spinnaker but our competition could get more boat speed. The crew rode the high side all night and Nicole's main diet was peanut butter to settle her stomach. In sleep mode she found a spot next to the stove holding a plastic bag. Still it was only enough to get a 4th.

Crew: Nicole Neeley, Erik Ryan, Karl Kuspa, Nancy Caldwell, Colleen Flanagan, Greg Thomas, Paul Falcone, Jim Best. 

Full results posted here.

Finish in Nassau Harbor