Carinthia finally made it to Newport, Rhode Island! I felt that the difficulty of preparing for this race an accomplishment itself. It is a ISAF category 1 event we needed to increase some of the safety equipment to those standards. It is a requirement that a portion of the crew take the safety at sea class and just filling out the paperwork.The race is 650 miles and crosses the gulf stream. I was lucky enough to get veteran Chuck Beyer as navigator. With the meanders of the stream with weather forecasts so it was important to get the right guy. Also aboard was Bob Declercq who has done many successful offshore races with me, the world famous Jeff "New York Times" Henderson, world traveling racer Lynn Kotwicki, Jim Best, who is truly a great all round offshore racer, the skilled Joe Mayfield, and Erik Witte, who has done quite a bit of ocean racing.
The race began in Naggausauget Bay. The starting area was packed with spectator boats. We had to weave our way through them just to get to the starting area. We put up the heavy #1 and ran the line. We got to the left end on starboard and tacked at the gun.We managed to get out of the bay on two tacks and went to our #3 when the wind picked up. We did get a small lift and went with the code 0 for a few hours but soon returned to the #3. We had down loaded the gulf currents and got a big push in the first one. At that point we were probably in the lead in our class. Then an amazing thing happened. 4 miles west of us the boats sailed on at 7 knots where we sailed on at 2 knots. At this point we were already 50 miles west of rumb.
At this point we could just not pull it out. Even though we kept the boat fast on a fetch we could not catch up to a full headsail boat. We did manage to stay ahead of the other J/120s but it just was not enough to do better than 4th on corrected time.
Result: 4th out of 13 in class 4, 24th out of 124 overall
Result Link: http://www.bermudarace.com/CompetitorsB
air. We hung around the right pin before the gun and put up our spinnaker. Hot Ticket reached up to us and got across first with Merlin and Night Moves in a hole farther down the line. Up the first leg I could see the pressure was still on the right side of the course so I tried to bias the us there. It was enough to round mark A with us on the inside of Hot Ticket. They tacked immediately where we held out tack about a 100 yards since Merlin right behind stretched their tack out also(port tack was favored). Going farther up the leg we managed to hold our lead with Ticket and they crossed behind us on the next tack. At this point I only wanted to cover HT and stay to their right. Hot ticket had a battle with a fishing boat and went aground. After a number of tacks in lighter and lighter air Merlin managed to catch up four boat lengths behind us. At DP5 the wind shut down and essentially we drifted in ahead of them. We could still win the race even without wind. Go figure.
COURSE 5 - 4.6 nautical miles
This was a triangle race running around the triangle clockwise. The wind was varying between 335 and 348 degrees with wind speeds around 12 knots. Because the first leg was going to be a close reach I felt it was important to start at the left pin upwind from all the other 4 J120s. At 1.5 minutes before the gun I ran up toward the pin on starboard and when I felt there was enough room to tack on port. We managed to be near full speed at the gun where the leeward boats were going a little slow because of maneuvering. Merlin was the next boat down and they could not get up us before the start because the where too far down the line(thanks Doug). With a clean start I could sense the others were drifting south of the rhumb line we went down with them in the puffs to give cover. Every time the wind went left we gave them some gas. Hot Ticket got caught in the group and got squirted out the back. They then went to the north of us but I was not concerned because there were other slower boats up there to block there air. Merlin went way low on the course but I felt it would only be extra distance and when she came up to our line at the mark we would still gas them. With Jayhawker on our line behind us we would go up to their lane the wind backed and still get faster down the leg by doing so. We got the first mark in first place. After gybing we put up the .6 oz spinnaker. We were going slow at first so I saw an open spot above us and got 
This was a romp counterclockwise around Lake St. Clair. The wind was out of the northwest at about 15 knots. We managed to get to the line a little ahead of the other boats. But after the 3/4 spinnaker went up the trimmers got an overide and collapsed the spinnaker. This caused night Moves to roll us and we had to ride her stern. It was a very fast leg with boat speeds between 7 and 10 knots. We managed to only broach only once. After getting slowed down under a Na40, Hot Ticket got in just ahead of us at Thames River buoy. At this point I thought we had good chance to pass Night Moves. They put up their #3 and it was blowing only 14 knots and sure to go slower. Hot Ticket only had 4 people so they most likely would be unable to do well going to weather. Both predictions came true. On this leg the wind was shifting 25 degrees so it was necessary to continually tack. Somehow the only boat to catch up was Merlin. We must of come together with Merlin at 7 times and manged not to lose ground. The last time we tacked towards them and got hit with a header in the middle of the 
tack. We could not tack back because the wind speed was down to 5 knots by this time. So we rounded buoy g27 in the shipping channel behind Merlin but still ahead of Jayhawker. What happen next was simply amazing. Even though Jayhawker was only two lanes above us they got a lift and we got a header. If we would of tacked I thought we would cross behind them. They simply took the lift almost all the way point huron buoy where we just managed to sail into a hole. We rounded the buoy in 3rd and put up the .6 spinnaker since the .75 had a rip in it. Luiz and I repaired the rip and when completed we put up the .75. We almost caught up to Merlin and Jayhawker but they managed again to leave us behind. The rest of the race we got headed and went back to the ap1 to finish in the river. We finished at about 8:30 so it was relatively fast.
We knew that the thunderstorms were going to show but did not know when. The first leg was a broad reach on port. Again I got the boat to the line early. The crew was quick to point out that I was going to be early so I turned the boat back in time before the gun. We managed to get the boat to mark d in 3rd behind Merlin and Hot Ticket with the 3/4 oz. chute in 8 knots of wind. We made the turn gybing the spinnaker. Merlin and HT took each other up where we stayed on rumb. About a third the way down the leg the wind hit from behind at 30 knots. Immediately we rounded up so the first order was to get the spinnaker down. After a couple of attempts we managed to get it down. Then the wind picked up to the high 30's and I considered taking down the main and quitting. I had even started the engine. HT already had ripped their main in half. Merlin was just ahead. I decided that it would be better for the main if we continue going down wind rather than try to take it down. We rounded around mark b with just the main and the ap #1 rolled. Merlin took theirs down and put up their #3 on this reach leg. Since we had only 6 people without Brian and Sandy on board we decided to ride it through until the wind would die down to put up the #1. The wind went down to 18 knots on the leg to D so we unrolled the #1. We caught up considerably to Merlin and just before mark DP7 they did a bareheaded change of their headsail to the #1. This allowed us to catch up to their stern. At DP5 we put up our code 0 since the wind was at 80 degrees. Merlin put up their 3/4 spinnaker after us but not soon enough. We managed to roll them and finished 30 seconds ahead. This was an exciting evening with Night Moves, Hot Ticket, and Jay Hawker dropping out. Jay Hawker got their prop shaft wrapped around a line so it took a while for them to get back to BYC. As the storm hit and while they were flying their kite, the yacht "Risky Business" had a man overboard. Within 45 seconds, they got the boat around and sailed back and got the man back on. The yacht "Epic" clocked the wind at 48 knots true and we got to see a water spout travel up the fleet.
This was a port reaching start with the first leg at 29 degrees to mark D. The wind was coming out to maybe 100 degrees at 11 to 12 knots. It was needed that we start at the left side of the fleet. We only had 6 people for this race so we had problem getting the .6 oz. spinnaker up twisting the head. Hot Ticket got their nose ahead of us to leeward. Ihnsanity and Night Moves got above us so we stayed low since we knew there was more pressure farther out in the lake. We rounded right behind Hot Ticket. The next leg was a close reach at 20 knots. Ihnsanity almost caught us but had to round behind us. The next leg was a weather leg with the favored being port. We were not able to tack because Saturn, a Melges 32, was to leeward and waited a half mile to tack. We had to still wait because a good portion of the boats behind us were blocking us. Ihnsanity managed to pass us because they did not have to overstand the mark and more people on the rail. At the next mark we were unable to gain on the boats in front but did not lose any places even though we were extremely light on rail weight. At this point there were major shifts so we tacked and almost caught HT. We finished just behind HT in 3rd. 
