(Tortola, BVI)- Joe Reed sailed his J/42 KEEP IT SIMPLE from Hampton, Virginia
to Roadtown, Tortola in the British Virgin Islands in this year's
Caribbean 1500 Rally. Here's his report on their experience with
Hurricane Sandy and the Atlantic crossing below:"I left Annapolis aboard Keep It Simple, my J-42 sailboat, 5 weeks ago today on this great Adventure. Don, Lee and I departed Annapolis around 5:30am headed for Hampton, VA with Hurricane Sandy headed for the East Coast. We had heavy rain with the wind from the north and following seas. We did not install the companion-way board and both the crew and the boat got really wet.
We arrived in Hampton around 1:00 pm and there was no one staffing the marina and the floating dock were disconnected from the seawall in preparation for very high tides. We tied up at the fuel dock and weathered Hurricane Sandy out there. Then on Wednesday we moved over to our assigned slip.
Joel arrived on Thursday and we started final preparations for the Caribbean 1500. Friday we heard that a big Low was forecast to start forming on Monday as we were crossing the Gulf Stream that could make things a bit dicey. At the Saturday, 1:00 pm skipper’s briefing, we were told of the forecast and the Tortola group was told they could leave as soon as they were ready and the rally would use a rolling start or we could wait until Thursday. The Bahamas group was told to take the ICW (intra-coastal waterway) down to Buford, NC and depart from there.
We got back to the boat finished our preparations and were away from the Dock by 5:30 pm Saturday Nov. 3. We crossed the starting line at 7:05 pm. Wind was out of the Northeast at around 18 kts. Sometime Saturday evening we put in the 1st reef and it was never removed the entire trip.
Almost the entire rally the wind was coming over the port quarter from the NE from 18 to 26 kts. We were able to maintain around 7.5 kts with either, main with 1st reef only, main with 1st reef plus Jib with 2nd reef, main with 1st reef plus full jib, or motoring. We lost the middle batten so we could not set the second reef in main since it would risk damage to the main.
Don was surprised that we were on the same point of sail for almost the entire trip. We only had a need for one "all hands on deck" call which was around 1:00 am when the wind started climbing and there were gales in the area. Everyone was up, life-vest & harnesses on, on deck, sails down and secure in less that 10 minutes with it blowing over 40 kts. I went forward to get the sail down and Joel assisted in getting the sail ties on, in heavy seas with the boat bouncing around.
The day before we were to cross the finish line, I installed the Caribbean navigations chart card in the navigation display and got nothing. We broke out the paper charts and the iPad to review our approach to Tortola. I set a center channel waypoint into the display and had Don become familiar with the chart since he would have the midnight watch when we should cross the finish.
At midnight Nov. 12 I took the helm and the entire crew was up. The wind started to get light as we approached Tortola. After one boat passed us motoring I decide that we would motor the last few miles. We crossed the finish line at 1:24 AST, 8 day 5 hours and 44 min. During this entire time we only used the engine for propulsion for 22.2 hours.
When we arrived at Nanny Cay, Tortola around 3:30 am, the rally staff was on the dock and handed us a drink after the boat was tied up. We spent a few days in Nanny Cay, cleaning the boat up, making repairs and resting. For the 2012 Caribbean 1500 Rally, our great little yacht, the J/42 KEEP IT SIMPLE came in 1st in Class B and 1st overall! For more Carib 1500 sailing information.
