Offshore J/Teams Sailing Trans-Atlantic to Europe

(Newport, RI)- A number of long-distance cruising and racing J/Teams have been getting ready for this year’s RORC Trans-Atlantic Race; they include two J/42s that have thousands of miles under their keels already and a J/122 that has probably gone around the world once or twice already in terms of total number of offshore miles.

J/42 ARROWHEAD Report
Steve Berlack has entered his J/42 ARROWHEAD into the Transatlantic Race.  Steve is the Men's Alpine FIS Coach at Burke Mountain Academy in East Burke, Vermont- a school famous for breeding some of America’s top alpine ski racers in slalom and giant slalom events.

Here is Steve’s commentary prior to the start of the event next week:  “Arrowhead is running in the IRC Racer/Cruiser Class 4 Division with a total of 4 crew. Our group can use the autopilot hence the smaller crew. Arrowhead has been set up as a double-handed Bermuda Race boat, but only the Class 40 boats can run double-handed in this race.

Arrowhead, formerly Howie Hodgson’s “True” and designer Rod Johnstone’s “Ragtime” has a serious offshore racing pedigree for a “cruising” boat. Well, all J/Boats are really race boats at heart and Hull #62 has never missed a Newport/Bermuda race since coming out of the mold in 2002. This, in addition to a couple of Marblehead Halifax stints, puts her in solid company with other experienced offshore racer J/Boats.

Given that the boat is raced almost every year in a serious offshore contest, not much was needed to prepare the boat for the Transatlantic Race. We added a Spectra 150 water maker, and put diesel heat in the boat for the north of 50 degree route. We also built a new main sail out of Dimension-Polyant Black X Tech 25 cloth so as not to wear out our sweet Doyle Stratus Bermuda Race Main. The BX25 is a heavy, performance oriented cloth that should hold up well in the variable north Atlantic conditions. Chris Howes and Robbie Doyle have both been very helpful in helping with the best inventory to sort out our performance goals. Our largest genoa is a 138% #2 made out of DP BX20, we also have a high clew yankee #3/4 made out of the same cloth. We are carrying two asym chutes, one extra heavy weather jib, storm jib, and storm trysail.

We secured some outboard sheeting padeyes for better reaching performance with the two genoas.

Technology-wise, we implemented the Expedition software package on an Apple Mac-Mini with a solid state hard drive. We are also propagating AIS and all the NMEA 2000 data to some Apple iPads via a Digital Yacht wireless router. Our plan is to power down the Raymarine displays, and run the iPads as the primary nav screens.

The crew is Mike Chapman, Jon Bixby, Gian Criscitiello, and myself. You can track us on Yellowbrick and the gun goes off on June 28th. We are hoping for 17 days!”

J/42 CANTY Mediterranean Report
Paul and Martha Rogers have been sailing their J/42 CANTY in Europe and in Mediterranean waters.  According to Martha, “it seems that we placed 3rd in the double-handed category in the Brindisi-Corfu Race. That's what the smallest trophy is for. The middle-sized trophy is awarded to participating foreign yachts. The largest trophy is for the yacht coming the furthest to race.  We are still deciphering the race results in the various categories so I can't give you any times. There were four boats in our category.  Our satisfaction in the result is not diminished with a 3rd place vs 1st. It was a great race and we have had an amazing time.  Check out the website- http://www.brindisi-corfu.it/en

J/122 RESOLUTE Report
Scott Miller’s J/122 RESOLUTE (the 2013 Newport Bermuda 1-2 Overall winner) is already heavily into preparations for this year’s Newport-Bermuda 1-2 event.  His sailing program in the next few months is worthy of any Volvo Ocean Race team training and racing program.  Scott is planning to singlehand from Maine to Newport shortly.  Then, he is racing the N2B 1-2.  After getting back to Newport, he heads directly to Marblehead to do the Marblehead-Halifax Race in the Double-handed Divisions.  Then, he plans to cross the North Atlantic singlehandedly to Cowes, England in time to sail the Fastnet Race in the IRC Two-handed Division!  Then, the plan is that he will then singlehand the boat back to Maine before wintertime!  ALL on his J/122 RESOLUTE!  According to Scott’s friend Tom Babbit from Portland, Maine, “Scott provisions for N2B 1-2 by walking across the street in Newport and picking up a six pack of Subway subs- - he is a retired but extremely energetic former investment banker!”  Goodness gracious, that is an ambitious program for anyone!  For more J/42 info (http://www.jboats.com/j42) and J/122 info (http://www.jboats.com/j122).