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May 9 & 10, 2018

Jzerro-1st Finish, 1st Overall, 1st Multihull
Acadia-Winner Cruising Div
Atlantic Union-Winner Racing/Monohull Div

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Regata Al Sol shared Noti Isla Mujeres's video.

2 months ago

Good thing we’re usually there during the week and not the weekend

Noti Isla Mujeres
Alcoholímetro
Jaime Ongay director de seguridad pública de Isla Mujeres, informó que se seguirá aplicando el alcoholímetro los fines de semana, con el objetivo de mantener bajo los índices de accidentes. ...

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4 months ago

Anyone know how to get another sea foam green long sleeve Regata Al Sol tech shirt in small? mine has been adopted by my daughter and I really like the color and style. ...

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5 months ago

Regata al Sol fans trying to access our website: good news and bad news - Good news we had the highest traffic ever to view our website! Bad news: it exceeded our capacity and crashed! We are upgrading our service and should be back online shortly, stay tuned! ...

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Regata Al Sol shared 2Oceans1Rock's post.

5 months ago

Jzerro’s Regatta al Sol race break down in one post.

Day one 5/9: The multihulls are given the first start. Approaching the start line in light wind, Belafonte is below us and we intentionally slow down to let them get in front. God only knows what would have happened if they decided to luff us up before the start, and we had no interest in finding out how to get a proa out of such a situation. They unrolled their small flat spinnaker (screacher) and we unrolled our less flat spinnaker known as a Code 5. They pull away from us and are able to use their sail upwind in the light stuff while we have to roll up our Code 5 and proceed under jib and main. Tacking out of the Pensacola Bay channel we lose more ground. Belafonte makes several more tacks to get south, while we go east along the beach. I mosey out to the windward hull and lift the dagger board as the shadow on the ground is getting closer to the bottom of the board. We basically lose contact with Belafonte and the PDQ catamaran during our fetch East.
The first night we are the furthest East. Based on the information I had there was negative current flow to the West and we skirted round it to the East often becalmed with current pushing us SE. In the picture, Jzerro is the yellow dot and Belafonte is the burgundy dot. It looks to us like they had adverse current, however they did not see that from their readings onboard.

Morning, 5/10: during sunrise the wind lifted us dramatically on starboard tack, and we gybed to the SE on port. After sunrise a long slow moving front came through bringing light Easterly winds and we began pointing at the finish line making around 9 knots in 7 knots of wind and flat water. We now had about 150 miles to get to the top of the Gulf Stream Eastbound loop and Belafonte was roughly 18-20 miles to our west. It was basically a restart after the first night.

Evening, 5/10: Definitely getting more breeze as we approach the loop current, and it only got windier and lumpier from there. By midnight we were cutting across the Gulf stream at speed, averaging over 12 knots across the East bound loop current with wind against stream flow. We maintain the 12 knot average for the next 8 hours until we are now at the bottom of the loop current flow 100 miles or so.

Morning 5/11: From this point on we are simply trying to stay East in a header, punctuated by nearly a dozen rain showers or so. Wind before and after each show is all over the map, causing our speed to fluctuate a lot while still trying to maintain a heading south of east. Not sure where Belafonte is at this point, but I see them behind us momentarily on the last night. A dot on the horizon, but it could only be them as we both enter the final evening of crossing the North bound Gulf Stream. It’s not moving very fast, but it is very wide here, causing our speed to drop quite a lot for our angle. It’s here we resign ourselves to our decision and hope Belafonte doesn’t get past us in this final stage. They are not far away, but we can’t see them in all of the rain showers around us.
At around sunrise on the 11th we pop out of the north bound current and start pointing directly at the finish line. As the sun comes up we can’t see anyone behind us, so we’re either ahead by a lot or behind by a lot. At this point the rudder starts getting a lot of lee helm and we decide to stop the boat to investigate. We are unable to lift the rudder, so I jump over board finding a damaged part of the lower rudder. It seems we hit something and the plate holding the rudder to the skeg has separated. I rotate the plate, Jason pulls it onto the deck, we get the drill, and some screws, reinstall the part and within 15 minutes we’re under way again. A few hours later we are across the finish line with confirmation that we are first to finish. A great accomplishment for Jzerro’s small crew of myself, Clark Thompson and Jason Byl. Additionally, we couldn’t have had a better sparring partner than the crew of Belafonte. Even though we’re all racing against each other out there, when you arrive on the same island after such a great battle it feels like we all arrived on the same team and it’s great comradery.

Awards are tonight, and I’m planning to leave for New Orleans on Saturday with a repaired rudder and new autopilot. More to come.

-Ryan ...

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Regata Al Sol shared 2Oceans1Rock's post.

5 months ago

Fresh update from Ryan on his return trip. If nothing went wrong I guess you couldn't call it an adventure...

"The NKE pilot worked all night without gremlins, which we experienced on the delivery to Pensacola before the race. Today however, it started changing heading sources for no reason and going head to wind. Fortunately Jzerro is a bit hard to turn on a dime so I was able to take control of the helm after being woken up and on deck. So I just stopped for an hour or so to install the Pelagic Autopilot I had brought to me just in case something like this happened. There is a calibration process which requires an engine and while starting the motor, the pull chord slipped out of my fingers and nailed me in the crotch. It's times like that, that I wish I wasn't singlehanded so there would be someone around to help me enjoy the humor in my pain.

The Pelagic pilot seems to be working well and is actually holding course better than the NKE had while working all night. The NKE however, clearly has something going on with it.

-Ryan"

I guess I can't speak for everybody, but the image of Ryan punching himself in the crotch made my morning.... It's a good thing he had a back up autopilot on board. I've heard Ryan talk about the Pelagic autopilot before, and by all accounts they're rock solid, so it should get him back home. More to come.

- Shore Crew

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