First boat home

And it is not Maximus in centennial Newport-Bermuda driftathon

Bella Mente, the JV66 owned by Hap Fauth of Newport RI, did a horizon job on the 264 boat fleet and crossed the finish line off St David's Lighthouse at 15:12:18 EDT today. The spectacular performance upset all predictions of a Maximus line honours victory in the Centennial Bermuda Race.

Bella Mente led the light air contest much of the the 635 mile course that started from Newport RI on last Friday afternoon June 16th. The yacht chose to go down the west side of the rhumb line and found favorable current and better wind to carry them into Bermuda well ahead of Alchemy and Kodiak II, their nearest class rivals.

Belle Menta is first to finish, but the skipper and crew must now wait to see how the other competitors in the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse Division correct their time against Belle Menta's finish. The corrected time trophy is a silver replica of Bermuda's Gibbs Hill Lighthouse.

Richard Shulman's Temptress, an IMX 45 from Jamestown RI, may be within striking distance to grab the corrected time victory and the elegant silver Gibbs Hill Lighthouse trophy. Time will tell.

Liz Rushell describes the conditions on board the Volvo 60 Pindar Alphagraphics :

I think it's still day 4. It says so on the food bag. At 4.00pm we will change to Day 5 food bag - so then it must be day 5. Life seems to be measured by all things to do with food.

I hadn't realised it such a long way to Bermuda....! Not had too many breaks with the wind direction, but finally we are on port tack heading upwind, roughly towards the islands with approx 70-80miles to go, doing about 8 knots in a breeze varying between 6 and 9 knots. Currently we have the tanks filled which is always a good thing as it means we are in breeze.

So far everytime we fill a tank, it feels like a few minutes later we are emptying it again. The same with discussions about sail changes - seems to influence the pressure like no-ones' business - so we have lots of discussions about possible sail changes to persuade the breeze to do what we want!! Sometimes it seems to work. Dee, Campbell and Loz have done a great job trying to interpret three different and varying weather reports. Difficult to assess how we are doing - currently quite a few boats are in the headlights - some of them cruising boats, which we ideally wouldn't want to be too near, but we suspect a lot of boats are having an up and down race just like us.

Today has been cleaning day - always a sign of a certain amount of boredom - and not quite enough breeze to keep everyone active. This morning it was very satisfying to see Dee and Loz on their hands and knees scrubbing four days of tea stains and bits of freeze dried off the decks. Well we did all help too. Clean ship is a happy ship - and we feel it will make her faster.

Meanwhile below decks the daily nominated galley wenches are struggling to keep things in order. The cleaning bit is relatively easy - but with the hot conditions, keeping 15 peoples clothes, boots, shoes etc, plus all the sails coming up and down and food bags (which are a great source of interest and topic of daily conversation) under some sort of control is a challenge and half.

Everyone is beginning to break out the one set of clean underwear they'd saved for arrival in Bermuda - but we are confident now that our personal belongings will have arrived a few days before us - so it's worth taking the risk! Simon 'Lovely' Clay - treated himself to a bucket salt water shower on deck - a sight for all of us to see! Meanwhile it’s still like a sauna below decks - although with out the eucalyptus aroma but something somewhat more pungent. The daily diet of freeze dried is beginning to take it's toll as it works its way through all 15 of us! Every now and then there's a mass exodus onto the decks when one of the guys is having a not necessarily so quiet a moment on the heads. Charming stuff huh especially if you are trying to kip at the time.
Too hot to sleep this afternoon so I'm going back on deck to work on the tan. Really looking forward to a cup of milton-free tea, with milk (opps we forgot the powder). The miltons is in our fresh water tank and really does something indescribable to your taste buds. Also looking forward to a dark and stormy - which could be between anytime around midnight tonight or tomorrow afternoon.