With the start of the Transat 650 in only four days, I’m sure that the tension in La Rochelle is building quickly as the skippers go through their final preperations for the race.

Transat competitors need to be in LaRochelle a week before the the race starts to deal with all of the administrative and required activities. Clay Burkhalter of Team Acadia describes some of the things skippers are dealing with this week:

“Each day from now until the start of the race, everyone will be busy finishing up last minute projects, double checking spares and loading on supplies. The docks will be a very busy place. The last couple of days before the race the activities in the race village become more formal… there will be a presentation of skippers to the public and on Friday the 14th, a big 30th anniversary party (this is the 15th running of the biannual race).”

Skippers must also attend mandatory meetings on safety at sea, procedures for high seas rescue, race instructions and weather. I can only imagine the nervous tension that must be hanging over the docks at the moment!

The official race site is www.transat650.org (French only I’m afraid) and there is a race tracker set up for the race here.

I’ll try and provide more links and news as I here what is happening in France.

The Transcascogne race has just completed in France and it was one hell of a race.  In the first leg the fleet encountered 50 knot winds and very large seas.  Some of the minis ran into some problems with breakages, keel problems and dismastings, but thankfully everyone was able to get into Santander Spain without serious incident. 

Andrew Wood is a Brit who was competeing the race.  Here’s a video of what the conditions were like on board for him.  The sound is aweful, but you really get a sense of what a mini is like in big breeze.

Here is the article that appeared on the front page of the Whig on Friday. 

Pretty exciting to be on the front page!

So it’s finally time to break the silence here at Without Letters. I’ve been hesitant to commit much to writing here, as plans have been changing daily (and as much as hourly over the last few days) and I wanted to have some solid stuff to report when I finally broke the silence here. The other part of this is that I am a superstitious sailor and didn’t want to jinx any of the plans that we were trying to put together!

So now that she is back in Kingston I feel safe writing a little bit about the journey home and what’s coming next.

We have a boat!!!

I have had the amazing good fortune to be able to purchase Katie Ambach’s Mini Red Dress of Newport Rhode Island. The boat is almost brand new and has only sailed one race, the Bermuda 1-2. MRD is almost a perfect fit. The boat is ready to start sailing right now, which will let me get a jump on my training schedule. While the boat came with tonnes of gear and bits and pieces, we still have a lot of work to do. We will need to replace sails, work on the deck layout and many other things to make her light, strong and fast. I was joking with the people at work that buying a boat is a lot like buying a friend. This little boat and I will go through a lot together over the next few years, and I am already starting to feel that bond.

Bringing her home to Kingston:

Peter van Rossem and I drove down to Newport on Sunday to pick up the boat and bring her back to Kingston. Sunday afternoon we started taking the boat apart and getting her ready for transport. I was anxiously making notes on how to put her back together again once we got her home. I’m glad I did, as there is an aweful lot of string on a mini.

On Monday morning started the work of getting the boat into the travel cradle at the Newport Shipyard. The yard is an incredible place and the staff are just as good. Everyone was really professional and willing to help at every turn. At one point we had six guys lift the boat up to 45 degrees so we could get the boat set up for the trip home. The boat is over 2000 pounds, so this was no small feat!

I couldn’t have possibly got this done without the help of Katie, Drew and the guys at Newport Shipyard. Peter van Rossem was especially helpful as I would never have the confidence to direct a fork lift driver to push the boat around on the trailer or know the most secure way to lash the boat down to the trailer. A hardy thanks to Pete, I really couldn’t have done it without him.

The Drive Home:

The drive home was pretty uneventful. Peter put up with me anxiously looking in the review mirror every 30 seconds to check and make sure she was still tied down and not moving around too much. While having the boat on a 45 degree angle makes it thinner, it also makes her much taller, over 12’ off the road. Every time we went under a bridge, I held my breath. The next hurdle was getting through customs unscathed.

The ship’s documents were supposed to be delivered to Kingston on Friday afternoon so we would have them before we left. Unfortuneatly the documents didn’t arrive on Friday, so we had to make other arrangments. Alison received the documents at the house on Monday morning and then had to drive down to meet us at the border so that we would have all of the required documents to get through customs.

We arrived at Canadian Customs around 0130, and everything went smoothly. The customs officers were pretty intrigued with this little boat crossing the border in the wee hours of the morning, and I was happy they were more interested in the sailing part rather than scrutinizing the bill of sale and other ship’s documents.

Unloading:

We unloaded her on Tuesday morning at Collins Bay Marina, who graciously offered to sponsor the team with crane arrangements and provide a place to work on the bottom and get the rig and such sorted out. Hub and his crew at Collins Bay Marina were totally fantastic and the unloading process went much more smoothly than the loading process. I can’t thank Hub enough for his help and generosity while we took these first steps with the boat.

It was really fun to hang out at Collins Bay and talk with all of the sailors as they watched up get the boat ready to splash. It’s funny but I never seem to tire of talking with people about this project, and I really enjoyed chatting with the folks on the dock.

Bringing Her Home to the Club:

On Thursday evening Paul and I took the boat back to KYC on a totally windless Lake Ontario. Robert Davis and a couple of guys from the KYC High Performance Team were kind enough to tow us back to the club as the little motor that I had borrowed for the trip was a little short to keep the whole prop in the water.

Bringing her into KYC was one of the most special times of my whole life. The regular Thursday night race was under postponement because of the wind, so as we came closer to the club the horns from the boats circling outside the harbour, and the cheers and happy sounds from the crowd that had assembled on the dock were almost too much for me. All I could think was “we are finally home”.

After showing off the boat and answering many questions from the crowd on the dock, I managed to have a beer before I had an interview with the Whig Standard. The photographer took a few shots and then the reportor and I sat on the boat for a while and did an interview about the race and my plans for the next few years. It was on the front page of the Whig today, which was an excellent way to prolong this awesome day.

This morning, Friday, CBC Radio called to see if I would be interested in doing an interview. So if you have a chance on Monday morning to listen to Ontario Morning, I should be on at some point. It’ll be a live interview, so wish me luck!

What’s Next:

So what now? The work list is already very long and getting longer every time I go to the boat. Over the next few days we will get the electrical systems back up and running and have a few things to re-rig or tune. Then it’s finally time to go sailing!

We’ll start with boat handling practice around the harbour and I’ll start doing some smaller trips on Lake Ontario. The goal for this summer is to get comfortable in the boat in a variety of conditions and get as many hours on board as I can.

On the fundraising side, we still have a long, long way to go. We will soon need to order another set of sails, get power charging arrangements sorted out and get more of the required safety gear on board. Getting the money together to get these vital systems sorted out is a top priority and we’ll be working hard to get the message out to people that we really do need your help to get the boat ready for offshore sailing.

So now that the silence is broken I hope to get the momentum going on this blog, as I really like being able to tell everyone about what’s happening with the campaign. Super exciting times, and as always I’m excited to share the process with you.

Andy Abel is an American that is campaign for this 2007 Mini Transat.  He’s sailing a brand new Zero and he’s been working hard on the boat for months in Spain.  Check out his build photos here. 

I’ve been following Andy’s campaign closely as his campaign is a lot like mine and it is nice to be able to follow what race year is like for him.  Andy has just started is 1000nm qualifying sail, he’s doing the Atlantic course and just left La Rochelle last night.  You can track his progress here. 

It’s an exciting time for mini sailors, as racing has started and many skippers are pushing hard to get the qualifications sorted out.  It’s great to watch their progress and problems as this will definetly help in my preparations.

I think I have linked to these pictures before, but I keep coming back to them as a reminder of what can happen.  If ever their was motivation to have totally solid systems, these pictures demonstrate the need to make damn sure your autopilot is really solid…

The second qualification race for the Mini Transat just finished, the Select 6.5. This is a very tactical course on the French coast.

Isabelle Joschke is doing really well this year in her new Finot proto. She’ll be one to keep on eye on in this years circuit.

Check out some pictures from the event here.

Bonus Pics: Check out this series of photos from the Mini Pavois. Thierry Martinez is the man.

The Classe Mini posted a questionaire today regarding the qualification process for the Mini Transat.  The class is experienceing the enviable problem of having this race be WAY oversubscribed.  (130 applications this year for 86 spots!) The current system heavily favours Europeans that have a sailed an MT before and also makes it very uncertain for competitors trying to qualify with the calendar exemption, as the number of spots is very limited.

The problem has been discussed at length on the forums and a number of solutions have been proposed.   Talk is cheap though, and I think this is a very responsive move from the class to discuss other options for dealing with the problem.  As a potential competitor in 2009, this could have big implications on my program.

Check out the english news item here, and read the questionaire here (PDF).

If you get a chance, pick up a copy of Ontario Sailor this month.  There is a good article on the campaign.  (The lead article I might add…)

This is the first interview I had with the “yachting press”, so I was a little nervous about how it would come out.  Greg did a great job communicating the challenges I face personally as well as from a competative standpoint. 

Things are starting to get rolling!

I’m happy to let everyone know that Brandon Tattersall will be working with the MST over the next six weeks.

Brandon is a marketing student at St. Lawrence College and will be spending some of his CO-OP placement working on the marketing for the team.   Brandon has been a keen sailor for years, sailing on top teams out of KYC.  This knowledge combined with his marketing training will be a huge assett to the team.

Happy Monday Yall!  (Just to keep things in perspective it could be way worse…)

I am very pleased to announce that world famous sailor and author, Brian Hancock will be coming to the Kingston Yacht Club to give a talk on his experience sailing offshore in numerous high profile and very extreme sailing events.  This multimedia presentation will be a fundraising event for the Minimus Sailing Team and my campaign for the Mini Transat.

Brian is a veteran of three Whitbread round the world races, has participated in many high profile campaigns including record attempts on maxi catamarans and campaigned an Open 50 for the 2001 Around Alone race.  So Brian is no stranger to single handed sailing.

 Brian Hancock aboard his Open 50

Brian is also one of the co-founders of the Global Ocean Challenge, a single and short handed race around the world race.  The race will be sailed in Open 40 and 50s. 

Brian has graciously offered to help the Minimus Sailing Team raise funds for the 2009 Mini Transat Campaign.  Brian will be donating some books and such for door prizes and raffles, so you will not only get a chance to hear a great sailor talk  about his experiences, but also get a chance to walk away with some great reading.

The event will be held on April 3 at 1900, at the Kingston Yacht Club in the Partridge room.  Tickets will be $10 at the door.  Donation towards the Mini Transat campaign will be greatly appreciated.  More event details can be found on the KYC site.