Race Start
May 10, 2014
Hello friends,
Just making final preparations to push off the dock and head to the starting line of the Atlantic Cup Leg 1 race from Charleston to NYC. It is a bit hectic as always, but hopefully we have everything we need for the approx. 3-4 day passage. Pat and I had the traditional steak dinner last night with Ed and Chad from Pleiad racing to provide the proper grounding for the rigors of life offshore, so all feels good. My friends Mike Hennessy and Rob Windsor on Dragon are fueling the trash talk fires on Twitter and Facebook so stay tuned to your social media channels to witness the high level of immaturity. So I hope everyone has a great weekend and will track our progress via the race web site www.atlanticcup.org.
Next stop- The Big Apple!
Cheers
Joe
First Day
May 11, 2014
Good morning sports fans,
Happy Sunday to ya - and Happy Mothers Day to all you Mom’s out there - including my Mom Katrina and my wife Kim. We are out here on GS2 just surfing along with the Gulf Stream current just south of Hatteras.
I think we are currently leading the pack as I can see Pleiad Racing and Dragon just behind us, I cannot see Icarus/MaFarlane Racing so not sure where they have gotten to in the night and I have not received a position report from race HQ recently (Hugh?).
The conditions have been great from the start and we have been sailing downwind in the big A2 running kite for coming up on 24 hours which has been wonderful. We came though a squall this morning and had to take the A2 down after rounding up in a 27 knot puff- so we went to the solent jib for awhile, then changed to the A6 heavy air kite and then finally back to the A2 after the squall passed. We are honking along at about 11.4 knots but getting only a small boost from the Gulf Stream, which is puzzling. Hatteras is about 100 miles away and then we will turn our attention to the NYC waypoint. Pat and our media guy Parker are also doing great and have come though the night with a little sleep and a great attitude. We are all psyched to continue to keep the hammer down and hopefully separate from the pack.
Stay tuned
Joe
