32:23.065N 64:34.554W

Thursday  May 9, 2013  13:15 pm

The Finish

It continued to blow quite hard all night from the SSE at 20-25 knots and I saw gust speeds up to 27 knots. On my watch the autopilot did a good job keeping the Traveling Light surfing down big following seas at 10-16 knots under full canvas. We put the “pedal to the metal” all night until the wind started to shift to South and west of South, two to three hours into the Skipper’s shift early around the time of daybreak ; the autopilot could not cope with this wind shift and he had to jibe and hand steer to avoid being blown off course too much. It was quite hard to keep the boat sailing about 20-25 degrees off the wind to stay on target towards our destination. I got up to the sound of the racket going on deck while the Skipper was jibing. We took 15 minutes turns on the wheel and still could not avoid a few unwanted jibes. But in the end it was all worth it. We saw “Lone Star” enter the cut going into St George’s Harbor early in the morning on the AIS  and watched “Soledonna” cross the finish line ahead of us. We crossed the finish line at 13:15 (Bermuda Time) on May 9^th, exactly 5 days and 15 minutes after the start of the rally in Tortola 845 nautical miles away at an average speed of 7.0 nm/hour. Not bad for “two old men”. It was warm sunny day with a frsh breeze and blue skies that Bermuda welcomed us.

We will learn the official results on Sunday. We plan to leave for the last leg of this trip on Monday. The weather is apparently questionable but we feel confident we can make it in time to catch the plane to Europe with Tulin. If I miss that plane I will be in a lot of trouble. Looking forward to fair winds and a smooth passage back to New York and home… Here is a picture of Traveling Light at the Dock in Bermuda’s Dinghy Club waiting to come beck home...