Atlantic Cup – Racing in the Gulf Stream
The trinquette, i.e the staysail, was thoroughly furled and attached to the rail when we left the harbor in Charleston a few hours earlier. But despite the preparations, the trinquette is now about to be flushed over board. Nathan works hard to bring it back on board and attach it again. The sea state is brutal and Nathan alters periodically between being on deck and being in the air. At the same time suffering from sea sickness. The lunch comes in return but that is not a problem, mother nature immediately flushes deck and clothing’s. The huge waves brakes over the boat and the life jacket of Nathan is inflated. I am a few meters behind and now laughing a bit to the fact that Nathan now looks like the Michelin man. For the time being, Nathan is not at all amused by my sense of humor, but at least we are still dry and mission accomplished.
This is the start of the Atlantic Cup 2016, a 1000 nautical mile race along the American east coast. From Charleston to New York and then continued to the finish in Portland, Maine. Double handed. Apart from myself, Mikael, Nathan from UK is the co-skipper.
Sailing in the Gulf Stream
The Gulf Stream starts in the Mexican Gulf. It exits next to Miami and follows the American east coast up to the latitudes of New York where it diverts easterly. The Gulf Stream is powered by the trade winds that pushes huge amounts of water into the Mexican Gulf via the Caribbean islands that then needs to exit somewhere. Outside the American east coast, the Gulf Stream is about 60 to 100 nautical miles wide. But the channel with the highest current, up to six knots, is only a few hundred meters wide. Historically it’s been hard for seafarers to measure and identify the actual current. Instead experience tells the current is strongest where the temperature gradient is greatest. But nowadays, with modern electronics, the current is easily measured using a GPS, an electronic compass and a log. By measuring the speed through water and the heading of the boat, and then comparing it with the course and speed over ground from the GPS – the difference of these vectors is the current.
The preparations before the race were detailed and consisted mainly about finding out the exact route of the Gulf Stream by analyzing grib files with the ocean currents from Tidetech. We combined the grib files with satellite images with water temperature to gain trust they both correlated. We could see a clear pattern and we knew where to start looking for the maximum current when sailing north from Charleston to New York. The words from Roger Nilson, my mentor since many years, were invaluable for the tactical preparations. “The waypoint is not New York, instead it is a point straight to east where the Gulf Stream has its peak current. You have to sail directly there and don’t cut the corner. Many competitors will be tempted to cut the corner and will do it, but you have to continue. The Gulf Stream is like an express train, you have to aim for getting on that train as early as possible”.
We make good progress easterly after the start. The newer boats are faster and we are approximately in the middle of the fleet when the wind turns easterly. It was known and well predicted as part of the tropical low that was to pass just to the south of us. However, our position in relation to the leading boats is not good in relation to the low that we are now facing. The leading boats had come more to the east than us and this made a big difference in terms of wind angles. This makes the leading boats increase their lead and our hope is to gain from our strategy and knowledge of the current. We continue easterly following our strategy and beliefs, we find the peak and then turn northerly. The boats ahead clearly did cut the corner, just as Roger said they will. This gives us a clear advantage; we now have good wind angles and Talanta is flying over the water. 19 knots through water and then six knots of current to our advantage gives us 25 knots over ground. When we step off the peak on the western side, we head up 10 degrees and when stepping off on eastern side we bare away 10 degrees. This way we manage to keep on the main flow and use it to our advantage. Information about the current is one of the most important numbers on the data screens.
New York
We keep sailing focused and finally we are among the front runners. The tactics is to be the last boat to take off from the Gulf Stream. Last boat, but only just the last of the front runners. Unfortunately, our satellite subscription was accidentally turned down by our supplier, so we are now completely blind in terms of knowing where our competitors are as well as getting new weather information. Therefore, we leave the Gulf Stream much later than the competitors and therefore we are exposed to an unnecessary risk. In the light winds that follows on the route into to New York this becomes crucial and we drop to 6th place. But its been a fast race, nearly 800 nautical miles sailed in just about three days.
Ever since being a little kid I always had a dream to sail into New York under spinnaker. And now, 35 years later the dream comes true. What an extraordinary feeling! The finish line just next to Manhattan, crossing it with power in the kite gives an unforgettable memory.
New York to Portland
After a few intense days in New York it is again time to set sail. The start and the running out of New York is in light winds. Not the strongest features of Talanta. We keep on fighting hard to keep up the pace of the newer boats but they keep on gaining more distance ahead of us. But our advantage is instead our navigation and weather strategy. We gain from this and by the time we round Cape Cod we are again in a good position. We push hard on a reach, A5 is up and one reef in the main. 35 knots of wind, darkness, dense fog and heavy showers. Fishing boats everywhere that we only seldom see on the AIS when we rush by them at 100-meter distance in 17 knots of boat speed. As not all of them have their AIS switched on, the radar keeps an extra eye for us in the darkness. We keep on pushing hard straight out into the dark and unknown ocean ahead of us.
Five miles from the finish we are second in the ranking. But we have the faster and newer boats just behind. The wind dies and it becomes a lottery who gets a puff and can move forward. We ended up fourth, with just a bow sprit length to the third and equally ahead of the fifth. Two minutes behind the second. Super tight racing over 350 miles in just about two days.
Inshore races in Portland
In Portland two days of fully crewed around the cans racing continued and rounded up the Atlantic Cup. We planned on leaving walk over, as we didn’t have any other crew to take onboard. But in the morning, four Portland sailors knocked on the boat and said they will join. Off course we couldn’t turn that offer down, so with 30 minutes to the start we had made one tack and one gybe together. Ready to race! Well, not the best preparations, but we had super great fun and finally, after two days of racing we became a really good team. But then the racing was already over.
