St. Augustine, Florida to Thomaston, Maine...Including a Solo

Just yesterday, May 12th, I completed a seven day sail with my coach and project manager, Fred Bousiere, leaving from St. Augustine, Florida to Thomaston, Maine. This is where the Kiwi Spirit was built and where now some work will be done on her (more on that later). The voyage from St. Augustine was not great, as we followed a storm that had wreaked havoc on the east coast just days before with record rain falls. Therefore we had the ocean swells that linger after a storm but with little of the wind, without which a sail boat goes nowhere…so we used the engine. When we reached New England we took a short cut through the Cape Cod Canal. There I dropped Fred off and did a 24-hour solo sail.

Next month I am entered in a sail boat race titled “The Newport Rhode Island to Bermuda One-Two.” The “one” in the title stands for one sailor solo sailing down to Bermuda and the “two” stands for two sailors sailing on the way back. To qualify for the race you have to complete a 24-hour solo in the boat that you will be entering in the race. During the solo, I tried to take naps throughout the night of no more than thirty minutes in order to check on the sails. But I just could not sleep even though I had practiced it for days on end and had been successful. The reason was simply that I was too close to land, and had I fallen into a deep sleep and not heard the alarm, or the alarm had malfunctioned, I would have clearly ended up on the rocks of New England. Last night I finally slept.