June 26, 2007

Hello friends,

We crossed the finish line of the Bermuda 1-2 second leg off Newport last night at 11:41PM EST to complete the round trip and capture line honors as first boat to finish for the second time. Unfortunately, it looks like my friends in the rest of the fleet are stuck in very light airs in the Gulf Stream and it may be a while before they get in. That is exactly what happened to me in the B1-2 in 2005 and I would not wish it on my worst enemy. In that race, we roared out of Bermuda and 300 miles down the track and then parked completely in the stream and cartwheeled for 24 hours helplessly towards Portugal. I guess this year it was my turn for some good luck and we managed to escape to the north and had steady SW breeze all the way to the finish. I would rather be lucky than good every time. Gryphon Solo team members Jamie Haines and Hugh Piggin came out in a small boat to welcome us home last night which was much appreciated. Many thanks to sailing partner Dobbs Davis for a great contribution to this succesful race.

We are now pulling the boat apart in preparation for the Marblehead to Halifax race starting on July 8th. We have some new sails coming from Doyle Sailmakers tomorrow and will be sailing the Halifax race with Robbie Doyle aboard to check out the new inventory. We will also be joined by Rich Wilson, as he prepares for his upcoming Vendee Globe campaign. For now, its back to cleaning up and sorting out the post-race fix-it list. The awards ceremony for the B1-2 will be on Saturday so my sons Griffin and Emmett will look forward to that as they had a big time in Bermuda at the awards dinner with all the sailors.

Fair winds to all-
Joe