Kinetic friends:

Morning from your web master Steve!

As of this morning Kinetic was reported as 21nm SE of Jervis Bay.

COG 152.0

SOG 10.3kt

As of yet I have not received a position report update e-mail from the boat so please stay tuned. I'm sure they all had their hands busy in the first few hours of the race.

December 28th, 2006

Hello all:

We have had a great 24 hrs of sailing since our last report - sunny and warm during the day, clouding over and not too cold (by Canadian standards) at night. Everyone is healthy now and the boat is holding up nicely. We did some reaching today but continue to spend most of our time beating. Hundreds of miles of beating at a variety of wind speeds and sea states. We live at an angle, actually several constantly changing angles, and at times are slamming into the wave troughs. We have done a lot of sail changes including reefing.

We've seen a huge group of dolphins, one shark, many seabirds, and at times have been within close sight of other race boats. We have seen no other boats and no planes or helicopters either except the media ones that flew down the coast and over the fleet just after the start.

We have seen a range of race committee projections about how we will finish in our division and in the fleet as a whole. These predictions bounce around a lot over short periods of time. Right now, we seem to be doing fairly well but are taking nothing for granted this far from the finish line, some 250 nautical miles distant, upwind.

Our crew for this race is organized into two watches of six people each, doing four hour watches day and night. Ron, Werner, Mark, Peter, Greg and Don are on the "starboard" watch, while Jim, Brian, Debbie, Tim, Marco and David are on the "port" watch. We are achieving our mantra of "teamwork, adventure and challenge".

We really appreciate receiving the many messages of support through the website at www.kineticsailing.com.

Regards,
David.
 

The photo below was recently sent in by a friend who happen to catch Kinetic in action at the start!

December 29th update #2.

Hello all:

This update has received extensive input from crew. Which comment was made by whom shall remain deliberately unstated.

Last night, some crew saw two phosphorescent torpedo trails criss-crossing under the surface of the water as two dolphins came over to play with Kinetic's bow wave.

The skipper gave everyone a pep talk this morning and now everyone is sitting on the rail, mad as you-know-what, ready to hunt down and pass the competition.

We've been sharing some quality jokes to pass the time. That's quality with a very small "q".

We've seen albatross and other smaller seabirds. Flying fish, small bait fish leaping in schools, ... predator and prey.

Emails from family and friends are highlights - please keep them coming.

Did you hear the one about 11 guys and 1 gal on a bouncing sailboat? She won, so we all go to the bathroom her way.

One crew reports hallucinations at night - voices, whistling, ...

All crew report that "Australian summer" is a marketing invention inflicted on unsuspecting Canadians, and that the photos in the Australian tourist brochures were probably taken in BC during our real summer.

One watch saw an orange crescent moonset.

Some differences of sailing style are emerging. A port watch crew member tied himself to the #3 jib and slept on it so that the starboard watch couldn't change down to it during the night.

Don won't tell us any of his America's Cup secrets but it's a long race and we haven't given up yet. Plus he's going to want some food sooner or later ...

That's all for now.
 

Hello all:

Since finishing yesterday afternoon, the Kinetic team has enjoyed a warm Hobart greeting from family, friends and complete strangers, dockside celebrations, showers, a power "kip" (nap), traditional drinks at the Customs House and some good "tucker" at a team dinner. All this was followed by sleeping in real beds that weren't heaving, rolling and slamming.

Recapping the race, the start was spectacular, with sun and 12-15 knot winds providing a reach out of Sydney Harbour, with thousands of spectator boats, nineteen helicopters overhead and huge crowds lining the bluffs. The fleet then turned South, into a rough first stage, with Southerly winds opposing the East Australian Current (which actually flows from North to South).
Additionally, an intense low to the Southeast was generating a SE swell.
These conditions set up a rough sea state that was worse than what would be expected for the actual amount of wind. My recollection is that we had up to 25-30 knots that night, double reefed with the #3 jib, beating hard and slamming into the troughs between the short steep seas. Most of the boats that retired from the race were affected by these conditions, with two dismastings, three steering failures, one rigging failure, one radio failure (required by safety regulations for crossing the Bass Strait), one undisclosed reason and one older wooden boat lost by sinking. Late on the second day (or was it early on the third?), we started across the entrance to the Bass Strait, transitioning from beating into a Southerly to reaching in Easterly winds and rough seas. Passing well offshore of Flinders Island at the Northeast corner of Tasmania, we beat in light to moderate winds in moderating seas before finally setting a spinnaker as the wind backed from South to Northeast. We enjoyed the spectacular coastline as we rounded Tasman Island just after sunrise, close reached and beat in light air across Storm Bay and ghosted up the Derwent River in a dying breeze and an ebbing current, to cross the finish line a few minutes after 1:00 pm, almost exactly 4 days after starting the 628 mile race.

Overall, the race involved several hundred miles of beating to windward, an exciting sretch of reaching and a handful of miles under spinnaker, in winds that varied from light to strong and which did not reach gale force. We averaged 6.5 knots, made good, despite beating for most of the race.
We would have liked to see more wind, either reaching or running, but the nature of ocean races is such that you have to be prepared for any conditions.

Early in the race, we fell some forty miles or six hours behind Kioni, our sistership, possibly due to them picking a more favourable line through the current which was running up to 2 knots. This actually turned out to be very helpful to our performance as it gave us a specific target to focus on.
Checking our relative positions frequently, we ground back almost all of those miles and finished just 34 minutes behind in very light air. We'll be making good on a wager of rum later today.

Kinetic's standings:
19th of 25 boats in IRC Division D, corrected time 40th of 59 boats in all IRC Divisions, corrected time 44th of 78 boats in the whole fleet, line honours

I have never sailed offshore with a stronger crew or a better prepared boat.
We broke nothing, despite the conditions, and the teamwork was excellent.
Full credit to Debbie, Ron, Werner, Don, Jim, Brian, Greg, Peter, Mark, Marco and Tim. And a big thank you for our shore support team, Gaylean, Christina, Annabelle and Steve.

Regards,
David.

Hello all:

Kinetic has arrived back in Sydney after a challenging delivery trip from Hobart.

We had five people on board; three race crew - Debbie, Tim and David, along with two additional crew who signed on in Hobart - Chris and Elisa. Weather was a major consideration as a nearly continual series of low pressure systems sweep across from West to East at Tasmania's latitude.

We left Hobart on Thursday, had a beautiful sail to Port Arthur, a former penal colony set in a stunning bay, where we overnighted on a mooring buoy along with several other returning race boats. Friday we sailed to Coles Bay and then Schouten Passage, where we anchored in a small cove, again with other race boats. We had drinks and fresh crayfish (lobster) on board JBW, the race communications relay vessel, before the wind came up fresh and made most of the other boats drag anchor down towards us, necessitating standing a constant anchor watch until the early hours of the morning. Saturday we moved to an anchorage on the other side of the pass as more weather moved through and the wind shifted around. We were welcomed by half a dozen large bottlenosed dolphins who then raced several laps around the anchorage on the bow wave of a police RIB.

Sunday morning dawned brilliant however the forecast continued to be difficult, with one imminent moderate low pressure system strengthening while another much more powerful one loomed just behind. We moved to a spectacular anchorage, Wineglass Bay, to get into a better position for heading North. We wanted to leave on the back end of the first low, and catch a ride North, before the next system arrived. Sunday late afternoon we decided it was now or never, so we battened the proverbial hatches and headed out.

The wind and seas increased as we sailed into the night hours, with sustained winds of 40 to 50 knots and frequent gusts to the mid 50s, and seas to 6 metres with some larger breaking sets moving through. Thunder boomed and lightning lit the gloomy night as we hurried along with great boat speed. We rotated through our three heavy weather drivers under a triple reefed mainsail, sailing deep downwind. Gybing was generally via the planned "chicken gybe" method, although a few others slipped in as well, one resulting in Tim getting a bruised hand and forearm from the mainsheet. The crew did an excellent job in challenging conditions. The Beneteau First series has a deservedly solid reputation, and Kinetic performed beautifully, tracking well and surfing many times to 17 knots and once to over 21 knots.

By Monday morning we were sailing in 30 to 40 knots with large following seas, seemingly light air sailing. We belatedly heard reports of one returning race boat being rolled and dismasted, and two others suffering steering failures, however after checking in we learned that they had already been assisted. Other boats reported gusts well over 60 knots. We definitely would not have wanted to be beating to weather in these conditions. Tim's arm recovered rapidly with constant attention from our onboard physiotherapist. We finished the crossing of the Bass Strait by Tuesday morning, and as the winds and seas moderated further, we motorsailed to keep our speed up, arriving at Rushcutters Bay in Sydney in sunshine and light winds on Wednesday afternoon. The first low is now well offshore in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, while the second, more powerful low is now over the Bass Strait.

Regards,
David.
 

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