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We finished last night around 1 am the Key West Feeder Race.
It was not as windy and cold as promised but it was still a good work session. We started in Ft. Lauderdale with the A2 in about 12 knots of breeze. In the first hour, the breeze built to 18 knots and with a few gusts to over 20 so we changed to the A4. We held that sail for quite some time into the night. As we started to round the keys and harden up, we went to the A3, which is a heavier kite made to sail the higher angles. We deploy it in a zipper sock, which adds a little bit of safety as to when the sail will fill. The set up went well besides us getting wet on the bow and head lamps shorting out. We struggled a little to get the sock to open up properly but a good strong pull with 3 of us (Snowflake, Mickey, and myself) was enough to release whatever was keeping it from opening. After some time, we went from the A3 to the Fro, a sail which served us very well in Sardinia, and it didn’t fail us again. It allowed us to get up to 130- 125 true wind angle and hauling ass. For the boys on the handles, it was a grind fest. By the time the race was over, most of them had been grinding for 9 or more hours.
With the FRO on, and a genoa staysail, we put reefs in and out a few times depending on the wind strength. Most of them went well except when the backstay bunjees broke and caused some problems getting the main back on the lock. It meant a trip of the rig for me, which I don’t particularly enjoy. Once sorted, we were able to reef back and forth again.
We had to put up the A3 again after getting lifted a little and then back to the FRO before changing down to the J4 for the last little beat up to Key West.
One of the challenges for us on the front last night was that there was so much water and spray; the visibility to see what we were doing was a challenge.
We were first to finish and won corrected so all the hard work was rewarded. We learned a lot last year doing this race and were able to improve quite a bit.
Today was for some rest and re-moding the boat to inshore mode. Tomorrow we start our inshore practice and there will be a few more crew onboard for this racing.
Later,
Doogie

Fort Lauderdale to Key West Race: Bella Mente first to finish – South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com.

Race finished. Wet and cold but just had a bite to eat.

Cold and windy. Giddy up.

You should be able to follow the race here.
http://kws.kattack.com/kattacklive/offshore.aspx?FeedID=307

Our first race is tomorrow, where we will race from Ft.
Lauderdale to Key West. The course is about 160 miles and it looks
to be mostly downwind again this year. We will start at 1 pm
tomorrow and get in that night. The forecast is for 10-15 knots at
the start and building to the mid 20’s by the end of the race. So
we should have some good fun. The focus right now is on downwind.
We have lightened up the boat taking minimum upwind sails and
making sure we are ready for some downwind sailing and sail
changes. Yesterday’s practice was a fire drill of 3 hours of sail
changing. We started by sailing upwind a bit on starboard tack. We
have been working hard on improving the rig set up and we wanted to
get a feel for it in those wind conditions (about 18 knots). We
tacked over on port, bore away, and hoisted the A7 (a fractional
kite). Then to be honest, it was a blur of trying different
staysail and jib set ups while going down wind. We then sailed with
the A2 for awhile, still working on staysail combos. Then peeled to
the A3. After all that, we finally turned around and had a long
sail back to Lauderdale. As we are doing all this prep we are
keeping our thoughts on the downwind sailing we will be doing on
the west coast. But, the focus right now is to do well in this race
tomorrow and win.

BELLA MENTE out of the water at Cracker Boy Boatworks

Hello all,

Its been pretty quiet here on the website in terms of the BELLA MENTE racing teams actions, but I guarantee the team has been hard at work getting BELLA ready for her returning to racing in the US.  We are just a little over 40 days to go until racing begins for the 2011 season in Florida.  Hap and the boys have a heavy practice schedule starting Dec 12, 2010 leading up to the start of the Key West Feeder Race on January 12, 2011 from Ft Lauderdale.

Premiere-Racing, the organizing entity for KWRW has just announced a special trophy for the IRC fleet this year.

Key West 2011 has been designated the IRC Midwinter Championship. There will be a special Midwinter trophy awarded to the overall IRC winner on Friday at the final awards presentation.

(http://www.premiere-racing.com/keywest11/pages/KW11_IRC.htm#NEWS)

Hap Fauth and his team practically swept the 2010 KWRW event cleanly taking home the trophy.  They definitely have a big stake in repeating that performance and holding onto the title.

I stopped by the Cracker Boy yard in Riviera Beach FL to check in on the guy and their pre-season preparations.  They will be back in the water and the rig re-stepped soon for everyone’s arrival to get back to top racing form. Stay tuned to the site for more announcements in the next few weeks about the team taking it to the Pacific coast next, the modifications planned for the TransPac and plans for a new boat.  Meanwhile, enjoy these action shots of the “Bella Wolfpack” hard at work.

Boat Captain 'Pirate' Pete Henderson, looking on in charge

Thomas Allin smiles, despite working through the heat in a Tyvek suit on a leaking hatch cover.

Sam Loughborough stops for a smile while cruising across the yard on the guys preferred mode of transportation.

Jon Von Schwartz, captured sneaking off a few weeks before when Bella was still in the water.