[BarryL]

Hi Guys,

I will sailing in the Around Long Island Regatta (ALIR) tomorrow. No, not on m boat, but on the boat I have been racing on this year. The boat is a nicely prepared 1988 C&C 35. The name of the boat is RJMS and we are in the PHRF spinnaker division.

If anyone cares, info on the race is here:
alir.org

We start Thursday at 6:00PM. The sailing instructions are pretty simple: start at a point off Rockaway beach (near JFK airport) and sail around long island (pass Montauk point, then Orient Point, then enter the sound) and finish off Glen Cove. The direct route is about 190nm. If the wind is decent we should finish early on Saturday.

This will be a number of 'firsts' for me:
-First time being in the open ocean (my only previous ocean experience was a short trip from Orient Point to Block Island)
-First time spending more than 24 hours in a row at sea
-First time using a harness and tether
-First time sleeping at sea (taking a 30 minute nap on a 6 hour coastal trip doesn't count).
and so on

I will have my SPOT GPS tracker on and active. If anyone wants to see where we are, use this link:
Please wait for redirect

Wish me luck!

Barry

 

[smurphny]

Be very careful of being out on the ocean overnight. You may become immediately addicted Best of luck.

 

[tommays]

Good luck Barry and be real careful off ALL THE FISHING boat and ship traffic along the south shore

If you look careful you will see more ships than expected and a lot of random dragger's

 

[HUGOSALT]

Don't forget to look up at night,
waxing crescent is great moon phase for star watching once you
are far east enough past light pollution. "Google Sky Map" great for identifying
stars/planets. Numerous shooting stars out there as well.

 

[jimrafford]

Anticipate the winds in Gardners bay to be blowing harder than at Montauk and in the sound. If you have a smart phone get the bouy data app and ship finder. Takes the mystery out of whats ahead.
Jim

 

[CalebD]

Barry,
You are having great weather for it so enjoy it to the max!
Always have wanted to do an ALIR trip myself.
Have fun, but do get some sleep between stargazing and hiding from the sun.
Most of all: you lucky bastage!

C

 

[chef2sail]

Hi Guys,

I will sailing in the Around Long Island Ragatta (ALIR) tomorrow. No, not on m boat, but on the boat I have been racing on this year. The boat is a nicely prepared 1988 C&C 35. The name of the boat is RJMS and we are in the PHRF spinnaker division.

If anyone cares, info on the race is here:
alir.org

We start Thursday at 6:00PM. The sailing instructions are pretty simple: start at a point off Rockaway beach (near JFK airport) and sail around long island (pass Montaiuk point, then Orient Point, then enter the sound) and finish off Glen Cove. The direct route is about 190nm. If the wind is decent we should finish early on Saturday.

This will be a number of 'firsts' for me:
-First time being in the open ocean (my only previous ocean experience was a short trip from Orient Point to Block Island)
-First time spending more than 24 hours in a row at sea
-First time using a harness and tether
-First time sleeping at sea (taking a 30 minute nap on a 6 hour coastal trip doesn't count).
and so on

I will have my SPOT GPS tracker on and active. If anyone wants to see where we are, use this link:
Please wait for redirect

Wish me luck!

Barry

Gotta love those C&C 35 MKIII:laugher:laugher:laugher:laugher

 

[BarryL]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the nice comments. Leaving in an hour to pick up the guys and head to the boat.

I'll be back with a report Sunday (I hope).

Barry

 

[CalebD]

Was at the beach at Centre Island near Bayville/Oyster Bay on Friday (today) from 4 - 7 pm. Saw hardly any sailboats that seemed to be making for Hempstead Harbor.
I see I am about 12 - 24 hours too early to see much.
Hope you brought your foulies.

 

[BarryL]

Finished

Hi Guys,

We finished the race and I'm back.

I think we did well - third in class (out of eight) and I think we came in 23rd overall (around 70 boats). We had lots of everything: high wind, low wind, bright sun, heavy rain, midday and midnight, spinnakers, reefed main.

Highlights for me included sailing at night in the ocean, around 2:00AM, about 3 miles off shore, under a clear night with stars bright, seeing the milky way from horizon to horizon, with the boat moving nicely. Also flying the spinnaker as we rounded Montauk point and headed up through Block Island Sound, with the wind around 15 kts and the boat moving at 8 kts, passing other boats and sailing hard.

Lowlights include: Falling asleep in the cockpit in the rain at 4:00am, waking up at 5:00am and having puddles all over me, having the wind just die off my home port of Mt. Sinai, and just staring at the shore an hour while we go NO WHERE.

Overall I am happy that I did the race and very pleased with the boat and crew. Everyone got along well, worked hard, and persevered.

I have put some photos on an album. You can see them here:
SailNet Community - BarryL's Album: Around Long Island Regatta 2014

Barry

 

[CalebD]

Barry,
Congrats on finishing the regatta respectably. Sounds like you had a good time despite varying conditions.
Did your boat anchor off Mt. Sinai when you had a lull in the wind? Anchoring is legal as far as I know. With no wind, the current in the Sound can trump your forward motion so anchoring is a good tactic.

 

[BarryL]

Hi Caleb,

We had a flooding tide when we were becalmed off Mt. Sinai. So even with the wind instrument and the boat speed (STW) reading 0.0 we were still making 1 kt in the right direction. It was quite depressing to watch the ETA for the finish get later and later and later.

Eventually the wind filled in, 4 kts at first, then slowly building. This happened around 1:00AM. I went off watch at 500 and was back on deck at 800. By that time the wind was up to 15 kts and building. We had a screaming downwind run into Glen Cove under spinnaker. We were catching two boats, with a realistic chance of passing one and gaining a position. All we needed to do was gybe the chute and we would catch them. Unfortunately, I guess we weren't ready to gybe in that much wind because we blew it big time - rounding up, almost getting knocked down, wrapping the chute, and having to sail bare headed until we got the chute down and the #1 up. I lost my hand held GPS during the mess and we didn't catch anyone. In hindsight, and probably with a more rested, mentally fresh crew, we would have dropped the chute instead of trying to gybe it.

Barry