[Greyhawkupdates] And done!

[Tim Allen GREYHAWK]

Twenty-four hours I ago I left you with this:

On Jun 21, 2011, at 7:40 PM, Tim Allen GREYHAWK wrote:
> 
> ...So we're setting up for a chilly damp night of tending the chute. Hopefully we can keep it off the headstay and out of the water (there are lots and lots of red jelly fish here...).

We started out in light air, but the wind built to 7, then 8, then 9 .... 10, 11, 12 knots, up and down through the night -- when the wind got up to 12 we were closing the finish at well over 7 knots, which was awesome, but there were still a few wind holes we had to go through, too. But we succeeded in carrying the spinnaker the whole way, staying  on course for the Brenton Reef buoy, through shifts, lulls, and all, our closing speed rising and falling with the wind speed. We could only hope that our competitors behind us were getting stuck in the expanding wind holes (surely they must be expanding!). We used our cell phone rather than the radio to call in to the race committee to announce our impending arrival as we didn't want to give away any information that might help further motivate the boats following us. While the phone was out, we also called US Customs in Houghton, Maine, to let them know of our arrival too. I'll leave it to the government to explain why one is supposed to call northern Maine when arriving in southern New England. 

We crossed the line at 0306, for a total elapsed time of 135 hours and 46 minutes. What a long race!  So now after 5 days and 5 nights of continuous racing, Wendy says the "little" overnight races we do up in Maine are really not such a big deal anymore.

We proceeded in to the Newport Yacht Club, and Roy Guay directed us to a slip and helped us tie up. The Customs Officer was also there waiting for us (at 4:20 in the morning!). So we took care of our paperwork, and then went back to the boat to crash for a few hours. It was 4:35. I awoke a little after 6:15 and got ready to go in for a shower. Wendy got up too, and when we went up to the club we noticed that Aggressive had just tied up (Beau Blue was also just in). A quick calculation in my groggy head suggested that Aggressive had probably finished only about 2 hours after us, not the three that we would need to be ahead on corrected time. So shave and shower, then breakfast at Belle's at the Shipyard. Wendy was very impressed by the Puma boat there, loving the graphics especially the puma cat coming out of the wave on the bow, but also the orange Berg propellor on the bottom. Finally back to the boat to start cleaning up, and catching up with some of the other skippers. So we finished 2nd elapsed in class, 14th elapsed in the fleet (29 boats started from Bermuda), and 3rd on corrected time in class (corrected time results for the whole fleet hadn't been calculated yet, because not all of the boats had finished yet...). 

So again, big congratulations to Roy and Gail Greenwood on Cordelia (DH leg winners in Class 3), and to Ray Renaud and Roger Defelice on Aggressive who gave us a great race. Also congrats to Tristan Mouligne and his brother John Jay on Samba (winners in class 1, and presumed overall fleet winners for the DH leg, based on preliminary incomplete results), Patrick Jones and his daughter Macy on Adhara (winners of class 2), and Jon Greene and John Keane on Jeroboam (presumed winners in class 4, and close behind Samba for the overall fleet win).

The final awards presentation will take place on Saturday evening at the Newport Yacht Club. Then Greyhawk head back to Maine for the rest of the season!

Regards,

Tim and Wendy, off GREYHAWK and back home.