Barry Hurley's blog

At 0900 EST Dinah slipped her lines, and left the dock outside the Newport
Yacht Club where she had arrived to much celebration ten days earlier. That
same cannon that had fired as she arrived went off again to mark her
departure (thank you George!). It was quite emotional leaving, and I was
glad to be wearing my sunglasses to keep up the macho appearance of a
hardened solo skipper.

As we motored past the Newport seafront, I gave a little wave to each of the
wonderful places that will be engrained on my memories forever.

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I promised after the finish that I would go back and fill in the gaps of the
final two days of the race. When I last gave a proper blog, Oscar had
overtaken me with his bold move North, leaving me with a lot of miles to
catch up and the countdown to the finish getting more and more stressful.

I knew that tactically Oscar had trumped me by getting into the other
weather system earlier, and that I effectively had one big move left before
the finish. I pushed Dinah to run as deep as she would possibly go.

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I'm terribly sorry for not blogging over the last few days. I got a bit
carried away with being focused on the racing part of the race instead
of the life experience part of the race.

I'll update you more over the next few days, but the good news is....

At 11.02 GMT this morning Dinah crossed the finish line to claim first
over the line in class and first on corrected time IRC in class.

We did it!

Barry & Dinah.

I'm writing this on deck, crossing Georges Bank. In a few hours time
I'll go over a shoal that will see only 5m of water under Dinah's keel.
We're nearly at the other side! Of course we're still 100 miles from
Nantucket, but that's tomorrows business.

It's been a day where anything was possible. Before dawn another
lightning storm brought an enormous lull with it. I managed to get back
into breeze without losing too much time, but only after a few full
circles with absolutely no steerage way whatsoever! Very frustrating.

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Average life expectancy of a sailing glove in OSTAR? 19 days apparently!
Just as well my hands underneath are probably tougher than the gloves by
now anyway! And there's not long to go anyway.

19 days. I can't believe we've been out here 19 days so far. It honestly
feels like a week. 19 days since taking my leave from the balcony of the
Royal Western, where the crew of "O'Pegasus", Dinah's support boat for
the start, were shooting the breeze with the legendary Brian Thompson of
Bahrain Team Pindar. I must still find an excuse good enough to open the
bottle they gave me.

Jan Kees Lampe crossed the finish line this morning at 01.10 to take
line honours in this edition of OSTAR, thereby smashing the record for
boats up to 40ft. Jan set a blistering pace ensuring that his Open 40,
La Promesse, is the first monohull to take line honours in OSTAR since
Eric
Tabarly in 1976.

What's more he's a really really nice guy! We had a few drinks together
on the Tamar Ferry one evening the week before the race, and I'm so
pleased that he has seen his ambition come to fruition. Well sailed Jan.
Put a beer in the fridge for me, will you?

Barry

Last night was nice. Flat water, gentle breeze from behind. I was able
to make good speed, without too much physical effort, and even managed
to catch about three hours of sleep in naps during the night. I knew
today would be more physical so any chance I got to sleep I took
advantage of.

The breeze built gradually all morning and veered around to come from
the beam to give perfect power reaching conditions. Dinah really does
like this type of breeze. I'm not sure why, perhaps because she is so
wide, but give her breeze at 110deg apparent and she'll do anything for
you.

Today was a straightforward sailing day. The big breeze we had last
night gradually died and backed during the night. Spinnaker went up
before dawn, and has been flying all day with just one gybe after lunch.

I spent a lot of time doing preventative maintenance, checking halyards
for chafe, checking engine oil, lubricating sail hanks and sliders,
checking battens, tightening and seizing shackles,etc, etc.

From a naturalists point of view today had it all. David Attenborough
would have given up his ticket to the Galapagos Turtle Ball to see what
the North Atlantic had to offer.

During the night, just on the Eastern edge of the Grand Banks, we sailed
through an enormous electrical storm. Lightening of density and
intensity greater than I've ever witnessed, and I've seen a few in my
time. We went right through the middle, with bolts going off everywhere
around the boat at the same time. I stood in the companionway looking
out through the hatch thinking "Great!

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While sitting out the worst of the storm I slept twice for an hour each.
To date on the race I had't slept for more than a half hour at a time.
So needless to say after two full hours sleep I was up for anything! As
soon as the breeze started to veer I was going again, and pushing
hard...

The night was extremely tough, with both sea and air temperatures really
low, and 30+knts of wind sustained until dawn. When preparing for this
race I knew it would be cold. Very cold. But what I wasn't prepared for
was how it could be so cold and so humid. 99% relative humidity all
night long.