Nathan save $$$$… sleeps in boat in parking lot
Nathan is finally on his way to Miami - well sort of. He is sleeping in his boat for a second night in the parking lot of a Wal Mart in Scranton Pennsylvania.

There were some last minute hick-ups in the travel plans and suddenly Nathan had no vehicle and no driver. Ever resourceful, Nathan shared his problem with his team and our community in the hopes that someone would have some ideas. Not long after he put out the calls, several options emerged. This is a critical skill for anyone who takes on a big project with more enthusiasm than money. Well done Nathan!

Ultimately, David Wilby of Pride Marine came to the rescue and was able to drive Nathan and his boat to Pennsylvania last night where Nathan meets his next ride all the way to Miami with his friend Caj (still researching a last name).

The story doe not end here. Unfortunately Caj was held up and Nathan is now spending another night on the boat. In good spirits, Nathan’s explained over the phone to his wife Alison that “it will be better tonight. It should stay above zero degrees inside the cabin tonight”. Apparently, last night was a full-on “mini” winter camping experience. Thank goodness the Starbuck’s across the street opened at 7:30 am! Who knew winter camping and an early morning Starbuck’s run would ever be part of the same story.

The thing I like best about this little story is how this project has inspired our community to help in whatever ways they can - some with money, some with time, some with ocean sailing experience, some with powerful tow vehicles, etc. The best part is that none of these specific forms of community support could ever have been predicted in advance when Nathan first shared his dream with us, but somehow it all works out and we are making it happen. Marvelous!

The next leg of the Journey should be straight forward - drive to Miami and set up the boat.

We will let you know when he arrives and can share stories of warm breezes and palm trees.

On Friday the Classe Mini released the first version of the Transat 6.50 entry list, and I was releived to see my name under the DCQ entrants.

There are seven foreigners competing for DCQ spots and two compeitors have already qualified. So now it’s a race for the remaining compeitors to get all of their qualificaitons out of the way. (For foreigners, the first to fufil all of the qualification obligations, goes to the top of the list.)

We have a lot of work to do, but we are trucking along, right on schedule.

Next up: 1000nm Qualification sail. More on that in a bit.

Transat 6,50 Marintime de Bahia (aka the mini transat…) NOR was posted yesterday as was the entry application. This means we finally have the dates for the MT:

Skippers must be in La Rochelle by September 3
Race Start: September 13
Second Leg: Start on Oct 3
Expected arrival in Brazil:– Oct 21
Awards in Paris on Dec 2009

Link the the documents (PDF) is here.

Very exciting times for me as we see things coming together for our time in Europe. More on this in a bit.

So I was at a barn party a few weeks ago, and my buddy Steve Black, K7waterfront, was there and we got talking about blogging and news reports and he turned to me and Said: “You haven’t posted anything since July, that just not good enough”. He was totally right.

But I have a confession though…

When we got back from Bermuda, I took a little time to rest, and then started to look at the months that we had coming up and then looking at the rest of the campaign, we are now less than 12 months away from the start of 2009 MT. It is scary how much we have to get done.

Financial woes also cause me concern. We have barely been able to keep up with the expenses for the BOR, and now we have some repairs and things to change on the boat and cash is really tight. This, despite a crew of teammates that have been working their butts off for every donation and gift to the campaign.

So the long and the short of it is that it’s pretty tough to keep blogging with so much uncertainty and stress. While I would love to be reporting on fun sailing exploits, technical notes of interest and other fun stuff, the reality is that I am stressing about money and trying to juggle all the balls of applications, administration and proposals.

But the reason Steve was right, is because you want to hear about these trials and tribulations, you want to know where we are headed next and what we are up to with events, training and the other very meaningful partnerships that we have set up.

So while I am eager to share the cool stuff, I always hesitate to talk about the financial and administrative worries which consume me from day to day. But you know what? That’s just part of it all, so I’m going to give it to you straight.

More in a bit.

This is either the first or second question that people ask me when I bump into them when I haven’t seen them for a while. “It’s going OK” is my usual answer. Not great, not bad, but ok.

Brown’s Fine Foods here in Kingston have made a generous donation that will get us through the winter. This money will buy stuff like epoxy, solar panels, and miscellaneous bits and pieces to help get the boat ready to sail in the spring. This has taken a bunch of pressure off us, BUT we will definitely need more money to get through the sailing season.

When I combine all of the in-kind, cash donations, and services that people have provided, it adds up to something just short of $50,000. That sounds impressive, but this is just the start. In the next few months we will have a LOT of expenses like race fees, generator, life raft, flares and emergency gear etc. etc. etc.

It’s funny how the little expenses always turn out to be way more than you thought they would be. For instance, I just ordered all of the charts that I will need for the coming year (Chesapeake River, US North East coast, and Bermuda) as well as the list of lights, tide tables, and nautical almanac. The total bill was around $800 USD. Wow.

I don’t like pimping for donations. I’m bad at it and it generally makes me feel uncomfortable. But when I look at the race schedule, the work list and the 3 year plan, I just can help but make the humble request for help….

Here’s a video that Kristian just posted on the Leo’s site. I’ve written about Andraz and Kristian before; their blog was the best way to follow the transat!

Enjoy!

I mentioned this earlier, check out this video. Find the rest here.

The race reports on the Transat 650 site have been frustratingly slow and at times confusing because of that endearing “franglais” dialect. However, this morning’s report really conveys why this race is so special.

“Every day life on the Transat 6,50 Charente-Maritime/Bahia’s pontoons: tears, laughs, and long hugs… All the sailors have been through hell and paradise during the race. And all of them are proud and satisfied of what they have done.”

Just getting to the start line takes two years of commitment, every financial resource at your disposal, thousands of hours working on the boat just to keep up with the fleet and thousands more trying to make the boat faster.

Then there is the race. Leg two of this race would have been described as carnage on this side of the pond: five dismastings and numerous breakages forced competitors into port to make repairs. There were many heroics on the water, like Adrian Hardy’s amazing feat of repairing and raising his fallen mast at sea. Many of favorites to win, like Isabelle Joscke and Sam Manuard, had serious breakages that forced them to make repairs at sea, but in the end they fought to the finish.

This is what makes this race so special. Things that would make Joe Blow sailor radio for a rescue don’t faze mini sailors. They fight until the end, even if the victory is lost, they finish.

I can’t imagine the feelings that you must have coming into the dock in Brazil. At the end of two or three years, the project is done. The friends and family that have supported you are on the dock to welcome you in and you have crossed an ocean in a tiny, over canvassed boat. No matter where you place in the race, this is enough to make it all worth it.

All of this is ahead of me. Watching the sailors finish in Salvador is nothing short of totally inspiring. It makes me realize how hard it is going to be, how emotional it will be, and how totally worth it it will be in the end.

The French often talk about “making beautiful stories” and this is the happy ending for these sailors.

Yves Le Blevec, the former boat captain on the maxi catamaran Orange, crossed the finish line in Salvador this morning.

Because his radio was broken he had no idea he was in the lead for most of the second leg, so you can just imagine how he felt coming into the finish to find he had won the race!

Here’s an except from the Trasat website:

“It is an incredible, extraordinary feeling. I live for that project only since two years already, a project that my partner “Actual” and I built with a common aim… Winning only… As we did today in Salvador de Bahia! But that entire story is huge. Remember where I come from. I prepared both my boat and I these lasts months without knowing if I would leave. (- Yves knew that he could line up at start only a few days before the start as 4 other sailors -) After the first leg I really was under pressure because of my opponents level: Isa (Joschke), Sam (Manuard), but also Hardy, Deshayes and all the others… I have belt along as much as I could, without resting, and only at few moments I was worried for my boat and wondered if all that was reasonable.

When I passed the Equator where I dismasted in 2005, I had the feeling to be free. And, I had to concentrate again on my objectives by saying to myself “but you haven’t done anything yet, you still have half an Ocean to cross.” And at that moment, my boat fulfilled me… Easy, gliding in the trade winds, being incredibly well balanced. Yet I solicited it so much. Again I really doubt in the ‘Pot au Noir’. I have slow down a first time, and when I believed that the Pot was a bad memory; a monstrous cloud filled with storms and rain stuck me up and punished me by down pouring again and again… I, then, thought that the other competitors were cooler more east. I constantly was afraid to be overtaken under Brazilian Coasts. Without having any news since 6 days, I had to keep being aggressive. The boat did the rest…”

My buddy Geoff Webster is a rock star sailing photographer based in Kingston and I was delighted when he agreed to help me get some photos for promotional stuff for the campaign. We went out on Wednesday evening with Matt and James Fair driving the whaler.

As always Geoff got some great shots. Here’s a sample.