In a distance race the boats tend to separate and you get the opportunity to the sail the boat as fast as possible for extended periods of time. We had near perfect conditions onboard Stephen Murray’s Decision for the Lauderdale to Key West Race. We covered the 160 mile course in a little over 11 hours, sailing against current and with a fair amount of gybing involved.

All distance racing requires a far amount of preparation. Gijs Gunemen the boats captain did a good job getting the boat together in a short time frame. Steve Benjamin of North Sails was onboard and delegated responsibilities and task to everyone the day prior to the start. I was in charge of going through the sail inventory making sure battens were in place, jibs were properly flaked and spinnakers were banded.  9 of the the 11 crew members were in a day early so we could go out for a good practice sail the day prior to the start. We wanted to get a good look at most of the sails in the inventory, make sure our rig was tuned up properly on both tacks and work on handling the boat downwind.  

Sailing with good sailors is always fun, I was very impressed with how Steve organized everyone in a short time frame and then trusted them to take care of there assigned responsibilities. It’s hard to do, because being in charge you want everything to be right and that pressure sometimes causes micro management and not completing all the little things that need to be done prior to the race. One of the keys to the boat doing well in the race was having a productive practice day. 

In the Lauderdale to Key West Race it is key to stay close to the reefs and out of the stronger current of the Gulf stream. In this year race there was an interesting balance between more wind velocity offshore and less current inshore. Mix that with a oscillating breeze that moved from 45 to 70 degrees TWD and that made for a real chess match.

The Transpac 52 is a handful in 25 to 30 knots of breeze. We sailed 75% of the race with a full main, spinnaker staysail and the A4 chute. At the start the new Sjambok looked to be very fast but when we peeled from the A3 to the A4 Decision came into her own and passed Sjambok. As dusk was approaching we had made a good lead away from the two other TP 52’s and Sjambok with only the 80 foot R/P designed “Harrier” ahead of us. At this point we were really free to sail our own race gybing on the wind the wind shifts and navigating around reefs. The grinders and spin trimmers had a real workout and even helming the boat made for aching shoulders the day after racing because of the load on the rudder. Avoiding any round ups required real coordination between both the main and chute trimmer and the helmsmen. If either sail was over trimmed there was a good chance the boat was going to be out of balance and start heading up towards the breeze. We had no breakdowns of boat or sails which is a testament to good preparation and a good boat. In the end we were second across the line a half an hour behind “Harrier”.  We corrected to first in class and first overall for the race, a great way to start 2007!

Cheers,
Jack Jennings
Pied Piper Racing