Recollections from Rich Du Moulin about the 2011 Transatlantic Race

CARINA Transatlantic Crew

Rives Potts (Big Rives), father of Walker and uncle of Rives

Sutherland (Little Rives), Bud Sutherland father of Little Rives,

RIch du Moulin father of Ed and Mark, Dirk Johnson father of

Dirk Jr., Cyane Crump- friend of all

Carina is a beautiful black 48 foot aluminum sloop built for Richard Nye of Indian Harbor YC in 1969.  She won the Bermuda Race in 1970 followed by the Transatlantic to Spain in 1972. Carina's present owner is Rives Potts who believes in family and friend racing . This perfectly describes all ten of Carina's crew for Transatlantic 2011 which we completed July 15.  Rives and I met after the 1970 Bermuda Race, and have been friends since. Rives was a winch grinder on the America's Cup 12 meter Freedom that defeated Australia in 1980. My Dad managed the the Freedom Campaign while I was part-time helping out on trial horse Enterprise (my full time Cup sailing was over).   Two years ago when RIves was Sailing Committee Chair of New York YC (he is now rear commodore) , we came up with the idea of this Transatlantic Race.  A committee headed by George David (owner of Rambler 100) and Steve Frank took charge of organizing not only the Race, but the Atlantic Ocean Racing Series for which it forms a core event.  

   Sundown in light air

The four co-sponsoring club's included: NYYC, Storm Trysail, Royal Ocean Racing Club, and the Royal Yacht Squadron based in Cowes.  The 3000 mile course was Newport to the Lizard (near the English Channel entrance near Lands End).  There were 27 competitors ranging from Class 40's to the 289 foot square-rigged Maltese Falcon.  Other races in this series included the Annapolis-Newport (Carina was 2nd in Class) and the Royal Ocean Racing Club's Fastnet Race from England to Ireland and back, which should be finished by the time of this publication.  The Fastnet has 350 entries, with a waiting list of 130- truly an amazing event. It is raced under the IRC handicap rule.

   Mark Steering

Carina has a great crew who had a blast sailing with each other across the Atlantic. We had four fathers and five sons (plus one excellent female sailor to keep order) with the main commandment being " You cannot talk back to your own father." Two of my sons are crewing on Carina- Edward (age 27) and Mark (23)- both Larchmont and Storm Trysail members. Ed and Mark (and brother Matthew and sister Lora) graduated from the Larchmont Junior program and attended Storm Trysail's Junior Safety-at-Sea program held at LYC. Rives son Walker just completed two combat tours in Iraq in the Marines, and attempted to go to University in Christchurch ,New Zealand, but the campus was wrecked in the recent earthquake. Now Walker is attending "Carina University". Walker's cousin Rives Sutherland ("Little Rives") is also aboard. Little Rives' Dad Bud Sutherland raced with Big Rives on Ted Turner's Tenacious in the infamous 1979 Fastnet Race where 15 sailors died.  They won that race, which lead to the Safety-at-Sea initiatives on both sides of the ocean. For the slot of navigator, we shanghaied Storm Trysail member Dirk Johnson from Bella Mente who brought his 16 year old son Dirk Jr as the youngest crew on any boat in the race.  Not related to the rest of the crew (this is not Arkansas) was the Potts'  family friend Cyane Crump from Richmond, Virginia. She organized all our crew certification, yacht documentation, food purchasing, and crew gear.  Cyane also took her turn steering, while all the crew shared in cooking and cleaning.

   Finish at "The Lizard" in England

 

To enable all boats to finish within the same week, there were staggered starts spread out from June 26 through July 3.  The smallest boats like Carina started June 26.  We lead this group from the start and maintained the lead position in fleet until July 4 when bigger boats that started behind us began to pull up to us. A few big ones capable of speeds in excess of 30 knots like Rambler 100, the Volvo 70 Puma, the big Maltese Falcon, and the Gunboat 60 catamaran Phaedra eventually blew by us and managed to reach the finish before the wind lightened.  The rest of the fleet pulled up next to us but couldn't pass due to a light air high pressure ridge building up south of Ireland. Typical of sailing, as we slowed down, a 46 footer in our class 350 miles back closed to 80 miles and at the finish saved their time by 55 minutes to take first in class from us. Such is sailing!  We crossed the finish line only a few boat lengths behind British Soldier, crewed by, well.... British soldiers.  This well-sailed boat owed us time so we beat them on handicap. The close finish was very exciting with lots of cheers going back and forth. 

Of particular interest on this crossing was the amount of marine life that we witnessed.  Porpoises played under our bow several times each day, jumping clear of the water and looking at us eye-to-eye.  Twice we had to radically bear off to prevent ramming whales. We identified four species of whale, including two giant sperm whales bigger than Carina.  These have big jaws and teeth, and do not have the arcing swimming motion of other whales. Sperm whales steam straight ahead like ships, with their spouting angled 45 degrees in front, not vertically.  We stayed away from them due to their known aggressiveness- remember the whale ship Essex that was sunk, not to mention Moby Dick.  We also passed by dozens of large sharks, sunfish, and tuna.  This was my fourth Transatlantic but the most enjoyable due to the family approach to ocean racing.

   Crew after arrival in Cowes, England (plus Cyane's mother in front)

   Mark-top left, Ed-2nd person from left - middle row, Richard- bottom

   row right end.

The adventure will not be over after the upcoming Fastnet Race. Walker, Little Rives and Mark are sailing Carina to Sydney, Australia via the Panama Canal, the Galapagos, and Tahiti.  Our crew will re-unite in Sydney at Christmas for the Sydney to Hobart Race starting on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas.  We hope to spend New Years in Tasmania!