With three legs remaining, Tripp Tease is fourth overall in Division 1 of the 2013 Black Press Van Isle 360 International Yacht Race.
The Comox Valley entry in the biennial, 580-nautical mile race around Vancouver Island finished fourth in leg seven of the 10-leg event, which went June 16 from Port Hardy to Winter Harbour. They were less than three minutes behind White Cloud, which took Division 1 honours in 16:47.44. Terremoto was second and Radical Departure third.
"Happy to arrive in Winter Harbour!" the Tripp Tease crew wrote in their blog. "Today was a long day (and night!) After 20 hours of very challenging sailing our regatta was in jeopardy. More of that in a minute... We had a great start in PH and sailed into very light airs in Goletas Channel. Ended up with the Big Boats at Nahwitti Bar. Shooting the middle was the way to go despite the adverse current.
"Hung with Radical Departure as White Cloud and Terramoto legged out in front. Right behind Westerly as they hit a rock and had to retire from the leg.
Around Cape Scott we were right with RD and Raven. Tough change to #3 as the wind built to 20 knots.
Wind lightened in the night and lots of waves with no wind. Why do we do this?! RD eked ahead and took 3rd from us within the last hour. The day was full of transitions and changing gears.
"Oh yeah – and the adversity!
Routine is to run the engine in the night to charge batteries. Came off a wave and the wind died. Rigged emergency nav lights and turned off fridge to conserve power. After finishing Diva towed us in. With some help from our friends on Icon we got the engine running.
"Tomorrow we start at 8 a.m. 136ish miles to Uke and once again light winds forecasted. Jerad is off for this leg and we are joined by Thomas – he’s very enthusiastic and a welcome addition to the crew!"
The leg seven win moved White Cloud into first place overall in Division 1 with 293 points, just slightly ahead of second place Terremoto with 290. Radical Departure is third overall with 238 points while Tripp Tease has 229 points.
Leg eight on June 16 took the yachts from Winter Harbour to Ucluelet. Leg nine on June 19 goes from Ucluelet to Victoria, and leg 10 on June 21 takes the fleet to the start/finish port in Nanaimo on June 22.
After seven legs, Dragonfly was leading the Multihulls with 91 points while Moxie was second with 78 and Bad Kitty was third with 59. In the Big Boat Division, Icon was first with 139 points followed by Flash with 135, Dark Star 128, New Haven 77 and Westerly 75.
Fans can follow the race on the ship's blog tripptease.wordpress.com, online at www.vanisle360.com, on Twitter @2013Van and Facebook at facebook.com/VanIsle360.
Lots of photos have been posted on our Facebook page as well. Check it out at www.facebook.com/VanIsle360.