[EXPIRED]ARC Caribbean Completed, 11/17/2014

For all our sailing friends: the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) is an annual Atlantic sailing event for cruiser yachts held since 1986. The ARC Caribbean 1500 fleet sails from Portsmouth, VA at the mouth the Chesapeake Bay to Nanny Cay on Tortola. Follow the fleet via the website links below…and dream a little!

Subject: CORSAIR RESULTSHey Winston…. Results are in…. After much “discussion” about the virtue of a race versus a rally…. The results were announced on Saturday afternoon. CORSAIR participated in Class A with 12 other boats. Corsair was second in her class after adjusting for motoring times. Cricket Clifton, the only woman aboard, won for the “biggest bruise”. (photos of that are available but not included in this post…) Lastly, and most importantly, the “Spirit of the Caribbean 1500 Race” was also awarded to CORSAIR!! This exemplifies the one boat that is best at sailing, preparation, seamanship, and camaraderie . We are very proud of them.We are off to explore the BVIs today. I’ll try to stay in touch. Stay warm our in Colorado!! Thanks for following and highlighting Corsair on the Cruiser’s Net Website. Be well.

ARC Caribbean 1500 & ARC Bahamas- follow the fleetI am sure everyone at home is excited to follow your progress while at sea. It looks like the boats are getting ready but somehow the “to do list” has been growing every day! Remember that the biggest memories you will have is the people you meet so make sure you take the time to get to know your neighbor’s and have some fun!Follow the fleet on our websiteYou can follow the fleet by going to our website – there is one site for the ARC Caribbean 1500 rally and one for the ARC Bahamas rally.11/15/14The crew finished the many miles from the Chesapeake Bay to Tortola… Looks like they are happy to be in Nanny Cay. More than 10 boats have yet to arrive due to extremely variable and sometimes non-existent winds.. Thanks for your support and good cheer.11/8/2014Hi All, We have 654 nm to go to the finish line. It was a busy night. The AIS function on all the boats out here is acting crazy. Coast Guard warned mariners that the recent huge solar flare was causing problems with the AIS systems. not a real problem here, just annoying. We had some heavy rain squalls that killed the wind and we had to motor another 4 hours. Next the bilge pump started cycling way to often. Discovered salt walter was getting in the boat. After an hour of work at 04:00 last night we found the source was the anchor locker. The bilge pump in there was off, we had taken so much water over the bow the locker was filling and this was slowly leaking into the main bilge. All is well now, we are celebrating passing the half way point with rum cake for lunch.Love Tom or Dad11/8/2014Couldn’t resist sharing the latest from CORSAIR…. Looks like they caught a big 30 pound mahi mahi, but lost 45 minutes from the race!! Sure looks beautiful. This is Colin Curtis, one of the capable crew. Hopefully, the weather will hold. Anne was trying to post the photo on the CORSAIR Facebook page. We wish them well…Becky11/9/2014We continue to make progress though it is painfully slow. We did manage to sail for about 90 minutes around and through a local squall line. We are going to continue a little more easterly until about 11 pm then we will set a course direct to Tortola. At the turn we will have about 425 miles to the finish if we do not have to tack later. Everyone had a quick shower today, spirits are up and we smell a lot better. Cricket is making us a chicken dish and fresh asparagus for dinner. We have chilled a bottle of white wine and will enjoy a movie after dinner. We feel bad for some of the smaller boats that are really far behind. There will probably be some very late finishes. Since we started a day late all the parties at Nanny will be a day late. Love to all from the crew.Thomas Rose S/V CorsairARC Caribbean 1500 website: www.worldcruising.com/Carib1500ARC Bahamas website: www.worldcruising.com/arc_bahamasOn the website, you will find a lot of links on the left hand side.Entry list: see a list of all boats in the fleet, including the owner, type of boat and where they are from.Fleet Viewer : All boats will be fitted with a GPS tracker – this is where you can follow their progress south. The fleet viewer will be activated Saturday November 1st.News: rally news will be updated regularly during the event, both in port and at sea.Gallery: Check out some fun photos from the eventLogs: Read the blogs from the boats during their preparations and under way. You can read them all, or choose a specific boat on the scroll down menu (the boat name will only show up if they have posted a blog). If you cant see a blog from your friends, encourage them to start blogging!Weather: Read the same weather as the boats will get sent to them while at sea.’YB races’ app for smartphonesIf you have a smartphone, you can download the ‘YB Races’ app and follow the fleet south via their GPS tracker. The app itself is free, but to buy the “ARC Caribbean 1500 race”, you have to spend a few dollars. You can download the app already today, but the rally will only be available a few days before the start.Follow the rallies on FacebookFacebook will be updated regularly with pictures and stories – make sure you ‘like’ us to get the latest updates! facebook.com/carib1500This is the crew and captain of CORSAIR one of the participants in the Caribbean 1500. Tom Dugan is far left in yellow and the boats owner and captain is next to him in red jacket, Tom Rose. They all hail from the Palmetto, FL area.The CORSAIR Crew was bundled up and ready to set sail. The race started today at noon. I’ll try to keep updates coming. Check out the CORSIAR Facebook page and the website Carribbean 1500.CORSAIR FACEBOOK UPDATES: https://worldcruising.com/carib1500/logsarticle.aspx?page=S635507049031505567&ArchiveID=5&CategoryID=192&ItemID=235470&src11/6: http://www.findmespot.com/mylocation/?id=K87q9/33.37410N/72.85605W (33°22.446N / 072°51.363W)Winston Fowler