Noon Report June 1, 2007 Position 30-07.-06N 70-52.46W as of 12:00 EDT Friday, June 1, 2007 Course 090 deg M Speed 7.1 kts @ 2100 RPM 347 NM to go Hamilton, Bermuda Distance made good last 24 hours 173 NM, average speed 7.2 kts Distance from Fort Lauderdale 684 NM Total fuel consumed 700 gals, average 7.4 GPH (including genset time), fuel remaining 780 gals Conditions: Wind 090 deg M @ 12 kts., swells 3-4 ft with 1-2 foot chop from 120 deg. M partly cloudy, visibility excellent. Barometer 1023.0 mb and steady. Sea water temp 76 deg F, air temp 76 deg F. ETA RBYC Hamilton, Bermuda, mid-day Sunday, June 3 More fish! NAR veteran Braun Jones says he believes that the N55 Salty Dawg may now have boated more fish on this leg of Med Bound 2007 than all of the NAR brought aboard on all three legs to Gibraltar. Whether or not that's the case, with Dennis Bruckel setting four lines at daybreak and running them all day long, the Dawg" box score to date on Med Bound 2007 reads as follows: Mahi mahi (dorado): 3 Mackerel: 1 Barracuda: 1 Wahoo: 2 And Dennis reports three BIG fish that got away, including a 6-foot blue marlin which he fought for 50 minutes right to the transom before the fish left with his lure. Salty Dawg's admiral, Lowie Bock, has ordered no more fishing because she has run out of freezer space. Aboard Bluewater, Judy is wondering how Lowie ever found freezer space that that much fresh fish at all because Judy's approach to provisioning is fill every conceivable cubic inch of freezer space with something important." Each day, Dennis tips his hand a bit more, revealing tips for Med Bound 2007's novice fishermen like me. He like to run four lines, the two near the center of the wake perhaps 1.5 boat-lengths out and the two outer ones about 2 boat lengths back. Small lures, up to six maybe eight inches, are his preference, and he uses no lead weights. Dennis likes to have the lures skipping along on the surface, preferably on the face of a wave so they can be seen from the cockpit and, more important, by the fish. He likes noisemakers, lures with tiny beads that shake around and create noise to attract the fish. Salty Dawg reports that work continues on the Salty Dawg Productions DVD which will have more tips and hands-on advice for the Med Bound's uninitiated. In addition, New Frontier has brought aboard 2 female mahi mahi and Grey Pearl a single male mahi mahi. Joey Boothby aboard Imagine fancies himself a fisherman, but he remains skunked and is resigned to fixing meat in the galley as he listens to the fish stories. Skipper Greg Beckner, a Texan, reports that the Texas Navy brings aboard more Black Angus than fish. Dan Topp, crewmember aboard Downtime, reported that busted stabilizers notwithstanding, he managed to bring aboard two mahi mahi on the way to Charleston. He said he was the only guy in Philadelphia last night enjoyed Med Bound mahi mahi. We were delighted to learn that Dan is flying into Bermuda with his wife to take part in the Med Bound celebration at Royal Bermuda Yacht Club while Walter and Mary Smithe attend to stabilizer repairs at Charleston City Marina. Actually, Walter reports that Downtime got one stabilizer fin working for much of the trip back to Charleston. To be sure, it was leaking hydraulic oil but it kept the boat on an even keel. Our own experiments aboard Bluewater show that a single stabilizer fin is perhaps 75% as effective as a working pair. The ocean current on the nose yesterday has given way. Likewise, the headwinds and head seas are down. The Med Bound fleet is now making seven-plus knots towards Bermuda and spirits are up. Weather Bob's morning data included a weather map which shows a developing gale south of Cape Hatteras which appears to have Bermuda in its sights. That's the main reason we are continuing to press hard to get to Bermuda by mid-day Sunday. At our present speed we are estimating arrival at Royal Bermuda Yacht Club after lunch, and we're hopeful we'll be secured at the docks before the heavy stuff begins in earnest. Bob says the low pressure system will also bring plenty of rain to Bermuda on Sunday, but as it moves through Monday, easier SW'ly winds and an improving sky/weather pattern should also develop It's hard to tell on a rolling, pitching yacht, but if my measurements are correct, Bluewater is burning more fuel than we'd like. We are running at 2100 RPMs, and our average fuel burn since leaving Fort Lauderdale appears have been 7.45 GPH, giving us a little less than one MPG with our generous 6 KW generator usage (about .5 GPH or 12 gallons a day) to keep the boat cool. Since we hold only 1,480 gallons and the trip from Bermuda to Horta is 1,818 NM, we'll have to do a lot better than that! For planning purposes, we've laid out the track to Bermuda at 6.3 knots; the slower speed, likely lack of head seas, and less frequent generator usage should do the trick, but you can be sure we'll be monitoring it carefully right from the start. Thankfully, mechanical problems aboard Med Bound yachts have been minimal. The legendary reliability of our Nordhavn yachts has been taken to a higher degree by work done before departure and inspections by Lugger Bob Senter and Med Bound's own two inspectors, James Knight of Yacht Tech and Chief Engineer Bernie Francis. To be sure, every yacht has a to do list for Bermuda, but most of what's there is nice-to-do rather than must-do. A trip like this helps skipper and crew develop confidence in the yacht! I'll close with a look at watch-standing. Most of us have elected to go with three-hour watches, and, by some coincidence, the skippers seem to end up with the 2100-2400 watch. That makes for good discussions on that watch. Last night, Braun Jones, Jim Fuller and I beat several issues to death for a couple of hours before heading off to bed on our own yachts. Among the topics: cruising in Europe, Nobeltec and other charting systems, AIS, and watch schedules. Aboard Bluewater, we run watches from 2100 until 0900, then handle the daytime watches informally-whoever is available is on watch. Works for us. Others have more formal systems which work for them. We're pretty much out of the shipping lanes. Over the past 24 hours we've seen two or three ships. We negotiated a close port-to-port pass with one, the Maersk Remkin, at noontime today. Bluewater and the other Med Bound yachts are on course for Bermuda and looking forward to our arrival. --Milt, Judy, George and Schipperke Katy Bluewater Nordhavn 47