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For our November 2009 delivery from Jamestown to Antigua we have a wonderful, competent, fun, fun-loving, exuberant, capable, experienced!  In addition to Jake and me (making our 24th trip!), we have Peter Vaiciulis (trip #16), Leo Bontiff (trip #6), Kim Hapgood (trip #2) and Chris Adams, this year’s “rookie”.  You all either know Jake and me  or you can read the introduction on the web site, so I’ll skip our introduction.  But I’d like to tell you a little about each of the other crew members.

Calling Chris Adams a rookie is incredibly ironic because Chris has spent over half his life on the water.  He tells me his family lived on a boat until he was 10, and that the other kids teased him because his mother rowed him in to the bus stop each morning.   He raced sailboats on the Newport, RI high school team, he has raced to or from Bermuda about 20 times, and he has built boats, taken boats apart, rebuilt boats,  bought boats and sold boats.  He has just bought a motor sailer called Mirage, which he brought home to Newport from Lake Ontario via the New York State canals and the Hudson River.  Once he gets Mirage squared away he will probably once again live on a boat!  Meanwhile he works for the local marina, where he is admired for his work as a rigger.  He has already proved his worth getting Avalanche ready by helping diagnose and fix a  mainsail furler swivel that wouldn’t budge!  Chris is cheerful, fun loving, ready to help with anything.

Kim Hapgood first went sailing on a sunfish with her Dad on a lake in Indiana, learned to sail at the Chicago YC, and really got into it when her family moved to England.  Since then she has done lots of racing, both match racing and sport boats around the buoys and offshore races like the Newport-Bermuda race and the Halifax race.  Now she’s turning more to judging and race committee work.  She says that as much as she prefers to sleep in her own bed after racing, she really looks forward to being in the middle of the big ocean with stars above, and no one else around.  It’s a total change of pace and allows her to put things in perspective.  She has been program director at Sail Newport, the local public sailing facility, since 1996, so she spends a lot of time on boats and on the water.  Kim is also incredibly well rounded:  she’s a super chef, and has rebuilt her house doing much of the work herself–even the exterior shingles and for any of you who followed our trip south 2 years ago, she is skilled in first aid. It was Kim who pulled together Peter’s sliced finger with steri-strips after he sliced it open with a filet knife!  She also happens to be a fine sailor who can be counted on to get a couple extra knots of boat speed out of the sails!

Peter Vaiciulis has been sailing with us since we raced our J-37 on Lake Champlain.  He came to help us when we purchased Avalanche and has learned about sailing Avalanche and her numerous systems just as we have.  He is a terrific friend who will drop everything to help us move Avalanche.  He’s also a creative carpenter and scientific thinker.  Those traits have helped us on Avalanche  many times when we’ve had to find a solution to a problem offshore.  Peter is married to a wonderful gal from Tonga and has 2 sons, Peter Sione, age 8 (who was able steer Avalanche from Block Island to Jamestown following a compass course at age 7)  and Thomasi, age six (who caught a 4′ shark off the transom of Avalanche at Block Island at age 5).  They are at home reading about our adventures.

Leo Bontiff is 3/4 Carib Indian, someone who truly belongs in the West Indies!  The Caribs were very fierce  warriors, whom even the Spanish couldn’t defeat, so Leo has a very proud heritage.  He comes from Dominica, where he was raised by his grandparents until he turned 18.  At fifteen he left school to fish with his grandfather in a skiff offshore around the island.  Because of that training, Leo is a very good fisherman, so Jake makes sure Leo fishes on his team.  At 18 Leo left Dominica for Antigua, where he began working for a local Antiguan boat yard owner.  He has learned so much and is so good at what he does that he has become the lead worker in the yard.  Leo has been looking after Avalanche in Antigua for about 5 years, and we can’t thank the yard owner enough for loaning him to us!

This fine group will be gathering at the boat at 6 am tomorrow to depart on our 12th trip south!