RHSP 2012 nearing completion - one division still to come

Competitors continued to arrive at Saint-Pierre all day and three of the four divisions in the race are almost complete.

Following the early results from IRC covered in an earlier post, PHR-1 has top three finishers at the dock.  Number one is Helm's Deep, with skipper Mike Sutton arriving just twenty minutes after the first boat across the finish line.  Second place in PHR-1 is Starfire, skipper Andrew Boswell of BBYC and third place Harrier, RNSYS skipper Evan Petley-Jones.

Four of six PHR-2 boats are now in.  Grant Gordon's Vagrant from the Dartmouth Yacht Club is in the
number one position, followed by two RNSYS boats - Mike Archibald's Glenesk in number two and Judy Robertson and Steve Kempton's Semper Vivens in third position after handicapping.

One fascinating detail of this year's race - two of the PHR-2 boats have the best times on the results board once the rating system kicks in.   Grant Gordon's corrected time in his Morgan 366 Vagrant is just under two minutes faster than the corrected time of the line honors winner, Saint-Pierre en Bessin.  And Mike Archibald's Tartan 3700, Glenesk is also faster, by about 25 sec. on corrected time.

None of the non-spinnaker division boats has arrived in Saint-Pierre as of the 2100 hr transponder check in.

Watch the results page (look on the left hand side menu) here on the RHSP website for the 2012 official results as calculated by RHSP director, Richard Hinterhoeller.

IRC results complete now

The IRC division results are complete now. You'll find them here on our race webpage under results. Final order after handicapping in that division is:

1. Saint-Pierre en Bessin, Luc Coquelin 
2. Dawn Treader, Lawrence Cohen 
3. Bella J, Ray Rhinelander
4. Defiant, Jean Trottier

The only other boat already at the dock is Helm's Deep, Mike Sutton's Soto 40 from RNSYS. His crossing was 43:20:31, approximately twenty minutes behind Saint-Pierre en Bessin. It has been corrected to 54:23:39 by the rating system. Sutton's team was racing in PHR-1 and sits in first place in that division at this point.

Victory!

Here's a moment of victory captured by Saint-Pierre photographer Jean-Christophe L'Espagnol early this morning as the Top 50 Saint-Pierre en Bessin's skipper Luc Coquelin enjoyed his first place finish...leading the whole fleet and winning the IRC division.

Arrivée ce matin à Saint-Pierre du voilier Saint-Pierre en Bessin, premier de la course. Luc Coquelin fait le signe de la victoire ! © Jean-Christophe L'Espagnol - Ville de Saint-Pierre - Route Halifax — Saint-Pierre

Wonderful pictures of the winner!

Saint-Pierre photographer Jean-Christophe L'Espagnol was out on the water this morning to capture the sights of IRC-winner Saint-Pierre en Bessin and skipper Luc Coquelin arriving at the French island.  You'll find a gallery of his shots on this website, which is being updated by the Saint-Pierre race committee.

Copy and paste the link into a new browser window to see the full page:
http://www.chezvoo.net/rhsp2012#!__rhsp2012

First across the line! Congratulations Saint-Pierre en Bessin.

RHSP 2012 is coming to a climax this morning with the first boats crossing the finish line in Saint-Pierre.  Line honors go to Saint-Pierre en Bessin in the IRC class, completing the race in just under 43 hours.  Helm's Deep was next into port, first to complete the race in the PHR-1 division.  The rest are on their way.  Look at the tab for "Race Results" on this website.  Race Director Richard Hinterhoeller is updating with the latest information including corrected times as the boats arrive.

Latest results - 2 Saint-Pierre boats lead their Divisions at 1800 ADT

Just checking in on the Race Tracker at 1800 ADT... and here's what I found:  Two Saint-Pierre boats are leading in their divisions:  Saint-Pierre en Bessin in IRC and Ososoy in PHRF-2,  Saraphie from RNSYS in Non-spinnaker and Starfire from BBYC in PHRF-2.  You'll find all the other details on the Yellowbrick tracker page!

http://yb.tl/halifax2012

Life on Board - Life of Reilly II

One of our Race Committee members, Derek Mason is a crew member on Life of Reilly II.  Watch for his updates on the race.

Received at 5:30 am Mon., July 9, 2012.

Photo credit: derekmasonphotography.com

Coming up on dawn. What a beautiful night. We were south of our competitors and came up to the pack at midnight. Steady at 6-7 knot average boat speed with a half moon that rose around 11 pm. Here's a photo of the sunset and our dawn. Should be off Canso by now. Steady 14 knots of wind from the NW. Absolutely clear view beyond the horizon and can see "Easy Company" and "Christina Grant". Onward past Cape Breton.

I'll send again before we lose signal, hopefully.