Here you go from Atomvoyages:
Twenty-seven-year-old Michael Riley, from Maine, stopped in Luperon briefly this April aboard Ballybreen, a 27-foot ODay. Like us, Michael was one of the fortunate ones making the easy downwind run back to the US East Coast as part of a circle cruise around the North Atlantic. He departed Maine with his father aboard on June 6, 2001, bound for Ireland. Ballybreen is minimally equipped, lacking even a radio to receive weather forecasts. Our view is the boat doesn't go fast enough to avoid bad weather so why worry about it, Michael says. In hindsight, Michael admits that staying well above 40 degrees north latitude on their crossing was a mistake. For 30 days, he and his dad hand-steered Ballybreen four hours on and four off through a series of gale-force depressions. Five hundred miles west of Ireland, the ODays skeg-hung rudder snapped off where the hollow rudderstock passes through the hull. After watching in disbelief as the rudder floated away, they jury-rigged a new one out of a dismantled plywood bunkboard and a whisker pole lashed to the transom ladder. To add to their misery, they narrowly escaped dismasting during three separate incidents of broken mast stays.
Michael's sister accompanied him on the next leg of the voyage to Spain, and then his dad returned for the passage from Portugal to St. Lucia. It was my dads dream to sail across the Atlantic, but I think Im benefiting more, Michael says. On our return Atlantic crossing, dad seemed anxious as we neared our destination. He kept scanning the horizon and with his pipe dangling from the corner of his mouth, repeated, Yep, if she just holds together a bit longer we should be alright.
Assisted by an electric autopilot, Michael has sailed alone through the islands since St. Lucia. I feel obliged to warn all future visitors that to charge Ballybreens batteries, he has a wind charger that's mounted lethally low on the afterdeck. Pointing to a three-inch scar on the side of his head, Michael says, I should put it on a higher pole before it kills someone. Im sure the Dominican customs officer who left Ballybreen with a similar scar would heartily agree. Ballybreen is headed next to Cuba and then to Maine to complete her Atlantic circuit. Stop by and say hi if you see him, but keep your head down.
