Sunday 5th to Thursday 15th November
It’s been five days since we arrived and already the passage has started to blur in my mind. Rod, Dave and Brian have all promised to write up their thoughts … we’ll see if they come through! In retrospect and talking to other boats, I think we had a pretty easy trip although it didn’t feel like it at the time. We only encountered a few squalls, we had no major breakages and we made pretty good time. During the passage it’s mostly just sort of boring. The autopilot does the majority of the steering, apart from the sea and clouds there’s not much to see and conversation gets a bit limited! In our down time we did read a bit or listen to music, but I mostly just zoned out. We ate good food three times a day and had plenty of snacks. We had prepared and frozen a number of ready-to-heat meals before we took off (Chicken Marengo, Chilli, chicken peanut stew) and we bought a couple of frozen meals (Beef stew, cabbage wraps) from the rally, which were very good. One of our best meals was freshly caught MahiMahi fillet sauteed in butter with lemon served with pasta! Filtering coffee in bumpy seas was a challenge at times and more than once the flask and / or coffee went flying. I personally found the latter part of the trip the most difficult. I expected that once we crossed the gulf stream and had made our easting that the last few days would be easier. They weren’t and with 600 miles to go with winds in an unfavorable direction I found it a bit disheartening. In particular the nights when we were slamming off waves beating to windward were nerve wracking. In the dark it’s impossible to see and steer round the waves. I would be lying in my bunk off-watch and feel the boat pitching up and down. Then I’d feel a sort of weightlessness followed either by a gentle landing or an almighty crash where I could feel the fuel and water tanks vibrating. Scary stuff. I think all of us felt the passage was less fun than we expected but not as bad as we feared. We did very little downwind sailing in long period swells – the ideal you might expect for offshore sailing. I’m not sure any of will be up for another similar length passage … but it's perhaps too early to tell. You never know!
Before we move on I want to tell the story of two of the rally boats, Zenlatitude and Pytheus. Zenlatitude broke both it’s sails and then ran low on fuel. They ended up contacting the coast guard in Purto Rico and arranged a fuel drop from a passing cargo vessel. They finally made it to Nanny Cay after 13 days, feeling physically and emotionally exhausted. Pytheus is a slightly different story. This boat is a Shannon motor sailor which apparently only has a 3ft draft and doesn’t really sail, at least upwind. Whilst flying a gennaker (large fore sail) early in the trip they caught a gust of wind and snapped off their bowsprit. They decided to head in to Bermuda for temporary repairs and more fuel. They got some fuel, but despite the advice of crew, did not pick up any spare. 30 miles short of the finish they ran out of diesel in bouncy seas and winds from the direction they were headed. A passing cruise liner declined to stop but a Russian cargo ship did stop to transfer fuel. Pytheus launched a dinghy and rowed over to the ship, but with no propulsion Pytheus drifted into the vessel and repeatedly crashed it’s bow into the side of the cargo ship. It then drifted towards the bow of the cargo ship and it’s mast started to bang into the side. Eventually the transfer was complete and Pytheus made it to the finish. I heard first hand from the crew member that it was a “nightmare” on board with a vessel that was not suitable for the journey and very poor relations between Captain and Crew!
Rod and Brian have already departed and should now be home and Dave leaves tomorrow. It's going to be a challenging three weeks as I wait for Gloria to arrive. Plenty of jobs on the boat to be done, but I'll be counting down the days. This was good plan to position the boat but the fun won't really start until Gloria gets here.
Next up - "FU Irma"
Cruise ship as we depart Portsmouth, Va
Apres Ski (Freeport, ME) passes cruise liner
Brian was our most accomplished sleeper ... any time, anywhere !
Brian - reading in the main cabin during down time
Brian - always cheerful and upbeat
Dave - at the helm. Note man-over-board module on pedestal, life raft and drogue on stern
Rod eating dinner - we used these bowls all the time
Rod - a rare moment reading whilst seated in the luxurious chair
A squall we passed by
We saw remarkably little sea or bird life on passage - the Sargasso sea has a reputation of having very little wildlife. However, on the last day this warbler (Northern Parulla I believe) landed on Cotinga. It was exhausted - we gave it some water and it ate seeds off the deck and flew off after an hour ... but I'm not optimistic about it's fate.
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