May 2017

It’s Friday morning and we are half way home to CT as we enter our 5th day underway.  We have traveled about 750 miles at an average speed of nearly 8kts.  That’s a pretty remarkable speed over such a long distance.  Actually, a good part of that speed was tweaked up last night when we were blasting along at around 10kts for about 10 hours, sometimes we even cracked 11kts for short periods, and it wasn’t all that windy with wind on the beam of about 20-23kts.  At those speeds you can put a lot of miles in the bank.  It was a wild ride with the crests of waves glowing with phosphorescence.

Jim had not sailed at night prior to this trip so it’s a very new experience for him.  He was blown away by what it feels like to sail at those speeds.  For one thing, it’s pretty noisy.  After a while I put in a reef which slowed us down less than a knot but it seemed a lot less hairy.  Given the issues that we have had with the autopilot going “rogue” I was concerned about how fast things would go wrong at 10+kts.

As I mentioned in my last post, we have been anxious about getting through the Gulf Stream by mid day Monday because winds were forecast to go to near gale force after that and while the wind will be from the SW, a favorable angle, it would still be very rough with steep waves of about 10′ and with a very short period between waves.  The good news is that last night Chris Parker reported that the expected strength of the wind is being downgraded to the mid to high 20s from near 40 and that will make for a lot less excitement.  He also pushed back the arrival of those winds until Monday evening from an original noon estimate.  With the extra time and lighter winds, we should not have a problem getting past the Stream before it get’s “sporty” or, as Chris Parker likes to say “salty”.  That’s good as once those strong winds arrive, it will be as much as a week until we were able to cross the Stream again.   And to make matters worse, winds south of the stream will be considerably stronger than what we will experience north of that area, where we expect to be.

Of course, Monday is still a few days away and things can change but I am feeling more confident that we will be able to get home without having to bail out somewhere and wait for better weather.

The winds for today are supposed to be in the 15kt range from the east, although it’s a bit lighter than that right now, with tomorrow expected to be lighter and then on Sunday we expect very light wind in advance of the expected stronger winds late Monday.  I guess that we will be doing plenty of motoring to keep our speed up.  Such is passage making with a timeline.  The anticipated foul weather caused a good number of the Salty Dawg rally fleet to bail for Bermuda.  I’d have loved to visit there but loosing crew there and having to start all over again with new crew doesn’t appeal to me at all.

So, here we are, hundreds of miles from land and not a ship or another boat in sight for more than two days now.  I expect that we will see some activity as we get closer to the gulf stream and much more traffic as we pass the major shipping lanes along the MD, DL and NJ coasts.  Without AIS and Radar, that will surely keep us on our toes.

Well, that’s today’s report.  More to come Saturday.

Yes, it’s going well and I am happy to be able to report that we are half the way home.  Still, it’s a long time at sea, no matter how you slice it but we are making great time and things are going well.

I guess I’d better break as I have to make breakfast.  Perhaps it’s cooled down enough to make some biscuits.

It’s Thursday morning and not much is going on aboard Pandora.  We had an uneventful night with the exception of a few unexpected course changes thanks to the balky autopilot.  I really don’t know what’s causing the pilot to slew off on a new course but it does remind me of a problem that I had on my last boat/pilot that did the exact same thing.  In that case, it had to do with settings on the computer that called for a gyrocompass even though the boat didn’t have one.  Once I changed the settings, that solved the problem. Based on that, I think that I know what will need to be done to fix this but don’t want to take any chances of messing things up further so I’ll wait until I get home and talk to the tech folks.

All things considered, things are going well out here in the “deep blue”.

There is one little thing that might cause problems though and that’s a forecast calling for near gale winds from the SW in the Gulf Stream near Cape Hatteras beginning on Monday afternoon.  Wind at that strength in the Gulf Stream will kick up some very nasty waves and I would prefer not to be there when it’s that windy, even if it’s from a “favorable” SW direction.  In the event that I am unable to make it through the GS by that time, I’ll have to bail to Beaufort and wait for better conditions to continue north.  However, while it’s too early to make that call, I think that we stand a good chance to make it through the stream before things get really nasty.

The big question is if that front is going to come through as expected, around mid day Monday or if the timing changes.  Our arrival time at the GS will also depend on when favorable trade winds return as we make better time when we are sailing verses motoring.  In order to conserve fuel, we are only able to motor at about 6-6.5kts and when we are sailing, we generally make a knot or more faster.  That may not sound like a lot but it’s pretty meaningful to go even a knot faster as over four days that can add up to an additional 100 miles toward the GS by the Monday “deadline”.

Anyway, I guess we will just have to wait another day or so to decide if we are going to bail to Beaufort or continue on to New England.  Of course, I’d prefer to continue on as I’ll likely loose my crew if we are delayed in Beaufort by more than a day or so.  Oh well, that’s how it goes and any time you try to make a blue water run that takes a week or longer, it’s hard to predict how the weather will evolve over that length of time.

I have to say though, that I am optimistic that we will be able to make our way through the GS in time.  Fingers crossed.

I guess that all I can say for now is that it’s “details to come” and the rest is just conjecture to predict if we are going to get through the GS before the going gets rough.  I’ll continue to talk to Chris Parker and get his thoughts on the timing of the arrival of the strong SW winds when he does his evening broadcast tonight.

Fingers crossed that we will get through the GS before things get nasty or if we will have to bail into Beaufort, south of the Cape.  Let’s hope not.

It’s the beginning of the third day of our passage from Tortola to New England and there’s not a lot to report except to say that there is still a very long way to go.  Yesterday we entered the convergence zone between two weather systems and the wind became a lot lighter.  This area also treated us to a large squall cell where the wind quickly shifted from the SE to NE.  That put an end to sailing and brought with it much choppier conditions and some rain.  It’s remarkable how different 20kts on the nose feels from that same amount of wind on the beam.  It’s the difference between uncomfortable and wet verses near perfect sailing.

As I write this it’s 07:00 and we are motor sailing and charging the batteries.  I am also taking advantage of the engine to run the watermaker.  We haven’t used much water since leaving but we all took showers in the cockpit yesterday and I also washed the cockpit down well this morning as there was a lot of spray going everywhere when we were in the squalls last night.  Yes, I am anal about salt but it’s just so much more pleasant when things aren’t salty. It’s also quite hot and sticky but noticeably cooler than it was in Tortola and during the first day out.

I mentioned yesterday, I think, that one of the two plotters stopped functioning and because of the way that the system is wired, we no longer have access to radar or our AIS.  We are still transmitting on AIS but we can’t see other boats on our plotter.  Fortunately, there hasn’t been much ship traffic to worry about but that will change as we get closer to the congested shipping lanes of Chesapeake Bay, the Delaware River and New York.

The autopilot is also acting up oddly as every so often, a few times a day, it just decides to head off in a totally different direction, pulling a sort of “crazy Ivan” maneuver, with no warning.  Experiencing a 180 degree crash turn, seemingly “just for fun” is really disarming and takes some of the relaxation out of the passage.  However, compared to other problems that we could have, it’s not too bad.  And, with the boom break in place to soften the blow of a “surprise” jibe, we aren’t at major risk of gear breakage from the autopilot maneuvers.  My last boat, with a very similar autopilot and plotter system, also had this problem and I was able to modify the settings on the computer to solve it.  I’ll call the tech support folks when I get home to sort this out.  Of course, the “dead” plotter will also have to go out for repair.  Let’s hope that they can fix the plotter as I don’t want to think about having to upgrade the entire system as they no longer make the particular model that we have.  Fingers crossed.

While I carry about 175 gallons of fuel, I don’t want to motor any more than we must as I want to be certain that we have plenty to use if we run into unfavorable winds later in the trip.  We continue to be in the convergence area between two weather systems, with little wind so we are motor-sailing but I am hopeful that we will get out of it later today and back into good sailing conditions.

In any event, the trip is coming together about as expected with some excitement but mostly, it’s been an easy run.  Not at all like my trip down in January and that’s good.

Well, I guess that’s about all I have to report for now.  There’s still plenty of miles left between us and home and we aren’t even half the way there.  The earliest that I expect to be home is likely not until about next Wednesday or Thursday.  Hard to say but that’s my best guess and a lot can happen between now and then, so fingers crossed that everything will continue to work out in our favor.

Yes, we are a long way from home, hundreds of miles from land but we are settling in to the passage.  So far, so good with a dead plotter, Crazy Ivan and all.

It’s Tuesday morning and we have been underway for nearly 24 hours.  The sailing has been good and Pandora’s reeling off the miles.

We were originally planning to head out on Wednesday but after hearing the long range weather forecast we decided to head out on Monday with the rest of the fleet.  Our plan to leave later was based on George’s schedule as he had business and family commitments that would not allow him to arrive until late on Tuesday.  However, after hearing Chris Parker’s forecast on Saturday that called for a cold front with strong north winds to exit the east coast around the 24th, I realized that we could not afford to wait past Monday. Besides, Cliff and Jim arrived on Sunday afternoon so we could leave sooner if needed.  And, as is so often the case, it was “needed” so we did.

I feel badly that we had to bolt and leave George but if we had waited we might very well have ended up in Bermuda to wait out the adverse winds or worse, been caught in some really nasty conditions later in the trip.

This is my first Salty Dawg Rally and it’s fun to be making the run north with about 25 boats.  Some are headed to the Chesapeake, others to Bermuda and some to New England like Pandora.  Each morning and evening there are SSB radio nets that allow us to call in and talk to other boats in the fleet.  The others share stories of how things are going, fish caught and gear that doesn’t work.

One boat in particular is stopping in Bermuda as their autopilot stopped working and they are now hand steering, which is very tiring.   I heard that a hatch was left open and a big wave splashed in and flooded part of the autopilot equipment.  Salt water getting into the boat is a constant worry and that’s why we keep Pandora pretty well buttoned up while offshore, regardless of how hot it might be down below.  I have had my share of gear issues this winter and I really don’t want to tempt fate. Losing the autopilot is the thing that I worry about the most as hand steering is not something that we take lightly.  Years ago I was on a boat from Nassau to CT and the autopilot crapped out. We had to steer for about a week with no break.  The crew of four was taxed by that experience.

Speaking of “gear issues”, we do have one issue that came up yesterday shortly after leaving Tortola.  Pandora has two chart plotters, one at the helm and another up under the dodger.  The one at the helm is the “master” with feeds from AIS and radar and the other plotter is a “slave” to that one.  The problem is that the helm plotter stopped working yesterday, it just went dark, so now we don’t have access to AIS or radar on the remaining plotter.  The good news is that the AIS is still transmitting, we just can’t see it on the plotter.   At least other ships can see us, assuming that they are watching.  I just can’t see them.

I had thought about swapping the two units as they are the same but I am concerned that I might somehow make things worse so have decided to just go without AIS and radar for the duration.  I guess it will be just like the “olden days” but with autopilot and refrigeration.  Oh yeah and a watermaker.  No,I guess it’s not really like the olden days, just less than perfect.

At least it will sharpen our lookout skills.

So, that’s about it and we only have about 1,200 miles to go.  Yikes, that’s a long way. At this rate we should be done with the trip in about 8 more days.

Beyond that, nothing much to report.  However, the trip is young and I am expecting some “sporty” conditions later in the week.  Until then, sailing and perhaps a few days of motoring as we cross a ridge, a sort of “convergence zone” between two weather systems, just west of Bermuda, where there will be little or no wind.

Stay tuned for more details and don’t forget to check out the tracking on my blog to see exactly where we are, well at lest within the last two hours as that’s how often we send out position reports.  Also check for a recent post, a few days ago, to see a link to view Pandora and the rest of the fleet.

I plan to write again tomorrow and hope that post will be boring too.  Excitement aboard Pandora when we are hundreds of miles from shore is something that I’d like to avoid, if possible.

Until next time.

After all the weeks of planning we are going to head out from Tortola on Monday for home.   It’s been a whirlwind of activity over the last few days with chores to get Pandora ready and having crew arrive but it’s time to head home.

My original plan was to head out on the 17th but the weather is very iffy for then so I have opted to leave a few days earlier with the fleet.

The big problem is that if I were to wait a few more days I’d run into heavy squalls on our second or third days out, hit a much longer windless patch of perhaps two or more days of motoring near Bermuda and run the risk of being clobbered by a front that is expected to head off of the NE coast around the 26th as we approached CT.  All of which sounds like more work than fun.

Unfortunately, because of this change, moving our departure up by two days, one of my crew George, won’t be here in time to leave with us. It’s a total bummer but I guess that weather and safety trumps just about everything else when it comes to passage making.

Anyway, we still have a few chores to do in the morning but should be underway by noon.  I’ll be sending out position reports to this site which you can access at this link.  You can also right click on any particular position report and see how fast we were going when the tracker sent out the “ping” to the server.

I expect that our trip should be relatively uneventful with the exception of the squalls and will probably involve a day or more of motoring when the wind gets light.  But hey, that’s a lot more appealing than the gales that we experienced on the way down in January.

So, you can track us a number of ways but I am not certain that the rally page will have us on it as I have had difficulty in getting that set up with all the last minute changes in our plans.  Anyway, I wrote about the tracking options in a prior post.  You can check it out at this link.

Underway on Monday.  Finally!  Wish us luck.

I’ll be writing more about how things are going most days while we are underway.

Yes, we are leaving and it’s going to be good to be homeward bound.

Details to come.  Yes, that’s true.