November 2019

We are down to the last 420 miles or so until we arrive in Antigua.    It’s funny to say “last” as that’s still a very long way to sail but after over 1,200 miles under our keel, that doesn’t sound like all that much.   Now that we are finally headed directly for our destination, with predictable winds in the forecast, somehow it doesn’t seem all that far away anymore.

Overnight and today, Monday, have offered a welcome respite from the drama of the last few days and I am happy to report that we have not had any more broken gear and a lot less action in the squall department.  We did have a big squall with really heavy rain last night that followed us along for nearly 5 hours but there wasn’t much wind, not even enough for sailing actually.  However, it kept us busy and at the helm and ready just in case.

Today was a beautiful sunny day and we took advantage of the light winds and smooth conditions to transfer all of the fuel that I had in jugs, 22 gallons, into the port fuel tank as that tank and the mid tank under the floor had been run down to empty.  We kept running on each tank until the engine began to shudder as it sucked in air.  Even though we had more fuel in the third tank and in jugs, it is very disconcerting when the engine begins to shut down and you are over 400 miles from anything.

And, as I switched to my last tank, I couldn’t help but remember two years ago when I did just that and discovered that my tank had water in it which rendered the entire tank unusable.   The good news is that we switched and everything is good.  And, as I just put the fuel into the other tank from the jugs, I am confident that the remaining fuel in the other tank is clean too.

We are currently running on the starboard tank, the last full one, which we estimate to be about 30 gallons and then once we run that one out, if we do, we will switch back to the tank with the fuel I transferred today.

Antigua is still a long way from here and it’s a bit unsettling to know that if something were to go wrong we don’t have enough fuel to get there under power alone.  Losing the main halyard on the main the other evening is something that I don’t want to repeat.

However, the wind is beginning to fill in and we should be able to shut off the engine around midnight and sail most of the remaining distance to Antigua from here.

George spent several hours today working on a spreadsheet to keep track of our motoring time as well as to track our speed with the goal of estimating our arrival time and be sure that we don’t run out of fuel.

Timing is important as he and Cliff have to catch the same flight on Thursday evening at 5:00 and they don’t want to miss their flight and have to buy another ticket.  They are both a bit bummed that they can’t spend even one day enjoying Antigua but the idea of paying for another ticket doesn’t sound appealing either.   Besides, I am sure that they are really excited to be heading north to the chilly North East.

Brenda emailed me today to say that there is a possibility of snow in CT on Wednesday.  What fun.

I feel badly for my crew having to leave immediately as this is a very long way to sail just jump off of the boat and into a taxi.

Hopefully we will have at least a few hours for them to get the lay of the land.  Besides, I do have to buy them a rum punch to toast their arrival before I see them off.

Brenda arrives on Wednesday afternoon and will be living in the lap of luxury, with the bed all to herself until I arrive at the beautiful Admiral’s Inn, located right inside the dockyard where Pandora will be berthed.

And when will we arrive, you ask?   We’ve been giving it our best guess for days now and now that we are entering more predictable winds, we are pretty sure that we will arrive sometime late morning on Thursday, with a few hours to spare before they head to the airport.

So, that’s it, we are down to the last stretch on a long run and I am getting pretty excited about seeing Brenda after several week away.

And speaking of excited,  I am sure that Andrew Dove at North Sails will be thrilled to see me with my damaged mainsail that is badly in need of repair.  I’ll also make he local rigger happy when he prepares my new main halyard and snakes it down the mast.

So, there you have it, after 11 days at sea, and I hope that’s all it turns out to be, Pandora will arrive in Nelson’s Dockyard, perhaps the most beautiful harbor just about anywhere,  in good style.

And, I’ll be arriving just in time as the first of our week of planned events is on Thursday evening to honor the Salty Dawg fleet and their successful passage to Antigua.

I know that a good number in the fleet won’t arrive until later in the week but that’s why we have a full week of event so fast or slow, everyone will be able to enjoy the fun and celebrate their successful passage.

Oh boy, I can’t wait to have a rum punch.
————————————————-

It’s Sunday evening and I am plenty happy to put the last 36 hours behind me.

Before I get into all that, and there’s plenty to write about, I’ll note that we are FINALLY HEADED IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION, toward Antigua.

Remember, we have been heading on a more easterly course for what seems like months now, waiting for the southerly winds to let up and shift east, to the more normal trade winds that are normal for this area.

Chris Parker, our weather router, predicted that the southerly winds and seas would begin to die down today and they finally did around sunset.   We waited a bit for the lumpy seas to begin to settle down and turned south, directly toward Antigua, now still about 550 miles south of our position.

We have mostly been on hold for several days now as we sailed east, while waiting for these southerly winds to die down knowing that we would likely be motoring into light winds for about 24 hours before we finally, and I do mean FINALLY, connect with the long awaited easterly trades.

I was checking my notes on the run home from Antigua two seasons ago, and recall we enjoyed trade wind sailing hundreds of miles to the north of where we are now.  On that trip, heading north, we did the entire run in about 8 days and not the 10 plus that we will likely spend clawing our way south to Antigua.

Brenda has been watching the shared page for the rally and tells me that we are ahead of most of the fleet.   Oh boy, I don’t feel like we are ahead of anything.

So, about my day.

At about 04:00 this morning we heard a noise and discovered that the mainsail was down on the deck.  I couldn’t frigging believe it.  The same thing happened on our way north two years ago when the headboard was pulled off of the sail and I had to go up the mast to retrieve, the most terrifying thing that I have ever experienced.

So, there I was, it was still pitch dark and the day was getting off to a terrible start.

Somehow the main sheet, the line that holds up the sail, had parted where it goes into the masthead and down the sail came in a lump.

George and I got started cleaning up the mess and getting the sail lashed to the boom while Cliff made sure that we didn’t get into any trouble and manned the helm.   What to do?

We talked it over and decided that the best option was to remove the topping lift line from the aft end of the boom and use that as a secondary halyard to pull up the main.  Then we took a spare halyard from the front of the mast and threaded it back to provide some support for the end of the boom.  It was a difficult lead as the line came out of the mast on the bow side so it had to be swung around the shrouds and lead aft.   That wasn’t a good lead and could easily lead to bad chafe.  However, I wanted to be sure that there was something to support the boom if we ran into problems again.

So, some hours later we were back in business with the mess cleaned up and flying the main again, although with one reef in to be sure that we didn’t put too much stress on that new line.

Problem solved and I headed to the galley to get some breakfast together.  I put a good healthy amount of raisin bran cereal in a bowl, reached into the fridge to get some milk and promptly dumped the entire bowl of cereal down into the fridge.  I couldn’t believe my luck.   Another mess to clean up.

But wait, there’s more.    A while later we were hit with a large squall, not one with lightening but there was plenty of strong wind up near 40kts and deluges of rain.  Ok, one more squall and it wasn’t our first on this trip.

I went down below and discovered salt water dribbling down from behind the headliner, all over the settee cushions, TV and down the bulkhead.   I had seen a tiny drip the day before and made a mental note to check on it when we reached Antigua.  Now, with much more water coming in, it became much more urgent.

My first thought was that the leak was coming from the fittings on the deck that house the hydraulic hoses for the boom and I spent about 30 minutes, all while being splashed by seawater coming over the starboard bow and caulked them with care.  And, let me tell you, it’s not easy to work with sticky black glue while being tossed about and splashed by passing waves.   And, to add to the picture, all this involved taking out tiny screws, saving them and reassembling a sticky glued up mess when I was done.

Mission accomplished and I headed back down below to clean up and put on some dry clothes.  Another squall passed and the leak, was worse, much worse.

Back into my wet clothes and up on deck again.  That’s when I discovered the “real” source of the leak.  On either side of the mast are stainless tube bars designed to lean against when working at the mast.  The are aptly called Granny Bars, for those that need a bit of extra support.  Anyway, these have three legs, each bolted to the deck.  It seems that one of the nuts on the thru-deck bold had some loose and the base was pulled up out of the deck exposing a 3/8″ hole in the deck.   I guess that we had dislodged it somehow while working on the mast.  Actually, I checked behind the headliner and discovered that there wasn’t a nut on the hold-down bolt.  It was plenty rusty and I expect that perhaps the problem was that when the boat was built a steel nut was used by accident and it had finally rotted away.

Fortunately, I was able to find a nut in my hardware supply that fit, no easy feat given the fact that it was metric.  I put a liberal amount of sealing compound under the fitting and tightened it down.  Problem solved?  I sure hope so as I have worked hard over the years to find leaks, track them down and dry things out, often a very difficult game of cat and mouse.

I guess that the leak is resolved as not 15 minutes after I had come back into the cockpit, the largest squall of the trip hit us with winds up to 40kts and a deluge of rain.  No leak, or at least none that I could detect but perhaps I was too busy.

So, there you have it, a day that proved once again, that “into every life a little rain must fall”.

No kidding, today was a real soaker on that account.

However, all is well as we are FINALLY pointed toward our destination, Antigua even though it is still over 500 miles away, the fact that we are going in the right direction, makes it feel like it’s right around the corner.

So, if we are able to keep up an average speed of 6.5kts and nothing important breaks, we should arrive in Antigua at some point on Thursday morning.

Oh yeah, one more thing.  During one of the squalls today, as we bucked from wavetop to wavetop, something crashed onto the top of the dodger and bounced into the water, our circular TV Antenna, which must have broken loose from all the wave action.   I haven’t yet checked but am now wondering if it hit one of the solar panels.  They are glass…

So, Pandora’s bow is finally pointed toward Antigua and tomorrow should be better.

We deserve it.

Note:  This post was written on Saturday, but due to some events that kept Bob busy he did not send it until Sunday afternoon.  Sunday’s post will up in a moment or so.

Are we there yet?

Throughout the millennia countless passengers have asked the “captain” when they would be arriving at Grandmas, the cottage, the battle, well, you get the picture.

I expect that many a pirate, complete with peg leg and parrot on the shoulder, uttered these words “Captain, when will we be hitting port have some grog and visit the wenches?” a few moments before being tossed overboard for insubordination.

The British Navy issued a “gill” of rum daily to each sailor perhaps to keep them focused on something other than that oft uttered question.

And, so it goes for the crew of Pandora, from day one of our trip, now nearly a week ago, captain and crew have been wondering, calculating and praying, on this question,  “When will we get there!”

George, who I will say seems to have a thing for numbers and especially numbers scribbled on little scraps of paper, has been doing daily and sometimes nearly hourly calculations on fuel consumption with the hope of anticipating when the engine will sputter as the last drop of usable fuel is consumed.

However, as the days have rolled by, we have spent much less time motoring than anticipated and the question now is “when the wind dies, how fast can we motor and still not run out of fuel?”

As I write this we are well into our second day of fabulous sailing in what Brenda might define as “sporty”.  No, actually, she’s probably say “This is way too F*&^%&G Sporty for me! When will we get there?”, we are making wonderful time, if perhaps not quite directly to where we want to go.

After days of uncertainty the forecast now looks like we will continue our brisk sailing on a close reach,  running to the SE at 7.5 to sometimes 9kts for some time longer.  And, I have to say that this feels pretty good after all that motoring .   The wind, as predicted, is from the SSW and running between 14-17kts.  And that’s good as there is an impressive wind driven chop and we need a good amount of wind to keep moving, lurching from wave top to wave top, with a lot of drama as she launches herself over the top and crashes down in a drenching spray of foam.

We are moving to the SE toward the trade winds, which, as I have mentioned, have been recently suppressed by a large high pressure system that has been over us and caused such light winds.   Normally, and passage making on a small boat is almost never “normal”, we would have hit the trades already and would be driving south to Antigua on a beam reach.

We expect to continue moving along on a close reach until we approach a sort of “convergence zone” between the SW winds and easterly trades probably tomorrow morning, when there will be an area of about 24 hours with virtually no wind at all.  When this happens, sometime over the next 12 hours, we will use the engine to point Pandora directly toward Antigua approximately due south for another 550 miles directly to the south until we hit the trades.

Chris Parker, our weather router, says that the trades should rebuild after our 24 hours of motoring,  first from ESE and then will quickly shifting to the east, more typical, and build to about 15+kts.

So, I’m back to that age old question “when will we get there?”.  And, that brings us to George, his scraps of paper and scribbles.   “So, George, when will we get there?”  “Well, captain”, and I love it when they call me captain… actually, I don’t care but it makes for good copy, “My calculations suggest that if we…uhh, uhh…we will uhh…we will arrive in Antigua somewhere between 18:00 on Wednesday and 01:00 on Thursday, but I’m not sure yet.”

So there you have it, that age old question and the answer is perhaps late Wednesday or sometime on Thursday, not to put too fine a point on it.  Or, as my father used to say over is shoulder in the family Country Squire, “we’ll be there when we get there and stop hitting your sister!”

And yes, I have certainly come a long way from my days passenger in the backseat of my parent’s station wagon but the question remains, “when will we get there?”

Is George right?  Does he have any idea when we will arrive?  You’ll be the first to know, beyond us of course, so I’ll just leave it at that for the moment.

And yes, stay tuned.  I can’t wait to get a shower and meet up with Brenda, but not necessarily in that order.   However, Brenda, after more than 40 years of marriage, may have her own thoughts on that.

“Bob, stand down and please take a shower!”

It’s noon on Friday and we are booming along on a close reach in 13-15kts of wind and making between 7-8.5 kts.  It’s exhilarating but at the same time, as the hours roll on, the seas are getting choppy, with Pandora crashing into wave after wave, sending spray everywhere.  This is not a casual holiday sail.

However, it seems that each day brings with it an entirely different experience, sometimes exhilarating like now and sometimes depressing as we inch along making virtually no headway against current and wind.  In the ocean even the smallest amount of breeze on the nose can slow you down to a crawl.

Last night was perhaps our most frustrating yet, as the wind shifted south to around 6-11kts, directly on the nose, and that combined with a slight northerly current, slowed our progress to a glacial 4.5kts.  Given the fact that we are still something like 800 miles from Antigua, that was painfully slow progress.

Even with the engine running and sails up, we were lucky to make even 5kts and usually less.  Of course, Pandora can go a lot faster under power but as we continue our laser focus on the amount of fuel left and the amount of time we will be motoring, I have been running the engine at a very low RPM.  As the speed of the engine increases even a little bit, the fuel consumption per hour goes up a lot but not in proportion to the increased speed, substantially reducing the number of hours and distance traveled that we can continue under power.

On my last trip south, two years ago, I ran the engine for a total of 130 hours, arriving in Antigua with fuel to spare, and as of today we have a long way to go to beat that.  That’s good but it’s hard to say what will happen given the fact that the wind shifts around the compass so often.

When I spoke to Chris Parker today his forecast suggested that we would likely enjoy sailing for the next day and then the wind would just about go away when and we will face another 24-30 hours under power before we reach the more predictable trade winds.

By comparison, as we beat our way south into SW winds, two years ago I had a spectacular multi day run with solid easterly trade winds, in this exact same area.  There is a large high pressure zone over us that has basically killed the northern parts of the trade winds, pushing them hundreds of miles south, reversing the wind direction or killing the wind altogether.   Fortunately, for now at least, we have wind and can sail in more or less our intended direction.  When it comes to long distance passage making, it’s better to keep moving than to go where you intend.  And, on top of that, it feels better.

I expect that you may be following my travels on the tracker, my own or on the joint Rally page that I shared and know a lot more about where we are verses the other boats in the fleet.   I know that there are some boats behind us and plenty in front, but I understand that there are a many in the fleet within a radius of perhaps 75-100 miles of our position.  Given the fact that we’ve been at sea for nearly a week, it’s unusual to have so many boats in a relatively tight area.

Twice a day I am in communication with about two dozen boats that are equipped with SSB long range radios and it’s fun to hear what they are up to.   Most of the boats are doing fine but a few days ago one boat was struck by lightening and had to divert to Bermuda because their electronics were nearly all ruined.  On my last run south, two years ago, another boat lost their electronics and two others experienced structural damage.

The constant movement and large loads on equipment means that things can break, and they do.   That reality explains why I tend to spend so much time and energy, not to mention dollars, on keeping Pandora in top shape.   Broken stuff can surely ruin your whole day, especially when you are over 600 miles from the closest land, as we are now.  Come to think of it, it’s the farthest from land I have ever been, if you don’t count flying on a passenger jet.  Trust me, this is different and a lot more sweaty.

I have written about the recent addition of a Hydrovane wind vane steering system last month and have been largely silent on the subject since leaving.   My silence was because it wasn’t working particularly well and I found myself wondering if it was a waste of money and a big effort for nothing.

However, after tinkering with it for several days, I am happy to report that it steers remarkably well and given the fact that it has only a few moving parts, no electronics and uses no power, I have to say that it (she?) is proving to be the most reliable crew member yet.

It’s pretty amazing how easy it is to set and modify a course and as the wind direction changes, even slightly, she adjusts and keeps us moving along without a complaint.   I am told that just about everyone that has one of these ends up giving “her” a name and given my history with Brenda, she will have to decide what our new crew member should be called.

So, here we are, having the best day of sailing yet under a sparkling clear tropical sky and near perfect conditions that follows the worst night yet on this trip.   As the say, “what a difference a day makes”.  Here’s hoping that I haven’t jinxed the good sailing.

Brenda arrives in Antigua on Wednesday evening and I am beginning to accept the fact that I won’t be there to greet her as I doubt that I will arrive before Thursdsay.  At the very least, I have alerted Astrid at the Admiral’s Inn to expect her to arrive unannounced and to have a room ready for her.  I also asked her not to treat Brenda too well as I’ll never be able to pry her loose and move aboard Pandora.

So, the question remains, when will we arrive in Antigua and given the ups and downs of the last few days, I guess the answer is “I have no idea.”  However, for the moment, things are going well.
Let’s hope that things keep going well.  That’s what’s supposed to happen when it’s good?  Right?