It’s Sunday night and we are approaching Cape Hatteras and the Gulf Stream.  The wind is on the beam and we are barreling along at nearly 9kts, and that’s through the water as there isn’t any current yet.  Our original plan was to enter the GS, head north with the current and exit after about 150 miles to head either to Montauk or NYC for the final run home.

However, Chris Parker, weather router, has been unsure about a series of small lows that will roll off of the East Coast over the next few days and how they will affect the coastal waters from VA to NY.  The problem is that if the first low, due to hit the area around Tuesday shifts about 60 miles east of the coast, it will bring gale force winds of about 40kts from the SW.  This isn’t terrible as the wind would be behind us but there will also spawn strong convective squalls that may bring winds to near hurricane force and that would not be fun at all.

On the other hand, if the front happens to head up the coast, perhaps 60 miles to the west, then sailing north could end up being quite a nice ride.  But the uncertainty of the forecast will make it tough to predict until perhaps one day before the low will arrive and once we have begun running up the coast there aren’t many places to stop before Cape May and that’s not sounding to good to me.

So, what’s a voyager to do?  Bail and head to Hampton VA.  Yes, that’s what I’ll do.

The good news is that the Blue Water Marina there gives Salty Dawg Sailing Association members a very good price on dock space.  Pay full price for a week and get to stay for a month at the same rate.  And leaving Pandora there for a month works for me as I didn’t plan to do anything with her until after my SSCA event in Essex the weekend of June 17th anyway.   Besides, while she’s there, the yard can clean my fuel tanks and get out the water that has caused such problems on this trip.  BTW, today I was able to clean the filters out well and was alarmed by the amount of water that had accumulated.  And, I can send out the plotter for repair.  It’s always something.

Of course, it’s going to take some time to get Pandora ready to be on her own for a month but Cliff and Jim will be a big help and as they have never been to Hampton we’ll make some time to see the sights and have an “arrival dinner” together.

But wait, there’s more and it gets even better…

Brenda and I planned to visit Rob, Kandice and Tori the following weekend in Baltimore so it will be a cinch to take a train from Baltimore to Hampton to rejoin Pandora after our visit.

I wanted to be sure to post this so that anyone, and there must be at least a few of you, who have been tracking our progress won’t wonder “wait, what are they doing.  Is something wrong?” when we continue west from the GS and head to Hampton.

So, that’s the plan, arrive late Monday in Hampton, I hope, clean up Pandora, rent a car and be home on Wednesday.  That’s the plan.

First we have to get through the Gulf Stream.  Did I mention that wind of 15 to 20 kts will kick up seas of about 6-9 feet?  That’s just a detail…

It’s Sunday morning and we are happily sailing along on a close reach at about 7kts after motoring much of the last few days through a high pressure ridge with no wind.   If the wind holds out, we should enter the Gulf Stream around midnight tonight and I expect that it will be a pretty “salty” 12 to 18 hours of sailing before we make our way to the north side and into calmer waters.

They say that you don’t want to be in the Gulf Stream when the wind has a “N” in it, North West, North or North East.  The problem is that when wind blows over water it makes waves and when the current opposes the waves, and the GS flows north, the waves get big and steep.  Think of the rapids in a river and how steep the waves get.  Well, think about trillions of gallons of water moving along like a massive river, add an opposing wind and you get “salty” conditions, really quickly.

On my trip north last spring I was traveling in the Gulf Stream in reasonable conditions and a large thunderstorm came up.  All of a sudden the wind was strong, around 20+ knots from the NE and in less than an hour the seas had built and it got really rough.  After bashing around for an hour I decided to tack west to get out of the stream and as soon as we passed the western wall, things calmed right down.  It’s pretty remarkable how quickly it went from nasty to fine and all that changed is that I left the north flowing current of the Gulf Stream.

Earlier in the trip the forecast called for near gale winds in the GS so we have been very focused on getting across it before the really strong, near gale force, SW winds hit.  And, based on that forecast, many of the boats in the Rally decided to bail to Bermuda and wait for better weather.  After thinking about our options I was pretty confident that we could get north of the GS before the nasty weather hit so we pressed on.

However, that was a week ago and what looks like a sure thing weather-wise from that far out, can change a lot in a week.  Fortunately, that’s been the case here and the conditions don’t look that bad now.  However, the near gale force SW winds which would have been behind us are now expected to be from the north so even if they aren’t strong, conditions will be rough and we will be heading into the wind and waves.  Not a great combination.  However, we can always tack to the west and get across the stream.  If we do that, we won’t be in nasty conditions for more than about 100 miles, say 10 to 12 hours, verses the 150 miles that we had hoped to cover if the weather forecast was more positive.

We expect to be in the stream as of around midnight tonight (Sunday)and there will be a new forecast this evening so I’ll have the most current information to work with.

What’s going to happen with the wind as we work our way up toward NJ and NY is uncertain as there are a number of small lows coming from the midwest and it’s hard to say what sort of conditions they will bring.  Usually, lows bring NE winds which would make going toward NY a chore however, Chris feels that the winds won’t be that strong so it might not turn out to be too bad.  We will know more on Mondaymorning when he gives his next morning forecast.  I guess all we can do at this point is to keep moving and be prepared for whatever we run into.

A complication in all of this is that yesterday, when I switched fuel tanks, Pandora has three, the engine started running rough and died.  After messing around with filters and such for over an hour, I realized that there was water in the system suggesting that one of the tanks is contaminated.  I don’t know if I got some water when I filled that tank earlier in the winter or if seawater got in at the deck fill when we were in heavy conditions over the winter.  One way or the other, it caused a lot of anxiety when the engine died as we were more than 100 miles from an area with any wind and to sit for days, 350 miles from land, waiting for wind was quite upsetting.

However, as with everything else aboard Pandora, I carry plenty of spare parts so I was able to put in new filters and get rid of most of the water in the system and isolate the tank with bad fuel.  Good yes, but the bad tank has left us with about 30% less fuel and perhaps not enough to get home without stopping along the way.  And, there is the added anxiety of worrying that we might have some water in one or more of the two remaining tanks that might cause problems down the road.  Fortunately, I have an extra 25 gallons in jugs to use if needed and I put most of that supply in the nearly empty tank that I had been running on from when we left Tortola.

Happily, we are now sailing but that may come to an end in a day or so when we encounter winds from the north and with some 500+ miles to go a lot can happen.  Assuming that we have burned a good amount of our remaining fuel by the time we are near NJ, we may opt to stop in Atlantic City to fill the two clean (I hope) tanks to make the rest of the trip.

So there you have it, and as Gilda Radner used to say “it’s always something”.  And that’s particularly true when it comes to boats going long distances.

Well, wish us luck as we continue to work our way north.  Hopefully we will be home by Wednesday or Thursday, even if we have to stop for fuel.

It’s Saturday morning and we are motoring in an oily flat calm, about 250 miles from the south wall of the Gulf Stream.  I say “wall” as that’s exactly what it’s like when you enter as within a very short distance you cross from the waters outside to inside of the stream.  You can tell because the temperature goes up about ten degrees, the water is more unsettled and the color changes to a more dramatic blue.  And, if conditions are settled, you can actually see the “wall” as you approach.  It’s pretty wild to see a break in the otherwise uniform waters, miles in every direction.   It’s remarkable that the transition is so sharp after the waters have traveled so far north from where it passes the southern tip of Florida, a thousand miles south.

To be so far from land and have absolutely flat water to the horizon in every direction when we are so far from land, 500 miles from Jacksonville FL and about 350 miles from Cape Hatteras and the Bahamas.  This is the point of our trip that has us furthest from land.  As the horizon is only 15 miles in any direction, I guess it really doesn’t matter how far out we are as we won’t see land until we approach either Sandy Hook or Montauk.  I don’t know yet which will be the best spot to head for until I better understand what the wind will be like after we leave the Gulf Stream on Monday evening.  As of now, it looks like the wind will be out of the south-west, which is a good direction for sailing but perhaps it will be a better wind angle to approach Sandy Hook and make our way through New York.

Jim has not been through NYC by water and I thought that it would be fun too as it’s been a few years for me.   Also, with very strong currents we will have to time our transit based on a flood tide.  I also like the idea of going through NYC as that will put us within cell range sooner, which is good.   Clearing customs should be easier too as the other times I have gone that way a simple phone call was all it took to clear us in.  I’d prefer to avoid having Customs and Immigration come to the boat, or worse, make us come to them, as that will just lengthen our trip.  Unfortunately, we would have to stay aboard once in port until we officials arrive and inspect the boat and crew.  Clearing by phone is clearly better.

We haven’t seen much in the way of ship traffic in several days with only one sighted in the early hours of today, a freighter that crossed our bow, probably less than a mile off.  It’s very hard to gauge distances at night and without radar or AIS, I have no idea as to how close it was except that it felt TOO CLOSE for comfort.

I had hoped to catch a fish but alas, no luck in spite of trolling a line for two days already.   And, while we have seen an occasional bird, no sightings of dolphins or anything else, for that matter.  That’s unless you count a few Portuguese Man-of-War jelly fish with their air filled “sail” floating along with the wind and current.

Because of the anticipated bad weather in the Gulf Stream, most of the Salty Dawg fleet decided to divert to Bermuda to participate in the upcoming America’s Cup festivities.  I would have loved to do that myself but I have so much to do at home and would have really complicated things with regards to crew.  I expect that a week long delay would have cost me both Cliff and Jim and then I would have had to scramble to find replacements for the trip home.  Finding crew who’d like to visit Bermuda for a few days prior to heading out would have been pretty easy but that would have necessitated my staying in Bermuda for perhaps two weeks between crew leaving and new ones arriving, a non-starter as I really don’t want to be away from Brenda for that long.

Interestingly, all of the participants in the rally check into both a morning and evening SSB radio net and it’s fun to hear who’s caught a fish, has gear problems (not so fun) and their location relative to Pandora.  It’s fun to connect and hear what’s up with the others making this trip and after so many miles and days at sea, the fleet is very spread out with none within sight of Pandora.

Well, that’s about it for now.  No wind for the next few days so I’ll be putting a pretty good dent in our diesel supply until we enter an area with some decent winds north of the Stream.  You can also be sure that I am watching my fuel consumption very carefully as we are totally dependant on our engine and that’s especially important as we just SO FAR from land, the furthest point of the trip.

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.