Dare I say it?  Could this be our fastest run yet?  I am hesitant to declare victory though lest I jinx it.

Early in the trip, we were very focused on getting across the Gulf Stream and ran the engine for hours to be sure that we got far enough south and east to be ahead of a strong front.

We did well but caught the end of that front which gave us high 20s with gusts to the low 30s on a very deep reach overnight.  Yes, we were going pretty fast, sometimes breaking 10kts briefly but it was pretty bumpy.  We put away the jib and sailed under a double reefed main.

As of now, 10:00 Sunday, we have been sailing for nearly 30 hours without the engine.

To that point, this is the first run that I have done since having the new lithium batteries, new and larger solar panels and a wind generator installed and It’s great to see that things are working out.

After running for all that time with no engine to recharge the batteries, they are still charged to 88%.   The new solar did some of that but a big boost was from the wind generator that mostly kept up with the instruments overnight.  Having said that, we were mostly off the wind so the apparent wind was not all that high so it could not keep up with the refrigeration as well.

I do expect that by this afternoon most of the power will be back in the batteries as it’s a fairly sunny day.

having the batteries well supported by wind as well as solar is a huge difference from having to run the engine twice a day to keep the batteries up with the load of running the instruments 24 hours a day.

I’ll be keeping track of how the system works in the “real world” and will try to summarize things down the road.  One thing for sure is that solar and wind work well together but the biggest output for the dollar is surely solar at about $1/watt.

I’ll stop there for now except to say that the trip is going well and we are hoping, expecting perhaps, that the rest of the trip will bring reasonable conditions.

Dare I say that we might actually do the run in 9-10 days?  That would be great.

While we are still in the early days of this passage, it is beginning to look like this is shaping up to be a great run.

I hope so.

It’s mid day Sunday and we are south of the Gulf Stream and moving along at a good clip, generally at about 7-9kts.

Over the last few hours, we have been hit by a few squalls to near 30kts but with just a single reef in the main and on a broad reach, Pandora is handling it well.

Our first 24 hours was about 185 miles, a respectable showing and while we did run the engine a fair amount, it was not because we had no wind, but to keep up our speed and keep in front of a nasty front exiting the coast later today.

As of now, I think that we will be ahead of the worst of it.

The weather files we have been downloading and the information from Chris Parker continues to suggest that this should be a fairly fast run, perhaps as little as nine or ten days, on the outside, and involve a good amount of sailing.

The biggest issue will be how far south and east we get when the easterly trades kick in.   If we are able to get far enough east before they fill in, we will have really fast sailing for the second half of the trip.  With a little luck, I will be able to sail in trade winds for longer than any prior run.

Tonite should get pretty sporty with wind in the mid 20s, but from a favorable angle.

So, I guess it’s safe to say that we are doing well and I am cautiously optimistic.

Fingers crossed but so far, so good.

I can’t believe it.  Finally, two weeks later than we had hoped, we are on our way to Antigua.  Ironically, November 12th, today was the day that we were scheduled to begin the planned series of more than a dozen events upon arrival in Antigua.

The last few days have been just a whirlwind of emotion as we were getting daily weather briefings and the fleet was getting more and more itchy to head out.

I won’t go through all the conflicting weather we were facing but I thought that Chris Parker, our weather router was a champ, finally sorting through the daily changes as we faced hurricanes and many cold fronts that complicated our plans over the last few weeks.

I had headed back to CT when the delays began at the end of October, but finally, two days ago, the coast was clear, mostly, to head back to Hampton.

My crew George, circumnavigator and fellow Salty Dawg board member booked a train from Newport and Bob, another experienced offshore sailor also arrived at the BWI Amtrak station yesterday afternoon.   I picked them up and we hightailed it to Pandora.

Our final pre-departure weather briefing was scheduled for 7:00 last night and we only arrived back at Pandora about 15 minutes before it began.

The good news is that Chris gave us a green light to head out this morning with the hope that we will be able to get across the Gulf Stream before things become too sporty on Monday.

Anyway, it’s good to be on our way, finally.  Hopefully, we will have a fast run and perhaps we will be in Antigua in about 10 days.

Thanks to fellow Dawg Brian, here’s a photo of Pandora leaving the dock this morning. All I can say is FINALLY.  Destination Antigua.

 

 

The last two days of weather briefings have pointed toward a Saturday morning departure from Hampton, bound for Antigua.

With the bulk of the fleet still in Hampton hoping that a window would open up, this was good news.   The expectation that Saturday would be the day became clearer in the last few days.

That’s good  news after a delay of nearly two weeks.  It’s been very tough with many boats having to scramble to find crew to replace those who were not willing to possibly miss Thanksgiving at home with family.

The “hard stop” of crew needing to be home by Thanksgiving has been been in the back of everyone’s mind each year but this is the first rally in recent memory that brought that concern to the forefront.

It has also upended the nearly two weeks of arrival events planned in Antigua and while I am certain that we will be able to put most of them on, I expect that some will end up being held weeks after the fleet arrives.

I for one, need to be back in the US for Christmas and time leading up to that as we too want to be with family.  In past years Brenda has flown down to meet me when we arrived but with the long weather delay this year she won’t be coming down.

We both had flights scheduled and paid for months ago that would have us returning home on November 22nd and as I write this I am not sure that I will even have arrived by then.

Even if we have a fast trip and get there by the 22nd, I am torn if I should just fly out and leave the the rest of the fleet to fend for themselves and let someone else handle the the events as they unfold.

It’s a complex issue but I am certainly pleased that I have crew and while it’s going to be a rush to get ready to leave tomorrow, we should be able to get off of the dock by late morning, I hope.

My crew, George and Bob arrive at BWI via Amtrak early afternoon today and I will be picking up a car mid morning to meet them.  As I write this Brenda and I are in MD visiting family so I am only about an hour from BWI.

I wish that I could say more about what we will expect on the run but the key issue for us will be to get out between several bouts with nasty weather and a need to focus on getting as far south and east as possible before some really nasty weather pushes down from the north and strong easterly trade winds kick in later in the week.

Leaving tomorrow will be a bit like “threading the needle” as we will be heading out just as a low begins to move to the north.   See the arrow of where we will depart from mid morning tomorrow, I hope. A few days later, by Wednesday I hope, we will have to be far enough south and east to avoid strong winds from the south and on the nose.  I doubt that we will be able to avoid this entirely but time will tell and points to the importance of getting going in the morning.  If all goes well we should be able to sail a good amount of the trip and pick up the trades farther north than I have had in recent years.  All of this suggests a relatively fast trip.

Wish us luck.

If you’re interested in following along go to this link and you will see all of the boats in the fleet with their tracks as we head south.  Notice that most of the boats that were heading to the Bahamas are already there.

You can also follow Pandora alone, without the rest of the fleet by following this link as well. 

After we settle into our run I hope to put up a post most days by sending the text to Brenda who will put it up on the site.

I’ll admit that it is a bit anxiety producing to finally be about ready to head out after so many delays and a very tough summer of trying to put Pandora into the best shape for the run.

If dollars spent is any indication of how well things will progress, it should be a “perfect” trip.  We’ll see about that.   Fingers crossed.

Here’s to getting ready and to a good and fast trip.

 

 

With apologies to Bob Merrill and his 1952 hit song, “How much is that Doggie in the window”.  I find my self wondering when the next weather”window” for the Dawgs will open up so they can head out, and when it happens, how many “Dawgies will be in the window”, heading to Antigua.

When it became clear that we were likely to be at sea over Thanksgiving, I wondered how many would opt to roll the dice and hold off from leaving until late November because they, or their family, just could not bear the thought of them being away for the holiday.

Over the last week there has been much debate among the fleet about the plusses and minuses of waiting until after Thanksgiving or leaving at the first available window.

In his marathon weather briefing on Saturday, lasting 90 minutes, Chris made it pretty clear that waiting until late in November or worse, early December was a very iffy proposition, even for a run to the Bahamas.

Late fall conditions in the north Atlantic are challenging enough, with windy cold fronts exiting the East Coast every few days.  And, in the second half of November and into December, the frequency and intensity of those fronts gets even worse.

Someone in the fleet did an informal poll of skippers and of those who responded only two said that they were waiting and would skip any window that conflicted with Thanksgiving.

Given the increased risks of difficult conditions, I am very glad that those planning to delay are in the extreme minority.   The idea of having a large number of boats trying to “thread the needle”, leaving late in the season, is very concerning to me.

In the case of one of the boats planning to head out late that I have been communicating with, I advised him to skip the run to Antigua and instead, head to the Bahamas, a run that will also be much more difficult the later he leaves.  Later in November it is unlikely that he will be able to make the run the entire way without stopping along the way to wait for better weather.

Ironically, a later start to the Bahamas is likely to take 2 weeks, perhaps longer than a run to Antigua, in spite of it being about half the distance.

When we had our briefing on Saturday, Chris Parker, our weather router, said that he thought there was a decent chance that we’d be able to head at some point between November 13th to 16th, about a week from now.

Here is the forecast for tomorrow, Tuesday.  The arrow is Hampton, where we will be leaving from.  As you can see, the wind is quite strong and from the north.  There is no way that we’d want to be out in that, crossing the Gulf Stream.  As the Stream flows to the NE, having strong winds, 30-40kts, from the NE against the current would make for miserable conditions.   Nope, have to wait for better conditions. And, two days later not looking good at all, with strong onshore winds again, a total reversal as the low moves up the coast.    Of course, these assumptions are more than a week from now but just in case, we want to begin to think about being ready when the picture become clearer.

If the assumptions of a week from now are right, a window might begin to open up as early as next Sunday.  The arrow shows north wind out of the Chesapeake in the low teens, a broad reach with easy sailing conditions.   The model shows that the really nasty stuff has moved to the NE.  Even if these conditions played out, it’s likely that Chris would suggest waiting another day to give the seas an opportunity to calm down from the heaviest winds. What happens after that date as we make our way south?  In past years we have had to go a very long way to get to consistent “trade winds” out of the east.  This scenario seems to suggest that the trades would be building fairly far north and from the east.  In the past, we have been frustrated by relentless SE winds, making it very difficult to go south.  Several years ago we had to motorsail to the east for three days waiting for more favorable winds.   During those three days we never made a mile closer to Antigua.  It was very frustrating.

As I sit here on Monday, a week before all of this will unfold, who knows what the timing and conditions we will face will be like.

The good news is that both the European and US weather models seem pretty much aligned in their assumptions, which suggests that things might play out as described even if this is still a week out.

In a few days Brenda and I head to MD to spend some time with our grandchildren.   That might end up being a convenient half way stopping point as I plan my return to Pandora next weekend to get ready for the run.

I really hope that conditions will allow for a departure next week as one of my crew will have to bail if we can’t get to Antigua by the end of the month.

With Thanksgiving on the horizon and the prospect of being at sea for the holiday, it will be interesting to see just how many Dawgies will end up in the (next) window.

Yes, I get it, and know that I have tortured that about enough for now so I guess I’ll sign off.

Another update after our next briefing tomorrow evening.

Fingers crossed.