It is noon on the third day of our passage from Bermuda to Horta in the Azores and I will admit that I feel that we have been traveling for quite some time.
Question: So Bob, how far away is Horta?
Answer: NOT EVEN CLOSE!
For sure, we have been sailing at a good clip since we left Bermuda and should continue to carry favorable winds for the next 500 miles or so, several days NE from here. After that, we will likely turn more to the east and farther north to try and avoid the windless high on the latitude of the Azores.
We must be careful not to go too far north as that will add a lot of miles and will have to balance the stronger winds up north against a shorter, more direct route, with little or no wind. And that will require days of motoring, which I prefer to avoid. Remember, I sail much faster than I motor. Try twice as fast.
There is no practical way to avoid some motoring but if I can keep that to say, 500 miles, that is probably all I can hope for.
We will have to see how things evolve in the coming days and see what Chris recommends.
When you consider the full run of about 2,000 NM, we have hardly scratched the surface, only covering about 400 miles, or 20% of the distance.
400 miles is a smidge.
In the “olden days,” with our 20’ Cape Cod Catboat, a big trip was the 17 NM run from Norwalk, CT to Pt Jefferson, on Long Island Sound. The 400 miles, so far, is very likely more distance than we covered in the entire season of weekend runs back then.
After many years of local sailing on Long Island Sound, we graduated to Martha’s Vineyard and then on to Maine but it was not until I retired in 2012 that we went any real distance, heading down the Intra Costal Waterway to Florida and onto The Bahamas.
So, with 80% of the run to Horta still in front of us, we really have not covered much ground.
Ok, we are 400 miles into the trip but how far are we from other places we have cruised?
The answer is way far…
Such as…
800 NM from our home near the Connecticut River.
1,500 NM from Trinidad: Where I began this run about a month ago.
1,050 NM from St Maarten: Where I departed from to make the run to Bermuda.
1,500 NM from Horta: Of course, where we will end up within two weeks, I hope…
And finally, 1,000 NM from the Azores to Almeria Spain: Where we plan to leave Pandora for the season until we re-join her next April.
Yikes. A long way to go. Best not to think about that today…
Instead, I will think about today, sailing along at 8kts, the sun is shining and nothing major has broken, yet…
Things have been stable aboard for the last day. Well, if you set aside the squall that enveloped us for more than an hour last night, complete with lightening. The squall, according to our radar, was about 10 miles across and it was not until after nearly an hour in the middle of it that we decided to reverse course and were able to finally sail out of it.
All is well that ends well and so far, that is the only squall that we have encountered.
So, now you know how far it is to Horta, and several other places, for that matter. What we do not know is how long it will take for us to get there.
I suppose the answer is anyone’s guess.
Probably longer than I expect. Me? Ever the optimist…
Instead, I will focus on the sunrise today.
What a nice way to start the day.
Note: You can see where Pandora and the others in the fleet are in real time, at the Salty Dawg Azores Rally Map.
If you want to see where Pandora is alone, check out “where in the world is Pandora” at the top of the page or click on this link.
And, as always, you can register to receive a notice when I post, Which I do regularly, at the top of this page.
One day into the run from Bermuda to Horta, things are going well.
And, as the sun peaked over the horizon, I was a bit surprised to see the sun coming up over our bow.
For every other offshore trip, north and south, it has always been on the beam. Now, heading generally east, it rose in front of us. Obvious but I had not thought of that.
For those that follow this blog know that I am not a big fan of passage making and after a decade of heading south in the fall and back north at the end of season, the sameness, after a decade, has gotten a bit old.
On the run south to the Caribbean every fall, the passage is somewhat predictable. The first third of the run is a mix of cold fronts that can make for challenging routing, with SW winds clocking as cold fronts crash off of the US east coast. It is a constant battle to find decent winds.
The second third, the “Bermuda High” where there is very little wind. This area, several hundred miles wide is the transition zone between the SW prevailing winds to the north and the easterly trades to the south. Passing through this area can be very frustrating and often involves a lot of motoring and a fair number of squalls.
Finally, the easterly trade winds, but that can also be frustrating as you never really know if they will be pushed south by a big low up north or allow for spirited sailing for upwards of a third of the 1,500-mile run from New England and Antigua. While most of the time we end up with great sailing for this part of the run, I have had passages where the trades were suppressed until the last 200 miles. And, to make matters worse, the winds are often south of east so it is not easy sailing and sometimes can be downright “salty.”
The unpredictability of the run is frustrating enough but add to that the fact that as we move farther south, it gets hotter, especially when I am motoring, to a point of where the cabin is over 90 degrees for much of the time, making it very difficult to get rest.
Now, I will say that I have no previous experience with a Trans-Atlantic run but so far it is going quite well.
And, even when we enter windless areas, I will be able to motor some distance instead of waiting for wind. However, it should stay cooler below as we are so much farther north.
Pandora has quite good motoring range as she carries 95 gallons of diesel in three tanks below deck as well as six 5-gallon jugs and a 50-gallon bladder, in vented lockers. That gives me approximately 180 gallons of usable fuel, good for motoring more than 1,000 miles.
That means if we are becalmed for days, I can keep moving, if not particularly fast as motoring is about half as fast as sailing in good conditions.
Another issue that detracts from the fun of passage making has been chasing leaks and it seems that every time I fix one, another pops up.
When we purchased Pandora 9 years ago, the owner proudly declared that there is only one place that leaked, the big salon plexiglass windows. He told me that when it got cold the panels shrank a bit and the ends started dripping.
Well, I dealt with that by replacing them with PPG commercial building glass and by adding a center expansion joint so that any expansion or contraction was no longer an issue. This glass, designed for office buildings, has a very low expansion coefficient, much like fiberglass and epoxy. Years later, no leaks.
Unfortunately, that was just the beginning of leaks and as I used the boat offshore in rough conditions, leaks multiplied as I was putting the boat in much wetter conditions. Alas, loads of leaks.
I also had issues with the three large hatches and while the gaskets were fine, for a few years anyway, water was getting under the metal base and leaking down below. I pulled the whole hatch off as well as most of the other deck fittings and re-sealed everything.
One way or the other, a boat that is used hard gets leaks and I hear from many other cruisers that their “no leak” boat ends up like a washing machine down below when they are in rough conditions offshore.
After 9 seasons of chasing leaks, I had finally narrowed it down to a single, impossible to fix leak, the mast boot. And that was particularly frustrating as any salt water that got below ended up on our bunk.
When I took Pandora back to Trinidad last month, I asked Amos to find the leak, not mater what, and it seems that he did. He told me that they found a small hole in the rubber boot where water was getting in.
Well, so far, for this passage, no leaks so far which would make this the VERY FIRST PASSAGE, EVER. Fingers crossed that I am no jinxing the deal by writing this. Perhaps it has not been rough enough yet. We will see.
While it has been plenty sporty, and there has been plenty of water on deck, no water down below.
In our two pre-departure weather briefings Chris described conditions that were unusually good for this run and that we should be able to have good sailing for at least half of the trip with near perfect sailing with 15-20 kts on the beam before we encounter any light wind conditions.
So far, so good and in our first 24 hours since leaving Bermuda yesterday morning at 06:30 we have clocked about 185 miles, an impressive feat for a boat like Pandora, and faster than most comparably sized cruising boats. My best 24hr runs have been in the 195-mile range but it is a rare cruising boat that can go 200 miles in a day unless there is a favorable current.
Who knows how things will go over the next week but we believe that we have several more days, at least with excellent sailing.
Perhaps I will beat Brenda’s arrival on the 15th. And, I left a day earlier than our June 1st planned departure date. That would be nice.
It is probably too early to speculate but I am hoping that I will complete the run in 12-13 days if I am lucky. I actually have no idea… but hope….
And, as far as comfort is concerned, I am also sleeping a lot better as it is much cooler than the run to the Caribbean and will surely get cooler still as we make our way north.
Due to the prevailing westerly winds, we will be heading somewhat north of the latitude of Horta to avoid the windless zone and perhaps as far north as the same latitude as Boston or Cape Cod.
Finally, I interviewed quite a few crew for this run and after one day I am happy to report that I chose well. Ted, who has a lot of offshore experience including time with high-latitude sailing in the southern and Indian oceans, has sailed in some of the most challenging conditions in the world and really knows his stuff.
And Jason, true to what I was told by his references, is eager to learn, and with his club racing experience, knows his way around a boat.
I am happy to have them both aboard and we are learning from each other.
Of course, it helps that we are making miles. Ask me again if the wind poops out.
Good wind or not, perhaps the one thing that is making this run more fun is that I am heading toward an adventure that I would never have imagined, even a few years ago.
To sail in the Mediterranean is so far from what seemed possible that I never even speculated that I would someday be heading “across the Pond”.
So far, one day in, I am enjoying this passage.
There, I said it. Let’s hope that I have not jinxed it.
Every day, a bit closer… I hope…
Editor: I expect to continue to post most days for our run to Horta, and a fair amount after that, so consider signing up to get a reminder when I publish.
You can also see where Pandora and the others in the fleet are in real time, at the Salty Dawg Azores Rally Map.
If you want to see where Pandora is alone, check out “where in the world is Pandora” at the top of the page or click on this link.
This is it. Today we weigh anchor, head out from Bermuda, destination Horta in the Azores.
At the risk of being corny, this photo as the sun sets on our visit to Bermuda.
The only thing that is more amazing than the fact that I am heading out today to cross the Atlantic, is that I actually feel, mostly, ready for the run.
My crew, Jason and Ted, arrived a few days ago, provisioning is done so I do feel like we are ready to “take the plunge” and get going.
Yesterday was a whirlwind with a bus ride to the market, a massive haul of provisions and a cab back to the waterfront, securing the boat, clearing customs and hosting a weather briefing. I have to say that I have never purchased quite so many sandwich wraps, several dozen and exactly how many yogurts can three guys eat in two to three weeks? We’ll see but we have two dozen on top of loads of other food.
We really don’t know how long this 2,000 mile run will take but I have tried to have enough food to last three weeks, I think…
However, on the bright side, our latest briefing from Chris Parker, our weather router, suggests that we will have really great sailing for at least the first week which may very well take us a full 2/3rds of the way to Horta until we find ourselves in an area with very little wind.
Anyway, at least we have lots of food. And fuel, as we filled up the boat a few days ago and should have enough to motor perhaps as long as 1,000 miles, which should not be necessary based on the forecast so far. I calculate that if I go slow I burn about .7 to .8 gallons per hour and with 175 gallons of fuel available, that’s over 200 miles and perhaps 1,000 miles or more. If we have good winds, we should be able to sail much of the way. Fingers crossed.
It’s been a very pleasant, if busy, time here in Bermuda and I am very pleased to be heading out early, if only by a day.
It’s hard to say how long the run will take but with all of the favorable winds, for at least the next week, perhaps the run will take about two weeks.
From the beginning of planning, I have been focused on two weeks for the trip, suggesting that we will arrive in Horta around the 15th which is when Brenda arrives.
She has booked a hotel for a week so hopefully I will be able to stay there with her. That would be nice.
It’s been nearly a month since I headed to Trinidad and I am anxious to begin this next leg and be back together with Brenda.
For the last decade of moving Pandora around, Brenda and I have been apart for a month or more in both the spring and fall as I move the boat south or back home in the spring but this year will have been the longest, six weeks. That’s a long time to be apart.
Along the way I will miss our 48th anniversary, June 4th if you want to know, and my 70th birthday, June 8th, not to put too fine a point on it. Hard to believe that so much water has gone under Brenda’s and my keel’s, bridges, whatever…
We’ve been together for a long time and I am excited about getting underway and back together again.
If you are curious about where Pandora is or to follow the other boats that are participating in this rally, the first Salty Dawg Rally to the Azores, follow the links below.
And, you can sign up to get an email alert when I post, which if history is any guide, will be frequently as we move along our path to Horta. See the link at the top of this page.
I will be using Predict Wind for routing along with Chris Parker as a way to have a graphic representation of what Chris has in his forecast.
As of this morning, here’s what it looks like. We will be looking for medium red conditions with wind from the SW and green from the South so and you can see that there is plenty forecast along our route.
The various lines are based on a number of different weather scenarios and the track that we will take is likely to be somewhere between the upper and lower tracks.
The sections we want to avoid is dark red, very windy, or blue, way to light for sailing.
It’s all a bit complex but we will be focused on what you might call the “Goldilocks winds”, not too strong, and not too light and from the right direction.
And, with a little luck in about two weeks, Horta, our next stop.
Bermuda is really beautiful. The last time that I was here was when I helped take a friend’s boat home from the Bermuda Race. That was a very long time ago and perhaps I was in my 20s. This visit brings me full circle as I am now heading across the Atlantic. First time, my first offshore passage. Second visit, my first transatlantic. Get it?
Before I move on, I should note that my code zero sail is mort. I took it to the sail repair guy yesterday and he declared it “dumpster ready”. What a blow. However, after speaking with Chris Parker he said that the sail wouldn’t be of much use for a good amount of the trip as the wind will be too far aft for such a sail to be effective. I plan to put it back up and to use it until it blows out. Perhaps it will last till the end of the run. Doubtful but I will try.
When we finished up the trip yesterday around 09:00 it was blowing pretty hard out of the SW and we had pushed hard to get in before the forecasted wind shift to the north came through. Amazingly, within about 90 minutes of our arrival the wind shifted 180 degrees and piped up to 25-30 kts. The rapidity of the change was stunning and boats were dragging. It wasn’t pretty. However, today it’s lovely with a light north wind. Pandora at anchor.
Pandora is in good company. Here’s Ticonderoga, a beautiful yawl designed and built by Francis Herishoff and launched in 1936. I sailed for an afternoon on her years ago but she wasn’t in as amazing shape as she is now. I believe that she sailed in the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta recently and is heading back to Newport for the summer.
Anyway, it is looking like a departure for Horta over the weekend, on time.
My crew, Jason and Ted, arrived today and we have a weather briefing and cocktail reception this evening so that will give us a good feel for what to expect, at least for the early part of the trip.
This morning I went for a walk in Georgetown to enjoy the views. It is a beautiful place. Unfortunately, the prices of everything are sky high as there are very high tariffs on everything. We had a light lunch yesterday in a burger place and it was $120 for two. Stunning.
While the prices are stunning, the beauty is as well.
The first thing that you see when you leave the dock is the town hall, which sets the tone. What a beautiful building. And, everything is perfectly maintained.
It is a school day and I saw two different groups from a school out for a tour.
It reminded me of a similar moment in Cuba when Brenda and I visited that island in 2016. Follow this link to a view not very different from the image above, but in Cuba.
All of the buildings here have whitewashed roofs to catch the rain as natural waster is in short supply here.
Everything is brightly painted and all perfect.
Of course, what would a beautiful city be without carefully maintained ruins?
Or more of the shabby chic kind…
Or a park…
I love flowers and there are loads here. Morning glories?
And what says Bermuda more than bougainvillea?
Lots of churches. Pink.
And other colors.
I have to say that this place is one of the most beautiful places that I have visited. Seeing the sights like this makes me wonder if perhaps the Med will be even more amazing. I am counting on it as getting there is not simple.
Here’s to a promising weather window. Fingers crossed. Details to come.
As I write this It is Monday afternoon and we hopeful that we are less than 24 hours from making landfall in Bermuda.
There is a nice, if light, breeze on the beam but with only my small jib and main but we cannot risk going even a little bit slower so we must continue to run the engine.
After posting several sunrises, how about this sunset from last night? The sun was setting under a huge thunderhead cloud. To me it looks a bit like the goose that laid the golden egg.
Later that evening, the cloud came over us and dropped some rain but fortunately, it was not particularly windy and no lightening.
And speaking of clouds that look like an animal. I cannot quite decide what this one reminds me of. Whatever it is, it looks happy. Hmm…
I have not turned off the motor for several days now except to address a bit of an “issue” last evening around dusk, when the belts on the power take-off that run the large alternator to charge the battery along with enough electricity to run the forward AC, began to disintegrate.
After thousands of miles aboard Pandora, I can immediately tell if something is not quite right and when I heard a rumbling and a different vibration I took a look. Seeing one of the tandem belts shredding itself, tossing pieces everywhere confirmed that I had to shut the engine down.
As with just about every critical component, I have spares and in this case, enough belts to replace both twice more. Getting them off and replacing them with new ones was not easy but as I had done the job in the past and was able to complete the job in about a half hour. Having said that, working on a hot engine while the boat was rolling in windless conditions was not fun but with Dave holding a light so I could see what I was doing, mission accomplished and we were soon underway.
By the time I had the job completed, I was dripping with sweat.
One of the frustrating things about passage making is that the wind, while often consistent for days on end, can often be very uncooperative and last night as a particular low point.
For much of yesterday we had a decent breeze that allowed us to motor sail but as the sun went down the breeze shifted to our stern and dropped to less than 5kts. As we motored forward at about the same speed, that meant that we had a slight headwind, slowing us further. It was excruciating.
I took in the jib but left the main up with the hope of getting a bit of a lift from the sail. However, that was not to be and for much of the night the sail just flapped slowly, and we crawled along at less than 5kts.
Fortunately, later in the morning a 10kt breeze came up on our beam and we are now motor-sailing along at a good clip. There is almost enough wind to sail but not quite without the big code zero. The lack of a proper light air sail has made it necessary to run the engine for an additional 24 hour or more.
And, speaking of that sail, when we arrive in Bermuda, I will deliver it to a sailmaker with the hope of getting it repaired. However, as I expect that it will be windy when we arrive, we decided to take it down this morning when the wind was light.
Given the sun damage to the aft end of the sail, I was very concerned that it might catch on something as we dropped it on deck and receive even more damage.
After about a half hour of strategizing on how to get it down and folded up, we decided to slowly motor slightly off the wind and to drop it onto the leeward deck. George tended the aft end of the sail and Dave clawed the sail onto the deck as I lowered it.
This is a big sail, about 60’ tall and about 35’ on the foot. A lot of fabric to muscle onto the deck without it ending up in the water. When pulling down a big sail, if a gust of wind catches it and you hold on too tight, it can jerk you right off the deck.
Well, we got it done, stuffed it into a sail bag and stowed it in the forward head, where it will live until we take it to the sailmaker tomorrow afternoon.
So, that is done and there is one less thing to worry about.
Getting that sail fixed is critical as without it we will have to motor a lot more or go unreasonably slowly on the run to the Azores when the wind is light, perhaps adding days to a trip that is likely to take more than two weeks, even with good conditions.
The difference in an average speed of six knots vs four can make a big difference.
2,000 miles at an average speed of 6kts is 14 days. The same distance at 5kts is three days longer.
As it is, we are estimating that the trip will take between 13-17 days and to not have a sail that can handle light wind would put us at a major disadvantage.
To that point, I estimated that the lack of the code zero sail on this run has cost us upwards of an extra half day or more.
That might not sound like a lot but there are often deadlines where you “have to get there” to avoid bad weather and the difference of a knot or even a half knot, can mean the difference of hitting bad weather or not.
This passage is a case in point, as if we do not get to Bermuda by mid-morning on Tuesday, we may be hit by strong headwinds that could cost us another day at sea.
Some say that watching a boat sail is like watching grass grow but having good sails and wind is like a lawn with no rain verses rain and lots of fertilizer. You cannot see it grow but it gets tall fast.
So, here we are at noon on Monday and we positively must get to Bermuda by mid-morning tomorrow, so we motor.
I think that we can make it based on the wind that we have now, but after last night, inching along with no wind, who knows.
As we approach Bermuda it has turned into a race to the finish if for now other reason than to avoid running into major headwinds.
I suppose that is a metaphor for life, avoiding headwinds.
After a few days in Bermuda, off again for the Azores, that destination is 2.5x farther than this leg, nearly 2,000 miles.
Let us hope we have good wind and no major broken stuff.
