1050 Bermuda Time May 21 3641N 5446W Wind S 15kts COG 95 SOG 7.5kts Seas 3ft Cloudy/Rain
In hopes of a record 24 hours I went to bed at 0200 after we had covered 64nm in 8 hours, under reefed sails. Next thing I knew it was 5.45am and I awoke to the reefs being unfurled as we were caught in the middle of a large rainstorm that stole our wind. Oh well, that's sailing.
We are well positioned to enjoy mainly southerly winds for quite a few days. We just connected via SSB with Chris Parker our offshore weather man (who is onshore in Florida) and he confirmed what our weather charts, downloaded also via SSB, are forecasting. Our little ship is sailing beautifully and, even though only one of us is matching her grace and looks, we other three chaps are having a darn good sail! Who needs a razor out here, anyway?
Dave is busy right now in the galley making a Wahoo concoction out of the extra fish cooked last night; so we will relish a Hornbach Wahwhatsit Salad for lunch.
We are a third of the way over to the Azores, and will have a superb trip if the last two thirds are similar.
John and Nancy, with Dave and Bob
In 2014 Adventuress sailed to Europe. She made landfall in Muxia Spain; then England. After cruising the English South Coast, and the Channel Islands, she wintered at Woodbridge, England. The next three summers we cruised England, Holland, Norway, Denmark, France, Spain, Portugal, and Gibraltar. For the foreseeable future Adventuress will sail in Europe. UPDATE: it's October 2021 and we are sailing her back to the USA: Transat passage will be Nov/Dec: expect to be in Florida end of January.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
"No Whining...
...only Larking About" says the sign hanging in the galley. So we will not complain about the lack of useful wind: the fact is, we still made about 85nm Easting in the last 24h, and have only just now given up trying to sail, and turned on the motor.
Thurs May 22 0630 Berm Time, 0930 GMT, 36010N 5258W Wind W 8kts Seas 2ft Sunny
For some reason the skipper has been stingy with spending diesel: maybe he is miserly, or just hates the thought of being a stink-potter. Anyway, we have a lovely morning for a motor boat ride, and the Offwatch are still sound asleep despite the noise of the engine. And we do have a lot of fuel left: so far we have used 7 gallons out of 190 total: might use another 7 today, though. We would try the gennaker sail, but experience (confirmed just two days ago) tells us that it will not work in light airs with any sort of swell running: the top of the mast - about 59ft 8in. above the water - moves some eight feet side to side in the swell we have, and that is enough to mess up the set of the sail.
All on Adventuress is shipshape, and the crew are in good form. Bob has been his usual happy self, and his old "Newfie" jokes are new at least to Dave!
John and Nancy, with Bob and Dave
Thurs May 22 0630 Berm Time, 0930 GMT, 36010N 5258W Wind W 8kts Seas 2ft Sunny
For some reason the skipper has been stingy with spending diesel: maybe he is miserly, or just hates the thought of being a stink-potter. Anyway, we have a lovely morning for a motor boat ride, and the Offwatch are still sound asleep despite the noise of the engine. And we do have a lot of fuel left: so far we have used 7 gallons out of 190 total: might use another 7 today, though. We would try the gennaker sail, but experience (confirmed just two days ago) tells us that it will not work in light airs with any sort of swell running: the top of the mast - about 59ft 8in. above the water - moves some eight feet side to side in the swell we have, and that is enough to mess up the set of the sail.
All on Adventuress is shipshape, and the crew are in good form. Bob has been his usual happy self, and his old "Newfie" jokes are new at least to Dave!
John and Nancy, with Bob and Dave
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Rogues to Gentlemen
Mon May 19 16.45 GMT 13.45 Berm 3452N 5948W Winds SSW 14. Seas 6ft Mainly sunny Quite cool Course 060T @ 7.2kts
If gentlemen never sail to weather, then since we left The Virgins we have been rogues, rascals and scallywags. But now, behold! For the first time we are sailing downwind! And 'tis a lovely feeling: the boat glides over, rather than slices through, the water; and with her soft rocking it is near impossible to stay awake! Unlike this morning, when we were wallowing around in light winds but still with a jostling sea state: not pretty with the sails slatting and the rigging banging; but it lasted only about 6 hours before the wind backed from N to W to SW. At 1100 when the wind freshened and moved some 30 degrees, we jibed from a course of NNW over to ENE.
The forecast now is excellent: we are supposed to keep these winds for a while as we sail at 060T up to 36N - should be there tomorrow afternoon. Then as the low which is about 600nm N East of us moves NE we should see South winds for several days: which means a beam reach on starboard tack, in warmer winds.
The sightings are few: a 200ft motoryacht came past us last night, and a freighter passed us 10 miles to the North, both bound for Gibraltar. In spite of the slowdown this morning waiting for the wind change, the first 48 hrs saw us cover 302nm. Our secret guesses as to when we will reach Flores are written and sealed in a Ziploc, and the the boat and crew are all happy.
Gentle Lady Nancy, with Gents John, Bob and Dave.
Tues May 20 10.30 Berm Time 3545N 5730W Wind W 6kts Seas 3ft Sunny and motoring to charge batteries and find useful wind (we hope).
Had good sailing until 8am then wind died. We just tried the Gennaker sail, but combination of waves and not enough wind would not allow it to set. So we are put-putting and charging batteries.
If gentlemen never sail to weather, then since we left The Virgins we have been rogues, rascals and scallywags. But now, behold! For the first time we are sailing downwind! And 'tis a lovely feeling: the boat glides over, rather than slices through, the water; and with her soft rocking it is near impossible to stay awake! Unlike this morning, when we were wallowing around in light winds but still with a jostling sea state: not pretty with the sails slatting and the rigging banging; but it lasted only about 6 hours before the wind backed from N to W to SW. At 1100 when the wind freshened and moved some 30 degrees, we jibed from a course of NNW over to ENE.
The forecast now is excellent: we are supposed to keep these winds for a while as we sail at 060T up to 36N - should be there tomorrow afternoon. Then as the low which is about 600nm N East of us moves NE we should see South winds for several days: which means a beam reach on starboard tack, in warmer winds.
The sightings are few: a 200ft motoryacht came past us last night, and a freighter passed us 10 miles to the North, both bound for Gibraltar. In spite of the slowdown this morning waiting for the wind change, the first 48 hrs saw us cover 302nm. Our secret guesses as to when we will reach Flores are written and sealed in a Ziploc, and the the boat and crew are all happy.
Gentle Lady Nancy, with Gents John, Bob and Dave.
Tues May 20 10.30 Berm Time 3545N 5730W Wind W 6kts Seas 3ft Sunny and motoring to charge batteries and find useful wind (we hope).
Had good sailing until 8am then wind died. We just tried the Gennaker sail, but combination of waves and not enough wind would not allow it to set. So we are put-putting and charging batteries.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Speedy Start
Sunday May 18 12.40 UTC: Ship' time (Bermuda)09.40 3250N 62.15W winds N 15 Partly Sunny 7+kts COG 065T
The half dozen boats that left yesterday morning before our departure at 13.30 are all now astern! After 5 hours we caught up with the first one - a Swiss flagged Amel 53 - at 18.05 and three hours later his light was barely visible astern. Adventuress is a speedster and we continue to be surprised how well she sails in 10 to 12 kts of breeze. During the night we passed four other boats - variety unknown. Now we have a bit more wind, and so far we certainly timed our departure just right. Looks like we will see the winds continue to veer N to NW to WNW and on those we will head up some more to reach 36 or 37 degrees N. Then the forecast is for a switch to SW. No big winds are in the forecast, and we may be able to fly our big "balloon" gennaker if the seas are not too bumpy to upset the sail.
The SSB is working well and we just downloaded wx "grib" files for tomorrow and Tuesday: we picked up a strong signal to a shoreside station 'VE1YZ' 953nm north of us in St Margaret's Bay Nova Scotia.
Nancy made us an outstanding Lanco Meat Loaf for dinner on Friday our last night in port; so we devoured meatloaf sandwiches for lunch yesterday: and for dinner the Wahoo came with a glaze of apricot mayonnaise butter with sauteed garlic shallots and onion. Two feasts in one day out on the ocean! Tonight will be the traditional first night Coq au Vin, which got bumped out by the Wahoo.
We are not yet fishing - not much room in the freezer with all that Wahoo in it.
Best from four happy sailors: Nancy and John with Bob and Dave
The half dozen boats that left yesterday morning before our departure at 13.30 are all now astern! After 5 hours we caught up with the first one - a Swiss flagged Amel 53 - at 18.05 and three hours later his light was barely visible astern. Adventuress is a speedster and we continue to be surprised how well she sails in 10 to 12 kts of breeze. During the night we passed four other boats - variety unknown. Now we have a bit more wind, and so far we certainly timed our departure just right. Looks like we will see the winds continue to veer N to NW to WNW and on those we will head up some more to reach 36 or 37 degrees N. Then the forecast is for a switch to SW. No big winds are in the forecast, and we may be able to fly our big "balloon" gennaker if the seas are not too bumpy to upset the sail.
The SSB is working well and we just downloaded wx "grib" files for tomorrow and Tuesday: we picked up a strong signal to a shoreside station 'VE1YZ' 953nm north of us in St Margaret's Bay Nova Scotia.
Nancy made us an outstanding Lanco Meat Loaf for dinner on Friday our last night in port; so we devoured meatloaf sandwiches for lunch yesterday: and for dinner the Wahoo came with a glaze of apricot mayonnaise butter with sauteed garlic shallots and onion. Two feasts in one day out on the ocean! Tonight will be the traditional first night Coq au Vin, which got bumped out by the Wahoo.
We are not yet fishing - not much room in the freezer with all that Wahoo in it.
Best from four happy sailors: Nancy and John with Bob and Dave
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Waters New
Sat May 17 1425 3222N 6433W Light winds ENE Seas 4 feet slow rollers Motorsailing at 6kts Sunny
After a few days' rest and some fun in Bermuda, off we go to the Azores, which are not called the AAAZOORES but are known at least by the locals as The Asoarees, with a short "A" and a pronounced third syllable. I know because Carlos Rego, the fruit and veg man who helped us with the final provisioning at the little St George's grocery store, he comes from Sao Miguel.
These are new waters for us: about 1,900nm to Horta, and we are looking at lightish winds today but hope to catch up with some North Westerlies tomorrow, on which we will try to sail ENE a little higher than the rhumb line. All is in good shape on Adventuress, including the crew. We have about 22 pounds of cleaned Wahoo in the freezer, about half of which we purchased from the fishermen Fred and Wesley whose dock is 50 feet in front of ours on the Town Docks: and the other half we were given, a happy if quite long story. So tonight we will eat the two pounds which we did not freeze, possibly with an Apricot and Lemon sauce? - depends on the whim of the cook.
From these updates our friend and sailor John Parker is recording our positions on Google Earth; and we are also sending positions via "Spot".
We fired up the Satphone this morning and made a test call to our weather man Chris Parker: that worked well and so if we cannot get through to him or to weather charts on our SSB radio, we can get a forecast from him on the Satphone.
Best to all, John and Nancy, with Bob and Dave
After a few days' rest and some fun in Bermuda, off we go to the Azores, which are not called the AAAZOORES but are known at least by the locals as The Asoarees, with a short "A" and a pronounced third syllable. I know because Carlos Rego, the fruit and veg man who helped us with the final provisioning at the little St George's grocery store, he comes from Sao Miguel.
These are new waters for us: about 1,900nm to Horta, and we are looking at lightish winds today but hope to catch up with some North Westerlies tomorrow, on which we will try to sail ENE a little higher than the rhumb line. All is in good shape on Adventuress, including the crew. We have about 22 pounds of cleaned Wahoo in the freezer, about half of which we purchased from the fishermen Fred and Wesley whose dock is 50 feet in front of ours on the Town Docks: and the other half we were given, a happy if quite long story. So tonight we will eat the two pounds which we did not freeze, possibly with an Apricot and Lemon sauce? - depends on the whim of the cook.
From these updates our friend and sailor John Parker is recording our positions on Google Earth; and we are also sending positions via "Spot".
We fired up the Satphone this morning and made a test call to our weather man Chris Parker: that worked well and so if we cannot get through to him or to weather charts on our SSB radio, we can get a forecast from him on the Satphone.
Best to all, John and Nancy, with Bob and Dave
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Pics from Bermuda.
Crew picture taken by Donna minutes prior to departure from St. Thomas
(Bob Nelson, Dave Hornbach, Nancy and John Knight)
Donna, her father, Don, and friend Marion arrived early to send us off!
In Bermuda tied up to Town Dock, St. Georges!
Another view of our berth!
The famous White Horse Inn is located 93 feet from the bow.
Picture of our navigation station and galley.
Port side of our salon with net bags filled with provisions.
The ARC transatlantic rally left the day after we arrived. Thirty five yachts left St. Georges
through Current Cut under sail.
St Georges is charming
Lovely cobblestone streets.
Beautiful flowers.
and more flowers.
We purchased super fresh wahoo for dinner this evening!
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Relaxing in Bermuda
10.48am Wed May 14 3222.69N 6440.26W
Here we sit at anchor in St George's harbour and it is still just as lovely as three years ago. We reached Spit Buoy at ten to six, where we waited for a Cruise ship to clear the channel. Then with Bermuda Radio's blessing we went to the Customs dock at Ordnance Island. By 7pm we were cleared in, anchored and toasting our luck at having enjoyed the best weather I have ever seen on this "Milk Run" up to Bermuda. This morning, sober as judges and almost as ponderous, we are enjoying the spectacle of 34 boats getting ready to leave for the Azores on the ARC Transatlantic Cruising Rally. They left the Virgins three days ahead of us, and motored most of the way up here, poor souls.
Some stats: since topping off our tanks in St Thomas, in seven days we have used a quarter of our 250 gallons of water, with showers every other day: so a topped up full tank will get us to the Azores with plenty to spare. We covered 927nm in 5 days 6 hours and 40 minutes, for an average of 7.31kts. We motored for the last 17 hours and 40 minutes at an average of about 7 kts. We ran the engine to charge the batteries for 4.5 hours - the solar panels provided about 80% of our electricity. We used only about 22 gallons of diesel. We stood 47 one-man watches, we had no man overboard (BFOB) and we had no accident or injury.
The boat sailed impressively, and we had just one breakdown: at 11pm on Saturday night the wind vane instrument stopped working; but that was simply fixed before we arrived: while motoring yesterday afternoon we found a loose wire behind the instrument in the binnacle. And when we went to pick up the anchor this morning, the windlass did not work: but the down button did, so we found our spare new switch, and twenty minutes later we had it installed and working. Love those easy fixes!
Dave tells me the rhumb line to Falmouth is now 2813nm at 065 degrees, but we of course will not sail in a straight line!
1710pm at dock. And we have the finest berth in the whole of Bermuda! We had called Sandra at Bermuda Yacht Services a couple of weeks ago to tell her we were coming; and after the ARC fleet cleared out, she put us on the town dock right next to the little bridge, across from the town square and the dunking chair - which was in full dunking mode just as we pulled in! Crystal's horsedrawn carriage with a pair of shire horses from Lancaster Pennsylvania are our shoreside neighbours; and possibly best of all, the White Horse pub is approx 93 feet from our bow! Yes Hayden and Radeen, this time we have the front row seat on the Customs Dock.
More later from Admiral Nancy, no doubt with with some pics.
John and Nancy, with Bob and Dave
Here we sit at anchor in St George's harbour and it is still just as lovely as three years ago. We reached Spit Buoy at ten to six, where we waited for a Cruise ship to clear the channel. Then with Bermuda Radio's blessing we went to the Customs dock at Ordnance Island. By 7pm we were cleared in, anchored and toasting our luck at having enjoyed the best weather I have ever seen on this "Milk Run" up to Bermuda. This morning, sober as judges and almost as ponderous, we are enjoying the spectacle of 34 boats getting ready to leave for the Azores on the ARC Transatlantic Cruising Rally. They left the Virgins three days ahead of us, and motored most of the way up here, poor souls.
Some stats: since topping off our tanks in St Thomas, in seven days we have used a quarter of our 250 gallons of water, with showers every other day: so a topped up full tank will get us to the Azores with plenty to spare. We covered 927nm in 5 days 6 hours and 40 minutes, for an average of 7.31kts. We motored for the last 17 hours and 40 minutes at an average of about 7 kts. We ran the engine to charge the batteries for 4.5 hours - the solar panels provided about 80% of our electricity. We used only about 22 gallons of diesel. We stood 47 one-man watches, we had no man overboard (BFOB) and we had no accident or injury.
The boat sailed impressively, and we had just one breakdown: at 11pm on Saturday night the wind vane instrument stopped working; but that was simply fixed before we arrived: while motoring yesterday afternoon we found a loose wire behind the instrument in the binnacle. And when we went to pick up the anchor this morning, the windlass did not work: but the down button did, so we found our spare new switch, and twenty minutes later we had it installed and working. Love those easy fixes!
Dave tells me the rhumb line to Falmouth is now 2813nm at 065 degrees, but we of course will not sail in a straight line!
1710pm at dock. And we have the finest berth in the whole of Bermuda! We had called Sandra at Bermuda Yacht Services a couple of weeks ago to tell her we were coming; and after the ARC fleet cleared out, she put us on the town dock right next to the little bridge, across from the town square and the dunking chair - which was in full dunking mode just as we pulled in! Crystal's horsedrawn carriage with a pair of shire horses from Lancaster Pennsylvania are our shoreside neighbours; and possibly best of all, the White Horse pub is approx 93 feet from our bow! Yes Hayden and Radeen, this time we have the front row seat on the Customs Dock.
More later from Admiral Nancy, no doubt with with some pics.
John and Nancy, with Bob and Dave
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