End of Day 4 - Beaufort NC towards Antigua

These Blog entries are edited versions of the messages we sent back as we completed the passage. They were sent by radio using a laptop that controls a modem and the HF/SSB radio, using the SailMail system. We sent the messages daily to Charlotte and she then forwarded them on to a list of family members.

2359hrs (EST, 5hrs behind GMT)2 Dec 2018

Dear All,

Well the latest weather forecast has brought with it an unhelpful surprise.  Several in fact.  There's a new area of strong SSW much further offshore and the area we had hoped to make progress south in, now has southerly winds for much longer than the previous forecast.  If that plays out it's going to be hard work making progress south towards the Caribbean. Just as well that the fridge is full of food because we could end up being at sea for far longer than we had originally anticipated.  That said, we are looking at the meteorologists' computer's best long range guess and it could all change over the next few days.

A short film showing us heading southeast

So, to honour the forecast, we spent last night and today hard on the wind bashing into lumpy seas and trying to make progress southeast.  The wind's in the south, sometimes slightly west of south (better), sometimes slightly east of south (much worse) and it's around 13 to 20 knots true, which means that we have 17-24knots across the deck.  We've got 2 reefs in the main, a full staysail and not a lot of genoa unrolled. With that sail plan, and depending on how BV hits the waves, we're making 5-6 knots through the water and over the ground.  The current plan (as of 0800EST 2 Dec!) is to stay hard on the wind for the next few days. If the wind does as forecast and veers we'll follow it so that we get as far south as possible (it won't be very far south).  This should keep us south of the strongest winds and means that we will have minimum area of (relatively) light southerlies to cross before reaching the NE trades.  Well, it's a plan for today, let's see if it survives contact with today's actual weather and the next forecast!

There is the odd ship or two out here to keep clear of but otherwise we seem to have this bit of the Atlantic to ourselves

Bashing along to windward makes doing things difficult.  The gimbled cooker is swinging quite wildly and Nicky has stowed the trays that normally live in the oven in the aft cabin to reduce the risk of weight shifts in the cooker, which just exacerbates the swinging. Making lunch and dinner has been "entertaining" but has been achieved, though neither of us are very hungry at present.  Sleep is disturbed by BV crashing into some of the seas but give it a day or two and I guess we'll not notice the noise and will sleep like babies through it all.

The sea temperature is now over 24 degrees Celsius so the winter weight duvet has been packed away [Ed: aka dumped in the forepeak until everything stops moving around so madly and I can actually get into the aft cabin to stow it properly!] and we are back into T-shirts weather.   Nicky has done lots of reorganising to help stop things flying about; the waves are very close together, just 4 secs apart, and so it's been a bit of a bucking bronco ride at times.  She's also fitted some shock cord to the cooker to try to dampen down the movement. I've rewired the feed from our GPS so the radio now knows that it is 2 December 2018.  Sadly, the rest of the gear is either showing it's April 1999 or April 2099.  I'm guessing that it needs a complete switch off and reset; a task for when we get into port because we don't want to risk losing the primary navigation system [Ed: Sextants and sunsights are quite fun to do but I’d rather not rely on my ability to do them accurately if we have the choice!].

Love to all,

Reg and Nicky

Passage statistics:

Position at midday 2 Dec: N31 03 W69 45
Position at midnight 2 Dec: N30 26 W68 43
Midday to midday distance: 145 nautical miles
Midnight to midnight distance: 150 nautical miles
Total miles covered: 508 nautical miles
Approximate distance to go (direct line): 881 nautical miles

End of Day 4 Beaufort in North Carolina to Antigua