End of Day 6 Beaufort NC to 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 (AST, GMT-4) 24 Nov 2019

Dear All,

Well with our average speeds over the last couple of days we're not going to be setting any world records for the Beaufort to Antigua passage.  However, we are off and running again and should be able to maintain a good pace for a couple of days before we hit our next no wind area.  That area will be harder to work a strategy for because there is no structure to it; it's just an area of confused light winds between other weather systems.  But that is still a couple of days ahead so we suspect the forecast picture will change between now and then.

Another dawn, another day.  This time Day 6

At 3 o'clock this morning we crossed 067deg30W, the changeover point between EST (Eastern Standard Time) and AST (Atlantic Standard Time).  To change to AST we needed to put our clocks forward one hour, which we elected to do at 0330EST (going to 0430AST). Depending on whether you're a glass half full or a glass half empty sort of person, that meant that we each had an on-watch period reduced by half an hour or an off-watch period reduced by half an hour.  Given that we lost the time in the middle of the night, I'm more inclined to bemoan the loss of sleep!  But it's a milestone on our passage as we are now, officially, on the time zone of the Eastern Caribbean (and only 4hrs behind GMT/UTC).

Racing Zwailer (don’t tell our insurers!)

Overnight we caught up with Zwailer, and were just 10 miles away from her at the morning SSB check-in.  We spent the rest of the day hard on the wind, with 18-25 knots of wind over the deck, slowly [Ed: VERY slowly!] overhauling her.  An added bonus for us was that we got confirmation from them that our AIS is working well; we each picked up the other yacht at 12 nm and then got the vessel details at 10 nm which is about as good as you can expect with the low power class B leisure craft transponders.  We were quite surprised to end up so close to Richard and Jane.  Granted we left only a few hours after them and are headed to the same island but there are so many thousands of miles of ocean out here and, even though we're working similar plans on the same forecast models, it was highly likely that we stayed just far enough apart not to see each other on AIS.  So far, we've only been close enough to see them 'for real' this evening, when their masthead tricolour light appeared faintly above the horizon.  To have spent, at this point, over 17hrs tracking each other on AIS seems most bizarre and it certainly concentrates the mind in keeping the boat sailing fast.  Who says cruisers don't race?  With two boats heading roughly the same way in roughly the same bit of water there's always a race on!

Lunchtime fish soup – served in a jug to k
eep it from ending up on the cockpit sole

At lunchtime Nicky cooked up the remains of the dorado into a very good potato, leek, corn and fish soup.  As she said, with an outside air temperature of 27degC, soup was possibly not the perfect meal.  But it's quite easy to eat and serving it in cookery measuring jugs was certainly the right presentational method, given that we were bouncing around no end!

Pounding along across blue seas under blue skies – great fun sailing……

Midnight UTC (2000AST) relative positions of BV and Zwailer.
  Both boats very closely matched.  Stephen Jones, who
 designed them both, would be very pleased

Nicky writes: Reg was off-watch this afternoon so I had the pleasure of having BV almost to myself, racing along at 7.5 to 8 knots, spray flying and another boat (well, on a computer screen) to try to work past.

…..though maybe not the easiest motion for off-watch sleep!

The sun shone, the sea was a lovely deep blue, white foam sprayed off the bow wave. BV was in her element, nothing gentle and peaceful, all raw power. Yeeeeee-ha!  Awesome fun! (but I'm not sure it was so easy to sleep down below).  And even though it's now night and we've reduced sail by another reef for the hours of darkness (and, boy, is it dark out there) BV's still racing along and it's still a lot of fun.  We're just big kids enjoying a fast ride at the theme park really!

Love to all,

Reg and Nicky

Passage statistics:

Position at midday 24 Nov: N29 15 W66 45

Position at midnight 25 Nov: N28 21 W65 36

Midday to midday distance: 143.4 nautical miles (23 hours because of time zone change)

Midnight to midnight distance: 163 nautical miles (23 hours because of time zone change)

Total miles covered:  801 nautical miles

Approximate distance to go (direct line): 713 nautical miles

End of Day 6 - Beaufort North Carolina to Antigua