End of Day 11 Beaufort NC USA towards Guernsey

This Blog entry is an edited version of the message we sent back whilst we were on the passage.  The original, without pictures, was sent by radio with a laptop that controls a modem connected to the HF/SSB radio.  With that set up we can contact one of the SailMail stations to send the daily text message to my daughter Charlotte in Guernsey who then forwards it on to a list of family members.

2359hrs (P, GMT -3) Mon 8 Jun 2020

Dear All,

BV sailed so fast yesterday afternoon and overnight that we passed Chris Parker's first suggested waypoint (N39 W047) at 0700P which, was 6 hours ahead of his timeline.  So we have now turned a little more northeast, almost pointing towards Guernsey, for our next leg.  Our next waypoint is 260 miles away (at midnight) and we need to get there by late afternoon on Wednesday to fully outrun the stronger winds that have been chasing us for the last few days.  Even though the seas have been difficult this afternoon, that waypoint seems quite achievable and the wind should ease a little in a day or so as we progress northeast.

The seas have become shorter and 'lumpier' again and with 20-25 knots of wind on the beam our course has been a bit wiggly.  With the shorter seas, BV is bouncing around quite a lot which makes moving around much more difficult and so late this afternoon we reduced sail a bit, slowing us down slightly but making life on board marginally more comfortable.  However, we have clear blues skies, it is 23 degrees Celsius, we are still buzzing along making about 6.5 knots towards Guernsey and, most importantly, we are in a lot less wind than if we had dawdled on our way to this point.

BV is at the tip of the pencil (40N 045W).  The red triangles are the
reported 'distinctive' icebergs whilst the red dashed line shows
 the normal June/July southern limit of icebergs (when the data on this chart was compiled, which was a fair time ago now).

Once we get closer to our next waypoint (42N 040W, late on Wed 10 Jun) we will need to make a decision about whether we turn right to stop at the Azores or turn left to get north of this year's oddly placed Azores high.  Going to the Azores archipelago would most likely put us in difficult winds to subsequently make easy progress home, however, we are still keeping that option open to us for now in case the more northerly route gets hit by a depression sweeping up towards the UK.  Amazing as it seems as we sit here in 23deg Celsius fine weather, we also need to factor in icebergs and fog if we move not too much further north.  A yacht we talked to yesterday was just 150 miles NNE of us and spent the whole day with less than a mile visibility in fog and was, technically, well inside the ice limit for Jun/Jul (at least, as shown on our chart).  Thick fog and the risk of icebergs would be hard work with just 2 of us aboard though, to be fair, the other yacht in question, Rokea, is a single-hander and, so far, seems to be managing OK.  But Rokea's hull is steel, which at least reduces some of the concerns marginally (don’t mention the Titanic anyone!).  At the moment we are still about 60nm south of the ice limit, and the sea temperature is 20degC, but it is interesting to see little triangles marked on our chart, some quite a long way south of us, south of the Azores even.  The triangles are reported 'distinctive' icebergs.  Those reported before 1935 even have dates next to them.  Later ones are undated. The chart's not that recently updated (though it is a fairly recent acquisition) but I think that these days all the ice reports are on the internet - I'm not sure if the data even makes it to paper charting any more.

Twofer day – 2 loaves for the price of one today!

Despite the confused sea and BV leaping about, bread production went well today although we got 2 loaves rather than one because I measured out the water on the wrong scale and added too much to the flour I had measured out first.  So then I needed to add more flour to absorb the water.....  However, 2 loaves baked at once is more efficient on propane usage and we are now supplied for several days [Ed, aka doom-and-gloom-monger:  that’s assuming that the second loaf doesn’t get too mouldy in the meantime!]

Nicky’s dinner of pork with ratatouille vegetables served on cous cous, all served in
our finest (practical) plastic bowls

Nicky used the clear skies as an opportunity to take some sun sights with the sextant so she spent the afternoon working on astro-navigation before cooking dinner, all whilst I was snoozing off watch.  

Sunset – no green flash tonight

With the clear skies we had hoped that we might see the sun's green flash at sunset but sadly there was some cloud sitting on the horizon out to our west, so it was a plain, vanilla sunset today.

That's all from us for now.

Love to all,

Reg and Nicky

Passage statistics:

Position at midday 08 Jun: N39 20 W46 25

Position at midnight 08 Jun: N39 57 W044 45

Midday to midday distance through water: 182 nautical miles (average 7.6 knots).

Midday to midday GPS distance towards destination: 180 nautical miles

Midnight to midnight distance through water: 177 nautical miles (average 7.4 knots)

Midnight to midnight GPS distance towards destination: 162 nautical miles

Total miles covered through water: 1773 nautical miles

Approximate distance to go (GPS route to Guernsey): 1882 nautical miles

End of Day 11 Beaufort, North Carolina, USA towards Guernsey