End of Day 19 Beaufort NC USA towards Guernsey

This Blog entry is an edited version of the message we intended to send back whilst we were on the passage.  Unfortunately the laptop we use to work with the modem connected to the HF/SSB radio failed on 13 June so we had no way of sending it at the time it was written.

2359hrs (N, GMT -1) Tue 16 Jun 2020

Dear All,

Today is our 19^th Wedding Anniversary and as a surprise anniversary present, we had a full day of unexpected 10-12 knots northerly breeze.  So, we managed to sail east all day at somewhere between 5 and 7 knots, depending on just how hard the little wind cherubs puffed.

In another bonus, Nicky finally caught up with all her astro nav calculations.  Her sights and calculations have been most successful in that after 18 days at sea, yesterday’s sights put us only a couple of miles displaced from the GPS position at the time the sights were taken.  Excellent news but if our run of overcast weather continues, we will end up like navigators of yore, entering the English Channel on days’ old sun sights.  Thank goodness for GPS!

Less of a bonus was the discovery that one of the valves on a part of the aft heads pipework had become too stiff to operate.  We had left a cleaning solution in the aft holding tank and when I came to pump it out, I realised that the critical valve to enable this would no longer operate.  So, I spent an hour or so dismantling, cleaning and rebuilding the valve.  What else do you do on your wedding anniversary when you own a yacht?  To be fair, I would have left the job for tomorrow but the forecast we had at the time suggested that there would be a good breeze on Wednesday and the job was one far more suited to as calm a day as possible.  Inevitably, it now looks like tomorrow’s wind is delayed until Thursday……

On the subject of weather forecasts, we didn’t manage to get radio comms with Tim on Rohkea this the morning which was a shame.  And we also failed to get comms with him this evening on the OCC’s Transatlantic Crossing net, which is most unusual.  We had hoped to get from him the most recent Met Area 1 forecast (UK High Seas forecast); maybe we’ll have better luck tomorrow.  However, I did manage to speak to Chris Parker in Florida this evening.  The low pressure coming out of Canada will start to affect us from Friday, with gales on Saturday.  But at least the winds will be primarily southwesterly, which is good for heading homeward bound.  Chris has recommended that we head east for the time being to try to avoid the worst of the winds and given that there is likely to be virtually no wind for most of Wednesday, I guess we’ll motor east and then as the wind fills in sail east.  By the time that it really starts to pick up from the southwest we’ll still be no further east than about 16W so we’ll have plenty of sea-room on the French coast and on Biscay too.  I guess that tomorrow we’ll be making a stew and a couple of soups and maybe baking some more bread to help to tide us through the strong winds.  Meanwhile, in better news, we now have less than 1000nm to go along our route, though the direct line route to Guernsey is actually about 50nm less at present.

Pork tenderloin flambéed with rum and cooked with
caramelised onions, garlic and cream

And finally, we couldn’t celebrate our anniversary too outrageously whilst at sea but have plans for a nice restaurant visit when we make landfall in Guernsey.  Nonetheless, Nicky started the day off well for us by making pancakes to go with our fresh fruit for breakfast.  Later we shared half a bottle of fizz for sundowners and made a pork tenderloin dish flambéed with rum and cooked with caramelised onions, garlic and cream.  Not bad passage meals at all and, given that we spent our honeymoon sailing the tides along the Brittany coast (and consequently had many a very early start) it seems appropriate that we should be celebrating our anniversary at sea on passage.

Love to all,

Reg and Nicky

Passage statistics:

Position at midday 16 Jun: N46 34 W027 38

Position at midnight 16 Jun: N46 28 W026 08

Midday to midday distance through water: 120 nautical miles (average 5.0 knots).

Midday to midday GPS distance towards destination: 115 nautical miles

Midnight to midnight distance through water: 153 nautical miles (average 6.4 knots)

Midnight to midnight GPS distance towards destination: 133 nautical miles

Total miles covered through water:  2939 nautical miles

Approximate distance to go (GPS route to Guernsey): 1000 nautical miles

End of Day 19 Beaufort, North Carolina, USA towards Guernsey