2359hrs (N, GMT -1) Wed 17 Jun 2020
Dear All,
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| Dawn on day 20 of our passage |
Dawn on the 20th day of our passage was accompanied by the chug-chug of our engine. The wind had died away at 3am and was expected to stay that way all day. So with the engine pushing us east a bit to try to get us away from the absolute centre of the low pressure system that is coming, we spent the day making preparations for weathering the gale force winds that will hit us on Friday night and all through Saturday.
Whilst I was off watch in the morning, Nicky managed to get workable SSB radio comms with Tim on Rohkea. He painted a word picture of what he could see on the GRiB files that he had downloaded that covered the area from 40-52N and 25-04W for the period Friday 19 to Sunday 21 June. That was incredibly helpful for us, and adding bigger picture information to the detail we had been given by Chris Parker the previous evening. Tim has been a star and said that he will aim to do the same again tomorrow (Thursday 18 June), which will be his last full day at sea; he expects to make landfall in Falmouth on Friday evening. The ‘so what?’ from it all is that there is no avoiding that we will get hit by gale force winds on Friday night and Saturday. However, in the interim we’ll keep tracking east on the 46 30N latitude to try to keep us out of the worst of the winds a little further north.
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| (Right) The MV Chiquita Trader passing us by and (left) how close the AIS paint looked on our chart plotter |
Nicky had a busy watch and ended up calling MV Chiquita Trader which seemed to be on a course to pass extremely close to us. The officer on watch confirmed that he did have our AIS signal and that he’d alter course to give us a wider berth. The ship actually passed us by at less than 1nm and that’s after it had altered course to miss us – a worthwhile radio call on Nicky’s part, I think!
At midday I came on watch and over coffee and cake we briefly celebrated passing the milestone of 3000 miles sailed on this passage. We also discussed what we needed to achieve in the way of preparations for the weekend’s weather conditions. Mid-discussion there was a bit of a distraction as 2 pilot whales surfaced right beside us. But they were only with us very briefly, passed us by and went on their way.
We were still motoring and so far on this passage we’d used about 40 hours of fuel, so our first task was to open up the connecting valve to transfer the fuel from our forward tank to our main fuel tank in the keel. We run the fuel in this way so that the fuel gauge gives a clearer indication of fuel consumption but the only fuel feed line to the engine is from the keel tank, so at some point before we empty that tank, we need to move the fuel from the forward tank to the keel tank so that it is available to be used.
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| The galley was a busy area all afternoon |
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| Super rich chocolate brownies |
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| Smoked paprika, pork and green pepper stew cooked ready for easy meals in rough conditions, and another successful bit of bread production |
At 1330hrs, part way through all of this food production we had the unexpected bonus of getting enough wind to sail. We hadn’t expect to be sailing until early evening and it was really nice to be able to work in the galley without the engine thumping away alongside. And, of course, it saved us a bit of fuel.
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| Bimini stowed and Georgina hard at work in the sunshine |
There was quite a lot to do so Nicky stayed up for most of the afternoon rather than sleeping off watch. On deck we stowed the bimini sunshade to reduce windage…..
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| (Left) For our practice hoist of the trysail we kept the mainsail up so that we didn’t slow BV down but for real it would just be the orange sails set; the mainsail would be lowered and lashed onto the boom. (Top right) The storm job has an extra piece of fabric which goes around the furled staysail to support the sail’s luff. (Bottom right) The trysail goes up on its own track so we left it attached to that but secured in a sail bag at the foot of the mast so that it’s all ready to go |
… and then we dug out the storm sails (trysail and storm jib). We’ve never needed to used them in anger so we did a practice set of them so that we are fully refreshed on rigging and hoisting them if we need to.
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| (Left) Nicky varnishing the sole under the chart table. (Right) ‘Police Line – Do Not Cross!’ Something makes me think that she doesn’t trust me to remember that there is wet varnish under the chart table |
Perhaps not what you would expect, but Nicky also did some varnishing. She had noticed that the varnish on the sole under the chart table has ‘suddenly’ worn through. Obviously, it hasn’t suddenly worn through at all, but has gradually been worn away over the years but it has, just now, reached the point where there are lots of pin-prick holes in the varnish and the wood underneath is starting to get wet, which is noticeable by dark spots appearing. That area is going to get a bashing over the next few days, particularly because we are likely to sit at the chart table wearing wet oilskins and drip water onto the exposed wood. So, Nicky gave the whole area a quick sand and a hurried protective coat of varnish to seal it whilst we are on this passage. As she said, it’s by no means a beautiful job so when we are back in Guernsey she’ll do a proper job, sanding back to solid varnish (or bare wood) and then layering on many thin coats of varnish to build up a good, solid protective layer, hopefully without dust and motes in it. There are several other areas in the cabin that need the attention of the varnishing brush too, particularly places around the chart table and the galley which we frequently touch, either holding on for balance or because we are working there. Here the satin finish top coats have worn away to reveal the harder-wearing gloss underneath, but without a few touch-up coats this will, in time, wear away and surprisingly quickly too.
Varnishing complete, Nicky finally manged to get some off-watch time before coming back on for the first night shift. With all the time zone changes as we have moved east, that watch is now quite a busy one with SSB radio traffic. First up, currently at 2000hrs is our evening check-in with Glenn Tuttle, callsign KPK, of the SSCA (Seven Seas Cruising Association) daily. He passes on our position to the OCC who are keeping an eye on our progress (and the progress of other OCC yachts who are also crossing). At the top of the next hour is Chris Parker’s weather forecast session, which usually takes about half an hour as he gives a custom 5 day forecast to us and any other yachts who call in. Finally, at 2200hrs there’s the OCC Transatlantic West to East radio net, for which Nicky is net controller on Wednesday (tonight) and Saturday. Four hours passes very quickly with all that going on and plus a few sail trim adjustments and reefing to keep you on your toes!
Love to all,
Reg and Nicky
Passage statistics:
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Position at midday 17 Jun: N46 40 W24 55
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Position at midnight 17 Jun: N46 37 W022 54
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Midday to midday distance through water: 144 nautical miles (average 6.9 knots).
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Midday to midday GPS distance towards destination: 132 nautical miles
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Midnight to midnight distance through water: 147 nautical miles (average 6.1 knots)
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Midnight to midnight GPS distance towards destination: 145 nautical miles
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Total miles covered through water: 3087 nautical miles
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Approximate distance to go (GPS route to Guernsey): 867 nautical miles
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| End of Day 20 Beaufort, North Carolina, USA towards Guernsey |
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