End of Day 23 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 (Z, GMT) Sat 20 Jun 2020

Dear All,

Nicky handed over the watch to me at midnight with BV marching along to the southeast at 7½-8knots.  At 2am the chartplotter highlighted that even with this extra dogleg down to 45N, we had just 600 miles to go to Guernsey.  When we get to the current waypoint at 45N 013W, we’ll turn to track due east for a few hours until the weather front passes through and then gybe and set best sail for the Inshore Traffic Zone off Ushant; from there it’s under 150nm back to Guernsey.  It’s really rather exciting to think that we’ll soon be back in familiar, home waters.  If we can keep up an average speed of 6kts then we could be back by Thursday 25 June but that might be a case of counting our chickens before the eggs have hatched.  The forecast is for the wind to get a good bit lighter after this low had gone past and we don’t have the fuel aboard to motor half the way home.  So, there’s potential for a frustrating few days, particularly given the strong tidal flows around the Brittany coast and the Channel Islands……

“Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning…?” 

At 1015hrs we arrived at our 45N 013W waypoint and turned to track east.  The wind was fairly steady at 28kts but I did see the odd gust up to 36knots.  BV continued to march along at 7½-8½kts still with 2 reefs in the main and the staysail set.

BV took the 25-30knot winds very easily and felt totally unstressed by it all

And that was the theme for the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon; sailing down to 45N had worked well for us in avoiding the 30 knot winds with 40knot gusts.  However, at 1430hrs we did have a bit of a drama.

The staysail is furled around the foil and laid down
the port side secured to the safety rail with tie-wraps

Nicky called down to me to get dressed and on deck sharpish.  It turned out that the toggle fitting at the top of the inner forestay had broken and the only thing holding the inner forestay and the staysail up was the halyard.  There was a huge risk of the foil folding and being wrecked so we needed to furl the staysail and somehow get the whole sail and furling setup carefully lowered onto the deck.  Far from easy with 25-30 knots of wind over the deck, 2½-3m seas running and BV rolling about because of the following seas.

Working at it in stages we managed to get the staysail and furling setup round the outside of the mainsail and boom and back onto the port side of the boat.  Lines were all messed up around it so each of those needed to be undone and rerun so that we could continue to sail.  Once the halyard was disconnected, we used plastic tie-wraps to secure the sail and furling foil to the safety rail.  The tack and furling drum are still connected to the deck which hopefully will mean that the whole setup will stay where it is for the rest of the passage.  It’s surprisingly long and the top of the inner forestay and foil stick out over our port quarter by about a foot.  We hope that when we get back to Guernsey the only part that we will need to replace is the sheared toggle unit that connects the top of the inner forestay to the mast.

Nicky working out the right amount of weather helm for Georgina to steer a straight course with just the mainsail up

“Wot no staysail!?”

We still had lots of wind blowing so we continued on just using the mainsail which still had 2 reefs in it.  The big question was when to turn to head towards Ushant.  We had somehow expected that the front would pass us by quickly and we’d get an obvious wind direction change and brightening of conditions.  But instead we stayed in drizzly grey conditions with the same wind for the rest of the afternoon and early evening.

It really doesn’t stand out on the photograph but we had 3 metre following seas

BV sailed east on the N45 degrees parallel for all of that time until we got as far as the W12 degree line of longitude.  That was at 2200hrs and it seemed that we had left enough time for the worst of the front to move north head of us.  The wind had also eased a little and so, conscious that the wind was supposed to drop to very little after the front, we gybed to head northeast to start making progress directly towards our next turning point inshore of the Off Ushant Traffic Separation Scheme.  Fairly shortly after our turn the wind did drop off to 10-15knots so, whilst Nicky talked to Chris Parker in Florida on the SSB radio about the weather conditions for the next few days, I shook all the reefs out of the mainsail and poled out the full genoa to port.

The upshot of Nicky’s conversation with Chris Parker is that we should have enough wind to sail as far as Ushant but then the wind will drop off completely for the last leg of our passage up the English Channel to Guernsey.  How frustrating!  But it’s just as well that we still have some diesel in reserve which should just be enough to get us into port.  At midnight we have 330 miles to run to the Ushant turning point and a total of 457 miles to run to get to Guernsey.

Love to all,

Reg and Nicky

Passage statistics:

Position at midday 20 Jun: N45 00 W013 40

Position at midnight 20 Jun: N45 11 W011 50

Midday to midday distance through water: 175 nautical miles (average 7.3 knots).

Midday to midday GPS distance towards destination: 182 nautical miles

Midnight to midnight distance through water: 166 nautical miles (average 6.9 knots)

Midnight to midnight GPS distance towards destination: 174 nautical miles

Total miles covered through water:  3573 nautical miles

Approximate distance to go (GPS route to Guernsey): 457 nautical miles

End of Day 23 Beaufort, North Carolina, USA towards Guernsey