End of Day 9 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) Sat 6 Jun 2020

Dear All,

When we sent the last update we also received Chris Parker's latest thoughts on our routing.  Much of it was as we expected. Essentially sail east as fast as you can playing the wind angles.  Aiming slightly south of east we should sail faster but will have to sail further and we risk getting less wind. However, over the weekend the wind will drop and we'll need to motorsail; at that point aim directly at the new waypoint.  From midday Sunday the wind should build rapidly from the south and we'll turn further towards the northeast.

In the overview he highlighted that we are now into our 2nd month of very strange Atlantic weather patterns where there's persistently lower pressures over mainland western Europe which is messing up the usual Azores high.  At the moment the position of the ridge of high pressure is much further north than normal to the extent that we would normally only expect it to be there in July at the peak of summer.  However, it's been there most of May and now into June, and most significantly for us, Chris sees no signs of it reverting to anything more normal.

That creates an issue for us and the other yachts returning to Europe because with the high where it is there are abnormal adverse winds between the Azores and the UK.  The traditional sailing route home includes a stop in the Azores and we are talking on the SSB radio to yachts that are already there waiting for the right wind for the final leg of their passage back to Europe.  The adverse winds and/or no winds mean that the anchorage at Horta is very full and one yacht we spoke to that set off a few days ago is having to divert to Spain.

So for us, in the short term, we need to get as far east as we can to minimise our exposure to the strong winds chasing us from the USA.  However, longer term we may need to look at some quite radical routing or risk being trapped in the Azores with unfavourable winds to move on towards Europe/UK.  We'll need to make a decision on Wednesday of next week but we think we know what is coming, especially as Chris has joked, "I hope you have your woollen / thermal underwear at the ready!".

We dug out and set the spinnaker/MPS to keep our speed up in the light wind

Aside from the routing strategy which is clearly dominating our thinking, it has been a lovely sunny day today. The wind dropped as expected and so since breakfast we have been gently cruising along with our spinnaker/MPS set.  We are just about making enough speed and it is so much nicer than having the engine on and thumping away.  That said, as we approached sunset our speed had dropped just a little too much to outrun the bad weather behind us.  A shame because normally we'd have kept sailing at 4.5kts but instead we've decided to motorsail overnight to hopefully get far enough east to get some wind to sail again tomorrow.

Perfect gentle sailing conditions

Baking….

… and laundry were today’s chores

Gentle sailing during the day was a good opportunity to get some chores done.  I spent the morning baking so we now have a fresh home baked loaf of bread and also a large sticky Jamaican ginger cake; that should provide some nice treats during the next few night watches [Ed: assuming it doesn't all get eaten up in one go by 'Mr Nobody' because it is very moreish and difficult to resist a second slice!]. Nicky spent the afternoon doing the laundry and then running the watermaker to replenish what she had used. 

The DuoGen propeller fouled up with Portuguese Man o’ War tentacles 

The other big positive event today was that we crossed into a new time zone; we lost an hour and are now on P time (3hrs behind GMT/UTC).  We've also both got very slight stings from the Portuguese Man o' War tentacles which have got wrapped around our DuoGen water generator propeller and somehow got onto our arms and hands when we raised the propeller unit during the day and switched to solar power generation.  Nothing serious, just a minor irritation.

Consolation ginger cake after discovering that the Duogen had failed

On the negative side of life, having (above) just commented on the DuoGen and lifting it out of the water to run on solar power during the day, when we lowered it back into the water a little before sunset, it started to make the most horrible noises.  We think that a seal might have gone and water got into the alternator unit, damaging the bearings and who knows what else.  The long and the short of it is that it is no longer producing electrical power which is a blow as, when we were sailing at 6 knots, it could easily cover all of our power requirements, and more.  So now we're back to the position of generating electricity the way of most cruising yachts - solar panels and a diesel generator.  We'll have to think harder about power consumption but we've always monitored the voltages and amperages carefully so there's little change there.  It'll be more about managing electricity generation in a different way.  Not an impossibility but a nuisance.  Meanwhile, as I write, the electricity generation is being done the really low tech way - by the main engine.  It's thumping along for the time being as we make progress east out of the path of the incoming front.

Love to all,

Reg and Nicky

Passage statistics:

Position at midday 06 Jun: N37 36 W052 43

Position at midnight 06 Jun: N37 49 W051 27

Midday to midday distance through water: 155 nautical miles (average 6.5 knots).

Midday to midday GPS distance towards destination: 143 nautical miles

Midnight to midnight distance through water (23 hours due hour change): 139.4 nautical miles (average 6.1 knots)

Midnight to midnight GPS distance towards destination (23 hours due hour change): 131.5 nautical miles

Total miles covered through water: 1423.8 nautical miles

Approximate distance to go (GPS route to Guernsey): 2210 nautical miles (Note: this keeps changing both with our progress but also as we adjust our waypoints for weather routing)

End of Day 9 Beaufort, North Carolina, USA towards Guernsey