11 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 7)
By midnight the wind had dropped to practically nil. I spent forty five noisy, frustrating minutes trying to sail, but eventually the slatting of the main sail forced me to give up. I put two reefs in the main and sheeted it in tight. I rolled away the genoa and we just rolled as we sat there. From midnight to half past seven, we had drifted 6 miles to the east!
At the morning check in, the lead boat “Voyager” had NNW8 winds (he’s at 48° 26W, which is 240 miles ahead of us). There was a bit of confusion on the Net this morning because they changed their ship’s time forwards one hour. Some called at 0930 UTC and some at 1030 UTC. Gods knows what time they’ll call tonight! The weather faxes show very light winds for the next two days – groan!
We flopped about until half past nine when we decided to motor for a few hours. We stopped the engine at lunch time and found that we had SW10 and could sail. We had a very pleasant broad reach in calm seas all afternoon. The highlight of the day was when I saw a bright orange object in the water. As we sailed towards it I saw that it was a large mooring buoy. I steered us at it and as we went by I managed to hook it with the boat hook. We now have a bright orange 2’6” diameter mooring buoy – it’s in very good condition and the boys are thrilled with their new toy! Glenys is feeling a bit down “because it’s taking us ages to get there”. I suppose today’s 45 mile run is a bit depressing!
12 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 8)
The wind slowly picked up and, just before midnight, I decided to drop the mizzen because it was causing us to slew about. What a difference it makes. We lost about ½ knot of boat speed but at least it didn’t feel like we were balancing on a ball! We had a bit of a bouncy night, but at least we covered a lot of ground! The wind veered about 15° during the night so when I came on watch at dawn we were practically going straight downwind to hold our desired course. I should have poled out two jibs, but I let Glenys go to bed and consequently spent the next 3 hours worrying that we were going to gybe.
When Glenys (finally) got up, I rigged up the poles and put up two wing-on-wing jibs and off we went! As usual I slept the rest of the morning. Our 24 hour run over the ground was 15 miles less than logged – I think that we must have a counter current. We’ve started to head more north now – I’d like to get up to 38°N pretty soon. The eastern side of the split high is starting to re-establish itself and we want to try to get above it. As the afternoon went on, the wind veered to west and we had 100% cover of very grey cloud.
I spent the afternoon working on our Business Plan, as I have for the past few days. I saw another two orange buoys but these had some kind of device attached with a radar reflector so I kept away – some sort of experiment? We had a bouncy downwind run in the pitch black night. I’ve lost contact with the Net – they’ve either changed times or frequencies (or both!) I feel a bit lonely now! And I’ll have to rely on myself for our route planning – God help us!
13 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 9)
By midnight, the wind had dropped to 10 knots, but we still had large seas so we were being thrown around a lot. An hour later, the skies cleared and the wind veered 90° to come out of the north. I put on the deck lights and went to do the foredeck tango. I dropped the port jib and put up the main and mizzen and off we went on a reach. At dawn, the wind had veered a bit more so I dropped the starboard pole, so that we could sheet in the genoa.
We had a very pleasant morning beating into a 15 knot wind with blue skies. The 48 hour weather fax shows a low at 45°N 30°W and a high at 38°N 42°W. Our next way point is at 39°N 40°W which will take us right across the centre of the high. It looks like a weak high, so we might still get some wind. The NNE wind, pleasant seas and blue skies stayed with us all day and up to midnight.
I spent the day working out that “Howarth Systems Ltd” should be viable – I can’t wait to plug all my figures into a spreadsheet! I’m hoping that we’ll have a good Business Plan finished when we get back to the UK, so that we can hit the ground running and launch Boat Net in mid November – I’m all excited!
14 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 10)
The wind gradually decreased overnight until it died completely at four o’clock. I put the engine on at dawn and we motored until noon when we dropped the main, put up the awning and just sat there rolling! We only did 77 miles in 24 hours! The high is moving NE over the top of us and I hope that we get wind tomorrow.
We had a very close look at a Portuguese man-o-war jelly fish that drifted close to us. There was a 6” fish that seemed to have some kind of symbiotic relationship with the jelly fish as it kept swimming within the tentacles without being stung – interesting. Glenys magically presented the boys with two new games for Game boy and Game Gear. We are finally at the halfway point – only another 9-10 days to go!
The time is starting to drag now, especially because I want to get started with Boat Net. I spent the afternoon gamely working on the computer trying to sort out the spreadsheet for our company plan. It’s not easy to be creative when the boat is rolling ± 20°. This must be the first Business Plan to be written mid Atlantic! It looks like we can finance the business with £5K equity, £30K bank loan and £24K loan from us (by not paying ourselves for 6 months.)
We started to get a faint breeze at dusk which slowly built up to a SW10 and had us “roaring” along at 2-3 knots up to midnight – at least we’re moving!
15 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 11)
We had a light SW wind for most of the night which gradually picked up to 15 knots, so that we were going straight downwind at a nice 5 knots. There is no moon at all now and, with our overcast skies, it’s pitch black and very cold on the night watches – Glenys has taken to wearing long johns. The high looks like it is being kept below 40°N and a low is moving towards us from the north west. We are aiming for 39°N to take advantage of the expected westerly airflow. The computer is certainly earning its keep by supplying us with weather faxes each morning.
We had another very pleasant day, running downwind with 2 metre seas. The highlight of the day was watching Glenys hang out the knickers and underpants that she had washed. Life is becoming very boring now! On my daily “chafe” check, I found that one of the diesel containers had developed a leak, so I poured 22 litres of diesel into the main diesel tank. The wind picked up slightly after dark and we roared along until midnight.
16 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 12)
We had a very fast, bouncy night. At dawn, I changed the sail plan and put the main up. The weather fax shows the high still staying below 40°N. I suspect that we have entered the Gulf Stream because we’re starting to see sargassum weed and I caught a fish!! After 11 days of trailing a line, I finally caught a tuna and what a whopper. It weights over 20lb. I filleted it and we’ll probably be eating it for 3 or 4 days.
At midday, I changed the sail plan back to twin jibs and put the awning up. After a miserable night, we’ve now got blue skies. We had a good run of 133 miles over the 24 hours – only 710 miles to go now! Another good day travelling at about 5-6 knots downwind. The boys have adapted to life at sea better than us and have been wonderful at keeping themselves amused.
Three days ago they asked me if I had any neck ties. I gave them two and showed them how to tie the knot. Since then they’ve been wearing shirts and ties and playing at being bosses and workers! The following wind stayed with us up to midnight. We’ve been using the new Garmin hand held GPS because the Magellan takes so long to do a sky search. I switched the Magellan on this afternoon to check it and it won’t power up at all now – thank goodness we bought the Garmin!
17 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 13)
Another dark, dark night in a dark, dark place on a dark, dark yacht. We made good time going straight downwind. I didn’t manage to pick up any weather faxes this morning – there was no signal at all – did they have a technical problem this morning or are we now out of range? I hope that it was a technical problem.
I had a day off the Business Plan yesterday, so I was back on it at five o’clock this morning! It’s funny how Business Plans grow more complicated and ambitious as time goes on. I started off with “lets buy a couple of computers and work at home on the Worldwide Web” to becoming an Internet Service Provider in December, in a new office, with a high tech network and £60,000 investment! I’ve gone raving mad – this is our money we’re talking about! I suppose that, once I’ve done the big plan, I can always pare it down a bit! The other funny thing about Business Plans is the hockey stick shaped profit figures with losses for the first year then miraculous recovery and big profits in the third year!
I slept in the morning and woke to find Glenys making tuna and vegetable empanadillas and very nice they are too! The skies were overcast for most of the afternoon then the wind slowly backed and dropped. By five o’clock, it was drizzling with low, grey cloud. It stayed that way all night until midnight.
18 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 14)
Pretty miserable night - pitch black, with intermittent drizzle. The wind finally died just after midnight and we motored until half past five when a breeze picked up from the north. The weather fax shows a high to the SE of us and a 1008 MB low to the west, so I don’t know where this north wind is coming from!
I tried to stay in bed this morning. I wanted to keep motoring with the autopilot on and crawl into a sleeping bag, but Glenys wasn’t happy about that. Eventually, I conceded that there was enough wind to sail and climbed into my oilskins and onto the deck to drop the starboard pole and put up the mizzen. I was a grumpy bear! To make matters worse, about 30 minutes later it started to rain. I struggled on for an hour and then the wind died and I had to put the engine on again for another hour.
I went to bed and Glenys woke me up after an hour to help change the sails around. The wind had veered from north to south west and we were now sailing back towards Bermuda! I was very, very grumpy! The rest of the day was miserable with grey low cast skies and intermittent drizzle and rain. We had good wind though and made good progress. The wind is very, very cold so it’s scarves, hats and gloves tonight as well as an extra jacket – oh miser! Perhaps we should have stayed in Guatemala for another year!
19 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 15)
Bloody horrible night. Pitch black, big seas, 25 knot winds and intermittent rain. We managed to get a 48 hour forecast fax that shows the low moving very close to our position. We were worried all night that we might get stronger winds, so we kept a close eye on the barometer. By two o’clock in the morning, the pressure had dropped by 1 millibar – worry, worry. By dawn, we had about SW8 and I had to put the engine on!
The weather faxes in the morning showed the low passing to the NW of us, but weaker than we imagined last night. We motored until midday, when the wind was enough to sail. I slept like a log in the morning and didn’t get up until two o’clock – I needed that! The afternoon was more pleasant with thin stratus and hazy sunshine. At midday, we had only 270 miles to go – we might be there in two days time. As night fell the wind picked up from the south, and we look forward to another black night.
20 June 1996 St Georges Harbour to Horta, Azores (Day 16)
The wind continued all night blowing 20-25 knots. We wanted to drop down from 39°N to 38° 30’N but we couldn’t manage that without having the wind before the beam. By morning we were cold, tired and rattled and the wind still blew from the SSW. We were still at 39°N so I decided that we would head SE to get down to 38° 30’N. It was a bash, but we were looking forward to easing the sheets and having a beam reach during the night. As it turned out the wind veered and dropped and by nine pm we were motoring. We should have sailed more directly at Faial – we would have had a more pleasant sail and been closer to our destination – C’est la Vie!