Leading up to this trip I was feeling very anxious – me being Captain and having crew I’d never met… Tim and Jason. How would it go? What would the weather be like? Atlantic looks pretty disturbed recently…
Two days before the off, Tim, definitely the most experienced one among us all, contracted Covid and had to cancel! Talk about heightened anxiety!!! But… our other crew member Jason brought to the rescue Aaron. Jason had limited Ocean miles and Aaron had zero! But, both race up in the great lakes – doing the Mackinac thing – to be respected… still… anxiety reigned!
I flew down to St. Thomas to meet Kevin, the owner of ‘Blue Skies,’ a day ahead of Jason and Aaron and began getting familiar with the boat. She’s an Outbound 46 – ‘Toodle-oo!’ was an Outbound 44 – similar boats in many ways – but all boats have different systems… All good stuff on board – very well equipped, but with one major learning curve – for all of us… In-Boom furling…
For the non-sailors: When the weather pipes up, one doesn’t want to have all the sails up – so we “shorten” sail by making them smaller – ‘reefing.’ In the case of the head sails, it’s pretty common to roll them up partially – very easy, very effective. In the case of the mainsail, there are options according to how the boat is rigged. I’m used to slab reefing – where you simply drop the mainsail a certain percentage, and then re-tighten it with strategically placed reefing lines. The reefed part of the sail sits on top of the boom. Typically you can take three successive reefs, making the main progressively smaller. Blue Skies is equipped with ‘In-Boom’ furling – in which, much like the head sails, you simply roll the bottom of the main into the boom. Very effective and giving you options to vary sail size infinitely – though in practice Kevin had 4 reefing points marked, which made things easy… ish… The difficulty is that to ensure nothing gets stuck, one has to be very careful to pull the roll evenly and the boom needs to be at a precise angle to ensure a tight furl. This means that trying to reef while going downwind is difficult and on Blue Skies a no-no. So in order to reef when going down wind, we must first turn through and then into the wind, perform the reef and then turn back on course… (Conversely, on Toodle-oo! I was able to reef while continuing down wind – avoiding that heart in the mouth moment when you have turn broadside to the wind – and sea?- while carrying too much sail with the in-boom system!)
Jason and Aaron joined us the following day and Kevin and Peggy were excellent hosts – although they all did force me to watch Ice Hockey as their beloved Sabers were battling the Bruins in the Stanley Cup play-offs! We got to sail the boat the following day with Kevin – very instructional.
Kevin had contracted with weather router Chris Parker and we started a routine of participating in his evening podcast, where Chris would offer advice on route planning a departure date according to conditions. Initially we had thought we’d be going via Bermuda – which conveniently splits the route and gives us the opportunity of a well-defined weather window for crossing the Gulf Stream midway between Bermuda and Newport, RI.
As it turned out, what was a pretty variable Atlantic settled down to a degree and it appeared that we might be able to make a straight shot to Newport if we waited a few days… Kevin was anxious for us to get going, but I couldn’t face the idea of motoring half the way there, so instead waited on some favorable wind.
Having arrived in St. Thomas on Monday, we were finally ready to leave on Saturday morning – by which time much of my anxiety had passed as I got to know the guys and the boat. We left on a gorgeous day with gentle winds from behind. Initially motoring but we managed to convert to sails. All of us aboard were bemoaning the fact that Blue Skies carries no light air sails. With an asymmetric spinnaker we could have turned the engine off hours ago! This complaint was to be heard many times over as we made our way north.
Sunday followed with a day of Champagne sailing – making 7 – 8 knots in 12-15 knots of wind on the beam. Things were great! Jason, who had been volunteered to act as cook was producing some wonderful meals – many of which Peggy had prepared for us ahead of time.
Sadly the winds lightened and the sailing became very sporadic and we were forced into motor sailing in order to keep to a reasonable speed. This was a delivery after all – not a cruise. Whereas when sailing Toodle-oo! Laurie and I would be happy(ish) doing a quiet 3kts – so long as the sails aren’t flogging – Kevin’s strategy calls for turning on the engine when the speed drops below 5.5kts!
As we continued north we were maintaining our daily calls with Chris Parker and it looked good for us to head direct the Newport, though our Gulf Stream crossing was going to be ‘Boisterous’. Boisterous it most certainly was… It started off pretty reasonably, so we’d set the first reef in the main and a reef in the genoa. After a while the winds had grown and a second reef was needed in the main. Now we’re in 25-30kts true wind from behind, feels like 18-25 on the boat, and 10+ft choppy and disturbed seas. Lets go broadside to wind and waves so we can reef… We manage the turn and motor into the wind (now it’s a feel like 30-35 on the boat) and we get the second reef set. Our turn back with the wind was now less dramatic with the smaller sail.
We continued our Gulf Stream crossing and I took a break while Jason took his watch. I was lying in my bunk resting and then all of a sudden I’m hard against the hull! Something’s amiss! I managed to clamber out to find Jason straining at the helm and the boat wallowing… Apparently the autopilot had given up trying to keep the boat on track and Jason had had to jump to the helm to retrieve the situation – sort of…
I took over and began hand steering – in the right(ish) direction and continued like this for an hour or two. It was clear that we needed to reef again as the wind was now often over 40 knots and the sea state was even more confused and the autopilot couldn’t cope.
Again, we succeeded in making the turn through the wind and put in a third reef. When we turned back to our course, we also took a massive reef in the genoa and were finally able to re-engage the autopilot which was able to successfully steer us the rest of the way.
Unfortunately it was now cold, wet and gloomy weather as we made our way towards the New England coast and the massive wind farm off Martha’s Vinyard. As we approached Newport, we saw a Coast Guard boat hovering and sure enough, they decided to board us for a routine inspection. All was good.
We arrived at our slip on Monday at midday with a perfect landing! In the end it took us 9 days 5 hours – but included over 5 days of motoring – more than half the trip! Never again!
Here’s a very short (<1min) compilation of videos… https://youtube.com/shorts/PF1YmodQwQ0
Now I’m back home, cabinets are nearing completion, camper is as fixed as she’s going to be (fingers crossed) and she even had a compound and waxing so is looking the part. Hoping to leave in a couple of weeks and will be introducing a follow-me feature on the blog… Stay tuned!
PS: The Sabres beat the Bruins but then got beaten by the Canadiens… I guess I have a new team to root for in the future!