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Now this is what the Tropics are supposed to be like! Bright blue sea, clear sky, 10-15 knot breeze. First time in days we’ve been able to open the ports and air out the boat. The swells are still there, but they’re smaller and lazy. The only fly in the ointment was a weather report that put a big calm between us and Tortola, followed by 10 knot southerlies — not at all conducive to a quick run in sans engine.

So Jim and Pete decided to have another go at our diesel — valiant, since Jim had already consumed about half the Atlantic trying to get the water out of the engine in round one. The good news was that the engine could be hand cranked, so no bent rods. And within an hour or so, they kicked it over and bingo!, the auxiliary was back on line, charging the batteries and getting us down the track for an early AM arrival tomorrow.

Around 1430, John was relaxing on the fantail when we realized we had another fish. And not just any fish. This was another Wahoo, but “sporty” wouldn’t do for this guy. Rather he fought like he planned to drag the whole vessel back to Bermuda. He didn’t win, but was greatly admired by all for his fighting spirit.

So, tonight, fish for dinner. Then, one more round of night watches. And then, if all goes well, an early morning landfall.

Wow. Just when we thought yesterday was about all we’d get, this morning dawned with more wind from the ENE, and an even bigger, now quartering swell. These waves weren’t initially all that much bigger than yesterday’s, but that had real ooomph behind them, and you could feel the energy as they moved through. They were also a wee bit better for surfing both because of the angle and what seemed to be a greater rate of travel (if there’s such a thing for waves). Anyway, this produced excellent base boatspeeds in the 7.5 knot range and lots of good runs in the high 11’s and low 12’s, but it certainly looked as if Admiral Jaeger’s day old record would hold. Except. That having just come on watch, I looked back and saw this really big wave, looked forward and saw a 30 knot puff, and bam! — Otto dropped us in and immediately went “beep, beep.” No Otto was is not the roadrunner of cartoon fame. Rather this is Ottos’ R2D2 way of saying “forget this, I’m outta here.” So we grabbed the wheel and hung on, riding into the trough for a 14.1 knot peak! (And for Dr. John McEvoy, that’s was with .9 knot set/drive to 220, with us of about 180 magnetic).

This, of course, is an unofficial record, not yet certified by the international SOG Surfing Assn. In the doubtful event that we ever get round to forming said association, I’m expecting a T-shirt!

Really though, this was some really good, not to be missed, pounding through the miles sailing. Kinda thing that makes the trip worthwhile, and makes just getting around below a good core workout.

Hello all. Sorry for being late to post this, but this is where the sailing part of this trip started to really get serious. We’d gone well East of the fleet, thinking that when the weather settled down, we’d get Easterlies going South, and if not, at the very least we’d avoid having to have the wind forward of the beam for the trip, while others might well have to tack into Tortola. As it turned out, the weather had other ideas, and this was our first day of serious, full on, open ocean sailing. Wind picked up out of the NE with a base of 22.5 knots from 070 degs, and considerably higher gusts. We had big (16 ft+) following seas pretty much dead astern, and we starting to look down into troughs that were an old schoolhouse and a church steeple short of being valleys!

So what do you do when you’re 500 miles from nowhere, the sea’s up, and you haven’t seen another vessel in days? No? Surfing contest of course! In this case “SOG” or “Speed Over Ground” Surfing. For a time, it appeared that Cap’n Jim’s 13.2 would hold, but it was not to be, as Admiral Jaeger hooked up with one at 20:00 hours and buried the pedal for a 13.4, meeting the minimum .2 knot difference required by the world SOG surfing organization. That seemed to pretty much do it for the trip. Mind you, this is a 38,000 lb boat, under reefed main and stay’sl, dragging a diesel, a separate gen set, a watermaker, fuel, water and provisions for, like, 30 people (we’re just a tad overprovisioned), a full galley, woodwork galore, and two heads, dropping into a 16-20 foot swell, and goin’ for the record. The best runs of the day, we noticed, were in the puffs. Otto the Autopilot (and the rules of SOG Surfing do dictate that you at least START your run on autopilot. . . but I digress) . . . anyway, Otto is lazy about paddling to get on the wave, so a good 30 knot puff is what you need to get on the face. And lemme tell you, this was some good sailing. We expected easterlies down this track, but not in the 25-30 range. And unlike the run through the Gulf Stream, nobody cared about the in your bunk or on deck rule of thumb — because the weather was clear, and looking down from 18’ up into the troughs was just too much to miss.

This sort of thing is impossible to capture in photos, as the wave heights always flatten out in two dimensions, but I did at least attempt a couple of short video clips which, if things actually worked, I’ll try to post for ya’ when we get in.

Hello again. Just another magnificent day on the bounding main, full sun, bright blue ocean, 20 knots of breeze veering (trending east) just as we wanted, and . . . drum roll please . . . Cap’n Rogas now owns the Hylas 49 surfing record, with a peak speed of 13.2 knots down the face of one of our endless 10-12 foot long period rollers. Otto the Autopilot is contestng the reccord since he was driving at the time, but Jim contends that since he told Otto where to go (and can do so again if Otto doesn’t behave), and I think we have to give the Skipper the record — unless somebody can get a higer peak.

With the new more easterly wind, we’re moving South towards the Islands now. See you there Dianna and Barb!

That’s all for this AM, maybe a bit more later on . . .

Morning all. We’re still here, still riding what appeared to be slowly subsiding Northerlies on a beautiful clear day with blue sky, cumulus clouds, and the deep blue water you always here offshore sailors talk about. Still looking for the elusive green flash, but got some phosphoresence in the wake last night. John phoned home about the watermaker, and we have some new tricks to try this morning.

John and I spent the morning working on the watermaker — about half getting access to the thing, which lives under our presently cluttered forepeak bunk and gear storage and then trying to get access to things that weren’t really meant for access at sea . . . and the other half proving that we could pump less salty, but still too salty, water from the ocean into the the boat. We’re not giving up, but we think there’s a issue with the salinity probe, which we can’t get at to clean, and have no spare for. We have plenty of water, but that means no showers and such.

Next up on our chore list is trying to manually turn over the deisel. If we can do that, we’ll likely get it started. If not, we have to leave it for fear of throwing a rod. Much discussion aboard of better designs for keeping seawater out of the exhaust, but none that help us just now. Anyway, if the weather’s good, we’ll tackle that tomorrow. But don’t fret — it’s a sailboat after all, and we have a generator to charge the ship’s batteries.

While we were below doing that, the wind freshened considerably, and is back up to 20-25 knots pushing us down the course on what’s turning out to be a spectacular day. We’re not too far from the halfway point now, both lovin’ the trip and looking forward to being there.

Today started off for me hand steering on the 6-9AM watch, as we’re trying not to work the batteries so hard. That’s because, you see, no cruise si complete without its share of equipment failures, which thus far for us includes watermaker (worked when tested in the Bay, useless now, but no problem as we have ample water), and now engine — which took a shot of saltwater up the exhaust that was not caught by the anti-siphon device. Capn’ Jim and Pete tore the engine down, cleared the water from the injectors, and reassembled the engine. So far, still no joy. Working through the various possible issues now, and hope to the deisel going soon. Menawhile, the generator is fine, and we’re cutting back on current draw just in case. Fridge off some (it was getting too cold anyway), hand steering (Otto the Autopilot pulls juice), and, of course, no power hog watermaker to worry us.

This was a shifty day wind-wise, as the NW winds we rode out of Norfolk petered out early, and we wallowed a big waiting for the expected Northerlies. That meant squall-watching.(and perverse hopes that one would run over us and rinse down our rather salty foredeck — also encrusted with the occasional flying fish. We reefed early just in case, but in the end, we got bracketed and the squalls brought Northerlies that got more and more robust as the day wore on. By evening, we were running down 150 degrees for our turn mark to go South with 25 knots and a following sea. This delivers miles at the expense of a certain amount of rocking and rolling, but everybody’s more or less gotten used to the motion by now.

Today, we’re getting clear of the Stream and it’s 86+ degree water, the weather moderated, and Pete, our fisherman went to work with the hand lines off the transom. I was on a mid-day watch, and keeping an eye on the shock cord that dead ends at the boat end. The theory is that when you see the shock cord stretch, you’ve got a fish on. The practice is a bit more complicated, as it’s pretty easy to catch a clump of Sargasso (they don’t fight to hard :-)) and for the line to get fouled on the low-hanging davits aft — both of which we saw, and both of which distrubed Pete’s sleep. The third time, I waited a few minutes to wake him, thinking this miight be more Sargaso — nope! Instead we had a smallish Wahoo on the line, which Peto proceeded to filet on the fantail and turn into fabulous fish tacos a couple of hours later — eat your heart out locivores! Actually, the Wahoo is a quick, sporty fish, and is quite colorful — green on top and bright yellow down the flanks. It was almost a shame not to toss him back and let him become bigger Wahoo — or so it seemed until one got a bite of those VERY fresh fish tacos by Pete.

Pete however, turned out not to be the days fishing hero. Nope, he offered the next fish to John, and while all were below the reset line with snug again — sharply and with real authority this time. Pete saw the line when he came on deck and went immediately to the afterdeck looking for something big, followed closely by John, who proceeded to sit on the deck, sans fighting chair, reeling in hand-over-hand a gorgeous Black Marlin, which Pete estimated at 100lbs. Wahoo! indeed. When’s the last time you tossed a fish back because it was to BIG?

The wind moderated throughout the day, but was still blowing 12-15 through much of the night.

P.S.:  Have pix of both Fish, and will upload on arrival — saving bandwidth now . . .

Gulf Stream: This was the day for getting to and through the stream, and for reefing and other sail changes, and for just getting clear of the coast - at speed. On my night watch, I came on deck to find the boat roaring through through a 6-8 foot following sea, regularly reporting 8 9 knots of boat speed. Because you can’t see as far outboard, speed feels faster at night, and IOM really loves this sort of thing, dipping her prow almost to the waterline and shaking off any little bit green water with no difficulty at all. There was a good bit of spray, and we had to “gorilla tape” the forward hatches, as none seem entirely watertight in these seas even when dogged down hard. And if the speedo is off on the low side, Mr. Macevoy, your boat speed record is not secure, as our SOG (Speed Over Ground) was peaking down wave at 11 knots+ (I saw 11.2 at least twice).

The only trouble was finding a secure place to sleep — which was mostly about a bunk you believed that you wouldn’t be tossed out of at some point. In my case, that meant reversing my head into a bunk meant for feet-first sleeping, leaving me with just a foot or to in any direction around the torso. It’s a bit stuffy, since I was confident that I was not going to get tossed in any direction even if we took a knock-down, I got some sleep in. This turned out be a better arrangement than our owner John J. had in the master’s cabin, sleeping in a beautiful aft stateroom with a bunk that doubled nicely as a trampoliine (Worry not, the weather did moderate, and people started sleeping better. 

On the other hand, there were rewards. Everybody should get at least one opportunity to see a moonset peeking from behind deep clouds, and silvering a semi-boisterous Gulf Stream. I got two such opportunities within about 1/2 hour on the night watch, and am at a loss to really describe the juxtaposition of beauty and chaos. Let’s just leave it at spectacular.

Meanwhile, whatever else was up, we were getting in our Easting, heading to a point just South of Bermuda in hopes of reaching south on the trades as we get closer to Tortola. The first day’s noon to noon run was 190 naughtical miles — pretty good for a 50 foot cruiser with full stores aboard.

Before we begin, apologies to all you log/blog watchers for our tardiness in bringing you up to date on our cruise. The reasons for that will become obvious presently, and I’ll attempt to bring you up to data on our various adventures to date.

Monday dawned rather grey as we got ready to get underway with a vast collection of vessels that mostly made “Its Only Money” (“IOM”) look like a small to average sized vessel (which is certainly not how we normally think of her). The race committee thought it a good day to go, given the prospect of stong N to NW winds (with predictions of gusts to 40 knots) which would help get us across the Gulf Stream quickly. So off we went at around 10AM, electing to skip the formal start (@ noon) in favor of a few more hours to get out and through the stream whilst the wind held.

I had the early watch, as we hand steered out beyond the Bay Bridge Tunnel, stay south of the channel to avoid the traffic, which proved to be heavy, particulary in the military department. We were passed outbound by a Specialized Seal Boat, what appeared to be a French (?) destroyer, an Arliegh Burke Destroyer, and a new class of amphibious warefare ship. As we continued outbound down the approach just to the South of the main channel and got out of the lee, the wind freshened to a solid 18-20 knots with higher gusts. We had a mildly confused, but mostly following sea, so the rule of the day was on deck or in a bunk, and everybody resorted to the Scopalomine patch just to be sure — knowing that seas would get higher and shorter as we hit the stream. The good news is that this is the kind of breeze that IOM was made to sail, and she just thundered out of the bayand kept going faster as the Northerlies freshened. Boat speed tended to be 8 knots+, to which we added what the instruments were telling us was a 2 knot current right on our tail (we how have serious doubts about that and believe that the speedo may be miscalibrated.