MON 29-MAY
 |
| The 3 Person Helm Watch / Shift Schedule Aboard Relish |
We needed to modify our
watch duty shifts aboard Relish for
this very long leg with only three crew members aboard. (Gary departed back on
our 3rd day in Bermuda to accommodate other commitments. It wouldn’t take long for us to start missing
him.) Our shift protocol on Relish also called for the new watch
stander to first conduct the standard engine room checks – also known
affectionately as “hugging your Lugger”.
At this point we are varying 3 to 4 hour shifts throughout the 24 hour
period (now including fixed shifts during the day) and with a varying rotation
– an interesting experiment since every few days that means one is assigned two
closely clustered shifts. On the other
hand the opposite is also true – periodically one gets extra “time off.” But basically it’s still an experiment in
maritime sleep deprivation.
In addition to helm shifts,
another common practice among voyaging vessels is for the crew to eat at least
one meal together, typically dinner, and the pilot house settee generally makes
a good gathering place since whomever has the helm can also be part of the
socialization as well as the meal.
Time of day for that group
supper can vary, but generally we find ourselves eating earlier at sea than we
do when we are dirt-dwelling. For other
meals each crewmember is on their own – a properly provisioned boat will have
something for everyone, and they will know where to find it in the galley. And
we keep (OK, Michelle keeps) a bowl of snacks – some healthy, some perhaps not
so much – at the pilot house settee for folks to raid at their convenience;
that really comes in handy during the graveyard shifts.
Michelle did all of our
provisioning and she has made it a point to serve a satisfying, tasty and
wholesome meal every day. In fair
weather it was common to find her in the cockpit monitoring the fishing lines
and chopping up the day’s veggies and fruits.
Dawn had arrived earlier with temps in
the upper 60’s, light winds, and once again gently rolling seas, although we
had considerable overcast and had been painting rain showers on the radar set (with
lightning in the distance) most of the night.
 |
Planned Route in Blue. Actual Route in Red.
|
Overall, however, Monday was
mostly uneventful, with reasonably soft following seas that gradually increased
as the day and evening wore on to around 5 feet. There wasn’t much fishing action, although on
our route that’s probably to be expected given the 17,000 foot depth and lack of
any nearby structure or seamounts. Nevertheless,
late in the day Jura reported two,
nearly simultaneous, hookups. They were
likely large tuna because they stayed deep and spooled both of their fishing
rigs.
TUE 30-MAY
About this time we start to
realize the challenge of posting daily updates to a blog when almost nothing is
changing – same boats, same crews, mostly the same weather, and waters that
look suspiciously similar to yesterday’s ocean.
We avoided the temptation to cut and paste from previous days’ diaries. On VHF channel 14 Stefan on Aeoli says: “This
feels a lot like “Groundhog Day.”
Early in the day we received an updated
weather briefing from Commanders that wasn’t particularly optimistic, although
it wasn’t terrible either. A low
pressure trough was developing to our north and moving ESE, and we were advised
to stay south of 34N latitude for the most tolerable sea states. It would bring
windy conditions to 24 knots and seas building to 7-9 feet for the next couple
of days. After that they were optimistic
that conditions would settle a bit, but they still recommended we alter course
further south for a better ride. And we
did.
 |
| Surfing Some of the Atlantic's Big But Gentle Swells |
The graying skies and worsening seas
didn’t stop us from putting out the fishing lines for a while, although most
folks really didn’t want to catch anything – slowing or stopping the boat would
have been really uncomfortable in those sea conditions.
Stephan (skipper of Aleoli) helped the fleet pass some time by serenading Silvio with a
few Italian tunes broadcast over our ship-to-ship VHF channel, one of which we
recognized as an old Julio Eglasias riff.
Stephan – who is from, and is now returning to, Mallorca – played a few others
that absolutely nobody recognized except for him. We pitched in with broadcasts of Sloop John B (Beach Boys) and Buffett’s
ode to the ocean, Treat Her Like a Lady
….
Some of us sailors call her home
She’s big and she’s strong and she’s mighty
Some of us sailors call her home
And I guess that’s the reason why I treat her like a
lady
We had been bucking a current for most
of the morning, and then around mid-day we somehow escaped that and the waves
subsided a bit as a result – for a short while at least, the seas weren’t
battling or colliding with the wind as much.
We enjoyed the respite and got the fishing lines wet yet again. A few boats reported more bottlenose dolphin
sightings, and the occasional Portuguese Man of War, but there was no luck with
the fishing.
 |
| Dolphins Streaking By Headed for the Bow Wave |
Late in the afternoon the seas picked up
as predicted, and we were glad to have an efficient pair of stabilizer
fins. About this time we also discovered that the guest stateroom sliding pocket
door makes a better guillotine than a door when one attempts to open or close
it in rough seas, especially after lubing it up with silicone spray. On the other hand, Jura was reporting that its ABT Trac (stabilizer) panel was
throwing low pressure warnings; after Cameron went through his troubleshooting
steps this issue eventually boiled down to the low RPM settings on the main
engine (which provides the PTO for the stabilizer hydraulic pump.) Let’s just say that the Nordhavn 57 isn’t
designed for going this slow.
We had been monitoring a slight
hydraulic fluid leak in the starboard actuator, but so far it was holding up
fine, and Rick believed it wouldn’t require attention until we get to Horta,
perhaps even Gibraltar. About the same
time the sailing vessel Viva, who had
been moored near us back in Bermuda, came into view on our radar and AIS
displays. She was also headed to the
Azores, so we hailed them on VHF channel 16, shared our weather forecast with
them, and offered to stay in touch as they made their way across the big
pond. It’s interesting to note that
while our weather router had us deviating further south, Viva had no interest
in that – she wanted the wind.
By the end of the day we were surfing
down the faces of some 8 and 9 foot waves, and our trip log indicated that we
had covered 417 miles since leaving Bermuda, and over 1,400 nautical miles in
total since departing Palm Beach, with Relish clocking 1,600 miles since
Nassau.
 |
| We Always Had Snacks in Relish's Pilot House |
WED 31-MAY
Daybreak greeted us with
gray skies, winds from the southwest at 10-12 knots, following seas averaging 6
feet, and a line of showers developing in front of us extending from the NE to
the SW. Rick buttoned up the boat as the
rain neared, fired up the 20KW generator (we’d been running sans genset since
departing Bermuda), and turned on the air conditioning as of 0600. At that point our instrumentation and
observations showed:
Speed: 7.0K SOG
Wind: 235 @ 10K
Seas: 4-7 feet
Temp: 76F
SST: 73F
Humidity: 100%
Pressure: 29.84
/ falling
Trip Odo: 1650 NM (since we left Nassau)
Distance to Horta: 1367 NM (1100 NM due east of the U.S.
coastline)
ETA to Horta: 08-June
(absent further weather detours)
Fuel Burn Rate: 4.1 GPH (main engine) + 1.0 GPH
(generator)
Fuel Remaining: +4000 NM (range w/o generator @ current
speed)
That latter metric is rather startling;
with her 2,830 gallon fuel capacity, and the miserly rate at which she’s been
sipping it, Relish has serious
“legs”.
That line of showers grew in size and
intensity, but was now moving away from us at a greater speed than what we
could muster, so it was mostly a non-factor.
But we left the genset running both as a change of pace, plus we would
be needing 240V power to run the washer & dryer today for laundry.
As well as the boat was performing
overall, we were still battling high engine room temperatures even as the
outside air cooled into the 60’s.
Inadequate engine room ventilation seems to be a common problem with many
Nordhavn models, and Relish wasn’t an
exception. It isn’t just a comfort issue
when performing the routine periodic engine room checks or whatever maintenance
might be due while underway. A lot of
important components live down there – alternators, numerous printed circuit
boards, fans, pumps, batteries, etc. – and high heat levels will take its toll
on useful life, and eventually make your Lugger engine unhappy.
So we ran with the door from the
lazarette to the engine room open, and when smoother sea conditions allowed we
cracked the cockpit hatch open to draw in more fresh air. Rick also placed two small portable fans down
there to help circulate more air. But
the real answer would be to re-engineer the intake and exhaust fan arrangements
and capacity, so we would be looking into potential services in Horta once we
arrived there.
As the day progressed the
winds began to decrease, as did wave heights, with increasing intervals between
the swells. But sunshine was limited to
intermittent bursts through a largely overcast sky. We had the fishing lines out all day but saw
no action. One crew member on Angela, on the other hand, claims they
caught fish on several different occasions and quickly got it vacuum sealed in
convenient little bags that only by sheer coincidence had the “Costco” name on
the side.
THU 01-JUN
 |
| The Busted Toilet Seat |
Another line of
showers moved through in the wee hours of the morning, but once again passed
clear of us to the north at a range of 6 to 16 miles. During the night winds died down
considerably, but the large swells continued, and we were now headed mostly
into them vs. having a following sea. By
daybreak winds picked up again, but not enough to add wind chop to the top of
the swells, which were now running about 6-9 feet, and thankfully at greater
intervals,
We deployed the fishing rigs
once again, but did not plan to bring the boat to a stop for any fish that
hit. Moxie
tried that and the big swells started tossing things around, including a
cabinet door in the forward head that departed its hinges and smacked into the
toilet, cracking the seat. The toilet is
still operable, and Bob reports they may have found a new use for the ship’s throw
ring.
At this point we were in the
middle of what is known as the Sargasso Sea, which while not bordered by any
particular land mass, is framed by four major current systems that tend to
isolate these Atlantic waters – basically a big gyre that collects seaweed (sargassum)
as well as all kinds of garbage.
Glenn on Aleoli sighted a floating oil barrel and
either a busted spar or a telephone pole, and Relish sighted one of those jugs that we associate with rum and
pirates, along with some other unrecognizable floating junk. Given our distance from any land mass, we
have to assume all of it is garbage dispersed by other boats. (We may throw
some biodegradables over the side, but we bag all other trash and store it on
the boat deck until we reach port.)
 |
| The Sargasso Sea |
Meanwhile, aboard Relish we
were trying to figure out what our center forward fuel tank levels were without
the aid of an operable gauge of any kind – it has no sight gauge and its analog
fuel gauge was stuck on 95% full. We
knew it was getting towards empty, and we sure didn’t want to risk starving the
supply tank to the main engine – but we were anxious to know how much was
indeed “usable fuel” given we were told the entire forward tank doesn’t
completely gravity feed into the supply tank.
Thus we took educated guesses based on our fuel log, and also kept a
close watch on the supply tank’s sight gauge.
During darkness we always ran from a fuel tank that didn’t have such
issues – the middle of the ocean in the middle of the night is not a time or
place you want to experience a flameout.
Late that afternoon we
sighted a sailboat also headed in our general direction. It was only a 26-footer, and they had poor sailing
conditions with little consistent wind and some very tall swells. We hailed them a few times with no response; but
then Michele (a French Canadian from Montreal) aboard Jura tried again in French, and soon a lengthy dialog had been
established. Bob on Moxie asked Michele
to inquire if the guy has a spare toilet seat.
 |
| Another Great Sunset at Sea |
The day ended quietly with
another picturesque sunset over the Atlantic waters, but again we found no fish
out here.
FRI 02-JUN
Showers continued to form
and dissipate all through the night as well as during the day, all generally
light activity with no embedded TRWs detected.
Temperatures remained pleasant, hovering around 70F, and for the most
part we ran without the genset unless the showers got heavier and we had to
close up the boat. Seas had picked up a
bit in the early morning hours shortly after daybreak (6-8 foot swells with
some wind chop on top) but then settled again by mid-day to less than 4 feet. That made for a nice ride and eventually the
dolphins came out to play in our bow wave for a while. (Note to self: need to research the ones we saw today, much
smaller than those we see so frequently in southwest Florida; likely spotted
dolphin.) Silvio also spotted a whale
breaking the surface nearby and was able to capture some of that on video.
We fetched another weather
forecast just before Noon and saw fairly reasonable projections. A low pressure system spinning up further
north would eventually close in on us and bring higher winds (gusts to 30) and
steeper seas (up to 8 feet with nasty wind chop & short intervals) by early
next week, but then improve thereafter.
All in all, that’s pretty benign for this part of the Atlantic Ocean and
didn’t warrant a routing change.
When this long leg started
our fleet of 5 boats had instituted a daily protocol of conducting a
“conference call” on VHF channel 14 to report detailed fuel status every day at
1400. Each boat reported its main engine
fuel burn for the past 24 hours, as well as burn rate and generator usage,
along with RPM and SOG. The main goal
was to establish / maintain a speed and burn rate that would provide the
smaller boat (Aleoli) with a
comfortable reserve as we approached the Azores; but it was also an opportunity
to gather and eventually share fuel efficiency and consumption metrics with the
larger Nordhavn community.
 |
| Silvio and Chelle Chilling in the Pilot House |
Right at dusk about two
dozen dolphin vectored in on Relish
and cruised the bow wave again. Minutes later Aeoli reported the same thing.
The day ended peacefully with mild rolling seas, partly cloudy skies,
temperatures in the low 70’s and a light breeze out of the southwest. We had another 6 days to go before we’d reach
Horta.
SAT 03-JUN
Saturday morning sunrise
started with a few low clouds on the horizon, but over the next couple hours
those burned off and by 0700 we had mostly clear conditions with a light 10K
breeze from the southeast and gentle seas – 3 foot rollers and a minor wind
chop on top. Overnight Relish had passed its halfway mark for
the journey from Nassau to Gibraltar (roughly 2000 total nautical miles based
on revised routing.)
Later in the day the
remainder of the fleet passed its halfway point. And Moxie
also sighted another whale spouting at about the same time. Their crew celebrated
by slowing the boat and dumping its supply of “Moxie Cola” (some kind of
orange-flavored carbonated drink) into the Atlantic Ocean, followed shortly
thereafter by Bob’s hat with the Moxie
emblem on it. Soon after that Peter
reported sighting the whale wearing Bob’s hat and doing a Michael Jackson dance
on the ocean surface. We suspect Moxie’s crew got into the Bloody Mary
pitcher mistaking it for regular tomato juice.
Eventually the radio chatter
turned attention to our planned upcoming pot luck dinner at the Horta docks;
apparently there was concern that not enough fish was being caught and we may
be short on proteins for that group dinner.
After quick inventories of the burgers, chicken and other meats that
were still in the freezers (and Michelle’s insistence that we still had time to
catch fish), we concluded all was still well.
All of that prompted Stefan on Aleoli,
who is something of a party guy, to inquire on the radio: “Just
what do you people have against restaurants?”
Someone also commented that there was a
famous Scottish restaurant located there; but it turns out it has golden arches
and is called MacDonald’s.
After sunset we were all planning to
fire off some expired flares, mainly for training purposes; but hey, who
doesn’t like pyrotechnics for entertainment?
It was suggested by Bob on Moxie
that we try at least one smoke grenade now (during daylight) to test its
visibility, so we did. We first
announced our intention on VHF channel 16 via a “securite” call just in case
there were any other vessels nearby who might mistake it as an actual distress signal. Since we were smack in the middle of the
Atlantic Ocean – roughly 1685 NM from the U.S. coastline and 1750 NM from
Spain, we didn’t think there was much of a chance that anyone was within
visual, much less radio, range. We were
wrong.
Shortly after Moxie’s orange smoke bomb went off Relish received a VHF transmission from a sailboat named Meka at about 1230 local time. They were
asking if we had any diesel fuel to spare. After some back and forth
conversation it was determined their fuel need was not presently an emergency
situation but might eventually turn into one.
We plotted their reported position (bearing 207M @ 9.9NM) and after a brief
discussion among the fleet Angela and Moxie volunteered to assist, so they peeled off to the SSW to
intercept the sailboat. We also had Meka
alter its course towards us to close the distance gap a bit faster, while Relish, Jura and Aeoli maintained their original course and speed for the interim.
As that was in progress Rob aboard Angela
and Rick aboard Relish tested their
two-way inReach texting communications one more time in case we lost VHF
contact with them.
The plan was for Meka to take down her spinnaker as the gap closed, launch her
dinghy loaded with their five empty jerry cans, raft up with Moxie, and then use Moxie’s wing engine’s day tank to drain fuel into them. This is the inReach text messaging update we
received from Rob aboard Angela:
Vessel is a catamaran from Tortola approximately 50’
with 3 males on board, Reg #743111, British.
He is a delivery skipper….Vessel name corrected to Meka. [We had
previously thought it was ‘Nika’.] Moxie has the cans and are filling them now.
This is the 37th time the skipper of Meka has crossed the Atlantic.
Subsequent conversations filled in the
blanks, but basically the fuel offload went without incident, although it took
a while to transfer fuel from the main tanks into the wing tank, and then into
the 4 jerry cans for Meka. And the recipients didn’t seem all that
grateful for Moxie’s efforts.
Radio snippet from Bob
on Moxie: The guy didn’t even have a spare toilet seat
to offer.
 |
| The Rejoin in Progress on Radar |
In the interim our sea conditions were
about as good as it gets in the middle of the Atlantic with sunny skies and
light breezes, and the temperature hovering right around 70F. And as the sun dropped in the west we enjoyed
several strafing runs by large pods of spotted dolphin, with some of the
smaller and younger ones getting quite acrobatic as they darted in and out of the
bow wave.
SUN 04-JUN
Daybreak brought overcast skies and a
few spotty rain showers on the radar, the closest at 5 miles to the
southeast. Angela and Moxie had closed
to within 4.5 miles as they approached us from the WSW at our 4 o’clock…roughly
17 hours after they had diverted on their Meka
intercept mission. Our Nobeltec and
Furuno systems told us we had a little over 4 days and 725 NM to Horta in the
Azores.
 |
| Nearby Showers on the Radar |
By 1030 we were back in our preferred
(octagonal) 5-ship formation once again, with all boats tucked into their usual
slots, and every vessel reporting ops normal.
Weather still presented a high overcast, winds at 10K from the SW,
ambient air at 70F as was SST, with following seas very smooth at 2-3 foot
gentle swells and a light wind chop on top.
Aboard Relish we took advantage of the
calm conditions to test out the Wing engine.
It started and ran smooth with all instrumentation in the normal ranges,
and gave us around 4 knots of forward ground speed. The downside was that its stuffing box was
getting very hot pretty quickly, so after about 15 minutes of run time we shut
it down. Since we had lost ground on the
fleet with the slower wing engine speed, we decided to perform our WOT run to
catch up and that went fine.
Once we were stabilized back in the
formation Silvio and Rick spent some time in the engine room mucking around
with loosening the stuffing box’s adjusted nuts and follower flange to see if
we could (eventually) get some water flow and lower temps. That will be a continuing task over the next
few days.
At noon the fleet conducted its group
weather briefing, presenting the latest forecast from Commanders, and then at
1400 we likewise conducted our daily fuel consumption report and review. The net results of those two were:
 |
| Napping in the Pilot House |
1.
Some lousy
weather moving in from the east beginning Tuesday evening with rain, gusts to
35K and 7 foot seas; followed by improvements on Wednesday; and then going to
hell again on Thursday as we neared Horta, with gusts to 40K churning up 8 foot
swells and 5 feet of wind chop. At least
the wind and seas would be coming from behind.
2.
Everyone’s fuel
status still looked positive, with even Aleoli
estimating a 25% reserve upon reaching the Azores; and the 20 mile
diversion and 20 gallon fuel donation by Moxie
and Angela on yesterday’s Good
Samaritan mission still left them with adequate reserves as well.
Nevertheless, the group decided to
maintain current speed and course rather than attempt to speed up – fuel
consumption rate (for Aleoli in
particular) during the coming squalls was an unknown, as were impacts from
potentially adverse ocean currents. We’ll
fetch another weather update on Tuesday and recalibrate as required at that
time.
We had rescheduled our “pyro night” for
this evening, so about 2 hours after sunset each boat gathered a collection of
expired hand-held flares, flare guns cartridges and parachute flares and
prepared to detonate them, with each vessel taking a turn so the others could
see how each device appeared from a distance.
After making the requisite “securite” radio call we got started. The
SOLAS parachute flares outperformed everything else with excellent hang /
loiter time and a very bright white corona visible for several miles. However, our old 12 gauge carts fired from an
Orion flare pistol did better than we expected with good altitude and
reasonable duration of its small bright red fireball. The handheld flares were also brightly
visible from 2+ miles although obviously could not match the visible range of
the more ballistic options. It was an
interesting and educational way to wrap up another day at sea, at least for
those who were still awake.
As our pyrotechnic exercise wound down,
Aleoli reported a problem with its water maker, specifically with its low
pressure pump. Since they still had half
a tank of fresh water and plenty of bottled backup on board – and everyone was
in need of some rest – they decided to put that problem on hold until the next
morning.
We still had 600 NM to traverse before
we’d arrive in Horta.
MON 05-JUN
We had bright sunshine and brisk breezes
out of the south to start the day, but temps continued to slowly drop – 68F at
0900 – and the ocean brought some commotion with 2 to 3 footers at short
intervals on the starboard beam. But
compared to the forecast we were quite happy with it, and as the day progressed
the wind started backing more towards the SW and towards our stern. We continued to buck currents off and on,
although the historical pilot charts for this part of the ocean indicated we
might get a break on that soon.
 |
| Fishing in the Swells with a Scotch on the Rocks Nearby....It's a Great Way to Wind Down a Day |
Aleoli spent a large part of its day troubleshooting its
water maker, and eventually cobbled together a solution to restore power to its
low pressure pump component. They would
seek a more permanent solution once they arrived in Horta, but for now they
were quite happy with Daniel’s electrical sleuthing and workaround.
A few days earlier Relish had suffered a minor catastrophe when Rick’s USB thumb drive
with all its MP3 music files died with a corrupted file system. Fortunately we had already copied some of the
tunes to other devices, so we still had Jimmy Buffett boat and beach ballads
available to protest the coming weather.
It was cool enough outside that we
didn’t need air conditioning at any part of the day, and it also made
Michelle’s spicy chili an appealing dish for dinner the night before. From a wardrobe perspective it was becoming
clear that some of us (Rick and Bernie in particular) hadn’t packed very well;
as it turns out south Florida May-June clothing isn’t very well suited to this
part of the Atlantic at this time of year.
As for the chili (delicious!) Silvio
must have really liked it because he was also munching on a bowl of it for
breakfast this morning. Of course, between
the odd helm shifts and the time zone changes (we were now UTC -1), determining
whether you were eating breakfast, lunch or dinner was sometimes problematic,
or at the very least subject to personal interpretation.
Towards evening two targets popped up on
our radar at about the same time – the first was later identified on AIS as S/V
Lynn Rival, a 12 meter sloop bearing NNW who at first seemed intent on sailing
into the middle of the formation. She wouldn’t answer any of our radio calls,
but we bumped the throttles a tad and moved ahead to make her a non-factor,
although she did pass within a mile of Aleoli at the back of the formation just
after nightfall. The second target was only a radar blip (no AIS) to our ESE,
and after dropping an ARPA cursor on it we guessed it was another sailboat
since its SOG was only 4.5K at the time.
Over time it picked up speed and hung with us most of the night, and
eventually we had to alter course a bit to pass on her port side with
comfortable separation.
Traffic would likely continue to
increase as we neared Horta, which by sunrise the next day was only 390 miles
away.
TUE 06-JUN
Overnight the winds picked up a bit to
15 knots, still out of the SW, and while the ride was a bit sloppy with short
and steep 3 footers, it was by no means rough or uncomfortable (at least for
now.) Both ambient and sea surface temps
were at 66F, and we had a high overcast.
As of 0730 local time (0830 UTC) our key
stats looked as follows:
Speed:
6.7K SOG
Wind:
210 @ 15K
Seas:
3-4 feet
Temp: 66F
SST: 66F
Humidity: 100%
Pressure: 30.00 / falling
Trip Odo: 2625
NM (since we left Nassau)
Distance to Horta: 380 NM (1100 NM due east of the U.S.
coastline)
ETA to Horta: Mid-day
on 08-June
Fuel Burn Rate: 4.4 GPH (main engine)
Fuel Remaining: 3300 NM (range w/o generator @ current speed)
 |
| Rolling Swells on the Stern |
Aboard Relish we cranked up the 20KW generator during the afternoon so we
could run the washer and dryer to get some much needed laundering done. We also ran the air conditioners, not because
it was needed but rather to keep a good load on the diesel genset – it does not
like to run at light load factors, as that tends to build up soot and shorten
the life of its exhaust elbow.
Throughout the day the seas had gradually
built as predicted to 7 feet with a 15 to 20 knot wind from the WSW. And those also decreased slightly (as
predicted) as the sun set, just as the forecast scattered showers began showing
on the radar. Regardless, we shut down
the genset after we were done with the laundry, since we wanted to extend the
time between oil changes if possible….there was at least a chance we could get
all the way to Gibraltar before that came due, and we certainly did not need
the A/C tonight with ambient air temps in the 60’s.
We had 285 nautical miles and just over
40 hours remaining to reach Horta in the Azores.
WED 07-JUN
By the very early morning hours the
winds had died off to a few knots out of the west and the seas were
correspondingly smooth (relatively speaking)….although we knew that would not
last long. But it made for some good
sleeping and a peaceful night watch shift.
At daybreak we were still blessed with the same conditions, along with
ambient air temp of 66F and an SST of 68F, winds westerly and light, and now
that we could see them, waves were still only 2-3 feet at worst and still on
the stern. Too bad it couldn’t last
another 30 hours.
 |
| The Final Leg into Horta in the Azores |
We had been staggering our time changes
– moving our clocks forward by an hour – about every 3 days. That plus a 7 knot moving average surely made
the more traditional “jet lag” a non-factor, although generally the fatigue
factor was still high on the scale with the overnight helm shifts. Today we’d officially be in the next time
zone – GMT, aka Zulu or UTC. We had
crossed 4 time zones.
Somewhat surprisingly as of 1300 UTC,
with 175 NM and 25 hours to go until we reached Horta, we were still
experiencing generally calm conditions, but as the afternoon progressed the SW
swells started to gradually build as the wind began to pick up. Air temp hovered around 65F and SST at 67F,
with a west wind around 10 knots. We had
a very high and thin overcast that still allowed for plenty of sunshine to bore
through. But far in the distance to the
northwest we could see a line of cumulonimbus building – no doubt the leading
edge of that coming front which would be squeezing the pressure gradient ever
tighter.
In our old Grady-White sport fishing
days we’d just throttle up and beat that weather into port. But that isn’t an option in a 150,000 pound
Nordhavn that moves along at the speed of smell.
By late afternoon the wind and waves
were in accordance with Commanders’ latest forecast, with south-westerlies up
to 14 knots and rolling swells at 8 to 10 feet coming from the northwest. It was comfortable even with the ABT Trac
stabilizers dialed back for a leisurely 16 knot setting where the fins didn’t
need to work very hard.
Nevertheless, the forecast for mid-day
tomorrow – as we would be approaching Horta – was calling for gusts to 30 knots
with swells to 9 feet and perhaps 5 foot wind waves on top of that. So we used this time to ready the boat for
rough running. Essentially that meant
all loose items were securely stowed or lashed in some fashion, all drawer and
cabinet latches were in the closed or locked position, and all portals and
hatches were (or would be) dogged down, and all spare part containers and oil
barrels down in the laz ang engine room were strapped down.
Shortly before sunset, Cameron on Jura downloaded the latest high
resolution GRIB weather file and from that noted the weather system seemed to
be moving a bit slower than earlier prognosticated. That would be good for us if we could make
the turn into Horta’s protected harbor before it started blowing really hard.
As the sun set behind us we could easily
make out the line of ominous clouds on the northwestern horizon. But we also had a nearly full moon beaming
like a spotlight tonight, and we only had 112 NM to go to reach our destination
in the Azores.
THU 08-JUN
Daylight brought a high overcast….65F,
SST 66F, winds 15K from SW, swells @ 8 feet with comfy intervals and a few feet
of wind chop. Not great, but surely not
as bad as forecast. At 0900 we were just
over 20 miles from the Azores, with an ETA between 1230 and 1300 depending on
which SOG readout you wanted to believe.
 |
| Azores Coming into View from the Pilot House |
The ride into Horta was pretty benign
overall – the big storm / frontal system had slowed, and we hit a weather
window that was good enough for all boats to tie up. While it was quite breezy the skippers
handled their boats magnificently. It’s
a bit crowded here, so Relish and Jura moored alongside the big commercial
sea wall, and everyone else took up a rafted position from there (and dropped
an anchor in the process as a precaution against the 40 knot winds yet to
come.) Not the most elegant or
convenient arrangement, but we were happy to be there nonetheless.
All boats will take on fuel from the
truck today, and then we’re seeking a long walk on land and the nearest
pub. And then some uninterrupted sleep
before we delve into the weekend maintenance activities.
 |
| Chelle and Rick on the Bow with the Azores Looming in the Background |
As of now it appears that only Angela, Moxie and Relish will depart together for the next leg to Gibraltar, likely on Monday. Aleoli will hang out here an extra day or so to enjoy some time with family visitors who flew in to join them. And Jura is headed north to England and Scotland.
We also have one crew change in the works....Michele who has been aboard Jura for this long leg to Horta will jump aboard Relish so he can also get to Gibraltar with the rest of us. That also gives the current threesome on Relish a much more tolerable watch schedule for that next leg. Welcome Michele!! Of course that now gives them two folks with the same name, we need to noodle nicknames to manage that.
After refueling was completed it was a nice change of pace to get off the boat and walk into town for a meal and a few libations to wrap up a very tiring but satisfying journey.
 |
| Rafted Up in Horta |
We’ll have more in the next posting, so
stay tuned.
 |
| Five Nordhavns Rafted Up in Horta |
 |
| View of Horta Harbor From Town |
 |
| A View of Horta Just Outside the Harbor |
 |
| This Little Place in Horta Has GREAT Pizza |
