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Joanna Sprague-- June 1st
After 4 days of weather checking, talking to Peter Willauer in St
George's, talking to the whole fleet of 50' trawlers "Nordhaven"
on their way to the Azores- we left. Bermuda was hot and sticky
and some days blowing like stink. Rebecca had the boat looking gorgeous.
Lori Shook arrived on May 26 and made immediate friends with Rebecca
the the town of Hamilton. I arrived May 27 and began to throw out
old food, and go over stores on board. Phin arrived 2ish on May
28, and Abbott, Coco and Andrew arrived later around 5pm. Rebecca
had her last day at the aquarium on the 28th and by her photos of
the long tail terns she was checking on, and the aquarium shots
she held up her end quite well. What a great experience. She also
met locals that kept her company along with the sailing master at
the yacht club kept a watchful eye on the Whelp. Rebecca missed
her first flight home -- Deliberate? But Teddy Haffenreffer made
it in and found us for dinner. Sunday Rebecca made it home and we
took Jack Collier and friends out for a sail plus 4 of the sailing
kids. It was blowing 30+, second reef in main. Inside though so
it was flat. A good time to check over rigging and make the lists.
We moved back to RBYC as many of the trawlers left. We ordered and
stocked the boat with frozen meals. The list for on deck was 30
or more items. That included scraping the bottom. Coco, Andrew and
Abbot did the job. One large fishie kept close eye on Coco They
loved eating the algae. One day Bruce & Sherri Lines took us
to their beca club for a GREAT swim. Saw lots of beach damage from
Hurricane but hotels are more than 75% back into full swing. There
are 2-3 cruise ships a day into Hamilton. BUSY!
Phin Sprague, Jr. -- June 1st
The boat looked just the way we left it! I arrived to dive into
a list of items to get the boat systems working. The furnace is
a real pain in the @@##!!@ to get the water circulating. It was
pretty dry so there must be a leak somewhere. I finally attached
a fresh water hose to the line off of the reservoir and blew the
bubbles out of the system. It is working now. There is no such thing
as potable antifreeze in Bermuda so we are running tap water in
the lines. This will have to be changed when we get back.
The satellite antenna was ripped off of the spreader... pulled
the potted 1/4 inch machine screws out. I drilled through the spreader
and through bolted with fender washers. Saturday when we went out
for a shake down sail in 26 knots SW we noticed a hole in the sail
conforming to the antenna. The antenna was attached leaning aft
so it rubs against the sail. I went back up and added some washers
to the aft fastening to lean it forward a bit. And then we put repair
tape over the hole.
Abbott, Coco, and Andrew scrubbed the bottom. We also wired shackles,
retied the dingy, checked all pumps and motors, tightened the lower
shrouds, checked the mast steps, and so on.
I had ordered a stable weather pattern for the crossing but what
we have been getting has shaken the long range weather forecasting
confidence of the weather forecasters. One intense front after the
next. Commanders Weather finally found an apparent hole and we made
a dash. About 13 other boats decided to take the chance too.
The CA44 unit is as stable as a rock. But the peripheral IS15 unit
is a disaster as components turn themselves on and off. The autopilot
(URI) is also non functioning. It blows a fuse after a while. My
guess is that there is something wring with a relay or the IS15
is confusing it. The fuse is sized large for the 1/2 hp motor. I
am really irritated. It doesn't work on the boat.
Same thing with the SSB. I had much much much MUCH better reception
with my old ham radio. I have contacted a couple of stations once
or twice during the trip but boats three miles away can read Herb
and I can't, let alone transmit to him. ARGH!
Well we need SOME wind to sail and as a consequence we powered
for 12 hours until the wind picked up enough for us to turn the
engine off at 345 this am. At 7 am we had about 160 miles to the
point where we will be entering the gulf stream. WE have been getting
nice satellite pictures of the stream and watching the front ahead
of us. Our strategy at this time is to beat feet to cross the stream
our 0700EST position was 34
01N 65 34 W at 8.1 KN 348m wind 237m Barometer 32 slowly falling
from a high of 32.5 just before midnight. If anything we are suffering
from too much information. Some of the forecasters see this low
intensifying as we cross the stream others hardly see it. The ride
is pretty comfortable now and we are scooting forward into the future.
Cheers! Phin & Joanna
Phin Sprague, Jr. -- June 10th
Just checking in. We had a great trip!!!. There was some concern
about a low meeting us in the Gulf stream and the wisdom seemed
to be to beat feet, so we motorsailed up to the stream when our
speed dropped below 6 knots. It was sticky going. We had our second
in 4000 miles conversation with Herb and he was a little nervous
about the first and second low forming. We didn't have the water
speed reading but I could tell we were working way too hard for
the SOG. (Speed Over Ground) As a consequence, we couldn't beat
the low trough to the stream. It made life a little sloppy just
before the Gulf Stream. A little front went through and the wind
clocked immediately to NW. We had 26+ knots for a few heart beats...
Since we were in a favorable Northerly eddy it was briefly sloppy.
We were amazed to see the sun appear a diameter above the horizon
at the last moment escaping under the heavy cloud cover and with
the promise of clearing weather drop unobscured the last little
bit into the ocean. I went over to port tack and were progressively
headed over four hours as the wind clocked to the North. When the
wind crossed North we flipped to the other tack and the wind continued
to clock to the SE as a small bubble high petered out during the
next ten hours and the wind dropped under ten knots. At our entry
point, the Gulf Stream was flat calm and we powered across. On the
other side, we broke loose of the last counter current after about
75 miles of powering and picked up the NE side of a low forming
over Hatteras moving up into the Gulf of Maine. It was relatively
weak and tracking slowly to a position over the George's Banks.
Eureka! We had 20-26 knots of new wind and drizzle... beam reaching
over flat water.... 11.2 knots for three hours!!!. You couldn't
tell that the boat was anything more than heeled over when you were
down below. No motion! It was an awesome experience. The quarter
wave was breaking on the windward side. Hands off steering. We got
our selves over the top of the low and were able to stay just inside
of the front as there wasn't a wave bigger than my desktop from
the east side of the Gulf Stream to Portland. We froze on deck and
had a little rain but the boat was warm as toast down below. Superb
crew, good friends and two young people who will never have as nice
a crossing for the rest of their experience.
The only problems were just annoyances. The autopilot didn't work
at all. The Nav instruments, wind, boat speed, flux gate compass...
All were intermittent at best. Useless is a word that comes to mind.
The Simrad CA-44 Chart plotter and Radar unit was as solid as a
rock and it made navigation a snap. We had six ships on the radar
screen inside the 12 mile ring in the great South Channel. And the
Navy was doing live ammunition firing ten miles to the West of us
.We arrived at the Portland LNB at 1730 on the 6th, 4 days 2 hours
from our departure point off Bermuda. 182+ miles per day average.
55 hours on the main engine. We had a visit from a navy helicopter.
I really liked the radar transponder and it's ability to tell us
when we were being painted by radar. We were picking tankers up
over the horizon. I am told that the transponder puts out a very
strong signal and that it is possible that the helicopter was sent
over to figure out what it was that the Navy ship was looking at
on their radar.
Because there was nothing to fix, the navigation was a snap and
I wasn't needed on deck, I got way too much sleep anticipating it
might be rough and the rest of the crew started grumbling. HMMM.
Next time I am going to have the auto pilot so the crew won't need
to steer.
Best wishes to all!
Cheers! Phin
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