Sailing to Bermuda
Continued..._____________________________________________________
Another big gourmet breakfast was followed by un-docking at dead low tide to get to the start. I had been diving to clear rocks from around the Topaz's keel in the slip as it bottomed at every low tide, and now it scraped and bounced on the way out, barely making it to the channel under full power.
We started in the harbor with a brisk 15-20 mph southwest breeze, our class 3 going over the line at 10:40 local time and jockeying for position to squeeze through the Town Cut two miles away. I had a single reef in the mainsail and the bigger (180 square foot) mule, rather than the full genoa, and appeared to be the only boat not under full sail. At the exit from the Cut I was surprised at the size of the crowds standing and waving to each of us as we headed out to sea.
I got an enthusiastic cheer from the crowd, perhaps because I was the only one going solo. Several boats ahead flying spinnakers were occasionally losing control as the breeze stiffened. An hour out, after passing Kitchen Shoals, still with no swell, the fleet began to split up as each skipper set course, either to the east or west. For some reason feelings of anxiety and melancholy settled in.
I envied the more aggressive skippers going east, as the gale force winds forecast on Sunday on that route would be less of a delay than the likely calms on the western route. Sailing solo with a squeaking rudder, a repaired gooseneck, and still dependent on the backup generator, I had to aim west. Up ahead one competitor's blue spinnaker shredded as the breeze continued to increase. I saw several flying fish, and noticed that they were actually able to make long aerial runs around wavetops under complete control. By sundown the wind was averaging 20 mph and the mainsail was reefed twice, with the boat barreling along at 7 knots through 6-8 foot seas.
Unknown to me, about 30 miles ahead Everest Horizontal was going 12-13 knots under its 100% jib and full main, no doubt bouncing off those seas in spectacular fashion as skipper Tim Kent was trying to catch the other Open boat, Margaret Anna, which he had just learned was a "few miles" ahead. Tim later reported hearing two loud bangs, and the Everest rolled over, its 4000-pound keel bulb gone. With a handful of flares and his headlamp to read the instructions by, he and his crew clung to the rudders of his inverted boat and got the attention of the cruise ship Nordic Empress, which rescued them.
SATURDAY, JUNE 21
By 1 AM Topaz had already covered the first 100 miles, the seas were up to 8', and a third reef was taken in the mainsail. Even so, the boat was still doing 6 knots, although a knot was lost to an encounter with yet another uncharted eddy that would be boosting those steering farther east. Two competitors still in sight slowly pulled ahead, indicating that the comfortable ride I was having under reduced sail had its cost. Carrying extra sail on Topaz in her present condition meant leaking heavily, pounding, and a high risk of breaking either the rudder or the gooseneck.
By 7 AM I was steering a course of about 320 degrees, "heading for the pizza on the boardwalk at Asbury Park N.J.", as I said during chat hour. The seas were up to ten feet, coming from the northwest, and a third reef was taken in the mainsail just in time for the wind to back off to 10-15 mph. With the seas growing, I decided to prepare for the weather ahead before the motion got too violent to do the work. I lashed down the engine and its hatch cover and screwed down the hatches under the settees. With 500 miles to go at 11 AM I was able to get a call home via the Maritime Net and let the folks know I was well on my way.
At noon the wind had piped up to almost 30 mph, the jib was taken down, and the seas were up to 12-15 feet. The Sailomat vane steered flawlessly, and the boat was making 7 knots under the triple reefed mainsail alone, but riding remarkably well in the boisterous seas. The water sluicing over the deck and cabin top was finding new ways to get in, leaks were proliferating, and the water rose above the cabin floor when Topaz heeled, with stuff falling off the table and getting wet.
At the 4 PM weather briefing Herb's weather forecast focused on the eastern route. With the HF I called him up and got the information for the western route that light northwest winds (on the nose) would be coming in a few hours. Not good news, especially since these headwinds would not hit the eastern part of the fleet till later, giving them a further benefit. Unknown to all but a well-informed few, it turned out that the meander had suddenly moved east, and most of those who were going east were in for the mother of all foul currents, a day long slog against 3-knots on the nose.
By 7 PM the wind had become squally. One moment the wind was howling, the ocean streaked with foam, and the boat was hitting 9 knots with the triple reefed mainsail alone, but still riding easily like a duck. The next minute the wind backed off to 5 or 10 mph. A nearby boat had measured a gust at over 50 mph. As the night wore on the sea and wind dropped rapidly, and I put up a little 70 square foot storm jib which doubled my sail area and got the speed back up to 7 knots . Just before midnight, the wind hauled around to the northwest at 15 mph and it began to rain. I pointed the boat due north.
SUNDAY, JUNE 22
The seas were 6 feet and diminishing, and Newport was now a little more than 400 miles away. As the night wore on, the rain stopped and the wind switched back to the west at 10-15 mph. At 7 AM I put up the big mule and shook out a reef in the mainsail to maximize this opportunity to lay course directly toward my Gulf Stream entry point 120 miles ahead.
On 14.212 Mc. in the morning I told Bill and Jack about my fun in the weather, and Bill recalled a 100-knot hurricane he had been in while working as a radio operator on a steamship. I also got Mike on the morning Bermuda net, as I was now far enough away from him for the "skip" to work. The news about Everest Horizontal had gotten into the papers, and everyone was curious about the weather we had experienced. The wind was down to 15 mph, so I let out the mainsail to one reef, increasing speed to 7 knots through 10-foot seas. The boat continued to leak, so I wasn't anxious to push harder.
In the afternoon the west wind veered and increased to 20 mph, forcing me to steer north of my entry point, but still kept up good speed. I sent another ham radio message home, letting them know Topaz was now halfway and estimating an early Thursday AM arrival. At this point in the race the boats were the most spread out, so that the radio chat hour with the rest of the fleet on VHF found few within range, so I switched to the Marine HF channel at 4.149 Mc to join those boats that had HF. The mainsail was lowered down to three reefs and the storm jib put up as the wind was getting squally approaching the edge of the Gulf Stream. Toward midnight the wind shifted to the north and would die between rainsqualls, but the sails were kept small to minimize slatting in the 6'-8' swells. Newport was now 300 miles ahead.
MONDAY, JUNE 23
During the night several flying fish came aboard. They were strange creatures, with outsized wing like side fins and skinny bodies. Seas were less than 10 feet but I was definitely in the 100 mile wide Gulf Stream as the current was now setting me to the east at 1-2 knots. From my surfing experience I had learned the fastest way to paddle across a rip current was to go at a slight angle downstream, so I steered a bit east of north. The northwest wind occasionally piped up to 20 mph and was offering the best boat surfing of the trip, with some rides comparable to those on a board.
Just after sunrise the 20 meter ham radio band was good, and I had a chat with Bill and Jack, and later got Mike again in Bermuda. Everybody was interested in how the Gulf Stream was. While the water was very different from the regular ocean, and definitely had that jumpy quality of the inside of a washing machine, there were no 20 foot square waves or walls of cloud filled with lightning. Days earlier it had probably been different, as the 15 foot swells I had been encountering on the way from Bermuda had come from the direction of the Stream.
The backup water generator was now making noise and after the morning battery recharge, I disassembled it to give it a lube job. One of the four rare earth magnets had split and was rubbing the commutator. Ignorant of how glasslike and grabby these exotic magnets were, I sliced open my finger removing it and spent a half hour mopping up blood and bandaging it with masking tape and paper towels. I now had a severe imbalance in forces as the opposite magnet's pull on the commutator was unopposed, and had to use a hammer and drift pin to whack a similar piece off the opposite magnet, leaving two of the four magnets intact and functional.
I celebrated my successful splitting of the magnet with a beer, marveling at how casually I was watching the disassembled generator's parts rolling around the cabin floor as the Sailomat steered and occasionally surfed the larger Gulf Stream swells. The bilge water was below the floorboards, so the parts remained dry while I cleaned the commutator, repacked the bearings, and put it back together. When it was tested, it put out the expected half power, enough so that I wouldn't need to do severe power rationing, and could continue to use the HF and power tools.
With the ocean water temperature finally dropping it appeared that I was clear of the Gulf Stream about midnight, so I could finally turn west and head more toward Newport without bucking 3 knots of current. Unfortunately, leaving the warm stream also seemed to kill the wind, with the boat speed dropping from 7 knots to 5 as the wind dropped from 20 to10 mph.
TUESDAY, JUNE 24
By daybreak the wind had veered to the north-northeast, allowing me to head almost straight home. The seas subsided to less than 6 feet, the two reefs were shaken out of the mainsail, and the water temperature continued to drop, reaching 64 degrees after breakfast. The ride was getting pleasant, with nothing breaking down, no water coming on deck, and no more major leaking.
I had my morning chat with Bill, who mentioned the heat in Northern Ireland and in London, then got onto the Maritime Mobile service net to tell my family I had crossed the Stream. I then saw my first enroute ship, apparently an empty tanker sliding southwest in the countercurrent north of the Gulf Stream. I hailed her on VHF with the title "Big Tanker", and identified myself as the "little sailboat" off her port bow. I told her I was the "Topaz, 5 tons" and she replied that she was the "Iridell, 8271 Tons"
The north wind was dying, the seas continued to subside to less than 3 feet, and the boat was down to 3 knots. Just before 5 PM a pair of cannon shots shattered the calm, and I spilled my coffee. I was talking with another boat at the time, and he said "what shots". Two minutes later he heard them and came on the radio to say that the double boom was the Concorde's distinctive sound signature. No wonder they kept that thing subsonic over civilization. At 1200 mph the two minute time delay told us the lateral separation between our boats was about 40 miles. On the evening radio "chat" hour "Indigo" reported that during Sunday the weather on the eastern route included a waterspout and winds of 60 mph.
By 7 PM the seas were flatter than Newport Harbor, a phenomenon I had never seen before on the open ocean. The sea was littered with lobster pots, and a check of the chart showed I was over a prime offshore ground, at the edge of the Continental shelf. Now both Panacea and Indigo were visible, and the wind died completely for two hours, freezing our relative positions.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25
The wind came up out of the southwest just after midnight at 5 mph, actually filling the big genoa as the seas were so flat it wouldn't slat. The lack of waves had deprived me of my "rock-it" fuel for the bungee powered mainsail. As a result I had logged a record low 6 miles in the 6 hours ending at 1 AM with 120 miles to go. Adding to the strangeness of this lack of wind or waves, I noticed that the water temperature had climbed back up to 70 degrees as I drifted north of 40 degrees north. Apparently I was near the center of an uncharted warm eddy. The eastern fleet would likely be feeling some pain from this one.
With two competitors, Panacea and Indigo in sight, 80 miles to go, and the seas still table-flat, I decided it was time to try out the new 650 square foot spinnaker whose color matched Barney the Purple Dinosaur. This was the first time I had ever set a spinnaker single handed, but it was an asymmetrical type with a sock, so it went up easily. In the 5-10 mph southwesterly the propulsive effect was breathtaking. Instead of wallowing in the heat going 2 knots, the boat steadied down with a slight heel and accelerated to 5 knots, with a nice breeze across the deck. On the ham radio I soon found an experienced racer who told me a spinnaker pulls best when its sheet is slacked off until it is almost collapsed, a tip good for another knot. While on the radio I also got a phone patch home and gave an ETA of early the following morning.
It was time to rest, as the coming night would be a busy one dodging traffic while approaching the coast. The wind had veered to the west, but I gave it little thought and went below for my sleep. It shifted back to the south as I slept, and the wind-following vane gear did its job, keeping the spinnaker full but turning the boat 90 degrees to the left. When I awoke, the GPS revealed the off course track was only a few miles, Indigo was still in range, and Panacea was almost gone.
During the afternoon I slowly overhauled Indigo, passing her around sundown, but watched Panacea getting smaller during the evening. With 50 miles to go I discovered a mosquito aboard, which is not supposed to fly more than 50 feet offshore. Bermuda was supposed to be a mosquito-free island, so that meant this critter had either bred aboard the boat or hitched a ride all the way from Newport. Either way, there may have been others that left the boat in Bermuda, thereby contaminating it.
The wind was now 10 to 15 mph and the boat was ripping through the flat ocean at 7 knots under the pull of "Barney" when I went below again to get some more rest. I awoke this time to a blow to the head, having slid on my bunk and hit my head on the bulkhead. The boat was stopped, and on deck I noticed a large sunfish lollygagging astern, which explained the cause of my sudden stop. Chat hour wisdom revealed that such collisions are quite common. Because my boat is so light, the typical 500 lb. sunfish would stop it dead, so harnesses should be worn in bed when going fast.
By evening the wind was up to a steady 15 mph and "Barney" was dragging in the water and really heeling the boat. As night fell I was able to douse the chute without destroying it. By standing on the cabin top I got the cell phone to hit the tower on Block Island, and called home and the Newport Yacht Club to warn them of my imminent arrival. The wind started dying after dark, and Indigo, still flying her chute, was gaining.
THURSDAY, JUNE 26
Somewhat after 2 AM, with half a mile to go to the finish off the Brenton Reef buoy, Indigo was now a quarter mile away, gaining with spinnaker up in almost no wind. After some fumbling I managed to get my spinnaker set in the dark in time to beat Indigo to the line by about a tenth of a mile. The 635 mile trip home had taken 137 hours of sailing, and I later found out I had gained some time on my friend Drew Wood, who was still more than half a day out.
The next morning I went ashore to the Newport Yacht Club to clear Customs and hand in my log to the Race Committee. I noticed I was not rocking on my feet like the first days ashore in Bermuda, presumably because of the flat seas the last two days. A young sailing instructor came up to me and asked if I would give a talk about my trip to his group in the junior sailing program, which I did for about half an hour. One of the kids wanted to know if I'd seen any sharks. Driving my car home in rush hour on route 128 the next day, I marveled at how enjoyable it was. It was as if the other cars were waves in the Gulf Stream and I was once again weaving and sliding between them.