The Long Passage

Sky after the storm

It is 1800 nautical miles from Bermuda to Horta - which is on the Island of Faial in the Azores - as the crow flys.  But longer if you happen to find yourself dodging weather.  1800 nm is a very long way - that far out in the ocean no-one can rescue you.  Or at least no coast guard can reach you out there.  Maybe a fellow sailor or a commercial ship.  Which is the whole reason you cross an ocean with other boats traveling basically the same path at the same time - a Rally.  We received our weather forecast from the fellow we use and it was not great.  There is a very nasty low pressure system that will be a full out gale in the higher latitudes.  So...he said we had two options.  Option A: Go south and bob around in the ocean with no wind for a few days making no headway towards our destination while we wait for the low to pass (sounds awful)!  Option B:  Go northeast but we must reach 35 degrees N/47 degrees W in 6 days.  Well that is a long, long way from our present position and we will still have no wind for the first few days.  So that makes it even harder to reach that "safe spot".  We took a vote and went with option B.  Starting day for this passage was 5/15/19 - we were across the starting line at 1102 and found ourselves quickly motoring in lumpy seas.  Light and variable wind, sails luffing and lots of swell.  Trying to conserve fuel as there will be even less wind later in the passage.  There is an area of high pressure (no wind area) which sits between Bermuda and the Azores - the trick is to be on the edge of it so you still have wind, but not too much wind. 

Seas starting to subside

On the 17th we got on Chris Parker's (weather guy) net and listened in.  A boat near us was a subscriber so we listened in on the advise given to Fruit de Mer.  There are actually 2 lows - one very nasty, large low forming off of Newfoundland and a second one that we hope we will miss.  There will be gale force winds (possibly as high as 50 to 60 knots) with the big low we were dodging north of latitude 35 degrees.  But there is also a cold front associated with that low that will push very far down - possibly as low as 31 degrees latitude.  We were at 33 degrees latitude but after listening to the net we changed our course to head back down to 32 degrees.  The plan was to just ride that latitude east until the front passed on the 23rd. There were two problems: fuel and weather.  We were working to conserve fuel AND doing our best to stay out of 40 plus knot winds.  For folks watching the tracker it must have been confusing with all the boats heading northeast and us heading east.  There was a reason for our madness.  Other than the concerns with the weather which was a daily discussion- life on the boat was good.  We were eating well - Michael made great dinners night after night.  I made brownies which the guys (Ben and Matt) loved.  We were trying to get enough sleep but that was not always easy.  By the 22nd the wind had shifted southwest.  Southwest wind means an approaching cold front and sure enough that was what we expected.  In the evening the wind was up to 20 knots consistently and the seas were starting to build.  Good news was we were sailing fast!  Seas were confused though - there was swell from the north and wind chop from the southwest.  No sleep that night as there was too much uncomfortable motion on the boat.  By Thursday the 23rd the seas had been building all night.  Now we had some waves breaking in the cockpit.  Waves were 12 feet with the occasional 15 foot wave.  We were down to just the staysail and the wind was now 29 knots steady gusting up to 34 knots.  We were being pushed every which way by the waves.  No-one was able to eat dinner - we were all just exhausted.  And then at 7:00 pm the wind veered west and then northwest as the front passed us and that was it.  Immediately, the wind dropped to 14 to 16 knots!  We breathed a sigh of relief, put the mainsail back up and started on a direct course to Horta.