Day 0 – Monday November 3rd
Todays weather briefing was just about the same as the last one over the weekend and confirmed that a late Monday evening to Tuesday AM departure was a good window. The goal was to be at the western edge of the gulfstream off of Cape Hatteras, NC anytime after dawn Wednesday, and to exit the other side (around 35-40 miles) by midday Wednesday. The edge was about 130 miles from Hampton so we chose to leave at 9 or 9:30AM Tuesday. Last minute grocery runs were made, as well as a very last minute run to Walgreens to get tissues since Jenna was suffering from allergies and running through our supply!
For the purpose of this blog I am considering the “Day” as starting at 8AM and going until 8AM the next day.
Day 1 – Tuesday November 4th
I woke at 5:30 AM, excited and nervous. I checked my emails and the rally tracking page and saw that a lot of boats were already underway. We are considered a “fast boat” compared to the others but when I got out of bed I saw that several other “fast boats” were getting ready to leave between 6:30 and 7 and a more than half the boats on our dock had already left! The rest of the crew was up by 7:00 and we all decided we should leave ASAP!! We departed at 8:30 or so, basically the last boat off of our dock!
We had a relatively fast sail out of Chesapeake Bay and down the coast of North Carolina. By evening the wind slowly died and by 3AM we motor-sailed so we could meet our target gulf stream crossing times. These were timed to make the seas as comfortable as possible, as wind running in the opposite direction of the strong gulf stream current makes very uncomfortable and sometimes dangergously steep waves. The winds Tuesday (and the Monday before) were exactly that so we needed some time for the ocean swell to die down.
Overnight we had a nearly full moon with clear skies so it was super bright all night, makes for a very nice first night watch!
Day 2 – Wednesday November 5th
Nearing the exit of the gulf stream around 9AM, the winds started to pickup. We stopped the motor and sailed in building winds and seas throughout the day. The day started out with clear blue skies and sunshine and it was already starting to feel warmer which was a welcome relief from the days of rain and cold in Hampton the last week or so!
By evening, it was blowing 20 knots and seas built to around 8 feet. None of us felt great, and ate very little dinner. Overnight the winds were mid to high 20’s and gusting up to 38 knots. We had three reefs in the mainsail (less than 40% of full sail area) and the small staysail Jib overnight still sailing around 7-8 knots. It was fast sailing but VERY uncomfortable in the big seas. We had continual squalls overnight bringing quite a bit of rain but no lighting – very happy about that!
Day 3 – Thursday November 6th
Daybreak brought on cloudy and rainy skies, with still lots of wind but less than overnight saw. We still had some squalls but they were diminishing throughout the day. Winds and seas were also getting better throughout the day but it was still bumpy.
By this point, a few boats had suffered damage in the storms and some had decided to divert to Bermuda for repairs. We made it through fine so we continued on to a point the weather router asked us to head for, located about 100 miles southwest of Bermuda – about two days away.
Day 4 – Friday November 7th
Today was a difficult day, partly because of the conditions but also deciding on a strategy on how to get to Antigua. The long term forecast was for light to nearly zero winds south of Bermuda for up to 10 days. If the forecast was correct, it was possible we could be drifting for a day or two because we don’t carry enough fuel to motor very long distances. We purchased this particular style of catamaran because it can sail in light winds, we were hopeful that would help us continue on!
The weather of the day was moderate winds and LOTS of squalls especially overnight. We had one very large squall at 3AM where the winds were in the mid 30 knot range, but many were in the high 20’s and low 30’s. Every time a squall came we would spill some wind out of the mainsail to slow the boat down, and for the very big ones we would roll in the genoa. I slept very little again, making sure all was well, but also working on strategy.
During the early overnight hours, we received yet another weather update again confirming that very light winds were predicted between Bermuda and Antigua. We were at the point we needed to make the decision to continue south to Antigua or head northeast to Bermuda and wait for a better window to continue to Antigua. This was a hard decision to begin with, but made even worse by the fact that our insurance prohibited us from visiting Bermuda, so if we had any problems in Bermuda we would have no insurance! Our crew has been to Bermuda several times and spent weeks there so that was good, but in the end I decided we could not take that risk. With that decided we had one goal over the next few days – get as far south as possible to push through the “no wind” zone and sail as often as the wind would allow to save fuel.
Day five and on will be covered in part two!