Wednesday 22 May, Passage to USA day 6: From Freeport, Bahamas to (level with) Jacksonville, Florida. Fast upwind sailing helped by 3kts of current.
We start the new day sailing passed Settlement Point (Bahamas) broad reaching with full mainsail and Parasailor on a “wind” autohelm set at 120deg to starboard, heading generally north-west trying to find the center of the Gulf Stream current. I’m keeping an eye on the Parasailor meaning I also observe the stary sky, which I admit I don’t really pay much attention to otherwise. As luck would have it, I see two shooting stars in the first 30 minutes of my midnight shift.
The wind is quite stable at 12-14kts and Cloudy Bay is happily powering along at 8kts boat speed, but still with 1kt of current against us. By 1am the current seems to weaken and looking at our log we see that since we started the trip yesterday morning we logged 93nm overground, and 106 through the water (we lost 15nm to the current).
As the night progresses the wind gets lighter and fickle, but the Parasailor still manages to fly ok. But when the wind drops to 5kts, it starts to collapse. And the swell, which Cloudy Bay is now starting to bounce around in, doesn’t help to keep the sails full either. Even so, we do keep the spinnaker up till the lulls in the wind are constantly below 5kts. We drop the Parasailor nicely (we are getting good at this!) secure the loose lines on the deck and start the Volvo while keeping the mainsail sheeted in tightly, to suppress rolling in the swell. It’s now 4am. We flew the spinnaker at night for 6 hours. A first for us, and we are pretty chuffed with ourselves.
When the engine comes on we alter course by 30deg west to meet the Gulf Stream sooner. And by 8am we already have 2kts helping us. But surprisingly, the sea temperature remains at a constant 28degC. And just as we cross our chart plotter track from previous year, we clock 3kts of current. Plus the wind increases to 7-10kts and swings more NE.
With full mainsail and genoa out we point as high as we can into the wind to keep parallel with the Gulf Stream. Some time is spent on perfect sail trimming to enable us best speed and wind angle. Then we relax in the cockpit as Cloudy Bay sails herself on an auto “wind” course of 35deg. Boat speed through the water is 7kts but SOG is a lovely 10.5kts thanks to Mr. Gulf Stream. We are really eating up the miles like this. Hopefully we can finally break the 200nm in 24hrs barrier… or is that somewhat cheating? 🙂
At midday we have a small visitor, an exhausted little bird. He parks himself in the disabled parking on the leeward deck. He has only one foot as the other is just a stump, poor thing. With his one remaining set of claws he struggles to grip on the deck and is gradually blown to the aft quarter by the downdraft from the mainsail. We watch him for a while as he tries to find shelter under the genoa sheet. Then he disappears. We hope he flew off and was not simply blown off!
We keep busy throughout the afternoon with reefing and unreefing the mainsail as the wind picks up and then decreases, and trimming the sails for the perfect angle and speed. This is our favorite point of sail when racing, as it is so technique sensitive. And if yesterday we were wishing for a pod of dolphins to accompany us in our gentle sail, today we wish for another boat out there, so that we can race it! Well, we just imagine there is one and have a cracking sail. Several times we see 9+kts boat speed in just under 11kts of wind.
Late afternoon the wind picks up to above 15kts and so does the sea. Steep choppy waves are building up, and we get more and more green water over the decks. We reef genoa to the second dot, and even with both sails reefed we are still making 8.3kts boat speed (SOG 11.3kts).
In view of the forecast, an incoming nor’easter tonight, the cutter (staysail) gets rigged and ready to switch to from genoa, if needed.
On AIS we see “Southern Star” sailing boat which looks like it maybe aiming for shelter in St.Augustine. We call them on VHF to inquire if they have a more up to date weather forecast and prior experience of riding the Gulf Stream in such conditions. To both questions the answer is negative. But turns out they are actually heading same direction as we are, with same contingency plan to get to the west edge of the Gulf Stream ready to run out of it if the sea state gets a lot worse (the wind is forecast to increase throughout the night). What do you know, looks like we will have that race after all! 🙂 At 7pm they have crossed 2nm in front of us, heading north-west. Our current heading is direct north.
As the wind starts gusting 18kts the rig feels overpowered so we reef the mainsail even more, without any significant loss in the boat speed. Overall it is not too uncomfortable, if one can ignore the bumpiness over the choppy waves. And we are quite content with our speed, which is super sporty, just how I like it 🙂
After dinner I go to bed. I’ve been up since 4am and really need to try to sleep tonight. While I’m asleep, Southern Cross calls us on VHF: “have you seen flares in the sky?” Glen confirms that he has seen them too, but they are coming from military fast-jets that are doing maneuvers overhead, randomly dropping decoy flares. You can hear these jets roaring all around us. While they have no navigational lights on, you can occasionally see a glow from their tail pipe as they use their afterburners. This is the entertainment for the evening.
I come back on shift at midnight. Not much sleep. The boat is really doing a bucking-bronco impersonation, trying to throw me out of bed – which it succeeds doing later in the night! It’s chilly in the cockpit now and the dew has covered everything. It’s not going to be an easy night I think.
