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Crossing the Atlantic
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| Overview
We departed Cape Canaveral on May 30, 2003 and reached Bermuda 6 days and 850 miles later. On the next leg we departed Bermuda and reached Horta 15 days and 1820 miles later. Our final leg from the Azores to Portugal was 750 miles and took another 6 days. In all it took us 27 days to make the 3600 mile crossing and reached Cascais on July 15th after spending several days cruising the Azores. Planning Our original plan was to depart from the Bahamas to cross the Atlantic. However, once we were in the Bahamas, we realized that obtaining provisions and parts were expensive and difficult to find. In addition Patton had decided that she did not want to sail across the Atlantic, so I needed crew as well. We decided to sail from the Bahamas up to Cape Canaveral thinking that it would be a good location for supplies as well as commuting back and forth to St Petersburg on weekends. We arrived the first part of April and planned a departure for the end of May. This would fit into the May-June window that Jimmy Cornell recommends in his "World Cruising Routes" for crossing the Atlantic. The main sail needed repairs plus I had banged up the bow pulpit in the Bahamas. The engine had 900 hours on it, so I decided to have it over-hauled and given the 1000 hour check up...which almost meant disassembling the engine. In addition, the bright work needed some attention. We went to Sam's Club and loaded the boat to the waterline with food and supplies. We learned from the Bahamas that using the Food Saver vacuum bagger was a great way to store meat. Finding crew on a relatively short notice was going to be a challenge. In addition to finding someone, I was just as concerned that we would be compatible and enjoy the month-long cruise together. By sheer luck, I met Mattijs Swets on the internet. He had just cruised from Brazil to Panama. He turned out to be not only experienced but a great guy to travel with. In addition, a friend from Milwaukee, Mike Beckman, offered to join us on the first leg to Bermuda. Mike was also experienced and another great guy to have on a small boat. One other continuing problem was getting insurance. I had contacted several agents in the beginning of the year. They said I needed a survey which I obtained. They said I needed experienced crew which I got. The bottom line was that they were not interested in providing insurance to someone who had not previously crossed the Atlantic. Unfortunately the way they handled this was a lot of jacking around rather than being straight forward. I finally obtained insurance after I was in Portugal. Weather Forecasting I had installed a new Icom M802 single sideband before leaving St Petersburg. My plan was to use Herb on Southbound II to provide weather routing. In addition, I had the Sailmail Grib file which provided a daily weather model (as opposed to a forecast) of the next 10 days. I also had weather fax on boarded but never was able to discipline myself to turn it on at the appropriate time. Navigation The navigation system on Polaris consists of a Raytheon 620 Chart Plotter which uses C Map NT+ cartridges. The plotter is mounted in the cockpit. In addition the GPS/plotter is integrated with the autopilot. The bottom line is that we never steered the boat except going in and out of harbors.... and one breakdown which we will talk about later. Having the GPS and integrated also automatically corrects for the effects of currents. This is a major benefit, since it is difficult to determine the actual direction and speed which is constantly changing. We also used the Royal Cruising Club Foundation's Cruising Guides. These books are expensive, but from my experience, worth their weight in gold. Between the books, the C Map and the autopilot, each day we simply dialed in where we wanted to go. And yes I did leave my sextant at home. Instead I had two extra GPS units as backup. We did however have small scale paper charts for back up in case the plotter went on the fritz. Actual Weather Conditions Generally the wind was light for the entire trip. Part of this was a result of following Herb's routing. Almost everyday Herb would note that the weather pattern was a month behind normal. There were continuing gales running up the east coast of the United States as well as north of 40 degrees latitude. As a result, Herb steered us south of the normal rhumb line course to Bermuda. The end result was that we didn't have enough wind and had to motor several days to our destination. Usually, the preferred course out of Bermuda is to head northeast until you reach 38 to 40 degrees latitude and then head east to the Azores. This provides a favorable current and stronger winds. Herb, however, advised against this strategy and recommended that we stay at 32 to 34 degrees latitude to avoid the gales. We followed his advice and again had very light conditions. We motored to the point where fuel reserves were a real concern. Generally wind was from the southwest and northwest quadrants, but there were times when it came from every other direction, including on the nose. Perhaps the most significant factor was the Atlantic swell which came out of the north without a let up. In light conditions the sails flogged and we were constantly tossed about. After two weeks of this, Mattijs and I were both ready to get off the boat. We did have a few 25 plus knot days but with a double reef, the boat handled it very well. In some ways it was more comfortable than light conditions.
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Equipment The cockpit of Polaris has a dodger and bimini plus side curtains to provide a full enclosure. I hardly expected to be using the side curtains crossing the Atlantic or cruising the European coast in the summer. But we used the side curtains like car windows.... if it was cold, we zipped up, warm...we unzipped. They provided considerable added comfort on the entire cruise...not to mention protecting us from rain and spray. We logged almost 600 engine hours between Cape Canaveral and London. We experienced light air on a significant part of the crossing. Also cruising the European coast wind was very light and on the nose much of the time. I never imagined motoring to this extent. Having a new engine in top operating condition in my mind really paid off. One design flaw on Polaris is the rotating davits. In heavy seas the movable davits allow the dinghy to move about regardless of how tightly it is lashed down. A future project is to cross brace the davits to fix them in place. Problems We didn't have any problems on the cruise until 5 minutes after we left the dock. As we increased rpm's, the engine began smoking and the hull speed was considerably slower than normal. After a major overhaul this was not what I expected. With a quick call to the mechanic, he suggested that the propeller was fouled. So we pulled over and anchored. Mattijs dove down and, sure enough, the propeller was covered with barnacles after two months in the marina. Mattijs scraped the prop clean and we were on our way. About the third day out, we had almost been continually motoring, the engine stopped... we were out of fuel. After the panic subsided we sat scratching our heads how this could be. I had kept careful track of fuel consumption based on engine hours. Accordingly, we should have been capable of going at least twice as far. Then the light went on.... check the valves on the fuel tanks. Sure enough, the mechanic had turned off one of the tanks. Mike and I worked for at least an hour bleeding the system before getting the engine going again. Once we were underway, we discovered that we could not transmit to Herb although we could hear him. I had a technician in Bermuda look at the radio and he could not find any problem. However the problem continued and we were unable to talk to Herb although we could listen. In the Azores, I had Peter from Mid Atlantic look at the radio. He found that the radio was not sending enough power to the tuner. The problem is still not solved, but I have learned that the Icom M802 has a few design glitches. About the second day out of Bermuda, we hit some heavy weather. I was thrown out of the bunk and onto the cabin sole. Unfortunately I landed on the sill of the stateroom door. I was sure that I cracked a few ribs.... the pain was excruciating. By the time we reached Horta, I was mended. One of the basic rules in the Polaris Safety Manual says that you should not fly the spinnaker after dark. But we were sailing beautifully.... what could go wrong? Well after midnight, the wind picked up to 15 knots plus. The tack on the spinnaker parted and the sail was out of control. Mattijs and I, both harnessed, went up on deck and struggled to get the sail down....a real fire drill. The net result is that the new spinnaker has some mending tape on it to patch the tears. Chaffing was a continuing problem with the reef lines. The sheave on the end of the boom cut thru the reef line. We tried several different solutions to the problem but still have not solved it. Batten chafing and working loose was also a problem. This was primarily due to flogging in light air and swells rather than heavy air. The sail is a full batten main with Harken Bat Cars.... the Harken cars are improperly designed. I hope to resolve this problem in the Spring. The continual flogging of the boom also resulted in a failure of the boom vang bracket. About the second week out of Bermuda, the autopilot went down in the middle of the night of course. We were actually forced to steer for about 4 hours.... this was not fun. Fortunately I had a spare and as soon as the sun came up was able to make the repair. With only one hundred miles to Horta, we thought we had it made. But once again, in the middle of night, I started the engine to charge the batteries and could tell that something had fouled the propeller. Since the wind was light and clocking around on our nose, what was going to be a morning arrival was now on hold.... total frustration. How is it possible to be in the middle of the ocean and foul the propeller? Once again Mattijs came to the rescue. We dropped the sails in the morning and he dove down to cut the polypropylene line free. This was a very difficult job. Although the wind was practically nil, the boat was rocking in the swell. In addition the water was very cold and numbing. As a result he had to come out of the water several times to warm up before we were free. On the last leg to Portugal, the engine began to sputter.... but I knew the sound well. With all the knocking about the sludge in the fuel tanks had stirred up to the point of plugging the fuel filter. But this time we were prepared..... I used my $1200 Racor dual element fuel filter. I turned the lever to the spare filter and the problem was solved. Of course you would expect us to make landfall at night...except that this was a harrowing experience. First we had a stream of northbound and southbound ships. Next we had ships headed for Lisbon and anchoring for the night. And finally we had a bunch of fishing boats zig-zagging in every direction. The radar lit up. To make matters worse, the coastline had a million lights making it impossible to see any navigation buoys. Again the chart plotter came to the rescue. We dialed in the destination and let the autopilot take us in. The only downside to this is was that we passed a couple buoys just a boat length away.... very scary. In the morning looking out into the bay from where we came and realized that we had passed thru a maize of fish traps. Another miracle on Polaris.... we did not wrap the prop again. |