suzerainydays.com

After somewhere close to 9000 miles (according to Google maps), I’ve decided to call a halt in Brighton. I had planned to keep the boat in Essex, but the weather forecast didn’t look great and it turned out to be pretty cheap here.

Falmouth and particularly Dartmouth were beautiful. I also very much enjoyed the challenge of sailing up the channel, especially the big tidal turbulence I encountered while edging a little too close to the Portland race and motoring up the Needles channel on the ebb, neither of which I will be doing again if I can help it. I’ve added some photos here.

I’ll be spending the next couple of weeks at least doing various jobs on the boat, getting her ready for winter. These include installing a new battery charger, and resealing the deck fittings. Over the winter I’ll be replacing the switch panel, varnishing floor panels, replacing the water tanks and possibly making a start on varnishing the rest of the interior woodwork. The boat will be lifted out at some point, and I’ll be making a proper gas locker, patching the antifouling, and replacing the propeller, shaft, bearing and shaft seal. I’ll also be paying someone to clean and repair the sails and make new upholstery. Perhaps I’ll end up with the boat I wish I’d left with…

I’ll be in Oxford and London at various times over the next few weeks, so get in touch if you want to meet up. X

I left Ponta Delgada in the afternoon on 8 August and cleared the western end of the island that evening. I worked my way roughly northwards under sail and motor until 2.15 in the morning on 14 August when, after a few hours sitting in the dark in a flat calm with the sails down, I finally picked up the wind that would carry me home, although it was fairly weak at first, and from the South-South-West.

That afternoon a large whale swam under my boat without me noticing until its back arched through the surface 20 yards off my port side. There are loads of whales and dolphins in those seas, but this was certainly my closest whale encounter to date, or the closest one I witnessed anyway – who knows how close I may have come to them in the dark, and while asleep!

In the next few days, the wind picked up significantly and moved more into the West. At one point it blew consistently at 20 to 25 knots for most of a night, which meant I had to stay on deck keeping an eye on things. Nothing broke. With around 400 miles to go, I started seeing a lot more shipping, traveling in both directions. The English Channel is the busiest shipping lane in the world, with monster cargo ships and tankers heading to and from Southampton, Rotterdam and other big ports. I didn’t trust myself to wake up for the AIS alarm, as it goes off in the cockpit rather than the cabin, so I reduced my sleeps from an hour to half an hour on the basis that this would give me enough time to avoid a head-on collision with a ship picked up at my usual range of 12 miles. This tactic is a bit of a vicious circle though; sleeping for shorter spells makes you much more tired, and consequently more likely to sleep through an alarm, which I have done a couple of times.

One of the highlights of my whole travels came at seven in the morning on 18 August, when a pod of around 20 pilot whales played around the boat for half an hour. They completely surrounded us, and at one point there were four abreast in the starboard bow-wave. It seemed like the adult ones hung back astern, and it was mostly the younger ones that came forward to play. Some of them were still ten to twelve feet long though, so a good bit bigger than dolphins. And very loud; I could clearly hear them whistling to each other. I managed to film some of it too.

On 19 August, in the western approaches to the channel, I had the wind pretty much dead astern, and I had to gybe a couple of times to avoid ships. As night fell, it got very foggy, and I was entirely reliant on AIS. The fog seemed to affect the AIS range, with ships appearing on my screen as little as five miles away. This might sound like a lot, but the fog didn’t seem to affect the speed at which ships were heading up and down the channel, so our combined speeds in head-on situations didn’t give me much time to alter course, particularly given that I usually had three or four ships in my vicinity, and I wasn’t exactly at my most decisive by this point. I had to take pretty drastic evasive action a couple of times to avoid getting mown down, which was fairly scary.

After finally getting into the very welcome lee of the Lizard peninsula in very unwelcome freezing fog at around three in the morning, I motored North for four hours or so, keeping well clear of the Manacles rocks and loads of big ships lying at anchor. The fog lifted as I passed the St Anthony Head lighthouse at dawn and came into the harbour in a flat calm. I initially anchored, slept for about an hour, then moved into Falmouth Haven when space opened up. My dad came to meet me, and treated me to a richly deserved pint and fish and chips in a pub overlooking the harbour.

So that’s the end of my ocean sailing, for now at least. My current plan is to head for Dartmouth tomorrow, then possibly Weymouth on Saturday or Sunday, or I might try to make it all the way to the Solent if the wind is right. I’m hoping to go to Yarmouth and/or Gosport on my way through, and I’m currently thinking that I will probably head through the Dover straits from Brighton, although that might change. It looks like the Westerly winds may not last, so I may end up taking a bit longer over this than planned, as has been my habit throughout! I should hopefully be back in London some time in mid-September anyway. At some point, I will edit together some highlights from the hours of footage I’ve filmed, and post it here. Love to all!

Barring unforeseen events / disasters, I’m planning on leaving the Azores tomorrow afternoon for Falmouth. Following advice in one of my books, I’m planning to sail due North to above 45 degrees before turning in for the channel, in order to reach favourable winds as quickly as possible and to avoid getting too close to Biscay. It should take me about two weeks or so I think. The wind here is forecast to swing from North to East tomorrow afternoon, and the long-term forecast looks pretty good for the first half of the trip, although I might need to motor North a bit before picking up steady South West or West winds.

All being well, I’m then planning to sail up the channel in fairly short hops to Suzerain’s new permanent home, which looks like being the Crouch river in Essex at the moment, although I haven’t decided yet. I’ll need to refamiliarise myself with tidal calculations first…

I’ve added some final photos here from my bike ride to Furnas in the East of the island. Next stop Cornwall! X

I arrived in Ponta Delgada, appropriately enough, on Friday the 13th. On trying to leave the marina in Horta, I had found that my clutch wouldn’t engage, so I ended up getting my friend Mike to tow me out. The marina there is quite cramped, so it was a bit scary. I ended up colliding with another boat’s solar panel gantry and damaging my Duogen. However, I managed to get the clutch working later after being becalmed south of Pico, where I took this photo:

The 130 mile sail over here was fairly uneventful, if a bit rough. I was again able to get the propeller turning while sailing, and motored into the marina around dinner time. I’d already decided to get the gearbox fixed here, and had ordered the clutch cone to be delivered from the UK. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get the gearbox out in the water, so the boat had to be lifted out again, which required another tow round to the boatyard. Even more unfortunately, the boatyard staff and I cocked the manoeuvre up in various ways and I ended up ramming the wall with a fair amount of force, crushing my anchor and damaging my stem fitting:

I was able to remove the gearbox fairly easily, and a local mechanic Adriano fixed it for me very quickly. I removed the stem fitting, resealed it to the deck and reattached it with new bolts. I then bent it back straight with a scary-looking weapon lent to me by Thomas in the marina chandlery:

He also made a new pin for me, so it’s now pretty much all back to normal, apart from the anchor, which I wanted to replace anyway, and which should still work for the time being hopefully. I’ve also replaced the faulty anchor windlass buttons with a new remote control. The boat’s been put back in the water today without incident, and the clutch worked perfectly on the way back round to the marina, which was a great relief.

Meanwhile, I’ve been enjoying my time in this beautiful city very much. It’s much bigger than Horta, and has very impressive architecture, good restaurants and excellent drinking establishments. I’ve also repaired my bike and been on one long ride to the northern caldera. Here’s a photo (there are a few more on my photo page):

I’m planning to go on an all-day ride to a place called Furnas tomorrow or the next day. It’s a beautiful lake with a famous gothic church, surrounded by mountains.

At the moment the weather doesn’t look ideal for getting home, with mostly north winds. The last time I checked it looked like the middle of next week might be possible, but I’ll need to wait and see. I’ll update the blog before I leave. X

I arrived in Horta early yesterday morning. It’s beautiful and inspiring to be in a place with such rich sailing tradition. After a big lunch and a sleep, I went out in the evening with my friend Mike Rothery (more on him later) and Dave ‘Rustler’, another single-hander and all-round interesting character who I met a few months ago in Lanzarote, and whose combination of great experience and relaxed attitude (he couldn’t remember how many times he’d sailed across the Indian Ocean) made an impression on me and others around at that time.

This trip was harder than my earlier crossing. On the other hand, I felt better equipped to deal with it, and the fact that it wasn’t a totally new experience meant my approach was a bit more practical perhaps. Although it didn’t have the magic of my first crossing, the seas were more interesting on the whole, with far more marine life, and the weather was much less predictable, so it was a more varied experience overall.

I left Antigua very late, around six weeks later than I had intended. I was the last boat to leave for the crossing back, possibly the last to leave for any significant voyage. However, the engine repairs were totally essential and were to stand me in very good stead. It is no exaggeration to say that I could still be drifting around in the mid-Atlantic now but for the fine work done in Jolly Harbour by David and Brandon. I had to cross the great calm belt running roughly from the Azores to Bermuda, and also motor through calm areas that commonly develop around the Azores, so the engine was destined to put in a serious shift.

Conditions on leaving Antigua on 7 June for the 929 mile trip to Bermuda were initially good, and I made good progress. After a couple of hundred miles or so, however, the pattern became squall then calm, squall then calm, with little consistency. I still made a few good 24 hour runs, but by 12 June I was dodging squalls and thunderstorms, and having to motor for extended spells. My log book on 13 June illustrates it nicely:

1530 – Reasonable wind at last! But for how long?
1705 – Engine on

I motored over 12 hours that day, which would have been pretty unthinkable before the repairs. At midnight I stopped and got a good night’s sleep drifting on a glassy calm sea. I took these photos at dawn before refueling and motoring on:

Nearing Bermuda the wind picked up again, indicating that I had crossed the calm belt, but the squalls were increasingly frequent and thundery. One of my abiding memories from that trip is of sailing towards a belt of thunderclouds in a pretty exhausted state, passing out on the cockpit bench, then waking up to find myself on the other side and strangely dry, Suzerain having apparently picked a gap and gone through without any help from me.

One of the big differences between the return trip and the east to west crossing was the far more regular encounters with other ships. I haven’t gone back and checked but I think I only saw three or four going to the Caribbean; I seemed to see container ships and tankers most days coming back. These included the mighty Maersk Kobe, which crossed my stern at around two miles distance the day before I reached Bermuda:

That’s 300 metres of ship traveling at 18 knots. Best avoided.

21 miles South-South-East of Bermuda I hove to for a couple of hours or so in order to arrive in daylight. I got underway at 0245 on 16 June, so well before dawn. As it turned out, this was unwise. I sailed straight into a very strong squall, close-hauled with 35 knot winds on the nose. I tried to heave to but couldn’t get the bow around, so ended up screaming along, hand-steering with torrential rain pouring over me, hoping that the rig wouldn’t give out.

On approach in daylight but still in bad conditions, I called up Bermuda Radio and gave them my details. We stayed in touch throughout, which was reassuring. As a final insult, the wind swung into the North as I was heading for the channel marker, making the final few miles quite painful and very slow as Suzerain ploughed into a heavy chop. As you can imagine, the harbour was pretty blissful after that:

A very nice border control man welcomed me to the customs dock on Ordnance Island. Bermuda Radio had notified him of my approach and, I imagine, likely condition. In his office I spied a notice confirming that there was a small craft warning out due to strong winds and thunderstorms. It would probably have been sensible to email Bermuda Radio for a forecast while hove to the night before I suppose.

Bermuda was a nice place, but a little odd. If you mention it to a sailor, the response is likely to be ‘expensive’, based mainly on the prices in the bars (8 dollars for a pint). Its history is clearly very British, but in the present it seemed more an outpost of America. New York is only a two hour flight away, so there were a lot of American tourists, and the local accent and culture seemed American to me. It was very pretty though. I only stayed four days, but found it relaxing, and would probably go back. St George’s harbour is very well-protected, and there was plenty of interesting stuff to see. I’ll put a few photos on my ‘see’ page.

After four days, I set off again for what was to prove the most challenging trip so far, 1794 miles to Horta. The anchor windlass failed, so I had to haul up the chain by hand, but I eventually got away, only slightly outside the window allowed by the border control chap when I checked out. The belt of westerly winds had come south to Bermuda, so lots of other boats left the same day. I’d briefly chatted with the owners of SY Saturnin, and she came flying past me on day two. I should have some good footage, which will see the light of day at some point no doubt.

The wind angle was varying a bit, which meant I was swapping between a broad reach and goose-winged. I left the pole out to windward though, so it wasn’t particularly arduous to swap once set up. However, after only three days I hit calms, which I found disconcerting. I think I set off with the innocent notion that this trip would be like the first crossing in reverse, wind-wise, and it really wasn’t at all. The pilot books do say that the direct route is likely to involve calm patches, and that you should head for higher latitudes on leaving Bermuda if you want better wind, so I shouldn’t really have been surprised. I duly motored North East until the winds returned.

On 24 June, I cleared a bit of plastic caught in my Duogen water turbine (incidentally, it’s immense – my batteries were fully charged practically the whole way). I also cleared what I assumed to be a length of purple elastic. There’s a lot of plastic waste across the North Atlantic I’m afraid, so this wasn’t an unreasonable assumption. It turned out to be a Man o’War tentacle. There’s a lot of them around too, and I’d obviously run one over. I can report that the tentacle does not need to be attached to the body in order to sting. It’s something like a nettle sting but a bit more painful and prolonged.

On a brief tangent, a few years back I came across a photographer who rescues stranded Men o’War, takes photos of them, and then uses those photos to make really amazing images, which you can see here. I believe he releases them back into the wild afterwards, so everyone’s a winner.

I also saw my first sperm whale that day, lying at the surface around 60 metres or so away, presumably after resurfacing. His / her bulbous head and forward pointing spout were unmistakeable. I was particularly wary of sperm whales, as my friend Mike had recently got too close to one while making the same trip single-handed and got hit pretty hard, damaging his boat badly. You can read his account here. I certainly had no intention of making closer investigation anyway. Adults would generally be about twice the length of my boat I believe. Over the three hundred years or so we spent massacring them for candles and corsetry, they presumably developed some suspicion of small boats sneaking up on them, so although they’re generally pretty peacable by all accounts, it’s understandable that they might want to apply the great paddle occasionally. Mike was very unlucky though, but conversely lucky to survive to tell such an interesting and scary tale.

I continued to see a lot of shipping, including the US Navy ship, the Leroy Grumman, a 206m ‘replenishment oiler’, whatever that may be. And the Pacific Dongying, which raised a laugh. This was the last laugh for a while though, as things went a bit downhill at this point. My brother Tom had agreed to help by providing weather information, and he emailed me on 25 June to say that the wind would be switching direction in two days and blowing from the East for the best part of a week. The pilot chart indicates that East winds do not happen in July in that part of the ocean, so this came as something of a shock. Suzerain does not sail at all well upwind, so this was very bad news, as I was pretty desperate to get back home after being delayed so long.

Sadly the forecast proved to be correct. After being pushed to the south trying to keep making gains to the east, I eventually decided that the best thing I could do would be to sail north to 38 degrees, in order to give myself a good chance of favourable winds without committing too far, then heave to and wait. This was on the afternoon of 28 June. I then ate the best meal anyone has ever eaten while hove to at 38 degrees north:

That’s a Fray Bentos (Scottish company – didn’t know that) steak and kidney pie with potato and sweet potato chips and peas. The following day I repaired my sprayhood and found the loose wiring that had stopped the windlass working. But mainly I read (Nicholas Timmins’ biography of the welfare state, ‘The Five Giants’) and slept. It was surprisingly peaceful, if rather surreal and very frustrating.

You may wonder why I didn’t motor East. I could have done in patches, although the wind was generally fairly strong and it would have been hard work. But the main issue was that I was the best part of 1000 miles from my destination, and I only had a motoring range of 500 miles or so. I wanted to conserve fuel for the run in to the Azores, so it seemed to me that using up a lot of my fuel fighting East would be unwise.

I took my now traditional halfway selfie:

The beard went shortly after, so I look less like Stig o’the Dump now, I think.

After lunch on 30 June, the wind veered round to South-South-East and we set sail. I started to think about heading for Flores rather than Horta, as it is 130 odd miles closer. The pilot book made the marina and anchorage sound difficult, but I decided to give it a go. I also saw another sperm whale, this time swimming quickly and then sounding. And I encountered an Azorean fishing boat, which was nice to see although I was still over 700 miles out.

I made some ground to the East, but was also pushed North, above 40 degrees. My chart put the Grand Banks iceberg limit at around 40 degrees, so this was concerning. However, Tom checked the current position and I was apparently safe up to 45 degrees, albeit somewhat cold. I hit a flat calm on the morning of 2 July, and spent some time dismantling my anchor windlass.

I have good memories (and hopefully good footage) of that morning; I knew the favourable winds would be returning that day, and the dawn was utterly beautiful, with petrels and dolphins playing around the boat. Overnight one of the petrels had ended up in the cockpit and had been unable to escape. I nearly stood on him when I got up. They are absolutely astonishing flyers, but stumbling drunkards on land, in fact they can’t really stand up. He shuffled round to the far side of the cockpit while I tried to reassure him, thought about things a bit, then came round and sat on my boot. I picked him up without any protest and put him on the sprayhood so he had a clear flightpath. Thankfully he proved to be undamaged, and off he went to join his pals.

The wind came in fairly weak at first, and I ended up motoring for a spell, but from mid-afternoon it blew hard and I greatly enjoyed my first proper sailing for a while. Suzerain clearly enjoyed it too, bowling along at over 6 knots, 7.5 at times, even hitting 8 knots twice, which is unheard of in my ownership. I have learned to trust the rig more, so am probably sailing less conservatively in general. I suppose I also had the escaped prisoner’s tendency to run as fast as possible. The biggest shock of the trip came at almost midnight in the dark, when the foot-switch for the windlass shorted and it pulled the chain hard against itself before the clutch slipped. It seems to have been installed without a breaker switch, so I had to pull the fuse. I need to rewire the whole thing I think.

The log on 3 and 4 July reads:

2013 – Tanker sighted 9 miles port bow, heading opposite…
2112 – Ship astern 15 miles. Torrente 300m. Got out of way.
0320 – Passed Golden Opal c. 4 miles during 2 hour sleep.

Perhaps that two hour sleep may have been unwise. The tanker and Golden Opal were the first ships I had seen travelling the opposite way to me, which opens up more dangerous possibilities. However, the AIS was obviously working well, and its alarm is pretty loud and insistent. It has been suggested to me that I should invest in a device that sends my details as well as receiving other ships’, and I may well do that for the next trip, as it will cross the western approaches to the English Channel, the busiest shipping lane in the world.

Conditions got more blowy with 250 miles or so to Flores. The South West wind died with about 40 miles to go, then came back from the North. I had been told this would happen, but it meant that approaching Lajes on the south coast of Flores would involve possible acceleration zones and some calms.

I had a beautiful approach to the island, which looked absolutely stunning, but when I started the engine, the gearbox wasn’t spinning the shaft properly. This had happened once earlier in the trip in less benign conditions, but I hadn’t diagnosed the problem that time. The clutch was evidently slipping in forward gear. After a fair bit of revving and swearing, it finally engaged, and I moved in.

SY Saturnin was in the anchorage, and they shouted that they thought there was some space in the marina. However, it has a high seawall, and you can’t see how busy it is until you round the wall after passing through a very narrow, rocky entrance. I found it truly scary. There was a bloke snorkeling in the entrance and people diving in off the wall. I couldn’t see any space, so I spun the boat around, coming far too close to the rocks for comfort and headed back out. I considered anchoring, but the depth was about 10 metres and the anchorage is quite open and blowy, so it didn’t feel safe to me. You will also have realised by now that my windlass is a piece of s**t. So I decided to continue on to Horta, 130 miles or so to the East.

I was really sad about this, as Flores looks absolutely stunning. In fact, although a boat is probably the best mode of transport when exploring these islands, time and the state of my boat are really against me, and it’s clear I’m not going to be able to do them justice, so I plan to return for a holiday as soon as possible. This is the first place I’ve visited that I could definitely imagine myself living in. I think it’s a virtual certainty that if my mum had come to the Azores in the early 80s, I would be half Azorean now.

Getting back to the story, I left Flores and sailed straight into a pretty bad storm. I ended up heaving to three or four times in high winds and torrential rains. If I’d known this was coming I probably would have risked anchoring, but once into it I decided to just push on. It finally abated about four the following morning, and I got an hour and a half’s exhausted sleep. Unfortunately the wind also moved into the East, so with about 80 miles to go I couldn’t steer for Horta. I tacked to the North, then tried running the motor on the morning of 8 July, but after a couple of hours found the sea a bit too rough for my liking. I also couldn’t hope to make Horta that day any more, so decided to do a bit of tacking. I ended up sailing up and down until the evening in beautiful sailing conditions before attempting a final motor to Horta.

I encountered further clutch problems. I eventually tried sailing as fast as possible with the engine in forward gear, with the prop spinning the gearbox rather than vice-versa, so that when I started the engine it was already spinning fast. This did the trick. Overnight the sea was glassy calm and we made about 4 knots at my preferred cruising revs of 2400. I don’t try to sleep when the engine is running, as it’s pretty loud. I also worry that, if I do get to sleep, I might not wake up for an AIS alarm. There’s some sort of AIS boosting station here, so I was now picking up targets at over five times the normal distance, which was reassuring. So I ended up doing an all-nighter. Coming along the south coast of Faial at dawn, I took this beautiful photo of the iconic view of Pico:

Horta harbour proved to be pretty busy and there was no room on the reception quay, so I ended up coming to a halt on the fuel dock after 14 hours of solid motoring. After I had checked into the country (it does feel weird to be back in Portugal, where I started!), I untied to motor to my allocated berth. You can probably imagine what happened next – no forward gear. I sent a distressed yelp in the direction of the marina manager and a border policeman before the clutch engaged and I moved forward, laughing like a madman.

There’s a regatta coming in on Thursday, so I have to be out of my berth on the morning, and would either have to raft up against the wall or anchor. I don’t particularly want to do either, so Mike and I are planning to sail our respective invalids to Sao Miguel, 130 odd miles to the East, which has a large, spacious marina. This will be Mike’s first sail since he was whaled upon, and I will no doubt have gearbox problems, so it might be interesting. I’m going to order a new clutch cone to be delivered from the UK, and will try to remove the gearbox while in the water, unless someone more experienced in such matters tells me this would be mad. Hopefully there should be enough room if I move the prop shaft aft, obviously without pushing it out of the boat altogether. I will also try to get my anchor windlass working properly, and seal up a few leaks that the Caribbean sun opened up in the deck. So I’ll probably be there for a couple of weeks, and I will definitely be getting the bike out and exploring properly, so there should be a lot more photos forthcoming.

England also appear to be in the process of winning the World Cup, adding a further layer to an already highly surreal experience. I will be watching the games tonight and tomorrow with great interest. I can only imagine the sheer terror that must be enveloping Scotland right now. Cheers!

I went back into the water on 31 May. The engine and propeller shaft repairs appeared to have worked perfectly, but the alternator wasn’t charging the batteries, so it was removed, repaired and refitted. I’ve taken the boat for a spin around the harbour this morning, and everything seems to be working perfectly, so I’ve been to the Marina, Port Authority, Customs, and Immigration and signed myself out of the country for tomorrow morning. I just need to buy a ton of fruit and one or two other bits, go for a final swim on Jolly Beach, and go for a final happy hour at the Crow’s Nest bar. Then I’ll be off early tomorrow, probably still for Bermuda.

I’ve been changing my mind constantly as regards whether to sail to Bermuda or the Azores, but the current weather forecasts indicate that the large ridge of calm across the Atlantic will extend roughly to Bermuda’s longitude, and the steady west winds should be reached in around Bermuda’s latitude. As I don’t want to have to motor too much, it looks like it will make sense to go there, but I may possibly change my mind as I go north. If you’re interested in looking at the Atlantic weather patterns as I’m sailing up and across, I find windy.com to be particularly good.

I will send occasional twitter updates, as before, which should pop up on my blog homepage. I don’t have internet access, so I cannot see any answering tweets. If you urgently need to get in touch with me, contact my dad, brother or Matt Brown. My position should be updated every six hours on the ‘where’ page.

Love to all, and wish me luck!

I’ve been very busy recently, and consequently have neglected my blogging duties. Suzerain was lifted out of the water on 17 April. This is the first time I’ve had her lifted out, and it was a pretty nerve-wracking experience, although it all went to plan. Here are some photos:

You can see the newly-installed and fully functioning Duogen in the second of those photos. She got a good pressure-washing before being shored up on the hard:

Before coming out of the water I was advised to speak to a particular one of the several engineers / mechanics in the boatyard, David. Luckily, he’s turned out to be really good, as the problems with my prop shaft and engine turned out to be worse than anticipated. The shaft tube had effectively collapsed, so David custom-built a giant drill bit to remove it by welding a hole saw blade onto a steel bar:

The engine and engine-compartment were described by my surveyor as ‘grubby and unloved’ last year, and I’m afraid things hadn’t improved much since then. So we decided to do the job properly and lift the engine out. Here it is shortly after:

The engine mounts were very rusty and no longer viable. It also turned out that the starter motor cable had half chafed through, and had to be replaced:

The local chandlery had two mounts the right size, and David kindly supplied two more from his workshop. His colleague Brandon spent a Saturday washing the engine down and removing all the rust, and he then painted it beautifully, leaving it looking good as new.

I spent a couple of days properly cleaning out the engine compartment, including the very dirty bilge, and replacing some of the lining. David made a new shaft tube, which he epoxied into place after the engine had been lifted back in and the shaft properly aligned. He also made steel plates to strengthen the attachment of the mounts to the hull:

In between this and other repair jobs, I spent a day helping my friend Adrian delivering a yacht to a cargo ship in St Johns, for onward delivery back to Europe:

Naturally I’ve also been attending happy hour in the marina bars religiously, making friends with the local characters including the owner of the Crow’s Nest’s four month old puppy:

I’m probably doing more delivery work early next week, and then I’m scheduled to go back into the water on Thursday 31 May, and am planning to leave on 2 June, probably for Bermuda; around a month later than planned, but still avoiding hurricanes hopefully! One advantage of being here at this time of year is that people who are leaving their boats for the summer give away loads of food, so I’ve been doing well out of that, and shouldn’t need to buy too much more before leaving! I’m planning to spend a couple of nights in Bermuda at least, before making the long trip to the Azores, probably Ponta Delgada on Sao Miguel. I’m planning to stay there for a week at least before making the final trip to the UK, probably Falmouth. All weather permitting of course!

I’ve spent an enjoyable month and a half in Falmouth, Antigua. I did very little for the first couple of weeks but eat and sleep, then did some exploring and snorkelling, mixed with a lot of relaxing. I also had some modifications made to my mainsail, dismantled my boom to sort out my reefing lines and tightened up my Hydrovane among other useful activities.

My plan was to move round to Jolly Harbour marina on the west coast for a week before moving on northwards. There’s better food shopping here. I’ve also taken delivery of a Duogen wind and water generator from Eclectic Energy in the UK, which is going to revolutionise my power generation, if I can put it together properly and get it to work that is.

Unfortunately, on arrival in the marina, I found that my propeller shaft seal had come off, and water was pouring into the boat. This wasn’t entirely surprising, as the seal’s leaked a little since being put on in Madeira, and I always suspected it was bodged. This means the boat needs to be lifted out of the water so a mechanic in the boatyard here can fix it. She’s coming out on the 17th, and I’m going to have to get towed round there, as I can’t use the engine until the seal is fixed or replaced.

Assuming that all goes ok, I’m hoping then to move north, possibly to Saint Martin and Bermuda before crossing to the Azores, although I haven’t fully decided the where or when yet. I was previously planning to go non-stop to the Azores, but I decided on reflection that I didn’t fancy sailing the straight line route due to the likely weather conditions, and the traditional northern dogleg route would take me fairly close to Bermuda anyway. I want to spend a couple of weeks or so in the Azores before heading back to the UK and getting back to behaving something like a grownup, possibly. So I may only have a couple of months or so of boat fun left, which is sad, although I am looking forward to earning money again (not the working aspect of course).

Love to all.

Apologies for not writing sooner. I’ve mostly been sleeping and eating. I’m also anchored out in the middle of Falmouth harbour, with no internet or mains electricity, so opportunities for computing are limited. I haven’t felt the loss particularly, but I thought I should get something posted after being here a week or so.

It isn’t going to be possible to do it justice really. I might have another crack later, although I suspect that the longer I leave it, the more dreamlike my memories will become, and I might already have left it too late. I filmed bits and bobs while crossing, and it’s possible that these might see the light of day at some point, ruthlessly edited of course. I also have some notes in front of me now, although most are incomprehensible gibberish.

I left Mindelo on Friday 2 February. Roaring down the channel between Sao Vicente and Santo Antao at a steady seven and a half knots, I couldn’t resist the temptation to work out how long the 2000+ miles would take to cover at that unheard of speed. I promptly turned west too early and got becalmed. Santo Antao is very mountainous, and casts a long shadow. I spent a frustrating night catching and losing light winds, running the engine intermittently and, preferring to suffer the consequences of my latest poor decision alone, swearing at another boat that seemed intent on following me around in the dark.

Once we got out of the shadow, I headed roughly south west for a few days. There wasn’t any firm strategy behind this. Partly I wanted to sail with the wind and waves for an easier life, assuming that both would come more from the east as I worked my way west. Partly I wanted to avoid the strong winds that had been forecast. My friends had sailed the direct route and suggested I should head a lot further south to avoid the bad weather that they encountered. Mostly I think I was still attracted by the romantic idea of giving the boat her head and letting the wind’s natural path guide me. But I’d left the crossing very late, and was keen to make up for lost time. I had the quarantine and courtesy flags out and ready on the first day. So eventually I got impatient and switched to my usual approach, setting a direct course. I wanted every mile I sailed to bring me a mile closer to Antigua. I still had close to 2000 miles to cover, and was roughly 100 miles south of the direct route.

The weather was reasonably good. The seas were fairly choppy but the winds were strong so I made good speeds. As I was sailing on an angle to the waves and under foresail alone, the boat rolled a lot. I had to brace myself across the cabin at all times, making life below a challenge. Initially I didn’t look forward to night, but after a few days I preferred night sailing, as the seas were calmer and we made better speeds. I could set the hydrovane up, leave it all night, and rely on it to steer a pretty accurate course, allowing me to get reasonable sleep. I slept for an hour at a time, getting up to check the course and look out ahead. Probably my most vivid memories of the whole trip are of night sailing – the sensation of hurtling across a dark ocean with the cockpit lit dimly by the chartplotter, often with an amazing view of the stars overhead and always with the strange, animal noises of the sea all around.

At some point, the Hydrovane started to move sideways more than I thought healthy, which prompted reinforcement with a block and tackle arrangement on advice from Will at Hydrovane. He was extremely helpful and thankfully it survived to steer virtually the entire way. The day after contacting him, when I was considering stopping and trying to retighten the bolts holding it to the stern, I noticed I was being followed by a shark, and opted for discretion.

I did relatively little fishing in the end. On the first day I put my line in the water, I caught a nice mahi-mahi, but in general I found I didn’t have the time or inclination. At one point I did get a very large bull mahi-mahi on the line, but he ended up pulling himself off the lure as I was trying to pull him in. Probably for the best, as killing him, let alone eating him, would have been a struggle. Shortly after he escaped, I saw another shark, lit up beautifully in the crest of a wave, his pectoral fins an impossible luminous blue. Thankfully he was too crafty to take the lure. I found it easy to see why sailors are so superstitious. Putting the fishing line in the water, and pretty much doing anything other than sailing the boat, seemed a sure-fire way to get the wind to increase and the seas to get rougher. There was also an awful lot of sargasso weed in the water, which made fishing impractical most of the time.

The flying fish were a constant source of entertainment. Evolution has given them the ability to soar gracefully, sometimes for amazing distances. It hasn’t given them the ability to land gracefully; they suffered brutal headlong ditchings every time. Every night some poor unfortunates made the mistake of landing on my deck. I saved a few larger ones that I heard flapping, but the smaller ones, some impossibly tiny, died, and every morning saw the same sad procession round the deck as I committed their miraculous little bodies to the deep.

I’m generally happy in my own company, but the total solitude wasn’t always easy to deal with. I haven’t checked the log, but I’d guess I didn’t see another boat for close to two weeks, and I didn’t speak to any of them. My mental state became fairly odd. I made lists. I talked to myself a lot. Occasionally I had conversations with friends or family. If I wasn’t talking I was singing. A lot of Beatles, even though I haven’t listened to them much since I was much younger. I sang ‘simply the best’ and ‘you’re still standing’ to the Hydrovane several times a day. Other parts of the boat and certain events had their own songs. In the middle of the ocean, it struck me that I could possibly be the most isolated person on the planet. I emailed my dad and brother. Naturally, neither replied.

Around that point, after days of clear skies, perfectly regimented rows of almost identical cotton wool clouds heralded a squally period, which lasted a few days. Thankfully the squalls came during the day, with plenty of warning. I was sailing under genoa alone, so I rolled most of it up and ran before the wind and rain, often in only approximately the right direction. One squall brought the strongest winds I have sailed in. Another the heaviest rain I have ever seen, flattening the waves and shrouding them in a blanket of silver mist. The sea got noticeably warmer.

The best weather came in a period of a few days after those squalls. I finally hoisted the mainsail, with part of the genoa poled out to windward. However, as we got closer to Antigua, stronger winds started to come at night and I found it harder to sleep. I took the mainsail down on the last full day, as it was clear I wouldn’t be able to arrive before sunset. That night, I had to heave to in a strong squall, and then again a few miles outside the harbour to wait for sunrise. There is a large reef at the harbour entrance, Bishop Shoal, and the lights don’t always work apparently, so I didn’t want to come in at night. After the sun came up, I headed in, but was caught by another big squall at the entrance. Even hiding my head under a canvas awning, I had to scoop rainwater out of my eyes in order to see where I was going. Fortunately, my friends Adrian and Sam had been keeping track of my progress, so they radioed me and guided me to a good anchoring spot.

In all, the trip took about seventeen and a half days. The boat held up very well. Aside from the Hydrovane issue, which I should be able to fix easily I think, I had some problems with my batteries and reefing lines, but nothing major. Thankfully, Falmouth has a good chandlery, so I should be able to sort these out too. I’ve already bought myself a brand new Tohatsu outboard. I’ve found I am unable to say Tohatsu normally, and must bellow it like a Samurai battle cry. It also already has its own song, probably the first of many.

Falmouth and English Harbour next door are laid back, villagey, with some interesting historical buildings. They are also, incongruously, packed with superyachts – mostly great monuments to their owners’ lack of taste, although there are some J-Class yachts that I need to have a closer snoop at. I’ll probably stay here for a month at least. Antigua is a small island, so I should be able to cover most of it on the bike, and I’m planning to move the boat at least once while I’m here, possibly to Jolly Harbour. I haven’t decided what, if any, other islands I may visit yet. I wanted to visit Barbuda, but apparently it was severely damaged by the hurricanes and might be best avoided. As you can imagine, the pace of life here is pretty sedate. I may find I decide to take it easy here for a couple of months before crossing back to the Azores, probably in early May.

Here’s a picture of the middle of the Atlantic Ocean:

Here’s a picture of me in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean:

I’m off for happy hour cocktails. Love to all.

As explained in my previous post, I had to ship my boom to Tenerife for repairs, and so couldn’t leave on my intended departure date of 4 January. I managed to get quite a lot done in the meantime, and also had nice dinners with Per and Anne aboard Isis and Mark and Anne aboard Erica. Thanks again, and we should keep in touch.

I got my boom back from Tenerife on 15 January, rewelded beautifully by Nordest. Unfortunately, a pretty bad storm had arrived by then; the spray from the waves was coming over the harbour wall, which is roughly 15 metres tall, and the wind was howling. So I had to wait it out. This did give me the chance to watch the colossal marina gate finally being installed, apparently after years of waiting:

I ended up leaving for the 800 mile sail to Mindelo on Sunday 21 January, expecting it to take a week. I got away around lunchtime after sorting out a few final bits. Thanks to Mark for helping with the reefing lines, which had confounded me, not for the first or last time.

The weather was beautiful to start with. I ended up making roughly 130 miles a day for the first three days. From around lunchtime on Tuesday the wind increased and the seas started gradually getting rougher. On Wednesday I had further trouble with the reefing lines on the mainsail, and after the boat gybed while I was below making a cup of coffee, I took the main down and carried on under genoa alone.

On Thursday conditions deteriorated further and I reefed the foresail right down. It was clear by now that I wouldn’t make Mindelo on Saturday, so I wasn’t pressed for time anyway. It was still frustrating, and in retrospect I probably could have pushed it a bit more, but I’m still pretty cautious and I didn’t want to put the mainsail back up with the reefing issue.

About 2.45 am on Friday, I had a surprisingly close shave with a yacht called ‘Koo Tiki’ apparently sailing under anchor light alone (which I initially took to be a star!), so with no red and green navigation lights that would have allowed me to judge her course. She also had very low AIS range, so I got very little warning, and ended up avoiding her by about 40 yards or so. It was pretty sobering to think that our two yachts almost managed to crash into each other in hundreds of miles of open ocean, despite the vanishingly long odds. She was one of only two boats I saw between La Palma and Cape Verde, the other being the tanker ‘Neo Trader’ heading for Panama, which I avoided by about a mile.

Friday and Saturday were the worst days weatherwise, although it was at least sunny. The wind was pretty strong, apparently too strong for my crappy wind instrument to cope with. The wind was howling pretty constantly in the rigging, there were breaking waves and a fair bit of blown foam, so I’d guess force 6 to 7. And the swell got up quite a bit, with nasty cross seas that occasionally broke over the cockpit. I foolishly hadn’t rigged up the canvas screens that prevent this, so had to take a few good dousings.

Sunday however was beautiful, sailing down the very dramatic coast of Sao Vicente with the genoa poled out. I took the waterproofs off and sat on the lee rail in my shorts with my feet in the sea, which was pretty idyllic after the previous three days. Getting into the harbour was easy, as it’s a massive commercial port in a wide bay. The marina didn’t answer the radio, but after hanging around for a bit waving my arms in the air I was directed into a berth.

I’ve since been to see both the policia fronteira and policia maritima to make my presence legal. I was wandering the port area looking lost, and a nice chap walked up, said “Immigration?”, and pointed me in the direction of offices I think I would have struggled to find otherwise. The police were also nice and helpful. I have to go back on Friday to get my outward clearance and retrieve my ship’s papers.

The marina is certainly interesting. As it’s very much a transatlantic stopover, it has a lot of ocean-going yachts. There’s an immensely strong and powerful looking aluminium one two berths over that looks like a proper go-anywhere expedition yacht:

There are also lots of live-aboards in various states of repair. Pretty much every boat is interesting to look at. There are loads of french folk, and the usual smattering of other nations. My neighbours are a nice young french family who apparently spend their life sailing around. They are off to Grenada shortly. The marina also has a floating bar, which is where I am sitting while posting this, as it has wifi.

All-in-all, it seems a pretty good place, and I wish I had more time here. I’ve booked in for five days, which should give me enough preparation time, although I will stay longer if the weather isn’t ideal. It’s extremely windy at the moment. The chap next door recorded a gust of 37 knots on his wind instrument the day I arrived, which is lively (force 8). People I’ve spoken to have said that the weather forecasts aren’t really accurate except in the short term, but as we’re well in the trade wind zone and given the time of year there shouldn’t be too much variation hopefully. My course will be straight along the line of latitude.

I’ve started reconfiguring the galley somewhat. The cooker is gimballed, so it swings with the rolling of the boat. But it isn’t able to swing entirely freely – I realised that it was being brought up short behind by the gas connection hitting a shelf, which is obviously far from ideal. I’m in the process of making some proper retaining bars to stop it swinging around when not in use.

I’ll also be sealing a few bits on deck, unplugging certain devices I don’t need in order to reduce my electricity consumption slightly and most importantly going over the hydrovane, tightening bolts and whatnot. It’s really been immense and I need to make sure it’s in top condition for the crossing. Aside from the hull and rig, it’s probably the last thing I’d want to see fail.

I also need to get my storm sails out and organised (I should really have done this before sailing the last 800 miles, but hey ho), and think about how I’m going to set the rig up for the crossing. I wanted to sail with twin headsails, but actually getting two large genoas hoisted may be too tricky for various reasons, so I might have to make do with a conventional setup for now, or possibly cobble together some sort of weirdness involving the storm jib.

I found on this voyage that sleep was actually not as much of a problem as I expected it to be. I generally slept in one hour spells from 10 pm to 1 am, then from 5 am to 7 am. I had a few daytime naps when I needed to. Sleeping for half an hour or an hour whenever I got tired did the trick, although I was certainly very tired when I finally arrived. Two to three weeks of that will definitely take it out of me. If I get becalmed at all I might have a longer sleep perhaps.

I have filmed quite a lot of video footage on this most recent trip, including video diaries most days. I’m not sure when I will get the chance to edit it all together, but I’m hoping to get that done at some stage and will update the blog accordingly.

Here are a couple of photos of Mindelo harbour to finish:

I will take some photos of the town before I leave hopefully. Best wishes to all, and a happy new year!