Bermuda - Newport

Around the world with the Aqualunies
Jonathan & Gabrielle Lyne
Fri 6 Jul 2018 19:15
Friday 22nd June
We headed out of St. George’s at 17.30. A few other yachts who had done the Newport to Bermuda race were also heading back at the same time. Engine working perfectly. Winds got up to 18 -20 knots and southerly so had a good sail for the next two days.

Sunday 24th - 25th night watch at 23 hours. Massive thunder clouds ahead, big Genoa out changed course to avoid lightning back on course an hour later winds S SW 17 knots. 01.00 reef down to 3 reefs in the main. Staisail up and rolled in quite a bit
. Winds SW 25 knots gusting 35 knots. Faulk lighting all around us. Tried to avoid it by heading south west but wherever we went we were surrounded. We started the engine to get away but the alarms came on, In the end Jonathan took a deep breath and said we had to go through it. Winds at one point reached 50 knots, Faulk lightening all around one came down very close to the yacht. Main dropped, we were almost bare poled by then. Rain lashing down it was black and terrifying something out of those films you see. When the wind went light for awhile we hoisted the main and in the process it got caught in the jack stays, J on deck to release starboard stays then he got a riding turn in main sheet, took us both awhile to release it. Js comment about everything going wrong so I had to tell us both to get a grip and deal with it and not to let me know he was scared as that won’t help me..... we were both up all night. Day light came and we were through it. But you could still see it going on nearly all morning in the distance. During this process there was one other yacht also battling away, we spoke briefly to them on the VHF. They had no radar so came down south and tried to follow us, We could see his AIS ow and again, he got through alright as well. This storm started just as we entered the Gulf Stream with a 6 knot west to east current and water temp at 30c. As we came out of the stream the other side the current dropped to 2.5 knots and the water temp dropped as well.
Wind was now 21 knots westerly. An uneventful sail there after and arrived in Newport to check into immigration 15.20 on Tuesday 26 th. Alongside Fort Adams.

Malcolm and Becky came down to the pontoon to see us and were joining the ship the next day. Immigration checked us in at 22.00 hrs. Photos of Jonathan mending a rope as we were leaving Bermuda note lighthouses in the back ground.

JPEG image




JPEG image



Sent from my iPad