We cannot direct the winds, but we CAN adjust our sails.

Serendipity
David Caukill
Fri 12 Jun 2015 09:13

Thursday 11 June,  2015

Horta, Faial, Azores  38 31.7N 28 37.60W

Today's Blog by David  (Time zone: BST -1.0; UTC)

 

Now, boys and girls, where were we?  Aahh, yes.  Pursuing a tactical initiative about 170 miles from Horta; sailing NE ahead of a windshift into the NE,  so that we could tack and enjoy a fast fetch down to Horta. 

 

By way of background, there are at least two ways of approaching an ocean passage. 

 

Approach A

A purist would do his best to sail the whole way; to eschew the engine as much as possible, steering whatever course the winds allow and freeing sheets to maintain boat speed.  The problem is that if we are really “Sailing” (Sailing n. 1. Wind coming directly from where we want to go.) the actual rate at which you get to your desitnation (=VMG – Velocity made good to windward)  is at best two thirds of your boatspeed through the water – if you are not sailing efficiently or the sea is lumpy if might be as little as half.   Sailing at 7.5 knots you would do well to achive VMG of 4kts.

 

Approach B

An alternative might be to treat the passage strictly as a delivery trip and get it over with ASAP. So rather than tacking hither and thither, one simply turns on the Iron Tops’l and motors directly into the wind; it’s uncomfortable, (the boat tends to slam into the waves from time to time and much water breaks over the bow) but you are travelling in a straightline.

 

It is not quite that simple;  because you’d usually set a sail to provide some stability. With the mainsail you might be 15o to the wind, with the staysail as well perhaps 25 o etc.  There is as ever a compromise but you might achieve a VMG of 5 knots; more if the sea state is comparatively smooth.  However, this is not without its cost: crew morale can be depressed by the monotony of travelling “with the donk on”, and it consumes fuel possibly 8-10 litres perhour – which costs money. 

 

I don’t know whether I mentioned how expensive everything was in Bermuda, but in case I didn’t, the diesel there was US $1.67 a litre making it the most expensive fuel we have bought anywhere in the world (beating the remote Galapagos Islands by a short head!).  So anyway, the hidden cost of Approach B, on Serendipity at least, was somewhere between US$ 300-400 Note 1 per day.

You might already see where I am going, but this crew  - well this skipper – tends towards Approach A. And so, as we approached Horta, (the wind having turned to the east), we did so slowly. When we started our (well, OK, my) tactical initiative (sailing NE ahead of that windshift - above), we were only 160 miles from Horta.  As ever, the predicted windshift didn’t happen until much later than forecast and so it took us c40 hours to get in.

Now – all of this might not be very interesting to you but it is necessary background to my explanation as to why, having left her in our wake again on Sunday night, Yantina again hove into view (this time on the AIS) as we approached Horta. So the scores on the doors are: 

Serendipity:  Approach A;  Yantina:  Approach B.  (Well, at least I HOPE so!!).

Fortunately this time she was behind us – but not by much!

Finally, an update on the Frog. We never had the opportunity to fly it on the passage here, the wind did not serve, but just to check it out we put it up for a few minutes as we approached Horta.  There were surprisingly few signs of damage.  It seems most of the tears were along seams that could simply be restitiched.  You can see a couple of new bits of tape – most striking though is the blue rinse on parts of the sail where it rubbed of the antifoul as it dragged under the boat.

Notes

1              The cost of fuel in Bermuda being a “sunk cost”, (money already spent in the past), then it is not really relevant to estimating the cost of having “the donk on”; what is relevant is actually the cost of replacing the fuel you are now burning – in this case then replacing it in the Azores – but it ruins a good bit of journalism.