Passage Summary and Pictures - St. Helena to Grenada
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Fri 22 Feb 2013 16:49
| 11:59.904N 61:45.553W January 12, 2013 - February 4, 2013 Twenty-three days. My, oh my, that was long. Not scary or difficult or even boring , just long. So long, that until we were more than halfway to Grenada, neither Don nor I felt completely at ease. Surprising, given that the first ten days were some of the most glorious sailing days we've ever had - gliding ever so smoothly with the downwind rig, twin headsails pleasantly filled with the very kind southeast trades. Yes, we should have been prancing around the boat gloating about the blue sky and soft wind. But - it didn't happen. Instead, we were busy thinking about all the things that could go wrong over the course of a 23-day passage in the middle of an ocean. And then of course, formulating the corresponding contingency plans for each imagined disaster. We were doing this separately until a good week into the trip when one of us happened to admit to the other that we didn't feel completely relaxed, and why. After discussing it, we felt better that we weren't alone in our individual quests to plan around all potential calamities, and we decided we would feel better when we were within one week of our destination - which we did. But until then, no matter what disaster we were able to conjure up in our minds, after working through the details of how we would deal with it, we always ended the conversation with the same refrain, "If we had to, we could do it." In the beginning, we were both worried about power. Harmonie is an electricity-hungry boat, no doubt about it. All the luxuries we have (two fridges, one freezer, electric winches, electric furling, autopilot, radar, instruments…) all this stuff sucks power - to the tune of about an 8-10 amp draw during the day and 10-12 at night when the radar is on (8-12 amps is hefty power use for a sailboat). We have eight, very large batteries (much bigger than car batteries, more like those used in trucks), and a ninth used only as an engine start battery (to start the motor or generator). When on passage, we usually need to run the generator a little less than twice per day, six-seven hours total per day. Yes, that's a lot, but that's the price we pay for all the electricity-driven luxuries. Our fear was that if the generator quit, or if all three of the battery chargers powered by the generator quit, we'd have to charge the batteries using the alternator on the engine. Using the engine to charge the batteries is a perfectly sensible alternative, but is very inefficient compared to the generator/battery charger option. So inefficient, we worried we wouldn't have enough fuel to finish the trip if, starting early on, we had to use the engine to charge the batteries. Our contingency plan if this were to happen was to reduce power use. We would shut down the freezer (didn't have to worry about that, now did we?) and one of the fridges, use the radar more sparingly, and as an absolute last resort, turn off the autopilot and hand steer. Oooooh, just the thought of hand steering for all those miles day after day made us shudder….but, we agreed, if we had to, we could do it. Power wasn't the only thing we were worried about though. There was the water maker, which was spewing out fresh water at a record low rate and with an abnormally high salt content. We bought a bunch of bottled drinking water in St. Helena, but still worried we wouldn't have enough for 23 days at sea. Not knowing what exactly was wrong with the water maker, we were also concerned it would stop working completely, leaving us short of fresh water for washing and cooking. We decided to put our fresh water contingency plan into play early on. The plan? Use less water, and collect rain water. (It's not rocket science, is it?) This plan was much more fun to implement than the power reduction plan would have been had we needed to use it. We wore the same shorts everyday and no one complained. Shower frequency was decreased to once every two days (once every two days for each of us - anything less might have been cause for mutiny since we were sailing through the heat of equatorial waters). Dishwashing was minimized. None of this was a hardship. When we neared the equator and the rain storms came, Don rigged our sun cover to funnel rain water into a bucket. Having never collected rain water before, we were amazed how fast our five gallon bucket filled. We collected so much water so quickly, we decided after less than a day we had enough drinking water to last the trip - plus we dumped a bunch of rain water into the water tank to reduce the overall salt content. Not that the salt content in our tank water was alarmingly high, we just didn't want it to go any higher. In retrospect, we could have collected enough rain water to last a lifetime during the six days it took us to clear the rain storms just north of the equator. In any event, our water use reduction and rain collection activities barely qualified for the 'if we had to, we could do it' category since it was easy, and in a twisted sort of ocean-passage way, fun. What else did we worry about? The autopilots, the steering, the engine, the sails, the freezer, eating too much meatloaf, eating meat that had been through four freeze/thaw cycles, rotting vegetables. That sort of thing. All for naught. In the scheme of things, our 23-day passage was pretty uneventful. Uneventful, but full of character. There was a definite beginning, middle and end. The first ten days were lovely (yet filled with angst). The middle was annoying, and peaked out at miserable as we made our way through the doldrums and associated muddled wind and rain (yet we were more relaxed as the distance-to-go shrank). The end was pleasant after the northeast trade winds evened out, the sun reappeared, we got used to the constant leftward lean, stopped worrying about equipment failures, and started to breathe normally. In the end, the worst that happened was one (the largest) of the three battery chargers quit working on day 17, which wasn't much of a hardship because the other two chargers handled the load perfectly fine. Of course the freezer quit, but aside from an overdose of meatloaf, we survived. We were concerned about the steering throughout the trip because there were strange noises coming from the steering mechanism when the Autohelm 7000 autopilot was in use. A bit of hand steering revealed a very stiff wheel, which didn't help to ease our fear of impending steering disaster. We opted to use the other autopilot (6000) exclusively, and hoped for the best. All was fine until Don disengaged the autopilot as we approached Grenada and found the wheel to be extremely difficult to turn. He muscled us into Prickly Bay Marina and later that day disassembled the steering mechanism (again). The new racks and pinion were fine and everything else appeared normal as well. After reassembly, the wheel was still a little difficult to turn, but better. We decided to leave it be (it has since improved for reasons unknown). Once we arrived in Grenada, it only took a few days for Don to address the rest of our equipment issues. The battery charger problem was simply a blown fuse. The freezer compressor required a new dryer (moisture in the system was indeed the problem), which a very able technician in Prickly Bay installed for us. The high pressure pump on the water maker required a little TLC in the form of new seals and valves - the system has now returned to its former self. So, 23 days, lots of worry, and no calamities. Even if there were though…whatever the situation required, we could have done it if we had to. Planned route (blue dotted line) and actual track (purple dotted line). The beginning of our actual track was erased because the computer decided it couldn't store more than 5,000 data points. In other words, our passage was so long, the navigation software had to erase data points from the beginning of our trip to make room for those at the end. WP0022 is about where the equator is , and if that portion of our track was blown-up, you could better see where we turned due north on several occasions when the rains storms bent the wind in the wrong direction. At the time, it felt like we were pointed north for eons. Looking at the overall picture now, it looks like we stuck to the rhumb line fairly well. Given that we only sailed 26 miles more than the planned route (3,776 vs. 3,750), I guess we did pretty well. In hindsight, we probably should have sailed closer to the South American coast in order to pick up the positive current that runs along it. Instead, we managed to sail into the equatorial countercurrent, which we did not find enjoyable as it slowed us down a good 1-2 knots over the course of several days. Passage Statistics: Total nautical miles traveled - 3,776 (wow!) Total time - 23 days, 0.5 hours Total time sailing - 21 days, 9.5 hours (93%) Total time motoring and motorsailing - 1 day, 15 hours (7%) Starting about 90 miles south of the equator, we motorsailed three consecutive nights until the northeast trade winds filled in around 90 miles north of the equator. Other than that short interlude, we sailed the whole way. Average speed - 6.8 knots (7.8 mph) Degrees of latitude traveled - 28 to the north Degrees of longitude traveled - 56 to the west Highest wind - 28 knots (32 mph). As expected, the northeast trades were consistently higher than their southern cousins, generally ranging from 15-28 knots with gusts into the 30's in rain squalls. Overall, we really couldn't complain about the mostly moderate wind throughout the passage. Highest cabin temperature - 89F (on day 10, our last day of sun before crossing the equator) Number of near-calamities - no real calamities or even near-calamities. Maybe just a few challenges like pulling the downwind rig down in the rain, enduring days of rain and gloom, and eating too much meatloaf. Number of major milestones achieved - three. Crossing the equator for the fourth time, crossing the Atlantic Ocean, and completing our longest passage. Number of dead flying fish found on deck - over 100. Number of fish caught - 3. One big king mackerel and 2 small UFO's (Unidentified Fish Objects). Aha - there's the king mackerel. Pretty fish. Nasty teeth. Ugly sucker-fish sores. Don threw him back. Drying out our lovely blue ballooner in the cockpit the day after dismantling the downwind rig in the rain. Rain on the radar. I know, I know, this is too blurry. That's because the boat was moving a lot when this was taken during the night of miserable rain storms (day 17). The blobs of bright green inside the circles are an indication of rain. The radar was very green throughout that particular night. A tardy sacrifice to the sea gods. The cherished jean shorts received a well-deserved, sunny burial at sea. As you can see, the northeast trades were churning up a pretty good sea that day. Land ho! Approaching Grenada on the morning of day 23. Sunset over calm Prickly Bay, Grenada. Measuring out Harmonie's length (all 52 feet) in the hallway. Our great-nephew Robbie's kindergarten class followed our progress as we crossed the Atlantic. Near the end, the kids took their rulers into the hall and measured out Harmonie's length. Once finished, they then skipped down the length of Harmonie (as you would). Robbie is near the back of the pack, peering out over the shoulder of the girl in the orange shirt. Thanks to all the kids and Ms. Alexander for making our passage more fun with all their highly anticipated emails filled with 5-year-old-kid questions. (Photo courtesy Ms. Alexander, Robbie's teacher) Next up: The Caribbean and St. Lucia. Anne |