Armchair sailors: your Atlantic crossing is cancelled

Svmelos
Sat 7 Jun 2008 14:22

We had a great day yesterday but this morning we turned around and headed West back to the East Coast. Yesterday we left Fort Pierce at around 10:30am with friends Jane and Ray waving us goodbye. It was an exciting moment to be really heading out in to the Atlantic; heading for Bermuda. We had thought the winds would be light and we could check the engine but after motoring for one hour to clear the Fort Pierce seabuoy we started sailing with the full mainsail and the #2 genoa. We headed NNE to not stray too far from the coast yet gain some advantage from the Gulf Stream. By late afternoon we were, at times, going over 10 knots over the ground with 4 of those being from the Stream. We sailed all day and all night though after midnight the winds lessened some and by early morning we were barely sailing. By this morning we had traveled a distance of 137 nautical miles from Fort Pierce in about 22 hours. Not a bad first day!

 

At 6:30 this morning I started the engine and we headed East towards Bermuda. At 8:30am we turned around and are now heading back towards the Jacksonville area. The engine was not overheating but there was significant bluish white smoke that was, if anything, more than we had previously. With a trip to Bermuda and from there to the Azores so dependant on our engine it seemed the prudent thing to do. But I am one unhappy camper this morning. It’s probably a good job that I won’t get to talk with any of you until later. I have already snapped at Janet unnecessarily. We had been planning this trip for a long time and we had worked hard on our preparations. I knew the engine was a potential problem but I had not wanted to bite the bullet of replacing it and in our initial tests earlier this year it had run fine. I guess I will now have a decision to make about repair or replacement. But that will have to wait. It is now 10:00am and we are still running the engine in glassy seas with left over swells from the East. Hopefully it will continue to run all of today. I think it will. Right now my guess is worn cylinders and piston rings causing the engine to burn oil and hence the bluish tint. But I really need to get some more advice about this.

 

So, what are our plans now. Janet had taken a 3 month leave of absence from work and my business partner, Beverly, had agreed to cover HSH yachts for this same period. It is now nearly one month in to our leave and we are heading back to the US coast. What will we do now. At this point we really have no idea. I had no contingency plans for this eventuality. But we have all of today to think about it plus plenty of time once we reach port. Once we decide I will post a blog entry here but, for now, you all know as much as we do.

 

Jeremy