We did it! Landfall Antigua at dawn of day 13
gale-at-sea
Humphrey Gale
Wed 5 Dec 2012 22:23
We were fortunate. The Atlantic trip was relatively easy and fast (12.5 days in total) we had constant winds, of mainly Force 5/6 and mainly due East, no storms, although it the wind did swing about a bit a few, so we were able to maintain a good speed of over 6 knots ( average 160 Nautical miles per day), while it blew constantly for 10 days from the same direction, not like the ever changing patterns we get in Northern Europe. However, this is what the trade winds are all about, you can see how it fuelled the trade between Europe and Americas - although apparently the origin of the name trade winds is derived from Portuguese for the "traditional winds". We had a lot of roll on the boat from the swell but my sea legs held up and only felt sick for the first day or so. It took a little while for me body and sleep patterns to get familiar with the 01.00 to 04.00 watch which meant my "nightly sleep" was split into 2 parts - 4 hours before and 2/3 hours after.
One of the aspects of the crossing that worried me was the potential boredom - I cannot read at sea ( induces sea sickness) so all that time on my hands and not s lot else to do. But surprisingly quickly I got into the rhythm of the days. It did start to drag a bit in the third quarter of the trip.
The wind died to nothing for the last 36 hours so we did put the motor on at the end