Magic Dragon Blog

Vessel Name: Magic Dragon
Vessel Make/Model: Tayana V42
Hailing Port: Deltaville, Va
Crew: Herb & Frank
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Fajardo, Puerto Rico to Beaufort, NC 1170 Nautical Miles

12 May 2010
We had planned on leaving Tuesday around noon for the US, but the last minute errands on Monday took longer than anticipated (as usual), and the trip up the mast Frank put off until Tuesday morning revealed a couple of things that needed fixing. By the time we got everything finished we were both pretty exhausted and decided it would not be ideal to leave, so we decided to get some good sleep and leave in the morning Wednesday.

The passage to Beaufort, NC is 1170 miles and we always figure on a 5 knot average which would put the trip at 9 days. A high pressure ridge was pushing out into the Atlantic, which would tend to make the trade winds blow a little stronger, 20-25 kts vs. 15 kts normally and be more out of the ENE to NE. The long range forecasts were not very good - tropical waves already coming off Africa and even out of the SW Carib, so we decided to go with the Devil we knew, rather than wait and risk even worse weather next week. We left the marina around 10AM Wednesday morning.

We made the right decision for once, or we finally got some good luck for a change. Either way, the trip went very smoothly, and was actually a bit boring.

For the first 3 days, the winds were about 20-25 kts from the ENE, right on the beam. We started out with one reef in the main and added a second one on Thursday. The waves never got any bigger than 10 feet. By Saturday, the wind had decreased to about 15, so we shook out the reefs. By Sunday we were just north of 25 degrees North, and the wind basically died. We motored for almost 2 days solid, then sailed and motor-sailed as we could into Beaufort, NC. We actually had to slow down a bit so we would arrive in the daylight - on Friday the 21st, a few hours shy of 9 days. We did 4 hour watches, which worked pretty well for us. We made the whole trip without anything major breaking and more importantly, without scaring ourselves half to death!
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