By comparison, “Luck of a Fool”, shown in this pic, showed up in full cruising boat drag – even the dinghy was on davits on her stern. I think that the racing regulars knew pretty much right away on seeing the dinghy that we were not going to be serious competition.

And, we most certainly weren’t!

“Luck of a Fool” finished 10th on uncorrected time and a very un-lucky 13th of 13 starters on corrected time. Apparently the racing handicap formulas do not have adjustment factors for boats carrying thousands of pounds of gear and provisions and sporting a large dinghy on davits astern.

No complaints though as the day was great, Dave and Mary won a Hopetown Sailing Club cocktail glass as the booby price, and at the post race party both the camaraderie and appetizers were excellent.

Sunday April 5, 2015 11:00 EDT

I am actually at sea as I am writing this – about 30 miles north of Whale Cay passage from which I exited the Sea of Abaco this morning – headed to Beaufort, NC.

It is a beautiful day – a few fluffy clouds in an otherwise brilliantly blue sky, dark blue tropical waters flowing under KR’s keel and 10kn of wind just forward of the beam. Sailing just doesn’t get any more pleasant than this. So, it is disingenuous (and more than a little bit dangerous) of me to complain that a “little” more wind might be nice.

The Grib file I downloaded this morning indicates that it is blowing 25kn just 90nm north of here but that those winds will be laying down a bit before I get there – leaving the seas a bit churned up but with wave direction mostly on the beam. Certainly nothing to worry about and I suspect that my request for a bit more wind will be more than fulfilled tonight.

In fact, right now the biggest concern that I have is that there is enough wind and that it doesn’t clock too far astern too quickly. We’ll see about that. More as the passage progresses.

Tuesday April 7, 2015 0900EDT

Yesterday was a really fast day of sailing – well over 6kn average speed (which was, I admit, somewhat improved with some fair currents). It was not without some festivities, however. Our weather guru, Chris Parker, had warned me that there was a “trough” lurking about in these waters with some showers, squirrely winds, churned up seas and general pestilence.

I found it!

There were actually 3 bands of showers encountered starting with the first around dusk on Sunday, the next mid day on Monday and a really fun one at dusk yesterday evening. Throughout the nighttime hours all was well and the crew got much sleep and rest. Today is good so far but there is another band about 40-50 miles north of my current position. It is possible that it will move north and east soon enough to let me pass easily. We’ll see about that.

For the remainder of the trip lighter winds and winds much farther astern will be the norm. It will be hard to keep up the boat speed. Sometime around midnight, however, the effects of the main, north flowing current of the Gulf Stream will give us a nice lift towards Beaufort. I have no doubt that we will make landfall no later than Thursday at first light but it is possible that we might snick in before dark on Wednesday.

More to come.

Wednesday April 8, 2015


Sixty miles to go! Right now the winds are nearly perfect – WNW AT 10-12 makes for a really nice 5-6kn close reach at very nearly the rum line course. All the forecasts say that the winds will back to the SW over the course of the day which will slow things down a bit. Still – I expect to make landfall sometime this evening. Depending on time, light and other conditions, I may decide to anchor out just inside the inlet entrance rather than attempt the winding and weird channel into Beaufort itself.

A really festive thunderstorm snuck up on me at around midnight. Knowing that the weather pattern was not really all that settled, I had stayed on watch in the cockpit until the almost full moon was well up and there was good visibility to the horizon. At that point I headed below for some sack time. Imagine my surprise when the first flash of lightening was followed almost immediately by the ka-boom – way too close!

Sneaky thunderstorm!

With storms like that potentially in the area it goes without saying that last night was not a great one for sleep. I never saw any other pestilence though.

More to come.

LANDFALL

I made landfall in Beaufort around 10:00pm yesterday (Wednesday) after a fast 3-1/2 day passage. The wind did get really light in the late morning (not all that long after I wrote the above passage about how nice the winds were!) but I had no great interest in listening to the engine run for the 10 hrs it would take to do the last 55 miles. I sailed it out and managed to get within 25 miles by 6:00pm – when the winds completely died. On came the engine and 4 hours later the hook dropped just inside the Beaufort inlet near the CG station.

I admit that I have been looking forward to getting back into northern waters. In the Caribbean the weather is either constantly hot and dry or hot and wet - depending on where you are and what season it is. I have been looking forward to some cool and dry and, yes, even cool and wet as a nice change of climate. Being a land of southern hospitality, North Carolina dished up a large dose of cold and wet over the last 24 hours – very nice of them. I appreciate their hospitable welcome but can only hope that they will soon be equally generous with some cool and dry and warm and dry.

Best to all.