The Daze That Defines
11 October 2020
wil boisvert
10/04/2020 Gulf Stream - The day that defines
The night was slow with little wind, but enough to make some headway, but not much. This was quite the day. Since 2030h the previous day to 1951h today, we traveled 85 NM on a course of 213M. This is one of our best days yet!
An so the universe balances itself. In the next 9 hours we traveled 5.7NM at 192M. Can't take long to go 300 miles at this pace... But hey, a calm day can be a break. Ney, Ney, Ney! A northerly came up, what luck! We were now about to be educated on where we were, and why we should not be there.
I had been at the wheel for 8 hours because of the low winds, which the auto pilot couldn't handle well. Which became a non-issue, since the auto pilot chose that 8 hour period to not function at all. I welcomed the first breezes as an opportunity to make some way. But optimizzen is a footpath on which despair trods. As the wind increased, the following seas also increased. By the time the 10 knot winds became 15, then 20, the seas were 10-15 feet and steep. Sereine was behaving like a drunk Glen on a surfboard. Every wave was a hard over to avoid a breach as we sluggishly surfed the day away. Besides a continuous burying of the portholes, there was one time when a couple hundred gallons rushed into the cockpit from port. I had my feet wide apart as a sat and stood behind the wheel, continuously wiping salt water out of my eyes. This went on for 5 hours. There was a slight weakening of the wind and we used it to head more west, and more parallel to the waves. This went through the night and the next day until we covered 31 NM at 292M. We were hoping to get out of the gulf stream. We fell short, and the wind all but died. There were times when to set of the main and genoa would hold a course of less than a knot. We had no choice but to settle for this.
We did this for a couple of daze before we concluded that the Gulf Stream was overpowering our efforts and driving us north. We decided to bite the bullet and head due west, which in reality was NNW. It was a half day, and late in the night before we had evidence the GS was having little effect and the winds were picking up out of the west. We pointed the best we could and fought to head south, but not get off the shelf and into the GS. It was 0230h when we pushed past Cape Hatteras. By this time the wind had shift to our stern and we could either go wing-on-wing, or sail off by 60 degrees or more in the lighter winds. The following seas made for a rocky ride.
It took us another day to make Lookout Point. As we slowly closed the distance to our destination, the winds kept decreasing. We did come in and out of cell phone range, which allowed for some email checks and assuring folk that we, "were not dead yet". As we made the turn at the buoy outside of Lookout point, we were in less than 3 knots of wind, and it was again at our stern (after making a 90 degree turn).
The winds continued to under perform well into the night. By 2300h of my last day of BoatUS towing, I made the call. And a boat was sent out the 11 miles to take us in to Morehead City Yacht Basin. We arrived by 0200h, snapped a quick blurry picture on the dock, showered and I had a dram of McClellans. What a passage! Behind us in many ways, A different challoenge awaited us during our month in Morehead City, NC.