Day 29 : Ascension to Azores

Friday, April 15th 2022

As dawn breaks, the plotter shows we have just 140 nautical miles to go to Horta – we should be arriving tomorrow morning.

It will be 30 days and nights by the time we arrive, which is actually a fair bit quicker than I had anticipated – we thought we would have to do a lot more tacking and thus add significant mileage to the route, but through a combination of good planning and good fortune, we’ve been able to avoid all of that.

Our friends on S/V Anna Caroline made this same passage last year in 29 days, which is exactly what we would have achieved if we hadn’t lost about a day to our steering issue, so there’s a pleasing symmetry to that.

When I was chatting to them a few months ago to discuss their experience on the passage, I asked them if they thought it had seemed interminable. Janneke said that they actually got to the end of the passage with plenty left in the tank, and could easily have carried on.

That’s not been our experience at all, and all three of us are willing away this final day as quickly as possible.

For Coco, it’s just a function of not knowing when it will ever end. She’s been absolutely magnificent on this passage, a real trooper, and we’re incredibly proud of her. She’s just got on with being a cat, and lived her best life, just on a crazy lean, and sliding around the polished floors of the boat as we fall off of waves.

She has complained a couple of times, but in some ways she’s actually made great leaps and bounds. She’s grown less fearful of the engine – which is just as well, as there were long periods during the ITCZ and the Azores High when it was running.

And she’s grown more appreciative of yours truly. Jen has always been her favourite, and I’m really just the man servant. But perhaps because of our continuous watch system, which means 50% of the time I’ve been around and Jen’s been asleep, or perhaps because it’s been getting much colder, and so she just appreciates my body warmth, whatever it is, she’s become a lot more loving towards me. Long may that continue.

For Jen and I, the major factor affecting our psyche has of course been the steering issue. Although we were able to get back up and running again the same day, and it has held together for almost 1,500 miles now, the repair has always felt extremely sketchy, not helped by the various clicks, groans and metal straining sounds that have been a constant source of concern throughout. It’s felt like at any moment it might just let go again.

The weather for this final phase has been challenging too. We’ve been able to pick a path through the 5 different low pressure systems over the last week or so to avoid the worst of the wind. But we have not been able to escape the sea state, that tends to linger for a day or two after each blow. Since we’ve only been avoiding the strong winds by a matter of hours as we’ve picked our path, that means we’ve been in constant seas of 3.5m to 4.5m for a week now.

That would take it’s toll on us at the best of times, but of course these larger waves put a lot more strain on the steering system, thus amping up our concern levels. To mitigate that somewhat we’ve continued to sail more slowly and conservatively than normal.

In the Uphill Battle phase of the passage, we were sailing slowly for our own comfort, and the expectation was that once we got to the final few hundred miles and the wind switched to being behind us we could put our foot down and sail at our usual 7 or 8 knots downwind.

But in order to protect the steering, we’ve keep the sail plan shorter and thus sailed more slowly. Which of course makes us more susceptible to the wave action.

Day 29 was particularly challenging from that perspective. We were forecast to have winds in the 30 knot range, and so I deliberately slid us out the side of that into an area where we would expect to see just 20 -25 knots. And that’s how it’s played out, but the motion on the boat has been pretty awful – neither of us has slept well for a couple of days now (not helped by not having our usual comfortable bunk as we’ve left the bed apart to monitor the steering).

Having said all of that, we’re also feeling very happy, and quite grateful. Despite the steering and a few other niggles (I’ll prepare a full list of all the issues in my passage summary report tomorrow), Steely has been magnificent on this passage.

The flexibility of her sail plan has made it easy to pick the right combination of sails and reefs for the widely varying conditions we’ve experienced., always from the comfort of the cockpit. Her huge fuel tanks mean we’ve never been unduly concerned about range, despite two large windless patches that required days of motoring.

She never feels in the least bit claustrophobic, despite the fact that it’s been over a month now since we moved more than a few feet from where I’m sitting as I type this. Her huge freezer means we’ve never worried about food, and in fact have been able to eat well and easily by allowing us to pre-prepare so many meals. And throughout it all, she’s sailed herself safely and (comparatively) comfortably, and kept us dry and snug.

If you were going to do a 30-day non-stop passage like this one, you couldn’t pick a better boat.

And we’re feeling good about the achievement underlying this passage too. Our friend Jen on S/V Skylark calls this “Type 2 fun” – something that is fun more in retrospect than actually during the activity itself. And I think that’s a great description of a passage like this. So it’s only natural as we come towards the end of it that we start reflecting on all that has made it good and memorable for all the right reasons.

Still though, we’re longing for flat waters, a comfortable bed, a huge fresh salad. A nice bottle of chardonnay. And some internet.

That’s all just 24 hours away!

____

Day 29 Statistics:

Time on passage so far: 28 days, 21 hours
Distance covered in last 24 hours: 137 nm
Average Speed in last 24 hours: 5.7 knots

Official Length of intended Route when we set out: 3,480 nm
Current Projected Distance to Go according to chart plotter: 140 nm
Distance Sailed so Far: 3,492 nm
Total Projected Distance of Route: (3,492 + 140): 3,632
Change in total projected distance in last 24 hours: + 8 miles (dodging some wind cost us some miles)

Estimated Day of Arrival: PredictWind is now saying 10.30am on Saturday 16th April

Total hours sleep in last 72 hours (Pete): 10