Day 8 : Azores to Ireland

25th May, 2022

Sometimes, it’s the tiniest clues that let you know your partner doesn’t approve of what you’ve just said.

A pause in replying of just a fraction of a second. A twitch of the eyebrow. A tiny crease at the corner of the mouth. Her saying “Don’t be such a bloody fool”.

I didn’t hear the last statement, but I still went off watch at 1.05 am last night knowing that I’d somehow displeased Jen.

She had come up at 1.03 am, three entire minutes late, which I’d graciously chosen not to reprimand her about (I’m joking, of course, but we do take being on time very seriously, as often you’re desperate for your watch to end as you can barely keep your eyes open, and those extra few minutes can breed a lot of resentment.).

As it was, I hadn’t even noticed – I’d had a great idea just a few minutes previously, and wanted to tell Jen all about it.

In the final half hour of my watch, I’d been pondering the fact that the conditions had not been as boisterous as forecasted, and in fact we were purring along quite nicely, in 25 knots of wind and 2.5 metre seas. The wind and wave angle, combined with the perfect number of reefs, meant that we were making an easy 7.5 knots, the rolling was manageable, and we had only 100 miles to go. We were “coming home with a wet sail”, which is an inexplicable Aussie expression (aren’t they all) meaning to have an easy time of it at the end.

By contrast, the forecast had told us that we should expect 30 to 35 knots at this point, and the exceptionally short period (5 seconds) of the waves ought to be making things very uncomfortable indeed.

In these better-than-expected conditions, I’d found time to think about the forecast going forward, and the fact that it didn’t lend itself to our onward trip to Glasgow until at least 3rd June. To be honest even that was looking challenging.

We talked earlier in the day about potentially splitting the journey into two legs, with a stopover in Dublin. This would mean only needing a 36-hour weather window twice, rather than a full 72-hour window.

But even that looked trickly, as the only suitable wind to get to Dublin before my birthday was over the next 48 hours, and we’d have neither the time or the inclination to do that after arriving in Cork due to the check-in procedure and just needing to catch up on rest after the passage.

So there was the spark of my idea. Things were going well, the conditions were better than expected. Why not just sail past Cork and on to Dublin? It would only take another 24 hours, since we would save the time and administration of pulling into and out of Crosshaven, so it would be even more efficient.

And it would mean that we could have a more relaxing time in Dublin, celebrating my birthday there and also doing some sightseeing around the inevitable boat maintenance jobs that required to be done, all without worrying about the next weather window. We could relax into early June, knowing we only needed a 36-hour break in the weather at some point before our target arrival date in Largs of 5th June.

There was the small matter of having Coco certified. Jen’s research seemed to suggest that Cork was the only place to do this, but I felt sure that Dublin must have the same facility, and it just wasn’t clear on the website. We have established good contact with the Government Vet in Cork, so I was confident that we could email them and hopefully they could talk us through how to achieve the same certification in Dublin.

As I handed over the watch, I explained my thinking to Jen, in between talking through the vessels on AIS that we needed to keep an eye on, the sail configuration, and the weather conditions we’d been experiencing versus forecast.

It was relevant to discuss then, as if we did make the decision now, it would allow us to alter course by 10 or 15 degrees, which would have the added benefit of making the boat easier to handle over the next 4 hours if the forecasted tougher conditions arrived.

As we spoke, the wind started to gust, right on cue, and we discussed putting another reef in. We delayed for a couple of minutes, but in the end, put one in an anyway.

As Jen tidied up the ropes, I headed down below. I could tell that my perfectly sensible idea had not really garnered the support I’d been hoping for. It hadn’t garnered anything at all really, other than a couple of those barely perceptible pauses and possibly a nostril flare, although it was hard to be sure in the glow of the red cockpit light.

As I lay in my bunk trying to nod off to sleep, I puzzled about Jen’s lack of positive response. “Surely she can see the benefits of my plan”, I thought, as the boat was thrown on its side by an extra-large wave and I heard the roar of water gushing along the side decks.

“I really can’t think of a good reason not to”, I considered, as my body flopped around in the bed like a rag doll, being thrown from one side to the other.

“Maybe I just didn’t explain myself clearly enough”, I figured, as I lay in bed shivering from the cold and unable to get to sleep.

I came back on watch at 5am, this morning, having barely slept, to be greeted by a monster wave crashing against the boat, belting rain, zero visibility, 15 degrees air temperature, and winds gusting to 36 knots.

“I’ve no idea why anyone would want to extend this damn passage by another minute”, I said. “What a bloody stupid idea”.

Jen’s eyebrow may have raised just a fraction of an inch, but I can’t be certain.

Day 8 Statistics:

Time on passage so far: 7 days, 20 hours
Distance covered in last 24 hours: 145 nm
Average Speed in last 24 hours: 6.0 knots

Distance to go: 42 nm
ETA in Cork (Crosshaven): 3pm local time

Number of times we put a reef in, or shook a reef out, of the genoa in the last 24 hours: 12