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When I speak with folks who aren’t familiar with sailing, I often get asked “How do you” type questions. Here are the answers to some of these:
Q: Where do you stop at night?
A: You don’t. You keep sailing in the dark. When conditions are benign, sailing at night is a beautiful thing. The night sky is truly awesome in the real sense of the word, not awesome like a good sandwich. You can see the Milky Way and the blackness is almost silver as you can make out clusters of millions of stars that you would never see on land due to light pollution. There is phosphorescence in the sea is stunning and the boat leaves a trail of luminescent pearls behind it. But, also the Night is Dark and Full of Terrors. When the boat is sailing fast, heeled over in high winds and bigger waves, it can be quite terrifying on deck. The darkness exaggerates sounds and motion. You feel like you are hurtling at 60 miles an hour in the dark. In reality, you are most likely doing no more than 10 miles per hour. The other issue is that while lights on boats are very visible from a long way, judging distances is very hard, especially for offshore rookies like me.
Q; How do you eat?
A: On anything but a professional race boat, you eat the same stuff you eat on land. The boat in my recent passage had a cooker, fridge, and small freezer compartment. The fridge was so efficient that there was still ice in the freezer section that had been purchased many three weeks before. The issue is that preparation can be challenging so we ate easy to heat up and serve past dishes and handheld food like sandwiches. The pros eat freeze-dried food. It can be quite tasty but I am happy to give it a miss.
Q: What are watches?
A: Things on your wrist to tell you the time. (I have a million of these). Watches are shifts when you are on watch, in the cockpit, keeping an eye out for danger, and adjusting the sails. Watch lengths vary depending on the number of crew and how hard you are sailing. The aim is to have a well-rested crew. In my recent passage offshore, with three guys who were delivering the boat back to the US, we ran 2 hours on and 4 hours off. That was sufficient to get a lot of rest although interrupted.
Q: How do you sleep?
A: Like a baby. You wake up screaming having soiled yourself. (Told you!) I was surprised at how much I was able to sleep and generally did not feel over-tired at the end. Sailing like this is hard work and I fall asleep easily off watch. I could fall asleep with the engine noise close by and all kinds of banging boat noises. I could not do that at home. The hardest thing is sleeping when the boat is heeled over. If you are on the leeward (lower) side it’s quite comfortable, almost like being in a bassinet. On the windward, upper side, it’s another story. You have a lee cloth that keeps you in your bunk but I could not get used to it.
Q: How do you stay clean?
A: You have to be disciplined. Part of the challenge is that you lose track of time. I went 36 hours without brushing my teeth and only realize when I breathed into the skipper’s face and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. Jack the navigator had it right as he used adult baby wipes daily. I tried the equivalent of a bed bath once or twice. I was offered a quickie shower but declined and for the life of me, I don’t know why. By the time we reached the marina, I was offending myself. That shower after we arrived was an all-time great one. All rejoiced at my newly found personal hygiene.
Q: How do Customs and Immigration work?
A: It was a real contrast. Leaving Bermuda was quaintly old-fashioned. We had to motor four hours from Hamilton to the Customs and Immigration office in St George’s. There are forms to fill, declarations to make by polite but officious Bermudan officials. Then we were on our way. On the other end, the story could not have been more different. The skipper uploaded our passport info to a US Government website and we were done.
In Part 2, we covered the crew and the boat, now for the passage itself
This shows our course. Our goal was to get to Newport by Friday evening, and we had a plan that we thought would make crossing the Gulf Stream easy and possibly speed up our passage with a favorable current.
Freebird’s top speed was around 8 kts. Given that winds and currents make that hard to achieve when planning you expect to cruise at 5 kts, possibly 6kts while motoring at a speed that does not burn up the limited fuel too fast. In addition, you have to consider that currents (and there are lots of them) can slow you down or speed you up.
On Monday, June 27th, we filled up the fuel tanks including an additional 20 gallons in tanks tied to the lifelines. This would give us sufficient fuel to motor if we needed to for around 400 miles.
We then checked out of Bermuda. This meant motoring the boat from Hamilton to the other side of Bermuda so that we could clear customs and immigration in St George’s. We left Bermuda at around 1500 Eastern Time (aka 4 pm Bermuda time).
The winds over the first 24 hours were light to moderate and we motor-sailed and sailed on a broad reach. This was very comfortable. In addition, a couple of right whales and then later a pod of dolphins surfaced close by. At night, the skies were fairly clear, and the stars were awe-inspiring.
On Wednesday, the winds freshened, and we sailed hard all day and all night. Things were going well. So, we thought.
On Thursday, we realized that we had made a navigational error, explained in the next section. Moreover, the winds were light. And, we were worried that we would face strong winds on a course of sail that would be tough on the crew and the boat. We altered course and motored Northwest. This is when we hit the Gulf Stream. The conditions were fortunately calm, but we faced a 2-4 kt current against us so our speed slowed to a crawl for 5-7 hours. We worried that we might run short on fuel in the next 24 hours and face very tough conditions over the last 100 miles. Things were pretty tense on board, and we were feeling pretty down about our situation.
By Friday morning, things started to turn in our favor. The winds were out of the Southwest and favorable for us to sail. Wind speeds ranged between 18 and 22 knots gusting to 25kts. Waves were never more than 4 feet. Ideal conditions and we sailed fast.
We had turned more directly towards Newport overnight, and we put the foot down.
Friday night was challenging. We had seen very few ships for the first 500 miles but as were now within 100 miles of the Eastern seaboard, we expected to encounter more traffic. We saw a few 500-1000 foot-long container ships. These were not a problem as they were at least 5 miles away and never on a course where we were at risk of collision. We also knew that they could see us on their AIS.
Fishing boats were another issue. About 75 miles south of Long Island, underwater canyons and other factors make these great fishing grounds. We encountered a dozen fishing boats that night.
There are three problems with fishing boats:
I have to admit that I found this to be sphincter-clenching for a few hours. The mind plays tricks on you too. I could see a white light to port, but nothing came up on AIS or radar. At one point I thought it might be someone in the water, and I was seeing the light on their lifejacket. I also thought I heard a far-off cry for help. In fact, what I was hearing was the creaking of the auto-helm. I woke the skipper up and the look on his face was priceless. What a dummy! We believe that it was a small fishing boat with AIS turned off.
After a 4-hour sleep, I came back on watch at 4 am. This was my favorite time, as I saw the dawn. This photo was from dawn on Tuesday.
By the end of my two-hour dawn watch, we were in home waters, between Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard. By 8 am EST, we cleared the famous Castle Hill light that marks the entrance to Narragansett Bay, RI.
Visibility was poor as there was heavy fog, but this slowly lifted as we made our way past Newport and up to the North end of the bay. We arrived at Cove Have Marina, in Barrington, RI, just South of Providence, at noon on Saturday, July 1st.
After, taking care of some immediate clean-up and logistical issues, it was time for a very much-needed and world’s longest shower followed by the best cold beer ever.
The rhumb line is the direct route from point A to point B. It’s not actually the shortest course due to the Earth’s curvature. That’s a great-circle course. The rhumb line is typically used for navigation planning purposes.
On the surface, sailing from Bermuda to Newport RI seems fairly simple. It’s 635 nautical miles North by Northwest or 345 degrees Magnetic. There is no land in the way.
In simple terms, there are three options: Sail the rhumb line, sail East of the rhumb line, or sail West of the rhumb line.
This article explains the complexity of this passage and why this can be a tricky decision. In short, the wind may be better to the West and the waves might be shorter. Or an Eastern course might allow you to take advantage of more positive currents or cross the Gulf Stream in a shorter time. The answers are not always obvious and there are as many strategies as there are boats taking part in a race.
Phil had paid for two high-priced weather routing services. These provide recommendations to mariners on what routing to take. These are services are used by commercial shipping as well as recreational boaters.
These services recommended we go West of the Rhumb line. Our navigator recommended we go East based on what his computer models were indicating. This took into account predicted boat performance, wind forecasts over 5-days, and what the Gulf Stream was doing.
You can see from the graphic of our passage above, we started by going East then came back West, and then went East again before eventually heading straight to Newport.
To be honest, we made an error in navigation by going East of the rhumb line. How did this happen? The navigator was projecting that this course would give us the most favorable wind direction over the passage based on wind forecasts. (Note: Wind directions change with some ability to predict but it’s rarely 100% accurate). The plan was to get to a specific entry point that would be ideal to cross the Gulf Stream.
The problem was that the assumptions were based on the boat being in racing mode with a full crew, bigger sails and a more aggressive plan. In reality, we were in cruising mode with a smaller headsail and a small crew which meant we would be sailing slower than the projected course. On top of that, the wind forecast was close to the projections but off enough to be a problem.
Sailing this course meant that we missed the favorable wind shifts and actually meant that the winds were unfavorable for us. This was especially troubling as the winds were forecast for the second half of the trip. When we realized this, we changed course. It also meant that rather than crossing the Gulf Stream at a favorable place we motored against it for 5-7 hours.
Thankfully by the next day, we were in a better position, a direct course for Newport, with winds, current, and waves in our favor. All’s well that ends well but it was shaky for a bit.
Overall, I loved the experience, and I am so glad I was able to lose my offshore virginity. It had its pluses and minuses. On the positive side, offshore sailing pushes you to be a more competent, more educated, and better-prepared sailor. It can test your endurance and courage. I felt like I had accomplished something special, at least to me.
The camaraderie is meaningful. We certainly had our rough patches, but we worked through them and worked together. I had so much confidence in the skipper and enjoyed getting to know the navigator. We had a great dinner to recollect and celebrate in Rhode Island on Saturday night and made up for 5-days of no booze.
You also may get to see whales, dolphins, and birds you would not see on land. The sky at night and the phosphorescence are magical. The Gulf Stream can create changes in the sea, wind, temperature, and sailing conditions that can knock you on your butt but it’s a fascinating phenomenon.
It’s also scary and dangerous. Our passage was quite easy as winds never built above 25kts and the waves were small. It still had moments that made me more than a little nervous.
If you don’t take the right precautions, you can get in trouble in a split second. The death in the recent Bermuda Race is a testament to this. You can also get injured just by being thrown around while you are below decks in rough conditions.
Even well-prepared and maintained boats break. Several boats turned back in the Bermuda Race because important gear failed. In one case the whole rig collapsed.
Would I do it again? Probably. It would have to be on the right boat, with the right skipper and a passage worth making. I also would not want to do anything longer than this passage. By day 4, I was ready to be home.
I used to fantasize about sailing the Atlantic or making a trip to South America to sail around Cape Horn. I have lost interest in doing that.
The return crew of three were Phil, skipper and owner, Jack (a great name for a sailor) the navigator from the race, a highly experienced offshore sailor, and me aka “Roger the Cabin Boy”. As Phil and Jack are of an older persuasion, I was responsible for semi-skilled manual labor. Basically, if a line needed pulling or something needed attention outside the cockpit, that would be my job.
To be honest, I love that stuff!
The skipper has a vast responsibility in offshore sailing. First and foremost, the captain is responsible for the safety of the crew in what can be a very dangerous environment. He or she is also responsible for the preparation of the boat, selection, and training of the crew, race entry and administration, logistics, race strategy, provisioning, and working with the navigator on navigation. And this is all before the boat leaves the mooring.
If the captain owns the boat, he is also on the hook to pay for all this. At the risk of stating the obvious, it’s an expensive sport. Possibly only polo and motor racing are more costly.
Once underway, in addition to ensuring that no one is hurt, the captain needs to ensure that the crew has a routine that allows them to eat and sleep enough while still being competitive in the race. He has to think about what could go wrong in any given weather conditions. He needs to make decisions based on the navigator’s recommendations. And, as they are racing, the captain needs a plan to win the race.
The navigator is a fascinating role. He or she recommends the best course for the boat to win the race, and avoid hazardous sea states and other excessive risks. He has to consider many factors including wind forecasts (direction and speed), sea state (wave heights and wave direction), currents such as the Gulf Stream, the boat’s performance potential, and more.
Navigators look at many different types of data and models from different sources. They typically review the data on an onboard laptop using applications like Expedition. Based on this they will typically present different options to the skipper.
It’s often a thankless task. If the boat wins, everyone had their part to play and the skipper takes the limelight. If the boat does badly, the navigator often gets the blame rightly or wrongly. That said, good navigators are in demand.
It is not unusual for a 40-foot racing yacht to have a crew of 10. This means that in addition to the skipper and navigator there are eight able bodies to execute the various, continuous physical and sometimes precarious tasks required to keep a racing vessel moving fast.
In our case, there was one. Me.
To be fair, we were not racing, we could use our engine to motor, and we were not flying a spinnaker. This latter task requires a small village to execute, physical feats that would terrify a circus acrobat and often quite a lot of harsh language and hurt feelings.
On our passage, we rarely ventured out of the protection of the cockpit, especially when the wind was blowing hard and the boat was moving fast. On half a dozen occasions, I was given an urgent mission that required me to go forward, sometimes crawling on all fours, clipped to a lifeline, on a deck that was moving up and down by 4 feet every 20 seconds, with the threat of a wave washing over deck, to perform tasks that are quite complicated on a stationary boat.
But that’s what I came for and I LOVE it!
And I also made the sandwiches.
Phil’s yacht, Freebird is a classic fiberglass yacht with a great pedigree. She was built in the 70s by the Finnish boat builder Nautor Swan based on a Sparkman Stephens design. I will spare you the gory details, but these guys know how to design and build great boats. She is built like a tank but sleek nevertheless. I can’t think of a better boat to sail on in rough offshore conditions.
As a sloop, she carries a big mainsail. For this return trip, we were using a relatively small headsail so that we would not be overpowered. She has 10 winches and more lines than I can count.
Phil has owned Freebird for 37 years and has spared nothing to maintain and equip her to race competitively and be a comfortable boat to cruise on.
In preparation for the race, Phil completed a list of over 100 tasks that he believed were required for Freebird to be ready to race. This included replacing all the rigging, changing the 12-Volt electrical power to lightweight lithium-ion batteries, and overhauling the diesel engine.
Below decks, Freebird is beautiful with mahogany bulkheads and doors, lots of handles to hold on to when the boat is heeled over and banging around, comfortable berths, a very efficient fridge, a well-functioning head and a freshwater system that uses either electrical pumps or manual foot pumps.
There is no more important priority for captain and crew in sailing than safety. The preparations for the Bermuda Race are intense. The list of requirements runs to 30 pages. For example, each boat must have a recently certified life raft, and a man-of-overboard system and each boat is inspected before she can start. Each boat must have crewmembers who have taken a 16-hour safety at sea course, and first-aid training and 30% of each crew must have done this.
Phil insisted that each crew member wear an offshore life jacket, with a harness with two tethers to clip on to fixtures on the boat or a jackline. Each jacket should also be fitted with a Man-over-Board (MOB) AIS beacon. This $300 device notifies anyone in the area of your precise location. If I went overboard, Freebird would find me in the dark, in fog, and in heavy waves thanks to this amazing technology.
Freebird’s AIS system allowed us to be aware of any other vessel within at least a 25-mile radius. This provided information about their course, speed, and most importantly how close we would come to each other if both vessels maintained course and speed. Consequently, we would know if there was a risk of collision.
In addition, Freebird had an updated radar system that allowed us to track boats without AIS and also look out for bad weather. Squalls and heavy showers show up on the radar. This gave us time to prepare the boat if a squall was imminent.
The last piece of preparation was provisioning.
Serious offshore racing crews eat freeze-dried meals, mixed up in a giant container, and doled out into dog bowls. I am not making this up.
We were a bit more civilized.
Phil had filled up the freezer with pasta dinners. They were tasty but eating them every night got a little repetitive, especially for Phil and Jack who had eaten them on the race down to Bermuda. We took a run to a little supermarket prior to departure to stock up on cookies, candy, bread, and stuff to make sandwiches for lunch. Breakfast was toast, yogurt, cereal, juice, and coffee.
The only rule was no alcohol. No wine, beer, or liquor until we tied up in Rhode Island. And no rum. This was not a pirate ship for heaven’s sake.
In Part 3, I will tell you about the passage itself.
One of my greatest passions in life is sailing. I didn't sail growing up and very few of my friends or family sailed so I am not really sure where the interest came from. Early in our marriage, my wife and I decided that it would be good to have a common interest. Neither of us liked golf and both of us were intrigued by sailing. We took some lessons and bought a small boat that we could sail on Galveston Bay. We loved it and it has been a shared passion that bonds us.
Over thirty-three years, we have sailed in many places, on multiple types of boats, and in many conditions. We have sailed up and down the Atlantic coast, Texas, Southern England, Turkey, all over the Caribbean, Hawaii, and even on Lake Dillon in the Rockies. We have owned three boats, the last was Cadence, a 38-foot sloop, we sailed from 2010 to 2019. We kept her in New Jersey initially and then mostly in New England, with Newport RI, as her base.
I calculated that I have personally sailed over 5,000 miles. It’s the equivalent of sailing from the US to the UK.
However, this was done in 20-mile increments. Despite all this experience, I have never sailed offshore more than 20 miles. It’s actually not that unusual, as many sailors have not experienced offshore sailing and limit their sailing to coastal and lake sailing. And this is with good reason. Offshore sailing is much more challenging.
I felt like an incomplete sailor, especially as many of my sailing friends had sailed offshore and some extensively. It has been a personal goal to sail a big distance and, take part in the biennial Newport RI to Bermuda Race.
Coastal or Inshore sailing is not without risk. There are many ways you can get in trouble sailing along a coast and conditions can get scary five miles from land, but offshore sailing takes this to a new level of scary.
The basic difference is how long you sail. Coastal sailing passages are typically during daylight and last less than 12 hours (occasionally a full day). Most of our coastal passages were 20 miles and occasionally more than 100 miles with stops along the way. We rarely sailed Cadence in darkness.
Offshore passages last for several days and nights. The Newport-Bermuda passage is typically 4 to 5 days long. The Transpac typically takes 12-14 days to sail from California to Hawaii. Crossing the Atlantic can take 2 to 3 weeks.
And that means sailing continuously, through the night and regardless of how the weather forecast changes. And over that period the weather forecast will most likely change.
Waves can be enormous offshore. Think about looking behind you and seeing a 25-foot wave towering over you. If the forecasted waves are big and you are a coastal sailor, you won’t leave the dock. If you are sailing offshore and the waves build from 3 feet to 10 feet, you just have to deal with it.
If the wind forecast is for over 20 knots (kts) with a possibility of gales later in the day, most coastal sailors stay home. If you are sailing close to shore and conditions exceed the weather forecast, you can head for a safe harbor. Offshore sailors have to tough it out.
In coastal sailing, if you get in trouble, you can radio the coast guard and they will come to your assistance. If you are 200 nautical miles (nm) offshore, you are most likely out of range of a helicopter. A coast guard vessel could take days to get to you and the nearest ship may not be able to assist you. You may be on your own, so you plan accordingly.
And things can go wrong. Tragically, in this recent Bermuda Race, a sailor I knew was washed overboard and died as the crew was attempting to recover him. This sailor was highly experienced, well-prepared, and had a great crew, some of whom I have known for years. Fatal accidents can happen to anyone.
For a reason that I can’t explain I have yearned to sail offshore for decades. A great friend, Phil Asche is a highly experienced offshore sailor who has sailed tens of thousands of miles, much of this on Freebird, his Swan 44, a well-built and meticulously maintained yacht.
He had entered the 2022 edition of the Bermuda Race and asked me if I wanted to crew with him. I leaped at the opportunity.
Unfortunately, less than a week before the race start, I tested positive for COVID. Although I had no symptoms this made me a risk to the crew. Moreover, every race participant had to be tested within 72 hours of the race and testing positive would make me ineligible to race.
I dropped out and I was gutted.
I glumly stayed in touch with Phil and the crew as they prepared and tried to console me. I was letting them down too as they would now only be sailing with a crew of four, three of whom were in their 70s.
I tracked their passage obsessively, through the race website, and kept up with conditions. They had a tough race as winds were 20+ kts with significant waves. Some equipment issues slowed them down too. They finished in 5 days and ahead of several comparable boats but not up on the podium.
Three days into the race, when they were still over 150 days from Bermuda, I received this text from Phil via their Iridium Satellite system.
I can’t share my response, but it was strongly in the affirmative. While it was still disappointing not to take part in the race, I would be sailing over 600 miles offshore, crossing the Gulf Stream, and sail into Newport, RI, a town that I hold dear.
In Part 2, I will tell you about the boat and the crew.