BVIs to Bermuda Passage Summary

Hi everyone,
We had an interesting passage from Soper's Hole in the British Virgin Islands to St George in Bermuda.  A mixture of champagne sailing for the first few days followed by several days with cloudy, rainy and occasionally challenging conditions.  A fair balance and it seems only fair to have to work a little to reach nice places!

First the usual plots...

Zen Again Track

Zen Again Speed (note brief "spike" at the big squall)

The track shows how little we had to deviate from the rhumb line.  The "wiggles" towards the end are during and following the squalls.  In the first two squalls the wind veered from SSE to SW and we initially followed the wind before gybing.

Here are the vital stats for the passage…

• Distances/Speeds
• Route Distance = 830nm
• Logged Distance = 891nm
• GPS Distance = 864nm
• Duration = 6 days 6 hours
• Average speed = 5.9kt
• Average VMG = 5.7kt
• Average day's run = 143nm
• Best day's run = 154nm (6.4kt)
• Minimum boat speed = 3 kt
• Maximum boat speed = >14.9 kt (we'll never know for sure)
• Weather
• Minimum wind speed = 6 kt
• Average wind speed = 20 knots
• Maximum wind speed = >50kt (in squall 'nadir')
• Apparent wind angle range = 50 to 150
• Seas up to 3m
• Swell up to 3m
• Later very overcast but initially some gloriously sunny days and starlit nights
• Engine
• Total = 20 hours
• Driving = 12 hours
• Charging = 8 hours
• Consumption
• Water = 40 litres (6.7 litres / day)
• Fuel = 40 litres
• Failures
• Engine raw water overheat alarmed after extended running at low revs under load.  No damage.  Lesson learned!
• Stars
• The boat!
• The rig (for not falling down in squall 'nadir')
• The new tiller and near-new rudder for passing their ultimate load test
• The furlex furler which didn't let us down in its ultimate test
• The Extreme Sails yankee and main which survived their extreme test too
• Pelagic Autopilot ram (steered 50% of passage - a good shakedown)
• Aries vane gear (steered 50% of passage)
• qtVlm GRIB viewer and weather-routing software

Regarding the maximum boat speed, the boat's record under our ownership is 14.9 knots surfing down a big wave on the east coast of Australia.  I believe we exceeded that by a considerable margin in squall 'nadir" but can't prove it so the record stands.

By the way, Zen Again exhibits an interesting phenomenon on the helm at speed.  It feels like there's play between tiller and rudder which is concerning - a "dead zone" in which nothing appears to happen.  I now believe it is caused by turbulence aft of the substantial skeg.  One has to move the tiller a long way to get the rudder into less angry (laminar flow) water to get a response.  Perhaps a naval architect can comment!

View from dinghy dock with Customs House to right and Zen Again at left

Was it worth it?  We think so!!!

We spent this morning cleaning the boat and drying her out.  We went ashore to the very nice White Horse pub for lunch then walked around St George briefly.  Tis a very scenic and historic town, founded in the early 1600s.  Back on board we did the laundry and planned our touring for the next week or so.

Bermuda Arrival

Hi everyone,

We arrived in St George Harbour at 1840 local (Bermuda is on daylight saving) this afternoon after a 6 day 6 hour passage.  It's great to be here.  We're now all cleared in and looking forward to exploring.

Talk of nadirs and "bad karma" appear to be haunting us.  On arrival outside the harbour we were instructed to wait until a ship entered the harbour.  We motored into the wind at low revs for about 20 minutes holding station.  When given clearance to follow him in we increased revs and within a few minutes the engine alarm went off.  We shut down the engine and investigated but the cause wasn't obvious.

sv Aura towing us towards Town Cut

Happily a German yacht Aura was by then only 20 minutes away and Port Control asked them if they were willing to give us a tow.  They were, and did an excellent job at it too.  The harbour entrance "Town Cut" is one of those iconic places in the yachting world.  The Town Cut is scenic but very narrow.  We were sad to have to be towed through it but very happy to get in!  We met the Aura crew ashore while clearing in and hope to buy them lunch in a day or two.

The alarm which went off was for raw water outlet temperature which is measured at the water/exhaust mixer.  I suspect the sender/sensor has failed since we had good raw water flow and the fresh water temperature gauge (which measures at the thermostat housing) showed normal temperature.  I certainly wasn't going to rely on that assessment to get through the narrow cut which of course was directly into wind.

While talking to the Aura and also Vulcan Spirit crews we learned that they saw 72 knots and 50 knots on their instruments during yesterday's squall.  We were somewhere between them so perhaps my wind estimate was on the low side.  I don't have much experience of estimating winds of over 45 knots (thankfully)!

I'll post a passage summary in the next day or two.

All's well here.  Trust all's well where you are.

Bermuda Inbound - Day 6

Hi everyone,
We are currently in position 32 04N 064 37W, saillng at 6.5 knots on a course of 010M. The wind is WNW at 18-22 knots with 1m sea and decaying SSE snd SW swells.  We are sailing under single-reefed main and double-furled yankee.  Broken high cloud with scattered low cumulus - with occasional sun!  Our day's run was 136nm, our DMG was 109nm and we have only 18nm to go.

Downwind under staysail in an earlier downpour

Yesterday turned into a memorable day when the biggest squall we've ever encountered at sea hit us at 1400.  We didn't see it coming since there was thick, low overcast with steady rain.  I was off watch below and heard the wind building rapidly.  Stupidly I wasted time pulling on waterproofs before going on deck.  By then the Aries had "lost it" and we had broached.  The wind probably hit 50 knots in the initial gusts and was steady at 40-45 knots for the next ten minutes or so.  Prior to the squall it had been about 18-22 knots.  We had double-furled yankee and double-reefed main set.

Step one was to get the boat running before the wind.  She came around quite willingly given a lot of control input!  With this accomplished the headsail was no longer shaking the rig so violently and we could furl it.  That was an effort and Nic did a magnificent job.  Meanwhile I was keeping the boat on course as we surfed continuously, not just down the waves.  Twas intense.

With the jib furled away entirely we were then only surfing down every wave.  Nic took the helm and I went forward to haul down the double-reefed main.  Since it's only trisail size it came down reasonably easily.  Under bare poles we were still surfing down some waves at 8-10 knots.  I have no idea what speeds we were doing while we still had rag up but we were flying.  The GPS track data might tell us when I copy it off the chartplotter.

Once we got things under control and the Aries steering again we watched the show.  The rain was so intense it felt like hail.  Horizontal hail.  Thankfully it wasn't very cold.  When sure all was well we retired below to dry off.  Strangly the idea of a tot of rum never occurred to me!

Lessons learned:

• When it hits the fan just grab your lifejacket and get on deck fast!
• When sailing under thick overcast with squalls known to be about, be willing to sail slow just in case
• Don't assume the next squall will be like those preceding it!

What worked well:

• The boat - thank you again designer Ken Hayashi, builder Yamazaki Yachts and refitters Precision Shipwrights!
• Our Precision-rebuilt rudder, Aries vane gear and SailForce s/s tiller which had the ultimate stress test
• Our reefing and sail handling systems
• Doing the rig check and halyard maintenance in the BVIs
• Our canvas nav table cover which prevented the drowning of our laptop

If the high winds had persisted we would have deployed our Jordon Series Drogue.  However within 15 minutes we were no longer surfing and three hours later the wind had died completely!  The squall was the last hoorah of the front.  The seas were very confused for several hours and we ended up motor-sailing all night due to the sea state and light winds.

At dawn a nice moderate WNW wind came in and we were sailing again.  We've had a great close reach towards Bermuda.  At 1000 this morning we called up Bermuda Radio and they gave us initial arrival instructions.  It will be great to get in and sit under a tree for a moment before finding a pub.

Bermuda is a special destination for us.  It is the only 20nm away from the point directly opposite our home port of Fremantle on the globe.  One could say we've reached our antipode.  The celestial navigation term is 'nadir', the opposite of 'zenith' (which is directly overhead).  A few days ago we were joking about reaching our nadir.  Bad karma.  Not so funny now but we survived and are still smiling!!! 

Where-ever we head from Bermuda we will literally be heading for home.  That's a nice thought.