I'm baaaaack ... from a giant pulse & glide (trans-Atlantic sailing trip)

[MetroMPG]

For anyone who's tried to contact me in the last 3 weeks by private message, e-mail, or in the forum... my apologies!

I took off on a bit of an impromptu trip: sailing from the Azores to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada. I'm nearly caught up on the 3000 messages that accumulated in my absence (the only things I saw more than 3000 of while sailing were the stars in the incredible night skies).

The 6 hour Airbus "pulse" took me from Toronto to the town of Horta on the island of Faial in the Azores. Horta is a busy port - a popular stopping place for vessels crossing the Atlantic.

The "glide" took place aboard this German owned, U.S.-built (1938, by Herreshoff in Mass.) 82-foot schooner, "Mistral":



(Mistral in the outer harbour at Horta ... boat details: http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listi..._id=76628&url= )

Glide time was 13 days. (And there were actually a few hours of propulsion by diesel when the wind died... mini top-up pulses.)



I've done some Atlantic coastal sailing before, but never a crossing. It was quite an experience, with an international crew of characters: 2 Germans; 2 German-Canadians; 2 Canadians; 1 Irishman.

Was funny to find out that one of the crew had been on EcoModder before (reading an electric motorbike build).

The boat had satellite Internet, but at something like 12 Euros per megabyte, you'll forgive me for not loading up EcoModder on a regular basis to keep up to date. Actually, aside from downloading weather maps, I didn't use it for anything else.

So... now back to going through my messages. Be patient with me if you're awaiting a reply about something!

[larrybuck]

Welcome back! Sounds like you had a great time.
The furthest I've every driven from home was in '04 when I drove 9,200 in two weeks in the diesel Quantum, and touched base about 1/3 of the way through the trip in Halifax.

[MetroMPG]

Thanks! I've been describing it as "an adventure" - I'd be lying if I said it was 100% "fun" all the time. Sometimes it was a bit of a slog.

And I learned to loathe the disjointed "Swedish watch" system, which seemed to have us falling further and further behind in sleep! Much prefer 4 hours on, 8 off when sailing around the clock.

[SentraSE-R]

Very cool! Sailing is the ultimate gliding. I did a ten day bareboat rental in the BVIs once, and it was a magical trip. Good for you.

[euromodder]

Cool trip !

Did you experience any severe weather ?

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

And I learned to loathe the disjointed "Swedish watch" system, which seemed to have us falling further and further behind in sleep! Much prefer 4 hours on, 8 off when sailing around the clock.

Watch system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Who devised that Swedish system ?
After standing watch during the night until 6AM, you have to be back up by 10 AM. Silly.

[Daox]

Would you do it again?

[Joenavy85]

Yeah, that swedish watch rotation looks whack. When I was stationed on a Ship we stood 4 and 8, 6 and 12, or 6 and 6, depending on workload and personnel available. If we were 6 and 6, we would dog the watch on Sundays (when we didn't have a workday) with a 1200-1500 watch and then a 1500-1800 watch

[MetroMPG]

Sure. But! Except knowing what I know now, I wouldn't go on an extended tip again that uses that particular watch system.

Euromodder: our exact system wasn't shown on that page. Seems to fall in the "there is no standard for what constitutes a Swedish watch" category. We had two watches that cycled every 48h:

bold = on watch; regular = off

Day 1 ...

0300 - 0700 ... watch I ... watch II
0700 - 1300 ... watch I ... watch II
1300 - 1900 ... watch I ... watch II
1900 - 2200 ... watch I ... watch II

Day 2 ...

2200 - 0300 ... watch I ... watch II
0300 - 0700 ... watch I ... watch II
0700 - 1300 ... watch I ... watch II
1300 - 1900 ... watch I ... watch II
1900 - 2200 ... watch I ... watch II

I found I just kept falling behind on sleep!

Would I do that particular leg again? Going east - west across the North Atlantic isn't common - most sailboats go further south, catch the easterly trade winds to the Caribbean, then reach up the east coast. Longer, but easier sailing.

The direct route we took was much shorter, but you're facing the prevailing winds & waves and dodging (or getting smacked into) by weather systems (we faced 3 passing lows). I would do it again, but not on anything smaller than this boat.

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by euromodder

Did you experience any severe weather ?

Nothing severe (said the more experienced crew), but there were a few exciting days in my opinion! After one particularly windy/wavy night watch I said to another crew member, "I didn't know it was possible to be both bored and alarmed at the same time."

More than a couple of days we had 30-35 knots of wind (35-40 mph / 55 - 65 km/h) sustained. The highest gust I saw while on the wheel was 48 knots (55 mph / 89 km/h). We altered course for about 12 hours to reach away from one approaching low. We were constantly changing the sail plan.

And we had two "laundry days" - where for a few watches the wind was nearly calm (~5 knots) and the sun shone. That's when we motored, and everyone hung out their wet gear to dry and sat out in the cockpit reading & chatting!

[Joenavy85]

FYI, 1 Knot = 1 Nautical Mile Per Hour
1 Nautical Mile = 1 Minute of Arc of Latitude
1 Minute of Arc of Latitude = 6,076 Feet = 1.15 Miles

Just to clear any possible confusion (though I see Metro knows his stuff)