Last Day (hopefully)

Today has been pretty damn good, the only time we had less than 12 kts of wind was around four in the morning, we haven't been going exactly where we want to because of the direction of the wind but we've been going fast. Also the boat we were chasing yesterday, Pau Hana, for a while looked like it way away from us, but it turns out they screwed the pooch big time and went way off to the east so we should be passing them pretty soon. We had our second malfunction of the trip last night at three, our first being the generator not starting, but that wasn't really a big deal because we just used the engine to charge the batteries. Anyway this morning at three one of screws holding the vang to the boom fell out which immediately caused the other to sheer off so we had run a piece of rope to the back of the mast to hold the vang in place. We should be crossing the line in a couple of hours and we are all looking forward to eating on dry land tonight and taking a shower. 

 

 

Wicked Supah Pissah Fast

Whoever read the last blog entry must have blown quite a bit to the east because we have had around 16 kts of wind since 11 yesterday. because of this we are finally making up some ground on a boat, Pau Hana, that we have had in our sights for the better part of two days, we should be passing them in the next hour or so. The wind has made things much more exciting, its pretty hard to stay awake at 2 in the morning when there is 2 kts of wind and your boat is hardly moving at all. Other than some big ass jelly fish we have not seen too much more wildlife, but the water has gotten noticeably bluer which is very pretty. My fathers cooking never ceases to amaze one of the crew members who before thought that anything not freeze dried on a boat was pretty damn good. On a more personal note I, Daniel Orem, writer of the blog, am very happy to report that I have not been sea sick at all this trip, which is quite impressive because in the past a day sail could have gotten me sick. It has been a fun trip but hopefully the wind keeps up and this is our last day at sea.   

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Through the Gulf Stream

Dan Orem, our usual blogger is feeling slightly indisposed, so this entry comes from Nick Sr.  Here's how the race has gone so far:  We got an OK start at 17:10 on Friday.  We lost some ground at first until we got the sails adjusted properly. Then we started to catch up on Saturday, but again lost ground when we headed further west than the rest of the fleet in search of more wind.  The wind that was supposed to be there wasn't, so we again lost ground on the other boats in our class.  Yesterday we had good wind and again started moving up on the other boats (at least the ones we could see on our AIS.)  We started crossing the Gulf Stream late yesterday afternoon.  After dire predictions of huge square waves, the crossing was a bit of a non-event.  Through the night last night we had good wind and sailed fast.  Today the wind started to moderate in mid-morning.  It's now right behind us and not strong enough to keep the sails full as we go down and back up over the waves.  So it's pretty lumpy and not much fun.  Every time a wave rolls underneath us it spills all the wind from the sails, then they refill with a bang.  The off watch crew is having a hard time sleeping because of all the racket down below.

Meanwhile the generator won't start.  I suspect that all the rocking has stirred up some crud in the diesel tank that has clogged the fuel filter.  The main engine still runs, so we can use it to charge the batteries (running in neutral of course.) If we get some calm seas, I'll change the generator fuel filter, if we don't the generator will have to wait until we arrive in Bermuda.

The crew is pretty well rested, very well fed and everybody gets along and does their part, so we're a happy ship.  We expect to arrive in Bermuda some time on Wednesday - depending on the wind it could be early or late.  Life is good, but more wind would make it better.

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First Day

The first twenty two and a half hours of our have been pretty uneventful, the wind has been pretty low especially around 2 in the morning. The racing has been doing pretty well, last night at about 4 we were beating about half of the fleet and much further to the west, but since then we have dropped back. The Automatic Identification System (AIS) has been very useful for seeing where the other boats in the race are. Today so far we have had a pretty constant 6-8 kts of wind which is enough to move us but not very fast. It has been extraordinarily flat so far but this might change once we hit the gulf stream because they weather people are predicting 20-30 kts of wind that opposes the current which will cause some serious waves and a lot of crashing around, but that probably wont be until tomorrow. Due to the impending rough weather Poopy has decided on having 2 watches of 3 people so if your not on watch your sleeping. So far we have not the eddie we wanted to so we haven't really had any boost from the current. We've seen quite a bit of marine life so far, three whales and quite a few jumping fish. The previsions have been much better than  on many other boats, last night we had delicious bow tie pasta provided by Ryan, for breakfast we had sticky buns, for lunch we had soggy empenadas but they were still pretty tasty, and for dinner we are having chili. If you read this please blow to the east and make us some wind, the wassail doesn't go to fast without 15 kts and we are loosing ground.               

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And so it begins

The Wassail blog has been inactive for several years since we sailed from Puerto Rico to Newport. We've spent the last several summers sailing the Maine coast. We've had some great times but not much that was blog worthy.

This summer we're doing the Newport to Bermuda race which starts this coming Friday, June 17. The crew consists of Nick Jr., my grandson Dan, my old pal Ted Livingston, and friends and accomplished sailors Ryan Wilson and Graham McKay.

The first step was to get the boat to Newport. Doug Smith who lives in Newburyport, helped me with the delivery starting early Sunday morning. The wind was blowing him pretty hard as we approached Cape Ann, so we reefed the sails and prepared for a knockdown when we rounded the Cape, but the wind came around with us and was behind the beam so we had a delightful run across Cape Cod Bay. We averaged 8 kn for the whole day. Went through the Cape Cod Canal and spent the night at Onset, then got an early start on Monday for a blustery run down Buzzards Bay, arriving in Newport at about 1230. We tied up at Bowen's Wharf, Doug caught the 2 o'clock bus back to Boston and I cleaned up and made an early night of it. It's now Tuesday morning and I'm starting to work on my prerace checklist.

Dan, who turns 16 this summer, has agreed to do the blog during the race. So the next update will come from him maybe sometime on Saturday.

Nick

Test of email update

Testing again to make sure I remember how to do an email update.

Test of online update

Just making sure this still works.  Nick