Where Is The Far Reach--Part III

[John Stone]

The time has come to head for home. Barring anything unforeseen I'll slip the mooring tomorrow morning. My plan is to follow a curving route home just south of the rhumb line between St Thomas and Beaufort NC. I'll have good wind for first four days then it peters out for maybe four days of very light wind. There might be little more wind closer to the Bahamas than if I was on the Rhumb-line where the High is going to settle next week. Not sure what happens after forecasted light air. Normally I'd make it home in about 11 days. Strong winds tomorrow--20 gusting 25 but ESE so down-wind. Should make some good time initially. Then we just have to see.

I topped off with ice and some water today. Picked up apples, oranges, tangerines, lettuce, pizza fixings, nuts, eggs, bread, bacon. Still have plenty of rice and flour and chips and sausage and red beans and rice. Also plenty of ramen noodles. Plan to work on my celestial. Hopefully, I won't have too much cloud cover. It will be interesting to see if the deeper notches I cut on the windvane bracket reduce the frequency of the servo tripping on the sargasso.

I'll post when I make landfall.

[Steve Laume]

Have a fast and safe passage.

Spring is in full swing, headed for summer. Nice time of year to get home.

Have fun and enjoy, Steve.

[Paul D.]

Good sailing to you John!

[wikakaru]

If you haven't left already, bon voyage. On that route you have plenty of places to bail out until the Abacos, then the Georgia Bight makes bailout much harder. Maybe as you pass the Abacos you can confirm a good forecast for the rest of the way.

May you have an uneventful passage.

Smooth sailing,

Jim

[John Stone]

Homeward bound. Leaving Savanah Isl to port. Heading out into the Atlantic.

[John Stone]

Hi everyone. i sailed into Beaufort NC a couple hours ago after a 12 day & 8 hr voyage from St Thomas. I'll post a trip report in a few days. But the short version is everything went well. We had about four days of ridiculously slow sailing--as in mirror calms. We were visited by dolphins more this time than on our previous voyages. A Bridled Tern spent an overnight with us. We had a spectacular run in the Gulf Steam hitting at least 10 kts when the wind was only blowing 10-14. I may have solved the problem of the windvane servo blade disconnecting. The boat performed fabulously. It's great to be home.

[mgphl52]

Welcome back & glad you had a great and safe voyage!

[Sea Hunt Video]

Welcome home John

You are just in time for the start of Hurricane Season 2022

[John Ring]

Far Reach looks fantastic! Well done!
John Ring
CD36 Tiara

[wikakaru]

Hi everyone. i sailed into Beaufort NC a couple hours ago after a 12 day & 8 hr voyage from St Thomas. I'll post a trip report in a few days. But the short version is everything went well. We had about four days of ridiculously slow sailing--as in mirror calms. We were visited by dolphins more this time than on our previous voyages. A Bridled Tern spent an overnight with us. We had a spectacular run in the Gulf Steam hitting at least 10 kts when the wind was only blowing 10-14. I may have solved the problem of the windvane servo blade disconnecting. The boat performed fabulously. It's great to be home.

Hi John,

Congratulations (belatedly) on your fine passage. Glad you have the problem with the servo blade disconnecting fixed. Was the Sargasso weed heavy on this trip too? It sounds like the asymmetry problem with the blade is fully fixed too.

I'm just digging out after a nearly 2,000 mile road trip, opening up the Maine cottage, and beginning to commission the Maine boat for the summer. There's a big work list to get done before I can launch, but I hope it's not too long before I'm on the water again.

Smooth sailing,

Jim

[John Stone]

Hello everyone. Looking over the forum it looks like lots of folks have their boats back in the water and are out sailing, Outstanding.

I wanted to tidy up the last post for my voyage home from the VI.

Overall it was the easiest of the three voyages I have made single-handing from the VI to NC. There was no "violent" weather. All the thunder storms observed were on the horizon. I had the fewest squalls of my voyages with only one that qualified as a squall with winds briefly to maybe 40 kts. Other than that there was only a little rain. While the wind was light for much of the trip and flat calm for three days the seas were fairly flat too so not much rolling and slatting of sails. It was the most light wind I have experienced going to or from the Virgin Islands. I think it was a good call to make the trip in mid May, though historically probably a little earlier than normally recommended.

A couple other observations:
-I had cube ice for 9 full days.
-The External GPS antenna I installed for the Vesper Watchmate 850 AIS worked great never losing signal with the satellites.
-I had trouble with the Harken bullet blocks that handle the control lines for the Cape Horn windvane. The bearings have flattened and are squealing. The Harken tech rep believes it is due to high loads and minimal turning of the sheaves. They have made a new block which he thought better suited to such conditions. It's a bearingless block called the "Element Block." I will try them out.
-I ran the engine for a total of 7 hours through 4 days of calms. It worked flawlessly.
-Folding propeller: In light wind conditions, like I experienced, the folding prop really shined. I recommend anyone who enjoys sailing and desires to improve performance under sail consider investing in a folding prop if it works in your boat (it won't work in CDs other than mine) otherwise a feathering prop. You will notice the difference.

Other than the planned installation of the Harken furler I wouldn't change anything.

Some statistics I gathered from the log book:
-Length of passage: 12 Days, 8 hours
-Miles sailed: 1,397nm
-Ships Sighted: 14 
-Times hove-to: 1 
-Tacks: 8 
-Gybes: 8
-Sail Changes: 31 
-Number of reefs in and out: 11 
-Fuel used: 2.5 gallons
-Water Used: 14 gallons

For a detailed telling of the voyage home with lots of pictures please visit https://farreachvoyages.net/2022/06/21/ ... #more-2361

Take care and a happy and rewarding sailing summer to everyone.

[wikakaru]

Great blog entry, John. I'm glad to see you posting on WordPress again. This forum is great, but the 3 image limit is very...um...limiting.

At 0900 I was below at the chart table and I heard an outboard engine. What the hell? I went up on deck. There was a guy in an inflatable pacing along with me in the big swells about 20’ off the starboard quarter. For a second I thought is this dude a pirate? LOL. He yelled to me over the wind and waves and asked if I was headed to Puerto Rico. I shouted back no, I was headed to the US. He said he lost his other dinghy and if I saw it would I text him. Sure, no problem. He shouted his cell phone number to me, which I wrote down, and turned about and headed back through the big ocean swells towards St Thomas. It was bizarre.

That guy is lucky to still be alive. Nearly every year some fisherman from the eastern Caribbean loses his engine and gets swept downwind towards the coast of Central America some 1,500 miles away.

If the wind is very light and from aft it seem obvious you would want to haul up more sail to catch more wind and go faster. Not so—the opposite is true if you want to use your windvane. The reason is as the wind gets light sailing downwind the relative wind speed over the deck decreases. At some point there will be so little wind coming over the deck the wind vane can no longer steer.

It makes sense though I'd hate to be going slower than my best possible speed. Do you think gybing downwind and bringing the apparent wind farther forward would be worth the extra distance and effort? What do you find the minimum apparent wind speed you need to maintain self-steering is?

There was a full moon that night and the moonlight illuminated a high mackerel sky. At 2300 I watched the lunar eclipse.

One of my fondest memories from all of my voyaging was seeing a total lunar eclipse while on passage from USVI to Sint Maarten. I know that must have been special for you.

I rigged up a line across the cockpit just below the front of the tiller and then used a 1/8” line to secure the tiller to that transverse line with a prussic. This useful knot would keep the tiller from moving on its own but easily allow me to slide the tiller left and right.

What knot did you use to secure the 1/8th inch line to the tiller? Maybe a round-turn and square knot? I'd like to see a close-up photo if you have one.

If I didn't say it when you posted here on this forum, congratulations on a successful passage.

Smooth sailing,

Jim

[John Stone]

Thanks Jim. I thought the same thing about the guy in the inflatable. One hiccup with that engine and he was a goner. Yep. Happens all the time, often to fisherman in the islands operating in small skiffs.

I have experimented with deep gybing angles before but did not notice any difference in speed until nearly on a reach. If I had crew then I would have flown the drifter some and and hand steered. With the boat rolling you run the risk of wrapping the drifter around the head stay so you have to be attentive at the helm. I have on occasion set the the jib out on the head stay with the whisker pole and flown the drifter free on the opposite side but sheeted through a block on the end of the boom. For that configuration I drop the main so the jib and drifter have clear air. That technique keeps the drifter from getting into mischief with the headstay because the jib blocks it from wrapping round the head stay. Back when I was racing we almost never hoisted the spinnaker without the jib up just for that reason. Once it was up and drawing then we dropped the jib.

I'd rather read eat and sleep though then hand steer to gain a 1/4 or 1/2 kt. There may be a sweet spot with regard to wind speed though for polars to pay off. I'd be interested in them (I have never worked them out for the boat) though I'm not sure how useful they are on a full keel boat in very light wind like I experienced. More research and experimentation would be helpful. And, on a passage like that when singlehanding what would I save in time, 12 or 14 hours? Not that important to me. But, as I said, more experimentation would be helpful. Maybe John Ring can chime in on the topic.

Regarding the windvane in minimal wind. My experience with this vane, now that the servo blade is straight and true, is it seems to steer if there is any wind at all over the airblade. It's amazing. That's not a very scientific answer though. I will go out in a limb and just stay 1-2 kts of wind and it seems to steer.

The knot I used is a prusik. I guess I spelled it wrong on the previous post. It's a knot I learned climbing as a kid. There was a time when climbers used them instead of mechanical ascenders. I also use it on my climbing harness tied around a spare halyard as a safety line. If you grab the knot, it slides. If you pull on the tails it locks. Works either direction.