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#1
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Bermuda-Ft. Lauderdale trip account-long
A brief account. Departed 11:00 Sunday after filling the port diesel tank
and taking on water.It was an overcast, gray day, winds were blowing fairly strong as we departed St. George's Harbor.Some folks will be happy to hear that the boat tied up next to us on the wall behind Tavern-by-the Sea was a Beneteau 470. The skipper had pointed out the fairly extensive damage from Hurricane Fabian, "Everest Horizontal" being one of the victims with a huge hole in it's side, as we were strolling around Saturday afternoon, I was told they recorded 150 kt. winds for 50 minutes, but the forecasts which I had seen at home and immigration control at the harbor were showing moderate to strong E-NE winds, no tropical storms in the foreseeable future. As we passed through the cut and out into the Atlantic we were subjected to a fairly rollicking ride, choppy 10-15 ft. seas, and at least 3 of the crew were starting to experience the symptoms of mal de mer. One of the fellows, Al, was looking positively green. He had made the mistake of not putting on his patch until after we departed, Dana had put his patch on but it wasn't helping. I was even struck briefly, was somewhat worried but the skipper pointed out that my problems were probably caused by drinking a little too much the previous evening, which turned out to be the case.It took several days for Al to develop his sea legs, but he was probably aided by the fact that after about an hour or so we turned to head towards Fla.and were sailing downwind in smaller, less choppy seas. I would add that we sailed away under staysail with a single reef in the main. And so it went, weather wise, until we reached Fla., moderate winds with a fairly regular swell with probably a 10 ft. maximum, E-NE winds 10-20 kt. average, with the mean probably in the 10-15 kt. range. The highest I ever saw on any of my watches was 25 kts.We were introduced to the watch schedule the first day, 3 hour watches starting at 20:00 and ending at 8:00. With the number of crew aboard this would work fairly well, ensuring that you would have at least 6 hours between watches. And so it went for the next 6 days. I have sailed with John before, we took Ed's Catalina 400 from Key West to Isla Mujeres then back to Ft.Myers and he told me that two of the most important things for a well adjusted sea life are eating well and regular bowel movements. I hadn't thought much about the former until I went through immigration control at the airport in Bermuda. The nice lady asked me the purpose of my visit, I told her what we were planning on doing. Her first question was who was doing the cooking? Yikes!! She was fairly amused at what must have been the somewhat panicked look on my face. Who would do the cooking? I really didn't know and hadn't discussed it with John, didn't know that Ed, who is a fabulous cook, would be sailing with us. I was relieved to see Ed later Saturday afternoon,aboard during the week he told me that the nice lady at immigration, whom I'm fairly sure processed all of us through and Ed was the last to pass through, said to Ed, You must be the cook! We all laughed at the story. It really was a great sail, and we were thrilled to have a working autopilot, which is nice when you don't feel like hand steering. We had cast a line out, John has a reel mounted on the stern rail and hooked a decent sized mahi mahi, maybe 10 lbs., on Monday, but the thing managed to unhook itself as we were attempting to land it with a gaff. We hooked fish everyday but they never even came close to the boat, we even managed to lose a lure on what looked to be a whopper, judging by the amount of line it took out. Finally on Thursday we landed a 20 pounder, which we had for breakfast the following day, dinner already being on the stove. After that we left the fish alone, in an amusing sidebar, Ed was somewhat distressed my our meal's fate. As he pointed out, you don't look into the cows eyes before you barbecue the steak. It really was a fabulous sail, it rained maybe once the whole time down, we missed the few squalls that popped up from time to time, I had the 23:00-2:00 watch on Thursday, several squalls popped up right around midnight, we threaded a needle and watched one pass behind us and the other track to the west, with the winds boosting our speed to 8 kts. for the better part of an hour. Early Wednesday evening we saw something that the skipper had never seen in all of his may years of sailing, indeed none of us had ever seen in person. We were just NE of Cape Canaveral maybe 100 nm.? offshore when Dana noticed what appeared to be some kind of aircraft climbing steeply, headed in our general direction, with the strangest looking light I've ever seen. Don't know who figured it out first but it was a rocket launch, an absolutely incredible sight at a vantage point that few ever see. I browsed the NASA website briefly but haven't been able to locate any information on what exactly was sent up, will try to do it tomorrow at work. We sighted Abaco and hole-in-the wall midday Friday, the last leg of the trip was the most interesting, with a steady stream of mostly cruiseships steaming between Florida and the Bahamas Friday evening, at one time there were 6 in fairly close proximity to us, and several hours earlier, just before sunset, we had a bulk carrier approaching our stern flash it's spotlights and sound it's horn at us. It wasn't close to a collision course but we bore off anyways, ignoring Neal's lectures on COLREGS. We spotted Lauderdale around 11 or so Saturday, finally managed to drive the boat on a beat with the winds picking up for a fast run for the final 10 miles or so, the only disappointment being the squalls that were quickly rolling in and obscuring the coastline. Indeed it finally rained, ironic as we had put up all of the canvas for the enclosure Sunday afternoon and had been removing it piece by piece as the seas subsided throughout the trip. The last little bit before landfall and the ICW found us huddling under the aft section of the bimini, but it wasn't that big of a deal as we were all wearing bathing suits, we had changed into suits Tuesday for a quick swim and none of us had bothered to change back! Total time, 6 days 3 hours, distance around 950 nm. Will post pics to webshots later in week. John Cairns |
#2
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Bermuda-Ft. Lauderdale trip account-long
Thanks for that. I wonder, why the reef and staysail if you were running
in less than 25 knots? Cheers MC John Cairns wrote: |
#3
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Bermuda-Ft. Lauderdale trip account-long
Almost positive(remember, wasn't feeling so hot myself Sunday) that we shook
the reef out, dropped the staysail and hoisted the genny sometime mid-afternoon Sunday. The wind instrument was set to apparent wind, it may have been in the 25-30 kt. range for the start, wasn't paying real close attention. Went to the Bermuda weather website http://www.weather.bm/ but they don't appear to have anything archived, will try to look this up tomorrow. John Cairns "The_navigator©" wrote in message ... Thanks for that. I wonder, why the reef and staysail if you were running in less than 25 knots? Cheers MC John Cairns wrote: |
#4
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Bermuda-Ft. Lauderdale trip account-long
Hey John,
Can you say 'paragraph'? "John Cairns" wrote in message ... A brief account. Departed 11:00 Sunday after filling the port diesel tank and taking on water.It was an overcast, gray day, winds were blowing fairly strong as we departed St. George's Harbor.Some folks will be happy to hear that the boat tied up next to us on the wall behind Tavern-by-the Sea was a Beneteau 470. The skipper had pointed out the fairly extensive damage from Hurricane Fabian, "Everest Horizontal" being one of the victims with a huge hole in it's side, as we were strolling around Saturday afternoon, I was told they recorded 150 kt. winds for 50 minutes, but the forecasts which I had seen at home and immigration control at the harbor were showing moderate to strong E-NE winds, no tropical storms in the foreseeable future. As we passed through the cut and out into the Atlantic we were subjected to a fairly rollicking ride, choppy 10-15 ft. seas, and at least 3 of the crew were starting to experience the symptoms of mal de mer. One of the fellows, Al, was looking positively green. He had made the mistake of not putting on his patch until after we departed, Dana had put his patch on but it wasn't helping. I was even struck briefly, was somewhat worried but the skipper pointed out that my problems were probably caused by drinking a little too much the previous evening, which turned out to be the case.It took several days for Al to develop his sea legs, but he was probably aided by the fact that after about an hour or so we turned to head towards Fla.and were sailing downwind in smaller, less choppy seas. I would add that we sailed away under staysail with a single reef in the main. And so it went, weather wise, until we reached Fla., moderate winds with a fairly regular swell with probably a 10 ft. maximum, E-NE winds 10-20 kt. average, with the mean probably in the 10-15 kt. range. The highest I ever saw on any of my watches was 25 kts.We were introduced to the watch schedule the first day, 3 hour watches starting at 20:00 and ending at 8:00. With the number of crew aboard this would work fairly well, ensuring that you would have at least 6 hours between watches. And so it went for the next 6 days. I have sailed with John before, we took Ed's Catalina 400 from Key West to Isla Mujeres then back to Ft.Myers and he told me that two of the most important things for a well adjusted sea life are eating well and regular bowel movements. I hadn't thought much about the former until I went through immigration control at the airport in Bermuda. The nice lady asked me the purpose of my visit, I told her what we were planning on doing. Her first question was who was doing the cooking? Yikes!! She was fairly amused at what must have been the somewhat panicked look on my face. Who would do the cooking? I really didn't know and hadn't discussed it with John, didn't know that Ed, who is a fabulous cook, would be sailing with us. I was relieved to see Ed later Saturday afternoon,aboard during the week he told me that the nice lady at immigration, whom I'm fairly sure processed all of us through and Ed was the last to pass through, said to Ed, You must be the cook! We all laughed at the story. It really was a great sail, and we were thrilled to have a working autopilot, which is nice when you don't feel like hand steering. We had cast a line out, John has a reel mounted on the stern rail and hooked a decent sized mahi mahi, maybe 10 lbs., on Monday, but the thing managed to unhook itself as we were attempting to land it with a gaff. We hooked fish everyday but they never even came close to the boat, we even managed to lose a lure on what looked to be a whopper, judging by the amount of line it took out. Finally on Thursday we landed a 20 pounder, which we had for breakfast the following day, dinner already being on the stove. After that we left the fish alone, in an amusing sidebar, Ed was somewhat distressed my our meal's fate. As he pointed out, you don't look into the cows eyes before you barbecue the steak. It really was a fabulous sail, it rained maybe once the whole time down, we missed the few squalls that popped up from time to time, I had the 23:00-2:00 watch on Thursday, several squalls popped up right around midnight, we threaded a needle and watched one pass behind us and the other track to the west, with the winds boosting our speed to 8 kts. for the better part of an hour. Early Wednesday evening we saw something that the skipper had never seen in all of his may years of sailing, indeed none of us had ever seen in person. We were just NE of Cape Canaveral maybe 100 nm.? offshore when Dana noticed what appeared to be some kind of aircraft climbing steeply, headed in our general direction, with the strangest looking light I've ever seen. Don't know who figured it out first but it was a rocket launch, an absolutely incredible sight at a vantage point that few ever see. I browsed the NASA website briefly but haven't been able to locate any information on what exactly was sent up, will try to do it tomorrow at work. We sighted Abaco and hole-in-the wall midday Friday, the last leg of the trip was the most interesting, with a steady stream of mostly cruiseships steaming between Florida and the Bahamas Friday evening, at one time there were 6 in fairly close proximity to us, and several hours earlier, just before sunset, we had a bulk carrier approaching our stern flash it's spotlights and sound it's horn at us. It wasn't close to a collision course but we bore off anyways, ignoring Neal's lectures on COLREGS. We spotted Lauderdale around 11 or so Saturday, finally managed to drive the boat on a beat with the winds picking up for a fast run for the final 10 miles or so, the only disappointment being the squalls that were quickly rolling in and obscuring the coastline. Indeed it finally rained, ironic as we had put up all of the canvas for the enclosure Sunday afternoon and had been removing it piece by piece as the seas subsided throughout the trip. The last little bit before landfall and the ICW found us huddling under the aft section of the bimini, but it wasn't that big of a deal as we were all wearing bathing suits, we had changed into suits Tuesday for a quick swim and none of us had bothered to change back! Total time, 6 days 3 hours, distance around 950 nm. Will post pics to webshots later in week. John Cairns |
#5
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Bermuda-Ft. Lauderdale trip account-long
Nice account, John. 6.5 kn avg. Not bad. What boat were you on? Why Ft.
Laud? Was this a delivery via Bermuda? Bermuda is most often used to gain easting to the islands. |
#6
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Bermuda-Ft. Lauderdale trip account-long
Good report, thanks. Look forward to more pics. Did you visit Neal?
Scotty "John Cairns" wrote in message ... A brief account. Departed 11:00 Sunday after filling the port diesel tank and taking on water.It was an overcast, gray day, winds were blowing fairly strong as we departed St. George's Harbor.Some folks will be happy to hear that the boat tied up next to us on the wall behind Tavern-by-the Sea was a Beneteau 470. The skipper had pointed out the fairly extensive damage from Hurricane Fabian, "Everest Horizontal" being one of the victims with a huge hole in it's side, as we were strolling around Saturday afternoon, I was told they recorded 150 kt. winds for 50 minutes, but the forecasts which I had seen at home and immigration control at the harbor were showing moderate to strong E-NE winds, no tropical storms in the foreseeable future. As we passed through the cut and out into the Atlantic we were subjected to a fairly rollicking ride, choppy 10-15 ft. seas, and at least 3 of the crew were starting to experience the symptoms of mal de mer. One of the fellows, Al, was looking positively green. He had made the mistake of not putting on his patch until after we departed, Dana had put his patch on but it wasn't helping. I was even struck briefly, was somewhat worried but the skipper pointed out that my problems were probably caused by drinking a little too much the previous evening, which turned out to be the case.It took several days for Al to develop his sea legs, but he was probably aided by the fact that after about an hour or so we turned to head towards Fla.and were sailing downwind in smaller, less choppy seas. I would add that we sailed away under staysail with a single reef in the main. And so it went, weather wise, until we reached Fla., moderate winds with a fairly regular swell with probably a 10 ft. maximum, E-NE winds 10-20 kt. average, with the mean probably in the 10-15 kt. range. The highest I ever saw on any of my watches was 25 kts.We were introduced to the watch schedule the first day, 3 hour watches starting at 20:00 and ending at 8:00. With the number of crew aboard this would work fairly well, ensuring that you would have at least 6 hours between watches. And so it went for the next 6 days. I have sailed with John before, we took Ed's Catalina 400 from Key West to Isla Mujeres then back to Ft.Myers and he told me that two of the most important things for a well adjusted sea life are eating well and regular bowel movements. I hadn't thought much about the former until I went through immigration control at the airport in Bermuda. The nice lady asked me the purpose of my visit, I told her what we were planning on doing. Her first question was who was doing the cooking? Yikes!! She was fairly amused at what must have been the somewhat panicked look on my face. Who would do the cooking? I really didn't know and hadn't discussed it with John, didn't know that Ed, who is a fabulous cook, would be sailing with us. I was relieved to see Ed later Saturday afternoon,aboard during the week he told me that the nice lady at immigration, whom I'm fairly sure processed all of us through and Ed was the last to pass through, said to Ed, You must be the cook! We all laughed at the story. It really was a great sail, and we were thrilled to have a working autopilot, which is nice when you don't feel like hand steering. We had cast a line out, John has a reel mounted on the stern rail and hooked a decent sized mahi mahi, maybe 10 lbs., on Monday, but the thing managed to unhook itself as we were attempting to land it with a gaff. We hooked fish everyday but they never even came close to the boat, we even managed to lose a lure on what looked to be a whopper, judging by the amount of line it took out. Finally on Thursday we landed a 20 pounder, which we had for breakfast the following day, dinner already being on the stove. After that we left the fish alone, in an amusing sidebar, Ed was somewhat distressed my our meal's fate. As he pointed out, you don't look into the cows eyes before you barbecue the steak. It really was a fabulous sail, it rained maybe once the whole time down, we missed the few squalls that popped up from time to time, I had the 23:00-2:00 watch on Thursday, several squalls popped up right around midnight, we threaded a needle and watched one pass behind us and the other track to the west, with the winds boosting our speed to 8 kts. for the better part of an hour. Early Wednesday evening we saw something that the skipper had never seen in all of his may years of sailing, indeed none of us had ever seen in person. We were just NE of Cape Canaveral maybe 100 nm.? offshore when Dana noticed what appeared to be some kind of aircraft climbing steeply, headed in our general direction, with the strangest looking light I've ever seen. Don't know who figured it out first but it was a rocket launch, an absolutely incredible sight at a vantage point that few ever see. I browsed the NASA website briefly but haven't been able to locate any information on what exactly was sent up, will try to do it tomorrow at work. We sighted Abaco and hole-in-the wall midday Friday, the last leg of the trip was the most interesting, with a steady stream of mostly cruiseships steaming between Florida and the Bahamas Friday evening, at one time there were 6 in fairly close proximity to us, and several hours earlier, just before sunset, we had a bulk carrier approaching our stern flash it's spotlights and sound it's horn at us. It wasn't close to a collision course but we bore off anyways, ignoring Neal's lectures on COLREGS. We spotted Lauderdale around 11 or so Saturday, finally managed to drive the boat on a beat with the winds picking up for a fast run for the final 10 miles or so, the only disappointment being the squalls that were quickly rolling in and obscuring the coastline. Indeed it finally rained, ironic as we had put up all of the canvas for the enclosure Sunday afternoon and had been removing it piece by piece as the seas subsided throughout the trip. The last little bit before landfall and the ICW found us huddling under the aft section of the bimini, but it wasn't that big of a deal as we were all wearing bathing suits, we had changed into suits Tuesday for a quick swim and none of us had bothered to change back! Total time, 6 days 3 hours, distance around 950 nm. Will post pics to webshots later in week. John Cairns |
#7
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Bermuda-Ft. Lauderdale trip account-long
Pretty nice trip, there Michigan boy....You do us proud....
--=20 katysails s/v Chanteuse Kirie Elite 32 http://katysails.tripod.com "Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea." - Robert A. Heinlein |
#8
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Bermuda-Ft. Lauderdale trip account-long
There were actually 3 Michigan boys vs. a Texan and a guy from Philly. John
and Ed are both from Michigan, Ed is the older brother of John's best friend growing up. Kinda nice, actually. John Cairns "katysails" wrote in message ... Pretty nice trip, there Michigan boy....You do us proud.... -- katysails s/v Chanteuse Kirie Elite 32 http://katysails.tripod.com "Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea." - Robert A. Heinlein |
#9
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Bermuda-Ft. Lauderdale trip account-long
Kaufman 47, same basic dna as the Hylas boats. Fairly fast, the po won his
class in the Marion-Bermuda Race. John bought the boat in March, messed around in NE most of the summer with his girls, sailed down from Newport in late October, I was supposed to go on that leg but missed it due to family obligations. It was a fairly wild ride down from Newport, usually is that time of year from what I've been told. We listened to that Herb guy up in Canada who does the yacht routing service, those guys coming down from the north were getting hammered, while we were sailing south in good weather. John Cairns "SkitchNYC" wrote in message ... Nice account, John. 6.5 kn avg. Not bad. What boat were you on? Why Ft. Laud? Was this a delivery via Bermuda? Bermuda is most often used to gain easting to the islands. |
#10
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Bermuda-Ft. Lauderdale trip account-long
Of course not. Did you really think Neal would let me take unedited pics of
his life to post on the web? John Cairns "Scott Vernon" wrote in message ... Good report, thanks. Look forward to more pics. Did you visit Neal? Scotty |
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