Trip Report: Mystic to St Thomas Hanse 400 delivery

For the most part it was an uneventful trip. I'll post some
links to pictures/video's when I get some more time.

Part I was Mystic to Bermuda. I was one of a crew
of four, # 2 on the boat. The last two were students
--out on the ocean for the first time. We left late on
10 November and arrived on the 14th. 650 miles in
~ 4.5 days

Part II was Bermuda to St Thomas. I was the skipper
with a crew of two more. We left at 3:30pm on the 16th
and arrived at 3:30 on the 21st of November. 870 miles in
just over 5 days.


Part I:

The departure was delayed several times due to weather
and last minute boat issues. The second time we
managed to get out, and were ready to sail off, but
could not get down to the swing bridge in time. A 12
hour delay would mean beating into a gale as we
approached Bermuda. We opted to wait two days for
a weather window. Even this looked like we would catch
some big wind, but as it turned out we didn't, just the
remnants of the previous low's swell. Winds were mostly
from the North and pretty cold. I wasn't planning on using
a sleeping bag but decided to use one as me feet got a
bit cold. One of the two students brought "toasty toes"
- chemical warming packs. I put one in each of my two
Ugg boots. [For footwear I bought my Uggs and my Crocs.]
I slept in my cloths for the first two days and started
shedding cloths when we hit the Gulf Stream.

The waters seemed relatively flat so I didn't take any
sea-sickness medicine. I would probably have been
fine, but overconfident I had half a sandwich and two
cups of soup. The soup came up later on and I was
fine after that on the second day, and felt progressively
better as time went on. One of the students got sick
but didn't want to admit it. I don't have a problem
talking about it.

Both students were outstanding on the boat, willing
and active. I hung back and let them do many of the
chores as they so obviously enjoyed it. They reefed,
trimmed up the boat with wind changes and did and
all around excellent job. One fellow was Polish. He
was sharp as a razor, active and intelligent. Clearly
and experienced sailor. The other was an American
that I'd raced with in the St Thomas Invitational Regatta.
He was perhaps a bit more tentative, but very capable
and natural on deck. I'd welcome either one on a future
trip.

I set up a 1 hour watch schedule thinking we might need
it going through the Gulf Stream, but we could hardly tell
we were in the Gulf Stream aside from the dolphins and
water temperature which read 81 in the Gulf Stream. The
idea was we could double up and hang out with our relief
watch. I did it anyway as the sky was remarkably clear
with the new moon. I started counting shooting stars and
reached 51 or more by the last night of the trip. The one
hour watch schedule was actually quite nice. I liked the
fact that it was over so fast. Also, we saw quite a bit of
traffic, especially near the coast the first night out. In fact
I've never seen so much traffic. On one watch I had to
dodge two ships, sailing an S-turn to get around each.

We used the auto pilot quite a bit and it didn't seem to
need much attention. It was a Simrad unit--as were the
instruments, albeit we used a portable Garmin GPS for
navigation. Otto--the auto-pilot was tireless and quite
nice when I was feeling a bit sea sick, although I hand
steered a bit to help get over the initial seasickness I had.
The Hanse's helm was so well balanced that the pilot needed
relatively little power to operate. I later ran the unit on leg 2
for two days straight and the batteries could have easily
handled much more. We also ran the dc chiller non-stop.
That didn't seem to keep the ice box cold and I tossed out
a lot of food on the second leg.

I learned that Gulf Stream Meander rotate contrary to the
way I thought they rotated. That information alone is worth
the trip. This means a warm eddy formed by a meander on
the North side of the Gulf Stream rotates clockwise.

http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceancolor...cs_rings.shtml

As we were closing on the Gulf Stream and the water
temperature jumped from the 57, up to the 70's I spotted
four dolphins and managed to get a few good videos of
them jumping around our bow. We had been motoring in
light wind to make time and I'm sure the sound of our
propulsion attracted them. They stayed with the boat
about 1/2 and hour.

We had no luck fishing on this leg. We lost one lure. I
didn't like our remaining lure much, as I prefer the pink squid
type lures. Then we lost the second lure.

On the third day, two 80+ foot yachts appeared behind us
and overhauled us during the day. A call on the radio to
one confirmed that they left the day after we did from
Newport, and were en-route to Bermuda. After that we
saw only one other ship, and no traffic at all going into
Bermuda the last night. That was unusual also. I
expected to see three or four other lights on the horizon
as it was so clear.

The Bermuda harbor approach might seem a little scary
the first time you go in, but actually it is quite easy.
While the reef is very large, it is well marked and one
steered to the east and zip you are in the St Georges
Cut before you know it. It is a wonderful harbor--with
lots of good holding, but a bit deep in spots--40-45'.
Bermuda is on top of an extinct volcano. It must have
been caused by a meteor impact because there is no
ridge on the bottom nearby. Depths change from quite
deep to soundings in a short distance. Charted depths
are ridiculously (miles) deep. Trying to estimate when
we'd hit soundings I noticed one portion going from 200
meters to 30 meters. This was quite close to the reef.
We knew we were close to running out of fuel, but tried
to motor in with fumes and ran out of fuel just outside
the harbor. An outboard motor squeeze bulb allowed
us to prime the engine and get it restarted in moments.
It is the best $4 you can spend! The next morning we
cleared in among the many mega-yachts.

Part II:

All of the harbor fuel docks were closed. We found a
fuel truck that came to our boat tied up at the quay.
After refueling our main tanks and our one depleted
backup tank, the others in the crew took off to return
to the states. I picked up our other crew and now had
to deal with an approaching front with Southerly winds
gusting to 35 knots. I decided to tie up at the Dinghy
Club so we could run some errands in town. It would
have been better to tie up closer to town. With the winds
picking up club members suggested I bring the boat
inside the seawall. I tried but couldn't fit the boat in
and had to anchor out. During the process I snagged a
stanchion and bent it badly. I used the Fortress anchor
located on the bow and immediately regretted it as the
scope was a bit short. We got caught in a down pour
and ducked inside, whereupon the rain ended.

Fortunately things calmed down and checking with the
weather service found the main front was not due until
the next day, whereupon the winds would shift to the
Northwest--my exit timing strategy. Our anchor held
nicely and I only had to pop out a couple of times to
check our anchor. It was nice to get a relatively
uninterrupted night's sleep on the boat. I crept off to
the bow when I discovered my friend Mike snores
louder than a dinosaur. He wears ear plugs so he
won't wake himself up!

Bermuda weather radio predicted winds would swing
to the Northwest. Instead the morning forecast was for
west winds changing to Northwest in the afternoon.
We hung around until mid afternoon, docking at the
Dinghy Club, and winds picked up, pinning us there
pretty well. I sent my crew off to buy a few more
items and listened to the radio some more. After
a while it lightened up slightly but the winds stayed
in the West. I decided to leave around 3pm. Checking
the engine over, I found 2/5 inches of water in the Racor
water filter. Using a small cup to collect it, and the
squeeze bulb to purge it took only a few minutes
--very cool. I test ran the engine for ten minutes
without a hiccup.

We set out and hoisted the main with a single reef. I
decided against setting the jib, and the winds were
20-25 with gust up to 35 knots. Leaving on a Friday
is supposed to be bad luck, I told myself we left the
previous Saturday. Mike immediately starting feeling
nauseous. He and I had taken Stugereon. I worked
for me, perhaps because I had my sea legs still. Mike
asked for a second one, and I decided to take a second
one. I noticed the recommended dosage was two to
start and then one every 8 hours--or was it 12 hours
(not sure). When he went below, he lasted about ten
minutes and then spent the next hour or so in the head,
being violently sick with dry heaves. I gave him water,
some cough drops, and several barf bags. I moved
over into James' bunk as I was afraid the smell of vomit
would make me sick. This was my first use of Stugereon
and I found it made my slightly sleepy. It was sort of
like Ambien in that it turns your mind off slightly from
thinking about feeling sick, so you can sleep. I was
quite impressed with it and I've tried most sea sickness
medicines. I recommend it, albeit it is not available in
the US. Pick some up in Bermuda--you can find it
there.

So James and I did alternating watches for the next
five days. Typically he'd start the night, I'd take the
graveyard hours to near dawn and turn it over to him.
Later on Mike stood a few watches, but once fell
asleep on watch--****ing off James. After that he
stood only daytime watches.

The winds calmed down and finally went northwest
14 hours after expected. Still later the winds went
east and stayed there for a long time, eventually
going more northerly.

With things calmed down, I installed a new stanchion
and move the fixed jib leads forward. This boat normally
used a self tending car, but for the trip, we had rigged a
pad-eye on the rail to more outboard sheeting. But it
was not set in the right position, so I spent some time
unscrewing Allen hex screws and moving it forward.

We hooked the loch ness monster! Whatever it was, it
ran out 50 yards of 90# line in about 1.5 seconds, and
then snapped five of the seven eyelets on the rod, before
the line snapped at the reel. We later hooked another
fish and lost the line and lure just at the leader. Mike
is a notorious fishing jinx and he proved it again this trip.

At 19 deg 50 minutes north, we crossed the Puerto Rico
Trench. James was just coming on watch, so I didn't
have to wake him. Together, we tossed in the bent
stanchion at a depth of 8032 meters--almost 5 miles
deep! I figure it took 10-12 hours for it to hit bottom.

Problems:

When the winds lightened up, we spotted a tear in the
main. We saw this in the first leg, but it had gotten
much bigger--hooking on the reefing hook when hoisted.
James and I patched this and the sail held the full hoist
the rest of the trip.

I noticed water leaking out of the aft head. Someone had
left the water pressure on. Given that I was the only one
who seemed to remember to shut it off, it must have been
me. It turned out the manual pump seal had been
displaced by the pressure. I removed it, disassembled it,
put it back together properly and reinstalled it.

The only other problem was ice box which never seemed
all the cold. It does have a lower side-opening door and I
suspect my crew opened that way too often. James did
most of the cooking and I don't think he has good ice-box
discipline.

Lessons learned:

The outboard squeeze bulb is something every boat should have.

Gulf Stream Meanders are formed by closing the loop. So the
rotation in such cases is clockwise on the north side, and
counter clockwise on the south side.

The Hanse 400. While I did not sail it upwind in heavy
weather, I found the boat handled great. One friend tells
me it does not handle well in heavy weather upwind.

The rudder is well balance and it has a mechanical linkage
so no chain and quadrant. At a certain point there is a
bit of binding which goes away if you turn it farther. I'd like
to check this out in more detail if I sail the boat again.

Once again I loved the auto pilot. It worked perfect and never
seemed stressed, except the one time I found the brake on
slightly. Aactually it just squeaked, it didn't seem labored at
all.

Storage was good. The hatches sealed well. I'm not a fan
of single line reefing, but that worked well also. The installed
Boom brake worked pretty well, but needs a few modifications
to make it perfect. It chafed along the wood strip on the
cabin top. The teak decks looked nice and offered good
traction. The transom folds open to make a nice pass through
and the wheel is not so big you cannot get around it easily.

I wish the dodger extended back farther. The boat does not
have a good layout for ocean sailing. I'd prefer settees that
convert into bunks, with pilot berths above, like the J-44.
The aft cabin was split into two sea berths with lee boards
made from wire shelving material. It worked, but not that
great. As a double hander I think it would be a great passage
maker. For more than two people it needs a different interior.
But I don't think you need more than two people with an
auto-pilot. I'd rather have some spare parts and one less
person on board.

Bart