Postscript; Just when you thought the drama was over; Falmouth to Hoo

Postscript:

George provided these graphics and stats

Total distance = 2956 NM 

St Pierre-St John’s: 204 NM;

St John’s-Nanortalik: 926 NM;

across Greenland: 85 NM;

Greenland-Falmouth: 1741NM). 

Best 24hr passage=159NM (riding tail of Hurricane Erin).

Falmouth to Hoo

Once in the Carrick Roads (the outer harbour area), I hoist the sails and by 1830 'we' are out of the harbour and heading east. We have a fine sailing breeze and bowl along nicely at 6 + knots with the wind just aft of the beam. I'm too lazy to cook and so have a hot pot with some of the white loaf I bought this morning. During the night we are visited by a pod of Pilot Whales. I've never seen them in the Channel before and was delighted to (just about) to see them.

By 0100 we are south of Plymouth and the tide has turned against us and slowed us down, so whilst we are still making 6+ knots through the water we are down to to 4 knots over the ground. I get into my solo night time routine and sleep, depending on the circumstances, for, 15, 20, or 30 minutes at a time up until about 1000. 

Before then, around 0700 the tide changes again in our favour again and we

are quarter of the way across Lyme Bay making 7-8 knots over the bottom.

I have a fry up for breakfast around 1000 making sure I save enough bacon and eggs etc for one final one when I hopefully get safely back to Hoo. 

By 1300 we are south of Poole and the tide has turned again and pegged us back to 3 knots over the ground. 0700 or thereabouts and the tide changes again and we make good progress eastwards south of the Isle of Wight. By 2200 we are crossing the approaches to the Eastern Solent and the busy Nab Channel that all the commercial vessels making for Southampton use. This is an area one wants to get across as quickly as possible and where the skipper needs to be on high alert to avoid getting in the way of any of the big boys.

Unfortunately the wind backs east of south around this time and freshens considerably. We are suddenly over canvassed with full sail up in 25 knots AND are being forced northwards closer to the entrance of the Nab Channel. I need to reef and it's possible I may need to tack if the wind backs further. And oh, sod it,

the starboard pole is still rigged, so I'll have to get that down too! I hope that the forecast for the wind to veer and return to the south/southwest in a couple of hours is accurate and that that will allow us to weather Beachy Head some 40 miles further east without tacking but I'll have to work all that out properly later.

With this wind and on our current heading we'll just about stay south of the Nab Channel but may well get pushed onto the infamous Owers shoals where Ted Heath's Morning Cloud was wrecked by severe waves on September 2, 1974. While some of the crew was rescued, two of them died in the incident. The sinking of the state-of-the-art yacht, built without regard for cost, made international headlines given Heath had been Prime Minister until just seven months prior.

I had a close encounter there myself a couple of years later on my Dad's Standing Gaff Cutter, Chlamys. Fortunately the weather was benign on that occassion. Indeed the problem was lack of wind. I was returning from the Normandy coast with a full crew (6 of us) comprising girlfriend, her best pal (both only 16) and other friends. None of us were older than 18 and my girlfriend's parents and her pal's parents had somehow been convinced by my Dad that I was perfectly competent and knew what I was doing. In a way he was right I suppose, because I did manage to get the boat backwards and forwards across the channel a few times with no more navigational equipment than paper charts, a compass, a lead-line for measuring depth and a chip log for measuring speed! Nevertheless, I suspect that if they had known the extent to which luck and good fortune played a part in those crossings, they would not have been nearly so sanguine about turning their daughters over to my care. The wind died away completely as we approached the Loое Channel through the shoals. The engine off course, chose to overheat, forcing us to anchor in water just deep enough to avoid going aground, while we waited for a breeze and the flood tide to help us on our way

to Portsmouth. 

We ended up making Portchester after a near collision with a stationary Royal Navy

Destroyer in Portsmouth Harbour. Recalling that incident more than 40 years earlier, I hoped I wouldn't reprise that near miss on this passage! 

This time lack of wind was not the problem, quite the opposite, and whilst I was not in a predicament anything like as serious as Morning Cloud's, I need to ensure I stay well away from the shoals. Even in this modest blow the seas over them would be pretty nasty. 

First things first, I need to reef and get the pole down and pretty quickly before we get tangled up in commercial traffic. I don my oilies and life jacket and safety harness and put two reefs in the mainsail. That goes OK - I can do everything from a sitting position at the base of the mast with a safety harness wrapped round the mast. Next, I tackle the pole, it's a trickier operation because I have to stand up to release the heel from its socket on the mast, but I get it done and then have to lash it down on deck. I do that lying down and get doused by a couple of waves in the process. Back in the cockpit I take in a few turns on the genoa. The boat is calmer now. I scan the horizon in the dark and go below.

I shed my sodden oilies and change into yet another set of dry clothes and check the AIS. There's a passenger ship just left the Nab Channel and heading our way. I call her up on the VHF. Her radio operator tells me he sees me on AIS and will leave us to port. Re-assured I work out how much longer we can continue on this heading before we have to turn away from the Owers. Providing the wind doesn't back any further (which would force us further north) we have a couple of hours.

Thankfully, over that period the wind veer's as forecast and we are able to lay a course that will take us south of the Beachy Head and therefore well south of the Nab Channel and the Owers. Just as I start to relax I'm called up on the VHF by the passenger ship that I spoke to earlier. Oh goodness what now? We move to a working channel. "Hello Bonny, we can't see any navigation lights - do you have them on?" I immediately check - but no I haven't switched them on! So much for the skipper needing to be alert and on the ball! I apologise and thank the operator for alerting me. "No problem, I just thought you would want to have them on given you are approaching Southampton waters". Just about as mild a rebuke as I could expect in the circumstances. Feeling deeply ashamed of my negligence I carry on.

By 0200 we are south of Worthing and by 0800 we are rounding Beachy Head. The wind is still a good Force 6 and we are sailing fast on a beam reach and then as we round Beachy Head we free off onto a broad reach, still with two reefs and a couple of rolls in the genoa. Around 0900 we round South Foreland and are heading for the busy Dover Straight, still sailing fast. We pass Dover at about 1330 without getting tangled up with any shipping and by 1700 we round North Foreland. More by luck than judgement we work the tides just right and catch the very beginning of the flood into the Thames Estuary and the River Medway. It does mean that I either need to take the long seaward route to the Medway or play chicken with the sand banks along the aptly named "Overland Route". We are now in the lee of the Kent coast and the seas flatten considerably and so I judge it's safe to choose the latter. The echo sounder registers minimum depths of 2 metres from time to time but we wriggle through the channels without mishap.

The wind does however back into the south west again which means we can only just lay Garison Point at the mouth of the Medway. We arrive there at 2200 and I have to decide whether to beat up the river or Motor. It's dark of course and although on previous occasions I have chosen the challenge of beating, I'm tired and decide to take the easy option of motoring.

Halfway up the river to Hoo, a banging noise from the engine compartment I have tried to ignore is now so loud that I can't. I remove the cover from the engine compartment and it's immediately obvious that the engine is on the verge of shaking itself off it's mountings - it's jumping around like a demented kangeroo!

I throttle back from the 2,200 revs to barely 500 at which point we make about 2 knots over the ground the vast proportion of which is down to the tide which means we barely have steerage way! I try sailing with just the genoa but its impossible to sail close enough to the wind under that alone even with a fair tide. Even when the river changes course the wind seems to follow it and we continue to have the wind dead on the nose. I have three options; hoist the mainsail and beat up the river; anchor and try and sort out the engine; or the least sensible carry on under power at a crawl and hope that we make the moorings before the engine shakes itself loose and crashes through the hull of the boat and turns Bonny into a hazard to all shipping. Of course it's clear that any sensible skipper would immediately right off option 3 and choose whichever of the former is most appropriate given the circumstances.

My only excuse is that I'm tired and so the worst option - the one requiring least effort, seems, despite its risks to be the most attractive. So we continue on with the tide drifting within inches of the river's port and starboard buoys and then ponderously thread our way through the moorings to the west of Hoo Island. Every minute that passes without the engine falling off its mountings gives me cause to hope that we may just make it after all. Finally, we approach the club's moorings and I pick out the mooring that Tony Cottis , our mooring master had kindly prepared for me, complete with pick-up buoy. I cock up the first attempt to pick it up despite having the very long boat hook we bought in St John's in lieu of an ice pole. On the second approach I clip a couple of mooring buoys and narrowly avoid a few club boats as we crab slowly across the tide. I do though manage to hook the pick-up buoy. And so, on Thursday 11th September at 0130, despite the skipper's ineptitude, 56 hours after leaving Falmouth, Bonny is securely moored to a Hooness Yacht Club mooring. 

I'll be home for our wedding anniversary after all!

The following afternoon, Tony Cottis comes out in the club launch with Howard and Bernie and returns me to dry land.

Journey over! 

A day in Falmouth and Goodbye

I get up around 0800 (Monday 8/9/25), collect my dirty clothes and wash things together and go ashore to do my washing and have a shower. I pay a day's mooring - £50! Marina's have got so expensive that staying for any longer than a day is almost out of the question.

I get my washing going and then have the shower, my first since Nanortalik more than two weeks ago. Bonny does have a shower, but the combination of an almost complete absence of sunshine on the passage, which meant our batteries were rarely fully charged (which supply power to the small immersion heater), and the generally very uncomfortable, not to mention cold, conditions, made the prospect of getting naked and (voluntarily) wet and therefore cold, a particularly unattractive one. 

This shower was therefore particularly welcome and I ignore the notice pleading with customers to keep their shower quick in the interests of preserving water. As far as I am aware there is no drought in Cornwall and I rather suspect the notice was motivated rather more by the desire to keep overheads down, than to ensure the population of Falmouth don't run out of water. Bugger that, I've just paid £50 for the privilege of mooring here and apart from the space on the pontoon, the shower is the only other thing included in the price. The washing machine and dryer have to be paid for separately.

After my shower I go in search of freshly baked bread for breakfast. In doing so I confirm a suspicion I have been harbouring for some time - there's a growing subterfuge taking place on trendy high streets and not just those in the UK, I noticed the same thing in St John's; increasingly, Bakeries are no longer places that bake bread! They bake all sorts of pastries and goodies (or at least display them on their counters) and don't get me wrong, I'm very partial to a sweet pastry, but it seems to me that if you've got a big sign over your real and virtual doorways, declaring yourself Cornwall's finest Bakery, the very least you should do to deserve the self anointed accolade, is to bake some bloody bread. Anyway, it meant I had to walk a little further than anticipated to find one that did, which was no great hardship because wandering around quaint Falmouth in the morning in search of breakfast is a rather nice way to spend the time. I actually started to feel like I was on holiday. Being clean and dry and only needing jeans and a T-shirt to wear, rather than god knows how many layers compressed beneath soggy oilskins certainly helped. Anyway I bought a freshly baked uncut white farmhouse loaf AND two croissants AND two pastries. Then on to the Tesco Express for bacon, mushrooms and tomatoes. Breakfast was going to be a serious fry-up!

On the way back I put my laundry in the dryer.

Back at the boat I get breakfast underway and once cooked we stuff ourselves royally. It's amazing how good wicked (but proper) white bread and butter tastes when you haven't had any for 4 weeks! Doorsteps with lashings of butter were used by both members of the crew to wipe their plates clean of bacon fat!!

After breakfast we tackle the few jobs, that need doing to prepare Bonny for the final leg of the circuit back to the Medway.

I unship the emergency forestay which shouldn't be needed any more and its absence will make tacking and gybing the boat single handed much easier. Then we refill the jerry cans with fuel. I decide it's pointless to refill the fuel tank given that one of the winter jobs will be to drain and clean the tank.

Next we fill the water tank which requires so much water it must have been very nearly empty.

Before stowing the jerry cans in their home under the cockpit sole, I lift the floor boards to check the stern gland and the bilge. The stern gland is dripping more than a healthy one should, but that's what I expect. What I didn't expect was that the deep part of the bilge had a fair amount of water in it. I thought we had pumped it all out earlier but clearly not.

Now that it looks almost certain that the stern gland is the main source of the leak, we reinstate the galley bilge pump and it takes me about 100 strokes to clear the bilge. Afterwards we stow the jerry cans.

With all the essential jobs done we walk into town - George looks at boats while I shop for provisions and then we go for a yummy cream tea.

We then return to the boat, collect George's bags and walk to the station where we say goodbye. It's been a memorable couple of months which, with the exception of the passage back, we have both really enjoyed. I don't think either of us will ever forget it, especially our  short time in Greenland.

Around 1730 I cast off Bonny's mooring lines with the help of Hugh's young crew and head out of the harbour, destination, Hoo on the River Medway and a wedding anniversary on the 12th.

An appointment in Falmouth 7/9/25

Brown Bear and Bonny moored up at Falmouth Yacht Haven on Monday evening 8th September. Photo by George.

I thought I had set my alarm for 0500 but didn't and awoke at 0710. Dam, we're late. I call George and the crew assembles as quickly as our groggy heads allow. 

We have a date in Falmouth this evening with Hugh and the rest of the Brown Bear crew. Brown Bear was in Greenland when we were there and we were briefly both in Nanortalik but didn't meet owing to their very quick stopover coinciding with our (mainly George's) works on the engine. They left the day after us and made Falmouth yesterday after our arrival in Hugh Town. We really want to meet and share our experiences.

So we drop our mooring and motor out of Hugh Town and make our way through the islands' south eastern approach/exit channel. The sea is pretty lumpy and despite white caps on the waves there is not much wind and so we continue under power.

Within an hour we are in a demented washing machine. The waves are by far the biggest we have experienced since leaving Greenland and probably the biggest I've ever seen. The fact that there is little wind makes the experience worse not better, because there is little pressure on the sails to steady the boat. We have two reefs in in anticipation of strong winds. We are only making a couple of knots under sail and at this rate will miss our tidal gate at the Lizard. So I get up to the mast and eventually succeed in shaking out the reefs. I get saturated again in the process.

It improves things a little but not enough so we press the engine into service once again in an attempt to power through what we hope is a localised area of really rough water caused by the relatively shallow and uneven bottom. We were expecting some chop to be leftover from the gale overnight but nothing like this!

Eventually after 2-3 hours the wind picks up and the sea subsides to a more reasonable state and we are able to make good progress under sail alone.

Our leak rate increases - not to crisis levels - but we need to pump out a couple of hundred strokes every six hours or so to empty the bilge (or at least until the cockpit bilge pump sucks air).

The day gradually becomes quite pleasant with warm sunshine and after the horrendous start to the short passage to Falmouth, we enjoy a good sail and pick up speed sufficiently to make the tidal gate off the Lizard. We run into overfalls there and have to power through another lumpy area although it's not as bad as earlier.

After the overfalls, which we get through at about 1800, we experience a delightful sail in the evening sunshine (and occasional shower) and moor up alongside Brown Bear at 2000. Unfortunately, the cloud arrives before us and so we didn't see the much vaunted Blood Moon.

Once moored up we are invited on board Brown Bear for drinks and to meet the crew.

Brown Bear's owner skipper, Hugh Clay is a delightful and most generous host. Clearly a very, very experienced and accomplished sailor he's a well known figure in the ocean sailing world. As a young man he sailed with the late great Willy Ker on one of his expeditions to Greenland in his Contessa 33 in 1987. Willy and Hugh were awarded the Royal Cruising Club's Tillman medal in recognition of their exploits in getting there and exploring such challenging waters. The only electronic aids they had on board were a GPS set that provided a position every 12 hours or so on a good day and a radio direction finding set. They must have been rather better at operating it than I was when trying to use my Dad's set back in the 1970's!

Hugj's crew were two young Spanish guys - very charming too. His boat is wonderful, custom built in wood and epoxy for the previous owner and designed by one of the Ocean Cruising Club's founding figures. We have G&T on board, then all head out for a Chinese, then back to Brown Bear for Coffee and a night cap and more story sharing. We discover that both Hugh and George have competed in the Three Peaks Challenge in memory of Bill Tillman (although in different years) and that Hugh's Uncle knew the designer of George's boat and that High's brother has a classic wooden Yawl based on the river Medway!

We also watched some incredible drone footage of Brown Bear in Labrador and Greenland. That's one of the reasons the youngsters were there, they flew the drone. They came across some really huge ice bergs, which rather put 'ours' in their place.

Eventually it's time for bed and George and I return to Bonny, fully satisfied with being able to round off our great adventure in such delightful and hospitable company.

Tomorrow afternoon, George catch's a train home and I set sail for the Medway on the final leg of a very eventful two year cruise!

Princ Christ' Sund to Hugh Town D' 13/14: 5-6/9/25

Bonny's sail plan for much of the passage.

My alarm wakes me at 0200 from possibly the soundest sleep I've had during the entire passage. We're still motoring. George and I have a quick chat - he has nothing of significance to report - and then he gets to bed.  

I check our progress and position and the weather to come and as a consequence feel rather pessimistic about getting in somewhere before the bad weather arrives. I even consider the option of turning north and heading for the south coast of Ireland.

I make a cup of tea and have a biscuit (only a few digestives left now) while I mull it over and decide that giving up the hard earned sea miles is just too depressing to do. 

Whilst getting the milk out the fridge I notice a rather muddy looking puddle swirling around at the bottom. It needs a dam good clean when we eventually stop. Indeed the whole galley area is looking rather sorry for itself. It's not just grubby - which it is - but a piece of plastic trim has come unstuck leaving an ugly scar and water has clearly penetrated under the formica type work surface because it's beginning to bubble.

Up top the sprayhood fabric is on its last legs. I've been stitching and taping it together on and off for the last 12 months. The last patches of gaffer tape re-enforcements are wearing off/coming away in swathes and within days of stitching another seam, I discover a new one that needs doing.

The old Raymarine Chartplotter under the Sprayhood is beginning to feel the effects of the various sprayhood leaks and the gps connection at the back is becoming unreliable. I had a similar problem with its  Radar connection a few weeks ago but that seems OK now.

I get in the cockpit and pump 70 strokes before it pumps air. That's a bit odd/concerning, given that George said he pumped a 100 at midnight and wasn't sure if it emptied.

For most of my Watch I doze for 30 minute chunks and I actually sleep during all of them

It's 0600 we have a light wind on the beam, enough to make 5 knots with the cruising chute so I hoist it. The operation goes remarkably smoothly. We're pulling 5+ knots, excellent. I go below to make a cup of tea to celebrate. The boat leans over and then some more, I look out of the window and see the foot of the chute dipping in and out of the water and foam everywhere. The wind has unexpectedly increased, it's only supposed to be 11 knots. We're creaming along at 7+ knots and the man who loves a cruising chute is fast asleep below! We carry on like this for about half an hour then the wind gradually eases and backs so that we can no longer lay our course. The wind is still stronger than I would normally fly the chute in and so I reluctantly wake up George to help.

In the event we get it down without too much hassle. It was only up for an hour and a half - not really worth the effort but it was exhilarating sailing for an hour or so!

The wind continues to die away so the engine goes on at 0725 and we motor-sail until 1030 when there's enough wind to sail again - just. To give us a little more   'uhmpf' I rig the spare jib on the emergency forestay and Bonny becomes a cutter (a single masted boat with two headsails).

We make good progress throughout the day but the wind is due to back and head us so the big question is, will we/won't we weather the IoS? 

The bilge continues to fill with water rather too quickly for comfort. After much poking around and head scratching I continue to suspect a leak in the inaccessible bilge pump hose. Because we're storming along close hauled on the port tack, the water is all in the turn of the bilge and the other bilge pump can only suck air. So I get my last bit of hose out, stick it on the outlet of the galley bilge pump and we pump out via 18 buckets that have to be handed up from the galley to the cockpit while Bonny storms along at 6-7 knots completely unconcerned about the plight of her crew! George has a splitting headache, but mans the pump while I do the chuck-it.

Despite his headache George has the presence of mind to point out what should have been the blindingly obvious to me; if the bilge pump hose is the source of our leak then the water may be coming in as fast as we're pumping it out (the outlet is on the port side).

Fortunately the outlet is above the waterline and so even though it's spending a fair amount of time under water I'm able to lean over the side and hammer a bung into it.

Much to our surprise and contrary to the forecast the wind increases to almost gale force in the evening and with all sail set including the extra jib we are over canvassed and need to reduce sail. It's a very, very wet fore deck and I get soaked through to the skin despite Mick's oilskins which are only marginally less porous than mine. I hand the jib and then realise I should have left it and simply put more furls in the genoa, Next I put two reefs in the mainsail and a couple of turns in the genoa. We still make 5-6 knots and continue on course for the south west corner of the traffic separation scheme to the west of Scilly which we can just lay whilst hard on the wind.

Somehow George manages to rustle up a Dinner of hot dogs and onions in Nann bread. Very welcome!

We study the latest weather info and decide we're not going to get past Scilly and round the Lizard before we get another pasting and this time it will be on the nose. We decide to divert to Hugh Town, St Mary's in the IoS. We should get there by around 0500 tomorrow.

No sleep for either of us tonight.

2300 and we are the south west corner of the TSS. Almost to the second the wind backs 20° or so and we can no longer hold a course to stay south of the TSS and so the engine gets pressed into service and we motor sail across just clipping the southern boundary. I get on the vhf to speak with a ship coming down the south bound lane to make sure she's aware of us. Her radio operator confirms they will keep clear which is good of them. 

Once across we free off and sail once again, to pick up the North West Passage (no, not that one) into St Mary's. At the waypoint marking our turn in, we have to head directly into the wind and motor once again and something of a nightmare begins. It's a near gale and the waves are big and messy and I find it impossible to steer a course. I've never attempted to motor in such conditions before and it doesn't twig that the engine needs far higher revs to cope with the conditions. Eventually George says "we're not moving" - he's right we're not. That's why I can't hold a course - no steerage way. I increase the revs from 2,500 to 3,500 and at last we start making headway and I can steer a course. The next couple of hours are the worst of the passage to date. There's not much worse than motoring flat out into a strong wind and big seas and only crawling along.

6/9/25

Finally around 0200, after crawling along at 2-3 knots into the heavy weather for what seems like hours, we reach the next waypoint for the final run into Hugh Town. Once again we can free off and life becomes more comfortable.

It's pitch black and there are rocks either side of the approach channel into the harbour which is crowded with moorings and quite a few boats. Fortunately, George knows the place well and is able to provide the extra info re what's what, that makes the tricky approach manageable. 

We pick up a mooring at 0300.

Passage over. We've crossed about 1400 miles of the North Atlantic in just over 12 days and most probably travelled around 1800 miles in doing so.

Bed and sleep calls

Postscript

Later after a very self indulgent pancake breakfast we tidy up the boat and think about getting ashore. George examines the outboard motor which has a fuel leak. Servicing it was one of the jobs I didn't get round to when I broke my foot. He discovers the float chamber has rusted through and has a hole in it. 

It's really too windy to row ashore and so I ring the harbour master to enquire about a water taxi. Yes they run one but due to being short staffed the last one back will leave at 1630; it's already 1500. We decide against going ashore but will watch some Rugby instead.

Before that starts I discover by complete accident that the bilge is full - almost overflowing again. I had tried the bilge pump earlier but it only sucked air. Clearly I didn't try for long enough. I go back to the pump and spend the best part of an hour pumping the water out.

So, it's not the bilge pump hose after all, or at least it's not only the bilge pump hose. I open up the engine box and stick my head down and shine a torch around. I don't see anything untoward, but then I hear the sound of running water. I look some more and finally see a stream of water coming in through the stern gland! Well, now at least I know where some if not all of the water is coming in from. 

I'm surprised because I have been turning the screw on the greasing reservoir fairly frequently which should have kept the gland reasonably water tight. Anyway, I now screw it right down and push out all the grease (hopefully into the gland). That seems to stop the flow, but the likelihood is that the packing needs replacing. The gearbox is left in neutral when sailing so the prop shaft has been turning for quite a few thousand miles over the course of the last couple of years!

I refill the reservoir and remind myself to check the bilge more frequently.

Tomorrow morning we'll head for Falmouth and hopefully meet up with the crew of Brown Bear who left Greenland just after us and are on their way round the Lizard. It must be pretty uncomfortable. Hopefully, also I'll be able to meet up with sailing friends Steff and Peter whom I first met when I bought Bonny in Albufiera in 2020.

Princ Christian Sund to ? - Day 12 - 4/9/25

Sunset by George.

I've been awake mostly since midnight listening to the rising sound of the wind and the boat rushing through the water at increasing speed and to the rising frequency of the pistil shot noises from the genoa as it backs and resets on the pole. Speed is of the essence if we're to avoid nasty headwinds in a couple of days and then a nasty gale we need to press on, but there's no point in breaking something, so at 0100 I get up and advise George that we need to reef.

It really is pretty blowy, although the sea is still reasonably flat which has made for good sailing. Reefing takes quite a while because a batten gets caught behind the upper starboard shroud. Eventually we get two reefs in and the genoa smaller by about 60%.

Shortly after reefing I realise we also need to gybe because the wind has backed over the last few hours forcing us to head 5-10° north of east whereas we want to steer about 115-120° for the Isles of Scilly. 

I make a bit of a pigs ear of the gybe and don't control the boom properly which goes slamming across the cockpit (I don't put the preventer on a winch and the force of the wind in the sail as it backs is too much for me to control). 

After being unceremoniously ejected from his bunk by the force of the gybe, George notices the skipper is not quite as calm and collected as one would prefer a skipper to be and so he comes up to the cockpit in his underwear (and gets a good soaking) to help quell the chaos and complete the gybe. This requires furling in the genoa so that its small enough to avoid getting snagged on the emergency forestay when its hauled across; hauling it across to the other pole, unfurling it an appropriate amount and making it secure. We notice the genoa gets jammed at about 1/3 size which is OK (the size that is not the jam) so we leave it for now.  Unfortunately, George hurts his back in the process and has to retire to bed, hurt, dosed up with painkillers!

At around 2100 we go on high alert when we see navigation lights ahead.  There's nothing on the AIS nor anything obvious on the Radar and we curse the bloody boat out here without AIS. We suspect another yacht because I glimpse a green (starboard) light in addition to the white light we both saw. There is no very bright white light which one would expect if it was a fishing boat. It's all a bit nerve wracking because of the difficulty of judging how close it really is. Given we could barely see a large fishing boat a mile away yesterday, this boat might only be a half mile ahead of us. We'd be surprised if it was a smallish yacht without AIS out here in these conditions. These days most yachts crossing oceans have AIS transponders. It's possible this one might be an Irish boat just out for a sail in the Atlantic, but even the Irish aren't usually quite so gung-ho as to seek out trouble just for the hell of it. We remain puzzled and keep our eyes peeled, but the lights gradually disappear into the night ahead of us.

At 0400 it's light enough for me to discover the cause of the jammed genoa. The storm jib halyard has wrapped itself around the top part of the furled sail. 

At 0420 I empty the bilge with 110 strokes of the pump.

At 0500 I tackle the halyard wrap. Fortunately, after furling the genoa a bit more the halyard unwraps itself and I am able to unfurl the sail fully. 

0616 The bilge requires just 18 strokes of the pump to empty.

At 0741 a message comes in from fellow OCC member, Hugh Clay on Brown Bear. They were in Nanortalik very briefly when we were there but the other side of the harbour when we were up to our elbows (George was in reality up to his armpit) with the engine and so we never actually met. The message was....

"It looks like we passed pretty close to Bonny on Saturday night, but our AIS has stopped working"

So that explains our earlier close encounter. We swap messages and discover Brown Bear is heading for Falmouth, so we may meet up after all which would be fun. 

The sailing is very uncomfortable. We have the wind on the quarter and a significant swell overlaid with short steep seas. This makes for some very unpleasant jerky rolling, a little reminiscent of the worst I have ever experienced and that was on Arctic Smoke in December 2016 as Mick and I were in the last third of our crossing from Cape Verde to Martinique and experiencing the Caribbean's 'Christmas Winds'. On one occasion then, I was standing in the galley on the port side of the boat and had just finished making a cup of coffee which was grasped firmly in my hands to avoid spillage when the boat gave the most violent lurch to port - she must have fallen off a wave - the space I occupied was suddenly on the opposite side of the boat and I was sitting on the chart table and my coffee was all over the ceiling! It wasn't as bad as that but two pots of coffee did empty themselves all over the galley micro seconds before I was due to poor the liquid into my mug! I'm afraid I probably shocked George with my stream of vulgarities that spewed out of my mouth!

The sun is out and therefore even though the boat is still rolling like crazy, we feel obliged to grab a noon site to make sure we know where we are 😂. We work out the time of local noon and I take the sight as best I can - which is little better than a wild guess with all the wild rolling going on.

We then go below  and work out our Latitude. Clearly some malign force is at work because it turns out that we 'are' 8° or 480 miles further north than our modern technology thinks we are. Thank goodness we took the sight otherwise we would be completely lost!

Things get even worse when we take and calculate our PM Sight. The resulting position line is clearly so far off that we'd need a plotting sheet the size of a football field to plot it. It would intercept our latitude hundreds of miles from our estimated position, probably somewhere in the high Arctic! We'll try again tomorrow!

It's late afternoon and the wind has eased so we shake out the reefs from the mainsail. The sea is still very lumpy and uncomfortable - the motion is actually worse because there's not enough pressure on the sails to dampen the rolling.

By 1910 the wind is so light we have to turn the engine on to maintain a speed of around 5 knots.

I'm pumping around 70-100 strokes every six hours to clear the bilges.

Between 1900 and 2100 we pass through another fishing fleet. George is on lookout while I'm cooking the supper, and has to alter course significantly to avoid one of the boats.

Supper is pasta Carbonara. It's ok but not my best.

I go to bed at 2200 and go out like a light despite the noise of the engine.

Our midnight to midnight run is 129 miles and Lands End is 162 miles off and so we are also 129 miles closer than 24 hours ago! Not bad. 🤞

Princ Christian Sund to ? - Day 11 - 3/9/25

We didn't see the Northern Lights but we did catch a Rainbow!

Would you believe it? After days of gales our challenge far from more gales as we suspected, is now not enough wind, until that is the next gale😂.

It's 0800 and I've just finished re-working our predicted progress given the lighter winds we've had and those forecast ahead of us and the result is not a good one. We will of course go slower which is to be expected and not such a calamity on its own,  but not only will we go slower, we would get caught by headwinds in the Western Approaches which would slow our progress further, which would mean, yes you guessed it, we'd get clobbered by another gale puffing in from the west! 

To avoid that we need to be in a port by Saturday evening. The candidates, are, Penzance, Falmouth or Plymouth. Which one, depends on how much progress we make. Plymouth would be best for both of us. It's close to home for George and is the nearest to the Medway for me and therefore improves my chances of getting home for my 38th wedding anniversary on the 12th.

So we turn the engine on again at 0900 in order to maintain a speed of around 5 knots.

By 1530 the wind has increased sufficiently for us to sail at 5 knots and so the engine goes off again. By now we've motored for a total of about 48 hours since topping the tank up in Aappilattoq. 72 hours is roughly equivalent to the maximum capacity of the tank and we suspect we will need to motor for perhaps another 24 hours in a couple of days if we're to avoid that gale. Given the recent blocked fuel pipe we don't want to run the tank low especially as it's been churned around a lot in the rough weather and so we are going to have to top the tank up from the jerry cans whilst at sea which may be a precarious operation!

Around the time we turn off the engine we detect a fishing fleet of 4 boats about 12 miles in front of us. We go through them without having to change course finally spot one on the horizon only a mile and a half away. It's bloody difficult to see things out here even in good visibility like we have today.

In the afternoon the sun almost comes out - it can be seen through the clouds - time for our next round of Astro Nav practice. After an initial struggle we both manage to pull the sun down to the horizon and get fairly similar angles - 35° 5' I think it was.

Afterwards I try to revise the method for working out the time of local noon, because as I think I may already have mentioned, a sun sight at local noon will, with some calculations, give the navigator his latitude. With the help of special tables and plotting sheets (or trigonometry if you're clever) it's relatively straightforward. 

The time of noon at Greenwich (when the sun crosses the Greenwich Meridian) is shown in the tables for every day of the year. Then you need to estimate your Longitude - how far east or west you are of the Greenwich Meridian. Because 15° of Longtitude = 1 hour, 4 minutes of time = 1° Longtitude (there are 60 mins of Longitude in 1°, thus 60/15 = 4) and therefore 1 minute of time = 1/4 of 1° of Longtitude = 15 mins of Longitude. You're unlikely to be travelling directly east or west and so to work that out, you use a plotting sheet to plot your estimated position relative to lines of latitude and longitude that you draw on the sheet. The sheet includes a compass rose and a scale that enables you to plot your last known position and your estimated position by plotting the distance and the angle (your course) at which you have travelled. That gives you your estimated Longitude. You compare that with 0° at Greenwich and you then know how many hours or minutes east or west you are from the Greenwich Meridian. So, if you are 1 hour to the west, local noon will be 1 hour later than at Greenwich!

Dolphins join us for a while after our practice with the sextant, perhaps as a reward. 

Then at 1600 we discover the bilge full of water! There's water sloshing over the cabin sole. Once we notice that we both recall that we've heard a sloshing noise but failed to put 2 and 2 together! We've sprung a leak! Both hands to both bilge pumps and we empty it in about half an hour. 

I've been pumping the bilge once a day - roughly a hundred strokes - I assume in rough weather it gets in through the anchor locker and some through the stern gland. A little will also get in via the cockpit lockers. For the bilge to be full within 24 hours something else is going on. The question of course is where's it coming from?

On a plastic boat, unless the hull's cracked, the only places other than those just mentioned are the various skin fittings or their pipes and connections. We check the skin fittings in the Loo, and the Galley, including the engine water inlet. They're not leaking. The only others are underneath the cockpit floor and in the stern locker and are for the cockpit drains and the cockpit bilge pump and electric bilge pump and also the above waterline one for the internal bulge pump.

On checking the engine inlet we do notice a modest flow of water running down the inside of the hull from behind the fridge box. This is also the location of the above waterline skin fitting for the internal bilge pump.

I fitted it a couple of years ago and used cheap plastic hose, the same stuff I used to run from the pump into the bilge. This section has split a couple of times and we replaced it in St John's. It's possible that the section from the pump to the skin fitting (which is inaccessible without dismantling the fridge) has also split. If so some of the water being pumped out would simply run back into the bilge and when the skin fitting goes under water - which it does frequently in the sort of conditions we have been experiencing - water would enter the boat. Currently that's my best guess as to what's happening. It's entirely manageable through frequent pumping and so there's no danger of us sinking!

Dinner is the left over chilli with Naan bread and then as a special treat I heat some some blueberry breakfast bars in the oven and make custard to cover them with. It works surprisingly well!

George lets me go to bed early!

Sleep however is difficult to come by because of the rising wind and an increasingly bumpy ride.

Our midnight to midnight straight line run is 127 nautical miles. The distance to Lands End is 291 which means we are 125 miles closer than we were the previous midnight.

It's a beautiful starry night - the first of the passage.

Will we get in somewhere by Saturday night, 3 days from now? Remember we have to go past Lands End and so will have at least another 20 miles before our nearest port of Penzance, 43 to Falmouth and 80 miles to Plymouth.

Princ Christian Sund to ? - Day 10 - 2/9/25

The wind dies further over night.  I get up for my first hourly check at 0200 and we're down to about 3.5 knots. 

At 0600 my alarm goes off and I wake to a banging noise from the cockpit. It's the main sheet car bashing from side to side on its track. But why? The mainsheet is loose. But why? I look up at the mainsail - it's a funny shape. Has the halyard come off? No. 

I look at the boom, it's much lower than it should be - hence the slack mainsheet - but why? The clue of the sail (the lower back corner) is no longer near the end of the boom - it's a couple of feet further forward and higher up. The clue line (the bit of string that pulls the clue out to the end of the boom) must have worked loose. I go up to the mast base. 

Funny it's still secure in the winch but there's clearly slack in the line. I winch the slack in and go back to the cockpit. The boom is now at the right angle but the clue is still not in the right place near the end of the boom. 

Finally the penny drops. Either the block or the shackle holding the block (pulley) that the clue line runs through has broken and the block or its remains has slid forward until it's jammed on something else. I can't quite make out which due the sail cover being in the way and it's pissing with rain so I leave it for now and will have to investigate later when its dry

I then record our engine hours and compare that with those recorded when we topped up with 40 litres of fuel at Aapilattoq. The result is 68 hours - almost 3 days which I had previously worked out was the maximum a tank would last for (there is no working gauge). I was rather surprised but left it at that except to conclude we would need to top up the tank with the 60 litres (about 30 hours) of fuel we had in the  jerry cans before running the engine again.

When George wakes at about 0800 I update him on the fuel situation. He too is surprised but sensibly digs back through our records and discovers we must have made a recording error. It turns out I had misread a 9 on the counter for a 4. We had only run the engine for 24 hours since filling the tank not 68. We have plenty of fuel for the 12 or so hours of motoring we anticipate doing today before the wind returns this evening.

So I turn the engine on and we motor directly for the western approaches at 2000 revs making more than 5 

knots - we must have some favourable current. 

I then tidy up the sails and lines for motoring mode while George starts breakfast - pancakes with bacon and also with tinned fruit and yogurt - yummy, I'm really looking forward to that.

Once I finish furling the genoa and setting the mainsail amidships to help reduce the rolling I investigate the clue line issue. It turns out that the shackle holding the block onto the boom either undid itself or broke. Before I have time to fix it George announces breakfast in 5 minutes, so I defer the job until after breakfast.

What a feast. George found packets of pancake mix in Walmart in St John's and bought a couple. Today's breakfast - our third pancake breakfast finished the first packet and gave us 3.5 pancakes each. 

Have you ever listened to the Radio 4 programme - "Sliced Bread" during which the presenter evaluates apparent wonder products which have been promoted as "the best thing since sliced bread"?

Well, I think I'm going to nominate Walmart's Pancake mix for the accolade. By the simple act of adding water to the powder and mixing it up and then frying the mixture as one would a regular home made pancake, one gets delicious thick pancakes USA style. For hungry boaters wanting a quick filling breakfast they just can't be beaten, especially when served with a choice of fried bacon or tinned peaches and yogurt. 

I am in gastro heaven.  Two bacon and maple syrup pancakes disappear down my throat in quick succession followed by a modest pause, before one and a half tinned peaches and yogurt AND maple syrup pancakes follow.

It's definitely the best thing since sliced bread, indeed is far superior to it.

I've always regarded this classic American breakfast (OK perhaps they don't use tinned peaches) as a severe over indulgence and have only previously succumbed to it only a very few times and most of those on visits to the USA. I now fear a further addiction may be on the horizon and I may also have developed a new found sympathy for the plight of our American cousins!

We motor onwards for the rest of the day with a very variable wind doing not very much. With the engine running our batteries are at 100% by 1200 and so I run the water maker and the water heater. 

The sea continues to flatten significantly.

AND THEN ... something very strange takes place. I make us an afternoon tea of toast and peanut butter/jam and a cup of tea/coffee. OK that's not strange but what occurs as part of the ritual is. I put two cups down on the galley work top, a tea bag in one and instant coffee in the other and pour in the water and subsequently the milk, ..... 

..." when all of a sudden....

...nothing happens"... 

[if you recognise the quote you're probably as old as me or older]

Both cups stay exactly where I put them, neither shows the slightest tendency to relocate itself to some other part of the cabin ; the tea stays in its cup as does the coffee, not a drop spills out. 

I leave them there for a few minutes while I make the toast but keep them under observation from the corner of my eye, because I know full well that this is just a test and that as soon as my back is turned they'll be up to their old tricks of slipping and sliding and spilling even if they don't have the energy for jumping. But no. They are still in exactly the same place by the time I have finished making the toast a few minutes later. Believe me, that is a VERY strange occurrence!

AND THEN.... something just as unusual - I have my first proper wash and don my first pair of clean undies since leaving Greenland (I have to boil a kettle because the 12v  water heater takes ages to heat up). Thankfully I don't discover any nasty consequences from neglecting my personal hygiene for so long!

AND THEN... George decides it's calm enough to practice with the Sextant. He and I both attended an astro navigation course last winter run by our very good friend Bernie, who like George a venerable Jester, indeed Bernie is at present 'at the helm' of the Jester Challenge. [The Jester Challenge is an organisation for eccentric sailors in small boats who get together once a year to sail single handed from Plymouth to (depending on where the year falls in the cycle), Baltimore (Ireland), The Azores, or Rhode Island USA.] 

Even more significantly with regards to the Sextant, Bernie is an ex merchant mariner who trained as a deck officer in the days when the merchant ships of the world navigated their way across oceans with the sextant as their primary navigational instrument. So Bernie knows what he's talking about.

Bernie is actually the second ex Merchant Mariner to teach me celestial navigation. After I bought my sextant I did an RYA course run by a charming ex Captain. I even passed the exam at the end of it. The sextant went back in the box after a couple of classroom sessions and stayed there. I promptly forgot everything I had learned!

We have both been harbouring feelings of extreme guilt that so far neither of us has attempted to get the sextant out of its box, let alone use it, or, god forbid, undertake the (for innumerate novices like me) the complex calculations required to work out one's position, but now we do - attempt to get it out of the box that is!!

We missed golden opportunities during our first days out of St John's when we had gorgeous warm sunny weather. I did think about it but was just too dam idle to do anything about it and now here we are after 10 days with barely a glimpse of the sun, and a constantly heaving boat, driven by guilt to practice on clouds!

I've got two sextants on board, a posh brass one in a posh wooden box that I bought at the London Boat Show about 20 years ago and which is in perfect condition due to ...... complete lack of use and a good quality plastic one that came with the boat. I get the plastic one out.

There was no actual sun on offer and anyway we weren't prepared to take a proper sight but the afternoon was reasonably bright and for the first time it wasn't an unpleasant experience to be outside, nor was the boat rocking and rolling all over the place, so we could at least practice the technique of measuring the angle of an object to the horizon. Today it would be a cloud which of course is no use at all for a proper sight but the technique required is the same. The sextant's clever array of mirrors and its moveable arm, enables one with practice to bring the object; the sun or another star, or the moon, down to the horizon and then read off the angle. The navigator notes the time to the second and then through the use of tables of angles  and a series of calculations can work out a position line - actually a great circle (one that has the centre of the earth at its centre) that goes round the earth. He/She then knows he/she is somewhere on that great circle!

What use is that you may ask? Well on its own not much admittedly. But by working through a number of steps one can improve on that. Firstly, the classic noon sight is used to establish ones latitude. Now that of course is not a great circle but it is nevertheless a really useful thing to know because if you know that and then you get or have already got, a position line hey presto, you know where you are, where the two lines meet. Simple eh! Well not really but never mind.

Anyway I can report that our two intrepid navigators both managed to bring a cloud down to the horizon. Next we need the sun and to remember how to work out when local noon is!

Watch this space. From now on each post will include a progress report!

George cooks another Chilli served with Naan Breads (I kept referring to them as Pittas before) - delicious once again. 

We turn the engine off at about 2100 and 12 hours of motoring and continue sailing at about 3.5 knots almost in the right direction.

Our midnight to midnight run is 104 nautical miles. Our distance to Lands End is 416 which means we are 101 miles closer than we were last midnight. Just as well we motored for 12 hours!