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.