To Bermuda 7: Indjuns!! (and Tortoises)

That's the AIS display screen on my VHF radio. Zoom in and you'll see a number of small circles with lines sticking out of them in the bottom left hand corner, a triangle in the middle and another small circle/line to the right of the triangle.

The group of circles/lines are the Injuns, or more accurately the leading pack of the ARC Europe fleet, also heading for Bermuda. These are the big fast boats. The ARC fleet left St Martin 2 days after us and the leading boats will probably overhaul us by the end of the day. The leader of the pack - Sea Dweller - is 3.5 miles behind us as at 1315 on 16/5 and probably averaging a knot faster. She has her Spinnaker set whereas I reluctantly doused Bonny's cruising chute, when at 2300 last night, my alarm woke me and I discovered that unlike an hour earlier when any remotely fit tortoise would have overtaken us, we were creaming along at 5 knots with the genoa also set and poled out to Starboard. 

Such a shame the sea was flat and it was great sailing under the stars but we were right on the end of the 'sensible' scale. Dark, rising wind, solo! Every ounce of common sense screamed, "get that bloody thing down NOW before we broach. I listened, decided to leave it for another hour - it was such fun, besides I was tired - and then I immediately changed my mind and reluctantly set about the task of wrestling hundreds of square feet of billowing nylon down on to the deck. I  switched the deck light on and donned safety harness and a head torch grabbed the fall end of the very long clew line having left a couple of turns round the winch to provide enough friction to hold the sail without me being pulled overboard and went up on the foredeck. "Oh fuck, it's even windier than I thought!". I rehearsed the drill... Untie the sock downhaul from the mast, move to the front of the foredeck holding on the safety spinnaker pole, pull on the sock downhaul to smother the billowing sail, move back to the mast, tie off the sock downhaul, lower the sock containing the chute to the deck. "Piece of piss" I said. Someone else said, "but look at that fucking sail, its enormous and I'm sure it's even windier than a couple of minutes ago". "So what do you suggest wise arse?" No response. Deep breath. And do you know what? To my great surprise it was a piece of piss!

An hour later I'd replaced the chute with the poled out jib hanked on to the second forestay. A check on the speed. 6 knots with less than half the sail area earlier. Glad I didn't wait any longer! Mind you an hour later the wind had dropped and the sea was up and we were flopping around at 2 knots heading the wrong way.

Meanwhile the other Tortoise, Titti4 was showing on the AIS as about 5 miles off to Starboard, seemingly maintaining station. 

Long before all that kicked off, before it was even dark, whilst we were motoring,  I was in the galley preparing dinner of spaghetti and tinned meatballs when I looked out the window and saw a strange slick on the surface of the sea next to the boat. Whales? I went up to investigate. Nope. The bloody boat was going round and round in circles and the 'failing to maintain course alarm' was beeping. What the f*** is going on I thought. "Shit, I hope the rudder hasn't fallen off, or the steering rods broken." An hour later, after trying to convince myself I had just accidentally switched the auto steering off - which I hadn't - through a wave of mounting panic, I managed to work out through a process of elimination that the rudder was intact afterall and the boat's steering gear fully operational. Also the auto steering responded to changes of course being input, but it wouldn't hold the course. Rather relieved that we weren't rudderless in the 'middle' of the Atlantic, I reasoned that it must be a fault of some sort with the system compass. I decided to wait for the wind then sail so that the steering could be left to the Hydrovane. 

Next, I called up my fellow tortoise, Titti4, on the VHF to appraise them of the situation and left a WhatsApp message for Mick before shutting down Starlink for the night. After putting the engine in nuetral I noticed there was already a slight breeze from the south (ish) and so set about making sail. An hour later we were slipping along at 2 knots a couple of hours before my 2300 Alarm went off.

Next priority was to rescue dinner! The pasta was still warm so I re-heated the tinned meatballs, chucked in some tomatoe puree to get rid of their decidely anaemic looking appearance and tucked in and then went to bed.

I've already mentioned the first time my beauty sleep was disrupted. The second came at around 0530, when I decided that the persisting SW wind had pushed Bonny as far East as was desirable, so requiring yet another sail change. Down came the poled out jib to port. Next I had to ship the pole holding the Genoa out to Starboard, harden in on the genoa then head NW, then hoist the mainsail and head roughly north.

A couple of hours later the wind shifted again, forcing us East - again. The previous rig was now the perfect one, but I just couldn't be assed to start all over again. Instead I poled out the genoa to port where the jib had been, put the now southerly wind behind us and eased the main right out to starboard with a preventer to reduce the risk of an acidental gybe. With the wind gradually increasing, that's been our rig ever since (as at 1600). It's set to continue and so I'll probably have to reef before dark.

Meanwhile, the leading Injuns are snapping at our heals. It turns out the "Sea Dweller", now less than a mile behind us, is a 16 metre Catermaran! So she's longer than Bonny and (in theory anyway) capable of planing. I'm therefore surprised she's only making a knot to a knot and a half faster than Bonny. She ain't no 'Hare', that's for sure! She is however sporting one of those fancy chutes (not a spimmaker as I alleged before) with a slit across it, partly filled by a sort of horizontal sock. A "parasail" I think it's called...

1745 here and the wind has just started to noticeably increase, so two reefs just gone in the main and a couple of rolls in the genoa.

191 miles to go. ETA Saturday morning.

To Bermuda 7: The Tortoise and the ....Tortoise fight it out in the Bermuda Triangle

For two successive nights now Bonny and Titti4 have made their scheduled VHF call at 1800. You may not think that particularly remarkable given the two boats left St Martin within 30 minutes of eachother and are both bound for Bermuda, but for a single hander talking to someone else other than one's self is a bit of a novelty. It's also a little strange given that by the end of day 2,  Titti4 had shown Bonny a clean pair of heals and we only managed to exchange garbled static, I also made out a couple of words from Jan but n. I could still 'see' Titti4 on my AIS display, she was about 10 miles ahead of Bonny. By day 3, she was no longer visible on the AIS and my 1800 call disappeared into the radio waves. Thanks to Starlink I can monitor her tracking website and by the end of day 4 I could see she was more than 15 miles ahead of Bonny. 

It was no more than I expected, Titti4 is a metre longer than Bonny which means she CAN go faster (I'll come back to why later). 

But by the 1800 on day 5 we were able to speak to eachother over the VHF. Her distance off had reduced to 9 miles! Yesterday at 1800 we spoke again when she was only 6 miles ahead of Bonny. Earlier this morning she was only 3 miles ahead and in plain sight. The gap has grown again since. As of 1120 she's nearly 4 miles off.

What's going on?

A number of things. I suspect Bonny reduced the gap initially when under power in the two periods of absolute calm which lasted about 6 hours each.

That's not the whole story though because up until recently we've been gaining under sail alone when we've been sailing on very similar headings.

So why, given Titt4 is a longer boat?

When I said she's faster, that wasn't completely accurate. She has a faster theoretical hull speed - that's, the fastest the laws of physics determine that a boat can go without planing!  

It's actually the boat's waterline length which is important, not her overall length. In addition when a boat heels its waterline length changes. Boats of the vintage of Bonny and Titti4 (i.e. old) are usually longer on deck than at the water line and so when they lean over the actual waterline length increases and therefore so does hull speed.  As the boat moves through the water it creates a wave. The longer the boat, the longer the wave it produces. But, at a given speed determined by the waterline length, that wave can't get any bigger and it doesn't matter how much force via the sails or engine is applied, the boat can't go any faster. UNLESS that is it planes over the top of the wave.  Neither Bonny or Titti4 can plane except under pretty extreme conditions - they're the wrong shape under water and too heavy. One wouldn't really want to be on board when there's consistently sufficient power in the wind to lift these heavy old girls off their waves!

'Of course', the shape of the boat matters too. Take two boats of the same water line measured from end to down the middle of the boat (which is how water line length is measured); one thin the other fat. The fat one has actually got more length in the water and will produce a longer wave and will therefore, under the right conditions, go faster than the thin boat of the same length.

Mind you, don't forget about drag! Oh I haven't mentioned that yet have I! Well 'drag' as you probably guessed, slows the boat down! As soon as a boat heels over, the drag on it increases compared with it being upright.

Which has most effect will depend on the circumstances. But, it's certainly true that there comes a point when, to maintain maximum speed, one needs to reduce sail area and therefore the angle of lean. That reduces drag. Keep up now!

Bonny's hull speed is about 6.5 knots. I'm guessing that Titti4's is perhaps a third to a half a knot faster. BUT, in relative terms, Titt4 is long and thin whereas Bonny is, if not fat, certainly more rounded! She's also lighter which is an advantage in light winds; which is what we've had during the entire period we've been gaining on Titt4.

It all adds up to a most unusual scenario. For two days Bonny has been sailing faster than a bigger boat.

However, the gap is growing again now (1100 on 15/5) as our courses diverge slightly while we look for the best route through the changeable winds ahead. Based on my weather info, I'm trying to stay to the west of a high pressure ridge that's due to produce even lighter airs than we have now. So far it's not working! 🤣

After typing that I noticed the wind had, already veered south and eased from light to very light, as a consequence we were heading south east! Not very helpful. 

So another major sail change from upwind slutter rig to a down-wind goosewinged rig with cruising chute. Like previously, it took the best part of two hours to complete the change which I finished around 1330. The only major difference this time was that I managed to lose one of my two mast head haliyards up the mast. Such a bloody silly, stupid, thing to do. I left the end carelessly untied on the deck. The gremlins needed no further invitation and hoiked it up the mast "without a by your leave". I toyed with the idea of going up the mast to retrieve it, but I can manage without it for now, so another job on the list for Bermuda.

The two tortoises remain locked in battle as they crawl in slightly different directions but both, generally heading northwards!

Stop Press: Tortoise race suspended at around 1615 when crews agreed to motor in light airs/calms in search of wind ahead and target of arrival Bermuda before dark on Friday. 

The wind will pick up late tonight and on Thursday will get quite blowy with a lull on Friday before another spell of less blowy weather. All from W/SW which is good. 

May have to 'heave to' (as near as one can get to stopping without anchoring/ mooring) over night Friday and wait for blow to pass over night and then enter harbour on Saturday.