May 22, 2011 (Full) Day 1
20.36 N latitude, 62.24 W longitude (at 1600)
189 miles

Hello Everybody,

When we make these trips back and forth everything is focused on the weather.  It determines our comfort, our speed, our opportunity to sail or need to motor, it rules our lives.  Therefore the most important time of our day is late afternoon when we tune in to Herb Hilgenberg on the SSB for his forecast.  Jake usually talks to Herb about 1600, so we mark a 24 hour day from 1600 to 1600 and measure our position and mileage at that time.  Each day I will report our 1600 position and mileage.

After listening to Herb today, Ashley came on deck and said “Well, the good news is that we won’t have 35 knots on the nose with 20′ seas!”  The real news was that we can expect no wind for about 3 days.  We found about 130 miles of sailing yesterday, so now we’re looking for about 70 more miles between here and Bermuda.  The rest of the weather news is that it is hot: over 100 in the sun at midday and high 80′s inside the boat with the engine running.  But on the bright side, we’ve been able to open hatches.  And tonight after a brief shower that barely wet the decks we have a full complement of stars–something we haven’t seen in the Caribbean for weeks.

We began the day with a performance by about 50 dolphin.  They came leaping and swimming toward the boat from the starboard side and then rode along the bow for about 5 minutes.  Kenmore, Jake and I enjoyed a great show.  Over the course of the day everyone headed back to the “pool”.  In any kind of a sea, and we have a swell in spite of the lack of wind, our back deck sloshes with sea water.  It is incredibly refreshing to sit back there and cool off before showering and wicking dry in the breeze made by our forward progress.

Unfortunately there is no change in the score of the International Fishing Contest.  Although we had lines out from dawn to dusk, we didn’t even have a bite.  The main event was dining on seared fresh tuna caught yesterday.  (We had eaten some of the tuna as sashimi last night.)  The only other activity was stringing up a row of W.I. country flags with a tuna flag below it to port, and a U.S. flag with a tuna flag to starboard–our visual scoreboard.

The final excitement of the day was the simultaneous sighting of 2 sailboats, one about 2 miles away, the other about 8 miles.  The boat called Loma radioed us in French, which no one understood, but when they tried again in English we learned that they are a family with 2 children and a pet chicken heading for the Azores.

All the best from the crew of avalanche, searching for wind to carry us 70 miles

May 21, 2011 Departure Day
18.08 N latitude, 62.11 W longitude (at 2100)

Hello Everybody,

After a week’s work, almost everything on the long list of prepratory chores has been completed, meals have been prepared and frozen, fresh produce collected and stowed, and ice cream novelties are tucked away in the freezer.  Our crew assembled over the last couple of days, and today made final phone calls to family and (girl) friends as we headed out of the harbor before we lost internet contact.  We untied the dock lines just after 1000.

As Jake has studied the weather for this trip the single defining element seems to be light wind.  The prediction is that we will have winds primarily from northerly quadrants at 10 knots (15 if we’re lucky).  We may have periods with no wind.  Fortunately we carry about 270 gallons of fuel, which will allow us to motor about 800 miles, but that won’t get us to Bermuda, the closest fueling stop. It is 965 miles away on the rhumb line, but in point of fact we never sail in a straight line, so we’ll really need to find wind for 200+ miles.  Today we are off to a good start;  we left Antigua in 20 knots with some gusts closer to 30, which allowed us to put miles under our keel.  During the day the sky brightened with patches of blue as the wind gradually dropped to around 16 knots.  We were still able to make good speed with the computer reporting that our average speed was 8 knots, max 10.2 and min 5.3.  We’ve covered 82 miles in 11 hours!

We have a wonderful excuse for the 5.3 minimum speed:  2 tuna!  Our first fish was a Marlin that shook off the hook.  Then shortly before dinner we caught a yellow fin tuna, followed quickly by a second.  Those of you who have sailed with us, whether on board or vicariously through the web site, know that we have a fishing contest each year.  This year the opposing sides are the Americans vs the West Indians.  (You’ll understand when I introduce our crew.)  The Marlin bit on the W.I. lure.  The first tuna on the U.S. lure, the second on the W.I.  Leo Bontiff actually reeled both fish in.  So at the end of the first day the fishing score is U.S. 1, W.I. 1, fish 1.

We have a wonderful fun crew of bright experienced young men this year, all in their 30′s.  In addition to Jake and me we have Leo Bontiff making his 9th trip, Chris Adams making his 3rd trip, and 2 first timers:  Ashley Rhodes and Kenmore Henville.  Leo comes from Dominica, and he has been looking after our boat in Antigua for 5 or 6 years.  Chris Adams is from Newport, RI.  He, too, has helped us care for avalanche the last couple of years.  (Both Leo and Chris have biographies listed on the web site.  I hope I will get biographies posted for Ashley and Kenmore during the trip.) Ashley is an Antiguan citizen, who owns his own rigging company in Antigua. He has been inspecting our rig each spring and doing whatever rigging has been required when avalanche is in Antigua.  Kenmore is from Bequia, a part of St.Vincent and the Granadines.  He is a professional photographer specializing in taking action photos of yachts.  He heads out to sea standing in a small inflatable dinghy, driving with one hand while shooting photos with the other.  He has taken wonderful photos of avalanche whenever we’ve been in Bequia.  Kenmore is this year’s “rookie” because Ashley has spent more time working on avalanche.  And now you know why one of the fishing teams is the West Indians–they are an Antiguan, a Dominican, and a Bequian!  The U.S. team is Chris and Jake (I just report the scores and help eat the results).

We are happy to have you aboard this trip.

All the best from the crew of avalanche, settling in for our first night at sea with the loom of light over St. Martin disappearing astern and a few stars in the sky.

June 1, 2010 Day 11
41 52N 71 37W Jamestown, RI
Lots of (mostly) good luck

Hello Everybody!

FYI The overwhelming choice of title for our day of drifting serenely backward was “ETA never”, with a vote coming from as far away as Germany!

To continue the saga of getting home with no engine, let me say we had good luck. We did indeed get the predicted SW breeze overnight into Tuesday, 15 knots increasing to 20 and beyond. There was fog, but only 3 hours. Leo got to make a security call and Ruleo learned to watch for high flyers (lobster pots with radar reflectors on their buoys–which scratch the heck out of the hull if you hit one) on the radar. By daylight we had 25 knots of breeze from the SW, off our quarter, which is a terrific ride. That was all good luck. As we hurtled toward Jamestown the off watch crew was madly packing bags, stripping beds and filling laundry bags. We had a quick lunch of whatever leftovers were available as we entered Narragansett Bay. Just in time to jibe 3 times on the way to our mooring.

Fortunately the marina crew had put a pick-up wand on the mooring line for us and could direct us to the appropriate buoy (it’s been half a year, after all). They also stood by near the mooring to help if we needed it. More good luck (or was it skill): we didn’t need help. The wind had picked up (as Herb had predicted) to probably 25 knots–I don’t think anyone looked–as we approached the mooring. It looked as if we’d come up short, but with a full crew aboard they simply rolled out the staysail for a little speed, rolled it up again, and we coasted right up to the mooring. Meanwhile Brian & I were doing the “pickup dance” on the bow: get the wand, no use the boathook, no the wand…..you get the picture. In the end Brian grabbed the wand with one mooring line and got it onto the cleat! Success on the first try. More good luck.

We got to the mooring about 12:30, then continued our clean up and pack up as we waited for Customs & Immigration. The officer arrived about 2:15 and we lucked out again: although it’s not normal procedure, she took the launch out to avalanche at the mooring instead of asking us to come in to the dock. More good luck.

We left the boat with the C&I officer and all our clothing and personal gear and lots of laundry. Jake, with Leo and Ruleo, took Dave over to Newport and Brian home to New Bedford, where they had a great time checking out Brian’s bachelor pad and his Harley!

More good luck came with the weather. About 5 pm a round of thunderstorms came through with lots of rain (free fresh water rinse, good luck), followed by calm. As in no wind, which continued through most of today until the fog rolled in about 3 pm. It is now so foggy we can’t see the dock across the street! Really good luck that we didn’t have to attempt to arrive becalmed in the fog.

At this point we are feeling fortunate. Although we consider losing the use of the engine bad luck (especially because we try so hard to stay on top of maintenance), we were really lucky to be able to sail into the bay in bright sun and right up to our own mooring!

Regarding the fishing: I’m going to have to mend the 3 fish flags that flew through all the squalls and high winds. The West Indian lads plus Jake will have to pay off the bet to the engineers. The final score stands at WI+Jake 1, engineers 4, fish 1. About 4 miles from the mooring buoy we got 2 hits, one on each side. Bluefish. The good news: Leo, Ruleo, Jake & I had fish soup with bluefish for dinner tonight.

So, all the best from the crew of avalanche, ashore.

P.S. Please keep checking. We have photos to put up, but our photo editor (Ruleo) has been busy scrubbing and cleaning the boat, so he might take a day or two to put the photos together for us!

Hi Everybody,

We got into Jamestown about 12:30 today. Sailed right up to the mooring first try. Celebrated our arrival with our last ice cream bars on the mooring waiting for the Customs & Immigration gal to arrive. All’s well, everyone is home. We’re about to have dinner ashore.

P.S. Both sides caught bluefish on the way in–about 4 miles from home.

We’ll post today’s adventures tomorrow, along with photos and, if we’re lucky, that video we talked about.

All the best from the crew of avalanche, disbanded for now.