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.

May 31, 2010 Day 10
39 49N 70 27W
Select a title!

Hello Everybody,

Today we thought we’d let you readers select your own favorite title for the blog, and here are a few ideas from which to choose: “The starter didn’t”, “Nice place to visit, let’s stay “, “Backing into Newport”, “Drifting along”, or the crew’s favorite “ETA never”.

If that doesn’t give you some sense of what we’ve been doing since we all fell into bed exhausted at the end of yesterday, let me provide details. We weren’t able to get the engine started, so we are under sail power only. From 8 pm yesterday when we gave up on the engine starter until 6 am we had about 16 knots of wind and the crew had lovely, if chilly (think Ruleo), sailing covering about 84 miles. From 6 am until 10:30 we made 1 mile good toward Jamestown in 5-9 knots of wind. Part of that time we were actually drifting stern first toward Narragansett Bay and a drifting Portuguese Man ‘O War was passing us! When we checked our waypoint on the computer it read “ETA never”. We were so flummoxed that we took a photo of the screen. During our 4 pm to 4 pm period we made 134 miles, a far cry from our normal 180. In the final 10 hours from 6 am until 4 pm, that’s most of today, we managed 22 miles. Through it all everyone has remained in good spirits. There was at least one ‘final’ shower on the back deck; Ruleo practiced his cribbage; several games of solitaire were either lost or cheated on; Brian & Leo demonstrated card tricks; Jake & Leo watched the first half of “The Bucket”; we had reasonable satellite phone coverage so lots of calls were made; Jake caught up on sleep; we enjoyed the 80 degree temperature in the sunshine on deck; Dave and I were both reading, most of the others have finished their books. Currently our wind is about 15 knots and we’re making 5+ knots with 100 miles to go. However the prediction is for 15-20 from the SW tonight into tomorrow, so we’re hoping for better speed.

There is new information on the fishing contest. We had a hit on Dave & Brian’s line. Dave jumped up to get it, Ruleo was closer and ran for it too with some of us saying that Dave (who had reeled in the 3 fish we’ve caught) should give someone else a shot. Jake hollered that Brian, who happened to be below in his stateroom and as far from the rod as he could be, should reel it in because it was on his side and he hadn’t caught a fish yet. Meanwhile during all this dithering Ruleo grabbed the rod and hesitated thinking he should let Brian have it. And…..the fish got away! Afterward during the would’ve, could’ve, should’ve discussion it was determined that the proper action would have been for Ruleo to set the hook and hang on to the fish while Brian came running up to finish the job. Unfortunately that isn’t what happened. So the score is now Jake and the West Indian lads 0, Dave & Brian aka the engineers 3, fish 1. At our current speed we should come up on the shelf tomorrow, so perhaps we’ll have some good catching! That’s where we generally see wildlife and we’re looking forward to it.

We had at least 3 pods of dolphins today, all just after sunrise. Since then only mylar balloons, although yesterday Ruleo thought he saw a shark in the wild seas.

All the best from the crew of avalanche, looking forward to discovering sealife on the shelf, creeping toward home, and arrival!

May 30, 2010 Day 9
38 02 N 69 44W
Tough Day

Hi Everybody,

It’s been a long tough day for the crew of avalanche. The sun rose on blustery windy squally weather with wild seas in the Gulf Stream. The boat and crew got totally soaked both by breaking waves and by rain. In the early afternoon we finally began breaking free of the stream and of the heavy winds and waves. The winds lessened and the waves diminished, but we were in a foul current of 2 knots or more. We just were not getting very far very fast. Jake started the engine so we could make better speed, but the engine overheated: something had gotten caught in the engine intake line. Jake, Leo and I worked to blow the line clear while others sailed the boat. On attempting to restart the engine the starter failed. In the meantime the bilge pump came on and stayed on and on and on. So Leo and I began pulling up floorboards, checking the engine strainer we had just had open, checking all the systems that were running. Long story short the bilge strainer (which we carefully cleaned before leaving Antigua) was full of stuff so although the bilge pump was running, it wasn’t pumping. After cleaning the strainer the bilge pump is performing normally. As we were looking for sources of water in the bilge Jake noticed water coming from the air conditioning evaporator pans. It turns out that the pans have a drain line on only one side, not both. So when we heel to one side the water runs through a hose into the bilge, when heeled the other way the water simply spills over onto whatever is beneath it. That was an easy fix: we bailed the water from the pan, turned off the air conditioning, and plan to put in a second drain when we get home!

Back to the starter: we have checked all the terminals, removed the start motor and cleaned it. (Sounds simple, I know, but it involves pulling up most of the floorboards in the salon and removing pumps and blowers to get to the affected parts. We have run out of daylight without a repair and are now sailing just as we would have in any case. The entire crew was up from noon on, so they are all exhausted. At this point whoever isn’t on watch is sleeping and whoever is on watch wishes he was sleeping! We’ll get back to the starter in the morning.

Meanwhile we’re 215 miles from home, sailing happily (if somewhat cold, especially Ruleo) under a beautiful starry night. Our ETA is difficult to predict at this point.

All the best from the crew of avalanche, hoping the engine starter will do its job tomorrow!