Day 28 – Blog Update 31 May 2024
4,328 miles and 27 days. We made it! On day 28, we are giving Hummingbird a deep clean, inventorying provisions left aboard, making repairs, and calculating work that needs to be done over the next two weeks. The excitement of the previous weeks is still in our minds as we inventory our dirty laundry, bumps, and triumphs during the trip. Each of us has our own story of persistence, struggles, and ultimately success. We crossed the Atlantic in a sailboat and joined those who have done it before us. No one can explain what that means. We came for different reasons-celestial navigation, sailing challenge, personal curiosity, and the majesty of being on the sea with the vast sky above us.
Yesterday, we eased up the Bristol Channel as dawn broke, with Wales and Somerset closing in on us to port and starboard, respectively. A fine sight, though the beginning of the end was the day before, as we brushed past us County Cork, Ireland, and got our first view of land. Never before had hills seemed more hill-like and trees more tree-like, and all the more wonderful for it.
Look, there’s a cottage: can they see us, and are they imagining what we have done?
And what have we done? We’ve crossed one of the world’s great oceans in something that goes more slowly than a commuter bike. Wow.
On to night time in the Bristol Channel, and Hummingbird has one last trick up her sleeve for us, as her navigation lights, which have shone brilliantly for all those miles of deserted ocean, decide to go on strike for the final miles of the busy shipping lane. Still, nothing was going to stop us now. The anticipation had all of us on deck as the sun rose over our destination.
Some may be inclined to downplay Portshead’s attractions, for it is not a particularly lovely place.
Yacht basin lock wall – grime on my hands not of my making, the grime of England: we are home!
We ate and drank. English breakfast, steak and chip dinner, fancy coffee, beer, and wine.
We showered and bathed, using huge amounts of hot water, soap, and shampoo.
We slept on beds that were not moving, though we thought they were, as the ghosts of the sea rocked us. We started to get our land legs.
Today, as we look around Hummingbird, we see the wear and tear that time at sea has wrought—spoons and forks mostly tossed overboard with the dishwater, a kettle with its whistle ripped off, coffee grounds under every surface of the galley, and a film of grunge on the floors. It all will be righted and is a testament to what it takes to sail across the Atlantic. Vacuuming, scrubbing, power washing, and every window and hatch are open to the marina air.
As for the wear and tear on her crew, that may take a little longer to repair. Bruises, sundry aches and the scar on one of our foreheads l. But what will last much longer are the memories, the pride, and the emotions. Ollie and Manu looked after us brilliantly, but each of us had personal struggles and triumphs to get across the water. There will always be the memory of the endless blue ocean, calling us back or not, as the case may be.
Day 18 – Blog Update 20 May 2024
Keeping Hummingbird humming, come what may…
A north wind has arrived, with two consequences. It is colder, and we are all spending more time in our pungent clothes lockers looking for extra layers that are both wearable and not too much of a public health risk. It also means our speed has picked up, though we are having to beat into it a bit as we still have some latitude to cover. Nonetheless, it has prompted our masters to reduce our ETA to a number below ten days for the first time, triggering debates about whether personal priorities on shore should be cleaning clothes or ourselves or just steak and beer.
So, whatever your preferred gratification, we must keep the old girl humming in the interest of making it soon. That means continuing to beat up with as much sail as possible, the boat heeling over with spray flying above decks and miscellaneous objects flying about below. With 30⁰ of healing and plenty of bouncing around to boot, a simple walk from the galley to your bunk requires its own passage plan. No matter, we all agree boat speed is in our best interests.
At 8 knots, we are crossing one of the world’s great oceans on something that moves a little slower than a commuter bike. When a seagull swoops effortlessly by, leaving us in its wake, we are humbled. But, thanks to the more diligent crew members scurrying on deck whenever we glimpse the sun, we have our sextants and plotting sheets to reassure us that we are making progress. Or we can look at our ensign for our daily numbers as the wind whips away the miles; almost there?
Our dishwashing routine took an unexpected turn when the bucket, meant for water disposal, ended up with all the spoons. But we’re a resourceful bunch, and now we’re eating our cornflakes with forks. It’s a minor adjustment, but these little things keep us going.
Then, there is the moment of challenge when Lynn responds to his request for a course change by passing the wheel across the cockpit to our captain and suggesting he has a go. Yes, the wheel had fallen off in 15 knots of wind and a biggish sea. We will go out with the emergency tiller so we can heave to it, and after some rooting about and a certain amount of tension, we will find a replacement bolt that fits near enough, and we will be on our way again. At a point about 900 miles south of the southern tip of Greenland, it felt good to be able to steer.
And thus we keep her humming….
Day 15 – Blog Update 19 May 2024
Of weather and whisky, dangling Manu and other animals…
This evening, Hummingbird is draped in damp clothes, less a sailing yacht, more a floating clothes wrack. Ollie says that Rubicon skippers pride themselves on keeping their craft shipshape; he has therefore ordered us to hide the Rubicon 3 branding, lest this disgrace to the corporate brand be spotted by passing ships. After four days of rain and cold and flying spray, the boat is level, the sun has come out, and so has our soggy attire.
The price we pay for this clement interlude is that the wind has dropped, and the sails are as limp as the sweatshirts hanging on the preventer. Nonetheless, we inch forward, even if our masters say the same number of days to go – ten – as they said yesterday. But progress there is; yesterday, we celebrated our halfway mark a day or so late. Accordingly, the captain consented to allow us a glass of whisky each, eschewed by the more wholesome on board but much appreciated by the others. We drank in the saloon at 30⁰, the rain lashing the portholes, to the prospect that the wait for our next drink would be shorter than the one before this one. And evidently, we need the practice: after 14 days of enforced abstinence, Mr Jameson’s effect was surprisingly significant.
Manu is a chap who doesn’t need booze to do nutty things. Today, we hauled him up the mast with a sail repair kit to fix several potential mortal holes in the main. As the boat tipped about, he swung about at 70’ like a ragdoll in reflective sunglasses, laughing as ever but perhaps with a slightly more strained than usual. Like John Muir, who liked to climb redwood trees to “better appreciate what it is to be a tree,” Manu fealty for masts and sails.
The mainsail came down yesterday for an inspection of areas of concern and a quick repair; hoping it’ll make it the last portion of our voyage home to a sailmaker, for if it does not, then we will be back to the sail, which we tried out for a while yesterday. It’s bright orange and relatively small, a splash of colour quite fitting for a hummingbird perhaps, but unlikely to get us to dry land & pubs/laundrettes/clothes shops (crew: delete as applicable & select your preference). So up goes the mainsail again, and Manu, with its effect, yet more repairs.
Aside from him, there are other extraordinary animals. The swooping birds wheel past us in the bigger seas, disappearing in a wave trough, reappearing 200 yards further and then up into the clouds. What are these birds, and what are they doing here? It would be nice if someone knowledgeable were on board; perhaps these sightings would have had some navigational value in days of yore, just like the celestial bodies we wait for in vain under the clouds. Dolphins, too: a big pod today, and two days ago, a baby one leaping vertically out of the water for no other purpose than youthful exuberance. Again, the parallels with Manu are evident. And a close encounter with a whale, too close for comfort but not as threatening as the Portuguese man-of-war that continues to drift by.
We are 2,000 miles from anyone, but we are not alone.
Day 12 – Blog Update 14 May 2024
Right, well, you’ve had enough highlights. Just like the BBC, we strive for balance here in the Hummingbird media department, so here are some lowlights:
· Getting pelted by a cascade of fruit and vegetables, as they all decide at once to leap out of the saloon ceiling net, like lemmings, as Hummingbird heels toward port
· Landing on the far side of the galley with the entire contents of the washing-up bowl – greasy water, plates, the lot – in your lap as the result of a sudden gust of wind.
· A puddle in your clothes locker;
· Starting your watch without oilskins on – on Meg’s advice of fine weather to come – and getting soaked to the skin in a squall 15 minutes later;
· The abject terror that takes hold when you think your latest deposit in the heads might be too much for the flush pump.
· 2.50 am: on one leg, half in my oilskins, sleep-deprived and a little bit sick, in a narrow space that’s half-lit and pitching violently, and landing inevitably on my bum;
· 3.05 am: still feeling half-dead, after heaving at some winch until I’m desperate, Ollie calling “one last heave” and wondering for a moment whether he’s talking about the winch or the state of my bowels.
· The unfortunate diarrhetic side effect of my seasickness pills: most people get blisters from ropes and winches; I get mine from excessive use of the heads flush pump handle
· Tinned green beans.
And if all of that makes you ask, why do it? You clearly haven’t been reading this blog carefully. If holidays are about “Getting Away From It All”, sitting on a small boat 2,000 miles from anywhere serves pretty well. Only space tourists (who admittedly also get to see a lot of stars) get away from it all quite so comprehensively. And in space, you don’t get the wind in your hair, the spray in your face, the foaming sea creaming past you at night, dolphins with your morning coffee, fresh-caught tuna for lunch, and 57 varieties of Hummingbird Mush-in-a-Bowl for every other meal.
Day 10 – Blog Update 12 May 2024
And the wind came! 45 knots of it
Think of a cardboard egg tray, all hollows and ridges and peaks. Imagine an egg tray for a million eggs, with just one small white egg in the middle. Hummingbird is that egg (though somewhat less fragile, one hopes). For the first time, the sea is not relatively flat when we look over towards a distant horizon; it is something we are part of. The water is above us, alongside us, rushing by. Today is the day the sea has become three-dimensional. And we’re in it!
Big grey-blue lumps of water loom next to us in the cockpit, but we know Hummingbird will lift herself over them, so they’re not threatening. Instead, they are like big St Bernard dogs looking over your shoulders when sitting on the sofa. When they decide to come aboard, these dogs give you not a warm Labrador lick on your face but a bucket of cold water on your head.
And the noise, and the motion. Everything rattling along. The boat, of course: We clock 12kts, which is not bad, with almost no canvas, just the mainsail, fully reefed. And the waves, rolling and rolling and rolling. And the tops of the waves, whipped by the wind, occasionally a bigger one breaking slightly a few hundred metres away, and we’re glad it’s over there, not right here. And sometimes a turquoise strip between the blue-grey mass of the wave and its white breaking top.
Manu is particularly excited by the turquoise, for some reason, and even more so by the Portuguese man-of-war that only he sees. We are battling the gale here, and the duty officer is on jellyfish watch. Oh well, a sign of confidence, I suppose. Indeed, he seems energised by the high winds, leaping around excitedly, gleefully grinning. This is the weather he loves. No matter what, if our wind gauge fails, we can see its speed by the breadth of Manu’s grin and knowledge.
But in truth, we’re all energised. Knowing we’re in a solid boat and well-prepared, this is nothing but fun. We each take turns helming as usual, guiding Hummingbird over those waves. We’re grinning as we shout over the wind, and when the rain burst happens, for just a few minutes, that adds to the scene. And then, somehow, the sun comes out, and the backs of all those crazy waves between it and Hummingbird are suddenly gleaming metallic.
The watch finishes, and we retire below. Wetter than is ideal, perhaps, but happy for what we’ve done. We know full well there are much bigger storm stories to tell, perhaps even in store for us on this trip. Still, today’s experience was definitely a highlight so far. We were in the storm, part of the storm, and part of the sea. It’s what we came for.
Day 4 – Blog Update 09 May 2024
Day 4 after leaving Nassau. We’re heading north to date and have made our most significant course change east so far (check track map.) In addition to honing our skills in celestial navigation, we are also learning the challenges of cooking for 11 people at a jaunty angle of 45 degrees. Think of cooking in a small poltergeist-infested kitchen while drunk, and you’ll get the general idea. On evening watch last night, we had the joy of waiting for the first stars to appear, sextant in hand, to try and snag a star fix. To our relief and surprise, they appeared where expected, which was rather magical.
Day 6
What a difference 24 hours make! This morning, our watch sees a sunrise so beautiful in seas so languid that even our hard-bitten first mate is moved to get his camera. There’s barely any wind and only the gentlest of swells. It’s a perfect morning for cooking bacon for breakfast (controversially) and for photography, but not so good if you have places to go. We decide to get the engine going.
24 hours earlier, a rather different scene and a short episode that exemplifies Rubicon 3’s fabulousness. It’s 4 a.m., another warm night, pretty clear but with occasional distant lightning flashes, which we perhaps should have taken more notice of. The 30kts of wind behind us have been causing us to steer increasingly off-course for a while, and so we decide to make the gybe.
And that’s when the squall arrives. The rain is coming down at an impressive angle with abundant volume in a moment. None of us have proper rain gear on; we’re very quickly soaked. We have to do things to the three lines controlling the spinnaker pole, the Yankee sheets, the preventer, the vang, the mainsheets, and probably a few things I have forgotten. In the dark, with our red-light torches and all that water falling out of the sky, it’s hard to see what’s happening. The cockpit is a mess of lines around our feet, cranking winches, legs, arms and bums flailing about without apparent owners. Manu’s on the foredeck being athletic. And the rain keeps coming, and the sea roaring by at 12kts.
On my boat, with this much chaos, the air would be blue with profanity, but on Hummingbird, we have Ollie, and all there is the red from our headlights. He directs and corrects us with a calm authority that makes everyone feel safe. (He may be thinking,” Not that line, you daft b****r”, but he has the good grace not to show it.) And when Manu appears beside me to add some much-needed horsepower to my efforts on the mainsheet winch, I realise this is only this much fun because we are in such capable hands.
We made 33 miles in that watch, the fastest run so far, and we later worked out that the 24-hour run was 242 miles. We are told this is Hummingbird’s biggest-ever run, and we are happy to believe they only tell some of the crews this.
For now, though, we are dawdling again, but we are heading properly east. And we need to enjoy the calm while we can, we are told, because we’ll soon have big winds behind us, and it’ll be a few more days of bashing, crashing and surging. Yay! Watch this space…
Offshore Day 3 – Blog Update 07 May 2024
What a wonderful day to be Watch A! We had the 21.00 to midnight watch, and Watch C cooked us a delicious curry supper, whose spices stayed with us until we were relieved promptly at midnight by Watch B, punctual as ever, with the verve and vigour that we have come to expect of that redoubtable trio. Earlier, for lunch, we ate our fill of fresh tuna (note to the purser: tube of wasabi for the next trip, please). However, Manu insisted on keeping its eyeballs to himself. Then, there was a barracuda, which we spared; its very toothy mouth offered us, at last, a spectacle in these waters that was scarier than the ire of our captain when he thought the helm was off course. At dusk, we watched Max shoot three stars successfully, three more than most of us, but there were no early risers at dawn.
After seeing the last of the day turn into night, our 06:00 watch saw night turn back into day. We had the sky to ourselves. First, a sliver of moon appeared, then the sun turned the eastern clouds pink, and finally, the sun burst through the clouds at the horizon. A dark petrel skimmed the wave tops around us. Meg’s coffee was fine, watch-leader Tom was content, and all was fine with the world. We wondered what it would be like to be people at work now, on phones and trains, somewhere noisy, and can’t quite picture it.
Then, the reverie is broken. It’s action stations. Ollie says we’ll put up the kite (the yankee’s been flopping about unhappily for a while). Manu gives him a look and does something with his eyebrow. We’ll tactfully describe what follows as a “discussion”, and presently, the decision is made to pole out the yankee. We look at the mess of lines uneasily. Manu is reassuring. Just do what we practiced three days ago, he says. Oh, that’s all right, then.
Then, Watch C bounce up the companionway, and the fun is over for another 6 hours.
We’re roughly level with the Florida-Georgia border (note to Bruce: Cape Canaveral is still hiding in Florida), and things are going well.
05 May 2024
And we are off! Rubicon 3’s annual Celestial Navigation Transatlantic Crossing is a go. This year, it will be from the capital of the Bahamas, Nassau, to Bristol, England.
With the crew arriving last Sunday to head straight into a two-day crash course on celestial navigation with Bruce, a few days of prep began onboard. The mammoth task of victualling for 11 people for 28 days began, as well as a few routine jobs onboard and some more non-routine ones, like fixing leaky pipes!
After prep was done and the logistical challenge of finding a home onboard for every purchased item of food was complete, we launched into briefings with our transatlantic crew, briefing them on everything from lifejackets to MOB recovery to how to use the heads onboard. After a day of packing and briefing in the Bahamian heat, one last evening ashore was had in the Green Parrot marina bar.
Thursday saw us clear customs and head out of Nassau’s busy harbour and into our training sail. Putting the new crew through their paces and getting them up to scratch with all the deck evolutions, they will no doubt become masters during this crossing.
Friday marked the true beginning of our transatlantic adventure. With anchor weighed and our number 1 Yankee hoisted, we gracefully sailed out of our anchorage at Rose Island. The initial northwest direction, a bit counterintuitive for a West to East Transat, was a strategic move to enter the favourable gulf stream as soon as possible. The crew, brimming with excitement and anticipation, were eager to put their newfound celestial skills to use, engaging in shotting, reducing, and plotting their sights.
Offshore – Day 2 started off with landing a stripped tuna and then very quickly a barracuda (which was quickly released due to the proximity of reefs!). Now, as I write this, it is 1930 onboard. The sun is on its way down, and the crew is still in shorts and T-shirts, with the prep work being done for our evening star sights. Oh, and we are also charging north at 11 knots, with the powerful running north with us at an estimated 3 knots! What could be better?
Ollie
