BVI1469 2005 #2

On the third and fourth days of our passage we had fine broad reaching winds and easy seas: then we had a front come through which was a fairly quick blast - the frontal passage was not too deep - and it was followed by four days of excellent beam winds, but with some bumpy waves to remind us we were only human. The good thing about the heavy seas was that, even though they lasted all the way to the Islands, they were on or abaft the beam, and with a good breeze to fill reefed sails, the motion was reasonable. Of course, after a couple of days of being shoved over and back again about fifteen degrees every 8 seconds, you become acclimatised.



Larking About and her equipment took all this in stride, and we made what I believe was one of the faster passages ever under sail only by a 40 foot cruising yacht: as we crossed 18.30n at the Dogs we had covered 1469nm on the log in 8 days and 17 hours, for an average of almost exactly 7kts; and we had only half a day on the prop getting down the East coast to Hatteras in order to get across the Stream well ahead of the Northerly wind shift and the weather that was coming.



This could be blamed on picking a great weather window, good planning and routing, sound preparation of a strong bluewater yacht, and, most importantly, selecting an outstanding crew. A more accurate accusation might be: dumb luck!