June 10 -16 -- Sailing Rusee From Bermuda to Halifax

Departure day for the six-day passage to Halifax finally arrived. Captain Yves planned for a noon departure, using the morning to get ready. So we dinked ashore for last email communications and final provisioning. Returning to Rusee, we raised the dink, moved its outboard to its perch on the port quarter, scrubbed it top and bottom, deflated and rolled it up, wrapped it in its wrapper and stowed it on deck, forward of the mast.
But after starting the engine, we could not raise the Rocna. Nothing wrong with the anchor or the windlass but instead of pulling the anchor up, the windlass was pulling the bow down. We were snagged. Yves has a portable gas driven air compressor which pumps air through a long hose to a mouthpiece. Donning weights and flippers and taking down a long line, he fastened it to the anchor, and told us to haul it taut and then slacken the anchor chain. The chain had gotten caught under an old engine block lying on the bottom. Yves got it out from under but with thinking, preparing, doing, and putting everything away, it was two hours.
Then to the fuel dock to fill every tank and bottle with water and finally to the Bermuda Customs and Immigration Office for some paperwork, a call to Bermuda Radio for final clearance and we motored out through St. George’s deep channel to the Atlantic in very light wind.

Within two or three hours we were both off the Bermuda plateau into water thousands of feet deep and out of sight of land. Only an estimated 141 of the 144 hour passage left to go.
About 6 pm a strike! I ended up helping bring him close after a while when Greg got tired fighting the fish. I stood over his shoulder and pulled back from near the top of the rod repeatedly while Greg cranked the reel. Yves gaffed, killed and filleted the fish. A Wahoo, about three feet long. His body yielded 18 large filets, enough to feed the three of us for a week, in
plastic bags in the bottom of the

fridge. Greg was elated.
We divide the twelve hours of the night -- from six to six -- into four three-hour watches, and rotate among them each night. I got the two easiest the first night: “on” until 9 pm, then Yves, then Greg, and I’m back on at 3 a.m. after six hours off.
The apparent wind came up to about nine knots, about 60 degrees off the starboard bow. We’re getting something from the main, using the engine and making about five knots without a headsail. Good night.

Day 2 — Tues. June 11
Well Greg did not wake me at a quarter to three as I had requested, to give me time to gain consciousness, dress and prepare to stand watch at three; indeed, not till about four. The sun’s rays peeked over the cloudy horizon at 5:30. During the night, we had gotten a few degrees off course due to seaweed on the rudder which was shaken off by a few seconds of neutral.
About seven, winds were about ten knots near the starboard beam. After a few minutes of indecision between the Genoa and the asymmetrical spinnaker, Yves selected the former and after a lot of work getting it attached, up and set we were sailing at six knots under full main and Genoa.
With each boat making its own decisions about motoring versus sailing, sail selection and engine speeds, we are still within three miles of Argonauta with Shelly and Georgio.

Not much electricity from the solar panels until the sun comes out, but in addition to the wind generator, Yves tossed in the towed water propeller, on about e feet of propeller shaft for weight and 30 feet of three strand line. Water passing this propeller with its ten inch span, turns it, the line and the rotor on a generator, producing six to eight amps per hour. This is only for the open ocean not for crowded waters.
Today we passed the latitude of Cape Hatteras on a northerly course roughly parallel to the coast of Virginia to New York, but about 550 miles off shore.
Well the genoa did not work out that well; even with being poled, we were too far downwind so swapped it for the asymmetrical spinnaker.
Each of these sails require a lot of work to fly right. The Genoa sheets are coiled and stored on the rail forward. Yves mounts the top bow pulpit rail!!, attaches each to the clew with a bowline and undoes a strap that prevents the sail from unfurling unintentionally. It is because the sheets are not long enough to reach the cockpit when the sail is furled. Yves accepted my suggestion to leave the sheets attached which means he only has to go a bit forward to retrieve them rather than stand on the bow pulpit!!! The pole has its uphaul and its downhaul, and of course, the furling line has to be coordinated with the sheets and the halyard.

We are flying the kite on our port bow with the wind coming at our starboard quarter. But the spinnaker has gotten us up to seven knots, faster than the motor can go.
I was initially disappointed that Yves did not give me the helm under the asymmetrical in these blustery winds. They require a heavy hand on the wheel as we ride over swells which swerve the boat’s bow. But Greg has much more experience on this boat and with spinnakers than I do and he was selected to spell Yves. I don't like to be reminded of the fact that I'm not as great a sailor as my friends like to think I am.

But hand steering Rusee requires that the helms-person stand astride the helmsman’s seat, not sit on it, in a precarious high posture with few strong handholds. The wheel and binnacle are not to be used as supports. Also, I’m the tallest  member of our trio, and the oldest, by an average of ten years compared to the other two and my balance is not what it once was. So though disappointed, I came to realize the wisdom of Yves’ decision.

Lunch was a joint effort: my cole slaw accompanied Gregg’s wahoo burgers on rolls. These were not patties of wahoo flesh mixed with filler, but fried 5/8” thick filets. The restaurant at which we ate our only Bermudan dinner, The Wahoo Grill, sold something that they called a wahooburger, but at $28 a piece. We each ate two! Greg had caught us a very valuable fish.

  
About 4 pm we had a problem. We tried to take down the asymmetrical spinnaker and put up the tri-radial, which is held out with the pole. The good news: no one was hurt. The bad news is that one of the spinnaker sheets was lost. Broken or torn? No. Dropped overboard! This resulted from use of an untrained crew, me, especially untrained in the names and locations of the multiple lines that have to handled in a specific manner and order, coupled with an epidemic of hearing loss among us.When Yves yelled from the foredeck that I should “Let Go of The Sheet!”, I did. The thick yellow and white line ran forward out of the boat and got tangled with the continuous looped blue line that controls the raising and lowering of the sleeve and exposes the sail to the wind when raised and douses it when lowered. The tangle was in the ocean under the port side of the boat. Yves worked heroically and frantically (and he was already tired from the other operations). When he got the blue line free, he dropped the yellow one, thinking it was attached aft, which it was not. I’m rather amazed that Yves did such sail changes, that three of us had problems with, ALONE, when he sailed solo to the Azores, a fourteen day passage!
Then we poled out the Genoa again, to starboard to run wing on wing to catch all the wind coming over the starboard quarter. We talked over what had happened and Greg started dinner. We jibed to a port tack just before dark, now heading a bit west of north, anticipating the passage of a front, tomorrow, presaging wind from the north into which we will have to beat.
My night watch tonight was from midnight to 3 am. But at about nine, as I was about to sleep — more excitement. The “lost” port spinnaker sheet was not lost after all! Rather it had been caught on the towed water propeller, tangled to a knotted mass, and caught on the rudder and propeller. This was noticed when autopilot could not steer. I heard a lot of yelling topside and came up to learn of the problem and what I could do to help. First the head sail was furled to slow us and Yves was looking down and pulling on this and that to try to untangle things. He detached the towed generator propeller from its generator on the port stern pulpit which permitted tugging the generator line from either end.

But what to do? I actually suggested the method ultimately used, to dive now in the dark. The alternative was to furl all sails and “lie ahull”, drifting for the night with no steering or propulsion.and tackle the problem in the morning light. But the wind was expected to be stronger in the morning, making swimming under a bobbing hull even more dangerous. Greg suggested using a flashlight in a baggie after pressing out all the air from that baggie because air would make the unit too buoyant. Yves took off most of his clothes and donned a weighted belt, flippers, mask and a harness that does not have an inflatable life preserver. He tied a bowline to it, jumped in, and after a few seconds, after his first dive, bobbed up and said “We’re free!” Then we retrieved him, put all the gear away and it was midnight, time for my watch. We motored through the night, and not very fast. No one wanted to put up more sails during the darkness.
Day 3 — Weds. June 12
During the excitement Sherri had been calling from Argonauta. She offered to came back seven miles to help us. Yves told her to wait on this. After Yves took to his bed during my watch she called again to report that in the building winds, up to 20 knots, they were making six six under one sail only and were trying to slow down so we could catch up. We were making only five and a half with the engine. She asked to speak with Yves but I politely refused to wake him and she asked him to call when he rose. I advised her that we had solved our problem, did not need assistance and that she should do what was best for Argonauta. During my watch I patiently untwisted the tight Gordian knot that the spinnaker sheet had  become. We continued for the night under motor and in the morning Argonauta was out of VHF radio range. We contacted them in Halifax and they were safe.
We sailed most of the day under the main with a second reef and the small storm jib which is hanked on, not roller furled. And we tacked back and forth at slower speed and made relatively little progress toward Halifax. Rusee is fast for her length with the wind behind her, but does not point well. But at least we were not going backwards. Before dark we shook out the reefs. And with lighter wind, selected a course closer to our destination and motor sailed
.A quiet day, our third, and the first of them without a dive under the boat. A late breakfast of pancakes and chopped fruit with our coffee, no lunch and Wahoo for dinner. A small pod of dolphins played with us for a few minutes in the afternoon. We encountered one merchant vessel, which told Yves that he had altered course to pass 1.5 miles from us. Otherwise no contact with the outside world. Whatever news is happening out there is happening without our knowledge. I have become much more of a user of the internet to look up stuff and references in the books I read. Not on this voyage, however, and I miss it.

Interesting cleats: only one turn around the wide end for friction and the line, of various widths, is held under the narrow end. I'd not seen these before.

Day 4 —Thurs. June 13

Today we made up for lost time. With winds up to 18 knots apparent, we experimented until we came up with a great configuration. Auto pilot could not handle us with other configurations. The ideal was wing on wing, with the boom and whisker pole in near a straight line, but from off the starboard bow to the port quarter. The storm jib on the whisker pole and the reefed main on the boom. I had never thought to sail wing on wing except on a dead run. With this configuration we presented a wall of canvas to the wind and made speeds of up to nine knots. We made it a double reefed main before dark.

We ate well, slept a lot and talked a lot. We reattached and redeployed the towed spinner to generate electricity. One merchant boat caused the AIS to beep. It was set on ten mile range and the merchantman, which we never saw with our eyes, passed 9.8 lies behind us. No cause for alarm, but it is nice to be warned of such things. In Long Island Sound we have turned off the AIS alarm because it otherwise presents a constant nuisance beeping sound; out here it beeps rarely and usefully.
Day 5 — Fri. June 14
During the night, while I was asleep we got very high winds, peak of 38 knots, coupled with torrential rains, from astern. Greg had the watch and everything he wore was soaked through. Fortunately this was still south of the Gulf Stream, so not cold, well, quite a wind chill. With such high winds, autopilot could not handle the boat so Greg kept us safe while sails were reduced. Rusee has a plastic sheet that when zipped at its top, to the aft end of the Dodger, encloses the companionway area, which is wide and provides a seat from which the person on watch can sit when not needed to change the course or sails. rather warm and dry. Also, when the wind is from aft with rain, the plastic keeps the driving rain out of the boat. The zipper of its starboard side is broken and Yves tried to use strong clothes pins but they were not strong enough. I had seen Yves use his four inch long mini vise grips for many purposes. I suggested this tool to keep the plastic sheet in place and it worked. I tool I aim to acquire!
During my afternoon watch we had another heavy rain, but there was only about fifteen knots of wind and in daylight. I got out my soap bar and washed myself and all the clothes I was wearing. After scrubbing them they got three wring out rinse cycles before the rain stopped.
We continued with great speeds today until night, when the winds game up on out on our port bow and we probably averaged only 3.5 knots for eight hours.
In the Gulf Stream, Greg deployed his fishing line again with intent to catch and release. Yves heard the whir of a hit and saw a shark, perhaps eight feet in length. Before I could get topside to see it, the fish had bitten through the line and was gone, and with Greg’s expensive lure in his mouth.
I noticed a tear in the Genoa, in the upper half, which turned out to be only a seam that came undone for part of its length and can be repaired with relative ease, but the genoa cannot be used for the duration of this passage unless it is taken down and sewn by hand.
Other things that have broken on this voyage include 1) the glued bond of the base of an electric fan mounted in a corner of the nav table (I bounced into it with my hip), 2) the handle of one of the wide base coffee mugs (crumbled in Greg’s hand) and 3) the plastic hinge by which the toilet seat goes up and down in the head ( I was sitting on it when Rusee lurched). Ocean passages are the cause of many, hopefully small, broken things. Never a dull moment. Another merchantman, according to AIS, passed 9.8 miles behind us. A day of resting and reading. Rusee has an unusual interior. There are windows for 270 degrees around the forward view, like a raised deck salon style, but every boat I have seen in that style places the salon dining table in the center of the boat, high, so diners can take advantage of the view. On Rusee, the dining table is below the cockpit and atop the diesel.

Next is the look forward with the head centerline, aft of the centerboard sliding cavity (behind the ship's clock) with the head entered from the starboard side. (Fan still mounted on the nav desk, right.

When the wind came up this morning, we shook out the reef and ran with the main and storm jib, I’d call it the smaller jib, with winds from port, near the beam, making up to six knots. At 9:30 this morning, GPS says we will reach our waypoint, at the entrance to Halifax Bay, between noon and 1 pm tomorrow, depending on our speed, with another two hours to Greg’s dock at the far north end of Bedford Basin.
Yves played a set of sailing songs by Eileen Quinn, with very modern lyrics about GPS and other conveniences. And I was inspired to sing “Sailing, Sailing” which Yves had me repeat several times while videotaping me. He writes, produces, directs and stars in high production quality videos of each of his passages. This one will include my earnest but crappy singing; I'll add a link to it.
Day 7 — Sun. June 16
At midnight the computer said we would reach the entrance to Halifax in twelve hours. But the winds got too strong so we but two reefs in the main, which slowed us, when the wind lightened. By six a.m., still twelve hours and we shook out the reefs. During the night two big merchant vessels passed within 1.5 miles of us, heading to Europe. When heading up into the bay that has Halifax a big Canadian Destroyer passed us port to port about a mile away— this on a Sunday. Later a military ASW airplane. Halifax to port and Dartmouth to starboard.

Canadian customs told us to call them back after we were on a dock and we did so from the Dartmouth YC fuel dock. Four of them showed up, checked our papers and declined the offer to search the boat. Then to the dock at Greg’s house where we arrived at about 1:30 pm, less than one hour before the end of the sixth day of the passage. Wanda giving us a big welcome in front of their new boat.

Talk about a good time estimate! On the other side of dock was Greg and Wanda’s new, for them, 43 foot Albin sloop, teak decked and sleek. I had not known that Albin made sailboats.

Then showering shaving, packing up and cleaning before a feast cooked by Greg and Wanda. l should have taken a picture of it. Excellent wines. Lots of cheeses and crudités and then grilled shrimp, sirloins, wahoo, two salads, corn on the cob, baked potatoes, garlic bread and a few other things. Dinner for eight sailors: Yves and me, Greg and Wanda, Greg’s brother and his wife who sail a Beneteau 51, and Greg’s new boss and his wife, who have a smaller sailboat but are training to move up in size, including his serving on Rusee de Jersey for the next few legs toward Quebec City.

I was home via American Airlines the next night.