Here’s a blog post of that start 15 years
April 5, 2001
We’ve left Annapolis today. It was a bit more effort to actually get going that I had anticipated. One crew member, bailed out and we didn’t find out until 36 hours after he was supposed to arrive. We will miss him, but to our great fortune, my Dad was able to fill in for the missing crew member so we won’t be picking him up in the Azores after all.
Dad arrived at 4:55 after his first flight was canceled. His bag didn’t show up and they said they would be happy to deliver it anywhere USAIR flies. Unfortunately, they don’t go to the middle of the Atlantic. 😉 (Since that time, I’ve lost two full set’s of golf clubs on USAIR)
After having dinner at the airport, the bag arrived and we were off to Annapolis Landing Marina for an early evening departure. We made it to the docks around 6:30PM EST and shoved off after Dad put his gear down below and we said good-bye to Jerri and our Yacht brokers, who became very good friends through the commissioning process. Jesse, from Imagine Yachts, helped design and build Blue Rhapsody (BR) with the same care and attention that he would take for his own boat. As a result, I’m sure BR is one of the best-equipped cruising boats in the World.
The process of Building BR was one of the most rewarding I’ve had. The relationship one has with their vessel is hard to describe. Imagine designing a spacecraft that you will be living on for the next year and you want all the creature comforts of home. It has to keep you safe and protect your crew from, at times, the violent forces of nature. We’ll enough about that for now.
We’re motoring through then night for Norfolk with an ETA of 1:30 PM for final fueling and our last meal on land until the Azores.
April 6-8th
We set out from Norfolk with the wind at our backs as they say. And we were making very good speed. For the next 36 hours the winds were blowing and growing. If I recall correctly, they were over 40KTS most of the time. I couldn’t make any log entries for a few day’s as I was trying to keep my lunch down. I didn’t know if I would be seasick, but I guess I found out. It was not the two-stage type of seasickness:
Stage One: think you’re going to die
Stage Two: hope you’re going to die
But, it was bad enough. I hopefully now have the worst behind me and since the weather is calmer I have stopped wearing my high tech wristband that sends a small electroshock up my arm every 5 seconds.
During this blow, Mat’s had the boat trimmed beautifully. We had our big Jib called a Genoa reefed (pulled in) most of the way, our staysail (storm sail) out and our main reefed about 3/4 of the way in. Even with this shortened sail area, we were making over 10KTS and up to 13.5KTS over ground. All the while, it seemed to me that we were crashing through the waves. I was surprised to find so many waves coming over the top of our Deck Solon. At the worst, it seemed that the waves were coming over every 30 seconds and still that boat was tight. We did take on a splash as one wave blew open the companionway hatch, but we now know that we need to lock the hatch in these conditions.
We also had a minor problem with our Autopilot. For some reason our Fluxgate Compass (Electronic Compass) that the Autopilot uses shifted about 90°. I’ve called the electrician who installed the compass on our Sat phone and hopefully we’ll hear back from him soon. It’s not a big deal, since we can still use our Autopilot, but we have an Autopilot heading of 105° and our Course over ground is 180°.
I learned that I was a bit shortsighted in my selection cabins for the voyage. Mat’s has the cabin amidships so he can be part of all the action. The two forward over/under berths (bunkbeds) are occupied by Bill Gallo and Dad. All three have lee clothes on one side and the hull on the other so no matter what tack we are on they can sleep in reasonable comfort. I on the other have a walk around queen-sized bed in the aft cabin next to the Autopilot. I though I would be able to sleep diagonally, as it turns out I had to sleep from side to side. While pitching back and forth 25°, I quickly learned that I could sleep with my feet against the hull and my legs over my nightstand cabinet. If I put a pillow between my mattress and the nightstand it would take some of the pressure off my legs to hold me in place. It also helped that the ledge was about six inches higher that the mattress so I could use it as a sort of standing seat. Anyway, as you might expect I didn’t sleep much for two nights.
Finally, I gave up and started sleeping in the forward stateroom, which pitches as the bow moves up and down, but at least I could wedge myself in between the gear and the hull and finally got some sleep. Mat’s had asked earlier if I was having any strange dreams. I told him that I hadn’t because I wasn’t making it into REM stage sleep. Just prior to writing this log entry after sleeping from 8:00 – 11:00 to rest for my night shift I was dreaming of Jerri and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese so I think I’m sleeping better.
We are going to Bermuda to avoid this weather and drop off my DAD. Although I’m sad to see the old man go, I’m happy to commandeer his bunk! As it turns out the weather was reported as a hurricane force wind just ahead so it looks like a really good idea to duck below this storm. We were notified of it’s existence via Herb H. I’ll comment more on Herb as time go forward, but from what I’m gathering Herb sits up in Canada and predicts weather for sailors and he helped keep us out of a worsening condition yesterday. He uses a SSB (Single Side Band), which is a long distance radio that you can use to communicate all over the world.
We had a nice dinner tonight and I took my first photo in a couple of days. We had a spaghetti dinner that Jerri prepared in advance before we left. It’s was great. Thanks!
Oh, I should also mention to Jessie that we had peanut butter sandwiches while on watch the first night or our bad weather. Mine did have a little salt water on it, but yes it was delicious.
Tomorrow our first stop Bermuda, albeit unplanned. This first new Island in what’s sure to be many many more.
Here’s how my Dad recalled that same start –
Thursday, April 12, 2001
Don Miller
Finally after coming home and sleeping around the clock, I feel like writing. So here are a few words for my friends that have asked wha’ happened, and why am I home. First, I congratulate Tim and Bill for doing such a great job keeping up the website. I will look forward to sharing this experience the easy way – by reading the website daily from the comfort of my easy chair in front of the computer. This is the way to cross the North Atlantic in early April! Vicariously!
Here’s the story of my non-crossing of the Atlantic by yours truly. I will try not to repeat what Tim and Bill have already reported, but let me tell you about my days aboard through the eyes and attitudes of an octogenarian.
Everything started off fine. I had planned only to join the crew at the Azores about mid-April, sailing from there all the way to Athens, but when another crew member dropped out at the last minute, I at the last minute volunteered to replace him and start at the beginning – Annapolis. So Deb immediately rushed out to buy gloves, long johns, etc., and the next evening I was sailing down the Chesapeake in Blue Rhapsody. Not without a bit of drama, however, for my flight to BWI was canceled, so Deb drove me to Ft. Lauderdale, where via Charlotte I reached Annapolis in the late afternoon. Arriving at Blue Rhapsody just at dusk, we motored out of the channel about 20 minutes later.
I about froze that night – the water temperature was 52 F, and it was rushing by the thus water-cooled hull about 2 inches from my body as I rested in my bunk. So I was glad to get up in time to relieve Mats on watch and see a beautiful sunrise. That afternoon, after stopping for fueling at Little Creek at the foot of the Chesapeake Bay, we motored under the big Bridge, raised sails and headed East toward the Gulf Stream, which we reached in about two days and there the waters turned out to be warmer by 25 degrees Fahrenheit.
I discovered why Mats had said that three was an ideal crew. This boat is so automated that for most of the time while sailing all it requires is that someone be on watch to avoid a collision course with some other vessel, and you can do that by observing the radar screen in the nav station. All controls are both topside and at the nav station – the autopilot and GPS controls, plus the computer screen that displays any chart in any way you want it and every sailing statistic one could want. So everything can be done from either the cockpit or the nav station except trimming sails, which is done only from the cockpit. For what we used to call raising the main, now called letting it in or out or reefing it, there are three buttons to push, one which rotates the sail out from the mast, one which rotates it in, and another which operates the winch which pulls out the outhaul that tightens the foot of the sail. The mainsheet is on another power winch. The jib likewise is motorized for letting in or out or reefing – just press the right button. The jib sheets are on big electric winches.
Blue Rhapsody sailed beautifully at about 8 or 9 knots, but up to over 10 or more in the very heavy winds, usually with all three sails, sometimes with jib and main reefed. After a couple of days out, the wind picked up to over 40 knots and the seas were rough. Mats said they were only 6 or 8 feet high, but he allowed that they will always be twice as high when we talk about them afterwards at a bar. So having been to a bar or two since then, perhaps my numbers are wrong, but I remember looking out at the sea into what seemed like mountains (swells) of water on which there were hills (waves) and when heeling over it looked like a long long way to the mountaintop. Going with the current of the Gulf Stream and beating into the wind, making around ten knots under full sail, the feeling was like being in a 15 ft. runabout, going at 20 knots pounding into 3 foot waves, except that Blue Rhapsody is 58 feet long and yet it pounded and bounced around just like a little runabout. When we were sitting in the cockpit, with Tim at the wheel on a broad reach, I thought one big wave was coming over the stern into the cockpit, but going at about 10 knots we barely escaped it. Then one wave splashed over Tim and his life jacket inflated. Later, down in the salon, the waves kept coming over the top of the boat; I remember thinking it seemed like being in a submarine.
I did not get seasick, but I did get sick of the sea – sick of the North Atlantic beating into those waves and trying to hold on. During the first 24 hours of the really rough weather none of us ate or drank much and I felt faint, dehydrated, exhausted. Just getting around the boat became very tiring, and I began to think that either I am having the delusion that I am too old for this sort or thing or maybe it is true. I did not have the energy to do a fair share of the routine work involved just in keeping the boat shipshape and feeding and taking care of ourselves, so I felt guilty, and depressed. I was wondering how long this kind of uncomfortable sea might last and ventured the opinion to the others that if we were on a trolley and I could pull the chain and stop at the next station, I would do so and take the next trolley back. Then the news came about how long this discomfort might last – a report from Herb on Single Side Band said that there were two storms ahead, probably merging at a point just where we would be in 3 or 4 days, one coming from the Northwest, another from the Southwest, and there the waves would be several times higher. We were not in a storm now, said Mats, just high winds and rough seas. So when Mats reported that we were only two days from Bermuda, and that we could change course and stop there, my eyes lit up. Tim could read my mind, I am sure, and quickly my wonderful loving son decided that we would stop at Bermuda. Thanks, Tim.
So Mats let out the sails, pushed a few buttons, and we changed from an Easterly course beating into the NE wind to a broad reach heading almost South. A gentleman’s point of sail. I felt better already. Two days later in late afternoon, we were at a marina in Bermuda, and two days later I am home. As I left, Bill had removed the wood paneling around the mast and located a leak where the mast comes through the deck, Mats had remedied a stopped up galley discharge and a million other things, and Tim was working on the computer-GPs problem.
They are a great crew, on a sound boat, equipped to perfection, and I am completely confident that they will conquer any obstacles they may encounter along the way.
Bon Voyage, Guys!
Don