Ready to set sail

Bonnie & Earl threw us a wonderful leaving party on their boat last Saturday. Friends came down from Maine and Massachussetts to see us off along with friends from Newport. Bonnie did a great spread of food, the remains of which fed us for the rest of the week, and everyone chipped in to top up our provisioning fund. Even the Antigua Classics Cup made an appearance to pass around rum punch. A great night!
Thank you guys. We certainly won’t starve on the way home…

Katie's best friends - Bonnie, Madi & Marin


Already, the winter boat-dwelling community is dispersing. The ‘Bonnie Lynn’ headed upriver for their annual haul-out and one by one the other boats are moving to their summer anchorages. It is always sad to say goodbye but we are glad to have met a great bunch of people.

We now have our crew aboard. Jackie, from yacht ‘Blackthorn’ of the Exe, is joining us as far as the Azores, and Jay, son of Jim whose boat Dave has just helped launch, is joining us for the whole trip (or as long as he can cope with Dave!).

The crew - Jay, Jackie, Dave, Katie, Hazel

We let Ros Ailither’s mooring ropes go for the first time since October and went for a shakedown sail in Narragansett Bay. It felt great to hoist the sails and get the boat moving again, especially as we topped 6 knots. More importantly, it gave us a chance to find any snags in the re-rigging of the boat and also to remember what sailing feels like!

However, our leaving date of May 15th has come and gone and we are still in Newport waiting to go. There have been a series of low-pressure systems coming up the coast at roughly three days intervals, each crossing our intended path and causing nasty conditions in the Gulf Stream.
We are waiting for at least a three-day window to allow us to reach and cross the Gulf Stream in favourable conditions and give us a good start to the trip.
Since storm systems tend to track to the north of the Gulf Stream, once we clear it, we should have better conditions and it should be plain sailing all the way to the Azores. That’s the theory…

In the meantime, we have all been busy onboard - stowing provisions, lashing safety netting to the lifelines, and generally getting the boat ship-shape. Dave and Jay scrubbed the waterline from the dinghy but Jay (who was the one reaching down underwater) had to recover with a hot shower and sauna afterwards as his arm had turned purple from the cold water!



We are also trying to get in a few ‘last’ swims in the pool and walks ashore. Jackie and I did the Cliff Walk but it was so long since the last time that I’d forgotten how rough the terrain got and the last stretch had us doing a bit of rock-hopping with Katie suspended in the buggy between us.

At the minute, the weather looks like it might be good for Tuesday so we willbe ready to leave if conditions are still good.