Oso is swinging at anchor at Port St. Charles on the west coast of Barbados. With a day and a half of rest, some swimming in the crystal clear 82F/28C water, a little fried food, and a beer or two, it’s a good time to recap our passage.
The typical route for passage from the Canaries is to sail south to the latitude of the trade winds, and then start to head west. We had excellent luck with our weather, and we were able to skip the first step in the typical route and more or less follow the great circle to Barbados. The straight line distance from our marina in Santa Cruz de La Palma to the anchorage is 2517nm, and we ended up sailing 2735nm, or only 8.5% longer than the direct route. The extra distance is covered because we’re a short-handed crew – we often set up the autopilot to follow the wind so that we aren’t constantly trimming the sails. So as the wind shifts, Oso sails a somewhat wandering course while generally heading in the right direction.
The overall passage time was just under 16 days – a total of 15 days and 19 hours underway. That translates to an average speed of 7.2 knots, which is a more than 1 knot faster average than we would have made on Madrone in similar weather conditions. A single knot may not seem like very much, but it means that we would have been at least two days slower without Oso on this passage.
Overall, the passage was notable for its settled weather conditions. We only had two days of somewhat strong weather (Day Two and Day Thirteen) both of which were well forecasted in advance. The strongest wind gust we recorded was only in the mid-30s (although we purposely set our wind instrument to underreport gust strength – we’ve found in better for our psyche!), and the regular squalls that march through the trade wind zone were generally mild.
Our default sailplan for a downwind passage like this one is wing-on-wing. We have the genoa poled out to windward, and the main set to leeward with a stout preventer to immobilize the boom. While we ended up making decent speed, there were two things that hobbled us a bit. First, while the whisker pole that came with the boat is super-fancy (made of carbon, so it’s very light and much safer to handle on deck than an aluminum pole), it’s quite a bit too short for the genoa. That means that we ended up with about a reef and half in the genoa for the entire passage. Second, an annoying cross-swell rolled the boat for nearly the entire passage – the rolling was strong enough that we couldn’t fly the full size mainsail without endless popping and banging as the sail emptied and then refilled with wind. So, we used either a single or double reef in the main for nearly the entire trip. That we still made the passage as quickly as we did is a surprise to us, and it’s a testament to the design of the boat.
We had pretty good luck with the mechanical gear on the boat. Our only really concerning situation came from a few loose bolts on our rudder bearing. It seems most likely that no threadlocker was used when the rudder bearing was installed, and the nonstop movement of the rudder while corkscrewing over the ocean waves likely rattled a few of the bolts loose. It’s never a comforting feeling to find loose components in the steering system, particularly ones that help keep the rudder in the boat! But we were able to manage it while at sea by a daily retorquing of the bolts for the second half of the passage, and now that we’re at anchor with the rudder not moving we’ll be able to back the bolts out, add some threadlocker, and then reinstall them.
One of the delights of a trade wind passage is to be able to watch flying fish soar over the waves. The unfortunate side effect is that they occasionally end up on deck, and our highest daily flying fish count was 4 poor souls.
It was a good passage – we ate well thanks to Angie’s fantastic provisioning skill, we got as much rest as we could as a short-handed crew, and after 379 hours of nonstop sailing, we have a much better idea of how to make the boat move in light air, and how to keep the boat stable and as comfortable as possible in stronger conditions.
We’re happy to have arrived safely in Caribbean!
