It’s Showtime

I see them on the web cam. They were at anchor just behind the sailboat just before dawn and then after sunrise they were in the very tiny harbor off to the left. So cool!

What a wonderful success story. Congratulations Richard and Julie, have followed you daily. My Admiral says "not a chance" when asked if she would do it.

Yep, see them in a slip no less. Can only imagine the feeling of security and accomplishment they must have. Well done.

LaBomba said:

What a wonderful success story. Congratulations Richard and Julie, have followed you daily. My Admiral says "not a chance" when asked if she would do it.

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Wifey B: Why does she say that? I mean I so very very very much look forward to it in a few years. Must be in the right boat and for us must be more crew than just the two of us plus we have friends more than wanting to join us as guests. Watching Richard and Julie do it only makes me wish our time to do it was sooner than it is. Just seems so freaking cool to me.

Our longest passage off shore so far was about 760 nm, from Sitka to Port Angeles. Bermuda to Azores will be about 2000. We figure at 10-12 knots so 7-9 days.

I mean their trip just sounds so incredible. They have to be on top of the world right now and it's just getting really started.

Why does the boater cross the Atlantic? Partly to get to the other side, but partly for the experience, fulfillment of the dream. Omg, to do it in your own boat. I'm just excited at the experience they've just had. I can't wait to read the full story, hear all that happened. How it felt. Probably 2018, 2019, or 2020 but right now I'm wishing it was sooner. Still a lot of fun stuff to do before then.

Yay Richard and Julie.

Wow, just wow!

Well done Richard and Julie, great adventure!

CPseudonym said:

Well done Richard and Julie, great adventure!

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And well done Dauntless.

Awesome, Richard and Julie. What a well planned, well executed crossing... so enjoyable for us to follow along each day and imagine how it must feel to be upon your mighty little vessel with miles of water beneath. Can hardly wait to get aboard on the next leg!

Ahoy, Richard and Julie – Well Done!

You are providing us all a wonderful experience through your sea travels. Can’t thank you enough. Makes me want to Sell, Purchase, Make Ready, and then GO! Stay careful and have good luck in your travels - Art

Vicariously: Experiencing something through another person. Latin influence is the word vicarious, meaning “substitute.” You guys are a currently great “experience substitute” to us all!!

Again Thanks, Art

LaBomba said:

What a wonderful success story. Congratulations Richard and Julie, have followed you daily. My Admiral says "not a chance" when asked if she would do it.

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LOL! I heard the same thing last night when I showed the mrs. a picture of Dauntless.

Congratulations Richard & Julia on your safe passage to Flores. We've all thoroughly enjoyed this vicarious Atlantic crossing!

Rogerh said:

I see them on the web cam. They were at anchor just behind the sailboat just before dawn and then after sunrise they were in the very tiny harbor off to the left. So cool!

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Thanks for that link, Roger. Here are the photos of Dauntless at anchor, and finally in a slip. Click to enlarge.

Well done you three. Enjoy the quiet while you can.

Well Done Dauntless!

Fantastic! My hat is off to Julie and Richard and Dauntless. What a trip!

2/3 down, 1/3 to go

Thanks everyone for your support and kind words.

We arrived last night after midnight and got up early this morning to pull into the marina. A tight fit, in fact, the hardest part of the journey so far. (pic to follow)

Many have asked aobut how it felt to be in the middle of the Atlantic. In fact, neither Julie nor I ever felt we were far from land. Could be because the sky and sea looked the same whether you are 10 miles off the New Jersey coast or 1000 miles.

Julie describes it as feeling you were in a different room each day, one day glassy water, another day, white caps, but never a sense that we were in a very large thing.

I would look at the horizon and it looked the same as if I were 10 or 20 miles off shore. My brain kept on saying, the land is just over the horizon.
I had tried to find a paper chart of the N. Atlantic before we left, but none were to be had locally. Maybe had I been plotting a daily position, it would have felt differnt seeing it on a large scale, but doing it electronically, I never felt the vastness of the ocean.

I did notice that the water was so blue, much like the Bahamas, but even more so. On a sunny day, it looked like the bottom was only 50 to 100 feet below. Other than it tasting more salty,there was no sense of being in water 16,000 feet deep.

ALso virtually every day, usually late afternoon, some birds would show up, probably thinking we were a real trawler. The dolphins were not as friendly, they would come by for a minute or two, but not like other places where they would stick around for an half hour.

Even last night, anchoring off the island of Flores, the wall of rock looks exactly like the New Jersey Palisades. Probably the same rock, Diabase, but then that's another story, I'll expand upon on my blog.

Only now, after having lunch in a bar/resturant that is typical of much of Europe does the feeling of accomplishmet start to rise in me, that we are in Europe. A dream that I have had for much of my life.

But even at that, the trip is only 2/3 done and I still have another 1200 miles to go to get to our winter port in Ireland.

More later. It's nap time

Congrats to the two of you, and Dauntless as well. Get some sleep, and don't set the alarm.

OMG
A webcam. Now I will really have to watch my Ps and Qs.

No nap, customs came by, so we checked in, so nice, so easy, far easier than our neighbors to the north.

Just checked into marina, Dauntless really needed a shoehorn to get in. I'll try to post pics from my cell.

Lastly, Marina operator says Dauntless is only the second powerboat to come here in the last three years. Julie and I gave each other a high 5 on that news.

Thanks for taking us along for the ride.Trip report is awesome.I never knew the ocean could be so kind.I thought it was constantly churning.Thanks to "Perfect Storm" and "Deadliest Catch".

BandB said:

You would need to check all fluid levels and many other things regularly while underway, but shutting down not generally required. I'm sure he's got a schedule for doing so. Perhaps every change at the helm. And I would think you'll probably need to add oil. He's going to put over 300 hours on this trip. Think how many boats we see advertised for sale that never hit 300 hours.

I guess people like Richard and Julie and my wife and I are meant to average things out.

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We are having fun reading all of these posts now that we have Wifi (though slow) and a spare moment. So nice to hear how much everyone is cheering us on.

As far as a plan for checking the oil, I knew that this engine used 1 qt per 90 hours. But I was not as diligent as I should have been and i will determine where the running oil mark is. About half way, we did put two and half quarts in while running, no problem at all.

Same goes for taking temperatures. I have an IR gun and while I pretty much know what temps things are normally, for this trip, I did a lot of, how long can i put my hand here, oh, that feels right and then two days later i would correlated the hand hold with an actual temp.

Seriously, even in writing this, I realize that i understood that above all, I could not drive myself crazy with too much data. So in some respects, i knew I was actually sloppier than normal with my procedures, but I just knew i could not get crazy.

On the route thing, yes, the great circle, but winds and seas pushed us to NS, as there were strong sw flow, which really precluded an easterly route and once within 30 miles, we figured we could use the rest and the top up on fuel. I got 130 gal there and arrived here with 170 gal.

More details and the next steps to follow

Richard and Julie, thanks so much for taking all of us on your adventure. Many were asking what duration of watches were you guys doing? I am sure we all have millions of questions for you both....

Fantastic trip Congratulations, the things most of us only dream about.

Congrats, and enjoy the accomplishment before you take on your next leg/challenge!

Watches

The Watches I had planned and what actually happened turned out totally different.

Months ago, I started looking for crew. I thought 4 people total, including me would be idea. I had a number of potential crew contact me, but the closer we got to summer, these potential crew started to disappear like smoke on a windy day.

While I was taking my Captains/Master class in SC in April, during the few boring parts (probably about wx) I wrote out a pretty good watch schedule for three people.

A number of new people expressed interest, but...

Finally in early June, Julie decided to come on the beginning of the trip and not the second part as we had been planning.

And i understood that while many liked the idea of this adventure, few were willing to do it.

And re=reading all the sailboat books about ocean passages, if the owner was couple, then they did it as two, but is solo, it was usually three and many times the three were not compatible.

So, J and I decided that it was going to be the two of us.

At first, we were going to try three hour watches, that had worked well for me with john when we went south last November.

But after one day, it was obvious that some people need more than three hours sleep at any one time.

We also realized that Julie did not mind staying up late and I always was up early, so we fell into a routine of her doing the evening from 20:00 to 02:00 and I did 02:00 until Julie woke up, at 9 or 10.

then we'd pretty much be in the pilot house together, with a na or two, until I went to bed at 20:00. I would still wake up by 23:00 and look around, but after a few days I just forced myself to stay in bed. I also found that having 6 hours sleep was much better for me than two 3 hour sessions.

Now, one caveat, we didn't make anyone put toothpicks on their eyelids to keep them up. An ocean passage is about a thousand times easier than the ICW. Having AIS send/receive was the icing on the cake. Until this passage, every time we had a long overnight to do, if I saw one ship, it was the one ship I had to change course as we were on an very close, less than 1/4 mile intercept.

With AIS, every night we saw 1 to 2 ships and they always changed course before the 5 mile mark. I think their being able to see me, made their life much easier.

Lastly, the Les Weatheritt, "Your First Atlantic Crossing" and his follow on books, extremely helpful, with a philosophy very similar to Julie and me. He also gave a range of options, some extreme, for example, after spending pages on crew watches and schedules, and what works best or not, he ends with, "then there was also an older cruising couple that every evening had cocktails and then would retreat to bed together"

The point is we had to be flexible.

AusCan said:

Yes - there's a few weather interesting weather patterns ahead of them.

I like this site to get a good broad sense of whats going on.

earth :: an animated map of global wind and weather

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THis is the one product i would have if I could only have one.
Before I left NS, while having internet, I took pictures of the next 4 days from this model.

and Yes, I knew SW winds were coming, so I had to get south before that happened so I could then go E or ENE

Congratulations, an inspiring voyage.
Hope it is ok, I invited Larry Polster of KK (who was at the Sydney Boat Show) to access the thread.

Richard, after reading through this thread I bet you guys got a kick out of all of trying to guess why and what your next move was going to be.
It certainly is a trip that I would love to make but I hate to admit this, "I get sea sick in decent size seas" so a trip like this will not happen.

Been following this adventure since I joined the TF in late July and read every post. What excitement-better than Moby Dick. I used to sail the Seas on Tankers and Container ships in the 90's and I must say, you two are an inspiration! I don't think I could do such a trip on such a small boat (in comparison to Tankers, ect) but I am glad you did. It is very peaceful out there in the deep blue, wouldn't you say! Congrats to both of you, you have more guts and knowledge than I ever dreamed of having. Much love to Mr. Ford as well

CMA1992 said:

Been following this adventure since I joined the TF in late July and read every post. What excitement-better than Moby Dick. I used to sail the Seas on Tankers and Container ships in the 90's and I must say, you two are an inspiration! I don't think I could do such a trip on such a small boat (in comparison to Tankers, ect) but I am glad you did. It is very peaceful out there in the deep blue, wouldn't you say! Congrats to both of you, you have more guts and knowledge than I ever dreamed of having. Much love to Mr. Ford as well

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I take it from your user name you are a California Maritime Academy grad circa 1992. Deck or Engineering?

Yes Deckofficer,
Graduated in 92 from the engineering side. Started as Deck (3D) and transferred to (3E) after 1st year. Didn't want to sail forever and figured the Engineering side had better shore side opportunities. Sailed for 6 years, mostly from Philly to Buenos Aries and back for Crowley Maritime, before moving ashore in 98. Would love to chat, started a post under "RV's to Boats" in the newbie section if you would like. Don't want to take away from Richard and Julie and there amazing trip with boring CMA stuff (ha ha)

Rogerh said:

Richard, after reading through this thread I bet you guys got a kick out of all of trying to guess why and what your next move was going to be.
It certainly is a trip that I would love to make but I hate to admit this, "I get sea sick in decent size seas" so a trip like this will not happen.

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So do I

ANd strangely, coming up the east coast last year, I only got seasick once, but now, in any seaway, if I add any stress, then I do get sick.

The solution, the Transdermal Patch. Works wonderfully for me and I just accept that I must put it on if I expect bad seas. I don't get really sick, just that uncomfortable feeling that does not leave. At first I tried to get my body to "man up", and then finally understood that this was not a battle I was going to win.

I probably had it on two thirds of the time during this trip.