Ok. Guys and gals, it's me.
I arrived at 01:30 this morning at Castletownbere. My new found friends Karel and Mi Jong, had had talked with Harbor Master and I had an easy dock space on a floating pier.
They were also waiting for me at that ungodly hour. Which was nice as I was exhausted and a bit sea sick, after two days of hellicious weather.
In fact, Castletownbere is home to 100 fishing boats and not one of them had been out the last two days.
In the last 12 hours, wx got continually worse, eventually building to 40kt winds and 12 to 15 foot waves.
When it became dark, the last 6 hours was the worst part of the entire passage.
Winds and waves were about 30° aft of my port beam. most of the time Dauntless would ride over the wave, even on her beam, with minor, 5° roll, but about every minute or so, the boat would be hit in such a combination that the stbd side was still heeled over when the second wave hit, which would cause the boat to slide down the face of the wave at 20 - 30° heel, then as the essentially broke under the boat, there works would be massive white water, sometimes coming over the stbd cap rail, but then she would roll onto even keel.
Every 5 minutes or so, while the boat was heeled over, a wave would break almost on her exposed port side hull, causing this big bang like I'd hit a rock.
Finally I accepted that Dauntless was handling these conditions far better than I and the was nothing I could do to make it better. (I'd already many different options gut course, speed and even auto pilot settings).
Thy last hour, crossing Bantry Bay, I even had heavy spray hit the pilot house windows, though a few times, the wind was blowing so hard that I saw spray illuminated by the forward nav light go straight across the bow and hardly wet anything.
In the end I just had to trust the Jim Krogen design and the Chien Hwa boat builders knew how to build a boat that could take me anywhere.
Adding to my stress, earlier that day, I thought I had about 10 to 20 gallons of fuel in the stbd tank, that I held as a reserve, while running from the port tank, I discovered that there was water in that tank.
Do now, not only did I have no reserve, but it wasn't clear to me if this was a Horta (only this tank was filled in Horta) problem or a decks awash issue.
So, when all is said and done, I really appreciated all the massive support I got from YOU folks. It did really help and I had so many people volunteer to help on any east they could.
Note, my InReach stopped giving me messages after 21:00 Z. It notified me of a msg, but no message. I'm grateful it happened so late because I really did need your help in just being there if nothing else.
Lastly, during the worst of it, water in the fuel, Paravane pole bent, I pictured the grief I would get, "oh yeah, we knew this guy, went almost all the way to Europe, but couldn't make the last 20 miles."
I'd live in infamy like the Buffalo Bills because of one little field goal.
I couldn't be the Marv Levy of Trawler Forum.
Thanks
As I recover, details to follow.
Update, my friends just showed me thier PocketGrib data, which correlates my locations with current weather.
As I passed Mizen Head at midnight, waves were 5.4 meters.
sometimes it's best not to know.
