Pitching About
A Landlubber’s Guide to Crossing the Atlantic
Antigua via Bermuda to the Azores
17˚ 04’.34 N 61˚ 57’.43 W to 38˚ 31’.60 N 28˚ 37’.60 W
May 1 to 23, 2010



Iain’s sailboat “Rebel” was in Antigua. He had taken to the Caribbean two years ago from the UK with his American friend Andy and now he needed to take it back. On that trip they had arrived one week late for an eight day vacation prompting Andy’s wife to ground him. So Iain called on his friend John whom he had met on a round-the-world sailing race. John was keen at first but the more he thought about it, the more the idea of solitary four hour watches depressed him. That’s why I was invited. I may not be a hard core sailor like the other two but I do have two arms and two eyes. This is sufficient qualification to reduce the watches to two hours each, eight hours a day. That way at least you can have a life, even if it is far out to sea cramped up on a 36-foot boat.

First let me introduce the chief characters of this adventure. Iain, the boat owner is a medical doctor in the UK. He did the navigating and ultimately made all the major decisions so we will refer to him here as the Skipper. John is the Admiral. He got that name during the round-the-world race when the then skipper accused him of loitering on deck. “Only ass-holes and admirals do nothing on the bridge. So which are you?” John’s response became immortalized in his nickname. To some extent the name is justified, as John had served over 20 years as a captain in the merchant marine. He knew far more about the sea than the rest of us. He became our quartermaster, responsible mainly for the food. I claim to be the Cabin Boy although the Admiral objected that that name is too illustrious for anything I did. My job was to swab the deck and wash the dishes.

It is part of the culture of sea-going people that everything is called differently than its equivalent on land. So left is port and right is starboard. The toilet is a head and the kitchen is a galley. Likewise ropes are lines and maps are charts. The list goes on and on.

A “watch” in nautical terms is a period of time when sailors are on duty. Their first responsibility is to observe everything that happens and respond. The toughest part of that job is staying interested when you are on deck alone and nothing is happening. It can be very boring.

The first law of the sea is report punctually for watch-duty. That means get up when the alarm clock rings, otherwise sleep deprivation soon overtakes you. The second law is pay attention on watch. The Admiral was better at this than we other two. He had yet to out-grow the discipline of the merchant marine. For his efforts he spotted many dolphins, millions of jelly fish and lots of plastic garbage which clutters the seas as it does the land. I preserved my sanity by reading during the day and listening to my iPod at night.

Watch duty is like the army. The long stretches of mind-numbing boredom interrupted by brief intervals of sheer terror. You tend to assume that nothing is out there and 99% of the time you are right. One afternoon while I was on duty I spotted a container ship creeping up from behind. I pointed this to the Skipper who told me to let him know when it got nearer. I reminded him twenty minutes later when it was hardly two football fields away. In a culture where docking lines are prepared two hours before arrival, that is really short notice. One excited skipper got on the radio immediately. “Now I see you!” the officer-on-duty responded. Big boats also assume that nothing is out there and it is difficult for them to distinguish our white sails from the wave crests which surround us.

Our only other encounter with ships came at night again on my watch. It started as a star far out on the horizon. As it approached two white lights became visible one slightly lower and to the left of the other. Then strangely a red light stood out as if marooned far from the rest of the ship. Although I had studied images of ships’ lights on theory courses, this apparition in the black of night stunned me. My job was to alert the Skipper. He turned our boat sharply to starboard and we passed behind the menace. The Admiral couldn’t be bothered getting out of bed. So long as both bow navigation lights weren’t showing (red and green), he knew the ship wouldn’t hit us.

The Admiral said that disasters always happen at night. That wasn’t very reassuring as we were on our own during the night watches. Every hour we recorded our position in the log along with the state of the seas, our progress, speed and wind force. We also monitored the barometric pressure which rose and fell like a yoyo. Each rapid change brought on high winds. A big ship travelling three times our six knots would steer around these gales. We had no option but to endure them. One night the winds hit Force 9 gusting to 50 knots (90 km/hour). Fortunately they were coming from the North West which meant we took them off our back quarter. That made the ride far smoother than it would have been if we were tacking into them.

We have two navigation aides which make helming easy. The wind vane at the back of the boat senses the direction of the wind and steers so that the sails are always full. Unfortunately it is not very efficient when the wind is coming from behind. The auto-pilot requires electricity to steer by compass. However we discovered after we left Bermuda that our batteries were not recharging efficiently and we simply did not have enough fuel to power the boat all the way to the Azores. So we had to physically helm the boat ourselves whenever the wind was strong and the motor was not in operation.

Sailing in a brisk wind is an exhilarating experience. Multiply that force several times on a boat hurtling through the dark, stimulates the imagination. I never took over a night watch without a moment’s trepidation.

At 36 feet our boat, a Westerly is small by trans-oceanic standards. Nonetheless it is well built to take a lot of abuse. Maximum speed is largely determined by hull length. The longer a boat, the faster it will usually go. Our theoretic “hull speed” was six knots but during this passage we averaged more than seven. Going down a long wave it sometimes hit ten. This was a very windy trip.

Our boat has three sails. In addition to the usual triangular main sail, we have two sails ahead of the mast. The larger one is a genoa which stretches from the bow to behind the mast. The other is the jib (or yankee) which does not reach the mast. Normally one uses the mainsail with one of these two fore-sails. When the wind is strong and coming from behind, the genoa or jib without the mainsail is sufficient. One evening just before nightfall the Skipper decided that as the wind was already strong and growing, we had better downsize by furling the genoa and use the jib. In the process of winding it up around the forestay (a cable which helps hold the mast in place) the genoa tore loose and twisted. Now it was flapping about the forestay and generating enormous pressure. This threatened to de-mast the boat. Nothing the Skipper tried, resolved the problem. Instead the sail ripped and behaved more like a flag. In these circumstances we didn’t dare open the jib for fear that the genoa might unfold and then get caught up in it. So we had to sail that stormy night “bare bones” with no sails but the wind catching in the damaged genoa was still sufficient to keep us going at over 5 knots.

The next day the winds were still high. The Admiral feared for our lives and wanted to set out the sea anchor. That is a long series of cups on a line which we would set off the aft to slow the boat down and help stabilize it. This is a high tech piece of equipment which cost over $1000 and it was doubtful whether we could pull it back in (for reuse) after the danger had passed. The Skipper did not agree that the present danger was so great. He thought we could ride out the storm. Moreover if we did use the sea anchor now and couldn’t recover it afterwards, what would we do later if we found ourselves in even greater danger? We were still only half way across the ocean.

Fortunately our Skipper loves to muck about the boat solving problems. The challenge of the flapping foresail was just the sort of challenge he relishes. When the wind died down, he returned to the bow and twenty minutes later, the sail came down. Being torn beyond repair, it then went to the deep as we had little room to store it.

Our trip began in Antigua. Getting there was the first achievement. John flying from Thailand via Europe got as far as India before his plane returned to Bangkok. Ash from the Eyjafjallajokul volcano in Iceland had forced all airports in England to close operations. He finally arrived in the UK three days later, just in time to attend his brother’s wedding and then catch the next flight out to the Caribbean. Meanwhile I waited in Antigua having arrived there four days earlier from Canada. When distracted from the sun and fun, I worried whether the whole trip might be cancelled for lack of transport.

Eventually we met up as scheduled on Monday April 26. Work on the boat began the next day. The biggest job was organizing the food. The Admiral volunteered for this job as he had vast experience from his time as captain in the merchant marine. Not least among the complications was the absence of a refrigerator. We could count on two days’ fresh food kept cool in the ice box. Thereafter it would be cans and dried goods. Anticipating the worst case scenario, John prepared for a thirty day passage. It took him more than ten trips to the nearby supermarket to think through and purchase enough goods to keep us alive. His only complaint was that the Skipper and I eat too much. One of the Admiral’s finest qualities is that he is cheap to feed. The Skipper compensated by bringing 7 kilos of muesli from the UK.

The second big job was removing the growth from bottom of the boat. It had sat for over two months in the sheltered waters of Jolly Harbour. When the Rebel was lifted from the water, it looked like a jungle had grown on its hull. High pressure hose and scraping took it off within an hour. So much infestation would have reduced our boat speed by half.

On May 1 we finally cast off. The first two days the sea was choppy but to everyone’s surprise, no one suffered sea sickness. The first three days are usually the worst in any trip. Most people acclimatize to the constant shifting of a moving boat eventually.

As I am an early riser, I volunteered to do the 4 to 6 am shift. The Skipper took the next watch so he relieved me and I took over from the Admiral in six hour intervals. That worked fine for the first leg of the trip to Bermuda. As we turned west for the Azores however the tropical west winds we had off our beam, seemed to shift to the chilly North. Then I discovered that the night is coldest as well as darkest just before the dawn. At the Admiral’s advice, I had brought along many layers of insulated clothing which I usually reserve for the ski slopes. I needed them all. The Skipper loaned me his second set of “oils.” These are impenetrable rubber rain suits. He is over six feet tall whereas I am barely five foot five but thanks to vinyl straps on the sleeves and legs, one size fits all.

Ideally we would have taken the boat from Antigua to its home port near Dover. However given the time allotted between the Admiral’s brother’s wedding in April and the Skipper’s 60th birthday in early June, the most we could do was Antigua to the Azores, a set of volcanic islands sticking out in the Atlantic about 1100 miles south of England and 600 miles from the west coast of Portugal. By the time we reached there after 23 days sailing, we were all glad to get off.

There are two ways to get from Antigua to the Azores. One is called a rhumb line which is a direct line from one point to another. The other is called the Great Circle line which reduces the overall distance by travelling further north initially in order to take advantage of the curvature of the earth. The difference was barely 17 miles but that represents almost three hours sailing when you are travelling at six knots. The on board computer calculated exactly how to plot this course.

The Great Circle took us near Bermuda but to save time the Skipper did not want to stop there. Then the Admiral split a tooth which made a port call mandatory. Unfortunately we arrived on a Saturday and it looked like we would have to wait until Monday to see a dentist. Our first problem was finding a place to dock our boat as the marina was full. Then a strange guy appeared who talked about a retired dentist who rented out the frontage of his coastal home nearby. That is how we came to meet Peter. He looked into John’s mouth and forewarned him that the job wasn’t difficult but it would cost a lot of money. The Admiral was not in pain but he did not want to head out across the ocean with a potential torturer. So Peter phoned around and then drove him to a young dentist on call in Hamilton. A half hour later the job was done and the dentist announced that his service was free. We suspect that it was a favour to Peter. That man had served Peter in some capacity as a teenager.

Meanwhile the Skipper and I explored St. George’s, one of the oldest towns in North America. Thanks to tourism, UNESCO and economic doldrums it retains much of its early heritage. Hamilton by contrast is a very modern place, dominated by high finance, insurance companies and foreigners hiding their wealth.

Refreshed and restocked with fresh fruits, vegetables and bread, we left within twenty-four hours. Forty eight hours later these were either all eaten or rotten following the melting of our ice. Then we made two important discoveries. First, the second reserve canister of butane was empty. That put an end to baking bread. Second, the batteries were virtually dead. So we had to minimize our use of the engine to ensure that if becalmed we could motor our way to the Azores. Fortunately our problem became too much wind rather than too little.

There are two challenges to sailing a small boat across an ocean. One is technical about which I have said enough above. The other is social. How do you live with each other and oneself in a confined space, with few distractions and some tension arising from the complexity of the boat’s operation.

It helped that one person was always on watch on deck. That meant there were no more than two people hiding from the sun or wet or cold in the cabin. Actually there were three cabins but the one under the bow was used exclusively for storage. It is the most unstable part of the boat. You wouldn’t want to sleep there as it was bouncing over the waves. The Skipper’s bed was at the back of the boat. It was the most comfortable place to sleep but all the action was in the middle cabin where the Admiral and I slept next to the galley and navigation table.

The Skipper’s bed was best suited to newly-weds. That is to say it was a narrow double bed. The beds for the Admiral and I used were more like coffins. Fortunately we are both slim and small. When the lee boards were inserted to keep you from falling out when the boat tipped, you had to be as agile as a monkey to get in and out. Once in you didn’t want to get out especially when all the next two hours had to offer was wet, cold, loneliness and unknown hazard.

The one luxury the boat did have was hot water. That meant we could have regular showers. However like every else in the sailing world there is a definite order to what was to be done. First you closed the “cock” which directed sea-water into the boat. Then you turned on the pump and ran to the bathroom. As soon as you were finished washing, you ran back to the main cabin to switch off first the pump and then open the sea-cock. Make a mistake and you have the Skipper on your back. Something might bust. Then you finish toweling and throw some clothes on. Typically they are the same clothes you have been wearing for the past three days.

I had prepared for the trip by bringing an e-reader. It had about thirty books on it. The day before I joined the boat I turned it on without my reading glasses. To my horror I managed to delete all the contents. Fortunately the Skipper has diverse interests and he had many books on board to keep us happily occupied us. We also had an internet connection via satellite but the operating costs were so high that we used only the most essential services like weather forecasts.

These forecasts consisted of a chart of the ocean showing in arrows of varying length and intensity the direction and strength of the winds. The report would also project the
change of the winds over time. This seemed great except that the predictions significantly underestimated what lay ahead. The Admiral complained that if only we had stuck to the traditional synoptic charts by barometric pressure he might have known better. In that case, we might still be back in Bermuda.


Given our different duties and watch schedules, we rarely met as a group. So to keep spirits up, we instituted a “Happy Hour” at 5 o’clock whenever the weather permitted. Out of twenty three days on board, we managed Happy Hour about eight times. For the adventurous the Skipper produced what he called the Rebel cocktail made of rum, nutmeg syrup, fresh lime and water. John stuck to rum and coke. I polished off the warm beer before I dared his concoction.

Eating was a challenge. First you wedged yourself into a location where you could sit without holding onto anything. Then your raised your bowl to your mouth with one hand and spooned the contents in with the other. You had only to look at our clothes to know the menu for the week.

Stew was the most common meal. The base was a can to which the Admiral added potatoes, carrots and anything else that had yet to rot around the boat. To add to the flavour, he threw in a package of spicy soup from Thailand. On the second and third day he would throw in some more things to make it stretch. It got better every day. Hunger is the best sauce.

The boat is constantly shifting. Moving about it requires some skill. The trick is to always hold on to something. You glide from one handhold to the next like a monkey swinging through the jungle. Once I fell while washing dishes. Fortunately my shoulder bounced off three corners before my head collided with a beam. Thereafter I always tied myself to the sink. We got to the Azores without further injury. Then the Skipper slipped on the dock and cracked his jaw against the deck. He had a swollen mouth to take home to his wife.

If our conquering hero expected any sympathy when he arrived home, he was sorely disappointed. “This is the fourth time he has crossed the ocean. How can I be excited after all that?” Bridget confessed. “All I could think about was getting him to cut the grass.”

The Azores are a set of volcanic islands, each with its own culture. There is a lot of sun but no beaches. It is also cold and a long way from any major populated area. Consequently there are very few tourists. Over half its visitors are stopovers like us sailing from the Caribbean to Europe after the winter but before the hurricanes arrive in summer. Those crews who have artistic talent paint some memento of their visit on the rocks surrounding the harbour. That makes the Horta waterfront a peculiarly colourful sight.

Our greatest achievement crossing 3600 nautical miles was arriving at the Azores still talking to one another. To celebrate this achievement the Skipper invited us to his 60th birthday party a few days later. There we met at one time, all the joys and frustrations he had mentioned during the previous three weeks. As a present I brought a photo-illustrated album of our crossing. One page was devoted to the picture I didn’t take of the container ship which nearly ran us down. Another empty page described the prohibited photo of the Skipper with his roll up cigarette. I finished working on the album at 1:30 am before the party. Only then did I discover that I had written the diary upside down and backwards. That made the trip memorable in yet one more way.