Waiting for a weather Window….

It was a long summer preparing for the trip down south. A sailboat needs to have a long list of safety equipment in case things do not go as planned. Examples includes things like emergency flares, lifejackets, Personal Locater Beacon(PLB) and if things really go very badly, an emergency life raft. All the rigging needs to be in top shape and inspected regularly and the sails inspected looking for damage. There are so many things that can fail and go wrong that it is hard to keep track of all the systems, but after a while it is part of the life at sea to manage the problems and fix them. When trying to anticipate what is going to fail next it is clear to me that the most dangerous thing on a sailboat that will lead to failure is a schedule….

The Salty Dawg Sailing Association Rally is scheduled to leave on Nov. 1, 2022, which is tomorrow. To get here on time I had to start planning in June when I got back from the Bahamas. This meant pulling the boat out of the water, fixing the hull of the boat, painting the bottom so that it would be resistant to barnacles another life forms which would slow the boat down. There were a lot of repairs and adjustments that were made to S/V ILEANA. It also meant organizing a truck to take the boat to Annapolis, organizing the boat yard in Annapolis to take the boat off the truck, rig the boat boat, and then launch it. Marina slips needed to be booked and paid for ahead of arrival. This also meant finding crew that were willing to help me sail the boat to Antigua and convincing them to get a change any plans that they may have had so we would be all prepared to take off on or around Nov. 1.

We have been tied up at a slip in Hampton VA for last three days expecting to leave this morning, a day ahead of our Nov. 1 departure date, on what appears to be a weather window to head south. We have been having daily weather meetings with our weather router, Chris Parker. I started to have a clue that things were not going to go well weather wise when Chris would spend about an hour describing all of the weather systems that might be happening in the next week in the Caribbean. Although weather forecasting has improved a lot over the last few years, it is only accurate for about 5 days. After that, it is speculation as to what could happen. It was clear that we could have good weather if we left this morning. In fact, all of the boat heading for the Bahamas are leaving because they will make it there safely with good winds. It is only about 680 miles to the Bahamas from here and should take about 4-5 days. However, Antigua is about 1500 miles away. After listening to Chris, it was obvious that there was no way to make it to Antigua if we left this morning. He explained that we would make it to perhaps Turks and Caicos or perhaps Dominican Republic but then we would be stranded there until March, waiting for a weather window to take us to Antigua. From Dominican Republic, you must battle strong tradewinds against prevailing currents which would make the trip very difficult.

There were four risks that were developing in the Caribbean. The first problem was a trough of low pressure that was stalled and extended from Cuba down to the Leeward islands. This was causing very strong winds to the east but very little wind to the South. This meant that we would have to stay south of this low pressure system to avoid the strong winds. We would not be able to go far enough east to catch the trade winds to take us to Antigua and we would end up in Dominican Republic….. if we were lucky.

The second problem was that there were very light winds near Bermuda and we would have to spend five days motoring….. I only have four days of fuel….

The third problem was the very strong southeasterly winds that would prevent us from reaching Antigua….. which was the exact direction we were trying to get to.

The fourth problem was that there appears to be a hurricane developing between Panama and Jamaica and it is not clear the direction it was going to take. The hurricane season started late this year and it’s not officially over until the end of November. The chance of this happening was only about 20%. It is interesting how the brain works, when faced with obstacles that are preventing one from doing what is planned. After hearing all this at the meeting, we were still thinking of leaving this morning…. I was thinking 20% doesn’t seem that high. To put things in perspective, one of the Salty Dawg leaders suggested that if there were a 20% chance you would be killed crossing a busy road wouldn’t you rather just wait until the light changed and cross then?

We had a demonstration by the U.S. Coast guard about emergency rescue from a helicopter. The first thing they did was push a dummy out of the helicopter. It was amazing to see the swimmer leap from helicopter and jump into water to save dummy. They are really only able to do a rescue 150 miles offshore so as we will be likely 600 or 700 miles offshore some points it is unlikely, we will ever need them. If we did, they would not be able to reach us……

It is not clear when the next weather window will arrive. There may be a possibility of Saturday, Nov. 5 when we can leave… or it could be later. In the meantime, as we will sit on the boat in the warm sun, I keep reminding myself the most dangerous thing on a sailboat is a schedule…..