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WATCHby Peter Willauer It was a great thrill to slide into peaceful English Harbor - as Nelson did so many times - and tie up to the historic dockyard to give EIGHT BELLS - and us - a fresh water wash down! The previous evening we enjoyed our third fish, a 2 1/2' wahoo and rolled the headsail to slow the boat for a daylight entrance through the slit in the rocks under Shirley Heights. In fact we spent most of the passage trying to slow the boat for comfort and safety…the J Boats are easily driven and track well, and with a reefed main most of the way and a 70% jib, often rolled, we made a fast 2,863 nm crossing in 16 days, 23hrs and 40min, averaging 7kts. Carol saved the weather maps of the North Atlantic to go with each of our log reports, and it was extraordinary to see a parade of winter storms well north of us, most with hurricane force winds. And these pushed the Bermuda and Azore high pressure south, compressing the isobars and giving us more wind than normal...and some very confused seas. In retrospect the passage was a great adventure and fun, but also turned out to be a lot of work; it got harder and harder to get out of your bunk - lashed in behind the lee cloths - into gear including your life jacket and harness, and up on deck, which was inevitably a wild, disorienting scene at night. You hoped that the other watch experienced the last squall, but it usually wasn't so! When it cleared and the horizon was visible, steering or tending the autopilot was easier and you could see the white foam of the breaking waves parading towards you. And you could always hear them! And we had great 'enhanced trade winds' sailing days, roaring along with enough wind to always have to pay attention. We decided that we liked the Swedish watch system of two 6 hours during the day and three 4s at night with two persons on watch, one of whom could be doing maintenance, cooking, resting at night, etc. If you didn't get a least a couple of hours sleep during the day, the night watches were a bear. Hearing of 5 abandoned boats and one skipper who was killed during a jibe was obviously disconcerting, and a reminder that we were out there on our own and had to be completely self-sufficient. Endurance was a factor. The most memorable impression was surfing down a breaking wave and at the same time being whacked by another breaking wave sideways or at right angles; and this from either side. As we said in one of our reports, there seemed to be a place out in the middle of the Atlantic where waves from several different storm systems came together creating very confused seas. And we didn't even experience the 9 meter waves that other boats had just two or three hundred miles ahead of us. Probably the most beautiful scenes were the stars and sometimes a moon on the ocean, and sunrises with towering cumulus clouds. We still love the boat! She performed well and could have brought us across in less time. Still, we passed many of the 235 ARC boats that were headed for St Lucia and started three days ahead of us. We were not bothered by the low freeboard, did not stick the bow in the back of the next wave (did not feel any danger of pitch-poling), she tracked well and we had good control playing surf -boarder on the face of the larger waves and sometimes could avoid the breaking crests... usually we outran them, but it was always close! We were pretty dry on deck before the wind, but I always had my gear on at least at night. The collage of pictures that Jamie took is attached above (click it for a bigger version) and we'll will put more together later. A very Merry Christmas and Peace on Earth to all of you. All the best,
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