Hurrah! We're in harbour at St Georges, Bermuda after a passage of two halves. Total time was 4 days and 15 hours.
The first half of the trip was motoring sailing closed hauled in calm seas and light winds. The second half Jackster became part sailing craft part submarine crashing over waves into holes and burying the bow while leaning at 40°. Now I know how mountain goats feel. Tons of water whooshed over the deck, some made its way into the cockpit through chinks in the enclosure wetting towels and Polly on one occasion. The winds built steadily and we had a frustrating north setting current which pushed our course over ground 100 miles north of Bermuda with projected landfall somewhere in Senegal. On the last morning we threw in a tack south west for four hours. This move, combined with wind veering to SW finally allowed us to lay course for a point at the top of the island, 10 miles from the harbour entrance via Town Cut.
Naturally, isn't it always so?, we arrived at our waypoint to make the turn at midnight on Friday, 13th, with wind gusting to 25 knots from south – just where we needed to go. It was going to be more motor sailing. We turned on the engine, took in the mainsail and tightened the head sail. I was on helm and I smelt something chemical. Is it diesel fumes? Impossible if wind is from forward. The engine! “David” I bellowed “I can smell smoke from the engine room.” He lifted the hatch and we were engulfed in steam from an engine which was seriously overheating. Because we had been leaned over a long way on our port side and bouncing the water intake on the starboard side had been exposed and sucked in air instead of water. As I switched off the motor David swung down into the engine room, grabbed a towel and slackened the radiator cap. Unfortunately, due to rushing, he undid it completely allowing the coolant to rapidly boil and spew out. Fortunately he was wearing foulies and his wellies having just been on deck otherwise he might have been burnt on his legs and feet. As is the first rule of sailing, sail the boat on a safe course and then deal with the problem. Bearing away we had plenty of sea room and time for me to feed the cockpit shower down to David to replenish the missing coolant with water. If it wasn't the coolant level the problem must be low level of cooling seawater in the sea chest. David removed the top of the sea chest to break the airlock and allow sea to find its proper level now we were upright.
The next dilemma was had the rubber blades of the impeller survived running dry? We chanced the motor again while David took the hose off the outgoing side of the sea water pump to check for through flow. We did indicating the impeller had survived and each passing minute showed the water was returning to normal temperature.
Turning back on course it was slow progress, down to 3 knots at times, picking out the navigation lights, trusting our Navionics charts. Before we left Hampton I'd checked the veracity of our charts against Google Earth and felt confident with caution we could make a safe entrance in the dark. Some lights were out which didn't help, but all I had to do was line us up on the suggested track, check the radar and listen to David who took up position on the bow with his hunting torch to show the unlit markers.
Access to the sheltered harbour at St George is via Town Cut, a fifth of a mile long and 50m wide at the narrowest point and 8m deep. The cut was made by the Royal Navy blasting and dredging a channel between two islands. And the rock walls are high and sheer as shown to me by David's torch light. Going through my mind was concentrate on the line and keep the power on. Tonight the east-west direction gave us protection from the south winds. Suddenly we were in – only a large, unlit red nav aid to starboard to avoid – with plenty of depth and room to manoeuver. Bermuda Radio hailed us “Welcome to Bermuda. Can you make your way to the Customs Dock please and check in?” It was 02.30am on Saturday, 14 November.
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