The Home stretch

     The last 48 hours of the crossing were probably the hardest and most terrifying of the whole trip. The last two days seemed to last forever, probably because so much happened. The wind was relentless and blew over 40k. So much for ‘ fair winds and following seas’! We spent most of the last two days overpowered and surfing down step braking waves. 

Surfing' frothy waves  

      Because the rolling mechanism on our fore sail was broken there was no way to take in the sail. We were stuck with it out in full power. This caused us to heel over so far that the boom often splashed in the water. Under normal circumstances we would never have left that sail out because it is much too power to have out in strong winds.

     The hardest part though was the massive waves! As the days progressed the waves only built up higher and higher. I felt like I was starring down two story houses when I saw the big waves approaching from the stern. By the last night it was nearly impossible to steer. Darvil was the only person with enough strength to steer. Dad would relive him for 15 minutes so he could get a drink and go to the bathroom, and then he was back on. When the waves finally settled down early the next morning Darvil’s arms were like mush. Waves were constantly crashing over the front of the boat. At some point in the night a rope was washed over the side of the boat and wrapped itself around the propeller, so we had no motor.

     By about 2:00am we could see the lights of land, and by 5:00am we made our final jibe to try and make the harbour entrance. This was not going to be a normal arrival. We had two major problems. 1. There was no way to take down our fore sail 2. We had to motor.

Here was the game plan. To get the boat into the lee of the island so there would be no wind. Then we would take down the sail and finally Darvil would dive under the boat to cut the ropes loose from the propeller. Easier said than done …  

     With the wind direction and our “disabled” boat we could not make the opening of the harbour so we simply had to veer off. We knew of a huge rock called ‘Diamond Rock’ about a mile off shore and we headed a course for it hoping there would be a lee on one side of the rock. As we got behind the rock there was a reverse current that started to suck us in. Lets just say I we examined Diamond rock MUCH more closely we wanted to. That was terrifying. We realized that because it was so windy there was simply not going to be a leeward side of the island today. Dad called on the VFH for a tow boat. Meanwhile Darv was able to jump into the water and unravel the ropes from the propeller. Now we had an engine again. When the tow boat arrived there was no way to tow us when we had a big powerful sail out. It had to come down somehow. 

Diamond rock. This time from a safe distance. 

The tow boat that didn't tow us. Yet still gave us a hefty bill  

Trying to bring the sail down 

     We attempted to take it down several different ways but nothing would work, as the wind was too powerful. The sail was violently flapping and making a noise that sounded like thunder. I thought the entire bowsprit of the boat was going to come flying off.

     Darv eventually had to climb to the top of our 55-foot mast. We had a topping lift and a second rope attached to him for safety. Keep in mind the sail was still flapping and the boat was leaning hard from side to side. Darvil jumped from the mast to the stay and with a knife strapped to his hand and he ripped the sail as he slid down. He was the Hero of the day. We lost of sail, but all we cared about was the safety of the family.

up up up. 55feet. He had a toping lift on as a safety hardness 

My brave man! 

     Before Darv went up the mast he said “Em you better get this on video, I’m never doing this again”. So I have part of it on video, but unfortunately my hands we shaking harder than I thought so half the time the camera isn’t pointed on Darvil. But HERE is a link anyways (around minute 1:54).

Safe and sound 

Ship Shape

     No trans Atlantic Crossing would be complete without a few breakages and damages along the way and Argo was no exception. This shouldn't come as any surprise, 'BOAT' does stand for 'Bring On Another Thousand'… 

     We enjoyed our big beautiful mail sail for about 5 minutes before it ripped in a jibe. Without a main sail it is basically impossible to tack in our style of boat. This left controlled jibes as our only option. Jibing requires much more work, preparation and is more dangerous than tacking.

Our main sail 

    We found out a week into the trip that the alternator that charges our batteries was not working. We have 2 solar panels on the boat but they don’t produce enough energy to power everything on the boat. Luckily we have a small generator on the board. We were able to power the batteries with the generator but we had to be very conservative with our power. 

Some nights we would conserve the boat's battery power by using these portable lamps instead of our masthead lights. We mostly did this in the middle of the Atlantic when we rarely saw another boat.  

     About mid way through the crossing we had to use the motor a lot because there was very little wind. We were all sitting in the cockpit when all of the sudden the engine just stopped. Right away our stomachs dropped. Dad went down below and opened up the engine hatch and smoke began to billow out. After a few minutes the smoke disappeared enough that we could begin to investigate what had happened. The fan belt had fallen off and the engine over heated. When the engine cooled enough to work on it Darvil and dad rolled up their sleeves and got to work. Even after we fixed the engine we were still uncertain if the motor would work as it may have seized. Dad turned the key as we all held our breath …It turned on! Disaster narrowly avoided. 

Grease Monkey savin' the day 

     After a week without wind we were all relived when we finally got some 15 knots. We were under full Genoa sail. Sitting in the cockpit just before supper we all heard a loud noise. We all jumped up immediately to see what had caused the noise. What we saw was our fore stay and Genoa sail ripped out of our boat and blowing up into the air. This was very bad news. The rolling furling system that brings in the sail had blown to pieces. And our forestay which helps hold up the mast was ripped out of the deck. After about an hour Dad and Darvil were able to jury-rig the sail to the bowsprit of the boat using ropes. But now we were faced with having to be under full Genoa sail power with no way to reef. This can be very dangerous when strong winds come that can overpower your boat. We checked the makeshift repair daily, replacing ropes if they had chafed through.

The jury- rig 

Darv's masterpiece 

This thing wasn't going anywhere 

     We also hit a giant ball of tar in the middle of the ocean! We’re not sure if it was related to an oil spill or if it occurred naturally.  It didn’t do any damage to the boat but it did leave a big old tar stain on the bow of our boat! Dad was able to scrub it off with a lot of elbow grease when we landed on shore.

Most of the tar stain was on port side but you can still see some black stain on the starboard bow of the boat 

      Even with a lot of adversary thrown our way I was always amazed at how well my parents and Darvil dealt with our mishaps. It was good to have such optimistic and levelheaded crewmembers aboard. They might have been terrified on the inside but they all put up the bravest front. Argo had a courageous crew! 

Hard to be sad when Darv play's the happiest instrument in the world! We got some free concerts 

Dad chatting on the SSB