Sailing to Bermuda

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BOC 2001: The Navigation

The Gulf Stream
The Wind Pattern
Navigation Log
Navigation Video

There were two primary navigation problems associated with the first leg of this voyage - transiting the Gulf Stream and finding a little island 600 miles from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.   On the return leg we still had to deal with the Gulf Stream, but finding the North America was a little bit easier.

Position Reporting on the WWW

Twice each day on our voyage we posted our position on the WWW at http://wl2k.org/aprs.htm (no longer a valid Hyperlink) via email over the Single Side Band radio.  There were a number of problems with the site during the trip, and friends and family were not always able get in, but overall it worked fairly well.  I was somewhat skeptical of our ability to send email via HAM radio on a regular basis, but that was the one thing that worked nearly every time.  Thanks to Dick Juppenlatz for setting up the radio and bringing his PC and modem along.

The Gulf Stream

 

Just prior to our departure we received Jenifer Clark's analysis of the Gulf Stream with a routing forecast.  There were three potential routes through the stream to Bermuda.  

• The rhumb line, or constant heading, to Bermuda (black line) was the simplest route, but it would take us directly in the teeth of the counter currents around several of the cold water eddies.

• The northern route (green line) would probably maximize the boost from the current and the eddies, but I didn't want to get so far to the north and have to beat into the SSW winds that prevail at this time of the year.  This is a route more suitable to a performance boat that can sail efficiently very close to the wind.  Sarah is definitely an off-the wind boat, so this was not a viable route for us.

• The southern route (purple line) had the potential of picking up a lot of boost from the cold water eddies and also should minimize the risk of having to beat to Bermuda.  This route also was consistent with the strategy I had developed in planning this trip.  So we planned to head south as far as we could for the first few days in the ocean and then head east toward Bermuda, picking our way through the eddies.

After all this planning and analysis we actually sailed pretty much along the rhumb line to Bermuda.  The normal wind pattern never materialized on the outbound leg, and we spent most of the time just trying to find wind and avoid using the engine.

The Wind Pattern

As depicted in this June Pilot Chart of the North Atlantic, the prevailing winds on the passage should have been from the south to southwest with an average speed of force 4 (11-16 knots).  As it turned out we had a prevalence of either near calms or light breezes from the north.

Navigation Log

Throughout the cruise we maintained a hourly log in which we recorded the GPS position coordinates, course and speed, relative wind speed and direction.  I converted the log to an MS Excel spreadsheet which can be accessed through the link below.

Chesapeake Bay to Bermuda and Return

In the log record spreadsheet I calculated an estimate of the fuel consumption rate for the leg from Little Creek, VA to Bermuda.  Although we recorded most of the engine time in the log there was at least one instance where we did not record the time the engine was turned off.  I estimated when we resumed sailing in that instance based on the other log entries.  The result was that we ran the engine for approximately 86 hours.  When we arrived in Bermuda we took on a total of 71 gallons of diesel fuel (61 gallons in the tank and 10 gallons in the deck jerry cans).  Therefore we averaged 0.82 gallons of fuel consumed per hour of engine operation time.  This somewhat better than I expected (1 gallon per hour).  During most of the engine operation we kept the RPMs between 1,500 and 1,700.  This is well below the normal 2,000 cruising RPMs at which I normally run the engine on inshore trips.  I would expect the fuel consumption at 2,000 RPMs to be closer to the 1 gallon per hour rate.

The template for a later version of the spreadsheet Ship Logs can be downloaded here.

While in the ocean, every 2 - 3 hours we plotted our position on a Universal Plotting Sheet.  I elected to use these sheets rather than traditional marine charts because there is little useful navigational information on the charts once you are off soundings and the sheets take up less space on the navigation desk.  The drawback to the sheets is I needed three sheets to cover the entire ocean legs and it is a little more complicated to plot the longitude than on charts.

I have provided thumbnail images of the each of the plotting sheets used on the cruise below.  The first set is for the leg from the Chesapeake Bay to Bermuda.  The second set is for the return from Bermuda.  Click on any of the thumbnails for an enlarged image.

 

We relied primarily on battery operated hand-held GPS units to provide position fixes for the navigation.  We brought three units on board and several dozen AAA batteries.  It was fortunate we had several units, as two of them became damaged due to being dropped on the return leg.  We mounted the active GPS unit on the Edson pedestal and left it on continuously.  One set of four (4) AAA batteries would last a little over 24 hours.  I also brought along my 20 year-old plastic sextant in case we had to rely on celestial sights for position fixes.  I'm pretty rusty on celestial sight reductions, so I developed an Excel spreadsheet to perform the calculations.  Although we had ample opportunity to take celestial sights, the reliability and accuracy of the GPS units removed whatever motivation we might have had to practice celestial navigation.  So the sextant stayed in its case, and the spreadsheet stayed unopened on Dick's laptop computer.  Here is a link to the spreadsheet template.  Please be cautious in the use of this spreadsheet as it has not been thoroughly tested.

 

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The Gulf Stream
The Wind Pattern
Navigation Log

The video below summarizes most of the information above.

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