ISBJORN & ICEBEAR are now south of Bermuda and are pointing south towards the BVI! I have gotten a few updates from both of the boats and would like to share it with you all
Yesterday the boats were expecting the front to pass over them and ahead of the front was SE winds so both boats made great progress to the east!
Before the front, August on ISBJORN wrote this message on the tracker page: “Whomever came up with the saying "gentlemen don't sail to weather" never sailed on Isbjörn! Choo choo! Last upwind sprint before the wind is forecast to do a 180 after a cold front passage this afternoon.”
Then a few ours later, I got this update from Andy on ICEBEAR over the sat phone: “Frontal passage happening now. Lots of rain, wind veered into the west, blowing 20-30. Triple reefed main, 2 in Genoa. Crew having fun! Diane I the helm. We switched time zones now so we're UTC -4”
“It’s 18:45 onboard now. We changed over to ‘island time’ now, but still have really long nights. It gets dark at 6, maybe 6:!5, and it’s DARK dark now, and won’t get light again until a little bit after 5am. We eat dinner at 6, but it’s almost dark, and then the dishes get done in the dark. Lee made beef stroganoff tonight over potatoes. it was great, and a good hearty meal after a sorta stormy day.
Ironically we’re motoring now through a rolly calm. Just took the mainsail down. It was kinda stormy all day, but we never saw wind over 25 knots. The first big rain squall came maybe around 1300. I put my contact lenses in and full foulies on and we just kinda all sat outside. Lynne was on the helm for the first squall. We already had two reefs in the main, so dad was on the jib sheet and we just rolled up a bit of jib and I had Lynne bear away. I was at the helm next to her. It rained then really hard for maybe 40 minutes. Then a few more squalls rolled through, but nothing real bad, and the wind kept swinging around. We had some great sailing in a steady rain in a NW wind, right on course to the south, but then just after dinner the wind died completely, so hence why we’re motoring. I think we’re through the front though, and it looks like the wind will swing around in the NE overnight, and I’m hoping we’ll be sailing again by midnight.”
And then this morning Andy wrote again: “Most beautiful day yet so far, absolutely perfect ocean sailing right now, wind NE 15-20, big swell, nice and sunny, FAST broad-reaching in the beautiful sunshine (not too hot yet, still haven’t deployed the bimini, but feel like today might be the day)."
And today, both boats have been sailing fast - in the right direction! “Yeeeeeeeeehaaaaaawwww! We made our easting and turned the corner just as a cold front gave us the windshift we needed. ICEBEAR is in drag-race mode now, 100 miles in the last 12 hours, beam-reaching in 15-20 knots, with a top surfing run of 12.5 today! 600 miles to Tortola!”
You can read more updates if you visit the tracker page, 59-north.com/track If you click on the boat or their track, a box pops up with messages sent it. Pretty neat ;)
Until next time, HOLD FAST!
Mia
