Destination: Jolly Harbour, Antigua
Pre Departure
The crew of 4 was picked by the owner (Greg) via resumes and interviews. We met a few weeks before departure while the boat was parked in Annapolis. It was great to get a chance to meet everyone and to get a brief moment on the boat (Astra). Greg staged Astra at the Old Point Comfort Marina where we met up after a last minute shuffle due to a favorable weather window. Rachel shuttled me down there and dropped me off at the Salty Dawg captain’s meeting so that I could hear some of the key advice provided for weather routing.
Chris Parker gave some clear guidance about getting across the Gulf Stream, which I dutifully wrote down, because I knew I would forget the instructions. Most importantly, it was quite clear that our best window to depart was the morning of Halloween and not to wait until November 1st. The only regret was that I didn’t pick up one of the Salty Dawg crew welcome bags that had our t-shirts in them! Oh well, an Uber ride to the marina was next followed by short dinner with the crew.
The next morning, we tightened the jack lines, tightened the life lines, taped up d-rings to prevent snagging, topped off the water, threw out any trash and updated all chartplotter maps (VERY important!). The boat was looking shiny and ready to hit the high seas. This activity and some tours by Greg around the boat helped us all start to see how we worked together.
Bermuda Leg – 10/31/2024-11/4/2024
The leg to Bermuda started out with the expectation that we would sail direct from Hampton, VA to Antigua. We shoved off at around 1100 on 10/31/2024 and headed out the Chesapeake Bay. We hoisted sails and it felt magical. We were getting accustomed to the boat and Astra was doing the same with us. It was relatively warm and we felt as ready as ever to make the crossing.
It was going swimmingly well. Greg was in a good mood and broke out his gift to us all — MUSTO vests with embroidery to commemorate the trip. Then we hit some wind outside the protection of land, and it was game on. Heeling at 25 degrees, it was time for life jackets and tethers.
Crewmates David and Bud were a hoot. We all shared some fun and relatable stories on the trip. David was uber confident behind the wheel, and Bud was like a crypto dealer having anything to do with technology. Bud cracked out his sextant (how did he pack that?) and don’t let him fool you…we were rocking so much that it made celestial work a challenge. He did look good doing it though!
The first few days we sailed in reefed conditions. We caught up with a pod of dolphins which was probably one of the trip highlights. We tried to dial into Chris Parker daily broadcasts and also Salty Dawg meetings on Starlink. The entire trip was a bit plagued by not being able to dial into the calls or the calls happening without our knowing about them. The Salty Dawg iPhone app proved to be the best pieces of technology that we used and liked (I didn’t have it on the trip in 2023).
Once we were about 100 miles out from Bermuda, the decision loomed amongst the crew whether we should turn South for Antigua or whether we should go to Bermuda. Weather forecasts in the later days of the trip (4-6 days out) were suggesting a tropical storm moving across the Antigua/Barbuda region bringing the chance of wind above 25-30 knots and 10 foot seas. The crew was divided about the way to go. We hit some rough patches and had an accidental gybe. Ultimately, the captain decided that we would duck into Bermuda to let the weather pass and to get some better forecasts.
The entrance to St. George’s is fairly narrow, but once we were in the protected harbor, we jumped on a mooring at St. George’s Dinghy & Sports Club. Embarrassingly, it took us about 7 tries to get onto the mooring, but we were all a bit tired and weary from the relatively choppy and rough approach into Bermuda. When we got to Customs, a life boat from a cruise ship sped into the tiny alley area and dropped off a sick passenger. We walked all over town and caught a nice view of Astra on the mooring as well as gazed at the sailors-in-training with their pink sails.
While the crew was ashore, I took the time to fix the staysail furler (A Furlex 300S) and constantly check on weather routing leaving Bermuda. Someone had installed the furler with the bottom luff extrusion too deep into the furler mechanism. That, and a pin at the bottom of the extrustion that had worked it’s way out, caused the furler to not spin. I worked feverishly and intently on this furler, because I had no interest to stay in Bermuda any longer than necessary. I also felt an immediate level of comfort in Astra and knew that she could handle some wind and waves. The routing looked good and required a bit of a “jog” Southwest before continuing directly into Antigua.
Captain Greg had food pre-prepped for every night by a chef. That was convenient, but getting some food on land sounded so good. I must say that dinner in Bermuda helped me to cool my jets. It was a lovely evening and a good break. Maybe I needed to just chill for a few hours to get ready for the next leg.
Antigua Leg (11/6/2024 – 11/12/2024)
We departed on Wednesday, and lucky we did! Later in the trip, we learned that those that took more time in Bermuda and left 1, 2 or 3 days after us really hit a mess on the ocean. Before we could rip out the sails, we were asked by the harbourmaster to stall in the St. George’s channel to allow a cruise ship to pass. We were feeling like a race car lining up at the 1/4 mile strip waiting for the Christmas light tree to go green.
We all got our sea legs back, and we got back into the rhythym of the watch schedule. Well, remember that accidental gybe prior to Bermuda? It reared its ugly head. I was sitting behind the helm kinda of relaxing but still had my head on a swivel as we were navigating and getting our senses about us. While on a port tack, I happened to see the traveler track lifting off the deck. It was the perfect timing with the light shining from behind.
The captain went down below and tightened the bolts. I assumed the bolts got stretched during the accidental gybe. We were all very happy to have caught this in daylight and that we didn’t have to experience the traveler track getting ripped off the deck at night. We pushed forward sailing as much as possible. I noticed that green water would stack up on the deck and wouldn’t drain quickly. So I started dreaming about scuppers as the sun set a few times.
Right in the middle of the leg, I was again at the helm, and this time I heard and felt a “pop” just under me. I had a very strong instinct that something just wrapped around the propeller. The engine temperature started climging up to 90 degrees Celcius. That was far too warm for our liking, so we dialed back on the engine RPM to try to give the engine a break. That seemed to work, and the next morning, we pulled out the Code 0. That sail propelled us to 7.5-8.5 knots of boat speed for a good part of the day.
We had the opportunity to navigated around some large swells. We turned the engine back on, and kept the RPM low with temperatures elevated but not to the 90C levels. We dropped anchor at around 11/12/2024 at 0200 just outside of Jolly Harbour. The next morning as we attempted to dock at Customs, the boat shook a lot when going in reverse. That was the moment I knew we had something on the prop. A quick dive by our fearless captain, and it was confirmed…a fishing net!
The trip was about 1600 nautical miles and took about 9 days 15 hours. We saw winds not exceeding about 30 knots and waves not bigger than 10 feet; those conditions were not long lived. Although I know the boat could easily handle quite a bit heavier sea state, it was nice to stop in Bermuda. I definitely want to return there some day. The Hallberg-Rassy 48 was definitely a different boat from the Oyster 62.5 (2023 trip), but I feel like the boats handled the weather and sea state with similar confidence.
Overall, I thought it was also convenient to be sailing with the Salty Dawgs and to have the app at our fingertips to keep track of nearby boats. Although weather input from Chris Parker was helpful, I found that supplementing Chris’ guidance with personal use of XyGrib, LuckGrib and PredictWind where I drew my own conclusions gave much more confidence in critical navigation decisions.
Fun Fact: 2nd year when Winter foulies were worn for less than 30 minutes.
The Loxodograph 