So why exactly did we end up in Bermuda? It is certainly a nice place, but wasn’t on our sailing plan.

The sum of the story is that the weather forecasts were off just far enough to force us to change our plans. For days the forecast kept saying that the wind was going to clock from the southeast, to the south and then the west. But that just never happened. Combined with winds stronger than expected, we just could not get either south or east. And we were getting beat up. Bermuda was two days out of our way, and it was an easy decision to head in there and take a few days to put things on the boat back to proper shape.

Why were the forecasts off? Well, a couple reasons. First, they were not THAT far off, but enough that it had a large impact. So Lesson #1 is if small changes between the forecast and reality can make a big difference, be sure to be aware of that, and have alternate plans. Also, the weather systems were extremely complex. There were multiple low pressure systems that were predicted to combine into one large storm in the Eastern Atlantic. That’s what happened, so the grand picture was right, but the details were less precise than usual.

By the time we got to the island with the lovely pastel colored buildings, we had a number of things on the boat that needed attention.

Some stripped threads meant our rudder packing was leaking. Not anything near enough to sink the boat, but it was sure making a mess even with regular mopping up. A bit of fiberglass work to build up new threads and we should be off and leak free for the foreseeable future.

We had our wind instrument break and fall off the top of the mast, probably at one of the pounding impacts the boat took when it fell off a wave. When 18 tons of boat fall several feet down onto the water, the g-forces are large, and at the top of the mast they must be enormous. Even so, this kind of force should be expected and designed for. We have contacted the maker and gave them the details. We’ll see what they can do. Fortunately, we had a spare in stock, so a trip up the mast put us back in business.

As the worst of the weather past us, Karen was looking to the back of the boat, and said, “I’m sure you have already noticed, but…”

Actually, I had not looked that way, so it was news to me that one of our solar planelss had gone walkabout. I guess having 40+ knots of wind hit it from the bottom when we were heeled over was more than the frame of the panel could take. That repair will have to wait a bit. At least the frame I built is still there, it was the panel itself that failed.

We have a good weather window tomorrow to get back underway, hopefully we can get the boat picked up and put back in shape in time. to catch that. Next stop, Martinique!