Early the next morning (June14) it began to rain and continued to rain most of the day. Oh it is so nice to have good foul weather gear!!!
It cleared up to only 60% overcast for a couple of hours in the afternoon before clouding back up again. The winds gradually picked up and by evening we were averaging 9 knots. While it is nice to go fast (and yes I realize 9 knots isn't fast to you stinkpotters!) the winds continued to increase and the seas were getting bigger and bigger. The foul weather gear became more protection from the dousing from the waves than from the rain! There was no more quietly sitting behind the helm with a cup of coffee or tea while Carlos (our windvane) drove the boat as I was doing in the photo from the early morning. We finally decided to heave to and wait it out. Twelve hou
rs later we got under way again with seas down to about 8-10 feet. The skies continue to remain mostly overcast.
The 16th of June brought dinner in the guise of a bluefin tuna. The skies continued to be overcast with seas about 8 feet. We saw the first ship we had seen for days that evening and early the next morning we saw another sailboat. We actually saw its light first while it was still dark. They were a 47' sloop called Quetzal also heading for the Azores, but a faster boat than us with an ETA several days ahead of us. A few hours later we were nothing but a speck in their wake.
For most of the remainder of the trip the weather remained cold and more overcast than not. (Now I realize that cold is a relative term and what was cold for us having lived in the Caribbean for the la
st few years may not be cold for you cold weather climate people.) We all Layered up. Michael and I preferred to wear our foul weather gear over clothes, while Josie just kept adding layers only putting on rain gear if it was actually raining.
The 19th and 20th of June brought SE winds blowing 25-30 with higher gusts. Seas were running 8 feet and higher with breaking waves banging on the hull. Then came an especially loud bang and snap around 1400. Looking forward the jib seemed off and as I continued to look upward I saw to my horror that the furler had snapped from the mast and the only thing holding the whole thing up was the halyard! Josie and I were on watch but Michael was already asking "What was that?" and I am yelling back "The jib has come loose from the mast! All hands on deck!"
Michael comes up to see and yells"!?**" (Sorry, those of you who know Mike can pretty much guess, the rest of you will have to use your imagination.) Michael set up the sidestays for the inner forestay (for added support and to eventually run the staysail.) Michael and Just
in then manhandled the rollerfurler to the deck with Josie managing the halyard and Tracy at the helm. Sorry, no pictures of the process, (but in the photo to the right you can see the rollerfurler along the right side of the deck.) We were all too busy trying not to lose either the mast or the rollerfurler with jib into the sea. A quick response from all crew and the only thing we lost was our ability to sail with any speed.
Without the jib we could not make much forward speed on an upwind sail. Fortunately the wind was behind us most of the time, but this was still not ideal as the inner forestay side stays come well back of the mast and interfered with the ability to let the main all the way out. Also being the cautious sailors that we are we kept the main reefed for the rest of the trip. (We really did not want to risk losing our mast!! We would rather go slow and get there eventually.) A reach would have been the ideal point of sail for our limited sailing capability. Unfortunately that didn't happen very often either.
Later that night as the wind and seas continued to pick up we hove to again. We were still about 900 miles away from the Azores when all this happened. The slow going cost us a lot of time and we lost even more getting caught up in an eddy with the current against us. While we were hoping to make the crossing in close to 21 days it ended up taking 28. We were glad to arrive in Flores safe and with minimal damage.
Unfortunately the marina was fairly full and we were tied up on the concrete pier in front of reception with another boat rafted next to us. This was not real comfortable, especially at low tide and we left the following day. We were lucky not to have a lot of wind coming in while we were there as the concrete pier isright at the entrance and quite open to the sea.
Horta is a much larger and more commercial and touristy town/port than Lajes das Flores. Many cruisers stop here on transatlantic crossings thus marine supplies are more readily available. Wonder of wonders Mid Atlantic Yacht Sales had the part we needed to attanch the roller furler to the mast correctly! That alone was worth coming to Horta.
Another must before departing was following the tradition of painting the boat name and names of crew onto the wall that goes around the marina.
We left with the wind behind us at 10-15 knots. One of the other cruising boats, S'ours, left not long after we did and we communicated with them a few times during the journey. They passed us by on Monday arriving at the large marina in Horta about an hour before us. We arrived about 5:00 pm and after checking in and clearing customs and immigration were assigned a slot rafted up to another boat along the seawall. Even though this is a large marina it was jam packed!
We rented a car to go to Santa Cruz to look for the part we needed and also to tour the island. There are flowers all over the island, especially the hydrangeas which line the roads and many of the agricultural and land borders.
We met Peter, a boat builder/rigger cruiser on another boat (Denize II) and he helped get us squared away with a temporary fix until we can get somewhere that has the part we need to reconnect the roller furler to the mast. The first step was straightening the aluminum pieces that got bent in manhandling the roller furler to the deck. The jib sail was removed first and the roller furler taken apart. After the furler was back in one piece, Michael, Justin and Peter carried it back to the boat and raised it. After raising the furler, Michael and Peter attached it to the deck. Peter then went up the mast and lashed the top to the mast with dyneema.
Our second day out the winds were light and from the right direction to try out our new/used cruising spinnaker. Though not made for our boat it flew just fine. by the next morning the winds picked up and shifted direction and we put the spinnaker away. Due to events later in the voyage we were unable to fly it again this trip. The next few days were hot during the day and cool at night. The winds remained light for the most part but we were able to make pretty good time as long as we were in the gulf stream. We had to do a little tacking back and forth as the wind didn't allow us to keep to our course line. We saw lots of boat traffic the first few days as we were sailing northeast off the US coast--fishing vessels as well as ships; and even a NOAA research vessel. 
On Sunday, June 5, Don, Holly and Lena Hurley and Steve and Kris Sydow went with us to fuel up and move the boat near the James Island Yacht Club in anticipation of a Tuesday departure on the outgoing tide. The last couple of days were filled with visiting and last minute shoppping of forgotten items. The weather still looked good on Tuesday for a nice window to sail up the gulfstream at least as far as Hatteras. Family came to see us off and we finally got underway about 5 pm after raising, deflating and securing the dinghy.
