Explore Sailing Voyages in Antigua and Barbuda 🇦🇬

We left Deep Bay Bay late in the day when the sun way already starting to set. The primary goal of this trip was for Deirdre to practice navigating. Fiona steered for most of the sail. We tacked a few times and practiced two jibes. By the time we got into Jolly Harbor the sun had fully set and Fiona was steering in the dark.

This was my longest solo trip to date and in general was quite easy and straight forward. The west to east route is always considered more challenging but on this occasion it was better than the outward leg. I remained on starboard tack for the entire crossing. The first 4 days were tough as I was close hauled against the trade-winds and current but once I got to latitude 30 it started easing off a bit. Nothing broke on board and I received no injuries so in that respect was a perfect crossing. I got bored quite a lot, that was the only negative. I’m used to spending my time fixing things on these passages. PredictWind gave a 26 day passage in a best case scenario and to beat it by 8 days was pretty good. I think the main reasons for this was I was receiving daily weather routing from Stokey Woodall and the boat sailed way faster than I expected. Therefore the polar was wrong. On one particular day I hit 164 NM for the 24 hour period which is higher than hull speed. I guess I got some favourable currents giving a bit of free mileage. She happily cracked off 140-150 miles daily without trying. A bit depressing to get to Horta and find it completely full. I anchored for one night in the harbour and then set off for Ponta Delgado.

Vent Est 15 / 20 nœuds au vent de Redonda. Navigation travers/ grand largue . Passage au vent de St Kitts . Joli 3 m de fond . Beau temps. Moteur pour la dernière demi-heure pour atteindre Sandy Bay.

Finally a win for the last race. The wind was perfect for us all the way round. With just 11 seconds separating first to third it was very tight racing but being on the right side of it is pretty sweet. Now the preparation for sailing home begins as soon as I’ve drunk my body weight in beer.

Bit of a longer race today and yet another 4th.

Absolutely perfect conditions. Wind force 4 and all day sun but only perfect for our light weight competitors. With such heavy boat we need force 5 to really get her moving. We finished in good order but only 4th.

A wet and windy day in Antigua. Wind from 10-30 knots from the east and plenty of showers but we got second today and 4th yesterday so just getting in to the groove.