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Glamping Through the Gulf Stream

Glamping Through the Gulf Stream

A life-long sailor recounts a trio of very different trips from New England to Bermuda and how far his yachting experiences have come.

The author preparing for a bird’s-eye view of St. George’s, Bermuda, on his first trip in 1980.

One thing you can count on when you’re offshore in a small boat is that the vast, empty ocean is hardly that. There are more stars and planets overhead than you’ll ever see on land, all manner of creatures rising unexpectedly from the deep for a quick hit and run and birds appearing hundreds of miles from shore. The clouds can be hypnotic. The weather and sea state offshore are dynamic, ranging from sedate and benign to terrifying and dangerous.

I’ve made three trips to Bermuda from New England by boat over the years. The contrasts among those passages reflect the advancement of equipment—primarily electronics—and my own yachting evolution. The first two were more like camping, knowingly sacrificing comfort for the experience. The most recent was more akin to what has come to be known as “glamping.” Each was unique; all were memorable.

The North Atlantic put on a happy face for most of our 19-knot run from Newport to Bermuda.

My first trip to the “Onion Patch” was in 1980 on a 56-foot, home-built ferrocement ketch, which, while sturdy and supremely seaworthy, comfortable and beautifully fitted out, was far less sophisticated than my most recent ride. We left Scituate, Massachusetts, that October for the tiny beauty spot in the North Atlantic some 700 nautical miles away. The sun was shining, but there was ice on the decks. In variable conditions, the trip took us five nights and change, averaging about 6 knots. Compared to what people sail with today, we left port with a minimal electronics suite: a VHF, a single-sideband radio and a Loran unit one of our crew bought to make him feel slightly more confident we’d find the island.

We navigated primarily by old-school dead reckoning: compass, sextant, reduction tables, chronometer, paper charts and a taffrail spinner that required regular clearing of sargassum in the Gulf Stream. Our forecasts came from who knows where over the SSB. With our pre-GPS navigation tools, we managed to make landfall in Bermuda on our first try. The heavy boat, while generally seakindly in the variable conditions we encountered during our five nights in transit, was a lumbering leviathan with an abnormally uneasy motion downwind. Each time we rolled, as sailboats do when on a broad reach or run, it seemed like every pot, pan and unsecured item of hardware conspired to ruin our off-watch attempts to sleep. Much as we tried, we never got that last clattering piece of gear to settle.

Lacking today’s sensors and sophisticated electronics, we determined we had entered the Gulf Stream when we observed a horizon-to-horizon cloud bank ahead of us and stuck a thermometer in a pot full of seawater pumped into the galley sink that showed a sharp rise in temperature.

The home-built, 56-foot ferrocement ketch Perseverance ready for action at the dock in Scituate, Mass.

While that boat was comfortable and beautifully appointed below, there were a few amenities I wish we’d had. One was a shower. As I recall, my only shower in six days came courtesy of a vintage metal fire extinguisher full of water heated on the galley stove. It was primitive, but felt luxurious.

That trip produced some memorable moments. Among them was coming topside for a watch on a sunny, breezy day and looking out to the horizon and seeing nothing but white on the surface of the sea, which had been deep-water blue when I left it behind. Another was lying on my back on the foredeck on a spectacular starry night looking up as the swaying masthead connected the dots. Yet another was steering the concrete behemoth down the faces of 8-foot seas, on the verge of broaching. The wheel was heavy, but momentum was my friend. When I concluded the worst wasn’t going to happen, I entered a state of extreme sailing bliss. That may have been the most fun I’ve had driving a boat.

One more keeper moment awaited us as we doused the sails and fired up the diesel entering the channel into Bermuda (which our primitive navigation equipment and techniques managed to locate). A few hundred yards off our starboard beam, a black shape broke the surface of the water. It was a nuclear submarine concluding an adventure of its own.

My second trip was the 1988 Newport Bermuda Race. For that one, I sailed as journalist/crew on a famous racing yacht then called War Baby. The 61-foot Sparkman & Stephens-designed aluminum sloop began life as Dora IV, and was later Ted Turner’s Tenacious before becoming War Baby. Tenacious gained notoriety as being the corrected-time winner of the infamous 1979 Fastnet Race during which 15 sailors died in a Force 10 gale in the Irish Sea.

The Palm Beach 70 Motor Yacht idles up the channel toward Hamilton. 

Of the 303 yachts that started the race, only 86 finished. There were 194 retirements and 24 abandonments. While others were struggling in the gale, Turner, along with Gary Jobson as tactician, was flying toward the finish under spinnaker. That moment was immortalized in a John Mecray print hanging on my living room wall, courtesy of Jobson, with whom I worked as an editor in the ’90s.

By the time I got to War Baby, she was owned by Bermudian Warren Brown and was still capable of hauling the freight. I recall we spent three nights at sea in race mode, which meant lots of trips to the foredeck for knuckle-chafing headsail changes as conditions shifted from light to not-so-light and back. While that trip was a thrill, I don’t recall even having a fire extinguisher to shower with. I also remember off-watches napping on sail bags on the salon sole. I was a younger man and it didn’t really matter. I was perfectly content and thrilled to be on such an adventure.

The ’88 race was about as far as it gets from the ’79 Fastnet. Conditions varied, but I recall spending most of one day wallowing on a greasy, windless sea. While a bit of a bore, those hours produced their own moments of magic, not the least of which was watching the sea surface begin to glow purple as the sun set, backlighting the inflated bodies of thousands of Portuguese Men of War. It was hellishly hot, but suffice to say the swimming flag was not flying.

Then there was the night we had a good breeze and I was sitting on the weather rail with the other guys as the old boat cooked along, when suddenly I felt a slimy slap in the face. I touched my cheek, sniffed my hand and smelled fish. It turned out the flying fish were on night exercises and strayed from the runway. Years later, I named my Boston Whaler Flying Fish in honor of my wayward aerobatic friend.

In June, I was invited by Palm Beach Motor Yachts, a sponsor of this year’s Newport Bermuda Race, to make the run south aboard one of the company’s 70-foot, lightweight, Down East-style cruisers. Rather than lumbering in calms or chasing wind and Gulf Stream eddies, we howled straight down the rhumb line at 19 knots. After a ceremonial start at the back of the sailing fleet in Newport, we rocketed the 635 nautical miles to Bermuda in about 30 hours. With the exception of a few hours of gently lumpy seas, the weather and sea conditions made for a perfect powerboat ride.

With no sails to change or trim, standing watch mainly meant sitting at the helm minding the displays and keeping a human eye out for ships and floating debris. Touching the wheel or the joystick was not on the menu. In that mode, conversation was the thing. Chatting with Grand Banks CEO, Chief Designer and renowned racing sailor Mark Richards was fascinating, as it was with Grand Banks New England Operations Manager and long-time yacht captain Simon Davidson, and Palm Beach Motor Yachts Florida salesman and deeply experienced sailor David Sampson. Nothing matches trading sea stories with guys who have a million of them.

The marina at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club the night before the racing yachts began arriving.

Richards, with whom I spent a few hours each night at the helm, started his career as a shipwright. He shared details of his powerboat design philosophy, which borrows from his experience with high-tech sailing yachts. The 70 employs tightly engineered, lightweight composite construction for stiffness and strength and a proprietary hull design the company calls V-Warp. The combination delivers a slippery, comfortable ride with notable fuel efficiency. Depending on the power package, the boat is capable of cruising speeds in the mid-20s and a top end in the low 30s.

In contrast to my previous trips, we had the benefit of air conditioning, gyro stabilization, showers, push-button toilets and a NASA-grade array of electronics. I spent some off-watch time streaming a sci-fi series over the Starlink system, resisting the urge to check my swelling inbox. The yacht was fitted out and finished beautifully.

While the PB70 had all the comforts of a proper cruising yacht, the pace of the trip and the watch system Richards and Davidson instituted lent itself to the usual offshore priorities: catching sleep when possible, consuming fluids and calories and savoring the splendor of the environment outside. The boat had a well-equipped pantry, but we chose convenience over haute cuisine: yogurt and granola for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and store-bought casseroles for dinner. With the air conditioning, none broke a sweat. I was tempted to sea-trial one of the showers, but I didn’t feel the need, as I did on my previous runs.

The sun and moon rising over the ocean provided mesmerizing visual drama.

The only crisis we faced on the trip occurred 15 minutes after we left the dock in Newport when the Palm Beach guys realized we’d left the “toastie” (hot sandwich) press back at the office. Apparently, that is one piece of galley gear no self-respecting Palm Beach sailor would leave the dock without. Given our non-wind-dependent speed capabilities, the brief delay retrieving it did not affect our passage time.

While the trip went quickly and was pleasantly monotonous at times, and the constant din of the engines rattled my sailing sensibilities a bit, neither the boat nor the sea disappointed. Observing a pair of gasp-worthy sunrises and sunsets, and watching the annual strawberry moon rise plump and crimson over the ocean, transit the sky and set just before dawn, was pure candy. We arrived at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club about 14 hours ahead of the earliest race finishers.

While those earlier trips more resembled camping, the Palm Beach ride felt more like glamping. I wouldn’t trade those ’80s runs for anything—sailing is more hardwired to the moods and whims of the sea and sky, which better suits my vibe—but given the comforts and amenities a speedy motoryacht provides, I could be fairly tagged as spoiled by the last one.

This article originally appeared in the December 2024 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.

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Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/voyaging/glamping-through-the-gulf-stream

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