11. New York to Horta, part 1, June 2025

Leaving a marina is easier than checking in. You kind of... just leave. Get everything shipshape, loose the sail covers, make some coffee and fill up a flask, start the engine, throw the lines, gently nudge the boat backwards, forwards, sideways (yes, bow thruster is a lovely thing to have) and make sure you don't hit anything.

Once out of the marina and when you have a clear run, drop the revs down to just enough that the engine keeps the boat stable into the wind, and on Beyond I raise the mizzen sail first. Once that's up we tighten the sheets and you now have a boat that is like a wind-vane into the wind.

I had a right-angled Dewalt drill with two powerful 9amp batteries and an adaptor that fitted into the top of the winch. A lovely brutish thing that any bloke would love. Made easy the hoisting of two sails, each weighing in at some 80kg (battens and yard 48kg and fabric 28kg). Pull the trigger and up they go. Comfort is the enemy and therein lays a tale which involves me potentially losing the boat a few days later.

Starting to feel like Sandy Hook is an old friend as I sail past it again, I am soon out into the Atlantic. I have studied departure plans on Predictwind (predictwind.com) incessantly for the past weeks. They have a funky feature where you can put in your destination and departure date and it will give you the weather and wind you can expect for each of the next four days. Full analysis of wind and waves and will plot you right to your destination with a recommended fastest route. Very cool. Obviously, for any departure you only have a degree of certainty for the first four days or so, after which you are dealing with best guess averages. Never the less, it suggested to me that my sail to the Azores would be in region of exactly 18 days, the maximum wind would be in the high twenties (gusts) but average winds about 12 knots. It suggested that I could go north skirting Nova Scotia but I declined this option as I am not a fan of fog and cold. It pretty much suggested direct rhumb line for Horta, almost a straight course East.

I have both an electronic autopilot that steers to a compass course - handy especially when you are motoring and oh so push-button-convenient - and a windvane that steers a course to the wind. Needless to say, these are absolutely essential for a solo-sailor. Being a slave to the steering the boat 24/7 is a nightmare. At the end of the first day, heading into night, I show the windvane here:

And a little bit more here on my thoughts, at the end of Day 1, about my course across the North Atlantic to Horta:

First night at sea. In the busy offshore area outside New York. I have cleared the separation zone and getting a bit sleepy. There is a lot of space out there but being hit by a ship is a non-negotiable - could really wreck your night. How does the solo sailor sleep?

He develops a really close relationship with an egg-timer.

Set it for 30 minutes, snooze, wake up, have a look around, check the AIS, go back to sleep. In the busiest areas I would kip down in the cockpit. Or, on Beyond after a night or two, I would go to the aft cabin with its easy and quick access to the cockpit. And further out I would bunk down in the main salon.

Half an hour sleep!? Actually, it's half an hour multiplied by maybe ten. Call it five or six hours of sleep. It works. You actually function well because, in my opinion, it's all you need. I actually don't think you are even building up a sleep debt.

Why 30 minutes?

At sea you have limited visibility. Most often you actually only see about 13 miles, maybe 15 miles. I met a ship. Daytime. Good visibility. Kind of terrifying. It looks like it's heading directly towards me, intent to plow me under.

According to my AIS it was chugging along at 15 knots. I was doing five knots in the opposite direction. We passed each other at less than a nautical mile.

And after 30 minutes I could no longer see it. Meaning at any given moment there could be a ship just outside of visual range, 30 minutes away from an uncomfortable event.

When you contemplate your boat becoming a dent in a containership, it becomes easy to wake up every 30 minutes and have a look around.

But there is not a lot going on out there. I would see a ship on my AIS screen maybe once every second day, say 50 miles away. Only once a week would I have anything in visual range. There is a lot of space out there.

Empty? No. It's teeming with life. Whales, dolphins, tuna, flying fish, birds - there is always something about. And at night we had bioluminescence in the water. Little creatures that light up Beyond's path through the water. I filled up a bucket to wash down the deck. It was full of them and spread a small galaxy of lights across my deck. Totally magical. There is a lot of mystery out there.

At noon one day I saw this weird white rainbow. Something I had never (in 65 years!) seen before.

I think it might have been a sundog though it didn't quite match what that is supposed to look like or where it is supposed to be. Whatever it was it was miraculous. Probably just a reflection of God's firmament.

And so, I got to the end of three days at sea. In a contemplative mood, I share some thoughts on small things making a big difference, from my windvane via my Garmin Mini2 to my helpful attitude that life is safe, and how we are designed for this world.

And after that, see part 2, we head into a sporty corner of the North Atlantic and start breaking the boat.