EP#388 Becalmed and then Sailing
November 19, 2025 · 36 min · 129 views · North Atlantic Ocean
What this video covers
Jerome Rand, sailing solo on the Westsail 32, reports being becalmed roughly 700 miles from Florida while attempting to arrive in time for Thanksgiving on November 28.▶ 4:11 After motoring three hours to charge batteries, the alternator output never exceeded 13.2 volts, pointing to a corroded connection he plans to inspect.▶ 1:07 The passage follows a two-day gale that Rand now second-guesses: he chose to run ahead of the system rather than heave-to until it fully died, and reflects that waiting to cross the Gulf Stream in near-zero wind would have been the safer call.▶ 6:38 Bermuda lay 200 miles off the beam; he considered stopping but pressed on.▶ 3:47 A wind vane (named Mongo) nearly lost a brass fitting during the gale — a failure that would have forced hand-steering indefinitely.▶ 18:49 After the calm breaks, a 60-degree wind shift while he slept sends the boat northwest; he jibes onto starboard tack and douses the hanked-on jib without a furling unit.▶ 22:26 Starlink provides daily weather downloads and family check-ins.▶ 16:32 A nighttime segment covers naked-eye navigation using Polaris, the Big Dipper, and the binary star Mizar in Ursa Major.▶ 26:38 Waiting until a gale fully passes before crossing the Gulf Stream, he concludes, is the more prudent strategy.
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