Getting Ready to head south and through the canal!

[Warren Holybee]

I will be leaving with Eliana on Monday or Tuesday to begin the last season of my circumnavigation. You can follow me here:

Eliana

forecast.predictwind.com

The first leg will be from Norfolk, VA to Puerto Rico. I have crew arriving on Monday (a sailor that lives in PR) or I would be leaving sooner. Saturday seems to be the opening of the window. It looks like much of the trip will be light winds and there will be some motoring.

Still a bit up in the air after that. Possibly from PR to Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Mexico (what is a good port to see the Mayan Ruins from?), Panama, Mexico, and then California.

I will drop in when I can with updates and such, but it is quite difficult. Following me on Facebook is your best bet. Search for S/V Eliana.

 

[dickkilroy]

Good luck Warren and as you said please keep us posted on how you’re doing

 

[kenk]

Bon Voyage. Good ports for land travel in Mexico would be Isla Mujeres or the marina at El Cid in Puerto Morales, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Best stopover for Guatemalan ruins is Rio Dulce.
Ken

 

[jimcleary]

Warren

Be safe and have fun. Sorry you never made it more north of VA. We would have loved to have met you. It will be fun to follow your voyage on Predictwind.

Jim Cleary

 

[mpearson]

Wow. It looks like Warren didn't waste any time, and he's already ~170 miles offshore, SE of cape hatteras. He must have left pretty early on Monday if not before that.

 

[pmf44]

Contact me if you need crew--I also speak Spanish! thanks Paul Foer Annapolis

 

[mpearson]

Looks like Warren is about 90 miles from northeast Puerto Rico. I'm guessing he's going to those marinas on the NE side of the island. I've been to a nice one in Fajardo.

I think he left around Nov 1, so that's 12 days and approximately 1,400 miles. Or an average of 4.8 mph if I remember how to do math. Pretty good! It looked like he had some periods of calm, and I'm guessing he motored some ... will be interesting to hear. Looks like he's in the steady trade winds now. 15 knts from the east.

Go Warren!

 

[royaltern]

Looks like Warren is about 90 miles from northeast Puerto Rico. I'm guessing he's going to those marinas on the NE side of the island. I've been to a nice one in Fajardo.

I think he left around Nov 1, so that's 12 days and approximately 1,400 miles. Or an average of 4.8 mph if I remember how to do math. Pretty good! It looked like he had some periods of calm, and I'm guessing he motored some ... will be interesting to hear. Looks like he's in the steady trade winds now. 15 knts from the east.

Go Warren!

Mark, If you check out his facebook page, you will see that he is headed for St Thomas.

 

[mpearson]

Thanks, Bert. Yeah, there are satellite text updates on Facebook. Says he had a sterering failure during a squall. Good he has an emergency rudder, and he got the system fixed enough to get to St Thomas

 

[Warren Holybee]

I am now anchored at St. Thomas. Had some last minute crew changes, and a friend left a day before me on the way here, so that is what we did. My friend left a day before us, and we were delayed mid trip a day for repairs, and beat him by 12 hours, not bad.

My steering cable snapped. I had removed it and inspected it during the off season, and it looked as new, but had about 25,000 miles or so on it. So I guess that needs to be replaced by miles, time, or appearance, whatever comes first. I replaced it with 3/16 amsteel dyneema, and was a very easy repair to make. The most difficult part was clearing out the locker and quarter berth of stuff. I would want to redo it with 1/4 dyneema, but I might do that as a permanent repair instead of stainless. The edson part is about $500, not including shipping to USVI.

The trip otherwise sucked. A hell of a lot of motoring, with strong winds and squalls between. Probably only 48 hours of good comfortable sailing.

I also have an emergency rudder attachment for my monitor, which I installed prior to making the repair. It was basically useless. It was required for the Pacific Cup, but I would have to recommend a different emergency rudder if you want one able to steer the boat. I was very disappointed.