So it does not look like a very good trip.

So, when is the next departure opportunity? My hunch is not until late in the week of Mon7, at the earliest, and there’s no way of knowing whether that will work, either.

From Hampton to Bermuda it’s even worse, as you have much further to travel (going up to 38N or 39N to get under the RIDGE, then going E, then turning S), and by the time you turn S wind directions early in the week of Mon7 may be SE.

From Hampton or BeaufortNC to Antigua (or Bahamas if you will not arrive in Bahamas by about Fri4 or Sat5):

No opportunities without extended periods of headwinds of at least 30k gusting 40k, and squalls above 40k and 12-15’+ seas. And there remains a slight risk for additional Tropical or sub-Tropical LO formation in various parts of Caribbean, just E of Caribbean, and throughout the sub-Tropical Atlantic.

Eventually the pattern will change, but that’s nowhere in sight yet.

Chris Parker, Weather Guru, 01Nov22 email update

Yuck. Chris Parker’s excerpt above focuses on boats aimed for the Caribbean and Bahamas. One of many, we not only read and study, but also review using our own forecasting tools, wanting and hoping to see what pleases us, for a safe and enjoyable passage east.

Are our modern forecasting tools making it more difficult to depart? Or has the weather really become more difficult? Or both? Sailing adventurers didn’t have weather forecasts. Early adventurers relied on Divine intervention, rituals and superstitions. “Never leave on a Friday” is one such deciding factor still used today by some!

Late into the twentieth century, we had modern marine propulsion and fiberglass hulls, Dacron sails, but no way to predict the weather. Boaters departed when the weather simply looked “good”. “Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning; Red sky at night, sailors delight.” And so the sayings go. And some (most?) intrepid sailors lived to tell stories of incredible stormy hardships.

Modern forecasting tools really didn’t exist before satellites. But now we have them. And their existence seems to be really holding us up! Our forecasting tools are so good now that the weather outlook predicts hardship if we depart in the next ten days. We don’t want to live through a hardship, or at least live through it to tell an incredible story. But when is the weather really good enough?

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Our SaltyDawg group began last week with 120 or so participants. With the decision by the officials to postpone departure, many boats have chosen alternate courses. Some have decided to tough it out and bash their way into a tumultuous sea. Some are waiting for the window to open, like us. Here’s a link to show all the boats transmitting their locations, overlaid on the Predictwind.

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/rally/2022-sdsa-caribbean-rally/

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Boat drinks
Boys in the band ordered boat drinks
Visitors scored on the home rink
Everything seems to be wrong

Lately, newspaper mentioned cheap airfare
I’ve got to fly to Saint Somewhere
I’m close to bodily harm

20 degress and the hockey game’s on
Nobody cares, they are way too far gone
Screamin’, “Boat drinks”
Somethin’ to keep them all warm

This morning
I shot six holes in my freezer
I think I got cabin fever
Somebody sound the alarm

I’d like to go where the pace of life’s slow
Could you beam me somewhere, Mister Scott?
Any old place here on Earth or in Space
You pick the century and I’ll pick the spot

Oh I know (I know)
I should be leaving this climate
I got a verse but can’t rhyme it
I gotta go where it’s warm

Boat drinks
Waitress, I need two more boat drinks
Then I’m headin’ south ‘fore my dream shrinks
I gotta go where it’s warm (I gotta go where it’s warm)
I gotta go where it’s warm (I gotta go where it’s warm)
I gotta go where it’s warm!

I gotta go where there ain’t any snow
Where there ain’t any blow, ’cause my fin sinks so low
I gotta go where it’s warm

Jimmy Buffet, Boat Drinks

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Further reading…

Library of Congress, about the old adage.