We’ve been aground in the office in Arizona for six weeks, enough time to get caught up and start thinking about next year’s testing afloat. All options are on the table. Returning to the US East Coast via Iceland and Greenland sounds intriguing, as does the South Pacific via the Canary Islands, Panama and the Galapagos. There is also the Med. option.

Lots of factors play into the decision. We are used to this of course. But what is surprising in this decision making cycle is the part which comfort at sea seems to be playing.

It didn’t used to be this way.

In the olden days we just decided where we wanted to go and pointed the boat there. If the passage was a bit lumpy we knew it would be over quickly. When we started cruising aboard Wind Horse the increase in comfort combined with a decrease in effort lead us to much more ambitious plans. The eleven thousand miles we did in 2008 between California and the UK followed by seven thousand miles in 2009 to Norway and Svalbard are testimony to this.

But the last five seasons of cruising (now totaling in excess of 45,000 miles) has also made us soft. We now expect passages to be comfortable. So as we are thinking about heading west across the North Atlantic, the comfort level of different routes is starting to rear its ugly head.

Interestingly, it is often the unpleasant conditions which stick in your mind. The less real world cruising experience you have, the more it happens. And this can lead to delayed or abandoned dreams.

We have the utmost respect for the North Atlantic. And having quickly lost our sea legs, we both detected a hint of reluctance to tackle it in early summer heading east too west. So, to bring ourselves back to reality we decided to review photos and videos accumulated since 2005 with Wind Horse, looking for the few instances of heavy weather, and then recalling what this felt like (keeping in mind the scarcity of these photo “opportunities” so far). The bottom line is that we’ve had very little adverse weather that we did not actively seek out as a test.

The photos made for an interesting perspective on what is the worst we have found in the past 4400 hours of engine time, and we thought you might like to share in some of this.

The first photo and the one above were taken in a 40 knot short-lived blow off Auckland, New Zealand, during sea trials. That’s Jim Schmidt on the right. Jim is an old cruising friend and with his wife Cheryl have owned the Deerfoot 72 Wakaroa for more than a quarter of a century. We were testing Wind Horse at various speeds and wave angles, seeing how slow we could go and maintain comfort (five knots being the minimum speed we attempted). This gave us a hint of what to expect offshore in bigger and more confused sea states. The new boat felt really good but we knew we needed to get offshore to really find out what we had.

This next series were taken between New Zealand and Fiji, during the tail end of a strong gale. We are going to include quite a few, rather than cherry pick them, as this is the best way to give you a feel for the conditions.

We had waited in the Bay of Islands for a strong frontal passage, so we would have confused, mature seas with which to deal. The breeze was blowing 30to 35 knots with gusts to 45 or so in the squalls.

In looking at these photos keep in mind that cameras tend to shrink apparent wave size, and the height of the lens is eight feet (2.4m) above the waterline. These seas are occasionally running to 25 feet (7.6m) or more – check the wave crest on the left side of the photo.

The dominant swell pattern here is from the southwest, off our port stern quarter. But there are also seas from the northwest and southeast. This is a normal situation in much of the South Pacific. As the low approaches to your north the wind is northwest. When the front passes there is an abrupt shift to southwest.

Being our first time offshore with Wind Horse we were somewhat on edge. But we were astounded by the comfort level compared to what we would have been experiencing with Beowulf (78 foot ketch) or Sundeer (67 foot ketch), and we knew from our CFD work she would do comparatively well if caught by a breaking sea.

Still, it wasn’t until we’d been whacked by a few crests that we started to relax.

The ability of Wind Horse to absorb wave energy, skid to leeward with the crest, while minimizing heel was wonderful to experience.

As we moved north the gale softened its pressure and backed to the south and then southeast. Now we were surfing the south and southeast swells and wind waves.

At the same time occasional biggies from the southwest came visiting (these being now more confused with a crossing southeast wave pattern growing stronger).

Here is a crest we got lucky and caught on film. Check out the sea building to the right off in the distance. When this reached us we rode up and over with little discernable motion, except for the vertical acceleration as the wave passed below the hull.

The next series of photos are of the third day at sea. The breeze is is down to what we would consider a brisk sail in the olden days. The waves are almost square behind us, and we are enjoying the surfing.

This was one of the areas where we thought we would lose out on comfort compared to sailing.

However, Wind Horse has proved to be even more comfortable in these conditions than any of our sailing designs.

Subsequently we crossed the Pacific Ocean back to California, cruised the West Coast to Alaska, and then down to Mexico before encountering conditions worthy of photos.

This next series derives from another test. We were heading north along the coast of Baja California, just north of Cedros Island. This area is infamous for unpleasant head seas. The prevailing high pressure wind gradient is reinforced with a sea breeze, while the waves are stacked up with a counter current.

These seas are running 12 to 15 feet (3.7 to 4.5m) and are very steep as you can see in the photos.

We could have easily hung out in the Bahia Sur anchorage at the leeward end of Cedros Island, but then we would have missed this fun and the opportunity to gather acceleration data on our recording system in a sea type which we had not yet experienced. This was during the early phases of the FPB 64 design cycle and we were anxious to compare the data with our calcs.

Wind Horse is running at her normal eleven knots. Although we tested slower rates, we felt better at eleven.

The four photos above demonstrate a key feature of our comfort equation. Between the big head sea starting to hit the bow and the wave retreating under the bow just above, there is very little vertical displacement. Basically we just pierce the wave. There is going to be a thump as the bow finds the trough on the backside of the wave, but this is not nearly as big as on our sailing designs. We know from many thousands of sailing miles to weather that if we have to head uphill, this is the way to do it.

A different focal plane is used here (still off Cedros Island). These will give you a feel for the pitching (or lack thereof) and how much water comes aboard.

Here the wave is receding. Note that the decks are dry.

Bringing these waves to a sailing angle, 50 degrees off, would make the ride much softer. But this adds to distance, and our choice (so far) has been to take the shortest route.

We should take a moment and remind you that the adverse weather we have been viewing is normally a rare occurrence. Between modern routing and our ability to maintain high average speeds we’ve typically had to seek out this type of sea state to test Wind Horse. Even the stormy North Atlantic summer of 2008 gave us an easy ride between Greenland and Ireland, which is what we are looking at above.

Back to testing. This next series is off California’s notorious Cape Mendocino. The NOAA forecast was for three days of fall gales and big seas, so we sat in Eureka waiting for the waves to build. On the third day, when conditions were at their “best” we sneaked out of the breakwater. Wind Horse was heavier than normal with full water tanks and a substantial load of fuel. Our goal was to test her downwind handling in this configuration, which is closer to the FPB 64 than the normal displacement length ratio of the FPB83.

Cape Mendocino has unusual and confused currents, which are supposed to create breaking seas in these conditions.

We did find some steep waves to surf.

But the breaks were only five feet (1.5m) off the wave crests. This was not enough to upset our equilibrium and we quickly were out of the wind acceleration zone of the Cape with diminished (boring) seas.

There is a point to all of this. Of the 45,000 miles that have now passed under the keel of Wind Horse, only a very small period has been spent in other than comfortable sea states. Looking to test the boat we sought out all of the sea state examples we have shared.

And what of the rest? The periods of less than ideal comfort have been rare. Consider the following comfort black list in the context of the mileage and cruising grounds we have covered since launching in May of 2005:

• Hawaii to California, under the Pacific High, with strong northeast trades on the nose and northwest crossing swells. The northeast waves were tolerable. It was the northwest crossing swell reacting with the wind waves that was the problem. Two days out of nine on this trip we’d have rather been elsewhere.
• Bahamas to Nova Scotia, northerly gale against the Gulf Stream current. Eighteen hours of steep seas on the nose. Between this Gulf Stream situation and coming back from Hawaii we’d cruised north to Alaska, down to Mexico, back to Alaska, then the Panama Canal and through the Windward Passage to the Bahamas without any “interesting” waves to record.
• Summer 2009, Irish Sea gale with opposing current. Three hours with 10 to 15 foot (3 to 4.6m) exceptionally steep seas, overfalls really, off the coast of Wales. Prior to this, but after the Gulf Stream norther, we’d cruised Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Labrador, Greenland, Ireland, the UK, to Norway, Svalbard, and back to the UK without any periods of significant discomfort.

In fact, most of our weather would be considered wonderful, even though we’ve been cruising in areas not known for nice conditions (Gulf of Alaska, Central and North Pacific coast, Eastern Seaboard of the US in spring (Gulf Stream), North Atlantic, North Sea, Arctic Ocean, and worst of all, the Irish Sea).

Which brings us back to the question with which we started. Where do we head next year and do we worry ourselves with weather and the possibility of a bit of discomfort? Having gone through this exercise with you the answer is easy. Regardless of where we go if we take our time, watch the weather, and make use of our ten to eleven knot cruising speed, the odds are we are going to be comfortable.

If you are have not yet visited our online videos check out this link for footage of Wind Horse in a variety of sea states dashewoffshore.smugmug.com/gallery/6802329_jB96x#434939709_9pkLM