At sea 23 miles north of Bermuda. Date and time: Saturday June 17, Noon AST Position: 32-41.9 N 64-46.3 W Course: 344 deg. M Average speed: 7.2 kts.. Distance made good since departure: 23 NM ETA Portland, ME: 2000 Wednesday, June 21 Conditions: Wind 005 deg. M at 12 kts, seas 3-5. ft. and declining, mostly overcast, air temp. 76 deg. F, sea temp. 76 deg. F, barometer 1033.6 mb - rising slowly After nearly a month in Bermuda, we're underway again! It was a terrific month, thanks to the friendliness and hospitality that seems to be bred into every Bermudian. Thanks especially to Andy and Sonia Cox, whose friendship and hospitalty set the standard, and to the ever-popular Royal Bermuda Yacht Club which is at the top of its game under Andy's leadership as commodore. N47 Bluewater and N43 Summer Skis departed St. Georges, at 0845, in light northerly winds with only gentle ground swells keeping the Town Cut Channel from being absolutely flat. The word's out that a good crossing window has opened, and the early morning hours saw a steady parade of sailing yachts leaving the anchorage, with Bluewater and Summer Skis the only two power boats. We deployed Bluewater's paravane poles before departure; they give us the salty look of a commercial fishing boat, but we'll use them only in the event the Naiad stabilizers cease to function. Our plan is to travel in company with Summer Skis along the rhumb line to Newport for about two days, splitting off at mid-day Monday to pick up a course for the Great South Channel east of Nantucket and Cape Cod, while Summer Skis continues on in to Newport. The two boats make compatible partners, both handling the easy conditions so far with aplomb and easily keeping pace with one another. We're running at 1800 RPMs and Summer Skis at 1900 and staying even with one another. We're monitoring VHF 16 and using VHF 17 as our private chat channel. The Newport Bermuda Race started yesterday with a record 263 yachts heading right at us. The thinking in Newport is that this will be a slow race because of weather, but the fastest of the boats can be expected to cover up to 350 miles a day, maybe more, and we expect to cover about 170 miles a day. This is like one of those dread math questions on the SAT: "If a sailing yacht traveling to Bermuda at an average speed 9 knots leaves Newport at 1 pm Friday, and two trawlers traveling in the opposite direction leave Bermuda at 9 am Saturda averaging 7 knots, accounting for the one hour later time in Bermuda, what time can they be expected to meet?" My seat-of-the-pants calculations tell me that we could conceivably start seeing the fastest race boats about mid-day tomorrow. If you're interested, you can check the progress of the race at: www.bermudarace.com . . . wish we could do that but we don't have Internet at sea, only e-mail. Bob at OMNI calls for is calling for us to have head winds and seas to start: NNE winds to 18 knots and seas declining from 4-6 ft for the first couple of days before going around to the south and then SW. He says to expect winds up to 25 knots as we pass through a front Tuesday, but for most of the trip winds and seas should be aft of the beam, which puts a smile on our faces. The forecast from Chris Parker, weather router for Summer Skis, is much the same. Jim and I agreed that if we cannot handle a forecast like this, we shouldn't own Nordhavns. Our friends Pam and Andy Wall, salty circumnavigators, are reportedly enroute to Bermuda in rough going about 500 miles away in their vintage 37-foot sailing yacht. We wish them a safe, fast trip! Cabot Lyman just called on VHF to say that he has cleared Bermuda's Town Cut Channel aboard his Hood 51 sailing yacht Chewink, bound for (he's not sure) New Bedford, MA, or his home in Maplejuice Cove at Thomaston, ME. We'll try to talk with him at 1900 and 0800 daily on SSB 4145. We got to know Cabot and his wife Heidi in Bermuda. All is well. --Milt, Judy and Schipperke Katy -- Milt Baker Bluewater Nordhavn 47 #32 http://www.bluewaternav.com