Somethings just aren’t meant to be. Like a lovely little sail to Martha’s Vineyard. I’ve been facing challenges the past couple weeks just getting the boat ready, which delayed departure by several days, and has left me in a rather sleep deprived state (if I were to depart this morning, I would have had to do it by three AM in order to count on making it to Cape May by midnight…Sandman says “no”). And now with a deep low pressure system moving down from New England, the weather forecast just doesn’t look good (15-25 knots, seas building to 6-9 feet by Thursday). It’s nothing the boat shouldn’t be able to safely handle. But it would be brutally uncomfortable, would likely over exhaust me to a point which exceeds my safe operating threshold, may stress the capabilities of the autopilot, is opening up the possibility of boat damage, and is causing me great concern that I never found the time to install jack lines (although I did happily install some hard points). With competent crew I might make the attempt. Single handed, however, it just isn’t prudent.

I may give back a couple weeks of vacation and just plan on taking it in September for my normal sailing trip. Given how much work I’ve feverishly put into the boat of late, though, I think I’m going to take a few days to sail around locally. I mean, she is as ready as she has ever been.

As near as I can tell, the weather will actually be pretty good. I want to get through Delaware Bay tomorrow, though, as the wind turns Easterly (the wrong direction for an easy sail) on Monday with waves increasing to 2-3 feet. Delaware Bay is rather shallow and is home of the famous Square Wave formed when tide and wind are opposite. Three feet waves would likely be uncomfortable.

Happily the Atlantic GRIBs look pretty much ideal. There are a couple pockets of 25-30 knots wind forecast late in the week; but they seem pretty small, so are hopefully avoided. I can handle 30 knots. It isn’t very comfortable, and Godot doesn’t do well to weather in that strength; but it looks like I’ll be on a broad reach even if the pattern shifts a bit and I end up hitting it. I have two reef points in my main and a reef-able “storm” jib (maybe a little bigger than a proper storm jib; but I’m not really expecting to hit a proper storm) so I should be fine. Twenty knots wind looks not unlikely, so I’ll probably have at least one reef in for a big portion of the trip anyhow.

Too much to do prior to departure…Gotta run. Most updates will likely come from the SPOT page, although I may get a short post or two up from the cell-phone. I’ll try and do a recap at some point.