Winds have been West with a hint of North in them. They’ve been strong: 15-20 w/ gusts to 25kts. Westward Ho! is good in theory, but in practice, it sucks. Day 1 proved to be a 25-30kt shakedown sail. I took out my storm jib, and tucked in a double reef, Teresa did the same. We rounded West Chop, and BAM! In our face 25kts and 3′ seas. We bailed out that day when Teresa called to say her tiller pilot had broke and was now in two pieces! To rough to tack, we gybed back to Vineyard Haven in case we needed to get parts or place an order. That evening, after a lovely corn chowder dinner, on a mooring in the outer harbor, the Tiller pilot proved to be nothing more than a simple fix of screwing the arm back onto the drive gears… we hoped.

Yesterday, day 2, looked promising at 0600. We slipped our moorings… and then due to my poor connection the rest of this post got deleted…oi vey.