Year Three: A Review

The third year of our voyage is complete!

• June 2, 2024: Location at start of year #3: Bermuda.

• Summer ’24: West to east across the Atlantic Ocean from Bermuda to the South of England via The Azores.

• Fall and Winter ’24/’25: Travel off the boat–primarily in Sri Lanka.

• Spring ’25: Re-launched the boat in Lymington, England. Sailed off north and east towards a Scandinavian Summer.

• June 2, 2025: Location at end of year #3 of our voyage: Giselau, Kiel Canal, Germany.

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Headlines

• We crossed an ocean! 3747 nautical miles sailed between Marsh Harbor, Bahamas and The Isles of Scilly, UK. 658.5 hours underway (27.4 days) plus extended layovers in Bermuda and The Azores. We’d dreamed of making this crossing for years. It was a thrilling ride and a proud accomplishment. As John Kretschmer says, “Crossing an ocean is a good way to spend a month.”

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• The Azores. What a spectacular place to make a landfall. Walks ashore provided jaw dropping vistas at every turn. The living was cheap, the people were welcoming, and this archipelago offers the best swimming anywhere on earth. We planned to stayed for two weeks and ended up lingering there for six. It was a struggle to leave.

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• The Isles of Scilly. Arriving into UK waters after crossing the Atlantic delivers a rush of triumph that you don’t soon forget. We stayed in these lush islands off the Cornish coast for a week resting, partying with new friends, and marveling over where a small sailboat can take you.

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• England. The iconic sailing ports kept rolling over the horizon as we sailed east along the south coast of Cornwall and England: Falmouth, Dartmouth, The Isle of Wight, and The Solent. Epic sailing grounds, and so cool to be there on our own boat.

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• Sri Lanka. Yup, you read that right. Waiting out a dark, cold winter living aboard in England didn’t appeal. Instead, we opted to haul Sundance out of the water and fly away on a plane for some off-the-boat living primarily in Sri Lanka. We rented a little place in a sleepy yoga/surfer/digital-nomad beach town for a few months. Alex completed a yoga teacher training course. Chris completed writing a book. (The Four Seasons of Boat Maintenance launches in Jan. 2026). This was a planned break. We figured that after 2.5 years of sailing, we might appreciate a few months off the boat. The C-suite folks here at Eagle Seven Sailing have made the editorial decision to keep this blog sailing focused, so we’ll keep discussion of this winter trip brief: We loved our time on this little island four degrees north of the equator in the Indian Ocean.

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• The Netherlands. Eight months went by in a blink, and before we knew it we were back on the boat sailing out of UK water’s bound for Stockholm. First stop: A canal tour of The Netherlands with a four day stop in Downtown Amsterdam. Amazing the places you can get to by boat.

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A few statistics from the past 12 months:

North America to Europe at walking speed

• Total Mileage:
  • Year 1: 5,901 NM. 
  • Year 2: 6,725 NM.
  • Year 3: 4,103 NM.
  • 3 year mileage total: 16,729 NM.
• Miles under sail:
  • Year 1: 1,671 NM (28% of total miles) 
  • Year 2: 3,687 NM (55% of total miles)
  • Year 3: 3,425 NM (84% of total miles)
• Miles motoring (or motor-sailing):
  • Year 1: 4,230 NM (72% of total miles)
  • Year 2: 3,038 NM (45% of total miles)
  • Year 3: 678 NM (17% of total miles)
• Diesel fuel purchase:
  • Year 1: 606.7 gallons. (Similar to what a 25MPG car will burn to cover 15,168 statute miles.)
  • Year 2: 402.4 gallons. (Similar to what a 25MPG car will burn to cover 10,060 statute miles.)
  • Year 3: 58.6 gallons. (Similar to what a 25MPG car will burn to cover 1,465 statute miles.)
• Engine hours:
  • Year 1: 845.9 (Similar hours on a car would produce approximately 42,000 miles.)
  • Year 2: 607.6 (Similar hours on a car would produce approximately 30,400 miles.)
  • Year 3: 135.5 (Similar hours on a car would produce approximately 6,775 miles.)
• Gal/hr. diesel burn rate when motoring:
  • Year 1: .72
  • Year 2: .66
  • Year 3: .43
• Total nights spent on anchor or underway:
  • Year 1: 222 (Best anchorage: Hog Cay, Ragged Islands, Bahamas)
  • Year 2: 206 (Best anchorage: Hare Bay, Newfoundland, Canada)
  • Year 3: 53 (Best anchorage: Horta, Faial, Azores)
• Total nights spent at the dock or on a mooring:
  • Year 1: 143 (Best Marina: Jekyll Island Marina)
  • Year 2: 159 (Best Marina: Marina de Havre Aubert, Magdalen Islands, Quebec)
  • Year 3: 56 (Best Marina: Sao Jorge, Azores)
• Total nights spent on the hard:
  • Year 1: 0
  • Year 2: 2
  • Year 3: 262
• Days underway:
  • Year 1: 195 out of 365
  • Year 2: 160 out of 365
  • Year 3: 44 out of 365
• Average mileage on days underway:
  • Year 1: 30.3 NM
  • Year 2: 42.0 NM
  • Year 3: 93.2 NM
• Longest day’s run:
  • Year 1: 93.5 NM (April 10: Deltaville, VA to Annapolis, MD.)
  • Year 2: 165.1 NM (Noon on November 2 – Noon on November 3. Recorded during our 3-day run from Beaufort, NC to Jacksonville, FL)
  • Year 3: 168.6 NM (Noon on Aug. 7 – Noon on Aug 8. Day 9 out of Ponta Delgada enroute to The Scilly Islands.)
• Countries visited by boat:
  • Year 1: 2 (USA, Bahamas)
  • Year 2: 5.5 (USA, Canada, France, Bahamas, (Cuba–sort of), Bermuda)
  • Year 3: 5 (Bermuda, Portugal, England, Netherlands, Germany.)
• US states visited by boat:
  • Year 1: 14 (ME, NH, MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, DE, MD, VA, NC, SC, GA, FL)
  • Year 2: 11 (ME, NH, MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, MD, VA, NC, FL)
  • Year 3: 0
    
• Laundromat / marina laundry room visits:
  • Year 1: 21 (Most expensive: Oak Bluffs, MA. Most fun: Jekyll Island, where the laundry was conveniently located next to the bar.)
  • Year 2: 22 (Most expensive: Marsh Harbor, Abaco. Least expensive: Atlantic Boat (Thanks Alex, L.!) and Liscomb Lodge Nova Scotia (Where we persuaded house keeping to let us take over their laundry room for a few hours) Most fun: Marina de Havre Aubert, Magdalen Islands, Quebec where the laundry room had a great view and was conveniently located above live music and a bar. It’s noteworthy that the most fun laundry has coincided with our favorite marina two years in a row.) Laundry is a big part of our life and a place where we make many friends.
  • Year 3: 6 (Most expensive: Lymington, England. Most fun: Horta, Azores.)
• Side trips via rental car:
  • Year 1: 6 (Portsmouth NH, Solomons MD, Ft. Lauderdale FL, George Town, Exuma, Long Island (Bahamas), Morehead City, NC)
  • Year 2: 9 (Blue Hill ME, Sydney (Cape Bretton), Magdalen Islands, Boston/Providence, Baltimore, Titusville, Acklins Island (Bahamas), Key Largo, Boston/New York/Philadelphia )
  • Year 3: 0 (Public transportation is better in Bermuda & Europe.)
• Side trips by Ferry:
  • Year 1: 0
  • Year 2: 3: Miquelon (France), Isle d’ Marin (France), Ramea (Newfoundland)
  • Year 3: 4: Hugh Town to Bryher (and back) in The Isles of Scilly, Dartmouth crosstown ferry, Isle of Wight crosstown ferry, cross Kiel canal ferry.
• Side trips by plane:
  • Year 1: 0
  • Year 2: 2: Cuba, Boston/NYC/Philadelphia
  • Year 3: 4-ish: Boston 3x (family health concerns), Sri Lanka with a few stops along the way there and few more on the way back.

Takeaways

Our Atlantic crossing skewed our statistics one way, while traveling off the boat skewed the statistics in a different way. We spent far fewer nights on the boat in year 3 of our voyage, but we packed in a lot of sailing during our limited time aboard.

Year Three Breakdowns:

For a 33-year-old boat Sundance continues to hold up exceptionally well, but we did have a few failures:

• We blew out a pole guy soft shackle mid-ocean between the Azores and the UK in moderate wind conditions. Replaced with similar from spares. Not a big deal, but kind of a shocking failure because these things aren’t supposed to break:

• Hot water tank pressure relief valve JUST started leaking after heating up due to engine use. Need to address asap.

Season 3 Boat Projects:

• We rebuilt our cooking gas system in Lymington to move away from the US propane standard and into the European butane standard. Fortunately the stove will burn either gas. Those two fuels smell a little different, but they seem to cook about the same. We did not switch the boat over to the European shore-power electrical standard because we don’t plug into shore power. Ever. We don’t even have a cord. Solar keeps up with all our power needs.
• Nothing else. This isn’t normal. Boats are supposed to be a lot of work with constant fixing required. Our luck is sure to run out soon.

Reflections:

Chris:

Crossing the ocean was immensely satisfying. It was rewarding too, day after day of a zen mindset and the simplest possible living. The sort of calm an amoeba must enjoy.

Worst Day: Wednesday, October 23. My dad, David Birch, died on this day. Our sailing voyage has been and continues to be the adventure of a lifetime, but there are some downsides to this lifestyle. First and foremost is separation from friends and family back home. Fortunately, when my dad’s health was failing, we were able to get back to New England in time, and we were with him at the end.

Best Day: Thursday, June 20: We arrived into the westernmost point in Europe, Flores, Azores, after 13 plus days at sea. Hard to top that experience. Finally getting our feet on dry land, we staggered up the hill on out-of-practice-legs and found a picnic bench at the Club Naval high above the harbor. The place was filled with sailors, all of whom had just completed crossings consisting of weeks at sea like we had. Swapping sailing stories with these new friends while drinking 1 euro Sagres beers is the moment I’ll remember most fondly from the summer. (The compulsory beer at Peter’s Cafe Sport in Horta the next week wasn’t half bad either.) Read more about our time in the Azores in a feature story I wrote for the October 2025 issue of SAIL Magazine: Click this link.

Alex:

It was a very different kind of year! We crossed that ocean, and it sure felt like an accomplishment. Then we had all this time off the boat, which was a rich tapestry of joy, seeing family and friends, hard things (David’s death), and travel to Sri Lanka, which I’m not really allowed to talk about it here. Suffice it to say, that chapter was one of the richest in my life. So.

Worst Day: Leaving Lymington, with Sundance on her stilts, all packed away for the winter. As Chris has noted, we took this extended break from the boat purposefully, but I didn’t feel particularly eager to get off the boat. Turns out I like living this way. I was of course, excited to see all our people but also keenly aware that we were headed back for hard times, given Chris’ father’s health at the time.

Best Day: I’d have to agree with Chris on the best day, though I might expand it to say any day in Flores. Arriving into this tiny island in the Atlantic was indeed a milestone, and I couldn’t have imagined the series of delights that awaited onshore. We got to know other sailors, we developed friendships with the harbor crew and the staff at the nearby restaurant, O Arruda, where we spent many hours using the wifi, watching the people come through and eating the simple and delicious food of this island. We hiked and hiked and hiked; we toured the small towns dotted across Flores. The thing about this sort of journeying that never fails to surprise and comfort me, is that we can venture into new and interesting places in this big world, and then at night, return to our home. In Flores that meant a cozy spot along the wall, with it’s steep cliffs off to our port side, and the crazy song of the Corey Shearwaters lulling us to sleep. Magic.

What’s next?

Scandinavia. Stay tuned…

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