Harmon and Randall's Voyage…

Randall

St John’s to Azores Leg

Day 0, Departure

Sunday, June 15, 2025

1200 Newfoundland Time

Moli departed the Royal Newfoundland Yacht Club, her winter residence in the area of St John’s, at 1200 hours today with Harmon and Randall aboard. However, the day was remarkable for other reasons; namely, it was the third sunny day in a row with wind as still as a mouse. Those two factors joined are a rare, rare thing in these parts.

Once around Cape St Francis, wind filled in from the east and then veered slowly south as we pushed off from the land. It has for the time being settled at 15 knots due south. Our course at 1700 hours is 10 degrees north of east.

The plan:

1) Yes, we have a plan, our posts during the recent recess notwithstanding.

2) We have set course for southern Chile with intention to arrive by the fall.

3) If your sense of direction tells you that an easterly course from Newfoundland will not achieve Chile this fall or any, please know that we are taking a wind course to the Azores and will head from there to the south, touching at Madeira and Cape Verde over the next several weeks.

4) From Cape Verde we will sail nonstop to Piriapolis, Uruguay, near the better-known Monte Video, where we will leave Mo for a brief time at the end of August.

5) From Piriapolis we will reach for the Falklands and then on to the most southerly town in South America, Puerto Williams, Chile.

6) From there, the plan (see Moltke on such) is Antarctica.

That last leap is so far away as to seem a fable, but as we have this steady wind abeam, Mo touching at eight knots and frothing the sea with purpose, it is much closer than a month ago when the boat was on the hard, and without her mast, rig, or sails. Then, perched on the edge of the yacht club wharf, she looked like a giant flightless bird shivering in the gale-driven snows of … May. But now, now she sails! Or, as sailors of old would say, she swims! And with an ease and a surefootedness to put a glow in one’s heart.

Our thanks to friends at the Royal Newfoundland Yacht Club, without whom getting this far would have been much less fun. To Ted Laurentius and Greg Horner for being such warm hosts; to Kathy, Dave and Ethan for accepting Moli and keeping her safe through winter storms; to Jerry Veitch, the famous Marine Insultant, for his patient (ehem!) engine room work and righteous wit (more here); to Matt for the moose sausage and the lend of mooring line; to Pete for the lend of a bosun’s chair, to Jim for the use of Viking Sunstones and the theory of the Antikythera for lunar distance, to Max for many offers of assistance and the theory that the Titanic hit pack ice, not a berg, and to the many others who stopped by to wish us well.