I developed a reasonable and well researched navigation strategy for the last Bermuda cruise.  I abandoned that strategy too soon.  I need to maintain better navigation discipline under way.  On this trip my lack of discipline probably cost us 24 hours on our arrival in Bermuda.

One other advantage of a small crew is that you have fewer demands on the voyage to make certain ports within a specific timeframe because of the personal schedules of crew members.  Although it was really not an issue on the Bermuda cruise, I do not want make a critical voyage decision to accommodate the flight schedule of one crew member.

A number of factors worked against our ability to effectively manage our fuel reserves on this voyage.

1. My limited experience with the boat.  I had owned Sarah for less than two years and had not taken time to measure her fuel consumption and true tankage in that time.  I guessed the Westerbecke 60 engine consumed about 1 gallon per hour of operation.  That guess turned out be conservative, but reasonably accurate.  I also did not know how much usable fuel was in the tank (nominally 80 gallons when full) when the gauge read empty.  Therefore I never really knew our range under power.
2. Crew schedules.  Everyone on board, except Dick Juppenlatz, was a working stiff on limited vacation with an office that expected our return reasonably close to that predicted.  We also had one crew member (Steve Angst) who was departing in Bermuda, and one (Frank Palumbo) was coming on board in Bermuda.  We also had family members flying to Bermuda to meet us on arrival.  Crew logistics and schedules created a significant amount of pressure to keep Sarah moving toward Bermuda even in the calms.  This meant running the engine for extended periods of time early in the leg to Bermuda, when a more prudent fuel management approach (given I didn't know our range under power) would have dictated running the engine only long enough to charge batteries until we were at least half-way.

When we arrived in Bermuda the gauge was just about on "E".  At the fuel dock in St. Georges we were able to add 60 gallons.  We had used the 10 gallons of fuel stored on deck in two jerry cans so our total consumption from Little Creek, VA to Bermuda was approximately 70 gallons.   We maintained reasonable records of engine operation in the navigation log so I was able to calculate our fuel consumption rate for the leg at 0.8 gallons per hour.  I still don't know how far past the "E" on gauge we can continue to pull fuel from the tank and I don't really want to find out.  I will just assume our usable tankage limit is 60 gallons and "E" is the limit.

For most of the time we ran the engine we kept the RPMs around 1500 (5+ knots in the calms), which is fairly low.  I assume the consumption rate would be 1 gallon per hour or more if we had run the engine at 2000 RPM (6.5 - 7 knots), my normal operation on the Chesapeake Bay.  There is probably a sweet spot between 1500 and 2000 where fuel consumption and speed through the water are optimized.  I suspect it is closer to 1500 than it is to 2000.

At least now I have some metrics for fuel management on future voyages.  Of course since the Bermuda trip I have replaced the fixed 3-blade propeller with a Max-Prop propeller.  So those metrics may no longer be accurate.

I was surprised that in the end I was the one most affected by sleep debt.  For the most part I had no problems sleeping during my off-watches, both day and night.  However, during the last two days going to Bermuda, when our fuel situation looked pretty serious (see Fuel Management), I slept less and less and not at all for the last 24 hours.  The result was on our approach to Bermuda I was exhausted, but still performing the principal navigator duties getting us into St. Georges Harbor in the dark.  This contributed to my miss-identifying the Spit Buoy off St. David's (see below).

When approaching Bermuda from the north you must pass Kitchen's Shoal light before turning directly toward St. David's.  There are two lit buoys directly in line with your approach.  The first is the Mills Breaker light and the second is the Spit Buoy.  The second light, the Spit Buoy is the one you turn on to head directly for the entrance to St. George's or the passage to Hamilton.  The two lights show very similar characteristics.  One is 3 Quick Flashes every 5 seconds (Mills) and the other is 3 Very Quick Flashes every 10 seconds (Spit).  The Spit Buoy light is much more difficult to see than the Mills light in that the Spit is smaller and closer in to shore under the St. David's lighthouse.  This caused us to mistake the Mills Buoy for the Spit Buoy on our first BOR and stop racing temporarily 1/4nm from the finish line.

So I was aware and very conscious of the difficulty in identifying these lights on our approach; however, I had not slept in over 24 hours (see Lesson Learned, above) and was having difficulty maintaining concentration.  I should have turned the job of identifying the marks to some one else, but this was my boat and my navigation  and I wanted to get us into Bermuda.  Initially I had sighted and identified both buoys and put us on the proper course to clear the Mills Breakers enroute to the Spit Buoy.  During our approach I was constantly between the cockpit and the navigation station checking the chart.  As we approached the Mills Breaker Buoy I was at the navigation station.  Dick Juppenlatz, who was at the helm, called down to me that we had the Buoy abeam.  Somehow my mind had leaped ahead of where we were and took that to be the Spit Buoy.  I gave Dick the new course to head for St. George's.  Fortunately Dick was alert and when we were on the new course he recognized that this was not correct and questioned my direction.  I came on deck and agreed the new course was incorrect, and suddenly realized I wasn't sure which buoy we had just passed.  I asked Dick to turn around so we could positively identify the last light, and of course it was the Mills Breaker.  We quickly identified the Spit Buoy and resumed our approach to Bermuda.  If Dick had not questioned the course I gave him I could have put Sarah on the reef.

The lesson is to positively identify any marks you are using to navigate the entrance of an unfamiliar harbor, and try to never navigate in restricted waters based on a single aid to navigation.  The further lesson is to recognize when your thought process is impaired (this time by a lack of sleep) and either turn your duties over to someone else or at least seek assistance.

Because of this experience I have begun to see the value of an Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS) such as MaxSea, Nobeltec, etc. on a small yacht - at least for making landfalls and entering unfamiliar harbors.  With an electronic chart display connected to a GPS, even exhausted, I believe I would have known that the buoy just passed was the Mills Breaker and not the Spit.  Consequently I have recently purchased the FUGAWI software and have begun experimenting with using an ECDIS with both raster and vector (ENC) charts.  I will still principally rely on paper charts as electronics have the habit of failing when you most need them.

Subsequently I purchased and installed a Raymarine C-120 Multi-Function Display, which is both a chart plotter and a radar display.  I'm also using Software On Board (SOB) software on the PC in addition to Fugawi.  For the past 2 years my paper charts have been neatly stored under my berth and rolled up under shelving.  They are only disturbed when it is necessary to do in-depth cleaning.