Sailing from Iceland to Faeroe

Tuesday, June 10th, 2014

Greetings from the absolutely gorgeous little town of Vestmann in the Faroe Islands!

We arrived here yesterday at approximately 1pm local time after a hellacious 7 day sail from Reykjavík, Iceland.

The winds were always coming out of the east at about 15-20 knots on the nose, and it was very cold, cloudy and rainy about half of the time. For the whole voyage, we motor sailed close hauled, tacking back and forth, or very occasionally when the wind and seas occasionally died down we were able to motor directly into the eye of the wind with no sails. We ran the engine for 90% of the voyage, burned through approximately 150 gallons of diesel, did 1 full oil change, drained water out of the Racor fuel filter bowl 5 times, and removed the bowl to wipe the sludge out of the bottom 3 times. The lines securing the 75 lb Rocna anchor on the bowsprit chafed and broke, and the anchor deployed about 6 feet down and constantly hit the bow in the waves for an unknown amount of time. I'm surprised that we never heard or felt the anchor hitting the bow. I only discovered it when I went up to the bow to untangle a jam in the jib furler. Much paint and fiberglass was gouged out of the bow from the anchor hitting, but I think we were lucky that we didn't get holed!

The town of Vestmann has about 1100 people in it, and from where we are docked in the harbor we can see every house and building in the entire town. Upon our arrival many people came out to welcome us. They are incredibly nice here! Over the next week we will be resting up, making repairs, and making preparations for sailing to new ports in the amazingly beautiful country.

All is well aboard Paragon!