'FOG, GALES, HURRICANES AND CALMS IN ONE VOYAGE'

Fog, currents and calms would challenge us as we tackled the Grand Banks, Gulf Stream and Azores High. We were at the French island of St Pierre off the Newfoundland coast, next stop Flores in the Azores

- Mike Reynolds

Zen Again, our Japanese-designed and built 1980s IOR ¾ tonner, is a well-equipped ‘pocket’ blue water cruiser. She has over 50,000 miles under her keel with us and about twice that with previous owners. The original Japanese owners circumnavigated South America from Japan. The second Japanese owner did a single-handed partial circumnavigation of the Pacific, finishing in Australia.

We purchased her at home in Australia and have spent the last 10 years slowly circumnavigating. We started the season on the hard in Deltaville on Chesapeake Bay in the US. We prepared Zen Again by changing from a 16kg to a 20kg Manson Supreme anchor, 8mm to 10mm anchor chain, rewiring the mast, a new Tasker mainsail, a Tides Marine Sailtrack and a new Pelagic autopilot, some of which is will be in Yachting Monthly, February 2025 edition. After several years in the tropics we prepared ourselves with warm clothes and new wet weather gear.

We had a wonderful cruise through New England to Nova Scotia and southern Newfoundland. Our overall goal was to transit the Panama Canal in 2025 so we had two alternatives: Plan A returned coastwise via the US, Bahamas and Caribbean; and Plan B was a clockwise North Atlantic circuit via Azores, Canaries and Caribbean. Plan A was conventional but against prevailing winds and potentially hiding from hurricanes. Plan B was longer but rode the prevailing winds. We’d only briefly visited the Azores en route from Australia to Europe and hoped to cruise them more fully. We opted for Plan B.