Cruising Outpost #26 Spring, 2019

CAUTION: READING THIS MAGAZINE COULD RUIN YOUR LIFE!

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Transiting the

Panama Canal

Cruising

Cape Cod

Taking Care of Our Oceans

Greening the Blue

Women Who Sail

Giving Back to

The BVIs

Spring 2019

BOAT SPOTLIGHT

Issue #26

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Person Responsible for This Bob Bitchin bob@cruisingoutpost.com

Editor at Large Sue Morgan sue@cruisingoutpost.com

Editor Katie “Bitchin” Chestnut katie@cruisingoutpost.com

Boat Show Queen Jody “Bitchin” Lipkin jody@cruisingoutpost.com

Staff Infection Tania Aebi Contributor Zuzana Prochazka zuzana@cruisingoutpost.com

Life Aboard Queen Mother Robin Stout robin@cruisingoutpost.com

Web & Art Guru Richard Marker rich@cruisingoutpost.com

Media Princess Tabitha “Bitchin” Lipkin tabitha@cruisingoutpost.com Marketing & Video Darren O’Brien darren@cruisingoutpost.com

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Boat Show Slaves Jessie Zevalkink & Katie Smith (Also Godmothers to the Office Cats!)

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People Who Helped Us Create This Issue Clark Beek Suzy Carmody Capt. James F. Cash Bill Cook Annie Dike Paul Esterell Leonard Freedberg Cara Fucci Doug Haddaway Tara Kelly Bob Lee Rachel Lovelock Kevin McQuiston Matt Mortensen Jessica Lloyd-Mosten Dennis Mullen Glen Patron John Simpson Morgan Stinemetz Julie Thorndycraft Clay Watson Jessie Zevalkink-Yeats

People Who Didn’t Help Us At All Klem Kadiddlehopper Fred Flintstone Boston Blackie Elliot Ness

This Issue’s Cover: Okay, so there’s a little nepotism going on here. This is Tabitha “Bitchin” Lipkin (Bob’s grandaughter) while sailing in Tahiti. Not only is she cute, but we don’t have to pay her!

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Contents

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Special Stuff in this Issue Portuguese Knockdown Part II Jessie Zevalkink-Yeats 12 Scout’s Rescue Mission 35 Namahana Sets Sail 41 Panama Canal Transit 46 The Greening of the Blue 52 Raja Ampat - The Last Paradise on Earth 61 Singawing - Classic Design with Modern Propulsion 74 Cruising Cape Cod and the Islands 96 The Spaulding Marine Center 102 Women Who Sail - Giving Back to the BVI 128 Spending the Night in Strange Places 134 Bad Luck Friday 140 Blackbeard’s Demise 147 Keeping Optics Clean 154 Howling South 167 Seventy-Five and Still Cruising 172

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Regular Stuff in this Issue Attitudes Bob Bitchin Outpost News Another Way Tania Aebi What’s Out There: Monohull - Passport 545 What’s Out There: Multihull - Seawind Catamaran What’s Out There: Power Cruiser - Aspen Power Cat Lifestyle Life Aboard Robin Stout Latitudes & Attitudes Tech Tips Captain Pauly I Found It at the Boat Show Book Review Capt. Jim Cash Bubba Whartz Morgan Stinemetz Bosun’s Bag Mackie White Cruisians

8 21 38 68 70 72 84 106 110 144 158 164 165 189 197 198

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If you don’t pay your exorcist, you get repossessed..

Issue #26-Spring 2019

Attitudes

Broken pencils are pointless.

By Bob Bitchin

Why is it that the one time you really mess up has to be some sunny Sunday returning to your slip? Or, on a busy holiday weekend at the islands, where you screw up picking up a mooring or dropping anchor?

Come on, ‘fess up! We’ve all done it. In fact, you have to admit one of the highlights of cruising is sitting calmly at anchor or on a mooring, waiting for the next “newbie” to come along and entertain you for awhile. You know the scene: A beautiful day at your favorite anchorage, watching as some hapless victim drops his anchor 50 feet in front of you and drifts back to almost hit you (or worse yet, actually does hit you) and you get the thrill of feeling superior. And then a few weeks later, you are the one that messes up, and gets laughed at?

Well, take heart. There are real advantages to screwing up.

These are called “Life Lessons,” and they are some of the best teachers out there.

The reason experienced sailors make less mistakes than new sailors is pretty easy to figure out: They have learned not to make a certain mistake now because they have already made that mistake before!

Nothing can teach you about slipping anchor and drifting into another boat better than, well, slipping anchor and drifting into another boat! Making mistakes is nature’s way of teaching you stuff.

Now, I am not telling you to go out and do stupid things to learn from them. It’s actually okay (and recommended!) to study and try to plan in advance for things that could go wrong.

I’ve found that the old saying “Failing to prepare is planning to fail” is a pretty good guide and life lesson in and of it itself.

Take, for instance, this bit of old sailors’ wisdom. Basically, it’s the rule that says, “When cruising, the only things that break on a boat are the things you don’t have backups for.”

True dat! Man, I gotta tell ya, I have proved that to be true more times than you can shake a stick at! A good example is this. One day I was walking through a marine swap meet with my friend Curt and we spied a large propeller. A few months

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earlier we had been sailing from Palmyra Island in the Central Pacific to Hawaii when about 100 miles out of Palmyra our transmission went out—although, only in forward; we still had reverse. We were becalmed for a few days. We even tried motoring backwards, in reverse. Slow-going doesn’t begin to describe how slow a Taiwan Turkey will go in reverse. Suffice it to say, that only lasted a few hours until we gave up.

But now, there we were standing at this marine swap meet, and there was a prop that was the right size for my boat, but it was a right-hand instead of a left-hand prop.

Curt and I both hit on the same idea! The guy only wanted $100 for the prop (we got it for $90!). Our plan was the next time the tranny went out on the boat, we would just change props and then motor with the engine in reverse, which would drive us forward.

But, I digress. The reason for this little story is, once we put the reverse prop in our bilge, it just sat there, unused for the next ten years. We never needed it. Why? That’s easy. Because we had it! If you have a spare for something, it never breaks!

So, the more crap you stow, the less crap you’ll have break, or so we still believe!

Actually, there is another piece of wisdom I can pass on to you. There are two types of people: people who don’t make mistakes, and people who do. The only people who make mistakes are people who actually do something! The easiest way to avoid mistakes is by not doing anything. The less you do, the less you’re bound to mess up, right? But, I gotta tell ya, the only problem with that is, it’s not a lot of fun—and you certainly won’t have any adventures if you’re out there but not doing anything!

To quote Stephen Hawking, “One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn’t exist. Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist.”

Cruisers exist! The proof of that is undeniable, and cruisers are not perfect. We make mistakes. Our imperfections don’t make us less, just blessed!

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e s e u g u rt

Po

n w o d k c o n K Part II

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By Jessie Z

YACHTING HAS LONG BEEN RUEFULLY LIKENED TO STANDING IN A COLD SHOWER WHILE TEARING UP MONEY.

From A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols

This quote has come to be one of my most favored and coherent sentences. It’s sure not romantic, but it’s honest. I picture myself, standing in the rain, screaming at the sky, chucking hundred-dollar bills off the stern.

Every once in a while a bill gets stuck to the selfsteering gear and I launch forward to salvage it, but I’m too late; the next gust comes and takes it to sea.

So, why do we do it then? Why does sailing re-route the way we live our lives? Why do we keep coming

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back when we often find ourselves miserable and broke? There’s one word: grit.

It’s Sunday morning. I am aboard s/v Desiree, up on chocks in a boat yard somewhere in Portugal.

Things happen very slowly here. “Amanhã, amanhã,” they tend to say. After a month of slaving away in the boat yard, I finally begin to slow down, adjusting to their culture. Despite the physical and financial set-backs of being in the boatyard, I feel “at home”

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even when there is cement underneath the hull. I think back to how I got here, where I began, why I began. “Never forget why you started,” someone once kindly reminded me, and I have not.

I wanted something different.

Something else. Something that was my own. That something turned out to be a boat.

It takes a frustratingly long length of time to find this very place. This place where I can sit and think, be perceptive in my thoughts, and understand the greater picture of what it is I am actually doing here. Candles, coffee, and quiet serve their purpose and have me right where they want me.

The feral cat we have recently adopted is

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my only distraction.

I thought about naming her “Bob Bitchin” in honor of the legendary man and his wife who have played an integral role in my sailing journey. But, she is far too petite and polite to be “Bob.” I started calling her “Potato” instead, and eventually, “Tato.” Tato meows at the closed companionway at the top of the ladder. She has worked out every possible exit and cries at her inability to get out when we close her in. Every day we let her walk about the boatyard to explore, and every day she comes back. And, if she’s anything like me, she just might keep coming back forever.

I didn’t expect to keep coming back, to a sailboat that is. After two years on a 27-footer with my best friend, a dog, and a different cat who often peed in the forepeak, I was ready for a break. For space. For a home.

For a career. It felt like I had learned all the lessons I was meant to learn. Had seen

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P ortuguese K nockdown America in a magical, slow, and incredible way. Had navigated rivers, lakes, swamps, and coastlines with an 11-horsepower diesel and a shitty set of sails that we only used when the wind was in our favor, which was never.

America’s Great Loop was not about the boat. It was about selfreliance. From 23 to 25 years old, I got to know myself. It was a grand sense of purpose. For the first time in my life, I realized I was smarter than I thought. Upon return to life on land, that sense of purpose, that feeling of being “enough” went missing. I wanted something grander, something more challenging, something to make me feel something, anything at all. I waited and looked; waited longer and looked harder. Nothing felt good enough after getting off that boat. It was boring. Convenient. Easy. Square.

It seemed like a bunch of fluff and distraction to pass the time in between sleeping and eating. It wasn’t until I met my husband and we decided to cross the Atlantic together that my sense of purpose returned. My photography career developed as a result. I was money-hungry and motivated. I wanted to sail across an ocean, and that alone, was going to take everything I had.

You read about many heroic sailors who fall into deep depressions after great feats, solo circumnavigations, incomprehensible accomplishments. In my own minuscule way, I understood.

I understood why Moitessier decided to keep going around the world again instead of winning the race. Why Nigel Tetley didn’t want to live anymore. Why Robin Lee Graham fell into his darkest

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Part II place post-circumnavigation.

These voyages serve a great purpose. When they end, you have to start all over. As a result, those who survive, just end up back at sea.

Sailing represents an abundance of purposes. Selfsufficiency. Self-reliance.

Self-worth. Time. Dedication.

Tenacity. Stubbornness.

Compromise. Patience. Money.

Optimism. Risk. Respect. On top of all that, it requires a little batshit-mental, willing-to-risk-yourlife-and-get-eaten-by-the-sea kind of gumption. Or—grit.

It’s the grit, the strength of will and moral fiber, that returns many of us to our sailboats and to the sea. This four letter word is one fierce motivator. It’s something physiological that exists physically while weathering storms, and emotionally while battling solitude. It’s something I want in the same way a successful CEO might want a mansion with a three-stall garage to park his/ her Mercedes, BMW, and justfor-fun Land Rover. Grit is my own version of investment. Some may say that you either have it or you don’t; I believe it’s something you work for, just like a paycheck. In the beginning, I was curious to find out if I had it. To this day, I am still just as curious, but the stakes continue to grow higher, especially when you marry a British sailor who only remains happy if he is taking risks and on the edge at all times.

Discovering the strength of your own backbone is a complete addiction. What you learn is that it just keeps getting stronger. So you test it again, and again, and again to find out what it’s capable of. You’ll surprise yourself.

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Nick Bostelaar in his shop helping Luke with the repair

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P ortuguese K nockdown Katie & Jessie Sailing in Tahiti

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As contradictory as it may sound, it’s never been about the actual sailing for me. I get frustrated at sea.

Lonesome. Anxious. This might even read as if I’m not interested in sailing at all. I don’t enjoy trying to cook meals or going to the potty sideways. Uneasy in my night watches, I count the minutes ‘til sunrise.

It’s often too cold, too hot, and always wet. A constant state of physical discomfort and the demanding sail handling required by a boat from the 1960s. I wish I could express my love for the open sea, wind in my hair, and gazing at an incomprehensible amount of stars. It’s actually not that romantic for me. However, what I do find absolutely beautiful is how hard you work to get to where you want to go. The basic survival mode to which the human body defaults. The removal of all things virtual, digital, and misleading.

The ability to be so in tune with your partner, your boat, and yourself. What you find when you get to the other side and who you meet when you get there. A pile of dirt smells like roses and strangers are gods. Street food becomes delicacy and running water a treasure.

Having been in Portugal for twice the amount of time expected, and having spent twice the amount of money budgeted, writing this very article is all I need to ease the

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Part II daily boatyard frustrations. We are here because (as some of you may already have read) we were struck by a breaking wave off the Portuguese coast, detaching our rudder from its shaft, ripping off our dodger and lee cloths, bending the stanchions, and chucking me into the sea with it. If it weren’t for my tether, I do not believe I would be here today to tell the story. For the last 42 days, we have slaved away dealing with the repercussions of a single wave. That moment of calamity taught me more than any book, any classroom, or any documentary could have ever taught me. It showed me and Luke our true ability to operate as a team. It showed us how to be better. It showed us where to improve. It showed us adrenaline.

It showed us seamenship. Above all, it showed me a fierce appreciation for selfreliance at sea.

That is romantic. That is sailing. That is why I keep coming back. That is why I stand in a cold shower and tear up money.

Algarve, Portugal.

Not a bad place to fix your boat!!

Luke after a hard day at the yard

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Cruising Outpost News

Outposters News If It’s Gonna Happen, It’s Gonna Happen Out There Issue #26

Evening Edition

Spring 2019

From 10 years Ago - April 2008

Abby Sunderland’s Boat Found

If it's Gonna Happen...

The immortal words of Captain Ron. And they’re true. A

Florida man was sailing his 37-foot yacht south to Tampa when the mast came down. The cause? An airplane hit it about 10 feet from the top. Seems the pilot came in a little low for his landing at the airport on shore. After hitting Windseeker, the plane hit the seawall and flipped onto the airport property just shy of the runway. No one on board was injured, and the pilot and his passenger were able to crawl from the plane’s wreckage with just an injured hand and broken leg.

In 2010 we were covering then-16-year-old Abby Sunderland’s attempt to set a new record for the youngest solo sailor to circumnavigate the globe. Her attempt was cut short when she was dismasted.

Abby had been sailing for 125 days—February 6 to June 10, 2010—when she was dismasted after encountering a storm in a remote area of the Indian Ocean, 2000 miles west of Australia. She was rescued two days later by a French commercial fishing vessel, but due to the remoteness of the area her boat was abandoned.

On December 31, 2018, a tuna spotter plane spotted her boat, Wild Eyes, drifting 11 nautical miles from Vivonne Bay on Kangaroo Island. Wild Eyes had not been seen since Sunderland’s rescue. Since the boat is not salvageable, it will remain at sea unless it becomes an obstruction to shipping or drifts ashore.

Nautical Trivia “Footloose and fancy-free” means to act freely and without commitment. And while Footloose is a movie set in the Midwest, this phrase has nautical origins. Can you guess what they are?

(Wanna cheat? Answer is on page 33) www.cruisingoutpost.com

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Cruising Outpost News The lovely thing about cruising is that planning usually turns out to be of little use.

– Dom Degnon

Garbage Patch Unphased

A ship is headed to an area of the Pacific Ocean known as the Pacific Garbage Patch. If anyone is going to clean up the ocean, it makes sense to start there. The startup, called Ocean Cleanup, headed there with a new invention in tow. After a few months of testing the invention in the garbage patch, however, it’s clear the boom doesn’t actually work too well. For some reason, the trash collected by the boom doesn’t stay there, and instead drifts out of the trapped area. The group’s engineers aren’t sure exactly why this is happening, but are continuing to try and make it work.

There’s A Change Coming...Maybe

Change is inevitable except from vending machines

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Cruising Outpost News

Pacific Power & Sailboat Show Cruiser’s Party Offshore Sailing School Launches Campaign

Offshore Sailing School CEO and President, Doris Colgate and husband Steve, announced that in honor of the company’s 55th Anniversary Year in 2019, and its 10th year of supporting The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) as national sponsors of its Leukemia Cup Regatta campaign, the company will launch a “Round-Up” campaign to benefit LLS in 2019. The campaign will run from January 1 to November 30, 2019. Every student enrolling in an Offshore Sailing School course at one of the company’s six resort locations on Florida’s Gulf Coast or in the British Virgin Islands will be asked if they would like to “round-up” their enrollment fee, with the additional amount being donated on behalf of the student to LLS.

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It’s that time again! Join Bob and Jody on April 6th, 2019, in Richmond, California for the 21st Annual Cruiser’s Party, brought to you by Cruising Outpost Magazine. The beer, pizza, and live music will be provided for free, but ya gotta bring your own dance! Also, a raffle will be held with the proceeds going to help finish the Educational Tall Ship Foundation finish building Matthew Turner.

But Wait! There’s More!

Sunsail has donated a week-long charter as the grand prize for the raffle, so be sure to get your tickets at the party!

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Cruising Outpost News Great Truths

It’s frustrating when you know all the answers but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.

Remains of Vessel on Jersey Shore are Thought to be D.H. Ingraham

In Stone Harbor, New Jersey, shifting sands have revealed the remains of a ship. According to a local historian, the vessel is believed to be the D.H. Ingraham.

On December 4, 1886, the D.H. Ingraham, a 25-foot schooner from Rockfort, Maine, was carrying a load of limes, bound for Richmond, Virginia. Before the vessel made it to port, a fire broke out onboard. According to newspapers from the time, the five crewmembers survived, but the ship and its limes sunk into the Atlantic.

The rescuers received Medals of Honor for their courage.

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Pride of Baltimore’s New Director

The nonprofit that manages the tall ship Pride of Baltimore II (Pride II), is pleased to announce that Jeff Buchheit has been chosen as the new executive director of the nonprofit. Jeff is coming to Pride after serving as the executive director of the Baltimore National Heritage Area for 11 years. Prior to 2007, he served as the assistant director of the Museum Assessment Program at the American Association of Museums and as executive director of the Historical Electronics Museum in Baltimore. Jeff began his career interning at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

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Cruising Outpost News

Blind Sailors Teams up with Ocean Cruising Club to Cross the Pacific

Skipper Doug Smith and his good friend Hiro Iwamoto are scheduled to sail across the Pacific non-stop from San Diego to Fukushima, Japan with a departure date scheduled for February 24th in Dream Weaver, a 41-foot Island Packet. The interesting component here is that Doug is the novice sailor and Hiro is the experienced skipper, but one who happens to be completely blind.

This will be Doug’s qualifying ocean voyage for Full Membership in the Ocean Cruising Club. This is not Hiro’s first attempt.

Planning and Possibilities

The planning stage of a cruise is often just as enjoyable as the voyage itself, letting one’s imagination loose on all kinds of possibilities. Yet translating dreams into reality means a lot of practical questions have to be answered.

– Jimmy Cornell

Swimming with (and in the) Deep Blue

Imagine this: You’re sitting on your boat, 15 miles off the coast of Oahu and observing tiger sharks eating the decaying carcass of a once-magnificent sperm whale.

Suddenly, the sharks desert their buoyant buffet. You look around, curious why they fled the feast. Slowly swimming into view is a gigantic great white shark!

This is exactly what happened to Ocean Ramsey (yes, that’s really her name) and her crew on January 15, 2019. Ramsey recognized the large shark as Deep Blue, a twenty-foot long, 6,000-pound female great white. Deep Blue is impressive for her sex and her species; the average female great white measure around 16 feet. Oh, and Deep Blue, thought to be one of the oldest great whites in the ocean at roughly 50 years old, seemed to be pregnant.

Ramsey described Deep Blue’s behavior to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, saying, “She was just this big, beautiful gentle giant wanting to use our boat as a scratching post.”

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Cruising Outpost News

Larry Pardey Observatory

Cruising in Seraffyn became an instant best-seller when it was first published in 1976; now it is considered a cruising classic, one that continues to inspire cashstrapped dreamers as well as those who already have their “perfect” boat but are concerned about making their first ocean crossing.

Lin and Larry Pardey had been voyaging for more than 47 years and 210,000 miles before Larry’s health began to fail. Parkinson’s and encroaching dementia brought them back to settle at their home base in a small cove on Kawau Island in New Zealand. Lin is trying to raise funds to maintain and expand the Larry Pardey Observatory by selling a new “Tribute” edition of Cruising in Seraffyn. She has pledged all the profits from the book’s sale towards the Observatory.

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It ‘taint paint!

OK, I gotta admit it. I was not going to put this product in the magazine.

But enough people have told me it really works, and it’s from the folks at Kanberra Gel—who happen to make a product that really works!

What is this mystery product you might ask? I call it “crotch cream,” but the real name is Kanberra® Anti-Friction Cream under the label TAINT PAINT. It was developed by Joel Solly, CEO of the Kanberra Group and their R&D “science guy.” It turns out they are big-time competitive cyclists.

After thousands and thousands of miles, they were tired of chafing in...um, a sensitive area. So they developed a chamois cream with healing properties, which became a big hit in cycling. Then it spread into running, soccer, and other sports. Even police officers found relief from chafing caused by bullet proof vests. And now it’s spreading into our world, warding off chafe from wearing inflatable PFDs, life jackets, and even sailing gloves.

Both Kanberra® Anti Friction Cream and TAINT PAINT rely on pure, certified Australian Tea Tree Oil along with other proven ingredients like vitamin B and aloe vera to pack the punch needed to prevent chafing. If it works as well as their other products, this stuff should be very successful.

For more information on Kanberra products visit www.kanberragel.com.

270 Containers Lost at Sea

The MSC Zoe, registered in Panama but owned by the Geneva-based MSC, is one of the largest freight ships in the world. On January 2, 2019, having left Portugal and bound for Germany, she was caught in a storm in the North Sea. More than 270 shipping containers wound up in the ocean.

Dozens have been seen bobbing off the coasts of Germany and the Netherlands. Others have washed ashore. There are reports of individuals seizing the opportunity washed forth from the seas and taking items out of these containers, such as IKEA furniture, light bulbs, plastic toys, shoes, and even flat-screen TVs. Unfortunately, not all of the containers were carrying shiny new toys, some were carrying hazardous material. MSC, conscious of the environmental effect of this accident, has pledged to find and retrieve each and every container.

Ferry Service Between SF & Pacific Boat Show The new ferry route from Richmond to San Francisco has started. Commuters who are tired of fighting their way from San Francisco to see the Pacific Sail & Powerboat Show will no longer have to make that horrendous drive, and people who are in Richmond for the show will now be able to hop across to the city. This should increase traffic to the show, which runs April 4th through the 7th. www.cruisingoutpost.com

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Cruising Outpost News

Tugboat Crew Member Fires Flares at Pirates

This would usually be found in the piracy report, but it’s too good not to share in more detail!

On December 5, 2018, four armed attackers attempted to board an Indonesian tugboat, Magtrans II, near Pegasus Reef off of Sabah, Malaysia. As the pirates neared the tug, a single crewmember, undeterred by the approaching pirates firing guns at him, returned the pirates’ fire using the tugboat’s flare gun, shooting a total of ten rounds. The ten rounds successfully fended off the attackers. This is particularly impressive as the flare gun only held a single round and required reloading after every shot.

The shots fired deterred the would-be pirates in an equally spectacular manner. The pirates did not simply turn their boat around —they jumped off, abandoning their vessel!

Master of the boat, Didy Saviady, was injured by the pirates’ initial shooting and rushed to the hospital.

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USS Supply Brought Military Camels. Really.

Credit: Alex Weber, CC BY-ND

Balls on the Seabed

In May of 1856, the USS Supply brought a boatload of camels, literally, to Texas. The 34 camels were brought after a recommendation was made to Secretary of War Jefferson Davis that they might be helpful in the land west of the Rockies. The camels were used up until the outbreak of the Civil War.

A junior at Carmel High School, Alex Weber, was snorkeling with her friend, Jack Johnston, in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary when she noticed something odd: balls. Littering the seabed were thousands of golf balls. The next time the two went snorkeling, they noticed even more balls. Instead of ignoring the balls, the two teens removed some every time they went snorkeling.

Alex and Jack had collected over 10,000 golf balls before Alex reached out to Matthew Savoca, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford researching marine plastic pollution. Working with Alex, he published a peerreviewed article in Marine Pollution Bulletin. During the course of the research, Alex and Jack removed 39,602 balls themselves and inspired the local golf course to do so as well, resulting in a total of 50,681 balls (about 2.5 tons of debris) being removed from the ocean.

God Save the Queen’s Wood

Nautical Trivia

(Answer to the question on page 21) It comes from the name of the bottom of a sail (the foot) which must be attached to the boom. If it’s not properly attached it may become “footloose,” causing the vessel to not sail properly. www.cruisingoutpost.com

The remains of Blackbeard’s famous ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, were discovered 22 years ago, along with canons, thousands of metal parts, and a 12-foot-long anchor. And though the legend of Blackbeard survives intact, his ship is not as lucky.

Storms, shipworms, and strong currents have destroyed all but a few pieces of the vessel. The pieces that have survived—35 pieces of ship planks, 11 frame fragments, a 1,600-pound sternpost, and some small bits of wood—are being preserved at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort, North Carolina. Most of the wood’s cell structure has been replaced by water due to years of being submerged. Because any exposure to air results in rapid deterioration, to preserve the wood, researchers must keep it wet.

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Cruising Outpost News ACTIVE PIRACY REPORT from the ICC: A Narrative of the Most Recent Attacks January 2, 2019 - 55 nautical miles south of Cotonou, Benin: Armed pirates attack and boarded a container ship that was underway. Six crew members were reported missing. The remaining crew were able to sail the ship to a safe port.

January 3, 2019 - Puerto La Cruz Anchorage, Venezuela: Duty crew onboard an anchored tanker noticed robbers attempting to board using a grappling hook hooked to the guardrails of the poop deck. Upon hearing that the alarm was raised and the ship’s horn sounded, the robbers aborted the boarding attempt and escaped in their boat.

January 7, 2019 - Lagos STS Anchorage, Nigeria: Two robbers with plastic hoses boarded an anchored tanker during STS operations. They connected the hoses to the ullage ports of the forward cargo tanks and attempted to steal cargo. Duty crew noticed the robbers and raised the alarm, resulting in the robbers escaping. The incident was immediately reported to the Nigerian Navy patrol boat who came to the location and carried out a check on the surrounding waters. Nothing was reported stolen.

January 7, 2019 - Lagos SAA, Nigeria: Around 4-5 robbers in a small skiff came alongside an anchored product tanker and threw two ropes attached with hooks onto the tanker’s railing. Duty crew on routine rounds heard voices near the bow and noticed the hooks and the skiff and raised the alarm. Non-essential crew members mustered in the citadel. Master requested assistance from the Nigerian Navy patrol boat which immediately responded.

Hearing the alarm, the robbers moved away.

January 11, 2019 - Caofeidian Anchorage, China: Two robbers, each armed with a steel bar, boarded an anchored bulk carrier. The duty crew noticed the robbers and raised the alarm. Hearing the alerted crew, the robbers escaped without stealing anything.

34 Cruising Outpost

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Scout’s Rescue Mission Mission

By Melanie Farmer

When you live on a sailboat weather is a huge determining factor in all of your plans. An impending tropical storm in the Caribbean delayed our sail south on our liveaboard boat, S/V Golden Fleece, so on May 23, 2018, my boyfriend, Brian, our friend, Harley, and I decided that it was the perfect time to sail our Herreshoff 28, Scout, to Labelle, Florida for safekeeping during the upcoming hurricane season.

We sailed out of Boot Key Harbor in Marathon, Florida on a gorgeous sunny day. Once we were out of the harbor, we admired the Seven Mile Bridge and continued north.

I was excited to sail us through the Seven Mile Bridge by myself for the first time! It can be nerve-wracking for a fairly new sailor when the bridge blocks your wind, the current is swift, and your sails begin to luff! Luckily, I have a great captain guiding me.

We sailed through the evening taking turns on the helm. An unusually beautiful rainstorm came toward us which we welcomed with open arms due to the heat! After the storm passed, a stunning, picture-worthy sunset was painted in the sky on our first night out. We continued www.cruisingoutpost.com

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sailing through the night while admiring the glistening stars and halo around the moon.

When the sun finally made an appearance, we received our first glimpse of land. Marco Island was visible early the next morning but we still had a ways to go before dropping anchor. We continued cruising north.

Night was upon us when we arrived off the point of Sanibel Island and the wind was quickly dying. Brian fired up the Yanmar engine for the first time only to smell rubber burning. We discovered that a belt was rubbing!

Engines seem like more trouble than they’re worth sometimes! Luckily this was an easy fix and Brian got it adjusted quickly so we could continue on into the harbor.

We made it into the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River and dropped the anchor in Kinzie Cove beside the peculiar little bait shack on the water. After a 34-hour sail, the three of us were able to get some rest at the same time without worries. Sleeping three adults in a little 28-foot Herreshoff isn’t the most comfortable situation, but we managed to get some shut eye.

The next morning we arose and found the boat facing west. We opened the saloon door companionway and wind hit us directly in the face. We immediately wondered if we were aground. We came into the anchorage at night, and if you’ve ever been on the Caloosahatchee, you know

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that the water there looks like someone is trying to brew the world’s largest volume of sweet tea right there in the river. Visibility was minimal to say the least. As our eyes opened a little more, we realized that the current was actually running eastbound with a force that was more influential than the wind. What an odd feeling!

Pleased to be spared of being aground, we sailed upriver for a while and stopped for lunch at the Boathouse Tiki Bar & Grill. Since this delivery was on a whim, we were somewhat ill prepared with our provisioning. We were happy to eat civilized food that wasn’t a leftover MRE from Hurricane Irma. We explored the area, met some great people at the yacht club next door, and went on our way.

We sailed through the first three bridges going into Fort Myers when a rainstorm hit. The tropical storm we tried to avoid in the Caribbean had caught up with us. We were thankful that we were in the safety of the river instead of on the open ocean for this one. The timing worked out for us despite finishing up our sail with continuous rain coming down. The rain tarp was hung and we all huddled under it for shelter.

Brian’s keen eye spotted something moving in the water from our boat. We MUST turn around! The captain said so! He jumped in the kayak and paddled out to the object while Harley and I circled him. He returned with www.cruisingoutpost.com

an animal that looked dead already. An ugly, vile, soaking wet creature was sat onboard. Somehow an opossum had found himself lost in the wake of the speedboats in the middle of the river and would soon drown if not saved. I cursed, Harley laughed at the situation, and Brian said, “Isn’t he sooo cute?”

“No. He isn’t,” I mumbled. Just like that, we now had a new crew member who made his sleeping quarters in an empty beer box. He kept to himself so I let him be while Googling his possible age, swimming abilities, and diet.

At this point, I noticed that Brian had become quite fond of the new crew member and the opossum was sitting on his shoulder like a parrot would. His mouth was open as he was trying to hiss, but Harley insisted that the opossum was just smiling. Harley also decided that at this moment, he deserved a name and called him PJ. I remained grossed out.

The rain continued to come down, so we stayed suited up in our foul weather gear and ran the motor going upriver. Brian was prepared to throw the headsail up at

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any sign of breeze. After going through the bridges on the Caloosahatchee River, the Ft. Denaud swing bridge being my personal favorite, and locking through, we arrived to Port Labelle Marina where the dockage is cheap and the mosquitos could carry the cows away.

The now rather experienced sailing opossum, PJ, gained a new home on a farm where we think he’ll enjoy his life on land. We bid PJ farewell and sailing vessel Scout was secured at the dock. The delivery was named a success!

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Another Way November sailing in northern latitudes...sound fun? For recreation or work, fresh and salt-watery types have been doing it for hundreds of years—through winters back into the past when the polar caps were bigger; glaciers were still growing and not melting; when nothing was automated and you had to be on deck wrestling sails, sheets, halyards, and anchor chains while being lashed by freezing spray.

Clothing was literally oiled animal skins, wet wool, leather boots, a heaviness adding to the labors of being able move around from task to task. Below decks, warmth came from smelly bodies packed into cramped spaces, food wasn’t a pleasure, just pots and handfuls of fuel. And bathrooms?

Best left undescribed.

And yet, the call of the sea sounded fun enough to be romanticized, to the point where most safe anchorages on the planet are now packed with fiberglass and metal descendants of the old, leaky wooden craft. And, every year, a pleasure-and-warmth-seeking armada takes off from the Northeast, headed south to the Caribbean for the season, leaving behind the hard-core sailors who haven’t hauled out and those who work on the water.

I’ve done this passage in May, heading into summer, but just experienced the yearly southbound November migration for the first time. Finally. After decades, I know what it feels like to be tossed around on the seas as the days grow shorter while wearing layer upon layer under foul weather gear, socks, boots, hats, and gloves. That’s never happened before.

Not while bouncing boat-like across the big ocean.

My home is in a place that cycles through seasons and gets fairy-tale frosty. But, with plenty of firewood stacked and a serviced car and furnace, winter is mostly toasty. Even if you work outside, you get to come indoors—eventually— to dry out and warm up. But now a boat has forced me out of my house cocoon, to be one with the temperature and weather with no easy escape, almost like in the olden days.

As I write this, a friend calls from Saint Maarten, laughing at the picture I’ve sent of all our snow and ice.

Why is hot weather always better, I ask?

“It’s easier to be lazy,” he says. “You don’t have to worry about getting dressed.” Cold demands the work of keeping warm, while warmth requires inactivity to stay cool.

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This year, the winter gear came out early, caught everyone unprepared with much to do—gardens still not completely put to bed, snow tires still in garages. I left in late October, came home a couple of weeks later to a completely white and frozen world with arctic blasts regularly sweeping in right up until a Christmas thaw. That early wintry weather is what blew us out to sea.

Eight of us on a Swan 53 set sailed from Newport with a stream of other boats pointed south as soon as hurricane season was officially over, as far as insurance policies were concerned, and before the November storms ramped up.

Hanging out fully clothed down below, and still shivering, with no open hatches or ports? Figuring out how to work heaters? This was all new to me. Untying the dock lines and hauling heavily reefed sails in the blustery protected harbor, then pounding out onto a sea full of bitterly cold foam and spray was also new. At least we weren’t chipping ice off the deck. And there was a hint of excitement for experiencing another more rugged dimension to the seafaring tradition.

Close-hauled, we pounded into explosions of cold water. Away from the dock, away from the harbor, away from land, away from the east coast, monitoring the instruments, counting the miles between us and the warm Gulf Stream. Time got divided into watches of four hours on, four hours off. Bromine ensured a lot of naps for everyone but the former navy officer who knew how to stand watch impressively enough to help keep me awake with appreciation. Gamely, not miserably, he stood behind the wheel, surveyed the horizon and scrolled between pages loaded with information on the screen before him.

South-westerlies eased abeam a tad while his watch-mates snoozed, hunkered deep into layers of protective gear.

Down below, when it was my time to legitimately sleep, I did so fully-clothed in the salon, with feet, fingers, and core never feeling warm enough.

Nothing is easier in the cold, even when you take it indoors. Try making a cup of tea, heat up a pot of soup, assemble sandwiches, snack, or work with the stove, sink, and dishes, while all mummied up. Or, shuck enough layers to go to bathroom, flush, and brush your teeth. Do all this in the most aggressively bouncing bouncy house. Then head up on

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deck, re-layered and harnessed and tethered, to reef in or out a sail, perhaps get splashed, and return aft unhurt, but colder.

Hunched in the corner of the cockpit while struggling to stay awake, I remembered all those books I’d read over the years, written by sailors of yore with little wood and coal stoves warming their cabins, drying their precious paper charts, wool, skins, and leather.

That pantheon of proto-cruisers who lived on boats in harbors and rivers in northern climates knew about cold, were a kind of rugged and hardy that has been bred out of us with all our furling gear and digital displays spitting forth numbers while autopilots steer us toward waypoints. The hardiness cultivated a toughness that didn’t feel the cold as much as we do, with the old timers clambering out on pitching wet decks with sounding lines and sextants, holding steady hands on the wheel, steering course and speeds regularly entered into logs for proper dead-reckoning and saying, “Brrr, it’s a little brisk out here, it is. Time for a nip of grog.”

Alaska. Vancouver. Maine. Canada. Nova Scotia.

Greenland. Ireland. England. North Sea. Without synthetic waterproof and lightweight wicking fabrics, these men and a few women set off on North Atlantic crossings, Arctic and Antarctic expeditions, or through the Northwest Passage. Some wrote about their wet and cold adventures and inspired others to follow!

Nowadays, toughness means not having internet and being connected to the world 24/7. Nowadays, brochure pictures and visions of sailing always have summery anchorages and harbor scenes. Yet, at some point, the old-time tales gained a following and snowballed through the years, creating an evolving way of life and industry doing everything possible to protect us from any adversity or discomfort. Instead of being appropriately alarmed by climate change, people are settling complacently into a new normal of warmer winters.

Being aboard a modern, fiberglass cruising boat—outfitted with vacuum flush heads, hot water, engine, and instruments everywhere relaying temperatures, distance traveled, distance to waypoint, other ship’s names, and their courses, speeds and destinations—always makes me think back to how it used to be. Colder, simpler, harder, tougher, realer. For what could be www.cruisingoutpost.com

more surreal, or unreal, than when we crossed wakes with a huge mushroom of light sending spotlights dancing in the clouds, followed by fireworks, hundreds of miles from any land? All things being relative, a screen told us we were witnessing Disney cruise fun, which was all it took to make us smugly feel simpler, harder, tougher, realer.

Thirty-six hours passed. Nine watch rotations until we hit the Gulf Stream and the water temperature started rising, up through the seventies into eighties. Being miserably cold and knowing when it will end is an excellent way to slow down the racing clock. Eight pairs of eyes were trained on the distance to waypoint, our speed, counting the hours and minutes. Gradually, some layers were peeled off. Not all, but enough for vast improvement, leaving sheer warmth-seeking survival mode behind for more routine passage-making, and time sped up again.

Bermuda was gained in the most ideal of temperatures.

Not too hot for good sleeping, but no longer a wretched cold. Then, nine hundred miles and many watches closer to Saint Maarten, the pendulum finished swinging to: infernal heat. Fitful sleep in pools of unventilated sweat, hoping for refreshing squally downpours, the only real cold in the Caribbean is in supermarket frozen food sections. This was followed by flight back to the wintry north, where the only real warmth is near the wood stove, the perfect place to read old books about sailors pushing through ice floes and living the stories to which I can now add my melted-down own.

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Namahana Sets Sail

At Last!

By Jody Lipkin

This is Curt and Jill Albro sitting in the pilothouse of their boat, Namahana. They’ve lived aboard for 20 years and are finally cutting the dock lines. But, there’s more to their story than that. Read the full story on the following pages.

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Namahana Sets Sail

Namahana’s all-new pilothouse instruments

New solar panels New teak stern landing

Curt in the engine room

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This is not your normal article; but I wrote it, and I can’t be normal since I married Bob Bitchin! Usually in Cruising Outpost the stories are submitted by the people actually having the adventure or cruising. In this case, you have me writing about our dear friends Curt and Jill Albro. I wanted to tell the readers because I’m so excited for them and their upcoming adventure, and a bit jealous! I know I’ve been there, done that, but once you get the cruising bug, it never really leaves you.

Curt and Jill met at the same place Bob and I met, The Portofino Bar & Grill in Redondo Beach, California, circa 1988, where Jill and I had just started working. Curt and Bob were regulars in the bar, and both had their boats at the Portofino Marina. Jill and Curt got married in the early 90s, and then I left on a sailing adventure to Tahiti and beyond with Bob. Jill and I always say they went wife shopping at their local watering hole.

While Bob and I went cruising, Jill and Curt took care of our mail and bills and sent out a newsletter that Bob wrote.

(That newsletter eventually turned into the Latitudes & Attitudes magazine). Those were the days of cruising without internet, cruising mail services, email, or Wi-Fi; GPS was the hottest new thing. Nowadays, keeping in contact is so much easier with blogging, email, and online banking systems. We were so thankful to have them help us like that back in the dark ages.

When Jill and Curt weren’t busy helping us, they were building their lives in Redondo Beach. Together they raised two boys and started up a luxury car lot, which Curt ran. Jill explored other interests and was soon the manager of the local West Marine. And although Jill and Curt went on cruises throughout the years, they had always needed to come back for work and family.

This time it’s different. Their kids are grown, they’ve retired from their jobs, and they have no plans to come back anytime soon. Jill stepped down as manager at West Marine and will be missed. Curt sold their business a few years ago to devote himself full-time to getting ready for a world cruise. They get to have a whole new adventure!

Their boat, s/v Namahana, is a 56-foot Maple Leaf cutter rigged sloop that Curt and Jill have been diligently preparing to cruise the world for the last several years. On board she has a walk-in engine room, tool and supply locker, and a newlyadded teak stern landing. In the galley she has a watermaker and icemaker. The heads are all-new and fully-electric. In the pilothouse are new B&G instruments and a captain’s chair. On deck are new electric winches and solar panels. And, of course, Namahana has bean bag chairs and a fully-stocked bar.

So far there has been one mishap. In an attempt to keep the dinghy safe from potential thieves, Curt and Jill had the dinghy covered with a bright red material so it would be too ugly to steal. But, when they got it back, the dinghy looked too kewl for school. Oops, you have to laugh at the plans we make in life!

The only plans the Albros have planned for now is to cruise Mexico for a year or two, then who knows? Maybe www.cruisingoutpost.com

At Last!

Namahana docked at the Portofino Marina

the South Pacific or Panama Canal? They’re doing it so differently than when Bob and I cruised. But, that is one of the best things about cruising, everyone does it in their own way and style.

On November 8, 2018, Namahana left its slip in Redondo Beach and sailed to Catalina Island. From there it is headed to San Diego, then off to Mexico. As you read this, they are most likely enjoying the Mexican Rivera. If anyone wants to follow them, find and request to join the private group on Facebook, under “Namahana Adventure.”

Hopefully Bob and I will be joining them someday as they joined us on our adventure. If you see their boat, go say hello. I wish for them fair winds and following seas—with 10% terror so they can appreciate the good days. Hey, it’s good not to have it too easy in this life!

Unasked-for Comment by Bob Bitchin

Curt and I were good friends and used to hang out at the upstairs bar at the Portofino Marina. One day, I was going out for a daysail and I invited Jill, whose father was an old friend. I invited Curt to come along.

As will happen, they hit it off and were soon married. In the meantime, Jody (Jill’s best friend) and I decided to sail off to Tahiti. After a world cruise we were married, with Curt as my best man and Jill as Jody’s maid of honor!

Here’s a photo of us taken while cruising in Tahiti over 25 years ago!

Bob Jill

Jody

Curt

Namahana anchored in Two Harbors, Catalina, the same location from where Bob & Jody always departed www.cruisingoutpost.com

Cruising Outpost 43

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Cruising Outpost 45

Panama Canal Transit

By Suzy Carmody, s/v Distant Drummer

It was a bleary-eyed six oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;clock in the morning and the sun was just brightening the Panama City skyline when s/v Mis Gale came along side s/v Distant Drummer to collect us for our Panama Canal adventure. My husband, Neil, and I had agreed to join our friends Gale and Slim as line handlers for their northward passage through the Canal from Balboa to Colon. We were keen to get some Canal experience before going through ourselves next year on board Distant Drummer, our Liberty 458 sloop.

We first met Mis Gale in July 2018 when we were anchored in Bahia Ballena in Golfo de Nicoya, Costa Rica. As we headed south, we had crossed paths with them

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several times and were always happy to see Gale and Slim and share a few beers while swapping a few yarns. It was October 2018 when we caught up with them again in Vista Mar Marina in Panama and offered our services for the passage through the Canal.

Preparation Full details of the documentation and procedures required to transit the Panama Canal can be found on the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) website, www.PanCanal. com/eng/. Many skippers choose to do the paperwork themselves, saying that it is not too onerous, but other www.cruisingoutpost.com

people prefer to use the services of an agent. The main advantages of an agent are that they help with completion and submission of all the documentation, provide a point of contact with the Canal authorities to help smooth the process, pay the buffer (a deposit which is refunded less any additional charges which may be incurred during the transit), and provide the fenders and mooring lines.

Before passing through the Canal, a vessel must be inspected, measured, and cleared by the Admeasurer, then a date for the transit will be allocated. Yachts less than 65 feet long are assigned an advisor by the ACP who boards the vessel early on the day of the transit.

Small vessels use handlines to maintain their position in the locks. The ACP requires the boat to carry four mooring lines, each at least 125 feet long, and plenty of large fenders to prevent damaging the vessel against the lock wall. Four linehandlers are also required to be onboard in addition to the skipper.

Slim and Gale used an agent from the Panama Cruiser Connection (www.PanamaCruiserConnection.com). Roger was professional and efficient, very friendly and helpful, and seemed to have a good relationship with the ACP. He also provided transport around the city and was a fount of knowledge for anything we needed from laundry to solar panels to dinghy repair. www.cruisingoutpost.com

The day before the transit, Roger delivered the fenders and mooring lines to the dock at Las Brisas Anchorage and Slim hauled them aboard Mis Gale.

Stephanie, Galeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s niece, and Andrew, a fellow cruiser, arrived from Houston, making up the third and fourth members of the line handling team. This was Gale and Slimâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s third canal transit, and Andrew had been through several times before, so there was plenty of experience on board. The next morning when they came alongside Distant Drummer, Neil and I clambered aboard, ready for action and a cup of coffee.

Balboa and the Miraflores Locks As we left Las Brisas Anchorage and rounded Isla Flamenco, a 25-knot southwesterly wind was kicking up a choppy sea, causing Mis Gale to roll steeply in the swell.

We called Flamenco Signal on VHF channel 12 to let them know we were in position at La Playita to pick up the advisor but told them that the conditions were not good for a the transfer. They verified that Mis Gale was on the list for transit that day and then instructed us to proceed up to the Balboa Yacht Club and wait there for the advisor to arrive. Luckily, once we were in the channel leading to the Balboa docks, the sea conditions were eased and Harold and Joe, our advisors, were able to climb safely on board and we settled in for the trip.

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Panama Canal Transit

From the Balboa Yacht Club we passed under the Bridge of the Americas and through the Balboa Docks towards the Miraflores Locks, the first challenge to our line handling skills. We stuck closely to the red buoys marking the starbord side of the channel while tugs, pilot vessels, and other work boats were buzzing around us providing various services to the tankers and container ships moving in and out of the docks.

As we passed the entrance to the adjacent new third lock, we watched two tug boats nudging a massive tanker into the chamber like terriers nipping at the heels of a steer. Since the Panama Canal opened in 1914, the dimensions of the lock chambers have defined the maximum size of ocean-going cargo ships, a classification known as Panamax. In 2009, expansion of the Panama Canal began and a third lane of locks was opened in 2016.

The new chambers are three times larger and the NewPanamax vessels have redefined huge.

Mis Gale was slated to transit the Miraflores Locks rafted up to a small passenger ship, m/v Pacific Queen.

Our partner entered the chamber ahead of us and tied up on the righthand side of the lock. Slim navigated us into the lock; it was over 1000 feet long and took several minutes just to reach the front end of the chamber. We tied up to the port side of Pacific Queen with mooring lines forward and aft and two spring lines through a hawser on the starboard side. We stared at the dank green walls towering over us as the surface swirled and eddied and the chamber filled with water. As we rose we adjusted the lines as our advisor Harold instructed. In about ten minutes we were peeping over the top of the walls which had previously loomed above us.

The Miraflores Locks lift vessels 54 feet in two steps.

First, we untied Mis Gale and backed away to allow the passenger ship to preceed us into the second chamber after the lock gates opened. Turbulence from the prop wash of large ships is one of the hazards for small yachts in the locks. Slim had to work hard to maintain position in the churning waters while Pacific Queen slowly pulled away from the sidewall and moved ahead. Then, once they had tied up, we repeated the process again under the eagle eye of Harold. We were now old hands.

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The Pedro Miguel Lock is the third of the locks on the Pacific side of the Canal and lies about a mile upstream from Miraflores. It is interesting to note that at the Pedro Miguel Lock the bouyage reverses; for northbound vessels the American convention of “red right returning” changes to green to starboard above the lock.

Once again we rafted up to Pacific Queen, but this time on the left-hand side of the dock. This meant we had to shift all the mooring lines and fenders across to the port side on Mis Gale—the powers-that-be at the ACP must have been watching us on the cameras and thought we looked bored! We followed the same procedure and by lunch time we were through the locks leaving Panama City and the Pacific Ocean in our wake.

The Culebra Cut and Gatun Lake The rain started as we entered the Culebra Cut; October is one of the wettest months of the year in Panama. We crowded into the cockpit and enjoyed lunch while Harold entertained us with stories about Panama and the Canal.

He was full of interesting facts and figures, and every so often he would throw out a “test question” to which we provided guestimated answers. Slowly, we became experts on Canal trivia.

The Culebra Cut, also known as the Gaillard Cut, is where the Panama Canal crosses the continental divide.

It runs 7.4 nautical miles from the Pedro Miguel lock to a bend in the Chagres River where it joins Gatun Lake. The French began excavation of the Cut in 1881, but progress was hampered by landslides, disease, and financial troubles, and in 1904 the project was taken over by the United States. In total, ninety-million cubic metres of rock and soil were removed to lower the summit of the Culebra mountain range from 64 meters to 39 meters above sea level and create a channel 91 meters wide. Though thousands of men died during its construction, it was one of the greatest engineering feats of its time.

During the recent expansion, the Culebra Cut was widened to 192 meters. As we passed through the Cut we could see the step-sided man-made hills created from the debris from the excavation. With Harold guiding, Slim steered a course close to the right-hand side of the channel, almost touching the green buoys as we went by. www.cruisingoutpost.com

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Panama Canal Transit Even so, it still felt like a tight squeeze when enormous container ships or LNG tankers loomed out of the drizzle and passed us on the port side—they seemed very close.

The small town of Gamboa lies at the end of the Culebra Cut where the Chagres River flows into the Canal. This Canal Zone township was originally built to house the workers and their families and had a courthouse and a prison famous for being the location where Manuel Noriega was incarcerated after extradition from France.

Today, Gamboa is the base of the dredging division of the Panama Canal and also home of the floating crane, “Herman the German.” The crane was seized by the Americans as part of war reparations after WWII, and in 1994 it was sold to the ACP for $1. It is still used in the Canal Zone for lock maintenance.

We passed Gamboa in the rain. As we entered Gatun Lake the drizzle turned into a downpour. All hands were in the cockpit wiping steam off the windows and peering through the deluge to spot the next green buoy which marked our path. Harold’s knowledge of the route was impressive; but, even so, when we reached buoy 55 the visibility was reduced to less than half a mile and it was impossible to find our track ahead. He advised Slim to hold Mis Gale in position as close to the buoy as possible until visibility improved. After a few minutesa, a work boat came by and we followed it out of the rainstorm until visibility improved and we were able to proceed.

It was four o’clock by the time we reached the top of the Gatun Locks and most of the northbound vessels had already gone through. There was no traffic waiting and the ACP does not let a small vessel go through alone, so we had to spend the night on the lake. Under Harold’s instruction we tied up to a large red buoy. Then he and Joe disembarked onto a pilot vessel, assuring us that an advisor would join us the following morning. His last words of advice were not to swim with the crocs!

The Gatun Locks and Colon The evening we spent on the Gatun Lake was very peaceful with not even a howler monkey to disturb the quiet serenity of the night. In the morning, several ships were waiting to enter the locks and we watched an enormous container ship dropping anchor beside us as we ate our breakfast. When Harold arrived he got us moving quick smart; a large cargo ship was waiting for us to go into the lock ahead of it. This time we were going to have a center tie, with the line handlers responsible for using the forward and aft lines to hold Mis Gale in position in the middle of the chamber.

We carefully coiled the four mooring lines, threaded each through a hawser, and tied a large bowline at the end—we were ready! Slim steered us past the Four Rigoletto, which towered over us as we rounded the bow and entered the lock. Once we were inside, the dock hands onshore threw monkey fists to us—we had to be careful they did not hit us on the head. We attached the messenger line through the bowline and then paid out the mooring line through the hawser as the dock hand pulled it in. The

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dock hands walked the lines along the wall to the front of the chamber and secured the bowline around a bollard. We then eased the lines as Mis Gale descended.

Being located at the front of the chamber had several benefits, the main one being that Slim did not have to struggle with holding Mis Gale in position in the prop wash from Four Rigoletto as we moved between the chambers. In addition, it was a bright sunny day and the view over the lock gates of the Atlantic Bridge, Cristobal Harbor, and the Atlantic Ocean beyond was fantastic. The Gatun Locks have three chambers and each time the lock gates opened the breath-taking view was revealed again.

As we moved between the chambers, we pulled in the mooring lines with the messenger lines still attached. The dock hands held the messenger lines as they walked beside us through to the next lock then pulled the mooring lines ashore and secured them to a bollard again. We repeated the procedure twice more, then after we had descended the final chamber the messenger lines were released and we retrieved our mooring lines. Job done!

We bade a fond farewell to Harold as he stepped aboard the pilot vessel.

He had been an excellent advisor and good company over the past two days. The final challenge for Slim was navigating Mis Gale across the flats of Cristobal Harbor into Shelter Bay Marina. The hulks of several vessels lying on the reef served as a warning not to try to shortcut between the locks and the breakwater. The entrance channel to the marina follows a path just south of the western arm of the breakwater and is marked by an occasional yellow buoy. The dockmaster guided us in on VHF 74 and was on the dock to welcome us and help us with our lines. In no time at all we were tied up. We relocated to the bar and celebrated our arrival in the Caribbean.

Transiting the Panama Canal in a small boat was an unforgetable experience. Initially I felt a little apprehensive, dwarfed by the size of the ships and the vastness of the locks; but we had a good skipper and a skillful advisor and I soon relaxed and enjoyed the trip. Throughout the journey I felt a strong sense of admiration for the courage and sacrifice of the men who had built the Canal and made the passage possible.

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Greening

The Price of Convenience is Too High

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the Blue

and Our Oceans are Paying for It!

By Jessica Llod-Mostyn

Living on a boat certainly makes you more aware of the environmental impact that you have. A considerable benefit is that you have a chance to look at things, question them, and engage on a different level than when on land. We consider everything that we produce and consume, plus harness the power of the elements. The wind being the main source of propulsion is bound to open up a sailorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes to alternative power sources.

Both solar panels and wind turbines are fairly standard on long-distance sailing yachts.

However, there are still plenty of boats that prefer to run generators, particularly those with freezers, watermakers, or power-hungry electronics.

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Greening the Blue discovered that we had a huge number of questions about what behaviour is ok. Are there some types of packaging that are reasonable to throw overboard? If common sense tells you that you mustn’t ever throw plastics over what does it tell you about glass bottles, tin cans, or paper?

One of our challenges in terms of thinking greener was devising a strategy for long passages at sea. So far we’ve crossed both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, taking 21 days and 26 days, respectively. For both we had more people on board than usual. More people and a long time at sea means that you consume and produce a lot before you reach your next port. Living mostly at anchor taught us to reduce our non-biodegradable waste as we simply had nowhere to store it. It forced us to separate our rubbish

The “Great North Pacific Garbage Patch” washes rubbish onto the beaches of Laysan Island, Hawaii.

– Susan White, US Fish and Wildlife Service

On our boat we have a fridge, no generator, and a finite supply of fresh water, more out of a desire to keep things simple and our budget down than for any ecological reasons.

However, the years at sea have been educating us in the reality of our impact on the planet. I say “educating” because, as with everything about sailing, the learning process is continual as we muddle our way through how best to manage our life in this new environment.

We live at anchor rather than in The problem marinas; we use a wind vane rather is everywhere, than an autopilot; we conserve our even island water and power as much as we paradises like can and try to create as little waste as possible. By coping with being Fiji now have on board we have inadvertently beach rubbish. developed an ethos towards our sailing existence. However, we

and keep different containers for recycling, dramatically reducing the small amount of regular trash. We keep a “chum” bucket for food scraps easily tossed overboard when underway. At anchor we prefer to find somewhere ashore where it’s used as compost or feeding pigs.

Rubbish on a Responsibly disposing of once pristine refuse and recycling once reaching Indonesian the shore can really be tricky. The beach. tiny island of Niue even made glass bottles illegal as they rely on a boat from New Zealand to remove their cans but there’s no provision to take bottles. The ban means that visitors by boat must wait until Tonga to recycle their glass. World cruising means visiting small islands with

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no infrastructure for responsible waste management. In Bocas del Toro, Panama, every island was dependent on one mainland rubbish dump that simply locked its gates forever one day, when it got full. Then there are communities where locals drop the trash in their own backyards and beaches, only to watch the next wave or high tide bring it all back. Back when packaging was all biodegradable there would have been no problem. A generation ago we packaged our products in glass, metal, or paper. Now both the packaging and the items within are part of a throwaway mentality that is ruining every beach and overwhelming every landfill.

My husband and I also faced another issue: we were having a baby. One of the things we had to have a strategy for was what to do about her nappies. We had no plans to stop sailing once the baby was born, already planning our next ocean crossing with her. Even if we had wanted to use disposables what would we do about the bags full of dirty diapers building up after 20 or 30 days at sea? Cloth nappies might work fine when we’re safely moored in a marina and have water on tap but would it prove to be too great a challenge to cope with when out sailing with a finite water supply?

I found my knowledge somewhat lacking so I started to research more about the problem. The core of the crisis with rubbish both in our oceans and on land is plastic.

Glass, metal, and paper can be far more easily recycled.

The throwaway nature of plastic packaging engenders carelessness about what happens once it leaves our hands.

Expendability doesn’t change the fact that the plastic itself is made to last forever. The vast majority of plastics are blown into the water or are dumped into the ocean after rainfall. Only 5% of plastics that we produce are recovered and recycled; 50% of them are buried in landfill; the other 45% is lost in the environment and washes out to sea. Plastic bottles, bags, food wrappers, and containers are now strewn throughout our oceans—and all of these are single-use items.

Only a small percentage of ocean plastics, around 20%, float on the sea surface. The other 80% appear at various depths throughout the water, coming to rest on the sea floor, being trapped in polar ice, or eaten by animals.

Plastic rings from 6-pack fizzy-drink or beer cans cause entrapment and entanglement, leading to deformity, malnourishment, or death in marine animals. Seabirds tangled up in fishing lines, fishing nets, or plastic packing straps can’t move properly through the water, catch prey, or avoid predators. Plastic bags, balloons, bits of rubber flip-flops, even used condoms confuse animals as they look like fish or jellyfish.

The plastics that float become broken down further by sunlight and wave action. They get smaller but they never completely disappear. There are large systems of ocean currents that combine with prevailing winds that form slowly revolving whirlpools called “gyres.” The most studied is the one known as the “Great North Pacific Garbage Patch” because of

A tiny styrofoam particle is one of the biggest problems of marine debris.

More plastic trash on what was once a beautiful beach in Panama.

This has become a too common sight.

A sea turtle trying to eat a plastic bag.

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Greening the Blue Being out on the water makes you more aware of just how important the elements are.

the sheer volume of tiny plastic particles amassed there creating a plastic soup. Some are as small as a grain of rice, but are the degraded fragments of plastic bottles, bags, toys, and food containers.

The smaller the pieces are, the easier it is for them to be mistakenly consumed by marine life. The result of which is toxicity, blockages, dehydration, starvation, and death. Plastic particles are found throughout the food chain; from tiny shrimps, mussels, or fish, to birds, turtles, seals, dolphins, and whales. In one area of ocean the ratio of the presence of these “microplastics” to that of plankton was 6 to 1 in 2001. The same area was tested again in 2009 with a result of 36 to 1. If plastic is outnumbering the plankton then it’s no surprise that it’s building up in the animals that eat it, leaching chemicals into the fish and those who eat the fish—us.

How are these figures relevant to the average sailor?

I’ve known several sailors who smoke and think nothing of tossing their cigarette butts into the sea. Cigarette butts are composed of cellulose acetate, another form of plastic that gets eaten by sea life. If not eaten whole, each cigarette butt takes around 10 years to biodegrade. Other cruisers drink bottled beer and chuck both the bottle and cap into

the water. When smashed, a glass bottle will eventually become sand but that process takes thousands of years. The bottle cap will take a mere 300 years to breakdown, but is more likely to get swallowed up by an ocean creature in the meantime. When global sailing you find clusters of boats anywhere near a supermarket, where cruisers are seen lugging countless plastic bags. In a bin or in landfill the slightest gust of wind can send these bags dancing out into the water. If you ignore their 50–year lifespan or animals trying to eat them, surely there’s the selfish concern that the bag could get wrapped around a propeller or sucked up into the engine strainer?

Even the eco-minded road has its problems. Instead of a normal rubbish bag we purchased a biodegradable trash bag, made from a cornstarch derivative that causes the bag to breakdown, but it’s still plastic. Not only can that bag still blow from landfill into the ocean to decompose, obstruct a propeller, or be eaten by a passing sea turtle, it will still take years to disappear entirely.

There are products that many would probably never even considered might contain plastic, like a tube of exfoliating face wash or any toothpaste containing whitening “microbeads.” A microbead is simply a teeny-tiny piece of plastic that, once you wash your face or brush your teeth with products containing them, go straight down the sink and into our waterways. A single tube of face wash can contain 330,000 of these microbeads. That means billions of “microplastics” are being introduced into our oceans every day.

The islanders are the most affected by the huge amounts of plastic that civilization has tossed into the sea. They have started the battle. Now it’s time for the cruisers to join in the fight!

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Sometimes it takes reading awful examples like these to force us to change. My family lives on the ocean and I want to take care of it for my daughter and the generations to come. However, even for us, with our solar panels, our wind turbine, and our general eco-friendly attitude, it means making adjustments to our lifestyle.

These changes, however, can be small, really small. By limiting single-use plastics in our everyday lives and disposing of these items properly we can reduce the amount of plastic waste entering the ocean—things like straws, coffee cups, plastic food wrap, balloons, plastic razors, toothbrushes, and of course plastic bottles. The same is true of bringing your own shopping bags with you to the supermarket when you’re provisioning. More and more supermarkets are trying to push things in the right direction by charging you for plastic bags at the checkout. Just recently California issued a state-wide ban on single-use plastic bags at supermarkets, grocery, and convenience stores. As for bottled water, it’s a cheap and easy option to just buy one nice bottle or canteen and keep refilling it with tap water. In The battle is Australia, over 30 million plastic toothbrushes not over yet, are used and disposed of in landfill, amounting and we can to 1000 tons each year. But you can use a bamboo toothbrush with recyclable nylon win this one. bristles, which is easy to find online and cheap.

Cruisers are A straight razor or safety razor may well still our frontline! have plastic components but they can be used for decades and the metal blades recycled. A Snorkelling choice like that can save you a fortune as well.

Remember our dilemma about nappies? in clean After some research we found a design that uses ocean waters a pant with either a small cloth insert to launder is one of the or a cellulose-based biodegradable insert that can many joys be flushed, composted or tossed to eventually of life on the breakdown completely. Plus, we made the effort water. to source a good eco-friendly detergent that’s gentle on the oceans for when we’re washing the cloth ones.

As a cruiser, I consider us to be the true guardians of the oceans, lakes, and waterways. This also puts us in a unique position to be leaders in water protection. There are an estimated 18,000 pieces of plastic in every square kilometer of ocean. Bans, fees, recycling, and product redesign are all good ways to move forward, but nothing can single-handedly correct what has already been done. The biggest impact will come from stopping the massive amounts of plastic litter before it travels over land and into our oceans.

Pollution takes what is marvellous out of the water. All the things that we love and enjoy about it—sailing, swimming, snorkeling—become somehow less complete, less inspiring. You may feel that it’s more convenient to pack your groceries in the bags they have at the store, buy the bottle of water while you’re out and about, or use the take away coffee cup as you’re in a hurry. But truly, the price of that convenience is too high and our remarkable oceans are paying for it. www.cruisingoutpost.com

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Raja Ampat

The Last Paradise on Earth

By Rachel Lovelock

While the predominant colour in the picturepostcard image of the tropics is blue, Raja Ampat is decidedly green…

Here, translucent turquoise waters lap the scorching white-sand beaches, coral reefs are identified by shining ribbons of aquamarine, and secret lagoons form the settings for emerald gems. The green theme persists in the deeper, distinctly jade-coloured channels that run between the many islands, morphing to milky mint in the narrow,

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river-like passages, all of which reflect the unrelenting verdure of the thickly forested hills.

Raja Ampat has been described as the “Last Paradise on Earth,” one of the most noteworthy ecological niches on the planet, on a par with the Great Barrier Reef and the Galápagos. Marine biologists have established that it is home to 70 percent of the known coral species on the planet. Many of the fish, corals, and crustaceans that live in these waters are found nowhere else on Earth.

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Raja Ampat

Straddling the Equator off the extreme northwestern tip of Indonesiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Papua province, the region is an archipelago of 610 islands; a figure that can be boosted to more than 1500 if you count the karst islets, which are so undercut by waves that they look like mushrooms, topped with rich jungle to create an astonishing, polka dot topography.

The larger islands are distinguished by rugged coastlines covered with virgin rainforest extending right down to the waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edge, where nature has carved out a series of coves and lagoons, inlets, caves, and shaded, sandy beaches. If truth be told, the pure, unadulterated splendour of Raja Ampat astounds anyone who ventures the enormous distance to get there, and just recently I was fortunate enough to be one of those venturers.

I was a guest on a SeaTrek Sailing Adventure, which took us on a northerly voyage from the West Papuan capital of

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The Last Paradise on Earth

Sorong to the island of Waigeo and then across the Equator to the iconic islands of Wayag and beyond. While most of the cruises through Raja Ampat are on liveaboard dive boats, SeaTrekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s activities focus on trekking, snorkelling, swimming, kayaking, and paddle-boarding. Each day, we donned fins, masks, and snorkels and explored a below-surface world reminiscent of a living kaleidoscope. Navigating my way through coral bommies, tables, steeples, fans, and thorny staghorn thickets, I swam though clouds of damsel fish, gawped at an ornate but venomous lionfish, spotted a huge puffer fish skulking in the shadows, and counted Christmas tree worms galore glued to the brain corals in a whole gamut of colours.

So beautiful was this underwater ecosystem that at times I felt like I was in a giant aquarium, expecting to swim up against a wall of glass at any moment, with families of onlookers regarding me from the other side.

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Raja Ampat

Above the surface, Raja Ampat presents an extraordinary wealth of exotic bird life, with hornbills, kingfishers, parrots, and five different bird of paradise species including the fabulous red bird of paradise. Our voyage, therefore, took us to the island of Gam with the knowledge that every morning at dawn, during mating season, at the very top of the tallest tree, way up high on a forested ridge, the red birds of paradise come out to perform their elaborate courtship dance.

No other bird family is as beautiful or displays such a diversity of plumage, extravagant decoration, and courtship behaviour as the ostentatious birds of paradise, of which there are 39 species, ranging from the size of a tiny starling to big, crow-sized birds, with certain types sporting tails of up to three times their body length.

We set out in the dark, at 5:00 a.m. on a wet and windy morning, for a slippery 40-minute hike up a steep, muddy

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The Last Paradise on Earth

track in the hope that the rain would stop in time for the birds to appear and doing their thing. Happily for us, the sky cleared and the sun came out, as did the birds. We heard them before we saw them, the males using their voices to broadcast their location and entice distant females to come and have a look. Then, silhouetted against the light of the new day, four males entered the canopied arena, their tail wires streaming behind them. Five minutes later, the arrival of two females, distinguished by their lack of ornamentation, sent the males into an ecstatic frenzy, each one lowering his head and erecting his plumes over his back. What makes for such a sexy blend of attire and choreography is a mystery, but the more excessive the better, and all with the single purpose of attracting female attention. As the sky got brighter, we were able to see their gorgeous colours â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the maleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s yellow beak, his iridescent

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Raja Ampat

emerald-green face, a pair of dark green cushion-like feather pompoms above each eye and a train of glossy red plumes. One of the males postured stiffly before hanging upside down from his branch. He then spread, fanned, and fluttered his wings like a giant butterfly, seducing his prize for us all to see.

The sun was shining brightly when we emerged from the steamy jungle at the jetty from where we had begun our adventure three hours earlier, and we were able to see the enchanting little village of Saporkren, which we had bypassed in the dark. If the birds of paradise live in Paradise, then Saporkren must be the gateway. A big archway marked the entrance to the village, with a cheerful welcome message, and hand-painted images of the birds. The place was idyllic, a quintessential paradise beach with soft white-gold sand, coconut palms,

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The Last Paradise on Earth

gaily-painted canoes, friendly families, happy smiling children, and pellucid luminous-turquoise waters. The final delight was when one of the villagers drew our attention to a cuscus eyeing us from the top of a fig tree.

He was the size of a big pussycat with a pointy snout, ginger face, huge round orange eyes, and a tail long enough to wrap around a branch and strong enough to support his weight. A local woman handed me a banana attached to the end of a long stick; the cuscus took the bait and obligingly posed for a photo.

It was only 8:00 a.m., the day had barely begun and yet I had already witnessed the dating dance of the rare red birds of paradise and now I was feeding a banana to a spotted cuscus. Paradise indeed! To experience this verdant paradise for yourself, go to www.SeaTrekBali.com.

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Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Out There?

C ruising Monohull

There are cruising boats, and then there are cruising boats. Passport has long been famed for their strength, sailing characteristics, and comfort over long distances. The Passport 545 Center Cockpit is one of the boats that has set the standard for safe, comfortable cruising The aft deck is large and designed as a second communal area. This works well both at anchor and while sailing. It works for fishing, sundowners, BBQ-ing, swimming, or simply hanging out. There are also some BIG lockers back there too.

Forward there is also a big deck locker for storage and forward of that is the chain locker with two separate rode compartments for the double-roller system.

Down below you can see Passport does NOT compromise. Both staterooms are large and have separate heads and showers. You would be hardpressed to determine which is the master because they are both palatial. The galley is huge; it has lots and lots of counter space, an abundance of lockers and drawers, and two full-sized pantries!

Things like ice makers, microwave ovens, washers, and dryers all have their dedicated spaces. And there is a full-sized walk-in engine room that is to die for!

This a cruiserâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dream! And did we mention it also comes in a three-cabin design?

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Passport 545 CC

Get all the facts:

www.passportyachts.com

Passport 545 CC LOA

54’4”

LWL

45’7”

Draft shoal/deep Beam

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5’7” / 6’6” 15’5”

Ballast

14,700 lbs.

Power

110-hp Yanmar

Fuel

280 USG

Fresh Water

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Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Out There?

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C ruising C atamaran

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Seawind 1600

For those looking for a good cruising catamaran, this 52-foot cat could be the one; it combines cruising comfort and performance sailing.

Built using composite construction, this boat was designed for the sailor who is looking for something a little extra. With simple sailing systems, twin-protected helms, and a large, open cockpit space, its interior has been well-designed for living aboard during those long cruises and ocean crossings. The retracting daggerboard and rudder make this boat

a great sailor, but also beachable and able to enter shallow lagoons and estuaries.

If you’re looking for a fast, comfortable catamaran, this could be the end of your search. See more at seawindcats.com.

Get all the facts:

www.seawindcats.com

Seawind 1600 LOA 51’8” LWL 51’6” Draft Board up / Down 2’1” / 8’6” Beam 25’10” Displacement 28,600 lbs.

Power Two 57-hp Yanmar Fuel 200 USG Fresh Water 155 USG Mast Height 71’8” www.cruisingoutpost.com

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What’s Out There?

Aspen’s C120 is built in the Pacific Northwest by local craftsmen with three things in mind: style, ease of use, and longevity. The vessel has a hull design that slices through heavy seas effortlessly with 70% more roll stability and 50% less carbon impact.

The C120 is designed to be fast and maintain the much sought after efficiency. Aspen’s patented, awardwinning hull design is powered with a Volvo D6, designed to reach cruising speeds of 16 to 18 knots with a top speed of 20 to 23 knots. Fuel economy with the single 435 is 10 gallons-per-hour at 16 knots; 50-60% less than competitive boats.

Built with a large salon, roomy staterooms, heads, and cockpit, she is the first boat in this category with 600 square-feet of deck and living space.

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C ruising C atamaran

The modern design starts in the salon with an open window layout that brings the outdoors right to you with a 360-degree view from every seat! Each hull has a head with a shower and large vanity. Below the dinette is a queen-size guest stateroom, complete with hanging locker, portlights, and reading lights. Below the galley is a second guest stateroom with a twin bed, portlights, and reading lights.

Forward is the full-width, King Island Master stateroom, hard to find in a 40-foot boat. The stateroom includes port and starboard hanging lockers, drawer sets, starboard vanity.

Still wondering if this is the right boat for you?

Well, in 2018, a C120 started and completed a 10,502mile voyage from the Pacific Northwest to Annapolis, Maryland. So she’s definitely a cruiser! If you’d like more info you can find it here: www.aspencatmarans.com.

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Aspen Power Cat C120

Get all the facts:

www.aspencatamarans.com

Aspen Power C120 LOA Draft Beam Power Voltage Displacement Fresh Water Waste Water Heads www.cruisingoutpost.com

42’6” 39” 13’10” Volvo 330hp 12/110 22,500 lb 100 gallons 83 gallons 2

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N I S

G N I W A G

ign

Des c i s s a l AC

tic

uris t u F a with

stem

Sy n o i s l u Prop

n

ortense

tM

By Mat

We began designing a dual saildrive system that would incorporate twin 100-kilowatt (134-horsepower), permanent magnet, highlyefficient, A/C motors coupled to a 50-kilowatt-hours lithium-nickelmanganese-cobalt battery bank. This system would be supplemented by a 100-kilowatt, 150-horsepower diesel D/C generator for trips with an under-power duration greater than 25 nautical miles. It was also

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decided early on that we could avoid installing stern and bow thrusters by designing our saildrives to rotate 360 degreesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;true Azimuth-ing pods!

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SINGAWING

As we stepped over the cockpit threshold and slid open the companionway hatch, Brian Beckett uttered the words no client ever wants to hear from their marine surveyor, “Aaahhh, the smell of a rotten boat!”

A week earlier, I was discussing with a Sidney B.C. yacht broker the nuances of the 57-foot fiberglass staysail schooner he was attempting to sell. He told me that if I was interested they would provide a competent marine surveyor. At that point, I responded by saying that I would be using Brian Beckett. He responded, “Oh you can’t hire Brian Beckett! If that man surveys this boat you won’t buy it!”

Needless to say, we did not find all that many deal-breaking issues, the price was negotiated, and my wife and I became the proud new owners of Tina Christine on July 4th, 2005. After a brief jaunt through the San Juan Islands, we brought her home to Port Townsend, Washington, and began a planned three-month refit that lasted 12 years. The first thing we changed was the name.

After my wife had learned that as a child I had an imaginary friend named Singawing, the naming rights were no longer a joint decision. Many people buy into superstitions, myself included, but after being custom built in 1992, Tina Christine had seen at least three owners with relationships all ending in divorce—including one disillusionment that was spawned from the second mate being thrown overboard in a very

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active Active Pass. We figured we needed to break the curse, and it appears it worked!

My wife and I had aspirations of a cruising lifestyle bolstered by a charter business. We loved the Pacific Northwest and the unparalleled cruising environment that the Inside Passage had to offer; yet we were young and nowhere near retirement. We began by demolishing the laundry area and converting it into a crew bunk with a washerdryer combo located below.

Upholstery, bedding, bimini, systems, sails, paint, and varnish

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SINGAWING were all upgraded, and we began what was a 10-year successful charter business, hosting people from all over the world on cruises to ports in Washington State all the way to Juneau, Alaska. After the 2014 season and some 35,000 miles since we bought her, Singawing was really beginning to show her age. Her paint job was failing miserably; her old engines were tired and constantly requiring maintenance; and her furling systems were no longer easy to operate.

In the winter of 2014 it was decided that she really needed a refit and we felt up to the task. We began a threeyear, insanely complicated process that required thousands of working hours and a lot of rehabilitation.

The first tasks were to remove the hardware and tear off the old, leaking teak decks abovedeck, while down below we were busy tearing out the old aluminum tanks and replacing them with integral fiberglass and stainless steel. The closets were lined with Tennessee cedar, the overheads insulated and finished with tongue-and-groove planks, and a new LED lighting package was added. The exterior of the cabin sides was widened by an inch to allow for double-paned windows and to hide the forward running rigging. New stainless-steel compression posts were built to replace the old, rotten steel ones. The top sides and decks were rebuilt, refaired, and painted with Awlgrip. The furlers were replaced and the running rigging was rerouted.

We added a 1000-watt solar array that charges a new 300-amps-per-hour, lithium-iron-phosphate house battery bank built by my other company, Revision Marine.

Singawing was originally fitted with a non-conventional propulsion configuration. The gentleman that had her built was John Antell. He owned a log-sorting business on the Fraser River in British Columbia and was fond of the small, highly-maneuverable, center-driven tugboats that were used to efficiently move logs to build booms. He proposed that twin engines with saildrives located midship would be a novel idea for his newly-commissioned schooner. The problem with this configuration was that in order to insure a proportional freeboard, the pilothouse sole would be limited in height. By keeping the overhead in the engine room low, the biggest diesel-engine/saildrive combination that would fit was twin 40-horsepower Volvo Pentasâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and a combined 80-horsepower always felt underpowered to me for a 74,000-pound boat. As a result of the underpowered engines, these little Volvos were always forced to run harder than designed so they were failing prematurely.

Since the first time I can remember imagining my first dream boat, I had always pictured electric propulsion. The

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idea of running as close to the silence of sailing without wind was always intriguing to me, but the overwhelming desire to remove myself from the fossil-fuel addiction so prevalent in our society was the driving force in this dream. We do day-sail charters out of Port Townsend, Washington. During these four-hour sails, the total energy used for maneuvering in and out of the marina could be derived from Jefferson County Public Utility District, which provides 100% renewable power generated from the Pacific Northwestâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hydroelectric utilities.

Until recent advances in vehicle electrification, driven by the immense R&D budgets of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s automobile manufacturers, electric propulsion for boats was a highlydesired but little-expected panacea! Though it was rife with failures, the general boating public watched eagerly for an electric option, disappointed time and time again as experimental electric propulsion systems were removed from boat after boat. Several snake-oil salesmen would explain that only a third of the horsepower was required for the same performance, trying to justify their underpowered systems as adequate for your boat. The low-voltage limitations and the only available battery technology at the time (lead acid) were the stumbling blocks that had prevented electrification from success.

Having owned and driven both a Nissan Leaf and a Chevrolet Volt while dreaming of a Tesla, I knew times were changing. As a marine electrician in the off-season and

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SINGAWING an owner of Revision Marine, I knew what to look for and contacted our partner company in Florida for help in designing a viable system.

After the Volvo Penta 2040 diesels were removed, we began designing a dual saildrive system that would incorporate twin 100-kilowatt (134-horsepower) permanent magnet, highly-efficient A/C motors coupled to a 50-kilowatts-per-hour lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt battery bank. This system would be supplemented by a 100-kilowatt, 150-horsepower diesel D/C generator for trips with an underpower duration greater than 25 nautical miles. It was also decided early on that we could avoid installing stern and bow thrusters by designing our saildrives to rotate 360 degrees­â&#x20AC;&#x201D;true Azimuth-ing pods! The saildrives would be controlled through a proportional joy stick, allowing for vessel momentum in any direction. Additionally, it would allow for the drives to be rotated 180-degrees into the flow of the water, opening the big 22-inch folding propellers for regeneration under sail. This has the added benefit of increasing the regeneration efficiency to nearly 30% by avoiding water flow disturbances caused by the saildrive skeg.

Because the new diesel engine would not be coupled to a shaft, it was possible to mount it atop the electric/hydraulic scissor-lift table, allowing it to be lifted up into the saloon for 360-degree, unencumbered access to all of the engine components.

Another major benefit of electric propulsion comes from the use of a DC-to-DC convertor that allows the house battery to be charged off the 400-volt propulsion battery bank during times when the solar does not keep up (sort of like an alternator on a traditional boat). Using all the shipâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s amenities, Singawing can sit at anchor without any solar input for ten days before the generator needs to be run for one hour to replenish the big high-voltage bank.

Climate control is now handled by a Cruise Air tempered water system and can be run for 48 hours from the high voltage bank while cooling, and 36 while heating before the generator needs to be started again for one hour.

All and all, we have seen a definite improvement in low-speed maneuverability due to a fourfold increase in torque. Singawing has hit all our pre-project performance targets, consuming approximately 16 kilowatts an hour at 6.5 knots, giving us an all-electric autonomy of 2.5 hours. After 2.5 hours of all-electric powered propulsion, the generator automatically starts, runs underway for an hour

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and 15 minutes, then shuts down for 2.5 more hours of all-electric. We are able to regenerate approximately 6 kilowatts per hour at 8 knots of sailing speed. Upwind motorsailing is now silent and uses very little power, allowing the boat to point about 5 degrees higher. Singawing now has a torque-limited top motoring speed of 9.6 knots (compared to 8.2 before).

Interior sound levels have been measured at 55 decibels under solely electric propulsion and 65 decibels under diesel-electric.

We also decided that endlessly pulling on an outboard start cord, affected by annual doses of ethanol, was not our cup of tea. A 20-horsepower Yamaha 4-stroke was removed from our 10-foot inflatable, Dingaling, and replaced with a Torqeedo Cruise 4.0 (9.9-horsepower equivalent) and a custombuilt, 3000-watt lithium-iron-phosphate battery bank. Performance has been good; we can still plane and run around at a top speed of 15 miles per hour. Range is about 1 hour at full speed or around 12 hours at dinghy-harbor speeds.

Using R&D and components from the automotive world, engineering help from Tim Nolan, the brilliant machining skills of Aaron Day at the Port Townsend Shipwrights Coop, and the software genius of Jean Marc Zanni with AE&M engineering, our dream became a reality last summer as we successfully completed our 11th season of chartering.

For more information on the refit, please visit www.greatbearcharters.com and click on “About us,” “S/V Singawing,” then “3-Year Refit.”

For more information on lithium batteries or electric propulsion, visit www.revisionmarine.com.

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Cruising Outpost 81

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Cruising Outpost 83

By Bob Bitchin, Bora Bora, French Polynesia

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Lifestyle A Look at Why We Do What We Do

Ever wondered why people love the boating lifestyle?

Well, here in the Lifestyle section, folks from all over the world give an insight into what it’s really like out there. If you have a photo you think tells a good tale, why not send it to us? We prefer you send a digital pic, in as high resolution as you can. Tell us who took the pic and where it was taken. We will probaby throw it into our “digital pile” and pull it out someday. We won’t send you any money, but you will be famous worldwide! Email to: Lifestyle@CruisingOutpost.com. www.cruisingoutpost.com

Cruising Outpost 85

By Raymond Muzika, Obertraun Austria on Lake Hallstatt

By Pierre, in Switzerland of his daughter, who wants to sail around the world and help surfers stay in shape!

By Richard Fritz, Phecal Phreak honey dipper boat in Roche Harbor, WA

By Wendy Morrison in Puerto Rico

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By Mike of Connie and Summer in Marathon Key

By Jeff “The Mouth that Roared” of the Winter FPYC Winter Regatta

By Ron & Jackie Skelton aboard Hullabaloo, at Cove Island off the Bruce Penninsula between Lake Huron / Geotgian Bay as they begin their cruise to the Caribbean from Michigan!

By Jimmy Thom, on the San Blass Islands aboard s/v Joan

By Ken Peckham, Hurricane Hermine took a bite out of this poor boat

By John Simpson, Spirit, Scotland www.cruisingoutpost.com

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Why do banks charge a fee on “insufficient funds” when they know there is not enough?

By Peter Isn, Diving Saturday with the Unversity of Miami Rescue-a-Reef program off Key Biscayne. They have a coral nursery to grow coral and replant them on the local reefs

Alan Collins, Pacific Northwest, Mount Baker in the background

By Jamie Alyssa Brown, Vis, Croatia

By Mark Roozendaal, Crew of s/v Adesso and s/v Speakeasy at the summit of Isla Coronados, Coronoda

By Bob Reilly, Nancy aboard Red Sky after battening down in abundance of caution for Hermine Norwalk Islands, CT.

By Debbie Critchley, Lake Ontario

By Scott “Squatty” Nielsen, Cape Charles Cup in Southern Chesapeake Bay

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By Bill Gregan, on Key Largoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bayside

By Capt. Jeff Inshaw, all asleep, no anchor alarm. Sitting on Daytona Beach

By Chris Hunke, a very happy Melissa Smith in Tobago Cays, Grenadines www.cruisingoutpost.com

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Bobbie Vurro aboard the Edna Mae in Key West, FL If the temperature is zero outside today and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold will it be?

By Rob Webb

By Robert, Turn Again Inlet, Anchorage, Alaska

By Dave, Deep Bay, BC

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If the temperature is zero outside today and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold will it be?

Alisha and Remi sailing SF Bay aboard Las Lunas.

By Jessica, crewing in Maine

By Jim Guthormsen of Family Islands Regatta in Georgetown, Exumas in the Bahamas

By Bongo Bob Norway, First pic of s/v Beowulf being chased to the finish line

By Ian Davies, of a boat for sale

By Liz Diaz, Oakland, CA

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Cruising Outpost 91

By Glenn Smedstad in the harbour at Mindelo Cape Verdes, persons are Rita Smedstad, Glenn Smedstad, Troy Walton, Linn and Siri Smedstad.psd

By Heather Shine, s/v Cerridwen and crew

By Joe Fema, s/v Osprey, West Palm Beach

By Cheryl Bular, Mac to Mac race, Jamieson, Jack, and Ben

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By Carol, taken at Pirateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cove in Josephine, AL

By Len DeWitt, taken near Mayne Island, part of the Southern Gulf Islands, in BC Canada

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By Bob Kendel, Sea Quest, Bay City, Michigan

By BVI Yacht Shots, Dec 2016 Merrill and Maryse on board Ambition, a Hylas 46

By Kevin Spellman, Sunset at Cane Garden Bay

By Elden & Susan Leaf, s/v Soleria, Abacos, Bahamas

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By Chris Thoimpson, Ketchikan, Alaska an early morning departure!

Darren, Lisa, and Arrianna Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien anchored in Watmough Bay

By Daniel Bowman of Jake Bowman at anchor in Virgin Gorda

By David Willmington

The Kerry D at Cambridge Beaches, Bermuda

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Captiva Island, Florida Rod Porter and Mary Thole

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By Cindy Holden, of bird guests

By Dan Jefferson, Upper Broad Creek off of the Neuse River, NC

By Jeff Reimer, sunrise over the Manitou passage of Northern Lake Michigan, heading for Leeland

By Chelsie Pen, Hilton Head, NC

By Jeanne Shafer, Bash to the Colonies, Yankton, SD

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Cruising Cape Cod

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d

& The Islands

By Bob Lee

O

n the southwest side of the Cape Cod elbow lays a group of islands that have long been a cruising ground for boaters: Nantucket, Marthaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Vineyard, Cuttyhunk, and a group of islands called the Elizabeth Islands. On our cruise we will visit all these islands.

Our Gulfstar 44 sailboat, First Light, which we have owned for 31 years, is about to depart our home port of Gloucester, Massachusetts to cruise Cape Cod and its islands.

My wife, Nancy (The Admiral), and I have stocked the vessel with food, topped off the fuel and water tanks, and are ready to head to our first port. While cruising the islands, it is important to have a copy of the book Eldridge Tide and Pilot on board, as there are many locations that have strong currents such as the Cape Cod Canal, Woods Hole, Vineyard Sound, and Nantucket Sound.

This is the forty-first time we have sailed to Cape Cod. We cast off and head almost due south to Scituate, which is about 24 miles away. The wind is on the nose at 10 knots, so this leg of the trip requires the motor all the way. We have called ahead to the Satuit Boat Club to reserve a mooring.

The trip across Massachusetts Bay was uneventful. Upon arrival we took the launch ashore to meet an old friend Betty at the Satuit Pub for dinner.

The next day, we departed Scituate and headed for the Cape Cod Canal, a voyage of about 28 miles. The ocean water is relatively shallow on the south side of the Cape resulting in warm water by August, typically 78 to 83 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of the current, was was important to enter the canal in the right direction; in our case, west. We passed through the canal into a turbulentas-usual Buzzards Bay. Our destination was Kingman Yacht Center, four miles from the west end of the canal, where we had a mooring and dinner reservation at the Chart Room restaurant. This restaurant is a major hangout for sailors, so reservations are mandatory. The house drink is a mudslide, which we believe is mandatory for us.

We then headed for the small island of Cuttyhunk, about 22 miles away. The island has a small inner-harbor with about 50 guest moorings that are rented by the town on a first-come, first-served basis. The island town, known as Gosnold, has a year-round population of 52 people served by a small general store and two restaurants. That evening

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Cruising Cape Cod & The Islands

Cape Poge Beach, Martha’s Vineyard Martha’s Vineyard

we walked to the top of the island to watch a beautiful sunset. There was also a spectacular view of the boats moored in the harbor. On the way back to the boat we rewarded ourselves with an ice cream.

We started the day by meeting our friends Phil and Carolyn on shore to go to the Fishing Club for a special breakfast overlooking Martha’s Vineyard Sound. That evening we were treated to a fireworks display put on by the town.

We left about noon and sailed in a southwest breeze to our next port.

Hadley Harbor is located across from Woods Hole on the island of Naushon in the Elizabeth Islands. It is well-protected in all weather and has a beautiful setting. There are about 30

98 Cruising Outpost

free guest moorings on a first-come basis, thanks to the Forbes trust that owns the islands.

Our next destination was Vineyard Haven, a lovely 8-mile crossing. We pass through Woods Hole at slack tide.

When the tide is running full it can run as high as 6 knots, so caution is always advised. We picked up a town mooring after talking with the harbormaster.

Vineyard Haven has a small downtown with shops and several restaurants, including a great Asian restaurant, The Copper Wok. There is also a good-sized supermarket for the things you forgot to buy before departing.

Our next destination was Nantucket. The current at the entrance to Vineyard Haven can run as high as 3 knots past the island, so it is important to exit the harbor with a current going with you. The first leg was 20 miles to Tuckernut Shoals. We started by motoring in light winds. An hour later we were motorsailing. By the time we reached Tuckernut Shoals, the wind was west-southwest at 15 knots. The next leg was a straight 7-miles under full sail to the entrance of Nantucket

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Harbor. We had a great sail making 8 knots under sunny skies. After entering the harbor we contacted Nantucket Moorings, who escorted us to our reserved mooring. We spent the next four days exploring the downtown with its cobblestone streets, restaurants, art galleries, and Whaling Museum. As far as dining out goes, you can find everything from cheeseburgers to gourmet cuisine. At the base of Main Street was the Basin Marina with 240 slips occupied by boats from 25 feet to 250 feet. We enjoyed walking the docks looking at the various yachts.

On Thursday we entertained our old friends Mimi and Richard for dinner on the First Light. Friday, they reciprocated by inviting us to join them for dinner at the Nantucket Yacht Club. The food

Chappaquiddick Ferries Edgartown, Marthaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Vineyard

was great and the view overlooking the harbor spectacular. There was excellent bus service from downtown to beaches and other hamlets such as Madaket and Siasconset, each with a great beach. On Saturday evening the Boston Pops were playing a concert on Jetties Beach. The music was fantastic and the concert was followed up by a fireworks display. It was sad to leave friends, but we had to move on to the next destination.

Cuttyhunk Harbor from the top of the island

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Cruising Cape Cod & The Islands First Light on mooring in Hadley Harbor, Elizabeth Islands

Hadley Harbor Naushon, Elizabeth Islands

We set sail just outside the harbor and had a beautiful sail at 15 knots with the wind heading southwest. It was the perfect weather for the 21-mile sail to Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard. Edgartown is one of the most picturesque towns in New England. We arrived about noon and contacted the harbormaster for assignment to our reserved mooring. After picking up our mooring, we took the dinghy to the public dock. The public dinghy dock is located at the base of Main Street. We were joined by our friends Barry and Sue on their boat, Gabriel.

In town, there are many boutique shops and restaurants.

Our favorite for lunch is a small sidewalk stand on Dock Street. They serve take-out hot dogs, hamburgers, and fried seafood. Nancy and Sue enjoyed exploring the various Shell Hunting at Lighthouse Beach Martha’s Vineyard

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shops in the town. We also spent a few days at the various beaches including Lighthouse Beach and Cape Poge Beach, where there are miles of pristine beach with very few people. In the early evenings we enjoyed walking on streets that led out of town, admiring the beautiful old houses and their gardens. On Thursday we took the dinghy to the end of Katama Bay. After anchoring, we walked the 50 yards across the dunes to beautiful South Beach to meet and spend the afternoon with Nancy’s niece Kimberly and her family. After a great week in Edgartown, it was time to move on to our next destination.

The next leg of our voyage was a short, 8-mile sail back to Vineyard Haven. Upon arriving and picking up a mooring, we headed to town to replenish supplies. Grace Front Dock of the Nantucket Boat Basin Marina

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Nantucket Bus Service

Episcopal Church, a short walk from downtown, had a Friday special, offering enough lobster for two lobster rolls, two rolls, potato chips, and a soft drink for $20.00.

Oviously, we had a great lobster dinner on First Light.

Then, at 7:30 p.m., we headed to the dinghy dock. The bus that would take us to Oak Bluffs conveniently picked us up 50 feet from our dinghy. A fifteen-minute ride took us to a spectacular fireworks display starting at 9:00 p.m. By 10:00 p.m. we were back on the bus and on our way to the dinghy and First Light.

The next destination was back to Cataumet and the Kingman Yacht Center, a distance of 18 miles, with a short lunch stop at Hadley Harbor. The southwest wind at 18 to 24 knots pushed us there quickly. Barry and Sue on Gabriel joined us for this leg. We arrived at Kingman at 2:30 p.m. and contacted the them for a mooring assignment.

Then it was time for a nap. Our dinner reservations at the Chart Room werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t until 7:00 p.m. Another mud slide was in order. The dinner specialty that night was swordfish topped with lobster, and absolutely fantastic!! In order to celebrate a successful Cape Cruise, a dessert had to be ordered. Our tradition is to order the brownie pie Ă la mode.

One must be bad on occasion.

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On Sunday we transited the Cape Cod Canal East and traveled back to Scituate, a 42-mile distance. The weather was lovely and our sail uneventful. We arrived at the Satuite Boat Club, where we had made the necessary mooring reservations.

The final leg returned us to our home port, 24 miles away. We arrived at our dock in Gloucester at 1:00 p.m., grateful for another successful Cape Cod Cruise.

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The

Spaulding Center

A Non-Profit Boat Yard Who in Their Right Mind Would Think of Such a Thing? By Clark Beek When the yacht designer Ron Holland speaks at the all manner of crafts onto the boat deck, and power tools Spaulding Marine Center, he occasionally pauses, gets a from the World War II shipyards are still used daily. tear in his eye, looks up to Myron Spaulding rafters, and asks, “Myron?” designed great boats, built The San Francisco Chronicle great boats, and won great writer Carl Nolte calls races. He won the TransPac the Center “a cathedral of in 1936 as skipper of Dorade wooden boats” and called and cemented his legacy as Myron Spaulding “the dean a great sailor. And, while he of San Francisco yachtsmen was designing and building and designers.” Some call it great boats and winning hallowed ground. great races, he played first Across the floor are still violin for the San Francisco marks where the frames Symphony for nearly thirty Developmentally-delayed adult work group were laid, and a hole drilled years. Don’t you hate people up through the floor for like that? Well, we don’t hate the rudder post of Chrysopyle, Myron’s 1961 masterpiece. people like that; we celebrate them. And, Myron’s legacy is Another of his masterpieces, Suomi, was lost with all five celebrated in just about everything done at the Center. hands in the worst yachting accident on the California coast: In 2000, Myron passed away. A year and a half later In 1955 she was hit by the Myron’s wife, Gladys, Swedish ship Paramatta off passed away. The couple Point Arguello, yet her two didn’t have children (they life rings were recovered met later in life), so Gladys from the wreck and hang left the boatyard in a eerily on the wall at the charitable trust, later formed Spaulding Marine Center. In into a 501(c)(3) corporation, 2012, the Low Speed Chase which is how the Center tragedy on Southeast Farallon became a nonprofit boatyard.

Island equaled her death toll.

All proceeds from boatyard Just across the bay, San operations go to restoration Francisco and Silicon Valley projects, education, outreach, Launch Party at Spaulding and community events. techies create the world’s most advanced technologies The Center owns Freda, and build the greatest fortunes in all of human history. At the “Matriarch of San Francisco Bay” and the oldest sailing the Spaulding Marine Center little has changed since Myron yacht on the West Coast. Originally built in 1885, she built the boatworks in 1951, and production is measured in was the subject of a quarter-million-dollar, decade-long, sawdust rather than dollars. The 90-year-old crane still lifts museum-quality restoration, and relaunched in 2014. She’s

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Spaulding upstairs loft

no wooden-boat-show princess: She’s one place they are shooed away from is the crane while it is in operation, for out for regattas or community sails obvious reasons. all year long, with kids climbing On any given all over her, and her day there may be varnish is always in students from local need of attention. schools (which The Center is have essentially Sausalito’s unofficial outsourced woodshop maritime museum, to the Center); with a huge nautical developmentallylibrary, sailing delayed adults painting magazines dating the boat deck to learn back to the 1920s, job and socialization and all kinds of skills; a boatsailing treasures and building workshop; memorabilia. It’s one or a summer camp; of the few boatyards all while masts are in the world where, pulled, bottoms are rather than being Freda undersail painted, and spars are hidden behind tall fences, the Center’s varnished nearby.

Spaulding’s coolest project of the operations are open to the public, and last year was the SV-14, an affordable, members of the public are free to stick high-performance boat for disabled their noses anywhere they want. The

Interior of Spaulding Marine

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Spaulding 33 being launched by the crane

Alex and Laura Simonis at SV-14 launch party Suomi under sail

sailors. Designer Alexander Simonis of Capetown (also designer of the Leopard catamarans, Pacer yachts, Dehler yachts, and the two Nicorettes, of Sydney to Hobart fame) designed the SV-14 pro-bono, and it quickly became an international collaboration among the builders of the various prototypes and various disabled groups.

Spauldingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s SV-14 was specially-fitted to be sailed by a quadriplegic, and donated to the Bay Area Association of Disabled Sailors. Mr. Simonis and his wife, Laura, flew all the way from Capetown for the occasion.

One Spaulding volunteer is a retired Hollywood guy, who secured the permits to screen a series of classic 1930s sea movies, including the original Mutiny on the Bounty, Captains Courageous, and Captain Blood. On dark winter nights the projector flickers to life, the radiant heaters cast a dim red glow, and Errol Flynn swashbuckles across the screen.

With a staff of seven, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the hardest-working little boatyard on

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Keel plug from Crysopyle

the bay. But, since only six or eight boats can be hauled at a time (sometimes only one if it’s a big multihull), Spaulding lacks the economies of scale found in larger yards. It takes the dedication of volunteers and donors to keep the place alive.

Bill Edinger, founder and CEO of Spectra Watermakers, sold Spectra in 2015 and took the helm of the Spaulding Marine Center soon thereafter as its volunteer president.

He brought along a Spectra dealership, an online Spectra parts store, and several former Spectra employees. “I failed retirement,” he’s fond of saying.

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Life Aboard

Our Bud, the Catfish!

By Clay Watson

in Mobile, Alabama. Here, Dana was continuing her Living aboard a boat gives us the opportunity to education in nursing. While she was busy with that—and experience all kinds of things, and this story is one of she was quite busy—I trained to get my commercial the more unique ones! We heard about a liveaboard, driver’s license and took a job as an over-the-road truck Clay Watson, who has a pet fish. Of course we needed driver to pay some bills and accumulate some more to hear the rest of the story from Clay. revenue to pay for more boat improvements.

I have been a full-time liveaboard since 2012. My While I’ve been driving the current boat is a 1978 Irwin 37 truck this year, Dana has adapted center cockpit named Swedish Dana told me that there was to mostly living alone on the Fish (like the candy). It’s a boat. I’m only there a few days comfortable boat, with two a fish eating food scraps a month. Early in August, during private cabins, each with its from the galley sink drain one of our daily phone calls from own head. the road, Dana told me that there I share the boat with my first thru-hull! was a fish eating food scraps mate, Dana Swann, who is a from the galley sink drain thrunurse. We both have kids, but hull. At first, I was pretty skeptical of this claim. But they are all grown and flew the nest years ago. Dana and I have been living aboard and having adventures together she told me about how the animal would show up at the drain every time she washed dishes, and how it would for two years now. We sailed the boat from New Bern, make slurping, splashing, even thumping noises that North Carolina to Key Largo, and then on to Marathon could be heard clearly through the sink drain. One night Key in late 2016. A year later, soon after Hurricane Irma she was experiencing this while we were talking on the tried to wreck us, we sailed north and settled at a marina

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Editor Robin Stout Aboard Mermaid phone. She didn’t even have to move the phone near the drain for me to hear the noises right over the phone!

The noises were definitely unique, and definitely from something other than the normal functions of the boat. As any liveaboard knows, you gets to know all the routine noises of your boat, and if there is a new noise, you hear it immediately. This was definitely a new noise; it was so pronounced and distinct that I could clearly determine its newness just listening to it over the phone.

I got the idea to purchase a borescope that could be snaked down the drain so that maybe we could get a picture of the noisy critter. I had one shipped to Dana.

She attempted to get it down there, but something (perhaps the seacock valve) prevented the end of it from making it all the way through to the thru-hull fitting. So, unfortunately, we have not been able to get a photo of the hungry fish. However, by patiently baiting the fish from the outside of the boat, Dana was finally able to catch a glimpse of the culprit: a catfish!

A couple weeks later I returned home to the boat to experience the voracious fish’s behavior myself. He was, and is, still very much at it. I’m sure the main reason he remains so persistent is that he has charmed Dana with his antics, and in so doing has trained her to get up and feed him quality morsels (leftovers, bread crumbs, etc.) whenever he “announces” his presence at the drain. Dana has even named the fish “Bud.” Bud

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Life Aboard

the boat. And Dana tosses bread has learned that the sound of the fresh-water pressure pump is to him while she’s using Bud has learned that the sound crumbs his signal to swim up from the the head sink (for whatever it is of the fresh-water pressure women do in there). depths and standby for goodies Bud even does this when I about to rain down. Except that pump is his signal to swim up brush my teeth before bed. I’m he doesn’t just “standby.” Like from the depths and standby sure he gets no satisfaction from Pavlov’s dog at the sound of for goodies about to rain down my toothpaste or mouthwash— the bell, Bud responds to the sound of the water pump in a but being a catfish, he’s willing to give it a go anyhow. He has spectacular manner. He starts slurping, splashing, and thumping against the boat also learned how to quickly identify which of the three immediately whenever he hears that pump running. The sink-drain thru-hull fittings is currently emitting goodies.

I suppose he does this with his sense of smell? I suppose fish even clamors about the sink drains in the heads of

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Our Bud, the Catfish!

when he hears the pump he quickly investigates all three drains to see which one has the action going on.

A few days ago I had returned home again after four weeks on the road, and Bud was right there, still at it. He seems to have become part of our little household in the waters of Mobile. His vigorous chomping and carrying on at the drain makes it so I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t help but laugh, especially when Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m doing the dishes. So I must admit, Bud has transformed that ordinary chore into a comical event, which certainly subtracts a good bit of the drudgery from it.

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What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common? All were invented by women.

Riding Out An Almost Hurricane Our First Night On Our Boat

By Cara Fucci Eddie and I had dreamed of becoming sailors for years. unfurled the top portion. This “tiny sail” was causing the The longing for the sea was strong for both of us—possibly boat to brutally rotate in circles while the 7-foot swells for different reasons—but was still a common bond. So we caused the vessel to heel so far to the sides that the safety rails were almost in the water. decided to buy a sailboat. We had never sailed…ever! But Eddie started the motor and quickly jumped into the lucky for us the boat broker was also a sailing instructor cockpit to try to turn into the wind, but each time he did, (who later on became one of our dearest friends). the forward sail would pick up the wind and twist us So, included in the price of the boat, we gained basic around. This happened over and over. Pitch, spin, heel. sailing knowledge and a friend for life. Sweet deal!

Pitch, spin, heel. Over and over again.

After sailing with our instructor (Side note: as more experienced sailors and other friends who were competent I was down in the sailors, we decided to go out on our cabin that was turning, now, we would definitely have dropped the sails, but back then, on our first day own. It was during our first sail, jibing and heeling, sailing, we just didn’t know). our first night on the hook, our first night of sleeping on the boat that the We realized we were in deep trouble which caused me to following happened. crawl, retch, and hurl! and it was time to call for help. I was down in the cabin that was turning, Going to sleep to the rocking boat jibing, and heeling, which caused me to was heavenly. I loved every minute of crawl, retch, and hurl! My stomach’s evacuation joined it...all 120 of them. By midnight, the rocking intensified as the layers of all of the boat’s contents onto the floor. the storm increased. We were alarmed, but not in any way None of the cabinets’ latches could hold with the brutal concerned about our safety… …until about 2:00 a.m. when the anchor line broke and action of the vessel. Broken coffee pots, canned food, vegetables, clothes, books, and other belongings, were the boat broke completely free from its tether.

That is when the spinning, rolling, and yawing began spilled everywhere.

I, who had never used a radio before was at a with a violent force. Although the forward genoa had been complete loss (remember, this was day one of us sailing wound up tightly, the intense winds, which had escalated up to 68 miles per hour (72 is a Category 1 hurricane), had alone) so I called 911. The dispatcher did not know what

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to do with my call. I mean after all, who calls 911 while on a boat? She told me that I needed to call the Coast Guard and proceeded to tell me to get a pen to write the number down.

Might I remind you of all the contents that were all over the floor? So I began to crawl (standing was not an option) and dug through the incongruous heap of personal belongings for a pen.

Even now, the hilarity of this situation makes me laugh.

Crawl, rummage, hurl.

I just finally gave up and strapped myself down into the navigation seat. I told the operator that was not going to happen. And I think she realized from the noise of the thunder booming, waves crashing, and my retching that this was serious.

She managed to patch me into the United States Coast Guard who instructed me on how to get the radio working.

And that meant turning it on!

In the meantime, my husband was at the helm in the midst of 8,000 lightning strikes (yes, I looked up how many happened that night) while holding a metal steering apparatus. While trying to turn a boat that was not cooperating to an unknown direction, he had no protection from the wind or rain as the bimini top had been blown away. We had no instrumentation to tell us how far we had spun or whether we were going to crash into land. He told me later that even as a firefighter who had 25 years of running into burning buildings, this was the first time he had ever thought he was going to die.

Now, I was still down in the cabin trying to tell the Coast Guard where we were. Of course I had no idea how to get our GPS coordinates. They tried pinging my phone, but the signal kept getting lost and of course was changing by our ridiculous â&#x20AC;&#x153;Boat Ballet.â&#x20AC;?

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The Coast Guard serviceman then began to talk me set out to look for us. It wasn’t until nearly 5:00 a.m. that through sending a signal to try to find us. The questions we were spotted. That is a whole lot of “water foxtrot” for were simple. “Do you have any flares?” our boat and for us.

“Yes,” I excitedly exclaimed! I was so proud that I I think the captain and I both made peace with the fact remembered that we had them and where they were. But that we were going to die that night and do it together. But as luck would have it, they were no longer in the place alas, I am here to tell the story, so you know we didn’t. I where they should be. They had joined all of the other finally got the miraculous call on the radio that they could objects rattling around at the bottom of the cabin. see us. It was the happiest news I had ever received. We In my search for them, I came across some grocery bags were going to be saved. Thank God for the United States which quickly became my “airplane emesis pouches.”

Coast Guard!

Once I got back to the radio, he asked, “What kind are Please do not think for one moment that this was the they?” Then after my answer, he quickly added, end of this story. Oh no indeed.

“Whatever you do, DO NOT strike them together But first, let me fill you in on a few pertinent details: in the cabin!” I am really glad he added that last part.

Our first night on the boat was a very romantic one, and (Remember: baby sailors on day one). therefore, with no one else around us, we went to sleep So I stuck the flares outside the companionway to strike wearing nothing and were awakened in the same state. them together only to have them quickly turn into a wet Once we realized we were in grave danger, we grabbed our roll of uselessness. The torrential rain coupled with no life vests (the traditional orange ones, not the fancy Coastbimini covering made for no flair lighting.

Guard-approved ones like we have now) and put them on.

Back to the radio. “What do I do now?” Vomit. “The Just the life vests. flares got wet” Tie bag shut. (At least I was trying not to Nothing else. leave my entire steak dinner on our You know, when you are fighting beautiful African mahogany flooring). for your life you don’t always think This was the first moment Guardsman: “Do you have a really unimportant things through to the finish. that I think I actually realized high-powered light?”

You are only in the moment of here and what I was wearing.

Goofy “Yes!” I replied, again proud of now, trying to survive. orange life vest and Wet. myself for knowing at least this much.

So as soon as I told the Captain that So I plugged the 12-volt light with the Guard could see us and that rescue White. Shorts... the 5-foot cord into the DC socket was close, he yelled, “Could you find me And that’s all. located next to the navigation station some pants?!” about 3 feet from the opening which Oh my. So then there’s that. was 3 feet up from the bottom of the boat. I’ll let you do So, down to the floor to rummage through our the math. belongings and the bags of regurgitation I went. I I could just barely get the bezel of the 10-millionmanaged to locate some shorts for each of us but there candlepower LED light over the bottom edge of the was NO WAY I was removing my cherished life jacket to companionway to shine upwards. Only, it didn’t quite make put on anything more. With the 7-foot agitated seas and it up. The light only made it to about 45 degrees which just intensely raging storm, I still wasn’t convinced we were happened to be the exact angle of the captain’s face at the going to make it. helm. Poor guy, fighting lightning, 7-foot swells, and an The Coast Guard rescue vessel with its high-powered uncontrollable boat, and now doing it completely blinded. motor and huge red pontoons was a beautiful sight. A Needless to say, that didn’t work so well. serviceman, who to my somewhat antiquated view looked Next, the guardsman on the radio directed me to turn like a teenager, jumped aboard our vessel and told me to the anchor light switch on and off repeatedly. That much stand by the outer taffrail with my hands in the air. He I could do. So until they spotted us, I did a lot of flick on, may have been holding my feet but as I looked at the boats flick off and, of course, hurl. (I think by this point, there passing each other in a 10-foot vertical motion, I thought I was nothing left to bag and it was just dry heaves. Please would be smashed between these two boats if I so much as forgive me if this is too much information here). thought about bending over.

To give you a time reference, we broke free of the Eddie will say that his view was of the two watercrafts anchor about 2:00 a.m. and shortly after the Coast Guard passing each other in an almost opposite up-and-down

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movement and all he saw was my feet fly through the air. In a perfectly timed boat passing, someone on the Coast Guard ship grabbed my arms and pulled me up onto its rising hull in one swift motion. This amazing feat of timing could only be achieved by hours and hours of on-board training. These seemingly young men had some incredible skills.

Once aboard the rescue boat, still nauseated and barely able to hold up my head, Eddie and I looked back at our beautiful Danseur du Vent (French Translation: Dancer of the Wind) being pulled sideways through the violent seas. She couldn’t even manage to point into the wind but instead, was dragged behind sideways with no semblance of grace. We could see her forward sail torn and tattered, the mast looking anything but straight up and down, and her guard rails bent from the impact of the vessels smashing together.

Eddie offered up a bit of glib humor and said, “Well, it was nice sailing her that one time.”

Now the rescue boat began to enter the walls at the Bucktown Harbor. The wind had died down and the rain had stopped. There was a semblance of a rainbow in the sky. It was time to let out a sigh of relief.

Haha. Nope.

That tranquility was not a sign that the storm was over.

It was the eye of the almost-hurricane.

Before we even made it to the dock, the other side of the storm hit us just as fiercely as before. This time, we watched our beautiful wind dancer crash into the military dock bow first. The boards went flying into the air like splinters. CRASH went the bow and then again, SLAM, into the perpendicular dock with the same results. Planks and timbers shattering before our eyes.

Surely that was the end of this sailboat. How much more could she take and still stay afloat?

More pressing at the moment was us trying to run the 75 feet to the safety of the Coast Guard facility without being struck by lighting in the downpour. We made it inside, dripping and exhausted, but finally devoid of the

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Corduroy pillows are making headlines.

anxiety of the last 5 hours. We were on dry land.

This was the first moment that I think I actually realized what I was wearing. Goofy orange life vest and Wet. White. Shorts.

That’s all.

It makes me chuckle to think of how many times I asked a passing Guardsman for an extra t-shirt or jacket but no one seemed to be able to find one.

Again, I’ll let that sink in.

Looking at each other we realized that we had no cell phones and no numbers retained in our memories to call someone. We were located on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain both from where the vessel was moored and where we lived. We had a yacht we were certain was a goner and therefore meant telling our insurance company that she sunk the first day out sailing her. But we were safe and alive and that was enough for me.

This facility was very accommodating considering we are not cleared for military clearance and needed a “guard” on us at all time. They offered us breakfast in their mess hall which itself was flooded with the surge of 2 inches of incoming water. I am sure we were a sight to be had. Drenched and tired but still wearing our life vests while on land. At least, I was wearing mine. Finally a female Guardsman offered us some jump suits which were size XXXXL. Yeah, that was a pretty comical sight as well with our crotches between our knees and an extra 2-feet of pant leg to step on. But hey, beggars can’t be choosers.

Once settled in the Rec hall we watched the TV reports of this same storm passing through Texas earlier that day. We saw 18-wheeler tractor-trailers as they were picked up in the high winds and sent crashing down. As it moved through Louisiana, this storm encompassed the entire circumference of the lake and

Corduroy pillows are making headlines.

then some. There would have been no outrunning it in any shape, form, or fashion.

Now it was calm; the endorphins out of our system and the storm completely passed. The Coast Guard informed us that we were free to go.

Go?!!

Go where exactly? And how?!

It was 10:30 a.m. and it had been 4 hours since our last glimpse of our boat. We walked outside and there she was, looking battered and bruised but still afloat.

That was probably the biggest surprise of this whole event. Her sails looked like a dancer’s fringe from the 1920s. The stanchions looked like wet noodles and the mast had a slight lean from the lack of support. The bimini was gone and the anchor was, of course, history. The safety rails were curled in from the impact with the rescue boat yet the bow was intact without a scratch! Our beautiful Danseur had made it through.

How could that be? We saw her smash bow-first and bust the military dock! But yet, she must have hit directly in the steel-reinforced prow which held strong with no breach.

We couldn’t sail but our motor (as old as it was) seemed to be ready to take us home. As we motored across Lake Pontchartrain, which after a storm is like a big bathtub sloshing around, we didn’t speak a word to each other for the full 4-hour crossing. I spent the time down in the cabin sorting through what might be salvageable, and cleaning and tossing out my little “goody bags.” Eddie spent the time at the uncovered helm in the now-blazing sun as he navigated us back to our marina.

We tied up the boat and went home only to not speak of the event, in any way, for at least the next two weeks.

After this said time, Eddie looked at me and questioned, “So...Do you still want to do this sailing thing?”

I timidly responded, “Yes, do you?”

Of course, he wanted the same thing I did. Otherwise we would not be living on a sailboat right now. We only transitioned from our beloved Danseur after many years of sailing her for a boat more conducive to cruising the islands. It was definitely hard to sell her. I learned after that night how one could truly love an inanimate object as if she were a cherished family member. After all, our graceful wind dancer didn’t upturn even though the seas were certainly rough enough to make that happen.

So we consider this our Trial by Fire. If we could live through this with our enormous lack of knowledge, then we will take what we learned that fateful day and work hard to never, ever, be that unprepared again.

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Sailor Up! Take the Helm! Don’t Let These Three Helm Horrors Stop You

By Annie Dike

“Cowboy up,” they say when it’s your time to ride.

Even when they’ve been bucked off, flailed to the ground, and kicked in the gut, this phrase has brought muddy, beatdown riders back to their feet for years. It means when things get tough, you get back on the horse.

I believe the same applies in sailing. So you hit the dock the last time you were bringing her in? So you turned the wrong way and got the sails all goobered up the last time you tried to tack? So what? You’re likely to bump things or backwind the sails many more times in your sailing career—I’m willing to bet on that. But, when you get beat down and bucked off, the best thing you can do is get back on the horse.

Sailor up! Take the helm. Don’t let these three false fears stop you.

I Can’t Dock Because I Don’t Have Brakes Actually, you do. They’re just not the kind of brakes you’re used to. Trying to dock a boat, particularly if there is any kind of wind or current affecting you, is like trying to drive a bumper car on a slip-and-slide. You’re

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mainly just reacting to what the boat is already doing.

While I can assure you docking—even in slip-and-slide conditions—is possible, the only way to realize that truth is to take the helm and bump a few pilings getting her in.

Let me share my dock box story with you: “Go slow, hit slow,” I was reciting the mantra to myself as I was pulling our 1985 Niagara 35 into our slip for the first time, creeping slow as a slug, at literally 0.7 knots. I was nervous, jittery, sweaty-palmed. All of that.

While I was confident I was going slow enough, I was lined up center in the slip, and I had my aft spring ready to attempt a single-handed stop. What I had not planned were my next steps if, in case, I missed the cleat.

Of course I missed the cleat.

My shaky hands were useless. While Phillip had jumped off with a line in case I had missed the cleat, he hadn’t expected I would keep barreling forward if I did.

Feeling powerless without brakes, I yelled to Phillip from the helm: “Stop me!” He looked baffled but started tugging as hard as he could to stop the boat as my bow

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crunched into the dock box with a metallic groan. “Are you still in forward!?” he shouted.

Forward? I thought, forgetting entirely the boat had gears. Then my stupidity began to burn red hot in my cheeks as it dawned on me. Of course I was in forward!

I scolded myself and shifted down with an embarrassing clunk. Using reverse as a brake had never occurred to me in my panicked state. But, now, that doesn’t have to happen to you!

Now, when I dock, I’m often shifting frequently between forward, neutral, and reverse with short punches of throttle as needed. This way I can, to a fair degree, stop the boat in most situations. You don’t need brakes; you just need to remember you do have some degree of control.

I Can’t Steer Under Sail Because I Don’t Know How to Tack (Or Was it Gibe?)

And what do you pull to make it happen? That halyard thing? Or was it a sheet? All I know is, it’s not a rope.

Nothing on a boat is a rope.

When you first step on a boat and begin sailing, you’ll probably have no clue what it means, exactly, to tack or gibe, but it doesn’t matter. The more you take the helm you’ll find the reaction of the boat to your actions will make it click for you. Instinctively you will just learn: If I turn this way, the sails will go that way.

Trust me. It will feel like a dance, swaying with the wind, or a boxer bobbing and weaving, or—for me—it felt like pole bending.

I’m serious. Having spent my young summers on the rodeo circuit barrel racing and pole bending, it all clicked for me when I finally realized steering under sail felt a lot

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like riding my horse through the poles. The realization that “the poles are the wind!” was my “Aha!” moment.

As you round a pole upwind, the horse’s weight (much like the sails) will shift away from the pole, preparing to head back up. This also taught me not to turn too far when you tack because (much like the horse) if you turn too far away from the pole, it’s harder to round back up.

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Imagining the horse taking the poles in reverse (when the wind is behind you), it then makes sense to steer the horse’s “stern” from one side of the wind (pole) to the other.

Thinking about it this way taught me instinctively which way to turn in order to tack or gibe. It may sound silly, but let me know if my pole bending analogy works for you. No matter how many fancy nautical terms I learn, when I’m steering, I’m still just pole bending in my mind. Whether some analogy or simply holding the helm works for you, feeling the boat react will instinctively teach you how to tack and gibe well before the fancy terminology sinks in.

I Can’t Hold the Helm in Rough Conditions Because I’m Scared If your main fear is holding the helm at night or in rough seas because you’re scared and not confident, I’m going to share a secret. When the boat is bucking and kicking in heavy winds and five-to-seven footers, the absolute best thing you can do is grab the wheel. You will be immediately educated and enlightened as to how the boat is actually handling the conditions—rather than how you think the boat is doing based on your perception of its sound and movement. Not holding the helm is probably precisely what has you feeling scared and out-of-control.

Think about this: riding double on a congested freeway while doing 90 mph on a motorcycle, would you rather be in the front steering or clinging on the back, exposed, powerless, and unaware of the bike’s next move? If you’re out there in rough seas and you’re wondering, “Are we okay? How are we doing?” the helm is the answer. It will surprise you how soothing it can be to learn the boat is doing just fine. Unlike you, this is what she was built for. Take

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the helm and she will whisper to you: Look what I’m capable of.

So, don’t fear the unknowns. The boat is agile. She has a natural ability to steer using the wind and the added ability to maneuver under-motor in tight spaces.

Plus, she is strong enough to handle a bump or two or a backwind if something goes wrong (because it will). But you’re never going to get better or more confident if you don’t buck up and take the helm.

What are you waiting for? Grab the reigns and give her a cluck. Sailor up!

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The Last Keys

By Doug Haddaway

Setting sail from Key West, the Dry Tortugas lay just 70 miles due west (FKO 146–N24–37.95’–W082–53.10’).

Many have heard of these islands, but few have visited them. The seven small islands that make up the Dry Tortugas are a fisherman’s and boater’s paradise. These are the hidden jewels of the Florida Keys.

All of the islands of the Dry Tortugas are a National Park; however there are no facilities on the islands.

Everything you need, you must pack in and pack out. This is one of the few National Parks that can only be reached by boat or seaplane.

The crown jewel of the Dry Tortugas is Garden Key. This is where Fort Jefferson, a small Civil War-era fort, is located. A tiny National Park Service staff and an equally small contingent of Department of Homeland Security and Florida Law Enforcement personnel are the only inhabitants on the island of the Dry Tortugas. This is where you’ll check in at after anchoring.

The rangers have an intimate knowledge of the fort and the wildlife around it. Though the rangers are extremely

helpful, they are not a personal guide service. The fort is easy enough to explore on your own.

Anchors Aweigh The run from Key West to the Dry Tortugas is an allday affair by sail or a few hours by powerboat. Most of the time this is an easy cruise, but the Keys can be deceptive with pop-up thunderstorms which can spawn waterspouts, tricky currents, and shoals. As you approach Fort Jefferson, follow the channel markers to the anchorage near the ferry docks. After anchoring at Garden Key, check-in with the park staff. They will alert you of any off-limit islands (nesting birds, turtles, etc.). Then you can anchor anywhere permitted (I suggest having a Danforth anchor on board).

There is a $10 honor-system box to enter the fort. While anchored, be aware of seaplanes landing and taking-off in the main channel, they beach near the ferry dock.

The day trippers on the ferry and seaplanes are gone by late afternoon. Then you get a sense of isolation of what it must have been like to be sentenced here, either as an inmate or guard. There’s an unofficial sunset

Dijon vu - the same mustard as before.

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party from the ramparts of the fort; this is where all the overnighters, boaters, and staff meet. Since the rangers don’t condone drinking at the fort, it’s common to designate a boat for a party. Soon a half-dozen dinghies and kayaks will be tied up to the party boat. Everybody brings something; sometimes it’s a guitar, sometimes a bottle of rum. Former strangers become friends, telling stories and watching shooting stars. The shared experience of overnighting here is overwhelming; you might as well be the only people on earth.

Fishing Reef fish, sport fish, and good eating fish abound in the Dry Tortugas. This is paradise for fisherman. No place in the U.S. has the fish populations and diversity like the Dry Tortugas has; the fact it’s a National Park helps too. Drop a line from your boat and you never know what’s for dinner.

If you decide to go fishing, make sure you have your fishing license with you as Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Commission has a presence at Fort Jefferson.

Snorkeling Snorkeling around the perimeter of the great fort is one the highlights of a visit to Fort Jefferson. This is fun for novice snorkelers and experienced divers alike. The marine life, just yards from the masonry walls of the fort, is truly amazing. Purple sea fans, elkhorn coral, and a multitude of tropical fish like parrot fish and blue tang reside in the reef. You might even see a sea turtle. The former coaling docks (the pilings just above the water’s surface) are another excellent place to see fish scamper about or have a curious six-foot-long tarpon give you the once-over. The pristine, gin-clear water often has visibility that exceeds 70 feet, and bath-like water temperatures are 85+ degrees Fahrenheit in the summer.

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Just 2 nautical miles west of Garden Key (Fort Jefferson) is Loggerhead Key with its prominent lighthouse. This is also a prime snorkeling spot as there are numerous wrecks that can be snorkeled. Some have anchor buoys and the ribs of a ship that sank over a hundred years ago can clearly be seen. Remember, this is a National Park and nothing can be removed from the wrecks.

Fort Jefferson The Dry Tortugas were discovered by Ponce de León in 1513. He stopped there for fresh water but found only sea turtles, hence the name the Dry Tortugas.

Fort Jefferson was originally built to protect the entrance into the Gulf of Mexico. In 1847, construction for this major fortification was started; 16-million bricks were imported from New England.

During the Civil War, the fort, like Key West, was garrisoned

by Union soldiers. After the war, it became a military prison. The most prominent inmate was Dr. Samuel Mudd, the doctor who set John Wilkes Booth’s leg after Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.

The masonry fort was rendered obsolete by the introduction of rifled naval cannons and never fired a shot in anger.

Fort Jefferson was used as a coaling station by the U.S. Navy. The U.S.S. Maine stopped here before her fateful voyage to Havana, Cuba.

After the Spanish-American War, the fort fell into disrepair and became a National Monument in 1935.

During the Second World War, the fort was used as an observation post and anchorage for anti-submarine ships.

The National Park Service is restoring the fort, but this is an ongoing project.

Essential Info A cruise to Fort Jefferson is a welcome relief from the crowds on Duval Street; this is isolation at its best. The Dry Tortugas are also an excellent jumping-off spot for crossing the Gulf of Mexico or to the Yucatan Channel.

This may sound obvious, but your vessel must be seaworthy, provisioned, and competently crewed. There are no facilities after leaving Key West. This is an easy run for

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most mariners and can be done with trailered boats, though I suggest going with others if possible. An emergency harbor about halfway to the Dry Tortugas is the Marquesas Keys, a group of low-lying, uninhabited, mangrove islands with a very shallow harbor called Mooney Harbor. Near the Marquesas Keys you will see a small flotilla of boats at the excavation site of the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, the Spanish treasure ship that sank in 1622.

Master treasure hunter, Mel Fisher discovered the Atocha and, after an epic legal battle, was awarded salvage rights by the Supreme Court. Though Mel Fisher passed away in 1998, his foundation continues excavation of the site. You may pass through the site and the security personnel will wave, but I don’t recommend scuba diving there.

Don’t have the time to sail to the Dry Tortugas? No problem, you can do a daytrip from Key West with a little pre-planning.

Ferry The Yankee Freedom III leaves the Key West Ferry Dock at 100 Grinnell Street, promptly at 7:00 am every morning (weather permitting) and returns at approximately 5:15 pm. This is the cheapest trip and only way for campers to go to Fort Jefferson. The Yankee Freedom III will take your kayak, coolers, and camping gear for those hardy folks who don’t mind primitive camping at Fort Jefferson. They open up the bar on the return trip. For more information call (305) 985-1597 or www.drytortugas.com/ key-west.com.

Seaplanes Seaplane Adventures, based at Key West International Airport is the only authorized seaplane service and is highly recommended by this writer. I have taken the halfday tour and it’s worth every penny. The fact that you fly on an amphibian plane and land on the water makes the trip worthwhile, not to mention 40 minutes in transit as opposed to 3 hours by ferry. For more information call (305) 293-9300 or info@keywestseaplanecharters.com.

The Dry Tortugas are one of the most pristine places on earth. Few people realize this tropical paradise even exists, much less visit there. If you’re in the Keys, sail to Fort Jefferson. You won’t be disappointed.

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WHITE WINE SKIPPER

By Kevin McQuiston

“How long have you been sailing?”

“How’d you get started doing this?”

“This is your JOB?” White wine skipper. That’s how my friend and boss, Wes Huston of South Bay Sailing describes it. If you’re a group of ladies in the Los Angeles area wanting to day-drink chardonnay for 2 hours while sailing, I’m probably your skipper. Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. ‘til sunset.

Weekends you can find me fronting the “sexy vibey retrorock” bar band, The Wild Kings (we’re local famous) but weekdays, it’s as much sailing as possible at the best day job EVER. My charter guests ask me almost every time. As much as I get questions about sailing movies or having “Sailing” by Christopher Cross sung to me, people want to know how I wound up here, getting paid to take them sailing. The short answer is “started sailing as a kid, got my certification, and recently spent 2 years cruising the East Coast full time.” But really in my heart...I just knew that this is what I desired and focused my thoughts on making it happen.

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Most of my charters are an hour or two, day sailing within sight of the shore. People visiting from out of town, looking for something they can’t do in Omaha. Or Redondo Beach locals who have been sailing a bunch of times and have really developed a taste for it. They usually request me personally.

Sometimes I teach private lessons, but mostly it’s leisure charters.

I had no idea how much of the gig was going to be answering questions.

Questions you never would have thought of, addressing all kinds of concerns.

“I’m really nervous, I can’t swim…is that OK?” Yes, nobody is going in the water today. This is a 26-foot J/80 racing sloop; it can not tip, flip, or capsize.

It has a 6-foot keel and a 2000-pound torpedo-shaped weight to keep it upright.

“Are there sharks in here? Can they bite me if I hang my feet over the side? Are there sharks that can bite the boat? Can sharks eat the boat?”

Yes, there are great white sharks here; but they are juveniles, only 6-7 feet long.

No, they won’t mess with you while you hang your feet in the water. You aren’t a seal or sea lion.

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No, they only eat boats in the movies. We don’t have any movie sharks here; they’re up in Beverly Hills.

“Can we drink booze? Would you like some?

Umm… cannabis?”

Yes, of course, drink away. Bottles are OK, but no glasses please.

No, but thanks for asking. I’m working and have stuff that demands attention. (I’ve had a glass of champagne after a marriage proposal, though).

Cannabis, sorry no. Even though it’s California, and I’m sure your glaucoma is flaring up, cannabis is still illegal under federal law, and sailing falls under federal Coast Guard regulations. Zero tolerance.

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

“Can we sail this to Catalina Island? How about Hawaii?”

Yes, but Catalina is 4-6 hours each way and I have other charters today.

Yes, and my hope is to sail to Hawaii soon, but this isn’t that comfortable a cruising boat and wouldn’t be my first choice for a cruise to the Islands. It takes 3 weeks to get there, 5 weeks to get back. And we don’t have enough cheese, bread, and wine to leave today.

“How’d you manage to get the best job ever…?”

The Jedi Eastern philosopher in me likes to say I manifested it by repeating all the time, “I just want to take people sailing and play music.”

But it really began in Iowa with my cousin Joe. Whenever we’d visit my aunts and uncles in Iowa (we were an Army family on the move), I was always excited to visit “The Cabin.” Located near the Quad Cities, the Cabin sits on a quiet half-mile wide channel of the Mississippi River. The Vance family are water skiers and fishermen, and have a variety of boats. I was too small at age 11 to take out any of the motor boats, but was told I could take out the 8-foot aluminum

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dinghy to row. Or I could sail the Sunfish.

I loved the idea that the wind would make the boat go. I loved the idea of the pretty sail in the air. I loved the idea that it wasn’t the dinghy.

My cousin Joe was tasked with rigging the Sunfish and getting me going. Joe was in his late teens, tanned and fit, the way young men in Iowa get in the summer with chores and cabin projects.

“OK, this is the tiller, it goes the opposite way you push it. Push left to go right, push right to go left. You can’t sail into the wind, you have to go at an angle to it…back and forth…OK…HERE YOU GO!!!” Joe pushed me away from the dock.

By some small chance, I managed to catch the wind on a beam reach and started sailing away from the dock. I was sailing! This was pretty cool…

Ten minutes into my maiden voyage, I realized I was about to run out of river and needed to “go back and forth” (tack). Unfortunately, I didn’t bring the bow through the wind on a tack, I brought the stern through the wind on an accidental jibe and SLAM went the boom!

FLIP!!! SPLASH!!!

Oh crap. I was capsized.

I was now in the water, the Sunfish turned turtle with the hull and daggerboard upside down, pointing towards the clear blue Iowa sky. Clinging to the hull, I saw Joe strip off his shirt, dive off the dock, and start swimming the half-mile to me. I’m pretty sure my mom and aunts saw it all from their card game on the porch and told Joe to make sure I was OK. Joe swims up to me. Smiling.

“Hey. You OK?” I nod vigorously.

“It flipped over. Did I do something wrong?”

“No, you’re good. Bring the FRONT of the boat around in the wind, not the back. Don’t let the boom swing like that. Here’s how to turn this back over.” Joe shows me how to stand on the hull while pulling on the daggerboard. Magically, the mast rises from the depths and rights itself into the air.

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The rest of the voyage is a blur. I don’t remember docking but I must have. What I remember most is the feeling of harnessing the wind and having (very little) control over the sailboat. I was seriously hooked.

From then on, anytime I could, I’d take out a Sunfish.

All through my young adult life in Philly, I’d find some lake that rented boats and sail every chance I’d get. When my daughter, Maddie, was born, I started taking her with me. Her favorite pastime was to hang off the transom in the water holding the rudder, having me tow her around the lake.

Let the adventure begin.

I knew someday I’d get my own boat. I was driving a cab in Philly during the day, playing music at night.

Everyday, I drove a dear little old lady, Helen, who loved the ocean almost as much as I did. Hearing me talk all day about my love of sailing, she gave me a 4-day ASA 101/103 liveaboard lesson for my birthday. Another kind soul moving my sailing career along...

My plan was to someday retire on a sailboat, but when my dad passed suddenly, he left me the means to start my adventure earlier.

I planned on sailing full-time forever, living spartanly on the interest from my inheritance or until the money ran out, whichever came first. Family and friends knew with certainty it would be the later.

I found an Irwin Citation 34, as beautiful a boat as I’d ever seen, and named her The Namaste.

I gave away all my possessions. I invited my friends to come one weekend and take anything they wanted from my apartment. Like locusts descending, they took away all my worldly goods­—1500 books, art off the walls, my beloved Kitchen Aid mixer...Anything that didn’t fit on The Namaste was given away (a very freeing exercise for a Buddhist).

At the time, I had a radio show in suburban Philadelphia and would broadcast weekly that “I’m looking for someone to sail the world with me, all expenses paid. All you have to do is drink, eat, sail and fall in love.”

Out of 50,000 listeners, the only applicants to respond? Two men. Flattered, but not my orientation.

I moved onto The Namaste and spent the summer at the top of the Chesapeake Bay in Chesapeake City, Maryland learning the systems on the boat, living in a slip next to the tiki bar at The Chesapeake Inn. Totally a “good news, bad liver” situation.

“You know you’re taking me with you, right?” asked my best friend, Nessa. Three months earlier the boat had

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been “way too small and smelled funny.” I provisioned up and in September pushed off with Nessa as First Mate for the first 3 months.

I sailed for almost 2 years, playing gigs where I could, traveling nearly the length of the East coast before being waylaid by an inappropriate girl, running out of funds, selling the boat, and driving to California.

Best Dock Party EVER After playing 100+ gigs in Myrtle Beach (the Redneck Riviera) I sold The Namaste. Best home ever. Only home I’ve ever owned.

I bought a car, loaded it down with everything from the boat, and drove west.

Mom had lived in SoCal for decades but I had only visited a handful of times. Arriving in Redondo Beach I was immediately struck by the beauty of the South Bay. Cut deeply into Los Angeles, the Santa Monica Bay is as scenic an urban ocean area as you will ever find.

Wandering around the Redondo Beach Marina in King Harbor led me to a dock with flyers proclaiming “SBS Dock Party / BBQ, All Day Sailing.”

The first Sunday of every month, South Bay Sailing hosts an all-day sailing party. Guests have so much fun that once they attend, they come back month after month. People bring a potluck dish and something to grill for themselves. For less than forty bucks you can sail as often as you want with a skipper on the two 26-foot J/80s and the Farr 40. You can even use their stand-up paddleboards (SUPs) and kayaks.

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I signed up.

I had been in LA for less than a week, enjoying the typical SoCal sunny summer day. Having a blast on the placid Pacific Ocean while sailing with their friendly skippers, I chatted up Captain Mike, inquiring if they ever needed help.

“Heck yeah! You’d be great here! I’ll introduce you to Wes, the owner.”

Wes is exactly who you would cast if you needed a bronzed surfer god. An elite SUP and Hawaiian outrigger canoe paddler, Wes is ripped, tan and perpetually smiling. I joke with our friends that I can’t stand next to him at the bar because he makes me look like a troll. Possessing serious sailing credentials, Wes is one of those guys that gets hired to race other peoples boats for them.

And wins.

“So… I’ve been cruising for almost 2 years full-time.

All I want to do is take people sailing and play live music. Do you ever need help…?”

“Yeah, bro!

You’d be great here, I’ll keep you in mind.”

“Awesome! Thanks! Now I just need to find a place to live…”

“HEY!!! I need a roommate!”

Two months later we were sharing a house, a driver and a 5-iron from the dock. While we roomed together for 3 years, I built a band and every once in a while I’d help out sailing.

I had a corporate job in the cycling industry and while I was well paid for it, I really didn’t want to be in an office all day. Everyday I’d say to my friends,

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family, and coworkers, “I just want to take people sailing and play music.”

I was texting Wes daily, bugging him non-stop, keeping my focus on where I desired to be. This past spring, Wes started getting me ready.

“Getting close…Are you ready? Weekdays full time? We’re getting close…”

Finally, I got the nod. Full-time. Weekday charters and lessons. White wine skipper.

Even after a lifetime of sailing and 2 years fulltime cruising, I’ll confess I was a bit nervous in the beginning. There’s been a couple of scares­—nothing serious, but enough to have a pucker factor. The upside of sailing full-time is it hones your skills. Big time.

There’s no motor on our J/80s, so we launch and dock under sail. Guests have described my docking style as “totally Captain Ron-ing it,” a reference to the classic Kurt Russell film, Captain Ron. I like the description. Hauling ass directly at the dock, I flair at the last possible moment, bring her alongside as gentle as a first kiss. Laughter, cheering, and applause usually follow.

There are racers and there are cruisers. I’m a cruiser. Once, I was being self-deprecating with Wes about my skills after racing Wes’s boat head-to-head for a corporate team building event. He’d held back to keep it exciting for the clients. I would have totally been trounced otherwise.

“Don’t sell yourself short, you can sail,” he laughed. “And don’t worry about perception. They have no idea what you know or don’t know.”

I’m doing more lessons, mostly private, but I really love doing the charters. Our lead instructor Audrey confessed “I like lessons better. I get to control what happens and when. You never know with charters how it will go. Are they nice? Do they want you to be chatty? Should I shut the hell up?”

Instinctively I know what kind of skipper they want that day. Quietly confident captain. Charming comic.

Jedi Buddhist rockstar. Whatever the gig calls for.

Most days, I can’t believe that I’m actually doing it. That I got my dream job, and I’m competent and comfortable with all of it. Professional sailor. Day charter captain. White wine skipper. Living the dream, and incredibly grateful.

There’s a Buddhist saying “What you think upon, grows.” I highly recommend focusing on your dreams.

Think upon that...

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Women W ho Sail 128 Cruising Outpost

Giving Back www.cruisingoutpost.com

t

k

By Julie Thorndy

craft

to the BVIs www.cruisingoutpost.com

The British Virgi n Islands are a special place, bo th for those who live there and for thos e who visit. It is where my husband and I got our first tast e of tropical sailing.

The BVI ultimat ely got us hooked into a sailing lifestyle.

When Category-5 Hurri cane Irma smacke d the islands Septembe r 6, 2017 with w inds exceeding 215 m iles per hour, we worried about the devast ation and its impa ct on the people and th e island. Then H ur ricane Maria trounced the Caribbean tw o weeks later. The two hu rricanes, referred to as Irmageddon, devastated the is la nd s, including their to urism industry.

This natural disa ster was unfoldin g just as the location de cisions were bein g m ade for the fourth-annua l Women Who Sa il (WWS) Rendezvous. Ove r the last couple of years, the group has take n a philanthropic focus by giving back to the areas in which we sail.

After Irmageddo n, the destination choice was simple—we need ed to, had to, retu rn to the British Virgin Isla nds, which had be en the location of the fir st WWS Rendezv ous in 2015.

They needed tour ists (us) to help th eir economy and help their reco very.

Mahalo Sailing, the primary orga nizer of the trip, got a firm commitment from Dream Yacht Charters th at they would ha ve boats back in service by the time the event w as scheduled for May 2018. With boats secured, th e trip was a go.

We sought to expa nd our impact— spending money just as tourists wasn’ t en ou We wanted to he gh. lp where it was ne eded, but everything was ne eded whether it be food, housing, fresh water—liter ally everything!

Through connections on Fa cebook such as B VI AbroadHurricane Irma w e connected with One Love BVI, a charitable nonprofit that was ra ising funds for a wide variety of ne eds. We narrowed our focus to Adopt-A-Roof B VI (AAR) and st ar ted to actively solicit donations from WWS mem bers, friends, and family mem bers. AAR’s prim ary objective is to raise funds to put roofs back on houses where the hurricanes had ei ther ripped them off or damaged them. The need w as great: 80% of the homes had roof damage of so me scale. One hu ndred percent of the funds were ta rgeted for re-build ing projects. The homes selected w ere

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those most in need and inhabited by “belongers”—not some vacation home or vacation rental.

The Rendezvous officially kicked off May 11 with an initial get-together dinner for 40 women at Island Roots Café in Road Town. To accommodate our large group, they closed just for us and prepared a wonderful buffet dinner. Xtian (pronounced “Christian”), the mixologist extraordinaire, served up the most unusual rum punches which, combined with his enthusiastic chatter, got everyone into the party mode.

Opening night would not be complete without a few presentations. Chris Marshall from Adopt-A-Roof joined us for the event and shared information regarding the positive impact that our donations were having in the BVI. Captain Holly Scott of Mahalo Sailing shared the relevant logistical details for the upcoming week, and we ended the night with a few raffles from our sponsors who donate items from magazine subscriptions to plush Turkish towels.

I’d be lying if I said the night ended at that point.

It may have for some, but for a number of us, we stuck around long enough for Xtian to get even crazier with the adult beverage concoctions!

We boarded the boats the next afternoon; three 50+ foot monohulls and two very large catamarans. Captain Sarah Cavanaugh and First Mate Anne Arey were in charge

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of the largest catamaran, a brand new 47-foot Fountain Pajot Saona. Like any new boat, it had a few quirks but it made up for it with a great layout that allowed everyone to comfortably hang out on the upper deck next to the helm.

We set off for Leverick Bay for the first night and then headed to Anegada the next day. We rented a couple of trucks, loaded a dozen sailors onto benches in the back of each truck, and headed off to Loblolly Bay. It was a great treat to spend time snorkeling and exploring. In our exuberance, we managed to leave one person behind and had to send a truck back to rescue our inadvertent castaway.

From Anegada we headed to Marina Cayâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the devastation was most sobering. And yet, the bougainvillea was blooming and sharing its splashy color with everyone.

The bright red British phone booth, so familiar to locals and visitors alike, was missing but had been located in the harbor and was marked with a Clorox bottle to ensure its future rescue from the salty depths.

A trip to the BVI is not complete without a stop at Foxyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on Jost Van Dyke. Our rowdy group of 40+ women invaded the bar and restaurant for some great food and a crazy night of dancing. There were rumors that a bra was stapled to the rafters but we heard later that it disappeared. We suspect that a local needed it far more than the rafters! Win-win!

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The biggest treat on this trip were the winds—we had big winds! Every boat, monohulls and catamarans alike, got plenty of time to put sails up and enjoy some amazing sailing days. I personally manned the helm of a 50-foot monohull from Anegada to the Baths and can say that I washed the boat—and its crew—thoroughly!

After Jost, we headed to Norman Island for some snorkeling at the Caves and the Indians. With the wind and waves, the snorkeling at the Indians was a bit of a challenge, but we still had an amazing time. From there our cat took a side trip into a small bay that was completely protected from the winds. We spent a wonderful afternoon paddling around on the SUP and kayak. A perfect winddown for a fabulous week.

We returned to the marina base the next day and reluctantly turned our boats back in. But we were not done. That night we had a big dinner at The Tamarind Club to celebrate the Royal Wedding occurring across the pond in the original British Isles. The Tamarind created a special menu for us and we had a great final evening at the restaurant that had been a focal point of the very first WWS Rendezvous.

The Tamarind Club had been demolished by Irmageddon and while they were able to re-open the

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restaurant, the hotel side of their business along with their pool had yet to recover. It was nice to be able to give them some business and it was exceptionally nice of them to cater our Royal Wedding Dinner!

In regards to our overall fund-raising efforts, we raised over $7000 for Adopt-A-Roof as well as donated a large number of items to local charities. Fund raising required a bit of creativity. We had a silent auction that included some great items from our sponsors. And in one situation a fork that was left behind from another boat was ransomed and raised $31— for a fork!

As always, the trip was declared a success and the “best ever”! We’re already planning Rendezvous #5, heading back to the Pacific side of Mexico and the Sea of Cortez in April 2019!

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Spending the Night in Strange

Mikado 56 off Alicante, Spain

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P

Places

With daughter Ivy, and husband, Rick, in Girolata, Corsica

By Glenn Patron

I had to pinch myself. It must be “The Dream.” Every sailor’s dream.

It’s my birthday, the sun is shining, 10 knots of wind is pushing my handsome 56-foot Glenn and Gail ketch (bought for a song) east through the in the cockpit famed Straits of Gibraltar with the fast flowing tide at a brisk 12 knots. “The Rock” (I mean the geological formation not the movie star) is off the port bow and the Atlas Mountains of Morocco loom through the haze to starboard. Wow! It had seemed more like “The Impossible Dream” just a month ago when we limped into Lisbon, three weeks out of Newport, Rhode Island, with a patched hull after our near-sinking after being holed by…something in the North Atlantic.

Anchored off Cascais, Portugal watching Portugese Bull Fighting

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Gale, always ready for the next escapade!

Birthday Sailing through the Straits of Gibraltar

Hauling, major repairs, throwing away a thousand dollars of food, and the $600 spent on a dry-cleaning bill caused by bilge water that had sloshed into the drawers and lockers before we found the breach were major setbacks.

But that was all behind us now.

The straits of Gibraltar were to be the start and finish line of a 2,200-mile loop that my wife, Gale, and I planned to make along the coasts of Spain, France, and Italy, then back across the Atlantic for the long trip back home to the Caribbean.

My temporary elation was tempered somewhat by my concern about arriving at our first Mediterranean marina and the challenge of performing a Mediterranean Moor.

I had good reason to be apprehensive because my only previous attempt at this maneuver, in Gustavia, St. Barts, had been, though it didn’t make the local newspaper, an embarrassing disaster. The prospect of backing into a spot

in a strange marina in a 56-foot boat that prop-walked so badly she should have been called Sidewinder instead of Act III, was, to say the least, daunting.

Finding our allocated space, I swung the bow out, pulled the gearshift back, and, fenders out, concentrated on slipping the stern into a space in the huge line of boats that seemed much narrower than our 16-foot beam. I answered Gale’s shout from the bow—“Hey, what about the anchor?”—with a curt “Drop it,” and was greatly relieved when the anchor snagged firmly and our clumsy ketch went, miraculously, straight back towards the space assigned to us.

The seemingly uninhabited craft on either side of us abruptly came alive with people scurrying to place fenders (preferably round so they would act like rollers) against their precious topsides as we snuggled in like a piglet fighting to get a teat.

Captain Glenn and daughter Jill in Sitges

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rough altar

My airs of my success, however, were soon punctured by a red-faced dockmaster in whites huffing and puffing towards us on the quay. His magnificent red mustache curled with his lip as he spit out, “Why in the bloody hell would you drop an anchor in the cable network instead of using the marina’s mooring lines? Get it out of there! Now!” I stood there in the cockpit, totally baffled, until the owner of the German boat to our port was kind enough to explain how the prepared mooring-line system, those stout lines hanging from the concrete quay, worked.

My anchoring triumph was not only unnecessary, but possibly detrimental.

The consensus of the small crowd now gathered on the dock was that my 60-pound plow anchor was probably deeply enmeshed in the network of steel, underwater mooring cables and I would have to dive in

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to get it out. I guess it’s snorkel time for me!

Now, Gibraltar is very San Pedro Bay, a British. No garbage on true hippie haven the streets, no oil on the roads or trash in yards.

Why? I think it’s because they must have dumped it all in the water at the marina. Standing on the bow in snorkel, mask, and fins, I stared long and hard at the disgusting black soup below me and, after a prayer to Roman god Infectious, dove in.

Going hand-over-hand along the anchor line in the dark swill, I quickly located the anchor. Freeing it on the first try, I quickly surfaced and, still holding my breath for fear of getting any of this poisonous liquid into my system, I thrashed my way back to the ladder and climbed out.

Luckily, the anchor came right up and the immediate quaffing of several glasses of rum eliminated any bacteria that I might have ingested. A narrow escape!

We Learn the Ropes

This debacle made us wary of strange marinas. But, because of the almost complete absence of boats anchored out at night, unlike the Caribbean (“When in Rome…”); and because of our lack of confidence and inexperience in the area, we passed many a hot night in expensive marinas when we really wanted to be out at anchor.

Motorsailing east along the Costa del Sol towards Almeria with very little wind (it was summer and we almost never had enough breeze to sail) I searched in vain for something that approximated a safe harbor. Then, as traces of human habitation petered out and the coast became progressively more rocky, steep, and arid, we came upon a perfect bay. The chart called it San Pedro; we called it bliss.

Above a sand beach and seemingly carved into the brown, rocky hillside were the partial remains of what looked like two small castles that disrupted the otherwise totally natural environment. As we moved in to find shallower water, we began noticing small dots of color on the ledges scattered over the rockstrewn hillsides.

Close enough now to anchor, we could make out clusters of campers with their colorful round tents wedged into fissures, caves, and the small habitable parts of the ruined castles. Once moored with the engine still, we could hear the sound of a flute and guitar and the odor of diesel exhaust was replaced by the rich, unique smell of burning cannabis.

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Using the binoculars for a better look, I swung them towards one of the colorful tent clusters and could see, stark naked except for sandals, a group of young people singing, clapping their hands, and having, what looked like a lot of fun. This place was definitely asking for further investigation!

The dinghy crunched into the gravelly beach and we, somewhat over-dressed in just bathing suits, got out and walked along the shoreline to check out the scene.

Because we were 20–to–30 years older than they and had arrived at this hippie rendezvous in an expensive (looking) yacht, we shed our clothes in an attempt to fit in. Gale, who still has a young figure, was not reluctant to be nude in these circumstances. My feelings of shame had more to do with having to exhibit my love handles than my dingdong. You know what they say, “The most effective form of contraception for people over 40 is…NUDITY!” No longer “Ugly Americans” (just flabby Americans), we followed campfire smoke that led us to a small gathering of beach dwellers. I, with Gale for cover, approached the group hoping to find out more about this unusual community.

“Hola. Perdone la molestia,” got their attention. We learned that the ruined castle had a well for water and, since the authorities would not be bothered to come to such an out of the way place, college kids came here during summer vacation for sun and fun with no concern of being hassled.

After a few awkward moments of silence I realized that the generational gulf I wanted to bridge was too wide; feeling a bit self-conscious, we moved on, having enjoyed our little peep into a very different world.

Needless to say, this experience gave us an even stronger inclination to avoid marinas, though the lack of other boats anchored out when we found some protection still made us feel a bit uneasy. The perfect example was our arrival in the town of Sitges, a vacation suburb of Barcelona.

Sometimes There is a Reason

Now joined by our daughter Jill, we had been sailing (motoring really) hard to arrive in Sitges in time to catch their big festival, the Fiesta Major, and weren’t at all disappointed with what we discovered when we rounded a headland and spotted the town.

The modern section of Sitges included a wide, elegant mosaic www.cruisingoutpost.com

promenade bordered by date palms and restaurants that ran parallel to an excellent beach. On the eastern end of the beach was a peninsula upon which nestles a charming medieval castle, walled city and, just beyond, a typical Spanish pleasure-craft marina with its concrete docks, walls, and condos.

While the slight curve in the coast provided only marginal protection, the town looked very inviting. So, when Gale said, “To Hell with them all! This is a great spot. Let’s drop the anchor” we did so in a perfect spot 50 yards from the beach swim buoys.

I must admit, I felt a bit apprehensive; with a sand bottom only 15 feet below us, a pleasant breeze, and delightful view, it seemed strange that at 5:00 p.m. on a summer Friday afternoon there was a total absence of anchored pleasure boats.

A good anchorage is like NPR—interesting, entertaining, and free—so we popped the cork on a bottle of Penedes and, accompanied by a delicious wedge of manchego cheese, sat back and congratulated ourselves on our choice. Ah, this is the life. This is what boating is all about.

So what if we’re the only one anchored here? It’s better this way!

However, around 7:00 p.m. things started getting a bit bizarre when we noticed a flotilla of pleasure craft leaving the marina. Straggling past us, they anchored in a group about 100 yards to the west of our spot. By dark, there was a assemblage of more than a hundred boats moored there, and we, all alone like an Ebola patient, were plenty perplexed.

We were in the midst of a frenzied exchange of theories to explain this mysterious state of affairs when we were startled by a dazzling flash and massive explosion right over us. Three heads popped out from under the bimini and, looking skyward towards the source of the detonation, we discovered a deluge of stars sinking towards us.

No dummy, our advertising executive daughter shouted, “Fireworks! It’s fireworks for the festival!” Now I got it! All those boats had come out to anchor near, but not under the area where they knew that the mortars and rockets would explode. Yeah, right where we were.

I learned, that night, that those beautiful rockets we see, visible from far away, that burst into a cluster of stars lighting up the sky and then disappear don’t actually disappear. These lovely stars become falling, glowing ashes.

The kind of hot ash that, if it lands on your boat, can burn a hefty hole in your canvas. Or worse!

We must have looked like a trio of insane, frantic bongo players scurrying back and forth whacking glowing ashes with our hands to extinguish them before they could do any damage to sails or bimini. Ah, but what a view of the fireworks!

I guess we could have predicted what happened next. After the last flare, the local boats weighed anchor and poked their way back to the marina and into their dreary places amongst the hot, cement piers. As for us? Having paid our dues, even when a real rocking swell came up, we decided that we weren’t moving!

The first reward for our perseverance was spending two cool nights sleeping in the cockpit and two perfect days enjoying the festival and this lively, upscale resort town.

The second was, having found the confidence to base our decisions about how to spend the night on seamanship, not peer pressure, we went on to enjoy many more nights of cool, breezy sleeping on the hook, with a lot of money saved, too!

Learn more about our adventures and “learning to sail by trial and terror” by reading our book, The Accidental Captain. www.cruisingoutpost.com

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Bad Luck Friday

For years my husband has given me a hard time about my superstition, telling me it was a bunch of foolishness— until our “Bad Luck” Friday came. As we were planning our departure from the IGY Marina in Golfito, Costa Rica, I kept telling myself there was no need to worry since we were anchoring at Pavones for the night. This wouldn’t technically be the start of our main voyage, right?

The anchorage was wonderful that evening. As the sun began to set, I began to feel calm and peaceful. The following morning we pulled anchor early and set our course towards the Costa Rica–Panama border. It was sails up, stress down—or so we thought.

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Rain and lightning threatened in the distance. When it finally arrived, we couldn’t see anything through the rain, and the lighting was too close for comfort.

This continued for two hours, until finally the squall dissipated and the sails were no longer full. Time to start “Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang,” our 25–hp Honda outboard. She’s always had her issues, but she’s also managed to get us home from Hawaii. This time, she began to struggle, making loud sounds—then she stopped running. We were dead in the water. After a quick assessment, we noticed water in the fuel line.

Balancing was difficult in the bouncy seas, but we www.cruisingoutpost.com

Being superstitious, I have always discouraged my husband from setting sail or beginning our voyages on a Friday. By Tara Kelly managed to seperate the water from the gas into two-liter jugs, buckets, and anything else we could find. It was then we noticed we were getting dangerously close to land. Finally, thankfully, she started, vroom!

Back on course again! The winds were now reaching close to twenty knots. It was sweet sailing for us and we were making great time. In these conditions, we’d arrive at our anchorage before dark. But, I should have remembered what someone once told me: “Don’t count your luck too soon.” As we were making way, a wave came and broke our starboard rudder cassette/cage. We had broken one before in Monterey, California in 2014. When this happens it makes steering more of a challenge with only one rudder.

Nevertheless, we decided to push on as we had a spare and it would be easier to change once we arrived at our anchorage.

Several hours later we rounded into a roadstead anchorage. As we passed the reef and waves the wind was easing off and conditions turned out to be flat and glassy. We set anchor in three feet of water to begin the rudder cassette/ cage change out. I advised my husband to wear his water shoes as I didn’t want him to step on a stingray. He laughed and said, “I’ll be fine you’ll see.” Once the repair was completed, he headed back towards the ladder and a stingray got him on his right ankle. OMG, could this day get any worse!? After a considerable amount of resistance, I was able to get him to soak his foot in some hot water. “I’ll be fine you’ll see” apparently didn’t work well as stingray deterrent. However, luckily for him, he has a high tolerance for pain.

Feeling better, we moved anchorage into thirty feet of water for the night. Calm, flat, lake-like conditions made this unpleasant day feel more reassuring.

Around 9:45 p.m. we were dragged offshore when southwest winds came from our port side.

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hour. Our big Bruce hasn’t let us down yet. Mike later told me that around 1:45 a.m. that morning the anchor alarm went off. At 2:00 a.m. I was woken up by screaming people and stormy conditions. As I stepped outside into the cockpit I noticed we were on the beach! Mike was on the bow screaming, “We hit the beach! When the water comes in try to start the outboard.” I could see that was not going to work. We were high and dry and now our port rudder cassette/ cage was broken. Were we taking on water? There

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Bad Luck Friday

were people on the beach screaming and trying to push us off, but there was nothing we could do except listen to the slam, slam of the port side as it hit the beach. We didn’t know if we were on rocks, reef, or sand. We were in disarray and wondering, “Is this how it ends?

Our boat on a beach in Panama?”

Watching this and being unable to do anything was the lowest feeling. Then, out of nowhere, a Panamanian panga grabbed our 130 feet of anchor chain and started towing our boat to deeper waters. They dropped our anchor in the exact spot where we were earlier. Once we were anchored we frantically looked around the inside of our boat to see if we were taking on water. Tears flowed down our faces as we wondered what had just happened. To say we were shaken would be quite the understatement.

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The wind continued until early morning. At sunrise it was time to get into the water and inspect the damages. The prop on our outboard was bent, as was the rudder cassette/cage on the port side. Mike told me that, while not ideal, he could bend them back and we could make it home. No water or holes were in the boat. How was that possible?

He then asked me what I wanted to do. We locked eyes and at the same time said, “Let’s get the f— out of here!” And that’s what we did: we licked our beaten and www.cruisingoutpost.com

bruised pride., pulled anchor, and left. Now neither of us will ever leave on a Friday again. Even if our destination is nearby!

We did make it to the marina and are currently working on our repairs! A special shout out to those Panamanians who rescued us. They are forever in our hearts and we hope they are rewarded for their good deed, since we never saw them the following day. Thank you, friends! It’s nice to know all boaters help each other, regardless of where we are in the world.

Muchas gracias.

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Tech Tips

from Capt’n Pauley’s Workshop There are a lot of little things that can make your boat easier to use and more enjoyable. Here are some tips from Paul Esterle, the author of Capt’n Pauley’s Workshop. More can be found at www.captnpauley.com.

Handrail Covers There are a lot of boats out there with teak or mahogany handrails, and keeping them up can be a problem. Capt’n Pauly has an easyto-do fix for this. Once you’ve created these handrail covers you will love them. They keep the varnish protected from UV rays and weather, which can save hours of sanding and varnishing.

The first thing on the menu is to make a paper pattern. Be sure to add 1 1/2” to each side of the pattern to allow for a doubled seam. This will give it more strength.

You’ll also need to add about an inch or two to each end of the cover to allow for easy installation.

Be sure to use a good UV-resistant fabric, like Sunbrella, and a UVresistant thread.

Always cut Sunbrella with a hot knife to avoid the edges unraveling.

This will save you a lot of hassle, as well as add to the life span of the fabric.

Once you are ready, sew your handrail cover using a doubled seam on both edges.

This will also add to the life of the finished product.

Your last step before installing? Sew Velcro strips on the edges so you can fasten covers in place—keeping them on in wind and weather.

That’s it! Easy, wasn’t it?

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Tech Tips from Capt’n Pauley’s Workshop

Making Holes in Your Boat One of the scariest things to do on a boat is to cut a hole in it. It makes no difference if it’s above decks, below decks, or on a tank.

Making an existing hole larger is difficult as there is no way to center a hole saw. To do this you will need a long drill bit the size of the hole saw mandrel.

Try to find a hole saw that fits tightly inside the existing hole with as little slop as possible. This will make the sharpest edge when you cut.

Next, find a hole saw the size of the new hole you are trying to cut. This shouldn’t be too difficult.

Then all you have to do is stack the hole saws on the long drill, small one inside the larger one as you see here.

After that, it’s all over but the shouting! Just drill out the new hole, and voila!

Two hole saws configured to widen an existing hole

A new deck drain hole, drilled off-center by using a guide block

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#6: A close-up of the custom tern graphic

The holding tank showing the added access plate and lower drain fitting

A starboard thru-hull donut

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300th Anniversary of Blackbeard’s Demise

By Dennis Mullen

On the morning Bath, North Carolina, 1718: home of Captain Edward Teach of November 22, The “Tri-Centennial Celebration” of the killing of 1718, Lt. Maynard Blackbeard began on a crisp and clear fall Saturday and 54 hand-picked British morning in the tiny town of Bath with a blast from a sailors sent illegally by Governor 6-pound cannon that was so earsplittingly loud it caused Spotswood of Virginia into North Carolina little boys and girls to scream with fright, cover their on two sloops, “having ears, and run away in tears. no Guns, but only small “Sir, I have cut Blackbeard’s head off, A 10-foot-tall Blackbeard Arms and Pistols,” engaged fell down. Dogs howled. which I have put on my Bowspright, in Wenches shrieked and Captain Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard the Pirate and order to carry it to Virginia.” pirates “AARRGGHH”-ed 21 of his pirates just off the their approval. Not a soul Lt. Robert Maynard, in a letter to Lt. Symond, coast of Ocracoke Island in in Bath was left unshaken.

Ocracoke Island, December 17, 1718 what Naval historians have One of the organizers of described as the bloodiest, the “Tri-Centennial,” Jason most vicious hand-to-hand fighting at sea on two boats Pair, took to the stage to apologize for the cannon’s ever. It lasted less than 10 minutes. Scores died. concussion, but warned everyone there were more to

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300th Anniversary of Blackbeard’s Demise

come. Jason also made it very clear that neither he, the town of Bath, nor anyone else could or would be held responsible for headaches, loss of hearing, eardrum damage, heart attack, or stroke.

Then, just as things were getting back to normal (?) and the freakish 10-foot-tall Blackbeard was being helped to his feet, Captain Horatio Sinbad and his sailors (appropriately dressed in period-correct British Naval uniforms) set off another blast that was louder than the first. Down went Blackbeard again. The kids kept running.

More disclaimers. Finally, Captain Sinbad agreed to cool it and not fire anything bigger than a 3-pounder. The crowd gathered around the stage, and Jason’s daughter, who wasn’t much older than the kids who were still running away, started playing a stunning version of the “Star Spangled Banner” on her violin. Things got real quiet. Hats were removed. Everyone stood. The British sailors stood at attention for the American anthem and covered their hearts with their tricorn hats, kicking off

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a celebration honoring the beheading of a pirate they were sent here to kill 300 years ago. Blackbeard himself (not the cartoon mascot, still struggling to get up after the second blast) was glaring at the crowd from the shadows of the stage, hands on cutlass and pistol, and no one “took a knee.”

(Note: The actual first event of the Tri-Centennial in Bath was held Friday night in Washington, N.C., 15 miles up the Pamlico River from Bath. “A Taste of 1718,” focusing on Blackbeard, was an event obviously not meant for cruisers.

Tickets were $100.00 per person: no dinner, no drinks. “Concessions will be available.” “HOW MUCH?” Blackbeard roared on Friday morning. “I WOULDN’T PAY THAT MUCH TO SEE ME!” Sorry, we passed).

Captain Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard the Pirate, lived in Bath in 1718 with his 14th wife on Plum Point, on the west side of Bath Creek. At the same time, Charles Eden, Governor of North Carolina, lived directly

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across Bath Creek on the east side, on Archbell Point. In 1718, there were less than a dozen buildings and houses in Bath, but after Blackbeard’s death, Governor Eden disavowed any knowledge of, or any acquaintance with the pirate, even though he officiated at Blackbeard’s 14th wedding and issued his pardon.

“Many towns celebrate a fictional, popculture Blackbeard,” or so claimed the town of Bath in flyers and broadsheets and on the internet advertising their Tri-Centennial Celebration, like it was beneath their town to do such a thing. I thought about this throughout the day’s events: the parade, led by the four sky-diving Blackbeards who had just landed in a nearby field; the 10-foottall Blackbeard, finally upright; enough Blackbeard imitators to set a world record; and a Blackbeard in a gorilla suit riding a bicycle. If that’s not a “fictional, pop-culture Blackbeard,” I’ll kiss your cutlass.

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300th Anniversary of Blackbeard’s Demise

But it’s true. From Anchorage to Annapolis, cruisers and land-slugs alike like to dress-up like pirates, braid our beards, drink lots and lots of rum, and ogle pirate wenches who like to do the same.

Blackbeard’s our hero, and the bigger we can make him, the better. But there’s really no need to.

Blackbeard was a monster In 1718, when most men were cleanshaven and short, Captain Edward Teach stood well above six-feet and twisted his black beard (which started growing just below his eyes) into foot-long braids with bits of cork and bark tied to the ends. Before battle, Blackbeard would set fire to the cork and bark, not only giving him the needed coals to light cannon and pistols, but also surrounding his huge head with smoke, giving him a truly demonic appearance.

Most of the ships Blackbeard attacked

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surrendered without a struggle. He purposely scuttled the stolen Queen Anne’s Revenge near the Beaufort Inlet to keep from paying his pirate crew, then promptly stole Adventure, the ship he was on during the Battle of Ocracoke.

With five ships and an army of 450 armed and diseased pirates, Blackbeard blockaded the Port of Charleston for two weeks in the spring of 1718, took prominent citizens hostage, and threatened to cut their heads off if the City of Charleston did not deliver medications and instruments to treat the pirates’ gonorrhea. Charleston delivered.

Blackbeard shot his first mate, Israel Hands, in the knee, firing his pistol under the table in the Captain’s cabin, causing Hands’ leg to be amputated. “If I didn’t shoot one of you once in a while,” he shouted, “you’d forget who I am!”

When he died, Blackbeard had been shot five times and had “20 dismal Cuts,” but Lt. Maynard still had to cut his

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head off to kill him. Now there’s a cruiser’s role model; that’s why we party.

The mock battle between Capt. Sinbad on Meka II and Capt. Teach on Adventure in Bath Creek was the highlight of the afternoon, as there was no beer.

Ocracoke, North Carolina Though it was 300 years in the making, Ocracoke’s “Blackbeard Pirate Jamboree” was a bust. Winds were gale-force and constant from the north, rain came down in buckets, and it was cold. But, pirates being pirates, Sinbad’s cannon still roared, we drank to Mother Nature, and when winds cancelled the Battle re-enactment, we gathered in Different Drummer’s saloon and hoisted cups of liquor and talked of Jamboree’s past. Pirates decked-out in their finest pirate raiment walked in the rain Thursday night to the beautiful new Berkley Barn (with roaring fireplaces on each end) for an evening of “Meet

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300th Anniversary of Blackbeard’s Demise the Pirates”…wine, beer, delicious shrimp and meatballs on platters that were carried to the pirates by lovely wenches in dresses with plunging necklines. The Motley Tones performed sea shanties that made some of the wenches (and a few of the pirates) blush, and a good time was had by all until it was time to return to the boats in the pouring rain, cold wind, and flooded streets. The “Pyrates” partied on.

So it wasn’t Mother Nature that made the Jamboree a bust, it was the North Carolina Department of Transportation and the Ocracoke Express. The Ocracoke Express is a high-speed, jet-powered, passenger-only 9.1-milliondollar (so far) ferry; a NCDOT boondoggle.

Scheduled to begin roundtrip service between Hatteras and Ocracoke Village last May (2018), it is now “hoped for next May” (2019), and has wiped-out the entire main docking basin at the National Parks Service docks on Ocracoke Island forever.

Everybody, and I mean everybody, is pissed.

Since the end of World War II, the Ocracoke docks have been available to sailors, barges, cruisers and fishermen alike on a first-come, first-served basis. Built to service Navy PT boats that were sent to Ocracoke to stop German submarines from sinking British and American merchant ships just off-shore, these docks have now been a safehaven for boaters for over seventy years. The main basin, a horseshoe-shaped 150 x 120 x 150 feet of fixed docks with 30/50 amp power and reverse-osmosis water, could accommodate 6–8 boats, depending on length, and, with the NPS Golden Age pass, it was the best deal on the East Coast.

Generations of people have walked to the Ocracoke docks to see the boats, sit on the benches, and enjoy the view

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across Silver Lake of the 1823 Ocracoke Lighthouse. The main basin was a social gathering spot for sailors and cruisers and was Blackbeard’s Jamboree Central for the pirates and the pirate ships. Never again.

Last summer, the NCDOT said Pirate Jamboree be damned and rammed a 100 x 20 x 8 foot, ugly-beyondbelief rust-colored barge right up the middle of the main basin for the Ocracoke Express’s passengers to unload on, and, after waiting for four days for an engineer to tell them where to put it, they put it in the wrong place. Twice.

And it’s still not where it’s supposed to be. The barge has two-foot-tall, glaringwhite letters spelling-out “poseidonposeidon” down each side, and the only hope is a midnight graffiti street artist. You can’t look over it, you can’t look around it, and you sure as hell can’t pretend it’s not there.

But the real kicker is the ramp The ramp going from the barge to the dock cost $40,000 (plus installation), cuts the sidewalk in two (pedestrians are now required to walk through the parking lot; wheelchairs, too), and it doesn’t line-up with the dock because the barge is in the wrong place. It’s going to stay that way, too.

All of this for an unneeded, unwanted ferry conceived to solve a problem that did not exist, paid for with tax-payer money that went unused when a Blue Ridge Parkway project near Asheville fell through and the money had to be given back if it was not used. An honest-to-goodness boondoggle has effectively ruined an Ocracoke landmark forever. There’s only one hope.

If, after a few years, some sharp-minded beancounter points out just how much money the Ocracoke Express is losing, and, if the cruisers and people who

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live on and visit the beautiful island of Ocracoke keep bitching to the town elders about the ugly wart sitting in their basin, maybe, just maybe, NCDOT will pull up the pilings, donate the $40,000 ramp to the ADA, and tow the barge to the middle of Silver Lake. There, where it doesn’t matter if it’s straight or not, they can re-sink the pilings and use the barge for transient dockage, and reclaim the main basin for cruisers like you and me.

Until then, the future of Ocracoke’s Blackbeard’s Pirate Jamboree, for cruisers anyway, could be in jeopardy.

The Sunday morning march to Springer’s Point for the Memorial to the fallen sailors was a solemn affair; bagpipes, a drummer, The Motley Tones sang a tearful dirge, a wreath was laid on the Sound, and there was a reading of the names of those known who were killed that day. Captains Sinbad and Teach fired cannon salutes from the actual spot of the Battle of Ocracoke, less than a half-mile offshore.

Marlene and I left Silver Lake and Ocracoke Island on Different Drummer on Tuesday morning, the last boat to leave. As we reached the halfway point crossing Pamlico Sound, we could see three pirate ships ahead of us, all on a heading for Bath, the same way Lt. Maynard would have sailed with Blackbeard’s head on his bowsprit 300 years ago. It was Capt. Teach on Adventure, Capt. Sinbad on Meka ll, and a mysterious, unidentified square-rigged ship they had rendezvoused with on the Sound. There were no other boats on the perfectly calm water; no land in sight. For a little while, but not long enough, it was 300 years ago, and I was really a pirate, too.

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To See or Not to See Is That Even a Question?

Articles that are uplifting, exciting, or provide information for which you have been wanting but could find nowhere else can be worth their weight in gold.

Sometimes, however, the mundane can have value as well, and while working on my last book on optics, I came across what I consider an important bit of consumer informationâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;at least if you like saving money.

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By Bill Cook

Popular lens cleaners used on binoculars, sextant mirrors, telescopes, and eyeglasses cost an average of 511.6 times as much as a cleaner used by industry professionalsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;including universities and national labs. Thus, I thought I would share that humble and inexpensive formula as well as a couple of other solutions I have used throughout 45 years in the industry.

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Having spent a couple of decades working with tanker crews and commercial fishermen, I would first like to address the lens cleaning process in general.

Some people think anti-reflective coatings are to protect lenses from being scratched. Well, those coatings are harder than the glass beneath. In the case of binoculars and sextant telescopes, much harder. But with a thickness measured in microns, they provide little of the protection often touted in urban legend.

Before the Solutions:

1. Blow off loose particulates with a rubber-based, manually-operated, spheroidal, atmospheric pressurizer…a new ear syringe, or…

2. Use a camel hair brush to gently wipe away dust.

By the way, “camel hair” brushes may consist of squirrel, horse, ox, goat, hog, pony, mongoose, sable (any member of the weasel—not sable—family), or even bear hair. However, these days virtually none are made of camel hair. Or …

3. Use a shot or two of canned air. I know the thought of that will make some Type-A personalities squirm, but that’s okay, as it’s more entertaining than television. Hold the can upright, 8 inches or so from the workpiece, and gently move it over the surface.

If you shake it, move it too quickly, or don’t hold the can erect, you run the risk of spraying propellant on the element.

That isn’t the kiss of death as some believe.

Still, unless you are confident, you might want to leave canned air out of the equation. The main thing to remember is that you never clean a lens without a light touch and some sort of liquid solvent.

The Solutions

Optical cleaning solutions and techniques come with all sorts of formulae and recommendations.

You’ve seen them: Mix 1% this with 3.72683% that, swing a dead cat (preferably black) over your head three times at the stroke of midnight at the end of any day ending in “Q,” and then add …. These can take 300 words to describe and can be unduly confusing.

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Although such formulae may be useful for certain medical applications or aerospace environments, they are incredible wastes of time for even the most critical observer. I found a team of three common cleaning solutions to be among the most practical.

Solution # 1

The first is a light mixture of ammonium hydroxide known to the more scientific among us as NH4OH. To make this miracle chemical at home—saving yourself lots of money in the process—start with: — 4 ounces of household ammonia, — add 16 ounces of rubbing alcohol, — add 1 teaspoon of dish washing liquid, — add enough water to finish filling a 1-gallon container.

There are those who will point out the need to use distilled water. Sadly, even pure water will etch glass. And those with an electron microscope and a few thousand years to spare might be able to quantify just how much; I’ll wait.

Note: If you have a little more than 4 ounces of ammonia, a little less than 16 ounces of alcohol, don’t know your teaspoons from your tablespoons, or take a drink of the water before mixing, it’s not the end of the world; your formula will still work quite well.

Those lacking in spare time or not caring to best their neighbor’s timehonored secret cleaning fluid, might try buying it off the shelf. It’s called Windex®. Windex, formulated by Harry R. Drackett, has been around since 1933 and has been part of the S.C. Johnson family of products since 1993. Over the years the formula has been modified, has grown to entail more than twice the original ingredients, and is now advertised for many household cleaning jobs. Thus, the Windex sold as the “original formula” today is NOT the formula created by Drackett in 1933 and, for optical applications, the simple formula cited above is preferable since a number of optical technicians have reported the all-purpose cleaner sold in grocery stores may not be as effective for cleaning optics as originally conceived.

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To See or Not to See Before

Having a high alcohol content, the original formula is flammable and should be used with caution. Other things around the house are more dangerous, but the litigious times in which we live dictate I make this known.

Solution #2

For cleaning glass optics, acetone is a godsend. It’s not a carcinogen as some claim; it’s even produced in our bodies. Also, it doesn’t remove AR coatings.

That is done by heavyhanded cleaning or poorly adhering coatings. It will, however, dissolve plastic, polycarbonates, and certain paints on contact. For those reasons, it should be used with caution. Earlier today, I spoke with David Nagler, also of Tele Vue Optics, who said that although he uses “reagent grade” acetone, he has recommended the consumer grade product to his customers for two decades without a single complaint.

Have the Blues?

The chemical giving Windex its blue color is called “Aqua Tint.”

It’s unnecessary, but once filled an important marketing role; it showed

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After

homemakers they were buying something more than water. If you must have a blue liquid, and Aqua Tint isn’t available— and it won’t be—you may use a few drops of blue… food coloring. A few drops in the gallon of cleaner you just created won’t hurt anything.

Upon sending out advanced copies of my last book, I started getting feedback concerning how using ammonia to clean optics could lead to uneven tire wear, ring around the collar, male pattern baldness, and premature death in Russianspeaking kangaroos. So, for those souls who like to quote big names in the industry— without understanding why—or who find solace in conjuring up things to worry about, I’d like to offer my rationale. It may not scientific, but it’s good enough for me.

1. I didn’t suggest cleaning your optics with ammonia. One gallon equals 128 ounces. Thus, 4 ounces of ammonia constitutes only 1/32nd of the proposed mixture, which could hardly be called “ammonia.” I didn’t take into consideration the alcohol, the dishwashing liquid, or the huge amount of water because all those things are routinely blessed for cleaning optics. www.cruisingoutpost.com

Is That Even a Question?

2. The original formula has been used successfully by professional optical technicians for 85 years, including noted optical engineer for NASA and telescope designer, Al Nagler of Tele Vue Optics who has been using Windex and unoiled tissue to clean optics since the 1960s.

3. Finally, I’ve cleaned thousands of elements with the formula without damaging one single piece or causing a customer—military or civilian—any consternation. The laws of physics never take a backseat to opinion. However, it’s been my experience that sometimes those laws are misunderstood or extrapolated well beyond the practical. Or, as Winston Churchill put it (attributed):

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”

I support the notion of staying away from cleaning your optics with a solution containing even the fragrance of ammonia...if the idea makes you go into atrial fibrillation. But I “occasionally look at the results,” and, for me and many other professional opticians, those results have been exceptionally good for a very long time. I’m not being flippant; just practical.

Remember, for years there were “scientific” reasons why the bumblebee couldn’t fly. The only problem was that no one bothered to tell the bee.

Solution #3

The final product I found indispensable was De-Solv-It® by Orange-Sol. This product is sold in about 60 retail chains in the U.S., including leading grocery stores. But why, if you’re already using Windex and acetone, do you need anything else?

Because different stains require different cleaners.

De-Solv-It is an organic and biodegradable product that’s also been around since the 1930s—although originally sold under a different name. It removes sap-, gum-, and tar-based stains that would resist acetone. Conversely, acetone will remove things DeSolv-It can’t handle. Sometimes you need a 3-iron; sometimes a pitching wedge.

I have given lens cleaning instructions as simple as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 only to have them repeated back to me as 1, 3, 5, 4, 2. I can’t speak to that “thinkology,” but I will verify that there was rarely a stain that wouldn’t succumb when using the three products mentioned above. I understand Zeiss-this, Kodak-that, or Vivitarsomething-else feature enough ingredients and cost enough money to give bragging rights to those who need them. But me? I just like to keep things simple, effective, and inexpensive. www.cruisingoutpost.com

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I Found It At The Boat Show Since we get to (have to??) spend a lot of time at boat shows, we figured we probably should do some actual work. Strangely enough, drinking Painkillers and eating show-dogs doesn’t quite measure up to what the IRS people think is work. So, in order to be able to write off all the boat show expenses, we actually have to walk around and find new stuff to feature in the magazine. It’s not an easy job, but someone’s gotta do it!

Paper Charts and/or Digital Charts

If there is one thing you will hear at every “Howto-Cruise” seminar, or read in every book on cruising, it’s that you should always have paper charts aboard.

The logic is simple...what if you lose electricity? Having experienced just that a number of times while cruising, we can attest that this is not an ideal situation when trying to navigate.

Now, it’s true that digital charts and imaging have made the cruising lifestyle so much easier—but we always need to keep in mind, safety first! If, when, your electricity goes out, you will want to have paper charts handy!

That’s where NV Charts comes in. They have developed practical-to-use nautical charts for use on both leisure crafts and commercial vessels. Their nautical charts are also the choice of professionals like the U.S. Coast Guard as they offer greater accuracy, detail, updates, and reliability than any other cartography covering the Bahamas, Virgin Islands, Leeward Islands, Windward Islands, and Puerto Rico.

These charts are available in both paper and digital formats. The digital format can be used with PCs and mobile devices, including tablets, Android and Apple iOS systems, and digital plotters via SD or micro-SD

cards. And, when you buy paper charts, the digital versions can be included!

The new NV Atlas chart format has been nominated for the DAME Design Award, the most prestigious international design competition for new marine equipment and accessories at the METSTRADE show this year in Amsterdam. They received the Design Award for their new NV Atlas chart format, a revolutionary new design that’s handy and easy to use.

Many NV Charts are available as a set, covering many cruising areas, and can be combined with digital and paper charts for the knowledgable seaman. For more info go to: us.nvcharts.com.

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Why do Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?

NV Charts

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I Found It At The Boat Show

Harken SnubbAir It began as a response to a layout challenge. Where it goes from here is anyone’s guess.

Harken’s new SnubbAir

Adapter plate

“That’s not a winch, it’s my wife!” You laugh now, but these words may soon come out of your mouth once you use the SnubbAir. The low-profile SnubbAir was first designed to solve a deck layout challenge unique to the winch it replaces. But the product has so many potential applications it defies classification as a winch.

The SnubbAir can replace winches. But in other applications it could act more like a really large ratcheting foot or cheek block or even a ratcheting line diverter in the pit.

The SnubbAir provides lots of line-holding power even without a winch handle. You can just flip the sheet off the drum and jibe. If you need even more holding power, wrap the sheet around the SnubbAir twice or use a winch handle with the optional adapter.

Once again, Harken has accidentally solved a problem for sailors on all sizes of boats!

With adapter plate in use

In use with winch handle

Comparison with standard winch

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I Found It At The Boat Show

The Mack Pack Semi-automatic mainsail cover and lazy jack combination

One of the worst jobs on a sailboat can be hauling in the main. When the winds are high and the weather blustery, it’s even worse. That was until the boys at Mack Sails simplified it Mack Sails started back in 1967 and its reputation has done nothing but grow over the years. Now the second generation has taken over. Travis is at the helm and Mack Sails is innovating.

Meet the Mack Pack—the semi-automatic mainsail cover and lazy jack that has revolutionized short-handed sailing. It consists of a zippered closure running along the top length that connects to a continuous line running to the mast.

It’s pretty easy to use. To set the sail, just pull on the line to open the cover, then attach the halyard to the headboard. Once you’ve done that, raise the sail right out of the Mack Pack. See, it’s very simple.

There are many advantages to using a Mack Pack. One, there

is no need for a mainsail retrofit. Simply install the Mack Pack on your mast and boom; it doesn’t matter if your boat has full-batten, conventional, or no-batten mains. Two, you get your choice of Sunbrella fabric to match your boat. Three, there is no need to tie down your sail. You simply drop the main into the Mack Pack and zip it up.

These lazy jacks are made with Harken blocks, Ronstan cleats, stainless steel eyes and fasteners, and New England Sta-Set Dacron rope. Every material used in the Mack Pack is the best.

So, if you have been battling your main, take a tip from the boys at Mack: Get a Mack Pack and make your life a whole lot easier.

Each unit is custom-made, and you can even find a video on how to measure to order yours on their site, and on YouTube.

For more information, go to www.macksails.com.

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I Found It At The Boat Show

Packlite from Celestaire Packlite Nova & Max - Solar Light and/or Cell Phone Charger

We call it the “love” light. It’s adjustable soft glow is perfect for the cockpit, an evening around a shore fire, watching TV, an intimate dinner, or anywhere else you would use candles. It’s 5 adjustable light levels fit any occasion.

Born in Shark Tank under Mark Cuban, LuminAid produced Packlite Nova and Packlite Max to provide a simple, solar, rechargeable light to help people affected by disasters and campers living off-the-grid alike. Already, the lights have been used in over 100 countries around the world!

Packlite Nova is rated at 75 lumens, sufficient for a 125-square-foot area. It recharges in only 10 hours of direct sun. The dimensions are 4.75” x 4.75” x 4.75”.

Packlite Max is rated at 150 lumens, so is sufficient for 200-square-foot area. It also

recharges phones and other devices with its 2000mAh battery.

Both inflatable Packlites are waterproof and float. Each deflated unit compresses to a square less than an inch thick for storage, carriage, or placing in the sun to recharge. Both may be alternately recharged by USB.

On a sidenote, these lights are being used for humanitarian efforts all over the world

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I Found It At The Boat Show

Solar Flexx The Bimini-Mounted Solar Solution from Hamilton Ferris

This easy-to-use solar system from Hamilton Ferris is just what the doctor ordered for easy solar power. These flexible units come complete with SolarSnaps, attachments that make them simple to attach and remove for end-of-season storage.

SolarFlexx Packages are available from 50 to 440 watts and come complete with the SolarSnap Canvas Mounts.

The system, available in both 12-volt and 24-volt packages, includes their PowerBoost Smart MPPT Controller, which has been engineered to put the most power into your battery banks. It also comes with a 1-Year SolarFlexx / 2-Year Controller Warranty for peace of mind.

This system is great if you move your boat to a mooring or store it. The 220-watt kit includes Solar Flexx panels which produce up to 98 Amp/hours per day—usually enough power to keep your marine refrigerator running 24/7, eliminating the need to off-load your groceries every weekend!

Each 110-watt SolarFlexx panel is only 21” by 42” and is made for do-it-yourself installation. The 1/8” low-profile clears tight boom sweeps since there is no bulky, stainless steel framework! In fact, they are virtually invisible when installed.

This system is perfect for the cruising boater who wants renewable energy! For more information on these easy-to-mount panels, go to www.hamiltonferris.com.

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Cruising Outpost’s Book Reviews

by Capt. Jim Cash

No Return Ticket A True Yarn of 20th Century Adventure At Sea

By Captain Skip Rowland Deciding to “chuck it all” and sail over the horizon has probably been a dream, at one time or another, of anyone who has ever thumbed the pages of a sailing magazine. These two volumes written by Captain Skip Rowland are the unashamed and autobiographical account of him doing just that. Volume (“Leg”) One takes us from the concept, through the purchase and launch of his “dream boat” and passage from California to Australia. Volume (“Leg”) Two, is a continued adventure to the “Other Side of the World.”

For Capt. Skip, the dream of sailing the oceans took seed as a teenager. The seed eventually grew and blossomed after many smaller boats, with the building of Love Story, a 48-foot ketch. Before the adventure could start however, his dream was stolen and burned to the waterline. Not to be deterred, he got serious, sold his business, and commissioned the French builder Henri Wauquiez to build him a 43’ ketch, which he christened Endymion (from poet John Keats’ “a thing of beauty is a joy forever”). Endymion was named after his grandfather’s 130’ schooner that placed 4th in the 1905 Kaiser Cup Challenge from Sandy Hook, New Jersey to Germany. (Read all about that race in the book Atlantic,

by Scott Cookman).

After christening Endymion in Newport Beach, California in January 1987, Skip sailed south with his son Tony. The reader is treated to all the (near) sea disasters including the “Yukon Express” storm system and close encounters with whales, ocean tankers, big seas, and screaming winds as they make their way down the Mexican coast. After making a crew change, they are off the continent into the Pacific with the Marquesas Islands as their first planned landfall.

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Leg One follows Endymion, Capt. Skip, and the crew through the South Pacific with his varied and remarkable recounts of boat dilemmas, storm conditions, crew issues, and exotic landfall on one beautiful historic island after another, including Tuamotus, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Tonga, Fiji, and Vanuatu, to name a few. We share their experiences involving thievery, conflicts with Customs, and “blending” with natives.

He meets many other cruisers and describes them as “self-sufficient, rugged, and compassionate people who didn’t take well to being controlled.”

Capt. Skip places himself into this category. He concludes this fascinating volume with landfall at Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, Australia in November of 1987.

Leg Two starts with their many adventures in Australia, the first of which is preparing for the Bi-Centennial Tall Ship Race for which they are one of the USA entrees. The story reads like a current adventure, but their meeting with Prince Charles and Princess Diana at the Race ceremonies make you realize this story happened four decades ago. They take on Aussie youths as crew and race from Sydney to Hobart. Though they finished out of the money (no trophy), they had a great time.

They then harbor-hop up the Australian coast, taking the better part of a year and continuing their “drifting and blending.” After leaving Australia, participating in the Darwin to Ambon Regatta, they sail up the coast of Indonesia, experiencing the Komodo Dragon (giant lizard) firsthand, cock fights in Bali, the graveyard of the “bad,” and the Anak Krakatoa volcano before arriving to Singapore Island.

Another year has gone by, as this absorbing book draws to a close with a roller coaster of events, both scary and joyful as they hop up the Malacca Strait, finally dropping the hook in Phuket. Like Leg One, Capt. Skip’s epilogue brings us to real time, post-adventures. What I may have missed but could not find definitively, is what has happened to Endymion. Whether you are an armchair adventurer or have sailing tales of your own, these true narrations will certainly enthrall.

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Bubba Whartz

Bubba Looks at Sailboat Handicap Rating Systems

By Morgan Stinemetz It was just last week that I stopped by Bubba Whartz’s ferro-cement sloop, Right Guard, to have a cup of coffee. Whartz was sitting at an unusual angle in the cockpit because Right Guard was sitting at an unusual angle. The boat was high and dry, heeled over at about 30 degrees.

I hailed Whartz from the beach and he waved me out, expelling a bit of Red Man over the side as he signaled.

“What happened?” I asked as I climbed aboard from the low side.

“Tide went out,” said Whartz, reaching up under his red baseball cap, the one with the Peterbilt emblem on it, scratching his head. Then he went down below and came up with a cup of coffee for me.

As we sat on the high side of the boat, our feet on the opposite side of the cockpit so we would not slip off, we talked about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness before getting around to discussion of the upcoming sailboat racing season.

Whartz said that he wouldn’t be participating in any racing on Right Guard this year for a couple of reasons.

One reason, I concluded, was that the bottom of his boat had so much growth on it—Whartz hadn’t had a bottom job in a decade—that it could well be designated a marine sanctuary. Whartz provided the other reason.

“The ratings systems aren’t fair,” he declared. “So, I’ve come up with my own rating formula. I’m calling it PHRF.” “Bubba, that handicapping strategy is already in place. Has been for years.”

“No, not that one. My system stands for Personal High Resolution Finance,” said Whartz.

“Can you explain it?”

“Of course I can,” said Whartz, casting a look at me that seemed to indicate he thought I was a tad on the slow side when it came to putting two and two together.

“The trouble with existing handicapping systems is that they are all predicated on past performance. My PHRF rating system is predicated on how much money an owner puts into his boat for all the go-fast extras to make it more competitive.

“It’s a bit like handicapping in horse racing. In horse racing you have what are called claiming races. Anyone can buy a horse in a claiming race for the amount of

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money that the owner says the horse is worth. That way, owners are discouraged from running fast horses against slower competition to build up a record, because the way the system is set up anyone can claim (buy) the sandbag winner at a bargain price.

“In yacht racing, under my system, all boats would have an original rating based on what the boat cost in dollars. Then for every performance extra which an owner put on the boat, the rating would be more severe. The owner would be required to report extra dollars that he put into the boat. If he put lots of extra money into his boat and didn’t report it, then under my system someone could claim the boat—with all the new extras—for the amount that it would normally sell for without them. It would keep folks honest. I mean no one would like to have to sell a boat he’d sneaked a lot of money into for far, far less than it was really worth.”

“Sounds interesting,” I said, not wanting to sound either committed or stupid.

“It is,” continued Whartz. “By adding a second-permile for every $100 invested in gear to make the boat go faster, you could even the playing field. Say you had a 186 rating and you put $1,000 into a new 170-percent genoa, you’d have to sail 10 seconds per mile faster because your rating would be 176.”

Whartz went on to explain that if an owner added, say, new winches to the boat, the rating would be changed by the price difference between the original winches and the upgrades. New sails which replaced old sails of the same kind wouldn’t change a rating. However, a switch from a Dacron cruising sail to a Kevlar racing sail would entail some handicap adjustments.

“The lovely thing about my Personal High Resolution Finances system,” Whartz postulated, “is that it would put the poor guy right up on par with the rich guy. Yacht racing would be a winner all around. Instead of protesting a guy with one of those dumb, little red flags yacht racers fly when they are unhappy, you could put another guy on notice just by waving your checkbook at him.”

Maybe it is the refreshing way that Bubba looks at things that keeps me from objecting to all the free beer I have provided him over the years. I suppose that you could call it journalistic lubrication, but I doubt that term exists at the NewYork Times.

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HOWLING SOUTH

By Rich Marker

“Yeah, I don’t even look anymore,” Bill says as he sees the look on my face.

He understands my shocked, wide-eyed expression as “Holy crap, those are big waves.”

I’m at the top companionway step, looking past my brother-in-law Bill at the helm, shocked at what’s behind our boat. I couldn’t see them when I went off watch two hours earlier. Now, the early morning sun highlights the white tops of huge mountains of rolling water, slowly chasing our boat down the Gulf of Mexico. I’m wondering how the hell we got here and how the hell we made it through the night. ~~~~~~ When you decide it’s time for a great adventure, it takes some special friends to agree to come along. Especially when your previous adventures were mostly just new and unique experiences of calamity and mishap. The plan: four guys bareboat charter a 39-foot Island Packet from Port Charlotte, Florida to the Dry Tortugas for seven days of sailing, drinking, snorkeling, and exploring the remote white sand beaches 70 miles from the nearest land.

That’s how it was sold, and that’s how my three brotherswww.cruisingoutpost.com

in-law were duped into what they thought would be an easy going, Hawaiian-shirt-wearing adventure-cation. HA! The 90-mile drive from St. Pete to Port Charlotte is the first time all of us have been together in over a year. Jerry, the only out-of-towner, is still on Phoenix time and tired from his long flight. The rest of us, Rick, Bill and I, are passing the miles talking about the upcoming adventure.

We’re discussing provisions, who packed what and how much, and continually wondering, hoping, “We’re really going to have a working head?”

Rick is most excited about the working head. Up until now, our sailing adventures have consisted of a weekend of island camping in bad weather and practicing “repairs at sea” on my old boat.

This trip is far outside of our wheelhouses. As I see the sign for Port Charlotte, I’m thinking, I can’t believe we’re doing this.

This is going to be incredible!

Our duffel bags of gear are piled up to the roof behind the back seat, so we head to the boat first to unload, with plans to go out and hunt for groceries after the charter orientation.

The marina isn’t busy and we’re able to park right next to Dock B. It’s the moment of truth. Will it be a nice boat or

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HOWLING SOUTH

a scow? It doesn’t take long to find out. Halfway down the dock we stop and stare in awe at our new floating home, the Patent Settlement, resting quietly in her berth. The massive 39-foot yacht looks way bigger in person than she did in the website pics. Jerry looks at me, “These people must be nuts to let us drive that—or they got great insurance!” Bill grabs a mooring line and tries to pull the boat closer to the dock and says, “She’s so heavy I can barely move her!”

I wonder how the sea gods will favor a boat named for a legal agreement rather than something traditionally nautical like Wet Dream. I’m not a fan of the name, but I love Island Packets. I holler, “Let’s go get our crap, guys,” as I wave them back to the car. Five dock cart trips later and all gear is aboard, and beers have been opened.

Shuttling the gear in the late October Florida sun is un-vacation like work. The guys are soaked in sweat, so we decide to take a break in the cockpit under the Bimini.

We’re bouncing around the idea of making Arizona Jerry’s frequent “It’s so humid!” announcements into a drinking game when a spiffy guy with a clipboard walks up to the boat and asks, “Gentlemen, are you ready for your walk through?” “Yes Sir!” I say. The guys have been trying to stay relatively sober to appear responsible, but we can’t hold it together much longer.

His pressed khaki shorts, snappy outback-style hat, and dress shirt with charter company logo make me feel underqualified to work a fender. Captain Khaki climbs aboard and suggests we go below to start the walk through.

After a few rounds of “after you” we’re in the cabin learning about the inner workings of the Patent Settlement. About an

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These waves are starting to look bigger...

hour later, of which a good portion is spent reciting a list of what can and cannot be pumped through the head, Captain Khaki concludes his fecal-focused orientation with, “You know, only about five percent of the people that charter this boat do what you guys are doing. Most spend the week in the harbor, going from anchorage to anchorage.”

My eyes dart back and forth at the guys’ faces. They have a collective wide-eyed look of “How should we take that? Are we unique and adventurous—or are we doing something powerfully stupid?” After that comment, I’m thinking, “Here it comes, this is where Captain Khaki tries to talk us into changing our plans.” Instead, he says with a smile “Well, OK, have fun and be safe. I’ll see you guys in seven days.” He quickly spins around and hops up the steps. I suspect he’s rushing back to the office and calling the boat’s owner: “Hi, Mr. Patent Holder? I think we’re going to finally get rid of this boat for you. Is your insurance paid up?”

Next, we got provisions. My favorite part of our trip to the grocery store is watching each man wheel off with his own shopping cart to get his own preferred brand of beer.

In the cheese aisle, Bill pushes his cart up alongside Rick’s.

“You got quite a bit there,” Bill says nodding towards Rick’s cart load of beer stacked 4 cases taller than his own.

“Yeah, well I figure at least 20 beers a day for 5 days—and that’s conservative. I don’t want to run out,” Rick replies.

I’ve never seen more stress and mental calculation than these three guys trying to figure out how much beer they need to take with them. Waiting in line to pay, Bill makes one last dash to the beer aisle for two more cases. You www.cruisingoutpost.com

Bill the next morning.

never know, he might get really, really thirsty. Ultimately, we figure it’s close to 300 cans that get stuffed in every available space down below. I’m travelling lighter with only 2 bottles of tequila and one big bottle of Sailor Jerry.

It was supposed to be a 20-hour sail at 5-to-6 knots from Port Charlotte to the Dry Tortugas. I’d read it enough times in sailing magazines to remember “Never come into an unknown port at night.” To arrive at Fort Jefferson in the morning, we would need to leave around noon tomorrow.

Well, of course that means we can drink tonight! The four brothers-in-law together on the first night after months of planning…my tequila stocks are taking a hit.

As the sun warms the cabin, I can barely open my eyes.

This has got to be one of the top three hangovers of my lifetime. Waking up at 9:00 a.m., head pounding, holding back the heaves, this is not the way you want to feel when you’re supposed to set sail in only three hours. “We’re gonna have to cancel the trip. Call a medic. Call my Mom,” I mumbled to Rick who was standing over me. “Get up, amateur. Eat some bacon,” Rick replied in a bell-ringing voice. I whined back him, “Why bacon? Why would you do that to me?” Goddamn tequila.

A gallon of water and one Bloody Mary later, I’m as ready as I will be. At noon on a cloudless, 80-degree, lateOctober day, the Patent Settlement eased out of her berth at Burnt Store Marina and pointed west. Godspeed idiots. ~~~~~~ The red glow of the compass is the only thing I see in the blackness in front of me. The dial suddenly spins to the east. I throw the wheel hard over, fighting the www.cruisingoutpost.com

following sea, trying to keep the rudder from getting pinned sideways. The compass dial refuses to stay where it’s supposed to be. I can’t remember the southerly heading Bill and I agreed to maintain, I can barely keep it on the damn “S.” The huge rolling waves are shoving our stern one way, throwing the boat nearly sideways, then back the other way. The relentless sound of the wind won’t let me forget how serious this is. Bleary-eyed, barely able to focus, I just want to take a break. So much had changed since that point of no return moment, when we sailed out through Boca Grande pass into the lazy 3-to-4-foot seas of the Gulf of Mexico. Since then this whole trip has gone in the crapper. Captain Khaki would not approve.

Before sundown, the VHF radio had reported a Northwester coming through with 20-knot winds. I remembered something I’d heard from a veteran sailor: Island Packets don’t like to sail in anything less than 17 knots. “Wind shouldn’t be a problem guys,” I say, “but let’s take a vote—should we keep going or go back and stay in Charlotte Harbor for the week.” All vote to press on, though later I learn all wanted to go back but nobody wanted to be the “go-backer.”

Now it’s pitch dark, Rick and Jerry are seasick and outof-commission. Rick has lodged himself in the rear berth and is not coming out, the “Bear’s Den” we call it. The last time I saw him was a few hours ago when he offered to go below and make us sandwiches. “Where’re those sandwiches?” Bill asks. “I’ll go check on him,” I respond.

As I come down the steps, I see spread out on the galley counter a knife, an open jar of peanut butter, and eight

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HOWLING SOUTH pieces of white bread—one with peanut butter slapped on it. That was as far as Rick got before the nausea got him.

Jerry has gotten sick at least four times and is stuck up in the cockpit. The cabin is certain doom for him. He can’t go below without puking. I holler at him over the wind, “Jerry, you have to keep drinking Gatorade, you can’t get dehydrated!” That is all I can offer. Again, something I’d read. I knew he was hydrated because all the Gatorade was making him pee, which he would go below to do. With the boat thrashing back and forth, it was impossible to stand up.

Sitting room only in the head tonight, sir.

After another trip to the head, Jerry crawls back up the companionway steps. Standing there in the opening with his cheeks puffed out, I can tell he is trying like hell to hold it in. Suddenly he dives to the port side, grabs the lifelines like he’s doing a chin up, and lets fly. “Jerry, get that harness clipped on—NOW!” I have never yelled at him before. This was my buddy, the guy that I hang out with, drink and laugh with.

I’m trying tough love, whatever I can do to make him clip on to the safety line, but he isn’t listening. He just keeps puking. The top half of his body is hanging over the side of the boat, only his death grip on the lifeline keeping him with us.

I feel the stern rise as the boat begins to surge down the face of another huge wave. Patent Settlement rolls hard on her side as we bottom out into the trough, putting Jerry’s face nearly in the water. “Goddammit Jerry,” I yell. “If you fall over there’s no way we’ll ever get you back on board!” I look out in the never-ending blackness imagining what it would be like out there with only a lifejacket. Finally, he flops backwards into the cockpit with his back leaning against the cabin.

I watch him choke back whatever is left inside him as his shaking hands fumble to clip the carabiner to his harness. I keep my eye on him until he is secure. Jesus Christ, I feel so bad. This is NOT how this trip was supposed to go. Later, Jerry tells me he felt so horrible he didn’t care if he went over the side. “Look Jerry,” I tell him, “Every time you go below to pee you get sick. Just pee right here in the cockpit, I don’t care. We’ll lift our feet, it’ll run out the scuppers.”

He won’t do it. I suppose he feels some sense of duty to at least use the head since he can’t help steer.

The knot meter is starting to hit 40 to 41, and the GPS down below clocks our boat speed at a steady 7 knots.

Does that mean the wind is near 50 knots?!? Do I add the seven or subtract it? I don’t know. Jesus, I can’t think anymore. “Maggie,” I tried. “If you can do anything to help us…please.” Maggie, our fifth crew member, was the grandmother of Bill and my wife. She passed away last week, and the family insisted she would have wanted us to still go on this trip. She had been very excited for us.

I thought about the airplane-sized liquor bottle that held some of her ashes somewhere down below in Bill’s duffel.

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My mother-in-law had asked that we take a bit of Maggie’s remains with us and commit them to the clear blue-green water of Fort Jefferson. “I think we’re gonna need some help to get ya there Maggie,” I admitted. The knot meter drops to 36.

Two hours. That’s all we get to sleep. We had planned on four-hour shifts of two men to steer through the night. Now, down to just me and Bill, two hours at the helm was all one man could take before exhaustion set in. Fighting the wheel with every single wave is wearing us out fast. Once below, the sound of the wine glasses crashing back and forth in the shelves behind the fold-up salon table keeps us from any real sleep. “I can’t do this,” I say. “I just want to sleep.

Please.” I realize I’ve never been in this situation. I can’t pull over, find a hotel, call timeout. We’re 150 miles from shore. We would never find an inlet, if there was one, in the middle of the night in these seas. There are no options, we must keep going. Two hours gone already, my turn to steer, or more like just fight, a big silver wheel.

BAM! my eyes pop open as the boom jibes over to starboard with a crash that shudders the boat. “Dammit!” I exclaim as I clutch the backstay with one hand and spin the wheel like hell trying to get the boat NOT sideways to the waves. “Thank God for that preventer!” I had only closed my eyes for a second.

I felt guilty, and bad for Bill; that must have rattled his teeth down there. I doubt he was sleeping anyhow.

Running under a double-reefed main is a bitch downwind. I later learned that sailboats like to be “pulled” and running a reefed jib would have been way better. But now, we are stuck with what we have. It would be almost impossible in these waves, nearly exhausted, to change the sail configuration. I had also read that a jibe at this wind speed could tear the whole rig out, and a preventer could at least absorb some of the shock. Crawling along the side of the boat in the dark, lying across the cabin head down over the leeward rub rail, tying a half-assed preventer is something I don’t want to do more than once in a lifetime.

“No more jibes,” I say. “Stay focused.” I’m so tired.

Slapping myself on the face doesn’t help. The knot meter reads around 32 now. What a difference a few knots can make! The wheel moves easier. Keeping the “S” centered on the compass is less of a struggle.

All the cabin lights are off and I know everyone, even Jerry, is below trying to sleep. Then why, right now, am I staring at a man and a woman, standing, face to face way out on the bow of the boat? The woman is holding a parasol on her shoulder and the man has a top hat on. They both look to be dressed in 1800’s, olde-timey clothing.

“WTF? Where’s Bill?”

I look down into the cabin. All’s quiet. “How,” I wonder, “can they stand up out there on the bow? I had to crawl on my belly just to get to the mast!” I remember Slocum’s www.cruisingoutpost.com

description of his Spanish Ghost captain and thinking, think about it!” I holler as I watch my favorite hat vanish in “What a hooey.” Now, I believe anything that happens out our wake. It’s a fun policy back on my boat in St. Pete to treat here. A light comes on below; Bill’s getting up. THANK any lost hat as man-overboard practice. It gives us something GOD. No way am I going to tell him what I saw, or that I to do when putzing around the calm intracoastal. Not now. heard voices out in waves for the last half hour. Nope, he’ll Now that we’re pointing into the wind in calm water, I think I’m losing it and he doesn’t need another worry right decide to drop the main. I lash it down the best I can by myself. now. I am the last sane man on a ship of crazy.

What an ugly, unsailory mess. All hail the diesel motor! ~~~~~~ Down in the cockpit, I’m looking at the chart while trying “Yeah, I don’t even look anymore.” These are the first to keep the wind from tearing it from my hands when Bill words that define the beginning of the day after the night taps me on the shoulder. With that funny Bill smirk, staring long struggle. The sun is up and the big, rolling waves look straight ahead, he motions with his thumb for me to look over to be about 20 to 25 feet tall. Now, I measure waves with his shoulder. The empty, 12-foot inflatable dinghy we’ve been my own method, which is from when you’re sitting in the towing all this time is completely airborne, flapping around bottom of the trough gawking up at that goddamn wall of at the end of the line cleated to our transom. It takes a couple water next to you—and add guys to lift and manage that five more feet just because it’s dinghy, and it’s trailing like a scary as hell. At least the knot kite without a tail behind us. meter is holding around 29 Unbelievable. and the sun is up. The scare I’m just going to say there’s factor goes waaaay down in never, in the history of sailing, the daylight. been a group of idiots as This is nice boat, but an relieved as us to drop anchor in older one. Our navigation the green water of Garden Key. equipment consists of an Rick emerges from the Bear’s outdated numbers-only GPS Den, hair matted, eyes wide. unit down by the nav table.

Jerry is down in the cabin, No radar, no chartplotter, rummaging for something to The Fort Jefferson boys: Rick, Bill, Jerry, Rich. no SSB. Only the basic eat, while Bill and I discuss windspeed and depth at the how he also saw apparitions helm. I guess cruising around Charlotte Harbor doesn’t during the night—a figure standing right in front of the helm require much more than a chart and pair of binoculars. station. With the boat anchored and secure at 10:00 a.m., all Plotting little pencil marks on our chart from the GPS hands decide it’s time go below for some much needed sleep. coordinates is the best I can do to figure out where the hell Five hours of sleep later, we’re still feeling like punchwe are. From what I can tell, we are about 10 miles the hell drunk zombies. We fire up the motor for hot water from the west of the Dry Tortugas. I yell up to Bill, “You gotta put heat exchanger—showers all around! They’re hasty, don’tthe compass on 120 and hold it there or we’re gonna miss use-too-much-water showers, but still the best showers we’ll the fort! I’ll fire up the motor so you have more control!” ever take. Rick and Jerry whip up an amazing dinner of Knowing the course will put us nearly broadside to the big steak and broccoli as a thanks for not letting them die on rollers Bill says to himself, “Allright. F—k it, let’s do it!” vacation. As we eat, we take turns describing how each of and puts the wheel over to port. us had planned to get to/swim to the EPIRB (Emergency Thank God we got here after the sun came up. Even Position Indicating Radio Beacon) when the boat inevitably going 7 knots, faster than I had planned, it was already 8:00 went down. Generally, all the plans were the same: grab the a.m. and we have yet to see the fort. Bill is at the helm EPIRB, extract Rick from Bear’s Den, deploy life raft. A few now and spots one of the outer buoys. By sticking to the varied with grabbing wallets, phones, or the rum. dark water, we find our way to the channel leading to Fort There’s no better reward in the world for four guys that Desoto, a squat brown Snickers-bar-looking shape on the managed to sail 130 nautical miles while riding a near-gale horizon. Less grand than I had imagined. “Calm water dead down the Gulf of Mexico than kickin’ back safely at anchor. ahead!” I holler out with much relief.

The ordeal that became a hell of an adventure is something The crew’s collective sphincter unclenches as soon as we we still talk about whenever we get together. Bill says it’s the get behind the protection of the reef. The channel heads north; most fun he’s ever had. Rick calls it “scared sober” because facing into the gale for the first time in 20 hours, my hat is he drank less than half of his beer, and Jerry keeps asking ripped off my head. Bill and I look at each other. “Don’t even when we’re going to do it again. www.cruisingoutpost.com

Cruising Outpost 171

75

& Still Cruising

By Leonard Freedberg

Judy at anchor

When you hit 75-years-old, it makes you think. You know, 75 is not the new 55, or the new 65. It’s 75. In my case that means decreased hearing and balance, weaker muscles, and a shot I give myself every other week for arthritis.

Sometimes I have to use a sheet winch to get the anchor up. The most noticeable change while cruising is the need for more sleep. Because I am often solo, needing more sleep is a big problem. I now set an alarm clock for no more Jim & Paul at Jim’s houseboat than one hour.

I’ve been sailing since childhood and have owned three sailboats over the past 35 years, from my home port, Hingham, a bit south of Boston. I sailed the second one, Sea Lion, a Cape

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Dory 31, up and down the New England coast; once to Halifax, Nova Scotia, solo; twice to Bermuda, once solo. In 2005, I bought my current boat, Judy, a 1984 Ericson 38 and added a permanent inner forestay, monitor windvane, and Raymarine autopilot.

Judy is named for my wife. My lame joke in the summer is “I spend all my time and money on Judy.” My cruising grounds for the first few weeks after Labor Day have been Halifax to Baltimore, but are gradually shrinking.

Over the past 5 years I have gone on odd-numbered years north to Maine and New Brunswick and on evennumbered years to New York City. www.cruisingoutpost.com

Judy and Len in P-Town

This year, 2017, my deckhand for the first week was Paul, a 65-year-old friend. I like “deckhand” because it brings to mind Maine, working boats, and torn t-shirts. “Crew” makes me think of yacht clubs, monogrammed shirts, and sailboat races. He has considerable sailing experience, but has never owned a deepwater boat. The only fault I have found is he does not drink alcohol at all. I enjoy a drink when Judy is safely secured for the night, and only then. For one day and night we were joined by my son Dan, perhaps First Mate-in-Training based on his passion for sailing, trips on Judy years ago, and his current ownership of Loon, a beautiful 14-foot catboat on which he even did one solo overnight in Great South Bay, New York, this summer.

I like to go to New York by the Atlantic route and return by Long Island Sound. This year, between unfavorable tides and contrary winds, it took 60 hours from Hingham to New York City, sailing for a bit less than half of the time.

The first challenge is hitting a favorable tide in the Cape Cod Canal, otherwise you creep along, burn excess fuel, and risk being fined for obstructing traffic. There was no problem this year; Judy even hit 9 knots over ground at one point.

Buzzards Bay is next: if there has been a strong southwestern breeze, a nasty chop builds up on that side of the canal and it’s a long way bashing into it www.cruisingoutpost.com

before the narrow channel opens up enough to sail. This year again, no problem. Once you pass the huge Buzzards Bay Tower, there is nothing between you or to port until the entrance to New York Harbor. This year the winds were light southerlies. We sailed as much south-southwest as possible and motored southeast when we got too close to land. As usual, the only other boats were fishing and recreational vessels from Block Island, Montauk, and out of the Moriches and Fire Island inlets.

In the Canal and through Buzzards Bay you have to be highly vigilant. There are many boats, some ships, and usually huge barges being pushed or towed by tugs. Land is never far away and there are little islands and reefs, making running aground all too easy. The passage from Buzzards Bay Tower to New York Harbor is more relaxing, and napping is less dangerous. As you near and then enter the harbor, a high degree of vigilance is necessary. Huge freighters move in and out of Bayonne, NJ; the Staten Island Ferry goes back and forth; small fast commuter ferries zip across the East River and Hudson; and charter and recreational vessels wander around. There are shallows near the western tip of Long Island and Coney Island, and the currents are strong. We hit the tail end of the incoming tide and were able to go up the Hudson River past the tip of Manhattan, the majestic Freedom tower, and the inspiring

Statue of Liberty, tour boat

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The Hudson flows downstream for seven hours and upstream for five. On the steaming hot day we were leaving the Boat Basin for Long Island Sound we went swimming to cool off while waiting for the tide, and the current was so strong we had to hold a line to avoid being swept away! We departed with an hour of downstream flow left so that we could pick up the incoming tide at the tip of Manhattan as we went into the East River, under all the wonderful bridges starting with the Brooklyn Bridge, through Hell Gate, and into Long Island Sound. Initially, the World Trade Center site air was still and we bemoaned the heat. The breeze picked up and tortuous flashes of heat lightning in the distance suggested we would get rain.

Statue of Liberty. We picked up a mooring at the Then, a few hours into the Sound we were hit by a 79th Street Boat Basin, a city facility, one of my series of vicious squallsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;I would have had some real favorite spots. trouble if I had been alone. Without a word from me, When Hurricane Sandy was bearing down on Paul and Dan jumped into action, reefing the sails, New York in 2012 most of the boaters, including untangling knotted sheets, and righting the flipped many who lived year-round at the Boat Basin, inflatable we were towing. moved their boats to We entered the narrow marinas up the Hudson passage into Port Jefferson or had them hauled. in pitch blackness and were Most of those boats soon anchored in calm were destroyed. A few water at about 1:00 a.m., of the liveaboards kept the quiet pierced three times their boats at the Boat by loud shrieks of grinding Basin, although they metal from the power plant. were forced to evacuate, After two nights on land but amazingly some of nearby, I was eager to be on the boats survived. The my way. NOAA Weather storm surge lifted some Len swimming in the Hudson Radio predicted improving of the floating docks conditions. In the harbor, I right off the pylons. One lashed the inflatable on the foredeck, put the first and of those owners was Jim, who I first met years ago. second reefs in the mainsail, and unrolled the Yankee He has lived there on his houseboat for 35 years. part way. It wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t enough. There were 6-to-8-foot At one time there were 100 or so liveaboards, now breaking waves without much space between them there are a dozen, and the waiting list is 50 years. outside the jetty, and the wind was northeast, exactly The City evidently prefers seasonal and transient boaters. However, after Sandy they did a major renovation, including replacing the upstream barrier. The staff at the Boat Basin are universally helpful. All of New York City is at your doorstep so to speak at a daily cost for a mooring so low I refuse to disclose it.

Paul was satisfied that his visit to NYC confirmed his suspicion that he would never want to live there. I find the city exciting and such a contrast to three days on a boat! We visited the World Trade Towers site and were both moved by the memorial pools where the towers once stood, where the names of all of The Boat Basin the victims are etched in surrounding bronze.

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where I wanted to go. Twenty, even ten years ago, I might have kept going. This time I got back inside and stayed on a mooring another night. It’s a long haul from Port Jeff to Block Island, and you have to be mindful of the very large barges that use Long Island Sound. I had favorable wind at least some of the time, went through Plum Gut rather than the Race, and was able to enter Block Island in the dense fog. In my log I described it as “nerve-wracking,” as the red light at the very narrow entrance was invisible until I was only 100 yards away at which point I saw a faint glow. I spent a lovely day and night there and then was able to sail and motor back down Buzzards Bay, through the Canal, and on to Provincetown. My wife Judy joined me there for a night, and we motored home the next day. We saw a basking sunfish, two whales, and a pod of dolphins. That’s about three years worth of marine life in those waters for me.

Hopefully I’ll be out there again next September, back to Maine. Paul and Dan have already signed up, and I might have to promote them. I think about what I could do to make it easier to sail solo, for example installing an anchor windlass and making the halyard winches electric. I even think about trawlers. My range is likely to keep shrinking, but I’ll be cruising on Judy as long as I can do it safely.

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Downtown NY and the Empire State Building

Cruising Outpost 175

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Cruising Outpost 193

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Across

1 A fleet of small craft 5 Color of green waters 8 Way of sailing into the wind 9 Ties up in port 10 Rowboat equipment 11 “Midnight at the ___” song 14 Beside 15 Singer Celine 16 Fore-and-aft-rigged ship 18 Caribbean style of band 20 Ref’s decision in boxing 22 Parties 24 Old treasure transporters 27 __ the people 28 Compass direction 29 Talk a lot 31 Tahoe and Erie 33 Fishing boat 34 Legendary pirate 35 Caught this morning

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Down

1 Water depth measurements 2 Black and white whales 3 “Rocky ___” 4 Coral reef enclosure 6 Secured in the water 7 Banner 9 Distance between waterline and hull 12 Bachelor’s last words, 2 words 13 Little drink 17 Wet weather gear 18 Cry for help at sea 19 Kind of tide 20 In the direction 21 Sheepshank and half-hitch 23 Look high and low 24 Whipping winds 25 Sheltered side from the weather 26 Like sushi 29 Large fishing spear 30 Color of Caribbean waters 32 Caribbean or Caspian

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Cruising Outpost 197

Cruisians *

*A small, exclusive group of people who are mentally ill and feel, for some reason unbeknownst to anyone, that by getting on a small boat about the size of a jail cell and heading out into the most inhospitable place on Earth (the ocean), they will somehow enjoy themselves.

I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.

This is Stan and Christina who used to live on 4 Dock in St. Petersburg, FL, but are now cruising aboard their s/v Disorder. Rumor has it they are currently sailing in the vicinity of Key West and enjoying the life they were meant to have: cruising where they want, when they want.

Dave and Julie Meadows live in Colorado and love to sail. This photo was taken when they were sailing their 1988 Erickson 38 up Copper Canyon to Topolobampo. They say the boat sailed great, and then hinted something about a French Baker. We can’t wait to hear the rest of the story!!

Drew and Sharon Gober are both retired Air Force who live aboard.

We first met them at a 4 Dock party in St. Pete, but the photo here was taken as they skippered one of the Share The Sail Boats in Tahiti!

198 Cruising Outpost

First mate, Jeanne Nooney is pictured here sailing on s/v Telesto. She is anchored in the Magothy River by Dobbins Island, MD. Rumor has it her husband Mark would “flip out” seeing this in Cruising Outpost.

Okay Mark, flip!

Nick Bostelaar grew up in Germany and now runs his own woodworking business in Portugal, where he is now helping Jessie and Luke refit their boat after its knockdown (see previous issue lead story). He is raising two boys single-handedly. He’s 31 years old, half-Dutch, half-German, and an all around good guy!

Hans Devouassoux was born in New Caledonia, but raised in SoCal. He went back to his home island to compete in the 1988 Pacific Games and won Gold, Silver, and Bronze in swimming.

He now sails his 28-foot Erickson out of Oceanside, California.

Lynn is from Colorado, but her boat is in San Diego.

It’s a 38-foot Ingrid built in 1985. Lynn just finished her basic keelboat class, and was promoted to Captain. She has been aboard and sailed a Cal 20 on Lake Dillon in Colorado, but she is stepping up to ocean sailing. www.cruisingoutpost.com

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11/1/18 1:16 PM

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