The Shake Down Cruise

By Gary Dickinson

It has been several years since my last solo adventure. In the back of my mind, I wondered which of the following things I should be concerned with most. The 20-year-old engine on my boat, the 23-year-old boat itself, or the 66-year-old operator. The answer might surprise you.

After spending weeks preparing for an extended voyage and releasing the dock lines. The adventure began. As you can guess, sailing alone has different challenges than those faced by sailors who have a crew.

Murphy’s law, attributed to Captain Edward Murphy, an actual rocket scientist working on a project at Edward’s Air Force base in 1949, states “anything that can go wrong will go wrong at the most inopportune time”.

I want to share some of the things I discovered during this cruise that ultimately changed the destination of my voyage. I will share with you what I learned on this adventure, which makes me think of this trip as a “shake down” cruise to prepare me for other adventures.

Knowing where I am going to stop along the way is important to me. I’m a big believer in plotting out my course ahead of time with optional places to anchor, dock for fuel or provisions in case changing conditions make that necessary.

One thing that has changed in recent years is how we plot courses. In the past we would pull out a paper chart with the required tools and plot where we wanted to go. Now days it is difficult to even find the paper charts we would need for cruising because we do that electronically. The first thing I did was to upgrade the chip for my chart plotter so I would have the most current charts. As a backup, I also downloaded a Navionics navigation app on both

my iPad and cell phone, and I am glad I did.

Initially I planned on using the iPad for navigation because the screen is much larger than my boat’s chart plotter. Here is Murphy’s Law’s first lesson: I did not know that my particular iPad did not have built-in GPS. It works with cell coverage but not out at sea. Lucky for me my cell phone does have GPS and I downloaded the same program that the iPad has. One of the features the Navionics app has that I used all the time is the plotting capability. Once the boat info is entered and I select a destination, the program will plot the course to follow that keeps me out of danger.

Docking a boat by yourself can sometimes be a challenge. I am pleased to say that by preparing ahead of time and reading the wind and current that I was able to arrive and leave each dock like I knew what I was doing. I had bow, stern, and midship lines ready to go in addition to fenders. I would secure the midship line first and the rest was easy.

Many cruisers spend time on the hook rather than being tied to a dock, and I am included in that group. One of my biggest worries when anchoring is, will I stay put during the night? Like most cruisers I have a substantial amount of chain on the anchor line to help set and hold the anchor to the seabed.

The recommendation under normal conditions is to put out seven feet of line for every foot of water depth. In your calculations you should also include the distance from the deck of the boat to the water line. After being woken twice during the night on this voyage, I decided to not only increase my scope to ten to one but to reset the anchor alarm to equal the length of line out. The first night I did not do this the wind changed direction and of course the alarm woke me from a much-needed sleep.

To make it easier to contact the bridge tenders and lock masters on my cruise to Lake Okeechobee. I purchased a new hand-held VHF radio the month before I left. Murphy’s

Law visited me once more because the “NEW” hand-held stopped working and I had to go into the cabin to call for openings on the main VHF which was a challenge with no one at the helm. I sure wish my current boat had an autopilot like my previous boat had but that’s another story.

For me, cruising is more about the journey than it is about the destination. One thing that surprised me during this trip was how I was forced to think outside the box to solve problems that arose and the pride I felt being able to do so.

If you are wondering, the thing that cut this voyage short was not the old guy at the wheel, but a blown head gasket on the engine which I’m happy to say has been repaired. The boat is back at my dock now and is ready for the next chapter.

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