Tag: Columbia 29

Small boat Solo sailing ocean crossing
Sailing Solo Across the Atlantic Ocean – Part 4

Sailing Solo Across the Atlantic Ocean – Part 4

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This is the part 4 of crossing the Atlantic on a Columbia 29. Click to read Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 .

The departure for the last leg of my solo sailing across the Atlantic Ocean was set for Sunday. I was expecting headwinds for the first miles out of Horta. 900 nautical miles of ocean waters separated me from an unknown yet exciting future.

Sara became increasingly insistent and concerned about my departure. That sounded a bit strange, as until that moment she had been very patient with my slow pace. Why suddenly all this fuss?

I was a bit nervous to start again, both adamant to be underway but also strangely scared.

Like all liminal spaces transitions are perhaps the most difficult part of sailing. Landfalls and departures require a transformation, a change in routines that always exerts a toll. I am a slow guy and a slow sailor. Moving from rock solid land to fluid water it’s never a immediate passage for me.

FIRST MISTAKES

The Island of Pico in the Azores

I decided to pass the Island of Pico on the North side. This way I thought I would avoid the headwinds and waves for the beginning of the trip. As I left the harbor and turned North for few miles I realized it was poor planning. The high rise volcano of Pico soon enough blocked the southern winds. I found myself in a windless zone.

I changed my mind again. I backtracked and started fighting the headwinds going South. This time I had more miles to cover and grew a bit frustrated of my poor foresight. I ended up spending the good part of the day outside, trying to make the boat go South, tack after tack. The wind decreased and the ride got smoother but it was increasingly more difficult to make a good angle to clear Pico to the South.

As I said transitions are often difficult, settling in any rhythm requires patience and time.

Even if the full moon was shining like a projector making it a very bright night, I started in my nap routines as soon as it got darker. As usual I would wake up every 20 minutes to check my position and to see if it was time to turn the boat on the next tack.

I was down in my bunk when a noise, a knock on the side of the hull, wakes me up.

It alerted me 100% as any suspicious noise would do in the middle of the ocean. It was a sound I shouldn’t be hearing.

I ran out in the cockpit with no clue of what I would find. Then I saw vertical cliffs and half submerged rocks in front of me, visible in moonlight

The boat is knocking gently on a submerged rock, invisible yet so evident and present, stopping her motion forward.

I couldn’t believe my eyes and I switched the motor on and put it in reverse in sheer panic. The boat started to get away from the hard spot.

It felt like a dream and I couldn’t really believe what I was witnessing.

I crashed into the island of Pico because I overslept on the alarm clock.

The wind conditions were light and the boat on autopilot sailed placidly. As the wind decreased near shore Tranquility drifted slower and slower until she hit a solid spot.

I couldn’t even hear waves crashing on the shore, I just saw the gentle surge around the cliffs so clear in the bright moonlight.

As soon as I reached deeper waters I steered away from danger. I ran down below to pull up the floor boards and check every inch of the bilge in search of water rushing in. The bilge was as dry as ever and the internal part of the hull showed no damage.

I continued to frantically check the bilge. In the following minutes a dilemma started to a surface to my consciousness: Do I need to go back to port to check the hull or should I continue the trip?

Nothing seemed to change and the bilge stayed dry. I realized that the boat was in good shape and that the impact was very mild, even though against a very hard rock. I imagined that the boat only got few scratches on her thick hull.

It was a huge scare. Not being able to better assess the damage made me feel uneasy, for the better part of the night.

Despite this lack of information somehow it was clear to me what I needed to do.

I decided to continue. I had this gut feeling that everything was ok despite the potentially fatal mistake I just did.

Many times I have been spared from catastrophic outcomes in my sailing adventures. It is hard to understand why some people get through countless mistakes unscathed while others pay the highest price for the first, minimum error. I can say there is no fairness on the Ocean.

It’s impossible be estimate how much luck and time on earth we are given. I could only be grateful for the near miss as I am for other situations I lived through. One time during the hardest storm I ever faced the wrong wave could have spelled disaster. Another time I almost drown during a spearfishing session before friendly hands from indigenous people picked me up and dropped me in their canoes.

I was given another gift, a second chance: That half submerged rock gently stopped Tranquility from total wreckage. I committed the classical sin of the solo sailor and I had been spared.

STEADY SAILING

Steady Sailing in the North Atlantic

Sailing away from land had a relaxing effect on my worries. The route to Tenerife had no fixed obstacles in front of me for more than 800 miles. For many miles I kept full jib and staysail sheeted to port and one reef in the main. Tranquility sailed on a steady groove at about 5 knots.

I was enjoying again the day to day routine of taking a sailboat to an unknown point beyond the horizon. Sailing has a stern discipline, what’s relevant is the task at hand. We could regret what just happened and worry for what’s coming next, but it’s the immediate circumstances that require most of the focus. Despite the scary encounter with the island of Pico, I was having a good time.

I spotted few vessels near the Portuguese archipelago and monitored the local radio frequencies. I was also able to receive weather forecast on the VHF channel from the maritime authorities. It was fun to try to understand the Portuguese message before the English version would come up. My performance was however rather poor despite the similarity between Portuguese and Italian.

After 34 days of ever changing weather conditions I enjoyed steady sailing conditions. Those moments make you appreciate what an incredible piece of art is a well prepared sailboat.

I had a good winds forecast all the way to Tenerife. It blew at first from the SW and later from the NNW. Only near Madeira the winds drop considerably. Even if I transited an abundant 100 miles to South the effect of its high rise were noticeable.

I’ve enjoyed taking sights with the sextant during the passage. I thought I had a good hang of the process, but I had to keep going back to the books and double check my steps. The most important thing I realized is that I almost never pay attention to the position of the sun. Very few of us do. I certainly didn’t need to, as the GPS system was telling my position instantly on a chart any time I felt like checking.

There is almost always something more important going on in my mind that makes it irrelevant to notice the whereabouts of the sun. After all, it tends to come back everyday, and the seasons seem to keep repeating on and on and on. And when in doubt about what time it is I look at my watch first.

Jib and staysail fully working on a beam reach

However those observations slowly matured into the realization that I was going with everything else. It was somehow mind blowing that by observing and measuring myself goingwith the universe I could find my position on this planet.

We always go with everything else, in a synchronous choreography.

Teilhard de Chardin said in the most eloquent way: “The whole universe is the only true atom; the only truly indivisible whole.”

Mile after mile sailing in the ocean I was learning that moving around on a vessel powered by winds and currents was giving me a profound sense of belonging. In a way, it is not incorrect to say that I was using the movement of the whole universe to go meet Sara in Tenerife.

APPROACHING TENERIFE

Anaga, the mountainous area in the North of Tenerife

When I finally rounded the northern tip of Tenerife after 8 days at sea I enjoyed the fresh wind sending me at full speed toward my target. I admired the rugged mountainous coast of the island and I kept a respectful distance, especially after the scary encounter at the beginning of the trip.

Funny enough I experienced the strongest winds of the entire crossing right at the arrival. I was sailing close to shore in the channel between Tenerife and Gran Canaria to get to my final destination in Puertito de Güímar. There the trade winds accelerate due to the “funnel effect”. Locals call this the Wind Acceleration Zones (WAZ). In this area wind speeds climb to 30 knots and gusts approach 40.

I had to jibe my way south as the wind blew parallel to shore. Soon my sails were reduced almost to the size of handkerchiefs.

Three miles from the entrance to Puertito de Guimar the fresh winds turned into a stronger gusty breeze. Elliott on my satellite messenger warned me about strong gusty conditions. My reaction was abit cocky: “well, I will deal with it”. I wasn’t expecting such and exciting arrival.

It was a beautiful sunny day and after a journey of more than 3500 miles across the North Atlantic I was approaching the most difficult part of all: Landfall in an unknown port. Obviously Puertito de Güímar was right in the middle of one of those infamous acceleration zones.

LANDFALL

As I was sailing solo I grew a bit nervous while getting mooring lines and fenders ready. I also needed to get my anchor back on deck and ready. I remove and store the anchor down below during each longer ocean passage. It was no different for this stroll from Horta. I wasn’t planning to use the anchor as I was headed to a pier, but it was still my emergency brake so it was good to have the option.

My Columbia 29  “Tranquility” was sailing with a fraction of jib out, the staysail and a deep reefed mainsail. The wind speed further increased while approaching landfall forcing me to furl the jib away and douse the mainsail while constantly keeping an eye on my windvane autopilot that was subjected to rounding up to weather during violent gusts. Walking on deck while the boat danced over the lively white caps of the confused seas carrying a 20lbs anchor was exciting to say the least.

When I finally got the deck ready the staysail alone was pushing the boat toward the narrow entrance in the breakwater of the marina. I had a few minutes before I reached the entrance, when I would disconnect the autopilot and steer manually, and I decided to use them to worry about analyzing the situation. 

After dropping the staysail I had to make my way upwind into the basin. The entrance opened between two seawalls surrounded by sharp rocks and artificial boulders. On my lee side laid a rocky and shallow beach. 

I depended fully on my electric inboard propulsion to reach the dock and I was nervous.

I saved an aerial snapshot of the marina from Google Earth on my phone which I thoroughly analyzed. Sara on shore was coordinating a welcoming committee and she sent me precise instructions to where to head once I cleared the breakwater.

The aerial snapshot I used to navigate the Club Nautico de Puertito de Güímar

Even if I did my homework I was still nervous.

I had little doubt my electric motor would work. It never failed before. The main switch was on and I could read a voltage of 52.3v on the display. The batteries were more charged than when I left the USA. The wind generator and the regeneration from the propeller charged them for the whole 42 days it took me to cross the Atlantic Ocean. 

You study the landfall. You run many movies in your head with all the scenarios. You know you have done this countless time. You know how the boat responds in different conditions. Still there is no way not to be nervous, which is good, in a way it keeps the energy and focus up.

I turned toward the opening in the breakwater with the residual speed from the wind once the staysail dropped on deck. The familiar low humming of the motor started as soon as I pulled the lever forward.

The wind shoved against the mast slowing me down as I rounded up toward the entrance. I measured my progress watching the boulders on my beam. Tranquility was not moving and the bow threatened to fall off. I asked more amperes from the batteries, from 25 to 35. Now the bow was steady dead upwind but there was not much progress forward. I increased to 40 amperes, then 45 amperes.

With this extra push from the motor the boat got momentum and I slowly saw the horizon progress behind the breakwater. As soon as the boats gained speed I adjusted back the throttle to 35 amperes. 

Then something unexpected happened. On my port side I saw a guy in an orange safety vest waving towards me and pointing to an empty slip. I was going so slow that it would have been impossible to pretend I did not see him. I realized he was the dock master and he was telling me where to dock. 

Sara and Miguel Angel, a veteran member of the yacht club, were waiting for me on a slip in the opposite corner. They sent me the precise instructions to head toward a vacant slip that would require less maneuvering. Miguel Angel is a sailing authority in Tenerife and he thought that was a better option for a solo sailor arriving after crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

At first I tried to comply with authority and head toward the dock master. It wasn’t a difficult maneuver but the strong wind made it much more challenging. I  gave up when I realized it would be so much easier to go where I was originally expected. Despite the strong winds pushing tranquility toward a 60ft steel sailboat, I was able to turn on a dime and proceed towards the welcome party in the far corner.

As I was approaching the slip I gradually decreased speed until my fenders touched the pontoon and friendly hands grabbed my dock lines. I had safely landed and finished my long voyage.

Landfall in Tenerife

SURPRISE WELCOME PARTY

Sara came toward me leaving behind a group of people I have never met before but that I knew very well after hearing so many of her stories. The first kiss and hug was for her. It was brief and strange, as there were so many things happening around. Neither of us was sufficiently relaxed to finally meet heart to heart.

As I secured the lines and organized a bit the mess of the boat two familiar figures came towards me from the sea wall down to the pier. My mom and dad!

All of the sudden I realized why Sara was so adamant that I got underway from Faial. She had already arranged for my parents to get on the island and she was concerned it would take me ages to make it to Tenerife. It was a great emotion and it was also the first time they saw me arriving anywhere on Tranquility, and for one time I felt proud of it.

A Happy Welcome

The rest of that day is confused in my memory, but the excitement of being with Sara, surrounded by family and new friends in a welcoming place was the best I could ask for when I set sail from Georgia 47 days earlier. I made it in one piece, and lived one of the most vivid and beautiful experiences of my life. It took a total of 42 days of sailing to complete the journey and, incidentally, 42 is also the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. I take it as a good omen.

Tenerife Sailing
Long time no write

Long time no write

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I have been a bit absent on this channel. My last post was a farewell to the continent that gave me so much for almost 10 years and then silence.

I want to confirm that I am alive and well, I just have been adapting to a new environment and a new life, and sailing got sidetracked.

I worked a lot on my other website Psychology of Sailing (any feedback on the work done is more than welcome) and left this blog unattended.

Changing worlds and life has become a familiar feeling. Coming and going, living in new territories, cultures, climates, languages. It’s now part of my DNA. It is however not simple.

It was Venezuela, Curaçao, Panama, USA, Hong Kong.

Now it’s Tenerife. 

It took 42 days, more than 3800 nautical miles, 20 books and several movies to get here. The route took me from St.Marys in Georgia where Tranquility got awaken from her peaceful slumber to Faial in the Azores, where I spent my birthday and rested a couple more days, and then Tenerife.

Of those 42 days I have vague memories already. I can say that I miss those days very much. I missed being down below and coming out on deck at regular intervals, during the day and at night, and see just the ocean, adapting to rhythms that very rarely were in accord with my desires, to the point that what I desired was irrelevant.

Being by myself on a 55 years old sailboat in the middle of the Atlantic was something I have never envision for myself in my youth. Yet probably the most pure of sensations I felt since I am alive.

Now that I am landlubbing again the sensation is receding back into my memory with just few glimpses taking me back to that time.

I can say that it all ended when I spotted the high rise island from afar.

It was early morning, timing could not have been more favorable. When you sail a slow boat for multiple day passage it is basically impossible to know at what time you are going to make landfall.

A clear, sunny and windy day welcomed me to the island.

The arrival at Club Nautico Puertito de Guimar was a little concerning.

I had turned around the NE tip of the Island giving enough room for currents and wind effect. After gybing a fresh breeze was pushing me towards my destination, so I was cheerful yet worried about docking in strong breeze by myself.

As I was getting closer the wind increased and soon the fresh breeze  became strong with gusts well above 30kts I  put the third reef in and furled the jib.

Elliott, who guided me via text messages throughout the crossing, had warned me of strong wind conditions at my arrival but I was caught by surprise as winds had always been mild throughout the crossing. I forgot how strong winds looked like.

Docking the boat solo after 8 days from Faial went well despite the tough conditions. My girlfriend organized a surprise inviting my parents over for the welcome back to land. I spent the firsts days on the island as the perfect tourist, driving around the gorgeous island, enjoying the perfect climate and a breathtaking landscape. 

Now that I am seriously tied back to land I look back at the pages that I wrote during the crossing as a soothing reading. The desire for many more days in the ocean never left me, it has just been put on pause.

I though to share here those lines that I collected on a rocking boat in the long hours spent down below in the cabin.

Among the many beautiful and unexpected gifts of 2020, this solo crossing what what is giving the courage to tackle many other daring ideas and projects.

I hope you are going to enjoy the report from this experience which I am going to publish in digestible bites in the following days.

I also hope you don’t mind reading a brief poem I wrote not long ago, thinking about this nomadic life, made of so many farewells and welcome parties (and I also hope you don’t mind a couple of swear words )

Dream stitching

  A soft crash on an alien planet
 I repeat the experience
 Foreigner, newcomer, beginner
 Looking for a warm embrace
 

 Scattered around the globe
 My soul leaves crumbles 
 They become flowers
 That are calling me back 
 

 Longing
 You bastard feeling
 Wherever I lay
 You chase me
 

 Nostalgia
 You cunt
 I love you so much
 My good old friend
 

 Afloat in darkness
 My breath moves on
 Touching pale light
 With nowhere to go
Farewell to Americas

Farewell to Americas

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Way overtime, overbudget and over any attempt in predicting, controlling and scheduling boatwork Tranquility and I finally hit the water.

We dance with the natural change of the tides and the winds in a quasi stationary equilibrium tethered to the muddy bottom of the North River. Here we are merging again, as she is back doing what she was designed for and I reunite with the familiar feeling that I had not experienced since Hong Kong: The sensation of resting on the surface of water supported by the Archimede’s principle is engraved in my vestibular system as for the most part of the last 11 years I lived on floating objects.

Tranquility is not just my home, my mean of transportation and my survival pod, she is an extension of myself through which I explore the cosmos, and now that we are back in our element the senses are enhanced.

Since floating in the river dreaming activity surged together with levels of relaxation that I have not felt for months. Tranquility rig are the strings that capture atmospheric variations, the hull a sound box that amplifies the waves of the liquid environment. Her shell enhances my connection with the environment: enough to be dry and comfortable but inadequate to mask environmental changes around me.

The preparation to voyage has officially ended. As other times before I pushed the bar a little over my actual capacities, tried some weird experiments and dealt with the consequences. I take all this as a game. It is serious playing because financial risks and potential danger are part of it, but my inner child would not let me play safe or lower the bar. I like to keep learning so I push a bit over the comfort zone.

Andy, a very generous solo sailor and pizza tinkerer here at the boatyard, allowed me to use his dinghy to move back and forth to the shipyard for the last showers, laundry, errands and farewells. Rowing to get ashore is a degree of separation that helps detach from land life.

In few hours I will bring onboard the line that ties me to the muddy bottom, brave few shoals and turns for roughly three miles before I enter the St Marys river. There the outgoing tide and the favorable SW winds should push me effortless East through the inlet and out in the Atlantic Ocean en route to the Azores lying some 2700 nautical miles away.

From the Azores I will point to the island of Tenerife, where a special person has been waiting for too long for me to reunite in that wonderful place. This is the main aim of this voyage, the energy that kept me motivated to overcome the endogenous and exogenous variables I encountered, and for which I am extremely grateful.

There are however other reasons behind this voyage. One is that I am moving my home from America back to Europe. I spent more than a decade in the New World an exploration that put me in touch with new experiences.

I had the fortune to be welcomed wherever I went and be brought into homes regarded as a family member. The level of generosity I experienced is overwhelming and when I tried the exercise of bringing to mind all the people that helped me on this side of the world I felt overwhelmed and tears came up.

In the Americas I encountered the most friendly and generous people, people who never hesitated in making me feel welcomed and at home. For seven wonderful years I also had in Kate a generous, loving and brilliant companion and wife who shepherded me through this unknown continent. Adoptive parents and family, mentors, friends and comrades, they all allowed me to see life through their eyes and opened up their hearts to my presence.

I am not painting an idealized picture of my recent years. There has been incidents, suffering, discomfort and cultural shocks. Positive experiences though outweighed negative ones by far. This continent is still vast and rich and mysterious, full of magical energy, both good and bad, and I bathed in it.

Welcomed by the bald eagle, I am ushered to the door by the vulture. This magnificent bird, so ugly and clumsy on land and so graceful when it glides, is a rare sight in the Old World where I come from. In North and South America different species of vulture are instead very common. I grew accustomed to see them on the side of roads taking care of the business of life, dismembering corpses, removing harmful bacteria and diseases from the environment, and complying with the rules of transformation we all obey to.

I will leave part of my soul to the spirit of this bird for it to be digested into the ethereal connections of my legacy, so the last remaining ties will be severed.

After more than ten years it is time to move on. My rootlessness is taking over supported by the desire for more solo sailing, this uncommon human experience full of discomfort and awe. It will take few days of laziness and uneasiness for my vestibular system to incorporate the sudden changes of direction and acceleration experienced on a vessel that sails offshore and to fall into the routine of the watch system.

The southernmost outpost of Europe is waiting for me. It will be a long journey during which I will be removed from the usual flux of information that connects us all, suspended in the parallel reality of this planet without the chatter of society, to exercise my right and responsibility to awe in this incredibly beautiful universe.

Follow my dot….

Sailing-singlehanded-Panama-to-US
Singlehanding my way back: from Panama to the US

Singlehanding my way back: from Panama to the US

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As usual departing was laborious. Breaking the inertia was necessary to abandon Panama, a place that ended up feeling like a trap. Maybe I am just not that good with change anymore, and everything seem like a struggle. Or maybe I hit a dark spot while drifting about on the Atlantic coast of Panama and dealing with its fascinating cultures.

Sort of Heart of Darkness feeling, if you know what I mean.

Eventually, I found myself alone with Beta on Tranquility pointing North under full sail. I left Linton Bay in the early afternoon of the 28th of November. Hurricane season seemed to had finally cooled off, and the strong trade winds had not arrived yet.

It was the first time I sailed singlehanded in a long passage. I felt both excited and worried. My mind was more concerned about discomfort than personal safety. I trusted my boat. I couldn’t say the same about myself.

Selfie of a singlehanded sailor

Final destination was Brunswick in Georgia and, another first time for me, I had a schedule. I had booked a flight to Italy leaving from Jacksonville on Christmas Eve. There was enough time to make it… if everything went well.

Set on a close reach, I let the boat going more or less the direction I wanted. I forgot how easy is to pull the anchor and sail. The complicated stuff has always to do with land based activities.

I kept an eye on my new AIS as well as doing frequent scan of the horizons. For a hundred miles or so all the inbound and outbound traffic of the Panama Canal funnels in this stretch of water.

Thanks to the little dAISy 2+, the inexpensive dual channel AIS receiver I had just installed, I could see traffic around me. With the name of the vessel coming up in the information I even dared to establish radio contact with the ships that had a close CPA with Tranquility.

CPA stands for Closest Point of Approach and refers to the minimum value between two dynamically moving objects. Surprisingly the officers on watch picked up my calls, assuring that they were aware of my presence.

Soon the wind increased to 15-20 knots, still blowing from the NE. I kept the bow of the boat as close to it as possible. Soon the impacts with bigger waves started to shake the hull. Every loud hit shook me until I realized that this was what the boat is designed for. The adaptation to open waters took some time, after months spent in a protected basin.

At first it felt bad. Lack of appetite, boredom, struggle in reasoning were all the symptoms of too much time spent attached to land. I did the bare minimum, enough to keep Tranquility as close to the intended course as possible.

Sailing-Panama-to-USA

I wanted to sail straight to the Cayman Islands, almost due North from Puerto Lindo. Winds blew from the NE, perhaps NNE. The combinations of the 5 ft waves and the breeze made us drift towards the West, but we were still able to make northerly progress.

I avoided to sail too close to the Nicaraguan/Honduran coasts, as piracy was reported along those shoals. The crew of fishing boats were often looking for a way to make something on the side of their miserable incomes.

I am always comforted by the modest appearance of my boat, but I can’t always factor the level of desperation some people live with. Unfortunately even my small and old 30 footer can look like a luxurious target in certain situations.

The first problem arose soon in the trip. I tried to unfurl the jib after rolling it away for an incoming squall that ended up being not a big deal. The sail won’t unfurl, no matter how hard I pulled the furling line on the drum. I immediately suspected the swivel and the halyard up on the mast were misbehaving.

Two hundred miles or so in a seventeen hundred nautical miles passage and I could not use the jib. It was no bueno.

Determined to solve the problem, I donned my harness and my tethers and started climbing the mast steps installed on Tranquility’s rig. One third of my way up a bigger wave shook the boat and I found myself hugging the aluminum profile like a baby koala on mother’s back.

That scared the living crap out of me. Up higher the oscillation of the mast in such seas would be even greater, something I would not dare to try.

I immediately computed that my best option was to find a protected bay in the San Andrés archipelago, a group of islands off the Nicaraguan coast that belong to Colombia. It would be a deviation from my intended route and a delay I hoped not to incur in.

Kate, checking on me on the Delorme, put me in touch with Mike and Laura, friendly cruisers I met in Turtle Cay that were frequent visitors of the archipelago. They spoke with the immigration agent they use to clear in, who suggested I anchored for 48hrs in plain sight claiming the need for rest or even better illness.

Then I had the idea to try and release the halyard to see if that helped. Once I got some slack on the line the furler started to work again. I was elated! No need to stop, no delay and no dealing with authorities!

When I put the sail up in Turtle Cay after keeping it stowed for months, I must have put too much tension on the halyard, making the furling difficult. At least this was my quick diagnosis.

With the jib now back in service the boat continued as if she had a mind of her own. Tranquility quickly moved away from the San Andrés islands, tracking steadily as she usually does on a close reach. On my side, I was still trying to find my own rhythm.

The second scare came right after. I was cooking a meal when I went out on deck to deal with the autopilot that needed adjustments. After a little I noticed black smoke coming out of the companionway.

Fire on a boat is possibly the worst situation a sailor could face. If a fire gets out of control the only option is abandoning ship, with very limited time to act and collect gear.

The source of the fire was a plastic lighter I used to light the stove with. I found it on fire and jammed between the burner and the pot after falling on the stove from the shelf right behind in a strong wave. Still a small fire, I immediately realized that using water was the best way to put it out.

Had it been an electrical or liquid fuel fire I would have used a fire extinguisher. A splash of water I collected from the nearby sink put an end to the threat.

Once the danger was over I realized how lucky I was. For just a second I got very scared, probably the most scared I had been in my life. It could have been the end of me, Beta and Tranquility.

Now black sooth from the burnt plastic was all over the boat, hard to clean. I felt like a stupid, and decided that now on I would not go on deck if the stove was on down below. Safety rule for singlehanded sailors!

Chatting on the Delorme, I asked Kate to check if she had any information about Thunder Knoll, which I intended to sail by. She came back to me with a story from a cruising blog that reported an attempted act of piracy by local fishermen.

Immediately I became worried that a similar fate was awaiting for me on the shoals. Too late to set another course, and with really no other options, I started to watch frantically with my binoculars, while keeping my navigation lights off, a trick used years back when sailing in Venezuela. That night I did not dare to sleep or nap.

Nothing happened, as I did not spot anybody fishing around Thunder Knoll. Instead, I broke Tranquility’s personal record, aided by favorable current and by a wind angle that finally shifted a little more to her beam. The fear of piracy contributed to record, making me sail a little harder than I would in normal conditions.

153 nautical miles was not a bad 24hrs log for a 53 year old boat with 22,5 feet at the waterline!

Being by yourself makes you realize how vulnerable you are. At the same time it awakes awareness and sharpness in the senses. Walking on deck my steps were conscious, my hands holding tight to the boat, my vision and my hearing focused on the surrounding ocean. I did use my harness and my tether at discretion, knowing that I was vulnerable when I wasn’t attached to the boat.

Sometimes dark thoughts came up in unison. I felt very vulnerable to fire, a fall overboard, a debilitating injury, all the way to fear of bankruptcy, and other existential worries. The dark thoughts came and go. I felt surprisingly comfortable being hundreds of miles away from any land, especially when I focused on the boat, on her secure and steady progress. I was finally feeling used to being at sea.

No marine traffic came my way since the approaches to the Panama Canal, the AIS receiver remained silent. Every night I clocked good hours of sleep, broken up in smaller chunks to allow a quick scan of the horizon in every direction. During the day I also kept napping.

Finally I understood Beta’s behavior, the feline necessity of long rests in case something happens and immediate action is required. It resonated with my naps and lying down, interrupted by burst of activity.

I had windy conditions for most of the trip, manna from heaven when you sail a boat with limited auxiliary propulsion like Tranquility. The noises on the boat, at every wave, roll or pitch became familiar. I could judge the intensity of the wind by the speed of the wind generator and by the pressure on the rig. For the first time I noticed how the boat is more silent in dry weather. Sheets and lines squeak louder under load when it’s humid and rainy.

I finally felt myself entering the middle zone, accustomed to the pure chaos happening on the ocean’s surface. The swell followed a regular pattern, disturbed by waves coming from different directions, separating or building up one on top of the other. The boat just tried to dance on this mysterious rhythm, sliding on an invisible track, sustained by forces that I can’t understand completely.

This middle zone of the passage had no specific duration in my memory, and time ceased to be a factor. It was too far to think about the arrival. A lot could still happen, and the decisions taken in the present may not count in the end. I focused on making steady progress, and I relaxed. I was finally far from the abundant lush of Panama. It was time to move over, even if the next move had not yet a clear path.

In the middle zone I accepted this and accepted the waves’ gentle lulls and ferocious spanks. It’s the temple of nothing, built nowhere. I breath calmly. I am breath.

This ephemeral mental state could vanish unexpectedly. I could suddenly find myself fretting about the arrival or feeling that again that the trip was just started. Then worry faded again.

Cayman-Islands-to-Cuba

Following this spell I decided that stopping in Cayman Islands was not necessary. Weather was good and winds finally moved onto Tranquility’s beam. The boat stopped pitching and started rolling. Neither one is comfortable as the trade winds raised waves up to seven feet, but the progress was encouraging.

A warning from afar awoke me from my meditations. Elliott, who kindly fed me weather forecast through the Delorme, alerted me of a cold front moving from the US and reaching as far down as Honduras. Right were I was.

Even if this added extra miles to my trip, I decided to shoot for the Cayman Islands for two reasons. It could be a port of call for problems on board. It was also putting me more on the lee of Cuba in case of a cold front. As the feared cold front was bound to show up, I kept my course North trying to hug the Coast of Cuba

As expected the wind calmed down, and veered around the boat. Finally the fair winds and following seas visited me, after many people tried to send them my way. I prepared the whisker pole to keep the jib open and catch the following breeze. The operation took me a good half an hour. It was the first time I did it singlehanded on a rolling deck.

That night I was completely becalmed, on a flat ocean. I rolled the jib in, reefed the mainsail, and set up to sleep while the boat moved at less than a knot. At dawn light NErlies started to blow, destined to intensify. I hurried to get as close to the southern coast of Cuba as possible.

With sunset the squalls came, bringing rain and gusty winds. A little after they dissipated the wall of the cold front hit us, with 25 to 30 knots from the NNE. Getting the jib back in as fast as I could, the furler was giving me problems again, and the operation lasted more than necessary with the jib flogging badly.

I eventually packed the sail away, and kept the minimum sail area. Only a deep reefed mainsail and the staysail drove the boat. The night became quickly dark and a little chilly, and I tried to spend as much time as I could down below.

Cuba’s landmass was acting as a wall that protected from big waves. Only fifteen miles separated us from Isla Juventud, offering little fetch to the wind. The rig turned into a whistling symphony I listen to in the breaks of my slumber.

The following day I kept the boat on a slower pace while approached Cabo San Antonio and the Yucatan Channel. During the cold fronts the passage between Cuba and Mexico funnels big waves originating in the Gulf of Mexico. I figured that spending extra time in the lee of Cuba could be beneficial to have the seas calm down a bit.

Before sunset, as the winds decreased further I took courage and opened the jib. The speed immediately got up. Happy about my schedule and the successful trip so far I started to take a closer look to the charts to see where it was convenient to cross the Traffic Separation Scheme that runs along the North coast of Cuba. All the efforts to avoid dealing with shipping are rewarded by more rest on passage.

While touring the foredeck for the last check before darkness, I noticed a small vertical slit in the the dacron of the jib, close to the reinforced area of the clew. My heart sank in my chest. It must have happened with the flogging of the sail while furling the jib in the squall. What was maybe a four inch tear could easily spread and render my headsail useless. My satisfaction for how I dealt with the cold front turned into a sour feeling.

The damaged jib

Continuing the trip without the jib, meant slow progress and less windward ability. Florida was still more than 300 miles to the NE and the forecast anticipated the most difficult upwind leg of the trip. No bueno, again

[TO READ PART 2 CLICK HERE]
Transforming a beaten up Columbia 29 into a seaworthy liveaboard sailboat

Transforming a beaten up Columbia 29 into a seaworthy liveaboard sailboat

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[This Article was published in Good Old Boat magazine, Issue May/June 2017 . The following is the unedited version]

I could find many reasons behind our decision to purchase a Columbia 29 for bluewater cruising. Her presence on many of the most popular internet lists of small-go-anywhere-sailboats was a supporting evidence of her qualities.

She appeared on James Baldwins’ list on the website Atom Voyages, that we found particularly sage on the subject of cruising on small sailboats.

Another guideline was the mantra received by Dave, one of my favorite sailing instructor and talented racer, who once told me that designer Sparkman&Stephens never failed a boat.

Third, and very important for our budget, was Tranquility’s bargain price.

Questionable decisions

Spending part of my career as skipper of busy charter sailboats gave me knowledge and experience on equipment update and ordinary maintenance of a sailing vessel.

While shopping for a boat I was aware how an inexpensive, turn-key boat is nothing but a mirage. Even few years old boats can give the new owners a lot of headache as the marine environment is pretty harsh on equipment.

In the face of this knowledge, I should have known better what a tremendous task was to bring such an old boat back to life.

Tranquility is a Columbia 29 MKI built in 1965 in Portsmouth VA. From the scant information we could collect about her history, she had been based in the New England area for most of her life and she was sailed to the Caribbean (via Bermuda) and Nova Scotia by one of her owners before she started to pass in many hands in the most recent times.

What was left of her was a boat in need of a serious rehab. We knew that if we wanted to achieve our goal of living aboard and sailing offshore, we had to pour a lot of sweat and finances into that good old boat.

At least with Tranquility we had the opportunity to start from scratch. Laying on a private yard under a plastic tent, she set off our wildest fantasies on how we would transform her in a live aboard long distance cruising sailboat.

The bare naked condition of the boat made our survey easier, and we were pleased with her general sound structure.

The hull was sound and the deck didn’t show any particular weakness. The main spars were also good, and we had already in our mind to replace the standing rigging anyway.

The line and the proportions of the design conquered our hearths and we felt the interior had a rational layout.

During a holiday trip in Italy to visit my family, Kate and I decided to make our offer.

Getting ready to work

The deal was closed during the snowy New England winter and we became the new owners of a boat with primed hull and deck, standing and running rigging laying on stands and an electric inboard motor with a dubious battery bank.

The rest of the parts had been disassembled by the seller during his refit and included in the deal, but it was only after tackling the first projects that we realized that some of them were outdated or in need of a replacement.

He had advised us not to buy the boat in the first place, but Tranquility’s call was irresistible, so he followed up trying to give us another good advice: pick your battles.

The interior was kept original, with a slightly offset teak companionway giving access to a long side galley and an ample dinette / settee on the port side.

The floor had some visible rot, probably from water coming from the mast wires entering the cabin sole. Electrical system and plumbing needed a complete overhaul.

We had to wait few more months for winter to dissipate and to save enough money before we could lay our hands on her.

I sailed to the Caribbean on a yacht delivery and kept working the winter season on big yachts on the islands. Kate was still working in NYC, preparing to leave her apartment and implement all the necessary steps to move from a life on land onto a future afloat.

The boat was moved to a boatyard and as spring came we began our feverish work on her.

We budgeted 6 months for our refit project and during this hard work time we had to learn a lot about our new boat.

We soon realized that if we wanted to leave New England before the icing winter, we would have to cut some corners and make compromises, working fast in certain departments, and definitely following the advice of picking our battles.

First refit: May 2013 – November 2013

The very first project was to remove the wheel steering system and replacing it with a tiller.

Fortunately the rudder stock was still coming through the cockpit floor as an emergency backup. All I had to do was to remove the pedestal, wheel, pulleys and quadrant, cables and fiberglass a pipe to the cockpit sole in place of the old and worn out shaft seal.

With this modification we gained more leg room in the cockpit as well as more space underneath the floor.

A tiller was also preferred as an easier installation for a wind vane self steering gear, that we were intending to add in the future.

Before starting to re-installing deck hardware, deadlights and portholes, we proceeded to paint the deck and the hull.

We chose one part enamel for the topsides, so we could work a little faster. We had to put together electrical system, plumbing, and invent most of the solutions without having the chance to sail the boat first.

Some of the fixes were considered “temporary”, and they were done considering time of execution and prioritizing safety over aestethic.

The interior was kept original, mostly because we had no time to deal with it and Kate made her best to infuse some cuteness into those fifty year old surfaces.

In the galley we modified the existing layout to install a two burner propane range with oven. I had found a great deal on a second hand Force 10 stove and I took the executive decision to buy it.

Kate and I had a bit of an argument about this project as she put a lot of value in the storage area we were about to sacrifice. I was sure about the importance of a good stove for living aboard and insisted. She and I never regretted the decision.

Used and new items started to arrive from the internet, chandlery stores, marine consignments, friends and acquaintances, without much time to think.

The feeling that we were randomly slapping things on the boat started to creep on us, however we made sure before setting sail that three departments would receive most of our attention and funds: rigging, sails and auxiliary propulsion.

Inboard electric motor

One major gamble was the electric inboard propulsion Tranquility was equipped with.

I never had experience with such set up before and I felt completely illiterate.

After hours spent researching about electric propulsion, mainly on the internet, we decided to go ahead and give it a try, knowing that it would be easy to place an outboard engine on the transom if we were not happy with it.

The motor installed is a brushed system assembled and sold by Electric Yacht, with the maximum output power rated at 5kW.

The conversion happened in 2008, and we found an interesting video on You Tube about it.

The very first step was to assess the battery bank. The eight 6v golf cart batteries that came in the deal were spent and one froze during the winter.

We searched the best solution we could afford considering all the available options on the US market.

I spent the nights after working on the boat to read as much as I could on the Internet and made several calls to the major battery manufacturers and distributors.

Kate made cardboard mock ups of each each different brand and model, trying to fit the necessary power and voltage in the available space down below.

The best solution appeared to be a 48v LiFePO4 battery bank, but unfortunately it was totally out of our budget.

For practical reasons we picked 6v lead acid batteries. In case of failure of one of the batteries, a typical 6v “golf cart” battery would be less hard to find in different place of the world than a more sophisticated and expensive alternative.

Finally we purchased, transported, lifted and installed a total of more than 500 lb. of Trojan T-125 6v batteries, connecting them in series to obtain 48volts and a total capacity of 240ah.

New battery compartment were created in the engine room and under one of the settee in the main salon.

Although not ideal, the new set up had a more balanced distribution of the weight onboard, as well as a better access to key parts of the interior like the propeller shaft, that was completely inaccessible with the previous installation.

In theory and considering ideal conditions, we were expecting a range of 15 miles and a cruising speed of 3,5knots from this set up.

Cutter rig

The Columbia 29 was originally designed as a sloop but the rig of the boat was later modified by designer Eric Sponberg to satisfy the desire of a previous owner who wanted a cutter rig.

According to the drawings that the designer kindly mailed us, the rig was beefed up with external chain plates thru-bolted to the hull and backed with thick stainless steel plates.

The diameter of the shrouds was increased to 1/4 inch, and an inner forestay and two lower aft shrouds were added for the staysail.

The headsail had a roller furling system, an old continuous line Hood model, but in good working order.

The mast itself had been replaced with one from a different sailboat and had fixed steps on it.

We thought that this rig configuration was sturdy and redundant, ideal for us, and I always thought that the practicality of mast steps overtake the disadvantages (rig noise and windage).

On our side we sought the experience and the eye of a professional rigger to measure and order new cables and fittings that we later installed by ourselves.

Sails

With the limited range of our motor it became important to give Tranquility a very good set of new sails. We chose to order from Lee Sails in Hong Kong after a recommendation from a friend. We ordered a 100% furling yankee, a staysail and a full battened mainsail.

It was kind of awkward to take measurements with the stick down but with the careful advice of the sailmakers we came up with a successful set of brand new sails, that were promptly manufactured and delivered.

Once we dressed our boat with the new sails we were so pleased that later we chose again Leesails for a cruising gennaker and a storm staysail to completed our sail inventory.

In search of better weather

With the boat put together as quickly as we could, but with the most important departments covered, we had to sail away fast as our 6 months project had stretched to mid November and the South Coast of Massachusetts started to turn very unwelcoming to boaters.

With an experienced third crew member, my friend Roberto, we left Fairhaven MA on November first sailed to Block Island and waited there for a good weather window that came luckily a couple of days later when we set sail to Norfolk, VA.

From there Roberto left and Kate and I continued to play “cat and mouse” with the polar vortex fronts that were making incursions south during that winter, alternating between offshore passages and ICW runs.

With our limited range under power we had to cover most of the distance sailing offshore. After a cold but beautiful offseason cruising along most of the East Coast, we eventually found safe harbor in Brunswick, GA.

There we resumed the customization of our little boat, while also replenishing our pockets with temporary jobs.

Second refit: January 2014-May 2016

After living and sailing on Tranquility for six months we gain a better knowledge of the boat and we started to tackle all the problems we didn’t have time or money to address before.

In particular, we knew where the leaks were and what we didin’t find safe or comfortable.

The South Coast of Georgia offered year round fair weather for boat work and the local presence of James Baldwin was a good benchmark for our ideas and their realization.

Before we knew, we were landlocked in our new location, but we were motivated to keep working hard on our little vessel. The company of fellow boaters and new friends made the task less arduous.

It took us more than 2 years of part time boat work (with the last four months working full time on the refit) to reach a satisfactory point.

Since the day we bought the boat, almost everything onboard has been replaced, patched or restored.

Interior

As we stepped back to live on land it was easier for me to deal with the more dusty and destructive jobs.

We started working inside the boat, fixing an issue with the compression post and rotted floors.

Kate had noticed a little flex in the cabin sole right under the mast during our progress south. After tearing apart the old plywood floor, it turned out that the rot was attacking a hardwood beam propped across the bilge, that was the sole support of the compression post.

Digging a little more into the floor I discovered a gap between the structural beam and the bilge floor. I decided to fill the void with a solid teak wedge, that I glued with epoxy and fiberglassed on top of the bilge to prevent any further compression from the deck.

The rotted floor and other parts of the cabinetry were then rebuilt using new plywood saturated with epoxy.

This open heart surgery around the bilge was also a good opportunity to clear up some fiberglass peelings, reinforce tabbing around the bulkheads and give the bilge a final fresh painting, using two part primer and two coats of Bilgekoat.

On port side right after the companionway, the chart table area, engine room and battery storage needed a new more rational design that maximized space and weight distribution.

The goal was accomplished modifying the companionway ladder, building a new wider floor, new battery boxes to house the eight batteries for the electric propulsion and new cabinets.

Most of the job was done utilizing plywood for the panels and teak hardwood for the trims. The new chart table is bigger, with two level of storage below it and in the surrounding paneling that accomodate instruments and hide the electrical wiring.

The Jabsco Marine head with holding tank and all hose was removed and we installed a composting toilet wedged in the V-berth cutout.

We planned to build our own composting toilet, but time constraints and the need to finish other projects made us choose a commercial one.

C-head offered different sizes, and we picked a model that would fit in our V berth since we are not using it as a sleeping area.

The space freed was transformed into storage. Later during the yard period, the two thru-hulls of the old head were permanently glassed.

We have been very happy with the modification and the choice of a composting head.

Deck

On deck I proceeded designing a new layout and removing the hardware.

I wanted to restore the beautiful teak that was on the fore hatch, companionway, sea-hood, and the lazarette hatch.

Even if they served us during our maiden trip it was clear they would not last much longer.

The fore hatch and the lazarette hatch were rebuilt from scratch with new teak and plywood, while later I salvaged some of the still solid teak of the companionway and the sliding hatch and using new wood for some too worn out parts.

Luckily most of the solid teak had weathered but maintained its strength and beauty.

The old toe-rail also was made with teak that needed a lot of work. The protruding fiberglass bulwark was covered with three strips of teak forming a horseshoe cap. Age and stress had splintered and ruined the wood that needed to be replaced.

After purchasing cheap teak (beware, there is no such a thing!) I decided it wasn’t good enough to keep it bare, so I opted for a mixed approach: I glued a sandwich of teak strips to the fiberglass bulwarks with thickened epoxy; the wood was kept in place by more than a 100 fasteners while curing and later was covered by two layers of fiberglass tape. Fairing a painting with two part marine paint completed the job.

The bulwarks are a nice feature on the Columbia 29, as they give a secure footstep when the boat heels. There were few places where the bulwarks became an obstacle though, and that was mainly the bow, where anchor roller, bow stem and bowsprit where, and the corners on the top of the transom.

To improve those areas I cut off 1 1/2 inch of bulwark with an angle grinder and created a surface glassing solid teak scrap pieces on the deck.

At the bow it created an easier surface to install the anchor roller and the new retractable bowsprit to fly light air sails; on the stern I had a better place to attach the two bow cleats.

Cockpit

I built an integral fiberglass tank under the cockpit floor, accessible through a sealed aluminum hatch and made with plywood bulkheads, fiberglass and epoxy.

The new tank has a capacity of 32 gallons bringing the total fresh water supply to 57.

The outside lockers (lazarette and cockpit locker) were also improved: made watertight and isolated from the rest of the boat.

New cockpit locker drainage channels, fabricated using fiberglass on an improvised mold, were added with a built in inclination to allow water to drain even when the boat is heeled.

Painting

After the projects on deck were completed it was time to paint the deck with two-part marine paint. We chose Perfection by Interlux, Oyster White color.

The choice of the two-part paint is due to its superior adhesion and strength compared to the one part paints we used before that was already peeling off.

The heavy traffic and stress that the deck supports require a more tough coating. A left over from a friend’s boat project provided the fire red paint that we used for the toe rail.

After the paint job was completed we proceeded reinstalling all the deck hardware, including the new staysail blocks moved inboard, the new retractable bowsprit designed by me, a new 60W solar panel mounted on a tracker (to be oriented perpendicular to the sun at any given moment).

Boatyard time

The final part of the refit happened in a boat yard in St.Mary’s GA, not far from Brunswick.

The liveaboard-friendly yard allowed customers to use the shop and many of their tools, expanding the amount of work we could do on site.

We took care of the projects we could not do while in the water, plus all the unexpected collateral work that arise every time you touch something on the boat.

In particular, we fixed few stress cracks in the rudder area with a fiberglass layup, better sealed the stern tube that passes through the deadwood, replaced the tiller head for a new one with a square key in it, installed the Norvane Self Steering wind pilot, permanently glassed the thru-hulls for the marine head, replaced the propeller for a new one, and much, much more.

After two maintenance coats of one part paint on the topsides and new ablative bottom paint we re-launched Tranquility and started again our life afloat.

The list of projects we realized is extensive, I hope this recap and the pictures give a brief summary of what happened.

Of course there are few more projects that we set aside for future completion or that will linger into the “Never list”.

It is now time to sail rather than do boat work and we hope we set the clock back enough to enjoy some quality cruising time aboard for a while.

Our little boat has now all the qualities to keep us safe and happy at sea and we feel incredibly fortunate to have realized our dream of transforming her in our unique small bluewater sailboat.

For a detailed list of the projects mentioned in the article visit the Columbia 29 refit page

living aboard
Two years living aboard Tranquility and voyaging on the ocean

Two years living aboard Tranquility and voyaging on the ocean

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Just recently we hit the 2 years or 730 days since we’ve been living aboard our tiny sailboat. I don’t remember the exact date we moved in.

This does not take in account the eight months we spent living and traveling on a primitive Tranquility before we settled in Coastal Georgia, where we moved back on land. That still belonged to a transformative process into full time cruisers.

It was the beginning of April 2016, when we left the apartment in Brunswick, GA where we lived for almost two years with Susan, our roommate and owner of the famous Tipsy McSways, and boarded a barely complete (will she ever be?) Tranquility at the Frederica Yacht Club.

Our Columbia 29 had been tied to the same dock for two years, patiently awaiting the end of all the modifications and tortures she received.

We moved from the comforts of a fully equipped house and the companionship of Susan and the band of house animals (in alphabetical order Beta, Betty White, Fluffy Butt, and Roxy) to the pokey interior of a sailboat and the constant presence of each other. Living aboard a second time was tough, as if those 2 years on land made us forget everything  we knew about it.

The enthusiasm for something we waited for such a long time was somehow mitigated by the shock of the transition.

During the two years spent in the Frederica River, Tranquility almost became part of the marsh ecosystem, growing a thick and impervious beard around her underwater surface, harboring a very diverse collection of marine life. She also suffered the transition  from long quiet to sudden movement.

We took the boat out of the water in St. Marys,GA to address this extraordinary growth and to complete many other projects that I left behind for lack of time. It was there, after going back into the water, that we officially re-started cruising and living aboard, embarking on a very slow voyage that still endures to date.

We celebrated with a Battlestar Galactica marathon while we were slowly adapting to our new house and lifestyle.

This 2 year anniversary will coincide with another haul out. We are taking arrangements  for new bottom paint and a new topside coat for Tranquility, here on the Atlantic coast of Panama.

After two years of almost no boat work (there is no such a thing), we will tackle a couple of big projects that had been slowly taking form on the drawing board.

During the last longer passage from Bahamas to Panama we took note of a couple features to improve comfort during long offshore passages, both for living inside and in the cockpit. She will also get ready for less pleasant weather. You never know.

It is hard to believe how well we adapted to our scarce 200 sq feet of living space. We do enjoy very much when we have the opportunity of staying in hotel rooms or friends and family houses, with real bed, showers and bath tubs, broadband WiFi, huge kitchens with refrigerators and comfy sofas.

For some strange reasons, after a while immersed in such luxury we end up missing our tiny boat.

sailboat refit
Five years of Tranquility (in photos, not literally)

Five years of Tranquility (in photos, not literally)

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I am working on a photo project, in the quiet of my hometown and the pleasure of broadband internet, that involves looking at photos from the last six years of my life, for the most part related to sailing.

Five years ago Kate and I purchased Tranquility, our Columbia 29 mki that was lying disassembled in a yard in Fairhaven, MA, the same place where in 1892 Joshua Slocum was given his famous fixer upper, the Spray.

People often ask me where they can find pictures of our boat online, and I realized that they are scattered throughout this blog, hard to find.

I thought I would post some here, in chronological order, for who is interested in the Columbia 29 mki model, and in the modifications we made so far (click on the pictures to enlarge).

 

Tiny bluewater sailboat
Sailing slow into your fears

Sailing slow into your fears

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A little more than one week ago we were at anchor in Cumberland Island, enjoying the warm weather and the gentle wind.

Mornings are still chilly this time of the year in these Southern lands and seas, but when the sun shows up they climb quickly and make it a wonderful place to be.

sailing and fear

We anchored in the north side of Cumberland Island, by the ruins of Cumberland Wharf. Right in front of the stumps left from the old pier the water is deep enough for us to be still floating at low tide.

Unfortunately it is a not very protected anchorage and can only be used with wind from the E or the S. That prevented us to stop here in other trips, but this time weather was with us and we had a pleasant day and night on the hook.

Kate wanted to take a stroll in this particular area of Cumberland Island to see the first African Baptist Church, built  in this settlement in 1893.

A beautiful forest, with many trees down from recent tropical storms, surrounds the Settlement, so thick that it is almost impossible to cross out of the only road that is built in the area.

We disturbed peaceful armadillos, looked at wild horses from a safe distance, picked up juniper berries, while walking through the forest.

sailing and fear
The Church in Cumberland Island

There is a need for loneliness and remote areas that has a profound effect on me. It must have something to do with my feet, which are my main form of transportation right now.

In quiet an unobstructed places early mornings became my treat retreat. No internet connection means freedom from constant feed and social media. It calms my urge to express quick and shallow thoughts.

sailing and fear
Tranquility at anchor

Places like this have a restorative effect. There is nothing wrong with people, but I don’t particularly like what is built for people. Roads, parking lots, concrete surfaces, they all bring clutter and negative vibes.

They all serve a purpose: take you fast and comfortably to a place where you can spend money.

In the morning I usually take some time before making coffee to write whatever comes out of my mind, without a specific aim. Then I make coffee and continue with writing or reading as I wait for Kate to wake up. It is my only private moment aboard Tranquility. Kate usually enjoys the same privilege at night when I crash earlier than her.

There is an article about Tranquility’s refit coming up in the May issue of Good Old Boat Magazine.

I’ve been in touch with the editor working on few details of the story and pictures. It makes me feel a little like a professional, the exchange of information back and forth, the check coming into the mail, the editing process.

I am trying to read and write better, with more intensity, and focus. I am not sure if I could ever make a living out of it, it should be nice indeed.

Writing itself stabilizes my mood. I become cranky and distracted when I don’t do it enough. So you won’t get rid of me so easily.

After Cumberland Island we sailed with a clear blue sky and enough wind to move consistently toward our destination: St.Marys.

I am rather pessimistic when it comes to estimate our progress, especially when we have to use our slow motor. It might not be very powerful but is indeed perseverant, and we sailed quicker than expected to destination.

There we reunited with our friend Bill and other people we got to know when we were in the boatyard for a month of hard work. We visited and saw their progress, indeed slow but perseverant. If you keep moving you eventually get there.

Saturday the strong Northerlies kept us at anchor. We tried to make it to Fernandina Beach in the afternoon but the effort was unsuccessful. We couldn’t make way in a bend of the river, where the current and the headwind brought us to a dead stop.

We retreated a few hundred feet back and dropped the anchor again, then we waited for the next day when the wind dropped, and started to move timing the tides, ebbs and flow, trying to get to the inlets at low tide to use the next flood.

Again, with the use of sails and motor we did remarkably well and we darted through the marshes of Florida’s barrier islands, a journey made of dolphins encounters, bird watching, fighting the currents and the shoals.

My mind that usually see the darker picture, predicted that we would have to stop in Amelia Island and wait for the next tide the following day. Instead, winds, currents and a little help of the motor when needed, put us all the way past the Talbot Islands to a free public dock in Jacksonville, right before the St.John’s River. There we celebrated, with delicious food and with a dose of spy movies to be precise.

With this unexpected progress, we arrived earlier than I thought to Palm Cove Marina, so Kate could go easily to her doctor’s appointment.

Tranquility’s new home for February

Why am I so pessimistic?

I often ask myself how is it to build faith. Not in the religious term, or maybe so, but for me faith means a deep motivation and sense of direction.

It’s possible that my  interest in psychology comes from a desire to know deeper why faith is so volatile, why, basically, the mind gets in the way of your everyday life, with worries, negative thinking and other sort of anxiety-driven doubts.

What’s the role of bad thoughts, of second guessing, of self pity? Is it something we can dismiss easily as just wrong or non-adaptive, something to cure or eliminate?

Is being happy and have a positive outlook to be normal?

These are some big philosophical questions, big crevasses that are hard to fill by knowledge. Depression is real, and it is no joke. It affects everybody, but in peculiar individuals, particularly sensitive ones, it takes an enormous toll and becomes a struggle.

I recently read a little more about one of my favorite authors, David Foster Wallace. He was clinically depressed. And he was one of the most successful writers of his generation. Eventually he committed suicide.

I am sure he experienced extreme happiness, an perhaps extreme boredom. I can imagine his life was intense and full under many points of view, with vertiginous highs and bottomless lows.

Looking at people with severe clinical depression makes me withdraw from my self pity and negativeness.

I don’t consider myself depressed. I have indeed my moment of darkness, boredom, laziness, cowardice and so on. Still, I look to people that show profound faith and hope with a bit of envy, as an example, or maybe as a myth, because we tend to share only our nice part with others.

The undesirable thoughts and behavior are hidden by a curtain of shame. Even there, I look for faults. It seems that people obsessed with Positive Thinking go in a downward spiral because it’s so hard to really be positive all the time. Showing just the positive and shiny parts, they hide the dark ones.

Robert M. Pirsig, who also suffered from severe depression, wonderfully put it in words in an article he wrote for Esquire called “Cruising Blues”:

You can be sure that the same mechanism that makes depression unavoidable also makes future elation unavoidable. Each hour or day you remain depressed you become more and more adjusted to it until in time there is no possible way to avoid an upturn in feelings. The days you put in depressed are like money in the bank. They make the elated days possible by their contrast. You cannot have mountains without valleys and you cannot have elation without depression. Without their combined upswings and downswings, existence would be just one long tedious plateau.

I found that moving slowly, a little bit like Tranquillity, gets you out of any situation. Keep moving slowly and things will get better.

Another disturbance in these day of rest, is the role of fear and attraction. There is a common saying that you fear what you desire. My current fear is thinking about sailing the northern route across the Atlantic. At the beginning of all this it was like a fun idea that Kate and I created once we started our boat project. The scary part at this point is that we might do it. When you start considering that a thing may happen Fear shows up, and it can be paralyzing.

Northern route across the Atlantic

There is this stretch of ocean between Newfoundland, Canada and Iceland called Irminger Sea. Named after a Danish explorer, this part of ocean that borders the East Coast of Greenland is considered one of the windiest of the planet. It is studied by oceanographer because of its peculiar oceanic currents, that sink and resurface, and play a fundamental role in the nutrient cycle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Is that scary? Yes, but it is also exciting, daring, emotional. It’s a place where not many people go. But somebody did, in many different crafts, with the more diverse crew.

Geronimo St. Martin, an Argentinian physician made it solo in a 20 ft fiberglass production sailboat, named La India. He later made it to Norway, Spitzbergen, and the Arctic circle, before turning around to reach Cape Horn, on the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean.

A family of 5 who call themselves the Coconuts (two adults, three kids, now four with the last delivered while wintering in Iceland) made it on a racing boat in October, not exactly the “right” time of the year.

These examples don’t mean that this is an easy and comfortable trip. But it’s possible.

So why this fear? Because I am scared I am not disciplined enough to cope with potentially severe conditions? Because I think that my body is not strong enough to endure the trouble? That my mind will resolve to panic in a difficult situation? Because it is a place so remote that emergency responder may not get to? For sure, all the above.

Human mind assumes it is more likely to face death attempting that route rather than another one. It may be true but calculating the odds could not be that simple or possible at all, and death has very humorous ways to get to you. Fearing the Irminger Sea is both wise and stupid. Wise because it puts you in the face of a very hostile environment. It’s stupid because any Sea or Ocean is worth respect, and we as sailors should pay the same attention, awareness and preparation every time we go out at sea.

But I am also attracted by novelty, and at this point of my life a tropical beach with bar, wi-fi connections, crowded anchorages, fine dining and warm clear waters is not something that intrigues me anymore.  Remote and rugged, quiet and isolated are all adjectives that sound more attractive. There is eternal beauty that waits to be discovered. Even cold assumed a new desirable meaning. The only thing I still can’t go over is cold water. I have a natural, visceral fear and avoidance of cold water. In this Kate is much braver than me.

So what am I really fearing? I am fearing the effort, the amount of preparation it takes, the awareness, and the bare thousands of miles in cold water, fog, strong winds? The fear of failure, that comes from the judgements of others?

I can’t make my fear shut up. Fear is energy. Fear is useful. In this case  fear is telling me not to underestimate the task and to be prepared for it. And there is only one strategy that doesn’t work with fear. Avoidance. When you avoid fear you bring it with you for the rest of your life.

I think I will have to start taking cold showers.

A much welcomed “chicken move”

A much welcomed “chicken move”

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I am crossing my fingers as I am writing this but it seems we almost made it through the ICW. Almost because we post-poned our departure again, 6 hours from the original idea of leaving right at low tide around 6:30 am.

Here is what happened.

We woke up in Morehead City, NC where we spent few days waiting for decent weather to sail offshore and keep sailing in a general south west direction. Everything was ready from the night before, we just needed to leave the docks, raise the sails and go.

It was 5:45am when I ventured outside heading for the restrooms. The sky was dark grey, rainy and windy, the nervous chop of the bay slapping Tranquility loudly. The temperature was 39F. For as much as I wanted to ride the Northerlies and get past Cape Lookout to finally head straight to the above average warmth of Florida, the scenario of this early start was not encouraging. The drizzle in particular was very disheartening.

Back under the blankets and with coffee in our mugs we held a brief crew meeting (Kate, me and Beta) and all agreed to postpone departure to next high tide with the idea of spending the next six hours napping,taking showers and in general being comfortable.

At first I was a little mad at myself. I considered that a “chicken move”. But then I acknowledged the wisdom coming from Kate and Beta. There is no need to make your life more miserable when you already are sailing in winter on a tiny sailboat.

We should still have a good 24hrs or so of Northerlies, enough to cover the 100 miles that will put us past Cape Fear and on a SW course parallel to shore. Then we expect another blow between Thursday and Friday, a cold front passing through and bringing other strong northerlies. This time the forecast indicates that it’s not going to be as long lasting as this past one, and by then we should also be hugging the SC – GA coasts with milder temperatures compared to North Carolina, which by the way, we are very happy to leave behind.

This North Carolina endeavor has been cold and rainy, with a lot of idle time waiting for the weather to behave properly.
It sure is challenging and rewarding to be able to sail inland waters, ditches and all, but it also very labor intensive and slow. It’s something between a chess game and an endurance race, played against a very capricious opponent.

With our electric motor we belong offshore, and that’s where we are heading.

See you later.
A sailing pilgrimage

A sailing pilgrimage

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When I think about our journey I like to think we are on a pilgrimage, even when it’s not clear what is the destination. I may not know the destination of the journey, but I know the sense of it, or at least this is what I tell myself. It sounds more or less like this:

Redesign life through interaction with nature and the discipline of sailing.

On this pilgrimage we are currently  in Portsmouth VA, where our Columbia 29 MK1 was manufactured in 1965.

According to advertising material of the time Columbia Yacht Corporation opened its eastern plant in 1964 situated on a nine-acre on 2400 Wesley street in Portsmouth,Virginia. Looking at her now, 51 years after leaving the factory, Tranquility is in a very good shape.

We didn’t want to walk for 1 hour under the rain to visit a site which with all probabilities has completely changed. I feel a little proud of our little boat, still sailing. Sometimes I have weird dreams of making her lighter, without an engine and other “extras”, to enhance her sailing abilities, but then I wake up to reality when I think about boatyard time and realize it’s not time to do that. Not yet, at least.

Tranquility is probably happy to be underway again after two weeks in Hampton VA. The family trips went well and we much enjoyed the time together, the request for the removal of the conditions on my permanent residency is in the mail, heading for Vermont, and we hope for a quick response. Now it’s time to go back to sailing.

The first sail after the break was nice and fast. The boat moved at a good pace down the Elizabeth River pushed by northerlies, surrounded by a surreal vulgar display of power. Aircraft carriers, destroyers, cruisers, amphibious ships, hospital ships and other less familiar types were docked or under shipyard care while jets, helicopters, and Command and Control aircraft buzzed around.

Navy ships under repair in Norfolk VA
Navy ships under repair in Norfolk VA

We reached the free public docks in Portsmouth, VA where we met a bunch of fellow cruisers docked for the night. It’s coldish, and we are not used yet to be with no heater. Temperatures are expected to plunge further in the next days, so we are moving carefully, using the days that are in the low 40s to stay at anchor and save money, and digging in our sailing budget to dock and use shore power when it goes down to 32 as it will.

It’s our second trip southbound, and for one reason or another, it seems that we can’t avoid to run late and face cold weather again. Days are short and we find ourself in bed after dinner at 7pm and up after 7 when the sun finally comes back. Our sleeping bag and each other’s body temperature are our best allies, even our cat limits his night roaming to snuggle with us and find warmth.

The good thing about it is that we can read a lot, write, cook hearty meals, listen to the radio. Kate and I are playing tug of war over a book titled Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, a reportage written by Jeremy Scahill about the use of private contractors for security and military operations in war zones. It’s a bit repetitive in its construction, but it’s dense with truly scary information mostly about what happened in Iraq and in other unlucky places on earth.

Weird enough where we are now it’s only few miles away from Academi‘s (the new name for Blackwater) main facility: 7,000 acres (28 km2) in the Dismal Swamp. There is a canal where Tranquility could sail that runs between Chesapeake, Va to South Mills, NC. Unfortunately the canal is closed after hurricane Matthew created some obstructions on the tight ditch. I guess we will have to delay hearing gunfire until we get to Camp Lejeune.

More than marshes, barrier islands and wide sounds, it’s the military presence (with the colorful addition of their competitors in the private sector) that sadly dominates East Coast landscape by sea, a reminder of America’s strength and beliefs, if someone forgot.

On a lighter note I spent time focusing on the launch of the new website, Psychology of Sailing. I had the opportunity of interviewing few specialists, both in the Psychology and Sailing fields, about this project. I feel that I am researching the topic widely before I can confidently write about it. I forced myself to a deadline, so time is running and soon I have to break this doubts and publish.

To know better the world of live aboard cruisers I am also conducting a survey with the aim of studying a little more the phenomenon. I you know anybody cruising for more than 6 months please ask them to contact me.

If you want to receive the first post and you are interested in following this new website you can subscribe at Psychology of Sailing here. Help spread the word!

 

living on a boat
Living on a boat has its limitations

Living on a boat has its limitations

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It took some effort to pull away from the coast. Even if we are living on a boat, we are growing fonder of social interactions, family, friends, random people watching on a NYC train and we spent good part summer and early fall visiting people, re-establishing connections in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York City but also back in my home place, northern Italy.

We met newborns and introduced each other to old friends and colleagues on both continents. As much as we are embracing an hermit-like lifestyle relationship and social interactions seem to grow stronger, as if quantity of interaction was not a good indicator of their qualities.

This sailing life is not exactly as sequestered as one could think.

Once again we have been adopted by a kind family of Fairhaveners, and by the community at large. We have always felt like at home there, but eventually, after we enjoyed time with kindred spirits, we had no other excuse to linger in the ever cooler South Coast of Massachusetts and eventually we had to sail South.

A pilgrim is thankful for the hospitality, but they know when it’s time to leave.

And so we left with the same destination in mind as three years earlier, this time on a more outfitted boat, a better stocked pantry and a tireless helmsman, our Norvane self-steering.

The memory of the previous trip had faded in a blur of discomfort and fast downwind sailing. Going offshore in the North Atlantic in November is no joke under any circumstance, and this time we had it worse.

living on a boat
North Atlantic sailing route

Relentless westerlies winds kept us far offshore, more than we actually desired to, pushing us dangerously close to the outskirts of the Gulf Stream.

At first it was a spanking breeze, that later became near gale condition from WNW. Heeled on a close hauled course with nothing but a small portion of the mainsail and the staysail, pounding into increasingly bigger waves, Tranquility made slow steady progress to windward.

The forecast pictured an approaching cold front bringing strong Northerlies. We were looking forward to it but the weather was late to the meeting and so we could only keep our boat bow to the waves, which was hard but safer than have the breakers on the beam. At that point we would see ten feet high waves, crest to trough.

Finally the Northerlies came so we sailed on a broad reach with winds and waves on our starboard quarter.

Immediately the boat’s speed took off. It was adrenalinic. I had to take the helm from the Norvane and carefully anticipate winds and gust to avoid Tranquility taking off on the wave shoulder, accelerating to windward and exposing her beam to the breaking crests.

Soon the companionway was boarded up as some of the crests were dumping gallons of water into the cockpit and on top of us. Kate and I had our fair share of showers from “rogue waves” as we called them. Down from our bunks we could hear the slosh of ocean water all over the deck, followed by the watch keeper’s curses.

Eventually I grew too weary of steering and decided to take the mainsail down completely and running on the staysail only. The boat immediately slowed down and became more docile, the Norvane flawlessly kept her on course as I switched roles with Kate eager to rest.

Winds and waves conjured to give us a good angle of approach to Ocean City, MD.

After stopping here on our way North we benefit again of the easy inlet, probably the only good harbor on the Atlantic side of the Delmarva peninsula.

living on a boat
Ocean City boardwalk in winter

This place in winter felt even more like a bubble. You can look out the window and see the deserted beach of Assateague Island, or you can try another window and see waterfront properties with private docks sitting still in the brightest November day, empty and quiet, a lot of square feet of living space heated and cooled for none’s use.

Ocean City MD is the outpost of humanity, the front that tries to resist the big emptiness flowing in from the ocean, the ruins of an idea that everybody knew was wrong but none could do anything to stop, an endless succession of buildings, streets and corners that are struggling to keep up with the passing of time, deserted by the general lack of interest.

They keep silent trying to withstand another winter, in need of funding, maintenance, and love above all, only visited by scavengers who benefit from the lack of summer crowd.

Scavengers like us, who found a nice crack in this fabric and we wedged in, with fenders and dock lines and anchor and all.

From three days offshore where Mother Nature gave us no discounts, to a temporary protected nest. In these ruins we plugged back in the social discourse to find out things don’t always change for the best and so we diverted our attention from staring at the news to get things done to satisfy our cruising needs, electrical power, showers and a chance to serendipitously acquire another object to expand our unassorted collection: a stowaway Kite.

Once defrosted in the waterfront comforts we sailed back to the anchorage. It had been a very, very long time since last time we dropped the hook. Since Cuttyhunk in September, if I recall, roughly two months earlier.

It always feels a lot different when we are at anchor. It’s like the zero point, everything from there is just adding stuff. Adding shore power, adding freshwater, adding internet, social interactions, malls, driving, noise, smell, shame and judgmental looks.

At anchor we focus on the basics cooking food and eating, house keeping, reading, writing, sleeping long hours, watching Fellini’s movies thinking that Italy in the 60s was the most advanced peak humankind has ever reached (the romantic idea soon demolished by remembering the undisputed hegemony of DC party during those years), eating more, periodically changing the orientation of the solar panel to ensure that the maximum output is kept.

At our peculiar age, a precise step in the western society where on average we are supposed to increase our footprint acquiring a house, a car, hopefully a second one, that rice cooker, maybe a drill press for the garage, we are contained in these tight fiberglass walls that resist the natural expansion of humankind, tossing back everything that does not fall into a place, with objects constantly mixed and reshuffled by a washing machine-like motion that put moisture in the mix, leaving us, members of the advanced western society, crawling in tight corners trying to ignore the growing chaos, with our focus absorbed by primary technological needs.

Eventually we reach the point where we can’t retreat any more and we have to surrender, re-organize the space through simple actions that take the entire day. It is the price tag of living on a boat.

These walls resisting the colonialist expansion teach us an important lesson.

Our living space is growing smaller and smaller. It takes some time at anchor to fight back and put things into place, to cut back, discard, stop acquiring. It can only take so much expansion before the growth become a double edged weapon.

There is one thing I can say for sure: living on a boat has its limitations. Planet Earth is a similar type of vessel floating in an inhospitable space, and it can only take so much growth.
East Coast Northbound: climbing capes

East Coast Northbound: climbing capes

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Sailing in the vicinity of capes is always tricky. Wind, waves, tide and other natural events shaped their appearance and at the same time those forces are influenced by the mass of land they collide with. A vessel rounding a cape is subjected to variable conditions, and for this reason it’s always a good idea to give extra miles when rounding a headland or promontory.

The East Coast of the US has several capes that influenced our route in many ways. Mainly they were obstructing our NE progress.  After Cape Hatteras, we could all of the sudden head almost due North, and get faster to cooler weather. Sometimes to go around the coast feels like climbing mountains, the effort increases close to vertical peaks.

Wrighstville Beach to Lookout Bight, NC 72 NM

WB sunrise
Sunrise in Wrightsville Beach

A group of open water swimmers was taking advantage of the early hours and of the momentary absence of boat traffic to practice. Tranquility was the only boat under way and from the cockpit we watched carefully the colorful swim caps and kept a good distance from them. It must be a popular group in Wrigthsville as we counted at least 50 people taming the inlet at 6 am. The sun was barely up but it was clear it would be another hot day.

We had enough wind to leave the Masonboro inlet and head ENE again, but soon we hit lighter conditions and the boat speed suffered. We were hoping to get there at dusk but the pace was not ideal. The wind picked up later when we were already in sight of the Beaufort inlet and the sunlight was gone. After the last gybe we had all the rolling waves hitting us almost on the beam as we were following the bearing of two red buoys marking the entrance of the bight.

We were trusting our chart plotter that was giving us a depth of 30 ft. It was a lie. Right when we heard the sound of braking waves and realized we could be in trouble, the boat hit the bottom with the keel. A sandy bottom judging from the sound. The long keel of our boat just bumped in a sand bank, we turned immediately to port where we found deeper waters and we adjusted our position to the blinking red buoy.

Lookout Bight
LOOKOUT BIGHT VIEW, NORTH UP

We had approached the entrance with a too tight angle and the Navionics Charts had assured we were in no danger. It was a lucky way to demonstrate how chart plotters are not the solution to navigation problems. Had we listened more carefully to the sound of the sea or took a wider, more conservative angle of approach and we could have avoided that. Good lesson for the future.

lookout bight 2
LOOKOUT BIGHT FROM ESE

After the surprising and scary bump we were sailing in flat waters as the land had already cut the swell from the ocean. This time it was upwind as we turned SSW to get in the lee of the sand dunes. It was time to decide where to anchor. We observed the anchor lights at the top of masts, trying to judge the distances from the beach, from other anchored boats and find the good depth to drop our anchor. With a quick look at the horizon it became also obvious that a line of thunderstorms was on our way.

After a little recon we let the anchor sink to the bottom in 17feet of water and I was giving enough chain and rode out to absorb the thunderstorm charging for us. Just as I cleated the anchor rode and positioned the anti chafe gear the squall hit us with some violent wind gusts and blinding rain from the NW. As the anchor had no sufficient time to set, it started to drag away from the beach towards deeper waters.

Luckily we had no obstacles in our path and finally the anchor set bringing our bow to the wind and waves. I calculated that we dragged at least 200 yards before the anchor found a good bite and started to dig into the sand. The thunderstorm raged for few minutes more, before continuing on and leaving a quiet night behind. When visibility improved we noticed we were a little distant from the beach, but we were now trusting the holding of our ground tackle.

LB walk
Walking the dunes

LB dunes
Facing the Atlantic Ocean

We spent few days in the bight. One day we swam ashore and walked all around on the beach. The next day we hiked the beach and the dunes and made it to the other side in the hotter and sunnier day I experienced this summer. We made it, but it was a serious feat. During these hikes, we talked a lot about ideas, a torrent of ideas. Business plans, life plans, travel plans a big collection of our imaginary world had been discussed, analyzed and then dismissed or saved for later discussion. We thought about possible uses of shells, writing ideas, financial investments. Walking enhance our imagination to the point that we could even end up arguing furiously over an imaginary plan that is far from having any foundation.

LB boats
Lookout Bight gets busy with any type of craft during weekends

I consider the Lookout Bight one of the nicest place on the East Coast of the US, especially if you have the opportunity ti visit it on a boat. Crowded during weekends, it is remote during weekdays and at night it is absolutely quiet. We swam a lot and I even did my first bottom scrub since we launched the boat. The day we left, when the conditions we were looking for to face the longest and most difficult section of the trip finally came, I noticed a sand shark surfacing and trying to reach my breakfast pot… Even though I am aware how harmless they are, I am glad I went scrubbing the hull without knowing about it!

Lookout bight to Ocean City, MD 289 NM

We expected very light conditions for an extended period of time before venture out of the Bight to round Cape Lookout first, and Hatteras later, and that’s exactly what we got. We had an upwind first part to get around the cape, so light air was actually good, as the flat seas didn’t obstruct too much our progression. Once around, we received a little help from the Gulf Stream that pushed us NE.

I think the best explanation ever of how an ocean current works is from the Disney/Pixar movie Finding Nemo, when Crush the turtle shows it to Marlin <<You’re riding it, dude. Check it out!>>

It was a very nice ride indeed. The Gulf stream current flows close to the Outer Banks Coast. We were sailing downwind about twenty miles offshore in light winds and still we had a steady progress of 4kts even 5kts at times. On a calm ocean we slipped into our watch routine mile after mile and had no visits from thunderstorms. The depth sounder took a peak of what’s outside the Continental Shelf and settled to 385 feet (apparently its maximum reading), but according to the charts we were in an area of 1600ft of depth. Kate shivered trying to imagine such an ocean depth. Here the water was really blue and turned violet when the sun was setting.

GS dude
“You are riding it, dude. Check it out!”

The round of Hatteras went almost unnoticed. For the entire trip we kept talking about it like it was Cape Horn or Good Hope. Even if it’s blasphemous to compare it to some of the most stormy capes in the world, Hatteras has a bad reputation among sailors in the East Coast, and we were constantly warned when they heard us talking about going around. Cape Hatteras is also known as “the Graveyard of the Atlantic” because of many shipwrecks happened in the area. The presence of the Gulf Stream, the fierce storms that hit both in winter and summer, and a very thin and steep Continental Shelf make this cape a place not to underestimate and to avoid in bad weather.

After Hatteras we turned the bow North and passed the Chesapeake entrance to continue along the Delmarva peninsula. Our destination was Ocean City where we had the mission to find supplies, regroup and organize the next leg. I remember looking at the charts and asking Kate “How is Ocean City?”. She replied that she spent few summers there when she was a child. “It’s a crazy place you must see”.

OC approach
Beta and I checking the approach to Ocean City

Ocean City was attractive to my eyes because of its easy inlet in case we arrived in the dark (as our habit) and for the presence of marinas and shopping facilities. After three weeks at anchor we needed to replenish our fresh water and get a good deal of food. With some 300 miles to get to New England it was one of our last chances to stock up.

We obviously arrived in the early AM in pitch dark and I hailed the Coast Guard on the VHF to ask if the inlet had any recent change from what the charts were telling us. They gave us green light and we approached carefully. With so many buildings and lights it wasn’t difficult to find our way into the inlet and we reached our destination, Ocean City Fisherman’s Marina at 3 AM, tying up at the fuel dock waiting for them to open.

ocfueldock
Our first landing

It was a Saturday morning and fishermen were already leaving. Kate called the owner of the Marina at about 3:30AM convinced that she would talk to the voice mail. Instead she woke him up. She apologized but he reassured her that he was coming earlier anyway because of the early birds coming to the fuel docks, so he told us to go tie up to a near slip and that we could talk later.

We checked in easily and with the BoatUS membership we were granted a discount. We stayed two nights for 101$, which considering the season is not bad at all. In the morning we noticed that ours was the only mast in the marina (and probably in all West Ocean City). All around us sport fishers and other type of powerboats were the only boats.

oc neighbor
Neighbors in West Ocean City

We walked a lot, but all the shopping was close by so we quickly completed the list of our errands. On a saturday night we walked to the board walk, which is this crazy loud, sugar fueled, amalgam of people flowing up and down. Kate wanted me to try any sort of sugary extra caloric eatables and I settled for sea water tabbies and caramelized cashews. On the next monday we left early  with a fully provisioned boat to get to Cape Henlopen, with the plan to sit there and wait for a good weather window.

 
Sea legs and watch system

Sea legs and watch system

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Sitting at anchor enjoying the nice breeze and the shade provided by Kate (and her mom’s) newly designed boom tent is a good payback for all the sweat and effort, all the tense moment when we couldn’t see an end to our work and it seemed that we could never leave. Gazing at the nearby beach, observing any kind of wildlife, from sea birds to dolphins to bros riding jet skis and rude power boaters (there are few kind individuals in the category) put all this preparation labor on perspective. Now it’s time to enjoy.

Blog_Anchor
Sunset at anchor in Sullivan’s Island, SC

Nonetheless to fully enjoy our new life afloat we had to go trough countless details and preparation. A couple of passages in the open ocean and very soon we found where our preparation lacked and how bad our sea legs were. Cooking meals, resting and even personal hygiene can become difficult tasks out there. Exhaustion by sun exposure, waves shaking and wind can bring to episodes of delirious speech with a low deep tone of voice. Auditory hallucinations are not rare either and happen when your brain mistakes a particular sound for a baby’s cry or for somebody calling your name.

It took a long time to get our sea legs and cruising routines back on track. Sea legs are what keep you standing (or sitting) on top of a vessel accelerating and decelerating under the action of wind and waves. I suspect sea legs are a combination of motor control (governed by the cerebellum in the brain) and muscle tone of the core, so it takes training and exercise to establish a harmonic posture in relation with a shaky floor.

The very first offshore legs put us in survival mode, with the rolling and tossing of the boat depriving us of our natural strength, appetite and comfort. Even without being fully seasick, we were carrying a sort of  malaise. We hung in there resting as much as we could and holding on as of we were waiting for the ride to come to a stop.

 

“One thing about the sea. Men will get tired, metal will get tired,
anything will get tired before the sea gets tired”
An engineer’s observation about the collapse of Texas Tower 4 in 1961

 

Gradually we built up some resistance and developed routines. On board Tranquility we use a 4 hours watch system that starts at 20:00 (8 pm, First Watch) and cover the rest of the 24 hours so the boat is never unattended.The person on watch is in charge of navigation duties, making sure the boat stays on course, keeping a proper lookout for hazards and weather change and updating the Ship’s Log. The other crew member lays in the bunk, trying to rest but ready to be summoned in case of “all hands on deck” situation, or “condition one” as we like to call it. We strictly stick to the schedule but we are also flexible in case conditions arise or if it’s time to make landfall.

Beside navigation duties we have daily chores that are split between the two of us and include cooking three meals a day and washing dishes, redding up (Pittsburghese for cleaning), ensuring that the cockpit snack bag is always full, washing and drying rags, towels and clothes,  waste management (composting toilet redd up, trash and recycle locker) and Personal care and Beta care.

The watch schedule and the work routines help to keep us busy and comfortable. When it is properly planned a passage at sea will be mainly smooth, with occasional rougher bits, so it’s important to be ready to face the unpleasant weather in good condition and spirit. If you let the boat get dirty and messy it will affect your well being. If you don’t eat, drink or rest enough you will be tired soon.

As they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and so we are picking up with the old habits and safety protocols, by trial and errors. Three years ago, we sailed the opposite route in much worse conditions, during the winter and in a barely fixed boat. Now we remember that trip as if it was not a big deal. Why we became such wimps? It’s probable that memory erases the bad parts and retain the good ones.

We are still learning a lot, and we are lucky that Tranquility behaves so well. She is a tough girl, we have been the weak ones so far. She protected and transported us during the first thousand miles of sailing while experiencing winds in the range of 4 to 40knots, the latter number only briefly during thunderstorm gusts.We have an ample range of sail area available to adapt to different wind and sea conditions and the modifications to the deck and sail controls seem all very successful. The introduction of a third reef in the mainsail, the new boom vang, the sheeting blocks for the staysail, the bowsprit for the cruising gennaker all contributes to a finer sail tuning and ultimately boat handling.

Now we are taking a prolonged stop in the friendly Fairhaven, in the South Coast of Massachussets. This is the place where Joshua Slocum rebuilt his 36ft. gaff rigged sloop Spray, before setting sail for the first ever recorder singlehanded circumnavigation of earth 121 years ago. Incidentally this is where we purchased Tranquility, fixed her up and set sail in November 2013.

We don’t have such an ambitious circumnavigation plan, but we feel the power of the maritime lore of this place. Fairhaven is the fairy tale New England village in front of the rougher city of New Bedford, the “city that lit the world”, the whaling capital of the world portrayed in Melville’s Moby Dick and the city where Tranquility was on stands in a boatyard while we feverishly prepared her for sailing. We have so much connection to this area, friends that keep helping us, favorite places and memories. We are going to keep sailing, visiting other wonders of New England, but this is probably going to be our home base for the next few months. Until winter will force our next move.

 

The good enough boat

The good enough boat

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There is a lot going on and around Tranquility, even more in our own lives. The final rush to be ready to leave the dock is undergoing, with printed sections of spreadsheets that follow me everywhere I go. Thankfully Kate is on the organizational side now that she ended her jobs and she is doing an incredible job with boat work and trying to contain  my chaos.

Somehow I am failing to report all of this on the blog. It was difficult to sit and focus on the plan and make time to narrate what was happening. For me writing requires finding an empty space in my mind. There was definitely time and energy to do so, but as the boat required more immediate and interconnected actions, my mind was never really at ease. In fact,  once the big jobs like structural repairs and painting ended we were left with a huge list of smaller tasks and installation that required full attention. Basically we need to put Tranquility back together.

Every single one of these tasks come with decisions, every decision needs a justification. What we liked when we first set step on Tranquility was that the conditions of the boat gave us a very wide freedom of choice. Paul, the previous owner, had suddenly interrupted the refit of the boat and put her up for sale, leaving her bones exposed and unfinished. We liked her structure and her lines and we dreamed about how we could build the rest by ourselves to make her the best possible fit for us. This is the most alluring side of a boat refit, the idea to customize the boat according to your needs and desires. Three years later I just started to realize how this is a big trap we voluntarily threw ourselves in.

For example, at a certain moment you need to install fans to increase the ventilation ability of the cabin, displace moisture and have some cool air pampering your skin when you try to fall asleep, read a book or when you deal with hot pots on the stove. You also need a product that does the job while using 12v DC power frugally and that won’t cost a fortune. Then you check your wallet and try to decide how much money you are comfortable to put in this department.

The quest then starts, researching as many options as you can, scrolling through products lists and supplier catalogs, reading their description, keeping an eye on the price to easily ditch the ones that exceeds your pockets. The market is flooded with products that claim to be the best, or good enough, or just sit there available for purchase and the temptation is always to maximize the outcome, because “you always deserve the best deal”.

I spent a ton of time reading and researching about 12v fans, the ones that swivel and the ones that don’t, multi or single speed, and so on. When this was not enough I sought the opinion of experts and when finally I was very close to hit the Pay Now button the constant fear of settling for something not optimal made me delay the purchase. I was paralyzed by the fact that there could be something better or the same product for a better price, just few clicks away.

On a list of items necessary for a safe passage at sea fans surely sit at its bottom. So try to imagine how this would go for all the more important items an empty boat needs to be fitted for ocean passages. Luckily that process spread through 3 years of pondering, tests and life changes, but it is now, when everything converge to the final preparation that the sunken costs of decision making emerges from the mist of the past. It’s the bottleneck of opportunities, the crossroad of possibilities. All the indecisions and doubts have to disappear because it’s time to go. Why did I ordered two inches wide nylon webbing  instead of one? Why propane leak detectors are so expensive? Where am I going to order those mast winches? When am I finally installing that water maker?

Few years ago I experienced doing boat work and repairs in places of the world where the options were scarce. If I was lucky I could choose between product A and product B, but most of the time I had to go for a single choice, with no alternative on the price. Nonetheless the work was done, and my satisfaction towards the result was boosted by overcoming the challenges of the environment. Feeling like there were no alternatives did a lot for on my perception of the result, feeling heroic to have dealt with such situation.

Doing the same in the US, the bountiful land of opportunity, leave me often with the feeling that the job could have been done better, I look at other boats to seek comparisons, and the spiral of self-doubting keeps spinning. It seems that the number of options alone is not necessarily a good recipe for satisfaction, and instead it generates fatigue and uncertainty. After all, when you have so many options you are the sole responsible of your decisions, and most of the time you end up thinking it could have been better.

Finally the number of options decrease as we are getting close to completion. Most of the equipment is installed or on its way, few items are still missing as we make more space for decisions. Also when things finally fall into place satisfaction for starts to sink in and our good enough boat is looking awesome. I am sure the empty time of writing will be more frequent, and so this blogging adventure will be fueled by the real one. It’s happening!
Getting ready for deck painting

Getting ready for deck painting

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During the last month of boat works I focused on preparing the deck for painting, a job that shouldn’t require a month of full time work. In reality, this task is much more than sand the old paint off and clean the surface.

The job can be summarized by this sequence:

  • sanding
  • fiberglass jobs where needed
  • more sanding
  • more fiberglass repairs
  • fairing
  • more sanding
  • more fairing

Do, repeat and loop the sequence to one’s own standard of “ready to go”.

A “detail oriented personality” could go ahead in an obsessive and repetitive challenge until the fingertips will be scratched to the bone  before considering the deck ready for painting. Luckily I am not that kind of person. On the other hand I am a victim of creative ideas randomly rising  during the progression of the project. This modifications sometimes put a heavy hand in the plan, disrupting it totally.

Deck modifications

Before a thorough deck preparation could start I had to complete few design ideas that would help solve some issues we experienced with the original deck layout.

Columbia 29s were built with an interesting deck to hull joint that rises few inches above the deck to form  bulwarks from aft to end. This was also the designer’s signature to give a very nice sheer line to the deck. We love the bulwark on Tranquility, they help keeping your feet on deck when the boat heels as well as providing a barrier for objects that wants to fall overboard.

The drawback is that mooring lines and other overhanging hardware have to climb this protective wall incurring in the risk of chafing or making their installation difficult. This is particularly true on the bow, where the anchor roller and other deck hardware had to rest on a precarious base made of untreated construction grade lumber that obviously had rotted away and became a condo for photophobic insects by the time we owned the boat. Shame on whoever cobbled up that ridicolous solution!

The problem had to be addressed with some creativity and a lot of courage. When it was clear that Tranquility required a “nose job” I went through the anxieties and insecurities common to pre and post plastic surgery. With a heavy hand and a heavy heart I pressed on the angle grinder cutting away inches of fiberglass, trying to draw a symmetric line.  I then composed a base layer using several odd shaped teak hardwood pieces, put together with thickened epoxy and fiberglass.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Olin Stephens may be turning in his grave for the new line of his design but the occasional Yacht Club guests walking by were actually pleased with Tranquility’s new look. Our friend Brian even ventured in calling the new look “race boat like”.

Similarly I did a little modification on the transom corners to create a better surface for hardware and mooring lines.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Stanchion bases

Raised stanchion bases were another upgrade we thought would improve Tranquility’s deck. A thicker and wider base would help preventing stress cracking from wobbling stanchions and keep their base raised from water puddles.

After laminating few layers of biaxial fiberglass tape I cut the stanchion base a little wider and then glassed it permanently to the deck.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

New toe rail

The original toe rail was made of three pieces of teak forming an overturned U on top of the bulwark and it was  fastened with bronze screws. Age and damages had reduced the coverage and efficacy of the teak toe rail. A recent experience during a delivery raised curiosity towards the hull to deck joint on our boat and so I had to get the wood off and expose the joint. The removal job was one way and I knew that after that I needed to give Tranquility brand new toe rail. I fancied a project featuring  fancy solid teak bar bent in shape over the bulwark but after realizing that I purchased a not so great stock of teak hardwood from E-bay I had to reconsider the idea. You get what you pay for they say, so I opted for using that wood to create permanent epoxy and fiberglass toe rail that will be painted with the deck.

The project include around 100 stainless steel #8 sheet metal screws (one every 8 inches) to join the inboard and outboard teak strips as well as a huge amount of epoxy and colloidal silica and fairing compound as additives. A 6 inches fiberglass cloth was wrapped around the edge and the overhanging extremity sanded off after the resin cured.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Sanding

Every project had its own portion of sanding so soon Tranquility’s deck became a patchwork. But for our particular paintjob we had to remove any trace of the one part enamel paint we used in our first refit in New Bedford MA. After giving one part paint a try we decided to go with two part that is supposedly harder and more resistant to UV action and wear. To do so we have to remove any trace of one part paint first, as it would not stand the aggressive solvent of two part epoxy primer and polyurethane topcoat and flake off ruining the paintjob.

That required a lot of scraping that we diligently executed using wood chisels. With Kate’s help we went around and scrape it all off, revealing a calico pattern formed by several layers of paint, from the original gelcoat to more recent epoxy primers.

work_deck_sanding
The multicolor deck during sanding operations

While operating the chisel closely to the deck I also exhumed several fiberglass delaminations deeply buried under fairing compound and primer. A delamination happen when two layers of fiberglass start to peel apart from each other leaving a “soft spot”. Everytime the first reaction was to turn my head away and say we would live with it. But I always succumbed to the temptation of fixing them and make the deck stronger. After all how bad could it be another fiberglass job?

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Going through al these pictures I see what I spent the last month doing, and I feel a little less bad about my progress. The deck is not painted yet though and right now we are dealing with our own level of perfectionism and waiting for good weather. Meanwhile: do, repeat and loop.

 
Getting ready for deck painting

Getting ready for deck painting

By | | Comments 2 comments

During the last month of boat works I focused on preparing the deck for painting, a job that shouldn’t require a month of full time work. In reality, this task is much more than sand the old paint off and clean the surface.

The job can be summarized by this sequence:

  • sanding
  • fiberglass jobs where needed
  • more sanding
  • more fiberglass repairs
  • fairing
  • more sanding
  • more fairing

Do, repeat and loop the sequence to one’s own standard of “ready to go”.

A “detail oriented personality” could go ahead in an obsessive and repetitive challenge until the fingertips will be scratched to the bone  before considering the deck ready for painting. Luckily I am not that kind of person. On the other hand I am a victim of creative ideas randomly rising  during the progression of the project. This modifications sometimes put a heavy hand in the plan, disrupting it totally.

Deck modifications

Before a thorough deck preparation could start I had to complete few design ideas that would help solve some issues we experienced with the original deck layout.

Columbia 29s were built with an interesting deck to hull joint that rises few inches above the deck to form  bulwarks from aft to end. This was also the designer’s signature to give a very nice sheer line to the deck. We love the bulwark on Tranquility, they help keeping your feet on deck when the boat heels as well as providing a barrier for objects that wants to fall overboard.

The drawback is that mooring lines and other overhanging hardware have to climb this protective wall incurring in the risk of chafing or making their installation difficult. This is particularly true on the bow, where the anchor roller and other deck hardware had to rest on a precarious base made of untreated construction grade lumber that obviously had rotted away and became a condo for photophobic insects by the time we owned the boat. Shame on whoever cobbled up that ridicolous solution!

The problem had to be addressed with some creativity and a lot of courage. When it was clear that Tranquility required a “nose job” I went through the anxieties and insecurities common to pre and post plastic surgery. With a heavy hand and a heavy heart I pressed on the angle grinder cutting away inches of fiberglass, trying to draw a symmetric line.  I then composed a base layer using several odd shaped teak hardwood pieces, put together with thickened epoxy and fiberglass.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Olin Stephens may be turning in his grave for the new line of his design but the occasional Yacht Club guests walking by were actually pleased with Tranquility’s new look. Our friend Brian even ventured in calling the new look “race boat like”.

Similarly I did a little modification on the transom corners to create a better surface for hardware and mooring lines.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Stanchion bases

Raised stanchion bases were another upgrade we thought would improve Tranquility’s deck. A thicker and wider base would help preventing stress cracking from wobbling stanchions and keep their base raised from water puddles.

After laminating few layers of biaxial fiberglass tape I cut the stanchion base a little wider and then glassed it permanently to the deck.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

New toe rail

The original toe rail was made of three pieces of teak forming an overturned U on top of the bulwark and it was  fastened with bronze screws. Age and damages had reduced the coverage and efficacy of the teak toe rail. A recent experience during a delivery raised curiosity towards the hull to deck joint on our boat and so I had to get the wood off and expose the joint. The removal job was one way and I knew that after that I needed to give Tranquility brand new toe rail. I fancied a project featuring  fancy solid teak bar bent in shape over the bulwark but after realizing that I purchased a not so great stock of teak hardwood from E-bay I had to reconsider the idea. You get what you pay for they say, so I opted for using that wood to create permanent epoxy and fiberglass toe rail that will be painted with the deck.

The project include around 100 stainless steel #8 sheet metal screws (one every 8 inches) to join the inboard and outboard teak strips as well as a huge amount of epoxy and colloidal silica and fairing compound as additives. A 6 inches fiberglass cloth was wrapped around the edge and the overhanging extremity sanded off after the resin cured.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Sanding

Every project had its own portion of sanding so soon Tranquility’s deck became a patchwork. But for our particular paintjob we had to remove any trace of the one part enamel paint we used in our first refit in New Bedford MA. After giving one part paint a try we decided to go with two part that is supposedly harder and more resistant to UV action and wear. To do so we have to remove any trace of one part paint first, as it would not stand the aggressive solvent of two part epoxy primer and polyurethane topcoat and flake off ruining the paintjob.

That required a lot of scraping that we diligently executed using wood chisels. With Kate’s help we went around and scrape it all off, revealing a calico pattern formed by several layers of paint, from the original gelcoat to more recent epoxy primers.

work_deck_sanding
The multicolor deck during sanding operations

While operating the chisel closely to the deck I also exhumed several fiberglass delaminations deeply buried under fairing compound and primer. A delamination happen when two layers of fiberglass start to peel apart from each other leaving a “soft spot”. Everytime the first reaction was to turn my head away and say we would live with it. But I always succumbed to the temptation of fixing them and make the deck stronger. After all how bad could it be another fiberglass job?

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Going through al these pictures I see what I spent the last month doing, and I feel a little less bad about my progress. The deck is not painted yet though and right now we are dealing with our own level of perfectionism and waiting for good weather. Meanwhile: do, repeat and loop.

 

What to do with old teak?

What to do with old teak?

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Teak is a fascinating hardwood. It has  a charming golden brown color and the abundance of natural oils in its grain makes it weather-resistant and unaffected by dry rot. For these and other reasons teak has always been the number one lumber for the marine industry. One big problem with teak is its atrociously high cost, as you probably know if you deal with boats or with outdoor furniture. So the answer to the question what to do with old teak could be to avoid it entirely!

When we bought Tranquility she came with the original teak features on deck: forward and lazarette hatches, companionway and seahood, toe rails. Not a full teak decking, but a classic nautical touch. If not protected against UV action with constant application of a finish, teak ages and loses part of its oils, turning grey and forming deep grooves and cracks, and after 50 years in the elements all we could see on deck were grey wrinkles on the surface of the hardwood. We were ok with some ugliness and cosmetic imperfection, we had definetely bigger problems to deal with at that time.

Teak Seahood rotted away
Teak Seahood rotted away

But the teak onboard didn’t have only cosmetic problem. Unfortunately hatch doors are built with teak in combination with plywood. The plywood used as a supportive panel for the teak strips has rotted away, and with this supportive action compromised the hardwood also started to rot and break. Trying to waterproof such a damaged door was impossible without taking everything apart and rebuilding it. When we did the first part of our refit in New Bedford we didn’t have time to repair and restore the teak doors and many other nuisances all over the boat. We had other priorities to make the boat sail before winter. This way we spent the trip learning about every single leak and taking mental notes of a future job list. All the doors leaked badly and that didn’t make for a very comfortable winter cruise. Both the forward and lazarette hatch leaked and their plywood was basically gone, and the water coming from the seahood and companionway was an enigma we couldn’t solve while we were still living on board.

Once we got in sunny Georgia we resumed our list of repairs and improvements and so came the time for woodwork. While we could protect the companionway with a tarp, we couldn’t do the same for the hatch doors so I started dealing with the lazarette and forward hatch. At first I tried to save as much as possible of the original teak, but after discovering all the damage it was clear that if I wanted a new hatch I would have to build it from scratch.

A tarp protects the companionway on Tranquility
A tarp protects the companionway on Tranquility

Being always on the cheap side of a budget I first considered other options to build a less classic door. But then a little voice started to suggest how I may wanted to keep a little accent of nice teak on deck. I followed this voice and looked around for teak. I was lucky enough to find the access to a scrapwood pile of teak. All the pieces came from different projects and those were the ones left behind and discarded. I put much labor in cutting, planing and sanding the scraps down to useful size but eventually I cobbled up enough wood to build a whole hatch. Taking the old rotten hatch as model, I first assembled four pieces of teak lumber to form a rectangular frame and joined them with screws and thickened epoxy (West System resin and 406 filler) at the extremity.

Building the frame with teak lumber
Building the frame with teak lumber

Joint detail
Joint detail

Once the frame was finished I cut a piece from a 3/4 inch plywood sheet, fit it and screwed it in place. Every gap was filled with thickened epoxy and the lower side of the hatch coated with clear epoxy resin.  Even if the plywood won’t last forever and it will eventually rot the epoxy will protect the wood from moisture and prolong its life.

The hatch ready for teak strips
The hatch ready for teak strips

The following step was to put in place the teak strips. In order to do that I decided to use #8 screws to set the distance between the strips.

How to set teak strips in place at the same distance
How to set teak strips in place at the same distance

When the dryfit was satisfactory and after correcting the math a couple of times due to my metric system bias (I have to be honest, imperial sucks!), I used several batches of thickened epoxy spreaded evenly on the plywood to set the teak strips in place. The scrap pieces formed a rough uneven surface, so when the epoxy was set I used a belt sander to shape the wood uniformly and a router to round the corners. The result was well above my expectations.

All ready before wooden bungs and caulking
All ready before wooden bungs and caulking

The finishing part took a good deal of work too, especially filling all the gaps with black caulk. Once everything was completed I applied three coats of Semco teak sealer, to protect the wood. The result pleased me so much that I understood I was going to do the same with the second hatch door, and  problably with the rest of the teak on the boat.

The hatch after caulking and three coats of teak sealer
The hatch after caulking and three coats of teak sealer

These two project made me fall in love with teak and woodworking in general and even after assessing many alternative ways to fix my equipment onboard I decided I would do the same for the companionway and the toe rails. The companionway (seahood+ sliding hatch) is made out of a solid thick lumber, massive enough that I can still reuse the frames without fear. The toe rail didn’t survived that well as it is more exposed to impacts, chafe and other mechanical stresses. I would have to replace them completely as many part are broken or missing. For this specific project I found a deal on Ebay 0f 4×4 inches teak posts that will do the job. Again the cheaper price means that I will have to transform rough lumber myself into the desired shape and I started to think I am being a little masochist lately.

slidhat

Right now I am rebuilding the sliding hatch. I started removing the rotted plywood from underneath and with great surprise the teak strips came out without breaking. Considered that they are still 3/8″ thick and in overall good shape I sanded them down to reuse it. With a bit of work and time spent in cleaning up the old teak I now have perfectly fitting strips and I can avoid cutting and planing them. Not the same luck with the seahood hatch. It was in worse shape and broke as I started taking the thing apart. To replace the old teak I will be cutting the strips out of a big plank that a friend of mine bought on a big sale so I am having it for a very competitive price. If I account for the money I spent in buying wood since we got Tranquility I may be reaching the 1000$ very soon.

Restoring teak with a grinder
Restoring teak with a grinder

Using teak on your sailboat deck may not be the cheapest or most practical way to fix your boat but for me it is very enjoyable and motivating, more than using fiberglass and epoxy again. I did enough fiberglass work this past summer and too much of something becomes quickly boring. Now it’s woodwork time again as I try to comfort myself imagining how good a little bit of teak will look on deck when I will be finished.

The Grand Plan

The Grand Plan

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© Kate Zidar
© Kate Zidar

Slowly, thoughts about the future arise from the fog of the present. It is a real fog, like the one that surrounds the Golden Isles during winter. From our boat we observe the foggy mornings and evenings, these interstitial moments that keep on hold the passage between nights and days.

We are recovering from our trip. It’s not a physical recovery I think that has already happened. I am talking about the recovery from escaping winter and from our first cruising together, me, Kate and Tranquility.

This trip was very demanding. We sailed in cold weather, on a boat we have never sailed before and that we fixed all by ourselves. We also encountered challenging moments onboard as running a boat depends on a good interpersonal coordination and this is also something we are finding along the way. Everything went extremely good but the trip took its toll.

The fog is where we are hiding now, resting and meditating. Gathering all the resources to open a new chapter. Tranquility is patiently waiting for more upgrades to come. She is also probably tired of us too and we avoid touching her. There are budget restrictions of course, as we are still doing it on a shoestring and that’s also why the work has not happened yet. But it’s true that after the hurry to launch and get away from the cold weather we have the chance to think more deeply on what we need to happen to improve Tranquility. When the wind blows away the fog we start to see a Grand Plan and we are struggling to catch it before it vanishes again.

Storage

This is Tranquility’s Achilles heel. We are carrying too much stuff and at this time we don’t have good storage solutions. We hope that soon we can let go of very bulky winter clothes that literally saved our life but that are becoming less and less necessary.

The V-Berth became our throw-in space but now we need some serious carpentry work to lock objects in place and allow easy access. We are envisioning two long shelves that run on both sides on the V-Berth and that can accommodate storage boxes and light objects. We can dig more storage spaces adding a shelf on the quarter bunk and opening areas in the dinette, as well as reconfiguring the navigation desk. But the key would be to get rid of unnecessary weight and redistribute it along the boat. Keep it simple.

Electrical system

I am reconsidering the idea to step down to a single battery bank that operates both the engine and the appliances adding voltage converters. This will reduce the number of batteries from 10 to 8 without losing too much power. Thanks to the donation of a solar tracker mount we will be able to fit a 60W solar panel on the stern rail.

Plumbing

The repair of the leaky water tank under the v-berth is now a priority. 25 more gallons will give us at least one week of basic autonomy during passages, extending considerably our sailing range. The hook up of seawater in the plumbing system it’s another upgrade we are expecting to complete. Even if it’s not a priority right now that we are in a marina, it will be crucial when we sit at anchor for long periods.

Sails & Rig

Our sail set performed very well in the North Atlantic. Our sail wardrobe is suitable for medium to strong winds, but we lacking in the extremes. We need sails for lighter winds (Code 0 and Asymmetrical Spinnaker) as well as storm sails for extreme conditions (you never know). To accept this upgrade we have to rig up a trysail track and a whisker pole on the mast and place a mini-bowsprit on the bow.

Self-steering gear

We can’t do a long passage without a self-steering solution anymore. It’s too tiring and unnecessary.  A good wind autopilot it’s a lot of money but sooner or later has to land on Tranquility’s stern, we hope we won’t leave Brunswick without one. It will couple with an electronic tiller-pilot when we need to motor or when the apparent wind is not enough to operate the wind vane.

Safety

Our stanchions and lifeline need a proper reinforcement at the deck level, as well as most of the deck hardware. We are also designing modifications that will  transform our dinghy in a lifeboat, adding closed cell foam collars to increase buoyancy and prevent capsizing.

Comfort

We ordered new “luxury ultra-firm” foam for our mattresses. We decided to leave Fairhaven with the old set but the foam lost all the firmness and sleeping is not very comfortable. We understand now that small luxuries make a huge difference on a boat, especially when they concern health and comfort.

kunaya
© Fabio Brunazzi

This is the Grand Plan as it’s forming in our minds. The details are not revealed yet as they unveil as we proceed. We hope to conclude these enhancements before the end of the summer, to have some buffer time for tests and further adjustments. The list seems pretty small but as we know it will expand in endless tasks, tedious preparatory work and sure annoyances. At that point, if we survived we should be ready for the wind and the ocean.

Winter sailing tips

Winter sailing tips

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Two months ago we were about to set sails from Fairhaven, MA. We launched Tranquility on Halloween and we were rushing with the preparations for a departure day. At that time I was watching all the episodes of the TV show “Games of Thrones” and the mantra “winter is coming” was ringing in my head as a real thing.

game of thrones winter is coming house stark 1920x1072 wallpaper_www.wallpaperfo.com_41

I was scared. I did a winter delivery in the Mediterranean Sea and I rememeber some really cold nights. I also sailed on a late departure in 2012 from Newport, RI. It was the 5th of December when we set sails but that was on SY Aventura, a 110ft sloop, a ship more than a boat, and still the “night watch” (not the military order that watch the Wall in GOT but the shifts at the helm) was terribly cold. How could we possibly sail the North Atlantic in cold weather on a 29ft sailboat with no dodger and minimal living comfort?

© Nadia Uccello
© Nadia Uccello

I opened a thread on Sailing Anarchy to ask experienced Anarchists for good advices on how we could successfully make a winter cruise along the East Coast, leaving from a northern place.

Lots of users contributed to the discussion bringing their point of view and experience. Many thought that we were completely crazy and we should just renounce the attempt and wait for the next year. Others started to debate on how heating the cabin with no electrical power, the risks of CO intoxication, explosions and other amenities. The most feared topic was condensation, absolutely the worst enemy on board a boat, with tricks of any kind to prevent mold growing everywhere. Some folks focused more on the sailing itself, foul weather gear and the route to take.

When we finally left there was an online community following our SPOT tracker and commenting our progress. Soon in the forum the word “nannies” spread out and we couldn’t wait to reach a internet connection to find out what they were saying about us. I am very thankful to all the people that contributed to the forum because many advices were very helpful for our trip and because we felt supported and supervised.

Now we are almost out of the danger area and happy that this “polar vortex” is hitting us in South Carolina rather than in New England. Still tonight the temperature is supposed to go down to 20F, the dockmaster is closing the water on the docks and we are going to seek refuge in Kate cousin’s house who lives nearby and is kindly offering us a bedroom. We are also thinking about delaying our departure by two days because of this frigid cold. “Winter is coming”.

weather

I learned something about sailing in the cold months of the year and I resumed some of this learning in the following list:

1. Pick up good and consistent weather windows and be flexible

We avoided sailing during rainy days and when the conditions were not good. Nothing is as miserable as being soaked, so avoid it if you can! We preferred cold days to warm and wet ones. We had to sit in many places we didn’t like and slow down our pace but that spared us many uncomfortable experiences. On the other hand, we kept going if the conditions were good skipping destinations we planned for our passage.

2. Wear many layers and have many changes of clothes.

We purchased all our winter clothes in Thrift Stores and we are going to be happy to leave them behind when warmer. After experience with the nice and expensive Ocean Gore-Tex gear on fancy sailing yacht I instead got myself PVC coat and overall from commercial fishing. I consider breathable foul water gear an unnecessary expense. They are very comfortable but breathable is not waterproof by definition, no matter what magical expensive technology is adopted, it is not waterproof in heavy rain and gets very heavy when soaked. Also when you have to do some serious deck work you are going to sweat anyway so I don’t see the point. A more important piece of gear is some windproof jacket, and I found mountaineering jackets more valuable than sailing jackets. Another part of equipment that deserves investment of money are good and warm boots.

During the coldest trips I was wearing:

  • Three layers of pants (long johns bottom, corduroy pants, and waterproof pants on top or PVC overalls)
  • Six layers for the body (t-shirt, long johns top, 2 sweaters, 1 windproof jacket, PVC coat)
  • Warm and stormproof boots over double layer of socks.
  • Wool hat, wool neck warmer, neoprene mask (they are uncomfortable but they are cheap and effective against wind chill)
  • Warm ski gloves for steering and work gloves for handling lines.

When sleeping I was taking off the superficial layers and crawling into the sleeping bag. Never attempt to sleep fully dressed or you won’t have any additional layer to put on when you go back to the cockpit and you will feel cold.

© Kate Zidar
© Kate Zidar

3. Open the hatches anytime it’s dry weather.

We didn’t try to keep heat in the cabin because our boat is so poorly insulated that it was a desperate task. Instead we kept the companionway and forward hatch open all the time it was possible to help air circulation. The companionway door was never shut down during passage, luckily the conditions made it possible as no waves ever came into the cockpit . We dried out mattresses and locker as soon as we had a chance, and in few situations we had to fight mold growth with a mix of water and bleach in a spray bottle.

4. Look for shore power.

Our original idea of many nights at anchor changed. We had to face the reality of some extra expenses for good comfort. We have a 30$ electric heater that is simply fantastic, generates dry air and has a thermostat. In wet conditions it’s also good to have a big fan to help move the air in the cabin, especially in the sleeping areas. In New England marinas start to close water at the docks and remove floating pontoons pretty early, but they usually leave shore power. Going South the situation gets better and you benefit from low season rates and you can easily dock at public docks with no drama.

© Kate Zidar
© Kate Zidar

5. Limit night watch shifts to 2 hours per crewmember.

With no autopilot we had to steer all the time so it was hard to be warm for long. During the day it was usually easier to go up to three hours each. We used the change of the watch as a moment to snack and have hot drinks.

© Kate Zidar
© Kate Zidar

6. Eat enough to generate heat.

In cold conditions your body burns more calories in order to generate heat. The diet should vary accordingly. Four thousand calories it’s considered not healthy for the average person but it’s a good daily rate when sailing in cold weather.  It is important to eat often and eat caloric food, including vegetables and fruit. It is very important to be able to cook warm dishes. Don’t worry about your waist size, we lost several pounds even if we were eating pork fat everyday for just sitting in the cold.

@ Kate Zidar
@ Kate Zidar

This list is definitely not exhaustive and represents my current state of thought on the subject. It pays an immense tribute to the Sailing Anarchy posts of various users in the quoted thread. I don’t want to make any claims of ‘best practice’ and maybe in the future I would get more conservative and prudent about some statements. You grow old you grow wiser, or maybe you find yourself developing more extreme and minimalist habits as I like to think.  I also would consider changing opinion about breathable Gore-Tex foul weather gear if any famous manufacturer will sponsor me.

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