Monthly Archives: March 2015

5. Panama to Tahiti

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Fresh food and a hot shower. From past experience, these are the things I have missed after a week or so at sea, that were the plus side of arriving somewhere. If not for those benefits, I’d have preferred that the passage not end.

And these benefits are calling to me now. But their song is not so compelling as in the past. The reason is that we have amenities that I’ve never had on my boats before: a refrigerator, a freezer, and a water maker. Okay, I’ve had a fridge on past boats, but never one that we relied on for an ocean crossing.

It’s true that we are running out of fresh fruits and vegetables. But our freezer is well stocked with meats and cheese. We have fresh baked bread. We have cold beer and soft drinks. Sure, a good dinner at a restaurant sounds delightful, but I wouldn’t trade it for tonight’s beautiful sail under the stars in the warm breeze. I do miss having a regular supply of cookies…

And with a water maker we can use water much more freely than if we were limited to what we started with in our tanks. So we can take showers. Not like showers ashore, but at least a fresh water rinse every couple of days, to get off the salt. It’s wonderful!

So upon completion of our 3,000 miles, will I be happy to arrive, or disappointed that we have to stop? Not sure yet. I suppose it will be both, as in the past. Sorry to see it end, and happy to have cookies!

5. Panama to Tahiti

Broken Shroud

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Awoke this morning to the best wind we’ve had on this passage. So…why were we motoring? Perhaps it’s related to the downpour we’re in? I think it’s the first heavy rain we’ve seen since leaving the States. But no, the rain is just a passing squall. We’re motoring, I’m informed, because during the night we broke our starboard lower shroud (that helps to keep the mast from flexing in the middle). It parted just above the Norseman fitting that connects the wire cable to the turnbuckle (which tensions it), which attaches to the chain plate (that attaches to the hull). Without the mast supported half way up by this shroud, it’s unsafe to have the sails up.

This is scary stuff. We have no spare mast! And we’re 2,000 miles from anywhere. Going all the way under power, besides sounding like a miserable idea, is not possible — we only carry enough fuel to motor about 500 miles, and we’ve probably used a quarter of it already. So what to do? The remaining cable is in good shape, except for the last couple of inches. My first thought is we could bend it around a thimble and use cable clamps to secure the loop, and then lash it to a shackle attached to the chain plate. I find that we have no suitable cable clamps. (Note for future shopping list…)

Second option: we could rig a line in place of the wire cable. Where the cable attaches to a tang up the mast we could put a shackle on the tang, and attach the line there. But the line we have would stretch under load — probably enough that it wouldn’t support the mast adequately.

Third option: Bill thinks we could take the Norseman fitting apart, clean it up, cut off the last two inches of wire cable, reattach the Norseman fitting to the good wire, and still have enough thread on the turnbuckle to be able to connect it all back together. Tim is hesitant to trust the wire or the Norseman fitting, so we decide we could try this approach but also rig a line as a backup. Belt + suspenders.

We look through our reference books and find that Nigel Calder’s “Boatowner’s Mechanical and Electrical Manual” (our bible for engine issues) describes how to properly connect Norseman fittings to wire cable. Since we’ve never done this before, this is very welcome information! Tim and I take turns going aloft to rig the suspenders line, but after reading Calder and replacing the Norseman fitting, we decide the belt alone is a satisfactory solution. Within a few hours we are sailing again.

In the meantime we have tried to send an email to Rally Control to alert them to our circumstance and to ask if a rigger can be found in the Marquesas to help us out. Our radio-based email system informs us that our service has been cut off because we have used too much connection time (presumably downloading multiple grib files). What timing! But we have a satellite tracker (that reports our position on the Cornell Sailing web site) that can also send short messages. So we get a message out, also explaining that we can’t use SailMail. Before the day is out we get a message from SailMail that we’ve been granted unlimited service until we reach the Marquesas. Is this the “Cornell influence” at work? However it came about, we are very grateful (and we’ll stop downloading as many grib files).

Naturally we inspect the rest of our shrouds, and find that the port side lower appears to have a strand or two broken. We decide not to wait for it to also fail. We’ll cut off the last inch or two, and reinstall the fitting just like we did on the other side. This process goes surprisingly smoothly, and is completed just as it is getting dark.

Our two “new” shrouds are now getting a test, as we sail through the night in what appears to be real trade winds at last.

5. Panama to Tahiti

Westward Toward the Distant Marquesas

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First day out was fantastic. The BPO had a scheduled noon “start,” which I guess was essentially a chance for the shore crew to come out and take photos of the boats. We were anxious to go, and got out to the start at least an hour early. Do we keep going, or wait around? We decided it would be good form to wait, and that gave us a chance to clean most of the crud off our waterline that had accumulated in the dirty Galapagos harbors. But when noon arrived and most of the other boats were still motoring toward the start, up went our sails and off we went. There was a surprisingly pleasant wind, and we made the most of it, staying in front of all but one of the other boats.

It’s not a race, we are frequently reminded, and we remind ourselves. But in fact, for us, it is two races. The most important one is to make the best possible crossing given whatever conditions we encounter. In this race I think we are doing very well. The winds have been unusual/challenging. But we have kept the boat moving nicely, taking advantage of whatever is available, and I can see only minor details (even in retrospect) that we could have done better. Our second race is against the other boats. For starters we want to prove (to ourselves) we are faster under sail than the other catamarans. This is pretty much accomplished already, as they are 60+ miles behind us. But there are two boats ahead of us. Blue Wind is reputed to be a serious racing boat, though I know nothing more about this than seeing how fast they go! Tohawus is a fast cruiser, but is 54 feet long to our 42. We’d like to prove (to ourselves) that we can go faster than they can, in certain conditions. So far we have not found those conditions. We have been going fast, but they have been going equally fast, or slightly faster. They have been about 30 miles ahead of us for the past two days. I think there are conditions (fairly high wind, downwind, where we might be surfing at 13 knots or more) where we could overtake them, but we haven’t had such winds, and I’m not sure if we will on this crossing.

Our second day/night out was more what we expected for the first few hundred miles — very light winds; everybody motoring. Most of the boats go under power at about the same speed, but Tohawus is faster under power, so they pulled ahead. But we stayed in front of the pack, so when the wind came up, we got it before they did. And the wind has gradually increased each day, allowing us to stretch ahead of them (while Tohawus stretched their lead on us). Stay tuned. Check the Cornell Sailing “track the boats” web site to see how we’re doing!

During the day I do a lot of staring at the horizon, half expecting to see something. But there is nothing here but ocean, more ocean, an occasional bird, and lots of flying fish. I did see a whale spout once, but it remained in the distance, taking no interest in us. We haven’t seen another boat since our second day, nor do we expect to at this point. We’ve had a lot of pleasant idle time. I have a book to read, but that feels like a distraction from just sitting and watching the ocean go by.

Life has been pretty smooth aboard. The first days we tend to feel lethargic — just a touch of sea sickness. That is now past, and we have more energy. I started baking bread today, as our bread from the Galapagos has already turned moldy. Mine is a hundred times better than the crap they have there anyway. I don’t understand how such interesting people can put up with such lousy bread!

I’m on my night watch, and it is a black night — no moon, no stars. We are scooting along at 9+ knots with no fuss at all. Very cool that this boat can move like this, though eerie to be speeding into blackness.

I’m very, very happy to be exactly where I am right now! 🙂