It was 0300, and I was on the helm of one of the fastest monohull racing yachts on Earth; the Bakewell-White-designed supermaxi racing yacht Rio 100. With a reef in the main, a small jib set and a large reaching gennaker unfurled, we were romping along at sustained speeds in the high teens with bursts well into the 20s. I was decked out in the latest, greatest foul-weather gear from Musto and “talking story” with a Volvo Ocean Race veteran serving as my watch captain. Pinching myself to be in this place in time, we were fully sending it across the Pacific on what was quite easily the fastest boat I’ve ever sailed on a long bluewater passage.

A multimillion-dollar, all-carbon-fiber racing yacht that has set numerous course records on the West Coast and from there to Hawaii, Rio wasn’t exactly the waterborne equivalent to a Formula One car, but she was damn close. She might not have been the lightest, nimblest, highest-tech machine on the water, but when allowed to stretch her legs for more than your typical grand prix race, she was tough to beat. A race-car analogy? How about a 1,000-horsepower, top-tier 24 Hours of Le Mans racer. That sounds right.

Taking advantage of Rio’s generous 100 feet of water-line, we were knocking out the miles en masse on our approach to California. After racing to Hawaii in the Transpac the previous summer, then stuck there for repairs, eight other souls and I were now sailing Rio home to Cali in the dead of winter so she’d be ready for upcoming regattas.

Delayed by a full day or more in the Pacific High, drifting in circles, to allow a weather system to pass in front of us, we’d then been gifted an open 1,300-nautical-mile runway to the coast in picture-perfect conditions (a distance that we would ultimately knock out in less than four days). Rio was fully coming to life, reveling in the reaching conditions and mellow following seas created by the 10 to 20 knots of northwesterly pressure that was propelling us onward. At those angles, Rio slid along quicker than the wind speed, oftentimes cruising at 15 knots in 12 knots of breeze and closer to 20 knots of boatspeed in 15 knots of pressure.

With a massive bulb keel that draws more than 21 feet when fully down, and twin rudders, the boat felt incredibly stable and very much in control when driving her in these conditions. When one got rocked up on a wave or gust, or in a puff/ wave combo, the boat heeled predictably and gave the helmsman plenty of warning before wanting to round up. When that inevitable force did come, however, a quick press of the helm to leeward was met with an instant reaction from the boat, which responded just as the helmsman intended, and oftentimes with a long, rewarding surfing run and a sharp acceleration in speed. It wasn’t the small, quick bursts of speed that a lightweight dinghy or skiff delivers, but rather the long, pronounced surfs of a massive racing yacht powering its way forward, propelled by impressive amounts of sail area and inertia.

Sailing Rio was an educational experience. I’m a pretty experienced big-boat sailor, but there are several systems and design characteristics on this behemoth that I had never seen before yet would come to understand and love by the end of the trip. One of the chief joys of sailing well-sorted racing yachts is seeing how talented boat captains and professional sailors have chosen to tackle certain problems or set up various systems.

For example, headsails are hoisted up all the way until they are resting on a halyard lock. Once the sail is on lock, a 2-to-1 hydraulic tack line pulls down on the tack until the desired “halyard tension” is achieved. The twin-wheel, dual-rudder steering system is a magnificent array of foils, steering wheels, Spectra cables and sheaves and, finally, carbon-fiber tie rods and track-and-car assemblies in the hull.

At first glance everything seemed complex, but once broken down bit by bit, there’s a theme of simple, robust, effective systems in place throughout the yacht. While some of them are indisputably complicated (and no boat is ever perfect), I’ve been on boats about half the size of Rio that were at times more frustrating and laborious to sail and maneuver. With the larger headsails hanked onto the forestay (I’ve never been a huge fan of head foils) and the smaller ones on furlers, keeping Rio in phase with the conditions was a fun and relatively straightforward process, even with a somewhat shorthanded crew.

Much of the credit for the relatively smooth sailing was boat captain and skipper Keith Kilpatrick, another Volvo Ocean Race veteran who has “been there and done that” everywhere in the world of yacht racing. Intimately familiar with Rio and her systems, Kilpatrick had assembled a group of old-school sailing pros, friends and crewmates who he’s known for decades, and thrown in a few talented “young guns” who were experienced, up to the challenge and keen to knock out some miles. Needless to say, I was beyond stoked to have earned a spot in “Kilpatrick’s Navy” for a couple of weeks. The sailing was fast, the food tasty, and while we were all focused on the job at hand, the vibe on board was decidedly relaxed and fun.

A little history: When computer-technology magnate and passionate racing sailor Manouch Moshayedi, Rio’s owner, set out to win the coveted Transpac “Barn Door” trophy for first-to-finish-line honors in 2015, he knew he needed a unique yacht. At the time, the Barn Door rules required a monohull to have human-powered winches and hydraulics, and conventional ballast (i.e., a fixed keel and no water ballast), so he couldn’t merely show up with any of the mammoth supermaxis such as those that competed in races like the classic Sydney-Hobart, many of which had canting keels and water ballast, and powered winches. (The Transpac rules have since been relaxed to allow canting keels.)

So when Moshayedi put the program together, he looked to purchase or build a fixed-keel supermaxi with no water ballast and all human-powered winches and hydraulics. After consulting with many top international sailors, the decision was made to buy the 98-foot Lahana and have the Kiwi design consortium of Bakewell-White redesign the boat for a full transformation, which would take place at the Cookson yard in New Zealand.

The old water ballast was removed by cutting off the back half of the hull, which was replaced by a new, wider stern section that now sported the twin rudders. With the loss of the water ballast, the designers would need to rely on enhanced hull-form stability to keep Rio on her toes in fast power-reaching and running conditions.

She was further turbocharged by adding a longer boom and longer bowsprit to facilitate a larger mainsail and bigger spinnakers. With the input from two-time Volvo winner and three-time America’s Cup vet Mike Sanderson of Doyle Sails New Zealand, the boat underwent an extensive sail program that would ultimately reap huge performance gains on the water. Combine the added horsepower and righting moment with a weight savings of somewhere between 6 and 7 tons, and the Rio 100 that emerged from the shed was an entirely different beast than the old Lahana that had entered it.

On the water, the boat immediately proved her merit in hard offshore racing in New Zealand and Australia. After her training and adventures Down Under had concluded, Rio 100 was shipped to California, where she began an ambitious few years of Pacific Ocean campaigning.

In her first two Transpac races, in 2015 and 2017, Rio indeed claimed the Barn Door Trophy, though she failed to come up with the type of performance that would make the boat truly legendary. Rio 100′s crew saved that performance for the 2016 Pacific Cup race. In a record-setting El Niño-affected summer, the North Pacific was bursting with hurricane and cyclonic activity for the duration of the season. It was a navigator’s nightmare, in which many of the competitors (including this writer, aboard a Swan 42) finished in the middle of named tropical storms that were uncharacteristically battering the island of Oahu.

As well as the storms, the race was epic because of a nuking breeze almost all the way across the course, with a large broad-reaching racetrack that was set forth before Rio and the fleet. Maintaining a starboard jibe almost the whole way, Rio’s crew set their reaching spinnaker and smashed their way to Hawaii, knocking some two hours off the already impressive course record set by the 40-foot-longer Mari Cha IV in 2004. Finishing the 2,070-nautical-mile race in just 5 days, 3 hours, 41 minutes, Rio 100 claimed an outright course record in the “other” big Hawaii race.

I got my invite to do the Rio delivery in the midst of my studies at Hawaii Pacific University. Of course, there was no way I could take time off to cross the Pacific in the middle of a semester. Or could I? After all, it was a supermaxi. I immediately realized that if I let the opportunity pass, I’d regret it forever. I said yes, informed my professors I was leaving for a bit, and packed my sea bag. In hindsight, it was the best decision I’d made all semester. I blame it all on Rio.

After a false start in which our crew collectively realized that the old laminate racing mainsail provided to us was doomed to failure, we reappropriated it to the nearest dumpster and had the current racing mainsail shipped in. From the moment we started our second attempt at the delivery, things could not have gone better. The night before leaving, we departed Honolulu’s Ala Wai harbor on a high tide to bend the mainsail on and attach it to the many luff cars that slide up and down the mast—not a simple task on a 100-footer. With another crewmate, I was hoisted about 15 feet above deck to hook up the massive sail’s square-top section with its huge gaff batten and two headboard cars; soon enough, we were joined by two humpback whales. In the thick of their annual winter stopover in the islands, the pair of whales swam alongside and seemed to watch over us and wish us a safe passage from Hawaii. Fifteen feet up the mast, on a calm full-moon night in the tropics, with whales alongside, I had the first of many magical “pinch myself” moments of the trip.

We left Honolulu the following day. In contrast to the normal pounding that one takes when close-reaching north away from the islands, we were granted a very gentle escape. With easy conditions that allowed us all to gain our sea legs before the rough stuff, we saw the gentle trades gradually replaced by reinforced winds that would carry us north. Day after day, the breeze continued blowing as Rio knocked off miles under heavily reduced sail. Even throttled all the way back in an effort not to damage the boat, we still managed double-digit speeds most of the way, while attempting not to slam the boat too hard. With an extra-long flat-bottomed vessel, there is an unusual—and somewhat disconcerting at first—sensation each time the boat slams hard upwind. As skipper Kilpatrick described it, “We’re effectively on a 100-foot-long teeter-totter.” When driving, you’re standing some 40 or 50 feet behind the keel—and the origin of the reverberating motion—and can literally feel the boat moving up and down in a fashion unfamiliar to anyone who hasn’t sailed a boat of this length.

As the breeze finally abated and we entered the Pacific High, we were able to shed a couple of layers for the first time in days. Advised by the weather routers to stall in the high for a day or more to avoid 40 knots of breeze along the coast, we effectively shut down everything and commenced our halfway party. A few repairs here, a beer or two there and a live ukulele concert by one of the crew was the perfect way to break up a wintertime delivery across the Pacific.

Back into the breeze we eventually went. On our four-day-long glory run back to the California coast, we began knocking out miles toward the mark in wholesale fashion, three-sail reaching toward the coast. Flying toward Cali with plenty of fuel left on board, we sailed ourselves out of the breeze about 100 miles off the coast and motored toward our eventual destination of San Diego, arriving at Driscoll’s Boat Works in Mission Bay in the dark of night. On a crisp, clear winter evening, we tied up Rio, stepped off, and reveled in that special moment that comes with the conclusion of any big adventure or ocean crossing. We had made it.

The dash across the Pacific was likely the only time I’ll ever sail the boat, and it was an experience that I will cherish forever. Soon enough, I was back in class. Daydreaming of Rio.

Ronnie Simpson, his studies concluded, is currently based in Fiji, having recently returned from—what else?—a delivery to Hawaii. A contributing editor to Cruising World, he’s used his college degree wisely, carving out a career sailing, writing and doing media work for major yacht races.

The post A Delivery Aboard Rio 100 appeared first on Cruising World.

Halfway from Newport, Rhode Island, to Bermuda one recent November, all four crews on the boats in my offshore sailing program listened rapt to the drama unfolding on the VHF radio. We could hear only the U.S. Coast Guard side of the conversation as they rescued the crew of a boat in trouble, but that was enough for all of us.

It was a stinky night, blowing 35 knots and gusting over 40 out of the southeast—our course to Bermuda. The rain was pelting down, and big sloppy seas were coming from three different directions. On our matching 46-foot performance cruisers, all four skippers had independently arrived at the same solution for dealing with the conditions.

Before darkness closed in, we’d doused the main, rolled up the jib and set the hank-on heavy staysail/storm jib on an inner forestay. We jogged along with the wind at about 60 degrees apparent doing 4 or 5 knots of boatspeed, waiting for the wind shift we knew was coming from listening to the high-seas forecast on the single-sideband radio. We knew this gale presaged a cold front and that by sunrise we’d be loving life as we ran toward Bermuda in a clear 25-knot northwesterly.

We later learned that the Coast Guard had pulled all five people off a well-built, 50-foot double-headsail-rigged cruising ketch about 80 nautical miles from our position. Its crew had tried to cope with the deteriorating conditions by dousing all sail and motoring into the wind. In those conditions, they’d ended up rolling the gunwales under. Then the engine quit. As they drifted, the deck was leaking, and every member of the crew was seasick, cold, wet, scared and exhausted. Calling the Coasties for rescue seemed like a no-brainer, and the decision was unanimous. With that call, the owners of the boat gave up on the cruising dream they’d been working toward for many years.

Practicing Patience

Every November, the southbound routes from the East Coast are furrowed with sailboat wakes as cruisers abandon the rapidly approaching icy winter weather and set sail for the tropics. Some head for Florida, others for the Bahamas, and still others for the Caribbean. Some crews prefer to buddy-boat their way, some like to join rallies, and others prefer to sail by themselves. In more than three decades of sailing other people’s yachts (and lately my own boat) south in the fall, if there is one piece of advice I’d give anyone contemplating this voyage it would be: Throw away your calendar. The weather is what it is, and your schedule matters not a whit.

On a recent passage with a couple starting their dream of cruising the world on a well-found heavy-displacement cutter, we ended up stuck in Beaufort, North Carolina, for a full month as one system after another pounded through at 36- to 60-hour intervals. There was just no way we could pick a decent window to get across the Gulf Stream and far enough along the track to Tortola in the British Virgins to make it clear of the storm paths rolling through.

A couple of professional delivery crews passed through town and made a break for it, but they later reported very miserable passages and told me I’d done the right thing in waiting with my inexperienced crew. In the end, we had a delightful passage in near-ideal conditions. After completing that trip, I returned to Beaufort to get my own, much faster boat with a more experienced crew. I ended up waiting for another week for a weather window before we left. The point is you have to be patient. Good—or at least reasonable—conditions will roll around sooner or later. I tell my clients, “You’re cruising; you’re already home, so what’s your rush?”

I usually leave sometime in November from Newport, Rhode Island, bound for Bermuda. If you have a good boat capable of making the 650-mile passage in five days or less, except in rare years, you should be able to pick a good weather window, if you’re patient. Note how many times I qualified that statement. We have much better weather information nowadays than when I started delivering boats, but bear in mind that weather forecasting is not perfect, nor are professional weather routers. You, your crew and your boat should be prepared to get clobbered. Just as important, you should be prepared to motor if your boatspeed drops below about 5 knots; save the purity of sailing for when you’re south of Bermuda. That piece of North Atlantic water on the way to Bermuda bears a justified fierce reputation. It’s not a place to lollygag. For forecasts and Gulf Stream info, I use the excellent GFS forecast models from passageweather.com.

Planning and Preparation

Before I leave on a passage, I have my sails professionally inspected and any defects repaired. I have them pay special attention to batten pockets and sail slides. Sailmakers will do this for you for at a ­surprisingly reasonable price.

Another thing I do is load up the boat with spare fuel filters. I get a couple of 5-micron elements for the engine and at least half a dozen 30-micron elements for the Racor filter. You might run for years along the coast on the same filter, but once you get offshore and the seas start bouncing the boat around, any crud in the bottom of the fuel tank gets shaken up, and you’ll find yourself having to change filters until your tank is clean.

Along those lines, make sure your engine is happy being run for a long period. Test it by motoring continuously for several hours. Too often engines in sailboats are used simply to leave the mooring and charge the batteries. That’s a rotten thing to do to a diesel.

Your engine manual should tell you what rpm you should achieve running in forward gear. Get clear of other boats one day, and slowly mash the throttle all the way to the limit. Leave it there for five minutes or so. You won’t hurt your engine. Check the engine temperature to make sure it stays under about 180 degrees. If it doesn’t, it’s time to give your cooling system some love. If it revs above the maximum rpm rating, you might be able to add pitch to your propeller; if it comes up short, you might have too much pitch. (Obviously, I’m simplifying, so check with your mechanic before making changes.) Your cruising rpm is 75 to 80 percent of maximum rpm. Top up your diesel tanks and run for several hours at that speed, then fill the tank again to give you an idea of your fuel consumption; this will be an important number to keep in mind when you start thinking about fuel management on passage. Bear in mind that running at 60 percent of max rpm can greatly increase your range when you have to stretch your fuel in a prolonged calm. I always leave my main up for a little extra push and to damp any rolling—unless the sail is slatting hard, which can kill your sail in short order. Bear in mind also that it is not really that hard to make 3 or 4 knots just sailing in light airs.

While you’ve been preparing your boat and stowing spares, you also should have been thinking about crew. I like a three-person crew who can all steer a compass course and know how to sail, including when to trim or ease the sails, and when to call the skipper with questions. A three-person crew allows my favorite watch system: three hours on and six hours off. This allows the skipper and crew almost a full night’s sleep every nine hours, a vital element for keeping everyone safe and happy.

Enticing a good crew to take the time out to sail with you is a conundrum often solved with the promise of good food. My basic rule for provisioning is to never put any food on the boat that you wouldn’t eat at home. So no canned stew and very few tins of tuna, and definitely none of those cups of soup you add boiling water to. Our daily routine is for everyone to help themselves to breakfast cereal (unless someone feels like cooking for the crew); lunch is help-yourself cold- cut sandwiches, though in colder weather we’ll sometimes fall back to tomato soup and grilled-cheese sandwiches. And there is always plenty of peanut butter and jelly aboard.

Except in the roughest weather, we do our evening meal together at the 1800 watch change. Stews, chili and other meals can be premade and frozen before departure. Unless it’s rough, pasta is easy to cook underway and, along with rice, makes easily stowed emergency provisions too. Look at cookbooks and the People & Food column in this magazine and vary the menu, concentrating on stick-to-your-ribs meals up north and lighter, quickly cooked or uncooked fare once you reach the tropics.

Under Sail

All the care you put into provisioning will come to naught if your crewmembers aren’t hungry. Seasickness is the bogeyman for every sailor new to offshore passagemaking, and more than a few experienced sailors too. Experience has shown me that getting your favorite medicine into your system three days before your planned departure will go a long way toward preventing “Gulf Stream gastritis.” It doesn’t seem to matter which medicine you take (I use Bonine, which doesn’t make me as drowsy as some other meds), just get it into your system. During my offshore sailing program one year, I followed this plan when I left Newport for Bermuda with 54 people (aboard 10 boats) who’d never been to sea before. Only one mighty-man-of-the-sea who “never gets seasick” was sick. My wife follows this prescription and has gone from getting seasick on a dewy lawn to running the boat all night on the 200-mile passage across the Gulf of Maine from Cape Cod to Mount Desert Island alone on deck. A last important note: Don’t try a new seasick medicine for the first time right before your passage. A couple hundred miles at sea is not the place to discover you have a nasty or dangerous reaction to ­whatever you took.

When we left on the passage that caused the crew of the 50-footer to abandon ship, our forecast had called for the southeasterlies to blow at a manageable 25 knots, not the 35 to 40 we got. If that unfortunate crew had known to hoist a staysail and perhaps a reefed mizzen, and then either jogged long as we did or hove to, they might still be living their dream on their boat.

Heaving to is one of the most important of an offshore skipper’s tools. To heave to, you back your jib or staysail—that is, you sheet it hard on the wrong side of the direction the wind is blowing—and sheet in your reefed main enough to keep the wind about 60 degrees off the bow with your helm lashed hard over as if you’re trying to get the boat to tack. Done correctly, the boat will sit quietly through pretty intense conditions. This is a technique worth discussing and practicing before departure.

Though it happens, with modern forecasting and patience, you will rarely encounter storm conditions on the short legs from New England to Bermuda, and from Bermuda south to the islands, but it is best to understand and be prepared should it hit the fan. Fatty Goodlander’s excellent book Storm Proofing is recommended reading before you set sail.

Yes, reading articles like this one is enough to scare anyone into taking up RV’ing, but don’t let it. There is little that is more satisfying than sailing your boat at sea toward a distant horizon. There’s a reason so much has been ­written about the romance of the ocean. It’s worth the trouble to just get out there. And as Joshua Slocum once wrote, “To any young man contemplating a voyage, I would say go!”

One final word: Cruising sailor Douglas Bernon told me that before he and his wife, former CW editor Bernadette Bernon, left on their multiyear cruise, I had given him the most important of any advice he’d received before they left. “No matter what,” I’d told him, “each day, be sure to stop whatever you’re doing, relax, and watch the sunset.” And so I pass that along now: Don’t get so caught up in the preparation and operation of the boat that you forget to have fun!

As a delivery skipper, Andrew Burton has logged more than 350,000 nautical miles under sail. Aboard his Baltic 47, Masquerade, he also helps those new to passagemaking understand what it takes to cruise offshore successfully under the auspices of his company, Adventure Sailing. Upcoming voyages include passages from Rhode Island to Bermuda and the Caribbean, cruising through the islands, and a celestial-navigation passage from the British Virgin Islands to Key West. For more information, visit his website.

If the weather is bad, and systems keep moving through too often to leave you without a good window to make Bermuda from New England, the best option is to hop down the coast to Beaufort, North Carolina, one of my favorite ports on the East Coast. Typically, from New England, I head west down Long Island Sound to New York City. From Sandy Hook, New Jersey, at the entrance to New York Harbor, it’s a 110-mile hop down the Jersey shore to Cape May. I’ve had easy rides in smooth water half a mile off the beach, though it was blowing 40 knots from the northwest.

If conditions become uncomfortable, you can bail out into Manasquan Inlet or Atlantic City, where you’ll find good year-round marinas. From Cape May, it’s 150 miles across the mouth of Delaware Bay and down the DelMarVa Peninsula into Chesapeake Bay, where you can either head down the Intracoastal Waterway or pop into Hampton or Little Creek, Virginia, while you wait for a perfect weather window to sail the 200 miles around Cape Hatteras to Beaufort. From Beaufort, if you want to carry on to the Caribbean, it’s 850 miles to the important 25 degrees north, 65 degrees west waypoint that lines you up to reach across the trade winds and westerly current the final 400 miles to the Virgin Islands.

If you’re heading to the Bahamas or Florida, and prefer to be on the ocean rather than the Intracoastal, from Beaufort you have the choice of making the 150-mile overnight run to the Winah River or the 200 miles to Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston is a good jumping-off spot for 25N/65W, but it’s no shorter than leaving from Beaufort.

South of Charleston, you have lots of ports to choose from in Georgia, should you want to tuck in, including Port Royal Sound, the ­Savannah River and Brunswick.

In the 300 miles down the east coast of Florida to Miami, without local knowledge, your ports are limited to Jacksonville, the sometimes-tricky St. Augustine Inlet, Cape Canaveral, Fort Pierce, Lake Worth Inlet, Port Everglades and, finally, Miami. The latter three are good spots from which to jump across the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas.

If you’re heading to the Caribbean, you won’t have done yourself any favors by departing from so far south; it’s still 850 miles to the 25N/65W waypoint, and now you stand a good chance of having to sail upwind a good part of the trip. Your tactic here should be to wait for a cold front to approach. As the wind veers from the prevailing southeast, make your departure when it is out of the south making for Great Isaac Cay at the entrance to Northwest Providence Channel. The wind will continue to veer as the front approaches and moves through. If you can make good speed, you might carry southwest to northwesterly winds most of the way to the waypoint.

An alternative is to island-hop all the way to the Virgin Islands via the “Thorny Path,” about which much has been written.

Rally Ho

Hank Schmitt, the founder of the crew-­networking service Offshore Passage Opportunities, this year will be running the 20th edition of his North American Rally to the Caribbean (NARC). Starting October 26 from two locations—Newport, Rhode Island, and Little Creek, Virginia—the NARC will call in Bermuda on the opening leg before the second stanza carries on to St. Maarten. The rally is free and includes discount docking space, parties, professional weather routing, and much more. For more information, visit the event website.

The post How to Plan Your Sail South appeared first on Cruising World.

January 2017 found me in Durban, South Africa — off which runs one of the world’s great ocean currents, the Agulhas — preparing Gannet, my Moore 24, for an ocean passage and not seeing the weather I wanted. Eventually, I left anyway, and rode out two gales at sea.

January 2018 found me in Marathon, Florida, where Gannet survived the previous fall’s Hurricane Irma undamaged on the hard at Marathon Boat Yard and off which runs another of the world’s great ocean currents, the Gulf Stream. Again I was preparing the little gray sloop for an ocean passage, this time north to South Carolina’s Hilton Head Island, where my wife, Carol, and I had just bought a condominium overlooking Skull Creek Marina. Again I was not seeing the weather I wanted, and again I left anyway.

Before I go to sea, I check weather with several iPhone apps — Windfinder Pro, Windy, MeteoEarth — and I download GRIBs on my laptop with LuckGrib. Once I go to sea, I check the barometer and study the waves and sky and live with whatever happens. At least thus far.

In Marathon, I wanted wind from the west or south. What I got was a week of strong wind from the north. When that finally ended, the forecast was for wind from the east for two days, veering southeast, then variable to dying as another front approached, followed by two days of 20-plus-knot northerlies gusting to gale strength.

The east wind would mean beating the first 60 miles along the Keys, but it would then be a reach when I could make the turn north. I didn’t know how far I could get before the front reached us. There are harbors on Florida’s east coast in which I could find refuge. I studied the charts and considered some, but knowing that once I go to sea I tend to remain there, I expected I would head offshore to gain sea room and heave to or lie ahull and ride it out. So on Saturday morning, January 19, I left.

I had mounted the electric Torqeedo outboard onto its bracket several days earlier. I had started and put it into gear each day. I had tested it that morning. I pushed Gannet away from the boatyard wall, reached back and turned the throttle handle, and got nothing except a display reading, “Error 32.”

One of the often-overlooked virtues of jib furling gear is that you can quickly get under sail when your bleeping motor dies. I unfurled the jib. Fortunately, the light wind was from the northeast, and I could ghost out the narrow boatyard channel cut through mangroves on a reach and then turn west on a run down the channel to the ocean.

After clearing a now always-open bridge, I had a little space and set the tiller pilot to steer while I disconnected and reconnected the Torqeedo’s tiller arm. The engine whimsically decided to run, and I continued down the channel at 3 knots under jib and Torqeedo. The Torqeedo was useful when, at several places, the wind was blocked by buildings.

Past the last of the channel markers, I turned south and raised the main. About this time the Torqeedo died again, but it did not matter. I got us under full sail and removed and stowed the offending motor, outboard bracket, fenders and dock lines.

East wind was forecast, and I had planned to sail south to Sombrero Light and the deep water beyond the reef before tacking. However, the wind remained north-northeast, and we sailed closehauled on port tack at 5 knots inside the reef, up what is called Hawk Channel, on a course that would take us into deep water in 10 or 15 miles. This was just as well because the depth finder was not working. It consistently displayed depths of 2 and 2.1 feet. When against the boatyard wall, I thought this was approximately accurate. Obviously, it wasn’t when we were in 20 to 30 feet of water. This too wouldn’t matter once we passed into the Florida Straits and into thousands of feet of water, until the last few miles into Skull Creek, where I would have to pay close attention to our position on the iNavX or iSailor apps.

The sun never quite burned through the overcast, and in early afternoon the wind veered to the east, forcing us off to the southeast, and increased to 18 to 20 knots, causing Gannet to heel more than 30 degrees. Life on Gannet heeled more than 20 degrees is harsh.

I was sailing with brand-new laminated North 3Di sails. Impressively constructed, they’re beautifully shaped, with an unfamiliar hard plastic finish, and almost unbendable. Once out of their sail bags, they were never going in again. I partially furled the jib and put a reef in the mainsail. As often happens, the ride smoothed out and our speed increased, though we were still occasionally thudding off waves.

The jib has foam along the luff to help it maintain better shape while partially furled. This is common, but I have never before had such foam. I noticed when furling the sail at the dock that it makes starting the initial wrap difficult. That afternoon, with wind in the sail, it made it impossible until I led the reefing line to a winch. I’ve used winches to reef jibs on other boats. This was the first time on Gannet. That might be a measure of the power in the 3Di sails.

The reefed sails maintained good shape. The first reef on the main is deep, around the normal second reef level, just as I want. And the second reef is near storm trysail level. Gannet doesn’t need much sail area to keep moving.

The night was painful. At 1800, a mile off Alligator Reef, I came about and headed east-southeast into deeper water. If the wind remained steady, I thought that if I tacked again at midnight, I would clear Elbow Reef and be able to turn north.

The wind did hold steady, but it increased in strength, gusting in the low 20s, heeling Gannet more than I wished and causing her to bash into and leap off waves. No matter how many cushions I used, I was unable to find a comfortable position behind the lee cloth on the port pipe berth. I suppose I dozed from time to time, but I was up often, looking for ships, and seemed always to be awake.

At 2300, a cruise ship was a mile north of us, with the loom of the lights of two other ships to the south. I decided to tack away from the traffic and came about onto starboard.

Even though I furled the jib down to a third of its size, our speed over ground jumped from 5 knots to 7 and 8. Obviously, we were in the Gulf Stream and now ­moving with it rather than across it.

I didn’t see any more ships. I don’t know that I got any more sleep. At 0400 I got up, as I would each morning of this ­passage, and wedged myself into the position I call “Central” sitting in a Sport-a-Seat on the floorboards, facing aft, where I managed to doze intermittently until first light, when I went on deck and furled the jib down to storm-jib size.

The wind finally veered enough so that we cleared the last reefs, and as the morning progressed, I was even able to ease sheets. What had been an ordeal became fast sailing, with current-aided speed over ground frequently in the double digits.

At 0730 I saw the Miami skyline through haze 8 miles to the west, but surprisingly had the ocean to myself. No pleasure craft. No ships.

As the wind continued to veer and diminished to 14 to 16 knots, I unfurled the jib and thought about unreefing the main, but we were going fast enough, and I was tired.

The second night was in complete contrast to the first: smooth, quiet, almost level and fast. I went to sleep at sunset. Got up often. Once saw the loom of lights of a ship to the east. And Gannet continued to roar up the coast.

At 0900 Monday we were off Cape Canaveral. At noon, Gannet concluded her best day’s run ever of 185 miles. My experience is that the fastest sailing is the easiest, and the hardest the least productive. The waypoint off Hilton Head Island was only 168 nautical miles away, and I began to hope I could beat the front.

That afternoon was beautiful. Perfect. Warm. Sunny. I moved the Sport-a-Seat on deck and sat there, reveling in Gannet‘s speed and grace, sunlight on waves. A single fat flying fish took flight. I brought the Megaboom speakers up and listened to music. The universe is beyond imagination. Time is long, and you are here only for a butterfly’s cough. Cherish any moment you can. I did.

At sunset, the waypoint off Hilton Head Island was 130 nautical miles away. A 6-knot average would see us in our slip at Skull Creek Marina before dark Tuesday. iNavX and iSailor showed our ETA at the offshore buoy around noon. My hope of outrunning the wind shift grew. I would rather not suffer. We would see.

I stood in the companionway in the early evening. Gannet was getting it done, making 8 and 9 knots. The sound of rushing water in darkness. First quarter moon silver on the water. The mouth of the St. Johns River 60 miles west of us. We were alone. Millions of people on the shore, and we had seen no one since the Florida Keys.

I was up again at 0400. These early awakenings were not planned, they just happened. This time, after jibing around midnight, I remained on the starboard pipe berth although it was now to leeward. I got up when a gust heeled Gannet enough so that the food bags on the other berth fell on me. The Hilton Head sea buoy was 52 miles ahead, and we were no longer in the Gulf Stream. Gannet‘s 6.5-knot speed over ground was all due to sails.

The wind had continued to veer and was now west and on our beam. Water was coming on board, but in part because of the small spray hood I had installed in Durban, not much was making its way below. I put on my foul-weather gear and sat at Central, drinking grapefruit juice, waiting for dawn.

With the sun came stronger wind, and Gannet began surfing at 10-plus knots. That rush cannot be overstated. I have never had a boat that accelerates as does Gannet. She is doing 6 or 7 knots, then a gust of wind or a wave, even slight, and suddenly she is doing 10 or 12 knots or more.

At 1100, the sea buoy was 12 miles ahead, and we were in thick fog. I dug out and pumped up the fog horn. Without a ­functioning depth finder, had I not had GPS positions in my iPhone chart-plotting apps, I would have hove to.

I crawled over the supplies stowed on the V-berth and dragged the anchor and rode bag back under the forward hatch. Even this far out, the water was shallow enough to anchor, but it would be rough. I never dreamed we would make it to Hilton Head Island in three days. The sky seemed a little lighter overhead. I hoped the sun would burn off the fog.

We passed within a hundred yards of the sea buoy. I heard it, but never saw it. Finally, as we approached the first set of buoys at the entrance to the channel leading into Port Royal Sound, the fog began to lift and I saw them.

Within an hour, the sky was clear and I could see the entire 10-mile-long ocean shore of Hilton Head Island. Although there were no other boats or ships around, I kept Gannet just outside the port line of buoys marking the channel. When we reached the mouth of Port Royal Sound in late afternoon, both wind and tide were against us.

I already knew that I wasn’t going to reach Skull Creek Marina before dark. We sailed and sailed, and tacked and tacked, trying to get deeper into the sound, without much success. Just before sunset I furled the jib and anchored in about 40 feet of water. We had come almost 500 miles, but still had 7 miles to go. I poured myself a drink and sat on deck, watching lights come on ashore. We were far enough in to be protected. The water was smooth.

The night was peaceful, if a bit cool at 38 degrees. A friend gave me a good sleeping bag in which I was comfortable, though it was hard to force myself out of it the next morning. After a cup of coffee, I dragged the Torqeedo onto the deck, mounted it on the transom and, behold, it started. The 7 miles to the marina would be near the limits of its range, so I turned it off, raised sails and anchor, and we beat our way up the sound against a light land breeze, but now with the tide with us.

Two hundred yards off the mouth of Skull Creek, I started the Torqeedo again and lowered the sails.

Coming into Skull Creek for the first time was beautiful. A sunny sky. Wind light. A flock of birds standing almost within arm’s reach on a sand spit off the Pinckney Island Nature Reserve to the north. A dolphin broke the surface and swam beside Gannet. A pelican glided past.

I had telephoned the marina that I would be coming in that morning. They were on the lookout for me, and as I slowly approached, Fred, the dock master, called that he would walk down to help with my lines. He did, standing first on the end of the dock, then going to my slip. I glided in and tied up at 1030 and thanked him.

We had easily outraced the front.

I looked ashore at our condo behind oak trees and Spanish moss. Gannet was home. She has never really had a home port. Now she does.

Webb Chiles will sail from Hilton Head, South Carolina, in January 2019 for Panama and then San Diego, California, where he will complete his sixth circumnavigation.

The post Sailing Home, Eventually appeared first on Cruising World.

Why is this so difficult?” I keep asking myself as I go over the latest list. “I’ve done this literally dozens of times before.” Autumn is winding down. We want to set sail before the onset of winter gales. We’ve set a departure date, and it’s only five days away. As I look out of my office window to see David wheeling yet another load of gear down the jetty, I remind myself I know the steps to take.

Sahula, the 40-foot steel Van de Stadt sloop that David Haigh has sailed almost all the way around the world, is looking ever more disheveled as gear and provisions are loaded onto her deck. I can’t help him much because I am on overload, beavering away in my office as I try to disengage myself from the business and community projects that have filled my life for the past seven years. But now I’ve been invited to join David as he sails to Fiji, Vanuatu and then on toward Townsville, Australia, to help him complete his circumnavigation. I don’t want to pass up this chance.

As I look over my list, I remind myself that setting sail with David and leaving New Zealand both add extra stress to my situation. I’d spent almost five decades sailing, adventuring and working with Larry. Together we’d built two of the boats we used to explore the farthest reaches of the world. We’d grown into a well-oiled sailing team. The boats we’d sailed had been custom-tailored to my diminutive size and strength. Now I had committed myself to sail off across one of the more boisterous of oceans with a man whom I’d only recently come to know, on a boat that was far different than I was used to — a boat fitted out to suit a 6-foot-1-inch-tall singlehander — and I’d be doing it at an age when I knew I was not as agile as I’d once been. And there was an even bigger problem: I was leaving Larry behind. After helping him through several years of ever-worsening Parkinsonian dementia, the time came when I needed professional assistance. I’d searched for and found an excellent facility with warmhearted, well-trained staff. Larry had been there for more than a year. His caretakers plus all of my family and friends urged me to take this leap, telling me, if Larry could comprehend and speak, he’d join their chorus. But still, I had concerns because, for the first time ever, there would be possibly weeks at a time when I could not jump on a plane and rush back to be at Larry’s side should there be any way I could make his life easier.

Then there is the more universal complication of putting any shoreside life on hold: turning over my publishing business so the authors and their new publisher were comfortable; securing the house, boatyard, three boats, the car; shutting off the phones; relinquishing the responsibilities I’ve taken on in my very supportive small island community.

If it’s this hard for me, just imagine what it must be like for people who are trying to get away the very first time, I thought as I crossed one chore off my list then added two more. I remembered one cruising couple who came up to me after a seminar at the 2017 Annapolis boat show. “We’ve sold the house, bought the boat,” said the woman. “But now my boss has offered me a really tempting bonus to stay on and help him on a special project. He says only I have the skills to handle it. It would be just six months more. That would give Doug more time to make sure the boat is ready to go. What would you do?”

I could remember my answer; it was similar to the one I’d given to dozens of almost-ready-to-go voyagers. “Your boss isn’t trying to help you out. He’s trying to keep you right where you are so he doesn’t have to spend the time and money training someone else. Grab your chance and go now while both of you are healthy and eager.”

I am still satisfied with the answer I gave that day. But, armed with my current dilemma, I might have added, “Even for those young enough to appear free of responsibilities, even for those folks who seem to have all the money they could need, breaking away at any time in your life is not easy.” I recall the very first time Larry and I actually had to make the break from shore life. We owned almost nothing but the 24-foot-4-inch boat we’d just finished building. As soon as Seraffyn was launched, we moved on board to avoid paying rent, so had no home to dispose of and few possessions to consider. Larry was a professional sailor with several ocean trips under his belt, so there was little concern about his skill level. Armed with his experience maintaining charter boats, we’d decided on a minimalist approach to control our budget, thus had very little to shop for or install. We had enough money in the bank for five or six months of cruising, and the offer of interesting jobs if we decided to sail back to Newport Beach, California. Then someone offered us a contract that could have, with just six or eight months’ work, netted us enough money to keep cruising for four or five years. Of course, our compatriots said we’d be crazy to turn it down. My parents were thrilled at the idea that I might not leave so soon, or maybe have time to reconsider and not go at all. Larry and I spent two restless weeks making lists of pros and cons. Then I remembered a small book by pop philosopher Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity. “When you reach the figure that you once felt would be enough,” Watts explained, “you’ll worry about losing it or your needs changing so it might not be sufficient.” I read this to Larry one morning, and that settled it — we left with what we had and never once looked back.

Now, as I contemplate the next items on my list I reflect, resolving the financial issue might be one of the easier parts of breaking free because you can put the facts and figures down on paper. The really difficult items on my list are mostly done: resigning as secretary/treasurer for the local boating club — one I was emotionally involved with because I’d helped start it four years previously — and turning over my duties as elected representative for my Kawau Island community. I’ve spoken with many potential voyagers who, at this stage in their plan, began to have doubts. “Am I being irresponsible?” some had asked. Others said, “Everyone will be disappointed in me,” or, “Who will take over if I leave?” Their worries, which I have been feeling the past few weeks, might reflect a deeper concern, which is, Will we actually be missed? Will we ever feel as important? Can we ever return and get involved in the same meaningful way?

Then there are the final farewells. Friends, family. By this stage you have made it clear you are going sailing. But few noncruisers will realize you have set a date and you have to stick to it. There is nothing quite so difficult as phone calls like the one I had to make yesterday. “As much as I’d like to help you celebrate the fact that you have been named on the Queen’s Birthday Honours List,” I’d told Leanne, my best island friend, “David and I can’t delay our departure for a week.” In 2008, Larry and I got caught up in almost exactly the same situation when, at the end of our second circumnavigation, we delayed our departure from Southern California for the first leg of our voyage toward New Zealand via the Line Islands for six weeks to take part in my niece’s wedding. I tried to say no, but my family had all the good arguments: “You might not be back for a long, long time. You’ve missed so many fun family celebrations. …” So we took the easy way out (saying yes) and suffered the consequences. Because of that delay, we ended up right in the track of Boris, a relatively early hurricane, seven days out of Ventura, California. Boris crossed from Mexico to Baja California, then headed offshore toward Hawaii and fortunately was downgraded to a tropical storm 90 miles before it hit us.

Now I notice David heading back toward the boat shed with an empty wheelbarrow and realize it’s growing dark. As I close down my computer, I contemplate how much more difficult breaking away must be for someone with a complicated boat, or with new grandchildren. Yes, this transition is difficult, but as I head over to the house for sundowners, one of Larry’s favorite quips comes to mind: “If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.”

As Lin continues to explore the eastern coastline of Australia on board Sahula, she is finding time to write once again. A tribute edition of her very first book, Cruising in Seraffyn is now available at landlpardey.com. All profits from sale of this edition will go toward maintaining and upgrading the Larry Pardey Memorial Observatory at the ­children’s camp on Kawau Island.

The post Casting Off Concerns appeared first on Cruising World.

To paraphrase an old saw, there are two kinds of sailors: those who have kissed bottom and those who haven’t yet reached first base. My personal initiation to this unfurled when I was 11 years old and the family’s C&C 37 plowed a trench into a Chesapeake Bay sandbank that had shifted sometime after our printed chart of the area had been purchased. In those days, circa 1988, sailors typically had to rely on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Notice to Mariners to update charts (and few did) that were obsolete nearly as soon as they were printed. This was particularly a problem in cruising areas such as the Chesapeake Bay’s Middle Grounds and the Florida and Georgia coastlines, places that regularly experience seafloor metamorphosis, often courtesy of storm and hurricane action.

Steering clear of these migrating hazards and other changes that can affect navigation boils down to having up-to-date cartography and paying close attention to the tide. Today, with data updates just a few keystrokes and a Wi-Fi signal away, it’s easier than ever to know what’s under the keel. All you have to know is where to look.

Electronics Come of Age

On February 3, 2016, the U.S. Coast Guard published official guidance allowing mariners of all stripes to use electronic cartography, which can be viewed on a PC or dedicated chart plotter, instead of paper charts, as their primary navigation source. This marked a sea change from the days of skippers comparing navigational notes by lamplight and hand-updating their charts based on hard-earned — and shared — empirical evidence.

Critically, this evolution also marks a change in how mariners find and obtain their cartography. While brick-and-mortar chandleries and chart agents no longer stock drawers of paper charts, it’s easier than ever to find up-to-date ones, provided you’re familiar with technologies such as NOAA’s Interactive Catalog and Chart Locator, print-on-demand (POD) charts and user-generated cartography (UGC), as well as the automatic identification system (see “Leveraging AIS”).

Before setting off on a sailing trip, a prudent skipper begins by searching through the relevant cartography, and no matter what electronic or paper charts you use, it’s a pretty safe bet that the basic data presented was created by NOAA. The agency, formed in 1970, is the latest government entity to be responsible for survey work that has been conducted under various governmental guises since 1807.

While NOAA no longer physically prints or distributes charts, it produces free electronic cartography that’s easily downloadable in a multitude of formats, including PDFs; raster navigational charts (RNC), which are highly accurate paper-chart scans; and electronic navigation charts, also known as vector charts, where layers of data can be displayed and added. In addition, NOAA’s website offers links to cartography retailers that sell NOAA-certified paper and electronic charts.

Charts a Click Away

To support its paperless migration, NOAA significantly upgraded its cartography interface in 2016, giving mariners an intuitive and user-friendly research tool online. Users arrive on a macro-scale map of North America that is covered along its coastal boundaries, lakes and navigable waterways with various-size polygons, each corresponding to different types of charts (e.g., harbor charts, sailing charts, general charts). Some of the larger boxes or polygons contain smaller-scale charts, allowing visitors to drill down to find ever more detailed offerings. NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey also provides a useful overview of its various offerings (charts.noaa.gov).

Users select their chart type and zoom to a region before clicking on their desired micro-area, which drops a pin and triggers a yellow pop-up box to appear, depicting the chart’s boundaries. In the right-hand column of the website, under “Map Selection Information” a box shows the chart’s title, type, scale, edition and print date. For instance a West Coast sailor might find himself looking at “Chart 18434, San Juan Channel, Harbor Chart, 1:25,000, 7th edition, 4/1/2008.”

As an aside, NOAA’s chart numbers always correspond to the same cartography, meaning that the same chart number will always cover the same waters, even if the data contained within the cartography is dynamic. Chart 13246, for instance, will always cover Cape Cod Bay.

Depending on the chart, users can opt to view it online; buy it from a NOAA-certified third-party POD outlet; view or download a PDF of an RNC; download the RNC for free; or download a Booklet Chart (which is formatted into 8½-by-11-inch pages, for printing on home printers). Visitors can also read and download the Coast Guard’s Notice to Mariners, which offers weekly chart corrections.

Alternatively, sailors can use the site’s search bar to locate charts. This makes it easy to research the latest bathymetry data for your favorite cruising grounds, and it also allows for a seamless experience when jumping between chart catalogs, the website and your ship’s library.

“Finding charts is much easier now with technology,” says Tara Wallace, the chief of NOAA’s Nautical Data Branch. “It’s maybe not as much fun as going through drawers and touching charts, but it’s quicker, everything is at your fingertips and everything is updated. Before, you had to hand-correct your old paper charts.”

Keeping Up-to-Date

While some seafloors are largely static, others are subject to frequent storm-triggered changes or other obstructions, which — as I learned in 1988 — can rapidly obviate cartography. “The Hydrographic Service Division of NOAA does multiyear planning, where they take a look at different areas, the age of the charts and the needs of the mariners,” says Wallace. “They take storm cycles into account, but it’s mostly the age of the chart and the needs of the mariners” that prompt survey work.

Wallace says NOAA maintains six mobile navigation teams that oversee 175 major ports nationwide and negotiate storm-affected waters to survey and reopen harbors and commercial areas as needed.

NOAA also built a website (distribution.charts.noaa.gov/weekly_updates) that provides weekly chart updates from around the United States, based on their priority level.

“Users can enter the chart number and see red dots for areas with critical updates and brown polygons for noncritical updates,” says Wallace, adding that the website is updated every Thursday. Alternatively, users can find these same updates using NOAA’s Interactive Catalog and Chart Locator.

Once the correct chart numbers and titles have been identified, visitors can download the files and have them printed at a third-party business that offers POD services. “I used to stock $25,000 in chart inventory, but not anymore,” reports Capt. Henry Marx, a Safety at Sea instructor and owner of Landfall Navigation, a chart agent and chandlery in Stamford, Connecticut. He says he can print any chart, including the latest Notice to Mariners, in 10 minutes, in-house, using a large-format printer. “Print-on-demand is better because I’m not selling someone an obsolete chart,” he adds.

We’re in This Together

“The bathymetry in many areas of the country is not up to date, and NOAA will never have enough funding to survey these inshore areas properly,” says Ken Cirillo, Garmin’s lead product manager of marine cartography and content.

Instead, a number of electronics companies have found ways to augment NOAA’s cartography with the help of their customers, who are encouraged to share their UGC. So in addition to the electronic raster and vector charts that are widely available from third-party cartography companies, Garmin, GoFree (Navico), Humminbird and Navionics allow their sonar-equipped customers to record their sounder logs and create customized charts that use official bathymetric data as a base map, while overlaying high-resolution user-generated soundings data as a discrete layer. (In general, bathymetric data from official and UGC sources are not mixed.)

Users can typically create their own private cartography using their chart plotter, or they can contribute their information to a community data pool that cartography companies use to create a crowdsourced high-resolution layer that users can download and display. It’s worth noting that this data can be collected any time a skipper decides to mow the lawn, so to speak, to create new soundings of, say, a recently silted-in inlet along the Intracoastal Waterway. Privately collected data could also take on added value given the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to NOAA’s operating budget.

“Garmin’s Quickdraw Contours is a simple, powerful feature,” says Cirillo. The company is able to update its charts as new data is uploaded.

While UGC is becoming an increasingly important tool, Marx and Cirillo both point to the necessity of quality control, lest the situation become one of “garbage in, garbage out.” Fortunately, all sources interviewed for this article report that there have been precious few, if any, situations of malicious users, and that so-called bad data is usually attributable to excessive throttle. “If you don’t have enough data points and were running too fast, the results will be evident, and the community can choose not to use it,” says Cirillo.

As with many things in the world of marine electronics, so-called walled product gardens exist. “In a perfect world, there would be one giant server for all UGC from companies such as Navionics, Navico’s GoFree, Garmin and Humminbird, but there’s not one universal system,” says Cirillo, so any updates are proprietary and only as broad as the company’s customer base.

While the days of sifting through paper cartography and poring over printed chart catalogs may have slipped astern, finding and obtaining up-to-date cartography is easier than ever. True, there’s a certain romance to huddling over the nav station with your crew in the evenings, but thanks to POD services, this is still easily accomplished, without the need for hand corrections.

– – –

David Schmidt is CW’s electronics editor.

The post How To Upgrade NOAA Charts appeared first on Cruising World.

O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting …

The opening lines of Walt Whitman’s poem “O Captain! My Captain!” perfectly capture that magic moment in any sailor’s life — landfall! — the glorious culmination of years of saving, working, planning and now safely closing an oceanic passage. But beware! This is the most demanding and potentially dangerous phase of your voyage.

First and foremost, while most inexperienced sailors fear the unknown expanse of the open ocean, it is a relatively benign environment, affording time to think and the room and depth to maneuver. You are now approaching the crusty coast, and it is here the water shoals, the rocks rise and the passageways narrow.

Do not break with ship routine at the first sight of land. I once sighted the Marquesas Islands from 70 miles away. My crew and I sat at the helm in excited anticipation. Waning winds and contrary currents conspired to keep us from actual landfall for an entire day. We arrived far more exhausted than necessary.

Even the smoothest of voyages demand 24 hours of your mental attention and physical effort. The excitement of a new destination can mask a deep underlying fatigue, and that exhaustion undermines your otherwise good judgment. Outside a pass, you must stop, look and listen. Form a plan. Communicate that plan, and take these specific steps to ensure that, ultimately, your vessel will find safe haven.

Whereas you choose the weather and timing of your departure, you generally arrive when and where nature allows. This can be mitigated by speeding up or slowing down the vessel upon approach. The speeding up is seldom the best course of action, for it is better to slow down or even heave-to and arrive early the next morning (with up to 16 hours of daylight) than attempt a late-afternoon race against the cloak of darkness.

Before entering any pass after a long voyage, test all motoring functions. Is the day tank pumped up? Is the shaft break off? Are all fishing lines in? Has the transmission seized from disuse? Is the propeller compromised due to fouling?

Loosen up the windlass, for it may have sat in salt water for up to a month. Flake out a portion of chain, which may have piled up upon itself in the rough motion of a storm. Pull out fenders and mooring lines, as equipment may have shifted and buried them during the passage. Lay out the binoculars and the foghorn, and if the situation demands a late entry, the spotlight. Check the VHF and determine which channel Harbor Control operates on. Now is the time to hoist the quarantine and courtesy flags, not once in the thick of action.

If time and tide permit, sit outside any entry and watch the local vessels. Note where and how they enter, but do not necessarily assume that this is the safest entry for you. A shoal-draft fishing punt might be slipping over skinny water that a deep-keeler could not, whereas a container ship would certainly be safe to follow. Use their passage to confirm which marking system is in use because red-right-returning is not universal (see Red Right Returning.) Never rely on informal markers; it is a lottery as to whether they mark a danger or the route around one. Extrapolating another ship’s course can help locate range markers and low-lying navigational aids.

We can become so focused ahead that we forget to scan the horizon behind. Being chased up a narrow channel by a 50,000-ton freighter is best avoided. On that note, remember, given container ships’ size, speed and limited maneuverability, there is no such thing as right of way. Always consider yourself the burdened vessel.

Next, take time to note the weather and winds. Do not assume that your offshore conditions will continue once in the influence of large landmasses. Their thermal properties can override prevailing conditions, causing onshore and offshore breezes as the land heats and cools throughout the day. In steep terrains, katabatic winds can thunder down upon you from any direction. Develop natural literacy. Interpret the landform; look ahead for tell-tale signs on the water. If line squalls are coming through, sit still to watch their frequency, ferocity and shifts. Halfway through a coral pass and all the way out of visibility is not for the fainthearted.

Use your chart plotter, GPS, radar, depth sounder and any other modern navigational aid possible, but do not neglect to simply stand up and look around because, especially in reef-strewn waters, the charting can be inaccurate, extreme weather events can take out aids and channels might shift. Confirm your modern data with correlating depth soundings, water colors and flow patterns.

Always have the sails ready to go if not already in use. It is an immutable law of nature that if your engine is to fail or your propeller is to pick up a semisubmerged fishing net, this will happen smack in the middle of a tortuous channel. Because it is always easier to shake out a reef than to put one in, I take a tuck before entering a strange harbor, even in light winds. The emphasis here is on safety, not speed.

Unless other marine traffic prevents it, always enter any pass favoring the windward side. In the event of trouble, you can quickly jibe out with maximum room, instead of relying on a successful tack with only half a pass available.

Check the local tide tables, and ensure that you have the right time zone and any correction for daylight saving time. Slack water does not always coincide with high or low tide. Check the chart and/or tide tables for anomalies. Remember that in the case of coral atolls, even on the flood tide the current is usually flowing out the pass. This is due to a higher sea level within the atoll caused by waves continuously breaking over the enclosing reef. If possible, time your entry for slack low water. In the event of grounding, you will have the full effect of a rising tide to refloat or kedge off. Shoaling is also easier to spot at low water. Silly as it sounds, watch the birds on the water: Are they swimming or wading?

The position and height of the sun is of primary concern, especially in coral environments. Try to place the sun behind you, moderately high but not dead overhead. If the pass is twisting, anticipate sun strike, and plot out a route in your mind before you lose color perception. Wear clean, polarized sunglasses, even on an overcast day, because they pierce the glare on the water’s surface and exaggerate color differential. Find an elevated yet safe position to keep watch ahead. Even a little extra height will dramatically improve visibility through the water. Take every opportunity to practice interpreting local colors as they relate to depth.

Upon your entry into the anchorage area, you probably will be spotted by friends on other boats. They will be excited and want to chatter on as to how your voyage went. Remember, your voyage is not over just yet. Politely shout to them, “We’ll talk soon, as soon as the boat is safely anchored.” They will respect that. Take extra caution in anchoring. Strange ports with unknown holding ground can be crowded with vessels of differing scope. You will sleep the sleep of the dead the first night in, and probably not be as tuned in to any wind shifts or water changes as you normally would.

However well intended advice from strangers might be, never do exactly as told by people on the dock unless you, as captain and solely responsible for the safety of your vessel, have determined that it is the best course of action. Only you know your draft, maneuvering characteristics, and the agility of your line handlers. When coming dockside, use your own lines. If someone dockside has offered assistance, do not be afraid to instruct them as to exactly how you want the lines run and made fast.

Do not break quarantine by letting someone jump on board or by leaving the vessel, even if told that local procedures are very casual. This wonderful voyage is officially completed only once the Q-flag comes down.

Congratulations — you’ve done it! You will experience a profound sense of relief, joy and pride. Now is the time to pop that cork and toast yourself and your crew on a job well done.

Two-time circumnavigator and author Alvah Simon is a contributing editor to Cruising World.

The post Making Landfall After a Voyage appeared first on Cruising World.

The beauty of blue­water sailing is that once the lines are cast off, we enter a vast, complex and power­ful natural system over which we have no control. Every captain’s challenge and responsibility is to develop a fundamental understanding of the elements involved and align them in the safest, most efficient manner possible. To paraphrase an old alliterative saying, “Prior planning promises pleasant passages.”

There are far too many world cruising routes to offer specific advice for each herein, but no matter where you wish to sail, a review of the tools available and general principles of route planning may help in your initial stages of preparation.

The three major factors in successful planning are when you sail (selecting the right season and window within that season), where you sail (shaping your route along the path of least resistance), and how you sail (matching the vessel and crew to the anticipated conditions and carrying the appropriate reference materials, sails and equipment).

Pilot Charts

As simple as that sounds, the devil is in the details. And no more detail can be found in any single source than in the Atlas of Pilot Charts, first compiled in the mid-1800s by Lt. Matthew Fontaine Maury, U.S. Navy, recognized as the father of modern oceanography and maritime meteorology. These weather charts encompass the globe and have evolved into a stunning compilation of historical averages regarding wind direction and strength, storm frequency and tracks, major currents, iceberg limits, fog, air temperature, great-circle routes, magnetic variation, and more. For the big passage overview, they are collated into a three-month-per-page format, and for more specific planning, on a one-month basis. There are five volumes in all, categorized by geographic region.

The graphic symbols are easily interpreted. Wind circles are placed in evenly spaced squares across the charted areas, broken down into the North Pacific, South Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic and Indian Ocean. Each circle is surrounded by arrows emanating from the eight cardinal and ordinal directions, with the wind flowing in the same direction as the arrow flies. An arrow’s length, relative to the other arrows, indicates the proportion of time the wind is from that direction.

If the wind is so dominant from a single direction that the arrow’s length would interfere with the neighboring square, the arrow is broken with a numerical percentage. The “feathers” on the arrow indicate the average wind speed, with each feather representing one force on the Beaufort scale. A number at the center of the circle indicates the number of days in a month with either no recorded wind or wind so light as to be variable.

Intense as they are, tropical depressions do not statistically affect the wind roses, because they are so short-lived. They do, however, affect the sailor caught in them. Therefore, on each page a sidebar uses red lines to record the tracks of significant hurricanes (also called typhoons and cyclones), and a separate section discusses the details of gales and tropical depressions for the covered time and area. This is important because once you understand when and where hurricanes are most likely to develop, and the probable track they will take, it may be determined that with a good extended forecast, one could set sail — even though officially in the hurricane area and season — with the hopes of vacating the danger zone before a significant system could develop or converge with one’s outgoing track.

By sifting through the data, one soon discovers that although the rhumb line may appear to represent the shortest distance between two points, it is not necessarily the quickest route to take. Though a great-circle route may be shorter, by following a reasonable arc of favorable winds (rather than adhering to a strict A-to-B course and mentality), your speed over ground and velocity made good will usually be fast enough to compensate for the extra mileage sailed. Plus, being a little off the wind makes the sea motion better, reducing wear and tear on the rig, sails and crew.

A passage we made from Canada’s Vancouver Island to Hawaii illustrates that point. A direct course would have taken us through the middle of the North Pacific High, replete with contrary currents, frustrating calms and unpredictable wind directions on the approach to Hawaii from the north. By sailing down the coast to the latitude of San Francisco, and then bending a course south and west until reaching Hawaii’s latitude, we were assisted by favorable currents running down the West Coast and caught steady northeast trade winds on the starboard quarter (a wind angle our 36-foot Roger Henry loves) all the way into Hilo.

Current Affairs

The green lines on the Pilot Charts identify the major currents of the world, including the Kushiro, Gulf Stream, Humboldt, Agulhas, Californian, North Equatorial and South Equatorial. These currents are powerful forces, and any prudent mariner will shape a course to use them to his or her advantage, or at least mitigate their detrimental influence. It is not just a matter of a countercurrent sapping your SOG. When a major current runs contrary to strong prevailing winds, the resulting seaway can be nasty.

A classic example of this occurs in the passage from any East Coast seaport to Bermuda and beyond. The Gulf Stream flows in basically a north-to-northeasterly direction, averaging up to 4 knots. When this flow is contrary to strong prevailing winds, dangerously steep seas develop. But the stream is not consistent; it meanders in bends that nearly turn back on themselves, and widens and narrows often. Using real-time observations as recorded on a NOAA website, one might decide to head in a direction oblique to Bermuda in order to cross the stream in a narrow area or where it flows in a safer direction.

In some cases, even where you sit in the current can be critical. The Agulhas Current runs south down the east coast of South Africa against frequent southeasterly gales. Inside of the 100-fathom line, vessels traditionally fare well. Outside of it, even supertankers have been known to break in half. These differing conditions lie nearly within sight of each other.

The Pilot Charts do not deal with wave heights, as they are too unpredictable. What is predictable, however, is the turbulence caused by wind over shoal water, sudden depth rises, and convergences of known currents. Plan to give a wide berth to large banks and prominent headlands, such as the Grand Banks or Cape Hatteras.

Remember that large landmasses can have significant effects on winds. Many a cruiser has felt the sting of the Tehuantepec or Papagayo winds off the west coast of Central America. A large saddle in the cordillera (mountain range) accelerates the winds crossing from the Gulf of Mexico in what is known as the Venturi effect. And yet, sailing north from Chile along the South American coast, we took advantage of not only the north-flowing Humboldt Current, but also the onshore breeze that developed early in the day due to heating air rising up the Andes, as well as the offshore breeze that developed at night as the air cooled and fell from the heights.

All this data has, in a sense, been given training wheels via Jimmy Cornell’s comprehensive book World Cruising Routes. Cornell has interpreted and reduced the mountain of data into specific routes to and from nearly every destination on the planet. Logically organized, this tome includes specific timing windows, GPS waypoints to follow, distances to cover, and more. It’s a carefully researched and edited work.

Either resource can be considered a stand-alone reference, but I believe that by first mastering the Pilot Charts on your own, and then confirming your conclusions with Cornell’s book, you will have laid the foundation of personal competence and confidence while remaining open to the advice of other experienced sailors.

Locals’ Knowledge

In aggregate, historical data proves quite accurate, but each year is different, and anomalies occur. The effects of a pronounced El Niño or La Niña year can dramatically change prevailing winds and currents. The intertropical convergence zone drifts north and south in irregular cycles. Listen to the accredited weather pundits for long-term outlooks. Seek advice from cruisers, but assess the source; the right to an opinion, however ill-­informed, is issued with every captain’s hat. Also listen to the locals, as they have seen their weather come and go for many, many years.

I once watched a Malabar ketch depart Colón, Panama, for Florida in mid-­December. A seasoned Panama hand looked up from his barstool and said with certainty: “They missed it by a week. They’ll be back.” And back they were, 10 days later, without a mast and severely shaken up.

On another occasion, we were waiting in the San Blas Islands for the fortified trades to die so we could make the passage to Florida. At the first sign of a let-up, in early April, a flotilla of impatient yachts set sail north. I asked an elderly Kuna man what he thought.

He said, quite sagely, “Coming one more storm from the north, then go.”

I took his advice, remembering the old adage “a sailor with time always has a fair wind.” That storm did come, and it was a ripsnorter. The early birds suffered dearly; we had a picture-perfect passage.

With good reference material, open ears and growing experience, you will start to develop your own intuitive sense of timing and routing. There is a well-worn track from the southern Caribbean to Panama that parallels the coast of Colombia. It is a downhill run and should not wreak the havoc it always seems to. Without being able to articulate my reasoning, I decided to make our run from Puerto Rico to the Panama Canal a full degree north of that well-traversed track. After a fast but manageable run into Panama, we heard horror stories from yachts that sailed a mere 60 miles to the south of us.

Jimmy Cornell’s second contribution to passage planning is the website noonsite.com, now run by the World Cruising Club. Here one can check on visa requirements, cruising permits, customs exemptions, ports of entry, and a plethora of other essential planning details.

Other pre-departure planning includes checking the offsets for Greenwich Mean Time along the route, and having designated longitudes recorded in the logbook at which time the ship’s clock will be corrected. Carry the tide tables for the intended areas of landfall, and verify the times relative to local time, GMT, standard time or daylight saving. A radio and light list still have a place on the navigation bookshelf.

Great Debate

The modern navigation debate is always framed as paper charts versus electronic charting. But those approaches are not mutually exclusive, and each serves a separate purpose. There is no doubt that integrated GPS, radar, chart plotters and autohelms have tamed maritime navigation. As long as they are working, we have at our fingertips our position, course, SOG, VMG, ETA and GMT. Why wouldn’t we use these marvels? Yet they are vulnerable to failure via lightning strike, flooding or even a mere power failure. You will never be lost at sea if you have plotted your position regularly on a small-scale paper chart; you can always fall back on dead reckoning.

In the last Volvo Ocean Race, in 2014, the navigator aboard the entry Vestas Wind plotted the team’s course through the Indian Ocean via a small-scale digital chart. But his level of zoom (or scale) missed a pesky little detail concerning the Cargados Carajos Shoals. They were charging along at 16 knots when they crashed hard into the shoals. The after-race incident review concluded the fault lay with “deficient cartography in presenting the navigational dangers on small- and medium-scale (or zoomed-out) views on the electronic chart system in use.” Like I said.

A small-scale (large-area) paper chart gives you the big picture without the loss of detail, and serves not only as navigational redundancy but also as an efficient and consistent visual planning tool. Mark all dangers in red with a generous clearing circle, and enter their presence, in order of passing, as a list in the logbook. Once underway, check one off and identify the next as you progress.

As much as possible, program into your GPS your waypoints before setting sail, because the fatigue that sets in on even the easiest of passages almost ensures a mistake will be made. Break down your entries into small blocks, and double back to methodically check each. Then take a break, because after too many entries, your eyes will glaze over and you will inevitably transpose a number.

Never trust another person’s waypoint blindly. Do the work; own the responsibility. Collect charting, of both types, and references for areas adjacent to your planned landfalls. As Arthur C. Clarke said, “All human plans are subject to ruthless revisions by nature.”

If you use onboard weather services, such as GRIB files via SailMail, familiarize yourself with them prior to departure. Remember, the GRIB files are computer-generated wind models and not informed by human interpretation; in other words, they can miss the big picture. Practice downloading weatherfaxes, as a real-time isobar picture of your larger cruising area is the single most important routing tool on board. There is a mountain of information available, but it can be hidden in a complex menu. Keep a printed channel guide near the radio.

An array of SSB and ham radio nets offer weather reports and routing advice. All are well intended, but not all offer the same level of expertise, nor can the hosts and their frequent relief stand-ins know your particular circumstances with regard to the vessel and crew’s capability. By all means, check in if you feel more secure posting a “last known position, course and speed.” But no matter how forceful the anchor’s recommendations, they are just that: recommendations.

There are three important words regarding when to set sail: early, early and early. By that I mean, first, early in the season, because delays will inevitably add up across a wide ocean, and many cruisers are rushed out of the tropics toward the end of the safe seasons. Next, be early in the immediate weather system; don’t linger for days at the dock while good weather prevails. In fact, many an old salt will intentionally depart on the tail end of bad weather to maximize the initial favorable period. Finally, go early in the day; if all goes well, you will be well offshore by nightfall, free of most hazards and coastal shipping. If it doesn’t go well, as too often happens without a proper shakedown cruise, you will have plenty of daylight to sort out the problem or return to port before dark.

I also always adhere to my rule of thirds and halves. I divide my food, water and fuel supplies into three portions. I designate the first third to the first half of the voyage (mileage­wise), the second third to the second half, and the final third as a contingency supply. The little bit of discipline involved in the early phases of the voyage pays off in dividends of safety, relaxation and enjoyment toward the end of the trip.

Finally, remember that the actual time we spend on passage is but a fraction of our entire cruising experience. In-depth planning leads to a safer and more efficient passage, and there is great satisfaction in that job well done. But it also helps us develop a deeper appreciation for the magnificent oceans we are so privileged to enter.

Two-time circumnavigator Alvah Simon is a CW contributing editor.

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10 Ways to Enjoy Your Cruising

1. Be flexible. If you are someone who likes things precisely your way, you are probably going to have a hard time on the water. “Island time” is a very real phenomenon out here and things just don’t happen like they do on land. If you have a fit when Starbucks runs out of your favorite breakfast sandwich or are thrown into a tizzy when the cashier at the grocery store needs to do a price check, you’re going to be given a real run for your money down here! Get ready to ‘go with the flow’ – I mean, you’re living on a boat, right?

2. Be open-minded. I’ll never forget the time I heard some jerk on the VHF yell “This is an English speaking country!” when two Spanish cruisers were talking back and forth in their native tongue over the radio in the Bahamas. It was appalling and rude and I’d venture to guess life is a little bit miserable on that fool’s boat. There is no room for close-mindedness out here – so if you are one of those people, do us all a favor and stay home. Just because you are from the USA (or Canada, or the UK, or Europe) doesn’t mean the rest of the world has to act like they are too.

3. Don’t try to adhere to strict schedules. If you like to make “plans” and have a well-detailed itinerary of your future cruising agenda complete with dates and ports of call, you are in for disappointment. On the water you must always be prepared to change tacks and you need to be okay with that. A loose itinerary is a good thing for guidance, but if you plan to rigidly stick to it, you’re going to be one frustrated cruiser. The beauty of this life is the uncertainty and spontaneity of it all, so embrace it! Along the same vein – never ever try to ‘beat’ weather. You (and perhaps your boat) will be the only things that get ‘beat’ if you play that game.

4. Be self sufficient. The most frustrated/unhappy cruisers we have met are those that aren’t able to maintain their boats and/or who’s boats are in poor cruising condition. When things break, they are at a loss. Nearly every time they make a passage, something fails – adding to the overwhelming list of things to fix. If you are not prepared to fix these things, be ready to deal with a local who will not only charge you an arm and a leg, but might not even be able to solve your problem (oh, and you won’t figure this out for two weeks). Not everything can be fixed by you and eventually you will need to employ the skill of an expert, but being able to fix the small stuff on your own will help you tremendously.

5. Enjoy moments of solitude. Can’t sit by yourself in peace and quite for an hour or two? Well start meditating or else you will probably not enjoy passage-making. Scott prefers to pass the time dreaming, sketching product ideas and tinkering with on-board projects and I am perfectly content to read or write for hours and hours on end. Even if you plan on “coastal cruising” you will have to spend many days alone at sea and if you plan on crossing an ocean, you’ll have to spend weeks upon weeks on your own. Best to try to wrap your head around that!

6. Find pleasure in sailing. I think it goes without saying that if you dislike sailing, you will most likely dislike cruising. Sailing requires work and patience – but it’s fun. Scott loves to tweak sails and adjust jib cars to shape the sails just right to squeeze another half knot out of them. Learning these skills can be a great way to pass the time as well.

7. Enjoy the locals. Scott and I aren’t usually drawn to the mass throngs of ‘cruiser’ activities that are often available in certain ports (but there are a TON available to you if you are! Beach parties, volleyball, group tours and excursions… etc). While we definitely enjoy some of the social interaction – we’d much prefer to explore by ourselves or with a couple friends and have found that you meet and interact with more locals that way. Some of our best memories are those random, authentic moments with locals, so we seek those out.

8. Be comfortable. Your boat is your home. Make it livable; make it cozy, pretty and comfortable. This is particularly important for the husband who’s wife is an unwilling/hesitant participant in their dream – if your boat isn’t comfortable for her – trust me, you will be miserable and your cruising plans will be cut short. That doesn’t mean you have to go out and buy a top of the line boat, but make sure the boat you chose is comfortable and nice. Similarly, if you buy a boat on Craigslist for $5,000 – you’d better be ready to fix things…a lot.

9. Be confident in your abilities and your boat. No, you don’t need to leave with all sorts of boating certifications and you don’t need to be a pro. But you should know enough to be dangerous. Understand the basics of sail trim, have a firm grasp on navigation and safety – but don’t fret if you’ve never sailed ‘offshore’ before. Everyone has to start somewhere! In addition – have confidence in your boat! After working on her for over a year, we knew our boat was a tried and tested blue water cruiser who could handle just about anything thrown her way. This, in turn, made us more confident as cruisers. You will learn a TON along the way – the learning curve is steep here and you will usually only make mistakes once!

10. Have realistic expectations. I think this is the most important of all. Ever go to an over-hyped movie expecting you were going to see the best film of the year, only to be sorely disappointed? Having inflated or unrealistic expectations is the quickest way to kill your cruising dream. Be ready for the highest highs…and the lowest lows. Be prepared for beautiful sunsets, raging storms and everything in between. If your picture of cruising was formed by listening to a Jimmy Buffett album, you’re in for a big surprise!
While we are not the experts – if you keep these 10 things in check we think you’ll have an easier time adjusting to a gypsy life at sea!

– Brittany & Scott

When two people, with the same life long dream of sailing around the world find each other, there’s only one thing to do… make it happen!
Which is precisely what Scott and Brittany, are doing aboard their boat. Follow along at http://windtraveler.blogspot.com

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Despite the decisions by the captains of both Suilven and Aventura to turn back east and not attempt the Northwest Passage, the Blue Planet Odyssey’s mission in the Arctic has been handed on to Michael Thurston of the Australian yacht Drina, who took part in the Atlantic Odyssey last year.

Although in many parts of the Northwest Passage the sea ice melted earlier than normal, the crucial middle section remained iced up by the middle of August. Both John Andrews of Suilven and Jimmy Cornell of Aventura made their reluctant decision to turn back due to concerns about arriving very late in the Pacific. Other yachts planning to transit the Northwest Passage this summer have made the same decision.

If the ice does open in the next week or so, some of the few yachts still waiting may only be able to transit at the end of August or early September.”If necessary, I am prepared to over-winter in Cambridge Bay,” Michael Thurston said.

“I can’t think of anyone more suited to represent the Blue Planet Odyssey,” said Jimmy Cornell. “Michael is a veteran sailor I’ve known for over 30 years and for whom I have the greatest respect. He strongly believes in the aims of the Blue Planet Odyssey and, in spite of this summer’s weather, has no doubt that climate change in the Arctic 
is a reality.

“Michael has agreed to take Emily Penn on as crew, so that she can continue to carry out her ocean plastics trawl. From the samples collected while onboard Aventura, she was pleased to note that the presence of plastic in these pristine waters is still very low. Emily will also continue to take Secchi disk readings, which means that our science program will continue in the north.”

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A sleek green ketch flying the Australian flag made its way slowly into Dundas Harbour and dropped anchor close to us. Standing out on its lifelines was a white banner with a large number 16 and the logo of the Atlantic Odyssey. Stepping back from the wheel, the helmsman waved at us with a wide grin on his face.

Mike” I called across, “welcome to the Arctic! Long time no see, and long way from Martinique too.”

“Indeed, but why take the Panama Canal to the Pacific when the Northwest Passage would do just as well.” The first time we met was in Suva, Fiji, in 1978. Nine years later he showed up in Las Palmas, and sailed in the ARC. Ever since then Michael Thurston has been roaming the world on his 48 foot Drina. The last time we met was at the finish of last year’s Atlantic Odyssey in Martinique. He had quizzed me about my own sailing plans, but I wasn’t really expecting to meet him here.

Then I realized that showing up here in the Northwest Passage shouldn’t have been surprised me. It is, after all, so…. Mike Thurston.

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