Sovereign Nations

Sailing the boat, as much as possible, and in as many weather situations as we can get ourselves into, before we leave for Scotland is the only way to insure our comfort and safety on the long passages to come.

The weather has been so spectacular as of late, with sunny cool days and lots of fresh wind, making our day sails as adventurous as any we anticipate in the spring.

This last Saturday we cast-off on glass water at about 0930 and by the time we made it under the Key Bridge (about 3 nautical miles from our moorings) we had two reefs in the main and a shortened foresail, it was incredible sailing and the boat performed flawlessly!

We sailed most of the day with winds ranging from 15 knots all the way up to 30 knots of sustained gusts and only put the lee-boards in the water once.

We are both getting a real-feel for the way this boat sails and communicates with us. She (S/V Itinerant) can get extremely squirrely quick if we’re not anticipating the trim in heavy winds but like I said, she communicates well with us and we’re learning to respond in kind.

After an absolutely perfect sail like this last weekend I’d be inclined to quote Lin and Larry with a, “Go Now, Go Cheap!”

…But we both are very much aware of how much winter there is left in these latitudes.

So, we’ll wait, after all, “The prudent sailor survives.”

When I thought about these preparatory posts, I was thinking of crew readiness as a simple factor focused on health and knowledge.  As I worked through it a bit, it became clear to me that those aspects are huge, especially knowledge.

Our boating philosophy is a combination of KISS and gear-head.  For example, it is simpler to turn on a GPS and get a position than it is to take sun and star sightings, do the math using the tables, and hope that the position is right.  Given that we’ve made that decision, we must have enough GPS devices that even catastrophic events can’t take them all down.  For example, one must be in a place that is insulated from lightening strikes.

Our lack of knowledge about and comfort with sextant-based navigation strongly affects the choices we make in gear.  In the boat readiness part of this series, I focused on things that the boat itself requires in order to be seaworthy.  In this part, there are some overlaps and some items that would almost surely belong in boat readiness, except that I think they are a function of us – our knowledge, skills, and needs.

• Physical Health – Go
• Mental Health – Go
• Comfort at sea – Go
• Safety – Go
• Knowledge – Go
• Officialdom – No Go

Physical Health

James and I are in decent condition.  He’s stronger and more fit than I am, but we both have cardio and weight routines that keep us in good shape.  Trainers who understand the stresses of sailing aren’t a dime a dozen, so we have each found machines and exercises that strengthen the muscles we use most while under sail.

I’m working very, very hard on my core strength – abs, chest, back – but also trying to build some muscle in my arms.  Tiller steering is tough if we don’t have the boat balanced correctly so I can ease the work load with better sail trim – which is also work!  Regardless, I need to be able to hand-steer my four-hour shifts if necessary, and it is most likely to be necessary during bad weather.  As I said in the boat readiness post, the Aries will be operational for the trip (dammit) and hand-steering ought to be unnecessary.  However, in the event that something goes wrong, I absolutely must be able to take shifts with James.

My legs are pretty strong from years of bike riding, but I’m looking for some good exercise that could mimic the balancing needs of moving around on a boat.  Perhaps doing my bicep curls while standing on one of those half-ball platform things?  I don’t know what I’ll do, but I do know that the far more static leg presses and squats I’m doing currently – they don’t even begin to approximate the way my legs will be tested at sea.

Last but not least, I have finally gotten into the swing of stretching.  I stretch before exercising and then do a long set of stretches afterward.  Best of all, I change into a bathing suit and saunter into the pool area (I do love my gym) for a long soak in the hot tub.  Not only does this give me the deep heat I enjoy, it also gives me a nice noodle feeling in my worked muscles.  Another set of stretches in the hot tub and I leave the gym feeling great.

James is doing very similar work and it’s showing on him.  His arms always look great, as soon as he starts working out.  His pecs are stronger now than I’ve ever seen them and he’s doing a lot of back and shoulder weightlifting as well.  I worry about him a little – does he stretch enough?  He is far more flexible than most guys his age, so I figure the answer must be yes.  However, I’m convinced that most of my bad wounds have been side effects of stiffness and lack of flexibility.  I want us both to be fluid while moving around this boat at sea.  So to speak…

That’s about health – what about illness and injury?  We have two medical kits – the one pictured below and a smaller one we took to India with us.

The bigger one has a large splint, eyewash, a syringe, and other supplies for the big-deal injuries.  The smaller has mostly bandaids, bacitracin, and burn cream.  I need to replenish the bandaids and check expiration dates on the creams and such.  Other than that, I’m considering whether we should add a suture kit and/or IV kit.  I might have sewn James’ head on the Hawaii trip, had we been prepared for that.   I’d rather not see this on the next trip, but…

We also need to keep a supply of the usual medications – prilosec for James’ bad belly, aspirin, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, naproxen.  We’ll need some Tylenol PM and we’ll probably pick up some 222s when we are in Canada.  Neither of us take any prescription medications  – one fewer thing to worry about.

Mental Health

I’m trying to manage my excitement, fear, and anticipation more smoothly, this time, than I did preparing for the trip to Hawaii.  I dealt well behaviorally, but the stresses broke out in another way – shingles.  Oh, was that ever horrible!  Terrible pain around my ribs while hauled out and grinding blisters…not the best situation.

(In this photo, I’m either feeling better or fronting like a motherfucker.  Oh, and that’s my “Masturbation Militia” shirt from marching with Babeland in the 1999 Seattle Pride Parade.  I miss that shirt.  Always got me the best reactions from checkout clerks.  Ah, the days before self-checkout…)

When I meditate regularly, I can feel the pulls and pushes of deadlines, to-do lists, and what-ifs as a flow around the still point of me.  When I let myself start chasing all these things, that’s when I lose the balance that will keep me happy and healthy.

The only other mental health aspect I can think of right now – handling addictions.  We’ll stock up on coffee rather than give up that addiction, but I’m not sure what James will decide to do about smoking.  I think he needs to decide very soon, because quitting right before we leave sounds like far more stress than either of us wants to deal with underway!

We’ve both been drinking more in the last few years than we did before that.  Though I might consider cutting it out, we’re going to stock up instead.  Hard alcohol is expensive in Greenland, and we’re hoping that sharing a bottle will be considered a good guest-gift.  Where we don’t want to spend money, perhaps there will be trades possible…and if we consume some of our trade-goods, oh well!

Comfort at sea

Food, clothing, and warmth.  These are the basics of comfort (along with meclazine).

I’m logging all my food purchases now so that we can have a comprehensive list of the things we eat.  I’d like to get a great deal on these things, so the list will get turned into a proposal.  If we buy everything we need from Whole Foods, what kind of deal might we be able to get?  I’m talking about case quantities on most things and large bulk buys of basics like rice and beans.  When we shopped for the Hawaii trip, we bought so much that we were still eating the canned fruit a year later.  That sounds pretty good to me, since we’re heading into uncertain financial territory.  The more food we have on board, the less we have to buy later.

Our bibs and coats are great.  They will do just fine for windy, sunny days.  At that point, we basically need waterproof windbreakers that cover our whole bodies and those garments will be fine.  On the other hand…

We went to Bacon on James’ day off and looked at all their good stuff.  We had hoped to trade some of our old things for some new-old things, but instead we paid cash money for two Mustang survival suits.

These suits are padded for floatation and warmth, they go on and come off in one piece, and James’ even has pee-access without stripping.  The tubes over our left shoulders are for inflating the head float in the back.  They have lots of pockets and attachment points.  These suits (plus a selection of gloves and some great boots) will surely do the trick, even if we run into cold-ass nights among the icebergs and bergy bits.

Warmth is a worry.  We can run our electric blanket off an inverter, but what about cabin warmth?  We have a propane heater, which would be enough if it weren’t for the difficulty of obtaining propane in Greenland.  I quite literally don’t know how we will manage to get any.  We could very well leave Newfoundland or Nova Scotia with full tanks and arrive in Greenland empty.  Without refilling, that could make the exploration of Greenland and the sail to Iceland…well…cold.

On that front, I’m banking on weather like this:

That’s the boat Morgan’s Cloud in Greenland, where they transported the scientist pictured to small villages all over the coast.  Read up on their trip – it’s fascinating.  By the way, they are the source of one of my favorite aphorisms:

• What Really Matters

  • Keep the water out
  • Keep the crew on the boat
  • Keep the keel side down
  • Keep the mast up
  • Keep the rudder on

  The rest is small stuff.

Safety

Harnesses, pfds, tethers.  We have all of them and are comfortable using them.  We will set up jacklines before leaving and practice with them as we hop up the coast.  The biggest problem with safety gear is that people don’t practice with it – it stays below until needed.  In which case they end up on the foredeck in storm conditions with a tether that’s too short to let them move or that they trip over.  When your safety gear trips you up, you are in danger.

Knowledge in General

This is where I get back to the example at the top.  Our knowledge level is high when it comes to our boat and its systems.  We are experienced sailors, and we know our rig and sails well.  There are things we’ve never done on this boat – such as heave to in a storm – but we know how it works and plan to practice the next time we’re out in some heavy wind.

The gaps in our knowledge are strange in some ways.  Neither of us took any courses – James learned from his dad and I learned from James.  Our boats have taught us even more, and getting ourselves out of ridiculous situations has provided plenty more education.  So the things we don’t know are, by definition, the exceptional things.  I’m thinking about taking a course to get my Master’s license (one of the captain’s licenses available), but I don’t figure on learning a whole lot that will be useful in everyday sailing.

Other things, such as celestial navigation, will remain unknown.  We have a sextant on board and will get a book of sight reduction tables.  Then, if the satellites all fall from the sky or WWIII breaks out and the data is corrupted, we will pull out the how-to book and the tables.  Gulp.  In other words, we don’t want to do that.  To avoid it, we will have 5 or more GPS devices on the boat, and several types of power for them.

Meteorology isn’t a strength of mine, though I have a certain instinct.  I’d say James is in the same boat.  Ha.  Again, we have to supplement our information where we’re weak.  As long as we can get on the internet, we can download GRIB files and check weather forecasts in other ways.  Once we’re out of range, though…wow.  Spend a couple thousand dollars on SSB and learn to use it?  Pay for the access to data that we would need?  Ouch.  We may very well have to get forecasts, make the leap, and then deal with whatever we get.  This could be the scariest thing I’ve said in all the prep stuff.  It’s the kind of thing that would be a no-go for many people and my cautious side presses me to say the same.  On the other hand…pilot books, forecasts, and all-weather preparation put me ahead of the people who would head out in the olden days.  I do quake a bit anytime I have to compare my safety to that of the ancients.

Officialdom – No Go

Then there’s the travel factor.  We are planning to enter and exit 5 countries in 4-5 months.  This means we’ll be going through all the same border processes that anyone would experience – aboard a significant piece of property.  Customs officials will be very interested in the boat – what we’re bringing into the country and what we’ll be taking back out.  Immigration officials will be very interested in us – who we are, whether or not we can support ourselves, and when we plan to leave.

We must have multiple sets of documents whenever possible.  For example, I plan to get a couple extra official Certificates of Documentation.  I want to leave one on the boat at all times but also have one with me at all times.  If James or I have to leave the country due to some sort of emergency, we must have a copy to prove that our one-way ticket into the country doesn’t mean we plan to stay.

Jimmy Cornell authored the World Cruising Routes and World Cruising Handbook.  Big fat hardbacks, they are, with sections on each area of the world and each country’s entry and exit formalities.  He lists these as the documents one may need when entering a country:

• Ship’s registration papers (Certificate of Documentation for us) – Go
• Crew list (with full details of passports, date of birth etc) – Go
• Radio licence for the boat and an operator’s licence for at least one of the crew – No Go
• Passports and vaccination certificates – No Go on the vaccination part
• Visas (if required)
• Clearance papers (zarpe) from the last country visited
• VAT paid or VAT exempt certificate (when in the EU)
• Original of the third-party insurance for the yacht
• Certificate of competence for the captain
• The ship’s log
• A list of electronic or other valuable items on board

Canada is going to want to charge a duty on booze, as will Iceland.  Maybe stocking up isn’t that important.  Or we could wait until we’re in Canada and only buy enough to get us to Iceland.

If we decide to get a kitten, that’s a whole nother ball of wax.  There is a system called, hahacute, PETS.  It’s microchipping and vaccinating and all kinds of things.  That should take care of us for the most part.  If necessary, we can keep the cat belowdecks to fulfill most requirements.

Summary

We’re almost a go.  I’m glad I started looking into the formalities early.  Sometimes I wish we were headed somewhere other than the EU (and we might have to leave it sooner rather than later).  Things are quite difficult with the EU time-limits.  In the old days, a whole bunch of countries and time limits meant a whole lot of time in Europe.  Oh well…

The boat must be tougher than we are.  It must sail when we’re exhausted and weather storms that force us to huddle below.  When something breaks, there must be something aboard that can fix or replace the broken item.

Way back, when we lived on and adored a boat named “Sovereign Nation”, we built a website for that boat.  We went into lavish detail about the systems aboard.  That ketch inspired pride and excitement in us, until it tried to kill us.  Between the gorgeousness of our appearance when leaving Point Roberts, WA, and the avalanche of problems that we sailed into the San Francisco Bay, we learned a lot about what worked and what didn’t.

Okay, enough history.  Here are the types of systems on the boat and how we’re making sure they are up to the trip.

Major Structure – Go
Running and Standing Rigging – Go
Steering – Go
Ground Tackle – No Go
Engine – Go
Plumbing – No Go
Electricity – Go
Safety – No Go

Major Structure – Go

The hull is solid FRP, strengthened by longitudinal stringers and two internal bulkheads.  Ballast is a bolt-on keel that made me uncomfortable at first but now seems to have its good points.  Hitting icebergs won’t be a good idea, but that would be true with internal ballast as well.

The decks are in good shape structurally, though there are extra deck fittings that are unused and could go away.  We need to remove deck fittings, prep and paint the deck, and replace all the fittings before leaving.  It’s not a no-go thing, but we’ll have an easier time of customs and immigration visits if we look better. Plus, there are some places where the paint has lifted and it’s not good to leave fiberglass bare to UV.

On the other hand, the teak toe rail is going to be a lot of work due to a crack near the port chainplates.  Another problem due to our knockdown?  Anyway, we need to fix the break, set a few fasteners deeper, re-bung them, then epoxy, paint, and recaulk.  If the work goes poorly or reveals large problems, we could have a no-go.

Running and Standing Rigging – Go

Our mast is aluminum and we’re so not worried about the mast or its compression system.  After the fall we had, we’d better not have anything to worry about!  The boom is in good condition, though there is one place where the wood looks a little stained around the fasteners for a bail.

We replaced all the chainplates except the most important – the backstay.  That one is glassed in and we haven’t decided whether or not we have to cut it out in order to inspect it.  Based on the condition of the other chainplates, could this be a no-go item?  I fuss about this but haven’t  made up my mind.

The lower shrouds have Norseman fittings at the top and nico press fittings at the bottom.  James took the rigging tape off those right after we bought the boat so we could keep an eye on them.  New shrouds are on the “unexpected influx of money” list, because they look like they’ll serve and I think we’ll have a better, easier time replacing them in Europe.

Our sails are fine, though I’d prefer an additional reef in the main.  The Schaeffer 1100 roller furling is in excellent condition.  The genoa is huge.  I’m sure I’ll love it when we’re blasting downwind, but we have to start rolling it up (and compromising on sail shape) in winds I consider pretty light.  I wish we could have a second, smaller rolled jib so that we could run at 100 or 110 when the winds will be strong and steady without having it rolled up at all.

On our must-buy list – a whisker pole.  I say we’re go without it, but I also know we’ll pick one up somewhere, somehow.  There’s too much downwind on the trip we’re planning – we’ll move so much more slowly if we don’t have any way of poling out the genoa.

The winches and tracks will do, though we have to keep an eye on the bronze winches on the main.  They’re old and the bronze has worn away inside to some degree.  We will eventually decide to replace them, but that doesn’t have to happen just yet.

Steering – Go

Our rudder is strong and sound.  Tiller steering means it’s direct, uncomplicated, and very hard to mess up without doing serious damage to the boat.  We have a spare tiller on board and a plan for using the head’s hatch in case we lose the rudder.

I debated the go/no-go aspect for a while.  Our Aries wind vane isn’t fully operational.  We need to get the control lines set up and do a bunch of practice sailing.  But first we need to add a hinge to the hydro-vane.  It’s either all the way off and impossible to install from deck or all the way on and providing a sickening effect in reverse.  The newer ones have lovely clip-in hinges, but ours is very, very old.

We have a tiller pilot that does a fine job when motoring or in certain sailing conditions, but we don’t want to run the engine much.  The tiller pilot is fine for giving us a break at the helm, but we need our primary helmsperson to be an inanimate object – untiring, faultlessly precise, and dedicated to keeping us at the right angle to the wind.

This won’t be a problem, really.  It’s more of a to-do list item than a real issue that might keep us in port.  Nonetheless, it’s important and serious to us.

Ground Tackle – No Go

We have a 22 pound Bruce and a Fortress FX-16.  They both work just fine around here, even though we have only 6′ of chain on the Bruce and none on the Fortress.  We can raise either by hand.

Neither can keep us safe in Greenland.

I loosely translate the name of this place to Prince Christian’s Sound Weather Station.  I don’t think I’m completely full of shit, but I also don’t speak the language.  Anyway, the important part is that the bay shown is less than a half-mile across and the soundings are in meters.  That means that most of this very small bay is around 100 feet deep.  At 5-to-1 scope, that’s 500 feet of rode.  Of course, we’ll aim for the edges, where the depths are in the teens (or hopefully less than 50 feet).  We’ll still want to put out most or all of the 300 feet of chain we don’t have.

We have to get a good heavy anchor, hundreds of feet of chain, and a windlass that can help us raise that stuff.  Period.

I’ve used and loved CQR, so I’ll be happy enough with a 35 pounder.  If we run into a great deal on a Rocna, Spade, or other high-tech type, we might go for it.  Shrug.  We have to get something, though, and early enough that we can do some sailing with the new weight in the bow.

Engine – Go

She’s fine.  I hope.

Seriously, we ought to have a pro come out and go over the engine.  It’s a Yanmar 3GM30F.  Neither of us has the interest or skill to do any major work ourselves and we’re banking on the engine continuing to work as it always has.  We have the filters and a bunch of spare part, including an alternator, two nearly complete sets of gaskets, and an assortment of belts.  Sigh.  And if we have to tear into the sucker at sea, I will not be a happy girl.

Plumbing – No Go

Our water tanks are called “integral”.  That means that the interior of the hull is the inside of the tank.  We had terrible water, so we cut the access hatches out (couldn’t remove them any other way), cleaned and epoxy-coated the interior, and made new hatches.  Unfortunately, they’re not perfectly water-tight and that is just not okay.  We have to pull the hatches and refit them so that there is no way – no way at all – for salt water to contaminate our drinking water supply.

Other than that, we’re in good shape.  We want to add a diverter so we can use the foot pump if the electrical pump conks out or our electricity dies.  We need to install the manual bilge pump we have sitting in a lazarette.  Shrug.  No problem.

Electricity – Go

All we have to do is buy and install new batteries right before leaving.  This is a big deal financially, but not in any other way.  It’s possible that we could do alright with the batteries we have, but “they” say that one ought not to mix batteries of different ages and we’ll have to replace them all in order to add capacity.  That’s okay.  I like the idea of heading out with fresh batteries.

The electrical systems themselves are working well.  Our charging sources – wind, solar, engine, and shore power – are doing great.  We’re attempting to live off wind and solar alone but need a boost every couple/few weeks.  This is more-or-less what we expect with such old solar panels, but I don’t foresee having the money to buy new ones that will give us complete independence.

Power is gliding along new, simple paths to low-draw lights.  The big draws are the refrigerator and the water pump.  We’ll monitor our status and, perhaps, do without the fridge while underway.  The water pump is only a big draw when we open the faucet full-bore, so we can manage that easily.

Safety – No Go

While wiring our new bow lights, I noticed a bad, bad thing.  The bow pulpit descends to two bronze stanchion bases, one on each side of the bow.  The starboard base is cracked almost half-way through.  Stanchions have been on my mind in a general way for quite some time and I’d like to replace them all, along with the line lines, at the same time that we build a stainless stern rail almost all the way around the cockpit.

The no go is for the cracked base, but I’m not certain I can go to sea with the stern in its current state.  We need the stern rail for multiple reasons.  The wind generator post has a support pole I don’t fully trust.  The propane tanks need to be farther from the mainsheet so it can’t get wrapped up and rip the propane system apart.

Last but not least, there is a feeling of openness in the cockpit that is not as attractive as it sounds.  Maybe you can see it from the picture above (which was showing the Aries).  Our last boat, Sapien, had high transom and a deep, reassuring cockpit.  Our first boat, Sovereign Nation, had a high transom with lots of hand-holds.  This boat, though, feels as though it could dump me in the water with a bounce and a wiggle, and the boat is sure to be doing a lot of that at sea.  She doesn’t have a wheel like the others did, which removes one seriously strong attachment point.  No matter how well we install the jacklines, how will we deal with that feeling of insecurity?  I’d rather buff it up than talk myself into dealing with it.

Summary

Our boat is 50 years old and we’ve worked on it for almost 3.  If we pull wage-slave days out of those 3 years, I’ve had 18 months on the boat and James has had 14 months.  We had a few meals (usually at least one per day) and watched a few movies…okay, quite a few movies.

I feel like we’ve gotten a ton of work accomplished in a fairly short time.  We have 5 months until we start sailing away, and I believe that we can turn each of the headers above into a strong, confident “Go!”  I’ll have to do a post, sometime in May, that talks about what we’ve done, how our go/no-go list has changed, and where we stand at that point.

In the meantime, back to work!