Sovereign Nations

Phyllis of Morgan’s Cloud wrote a blog post called “A Reluctant Voyager?”  Please go read it – I’m going to paste my comment below, because I said some things I’ve never addressed on this blog.

Phyllis addresses the elements of the sailing lifestyle that she finds difficult.  I was struck by her admission that “Giving up everything familiar and taking on this challenging lifestyle had major ramifications: it affected my self-esteem, my sense of myself as an independent and competent person, and produced feelings of insecurity…”

I didn’t really address that part directly in my comment, but I will say more about it below.

I’d be interested in hearing about how these anxieties play out in real life. John addresses it to some degree in the first comment by saying that Phyllis handles herself and the boat when the chips are down, but how does it feel? I’m thinking about the articles I’ve enjoyed so much, written by John, about taming the wimp within. If John has anxieties and deals with them to perform the necessaries and Phyllis has anxieties and deals with them to perform the necessaries…how are those two situations different? Do they differ only internally or is it behavioral as well? I guess refusing to dock is an example of these anxieties playing out differently.

In general, though, I think a lot of wives who take the first mate role are undervaluing their contributions. There’s a t-shirt a friend had. It said, “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels!” I know that you’re unlikely to wear heels on board, but how about cooking underway in a stuffy cabin while the captain enjoys the fresh air?

My husband started sailing in his teens and, in his early twenties, was first mate on a 63′ schooner that sailed from Galveston, TX, through the Caribbean and down to Rio de Janiero and back. I met him ten years later, when I was 20, and revived his interest in sailing by being enthusiastic about the idea.

Perhaps that dynamic made our experience very different from that of other couples – I was a driving force getting us onto the water, though I knew nothing in the beginning and he was an experienced sailor. Whatever the reason, I was committed to being able to single-hand if necessary, since there were so many terrible situations in which that might be necessary.

Going into my sailing life figuring that I had to be so competent…well, it kept me from refusing any duties. It took me – honest to goodness – 10 years before I was comfortable backing into a slip. It’s also a large part of the reason why we have been sizing down on our boats since the first one. The first boat was a 50′ wooden ketch and I realized over the years it took to sail from Seattle north and then down to San Francisco that I would never be perfectly comfortable single-handing that boat. The Gulf 32 we took to Hawaii was a wonderful, decadent experience in comparison.

When I make comments like the one on the Model T conversation, I’m not saying go small just because I heard that (from that couple…you know…last name starts with P…grin). It is mostly because there are limits to what this short-handed crew can wrestle.

All of that leads me to the main thought I had when I started this (very long) comment. My major piece of advice is that adult women with no sailing experience should start in the same way that boys and young men usually start. We shouldn’t jump on the 28 ton ketch and try to learn berthing right away. We should get aboard a Laser or an Ideal 18 or a Sonar 23. A person learns so much by tossing those boats around a protected harbor or relatively calm bay.

The first smaller, easy boat I got aboard was a Folkboat. That gorgeous design taught me more than I knew I needed to learn. I learned what it felt like to tack without losing way. I sailed into the dock. I heaved to so I could eat my sandwich in peace.

So many maneuvers that were highly nerve-wracking on my big boat felt simple and obvious on the smaller boat. It changed the way I approached the whole experience. And this was 5 or 6 years into living aboard and making ocean passages.

My insistence on being able to captain my vessel has resulted in some “two captain” problems, but not many and never anything possibly tragic. I’m taking a USCG Captain’s course right now so that I can supplement my book-learning and sailing experience, but also so that I have an official piece of paper that recognizes my accomplishments. (In the end, it’s to make me more marketable when we stop in port.)

To end on a weak note – I can’t help with the limiting aspects. I’m a bit of a hermit, naturally. I join gyms but never take the classes. I keep in touch with family by email, but they know to expect gaps when I’m underway.

It feels to me that losing James would leave me devastated and alone on this boat, but that I would continue to live aboard and sail. If there were too many memories to keep this boat, I would probably size down again. Perhaps I would look for a great deal on a Fisher 25 or a Pacific Seacraft Dana. Shrug. But I wouldn’t leave the water.

Well.  To begin with, I know that the post title is a bit inflammatory.  Being queer and knowing sailors in same-sex relationships, I recognize that this dynamic isn’t solely about gender.  It’s also about experience and personality style.  My problem with the sailing world is that it usually does break down along gender lines.  As people who know me would expect, I rarely settle for the role I’m offered.

When we started looking at boats, it never occurred to me that James would be the captain and I would be first mate and cook.  That division of labor was impossible to countenance.  For simple independence reasons, for gender politics reason, for self-esteem reasons – I couldn’t settle for being an order-follower.

At the same time, we jumped aboard and found ourselves sorely tested.  James’ sailing chops were rusty and he had to polish up his skills fast.  I was operating from what I had read – Chapman’s cover to cover, The Complete Liveaboard Book, our gear manuals, and 48° North (the sailing magazine for the Puget Sound), plus odds and ends.  I’m a good reader, but there’s a lot to remember when the everything in Chapman’s is new.

But ah, what a beautiful boat.

Also, I broke my arm the day we bought the boat.  After work, I rode my bike to the ferry terminal, rode the ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island, boarded a bus that took me to Port Hadlock, then rode my bike to the marina.  To get aboard my brand-new (to me) boat, I lifted my bike to shoulder level and put my foot on the dock step.  Except it wasn’t a real dock step.  It was a Rubbermaid pantry step that had been in the sun too long.  One little plastic leg flexed enough to slip off the dock and my bike and I landed on my elbow.

Then we went sailing.  I was in denial, completely.  We spent several days exploring by sail – Indian Island, Port Townsend Bay, Admiralty Bay, Kingston, down the Puget Sound and under Bainbridge Island, reaching Bremerton and crossing under the Warren Avenue and Manette Bridges to reach the Port Washington Marina.

I handled lines while berthing, cranked a winch for the first time, lowered (but did not raise) sail.  I took the wheel and said, “Helm’s a-lee!” for the first time, without ever having handled a tiller and so not understanding why I would say lee instead of weather.

I was barely hanging on the whole time.

We pulled into Port Washington Marina with a 4 knot current.  We turned sideways to the current and a bunch of people ran to help.  They were used to calling ahead so that there would be plenty of people fending boats off one another as they came in.  We hadn’t warned them we were coming, but they got busy as soon as we turned in.

Without belaboring the point, we got into our slip after a hair-raising quarter hour of hard work.  We were at our new home.

Almost immediately, James left on a paid photo trip with a couple of fly fishers.  I was alone on a boat, riding buses to ferries to buses to work because my arm hurt too badly to ride my bike.  And then the boat started to sink.

After a two-hour commute to work, ten hours of work, and a two-hour commute home, I arrived to the horrifying sight of floating floorboards.  To be perfectly honest, I have no memory of dealing with that.  Whether it’s because I’ve been in far more dangerous and uncomfortable positions since, or because I blocked it from shock, it’s a blank.  James tells me that I told him that I bailed that shit with a bucket, which makes complete sense.  I wouldn’t have known what else to do at that point.

So picture me, alone on a huge wooden boat that seems to be sinking, without the plumbing or electrical knowledge to diagnose (let alone fix) a bilge pump problem.  Even less equipped to find and tighten the packing nut onto a packing gland that had been installed incorrectly by the previous owner.

And this is Seattle in September.  I have no doubt (though also no memory) that it was raining while I hauled buckets of bilge water from the lowest point of the boat to the cockpit and overboard.  With a broken arm.

James hailed me as courageous, as a super-hero even.  I love that shit, so I wasn’t going to argue.  At the same time, I didn’t feel like a hero that night, alone aboard my sinking, soaking wet wooden boat that smelled of mold and diesel.  It affected my self-esteem and self-confidence.  It affected my sense of myself, as Phyllis said so eloquently, as an independent and competent person.

Absolutely unacceptable.

I was 23 year old, still in the concentrated learning phase of life.  I had graduated from college the previous year with a bachelor’s in English and then taken a new job that opened up another world of learning – selling sex toys.  I’ve never been particularly humble – I fight my natural tendency toward egotism mixed with insecurity – but I was at the right age to find my ignorance challenging rather than crushing.  Perhaps that’s the greatest difference between me and so many of the “First Mate” wives on the water – maybe I got in under the wire age-wise.  I’ve read about people forced to change careers in their thirties or later and it doesn’t seem to go all that well after some point.  I can’t speak for anyone but myself, really.

I got dirty.  System by system, I researched and learned.  We hauled the boat and replaced the deck – though most of that work was done by James and our shipwrong since I was working more than full time.

We rewired the electricity and installed new panels, meaning that I held crimpers for the first time in my life.  I learned what a butt connector was and how to use heat-shrink.  I took a heat-gun and scraper to old varnish for the first time and then learned how to thin the new varnish to brush on better.

Installation, maintenance, and repair became things I understood and could undertake.

As I said in the comment I quote above, it was years later that I got fully comfortable with boat handling.  We sold the big ol’ boat, Sovereign Nation, and moved aboard my dad’s choice of sailboat, Sapien.

Reducing length by 11′ on deck and almost that at the waterline changed a lot.  I felt gloriously, happily in control while sailing that boat.  But I still didn’t like close-quarters maneuvering and had to fight myself to avoid asking James to take us in and out of the slip.

When James started working for the City of Oakland at their Jack London Aquatic Center, I suddenly had access to a fleet of Folkboats, a Catalina 22, Tanzer 7.5, Ericson 27, and C&C 31.  Sailing Folkboats taught me about the joy of jumping aboard for a quick sail.  The irresistible pull of taking a boat out when there’s no anxiety involved.  The excitement of taking a responsive vessel to her performance edges and, sometimes, choosing to sail easily instead.  The visceral feedback of a hand on a tiller.

I raced for the first time aboard the C&C 31.  Though we came in last in every race, we got 2nd place overall because the boat went out for every one of them.  Funny, I know, but also good for my sense of attentiveness and ability to take orders.  Racing failed to win me over, but I’m glad I did it.

When I got aboard those smaller boats, I was an off-shore experienced sailor with years and miles under my keels.  I knew the names of the parts and I was not afraid to tear into something to fix it.  But small-boat sailing is what made me the confident sailor I am today.

Women who agree to sail with their husbands and learn to sail on a large boat – it seems to me that they are disadvantaged by the steepness of the learning curve.  Slow down on that curve and, I believe, competence and confidence will change completely.

Two wrap up this post, I want to tell you an alternative history.  Rather than searching out and buying a very large boat and boarding her without any experience, I’d like to imagine the better, possibly the best, scenario.

When I am 22 years old, James and I decide that we want to travel the world by boat.  We start looking at the used boat market, but we both join the Center for Wooden Boats in Lake Union.  We spend our days off on the Center’s boats, getting a feel for boat handling.  I take a class or two, orientation-type things, and get into the idea of learning celestial navigation.  The romance of doing things the old ways infects us both and we become proficient in sailing a wide range of boat types and performing all the many duties of sailing.

Meanwhile, we find a Fuji 35 ketch.

It’s not wood, but we fall in love.  It’s in impeccable condition, with reams of sailing and maintenance logs.  Though the systems are simple, they feel almost decadent after our time on far more basic boats.  We go on a test sail and make an offer.  With our experience and education, we are able to get a loan and buy the boat.  We move aboard, pay the boat off in a couple of years of hard work, and take off to sail around the world.

Doesn’t that sound nice?

*Updated to fix the spelling of Phyllis’ name…sorry!

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!

I’ve been telling a lot of people about our plans for next year. The most common, casual-conversation version goes something like this: At the end of May, we’re sailing to Scotland via Newfoundland, Greenland, and Iceland.

This is fun to contemplate and fun to talk about.  My shift at the West Marine in Canton is enlivened by talking about sailing adventures, past and future.  Sometimes the person with whom I am speaking knows the score; sometimes the person doesn’t.

By the score, I mean the scores of considerations involved in planning an oceanic voyage of this sort. Though they are in fact legion, I can break them down into types.

1. Boat readiness
2. Crew readiness
3. Weather windows
4. Finances

To be more precise, these represent contingencies rather than mere considerations.  Our trip will happen or not based on how those four factors stand when we’re looking at each other, wanting so badly to take off.

We’re re-watching the mini-series “From the Earth to the Moon” and I thrill at the NASA command scenes.  One person after another, each at the top of their respective fields, giving the word.  Go or no-go.

We have to think in the same way about those four categories.  Each one will get considered every single time we go sailing, but ocean voyaging requires that we think in terms of weeks rather than hours.  The specific areas we will cover require us to think in terms of handling heavy weather rather than avoiding it.

As I talk to non-sailors or sailors who’ve never planned a major voyage, I feel tentative in sharing our plans.  I feel that I am setting up expectations in the people around me and will be seen to have “failed” if we don’t reach Scotland next year or don’t get off the dock by May 31st.  I want to clarify for people – friends, family, and even myself – why there are no firm dates, no places we’ll certainly stop, and a whole lot of work to be done.

The next posts will be explorations of the four types of contingencies.  I hope to get advice in the comments and will not be surprised if I need to do a wrap-up post summarizing the way my thoughts have changed on these subjects.

Now, to start the list of boat-readiness factors…whew.

Ms Irene wasn’t that mean after all.  No spankings were administered.

Puff chasing, we made our way from Frog Mortar Creek out to Middle River and down to Hart-Miller island.  The wind died altogether as we rounded Pooles Island and, on glass, we motored to our anchorage for the night.

Fairlee Creek is known to be a tricky place to enter.  There’s a nice big red marker and then a flurry of small red and green cans that end just before the pinch.  The pinch being a 90 degree turn into a shallow spot between two beaches that are 20 feet apart.  That part?  We get to figure that part our ourselves.

This is the narrowest entrance that we’ve been through, and we didn’t go through without a small amount of travail.  We bumped, we grounded, and then a nice man waded out to us and asked, “How much water to you need to float this boat?”

Dena’s response was, “Oh, honey, you are so sunburned!”

The nice man was unphased by that comment.  He seemed inured to the pain of red skin.  Perhaps it was a permanent color rather than a summer thing.

He shoved and shoved, and lo and behold, we floated right off that shoal.  Motoring gently, we entered the beautiful bay of Fairlee Creek, where the depths range between 8′ and 5′.

We set the anchor about mid-way through the main bay, maintaining some distance from the black Rinker from which issued cheesy music and screaming kids.

The hot, still air called for swimming, and I was not to be stopped.  When I realized I was starving, James helped me out…

And then he jumped in as well!

We floated around, swam, and watched the boat turn with the tide.  Happy with our holding, we launched the dink and James rowed us to the spit that hooks around to protect the bay.

We got out to walk the beach and pulled the dink up on the pebbles of the protected side.  The Bay side of the spit was a rocky, tan sand

I came back so James could see this weird piece of metal.

And sat quietly, minding the dingy and letting myself soak up the peacefulness of the place.

The large sign screaming BAR made us want to slake our thirst and we rowed over for a meal and some drinks.  But alas – the place is only open on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Sigh.

This is what we saw when we came back down to the dock, and the vision was enough to make us happy we gave it a try.

Still water and slight wind allowed us a very peaceful night’s sleep, though it was too hot to share the v-berth.  One in the berth and one on the settee, we slept deeply and well.  We woke at 7am so that we could ride the high tide during the slack current leaving Fairlee Creek and this time, we beat the channel!

The osprey put on a little show as we gained the red marker.

Then we were out and sailing!  We had great wind all the way across the bay, on a broad reach and kicking 5 knots in about 5-10 knots of wind.  It was a great example of efficient use of the breeze.

Entering the mouth of the Patapsco River, the wind began to die and we turned to run before it.  We kept the jib up and full until we got past the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

But we had to roll it up and motor before we hit Ft McHenry.

We tied up to the t-head at the dock and rowed our slip-lord’s Boston Whaler to a different spot before taking our accustomed position in Belt’s Wharf, Fells Point, Baltimore, MD.  And here we are, home again home again.

We almost died!

No, we didn’t.  We had a great, wonderful, amazing three-day sail and do-nothing vacation.

But that doesn’t make the best story, eh?

So here’s what happened.

The trip started out ten minutes before we left the dock.  James got the call that told him he wouldn’t be managing the Port Townsend West Marine, a position he’d done a phone interview for and didn’t really want.  I was at the marina’s head and he’d forgotten about it by the time I got back to the boat.

That was a representative moment.  We left this dock and left our usual mindsets and worries behind.  Literally.

We put up sails where Frog Mortar Creek empties into Middle River.  After three hours of tacking between Hart-Miller Island and Pooles Island, we sailed, laughing, through three squalls.

Just after the first squall, we decided to gybe and pull a reef in the main.  We made the gybe safely but had the sails in too tight for the next maneuver.  Our now-considerable experience with being quickly overwhelmed by wind in this boat kept us alive to what we were doing, and as soon as the rig registered the tension, as soon as the sails groaned and the boat heeled to 20 degrees, James tossed off the jib sheet and Dena released the main.

There.  Done.

One exciting moment averted.

James went forward and pulled the reef in.  He got the forward three reef ties and Dena got the aft two.  By the time we had the boat broad to the wind again, it had eased.  We exchanged wry grins and shook the reef back out.

The rest of our sailing was characterized by rain that obscured the Eastern Shore, followed by glorious jesus beams and the blur of timelessness.  We didn’t keep track of how long we’d been out, and weren’t all that concerned with exactly when we’d arrive.  We’d get there when the boat got us there, and we hoped it was before dark.

We arrived around 7pm in full daylight and nosed into the north side of Swan Creek.  The chart showed the major buoys, but someone had added two red cans at the first big curve and shoal and three green cans at the second.  We did sounding on the shore side of the green cans and then in the bend right before them.  We dropped the main anchor, a 25 pound Bruce, in 8 feet of water, paid out the chain and set it hard.  Adding a bunch of rode put us riding back in 5 feet and we felt like that was plenty.

Dena was forced by her overweening sense of responsibility to dive in and try to check the anchor.  AKA, Dena went swimming.  The water was murky and the anchor wasn’t visible, but she did find out that we’ll need the zinc on the prop shaft replaced soon.

We made cocktails from Absolute Citron and Lipton Half and Half (lemonade and tea).  We sat in the cockpit as the light faded from the sky and shared our first Cuban cigar.  That set the stage for the rest of the 36 hours we spent there.

It was perfect.

Our day off had perfect wind, perfect sun, perfect temperature and humidity.  We made enough power to run everything, even the refrigerator, and it confirmed that we can live like that.

We swam and drank.  Dena read aloud from The Sotweed Factor, by John Barth, which is written in 18th century prose and is laugh-out-loud funny.  We both slathered sunscreen on all day and still got minor sunburns.

The hardest work we did was sailing our dinghy to the nearest marina for ice.  Even the ride back from that was perfect sailing, the wind taking us back to the boat in two tacks.

Highlight of the day: Dena taking off her swimsuit bottoms and a poor little fish falling out.  It was stunned, with a look as though it had seen god on its tiny little fishy face.

The wind changed during the day and we got closer to the shoal to the east.   James discovered this fact when he jumped from the dinghy into the water onto a pile of rocks.  We used low tech sounding equipment to find the depths all around the boat (finding bottom with our feet and holding our hands up to show the depth).  We decided we were alright because of the flooding tide, but needed to keep an eye out.

As the wind picked up and dark fell, we took fixes on multiple points on shore so we’d know if we moved.  We expected to swing in a semi-circle around the anchor as the tide changed, but needed to keep off the shoal.  A beautiful night, talking and drinking.  When we decided to go to bed, the boat had swung a bit closer to shore and Dena felt edgy about it.  After very little time in our berth, we got back up and decided we needed to put out our second anchor.

We dug the Fortress anchor out from the lazarette and grabbed the longest line we had.  Dena got in the little boat and rowed to the bow while James tied the line to the anchor with a bowline.  He paid out the rode while Dena stroked her way out toward the channel.  The Fortress got tossed off the stern of the dinghy, James hauled in until it set, and Dena rowed back to the boat.  It was more simple than either of us could believe and we slept like rocks all the windy night.

When we arose, the boat had swung and we now had our two anchors strung out before us.  All of the tension was on the Fortress, but the two rodes hadn’t tangled, so we were perfectly satisfied.  We rowed to the marina and left the dinghy there.  We didn’t feel like cleaning up after ourselves, so we got directions from a local dog-walker to the nearest greasy spoon (Pasta Plus?) and made the mile and a half walk.  Though it was nice to stretch our legs, we were perfectly happy being back on the boat.

One more swim for Dena and we started cleaning up to go.  The boat was back together, dinghy on deck, and we were underway by noon.  That’s after us talking about fucking off as much of the day as possible.  There just wasn’t that much work.

Sails up just past the last green, wind generator making power, solar panels gleaming, the wind blowing at 10-15 knots and pushing us to hull speed.

We made long tacks from one side of the bay to the other and backed into our slip at Maryland Marina around 5pm on Friday.  Yet another cover band was massacring music that wasn’t good in the original versions and we ate, showered, and slept, but not as peacefully or as enjoyably as we had at anchor in Rock Hall.

Piracy is not dead.  Ships are targeted regularly by folks who want the ship, want the ship’s cargo, or want the crew for ransom.  There’s a breaking story on a badly ended pirate attack:

Navy’s version of the story

So.  Why is our situation so different that I don’t worry about pirates?

Well, I do.  A little.  But for the most part, there are large differences between the targets of piracy and the S.V. S/N Nomad, soon to be renamed the Itinerant.

Piracy is not a product of boredom or malice.  These people are looking for the same thing that a mugger wants – money.  Or items easily converted into money.  Or products they can use without spending any money.  And so on.

Most ships targeted by pirates are cargo ships, freighters, just as in the heyday of the taking of Spanish galleons.  Those pirates weren’t interested in a bunch of people just out for fun – they wanted the gold.  These pirates aren’t likely to find gold, unless it’s the black kind.  Yup.  Oil tanker are attacked.  If the cargo is not useful to them directly, they hold it and the crew for ransom.  When there is no cargo, there is usually some other indication that money can be made on the deal.

And so we get to the S/V Quest.  This pilothouse sloop is large and very fancy.  For details, here’s a link to their website: S/V Quest.

There are so many arguments in favor of going small.  The Pardey’s famous saying is “Go Simple, Go Now!” and I agree wholeheartedly.  I also suggest that Go Small is a good thing to add.  The boat is easier to handle; there is greater flexibility in moorage situations; all gear can be smaller and therefore less expensive.

Against the practical considerations and financial considerations in favor of small boats, people bring up comfort and safety.  They can bring more clothing, have more spares (which they wouldn’t need on a smaller, simpler boat, but…), stretch out better, and feel less claustrophobic.  I can’t really argue the comfort aspect.  Each person has their own version of comfort and decadence.

Safety, though.  It’s a fallacy that a 60 foot boat is generally safer than a 30 foot boat when facing ocean conditions.  There is a very narrow band of conditions where that’s true.  But when the shit really hits the fan, the ocean can create conditions that dwarf both the 30 and 60 foot boats.  So go bigger?  Who hasn’t see The Perfect Storm?  The ocean is simply more powerful than we are, and if you’re caught out in something bad, heaving to is SOP for either boat.  The stronger rigging and beefier build are put under more strain on that larger boat, so all in all, it’s a wash.  Plus, you’re less likely to create a wimpy rig for a smaller boat, because the costs are so much less for every single piece of equipment.

Back to the topic at hand.  Piracy is another safety consideration at sea.  And I know, for a fact, that our boat looks like what it is – property of struggling idealists who work hard to eke out their space on the water.  We don’t look like we have powerful or rich connections.  We have nothing very valuable on board.  We have no real funds and wouldn’t carry them if we did.  The boat itself is worth less than the chase boats run by many pirates.  Really – their ENGINE is probably worth more than our whole boat.

In direct contrast, the S/V Quest was very well stocked with electronics, the boat itself is very valuable, and all those things point to an owner/crew with some money.  Or at least access to someone’s money.  And perhaps access to power as well.

I’m not saying they deserved it (the short-skirt wearing sluts!) or that they invited it.  I’m not trying to make a statement on their decision making in going to that area or their passage planning in general.

There are differences in our situations, though, and I believe that we are safer because of the differences.  If we end up on a different boat, I will still want it to be small, simple, and funky – the better to advertise to the world that we are not a worthwhile target.

Of course, that’s a bit simplistic…some of these boats don’t look like racers, but they’re all pushing some limits…or this wouldn’t happen: