Category: Electrified

A white-hulled sailboat glows in a sunbeam as a dramatic black cloud dumps a column of rain directly behind it.

Power is in the House!

Boat Projects, Dena's Blog Posts, Electrified, James' Blog, Life Under Sail

Salinas was a deeply useful stop. We anchored and paid the marina a modest fee to have a month’s access to (clean) showers, a place to leave our trash, and an address for packages. It was time to finalize the LiFePO4 house batteries plan, wherein we would change battery chemistry and location. We’d been lugging the battery cells themselves around since Red Hook (St. Thomas, USVI) but got stopped up on the installation design. They were in their forever home, which is under the nav station seat slash diesel engine start battery home on the Baba 30’s original plans. Instead of a single group 24 starting battery, though, we would use that area for eight 3.2 volt, 230 amp-hour lithium cells. Four cells wired in series makes a nominally 12 volt battery bank so we were creating two 230 amp-hour battery banks, either of which supplies 184 amp hours of usable power. That compares very favorably to the 255 amp-hour 8D AGM that was doing duty as Battery 1 because, after 17 years in service, the voltage was cratering before the state of charge (SOC) got below 80%. That means we’d been living on about 50 amp hours per bank, and the new system would explode our capacity from our point of view. Once we’d drawn up the system and identified what parts we needed, we placed a bunch of orders from across the boatersphere and started the rounds of reprovisioning, cooking, cleaning, and showering that kept us busy until the shipments could arrive. There were so many aspects of this project that were hard to measure, literally. Getting a tape measure to tell the truth about the complex curve inside a sailboat hull is like getting a cat to stay out of a project that he can’t help with.[…]

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The mainsheet block backlit by sun against blue water and blue sky separated by a thin layer of land

Four Months Later…

Dena's Blog Posts, Electrified, James' Blog, Life Under Sail

We left Esperanza, on Isla de Vieques (one of Puerto Rico’s three inhabited islands), at a reasonable hour but the wind remained east and even north of east instead of veering southeasterly and, even worse, it never filled in the way the forecast had, well, forecasted. Ghosting on airs so light that a wave can surge the boat ahead of the whispering wind, we watched the sun dip and fall. The 30-mile trip would not be completed during daylight, but the wide-open bay that was our destination shouldn’t be too hard to navigate in the dark. It’s the thoughts that carry you away at a time like this. Thinking about what we’re really doing here. Thinking about why it’s been four months since I (Dena) quit my job in Red Hook (on St. Thomas in the USVI) and we’re just now approaching the Big Island of Puerto Rico. Thinking about what it means to have an electric motor and knowing we can’t just steam from fuel dock to fuel dock. The hook these thoughts are hanging on is slow. We’re not new to being slow. On Nomad, in 2017, we formed a loose association of sailors with folks heading down the ICW, absolutely laughing at the idea that we’d remain close to the Garcia 47 (sailor-besties Kris and Steve, amazing people) or even the Gemini, a 35′ tiny-cat narrow enough to fit in the slips meant for Grand Banks-type powerboats. When we switched from Nomad to Cetacea, losing 2 feet of deck length but gaining 2 feet of sparred length and 3 feet of beam, we also had to relearn to sail. It wasn’t just the different hull shapes – we went from a slender sloop to a beamy cutter. We learned and learned, and we are sailing this boat[…]

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Another winter in paradise

Dena's Blog Posts, Electrified, James' Blog, Life Under Sail, The Azores

We have sailed the ocean blue and found a place of ancient familial connections. We put that hook down and laughed at the effort. When you first show up to a place, newness is pretty much the dominating feeling. The way the autumn light reflects off the particular stone making up the streets (not Fells Point serpentine, something volcanic?), the mysteriously timed bells that chime from the cat-licker buildings, the grudging smiles transforming the (is it just me or is it) ubiquitous resting-bitch-faces, and the way the non-sailors everywhere look at us and pass that very local version of judgment. It feels as if life starts anew every day and then again the next and the next one after. Then one day it all looks so familiar. All of a sudden, we’ve been here in the Azores for a nice long time. We do our epic-walks and our projects and the weather descends upon us like the winter that could give-a-shit about our mortality…like it always does. When anchored, we snuggle down south in southerlies. Shore access at the fishing docks fouls our shoes a bit but convenience and a whole lot of being ignored make us grateful. There’s a bad grocery store and an excellent restaurant. At the northern end, we’re either anchored off the beach or in the marina. Storms spin across the planet and our safe zone shifts as they pass over. The fetch can be brutal, so retreating behind the breakwater has been a prudent move more than once. The marina is also our dinghy dock and we can use the bathrooms and showers and laundry whether we’re paying for a slip or not. Ultimately, the cyclonic reality of seasonal weather inspires us to descend upon another marina in Winter. Not plugged in, not running a[…]

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Ancestral Azores

Electrified, James' Blog, Life Under Sail, The Azores

We woke up early to sail from Faial to São Jorge because we had no idea what it would take to get that hook off the bottom. It was a good thing too! We’d been warned by the guides that there was shit to pick up, but the most dramatic stories involved chain and home-welded grapnel anchors. It didn’t take Dena much longer to weigh anchor, she just got a whole lot of funky garbage up with the chain this time. We’d been in Horta for what seemed like a really long time. I (James) don’t mean years, I mean weeks. After the 29 days crossing from Bermuda to the Azores, any time spent in any one place seemed like a very long time. We did everything we wanted to do in Horta, like hiking, writing, provisioning, and repairs, so the next obvious thing was to sail away. We had another incredible adventure between the islands of Faial and São Jorge! It was only 22 nautical miles but we were on a hard beat in 15 to 20 knots of wind with a double-reefed main and the staysail for about six hours. Finally, we were able to veer off to a close reach and take that all the way into the protected harbor of Velas. S/V SN-E Cetacea performed like a dream and we had the hook down long before the day was done. This was the big one, folks! We’ve been pointing the boat at the Azores and specifically São Jorge for about a decade now so, when we sailed into this harbor, we had some emotional gravity in our wake. Dena’s maternal family came from São Jorge by ship in the early 20th century then crossed the North American continent by thumb and train to the Central Valley[…]

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To Azores Day 29

Electrified, Sailing Logs

Tuesday August 22 Day 29 and Faial is in full view! I can see details on the entire western face of the island. We traveled 39.4nm over the last 24 hours and we are now 39.2nm to Horta…the wind finally came around to the west giving us a much better and faster angle. We are now, as the albatross flys, 2773.4nm from Marathon, Florida! Dena’s 4-5 pm watch The chartplotter tells us the distance and ETA to our destination and today, for the first time, it’s not a joke. It only give the time of day, so we’d read it out to each other and laugh. “Yeah, but 2:45 pm of which day?” Now, we’re approaching Faial and it’s so very real out there. It’ll be today or very very early tomorrow morning.  Whew. Dena’s 4-5 am watch Landfall 0500 Horta, Ilha Faial, Azores, Portugal…29d16h40m

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To Azores Day 28

Cat Stuff, Electrified, Sailing Logs

Monday August 21 Day 28 slow moving on an awkward beat to Horta…Day three of a frustrating nor’easter that won’t let go. Dena’s 7-8 pm watch 7:36 pm: We just trimmed the staysail and got a bit higher into the wind. A little more speed too. I’m still hoping for a wind shift so that we don’t have to sail northwest and spend time backtracking, but this will get us close enough that it won’t be the end of the world if we do. I’m going to take another long overnight unless the traffic picks up and I have to spend too much time awake. Last thing I want is to be exhausted while doing the approach and either anchoring or docking on the wall for the officials who will clear us in. Especially if it’s dark when we arrive. The entrance couldn’t be easier, but looking out for other boats and picking the best spot for anchoring will be harder in the dark. Dena’s overnight watch Tuesday August 22 2:39 am: Wind started getting extra flukey around 2 am and I am now nursing hope that this is a wind shift to the west. Meanwhile I have to babysit the steering so we don’t end up bow into the waves because it’s too light to keep the mainsail full. Oh well, I was going to be up to set the 3 am breadcrumb (we’re doing waypoints so we don’t run the chartplotter all the time). May as well do some stargazing. The night isn’t perfectly clear…dark streaks cross the Milky Way like new dust lanes…but there’s a lot to see with the waxing crescent well set for the night. 8:10 am: Northwest, baby! We’re finally sailing for our destination and it feels good. Since everything is so changeable, I[…]

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To Azores Day 27

Electrified, Sailing Logs

Sunday August 20 Day 27 starts on a beating to port. Dena had a lot to deal with last night with actually getting the boat on a tack that wasn’t going backwards…she succeeded but at a restless expense. Dena’s 4-5 pm watch 4:42 pm: Damn, this is frustrating! A hundred miles from our destination and we can’t head within 60° of it…and even that is so slow. Unless we have major growth on the bottom again, I don’t know why we can’t point any better than this. Ugh. It’s not even that being out here is bad. It’s not that much different than plenty of the other 27 days we’ve been on this leg of the journey. It’s the proximity of the sojourn point that creates the tension. At this point, there’s no way we’ll be arriving overnight tonight. That’s a null possibility. We may still arrive the next night. All the maybes I want to think about involve a wind change, which will either happen or not. Nothing I can do. So yeah, we’ll keep on keeping on and wait to find out what’s in store. James’ overnight watch My long overnight…we’re within a hundred NM of Horta and still plowing the close haul into the same nor’easter we’ve been trudging along all day…but, we’re going in the right direction and the boat is preforming admirably with a single reef and a slightly reduced staysail only…1.8-2.5 knots, can’t complain. Monday August 21 James’ 10-11 am watch 10:20am Land Ho! I (James) sighted the island of Pico off the port bow…now if only we could get a break from this fucking Nor’easter. 10:23 am: I (Dena) got a good night’s sleep and we did get quite a bit closer overnight. That helped my mood. I’m still maintaining a mellow attitude,[…]

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