Pacific NW

Expeditions

Greetings from L’ile de la Reunion! We are safe in harbor and preparing for the big upcoming passage to South Africa. And…we also have some big news! Taz is going to be a big brother soon! The Indian Ocean is bringing us another child. One for the Pacific and One for the Indian…

Kelsey is currently 14+ weeks pregnant and due around April 20. We’ve known for quite some time (since Cocos Keeling) and it was a bit of deja-vu when we found out. Yet again, we were on a remote coral atoll out in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by coconuts and hermit crabs, and Kelsey was even wearing the same dress. It was meant to be…

Our cruising plans have changed radically to accept the upcoming circumstances. We’ve decided to have this baby in the USA, partly due to the expense and hassles we faced having Taz abroad. Also, partly due to the fact that South Africa is the last stop before we’d sail to Zika inflicted countries, which eliminates South & Central America and the Caribbean as options for Kelsey right now. Kelsey and Taz will hop on a plane in mid-January and fly from Cape Town, South Africa to Minnesota.

My Dad is flying into Cape Town in January and the two of us are preparing to deliver Privateer 7,000 nautical miles across the Atlantic, with brief stops at St. Helena and an island or two in the Caribbean before making landfall in Florida. From there, we’ll try to make our way back to MN as soon as possible, so I can get back to Kelsey and Taz in time for the birth.

We are thrilled that Taz is getting a sister or brother! The new baby has now almost crossed the entire Indian Ocean in the womb, much like Taz did in the Pacific.

We’re still poled-out and charging along…we made 156 miles over ground, for a solid 6.5 knot average over 24 hours. The trades in the Indian Ocean are really giving us a good sail! We keep adding a bit of diesel-stabilizer and biocide to the fuel tank every now and then, because we haven’t touched our full tanks in so long…

I’m glad we left when we did–the winds are forecast to drop lighter on Monday afternoon, and we don’t want to be wallowing around in this swell. The winds dropped off a few knots today and we have the perfect amount of wind (around 15 knots) for a comfortable, fast ride. We’ve seen about a dozen freighters on the AIS, and we appear to be crossing a major shipping route from Africa to SE Asia. Extra eyeball scans on the night watch are a must!

The water and air temps are finally cooling down to a sane level (i.e. not sweating 24/7) and one of the additional perks is that our solar panels are cranking out more amps. Cooler panels make more electricity. We were able to run our water-maker longer, which means longer showers, more water for washing down the boat, etc etc… Our new (in NZ) air-cooled fridge is also working less-hard now, which frees up a ton of load on the battery banks. Privateer’s electrical system is optimized for temperate latitudes, and it’s nice to see everything working so well together again.

I finally connected with the Africa radio station today and we appear to be back in business. This is good, as now our attention is turned to the tough passage ahead, from Reunion to South Africa, where we will need to receive the most accurate weather forecasts every day in order to make safe decisions on our passage routing.

October 1! And what better way to ring in this great month with a little 350-mile passage from Rodrigues to Mauritius? The new moon will guarantee we see lots of stars on the night watch. Our friend John on Sapphire is departing with us, but he is bound for La Reunion, one more day sailing beyond Mauritius.

After clearing the inner harbor we met with 18-20 knots of stiff breeze and started off our passage running out the gate, under reefed sails. The pole is out and we are wing-on-wing under the old standby sail configuration that has served us so well for the last 6,500 NM from Vanuatu. We’re really racking up the ocean miles this year!

The seas sort of zippered together as we came out of the lee of Rodrigues, with swells meshing from two different directions. It made for the “metronome” effect for about 6 hours. But we are clear of that now and enjoying a fast ride, around 7 knots. We reluctantly leave Rodrigues in our wake, and hope to meet up again soon with our friends on S/V “Ralph Rover” and S/V “Fleur de Sel”. For now, the weather window is right and we must sail on…

While in Rodrigues we unbolted the Monitor from the back of the boat and did a complete disassembly and re-build inside the boat. She’s really working well now, with all new bearings and bushings, and polished up to look like new. I used as many parts out of the spare kit as I could!

Kelsey and Taz unfortunately have the 2-day bug that’s going around Rodrigues now, so they spent most of the day sleeping down below, but Taz and I still had fun flinging his stuffed animals around the cabin and watching a great sunset. I can single-hand this passage as it should only be a few days to Mauritius.

Our motoring last evening was short-lived, and the perfect breeze struck up to carry us through the night, and into the lagoon at Rodrigues. We are safe in Rodrigues! I didn’t want to jinx it, but I can now safely say that we had THE ideal passage from Cocos Keeling to Rodrigues. Boats in the previous weeks ahead of us reported horrendous conditions, and behind us several nasty lows filled in, stalling out the next wave of boats. With luck from the smiling weather gods, we were in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, all the way across the Indian ocean. It was a “good angel” passage as I call it, with a few little “demons” thrown in there in the middle to spice it up a bit.

I will leave the description of Rodrigues for another post at a later time. The place is incredible! Turns out that if you drill a hole through the center of the earth from Oakland, CA, you will find many things the same, but different. It’s funny how the young men here dress just like the gang-bangers in Oakland, but here they will greet you with a polite “bonjour monseuir” and a shy smile. The hills are arid like much of CA, and the whole island used to be teeming with hundreds of thousands of giant tortoises… a very special place.

Many of you are wondering about the absence of posts in the past few weeks. We are in a dead-zone area for SSB propagation and can’t connect to the Africa station right now to send out our messages. As we sail closer to Mauritius, we should have improved reception. We are in a very unfrequented corner of the world… We do ping our exact location via a tracker device every ten minutes, which our family closely follows. So even if these e-mails stop for several weeks, they can see that Privateer has made it safely to the anchorage and can text-message with us. Please, no need to worry! 🙂

These past three days have gone by in a pleasant cadence. Easy downwind sailing in 20 knots, mellowing seas, sometimes wing-on-wing and sometimes deep-reaching. We’re at that point in the passage now that time has shattered and we are like the sunrise and the sunset, making circles over the horizon each day in our sea routine.

On September 11th we finally shook one reef out of the double-reef main. When I hoisted the sail, several mummified and very stinky flying fish appeared, pasted to the sail right in front of my face. They had jumped into the sail at some point in days past, falling into the flake. Our mainsail now has a few greasy black smudges and many fish scales glued all over it, just under the second reef.

Privateer is finally nearing Africa! This has been a dream for so long now, and it’s hard to believe that we’re actually within reach now. We have been very fortunate on this passage, one of our finest so far. We’ve been very lucky with the winds, which have held steady and blown us now to within 89 miles of Rodrigues before we had to fire up the engine.

We have a new record for Privateer’s longest tack: 1,910 miles in 13 days on port tack!! Rodrigues is a very significant landmark for us: it is on the opposite side of the earth as Oakland, CA, which was our easternmost point of the voyage. With the initial Alaska leg and the south-north detour to NZ, and the general southern leg from Oakland to Marquesas, we have sailed about 3/4 the way around the world distance wise, but we are now geographically 1/2 way around the world now. For the first time, we will be getting closer to home now with each mile sailed west. The majority of our sea miles are behind us now, as we take off on a more direct line toward North America.

Under power now, we should reach Rodrigues sometime tomorrow afternoon. It’s kind of nice to end the long passage with a bit of a motor. We’re re-filling our water tanks with the water-maker, taking long hot showers, topping up the battery bank, and cleaning the salt crystals off the boat. The seas have settled right down, with the swells marching under the boat in orderly 2-meter rows from the SE. Thank you, Indian Ocean!

It was quite a lurchy day as we “metronomed” through the seas today, wing-on-wing. The winds are still holding steady at 20 knots E-SE. While the height of the seas has decreased to about 3+ meters, they were a bit peaky, and every now and then one of the breaking crests would decide to clobber the side of the boat and flood the cockpit. Nothing dangerous, just inconvenient. For example, as I was preparing Taz’s morning oatmeal, the bag of frozen blueberries flung itself across the galley and opened in a shower of buckshot. I frantically tried to rescue as many blueberries as I could back into the bag as they rolled back and forth across the counter and onto the floor.

Taz likes to take “copty (helicopter) rides” around the cabin. As we hold him aloft and fly him around he names and points at everything he sees. “Porthole, waves, deck, waves, water, sailboat, GPS, ‘nother porthole–two!” He places his toy cars on the floor and they take off back and forth, as the boat rolls. I’m amazed at his ability to remain steady in a seaway. He rotates his torso and subconsciously anticipates the next wave, keeping his upper body steady vertical. He’s a natural.

Our boat speeds are good and we’re averaging about 150-mile days now. With our mileage to destination down into the 500s, we are on the home stretch! The last few days are always the longest for me, the big count-down. I’m just hoping these winds hold steady for us. It would be great to at least make it within 200 miles of Rodrigues, before we might have to motor-sail. We have been very fortunate so for on our 1,500 mile-long tack and counting!

Last night Kelsey fine-tuned the Monitor course and sail trim, and she must’ve done a perfect job. For the past 24 hours, the boat has been pegged directly on course, not deviating even more than 1/10th of a mile either side of the rhumb line. I’ve never seen anything like it, even when motoring under autopilot. We didn’t touch the helm or sails all day long, as Privateer winged along, straight as an arrow.

Winds and seas have calmed a bit since the gales of the past few days, but we are still riding 20-25 knots of E-SE breezes and occasional squalls that are lingering with the passage of the cold front. It’s a good wind, and just the one we need to get us there! We’ve reduced the poled-out Yankee to a small scrap of sail, and are riding comfortably with #2 reef main sheeted all the way out, storm Staysail sheeted flat for our “shark fin” stabilizing sail, and the Yankee scrap. Wind angle is 150 on port tack and boat speeds hovering around 6.5-7 kts. The motion below is tolerable, with occasional lurching when we get punched by a wave crest.

We swapped out one of the blocks on our steering control line and rigged a fresh new line, as the existing one was frayed, because the block was chewing it up. Kelsey and I managed to do it all while the boat was under way! The task was small fry compared to yesterday’s adventures

Taz picked up the phrase “cool, dude” today and for some reason it really cracks him up! He laughs hysterically as he repeats it over and over again. He even woke up at 1 AM last night and started saying it as he chuckled to himself.

We made 135 miles noon-to-noon because of our time spent on the repair yesterday. GRIB reports look good and we should have great tail winds for a few more days, with the last two days being light winds and possibly motor-sailing for the final 48 hours of the passage. It’s all a few days out yet, so we’ll see what happens. Our current ETA for Rodrigues is Sep. 13 by nightfall.

Privateer shattered her all-time noon-to-noon record today, flying over 173 miles (as the crow flies). Adding for tack angles and wind shifts, we covered well over 180 NM over ground. So the new record stands, at 173!

The seas continued building throughout the night last night, and in the morning it was heaping seas in a smother of foam. The troughs were like a watery amphitheater, walls of water looming all around. Rising up on the crests, our view was similar to looking out an airplane window at an endless chain of snowy peaks as far as the eye can see.

A radio call with S/V “Sapphire” 500 NM ahead of us now revealed he (John) had had a rough night as well. His Monitor rudder sheared off at the top weld and he is sailing under heavily-reefed sails and using rope to lash the tiller. It’s too rough for his electric autopilot, and we are all hoping seas will calm for him soon so he can get some sleep.

The apparent chaos of the waves juxtaposed with our *relative* comfort below is testament to the superior sea-keeping abilities of the Cape George 36. As waves punched and battered the cockpit, her small foot-well and broad bridge-deck allowed her to drain fast after she filled up and keep on sailing. Other “cheese and cracker boats” as our NZ friends call them, have large cockpits for entertaining, but cause the boat to wallow when a heavy sea breaks over the deck (imagine the immense and sudden weight of a full-size hot tub added to the back of your boat). Two waves in a row could easily poop a vessel. We’re always jealous of the cheese and cracker boats in the anchorage, with all their comfortable seats and tables etc. But we’ll take our cramped and seaworthy cockpit over any other on a day like today, we wouldn’t trade it for 1,000 cocktail hours on a cheese and cracker boat. Ironically, cheese and crackers are about the only thing on the menu when the going gets rough…so I guess you could call this a cheese and cracker day–on a kick-ass traditional and time-tested design of a proper boat. 3 cheers for Privateer!

The event happened at 1230 hrs just after noon. Booming along in 30 knots when suddenly the boat spun around and jibed the Mainsail. Thanks to our multiple preventer system, it was a gentle jibe. Curious: the Monitor control lines were still intact. Usually, the boat will only jibe if one of these has broken. I steered us out of the jibe but my heart sank when I looked back to find that the Monitor rudder post had sheared off. Fortunately, the rudder was still trailing behind the boat like a Dorado on the line, attached to it’s safety tie line.

The facts: we were 880 miles from Rodrigues, suddenly with no autopilot, in a gale. It was way too rough to even think about destroying our electric tiller-pilot. I am basically single-handing the boat when Kelsey needs to take care of Taz (who is getting his molars now.) We absolutely had to fix the Monitor, now.

In moments like this, I go into a sort of “soldier mode” and instantly enter into an optimistic and focused state. Two things immediately going for us was the fact that the breakage happened during the middle of the daylight hours, and Taz was sleeping soundly in his berth. First assessment revealed a simple shear-tube break, of which we had not one but two spares! “Kelsey, you’re on the helm, steer wind angle 1-5-0.” I rummaged through the spare bin and proudly held out the two spares. Perfect! Execute 2nd maneuver: heave-to and stop the boat, in order to stabilize the platform for repair. As we jibed and locked sails in a perfect heave, we heard a metallic clatter. 3rd maneuver: replace the broken tube. “Kelsey, please hand me the new tube.”

After a few minutes of looking for the two tubes that I had in my hand before the heave-to, I asked again. “Where the F— are the f——g piece of s— tubes??” After 15 more minutes of frantic searching, we began to realize that in my haste to procure the spares and heave-to, the tubes had skittered right off the deck and down into 15,000 feet of seawater when the boat jibed around into the heave. And that my dumb-ass had for some reason brought both spares out into the vulnerable cockpit. “This is just the sort of thing that can happen at sea” I chided myself. “Two spares sitting in there all this time, right up to the second we need them, then gone, because of my stupidity.” The situation went from very controlled and positive to a very personal low point. Forget about the tubes. Move on. Think. I measured the SS tubing on the dodger frame–diameter too small. Measured the tubing on the arch: just right. I cringed at the thought of cutting a section of tubing out of the arch, not only for the sacrilege of it, but for how long and difficult that would be to do with a hacksaw, in heaping seas. My spare tubes were probably still falling through the water down to the ocean floor…

Suddenly, Kelsey emerged from below and shouted “PETE!” She proudly held one of the tubes aloft! We both swore that we remembered me bringing both tubes into the cockpit and setting them up on the bench of the arch, and that we’d heard them go overboard. But in my initial excitement of finding the spares, I had for some unknown reason put them right back into their locker, sealed the hatch, and replaced the cushion over it. Whatever. I have never looked so lovingly on a 2″ O.D. x 24″ SS tube, with a perfect set of holes precisely drilled into either end to accept the locking bolts. The situation ramped back into an extreme high. Next came the wet part.

Kelsey tethered me up and I climbed out over the stern pulpit, and lowered myself down onto the Monitor frame. I must re-emphasize that we were in 30 knot winds with explosive seas breaking all around. We were hove-to which created the calm slick, but it was still quite a ride. With one arm locked solid around the Monitor frame, various tools in the other hand, legs falling asleep as my feet tried to find grip on the slippery salt-encrusted tubing, and with various greasy bolts and cotter pins in my mouth, I tried to remove the broken tube section and detach the bracket that holds it. My biggest fear was slipping and cracking a rib on the sharp metal extrusions on the frame. Riding this bucking bronco, both I and my “work station” were submerged by each passing wave. We call this a “circumnavigation experience”. I felt like shark bait and constantly scanned under the boat for movement. It is an unnatural instinct to climb outside of the safety of the boat at sea, and into the electric-blue deep waters. I tried channeling the astronauts who must work on broken solar panels etc in space, tethered by a thin strand to their life force, surrounded by a vast emptiness of death and incredible beauty.

Once back to the safety of the cockpit with the bracket, we had a bit of a head-scratch on how to remove the broken tubing, which required a bit of Pine Island ingenuity. We were able to pull the broken piece out of the shaft by bending one of our kitchen knives into a hook tool, drilling a few small holes into the side of the tubing, and pulling it out with SS seizing wire and a rubber mallet.

Finally, we assembled the new parts, repeated a second “astronaut walk”, and put everything back together. We jibed out of the heave-to and were on our way again, in less than two hours after the breakage! All squared away and back on the road again.

The Indian Ocean is showing its not-so-pretty face tonight. Several hours before sunset a stiff S-SE wind found us, bringing gusts of 30+ knots in the squalls. The seas are heaping, and at times the deck looks more submarine than sailboat. It’s a good thing we stowed everything away yesterday–the few items we forgot about became instantly known when they projectile-missiled themselves across the cabin. We clocked out a whopping 169 miles noon-to-noon.

At times like this I wish I could be as carefree as Taz. He’s completely oblivious to the gale, and even seems to perk up at times like these. There’s really not much to do except hold on, and remain at instant readiness in case something needs quick attention. “Does anyone know where the love of God goes, when the waves turn the minutes to hours” Gordon Lightfoot wrote. These words are so true. The worry is worse than the actual gale.

Privateer is of course handling the seas like a champ, blasting a path through the ugly cross-swells. At times like these I’d rather be on no other boat–her true form shines in moments like these. It looks like tonight will be the brunt of the heavier winds and seas, and then it should slowly taper off over the next several days.

We crossed the halfway-passage mile today! We’ve sailed 1,000 miles in 6.3 days (FAST!) since leaving Cocos Keeling, with another 1,000 miles to go now to Rodrigues. I had dreams of making a “halfway alfredo” for dinner as some friends on another boat do, but it’s too rough to cook tonight. Maybe I’ll try my luck at a 2/3 or 3/4 alfredo if conditions allow–something to look forward to anyway, as I gnaw on a granola bar for dinner…

We’re getting down near 20 degrees South now, and the nights are much cooler. The seawater is cooler as well. Best of all, the solar panels are more efficient in these “colder” temps and the fridge also doesn’t have to work as hard. And with the gale turning the wind generator, we’re quickly topping up our battery bank and able to use electricity without thinking about consumption. We hardly ever run our engine to charge batteries. We usually just fire it up to motor into an anchorage, and turn it off again after we put the sails up on our way out to sea again. It’s a great way to keep the engine room real tidy, too. We’ve burned only 4-5 gallons in the past 5,000 miles. So we get about 1,000 nautical miles per gallon–very fuel efficient!

The new high pressure system is filling in now and we are screaming along on our beam reach, with 20 knot winds just aft of the beam. Our current speeds are between 7-8 knots. The winds are more out of the south now, and we have adjusted our course to ride comfortably down the rhumb line. All of our southing in lighter winds is paying off now, with our improved angle to destination now.

This morning and afternoon we squared away “Privateer” and gave everything a good sweep and polish. The less we need to do in the heavier seas to come, the better. Everything is ship-shape and in top form. In the evening we double-reefed the Yankee and snugged up the cringles in the the #2 reefed Main. The winds piped up right on cue at sunset and we are riding comfortably.

Last night I had an epiphany about a Taz-proofing problem. We’ve needed some sort of baby gate to keep him from wandering into the galley (especially near the gimballed stove) and into the forward head. Basically, we needed some sort of way to contain him in the main saloon. I kept on telling myself I’d find some plywood in port to make one, but suddenly realized we already had the perfect pieces on board! The dinghy floorboards are the perfect height and fit. A few grip clamps and voila–Taz now has a safe zone on the saloon floor. With his toys, potty, and high chair on hand, he’s pretty stoked. He’s been running around in circles chanting “wild rumpus, wild rumpus, wild rumpus!” He can watch Mom in in the galley and still see the “big boy potty” in the head, and we can easily step over it. I wish we’d thought of this sooner! The best solutions on board always use something you’d have to stow anyway, and putting it to good use instead. Dinghy floorboard/baby gate…who’d have thought? We’re about 8,000 miles from the nearest Babies-R-Us (thank god) so necessity is the mother if invention.