Blog

A thought

Early on in this circumnavigation challenge, now turned into an oversized shakedown cruise, I had a few paragraphs about “An attitude of gratitude”. Then it slipped as more pressing matters were lining up for a blog entry. I haven’t thanked everybody yet, nor do I think I will remember every helping hands I came across along my journey. But there’s one thing I’ve wanted to put down. There’s no such thing as a solitary endeavor. In particular, on a sailboat, everything points out to a group effort. Someone designed the boat. Somebody built it. Someone planted the trees used to manufacture the strip planks that make Changabang’s stiff hull. A few truck drivers were involved. Some crew kept the power plant running, providing electricity to the tools used during the process. Someone cooked a meal to feed the boat’s building crew. Every little piece of hardware reflects the same interconnectedness. I’d be hard-pressed to count them but I’d say easily more than a thousand people directly and indirectly had a say in the making of Changabang. So there’s nothing single handed about sailing solo: it is the work of many who came before me. And I entrust my life to their work. Do I hope that all involved did a great job? You betcha! Was the wood of the quality it was supposed to be? Was enough time given for things to cure? Were corners cut? Was the QA guy checking the many blocks used on CaB distracted? So many parts on a sailboat can lead to catastrophic failure if they fail under load. You’d better hope everyone did their part conscientiously! Even though I am alone here, that is only made possible thanks to thousands. So to end, just a simple reflection: we, willingly or not, rely on each other’s work for the success of our enterprises, whatever they are. It follows that we would benefit from always doing a good job of the task ahead of us, right?
What else is going on CaB? Just the same as yesterday: lying in the shaker …

Friday night!

The day continued as it had started. Changabang is getting spanked regularly on the bow and the stern. There’s not much to do in these circumstances. The most activity is seen when I move about to refill my water bottle, cook a meal, check things outside. There’s not much predictability to CaB’s movements in this large, somewhat confused sea. So every movement is slow and calculated to avoid being sent sideways. To illustrate I’m joining a graph off the accelerometer in my phone, during a queter session. The accelerations are not great but they’re always present, pointing in a continuously changing direction. My tether hangs off the companionway, and I have my harness on most of the time (I take it off when it’s night time and I’m trying to sleep); as I get out the cabin it’s an easy clip on habit now, making sure I’m always hooked to the boat. As the night approached there were a couple systems that caused the wind to back 20-30 degrers and to drop a bit. I ate my last bag of chips and I’m now munching through a Toblerone bar, which would have been a surprise sometime later in the challenge. But I guess the challenge is over, and I’m left with the clean up! I’ve started reading a little, of all things, a book about surmounting obstacles! I hear you’ve all started to think about Halloween. I wonder if I’ll still be at sea by then. Most likely so, approaching SF from a few hundred miles.


Morning update

I ended yesterday’s post asking what tomorrow would bring. And I had my answer round midnight: the wind picked up! We’re down to third reef and genoa. My instruments showed 23-26 kts at a true wind angle of just shy of 90°. So the sea state has been building accordingly. We’re going up and down, getting spalshed a good amount. Delightfully, we’re not banging as the sea is mostly to our starboard beam, but it’s still a wild ride, and sleep didn’t come. As of late morning, the wind dropped a few knots. However, forecasts tell me that this will carry on for a few days. The obvious side benefit is that we’re making good progress! It’s unclear what things will look like in a week or so: we may find ourselves in a large wind hole … From feast to famine, as is often the case. The trio split up during the night, leaving me with a hitchhiker! And when he departed this morning, he left his characteristic two tone signature on the deck! I tried a picture of the night sky. Yeah that’s the moon, it didn’t come out too great. All good aboard as I lie down in the shaker.



Into our fourth week at sea

Thursday 22nd. We’re sailing upwind NNW in 6-10 kts of wind. For most of the day three birds were journeying along Changabang. I realized later in the afternoon why. Sometimes we go through a school of flying fish, which scatter in flight, only to perish at the beaks of the flying trio. In between hunts, they challenge each other at landing atop CaB’s mast, with no success so far (see pictures). There’s room up there as we lost the Windex windvane a few days ago. I’ve decided against stopping in Hawaii. There’s a good window to sail home. And I’m not excited at manoeuvering in unknown waters, or dealing with administration. Plus, it’ll make it that much more of a shakedown cruise to carry on straight to San Francisco. I like it here, which makes it that harder to swallow the abandon pill. In other news I didn’t troubleshoot the autopilot, as I didn’t want to stop progress nor cook under the sun (excuses!). I’m going to have to find another marina when I make landfall as Pillar Point Harbor is full for crab season (I had cancelled my lease before leaving in the hope of saving some dough). It was a slow day aboard Changabang, as I tentatively set my eyes on a re-do. Of course we need to fix or replace the boom, replace lost sails, harden the primary autopilot, replace a good bunch of running rigging, pay the hefty WSSRC fees, and a bunch of small other jobs. If you’re still watching, and are anxious for a re-start, please consider refloating our “cruising kitty” by visiting gofundme.com/SF2SF. I know many of you were very generous, and I thank you very much. Every $ helps! $5 is a meal. $20 is the monthly bill for the tracker. $50 is a jerry can of diesel. $140 is the monthly bill for the satellite phone. $300 is the replacement parts for the autopilot. $600 is one spinnaker sock (need 3 of those). $1,500 is a spool of rope to replace worn out running rigging. $2,750 is a new spinnaker (need 3 of those). Anything helps! That’s all from this man. What will tomorrow bring? Fair winds and following seas?




A compilation

A visitor

Last night, I was having a grand dream, something of a scale I’d never experienced before. I used to have dreams of spaceships and space exploration, and flying, which on their own were pretty good to wake up from. But last night’s dream felt like I was in a Marvel Comics movie. I just don’t have words for it, and I can’t really recall the play because of an uninvited guest who snapped me out of that crazy dream. A flying fish landed in the cabin and got stuck in a small nook, flapping like he was about to be done for. And he would have, except I don’t want to cook fish aboard. So the lucky dream squasher got picked up and thrown back in his element. Now if only Neptune could do the same and return me my sails!

Pasta day

Today was the first day I had a full breakfast, a full lunch, with desert, and a full dinner, each being made of two servings. Add a few snack bars too! So the man is eating. After banana/granola/milk, we had a three cheese Mac’n’cheese, chocolate cheesecake, and then pasta primavera. Loads of pasta, just as I like it. I remember somebody saying that a good meal to prepare in advance for a hard offshore sailing race, when you know everybody will be seasick, and none will want to cook, is a bunch of cold pizzas. I tried it but it didn’t work for me. I know what would work though: cold bolognese spaghetti, made with a homey sauce (not store bought)! That I can eat cold! I have splurged on many occasions! I love spaghetti! And lasagna too. Ok, mushroom risotto is up there too.

Autopilot

Man, that “primary” autopilot surely is leaving much to be desired. It stopped working again. I’m not sure yet what it is; I’ve received some information to run some troubleshooting (from Jerome of Sailutions, NKE guru, and Phil at PYI, Inc., who imports the Lecomble & Schmitt drives). I’m now running on the secondary AP. Note that I have spares, and a third fully functional autopilot. So we’re fine. But I do prefer to use apparent wind mode when we keep crossing lines of clouds with the wind shifting 10-20 degrees and bouncing up and down between 8 and 12 kts, and I’m trying sail upwind: I have a bruised boom to nurse until we make it home! We sailed under first reef all day and part of the night. On a side note I tried the gennaker today but we were to close winded for its useful range, I think. All day we’ve been sailing along Big Island’s big domes in light wind, making slow progress, trying to escape Hawaii’s grip. I’ll add a fee sunset pics. It’s night time now, I’ve cracked off the sheets as the wind veered a good 30 degrees, and down to second reef too.

2020

I think some of you may be disappointed at how things turned out. This was after all a welcome distraction from the current apocalyptic news barrage: KKK revival? Check. A teacher beheaded, in France? Check. I’ll stop here. My little adventure was (hey! is, please, I’m still sailing, mind you) a window in a world devoid of these troubles. Ah, but sailing the high seas is no walk in the park! It’s grand, it’s fulfilling, it’s hard, exerting all sort of pressure on the body and soul, not to mention the boat and all equipment. And as a result news from the sea are not always rosy. That is the rule of the game: a ship is basically falling apart as soon as it gets out of the “manufactory” and is put in the water. Salty water and wind have harsh teeth!! Anyways, the distraction is over. Almost, there’s still the trip to San Francisco. Put it on 2020, with all the rest. What did I say about hindsight yesterday? Same applies to 2020.

Out there

Out there, there was nothing around me for miles. At some point as I was sailing further away my VHF radio went silent. Even the USCG station of San Francisco, with their powerful antennas high up the hills, couldn’t reach us after a while. The AIS had stopped showing any boat after a week I think. I was “out there”. I was where I wanted to be. However my vision of the “out there” didn’t match with what I had envisioned: a fair breeze on gently rolling sea. What I found is a cauldron of water bashing around from seemingly all directions, with a few predominant swells. A real mess! If there had to be major repairs the plan was to wait for a quiet day, a gentle sea, and proceed. What I discovered is that those days are rare. Even if the breeze lightens up, the sea is the memory of everything that happened close by and far away, and it moves big time! I’m being told that this was the perfect year to go: everybody is stuck at home, businesses aren’t hiring much, and what I already said above. Sometimes perfect doesn’t work …






Three weeks

Tomorrow will be the end of my third week at sea, the most I’ve gone so far. I’m still heart broken at the outcome. I felt ready in the sense that I have tons of spares, tools and stuff on the boat. Ready in the sense that the first few weeks were going to be a training ground to adjust and continue to learn the boat. And that did happen. What I didn’t plan for is that learning has a cost. I didn’t expect to be so far in the red so quickly. If any or all of this would have happened past Australia I’d probably carry on. This close from home it just makes sense to limp back against the trade winds, instead of limping around the world. There’s nothing wrong with not having spinnakers (I still have one, mind you). I have a few spare autopilots. The boom could have been sleeved with fiberglass, and the mainsail downsized. But that’s not how I envision a circumnavigation, maybe the end of one. Not the first 10%. I am grateful for the help I’m receiving from Tom, Randall and Skip. The only options for refueling or a short stop are in Oahu, which is a little off the route to San Francisco. My plan is to keep sailing north, past Big Island, all the while watching weather forecasts. If a good window opens up then I’ll probably carry on. If not then it’s probably another 2 days to make it to the south side of Oahu. In hindsight I might as well have sailed directly to Oahu; it would have been an easier sail than trying to round Big Island to port! Hindsight! Shitty concept!

Verified by MonsterInsights