Category: Sailing

Which one are you like? An opening to a blue sky? Or a blinding sun?

A story

What makes one want to take to the high seas? Or the high peaks? Or the deserted voids? Or the impenetrable forests? Or the ultimate destination, space? I don’t know. I can’t tell why I wanted to sail round Earth. In my case, there’s nothing to discover, nothing to prove. It has been done many times over by great explorers, trail blazers, men and women made of sterner stuff than I. Make it solo, non stop, unassisted, Westward, a couple Equator crossing, and you can count these accomplishments on one hand, maybe two. I only know of 3. What I do recall is my first time sailing solo aboard a 25 feet sloop, leaving San Francisco South Bay, passing under the San Mateo Bridge, seeing San Francisco on the horizon, and thinking: that’d be quite an adventure, you know, carrying on, past the Golden Gate and on. And on. But it was already late, and the chartered sloop was expected in the Redwood City marina before sunset. From that point on, I think I sought to acquire offshore experience, all with the hope to do what I did on 10/01/2020. In a week or so, I’ll have sailed over 6,000 miles in 5 weeks, enjoying a quick emotional rush when I slipped under the Golden Gate Bridge, making 200 miles days, dodging a major hurricane, skimming through the doldrums twice, sailing upwind for almost three weeks, and much more. What to do with this newly acquired experience? .

This place is amazing, immense but like a jewelry box. Everytime seems distant, and yet so close. Slow progress on the homebound journey, good progress on replacing the leaking hydrogenerator (done, need to test when we start moving in earnest).

I’m right smack in the middle of the North Pacific high pressure system, which means very little wind; and what we have is from whence I’m trying to go to. We’ve been motoring since this early morning. I took the opportunity to execute a replacement surgery on the leaking hydrogenerator. It’s 14:20, and I still have to do the wiring. All the “mechanical” part is done: remove hydrogenerator from stern bracket, cut off wiring, run wire all the way through small conduits, disassemble hydrogenerator, locate spare generator, re-assemble hydrogenerator, replace hydrogenerator on stern bracket, re-run the wires. I have two splices of a 3-plex wire to do now. I won’t have enough fuel to punch through, I don’t think. So we’ll be bobbing around for a while. Maybe go for a swim?!?

The Ocean Cruising Club is an association of offshore sailors to which I was introduced by Randall Reeves, a large figure in (very) long distance solo sailing. They have a minimum distance passage requirement for membership, which my solo race to Hawaii qualified me for. Of interest to this cash strapped aspiring solo circumavigator, they have a grant program. At Randall’s suggestion I applied, and became the recepient of a challenge grant, for which I am ever grateful. This purse of money was invested into a new spinnaker, a sail that was designed to help me build confidence in flying spinnakers on Changabang, and be our trade winds workhorse sail. If you’ve followed this blog from when we launched, you know it: half of this mission was accomplished! As we were just getting into the Southern Hemisphere trade winds I trusted a sailbag. And Neptune mischievously taught me my trust was misplaced. The sailbag was ripped off his hanging hanks, and the sail bode farewell to CaB, his oh so distraught skipper, and went on to err, a ghost in the waters of the Pacific. I will have to come clean to the Ocean Cruising Club’s grant committee, belabor a mea culpa, and retreat bowing, hoping for better days. Alright, enough drama, I suppose, but it’s all true.
This post was powered by a box of red vines. Yeah, a whole box, gulped in a flash.

I think I can say that health wise things are mostly good, except for very dry hands. All good otherwise.

I’d say a boat was wrecked near by if I didn’t know about the garbage in oceans situation. As much as on the way down I didn’t see garbage in the water, on the way back, I can’t stop seeing some, all sorts. You know the story. I’m attaching pictures that will likely look very blurry. To compensate I’ll include a rainbow, a sun lane and a nasty cloud!

I woke up feeling that CaB was a little slow today. So I adjusted the sails to see if that was the problem. Still slow. I picked up the GoPro to check the keel and rudders for debris. Sure enough, CaB was dragging a big net on her port rudder. In fact, there was no need for the GoPro, it was readily visible, trailing 6 feet behind us. I’m not sure how I missed that! To clear the rudder, I was going to stop Changabang, and let the net drop off. As I went to disengage the B&G autopilot, I found out that the ram was locked, just like it was for the NKE a couple weeks ago. I first thought it was the NKE drive that was locked, but after disconnecting it from the shaft, I still couldn’t get the tiller to move. So I disconnected the B&G, and was able to gain control over the tiller again. I proceeded to clear the rudder, re-connect the drive, and on our merry way again we are. I wonder if the B&G will go belly up just the same as the NKE. I do have a third autopilot, just in case. There’s one shared component between the two systems, so my guess is that’s the troublemaker: it’s a toggle switch that connects/disconnects the wires to the clutch of each drive. Picture attached. On other news, I collected a flying fish and a small squid this morning. The port hydrogenerator has sported a leak so I’m using the engine to charge until we switch to port tack, and then I’ll try to take it out (I have a spare generator). That’s fuel that won’t be available to motor through the wind hole waiting for us. Sailing and weather wise, I’m still northing, possibly up until Thursday morning, up to 40N. After that it looks as of now that I’ll be bobbing in a wind hole, as shown in the picture, or not. It’s certainly not going to be easy to punch through the last thousand miles. I’m still looking for a marina. Changabang may end up on a mooring ball in Pillar Point Harbor, which would be cheap but impractical! I may also do a one day stop in the Redwood City marina to offload all the food, gear, water, etc. Otherwise we’re still sailing upwind, banging in the waves a couple times every couple minutes or so, i.e. alive and well in the shaker. Wind has dropped so it’s slightly more comfortable, and slower! Spirits are bouncing up, a little. But seeing that every day San Francisco is still 10 days away dampens my excitement a bit.