Still Sailing!

Maddie and I set sail to go cruising back in July of 2017. We post videos on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/riggingdoctor) and blog posts regularly as long as we have internet access. If you are seeing this post, it means that I haven't been able to get access to the internet yet. 

If you would like to follow us on our live tracking map, you can always join the Sailing Buddies, where you will receive the password to the Sailing Buddies page! 

Stay tuned, for as soon as I have internet access again, I will be posting again! 

Peace with the Ocean

When out at sea, it is imperative to forget all the typical drives of shore-based land. Schedules, times, dates, they all whither away as you are lulled into the peacefulness of the ocean.

When coastal hopping, even offshore, we used to have our navigation equipment on. We had a route plotted and knew a speed we needed to maintain in order to arrive at the correct tide. We were sailing from one port to another and in a rush to make the passage as quick as possible.

All that changed when we left to cross the Atlantic Ocean. We left the United States from the Lake Worth Inlet and pointed the bow of the boat due East. As soon as the water depth increased to 60 feet, we figured that our chances of bumping into a shoal were nil, so we turned off all of our navigational equipment.

It felt so weird to turn off the chart plotter, a screen that was always illuminated is now dark and blank. For the past three thousand miles, that screen has told us where we are, where we are going, how fast we are moving, our coordinates, and our battery voltage. Now it stands there quietly as a ghost that it once was.

Why turn it off you may be wondering? Simple, the unit draws a lot of electricity, and that power could be better used to run the fridge or power our navigational lights.

It's not that we are floating around aimlessly in the ocean with no clue where we are. Instead, we use other methods of determining these facts. For instance, our location is found at local apparent noon, when the sun is directly overhead and we can sight it with the sextant. I plot our sighting position and compare it to the GPS readout on our radio. This lets me know how far we have traveled from noon to noon, as well as tests my skill with the sextant.

For direction, we have the compass. For our course, we know we want to move east, so we simply aim the bow at good weather that is located east of us. As we cross the ocean, the weather will change and we will alter course to keep in the good graces of the weather raging around us.

While it is nice to know how fast you are going and if a sail change or trim improved your speed, but the truth is, it doesn't really matter. Simply trim so that the bubbles go past your boat as quickly as possible and then sit back to relax. At the next noon sighting, you will know what your distance made good was that day and how fast your average speed was. 

Waiting

Sailing to Bermuda has been a relatively easy sail in the grand scheme of things. We have had light airs, steady airs, and a little bit of heavy airs, but they have had a steady direction in all cases. For the past two days we have been flying the staysail and double reeder mainsail as we bear to windward.

The monitor windvane has been steering us religiously as close to the wind as we can point while the sails power us along.

It just feels like this tiny island is so close yet so far as we sit here with only waves on the horizon. The sun comes up, the sun goes down, and only waves are in view.

We currently have only 70 miles left to the harbor in Bermuda, but it still feels like forever! All of us on board are planning what we want to eat when we get on shore, but the truth is we only see water as we continue to wait.

Waiting, the most common activity on a blue water passage.

Two Important Items for Ocean Cruising

If you are outfitting a sailboat for blue water cruising, the two most important items that you can add, in my opinion, are:

1. A drifter
2. A Monitor Windvane

A drifter is a light air sail cut like a genoa but made out of spinnaker material. This sail will keep you ghosting along on windless days. It even managed to pull us through the doldrums! When choosing your yachts sail wardrobe, be sure to include a drifter (and forget about a spinnaker).

The second important item is the Monitor Windvane. This unit will steer you to a set angle to the wind in all conditions. If the wind shifts, it will change your course to keep your sails trimmed perfectly and prevent them from luffing. While the prospect of changing course might seem bad, when you are offshore it's not a big deal. Your destination is hundreds or thousands of miles away, veering a little to port or starboard for a few hours will not make a difference.

Now, be sure to get a Monitor and not one of the other brands like Hydrovane or Cape Horn. Hydrovane will quickly be overpowered and overwhelmed as the wind builds. Cape Horn works just like a Monitor, but all of the control lines are hidden away making it hard to frequently inspect for chafe.

Now, I can't say which of these two items is more valuable than the other for ocean cruising. Honestly, both items should be carried that way you can move on light days and relax as your yacht sails itself across the ocean with you onboard.

Perspective

Crossing an ocean on a sailboat gives you plenty of time to sit, read, and think. My current book, Fabric of the Cosmos, is an excellent book to read on a crossing because each chapter is so profound and mind bending that you will need to sit around and think to mentally digest that one short chapter.

Ironically, the chapter I read today is about perspective and space. What is space? And what determines what a space is? What determines who is moving in a space?

A wonderful example given in the book is about a person on a boat (very fitting as I sit here 500 miles out to sea) who drops a coin. The coin falls straight down and lands on his shoe. Therefore, the boat, sailor, and coin, are all stationary and it is the sea that is rushing past them and not the boat rushing through the sea.

This concept that we are stationary and the world is rushing past is so apt at explaining what it feels like to be on a sailboat crossing an ocean. You sit in the cockpit or maybe you stretch out on the deck, but you are always on the boat. Everywhere you look, you see waves all the way out to the horizon with nothing else in view. You are alone in the center of your visible world. Clouds appear on the horizon, some move away, some move towards you. Day in and day out, the view is always the same and you are always sitting on the boat looking out at the exact same waves.

We left land about 15 days ago and spend a significant amount of time ghosting across the doldrums (I recommend avoiding the doldrums if you are in a hurry). The doldrums live up to their fame: totally calm with the ocasional whisper of wind. Sunrise and sunsets were amazing times when the sky and sea blended together into a surreal pastel painting. It was hard to believe that it was real! But it was there before your eyes and visible uninterrupted in all directions.

After so many days, especially after days of hardly moving, you really do feel stationary. You exist at the center of your visible world and other items come and go from it. Cargo ships will appear on the horizon and then disappear just as quietly. Clouds will grow, rainbows shimmer, and then the blue sky will return, but you are still in the center of this world that doesn't move.

From our perspective, we are just sitting here waiting, waiting for the next island to enter our visible world and approach the bow of our boat so we may anchor near it. Eventually, we will raise anchor and the island will drift away as a new landmass will approach us, begging for us to explore it too.

Are we crossing an ocean or are we waiting for the ocean to cross under us?