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?

Bimini Boom Gallows

When your mainsail is lowered, the task of holding your boom up usually falls to the topping lift. This piece of running rigging can support the vertical load of your boom, but it offers little to keep the boom from swaying laterally. Tightening the mainsheet will help reduce the swing from the boom, but it will still jostle back and forth.

if you are leaving your boat in a marina for the week, a little noise from the traveler and mainsheet is inconsequential. If you are passagemaking and the off-watch crew is trying to sleep, the rattling of the boom could keep them awake.

How do you hold the boom steady when it is lowered?  The old answer was to rest the boom in its gallow. This was a support that would hold the boom in its place when the mainsail was lowered in lieu of a topping lift. Boom gallows can be readily found on historical yachts but are less commonplace on modern production yachts.

If you don't have a boom gallow, like me, and don't have the time to spend fabricating and installing a boom gallow, there is an alternative: your Bimini.

A well made Bimini will be made of stainless steel pipes that can easily support a lot of extra weight. Think about it, the Bimini and dodger need to withstand a boarding wave crashing hundreds of pounds onto your boat. A boom (on a boat below 50 feet in length) is not going to weigh that much, and it can safely be supported for the night while your crew sleeps.

Another great advantage to resting the boom on the Bimini is there is no movement, and therefore, no chafe! The sound of a mainsail sliding back and forth on the Bimini is not only annoying, but it is the sound of damage being done to both parties! Minimizing chafe usually entails raising the boom and tying the sail up nice and tight. This is effective, but also takes time, effort, and a lot of work. The alternative is to lower the topping lift to rest the boom on the Bimini and call it a night!

If you don't have a gallow and need to silence a noisy boom for the night, try resting the boom on your Bimini by easing the topping lift until the boom rests securely in place.

Synthetic Standing Rigging and Quality of Sleep

When you think about rigging, quality of sleep is probably the last detail on your mind. If you plan to do any kind of passage making, quality of sleep should become a priority in your desired attributes list for your rigging. Remember, the headstay attached right above the V-berth in the forward cabin!

Steel rigging with hank on sails or roller furling sails will present a problem to (trying to) sleep off-watch crew. The foil of the furler will constantly tap and shimmy on the stay, making constant racket that is transmitted right over their head! Bronze hanks are just as offensive in anything but high winds.

Bronze hanks in high winds will sit still and quiet down, but anything else will cause the hanks to shimmy and twist on the steel stay making a grating sound that will keep everyone under it awake!

Synthetic headstays are rope and not metal, making it quieter in terms of noise transmission. Then, to protect against chafe, the sail needs to be fitted with soft hanks which look like webbing straps that relocate the bronze hank to the side of the sail. Soft hanks on a synthetic headstay are completely silent!

The sail can be luffing, twisting, shimmying, anything; and the off-watch crew in the V-berth will sleep peacefully under the silence of the synthetic headstay.

Pig Beach

No, this isn't a photo from a farm, this is on the beach near Staniel Cay.

The original pigs were shrouded in mystery, as no one knew for sure where they came from. The current pigs are brought over from Nassau as they have become a tourist attraction. Pigs do surcomb to disease and die from time to time, and they are replaced with a new pig to keep the pig population going. That being said, the pigs are doing their own part to keep their numbers up. These little piglets were going to town as they feasted upon their mother.

The pigs do enjoy a different lifestyle from their agrarian counterparts, as they live on a beach and often go for swims in the pristine waters. There is a freshwater spring in the island, but the pigs prefer to stay on the beach where tourists bring them food. This has led to the locals providing them fresh water on their beach front villa. 

The pigs will come out into the water when a tour boat arrives, because they know tourists are going to bring them lots of tasty snacks! 

It was fun to watch the pigs swim with superyachts in the background. 

While the big pigs like to go swimming, the smaller piglets seemed content to hang out under the bushes. Keeping cool in the shade as they sleep the day away with full bellies from all the tourist handouts. 

Day 18

The stars wrap all the way around this disk of ocean and we're floating in the very center. They almost touch the horizon. Slight wisps of nebula swirls around them and they grow by the thousands the longer I stare. And I can't stop staring. Leo roars at Venus to my left. Ursas major and minor are fully visible to the right of Leo. And behind me there's the ever dependable Scorpio and Libra with Jupiter and Saturn on either side. I keep opening my eyes wider as though this action could help me take in more of the sky at once, but I still find myself sitting up and swirling my head around as far as my neck will allow on all sides. I never want to forget this feeling. This feeling of being nothing more than a pair of eyes in the center of everything.