Ocean Watch Keeping

In an older post, I mentioned a method for "sleep sailing" where you sleep for about 20-30 minutes, and then look around. You make sure everything is ok and that there are no boats on the horizon and then go back to sleep for another 20-30 minutes.

That is a bad idea and I no longer recommend it! 

Keeping watch is just that, someone sitting at the helm watching. They are not sleeping, they are not napping, they are watching! 

We were sailing along the Straits of Florida when I was doing my "sleep sailing" and the result was catastrophic! Due to the proximity of the west wall of the Gulf Stream, we were very close to shore (0.8 nautical miles) and all had been fine. We had left Fort Pierce about two days ago and we were sailing to Miami. The route was straight and the winds were constant; the Monitor Windvane had been steering us on our course like a champion and I had not needed to make a single adjustment since 5pm. 

At starting at 8pm, I started my "sleep sailing" since getting up every 20-30 minutes doesn't produce a very restful nights sleep, I feel that I need to do it for a longer time to stay mentally rested. So I began at 8pm and was waking up 2 to 3 times per hour. Around 10pm, it was getting a little bit cold out in the cockpit, so I had setup my sea berth with the lee cloth inside. I continued to check on the helm every 20 to 30 minutes, just as I was when I was in the cockpit.

At around 11pm, we felt a lunge and a gradual slowing of the boat. Mind you we were only sailing along at 2-3 knots, so we weren't really moving quickly. Panic rushed through my mind as I thought about the damage I might have caused someone else. I quickly began to wonder how we came to collide since I hadn't seen any navigation lights on the horizon the entire night! 

When I crawled out of the companion way, I heard waves breaking and saw that we were on a beach. 

Looking back at our tracking, it appears that right after I did my last look around, one of the control lines to the windvane fell off the wheel. We quickly turned 90 degrees to starboard, without jibing, and sailed straight for shore. In a few minutes, we were on the beach and the waves were driving us up the sand. 

Thankfully, this beach was only soft sand with no rocks or corals, and we were able to be towed off by SeaTow in a few hours. 

This horrible experience could have been avoided in so many ways. Hindsight reveals all the ways I could have prevented this catastrophe, but the simplest method of all is to stand watch! 

When you are sailing, if you get tired you should stop. Do not sail while you are sleeping, and do not take naps at the helm. If you are near shore, enter an inlet and anchor in a safe harbor, or anchor near shore if it is calm enough. If you are far offshore, heave to and stop the boat.  

This was a really tough lesson to learn and we certainly learned it the hard way! Please learn from my mistake and never have this happen to you!

Blue Water

Coming from the Chesapeake, where the water is always a nasty shade of green, seeing the ocean water is always impacting. 

The water is just so blue! The deeper you go, the darker the blue gets. This picture was taken in water that was about 60 feet deep. When you get near the shore, the water has a bit of turquoise to it, and farther offshore, it turns into a deep royal blue. 

There really is something magical about the ocean and how vast it is! 

Beating or Heaving To

Optimal weather to exit an inlet isn't always optimal weather to make it to your destination. When we left the Fort Pierce Inlet, the winds were light and we were able to slip out with the current. Once out there, the winds were blowing from the South, directly where we wanted to go.

That night, the winds were forecasted to switch and start blowing out of the North, allowing us to run towards our destination.

We started out tacking close to the shore, but the Gulf Stream is pretty close to shore in this area, so we were forced to hang out near the shoreline. Short tacking proved pointless, as we were working hard to make any windward progress and still in sight of the inlet from which we started. This is the little zig zag that we did when we first exited.

So instead of fighting the wind, we just hove to and let it drift us along to the North. We made dinner, relaxed, and took it easy as we drifted through the water. When the winds shifted, we covered all the miles we had lost in about an hour! This means that we could have fought and started the voyage tired when the winds arrived, or relax and wait for the right winds to take us where we need to go. 

Monitor Wheel Adapter Unspooling

Monitor windvanes are remarkable machines. They will steer you on your course with only a whisper of wind! 

They perform this magic without question, but only ask that you balance the helm perfectly! If you do not, the force of the rudder may cause the ropes to unspool from the adapter and the whole system fails. 

If you seem to have just a wee bit of weather helm that you can't trim away, try using a clothes pin to hold the rope on the adapter. If the rudder turns the wheel, the clothes pin will keep the rope from lifting up and coming off. 

This is not a replacement for proper sail trim, simply a crutch to get you through a time when perfect sail balance seems to elude you. 

Keeping the Sun Off

It's a gorgeous day, so why be inside?

We at inside often when the weather turns on us, so when the warm bright sun comes out to shine, we enjoy being in its presence as we enjoy the splendor it brings. The issue is we are both very pale and burn to a crisp in a few minutes!

Maddie has found a lovely solution to keep the sun off of here while still enjoying the light it brings as she reads her book in the cockpit. She has make a tent out of a blanket. The blanket casts a shadow on her while not laying on her. This lets the breeze flow through the setup and keeps her cool and shaded!