Sunset Forecast

As the sun gets low to the horizon, it would be hoove you to take a good look at tonight’s weather. The sun will soon be gone and clouds will disappear into the dark night sky.  

If you see towering columns of clouds, demonstrating the rapid uprise of warm moist air, you are being shown that the weather around you is unstable and you should prepare for squalls during the night. This is a great time to reef down to your storm sails while you still have light instead of waiting for it to hit in the dark of the night.  

On the other hand, if you see few flat clouds, then you are being shown that there is little upwards movement in the air and can expect a peaceful night of sailing.  

We stopped downloading weather faxes and instead opted for the “local forecast” at sunset.  

Exercise While Cruising

When you are crossing an ocean, you are forced to spend many weeks at sea in a small floating hallway.  Every now and then you walk to the bow to enjoy the view or you make your way to the mast to raise or lower a sail, reef, or check for unlucky flying fish that have landed on the deck.  It's possible that you will remain with the same sail plan and tack for days on end, however, and with automatic steering, crossing an ocean becomes napping, reading, or watching for whales on a bobbing platform for a very long time.  This is not exactly conducive to an active lifestyle. Coastal sailing is hard work, but crossing an ocean requires very little actual physical activity.  It is therefore very important that you make an effort to exercise in some way while you are out.  I found it very difficult to force myself each day to try and keep my muscles from inevidibly depleating.  I often turned to yoga since it is easy to do in a small area, but it is a practice that is rooted in stability and that can become a problem if the seas are at all choppy.  Both of us lost a substantial amount of weight on the journey and I believe it was more from lack of eating excessively than anything else, but we definitely lost muscle because it is almost impossible to do the amount of conditioning necessary to maintain what we had when we were running and hiking.  I recommend planks.  Your core gets a nice workout from simply stabllizing your body throughout the passage, but planks are great for many additional muscle groups including legs, shoulders, and back.  It is easy to do a plank at any point in the cockpit, on the bow, or below in the cabin.  You will find that a few 30 second planks a day will do wonders.  I tried to run in place a few times, but that was not great for the boat's surface and it was difficult to keep my balance.  For legs, I recommend squats.  Be sure to hold onto something if you have to, and stand on your tiptoes to include the calves.  Leg lifts, crunches, and push-ups are all easy, low to the ground exercises that can be done on a boat during all weather.  

I mention all of this because it is easy to forget to take care of yourself during an ocean crossing.  This is because it feels like a fantasy.  You are so far from the norm that you are used to, and you measure your time very differently from when you are on land.  Everything slows down, and you can forget to eat, drink, and exercise because life has a different pace out there.  Give yourself a schedule.  Set a time to eat, a time to do a plank, a time to take medications or vitamins.  Because the physical effect that cruising has on your body doesn't have to be immense at all.   

Removing a Stripped Screw

Old screws can present a challenge to remove, they are usually located in a hard to reach place and invariably, the hardest one to reach will not want to budge. As you force on the head with your properly fitted screw driver, the force will cause the internal shape to alter, resulting in nice even ramps that will dispel any attempts at unscrewing with a screw driver. Now what? 

You have an easy option at this point, the drill! By drilling into the screw, you will do one of two things. 

1. You will drill off the head and render the screw worthless as the head is no longer attached to fasten anything.  

2. The drill will get stuck in the screw and by reversing the drill, you will also unscrew the stubborn fastener. 

After you drill into the screw a few millimeters, simply stop and give the drill a little tug back. If the drill bit does not pop out easily, don’t force it. Simply put the drill in reverse and enjoy the ease of unscrewing the fastener with a power tool! 

Dawn

Sunrise is a magical time on the ocean. Overnight is not a time for sleep, but a time when your ears do the looking.  

The sun sets and the stars come out, your ability to see diminishes but sound carries incredibly well over water. Sleeping whales breathe loudly in the obscurity of the night, just at the waters surface. They are invisible to your eyes, but not to your ears! 

All night long, your imagination runs wild as you peace together random fragments from your senses; and then dawn comes. The sky to the east begins to glow in preparation for the suns glorious arrival.  

When the sun comes up, you get to change watches and get some sleep. Imagination fades as your eyes squelch out your creativity, showing you what “is” there rather than letting your mind believe it knows what is “to be” there. 

Sta-Lok

Have you ever wondered what goes on inside a Sat-Lok fitting? At the Annapolis Boat Show, I had the privilege of seeing just how their system works with my own eyes (instead of imagining it based off of technical drawings). 

Sta-Lok milled away a section of one of their fittings to allow show-goers the ability to lay their eyes on what goes on inside of the terminators.  

Sta-Lok is a HyMod type fitting where the strands of the wire are actually spread out over a cone and then pinched at the bottom. The outer strands wrap over the cone while the core strands pass through the cone. As the wire is pulled out of the fitting, the cone crushes down on the core wires, holding them in place. The whole system is very simple and very effective, and this model just makes everything easier to mentally grasp.