While the learning curve was
steep in the months before the trip, it became even steeper once we left the
dock. The intimate understanding of the
boat that is necessary to prepare her seemed to come to me following situations
in which things were not working correctly.
I read as many books as anyone and I would ask questions until I feared
that I had become a pest. Still I needed
to go out there and have parts or systems fail and then fix them before I
understood them sufficiently to go offshore with them. The way I would prepare for going offshore
was by getting beat up offshore.
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| Tangle of wires |
My system for spare parts storage
had consisted of several garbage bags gradually getting ripped apart by their
contents. On the trip I accessed these
so often that by end of the trip I had them organized into bins repurposed from
my children’s on board toy collection. Among those
spares were several extra fuel filters the chief mechanic at Morris had thrust
into my hand at departure which I had been meaning to change already. When the
engine quit and we saw what looked like phlegm in through the filter glass, I
pulled out the books and figured out how to change a filter.
My understanding of what to do in
high winds followed a similar pattern.
Not until I was out in them did I become convinced of what I
needed. The serene waters of Maine that
we had seen most of the summer, gunkholing between Northeast Harbor and Camden,
had lulled me into a sense of security with my current sail control systems. A sled ride from Annapolis to Portsmouth, by
myself in 35 knot winds, moved a few things up on my list. I had debated running backstays all
summer. Deploying the stay sail in those
winds showed me how the mast can pump when a force pulling at its midpoint is
unsupported by running backs. At least I
learned while I was still in Chesapeake Bay.
Before those high winds I figured
I could get by with “work-arounds” rather than secondary winches. Work-arounds are fine until shit hits the fan
and you need all the mechanical help you can get. I realized I cannot afford to save the money when
I was up on the bow trying to manage the disaster created by failed
work-arounds. I had to turn down wind to keep the headsail blanketed by the main sail but had little sea-room so not enough time to set up the clunky preventer system and I watched the boat jibe. Nothing I can do but hold on. I needed the ability to control
lines with enough redundancy to manage multiple things at once. A situation might start with just one thing
going wrong, but can become several things very quickly if things are not
brought under control.
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| Ocean Marine Yacht Center Portsmouth, Virginia |
Mechanically I suppose things
worked out alright. We got our autopilot
back once we figured that the short was in the GPS antenna cable, and all we
had to do was disconnect it, and we felt pretty smart. But now we were tired. For a full day we had rotated one man always
at the wheel, with waves the size of the sledding hills at home in
Minneapolis, while the other two tried to get multimeter readings in
inconvenient places. A couple days later we found the actual frayed spot on the
antenna cable, which could only be seen using a mirror and a flashlight, and
bypassed it so we could use our computerized navigation again. We were on a
roll. We got the engine running when it
quit and I learned how to bleed the fuel lines while wedged in a corner to keep
from being thrown around. I kept devising various rigging experiments like my
continual perfection of the preventer system. Until the boom broke we had been
able to fix most things, and even then we had fuel in jerry cans which enabled
us to motor-sail the rest of the way to Nanny Cay without a main sail.
But the challenges go beyond
figuring out how to control the boat and keep it going. I needed to also manage a crew. I did not appreciate early on how important
it is to clearly communicate the way in which I wanted things done and
maintained. Lines on the boat have
specific uses which sometimes need to be employed immediately and I do not want
those lines used for random jobs.
Equipment storage is tight and moving one thing can create a domino
effect of other things being moved. The
set up of a sailboat is part science, but part art, too and this blend of art
and science creates a system.
Well-meaning deviations from that system by new crew can have
repercussions that break down the system.
Before I had a chance to even
consider those issues I was having a hard time just finding crew. Without crew I would not be able to sleep, so
I required at least one person to sail with me and had decided I needed two in
case someone got sick or hurt. By
October four people had backed out and another turned out not to be a good
fit. Each time I was down a person I was
left slightly panicked about who else I could find. I was asking people to take a three-week trip out on
the ocean with a captain new to ocean sailing and with a new boat. My list of friends to call was getting short.
I could certainly tell
prospective crew that it was a well-made boat and that I had taken every step
to make her safe, but I was also aware that I might not be offering the level
of modern conveniences that some people expect on a cruising boat. My personal taste is to have more of a
wilderness-out-in-nature type experience than a pampered one. I chose and equipped my boat
accordingly. She is a strong sea-going
boat, but she is small boat which means that the area where the people live is
closer to where the sharks live.
There is no shelter behind which to steer without being exposed to the
elements. We do have an autopilot and a new electric refrigerator so we are
not living primitively, but I do not have a microwave and I cannot run a hair
dryer, much to the surprise of some prospective crew. I crank my anchor up manually. I have an electrical navigation system but I
really prefer to use the paper charts.
Prior to departure I developed
anxiety about losing crew. Each time someone
backed out it was the same. I don’t hear
from them for a couple of weeks, they’re not asking questions about the trip
and I end up giving them a call to see what’s up. I became frustrated as I
realized that my dependence on crew cut into my coveted independence. By the time we started I had become excessively
accommodating. I would not speak up when
we dropped below my usual standard of neatness on the boat. I did not enforce equality in cooking or
dishes. I said yes to fishing late
in the day just as we were entering the Gulf Stream. I let people change where things are put
away. I let myself be convinced by crew
to leave the dock when we weren’t ready based on an assurance that we could get
things done underway. As we approached
Tortola I was going to risk making landfall at night, cutting through some
narrow channels, because my crew had been counting the hours until our arrival.
I succumbed to pressure in how much we ran the
engine. I took chances with crew like
letting one steer with the spinnaker which developed into a situation in which
I thought we could lose the mast 400 miles from shore. Worst of all I deviated from a safe course to
one that was much more dangerous when a crew member threatened to leave the
boat if I didn't and still was going to keep that crew after he openly questioned my role
as captain.
I am not particularly interested
in being the authoritarian captain, but I can appreciate how that tradition
came to be. Simple decisions on a boat
become complex given the interactions of all the systems and if I have made a
decision that I like something done a certain way on my boat then that is the
safest way to do it until we have a time to sit down and think of a
new way. Routine is good and with a new
crew on board routine has to be enforced.
Also, it takes a considerable amount of confidence to be the captain of
a boat. Threats to my confidence make me
less able to see solutions to problems.
I was already uncertain of my own ability.
Interestingly, I think a friend
was trying to help me with just these aspects of preparation in the weeks
before I left. He recommended some reading and I was surprised that it dealt
with how to run sailing campaigns, not about actual sailing. When he talked to
me about my preparation he asked me about my watch schedule with a
concern for how we would get rest, maintain active roles and facilitate
communication. I thought he still needed
to teach me about technical stuff like the wind speeds at which I was going to
reduce sail. I had noted the measured intensity with which other captains the
year before had approached the days before departure and was aware that my
busyness was making it hard to achieve that level.
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| First time up the mast |
The
boat is now sitting up on land in Tortola, British Virgin Islands. People tend
to assume I would feel a sense of accomplishment, but more than anything I am
humbled by the experience. I needed to
do all the preparation I did and I needed the pressure of the trip to force
that level of preparation. But I could
prepare all I wanted -- I was not going to be prepared for a cognitive and
emotional challenge in one of the most remote places on earth until I had done
it myself, in my own boat, responsible for all major decisions. If I had not done the trip, I wouldn't even
know what I didn't know. I could have
stayed close to shore or hired a professional captain, but I never would have
learned.
ps: this blog post appeared in Sail magazine
ps: this blog post appeared in Sail magazine
