Hurry up and wait!

Oh dang ... a whole month has gone by.

So, here's the thing. I had three major projects (and lots of lesser ones!) that had to be completed before I could think about leaving. In no particular order these are:

• Acquire and commission an AIS system. (see Wikipedia article on AIS here.)
• Have the auto-pilot sent back to Raymarine for repair, hopefully under warranty
• Have the torn UV panels on the head-sail replaced.

A month later I find that sometimes it may be true that 'two out of three aint bad', but in this situation it isn't good enough. I know this because ... well, you've probably figured it out. One of them is still in waiting-on-somebody-else mode.

The AIS system looked, after my initial research, like it was going to consist of three different electronic components at a minimum cost of about $500; undoubtedly with a great deal of drama getting the three components to talk to each other as well. Then, thankfully before I had committed to purchasing that setup, I stumbled across a VHF radio that has AIS built in. And it will talk to my GPS/Charplotter. And it was only going to cost $450. And it has DSC. (Off you go to Wikipedia again.) To add the icing to the cake, if I couldn't get it to talk to my GPS, (so many acronyms!) or the GPS failed, it has it's own, admittedly quite small, display screen. I nearly swooned. But wait ... there's more! While researching that one, I discovered another model that has all the same features that I wanted, and it was only $230. I even managed, by myself, to get it to talk to the Chartplotter. The VHF radio that was on the boat when I bought it is still working, but I've now got two additional and significant safety devices built in, and I'll keep the old one for a 'back-up' unit.

What I see on the GPS. The green triangles are
other boats with AIS systems

The new toy

So there it is. Hooked up and working. It has been for a week now, and seems to work OK here in the harbour. Why do I say 'in the harbour'? Because I had it up and running from early this week, but the other two projects weren't done yet, so no sailing.Gaah!

Today I received the patched head-sail back from the sail loft. When I took it the local branch of North Sails I explained what I wanted done and the guy was all: "OK, lets have a look at it." So we took it out of the sail bag and he's looking pretty unimpressed. Then I said "It only has to get me back to Australia and I'll upgrade to something better.", thinking this would re-assure him. It had the opposite effect. His head jerked around to me and he said "You're sailing to Australia?". "Umm .. yes." He looked at the sail again, and then turned back to me with an expression that very eloquently said "Not with a sail in this condition you're not!". Le sigh.

So I left it with him, and he rang back the next day and said "OK, I can make it serviceable. But I'm not putting any guarantees on it.". Was a bit embarrassing, really. But it's done.The UV panels would have cost about $100 on their own. The patch up and strengthening cost $400.Pretty much what I'd saved on the AIS.

Which leaves us with the auto-pilot.In fairness to Raymarine, I must say that it took two weeks to get it to them. The first week I was fluffing around with it, trying to establish what, exactly, had gone wrong with it. Then there was a few days of being mucked around by the local Raymarine agent, so it only arrived at Raymarine two weeks ago, and there was public holiday in the middle of that. But if it isn't back by early next week I may have to make a phone call in my grumpy voice.Yeah, that'll scare 'em into action.

Some of the the numerous little jobs have been done. I'm finding it pretty difficult to get motivated though, as I keep thinking "no hurry, the big ones are all in wait mode." No doubt I'll get the auto-pilot back and suddenly realise that I'm only still here in California because I've been sitting on my behind and not being productive. So I've been making some effort in the last few days.  

In terms of planning, I'm re-evaulating my intention to stop over in the Marquesas and Tonga. I'm thinking I might provision for the whole trip, and lay a course that takes me within a day or two of those, and probably a few other ports, and see if can do it more or less non-stop. Then if I need to I can detour to the nearest, but keep going if all is well. I haven't committed to that, but it's certainly possible that I'll go down that path.


Toodles.

W.

PS:  I stumbled across the pic below on a local boat-parts retailer's web site.

Notice something? Apart from the obvious, obviously. The weather. It's quite calm. So how did they end up like this? The story, as told on the site, is that the boat was being filmed as part of a movie under production. The director wasn't happy with the way the boat was sailing along, all upright and calm, so to get it heel over and look more exciting, he instructed some of the crew to climb the mast and lean out to one side. Which they did. (You can see them still clinging on.) Further ... further ... too far!

I think the moral here is that 'looking exciting' isn't really what sailing is about. Now they just look stupid. 

Importance of seeing the big picture

The following is a 'reflection' I appended to my log entry on 14th April (day 7), at 1:00 am.


A boat at sea should be thought of, by those that want to be 'a crew', as a complete entity. To think of the boat as a set, or worse a collection of sets of tasks, spars and ropes, or as a mode of transport, is to fail to grasp something important that is going on out here.


The boat is my whole world for the duration of the journey. It is the sum and extent of things on which I can exert any direct influence, and my life, no less, depends on it. Off hand I'm not sure if that is re-assuring or terrifying, but I am certain that it is important, and that those 'that go down to the sea' do well to think of their vessel as a complete entity. And their 'vessel' it is, for it both contains and carries them, or doesn't do either, in accordance with the degree to which they have been mindful and caring for the complete entity that is a boat.

Now, several weeks later, I can't remember what inspired those thoughts. It was something to do with taking a holistic view of the experience, clearly. But it was also a reflection on focussing on details and in doing so missing out on appreciating the whole concept of what a boat is and what it can do. The boat can be lost for the failure of a small bolt or piece of wire, and those things are thus important, sometimes crucial. But their importance is in what they contribute to the integrity of the whole; and looking after those things is not done for its own sake, but for the well-being of the boat.

The fact that I wrote it at one o'clock in the morning may have had something to do with it as well. :P

whoops ... were did the time go?

errr ... sorry 'bout that.

So I went home, did the stuff that needed doing (most of it, anyway), and flew back here a couple of days ago. I'm now back on-board Hellcat, compiling a list of what needs to be done before I make the second attempt at a passage home.

The great thing about compiling lists of things to do is that it feels constructive, and is much easier than actually doing the stuff that you put on the list.

I took a couple of days putting the below-decks area back into livable space after the sudden departure. I'm reasonably happy with it now. I've re-organised some of the storage spaces, and done some wood oiling. No, seriously, the interior woodwork is teak, and in places was effected by water ingress discolouring the teak surfaces. Not enough to set rot in, but looking at it after an absence of a couple weeks I was surprised at how obviously the teak was marked where water had trickled across it. There were pale streaks across the front of the lockers and shelf facings. A simple fix was to wipe across the surfaces with a rag soaked in teak oil. Ahh ...'s pretty again!

I promised a couple of excerpts from the log I maintained in the first attempt. I'll put one up right now, in a separate post.

Cheers.

Journey to nowhere

Or at least, just back to where I started.

So, here's the thing. On the 7th of April, I set off for the Marquesas Islands. Yes I know, I didn't blog for days before that and didn't tell you what was happening, and it's all terribly unfair. Dry your eyes princess, I was busy.

So off we went. The forecast was great. We should have had 5 days of steady north-westerly winds at about 15 knots, which is ideal. And when we set off, that's just what we had. A 'beam reach', probably the best combination of fast and comfortable sailing. 7 knots we were doing. 7, I tells ya! For about 6 hours. Then we were becalmed for about 3 hours. Then the wind came back, and went away again. So we were becalmed for about 12 hours in the first 3 days, but still managed 300 nm (nautical miles (540 km. 1 nautical mile is about 1.8 km)).

Unfortunately, Going neither fast or comfortably, nor on a reach, run or tacking into the wind, made any difference to the crew being sea-sick. It was not good, and it didn't go away.

Anyway, we were out of sight of land by sunrise on the second day. That's when it really sinks in, for me at least, that this is a big ocean. There's nothing but water as far as the eye can sea. And it isn't flat at all. The ocean swells mean that parts of it are always moving. Really big parts, sometimes. It can be really eerie to have the boat sink down into a small valley, and you're looking up at the water all around you, even when it's relatively calm. Then later you're sailing along on the top of a small hill of water, and everything is 'down', and you can see other small hills of water moving around the landscape. Took some getting used to.

The boat was boarded by seas creatures on three occasions. And they were ... squid. Not giant attacking squid rising from the deep.Little things, not much bigger than my thumb. One of them actually made it into the cockpit. I'm not sure how, but it didn't end well for the squid. It must have been washed into the cockpit during the night, and ended up under my feet. All I knew was, when the sun came up, there was squid ink smeared around the cockpit floor, where I had apparently trampled the poor thing to an inglorious end. So it goes.

There were a couple of periods of just about every variety of weather available, and we were consistently managing 100 nm per day. I was, apart from James continuing to be sick, pretty satisfied. Then on day 9 the autopilot gave up the ghost. This, it occurred to me almost immediately, was 'not good'.

A quick decision was made, and that was that we couldn't continue with  sick crew member and no autopilot for the remaining 1800 nm to Nuku Hiva. Hawaii was almost as far, and Mexico was something like 1100 nm. Our starting point, Channel Islands Harbor was 'only' 950 nm behind us. So, around we went, heading back.

The weather, I would have to say, was not kind to us on the way back. Not severe, but coming from exactly where we wanted to go, for about 5 days straight. The sailors among you will know that this means tacking. For 5 days. But we got through it, and slipped back into the same pen that we started from some 19 days and 1954nm later.

The plan now is that I'll fly home to get some administrative stuff sorted, and the two fillings that fell out of my teeth during the trip replaced, then come back and try again. James has decided that a sailor's life is not for him, and has resigned from the project. So it's back to my original plan ... doing it solo!

I fly out of LAX tomorrow night, and should be back home in sunny Stawell on ... err ... Tuesday, I think. Then I'll be back here in two to three weeks, do the repairs and make some changes based on my first attempt, and try again.I'm really pleased with how the boat handled the variety of conditions, and with the lessons learned from the first attempt, I'm even more confident that this can be done. Not easily, but it can be done.

I'll transcribe a couple of my 'reflections' from the ships log in the next couple of posts, but that will be a few days away, as I'll be travelling and so on.

Toodly pip.

How Embarrasment, and some progress

OK, the embarrassing part first. Imagine, if you will, that your car doesn't have any brakes. To stop the car you have to let the revs die down, and put it in reverse. Then turn off the motor before it starts to move you backwards. Further, this imaginary car doesn't haven't an 'Off' position on the ignition, instead it just shuts off the engine if you take your foot off the accelerator. Now imagine trying to park in a place where there is a wall at the end, but you must fit the car neatly and completely inside the space.

Well parking a boat in a pen is bit like that. Mine is a bit more of an accident waiting to happen than most, because someone decided to disconnect the engine 'kill' switch, and allow the throttle to to operate as a shut-down mechanism if you pull it all the way back to the normal 'Idle' position..

So last night after another sail that started with a period of being becalmed and turned into a great sail later, I got back to the pen, lined it up perfectly, and just where I got to the point where I'm supposed to select Reverse to bring it to a stop, I bring the throttle back too far and shut off the engine. The boat, which weighs several tonnes, is still rapidly moving forward towards the end of the pen which is only a few metres away. Then things got much worse. The engine wont start with the throttle in the 'kill' position, so I push it forward. Unfortunately, in my haste, I push it way too far. Then I hit the Start button, forgetting that the boat is still in Forward gear. The motor roars into life at pretty much full throttle, and the boat surges forward into the end of the pen. I don't think I can adequately describe the image as the bow of the boat actually started to slide up onto the footpath area of pen, and then slid off sideways, banging the side of the hull into the side wall of the pen. By this time I had gathered my wits enough to kill the engine, again. And I certainly don't think I should repeat the words that I said. It was something like "Oh dear, that wasn't quite what I intended to do". Perhaps a few other words as well.

Fortunately there was no significant damage to either the pen or the boat, and it was well after dark so there wasn't any one around to witness my misadventure, but I spent most of the night calling myself all kinds of stupid.

So, putting that behind me, a quick list of the things I did today ... spliced the anchor rope onto the anchor chain (so the windlass can pull both up without having to deal with a joining shackle), fitted one cleat and replaced a seized one, and this ...

Before ...

After!

 Well, OK I didn't actually do it, but I organised a sign-writer, so I can claim that 'I got it done'. Being a requirement of Australian ship registration, I'm not allowed to have it in anything than boring old block letters.


And, um, yeah, that's about it. Doesn't seem like much when I put them in a list. No matter, it's progress!

Oh ... I also figured out how to place pictures in this blog. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the 2 large pods of dolphins that came close to the boat during two recent sails. When I say large I mean well over 20. That's a lot of dolphins playing around a boat. Maybe next time.

Bed time here. Later all!

EDIT: PS. I forgot to note that the solar panel has arrived, and is taking up the couch in the cabin while awaiting installation. My 'sparky' says he can't get here till Tuesday.(sad face).

Sailing ... that's what I'm talking about!

Solar panel hasn't arrived yet  :<

It  has however been occupying my mind. I checked out my second preference for a mounting spot and it won't fit there either! Crap. So now it looks like I'm going to have to build a frame for it to sit on or over the stern rail. Not a huuuge cost, but big enough to feel. More aggravating is the time factor. It will no doubt take an extra couple of days to get it installed.

On the bright side ...

A couple of good sailing sessions in the last few days!

On Saturday I took the boat out for what was meant to be a 2 -3 hour trip out to a local navigation mark, an offshore platform called "Gina". It's about 4 miles out from the harbour, and I figured it would be about a 2 hour round trip, max. Just as we cleared the breakwater the wind started to die out, and continued to fade.

After 3 hours of bobbing up and down on the pacific swell, and going nowhere, I was still less than a quarter of the way along the outward leg. How, I hear you ask, does this qualify as 'a good sail'? The good part was that I persisted in trying to make the return trip, until well after sundown. Eventually the 'evening change' in the wind came through, and suddenly we were moving along at a tidy 5+ knots in the dark. So it was a good practice session for night sailing. And it was just fun. When I made it to the mark I was seriously tempted to keep going for a couple of miles further. It was however, late enough to convince me to turn around and head back.

Sunday was cold and raining, so we stayed in. More snow on the local ranges. It makes for an odd effect when I get up, seeing snow covered ranges while standing on boat. Apart from some inland lakes I don't think there's anywhere in Australia where I can do that.

Last night we ran out of gas for the stove, and the only place that sells the right sort of gas refills is about 5 miles up the coast, in Ventura Harbor. Yes I know 'harbour' is supposed to have a 'u' in it. It's an American place and therefore has the US spelling. OK? (And Yup, that's the same “Ventura” from the 70's song.It turns out that there is no "Ventura Highway" though. Perhaps it grew into the Freeway? Or perhaps they were just referring to 'a' highway near Ventura? Dunno, but there aint no Highway called Ventura Highway.) Anyway, back to the story ...the last time we ran out of gas one of the locals gave James a lift up there to get a refill. I was thinking of asking for another lift today, when it occurred to me that it was a good distance for a short sail, so we did. And it was a great afternoon. A pleasant 15 knot breeze and we were making 6 knots in a boat not particularly prepared for pace. A great afternoon's sailing.

Parked for lunch

One of the batteries is showing some erratic output, so I guess I'll have to replace the old pair that I was going to take a chance on. I'm already a week over my target departure date and starting to feel just a bit frustrated. 

Get me out of here!

Almost there

... if 'there' is defined as 'not here'. Which is probably an unnecessarily complicated way of saying 'nearly ready to go'.

Today I retrieved the head-sail from the sailmaker. All repaired and strengthened at the main attachment points. Also had the 'rigger' back to replace some stuff at the mast-head and run a couple of new halyards. My productive contribution was to scrape the old home port information off the stern. So Hellcat no longer boasts of being from "Channel Islands California". I'll get a quote from the local boat-signage people to put "Melbourne" on there, as I suspect it will be cheaper to get it done here than at home.

The last lot of work is for the marine electrician to do a heap of installations. (Autopilot, windlass, separate cranking battery, solar panel.) Can't really finish that until the solar panel arrives next week though. I found a 100 watt panel for about A$250 and ordered (and paid) for it, as it was far and away the cheapest I had seen for that output. Next day, sure enough, I saw the identical panel on eBay for less than $200. Oh well. No point losing sleep over it. At 100 watts it should provide enough to replace all our battery drain, on all but the cloudiest days. I do have to figure where on the boat I'm going to mount the thing though, as it's bigger than what I had intended to get, and wont fit in the old spot. That could take some thinking about.

Off to bed. It's late. But at least I got a new post done in less than a week. Pretty impressive, huh?