Evanston: November 2, 1974--April 28, 2019

        Perhaps unbelievably these photos are of the same man, forty-four years apart.   Time and chance happens to us all.
        In preparing for my appearance at the Richmond Yacht Club next week I came across the top photo which was taken moments before I released the line in my left hand and sailed from Harbor Island Marina in San Diego for my first attempt at Cape Horn and began the being part of my life.  I was nine days short of my thirty-third birthday.

        The second is a capture from a video made on April 28, 2019, about fifty miles south of where the first photo was taken, just short of six circumnavigations later, and the last full day of the being part of my life at age seventy-seven.
        I am going to tell you something odd:  I like the way I look now more than I do how I looked then.

        I fly back to San Diego and GANNET five weeks from today.

Evanston: two questions and the man without fingerprints

        Two of the most frequently asked questions are:  Why did I not use a self-steering vane on GANNET?  and, Why did I truck GANNET across Panama?

        I have answered them frequently, most recently in reply to comments to YouTube videos, so I am going to make it easy on myself and answer them here one last time and just refer any future questioners to this post.

        When I began to plan GANNET’s circumnavigation I intended to install a self-steering vane.  I have used them with success on three other boats.  Aries on EGREGIOUS and RESURGAM.  A Monitor on THE HAWKE OF TUONELA.  

        However being an ultra-light GANNET’s transom is thin and needed to be re-enforced to support the considerable strain a vane will create.  Inside GANNET’s stern is an awkward dead space.  I painted back there with considerable discomfort and had no desire to fiberglass there.  One of the advantages of being an old man is that you can pay young ones to do what you don’t want to do.   A boat yard gave me an estimate of $5,000.  Add to that several thousand dollars more for the vane and I thought:  I can buy a lot of tiller pilots for that.  And I have.
        Subsequently I have seen a video of a self-steering vane mounted on a Moore 24 with the support tubes attached to the deck not the transom.
        Almost everything on a  boat is a compromise.  A vane mounted this way blocks the normal outboard bracket.  Fitting an outboard while underway, even one as light as a Torqeedo, to one side would be considerably more difficult than to the centered bracket, and on GANNET the deck mounted tubes would require moving two solar panels which are essential and I don't know where else I could put them.

        I have used sheet to tiller self-steering, which works from a close reach to a broad reach, for a total of more than 50,000 miles on three different boats:  EGREGIOUS, a 37’ cutter; CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE, an 18’ undecked yawl; and now GANNET, a 24’ ultralight sloop.

        Every boat I have owed could be sailed to windward by tying down the tiller.

        Sheet to tiller.  Tying down the tiller.  Tiller pilots.  Heaving to.  Lying ahull.  That is all that is necessary for me to sail anywhere.

        Were I planning GANNET’s voyage again, knowing what I know now, I would still not have a self-steering vane.

        Of the Panama Canal, GANNET presented multiple problems.  Powering fast and far enough was the easiest to solve simply by borrowing or renting a bigger outboard than the Torqeedo.  But GANNET also has no enclosed head, no way to feed and sleep four line handlers, cleats too small for the hawsers used in the locks, no sun protection for the mandatory advisor.  And I did not want to have five other people on the boat with me for parts of two days and one night.

        I do not know if the canal authorities would have permitted another yacht to tow GANNET through the canal.  No offer of a tow was forthcoming.  I did not want to wait and I don’t like to seek favors, so I decided to have the little boat trucked across.  

Even though the cost escalated obscenely beyond my expectation I do not regret that decision.

————

        Though I have gained back only half of the ten pounds I lost on the passage, I am fully recovered and have been for more than a week.  I am working out regularly, closing the activity circles on my Apple watch daily, and climbing at least twenty floors of stairs daily, again taking them two at a time.

        However I am still a man without fingerprints.  

        The skin has now sloughed off all fingertips and both thumbs and what is left below is not sufficient to be recognized by the sensor on my phone.  Possibly a perfect opportunity to commit a crime, but I have nothing in mind.

Evanston: completed

        I have uploaded fourteen more videos which complete the Balboa to San Diego passage and the circumnavigation.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdl7dZLxNI4VIB_eOiaNgiQ

        I have gained back four of the ten pounds I lost during the passage, no doubt due to my renewed consumption of health foods, such as Cheese-Its and martinis.

        Now I have to do my workout.

Evanston: videography; price hike

        I have posted the first ten videos of the passage from Balboa, Panama, to San Diego, California.  

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdl7dZLxNI4VIB_eOiaNgiQ

        It was a long passage and there will probably be more than thirty videos in all.  They are not mandatory and there will not be a snap quiz.

        As I have written here before, one of the unanticipated consequences of my becoming a Cyclops has been that I need all my remaining vision just to function and don’t have the excess capacity to look around and see what might be interesting still photographs.  That, combined with GANNET being small and that I have already photographed her extensively, has resulted in my seldom taking still photograph any longer during a passage.  

        Taking videos has the advantage of being able to capture a single frame such as the image above.

        I did not realize that the lens on the stern pulpit mounted GoPro was wet and serendipitously got some atmospheric footage that I like.  While blurry I think it expresses something of the essence of the experience.

        I shot the videos on four different cameras, naturally all waterproof, a Nikon AW1 and three GoPros.  My favorite of the GoPros is a Hero 5 Black, which has a touch screen that makes moving through the menus and settings easy and a linear mode that removes the curves endemic to wide GoPro views.

        I have learned that on GANNET the cameras need to be in place before the action and set to start filming with the touch of one button or a voice command.  If you have ever tried to fit a GoPro into a mount, you know it is a tight fit.  It can’t be done when GANNET is bouncing around.

        I had one GoPro mounted on the stern pulpit facing forward.  For a short while I had one mounted on the mast facing aft.  That mount did not stay stuck to the mast, which was unfortunate because that is a good view.

        I have a mount inside the Great Cabin near the companionway facing forward, and I sometimes used a head band mount.

        I just ordered a strap that is long enough to go around the mast to secure the mount there, though I don’t know how much more video I will ever take.  Perhaps just habit of always being ready.

        I shot the first of the ‘end of being’ videos with the Nikon AW1.  When its battery died, I shot the second with the GoPro Hero 5 Black.  In viewing them I am impressed by how superior the GoPro footage is.

        If I do shoot more video, which presumes I will sometime go sailing again, the GoPro Hero 5 Black, or a more recent model, will be my camera of choice.

————

        I recently learned that Drascombe Luggers are currently in production in the UK.  They are being built a company with a different name than Honnor Marine, the original builder.  The base price of a Lugger is £20,000 which at current exchange rates is $26,000.

        I paid about $5,000 for CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE in 1978.  An online calculator shows that $5,000 in 1978 is the equivalent of a little over $19,000 now.  So beyond inflation, the British builder has jacked up the price of a Lugger by a third.

Evanston: only children; videos

        I was an only child and it took.  Being an only child is good preparation for solo sailing.

        Perhaps curiously I have never had a significant relationship with a woman who was an only child.

        Something a friend wrote recently about feeling isolated after sustaining life threatening injuries has caused me to consider if we are all essentially only children, even if we have brothers, sisters, parents and children of our own.

  This morning I uploaded seven more short videos, completing the uploads of the passage from Hilton Head Island to Colon, Panama.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdl7dZLxNI4VIB_eOiaNgiQ

        I’ll get to those of the passage from Balboa, Panama, to San Diego next week.

        Now I have to get my housework done before the Cubs game comes on television at 1 PM.

Evanston: more videos

       I have uploaded five videos of the passage from Hilton Head to Panama.  They can be found at 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdl7dZLxNI4VIB_eOiaNgiQ

        I will upload more tomorrow.

        Yesterday was the first day I have felt like myself since the passage ended.  I did my full workout for the first time since New Year’s Day and don’t feel too sore today.  I also did 21 floors of stairs.

        My hands are a mess.  I have four split fingernails and the skin is peeling from the tips of both thumbs and five fingers.

        I realized yesterday that I have now completed circumnavigations in five successive decades:  70s, 80s, 90s, two in the 00s, and GANNET in the 10s.

Evanston: the end of being

  

        I have just uploaded two videos to YouTube with the title, ‘the end of being’.  

        As I note in the description, they were recorded on the last full day of GANNET’s circumnavigation and are being presented out of order for reasons that will be apparent if you view them.

        I will start uploading videos in chronological sequence tomorrow.

        The above is a capture from one of those videos.

        I am almost fully recovered from the passage.  It is about time.  And have no excuse for not doing my full workout this afternoon.  I am not looking forward to that.  I think it will hurt.  Too bad, old man, get on with it.

        I am going to speak to Moore sailors and perhaps others at Richmond Yacht Club on May 30.  That is Richmond California, not Virginia.

Evanston: the easy life

        A week ago I was just rounding Point Loma.

        Last night I dreamed I was still sailing GANNET.  I started to get up to go on deck when I woke and found myself in bed.

        I am starting to recover.

        I found that I had lost more weight than I thought.  On our scale, which I believe to be accurate, I weighed only 145 pounds Saturday.

        I just did my age in push-ups to see if I still can.  I did not do the entire workout.  That will wait until later in the week.

       Yesterday was an atypically beautiful day in Chicago and Carol and I walked a couple of miles. 

        I notified BoatUS that GANNET is now located in California, which reduced the annual premium from her being in South Carolina from $690 to $180.  No hurricanes in California.  Yet.

        I reviewed the statistics for the circumnavigation.

        I tried to upload the document with all daily runs, but it does not format properly.

        As noted elsewhere the daily runs total 29989 miles.

        The best noon to noon run was 185 miles between Marathon and Hilton Head last year.

        The worst 14 miles between Balboa, Panama, and San Diego this year.

        The best week 1002 miles between San Diego and Hilo, Hawaii in 2014.

        The worst week 368 between Balboa and San Diego this year.

        The longest passage: Darwin to Durban  5814 miles 55 days.

        The shortest passage: Hilo to Honolulu 197miles 2 days.

        Not counting the anchorages while daysailing inside the Great Barrier Reef from Cairns to Cape York, Australia, or the side trip to St. Michaels, Maryland, we stopped only thirteen times.  This is not cruising.

        2014 Hilo; Honolulu; Apia; Neiafu; Opua

        2016  Bundaberg; Darwin; Durban

        2017  St. Helena; St. Lucia; Marathon

        2018  Hilton Head

        2019  Colon/Balboa; San Diego

        I believe we were under sail 302 days.

        My broken sleep pattern persists, but I am getting enough sleep.

        Last night after martinis,  Carol grilled salmon and vegetables with rice, and we finished the last of her birthday cake, followed by a sip or two of Laphroaig.

        We watched the recent remake of A STAR IS BORN in the afternoon and I watched the Cubs game in the evening. 

        Perhaps I have earned a life of ease in the flatlands for a while. 

San Diego: post fight

        I feel as I imagine a boxer feels after a tough fifteen round fight or NFL players feel Monday morning.  For those of you in other countries substitute rugby.  My shoulders and my hands ache; my back is stiff; there are other miscellaneous twinges and pains, and inertia—my body tends to freeze in whatever position it finds itself.  None of this is severe.

        I tell myself:  What did you expect you old fool?  You are seventy-seven years old.  That is and is not relevant.

        While I know that I am not what I once was, I like to believe it probable that anyone who just sailed GANNET or a boat like her, assuming there are any, for 45 days from Panama to San Diego in the same weather we had would ache some, whether he or she was 77 or 27.

        The ocean does not give senior discounts and if it did I would refuse to accept one.  Compromised the experience would not be worthwhile.

        The cure is time.  I know I heal more slowly than the young, but I am confident I will.  During that process thanks to the generosity of others I have in the evening ample liquid to ease the pain.

        I fly tomorrow to Chicago and Carol and what should be an easy life for a while.  This week I have often found myself doing something as simple as making a cup of coffee and thinking:  Everything is so easy here.  I would not want to have lived a life of nothing but ease, but I’m happy to for a while.

        I will return to GANNET in about six weeks.

        I am under the impression that I am caught up with email.  If you wrote to me and didn't receive a response, please write again.  Sometimes emails just disappear.
        And to Rod, in the confusion Monday morning I don't recall if I thanked you for meeting me at the dock.  If I didn't, I apologize and do so now.  It was appreciated.

        I heard no news from when I sailed from Balboa until two days before I arrived in San Diego when I turned on my little Sony receiver and got an all news station in Los Angeles.  After listening for a little while, I thought as I always have after making contact again with what calls itself ‘civilization:  I’ve been gone six weeks and you people are still doing and saying the same stupid things.  It is time to get your act together, people.

        But I don’t expect people will.

        To no one’s surprise who has been reading this for a while, I’m already packed and ready to go.

        The next from the flatlands.

San Diego: settled

        After atypical clouds and rain on my arrival, San Diego has returned to perfect weather.  I do like it here.

        Early this morning Lee, who arranged for me to be a guest at Silver Gate Yacht Club, and I powered GANNET from the club to the dock at Driscoll’s.  Now that she is settled, I will soon be flying to be with Carol.

        Here at the dock I leaned over the side with a putty knife and removed a small colony of gooseneck barnacles that had attached themselves just above the waterline near the bow.  Only one was on the antifouling paint.

        People frequently comment that GANNET looks good for having sailed 5,000 miles in the past few months and 30,000 in the past five years.  There is work to be done on her, but none of it is compelling and I am not in a boat working mood. 

        Despite having slept well the past three nights, I am a little tired and creaky today.  Perhaps the passage is cumulatively catching up with me.

        I have also lost weight, down to 147 from my usual 153-4.

        I have a lot of videos to upload, but they will have to wait until I am back in Evanston.

        I viewed the one of us leaving Hilton Head back on January 25.  It seems a lifetime ago.