Hilton Head Island: equipment; changes to main site; ships in bad weather; many, many marathons

 

 

For my birthday Carol gave me the Icom M94D handheld VHF I requested.  I already have an Icom handheld VHF, but this is the first to include AIS tracking.

I unboxed the radio and found that almost nothing about it except turning it on and off is intuitive or obvious.  I turned it on and immediately got a series of piercing beeps and a flashing ‘Collision Warning’ on the screen.  I pushed the Clear button and thankfully it stopped, only to resume after a short interval.  I turned the radio off and began to read the 75 page instruction book.  It is not necessary to read it all because the radio does a great many things I don’t need and won’t use including setting waypoints.  I do that in my navigation apps on my iPhone and iPad.

Once I had learned how to turn the volume up and down and change channels and how to display the AIS screen and control its functions, I found that there is a boat in the marina with an AIS transmitter constantly on.  This is what the radio determined was too close to me and likely to result in a collision.  It had no way of knowing that I was on the third story of a building on shore and reasonably safe.

From the porch of our condo I received signals from a dozen ships and boats.  I do not know yet what I would receive from GANNET’s considerably lower elevation or if AIS will be useful to me.  We will find out.

Here is a link to a review of the radio:

https://boattest.com/node/104875

One of the dozens of magazines that I can read through Apple News+ is the British YACHTING WORLD.  In the current issue they ran tests of five small outboards in the 3 hp range.  Three were gasoline and two electric.  One of the electric was Torqeedo and the other a Spirit Evo of which I had not known.  The reviewer liked the electric outboards for the same reasons I do and he preferred the Chinese made Spirit over the Torqeedo because of its larger battery and because its propeller if left in the water while under sail at four knots or more free wheels and recharges the battery.  This would make some noise, but is a very good idea.  Were I buying an electric outboard now I would give careful consideration to the Spirit Evo.

https://fourseas.com/spirit-1-0-evo/

I have added my 80th birthday photo to the immodest page of pictures of myself on the main site and reorganized the page so that the captions can now all be seen.  I have also made minor changes to some of those captions and to the page that was labeled ‘condominium’ and is now called ‘Evanston’.  I will soon add a Hilton Head Island page as this is now my land home.  The picture at the top of this entry is of last night’s lingering sunset which I watched while sipping cava on the porch.  You may already be bored with such sunsets, I am not and there will be more.

https://www.inthepresentsea.com/the_actual_site/webb2.html

From Larry comes a link to a video of dramatic footage of ships and yachts in bad weather.  I thank him.   The sailboat near the pier caused an involuntary expletive.  What were those fools doing anywhere near that spot?  They survived only through dumb luck.  Dump being the operative word.  I would have been heading straight out to sea before I got anywhere near such waves.

Of another scene I quote Larry:  ‘Note the guys on the rock steady aircraft carrier laughing at the rough ride of a destroyer escort. I remember doing the same.’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZSM5ZbdpWw

Big boat sailors are cruel.

Two days ago I read of the remarkable achievement of Alyssa Clark in setting a woman’s world record by running a full marathon every day for 95 consecutive days.  Almost incredible that her body could recover day after day after day.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/14/us/vermont-runner-world-record-trnd/index.html

I did not even know there is such a record, but reasoned that if there is one for women there is one for men.  Indeed there is.  It is held by the Spaniard Ricardo Abad Martinez who ran a full marathon every day for 607 days.  That does not seem humanly possible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Abad

I note that neither of them played violin in a symphony orchestra in the evening after running their marathon as my friend Tim has done twice.

I also note that when I set what was then the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation in a monohull in EGREGIOUS I didn’t even notify Guinness.  I felt no need of their validation.  Somehow they learned of the voyage and contacted me.

Hilton Head Island: thanks and so far, so good ; helmsman; over; my kind of boat

 

First I want to thank all of you who have sent me good wishes on becoming ancient.  It is heartening to know that I have been appreciated and may have been a good influence to some.

Carol and I have had two lovely days.

On my birthday she drove us to the ocean side of the island where we walked on the beach.  We returned to have lunch in GANNET’s cockpit.  Then went out to dinner at a restaurant named Poseidon.  Her choice.  Following which I did indeed have a few sips of Laphroaig and raised my glass as I said I would.

Yesterday we biked three miles and back to Dolphin Point which is on Port Royal Sound.  I don’t recall ever seeing dolphin there, but I almost always do on Skull Creek.

In the afternoon we went to a theater to see the latest James Bond movie, NO TIME TO DIE.  I saw the first James Bond movie, DOCTOR NO, in late May 1963 a few days before I graduated from college.  I think I have seen all of them since.  DOCTOR NO was low budget.  Sean Connery drove a Sunbeam Alpine in the chase scenes, not an Aston Martin.  We enjoyed NO TIME TO DIE which has deservedly received good reviews.

This was our first visit to a movie theater in probably two years.  This was an independent theater which surely has been hemorrhaging money since the pandemic began.  I don’t know how they have been able to stay open.  On a Friday afternoon there were only eight of us in the widely dispersed audience.

We returned to a frozen pizza expertly doctored by Carol accompanied by a bottle of Chianti.

This being seriously elderly has been pretty nice.  So far.

James sent me a fine poem, ‘The Helmsman’, I did not know by a poet, W.S. Merwin, I did not know but will investigate further.  I thank him.

Though I have no official status I officially declare the hurricane season over.  At least for Hilton Head.  As noted here before for reasons I do not know the tropics went quiet at the beginning of October and have remained that way.

According weather.gov: The first condition (to sustain a hurricane) is that ocean temperatures must be above 26 degrees Celsius (79 Fahrenheit).  Below this threshold temperature, hurricanes will not form or will weaken rapidly once they move over water below this threshold.

Today’s ocean temperature at Hilton Head Island is 63ºF/17.2C.

The vessel in the photo at the top is NOAH’S VIOLIN.  She is slightly longer than EGREGIOUS and THE HAWKE OF TUONELA, but I doubt sails as well.  I like her anyway.  The explanation:

 

Hilton Head Island: 80

 

The age of miracles has not passed.  I am eighty years old today.  Few, if any, including me, expected I would reach such an age.  ‘Almost dying is a hard way to make a living’, I once wrote, and I have almost died more times than I can easily recall.  It goes with the territory of pushing beyond the edge of human experience.  Either I was very good or I was very lucky.  Perhaps both.

I now mostly live in a condo on South Carolina’s Hilton Head Island overlooking Skull Creek which is part of the Intracoastal Waterway.  GANNET is docked five hundred feet away.  I can see her mast from our windows and deck.

Hilton Head Island has a wonderful climate from October to May, but is too hot in the summer with heat indexes  routinely 105ºF.  So I am considering sailing somewhere cooler next summer.  Iceland sounds cool.

Carol and I will spend the day quietly.  I’ll go down and sit on GANNET for a while and consider what I’ve done with my life and what I might still do.  This evening we will go out to dinner and when we return I will pour some of my favorite liquid, Laphroaig 10 year old single malt Scotch, and raise my glass to you and to me and to our dreams and to the passion to fulfill them.

To life.

And yes.  I have done my age in push-ups today.  In fact twice my age in push-ups and crunches in sets of 80-40-40, with some knee bends and side leg rises mixed in.

Hilton Head Island: the last evening of my 79th year

 Bach.  Plymouth gin.  Sunset.  Waiting for Carol.

Hilton Head Island: high tides; three Japanese poems; and a splendid wall decoration

 

The low that was lingering offshore finally moved away yesterday afternoon, but before it did it caused the fourth highest tide recorded at Fort Pulaski at the mouth of the nearby Savannah River in the eighty-five years measurements have been taken there.  Of the twenty 10’+ tides ever recorded at Fort Pulaski thirteen have been recorded since 2015.  

I have noticed that the tides on Skull Creek have been unusually high these past few days, reaching almost to the base of the closest palm trees.  From my chair by our bedroom window I watched small egrets bobbing up and down on rafts of dead spartina.  

There is talk of building a creek wall, but I don’t expect that this condo and perhaps Hilton Head Island will be here in 2100.  But then neither will we.

From THE ANCHOR BOOK OF CHINESE POETRY.

The first two are anonymous dating from about 1600 A.D.  The third by Yuan Mei who lived 1716-1798 and seems particularly appropriate for one ten years older than the author.

As I have written here before Kent, self-proclaimed moveable ballast and maintainer of Audrey’s Armada of small boats, and Audrey have moved the fleet from near Pensacola, Florida, to near Norfolk, Virginia, because they were too settled and enjoy incredibly complicated moves.  I have found owning two boats beyond me.  They own about twenty.  I am not sure how many.  I don’t know that even they know.

One of them is a Drascombe Lugger, ONKAHKE, whose floorboards needed replacing.  Kent is one of you who can build anything and he made new floorboards.  Instead of discarding the old ones he and Audrey have hung them on the wall as in the photo above.  I am filled with admiration and envy.  We have blank walls in this condo, but I don’t have any old floorboards and I don’t think Carol would let me hang them if I did.

I thank Kent for permission to use the photo.

Sail on.

Hilton Head Island: heated; clutched; the end is nigh; HIGH NOON; Capt. Cook and other explorers

I seek no sympathy from those of you who have already experienced much colder temperatures, but today is overcast, rainy and raw by Hilton Head standards and it is only 48ºF/9C in mid-afternoon and I have turned on the heat for the first time since early in the year.  We have a gale warning for near coastal waters, but on this side of the island as usual there is much less wind.  The oaks and Spanish moss are swaying, but not yet frenzied.

I biked to GANNET on Wednesday and installed the new double halyard clutch and returned yesterday to give the bolts a final tightening after the sealant had set.  The new clutch is Spinlock.  The old was Lewmar.  Naturally the mounting holes did not quite match.  In the photo the darker blue line is the spinnaker halyard.  The lighter blue line in the middle is the main halyard.  And the gray line is the spinnaker pole topping lift.  I only set asymmetrical spinnakers and gave away my spinnaker pole years ago in Hawaii.  I’ve kept the line possibly to set the storm jib as a staysail, although I never have, or to help stabilize the mast should there be rigging damage.

This clutch is said to work with lines as small as 4 mm.  My main halyard is ¼”/6mm.  So hopefully it will hold and not slip.  If it does I have a 5/16” halyard which will also fit in the clutch.  This is much bigger line than GANNET requires, but if necessary I will try it.  Threading line though the Spinlock is easy.  On the Lewmar it is not.

James, a journalist who came to see me Tuesday morning, took me to nearby Bluffton to see his boat, SEA GYPSY, a Pearson Electra.  Along the way we stopped for coffee and outside I saw this sign.  It is quite enough that the United States considerately planned ahead and made my birthday a national holiday even before I was born.  But coming to an end on that day is simply too much.

I say farewell now.  It has been a pleasure to know you.

Last night I watched the 1952 Gary Cooper film, HIGH NOON, on Amazon Prime.  I saw it when it first came out and I was ten or eleven years old.  I have seen it since but not for many years.  It is one of the greatest movies ever made.  Perfect in stark black and white and every detail.  It was nominated for best picture, but did not win.  I googled and find that THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH did that year.  An egregious error.

I have written that I was formed in part by the epics of ancient Greece and the American West.  HIGH NOON was surely an influence.  If you haven’t watched it for a while, you should give yourself that pleasure.

Another James—you people are everywhere—recently emailed that the 293rd anniversary of Capt. James Cook’s birth will be this Sunday, November 7.  November is obviously a month of great sailors.

I wrote back:  I have read much of Cook, who did not circumnavigate three times because he was killed in Hawaii during the third.  He definitely changed during the eleven years from the beginning of his first circumnavigation to his death.  Too much almost constant stress.  Yet here was a man of rare ability who was in the right place at the right time and more than fulfilled the unlikely opportunity that opened for him.

Of explorers I recently came across in the STAYING ALIVE anthology, T.S. Eliot’s ‘Four Quartets’ part of which I have quoted before.  As I approach 80 it is appropriate to quote it again.

Hilton Head Island: the social monk; Hitler; oblivion; affairs; Brenno Blauth

I am sitting by our bedroom window looking out at twilight after the setting sun.  I have taken a couple of photographs, but they do not capture the reality.  They are too insipid.  I tried to edit the images but could not come close enough to do justice to what I see.  Even more than half blind my vision is better than my iPhone and iPad can capture.  We are evolutionary miracles.  So you are going to have to take my word that I am glancing up and seeing vivid beauty.

Let’s go back almost thirty years.  A few weeks after I sank RESURGAM I am in Littleton, New Hampshire, staying with friends as I slowly began to heal.  One Sunday we go out to brunch and are talking about a magazine article in which a man claims expertise about sailing with Webb Chiles.  He was in fact the yacht salesman who arranged the deal in which I traded my Ericson 35 for the Ericson 37 in which I made my first circumnavigation.  He ‘sailed’ with me upon delivery for less than an hour.  I related this to my friends and said, “I don’t sail with anyone I don’t sleep with.” Upon which an attractive younger woman at the next table said, “I’ll sail with you,” and gave me her business card.  I thought:  If she has any sense of logic that is a pretty good offer.  I am not going to go into detail as to what else happened between us except to say that her sense of logic was sound.

Fortunately for some I have mellowed with advancing years.  I hesitate.  I am not sure I have mellowed.  Maybe having done far more and having lived far longer than I ever thought I would, I have become more…again I hesitate.  More what?  I don’t know.  I do know to the relief of a few that it is no longer necessary to sleep with me to sail, briefly, with me, and in the past week I have gone for day sails with friends twice.  Tim and Cheryl several days ago and Michael yesterday.  That this happened twice in a week is rare.  In the ten years that I have owned GANNET only twice before have I sailed on GANNET with anyone other than Carol, with whom it is no secret that  I do indeed sleep with.

Both of the recent sails were pleasant.  Michael wrote of our sail on his site including photos I did not know he took.  Doing so while he was at the helm is impressive.

https://conchscooter.blogspot.com/2021/11/driving-webb-chiles.html

There is no conclusion here.  What is next?  Webb Chiles party animal?  I think not.  I have called myself a much married monk, so I can also be a sometimes social monk.  But monk I am.

Trending now on Netflix is a 1977 West German documentary HITLER A CAREER.  

I know the history.  I have read a good many books on Hitler who was by many accepted standards a great success story, but I found this film interesting.  The narration is extremely well written and spoken and there is much archival footage that I had not seen before.

Why it is trending now I do not know, but if you have Netflix it is well worth your time.

In today’s entries in THE ASSASSINS CLOAK is one from Noel Coward from 1961 in which he is considering those of his friends and relatives who have died as he has grown older.

Those of you who have watched my two ‘End of Being’ videos will know that I too expect oblivion.

In them I state that I do not fear oblivion, but I do have some apprehension about the probable pain in the process.  I have thought about that.  I do have such apprehension about that probable pain, but I have greater apprehension about becoming infirm and incapable and dependent before my death.  Webb Chiles in a nursing home?  The horror.

Today in the ANCHOR BOOK OF CHINESE POETRY I read a section of anonymous erotic poems dating from about 1600.

I could not get the Nun on a page by herself, so disregard the other fragments.

And finally from Fred comes a link to music by Brenno Blauth, a Brazilian composer of whom I had not known,  I thank him.  It is interesting that he heard it at Port Townsend, a place I have not visited, but know is welcoming of sailors, some of whom do more than sail.  Perhaps you will enjoy it as much as I do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1ybPu7LteA

Hilton Head Island: a thing of beauty and a video

 

I don’t watch many sailing videos, but Sailing Anarchy has a link to one eight and a half minutes long of the VC Cup sailing on Lake Lucern, Switzerland, I enjoyed and you may too.  Some interesting boats in a spectacular setting.

https://youtu.be/h5NvjrcMC1k

Hilton Head Island: seized; small; the power of sail; 7th posted

 A wonderful experience today.

My friends, Tim and Cheryl, are visiting and they wanted to see GANNET, so we went down to the little boat and in passing the ferry boat monstrosity opposite her I noted two notices taped to her hull announcing that she has been seized by the US Marshalls.  I do not know or care why, though I can surmise.  

On the way out of the marina I saw Ben, the Dockmaster, who confirmed the decrepit hulk is on the way out.

Hallelijah!

You may have seen that Jeff Bezos is having the world’s largest sailing yacht built.  It is 127 meters/417’ long.  However, because a helicopter landing pad cannot be fit on it, another magayacht will be built to accompany her to provide that necessity.

I thank Larry for the link and also for one he sent me a few days earlier about the world’s richest people from which I learned that Jeff is not presently the world’s richest person, having been surpassed by Elon Musk.  Both are worth about two hundred billion dollars.  This means that Jeff’s boat represents only ¼ of 1 percent of his wealth.  

I wonder why he went so small.

Sail is best.  Even powerboaters know that in their dieseled souls.  Further proof:  Ecuador’s naval training ship the barque, GUAYAS, captured a narco sub off the South American coast.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/25/americas/ecuador-sailing-ship-narco-sub-intl-hnk/index.html

CRUISING WORLD has just posted on their website my article, ‘My Seventh Circumnavigation”, which ran in their October issue.  I will include the article myself on the articles page of the main site, but if you want to see it as it appeared in the magazine, including photographs, here is the link.

https://www.cruisingworld.com/story/destinations/my-seventh-circumnavigation/

Hilton Head Island: anchoring; essential

 

In a comment on a recent journal entry Matt asked:   What do you have in the way of ground tackle? And if you don't mind can you go through your MO when it comes to anchoring single handed.... Under sail? Head up and drop from bow? Or drop from cockpit, set and walk the rode to the bow? And how do you weigh anchor?  I replied that they are good questions and I would answer in a journal post, which I am now doing.

I expect that Matt is interested in how I anchor GANNET, but I anchor GANNET differently than I did my bigger boats.  On RESURGAM and THE HAWKE OF TUONELA I used all chain rodes.  Chain has the advantages of providing a catenary between boat and anchor and resistance to chaff around rocks and coral and being self-stowing.  It has the disadvantages of lacking elasticity and sending shock loads from boat to anchor if the boat is pitching or swinging harshly and of being more difficult to retrieve.  All these can be solved with a good bow roller, snubbing lines and a windless.  I have never owned an electric windlass.  My observation of others is that they often need repair and I found that with an Anchorman manual windlass which operates with a normal winch handle I could raise anchors quicker than those with electric windlasses. 

On RESURGAM my primary anchor was a 33 pound Bruce.  On THE HAWKE OF TUONELA it was a 26 pound aluminum Spade.  I have read some anchor tests in which Bruces do not do well.  Neither do CQR Plow anchors.  Because I have used both for multiple circumnavigations without problems this causes me to suspect the anchor tests, not the anchors.

On GANNET my primary anchor is a 10 pound aluminum Spade.  I think I read that Spade advises that for heavy use you should use a steel version. I have not found that necessary and the weight difference makes anchoring with the aluminum versions dramatically easier.

There are some newer anchors which may be good.  I have no experience with them and cannot say.  

To me the primary disadvantage of Spade anchors is that they are very expensive.

Because ultralight GANNET cannot carry the weight of a chain rode, my rode is 20’ of ¼” chain followed by 220’ of ½” nylon line.  This is bigger than GANNET needs, but the extra diameter is some protection against chaff.  The rode is kept in the blue deployment bag shown in the photo above.  It is excellent.  I may have bought it from Defender.  It has a velcro closed slit in the bottom so you can cleat the end of the rode before anchoring, which is certainly a good idea, and is mesh so the rode dries.  Plastic markers are on the line at 30’,60’, 90’, and 125’.

I had to install the small bow roller off to starboard.  it would be better directly off the bow, but there is no room on GANNET.  On the deck you may be able to make out two self-adhesive non-skid pads that I bought in New Zealand to try to prevent the anchor before and after anchoring from scratching the deck.

Both deployment bag and anchor normally are stowed in the bow forward of the v-berth.  When I intend to anchor I first move them back under the forward hatch.  I put a plastic sheet beneath them to protect the v-berth cushions.

With my bigger boats I sometimes anchored under power, sometimes under sail.  On GANNET I always anchor under sail.  Usually under main alone, but I have anchored under jib alone.  I have never anchored with both sails set.

About a quarter mile from where I want to drop anchor, I lower one sail or the other, usually furling the jib, and go forward, open the forward hatch and pull the deployment bag on deck.  It has a clip to attach to the lifelines, and I cleat the end of the rode.  Then I pull the anchor on deck.  The rode is permanently attached to the anchor with a shackle whose pin is wired in place.  I place the anchor on the pads.  If the water is not smooth, I tie the anchor to the pulpit so it can’t fall over the side.  I then open the deployment bag and pull out about three times the depth of water I will be anchoring in.  I flake that down on the deck and tie it off to the starboard cleat at about twice the depth of the water.

I then return to the tiller and sail to where I want to anchor.  Because GANNET is light and moves around a lot and because I will be on almost all line rode and because I like space around me, I usually anchor father out than other boats.  Taking into consideration wind and tide— sometimes tide is the more important—I slow and turn GANNET into the wind, put the tiller into the tiller pilot so it remains amidships, and go quickly forward and let the anchor go over the side, trying to keep it away from the hull.  When the tide is stronger than the wind, I lower the mainsail and anchor under jib alone, turning the bow into the tide and furling the jib just before I go forward.

The rode should run out smoothly until it reaches where it is cleated.  Sometimes I have to help it along, particularly the 20’ of chain.  The roller helps keep that from the hull.

When the rode comes taut, I check to see if the anchor seems to be set and then I let out more rode.  The reason for not letting out all the rode at once is to reduce the possibility of snarls catching on the anchor.  

Depending on conditions and depth and room, I usually let out 75’ to 125’ of rode, though I have let out on rare occasions more than 150’.  One of the best qualities of line rode is that it is easy to retrieve and I don’t hesitate to let more out.

I look around to be certain we are holding, then go back and lower the mainsail if it is up and flake it down and secure it to the boom.

When I am ready to weigh anchor, I turn on the tiller pilot in standby with the tiller amidships, then I take a bucket which has a line attached to it with a carabiner hook at the other end forward, hook it to the lifeline, drop it over the side and bring it back up mostly full of water.  I also take a scrub brush forward and a floatation cushion to sit on. I will have already attached the main halyard to the mainsail, sometimes I raise the mainsail before going forward with the sheet slack, but more often leave the main down and sail off anchor under the jib which I can unfurl quickly when I return to the cockpit.  Often earlier in the morning I will have already brought in some of the rode, so that usually at this point I only have about 75’ out.  I sit down on the cushion, feet braced against the pulpit, uncleat the rode from the starboard cleat, place it over the roller, and start pulling.  As I bring up the rode, I pause ever few feet and either hold it in my right hand or if necessary take a turn around the cleat, and with my left hand flake what has just been brought up into the deployment bag.  When the rode is perpendicular I am over the anchor and give a pull and the anchor comes free.  There have been times when the anchor is deeply dug in and it takes more than one attempt.  

Once the anchor is clear of the bottom, the boat is out of control and speed matters.  Another reason to have room beside you.  I bring the anchor up as quickly as possible.  If it has come up clean I reach over and pull it through the pulpit, leave it on deck and scurry back to the cockpit and get GANNET sailing and set the tiller pilot to steer.  If it is covered with mud, I raise and lower it into the water to get as much off as possible, Then bring it on deck.

Once GANNET is under control I go back forward.  If necessary I use the brush and bucket of water to clean the anchor and the deck.  Then I open the forward hatch, lower the deployment bag and anchor onto the plastic sheet on the v-berth, close the hatch, and restow the bag and anchor in the bow when I can.

I also have a second anchor on board, a 15 pound Delta with a second 150’ rode, but have never used them.  On my bigger boats I carried three anchors, but seldom used more than one.  I know there are place and situations where you need to anchor with two anchors, but that creates complications I don’t like.

I hope I have answered your questions, Matt,  If you or anyone else has more, please ask in the comments.

I think the photo was taken at Paradise Bay in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands.

This was in an email I received today from West Marine.  Certainly essential boat equipment.  Don’t go offshore with them.  I am trying to figure out where I will put them on GANNET.