Hilton Head Island: grounds for divorce; Bach’s sea story; rower; legs

I biked down to GANNET Sunday and found her as I left her, except for a few cups of water in the bilge.  Not even any bird droppings on deck.  

The water comes in from above, not below, and not at present from around the hatches.  There are two holes for the back stay which cannot be completely sealed.  One where it goes below deck near the stern, another where the line adjusting it comes back above deck in the mid-cockpit pedestal.  And water comes in somewhere around the bow.  I know not where and I have been searching for years.

GANNET is presently tied stern in.  I was sitting below when a man called to me.  I stood in the companionway and he asked what kind of boat GANNET is.  I told him and we got to talking.  He is I judge to be of what is called retirement age, though a good deal younger than I.  As we talked I came to understand that he is an experienced sailor.  He mentioned Jordan drogues and even once deployed one.  I asked about retrieval.  The boat he was on had several crew and powered winches, which made retrieval slow but not difficult.

At one point he said, “I have only been overdue once” and proceeded to tell the following story which I find interesting enough to share, though it is incomplete and there are details I do not know.

He and three other men, including the owner, went to Hinkley’s boat yard in Maine to take the owner’s boat which was about 50’ to Duxbury, Massachusetts in mid-winter.  This should be only an overnight sail.  Leave one morning and be in before the following evening.  They had what seemed to be a good weather forecast and set out.  But an unexpected storm developed and they were driven offshore.

Unknown to them a crate holding a long and heavy length of chain had been stowed in the stern.  In the rough conditions it rubbed against a through hull fitting and sawed it off.  Water began pouring into the boat from the crew knew not where.  They tried to keep ahead of it, but failed.  Water came up over the floorboards and shorted out the entire electrical system.  They lost the powered bilge pump and any way to call for help.

Sometime during this the sails blew out.

They streamed lines from the stern which were not as efficient as a Jordan drogue, but helped.

One of the crew crawled aft and found the sawed off through hull.  Working in water just above freezing temperature, he managed to block the hole in the hull, but became hypothermic, almost paralyzed from the waist down.  The other men got him out of the stern and wrapped him in a sleeping bag.  

Shortly thereafter the owner of the boat went berserk, running around screaming “We are all going to die!”  The two other men finally held him down, duct taped him in a sleeping bag, and carried him to the forepeak.  They shut the door to quell his screams.

When the storm finally eased, they transformed a bimini into a sail and slowly made their way west.  

As they later learned the Coast Guard had been searching for them without success.

Eventually they reached land.  I assume they got a tow into port.

When the man relating the story got home—I know his name but am not giving it for reasons or privacy—his wife said, “I thought you were dead.”  And she had even already collected the insurance money.

I said, “That is grounds for divorce.”

He replied, “Yes.  It was.”

He is now traveling with his second wife in a Grand Banks trawler,

I thank Carlton for a link to a reflection he presented on what he calls ‘Bach’s Sea Story’, Bach’s Cantata BWV 92.  I am not sure I hear all that Carlton does in the cantata, but then I have no musical talent.  I find it interesting and know that at least a few of you will too.

https://bachtalk.substack.com/p/bachs-sea-story

Here is a link to a performance of the cantata.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_vjp2hGvDA

I watched last sunset while sipping a glass of sauvignon blanc on the screened porch, the first time since my return I’ve had a drink out there.  Rather nice for February.

I thank Glenn for bringing Tom Robinson, who is attempting to become the youngest to row across the Pacific, to my attention.  He has reached Penrhyn Island, more than 5,000 nautical miles from his start in Peru.  I am not usually interested in ‘youngest’ records which almost invariably mean that some child has been given a boat.  However, Glenn says that Tom may have built his own.

He was at sea for 160 days.  I calculate that he made good roughly 30-35 miles a day.  Of that part would have come from prevailing wind and currents.  When I was adrift in a 9’ inflatable after CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE pitchpoled we drifted at one knot tied to the swamped CT which certainly slowed us.

Here is a link to his most recent post:

https://www.tomrobinsonboats.com/blog/6kf70hh7u9sjp8ud3x2uuwv4ocbuqz

He looks incredibly young to me, but then at my age almost everyone is and does.

And I think him unduly harsh to the woman in Peru and his own family.

But then I am not just old, but a much married monk.

I have lost my legs.  They are still attached to my body, but have become unexpectedly and unacceptably weak.  Carol had a car when she was here over Christmas so we decadently drove everywhere, and when I was with her in Lake Forest, it was too cold to walk much.  I did make it to the lake once and to the Skokie River once, both round trips of more than two miles, and I have done my usual workouts, but I have been too sedentary for too long as was proven yesterday when I biked to the supermarket four miles away and found myself struggling on the way home.  How quickly unused muscles weaken.  So it is bike or walk every day from now on except in pouring rain.  I need to get my legs back before I sail for a few weeks in March and lose them again.

Hilton Head Island: we’re number 1; little known beauty

 

My flights yesterday were uneventful.  There are no non-stop flights from Chicago to Hilton Head during the winter, so I changed planes in Charlotte.  I arrived on the island under overcast skies and took a taxi to the condo, where I found all as I left it and blessed silence.  Rain this morning ended as forecast around noon and the sun is now shining and Skull Creek sparkling.  However, this version of paradise is doomed.

According to an article from ProPublica I saw online this morning about climate change which lists the counties in the United States at the greatest risk from a combination of threats, Beaufort County, South Carolina, is number one.  That’s us.  It also happens to be one of the counties in the U.S. experiencing the fastest population growth, although from a relatively low base.

https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/

I do not expect to be around to experience this, but Carol might.  My thoughts about possibly having lived in the good old days are growing stronger.

I have written several times that the three most beautiful islands I have sailed to are Moorea, Bora-Bora, and Lord Howe.  The first two are well known.  The last much less so, and except for Australians and New Zealanders, probably not at all.  That is to its advantage.  I sailed there twice with Jill on RESURGAM.  David, of whom I have also written, an obstetrician/sailor, who was born in New Zealand and now resides in Australia, recently sailed there on his East Coast 31’ SAPPHIRE BREEZE and sent me the above photos.  I thank David for reminding me of how beautiful the island is and allowing me to share them with you.

When I last visited Lord Howe more than thirty years ago there were government regulations limiting the full time population to 400 and permitting a maximum of 400 visitors on the island at any one time, very wisely I think.

While there David climbed Mt. Gower, 830 meters/2723’.  One of the photos is the spectacular view from the top.  Another of part of the way up.  I, who do not like heights, never even thought of climbing it.

I miss that part of the world.

Lake Forest: anchored; frozen to get frozen; absurd; Australian adventure

You may know of Auckland, New Zealand’s record rain.  I think the official total was 240 mm/9.44”, the greatest one day rainfall in the city ever.  Even more fell nearby.  This resulted in thousands of homes being flooded and at least four deaths.  The death total is not impressive.  Here in the U.S. we routinely kill more than that in mass shootings every day.

I emailed Zane, who lives in Auckland and sails his 26’ junk-rigged, PANGO in local waters, and got the above photo and this reply:  

It has, frankly, been a wretched summer.  I have got away for a total of 10 days on PANGO so far.  I just beat a gale back from Great Barrier Island this time last Monday, and yes, since then we have had record rainfall, land slips, housing falling down hills, and unfortunately, four deaths so far.

I have attached a few photos from my parent’s house - we got flooded in three of the four rooms downstairs and in basement.  Still, we got off lightly.
The NZ Herald and Stuff.co.nz both have plenty of photos of the mayhem.

Auckland got, in the space of four hours on Friday, three months worth of rainfall.  The infrastructure could just not cope, but I doubt many cities in the world, with the usual underfunding of infrastructure as no one wants to pay local council taxes, would have coped.

It is pounding down again this morning as I type, and hopefully it won't get close to the historic levels.

A somewhat amusing (?) side note:  As I was bailing with the bucket in one of our basement rooms, I did think of your book 'Storm Passage'...and consoled myself that while I am bailing to stop the flooding in the house getting worse, at least the house won't sink, unlike Webb's EGREGIOUS might have....actually, I am not sure that is amusing, and I am not sure ironic is the correct word either, but nevertheless that is what came to mind for a minute.

What is certainly amusing is that in one of the photos attached, you can see a couple of my spare anchors in one of the rooms, looking like they are being put to use.

Here is a link to an explanation of the deluge.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/explained-what-caused-aucklands-wettest-day-and-where-climate-change-fits-in/M7A456YCAJGJ3GEGZ7HUMOFJRU/

I wish all my New Zealand friends a drier future.

In Lake Forest it is merely cold.  

We had 7”/178mm of snow over the weekend, following which temperatures have dropped to well below freezing.

Yesterday I had an appointment to have a couple of patches of pre-cancerous skin refrozen.  The beautiful skin cancer specialist’s office is in downtown Chicago.  While I was waiting for the train, the temperature was 8F/-13C and the wind chill -6F/-21C.

When I got up at 6 am this morning the temperature was -4F/20C and the wind chill -13F/-25C.

Impressive ice sickles outside our kitchen window.  The longest are more than 2’/2/3meter long.

I am due to fly to Hilton Head Thursday.  Carol is going to have to tough this out alone.

I thank Tim for this:

I am re-reading with pleasure Patrick White’s novel, THE VIVISECTOR, for I think the third time. It, along with VOSS, is my favorite of his novels.  I came across this quote in reply to a question about what books in a wealthy man’s library are about:  “Voyages.  Explorations.  By men whose appetitive for suffering wasn’t satisfied at home.  They had to come in search of it in Australia.”

Lake Forest: the need for artificial intelligence; transition; a wasted day; frost and still waters

Eric, who lives in Montreal, wisely keeps a boat in Florida on which he spends the winter.  Yesterday he wrote:  Perhaps you can explain this mystery to me.  This early morning there were two sailboats stranded on a shoal, however well indicated on the nautical charts, and as I write a third has just joined them hoping to pass between the two.  Is this a new way to avoid the drudgery of anchoring?

Artificial Intelligence is needed because obviously our species does not have enough.

A comment was just made on ‘A State of Grace’ video to which I would also like to respond here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3epMf4qGS-Q

The comment:  Gorgeous spot.  I am wondering what it feels like to be back in society after spending a lot of time on the ocean?  Does human civilization seem strange?

My reply:  I have always made the transition easily, but then human civilization always seems strange to me, and now I don’t really experience it much.  I am not much around people.  I get news of the world by reading, not listening to the deliberately anxiety inducing voices on television.  And where we live on Hilton Head Island is isolated from the tourist areas, quiet, serene, and as you can see beautiful.

When I tied GANNET to the Customs dock in San Diego after the passage from Panama, people commented with surprise that I looked as though I had just come in from a day sail; and when I reached Auckland, New Zealand, in March 1976, after five extreme months at sea, I stepped ashore unknown and unnoticed.  After dealing with the authorities, I returned to EGREGIOUS and was restless.  I bailed her bilge as I had been doing every hour night and day for months, then that evening unable to sleep walked up Queen Street.  There was an incline and my legs were weak.  I stopped opposite a shop selling hot dogs called appropriately or ironically, Uncle Sam’s, and started back down.  At a stoplight a woman came up beside me.  I still remember the smell of her perfume.  I had been alone a long time.  Within a few hours chance brought Suzanne to me.

I finished ZEN POEMS OF CHINA AND JAPAN.  Here is the last in the book.

The photo is the view from this apartment toward the east.  Lake Michigan is a mile away.  Snow flurries continue, but there has been only two or three inches accumulation.  So far this winter Chicago has had only half its usual 18” of snow by this date.  The temperature is well below freezing.  19F/-7F.  We go outside.  We have good winter clothes here.  They will not be taken to Hilton Hilton.

Bill Gribble has on his site some beautiful photos of the almost frozen lake on which he sails in southwestern England.

http://scapegoatsanon.blogspot.com/2023/01/scsc-frost-and-still-waters.html

Lake Forest: a different view

 Not quite Skull Creek, but the present view out the front window.  Snow is still slowly falling, but we are not due to get much more accumulation.  Slightly below freezing.  I take solace in that winter ends for me a week from Thursday when I fly to Hilton Head and a different view.

Lake Forest: an unexpected sense of humor: clipper ships with reservations; definitive proof of global warming

From Larry comes a video of Nick Saban for which I thank him.

For those of you who do not follow US college football, Nick Sabin is the coach of the University of Alabama and the most successful and highest paid of all college football coaches in the country.  His present contract pays him more than ten million dollars a year.  He is all business and suffers the press only stoically as part of his job.  He is not known for a sense of humor, but obviously he has one.  From his appearance this video came from a presentation a decade or two ago.  I laughed out loud when I watched it.  I did when I watched it again.

From Eric comes a video about the age of the Clipper Ships which I enjoyed with reservations.  I thank him for the link.

The commentary is inaccurate and hyperbolic, written as I expect is always the case by those who have never sailed those or probably any other waters.  The Forties are not treacherous.  They cannot be.  No ocean has made a pact with man that could be broken.  Not all sailors are superstitious.  Nor is Cape Horn the nightmare of all sailors.  I know that as a fact because I know at least one sailor for whom those assertions are not true.  Using words precisely and having real experience is a wearing burden.  Still I enjoyed this and perhaps you will too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YuDLsjFGQU

It has been truly said that you may deny climate change, but your insurance company does not.  This was personally brought home to Carol and me when our Hilton Head Home Owners Association charged a special assessment because the cost of insurance on the units has doubled since last year.

Personally I have experienced the definitive proof of climate change.  A bottle of Laphroaig bought only last Saturday is now empty.  Clearly this is due to evaporation caused by Chicago having a warmer than usual winter.  No other explanation is possible.  I am willing to repeat this experiment and offer it for peer review, assuming you can find my peers.  In fact I am so interested that I will buy another bottle and carefully observe the results.

Lake Forest: the good old days

Last Saturday I received an email from Elaine Lembo whom I knew as an editor with CRUISING WORLD announcing that she has become the editor of CARIBBEAN COMPASS, a publication of which I was not aware.  I goggled and found it online and skimmed through the December issue in which I came across a piece about new tolls for transiting the Panama Canal.  Increases go into effect on January 1 of each of the next three years.  Effective January 1, 2023 the toll for vessels up to 65’ is $1,760.  2024  $1,935.  2025  $2,130. 

The first two times I transited the Canal in the 1980s I paid $125 for the 36’ RESURGAM.  This, combined with global warming, increasingly uncivil politics, the frequency of mass shootings, social media lies and hysteria, ever increasing rules and regulations, causes me to wonder if in fact I didn’t live in the good old days.  

Perhaps all old people think that; but I have not until recently.

Lake Forest: refrozen; wave; repeat

I had good news yesterday when the results of my biopsies were reported more quickly than usual.  Three of the sites were benign and two require only to be frozen again.  That is scheduled for later this month, and I instantly proceeded to book my flights back to Hilton Head for February 2.  

I plan to go sailing in March to no where in particular.  I would like to put the wind on or aft of the beam and head offshore for several days, perhaps a week, and then make my way back.

I thank Tim for this link about the most extreme wave ever recorded.

https://www.sciencealert.com/extreme-rogue-wave-in-the-north-pacific-confirmed-as-most-extreme-on-record

I am surprised that it was only 58’/17.6 meters.  I note the ‘only’.  58’ is certainly big, but I thought bigger waves had been recorded.  I also do not think ‘rogue’ appropriate.  Rogue implies deliberate hostility.  Waves are not sentient.  Waves are not hostile.  They just are.  Freak might be better, but no doubt is a politically incorrect word.

I am also surprised that the standard to be considered a rogue wave is to be only twice the height of surrounding waves.  That seems too small a difference.  I think it should be at least three times surrounding waves.  Even by that greater standard the two waves that struck GANNET a few hundred miles off Samoa were ‘rogues’.  They were three to four times higher than surrounding waves.

Jared just commented about a journal entry published almost three years ago.  I am pleased that a few read past journal entries.  I reread it myself.  Jared liked it.  I like it.  You might too.

https://self-portraitinthepresentseajournal.blogspot.com/2020/05/evanston-good-question-on-marriage.html

Lake Forest: in case of emergency; a new record; from recent reading

In response to my recently writing "I will miss glancing up and seeing water."  Douglas in Scotland sent me this video with instructions:  Open in emergencies, or when sipping you know what.  Lock Ness today.

Not long ago he sent me this photo of a goose taking flight.

Scotland has sublime beauty.

I thank Douglas for sharing it with me and giving me permission to share it with you.

Carol and I landed at O'Hare yesterday just after sunset.  26F/-3C.  Normal Chicago January.

Today I had an appointment with the beautiful skin cancer doctor.  It is a pleasure to see her.  In some ways more than others.  She froze enough of me so that full body immersion in liquid nitrogen might be more efficient, and chopped off five bits to be sent for biopsy, a new and undesired record.  I expect to have to return for further chopping when the results are known.  

From RIVER OF THE GODS about the 'discovery' of the source of the White Nile by Richard Burton, the 19th Century explorer not the 20th Century husband of Elizabeth Taylor, and James Speke:

Of Burton who spoke more than twenty languages and had impartially studied the world's religions while believing in none of them:  The only aspect of religion that he scorned was the idea that there existed any true believers. 'The more I study religion,' he wrote, 'the more I am convinced that man never worshiped anyone but himself.'

Burton also wrote:  Of the gladdest moment in the human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands.

Burton quoted an old proverb:  The world is a great book, of which those who never leave home read but a page.

After shaking hands with Burton, the Dahomey king said, "You are a good man, but too angry."  Burton agreed, "Travelers like poets are mostly an angry race."

From:  THE CLASSIC TRADITION OF HAIKU.

How I envy maple leafage

which turns beautiful and then falls!

        --Kagami Shilo  1665-1731

I sleep...I wake...

    How wide

The bed with none beside.

        --Kaga No Chiyo   1703-1775

Men are disgusting.

They argue over

The price of orchards.

        --Masaoka Shiki   1867-1902

There are many haiku references to butterflies.  Permit me one of my own.

Our lives are as brief

as a butterfly's cough.

I like to believe that some of those Japanese poets would have approved, but as always I have never known.

From  HORACE: THE COMPLETE ODES AND EPODES

9

...

Avoid speculation

about the future; count the credit the days

chance deals; youth should not spurn

the dance of sweet desire;

this is your green time, not your white

and morose.  In field or piazza

now is the proper season for

trading soft whispers in the dark;

the tell-tale complaisant laugh

of a girl in some secret nook;

the pledge removed from an arm

or a helpfully helpless finger.

31

...

Son of Latona, grant me I pray

to enjoy the things I have and my health

and to pass my old age with a sound 

mind, with my cithara, and with style.

33

...

This is Venus's way:  her cruel humor

is pleased to subject to her yoke of bronze

incompatible bodies and minds.

Even I, when a better love sought me,

was detained in pleasant chains by Myrtale,

a one-time slave girl more stormy than

Adriatic waves rolling round to Calabria.

Article: The Joy of Small Boats

Now that I can no longer access the main site, I will post articles here after they have been published.  This one appeared several months ago in GOOD OLD BOAT, who asked me to write a piece for their small boat issue.  They changed the title to ‘Little Wings’.  I like mine better.  Those of you who have the good taste to have been reading me for some time will not find much new here.  In reusing old material and themes, I am in good company.  Bach did too.

The Joy of Small Boats

2022

I have owned three great boats, and two of them were small:  CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE, an 18’ Drascombe Lugger yawl, and GANNET, an ultralight Moore 24 sloop.  The other great boat was RESURGAM, a Sparkman and Stevens designed She 36 sloop.  I have great affection for small boats, who if well designed, well built, and well sailed, can do so much more than most people believe possible.      

I made most of my second circumnavigation in CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE and my sixth in GANNET.  In both instances I choose the boats because I wanted a new and different experience of the sea.  I did not want to be like some old rock star who is forever singing the songs of his youth.  I wanted to sing new songs and I believe that CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE and GANNET and I have.

After I completed my first circumnavigation in the engineless 37’ cutter, EGREGIOUS, with only two stops via Cape Horn in 1976, I had very little money and did not know what I would do next.  Selling EGREGIOUS and the publication of STORM PASSAGE, my first book, provided some money and after a year I sought a new challenge.  I wanted a qualitatively different experience, even simpler, even closer to the sea, with even greater reliance on myself.  That the boat be inexpensive was a given.  All my boats have been.  With only 12” of freeboard and no deck, CHIDIOCK certainly brought me closer to the sea.  In fact one night between Fiji and what is now Vanuatu she hit something, probably a container, and threw me into the sea and I ended up drifting for two weeks and three hundred miles before reaching land.  

CHIDIOCK survived that as a bigger boat might not have.  Although gunnel deep in the water, she had sufficient floatation not to sink and I tied her and the inflatable together and she followed me over the reef onto Emae Island.  With new masts, sails, rudder, floorboards and oars shipped from England, she sailed again five months later and completed 15,000 more miles.

I would not go to sea in just any small boat, or just any big boat either.  For me a boat must be well built, look pretty, have clean, uncluttered lines, and sail well.  You may notice the absence of be comfortable.  In my experience no boat is comfortable in a gale, and I have the advantage of not getting sea sick.  I am glad to be writing this on a comfortable sofa in a sunny room in our condo on Hilton Head Island overlooking the Intracoastal waterway, but comfort is not a life.

Before I set out from San Diego in November of 1978 the longest open boat voyage had been made in a wooden Drascombe Lugger, so the design had been tested.  I learned that a park ranger in Anaheim, California, was selling Luggers part time using his own as the display model, so I made an appointment and one Saturday Suzanne, who was then the woman in my life, and I drove up.  We found a very pretty boat on a trailer in Rich’s driveway.  I examined her, found the quality of construction excellent, and asked if I could step on board.  Rich said yes.  I climbed up and looked around, then lay down.  There was just enough room for my shoulders beside the centerboard trunk.  I got up and said, “I’ll buy one.”   Rich said, “Great.  What are you going to do with her?”   I replied, “I’m going to sail her around the world, but we are going to Disneyland first.”  Suzanne, who is from New Zealand, had never been.  Rich cashed my check quickly.

That was in June.  In November I rowed from the marina in San Diego’s Mission Bay and set out for Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas Islands 3,000 miles away.  We made it in thirty-four days, only a few more than several forty footers sailing at the same time.

I sailed more than 25,000 miles in CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE I and II.  The first remained in Saudi Arabia where I was jailed on suspicion of being a spy.

I must confess that I found the Drascombes a bit confining as a full time home and so I bought 36’ RESURGAM and then THE HAWKE OF TUONELA, a 37’ IOR one-tonner, and lived on board for most of the next three decades.

In 2006 I moved with Carol, my wife since 1994, to Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago on Lake Michigan.  At that time I was basing HAWKE in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands and I decided to get a second boat to sail on Lake Michigan during the northern summers.  Naturally the boat would be small and relatively inexpensive.  Checking boat listings I came across a Moore 24 for sale in Detroit.  I knew of Moore 24’s superb reputation.  The first ultralight class built in the U.S. and a 1970s design that is still winning races fifty years later.  I did not want to race, but experiencing such performance was tempting.  Unfortunately the Detroit boat sold before I could see her.  But the seed had been planted and I found another Moore for sale in Duluth, Minnesota.  I made an offer and GANNET, then GROWLER, was mine the following May.  

One of the first changes I made in addition to changing her name was to give away the two old gas outboards and replace them with an electric Torqeedo.

I kept GANNET on Lake Michigan for only two summers.  I found that having two boats and a wife was too complicated.  I also found that I did not enjoy sailing on Lake Michigan.  I am pelagic.  I like sailing oceans.  I need endless horizons.  I don’t want to set out one morning and see Michigan appear before sunset.  So I sold HAWKE, had GANNET towed to San Diego, and decided to sail her around the world.  Moore 24s have been successfully raced from San Francisco to Hawaii.  No one had gone farther than that, but I thought if 2,000 miles, why not more?

All of my boats have been stock boats.  I did not make great modifications to either CHIDIOCK or GANNET.  I did replace GANNET’s mast and boom and when doing so had the rigging increased by one size as I have on all my boats except CHIDIOCK.  Probably a good decision because GANNET’s masthead has gone into the water at least four times.  I have put the mastheads of four boats in the water, a club you don’t want to join.

Initially I planned to put a self-steering vane on GANNET, but I found that because of her ultra-light construction her transom would have to be strengthened to support a vane at a cost of more than half of what I paid for her.  I decided that I could buy a lot of tiller pilots for that amount, and I have.  I also knew that I could use sheet to tiller self-steering, which I also have.  In all I have sailed more than 50,000 miles on three different boats using sheet to tiller.

I carried some equipment on GANNET that I never had on earlier boats:  a dry suit, an emergency rudder, and a Jordan drogue.  I was glad to have them on board, but I was also glad never to have needed to use them.

I navigated on GANNET by iPhone using both iNavX and iSailor charts and apps.  I made my first two circumnavigations using a sextant and I have a plastic one on GANNET though I have not taken a sight in years.  Perhaps it is worthwhile when going offshore to know at least how to take a noon sight for latitude.

Small well built boats are capable of surviving severe weather.  Both CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE and GANNET were each in at least two 55 knot gales as recorded by official sources ashore.  CHIDIOCK with her yawl rig hove to better than any boat I have ever owned by furling the jib, lowering the main, putting the center board ¾ of the way down, tying the tiller amidship and flattening the mizzen which weather cocked the bow into the wind, so on her I hove to.  In GANNET I lay ahull.  Both boats were corks that rose over waves.  Mostly.

The most dangerous moments of GANNET’s circumnavigation did not come in gales, but on a sunny moderate trade wind day three hundred miles from Apia, Samoa.  Just after noon I was standing in the companionway, which on GANNET comes just above my waist, when my attention was caught by two 10’-12’ waves coming at right angles to the 3’-4’ wave pattern.  They were steep and close together.  As the first one hit I ducked below, sliding the companionway over me.  However, the vertical slat was not in place and not reachable.  The second wave exploded into and over us, knocking GANNET down, masthead touching foaming water.

With GANNET heeled 90º I braced myself from falling and stared down at the ocean.  GANNET’s lee rail was below water.  The ocean only inches from entering the companionway.  The wave was gushing in and pressing us down.  It was a matter of whether the ocean would reach the companionway before GANNET came back up.  Time slowed to a stop.  Probably a few seconds passed.  GANNET came back up.

The other most dangerous moments of that circumnavigation came during the 55 knot gale the morning we reached New Zealand.  10’-12’ waves slammed into our starboard beam.  At age seventy I completely lost vision in my right eye, so the waves were literally blind-siding me.  I was hand steering with only a scrap of furling jib set.  Often the waves knocked me from where I was sitting on the starboard side of the cockpit to my feet where I was looking down at the ocean.  I could not leave the tiller to go below for my safety harness, so I tied a sail tie around my right wrist and the other end to the toe rail.  As long as my arm remained attached to my body, I would remain attached to GANNET.

GANNET’s other 55 knot gale came at the end of our longest nonstop passage, 6,000 miles from Darwin, Australia, to Durban, South Africa.  We lay ahull for thirty-six hours in twenty foot waves, but I never felt we were in danger.

Although I believe if you are going to cross oceans, you should be prepared to face gales, gales are not the norm.  Most days are pleasant and I spend them reading and listening to music and keeping the boat sailing well.  I do not push GANNET as hard as those who race Moores, but I try to keep her in the groove.  She accelerates faster than any other boat I have owned.  Going six or seven knots, she catches a wave or a bit more wind and instantly is doing twelve or fourteen.

When I voyage I enter what I call the monastery of the sea.  I disconnect from land.  On GANNET I carry a Yellowbrick tracking device so Carol can see where I am.  Others seem to enjoy seeing that too.  But I do not communicate with the land.  I believe that those who do, who blog every day, still have their minds ashore and are not really in the moment.

I get no weather information.  I look at the sea, I look at the sky,  I look at the barometer.  In each case I am looking for change.

The monastery of the sea has a beauty and purity and clarity that modern urban life does not.  There is no ugliness there that you do not bring with you and, particularly if you sail alone, you are completely responsible for your boat and yourself.

Our lives are as brief as a butterfly’s cough.  I believe they are redeemed by moments of joy.  I have known countless such moments sailing small boats across oceans.  I hope you know moments of joy wherever you sail.