LOOKING BACK
Catonsville, MD, 15 September 2008
I have been keeping a journal of our life aboard Vilisar ever since we moved aboard in August of 2001. It is fun to look back and recall the delights and horrors of various voyages we have made. This is the message we sent to family and friends when we arrived safely at Sausalito, CA, after almost exactly one week at sea down the Oregon coast.
Sausalito, California, Monday, August 25, 2003
As you can see, we made it. We motored in under the Golden Gate Bridge on a sunny and windless Sunday afternoon (August 24) about 15.00 and were tied to a marina dock in Richardson Bay, Sausalito, California, by about 16.00. The voyage had taken exactly one week. On board were Hank Hazen of Port Townsend, WA, Bob Hale of Comox, BC, Kathleen and I.
We left Neah Bay late afternoon last Sunday - so therefore both beginning and ending the voyage under power - and hit fog immediately. This was somewhat worrisome because the shipping traffic at the mouth of Juan de Fuca is normally quite heavy. But within a couple of hours we had motored on a glassy windless sea out of the fog and, as the night fell, a half-moon rose in the blue-black sky and, to the north over Vancouver Island faint traces of aurora borealis were visible. After setting watches of two hours on and six hours off, we motored-sailed generally WSW through the calm and starry night and the lively phosphorescent seas.
During the night we ran into occasional fog again and clouds arrived to obscure the firmament. At mid-morning of the next day (25 August) we cut the engine and continued under main and staysail with winds from the west freshening to 15-20 Kn . There were also long sea-swells from the northwest. When we reached the 126th meridian about noon we turned Vilisar due south. We were about 130 Nm off the Washington coast and we intended to “sail the meridian” as far south as N 40°. This would give stormy Cape Mendocino, California, a wide berth before turning roughly SE to angle in towards San Francisco.
Although the winds and the waves are as a rule stronger offshore, there is normally also much less shipping. Closer to the coast one worries about being blown onto a lea shore, getting caught up in crab lines or colliding in the fog with a coastal tug or barge. Also the water is much warmer offshore in the summer. Nearer shore it is colder thanks to the south-bearing Alaska Current. When the warm Pacific air of late summer flows over the colder coastal water, there’s fog all along the coast. To our pleasant surprise, the air and the water were both noticeably much warmer even at night when we were offshore.
By 20.00 the first day, Sunday, we handed the mainsail and ran under staysail alone. We were still making about 5 knots – about what we were making under power. Farther along, both the second and the third night were very “blowy” and the waves and swells had built considerably. The British refer to this as “boisterous”. We decided therefore to heave to on both nights, it being overcast and very dark. The compass light also was too faint to be useful and the waves too big to keep the boat on an even keel. We were thrown around a lot during the second night because we hove to using our staysail. It was the only sail we were flying as night fell. But it could not be backed. One crewman was certain that it would not have to be backed to be effective, nor would we need a reefed-in mainsail. We followed his advice and it did work to a degree. But we were headed off the wind instead of up into the wind and we were also heeled way over to starboard and taking uncomfortable slapping waves on Vilisar's port belly all night. If I could avoid it I did not want to take crew on deck at night in the poor weather and flying salt spray to change the sail arrangement. So we put up with it once we realised that Vilisar was not actually being threatened seriously. With his 250 pounds the crewman in question got the worst of it because he was sleeping to windward (steeply up) and therefore despite the lee-cloths that we had rigged had he to hang all night by his fingernails to keep from landing on the cabin sole (steeply down). The compass light and the lee clothes will need attending too now that we are arrived in San Francisco.
The next night (our third night out) we hove to once again in strong winds and very big seas. We did so by dousing the staysail and hoisting and backing the Yankee. Those two steps just at dusk, however, were exhausting and not much better. We had to start the engine and bring the vessel up into the wind. If it was bumpy going down wind, it became seriously exciting as we headed back into the waves and wind, the deck pitching like crazy in the somewhat confused seas, the winds very strong. Hank and I were working together on the foredeck and we were wet and tired when we finally finished. Bob and Kathy were in the cockpit. But when we were finished and properly hove to, we could all go below, have a beer and turn in. Hove to like this, Vilisar continued to point off the wind. But she did not heel so much and did not take the same discomfiting waves the way she had the night previously as she heeled and showed her bottom to the waves. Once again we drifted about 25 Nm to leeward - i.e. toward San Francisco during each of those two nights. Down below things were much calmer.
But that first stormy night was a little scary. Kathy said she repeated the 23rd Psalm all night to calm herself. I tried instead to recall the cable-laying-ship's captain in Victoria who said he wanted to hear about it first if we ever decided to sell Vilisar. I was pondering if I still had his phone number. In the forecastle, where Kathy and I were sleeping, every thumping wave threw us together and the spare sails were thrown on top of us for good measure. The next morning everything above deck was covered in drying salt spray. Belowdecks, everything was damp and soggy from spray and salt-water drips that had found their way below through some tiny crack or space. The excellence of Kathy’s pre-departure stowing was evident; no food, books or drawer contents came loose. Nevertheless the cabin was a mess with soggy bedding and foulweather kit and boots. We were all uncomfortable after a rough and largely sleepless night.
All our sailing in the first few days was done with the staysail alone and sometimes we were doing over 7 knots by the GPS down waves though our average over the period was closer to 5 knots. So you can imagine the wave heights. They were not perhaps as large as those we had seen in the Queen Charlottes. But they had plenty of punch and the wind waves were a little at cross-purposes with the general direction of the Pacific swells and therefore unpredictable. When the windwaves and seas swells came together Vilisar would be swept up to a height that allowed us to see to the far-distant horizon. After dropping back a minute later to a medium position where windwaves and swells were distinct from each other, we would bump along for a while and then suddenly be dropped into a deep valley where the surrounding waves seemed to be as high as the mast. Kathy turned out to be the best and most sensitive helmsman. Down below we could always tell when she had taken the tiller because we were not bounced about so much.
The clouds began to thin and blue patches appeared on Wednesday. Although we still did not hang about on deck the weather cheered us and one was inclined perhaps to go on watch early or linger after the new helmsman took over just to chat and get out of the confining cabin.
But it was not until Thursday morning, i.e., into our fifth day at sea, that we could use the galley stove. Up until then we had been surviving on chocolate bars, dried and fresh fruit, cookies, saltines along with diet colas, beer or water. Hank and Bob were in the cockpit when to their amazement and joy I handed them up cups of hot coffee. It had been a major challenge to avoid being scalded in turbulent conditions that, aboard an airliner, would long hence have had the captain ordering the cabin crew to stop serving, sit down and fasten seat belts. The large stew I had made prior to departure stood untouched in its pressure cooker atop the stove. I had filled the pot far too full and I could therefore not take the lid off without having meat, vegetables and broth slopping over the stove. Our first cooked meal, scrambled eggs, came on Friday morning, on our sixth day at sea. It came as manna from heaven. Eventually the stew got eaten.
Though the seas at first remained quite disturbed, the storm, if that was what it was, had passed through by Thursday morning and we had bright sunshine from then till we reached San Francisco on Sunday afternoon. We tried getting up more sail, but eventually the wind abandoned us completely and we were reduced to motorsailing. On Friday morning we temporarily picked up better winds and for a while were jollying along at 7 knots, this time over glassy seas. But the winds turned light and fluky and finally died completely on Saturday leaving us to complete the rest of the trip under power. By late Friday evening we had reached N 40°. We altered course from due south to ESE aiming for the Golden Gate past Point Reynes light still over one hundred sea miles away.
Oh yes! We did have our Saye's Rig windvane steering mounted. But, when we had tried it out in Port Townsend for the first time, we discovered that we could not motor with the tab down. And taking the tab up or inserting it for use meant climbing out on the back of the double-ender, hopping around over a moving tiller while simultaneously trying to stick the tab down through the "trombone arm" attached to the rudder at water level and hanging on for dear life. This was more than anyone aboard wanted to attempt out at sea with 3 or 4-metre following seas. The upshot was that we did not use the self-steering even once on this voyage.
Fortunately for our confidence, we had had our rigging checked and tuned by Brian Toss before we left Port Townsend. He seemed to enjoy working on our traditional rig and kept making loving comments about things on the boat. "But I do have two pieces of bad news for you," he said. "First, you will have to replace the whole rigging before it gets to be 100 years old. Till then it’s just fine. Plenty stout. Second it’s just a little loose and needs tuning." Which he did.
Fortunately too, we had four of us aboard for the voyage to San Francisco. Bob came from Comox, BC, and had crewed on a racing yacht to Hawaii. Hank came from New England originally and has been sailing for years both there and in the Pacific Northwest on his own wooden gaff-rigger, Simplicity. But he had never been offshore and wanted to get that experience. In addition, he needed to keep his USCG papers current. They were both fun to have aboard, and, since we had to steer by hand the whole time, it was surely beneficial to have four helmsmen, meaning that we could each have 6 hours off after 2 hours at the helm.
Of course, after the first 24 hours and as we got to be about 130 nautical miles offshore, the winds had picked up strongly and, with the motion of the boat, there was nothing to do off watch but stay in one’s berth. Hank was seasick at first. But after a pill and a good sleep on our third night out (our second night hove to), he and everyone else felt better.
It was clear that we would have to modify our mainsail reefing system. On the Vilisar, when the main is hoisted to the masthead, it pulls the boom up a bronze slide. To tighten the luff when going to windward, a small tackle is used to stretch the sail down and tighten the luff. But when reefing, the boom drops again to the bottom of the slide and you have to struggle to set the reef. The reefing lines to pull down the leach of the sail do not seem strong enough or even long enough either.
Towards the end of the week the winds became benign, the sun shone more steadily, we got up more sail, we could start cooking the odd meal without being scalded and we all revised our negative views about the advisability of going to sea in small boats. The crewmen were good fun and did not complain that the windvane steering could not be used. After the high winds and waves far out to sea, once we began heading SE to the Golden Gate, everything began to calm down. We were reduced once more to motoring the last 24 hours or so.
Coming under the Golden Gate Bridge was a still great thrill. We were escorted in by several container ships and bulk carriers. We also had to negotiate our way amongst a multitude of Sunday sailors as we approached the bridge and a host of kayakers testing their cojones in the rip tides just underneath the bridge.
Hank and Bob left the vessel that very evening after showers and a meal with Hank's wife Liz and their daughter/son-in-law at a pizzeria in Sausalito. Bob was planning to catch a bus back to Vancouver the next morning. For us, it was very strange to be suddenly in a quiet harbour and alone once again on board. We spent this morning cleaning up the oily mess in the bilges, a mixture on the one hand of taking sea water from somewhere during the heavy weather and, on the other, the diesel oil I had spilt in there a month or so ago from a broken oil line. Most of the perishable meats and vegetables, a lot of cokes, etc. (although they still looked to be intact, the perforations for the opening tabs had dissolved enough to allow the fluid to leak out), some beer and a lot of other things had to be pitched out. A total loss of beer whilst at sea would normally be regarded as just cause for mutiny. Fortunately however, we had beer stowed elsewhere aboard. A large can of soy sauce had broken open and emptied itself into the bilge as well. I am thinking of bottling and selling our bilge water as Chinese salad dressing!
Sausalito is nice but crowded compared to northern ports and harbours. And you definitely feel that you are a long way south. The floating dock was so hot when we arrived that we were all hopping about like chickens in our bare feet during the mooring procedures. The hot showers were limitless (not coin operated like up north, just all part of the parking price; I am heading for my third one before we push off this afternoon). The public library (computer usage) is close by and very cosy. I have already met a sculptor and a fisherman. The first gave me advice about where I could anchor and take the dinghy ashore without problems. The second offered us the use of his mooring buoy near his wooden cutter. We will hang around here for a few days before visiting San Francisco across the Bay and the Presidio. There are floats there for guys like us. We also intend to drive up the Delta and the Sacramento River to Sacramento if time permits. We want to visit friends there that we made in British Columbia.
It was a little overwhelming at first on the high seas. But we are the stronger for it. We have some things we will change on the vessel and some practices that we will amend and improve. All-in-all a great shakedown and Vilisar is a damned fine and stout craft for bluewater cruising, something our crewmen also attested to. Allowed us to cheat death once more.
Ronald
Catonsville, MD, 15 September 2008
I have been keeping a journal of our life aboard Vilisar ever since we moved aboard in August of 2001. It is fun to look back and recall the delights and horrors of various voyages we have made. This is the message we sent to family and friends when we arrived safely at Sausalito, CA, after almost exactly one week at sea down the Oregon coast.
Sausalito, California, Monday, August 25, 2003
As you can see, we made it. We motored in under the Golden Gate Bridge on a sunny and windless Sunday afternoon (August 24) about 15.00 and were tied to a marina dock in Richardson Bay, Sausalito, California, by about 16.00. The voyage had taken exactly one week. On board were Hank Hazen of Port Townsend, WA, Bob Hale of Comox, BC, Kathleen and I.
We left Neah Bay late afternoon last Sunday - so therefore both beginning and ending the voyage under power - and hit fog immediately. This was somewhat worrisome because the shipping traffic at the mouth of Juan de Fuca is normally quite heavy. But within a couple of hours we had motored on a glassy windless sea out of the fog and, as the night fell, a half-moon rose in the blue-black sky and, to the north over Vancouver Island faint traces of aurora borealis were visible. After setting watches of two hours on and six hours off, we motored-sailed generally WSW through the calm and starry night and the lively phosphorescent seas.
During the night we ran into occasional fog again and clouds arrived to obscure the firmament. At mid-morning of the next day (25 August) we cut the engine and continued under main and staysail with winds from the west freshening to 15-20 Kn . There were also long sea-swells from the northwest. When we reached the 126th meridian about noon we turned Vilisar due south. We were about 130 Nm off the Washington coast and we intended to “sail the meridian” as far south as N 40°. This would give stormy Cape Mendocino, California, a wide berth before turning roughly SE to angle in towards San Francisco.
Although the winds and the waves are as a rule stronger offshore, there is normally also much less shipping. Closer to the coast one worries about being blown onto a lea shore, getting caught up in crab lines or colliding in the fog with a coastal tug or barge. Also the water is much warmer offshore in the summer. Nearer shore it is colder thanks to the south-bearing Alaska Current. When the warm Pacific air of late summer flows over the colder coastal water, there’s fog all along the coast. To our pleasant surprise, the air and the water were both noticeably much warmer even at night when we were offshore.
By 20.00 the first day, Sunday, we handed the mainsail and ran under staysail alone. We were still making about 5 knots – about what we were making under power. Farther along, both the second and the third night were very “blowy” and the waves and swells had built considerably. The British refer to this as “boisterous”. We decided therefore to heave to on both nights, it being overcast and very dark. The compass light also was too faint to be useful and the waves too big to keep the boat on an even keel. We were thrown around a lot during the second night because we hove to using our staysail. It was the only sail we were flying as night fell. But it could not be backed. One crewman was certain that it would not have to be backed to be effective, nor would we need a reefed-in mainsail. We followed his advice and it did work to a degree. But we were headed off the wind instead of up into the wind and we were also heeled way over to starboard and taking uncomfortable slapping waves on Vilisar's port belly all night. If I could avoid it I did not want to take crew on deck at night in the poor weather and flying salt spray to change the sail arrangement. So we put up with it once we realised that Vilisar was not actually being threatened seriously. With his 250 pounds the crewman in question got the worst of it because he was sleeping to windward (steeply up) and therefore despite the lee-cloths that we had rigged had he to hang all night by his fingernails to keep from landing on the cabin sole (steeply down). The compass light and the lee clothes will need attending too now that we are arrived in San Francisco.
The next night (our third night out) we hove to once again in strong winds and very big seas. We did so by dousing the staysail and hoisting and backing the Yankee. Those two steps just at dusk, however, were exhausting and not much better. We had to start the engine and bring the vessel up into the wind. If it was bumpy going down wind, it became seriously exciting as we headed back into the waves and wind, the deck pitching like crazy in the somewhat confused seas, the winds very strong. Hank and I were working together on the foredeck and we were wet and tired when we finally finished. Bob and Kathy were in the cockpit. But when we were finished and properly hove to, we could all go below, have a beer and turn in. Hove to like this, Vilisar continued to point off the wind. But she did not heel so much and did not take the same discomfiting waves the way she had the night previously as she heeled and showed her bottom to the waves. Once again we drifted about 25 Nm to leeward - i.e. toward San Francisco during each of those two nights. Down below things were much calmer.
But that first stormy night was a little scary. Kathy said she repeated the 23rd Psalm all night to calm herself. I tried instead to recall the cable-laying-ship's captain in Victoria who said he wanted to hear about it first if we ever decided to sell Vilisar. I was pondering if I still had his phone number. In the forecastle, where Kathy and I were sleeping, every thumping wave threw us together and the spare sails were thrown on top of us for good measure. The next morning everything above deck was covered in drying salt spray. Belowdecks, everything was damp and soggy from spray and salt-water drips that had found their way below through some tiny crack or space. The excellence of Kathy’s pre-departure stowing was evident; no food, books or drawer contents came loose. Nevertheless the cabin was a mess with soggy bedding and foulweather kit and boots. We were all uncomfortable after a rough and largely sleepless night.
All our sailing in the first few days was done with the staysail alone and sometimes we were doing over 7 knots by the GPS down waves though our average over the period was closer to 5 knots. So you can imagine the wave heights. They were not perhaps as large as those we had seen in the Queen Charlottes. But they had plenty of punch and the wind waves were a little at cross-purposes with the general direction of the Pacific swells and therefore unpredictable. When the windwaves and seas swells came together Vilisar would be swept up to a height that allowed us to see to the far-distant horizon. After dropping back a minute later to a medium position where windwaves and swells were distinct from each other, we would bump along for a while and then suddenly be dropped into a deep valley where the surrounding waves seemed to be as high as the mast. Kathy turned out to be the best and most sensitive helmsman. Down below we could always tell when she had taken the tiller because we were not bounced about so much.
The clouds began to thin and blue patches appeared on Wednesday. Although we still did not hang about on deck the weather cheered us and one was inclined perhaps to go on watch early or linger after the new helmsman took over just to chat and get out of the confining cabin.
But it was not until Thursday morning, i.e., into our fifth day at sea, that we could use the galley stove. Up until then we had been surviving on chocolate bars, dried and fresh fruit, cookies, saltines along with diet colas, beer or water. Hank and Bob were in the cockpit when to their amazement and joy I handed them up cups of hot coffee. It had been a major challenge to avoid being scalded in turbulent conditions that, aboard an airliner, would long hence have had the captain ordering the cabin crew to stop serving, sit down and fasten seat belts. The large stew I had made prior to departure stood untouched in its pressure cooker atop the stove. I had filled the pot far too full and I could therefore not take the lid off without having meat, vegetables and broth slopping over the stove. Our first cooked meal, scrambled eggs, came on Friday morning, on our sixth day at sea. It came as manna from heaven. Eventually the stew got eaten.
Though the seas at first remained quite disturbed, the storm, if that was what it was, had passed through by Thursday morning and we had bright sunshine from then till we reached San Francisco on Sunday afternoon. We tried getting up more sail, but eventually the wind abandoned us completely and we were reduced to motorsailing. On Friday morning we temporarily picked up better winds and for a while were jollying along at 7 knots, this time over glassy seas. But the winds turned light and fluky and finally died completely on Saturday leaving us to complete the rest of the trip under power. By late Friday evening we had reached N 40°. We altered course from due south to ESE aiming for the Golden Gate past Point Reynes light still over one hundred sea miles away.
Oh yes! We did have our Saye's Rig windvane steering mounted. But, when we had tried it out in Port Townsend for the first time, we discovered that we could not motor with the tab down. And taking the tab up or inserting it for use meant climbing out on the back of the double-ender, hopping around over a moving tiller while simultaneously trying to stick the tab down through the "trombone arm" attached to the rudder at water level and hanging on for dear life. This was more than anyone aboard wanted to attempt out at sea with 3 or 4-metre following seas. The upshot was that we did not use the self-steering even once on this voyage.
Fortunately for our confidence, we had had our rigging checked and tuned by Brian Toss before we left Port Townsend. He seemed to enjoy working on our traditional rig and kept making loving comments about things on the boat. "But I do have two pieces of bad news for you," he said. "First, you will have to replace the whole rigging before it gets to be 100 years old. Till then it’s just fine. Plenty stout. Second it’s just a little loose and needs tuning." Which he did.
Fortunately too, we had four of us aboard for the voyage to San Francisco. Bob came from Comox, BC, and had crewed on a racing yacht to Hawaii. Hank came from New England originally and has been sailing for years both there and in the Pacific Northwest on his own wooden gaff-rigger, Simplicity. But he had never been offshore and wanted to get that experience. In addition, he needed to keep his USCG papers current. They were both fun to have aboard, and, since we had to steer by hand the whole time, it was surely beneficial to have four helmsmen, meaning that we could each have 6 hours off after 2 hours at the helm.
Of course, after the first 24 hours and as we got to be about 130 nautical miles offshore, the winds had picked up strongly and, with the motion of the boat, there was nothing to do off watch but stay in one’s berth. Hank was seasick at first. But after a pill and a good sleep on our third night out (our second night hove to), he and everyone else felt better.
It was clear that we would have to modify our mainsail reefing system. On the Vilisar, when the main is hoisted to the masthead, it pulls the boom up a bronze slide. To tighten the luff when going to windward, a small tackle is used to stretch the sail down and tighten the luff. But when reefing, the boom drops again to the bottom of the slide and you have to struggle to set the reef. The reefing lines to pull down the leach of the sail do not seem strong enough or even long enough either.
Towards the end of the week the winds became benign, the sun shone more steadily, we got up more sail, we could start cooking the odd meal without being scalded and we all revised our negative views about the advisability of going to sea in small boats. The crewmen were good fun and did not complain that the windvane steering could not be used. After the high winds and waves far out to sea, once we began heading SE to the Golden Gate, everything began to calm down. We were reduced once more to motoring the last 24 hours or so.
Coming under the Golden Gate Bridge was a still great thrill. We were escorted in by several container ships and bulk carriers. We also had to negotiate our way amongst a multitude of Sunday sailors as we approached the bridge and a host of kayakers testing their cojones in the rip tides just underneath the bridge.
Hank and Bob left the vessel that very evening after showers and a meal with Hank's wife Liz and their daughter/son-in-law at a pizzeria in Sausalito. Bob was planning to catch a bus back to Vancouver the next morning. For us, it was very strange to be suddenly in a quiet harbour and alone once again on board. We spent this morning cleaning up the oily mess in the bilges, a mixture on the one hand of taking sea water from somewhere during the heavy weather and, on the other, the diesel oil I had spilt in there a month or so ago from a broken oil line. Most of the perishable meats and vegetables, a lot of cokes, etc. (although they still looked to be intact, the perforations for the opening tabs had dissolved enough to allow the fluid to leak out), some beer and a lot of other things had to be pitched out. A total loss of beer whilst at sea would normally be regarded as just cause for mutiny. Fortunately however, we had beer stowed elsewhere aboard. A large can of soy sauce had broken open and emptied itself into the bilge as well. I am thinking of bottling and selling our bilge water as Chinese salad dressing!
Sausalito is nice but crowded compared to northern ports and harbours. And you definitely feel that you are a long way south. The floating dock was so hot when we arrived that we were all hopping about like chickens in our bare feet during the mooring procedures. The hot showers were limitless (not coin operated like up north, just all part of the parking price; I am heading for my third one before we push off this afternoon). The public library (computer usage) is close by and very cosy. I have already met a sculptor and a fisherman. The first gave me advice about where I could anchor and take the dinghy ashore without problems. The second offered us the use of his mooring buoy near his wooden cutter. We will hang around here for a few days before visiting San Francisco across the Bay and the Presidio. There are floats there for guys like us. We also intend to drive up the Delta and the Sacramento River to Sacramento if time permits. We want to visit friends there that we made in British Columbia.
It was a little overwhelming at first on the high seas. But we are the stronger for it. We have some things we will change on the vessel and some practices that we will amend and improve. All-in-all a great shakedown and Vilisar is a damned fine and stout craft for bluewater cruising, something our crewmen also attested to. Allowed us to cheat death once more.
Ronald
posted by rjb @ Monday, September 15, 2008
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