Friday, April 9, 2010

Weather and Water

There are two common lines of question we get from people when we first tell them about the trip that I thought might be interesting to discuss. These seem unconnected but the people I talk to immediately begin thinking of the dangers of a trip like this and ask about how we plan for them. One of the first questions we get is why we are leaving when we are leaving. Right in the middle of our schedule is the hurricane season! Do we know how dangerous it is to be caught in a storm at sea? Another common question is what will we do for water. How much will you take? How will you carry it? What if you run out?

In fact, our schedule is orchestrated to avoid bad weather on all sides. Starting as we are from the center of the North American continent we are locked in ice until spring, sometimes as late as mid-May. Also, we must worry about early season flooding that can close the Erie Canal which is where we plan to make our way from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic. That, plus the time needed to make final preparations for the trip means that we can't be assured to get away until mid-June. In truth, if we pushed hard we could probably get away earlier, but wisdom dictates using time at the front end to be sure all preparations are complete.

With the departure on June 13 we expect to make it to the mouth of the Hudson river by July 4th. While there we will take a few days to make sure we are ship shape and well provisioned before heading out to sea. We have a little cushion built in to the schedule here so that we can choose a window in the weather that is safe and favorable for the run to the Azores. Waiting for that window can take anywhere from a day or two to more than a week. All of this will occur before the hurricane season has begun to build and will get us into the safe zone of the eastern Atlantic with time to spare. We expect to leave the Azores after a couple days rest and refit, arriving in La Rochelle no later than the last week in August.

Now for the return trip. After making our way down the Atlantic Coast of France, Spain, and Portugal we will sail for Madeira and then the Canary Islands. The Canaries are a favorite jumping off point for sailors making the trip west across to the West Indies, the Caribbean and Florida. By late October, when we will arrive in la Canaria, the hurricane season will have wound down and we should be able to pick a safe time to make the run for the United States. Veering south and west from the Canaries we will be able to pick up the trade winds that provide a reliable power for our sails. While this is the longest leg of the trip, these reliable winds promise to give us our best 24 hour mileage totals, meaning we could make this longest leg in less time than the trip from New York to the Azores.

Now for the water. Modern desalination technology means that cruising boats like ours can make enough of their own water to supply to meet all daily water needs including daily showers, washing machine, freshwater wash down of the deck, and perhaps even an ornamental fountain. We will not have this kind of luxury. With luxury comes complexity, immense power consumption, and even more immense expense. We will rely, instead on a blend of parsimony, opportunity, and technology to be sure we have the water we need.

We start with a daily estimate of water needs for each of us. The recommendations are that each crew should have a gallon of fresh water a day to meet hydration needs and freshwater bathing every two or three days. Baths at sea are not extravagant. In fact, we will use saltwater for all but the final rinse. We will do this for more than just the fact that we will start to smell pretty bad after a couple days. Keeping the skin clean and rinsing away saltwater will reduce the risk that our skin will chafe and start to make us suffer. With the water we can store aboard, that daily allotment will give us a 35 day supply for a crew of three.

As with all the systems aboard, we need to have redundancy and that is especially true of water. Because of this, we have back up means of replacing our water while at sea. First is low tech and second is high tech.

Rain squalls are common at sea in all the places we will be sailing. This free source of water will give us a chance to refill our water tanks and get some water for washing clothes and other things. Rain showers are even a great opportunity to get our skin and hair lathered up and washed clean. To take advantage of this, we will have two methods for collecting rain water.

The first of these is using runoff from the main sail. At the base of the mainsail is a large trough that serves as the protection for the sail when it is rolled up on the boom. http://www.practical-sailor.com/newspics/charts/27-19-Leisure.pdf . This "in boom roller" gives us a special opportunity to collect rain water. Water flowing down the sail collects in the trough and is drained through a couple of holes near the mast, at the forward end of the boom. By hanging a bucket fitted with a hose under these drain holes, we can collect gallons of sweet, fresh water pretty quickly. The first several gallons will have a little salt in them washed off the sails. We won't use this for drinking, but it will be perfect for washing. After the first few gallons are set aside for our next tub of laundry, the rest can run directly into our storage tanks. As a precaution against bad bacteria, a small amount of household chlorine bleach will sanitize the water and as a final step, all drinking water is run through a 3M filter.

Our second freshwater collection system comes from Robert. He has purchased a tarp fitted with a drain hole and hose at the center. These are designed to hang under leaking roofs to protect equipment in manufacturing plants. It turns out this should work great for collecting rain when we get a shower during calm winds at sea or at anchor.

OK, so that is all green and wonderful and straightforward but what if we don't get rain showers and we are running dangerously low on water or what if we have a disaster at sea and must abandon ship for our life raft? For those unhappy circumstances, we have a manual water desalinator. This is the same kind of emergency water maker packed in all military aircraft and navy life rafts and it is capable of producing enough water for up to 24 people. That should be sufficient, I think.

The thing that these two lines of questions have in common is that they bring into focus how much planning and thought has to go in to a trip like this. As skipper and crew, we have spent years reading and thinking about these and many other things to be ready for most anything. We have also spent years practicing and coming up with fixes for the unexpected, because no matter how much we plan we know there will be things that take us by surprise. Now its time for me to get ready for a bunch of kindergartners who have asked me to come to their class to talk about the trip. I am thinking about a lecture on the aerodynamics of sailing and the art of proper sail trim. I am sure they are ready for vector diagrams to illustrate the difference between actual and apparent wind....

Pat

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Making Progress - by Pat

I don't know why but getting certain things done gives me a greater feeling of progress than others. We have been working for weeks, one step at a time, to remount the mainsheet traveler, which is what controls the position of the boom. It is very important to being able to sail Remedios well, and we have modified it so that we can control it from the safe and dry confines of the cockpit. Getting this done involved a lot, including an elaborate process for making sure the holes for the mounting bolts don't leak, custom shims to get the angles just right, and multiple points where we had to let epoxy or adhesive sealants cure. That meant we had to stage the work over several weeks. This past Saturday, I bolted it in place for the final time. Once that was done, I could start putting up the ceiling panels I had removed to gain access to the underside of the deck.



The weird thing is, the biggest "thrill of progress" feeling I had was that I installed three new cabin lights, which I couldn't do until I reinstalled the ceiling panels. I can't explain it but I have been very excited to flip the switch on those new lights and at a certain point, getting the traveler done just became an obstacle to getting those pretty new lights to illuminate the cabin.
I even feel a little guilty that I am not as delighted as I should be that Tom installed the new stereo. The stereo will surely do more to keep us sane on the trip than the lights and the traveler is key to safe and effective sailing.



Maybe it is the warm comforting glow the new lights give the main cabin. Maybe it is the fact that installing the lights is often one of the final steps in a bathroom or kitchen remodel. I don't care, all I can say is it was great to get them in. Now, I have some toilet plumbing to finish. Hmmm, wait, I think we could use some new curtains...

Pat