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

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

Shop Til You - run out of money... by Tom

There are things you need - and things you want. We are buying some of both. Pat just got a great deal on an emergency watermaker. The lever pushes salty water through a membrane; the water molecules go through; the salt molecules do not. You have to push really hard which is why it is only used in an emergency.

Here is a photo and a link to learn more.

http://www.katadyn.com/en/katadyn-products/products/katadynshopconnect/katadyn-entsalzer-manuelle-survivors/katadyn-survivor-35/


Rob is working on navigation. One of the best tools to predict bad weather on the way is a barometer. When the air pressure drops, and if it drops a lot in a hurry, bad stuff is on the way. Rob says it's more of a science than that - but we don't have much space here. Rob has also signed up to be our ocean weatherman and is studying meterology. Rob found, and bought, one of the best barometers you can find. It doesn't look that fancy, but if you click on the link you'll learn more than you ever thought about high quality, German, barometers. Don't worry, the PDF is in English.


http://www.fischer-barometer.de/datenblaetter/fischer_pab.pdf




If bad weather comes, and Pat grabs the watermaker and dives into the life raft with Rob, you can bet I'll go down with the ship listening to cool tunes on this marine stereo. I think maybe Arcade Fire will be the last thing I hear.

http://www.alpine-usa.com/product/view/cda-9886m/

So, stuff we need, and stuff we want. It all works out. And, yes, we do realize that while we are out on the ocean, our SOs will be doing some serious revenge shopping.

.

A Boat Out Of Water - by Tom

If we put this boat in the water tomorrow, it would sink. That's a pretty good incentive to finish all the work that has to be done before we depart in mid June. Remedios wouldn't sink because it is an unsound boat, it would sink because we are working on the plumbing and one of the fittings that goes through the hull is being worked on by our ace plumber, Pat. While Pat is having fun working on plumbing, Rob and I have to do dumb stuff like drill holes in the deck, pick out some of the balsa core sandwich, fill the void with epoxy, then redrill the hole, then reassemble the fitting with goo leaving the fitting we just spent hours working on looking and functioning exactly the same as it did before we started. Here is a picture of Remedios on a stand inside its winter home at Barker's Island Marina in Duluth. Remedios is the big pointy boat in the middle of the picture, not the 14 foot runabout in the foreground...


Here's a picture of our deck and some of the boats around us. Some are sailboats and some are very big motorboats. There are lots of boats crammed in here, and Saturdays are filled with work noises and fiberglass odors as folks work on their boats. One guy has a nice big boombox (does anyone still use that term?) so we can all listen to his favorite radio station.

Here is something you hope you never see while sailing. This is the base where the bottom of the mast goes. The mast is that big tall stick thing that holds up the sails. I really thought that the mast base would be bigger and perhaps stronger-looking. But Pat says gravity does most of the work keeping the mast in place.

Here is another scary thing you don't get to see while sailing. This is the joint where the lead keel meets the fiberglass bottom of the boat. If you had a little toy boat that was too tippy, you could take a lead tire weight and bolt it to the bottom of your toy boat. The boat would be less tippy and the weight has the added bonus feature of being heavy enough to pull your little toy boat to the bottom of the pond if it got any water inside. Pat says that's gravity at work again. Does that joint look scary to you? Pat says that the bottom paint adheres to the keel and the boat very well, but it doesn't stick too well to that white sealant. He explained this to me and Rob yesterday and the two of us are thinking of sleeping on deck wearing our life jackets instead of deep down in our cabins. I like sailing catamarans. Cats have two hulls to keep from being tippy although they sure do tip over sometimes. But even when they tip over they don't have 16,000 pounds of lead trying to pull you straight to the bottom. Pat says the keel is our friend. Rob and I just hope it stays attached.

Voyage Preparations - by Pat

With too few days left until departure it feels as if I should be doing something every day to prepare. On a day like today when there is little time to fit anything in, I will have to settle with reading and doing research on gear. Tonight's topic will be storm tactics and the gear research will be drogue and sea anchors to be used in the worst conditions to ride our heavy weather. I have been most impressed with Lyn and Larry Pardy who strongly advocate laying hove-to behind a sea anchor on roughly 300' of heavy rode. This gives the crew a much more comfortable and comforting ride at the same time it minimizes the time in storm force conditions. This flies in the face of some advice that teaches running before the wind on long warps or a drogue to slow down to keep under control. One of the problems with running with the storm is that it puts severe physical and intellectual demands on the crew at the same time it guarantees a significantly longer time in the body of the storm.


This controversy serves as an example of how getting the best of advice only leads to choices with advocates on all sides. I deal with the same things at work and in life every day. At some point it always seems you make the choice that feels best to you based on what you have learned. In storm management for example, there will be no one right answer but once taken, a decision requires commitment strong enough to be sure to take the technique to its full effect. It cannot be so strong that it is the only answer and a fallback must be available.


Pat

This past weekend in Bayfield was both frustrating and productive. Frustrating because my brother, Robert, could not join me for the weekend because of a blown transformer that he had to tend to at home. Productive because I used the time to get more work done. The framework for the new bimini is now done. It is very solid, designed so that all parts can take my full weight without significant distortion. Max, who is making the dodger, has already done the patterning.

The other big thing I got done was installing the padeyes we will hook on to while in the cockpit. These will keep us from being swept overboard by waves in the event of a major storm or knockdown and placement is key to making them convenient enough to work all the gear while sailing. The perfect placement I might have chosen was not possible because I could not gain access to put in the heavy backing plates necessary for such a critical piece of safety gear. I spent as much time staring at the cockpit imagining all the different scenarios as I did actually installing the parts. Then, after I had decided on the location, I walked the marina looking at other sailboats to see if they had any ideas for me to steal. Only three had any padeyes installed for this purpose but all were located in ways similar to the way I decided to do it. That helped calm me as I started drilling into the deck.

The contortions necessary to do any work on a boat convince me that I am right not to wait more years before taking the trip. Getting these parts installed involved folding and unfolding myself dozens of times, and because I was working on this alone, I had to scamper between the inside and the outside for a good part of the day, locking the vice grip pliers on nuts where they served as my second set of hands. Yes, I can still scamper.


Crew Emails

Tom to Pat and Rob:

http://www.morinu.com/index.html Hey, did you guys know you can get these packs of Tofu and they don’t have to be refrigerated before opening? We could easily use one package up in a 3-way meal.

If we get a bunch of these, then we don’t have to rely so much on canned chicken which is produced by keeping chickens crammed into a way-too-small space where their waste contaminates the ground water for miles around and then butchering them in a horrible fashion and then having a bunch of illegal workers cut them up for hideously low wages. Instead, we can eat food that is produced on massive corporate soybean farms, using an ungodly host of chemicals to keep out weeds and increase the yields which then contaminates the ground water for years into the future, and then trucking them off via smoke-spewing diesel engines to a large factory where they are processed by illegal workers for hideously low wages.

These have a shorter shelf life of around six to 12 months so would be a purchase just before we leave or in New York or wherever.

Speaking of which, I’ll add a page to the Doc for a point of departure shopping list.

Pat, you can add this to the blog as part of our list of many dilemmas we face. Or tell Rob and I how to add to the blog, which will be a huge leap of faith for you.

Rob to Tom and Pat:

My thoughts on Tofu. Feed the Tofu to the chicken. Eat the chicken.

Pat to Tom and Rob:

Actually, I have started a crop of soy beans in a hot box I constructed using reclaimed farmhouse windows. These heirloom seeds should mature at just about the right time for me to convert them to tofu which I will can here before we leave. I also happen to know that last summer Roseville passed an ordinance allowing backyard chicken coops, thanks to a plucky little 12 year old who got the media behind her. Between the chickens I raise on table scraps and the fish I have been farming in the little pond out back, I will have nearly all the meat we need. I will use a time tested and very seaworthy salting method for preservation using salt reclaimed and purified from the road slush just outside our door. I am also hoping to snare some of the geese and mallards who frequent our back yard trying to steal my fish. Those I will dry into a jerky, cause it seems the right thing to do to those thieving bast... Anyway, this will be an adventure.

Tofu? I'm in.