Do You Know the Way to Antigua?

“Go East 400 miles, Turn Right, Go 1000 More and You’re There”

Carl on deck after sunset

That is more or less what we will do in November when we leave with the Salty Dawn Rally from Hampton, VA.  Why go so far out on the ocean to begin with, you ask?  Excellent question. Sailing is all about wind direction and current.  

You may remember learning in school about the old sailing ships from Europe that went south to Africa to load up with human cargo and from there, they rode the Trade Winds west to the West Indies (Caribbean) where they traded slaves for spices.  The ships would then go north, on up to, let’s say, Charleston, SC, with the assistance of the Coriolis effect* and ocean currents where they would unload their remaining live human cargo. 

Replica of French ship, Hermione in Annapolis

Then, again benefitting from the Coriolis effect, the ships headed back to Europe loaded with cotton. King Cotton would appease a world that was sick and tired of wearing wool even in the heat of summer.  So, you see…the Trade Winds and Coriolis effect will help us catch a beneficial point of sail and an optimal current to travel to the far eastern part of the Caribbean.

Depth - 371 ft.  

The voyage to Antigua can be expected to take 9 to 14 days, give or take a few days.  Here are some of the other questions we’ve been asked about ocean travel: 

Our 65# Mantus anchor

Q: Where do you anchor at night?   

A: We do not anchor out on the Ocean. We look for depths of ~10' to 25' for anchoring depending on the tides.

Q: Do you set the boat to steer in the direction you want and then go to bed?  

A:  We do have AutoPilot, which can be programmed so that the boat will follow a course we give it; that is if the wind direction remains constant and the point of sail doesn’t need to be adjusted. Using an autopilot means that someone doesn’t have to be steering all the time.  BUT, someone always needs to be awake and keeping watch 24/7.

Northern Star heading back to U.S. last year after sunset

Nights are beautiful on the ocean.

Q:  How can one of you always be awake?  

A:  For a long crossing like this, we will have two additional crew members with us.  We will use an assigned watch schedule so that someone is always awake on deck, someone is asleep, someone can cook and someone is available for back-up as needed.

Q: What do you eat out on the ocean?   

One of two toasters we use on stove-top

A:  Pretty much the same things we would eat on land.  Except that we’ll run out of fresh produce by Day 7 or so, so will need to rely upon dry or canned foods more from then on. We’ll have enough frozen meats to last four people ~10 days. We’ll have some freeze-dried foods too.

Lunch served on deck

Q: So you actually cook on the boat when you’re sailing? 

A: Yes, the stove is gimbaled.  It swings on two bars so that it can tip to remain upright regardless of the angle of the boat's heel. Therefore, pots and pans remain more or less level whether on stovetop or in the oven.  We have pot guards that attach to the stove top to hold the pots securely too.   

Gimbaled stove is level.

The cook can also wear a hip belt that clips to the safety bar to prevent the cook from falling backward while cooking. It also protects the cook from falling onto the stove.  But, if the weather and waters are particularly rough, we may opt not to cook a hot meal at that time. We’ll bring some cold emergency back-up foods that can just be opened up and eaten for those circumstances.

Q:  What if there’s no wind?  

A:  It’s possible that the wind could die down significantly.  We could opt to motor for a little while until the wind picks up again, but we can’t motor all the way to Antigua. We carry 110 gals of diesel which could take us approximately 700-800 miles.  Primarily, we will sail.  There may be slow days, and there may be days that we cover many miles under sail.

Q: What if you run out of fresh water?  

A:  We have a Spectra water maker on Northern Star; an R/O or Reverse Osmosis water maker. When the water maker is running, it can make 10 gallons of drinkable water/hour using the ocean’s salt water. It can make water while sailing, motoring or at anchor.

Storm coming, in the Bahamas last year

Q:  What if you run into a big storm while you’re out on the ocean?  

A: We will do our best to choose the best weather window that we can, although a reliable weather forecast becomes less possible the farther into the future one looks.  Forecasters can tell us pretty accurately what weather we will encounter for the first five days out.  But beyond that, it is possible we could run into weather that we would prefer to avoid. 

Northern Star navigation station

We will have Single Side Band (SSB) radio contact with our weather router (Chris Parker) every day.  If he sees that we will be running into a weather system ahead, he can advise us in advance to change course in an attempt to avoid the worst weather. 

Our light-weight rain gear.  Pre-dawn.

Q:  But what if you do get caught out there in really bad weather?  

A:  A sailboat is exceptionally stable. Our boat weighs 29,000 pounds, and a lot of that weight is in the lead keel.  That helps to keep us right-side up.  Just think about a fishing bobber.  It is NOT going to tip over.  

Calm waters and consistent wind make for pleasant sailing

We can reef (make smaller) sails or take sails down altogether and “park” the boat on the water. It’s a technique called “being hove to.”  It’s a method of turning the boat into the wind and just letting it ride.  We also have a drogue which drags in the water behind us when we want to slow the boat down.  The boat can handle a lot.  Therefore, we can just hunker down and wait it out.

I've actually READ the first aid book.

Q: What if you get sick out there?  

A: Seasick? We have a variety of strategies to address seasickness.  There are various medicines, an electric wrist band, ginger ale, ginger candy, ginger gum.  The best thing is to stay on deck and watch the horizon.  Oddly enough, I personally, have never been seasick.  Cast-iron inner ears, I guess.

My MacBook

Q:  Will you be able to communicate with people while out on the ocean. 

A: Yes. Not by telephone,  but by VHF radio to anyone within ~40 miles, by SSB radio to other boat and land-based radios within ~1500 miles, and by our satellite-linked InReach device that allows us to send and receive text messages from anywhere.   We will notify our families when we arrive in Antigua.

 

Sailing toward sunrise

Q: How will you know where you are on the ocean?  

A:  GPS and compass. We will know where we are at all times.  In fact, you can know where we are at all times too, by use of the same InReach system.  (Check future post for how to follow us by InReach.)

We love the dolphin escorts on the ocean

Q:  Aren’t you afraid to be so far from land?  A:  Personally, nope. No more than I would be afraid to drive from here to New York City.  

More later.  

* Coriolis effect - The Coriolis Effect can be seen in action in the general circulation of the atmosphere. The winds at all latitudes to the north of 0° deflect to the right of their intended path in the Northern Hemisphere. The Coriolis Effect does not impact the wind speed, only the wind direction. The Coriolis Effect impacts objects on a large scale and does not generally have a big influence on small scale objects at the earth’s surface. Though hurricanes are small scale compared to the overall globe, hurricanes need the Coriolis Effect to help develop the circular motion of their circulations. Tornadoes are not impacted by the Coriolis Effect because they are so small in scale and short in duration. North Carolina State University

CCPDD or Chronic Compulsive Project Design Disorder

Since we started traveling north again, I have noted a significant increase in my symptoms of Chronic Compulsive Project Design Disorder, or CCPDD.  The symptoms include:  excessive rumination on project ideas, preoccupation with design details, furtive pencil and paper scratching of project dimensions, repetitive opening and closing of containers to find supplies, perseveration on unfolding and refolding of fabrics, cutting behavior and infatuation with sharp instruments—scissors, needles, rippers, hot knife, and postural crouching over the sewing machine.  Clearly, I am going through a bad patch of CCPDD.

My mother's 8' X 10' sewing room with bookcase of design magazines.

CCPDD is hereditary.  My mother had it too.  She started out innocently enough, with a passel of small children to clothe. But alas, it progressed in her retirement.  She would hole up in her sewing room for hours.  Days would pass where I’m pretty sure she came out only to make meals and to sleep. 

My sewing "room" on the water.

When she finally emerged from her self-imposed prison, sated at last, she would have a whole assortment of clever things that she had made for her grandchildren, hundreds of dolls with jointed limbs, stuffed animals, quilts, clothing (usually for others) such as bridesmaid and wedding dresses, costumes for Halloween, Norwegian traditional garb, Christmas stockings, and ordinary projects too, for example, repaired overalls for my dad and put new zippers on jackets.  She had it really bad, probably worse than me, even, if that is possible.  

My mom made clothes for six daughters and one son.

The ability to create designs and sew was something that I knew I needed to be able to do, in order for me to live aboard the sailboat.  Frankly, I don’t quite understand what people (who do NOT think about designing things) are doing with their brains when they’re relaxing.  I’d be willing to guess that it is perhaps more peaceful in their heads than it is inside mine. 

Pouch to contain the iPad at the helm.

There are a surprisingly great many sewing projects that are very useful on a sailboat.  I’ve designed a few recently.  We use several electronic devices.  This means that we have a slew of charging cords. We have three charging stations of 12 V adapters.  They are: 1) at the Navigation station in the cabin, 2) in the galley, and 3) at the helm.  I designed three projects that help us organize all those cords and keep things tidy and a fourth project that saves drawer space in the aft cabin.

The iPad pouch strap can be adjusted with buckle.

At the helm, Carl uses his iPad so that he can have the Active Captain software running simultaneously with the Garmin software on the chart plotter.  This means that the iPad sits perched atop the chart plotter, with one screen directly above the other.  His iPad is inside a LifeLock waterproof case which gives it a bit of grippiness, but still, I’ve been nervous about the iPad just balancing up there while we’re underway.  So, I came up with this really simple little iPad pouch that is attached to the binnacle.  It is adjustable with a buckle.  I used a hot glue gun after it was sewn up, to run a 2” wide wavy track of hot glue across the bottom of the pouch so it really IS quite grippy as it sits on top of the chart plotter.

Outside dimensions 10 1/2" X 13"

We use a number of other items in the cockpit as well, which we’ve been moving around to avoid stepping or sitting on them.  My iPhone 6 Plus has Nav Aids and Active Captain loaded on it, so that I can independently see our GPS position and look ahead for anchorages, etc.  I like to keep the camera handy in the cockpit too.  We refer to our paper cruising guides in the cockpit, and I make notes in our Ships’ Log while we are underway, so it’s nice to have both of those in a safe place in the cockpit too.  I finally came up with this Cockpit Organizer which has two large pockets for the charts and log, and then smaller pockets for camera, boat cards, eyeglasses, etc. 

Smaller pouches were sewn on the outside before sewing the larger pouches.

The boat cards are in a waterproof pocket on the front.  On our boat, this pouch fits over the cockpit table when the leaves are down.  Maybe on another boat, it could be hung from the lifeline. 

One of our 12 V charging stations is in the galley which is not an ideal location, since we obviously don’t want to get food on our electronics.  I found a small blank space on a wall in the galley, however, which was enough room to install a small tension rod.  I designed a set of pouches that are suspended on the tension rod so that the camera and iPhone can be charged while kept safely out of the way of food prep space. 

Two cables lead to this small, otherwise unused corner of the countertop.

Signal flares in top pouch.  Matching pouch below.

The fourth little project that I completed recently was to make a pair of pouches that snap onto the wall in the aft cabin.  The snaps were already on the wall, from a previous ditch bag* that was mounted there at one time.  After living aboard for a while, I decided that we could make better use of the aft cabin drawer space by getting all the signal flares out of the drawer and contained within this black pouch.  

Second pouch holds a pair of intercom headgear.  We use when anchoring.

A second pouch below is where we keep our intercom headgear.  The intercom head pieces are relatively fragile, so it’s nice to keep them safely away from other heavier things that could crush them. 

Calm evening anchored on the edge of the ICW.   Perfect weather for CCPDD. 

Four projects, all relatively easy to make, help keep the electronics safely tucked out of the way while charging and also provide space for other fragile things such as eyeglasses, phones, camera, intercom—all things we don’t want to step on when we’re handling the lines in the cockpit.   And, all accomplished while dealing successfully with the CCPDD. 

*Ditch bag - a waterproof bag loaded with emergency survival supplies that can be grabbed and taken along into a life raft when abandoning ship.