Before we found the Galápagos, the Galápagos found us. 

En route from Panama and still 100 miles from San Cristóbal Island—the port of entry for the dozen or so islands of Galápagos National Park and Galápagos Marine Reserve—a trio of red-footed booby birds installed themselves on the starboard bow of Ocean, our Dolphin 460 cruising cat. The ambassadors from the archipelago preened, fished, jostled for position, and slept. When the curtain of dawn revealed the islands on the horizon, we watched our escorts fly ahead.

Ever since 1835, when Charles Darwin (then in his 20s as a botanist aboard HMS Beagle) bundled his observations about the beaks of Galápagos finches into a theory of evolution that ­outraged the religious establishment, legions of enlightened sailors have been drawn to the islands. Why? Is it the richness of animal life: the birds, sea lions, penguins, marine iguanas and 150-year-old, 900-pound giant tortoises, most of which are unafraid of, and sometimes curious about, visitors? Is it the panorama of volcanoes and lava fields, the whimsical blocks and pinnacles amid a wide sea? Is it these islands’ singular place in history, as a kind of cradle of evolution? 

All of the above, despite the slew of official documents and eye-popping fees required to cruise there. We were determined to go, but as we completed another form and authorized another payment, we wondered, Would all of this be worth it?

During our 19-day stay, we decided that the answer was yes. We were privileged to view all manner of marine life, bird life and reptiles, much of it found only in these “Enchanted Islands.” We found workarounds to the three-anchorage restriction that officials placed on Ocean. Sometimes we followed locals to beaches, which they shared with sea lions. We met farmers at the open market, and filled our carryalls with fruit and veggies grown in the highlands. We sipped Galápagos-grown coffee at local cafes, where Ecuadorians grinned at our Spanglish. We sampled waterfront dining and gift shops and, you bet, we got the T-shirt.

One day, while on a local dive boat speeding along at 20 knots toward a site called Kicker Rock to swim with hammerheads, the captain spotted a red object in the water about 100 yards to port. A life jacket or fishing float? We diverted to take a look, and a burly crewman reached down and snatched the single-use plastic bottle out of the water, muttering “China.” 

That’s the way it is in the Galápagos—littering, on land or sea, is not tolerated. Ecuadorians go out of their way to preserve their islands and ocean.

Before we reached Kicker Rock, we anchored in a small cove where the 10 of us snorkelers dinghied ashore with a Galápagos National Park-certified naturalist. We strolled the beach to a saltwater estuary, with frigate birds circling above and land iguanas moving slowly across the sand. Our naturalist—in an easygoing, fun way—explained the world in front of our eyes, including how everything is connected and protected.

After lunch, we sped off to face the hammerheads, nervously pulled on our wetsuits, and rolled into the water. Swimming against the current swirling around Kicker Rock, we saw reef fish, sea turtles, manta rays and eagle rays—and, 10 feet below our fins, a half-dozen 8-foot hammerheads. They couldn’t have cared less about us as they disappeared into the murk. Forty minutes later, we’d circled the rock and clambered back aboard the dive boat, chattering excitedly. I checked my GoPro: I’d been so mesmerized by the hammerheads that I’d failed to press the shutter.

On another day trip, this time a snorkeling and hiking ­excursion to Punta Pitt, our group of 10 snorkeled a reefy islet amid cascades of reef fish and adolescent Galápagos sea lions twirling and spinning around us. A large bull, the king of the island, let us know that he was barely tolerating our incursion, with a few officious passes. Later, during a hike ashore on Punta Pitt, our naturalist led us through a geologist’s dream of a lava-sculpted valley and up along a windswept ridge overlooking the sea. We stepped carefully past a pair of blue-footed boobies that were engaged in a courtship dance, the tips of their beaks touching, their blue feet in perfect step. 

“Why aren’t they afraid of us?” I asked.

“They know we won’t hurt them,” he said.

On other day trips, we hiked through rainforest in the cool highlands, saw giant tortoises up close, and walked the 5-mile-wide caldera of Sierra Negra, eating our packed lunches on the side of a volcanic cone. Every day there was a “pinch me” moment. When it was time to leave, we concluded that all of us have much to learn from Ecuador’s strict management of the Galápagos Marine Reserve. In our combined 110 years of sailing, the Galápagos coasts are the only ones we’ve seen that are not fouled by plastic trash and dumped fishing gear. 

So, we sailed away from the Galápagos somewhat hopeful about the future of the ocean. The archipelago is unforgettable, and it doesn’t have to stand alone.

At press time, Tom and Harriet Linskey were cruising French Polynesia aboard Ocean.

Getting There 

The 830-mile passage we made from Panama to the Galápagos has a reputation among cruisers as fluky and frustrating. We asked for a weather forecast from Commanders’ Weather, a passage-routing service we’ve used the past 10 years. The meteorologists replied with a picture of, well, a whole lot of stuff going on. Along our route, we also downloaded weather GRIBs from PredictWind.

In Part One of the passage, boats departing Panama generally get about a day’s worth of tailwinds as the Caribbean’s northeast trade winds pass over Panama and fan out into the Pacific. These winds are variable in strength and direction.

In Part Two, the battle of the winds begins: The calms and squalls of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) wander drunkenly for hundreds of miles between the northeast and southeast trade winds. 

In Part Three, the longest leg of the passage, cruisers often face 10- to 20-knot headwinds and chop from the southwest. And the currents of this passage are variable too. 

Day One: We made about 6 knots under screecher on a starboard tack in light northerly winds. We got a sampling of freaky currents in the Gulf of Panama, sailing through six distinct current lines that almost seemed to sizzle, with the flat patch after each line feeling like it was lower than the previous patch. 

We followed the strategy suggested by Commanders’ Weather to get south into steadier winds and set ourselves up to windward for the long port tack to the Galápagos. With more than 800 miles to go, we were sailing 40 degrees away from the rhumb line to the Galápagos, which took some intestinal fortitude. But the ITCZ is slow, frustrating going, and this end-around is necessary. Soon, we were motoring in flat seas, only a couple of knots of wind, the sky crowded with stars, the Big Dipper astern.

Day Two: The wind, still light, shifted forward into the south. Through no brilliance of our own, we got a 1.5-knot favorable current boost to the south. Ocean motored under mainsail alone at 6 knots on one engine, making 7.5 knots speed over ground. The sea was still board-flat, with the lift of an occasional long-period swell from somewhere way down south. We worried about getting too close to Colombia and Ecuador, and tangled up at night with the big rigs of commercial fishing boats; we penciled in waypoints where we might tack over to port. 

Day Three: There’s nothing like the smell of diesel in the ­morning. We dumped our six jerrycans into the main tank so that our 120-gallon fuel tank was full again. Never had we burned so much diesel with more than halfway still to go in a passage. The wind was continuing light, and a tedious chop had sprung up. Still motorsailing under main only, getting south to the promised land of the southeast trades, we went through the fuel-consumption calculations of using one engine or two, at 1800, 2000, or 2200 rpm.

Day Four: After much debate, and prompted by a sprightly new 10-knot south-southwest wind, we tacked over to port. Now we were heading directly at, or sometimes 10 to 20 degrees below, the Galápagos, 555 miles away. Everything seemed OK, but late in the afternoon, a 20-mile line squall from the northeast slid over the top of our world, complete with a sheet of white-out rain. We motored slowly as a 1.2-knot current boosted us toward San Cristóbal.

Day Five: We did some ­sailing, interspersed with mostly motorsailing, as the wind flipped from south-southwest to south to south-southeast and back again. The ITCZ did seem to be to leeward of us now. By afternoon, we were sailing closehauled to the Galápagos in 14 knots of wind. Smooth seas, except when politely ruffled by a 1.7-knot favorable current. We turned off the engine, finally. 

Day Six: We had only 270 miles to go, still closehauled in 10 to 12 knots of wind, with occasional mainsail-only motorsailing. A posse of orca whales passed by two boat lengths to leeward.

Day Seven: At 0930, with only 123 miles left, we crossed the equator for the fourth time since we’ve been married and voyaging together; we toasted Neptune and Poseidon for taking care of us. We fired up the ­watermaker, ran two loads of laundry, organized our ­documents, and stared ­mesmerized at the ­volcanic cones and plugs of the Galápagos rising ahead.

Sea Lions on Our Swim Step

I’d seen sea lions take over a few decrepit fishing boats in a harbor on Isla San Cristóbal— dozens of brown furry bodies were in the cockpit, on the foredeck, up in the wheelhouse. But I never thought it would happen to us. 

Then one afternoon, returning from a day of provisioning in town, I found three sea lions aboard Ocean. One, about 280 pounds, was lounging on the cockpit grate. Another, some 180 pounds, was draped across the helm seat. A third, around 150 pounds, was sunning belly up on the starboard side deck. 

I used the telescoping deck brush to herd them down the swim steps, where they’d entered, and back into the water. I cleaned up the smears of sea lion body grease, and pee and poo. The cockpit looked like a barbershop floor after a day of buzz cuts. Then I remembered a naturalist saying that Isla San Cristóbal has more than 4,000 sea lions. We love them, but…boundaries. I created a sea lion defense zone by securing the boarding ladder up at a steep angle. I tied a web of dock lines across the sterns, and lashed fenders pointy end out. 

It didn’t work. 

The challenge only added to the fun—the sea lions were like teenagers jumping a chain-link fence. 

There are only a few sea lions on the island of Isla Isabela, we’d been told, so I dismantled the sea lion defense system, and we sailed 40 miles to anchor off Isla Isabela. Soon, a friendly creature began swimming toward us. It was a marine iguana. —TL    

Seven-Day Tour: Cruising the “Forbidden” Islands

As cruising sailors, we enjoyed the day-trip snorkeling and hiking excursions, but when I spent a week on the 83-foot, 16-passenger motor vessel Bonita, I experienced the closed-to-cruising-yachts parts of the Galápagos Marine Reserve.

After a day exploring Santiago Island, we departed after dinner to cruise overnight. It was clear and starry, and we could see the glowing red lava fields of Volcan Wolf on the northern edge of Isla Isabela. It was an awesome sight not available to us as cruisers.

The next morning, we awoke to thick fog. Fog at the Equator? Yes, because the northern tip of Isla Isabela swirls with the cold water of the Cromwell Current. As the sun rose and the fog dissipated, a solid rock wall was revealed. We explored life on and under the wall, starting with a dinghy tour of the marine iguanas, flightless cormorants, penguins, sea lions and ­boobies. After breakfast, we donned our wetsuits to snorkel the cliff face. On a rock covered with red Sally Lightfoot crabs, penguins were grouped at attention while a sea lion draped over the edge, staring at us. The sea lion flipped into the water, and then a flightless cormorant waddled up to take its place. 

Underwater, we saw turtles, sea lions, and a school of ­golden rays that swept through our group. I popped up my head to exclaim my delight, just in time to see a marine iguana paddle nearby. 

Touring the Galápagos by small cruise ship means that you slot into the master schedule of the marine park. There are three to four activities every day. Tours keep to the schedule to allow their guests a chance at fantastic encounters, as well as to allow human-free time for the animals. Each day was filled with activities and plenty of ­exercise, great food, ­c­amaraderie, and time to nap and recharge. —HL

Galápagos Regulations: Overboard?

If the thought of seven government officials climbing into your cockpit gives you the butterflies, relax. To enter the Galápagos Marine Reserve, a cruising boat must furnish completed documents, mostly questionnaires about environmental impact. The officials, each with a clipboard and a smile, were practiced and professional.

So were we. While still in Panama, our agent had emailed a folder of documents for us to complete, including a Fumigation Certificate and a Hull Cleaning Certificate. Prior to landfall, we’d done the homework: Ocean sported placards in the required places; we’d reorganized our garbage management; and we’d hove-to in light air outside the Reserve, snorkeling to make sure that Ocean’s hulls were barnacle-free (the Galápagos is on guard against invasive marine species). The one regulation that really rankled us was that cruising boats would be restricted to three anchorages, one each on Isla San Cristóbal, Santa Cruz and Isla Isabela. Our AIS transmitter had to remain on at all times, and diving or fishing from our boat was not permitted. Cruisers can apply to the port captain for permission to visit other islands with a Galápagos Marine Park naturalist for the day, or book day tours with a naturalist. It’s hard to argue with this system’s success: The marine park is a pristine, thriving wilderness area. The archipelago has endured a 400-year human evolution, from slaughtering giant tortoises and sea lions to preserving them. —TL

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Forty years ago this month, an eclectic fleet of international solo sailors was underway on the second leg of the inaugural BOC Challenge, a dicey passage through the wild Southern Ocean from Cape Town, South Africa, to Sydney, Australia. The BOC was the first singlehanded round-the-world race to begin and conclude in the United States, having set forth from Newport, Rhode Island, on August 28, 1982. 

On the occasion of the event’s 40th anniversary (where does the time go?), it seems like an appropriately nostalgic moment to reflect on not only what transpired then, but also what has unfolded in the sport of marathon ocean racing in the four decades since. The changes have been significant. 

The BOC was the ­brainchild of a burly offshore veteran (of both yacht racing and the US Navy) named David White. He’d washed up in Newport after a solo trans-Atlantic race, with dreams of taking the competition to a new level. He recruited a willing accomplice in Jim Roos, who managed properties on Goat Island—including the marina that became the base of operations—and assumed the role as the first race director. Ultimately, the pair convinced the British-based BOC corporation (formerly known as British Oxygen) to come aboard as title sponsor for the race, which was run in four legs, with cash prizes of $25,000 each for the winners of Class I (45 to 56 feet) and Class II (32 to 44 feet). Game on.

Along with White, 16 sailors from eight nations signed up for the inaugural edition, and a wild cast of characters they were. Among them was a Japanese Zen Buddhist named Yukoh Tada; a Czech who officially defected on the day of the start, Richard Konkolski; a scrappy, tough-as-nails South African called Bertie Reed; the elder American statesmen of the fleet, former Los Angeles Times editor Dan Byrne; New Jersey grandfather and yacht broker Francis Stokes; and a handful of Frenchmen, most notably a dashing former deep-sea diver, Philippe Jeantot. 

Covering the BOC was my first major assignment in yachting journalism. I was on the docks in Cape Town when they set forth, and in Sydney when they pulled in. A whole lot of drama transpired in between. 

Tony Lush, an American sailing a 54-foot cat-ketch called Lady Pepperell, called for assistance early after falling off a wave and realizing his keel was wobbly. He was rescued at sea by Stokes on his Fast Passage 39, Mooneshine. 

Brit Desmond Hampton was not as lucky: On the final stretch to Sydney, he overslept and crashed the 56-foot Gipsy Moth V, chartered from the family of previous owner and English legend Sir Francis Chichester, on the rocky shores of nearby Gabo Island. Hampton survived, but the boat was reduced to kindling. 

Unfortunately, pre-race favorite White retired early after his 56-foot Gladiator suffered structural damage; running the race and building a solid boat proved to be one task too many. His departure opened the door for Jeantot, who’d arrived with a purpose-­built 56-footer called Credit Agricole and proceeded to dominate the event, winning all four legs in decisive fashion, and setting a record for fastest solo circumnavigation: 159 days and change. 

It seemed remarkable at the time, but today the record belongs to his countryman Francis Joyon, who took his 103-foot trimaran, IDEC Sport, on a spin around the planet in just over 40 days. 

Jeantot went on to launch the Vendée Globe race, a nonstop round-the-world contest; founded Privilege Catamarans, a brand of cruising cats; and got into loads of tax trouble with the French government. But his true legacy, as far as I’m concerned, was maintaining France’s role as the leader in solo sailing, carrying the baton first held by Bernard Moitessier and Eric Tabarly, and passing it along to a whole new generation of countrymen, who have run with it ever since. The English may have invented the sport, but the French came to rule it. 

And for me, the BOC Challenge turned out to be the first of many sailing events in which I’d cover or even ­compete. But none were ever better. 

Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large.

The post Around Alone appeared first on Cruising World.

Surveying the lubricants shelf in my shop, I see no fewer than 13 types of grease, each designed for specific requirements or needs.  

A cruising vessel doesn’t need such an array, but it is important to use the right grease for the task at hand. Selecting incorrectly, or applying too infrequently, can lead to premature wear and failure.

Grease is nothing more than lubricating mineral or vegetable-based oil that’s held in suspension with a medium more viscous than the oil itself.  

In the lubrication world, that medium is referred to as a “soap.” Soaps can take on many forms, but the most common are lithium-, ­aluminum- and calcium-based soaps. What’s most important is their incompatibility. Ideally, grease types should not be mixed without first consulting a grease compatibility chart.

The two most common types of grease are designed for use in automobile chassis. They are often called “multipurpose” and usually are calcium-based, intended for low heat and wet applications. They also can be silicone-based, designed to operate in high-­temperature (up to about 275 degrees Fahrenheit) applications. These heavy-duty greases are typically rated by the National Lubrication Grease Institute as No. 2, which has the ­consistency of peanut butter.

Other types of grease are used in electrical applications and called dielectrics. They are insulators that do not conduct electricity. They are often used to seal and prevent corrosion, and on spark-plug boots to keep out water, and prevent sticking to spark plugs. These greases are often silicone- or Teflon-based and are translucent.  

Anti-seize grease is used to prevent seizure of fasteners, particularly in corrosion-prone scenarios. It’s often aluminum- or copper-based. These greases should be used with caution because they can cause fasteners to loosen at undesired times. Never use anti-seize grease on motor mounts or shaft coupling fasteners.

Application

Grease applications aboard a cruising vessel include windlass gears, shafts, clutches, steering cables, sheaves, gears, chains, winches, furler components, thrust bearings, and some stuffing boxes and seacocks. 

Much like oil, grease needs to be changed and becomes contaminated with dirt, dust, metal and water. Rather than simply adding new grease to some components, the old grease should be removed and the surfaces cleaned first. This is especially true in bearing applications such as winches and windlasses, which are subject to contamination.  

Doing a thorough job of this cleaning requires disassembly, after which as much of the old grease as possible should be removed with a rag. The parts should be washed in a parts washer or, if that’s not available, in solvent such as mineral spirits or diesel fuel.

Grease can be applied using proprietary nozzles called Zerk fittings. They let grease pump into a component using a grease gun. Because these fittings include a check valve of sorts, the grease can’t leak out. Some seacocks are designed to have Zerk fittings installed so that their balls can be lubricated while displacing water from the void between the outside of the ball and the inside of the seacock housing.  

Grease used in seacock applications that are greaseable (many are not) should be highly viscous, NLGI No. 2 and water-­resistant. Grease designed for boat-trailer wheel bearings works well in this application.

For high-speed bearings served by Zerk fittings—this especially applies to drivetrain thrust bearings—avoid overfilling the grease cavity because the grease can inhibit heat dissipation. Zerk fittings used on seacocks, if left in place, should be stainless or Monel.  Grease can also be applied from reservoirs called “cups,” whose caps turn to force grease into an area where it’s needed.

Where grease is concerned, be sure to follow manufacturer recommendations for selection and application, as well as for replacement intervals. 

Steve D’Antonio offers services for boat owners and buyers through Steve D’Antonio Marine Consulting. 

The post Grease the Wheels of Your Boat: A Guide to Proper Lubrication appeared first on Cruising World.

In 2020, our friends purchased a 1980 43-foot Hans Christian, Remedy, that had a compromised bowsprit. My husband, Chris, had reinforced it for the previous owner, but it was time to replace it entirely because it was suffering from severe termite damage and was the weakest link of the rig. Chris was asked to tackle the replacement job too, based on his reputation here in Southern California for delivering excellent results, even if it means putting projects aboard our own Cheoy Lee 41, Avocet, on the back burner. 

Hans Christians are pretty easy yachts to spot; many of the designs have a substantial bowsprit, carrying the lines of the large bulwarks that make for a stout bluewater cruiser. The rigs differ from ketch, sloop and cutters, but they all get as much sail area as possible, utilizing the bowsprit. For example, the 33-foot Hans Christian has a relatively small footprint on deck but sports the rig and sail area of what you might see on a 40-foot yacht, to compensate for the heavy displacement.

Forty-one-year-old Remedy had never had the bowsprit removed and inspected—hence the termites, along with wood rot at the base, where water pooled easily. 

There also was the issue of the samson posts (the physical stopping point for the aft end of the bowsprit) having separated from their lateral support underneath the deck. And we noted a classic case of stainless-steel crevice ­corrosion that had claimed all of the bowsprit hardware, which had hairline cracks, pitting and bent tangs. 

A total rebuild was necessary, and there was a lot to consider about the way to go about it, given how much materials and technology have improved since Remedy splashed decades ago. We could stick with wood and re-create what was there, or make something like a fiberglass bowsprit. Using the old bowsprit as a mold, we could build something that was impervious to rot, and that was stronger and lighter than its wood counterpart. Or we could build one out of aluminum. It wouldn’t sport the exact same design, but it could be better in many ways. 

Our friends decided to stick with traditional wood, which led to new considerations. Since materials like old-growth wood are simply not available these days, we couldn’t carve a new bowsprit out of a single piece of timber like the original. Instead, we would have to utilize techniques such as laminating. Having just finished our bulwark aboard Avocet, we knew that we liked cumaru wood (sometimes called Brazilian teak) for its strength, but finding a piece that was a minimum of 8½ feet wide by 14 feet long, and kiln-dried, turned out to be more difficult than we anticipated. 

Remedy’s owners found a lead on sapele, a type of mahogany with higher tensile strength than teak and better gluing adhesion. It lacks the oils that teak has for fighting off rot and bugs, but given the general lack of wood on the West Coast, we decided that sapele was our best option. 

With the wood ordered, Chris set out to translate measurements from the old bowsprit to paper so that he could dimensionally see how Hans Christian had done it, and where he could improve the design. 

Hans Christian had made the original bowsprit quickly and efficiently, leaving details such as perfectly straight lines, 90-degree cuts and appropriate spacing as an afterthought. Chris added notes where material needed to be added and taken away to create an upgraded version. He then laid out his tools and got busy turning the 5-by-5-foot boards into a bowsprit. 

This was a messy project. Not only were we dealing with a large amount of dripping resin, but there was also a fair bit of dust and shavings that wouldn’t be appropriate to manage dockside. Fortunately, our friends at Ventura Harbor Boatyard allowed us to set up shop there. Chris created a workspace encapsulated with a tarp to control the dust and temperature. Inside, we used box fans for air circulation.

 From the initial concept, we knew that the hardest part of building the new bowsprit was going to be cutting an 8½-by-8½-foot cube with a taper. So, instead of trying to cut an entire solid piece of timber, Chris instead cut 10 planks into the shape of the bowsprit, with the intention of gluing them together. When he cut the boards, he purposely left about a ¼-inch of extra material on all sides to act as a buffer while gluing everything together, and to allow for enough material to be planed away during the shaping process. 

Once the boards were cut into their desired shape, it was time to glue them together. 

This process of laminating wood with many layers introduces an incredible amount of tensile strength, if you can keep the layers well-bonded for the life of the beam. There have been horror stories about laminated beams on ships coming apart, but if the job is done properly, the result will be stronger than it could be with a single piece of timber. 

After speaking with a few experts about lamination materials, Chris used Smith’s Oak and Teak Epoxy Glue, which turned out to be by far the stickiest, strongest and goopiest epoxy we have ever seen. Chris did a quick run with the orbital sander to raise the grain of the wood, and then a wipe-down with acetone, before he and one of the boat’s owners began applying the glue with a 4-inch filler spreader. 

This was among the most stressful parts of the entire project—and not just because we needed it to work. At that time, there was a nationwide epoxy shortage, so we were trying to conserve epoxy at the same time that we were liberally applying it. And we were racing to make sure all the boards were clamped before the epoxy “kicked off” (entered the initial cure phase). 

When the last clamp was placed, the old bowsprit was placed on top of the laminated boards for more downward pressure. With the epoxy curing, we draped a tarp over the whole ensemble and plugged in three space heaters to increase the ambient temperature to 95 or 100 degrees Fahrenheit, to assist in the curing process. To be safe, we checked on the heaters continually, and we removed them from our workspace the following day.

Two days later, we removed the clamps to get a good look at what was now one cohesive piece of wood. We were pleased with the results (whew!). It was now time to shape the laminated wood into a proper bowsprit. 

The first tool Chris grabbed was his trusty grinder with a 5-inch sanding-pad attachment, to get rid of all the epoxy that had squeezed out between the boards. This step left a flat surface that was suitable for a hand planer. 

Chris struck a centerline and started marking the sides of the bowsprit where the final dimensions would be. The least amount of material he had to remove was about a ¼-inch, and the most was about 4 inches around where the bottom edge of the bowsprit tapered from the middle section up to the very front. This exercise confirmed that his initial cuts in the individual planks were correct, leaving enough material to shape. 

After lamination, the bowsprit weighed more than 300 pounds—yikes, indeed—but that figure decreased with every inch of material that Chris shaved away. The final weight was around 270 pounds. This is why a lighter material such as fiberglass, carbon or aluminum would be great to consider.

Once the bowsprit was between ⅛ and ¼ inch of the original spec, we relocated our project to the dock, where the final shaping would make a minimal mess. 

To say that we were ­nervous at this point was an ­understatement. Chris worried that the monster he had crafted might not gracefully replace the previous bowsprit, and his worrying made me anxious. There was only one way to put our nerves to bed, and that was to lift the bowsprit and see if it fit. 

At first, it didn’t—but that was OK. We had anticipated an improper fit, which is why Chris had left enough material to continue taking it away, finely tuning the bowsprit’s shape to the boat itself. Using his wood planer and contractor square, he shaved another ¼ inch off the sides. He repeated the process about three times, with the fourth time being the golden ticket. The bowsprit slid with no resistance into place, with a very rewarding thunk into the samson post notches. 

The bowsprit was at that point dry-fitted to Remedy,but the work was far from over. Chris had intentionally left the mating surface (where the samson posts and bowsprit made contact) proud so that he could strike a final line on the bowsprit once it was in place. This step in the process ensured that the bowsprit would be fully supported by the samson post while ­avoiding point-loading.

After this step was ­complete, it was time to install the hardware, which you might think would have been easier than everything else we had done so far. Nope. 

By far, the most intimidating part of this project was drilling for the fasteners. Chris had thought about using a mobile drill press, but the holes he had to re-create in the bowsprit needed to accommodate the original hardware (like the pulpit), and those holes were not all uniform in where they went in and came out of the sprit. 

For example: The two ½-inch bolts that go through the staysail chainplate went into the wood at about a 60-degree angle. So we took the process old-school and laid the hardware down on the bowsprit exactly where we wanted it. We then marked both sides of the hole, and used a handheld ½-inch drill to cut the holes in both sides until they connected in the middle. This technique ended up working pretty well—but there was a level of guesswork involved that, while it did not affect the quality of the finished product, just felt wrong to us after so much attention to detail in the project thus far. 

Once all the holes had been drilled, Chris oversized them slightly and inlaid G10 (prefabricated epoxy-based fiberglass laminate) tubes for the bolts to go inside. Adding this upgrade to the original design meant the hardware didn’t need to be bedded because the G10 was epoxied in place. This upgrade to the design also meant the bolts couldn’t oval the wood over time, a problem that would lead to water ingress and put our friends right back where they had started. 

After the tubes had been installed and bedded with thickened epoxy, the entire bowsprit was saturated in Smith’s Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer, and then finished with nine coats of Awlgrip’s Awlwood Clear Gloss. If we do say so ourselves, it looked quite lovely.

In the end—with all new hardware, a beautifully varnished bowsprit, and a bluewater cruising boat that was ready for adventure—our friends set a course south for Mexico in October 2021. 

When we last checked, Remedy had covered more than 1,000 nautical miles, with the bowsprit we created proudly leading the way.

Marissa and Chris Neely are currently refitting their Cheoy Lee 41, Avocet, prepping to cast off their lines and go cruising.

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In my mind, a two-line power-pop lyric from the Hold Steady’s 2006 album Boys and Girls in America —“It started recreational, ended kind of medical”—played and replayed in an unbroken loop through several of the eight days that I lay confined in a bed at Doctors Hospital, Nassau, Bahamas.

I should say right up front that I have a preexisting condition. In June 2019, I was diagnosed with bladder cancer. After chemotherapy, then surgery, then more chemotherapy, my team of doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital ticked the box that said “cured.” As part of the operation, my surgeon removed 47 lymph nodes from the lower right side of my torso. When the results came in, we cheered for the complete absence of any indication that the malignancy had migrated. 

Yet the removal of those lymph nodes left a vulnerability in my otherwise robust immune system that would come back to haunt me—and haunt my partner, Lesley Davison, too. 

But that would all come later.

Lesley and I bought Billy Pilgrim, our 1988 Passport 40, in fall 2017, with a plan to sail the boat north from Florida in the spring and summer, complete a refit at Maine Yacht Center in Portland, and then go voyaging, possibly even trans-Atlantic. During winter 2019, we got a good jump on the refit project (see “Billy Pilgrim’s Progress,” CW, November/December 2020), but my cancer diagnosis, and then the world’s COVID-19 diagnosis, set us back two seasons. In September 2021, we finally set off (see “Ready or Not, Sailing Billy Pilgrim South,” CW, September), and only in early February 2022, after we crossed the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas, did we finally ease into our own good cruising groove.

Ah, but what a groove. Through the Florida Straits and across the Great Bahama Bank and on past Nassau, we kept up the same driving pace that had propelled us down the US East Coast. Our arrival at Hawksbill Cay in the northern Exuma chain marked the moment when we truly took our foot off the pedal and inaugurated a new, slower rhythm that grew sweeter by the day.

The cruising tempo of the Bahamas in springtime is set by an ever-revolving cycle between two distinct weather patterns. Situated at the boundary between the temperate zone and the tropical trade-wind belt, the Exumas from December to April receive regular cold fronts—“northers”—that typically blow for three to four days, with gusts to 35 knots from the north and east. When they abate, the warmer trades kick in from the east and south; usually, these southerly winds are gentler, but reinforced trades in the winter can sometimes blow hard too. When the breeze is up, sailors tend to congregate in the limited number of shelters for a given direction. 

In late winter 2022, we hunkered down for our first blow near the Exumas Land and Sea Park headquarters at Warderick Wells. At $35 per night, we picked up one of the park’s well-maintained and amply sized moorings. During the park’s regular VHF radio check-in on the second day of the blow, Eileen Councill, who hosts the “Sailing Blown Away” YouTube channel, put out a request for updated weather information. We agreed to meet on the beach with a PredictWind forecast we’d downloaded that morning through our Iridium Go! satellite phone. And so began our Exumas social life. 

The next day on the same beach, we met Rob James, skipper of the 125-foot passenger schooner Liberty Clipper of Boston. He brought news of people and boats we knew in common. We saw other boats whose crews we’d get to know later in different anchorages, including Dave and Shelley Luscombe of the Xquisite X5 Plus Shell Shocked. I was part of the team that dubbed that boat “Best Cruising Catamaran (Over 50 Feet)” in Cruising World’s 2022 Boat of the Year contest, and it was a treat to see how the Luscombes of Alberta, Canada, relatively new to cruising, were learning the ropes.

We loved the Bahamian communities at Staniel Cay, Black Point Settlement and Little Farmers Cay. Roosevelt Nixon, the patriarch of Farmer’s Cay Yacht Club, and his son, Julian, took us in like family from the moment we landed. We spent a quiet evening there with the restaurant’s chef, Edrique, who told us of the many pleasures of life on Andros Island, where his cousins live. His description of a local dish called “crab and dough” made our mouths water and put Andros in bold on the map we carry in our minds.

We strung together day after day like this, culminating in what Lesley described as a perfect day—sailing off the anchor at Big Majors Spot, swimming after lobsters, admiring the amazing world full of color and surprises underwater, and still more sailing to a new anchorage at Little Bay off Great Guana Cay near Black Point Settlement. We showered off the salt and dinghied in to the beach to walk into town for happy hour. The walk turned out to be not insubstantial, and we traversed quite a bit of the island to get to the bar. There we reencountered the owners of two boats we’d met earlier that week on the beach at Big Majors Spot. We also met the crew of Inca Cross, the female half of which, Katy Vohs, had been a dialysis nurse. We talked for a while about nursing and sailing, and other odds and ends. 

Lesley wrote in her blog: “After a few rum punches, Tim and I began the long walk home and were both pleased and astonished when a Bahamian woman pulling out of her driveway saw us and ushered us into her car—she couldn’t believe we were going to walk all that way, and she drove us to our dinghy just out of kindness.”

This was the state of our affairs when I awoke on Friday morning, March 4, in a cold sweat.

Several days earlier, we’d chosen Little Bay for the next approaching gale, this one set to start blowing in Friday’s wee hours. All week long, the cruising community had been chattering about where each boat would tuck in. On Great Guana Cay’s west side, Little Bay is just around a promontory from the main Black Point anchorage. Having anchored at Black Point before, we knew that an uncomfortable swell from deep Exuma Sound sometimes works into the main anchorage through Dotham Cut. Anchoring at Little Bay meant a longer trip into the settlement, by dinghy or by foot, but we’d be happier here while the wind blew hard, and we figured we had everything we needed to stay aboard till the weather moderated.

Sure enough, the wind was howling in the rigging Friday morning and blowing the tops off the waves coming from the beach just to windward. 

And that cold sweat? At first, I ­attributed it to Scorpio’s happy hour the previous night. As the sun rose higher that morning, and despite the drama outside, I felt very sleepy. I got up, checked the anchor rode, and promptly collapsed in a heap on the saloon settee. Lesley plied me with water, Gatorade and Advil.

When the hallucinations came, they were funny at first. Lesley painted them while I narrated: a large object, pink; now animate, like a giant herbivorous mammal; now still, like a plush piece of marshmallow furniture. I had a wonderful, long, detailed conversation with my Aunt Rose. I stared down a Cyclops. Looked him right in the eye.

By Saturday morning, Lesley was having less fun than I was. In the night, a rash had developed on the top of my right leg. It felt hot to the touch. We knew that Black Point had a medical clinic but also that it was closed on weekends.

“Will you call Katy from Inca Cross?” Lesley asked. I made VHF radio contact, then swapped cell numbers for a private conversation. Katy asked whether we had antibiotics aboard, which we didn’t—arguably my biggest mistake in all of our trip-planning. For well over a year after my October 2019 cancer surgery, I had felt fully healthy. But in February 2021, I contracted a fever, on the third day of which my right leg started to swell dramatically. The urgent-care doctor at the time diagnosed it as cellulitis and prescribed ciprofloxacin, which quickly solved the problem. Later that spring, I noticed that my right calf didn’t fit comfortably into my pants. My oncologist ordered scans to rule out blood clots, then suggested that maybe I was experiencing lymphedema—a swelling that some, but not all, patients experience when lymph nodes are surgically removed.

When the hallucinations came, they were funny at first. Lesley painted them while I narrated: a large object, pink; now animate, like a giant herbivorous mammal. I stared down a Cyclops. Looked him right in the eye. By Saturday morning, Lesley was having less fun than I was.

“If you weren’t leaving on this trip,” he said, “I’d suggest physical therapy to bring the swelling down.” He didn’t seem especially concerned.

Around the same time, my long-­standing primary-care doctor moved to another state. I met my new doctor in early 2022 during a three-week trip home over the holidays after Lesley and I had already sailed from New England to Florida. I told her about the cellulitis and where we’d be sailing the boat, and asked for ciprofloxacin to carry aboard. She said she’d prefer not to prescribe antibiotics without knowing exactly what they were for. I followed her advice.

“No,” I told Katy from Inca Cross. “No antibiotics aboard.” 

She suggested that I try Benadryl in case I was experiencing an allergic reaction. “If you try it for a day and nothing improves, you’ve ruled out allergies.”

In one of the cycles between Advil doses that day, my temperature spiked to 104. By Sunday morning, the rash had spread from the top of my leg to my ankle. We checked back in with Katy, now more urgently. She said it was time to put out a general call to the anchorage asking for antibiotics. Meanwhile, it was still blowing a moderate gale. 

We weren’t sure how we’d get around to the well-­populated Black Point anchorage even if somebody over there had the meds; with us in Little Bay, there were just a half-dozen boats.

“Billy Pilgrim, this is Whisper,” came one reply to our call. “We have Keflex aboard.”

Quick consultation with Katy. Yes, Keflex could help.

“Whisper, this is Billy Pilgrim. Where are you located?”

Sweet mother of Neptune, Whisper was the next boat to windward. And while Lesley wasn’t nearly as habituated to running the dinghy as I was by that point, she wasn’t taking any of my smack about how I’d just pop over there and be back real quick. She suited up in her life vest and foulies, and set off into the spume.

If Keflex might have helped me on Friday, by Sunday it was too late. When I woke Monday, my right leg wouldn’t support me. It was monstrously swollen. Also, I was out of my mind.

We knew we had to get to the clinic. The wind by now had moderated from a gale to merely a very strong breeze. We carefully rehearsed our roles, knowing there was no room for a mistake, fired up the diesel, and then hauled up the anchor and motored round to Black Point. Anchor down, life vests on. Lesley dinghied us to Lorraine’s Cafe, tied up, and then helped me up the dock’s high ladder. She propped me against a piling in the shade behind the cafe and ran ahead for the nurse. 

The next person I saw—who knows how much later—was Lorraine herself. She was raising me up from my perch and supporting me the several steps to her car.

As I later learned, Lesley arrived at the clinic to find a locked door. By her own description, she was hyperventilating when she reached the cafe, where Lorraine was taking lunch orders from a large table. One look at Lesley, and Lorraine passed her table off to another server, then straightaway started taking care of our business.

Let it be sung from the rooftops: Once we were in Lorraine’s care, we were never again out of it. Lorraine got a woman they call Nurse Patton on the phone, and we landed back at the clinic just as she did. Nurse Patton looked at my leg, took my temperature and performed one or two other checks.

“How soon can you have a bag packed?” she asked.

“An hour,” Lesley said.

“Then you’re going to miss the next flight out,” she said. “But you need to be on the 4:30 flight to Nassau. He needs IV antibiotics, and I cannot provide that here.”

Nurse Patton called Esther Rolle at the airstrip to reserve two seats on the day’s last Flamingo Air flight off the island. Lorraine and Lesley hefted my carcass back across the street to the cafe, and then Lesley dashed back to the dinghy, and out to the boat to grab whatever we might need and give Billy what Billy might need to stay anchored there without us for a few days. 

Back ashore, she hopped into Lorraine’s car with me, and we shot off in a dusty cloud to the airstrip’s one-room reception area. Ms. Rolle knew us before we arrived. She asked whether she should order me a wheelchair in Nassau.

“No,” I said. “I’ll be all right.”

The one other passenger in the reception area took a good look at me. “You want the wheelchair,” he said. Lesley breathed a relieved sigh when I relented.

“When you get to Nassau,” Ms. Rolle said, “look for Mr. Gibson. He’ll be waiting for you at the airport to drive you to the hospital.

Sure enough, there at the Lynden Pindling International Airport curb was Mr. Gibson. 

The events so far had included their share of high-adrenaline what-next ­moments, but none had shocked me. None, that is, till we entered Doctors Hospital. Mr. Gibson helped me into the waiting area, where I could see a reception desk and a door marked “Emergency.” A receptionist led me to a bench, where I would await instructions.

Presently along came a polite young man asking after my health insurance. I showed him my Blue Cross card.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We can’t accept that insurance here. In order to enter the emergency room, we’ll need a prepayment from you of $3,000.”

Gulp. What choice did I have? Out came the credit card. And with that, the emergency-room door opened. 

My memory goes fuzzy here, but these are some words and phrases from that night that stuck in my consciousness: “sepsis,” “kidney function,” “necrosis,” “your blood is thick,” “dialysis,” “save the limb.”

The attending physician recommended that I be admitted, which made perfect sense to me—at least till the polite young man I’d met earlier reappeared.

“We’ll need a prepayment of $12,000 to admit you,” he said. Alarm bells exploded in my brain. My credit limit might not even go that high. Heck, for $500, I could fly home to Boston and be at Mass General this time tomorrow.

“Absolutely not,” I said. “We’ll do ­something else.” I raised myself to leave.

Visitors are not allowed in the Doctors Hospital emergency room. But somehow, thankfully, Lesley had made her way back to my station to hear all this. She had a few private words with the doctor and the accounts-receivable fellow. 

“You’re staying here,” she told me. And then I passed out.

I awoke the next morning in a cheerful private room with a bandaged right leg and an IV drip in my arm. The staff who came and went were top-notch and lovely. The food was delicious. When Lesley came in, she was dressed head-to-toe in sterile gear—suited up for hazmat like when we dismantled Billy Pilgrim’s head and holding tank back at Maine Yacht Center. All seemed right with the world now. I figured they’d keep me overnight, get me stabilized, and then we’d head back to Black Point and Billy P the next day. 

But I figured wrong, as I learned when I met my attending physician, Dr. Ross Downes.

“We’ll need to keep you here for at least a week,” he said.

For the first time in months, Lesley’s story and mine diverged here. On my second day in the hospital, we independently came to the same conclusion: Billy Pilgrim, alone, at anchor in Black Point, was on borrowed time. Peter and Theresa Clark on Dream Ketcher had gone aboard to run the engine and charge the batteries, and other fellow cruisers were looking out for us too. Lorraine’s husband was looking after our dinghy. But it was only by luck, really, that the Exumas was now two days into a short cycle of gentle weather. 

To read Lesley’s firsthand story about how she and my sister, Monica Jennings, and her husband, Charlie, brought Billy P from Black Point back to Nassau, see the three-part “Challenges” entry on our blog (svbillypilgrim.com/blog).

For my part, a slow-drip of IV antibiotics knocked out the infection, and layers of foam and gauze wrappings of different densities bound my leg when I was finally released eight days later. I still couldn’t walk very far or well, so we booked a hotel on Junkanoo Beach for three nights of recuperation before returning to the boat. My cousin, Dan Robb, had planned to join us in the Far Out Islands. Instead, we redirected him to Nassau. I set him up in Billy P’s cockpit, taught him how to steer, plot a course and avoid collisions, and then collapsed with an elevated leg while we dodged cold fronts back toward Florida. Our pressing goal was to put up the boat for several weeks while I flew home to see my docs and start physical therapy.

For our trip back across the Gulf Stream, we faced one last high-stakes choice: cross in a 25-knot southerly, gusting to 35, or wait more than eight days till another, better weather window opened. 

I had a five-day supply of oral antibiotics, so we played the best card we were dealt. We crossed. 

It was a fast trip, with speed-over-ground past 11 knots at times. We made the entire crossing, West End on Grand Bahama to Fort Pierce, Florida, into the inlet and even to my sister’s backyard in Vero Beach, all in daylight. But, hoo boy, it was boisterous. As one of several peaky Gulf Stream combers found its way past Billy P’s cockpit coamings, the voice of Dr. Ross Downes reverberated.

“Whatever you do,” he said, “don’t get that leg wet.”

Four Takeaways

My infection, bad as it was, was on the verge of becoming much worse—on a time horizon not of days, but of hours. Here are four lessons I’ll apply before my next long cruise.

Travel Health Insurance

Before leaving for the Bahamas, I made sure my health-insurance policy from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts was up to date. My policy is a PPO plan (Preferred Provider Organization), which allows me to get out-of-network care and see specialists without referrals. But Doctors Hospital refused to work directly with BCBS and required that I prepay for my stay—which, after eight days, came to more than $25,000. While BCBS tells me they’re treating my case as “in network,” at press time, six months after my hospitalization, I’m still waiting for the last $7,000 of the reimbursements. For a list of international health plans that Doctors Hospital accepts, see the International Patients tab on the hospital website. For other countries, find out which hospital you’d choose to be taken to, and then which insurance policies would cover you there.

Medical Evacuation Insurance

In Cat Cay, we met Dr. Kevin Hutton, the chief physician at the island’s all-volunteer medical clinic. He has a deep specialty in medical evacuations. Kevin and Sandy Hutton, sailors themselves (see “Finding Balance,” CW, June/July), use AirMed International. Before my next long trip, I would follow their lead. If you do, make sure you choose a policy that fits your cruising circumstances. 

Onboard Antibiotics

My longtime primary-care physician had left her practice shortly before Lesley and I set off from New England, and I met my new doc just once before we set off on our southbound cruise. I told her that I’d contracted cellulitis the previous year and which antibiotic had cleared it up. I asked whether she thought I should carry some on the boat, and she said she’d rather not prescribe an antibiotic until she knew exactly what it was for. That’s a lead that, in retrospect, I regret following. Since my incident of cellulitis in the Bahamas, several physicians steeped in travel medicine have offered to set up Billy Pilgrim with a full pharmacy—an offer I aim to accept.

Let No Scratch Go Untended

I honestly don’t know what caused the infection that set off the cellulitis in my leg. At Little Farmers Cay, I had slipped on a partially submerged coral pier and barely scraped my knee. That was 10 days before the onset of the fever, and it showed no sign of becoming an infection site. Three days before the fever, there were sand fleas on the beach at Big Majors Spot, where we had cocktails. On the day before the fever, I snorkeled, but I never came in contact with coral. Still, I’ll be hypervigilant about any openings in my skin, particularly if it’s in my right leg.

Tim Murphy, a CW editor-at-large and a longtime Boat of the Year judge, has fully recovered after a season of physical therapy. He is the author of Adventurous Use of the Sea: Formidable Stories of a Century of Sailing from the Cruising Club of America (Seapoint Books, fall 2022). To read Lesley Davison’s account of Billy Pilgrim’s 2021-22 southbound season, visit ­svbillypilgrim.com/blog.

The post From Paradise to Medical Emergency: A Bahamas Nightmare Turns Lesson Learned appeared first on Cruising World.

Of the 62 years I’ve lived aboard—52 of them with my wife, Carolyn—the vast majority of our time has been spent laying on our own hooks. Occasionally we’re required to pick up a mooring, but rarely do we go to a dock. Our record is two and a half years without touching a dock in the Caribbean; currently, while in Singapore, we’ve been 24 months without using our fenders. The longest we’ve stayed at a dock was five months in 2010 in Turkey; before that, I can’t even remember. 

Why?

We like the privacy. Like kings of yore, we feel more at ease with a large moat surrounding our residence. I write a minimum of four hours a day, and there are fewer interruptions on the hook. We don’t end up with any stowaways. Rats are a real problem in the developing nations, as are roaches, termites and ants. Theft is much less of a problem. Ditto, marine salesmen, government officials and waterborne Jehovah’s Witnesses (who have managed to visit us twice!). The boat pivots into the wind. Swimming is merely a matter of falling in. Our cockpit meals are romantic, intimate affairs, and afterward, we can’t be charged with a credit-card reader. And best of all, living on the hook is almost always free—free in terms of money, yes, but also free of the hassles that marina life invariably includes. 

Does this require special equipment? Yes, you need, in particular, the right attitude. We don’t live aboard ­because it’s easy. It’s not. It is wonderful (in part because it isn’t easy). Ease is a false god. Living aboard, the way we do it, is labor-intensive. But we’re happy to pay that price for the amazing, astounding personal freedom we enjoy year-round in the farthest corners of the globe. 

Yes, at 70 we still have manual sheet winches; no, we don’t pay for a gym membership. 

We believe that the entire world is a gourmet feast, and our vessel gives us the widest possible menu. We anchor somewhere exotic for as long as that destination offers us the highest-quality life imaginable, and when it ceases
to, we move on. 

Currently we’re headquartering out of Singapore, with stunning Indonesia, diverse Malaysia and breathtaking Thailand a short sail away. Since our winds here are monsoonal, not trades, we can sail downwind to the Nicobars, India, the Maldives, Chagos, Oman, Yemen and the Horn of Africa, and then wait a month or two and toddle back to Singapore, also downwind! 

How cool is that? 

Obviously, our dinghy is extremely important, and everything about it is carefully considered. We use a 10-foot Caribe RIB. Our last one, under heavy use, lasted us 12 years because we treated it kindly and Carolyn made it a new sun cover every five to seven years. 

Our RIB is powered by a lightweight and powerful 10 hp
Tohatsu outboard, supplied by a 3-gallon tank. This allows us to plane with two people, a bag of groceries, and a carton of beer—a good universal weight standard for yachties. The Tohatsu burns little fuel if we don’t run it wide open. 

Not only is the dinghy our way of getting ashore and enjoying our cruising destination, but it also serves as a truck to bring our folding bikes ashore and to transport our propane, water, fuel tanks, and more. It also serves as our sports car and tour bus. We’ve met many wonderful locals far up rivers, in mangrove sloughs, and across shallow bays. 

In place of an expensive outboard tiller extension, we use a properly sized piece of PVC pipe with an extended dead-man cable so I can stand up as I carefully weave through coral-strewn waters. (In St. Martin, someone gave us an expensive outboard tiller extension; it lasted an hour before being stolen.)

Our dinghy painters are always made from 3/8-inch yellow poly because it floats and, thus, avoids our prop while backing in reverse. We never allow our dinghy to stay in the water overnight. Instead, we hoist it on our davits, on the hip against the hull, or put it on deck. We never intentionally tow it offshore. Thus, during our last four circs, we’ve never lost or damaged our tender. (If, for some reason, you must tow a dinghy offshore in brisk conditions, string a short nylon rope with a fender off its transom so it doesn’t surf off.)

One more factor to consider with regard to our dinghy: We often use it to help others in distress. And because of that, we want it to be 100 percent ready at all times because we might need to instantly engage in highly dangerous activities with it: perform a rescue, tow a boat, chase away a bad guy, help another vessel kedge off.

Equal in importance to our dinghy is our ground tackle. Our primary anchor is a Rocna 55-pounder on 240 feet of 10 mm galvanized chain. While this works 90 percent of the time, it’s being ready for the other 10 percent that separates the men from the boys. We have a Viking 60 aluminum Danforth-style anchor and a 44-pound stainless-steel Bruce on deck as well, each with its own nylon rode. We employ these regularly as a second and third anchor, and contend that if you’re too lazy to do this, it is best to keep hugging the dock. 

Since we’re now in our 70s, our windlass is quite dear to us. While we circumnavigated twice without one when Carolyn was a hot-hot chick, now we simply don’t have the muscles or endurance that we had when we were half our age. 

The windlass, of course, hauls up our anchor, but it does far more. For instance, whenever a lubber anchors too close, it allows us to just smile and move. And if 10 minutes later, a lubberly friend of that lubber anchors too close, we move again. We never stand on our rights because our experience is that inconsiderate people don’t last long in the marine community, and besides, life is too short to deal with such folks. We’re sailors. We can sail away, and often do. 

Occasionally we use our windlass to haul cargo such as water or 40-liter fuel jugs aboard using a bridle. Once we even used it to lift a quadriplegic friend aboard because they wanted to go for a sail. When we loaded our M92B Perkins diesel aboard, we hoisted and lowered it into place via our main boom, with trusty Carolyn at the windlass foot switch. I laughed at the estimate the yard gave me to hoist it aboard by crane.

Another tool in our quiver is our stout twin spinnaker poles. If there’s an annoying swell in the harbor, we use them to deploy our twin triangular flopper stoppers, while at the same time we sheet in our flat-cut, fully battened mizzen to smooth things out. 

Needless to say, we select our anchorages carefully. Often we’re anchored in completely safe harbors. But there are times when we’re not. Occasionally we might just drop the hook in the lee, and during these times, we are always ready, 24/7, to go to sea. 

Numerous times we’ve left the harbor at dusk and gone offshore to heave to as a blow approaches, much to the amusement of our less knowledgeable, more dock-trusting friends. Recently we and another boat did so, while seven cruising boats that didn’t ended up on the beach. Oops. Each of those skippers claimed it was a freak storm, but it wasn’t. It was just a capful of wind from the opposite direction, and totally predictable because a singlehander named Ross, on a British twin-keeler, and I read it correctly.

We had no watermaker for our first two circumnavigations, but on Ganesh, our 43-foot French ketch, we have a small desalinator that we use to make 3 gallons per day. We also have three levels of on-deck rain-catchment systems, similar to what we used one time when we stayed in deserted Chagos for four months. 

Jugs play an important part in our life because we’re often lugging fuel from cheap gas stations instead of expensive marina pumps. Ditto for filling water tanks because we often use them to replenish water in one of our five separate tanks, designed so that if we get contaminated water, it doesn’t ruin our good water already aboard.

Batteries play a role in our ability to stay land-free as well. We have eight 6-volt Trojans in our house bank and four in our cranking bank, and they’re recharged by nine solar cells. Overkill? It sure is (intentionally) on sunny days in the tropics, but not on rough fall passages in the North Atlantic. We try to never crank up to charge, and haven’t in the past five or six years, anyway.

Do we wear foul-weather jackets that cost more than 10 times the price of our first liveaboard cruising vessel? No, we wear PVC stuff and buy it from where commercial fishermen shop. For us, it’s both the best value and the driest. (Yes, we replace our cheap PVC foulies every two decades or so—why not?)

Unlike others, satphones are not for us. To communicate, we use our VHF and SSB radios in conjunction with a Pactor modem to send off our stories and book manuscripts. Though in Singapore, we do have to carry mobile phones to use TraceTogether to reduce COVID-19 transmission, something we’re happy to do despite this being the first time I’ve ever owned a mobile phone. (I haven’t given anyone the number except for my wife and daughter. Why would I possibly want a device that could interrupt my dinner?)

A few other liveaboard tidbits to consider: While we never lock our boat in densely populated Singapore—we know these 6 million folks are honest—we do lock and alarm her in other areas. To do it, we’ve cobbled together a burglar and bilge alarm for 20 bucks that not only rings loudly and lights up the deck, but it triggers our masthead and spreader lights as well. And though we also lock our dinghy in certain anchorages, in others we don’t bother because both the RIB and outboard are clearly painted and marked in unusual ways, which is one of the reasons they are often passed over by lazy “teefs.” 

We never leave anything valuable on deck. Ashore, we dress modestly and don’t wear flashy jewelry. If possible, we use inland ATMs. A few of the ATMs closest to the dinghy docks in Thailand are known to sport skimmers, which can capture your login info. We also carry five to seven debit cards from issuers in the United States, New Zealand and Southeast Asia so they can’t all be shut off at once in case of civil war, revolution, insurrection or natural disaster.

The result is two happy, healthy and loving people, smitten not only with each other, but the entire kooky world as well. And we do it all while living on the hook.

While Cap’n Fatty Goodlander frets about being anchor-bound for too long in Singapore, his wife, Carolyn, turns lemons into lemonade by studying Mandarin.

The post Free Medical Advice: The Unwarranted, Unprofessional Edition appeared first on Cruising World.

Just because you’re sailing in paradise doesn’t mean you can let down your guard. Wise skippers (and crews) should be prepared for any crisis that might occur. These are boats, after all, and stuff happens.  

First, it’s important that you make full use of your charter briefing. Pay ­attention and ask questions. Your charter company’s briefer can point out the location of fire extinguishers (and how to operate them), life jackets, the propane stove, fuel shut-offs, bilge pumps (electric and manual) and the emergency tiller. Ask to be shown all the seacocks for the engine and heads. Understand everything clearly, or ask more questions.  

During the briefing, be sure that at least one crewmember (besides the skipper) understands VHF radio procedures and how to reach the rescue/aid service in your charter area. Check to see what channel the charter company monitors too. Even if you manage to fix a problem, be sure to report it to the charter company at the end of your trip. Let’s look at some possible issues.

Engine failure

Arguably the most likely scare is when the engine doesn’t start or suddenly dies. I recommend (based on several such “adventures”) that you keep the mainsail up all the way into the anchorage, thus giving yourself backup propulsion in case of the Dreaded Silence. Check to see if the engine kill switch is in the right position, if the gearshift lever is in neutral, if the battery switches are all on, and if the engine is overheating. If the problem is that last one, then the cooling-water intake is probably clogged.

Anchor dragging

This can be dangerous or embarrassing, or both. My wife says that I sleep so lightly that a mouse couldn’t cross the deck without me jumping up and looking. You should be an alert skipper during the night too. If the water against the hull stops going slap–slap and instead goes splish–splish, it might mean your boat is drifting.  

Assuming that you ­anchored properly, you should have taken bearings just after sunset, so you could use them at oh-dark-thirty. You should have noted the water depth as well. If the depth has changed or the bearings aren’t right, you’re dragging.  

Your first move should be to make sure there are no lines in the water (the tender ­painter?), and then start the engine. If you’re not close to other boats, try paying out more rode. If all fails, re-anchor. You have no choice. Awaken other crewmembers, turn off interior lights to save night vision, and move the boat very slowly (with a bow lookout to spot tenders and buoys) to another spot that you hopefully chose during daylight hours as your Plan B.

Fire

Fire is likely to be human-made, usually with a cigarette, match, propane or other type of fuel. The absolute first thing to do is shout, “Fire!” Then, grab the fire extinguishers and aim them at the base of the fire, not flames. Stay away from using water, especially on gasoline or fuel fires because water will only spread them. If, in a few moments, the fire is still uncontrolled, have a crew member send a distress call on the VHF radio.  

A barbecue fire is often on the transom. Most rail-mounted grills can be turned to dump the burning coals into the drink. Check to make sure they didn’t land anywhere on board or, even worse, in the tender.

Flooding

Stepping into the cabin should be step-step-step, not step-step-splash. If you see or feel water, hit the electric bilge pumps manually because they might not have triggered automatically.  Then find the cause of the flooding.

Short of a collision, that cause is likely to be a seacock: The hose either came loose or is leaking. Work through the boat: sinks, heads, engine intakes. If you find a pulled-off hose, then you should shut off the seacock, reattach the hose, and watch it carefully. If the seacock failed or you found a hole, stuff it with anything you can, including beach towels or pillows. The next step is to head for the nearest port and alert the rescue services about your problem. If you don’t find the leak and you’re on an ocean charter, taste the bilge water (I know, yuck!). If it isn’t salty, your freshwater tank is leaking.

Collision

Before departing, remind your crew that if a collision is imminent, whether with another boat or a piling, you absolutely forbid them to try fending off with their hands or feet. Pushing off a moving 10-ton yacht is both impossible and simply stupid.  

After the Big Crunch, check to see if you have any injured crew or if anyone is overboard. If so, forget about the boat and deal with your crew instantly. Next, evaluate the damage. Hole in the hull? Fill it with towels, bedding, whatever you can. Get the name of the other boat, hailing port, charter company, and skipper. Notify your charter company via VHF radio or cellphone as soon as you have things in hand. The company will assess the situation and either send you a chase boat or give you instructions on how to proceed.

Wrapped prop

I’ve endured a few wrapped props, most notably one that actually yanked the prop shaft out of the hull, leaving us not only engineless, but with a solid stream of incoming ocean as well. That’s a story for cocktail hour. 

I now make it a point to have someone appointed Tender Captain (often an older kid) to keep the towline out of the water during maneuvers.  

When you realize that the propeller is eating rope (clue: the towline is disappearing under the boat at an amazing rate), shift into neutral quickly. Don’t try to outthink a piece of rope; stories about shifting into reverse to unwind the prop are old sailor’s tales, and outright lies. If you’re in calm water, then it’s time for the sharp knife and a swim. If the boat is rolling or pitching, don’t even think about it. Be sure the swimmer has a safety line tended by someone on deck, and just carve away the line. Tip: Don’t cut yourself in the process, either with the knife or a prop blade.

Yes, there are a multitude of other possible emergencies, from breaking a stay (stabilize the rig with a halyard) to anchor windlass failure (hit the reset switch and keep thy fingers at a distance). But preparation and prevention are your best guarantees of a problem-free charter. Listen carefully at the briefing, and ask questions.  

And always have a Plan B.

Chris Caswell is an award-­winning journalist, and the editor and publisher of Charter Savvy, a digital magazine specializing in bareboat charter. 

The post Challenges on Charter appeared first on Cruising World.

The morning breeze was light as we ghosted past Sable Island. The mainsail and asymmetrical spinnaker were keeping us moving off the Canadian coast, and we embraced the moment, knowing it wouldn’t last. Wind was coming our way: The forecast called for near-gale-force winds by midnight. We were bound for St. John’s, Newfoundland, 400 miles across the Grand Banks. 

By late afternoon, with the apparent winds steady at 18 knots, we doused the spinnaker, unfurled the genoa, and set the whisker pole. By evening twilight, it was time to reef the main. Quetzal, our Kaufman 47 cutter, is fitted with traditional slab reefing. We were on a sweet reach with the apparent winds 110 degrees off on port tack. Without changing course—that’s right, keeping the apparent winds well abaft the beam—we tied the first reef in the main and rolled in a bit of headsail. A few hours later, with the winds steady at 25 knots, we furled the genoa completely, dropped the pole, unfurled the staysail, and tied the second reef in the main. We didn’t change our heading and didn’t flog a sail. The wind kept ­building and, just past midnight, increased to 30 knots sustained with gusts in the low 40s.

We were flying, punching out double-­digit speeds, but it was a rough ride. The Grand Banks is infamous for raising nasty seas in a hurry. It was time for the third reef in the main. The idea of coming up into the wind to reef in those conditions was madness. While still on port tack, the winds had clocked slightly to about 90 degrees off. We fell off a bit to tie in the third reef before resuming course. We also rolled in a bit of staysail, to keep the sails balanced. The boat settled down, and we charged through the night sailing fast but in control. As conditions moderated, we shed reefs in the same fashion, off the wind without flogging or drama. 

When we reached St. John’s, we learned of the tragedy of the CNB 66 Escape. Just a week earlier, while on passage from Bermuda to Nova Scotia, husband-and-wife owners Karl and Annamarie Frank died from injuries sustained while trying to reef the main head to wind in a Gulf Stream gale. It’s a profoundly heartbreaking story. Reports indicated a struggle with the headsail and boom furling systems. The ensuing chaos of a flogging headsail, the boat rounding up violently, and a wildly out of control mainsheet proved a deadly combination. (For more, see “Deep Thoughts” by Herb McCormick, Cruising World, October.)

The tragedy triggered a sober ­discussion on Quetzal. Coming upwind in those conditions to reef the main comes with a mountain of risk. For that reason, we always reef off the wind. It’s a proven technique; we’ve completed 161 offshore training passages aboard Quetzal and logged more than 150,000 miles. We’ve encountered several deep ocean storms. Reefing off the wind requires good gear and the coordination of several moving parts, but it is not a difficult process. 

However, before we discuss the details, it is critical to understand that falling off the wind, to flatten and stabilize the boat, should be the first step in nearly every offshore sailing maneuver. We are taught to come up into the wind to deal with issues, including reefing the main. To my experience, it’s almost always a bad idea. Sailboats are remarkably stable with the wind abaft the beam, and the apparent loads are dramatically reduced. Flogging your sails and running rigging is dangerous on any boat, but especially on a big boat.  

Our strategy for reefing off the wind begins by steering down (or up, if we’re on a deep reach) to 100 to 110 degrees off the apparent wind, and making sure the boat is happy on that heading. We dump the traveler to leeward to shorten the mainsheet, and we tighten the preventer to keep the boom under control. The boom preventer is always deployed when reaching, and it runs from the end of the boom forward to a fitting near the bow and back to the cockpit. If you don’t have a rigid vang, make sure the topping lift is relatively tight. With the boom secured, it’s time to reef. 

Our main halyard is led aft to the cockpit. As it’s eased, the reefing outhaul, which is also led aft, is tensioned. It does not need to be a simultaneous operation, and the more slack in the halyard, the easier it is to secure the reef outhaul. The sail might bunch a bit as it drops, and occasionally, the sheet needs to be eased to reduce tension, but the sail never flogs, and there’s no tendency for the boat to round up. We don’t lead a separate reef tack line aft, so someone goes forward and secures the tack to the rams horn. With the boat flat, it is not dangerous to make your way forward. Sometimes, a bit of tugging along the luff helps the sail drop, but usually at this wind angle, the sail drops on its own. 

Once the tack is secure, and the reef outhaul tight to the boom, the halyard is slowly hoisted. A bit of sheet control might be required as the sail goes back up. Once the halyard is tensioned, we stay off the wind and rig reefing ties, making sure not to lead them around the boom. They’re not for sail shape, just for gathering loose sail.  

With the reef deployed, we take a minute to make sure everything looks right. Reefing isn’t frantic when you’re off the wind. When we are satisfied, we trim sails and resume course.  

Naturally, there are nuances. Reefing off the wind means that loads stay under tension. You need stout gear, from halyards and blocks to winches and clutches. Also, always reef early, because doing so is the essence of good seamanship. I have a simple rule: If the thought of reefing flashes through my brain, even for an instant, I reef.  

With slab reefing systems, the first reef is the most challenging. You are dealing with more sail area, so the sooner you take it, the better. Taking the second reef is significantly easier if the first reef is in place. The same goes for the third reef. Also, the sail flakes better on the boom when it’s reefed sequentially.  

Quality mainsail cars and a slippery track are vital for effective reefing off the wind, especially if you have a ­full-battened mainsail. Full battens create side load on the cars, and I am not sure why bluewater cruisers insist on full-batten mainsails. Quetzal has a “two plus two” main, with the top two battens full (where you need them the most) and the bottom two partial, allowing us to reef off the wind with ease. 

Selden, Harken, Ronstan and others make ball-bearing cars for full-battened mains facilitating off-the-wind reefing. Replacing the main halyard with smaller-­diameter, less-stretchy Dyneema, and replacing the sheaves at the masthead and in the boom, will reduce friction. Tides Marine offers a one-piece, low-friction, ultra-high molecular weight (UHMW) track with custom slides and batten receptacles that can be added to almost any mast. 

Friction is your enemy reefing off the wind, which is why I don’t like single-line slab reefing systems. There are too many turns, adding friction at every bend. Lazy jacks are also problematic for reefing off the wind. Quetzal is fitted with retractable lazy jacks that are quick to deploy for dropping the sail, and easy to retract when sailing. If your boat is fitted with a lazy bag and fixed lazy jacks, talk to your sailmaker about finding a way to retract them for offshore sailing. 

In-mast furling systems are ideal for off-the-wind reefing. You need to maintain balance between the outhaul, furling line and mainsheet as you reduce sail. Back in my delivery skipper days, I made several Atlantic crossings with in-mast furlers, and successfully reefed off the wind using the same principles used for slab reefing. 

Remember: In every off-the-wind reefing situation, start with establishing boom control. Off-the-wind reefing with in-boom furling is more challenging. The tragic tale of Escape is a graphic example of trying to cope with a boom furler on a big boat in heavy weather. However, it can be done. I recently sailed a Tayana 48 across the Atlantic and a Hylas 49 from Hawaii to Seattle. Both were fitted with boom furlers, and we consistently reefed the main off the wind. Boom angle and the ­coordination between the furling line, which is almost always controlled by an electric winch, the halyard and the ­preventer, is critical. You need to be patient, and you can be if you are not on the wind flogging sails and plunging into waves. 

Manually turning the furling winch is hard work, but it gives you more feel as you reef, and sensing resistance helps prevent the sail from running forward at the gooseneck. Also, sheeting the headsail tight, despite being well off the wind, backwinds the main, which helps it reef more smoothly. Reefing early and ­incrementally is paramount with in-boom furling. 

  Fitting your mainsail for off-the-wind reefing, and practicing the technique in moderate conditions, will make your next offshore voyage safer and less stressful.  

John Kretschmer has been sailing professionally for 40 years, logging 400,000 miles and completing his 30th Atlantic crossing this past summer. He is the author of the international bestseller Sailing a Serious Ocean. John Kretschmer Sailing offers training passages, workshops, ­webinars and Captain’s Hour—a monthly meeting about all aspects of offshore sailing.

The post Reefing Off the Wind appeared first on Cruising World.

Remember when not a single grocery store in America sold pomegranate juice? When tofu was hard to find? When quinoa was almost unheard of?

Well, let me introduce you to sea asparagus. 

My family and I were in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, on Del Viento, our Fuji 40, headed for Alaska. It was the beginning of what would be an eight-year Pacific cruise. A few nights before we left, cruising friends gave us a briefing. It included pictures, stories and need-to-know information from their multiple trips north. 

Then they told us about this thing called sea asparagus. They said we’d find it just at the high-tide line. They said to pick only the tender ends, and to pick around the edges of beds to avoid stomping on the plants. They said we could eat it raw or saute it. We could even blanch it, cut it into pieces, and freeze it. They said it was salty, delicious and nutritious. 

My wife, Windy, and I tucked the info in the back of our minds as we bid Victoria a warm farewell. Then, a week later, anchored off Galiano Island in a little cove near Montague Harbour, we sat quietly in the cockpit and heard a clear, ­authoritative voice booming from ashore. A local naturalist was ­lecturing a group of schoolchildren, likely ferried over from Vancouver. We tuned in, figuring maybe we’d learn something.

“And here,” the guide said, “just above the high-tide line, is sea asparagus. Pick off a bit and try it.” 

Ten minutes later, Windy, our two daughters and I were ashore, poking around the area where the group had been. “I think this is it,” Windy said, nibbling on a tender green shoot. “Funny, I always thought this plant was called pickleweed.” 

Sea asparagus has long, green spears that closely resemble garden asparagus. Both are slightly bitter yet savory—but the taste is different. Sea asparagus is briny and a bit crunchy, delicious on its own or paired with something that would normally need salt. It’s perfect with just about any seafood. 

We harvested a bunch and rowed back to Del Viento to make our dinner: a sea asparagus-inspired Asian stir-fry. It was very good. As it turned out, sea asparagus is a perfect stir-fry ingredient.

Stir-fries are one of our favorite onboard meals. You can experiment, use what’s on hand, and discover new flavor combos. You can go all-veggie, use tofu, or add slices of beef, chicken or shrimp. 

Sea asparagus is high in protein, rich in polyunsaturates, and high in vitamins A and B and folic acid. It’s hyperphotosynthetic (meaning it sucks carbon dioxide out of the air really fast compared with other plants). It’s being used in Baja, California, to make a lower-sodium salt substitute. And it can be used to produce biodiesel. This stuff definitely qualifies as “green.” 

In England, they call sea asparagus samphire and eat it with butter or olive oil. In other parts of the world, they call it umari keerai and grow it for livestock feed. The Sri Lankans feed it to donkeys. Other names abound by region, including beach asparagus, glasswort, sea beans and crow’s foot greens. And Windy was right: Pickleweed is a San Francisco name for this stuff. Botanists call it Salicornia, its official name.

It’s probably only a matter of time before clever entrepreneurs add sea asparagus to lists of superfoods you should eat every day. Then, in the grocery store, it’ll be packaged in neat little bundles wrapped in cellophane (and priced exorbitantly). 

For now, look for it seasonally in sheltered coastal salt marshes and calm tidal flats. It’s common along the east and west coasts of North America, coastal Gulf of Mexico, and elsewhere around the world. If you’re lucky, you might find it in coastal farmers markets. 

We’ll continue gathering it wherever we find it, and ­munching away for free, wherever our bow points us next.

Savory Sailor’s Stir-Fry

• Splash of olive oil or peanut oil
• 1-2 Tbsp. sesame oil
• 1 cup carrot, thinly sliced
• 1 lb. shrimp, cleaned and deveined; or 14-16 oz. extra-firm tofu, well- drained and cut into bite-size pieces
• 2-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped 
• 2 tsp. fresh ginger, finely chopped 
• 2-3 cups sea asparagus or garden asparagus
• hoisin, mushroom or oyster sauce, to taste
• black pepper, to taste
• serves 4

Wash and cut sea asparagus spears into 3-inch pieces. If using garden asparagus, remove the tough bottom end of stalks. If you can’t find thin-stalk asparagus, cut thick spears in half lengthwise.

Heat the oil on medium-high in a large skillet or wok. Add the carrot, and toss for 1 minute to coat and heat. If using garden asparagus, add it with the carrot. 

Add shrimp and stir-fry for another 3 minutes. If using tofu, stir-fry for 4 minutes.

Add garlic and ginger, and fry for another minute, tossing well. Do not to burn or overcook the garlic. If using sea asparagus, add it now, and continue stir-frying until it’s mixed in and heated through. 

With less than a minute left to cook, stir in the sauce of your choice. Add black pepper, to taste.

Alterations: If you want a bit of sour with the sweet, add a dash of rice wine vinegar. For garden asparagus, add salt, to taste, or put a bottle of soy sauce on the table. Do not add salt if using sea asparagus. It’s very salty. 

Serve in bowls over rice.

Prep time: 15 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Can be made: Underway or at anchor

The post Wild Harvest: Salty Sea Asparagus appeared first on Cruising World.

Quicklook: State-of-the-Art Boating Safety Equipment

• Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRBs)
• Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs)
• Automatic Identification System Man Overboard Devices (AIS MOBs)
• Bluetooth MOBs
• Two-Way Communicators

Evolving Marine Safety Technologies

I still remember waving goodbye to my mom, as my dad, three of his buddies and I pulled away from the dock in Bar Harbor, Maine. We were bound for the Gulf of Maine and, eventually, our home port on Long Island Sound. The year was 1987; I was 10, and I had begged to go offshore. Consequently, I had made my share of promises so that I might find myself—a mere boy—on a bona fide delivery. Among them were a promise not to venture forward of the cockpit and to wear an (awful) orange Type II life jacket with a homemade chest harness and safety tether.

While my dad’s old C&C 37 got us through in fine form, I quickly learned that I hate being seasick even more than I despise Type II life jackets. 

Fast-forward 35 years to my most recent offshore adventure: a delivery from Ketchikan, Alaska, to Seattle via the outside of Vancouver Island, aboard a lickety-split Riptide 44. Many things had changed. For starters, there was no seasickness, nor was there any time spent languishing at 5 knots. There also was no awful orange life jacket. Instead, I wore my brand-new PFD, which contained an AIS MOB beacon set up to trigger automatically if the PFD inflated. I also carried a PLB.

While there’s no comparing the boat speeds or water temperatures involved in these two adventures, there’s also no comparing the safety gear. Sure, hypothermia would arrive much faster in British Columbian waters than in the Gulf of Maine in August, however, my AIS MOB beacon would guide my own vessel back to my real-time position, while my GPS-enabled 406 MHz PLB would alert the correct rescuing authority.

Satellite-Based Innovation

When it comes to safety at sea, modern mariners have two important pieces of satellite-based defense available: EPIRBs and PLBs. Both are underpinned by Cospas-Sarsat, which was founded decades ago by Canada, France, the United States and the former Soviet Union to provide a free emergency-signal relay service for mariners of all flags.

Today, Cospas-Sarsat involves these founders plus 43 other nations (and two agencies) that share the goal of providing, maintaining and innovating a global distress-signal monitoring system that directs the correct rescuing authority to an unfurling ­emergency as quickly as possible. To date, Cospas-Sarsat has saved more than 50,000 lives. 

On the infrastructure side, Cospas-Sarsat uses transponders fixed onto search-and-­rescue satellites (SARSAT) that operate on three constellation bands: geostationary (GEOSAR), low-earth orbit (LEOSAR) and medium-earth orbit (MEOSAR). As of this writing, there are nine active GEOSAR satellites and five LEOSAR satellites; once the network is complete, there will be at least 75 MEOSAR satellites aloft. 

These satellites are supported by a global network of ground-based assets, including Local Users Terminals (LUTs), Mission Control Centers (MCCs) and local rescue coordination centers. 

Satellite transponders spend the majority of their time monitoring for 406 MHz emergency signals, which originate from a vessel-registered EPIRB or an individually registered PLB. Once a satellite receives a distress signal, it either forwards the signal’s exact frequency and time it was received to a nearby LUT, or it stores and forwards the message to the next available LUT. Then, the LUT passes the message to an MCC in the country where the beacon is registered. The MCC, in turn, hands it off to the correct rescue-coordination center, which executes the rescue. In US waters, this last responsibility falls to the men and women in the US Coast Guard. 

Modern EPIRBs and most PLBs are GPS/GNSS-enabled, meaning they encode and transmit their GPS or GNSS location information along with their unique 406 MHz distress signal. This is critical because accurate position information almost always reduces the amount of time it takes for Cospas-Sarsat to determine an active beacon’s position. 

Triangulation

LEOSAR ground segments can determine a beacon’s location using Doppler processing, however, this requires at least three beacon bursts to determine the beacon’s correct latitude and longitude. MEOSAR satellites can perform almost-instant “trilateration” of an active beacon using what NOAA describes as 3D triangulation. 

GEOSAR satellites, on the other hand, because of their geostationary nature, pass collected 406 MHz signals to LEOSARs and LEOLUTs for geolocation work. 

In addition to their ability to execute trilateration—sometimes with only one beacon burst—the still-evolving MEOSAR satellite network offers other important advantages compared with the older GEOSAR and LEOSAR satellites. These advantages include sheer numbers (read: far shorter wait times than LEOSARs, which complete each orbit every 100 or so minutes) and the fact that multiple MEOSAR satellites are always looking at the same swatch of earth and ocean. This includes the high latitudes. 

According to an example cited on NOAA’s webpage, on May 4, 2016, an EPIRB activated some 700 nautical miles west of the Galapagos Islands. The LEOSAR and GEOSAR constellations required 59 minutes to locate the beacon, and an additional hour and 18 minutes to confirm the signal; MEOSAR located the signal immediately, and confirmed it in 20 minutes. MEOSAR was about seven times faster, shortening the time by almost two hours. And in any emergency situation, time matters.

Keep reading to learn how and why technologies like these are quickly becoming essential tools in any modern boat safety kit.

EPIRBs

As mentioned, EPIRBs are registered to a vessel, not to individual sailors. They come with manually or hydrostatically released mounting brackets, and the EPIRBs themselves can be manually or hydrostatically activated. EPIRBs are physically larger than PLBs. Their batteries are required to enable signal transmission for at least 48 hours (some offer longer burn times), and they’re equipped with 360-degree strobe lights. 

All EPIRBs sold in the United States on or after January 1, 2019, are required to be GPS/GNSS-enabled. One important and recent regulatory change came on July 1, 2022, when the International Maritime Organization began mandating that large commercial ships (read: SOLAS-level vessels) fit EPIRBs that are both GPS- and AIS-enabled.

While SARSATs listen for 406 MHz signals, AIS signals are transmitted via VHF radio and are received by every AIS-equipped vessel that is within VHF range. This makes AIS the preferred signal for so-called final-mile search-and-rescue work, and means that modern EPIRBs transmit four signals: 406 MHz, 121.5 MHz (an older-generation homing signal for final-mile operations), AIS and GPS/GNSS. As of this writing, the only EPIRBs that satisfy this requirement are ACR Electronics’s GlobalFix V5 EPIRB, Ocean Signal’s EPIRB3, McMurdo’s Smartfind G8 AIS and Kannad’s SafePro AIS (ACR and Ocean Signal are owned by the same parent company, while McMurdo and Kannad share similar lineage). Other manufacturers are expected to bring next-generation EPIRBs to market soon. 

If you cruise with an older, non-AIS- and GPS/GNSS-enabled EPIRB, or with one that’s incompatible with the new MEOSAR satellites, this winter could be a great time to ask Santa for a boat safety kit upgrade. 

PLBs

Personal locator beacons are designed to contact Cospas-Sarsat and are among the most important beacons that every sailor should carry. PLBs are typically pocket-size, are inherently buoyant or employ a buoyant case, and are manually activated. As mentioned, PLBs are registered to an individual, not to a vessel. Users must register their beacon after purchase; in the United States, this is done through NOAA’s website. Users can update their beacon’s profile as necessary. 

This latter point is key. Before leaving for my recent delivery from Ketchikan to Seattle, I updated my NOAA beacon profile to describe our proposed sailing dates, expected routing, the vessel’s name, the (correctly spelled) names of each crewmember, the name of the vessel’s owner (he wasn’t aboard), some emergency contacts, and a description of the yacht (44 feet, white topsides, royal-blue undercarriage). All of this information would save critical time in an emergency.

Once sailing, I carried my PLB in a dedicated pouch attached to my PFD’s harness, and I secured a lanyard from the PLB to the PFD’s harness so that the beacon couldn’t float away if I found myself swimming (my AIS MOB was also backed up with a lanyard).

As mentioned, most modern PLBs—including mine—incorporate GPS/GNSS information with their distress signals, which can save a lot of time. Another important advancement involves relaying confirmation to the PLB that Cospas-Sarsat has received its distress signal. Tragically, there have been documented examples of mariners making fatal decisions because they believed their signals went unheard. As a result, some newer PLBs have Return Link Service (RLS), which means that once Cospas-Sarsat has received a distress signal, it initiates a reciprocal signal for confirmation. 

Anyone in the market for a PLB should spend a little bit more (ballpark $100 extra) and invest in a MEOSAR-compatible PLB that includes RLS capabilities. 

While cruisers can expect to pay a few hundred dollars for a PLB, there are no subscription costs or revolving fees. PLB batteries are good for roughly five years of standby service and at least 24 hours of operation (manufacturers advise mariners to replace their batteries after use). Five years is also a good time frame for evaluating newer boat safety kit technologies and possibly upgrading beacons as new capabilities come online. 

AIS MOBs

Having sailed and raced extensively in the Pacific Northwest’s cold waters, I’m well aware that one’s own vessel—or a nearby vessel—is the fastest way out of a MOB situation. As their moniker implies, AIS MOBs are individually carried but unregistered beacons that, when activated, transmit emergency signals over AIS. These signals trigger AIS alarms on all nearby vessels; these alarms include AIS MOB icons that appear on networked chart plotters and give real-time information about a MOB’s location.

AIS MOBs include an AIS transmitter, integrated GPS (or GNSS), usually a Digital Selective Calling (DSC) transmitter, sometimes an integrated strobe light, a battery and an antenna. Once activated, AIS MOBs transmit position information that’s accurate to within a few meters for at least 24 hours. 

While most AIS MOBs are manually activated, some—including Ocean Signal’s MOB1 and ACR’s AISLink MOB (owned by the same ­parent ­company)—can be rigged inside a personal ­flotation device so that when the PFD inflates, it pulls the pin on the AIS MOB. This way, the AIS MOB starts broadcasting within seconds. This ­feature is especially important if the MOB is injured or goes into shock.

Bluetooth Devices

In addition to PLBs and AIS MOBs, companies including ACR also make Bluetooth-based MOB alarms. These consist of an onboard base station that typically pairs with a wireless device running a dedicated app, plus a series of crew-carried pendants or tags. Should a tag break its geofence, an alarm is tripped on the app, which captures the tag’s current GPS location. Users can navigate back to this last-known MOB position; however, it’s important to understand that set-and-drift means an MOB can travel some distance from where they fell overboard.

Also, unlike AIS MOBs, whose emergency signals and real-time positions are displayed by all nearby AIS-equipped traffic, Bluetooth screams can be heard only by the tag’s paired base station. So, while Bluetooth-based MOB devices are affordable, and sometimes even include an engine kill switch, they don’t afford the same protection as an AIS MOB or PLB. 

Two-Way Communicators

Recent years have seen the advent of satellite trackers that offer two-way satellite communications and the ability to contact a privately operated emergency-­response center such as the (Garmin-owned) International Emergency Response Coordination Center (IERCC). That center, in turn, contacts the correct rescuing authority.

These two-way communicators are GPS-enabled, which means they can share your exact location information. They also have two-way communications (typically using a third-party wireless device, but sometimes on the communicator itself) that can be crucial in an emergency. Product names include Garmin’s inReach, Spot X and ACR’s Bivy Stick. The devices can sometimes be used for navigation and to get basic weather information, but they do require a subscription plan (although typically not for issuing an emergency signal). 

Gold Standard Technologies for Your Boat Safety Kit

Given the available technologies, the best electronic boat safety kit tools for ensuring safety at sea are a contemporary and properly registered EPIRB, a properly registered and updated PLB, and an AIS MOB. This setup is the safest way to sail. As for cost, remember: No one ever wished they owned a cheaper parachute before pulling the rip cord.

David Schmidt is CW’s electronics editor.

Stop the Press!

ACR Electronics and Ocean Signal (same parent company) announced the first combination 406 MHz and AIS-enabled boat safety kit beacons: the ResQLink AIS PLB and the PLB3 (respectively). These devices are registered to an individual, and can be considered the gold standard for all-in-one beacons. If you’re looking to upgrade, these game-changers could be just the ticket.

Vendor Information

ACR Electronics; from $310
Garmin; from $350
Kannad; call for pricing
Netwave; call for pricing
McMurdo; from $290
Ocean Signal; from $310

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