Along with much of the rest of the world, I have been confined to port by quarantine. The time has not been entirely wasted as I have been refitting my newly acquired Alajuela 38 to convert her into an ocean going vessel. As anyone who has done this knows, transforming a coastal sailer into an ocean going one is a long, tedious business, Anyone who has not had to do this is unlikely to be interested in the details or frustrations of the job. Either way, there is no point in cluttering the world with yet another description of a rebuild/refit.
To fill the gap until I can do some more interesting sailing, here is a piece written for the Royal Cruising Club journal Roving Commissions. Every edition of this excellent annual publication back to 1883 is available online (https://www.rcc.org.uk/logs.aspx). There are articles by well-known authors such as Hammond Innes, Miles Smeeton, Eric Hiscock and Robin Knox-Johnson. But the real gems are probably from much less well-known people such as Willie Ker, John Gore-Grimes and Pete Hill, to pick a few names nearly at random. Look it up: it is well worth the effort.
I thought this next piece described a voyage too hum-drum to be worth posting, but one of the yachting magazines (Yachting World) picked it up and published it, so it may have some merit. Here it is.
REPLACING IRON BARK
When I
launched Iron Bark in 1997 I said
that I would move on to another vessel before I turned seventy. In October
2018, with that birthday looming, I sailed from Ireland for the West Indies to
look for her replacement. After crossing the Atlantic by the trade wind route,
a voyage of no particular note other than a pleasant diversion to Plymouth to
catch up with an eclectic and far-sailing group of voyaging friends, I hauled Iron Bark out of the water in Carriacou
to prepare her her for sale.
Iron Bark II is going to be hard to replace
I wanted to
replace Iron Bark with a similar vessel but built of fibreglass for
reduced maintenance in my dotage. I decided on an Alajuela 38, a fibreglass
version of William Atkins' Ingrid built
in California in the 1970s. The Alajeula is a little larger and heavier than Iron
Bark and rigged as a bermudian
cutter. I would have preferred a gaff-rigged vessel, but there was nothing
suitable on offer at a price that I could afford. Perhaps I will be able to re-rig her as a gaff cutter sometime in the next few years
There were
several Alajuela 38 for sale and I flew to Tampa on Florida's west coast look
at the nearest one. Under previous owners, this vessel, Diva, had been from California and British Columbia and back. Then
she moved to the east coast of the USA, probably by truck, and had since twice
been as far south as Panama. Although she had covered quite a bit of water, her
sailing seems to have been entirely short hops with no ocean passages. She was
fitted out to maximise comfort at anchor or in a marina with little
consideration for functionality at sea and her motor had seen far more use than
her sails. She was basically sound and although much of her equipment and
fittings were unsuited to ocean voyaging, I believed the surplus systems could
be discarded and the missing ones added at a cost I could afford, so I bought
her. I intended to change her name when I registered her in Australia, but this
was delayed as the US Coastguard were exceptionally slow in removing her from
the American register. Consequently I sailed her to the Caribbean under her old
name.
Marinas are expensive so I did the minimum necessary to get her seaworthy
enough to sail to the Caribbean where I could transfer my tools and gear from Iron Bark and get on with turning her into an ocean-going vessel. I stayed in the Harborage Marina while I prepared her for
the voyage south. The marina was convenient to services, had a friendly staff
and a large live-aboard community who immediately accepted me into their ranks.
One resident, Chris Sheldon, was particularly generous with his time and
vehicle, driving me around doing things that cannot be done online, such as having
gas bottles inspected.
Diva's hull and rig were sound and well built but
her interior had a boat-show layout with too many open spaces and far too
little stowage. Her sails were in good condition but intended for the light
conditions of the American coast and barely adequate for an ocean voyage. The
mainsail lacked a deep reef and there was no proper high-cut sea-going jib.
However with care and patience I believed I could make the passage south with
the sails as they were and sort out her deficiencies in the Caribbean. Most of
the locker doors had only friction catches that would burst open in a seaway so
I bought a roll of duct tape to restrain them. The galley had no bar in front
of the stove or strap to hold the cook in place, there was no usable manual
bilge pump, the cockpit was huge and its drains small, the nonskid was designed
to be easy to clean rather than to keep the crew aboard and there was a maze of
plumbing in the bilge with the potential to sink the vessel. I removed as much
of this piping as I could along with five electric pumps and hoped the rest
would last month at sea without sinking her. There were various bits of fancy
joinery that would look well in an article on a finely finished yacht but also
looked as if they would not survive long on a seagoing vessel. The beautifully
built teak butterfly skylight amidships fell into that category, as did the
dainty platform on the bowsprit, an elaborate folding table in the saloon and
the huge hard dodger that covered the entire cockpit. I hoped they would stay
in place until I got to the Caribbean where I could address their shortcomings.
The passage from Florida is after all only 2400 nautical miles in flying fish latitudes,
albeit largely to windward. More urgently
the cutless bearing needed replacement, the anchors were inadequate and there
was no windvane steering, only an electro-hydraulic autopilot. We arranged that
Sailor's Wharf, the yard that was to haul Diva
for survey, would replace the cutless bearing while she was out of the
water. They made no attempt to do the job, or even offer an excuse for not
doing it, but still charged savagely for a short in-slings haul. The defective
cutless bearing meant limiting motoring to short distances at low speeds until
I could fit a new one in the West Indies. I bought a Monitor windvane and,
having no wish to deal further with St Petersburg's yacht yards, fitted it
afloat by hanging precariously over Diva's
stern. Adding a 33kg Vulcan anchor was simple but expensive, as was replacing
the defunct battery system. I bought several reels of rope and replaced much of
the running rigging. I should have done the lot; almost everything I did not
renew failed on the voyage south. There was
also a persistent air leak in the diesel fuel system that stopped the motor at
unpredictable intervals. The fuel system was complex with dozens of
hose-clamped joints, half a dozen ball valves, three filters and two pumps, any of them capable of leaking air. I fixed a couple of air leaks, which
reduced the severity of the problem but without completely solving it. Until I
could simplify and rebuild the system in the Caribbean, I had to accept the
engine was unreliable. On Saturday
30 March 2019 I sailed from St Pete for the West Indies. As a change from my
usual quiet, almost stealthy, departures there were a dozen or more people to
see me off. The motor lasted long enough to get me around the marina breakwater
and out of sight of the well-wishers before dying. I cursed, anchored (thereby
blocking the channel), bled the system and motored into open water where I
thankfully made sail. It is a long time since I have set off on an ocean
passage on a vessel so ill prepared, but I would be broke and my visa long expired if I stayed in
Florida until all was done. The voyage
from Tampa to the eastern Caribbean divides in three legs. The first 500 miles
is a coastal passage around the Florida peninsula, south down its west coast
then north up the east coast. Once far enough north to clear the Bahamas I
would turn into the open Atlantic, sailing east when I could and north when
headed by the wind. On this leg I hoped to stay between latitude 28°N and
30°N until about 63°W, a distance of about 900 miles. It was likely to be
largely to windward. Having made my easting, I would make the final 1000-mile
leg by arcing south-east to find the trade winds then south to landfall in
Martinique. I expected the voyage to take about a month. There is an
alternative route much used by American yachts. This is a series of short hops
through the Bahamas to Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and on to the Virgin
Islands that allows them to remain in port when the wind is contrary then motor
to the next refuge when winds are light. This way it is possible to reach the
Caribbean from Florida without spending more than one or two nights at sea but
it adds months to the passage south. I never considered this option as I wanted
to get to the Caribbean with dispatch; also Diva's dodgy cutless bearing and my predjudice against engine noise precluded that much motoring. The 500-mile leg
around Florida and into the open Atlantic took a week in generally light
headwinds. There was predictably a lot of traffic; pleasure craft by day,
fishing boats and cargo vessels both day and night. I slept in 20-minute cat
naps, which soon became tedious. Although I had no difficulty getting enough
sleep with this regime it left little time for cooking and cleaning and nothing
for reading a book, watching birds or enjoying life at sea. I reached the
northern end of the Straits of Florida before dawn on the seventh day and, with
the wind in the east, hardened the sheets and steered north-east towards the
open Atlantic. There was one final zigzag to avoid two merchant vessels rounding the tip of the Bahamas Bank with minimum clearance that squeezed me up against the bank before they inconveniently disappeared into a rain squall.
The squall passed and the sun rose on an empty ocean. I
turned in for a long sleep, confident that I was now clear of coastal traffic
and that the AIS would alert me to any large vessels. Five days of
moderate, sometimes fresh, winds got me well clear of the Bahamas, initially sailing
NE close hauled with an easterly wind that slowly veered to SSE and let me make
easting with the sheets just started. As always it was a joy to once again be
clear of land and its encumbrances. I spent the days on deck occupied with
bosun's work, whipping rope ends, splicing and generally tidying up the running
rig, or with a needle and palm sewing canvas covers, with all night in except
for rare AIS ship alarms. If there had been more birds I would have been
perfectly content, but the tropical oceans are a poor place for birds. The compass
had extensive sun crazing of its acrylic dome and a large air bubble that made
it unreadable. I spent hours polishing the dome to reasonable, if not perfect,
clarity then refilled it using baby oil. Baby oil is excellent for this, being
clear, miscible with compass oil and of similar viscosity. Baby oil is also an
excellent lubricant for marine toilets and for treating wood cutting boards; I
believe it can also be applied to infants' bottoms. Every vessel should carry
this elixir. Early on
Thursday 11 April, 12 days out and 5 days after turning into the Atlantic, the
breeze died away to an ominous calm. When the wind returned it quickly hardened
to NE6-7, a strong to near gale head wind. With a deeper reef in the main and a
smaller jib I would have carried on, but with the sails I had there was no
choice but to heave-to. For 32 hours I lay under double-reefed main with the
helm lashed down, fore-reaching slowly and with leeway making a square drift.
When the wind moderated to ESE5 at dawn on 13 April I set the staysail and half
the genoa and crashed off close hauled, making a course a little north of east.
The wind remained SE or ESE for several days, allowing me to work to the east
without being forced much to the north. Then a fresh SW breeze gave us a great
shove so that we crossed 63°W in 29°30'N on 16 April. There I hauled the wind
abeam and headed south-east to look for the trades. Despite the time spent
hove-to, I had made about 1000 nautical miles of easting in 10 days, faster and more
easily than I had expected. The sea was
covered with great rafts of Sargasso weed that repeatedly fouled the
self-steering paddle. While clearing the paddle with a boathook I hit the
spinning wind generator with the boathook handle, breaking off one blade and
rendering the generator useless. I was now entirely dependent on the engine for
battery charging. It would be inconvenient but not catastrophic if the engine
failed. Before leaving Florida I had eliminated most systems that relied on
electricity - autopilot, pressurised water, electric toilet and so on, but for
the first time in my life I had gone to sea without a sextant and tables. If
the engine stopped, the batteries had enough charge to give me a GPS position
every day or two. This would let me make a landfall and I could do without or
bypass the rest of the electrical equipment. The fair
south-westerly backed to a squally easterly headwind. I bashed on close hauled,
reducing sail as the squalls became more intense until we were down to the 147
sq ft staysail alone. With a deeper reef in the mainsail I could have continued
to plug to windward, but I could do no better than a beam reach with only the
staysail, making about south. Occasionally a wave broke aboard and filled the cockpit,
which took a long time to drain. To my surprise, the hatch covering the engine
instruments in the cockpit well did not leak enough to short out the maze of
wires behind it, but I will move those instruments to a safer location soon and
give the cockpit bigger drains. On 21 April,
22 days out, after two and a half days under the staysail only, the wind eased
to ENE6 only exceeding 30 knots in squalls. I set the main with both reefs tied
in and crashed off with the wind half a point free. A couple of hours later the
lifelines went slack. When I went forward to investigate, I found the bowsprit
platform had wrenched free from the bowsprit, taking the pulpit and the
lifelines with it. The hex-head fastenings that held the platform and pulpit
down were not through bolts, as I believed, but merely coachscrews. The force
of a few not very large waves had pulled them out, leaving the pulpit and
platform dangling. Before
sailing from Florida I had noted the fragile nature of this platform and
intended rebuild it on arrival in the Caribbean, one of several modifications
needed to correct multiple faults in the design of the bowsprit. I lashed the
platform and the pulpit down to the bowsprit as best I could, an unpleasant
business as I had to sit on the unsecured platform while passing the lashings.
Before venturing down the bowsprit to do this I hove-to and trailed a line
astern to give myself a chance of regaining the boat if the platform collapsed.
Wearing a harness was pointless, as it often is when single handed. If I went
overboard a harness would merely leave me dangling, unable to regain the deck.
I forbore as unnecessarily melodramatic making the log entry alleged to have
been found on yacht drifting empty in the English Channel: 'I have to go to the
end of the bowsprit, but will I return?' With the
pulpit and platform temporarily secured, though it would not survive a hard
blow, I reverted to jogging along under staysail alone. Twenty-four hours later
the wind eased and I made more sail. Shortly afterwards the wind died
completely, leaving us lurching in the left-over sea. For two and a half days
that we lay becalmed and drifted 40 miles east. This all or nothing wind rather
aggrieved me as here in the latitude of Antigua, 19°N, I expected steady trades winds. In the early
hours of 26 April a gentle NNE breeze got us moving again. This breeze slowly
hardened into the trades as they should be, a fresh to strong wind on the
quarter that sent us rushing joyously along for 300 miles in just over two days
to anchor off St Pierre, Martinique on 28 April, 29 days from Florida. Next
comes quite a few months' work converting Diva to a voyaging vessel.
Ashore in Carriacou awaiting conversion to an ocean-going vessel.
