Ovni Photographs at SetSail

posted by John and Phyllis Web Site

Steve Dashew over at SetSail has just published some interesting photographs of, and comments on, an Ovni. This is the type of boat that our European Correspondent, Colin Speedie has written about extensively here at AAC.

Steve has also been writing an interesting series about picking the route that he and Linda will use to get back to North America from the UK. He even gave us a nice plug (thank you Steve) in part two of the series.

Even though Steve and Linda have gone over to the dark side with a motor boat—actually, we have no problem with motor boats and can see a day in our future where one may replace Morgan’s Cloud—voyaging sailors can still benefit from their insightful posts at SetSail.

We also highly recommend their books, particularly if you are just getting into offshore voyaging. Reading through their complete set (an admittedly daunting prospect) will give you a great grounding in the subject. Might keep you from grounding too—sorry, could not resist.

Even if you have been voyaging for years, the books are useful. For example, while choosing a new engine and planning the installation for Morgan’s Cloud, in-between picking Steve’s brains, I have been referring frequently to their Offshore Cruising Encyclopaedia .

Disclosure: Steve and Linda are friends. Steve also sent us their complete library as a gift in thanks for our advising him during their 2008 trip to Greenland. Steve and Linda did not solicit this post and we do not receive any benefit from the sale of their books.

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Knowing Where It’s At (Part 3)

posted by John and Phyllis Web Site

[In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series we reprinted the first two parts of an article of mine on navigation (that Cruising World Magazine published some years ago) as an introduction to an upcoming series of posts on the new navigation and communications gear that we installed on Morgan’s Cloud during our recent refit. Here is Part 3 (edited a bit for brevity).]

Although we are not Luddites bemoaning the take over of electronics and warning of the dire consequence of over reliance on them, we are aware of several dangers in their exclusive use.

Electronic Logging

First off in the list of potential gotchas is the use of the electronic log features that we increasingly see included in navigation software as a substitute for a paper log. Think of it, the computer or plotter goes down and not only is your position on the chart unavailable, but your last known position and course has disappeared into the electronic ether with it.

[Yes, you can always look at a GPS, assuming you have a separate readout, but what do those numbers mean in relation to any surrounding dangers? For that you will have to find a chart and plot. If you have been logging and consequently thinking about where you are at a recent point in time you will me much better off, particularly if you can jog your memory by looking at the log book. Also, what about a lightning strike that takes all the electronics out?]

Datum Errors

Then there is datum error. This is the amount that the latitude and longitude grid of a chart is off from the real world, which can range from a few feet in places charted to modern standards to more than a mile in more remote areas where some long dead naval officer set the datum with a sextant.

(Incidentally, it is normally the longitude that is out as a result of an error in the surveyor’s chronometer—accurate time is not required for latitude).

You don’t have to be somewhere really out of the way to get caught out either: I know a harbour mouth on the south coast of Newfoundland that is close to a quarter of a mile off its charted position. A real navigator in tune with his or her surroundings will quickly notice such an error, but a mariner blindly following a plotter or GPS to a waypoint will pile up on the rocks at the very moment the cute little boat on the screen shows that all is well.

[Even in areas charted to modern standards, entering a tight channel, particularly in poor visibility, on an electronic chart without eyeball and/or radar navigation to check for errors in the cartography or datum, is an invitation to disaster.]

Waypoint Entry Error

Finally, there is waypoint entry error, perhaps the most insidious danger in electronic navigation. A few years ago a large ship grounded at full speed in clear weather on the reef surrounding my home of Bermuda. At the inquiry it turned out that the master had left the Straits of Florida bound for a waypoint that he had programmed into his electronic navigation system just at the approaches to the English Channel. He was so unaware of his surroundings that he forgot that Bermuda’s reef extends 12 miles to the north of the island directly into his route.

A dramatic example perhaps, but who among us has not made a mistake and entered a waypoint that will, if we use it blindly, lead us into danger? It is even possible to do this on an electronic chart, particularly while zooming in and out of different scales. A real navigator taking even the occasional bearing [and/or range] and aware of nearby land will quickly discover such an error.

When I look back on a hundred thousand miles of offshore sailing there are more times than I like to admit, or think about, when I have made navigation mistakes that could have lost the boat.

In every case I had lost my sense of where I was and “where it’s at”, usually by incorrectly identifying a land feature or not properly relating the scale of the chart to what I was looking at. Both can happen whether you are navigating off an eighteenth-century black and white engraving or an electronic charting system with every bell and whistle known to humankind.

By continuing to take bearings and ranges and plotting I reduce the frequency of mistakes and increase the chance that when they do happen, and they inevitably will, my sense of place will warn me, as it has in the past, before the crash.

The Hubris Induced Grounding

One more danger, not to do with electronics. Phyllis, looking at the sounder, “looks kind of shallow”. John, “Don’t worry about a thing, I’m from Bermuda, I can read the the water depth just by looking at the colour".

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PVC for Plumbing

posted by John and Phyllis Web Site

Question: Currently tackling the plumbing system and would like to know if you have any other photos of how you use PVC piping. I'm very interested in using this as often as possible. How do you make the connection between the rigid pipe and the fitting that may be on your holding tank or other device that you are plumbing? Do you use some type of short flexible connector?

Answer: Sorry we don’t have any photos other than those on the site.

To connect to something like a holding tank with a hose barb on it we use a pipe to female thread adapter and a Forespar Marlon hose barb to convert to hose and then use a short piece of good quality sanitary hose to the holding tank, or whatever we are connecting to. We also use hose in any place where a cracked PVC pipe would sink the boat.

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Virtually Down Under

posted by John and Phyllis Web Site

Video seems to be the communication modality of choice these days. We’ve dabbled with it but the results, so far, are so bad we have decided to spare you, our readers (and viewers), from the results. For now, we’re going to stick with what we know—still photography.

However, there are other cruisers out there who are much more developed in this area than we are, including a couple who has been featured on www.morganscloud.com before; in comments on our Heavy Weather Series and on hard dodgers, and on our Links page.

Kay and Lane Finley, of Clean Wake Productions, live in New Zealand and cruise the surrounding waters. While doing so, they have made two videos: Reach for the Sea, Vol. 1—Offshore Cruising and Reach for the Sea, Vol. 2—New Zealand. In Vol. 1, which we have not seen, they explore the many aspects of offshore cruising, shot on location in French Polynesia, Fiji and New Zealand.

Vol. 2, which we have had the pleasure of watching, is done very professionally. Kay and Lane film while sailing on Mai Tai; they document shore excursions; they interview other cruisers they meet along the way; and they provide historical, geographical, and cultural background for their various stops. By the end of the 2-hour video, we felt we had a good sense of what cruising in New Zealand is like.

So if you are thinking of sailing in New Zealand, or want to see how to make a good video about cruising, we highly recommend getting Reach for the Sea, Vol. 2.

Disclosure: Kay and Lane kindly sent us a free copy of their video. Other than that we have nothing to disclose: No sales commissions, no free flights to New Zealand, no free video equipment…nothing. Darn. Double darn on the no free flights to New Zealand part.

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Another Way to go Cruising Relatively Inexpensively

posted by John and Phyllis Web Site

We have been writing on the blog lately about ways to go voyaging in older less expensive boats.

The other night we had dinner with a young couple that bought a good quality cruising boat that had gone ashore in a blow and sunk with a large hole in it. A year of long days repairing, refitting and sourcing second hand gear have yielded a strong voyaging boat. They plan to set out from Nova Scotia in the fall of 2010. The goal is New Zealand, where they plan to sell the boat before returning home to “real life”—makes sense to us.

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Another Reason We Have an Aluminum Boat

posted by John and Phyllis Web Site

We were out walking on the foreshore here in Nova Scotia a few days ago and came across this remnant of what I’m guessing was a commercial wharf. Clearly it had been in the water for quite a while before it fetched up here in a winter blow.

Of course I can’t guarantee that Morgan’s Cloud would survive a collision with it, but I’m pretty confident that it would not sink us, or perhaps even do that much damage. I say that based on our own collision with a large growler (baby ice berg) some years ago and our sister-ship’s eight knot meeting with a sleeping whale. The former did no damage at all, and the latter deformed the hull plate only about 1/4” over a 1 sq ft area. (The whale swam away too, I’m glad to report.)

Then there was the time that I hit the corner of a steel floating dock in Scotland when I misjudged the effect of a 40 knot gust at the wrong moment during a docking. The crash was horrendous, making me fear that the  boat would start sinking immediately. However, the impact just  left a deflection about as big as that left by the whale. In both cases the dents were just filled with epoxy putty and painted over.

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Unmasking “Practical”

posted by John and Phyllis Web Site

“Practical” the commenter on this post and this one too is Darrell Nicholson, editor of Practical sailor. He makes a very good point about how little you really need to go cruising safely and he knows whereof he speaks too:

Some years ago, when we were still writing for Cruising World Magazine, Herb McCormick, then the editor—one of the best in the business—moved us to a new editor named Darrell. Frankly I thought “here we go, some young hot shot that has never been out there is going to second guess all our opinions”. Early on in our relationship Darrell happened to mention that he needed to sell his 60 year old wooden boat that just happened to be, as I remember, in Thailand. “How did you end up with a boat in Thailand?” I asked. “I sailed it there”, was the answer. OK, we had ourselves a voyaging editor. Darrell, like Herb, taught us a lot about writing.

Darrell and his wife represented an increasingly small demographic of the voyaging community: a young couple getting out there before settling down to having kids and working at real jobs. As someone who started voyaging in middle age back-stopped by the resources that a modestly successful career in business confers, I have always admired people like Darrell who go out there in small and often old boats on a shoestring.

Darrell now runs Practical Sailor Magazine and consequently it has become a really good resource for offshore voyagers. It is the only sailing magazine that Phyllis and I subscribe to.

Of course Darrell is commenting on our posts, at least partly, to promote his magazine, but I don’t see anything wrong with that. First off, that’s his job, and we all gotta eat. Second, he is knowledgeable and his comments have value. If you feel differently, please leave a comment.

Disclosure: We pay full price for our subscription to PS, but they do send us a PDF of the full magazine as soon as it is available each month. They have also offered to place a link on their site to ours, as long as we do the same. And, over the years, we have sold them a couple of photographs, but I can assure you that the price they pay for images is not a big enough benefit to compromise our impartiality! These are the only benefits we have received.

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Knowing Where It’s At (Part 2)

posted by John and Phyllis Web Site

[In Part 1 of this series we reprinted the first part of an article of mine on navigation (that Cruising World Magazine published some years ago) as an introduction to an upcoming series of posts on the new navigation and communications gear that we installed on Morgan’s Cloud during our recent refit. Here is Part 2 (edited a bit for brevity).]

So what is it specifically that we do to make sure “we know where it’s at” while cruising some of the world’s more remote places on Morgan’s Cloud, our 56-foot aluminum McCurdy and Rhodes cutter?

First, our primary navigation area is on deck. There is no way that we can be properly aware of our surroundings while bobbing up and down the companionway like demented rabbits. Why designers of cruising boats that will be sailed short handed insist on locating plush well appointed navigation stations below, while making no provision for laying out a chart in a sheltered area in the cockpit, is beyond my comprehension. Morgan’s Cloud’s large on-deck chart area was one of the major reasons we bought her and since then we have moved the GPS, radar and VHF radio into a custom made lockable console at the forward end of the cockpit.

Second, though we use electronic tools on Morgan’s Cloud, we don’t turn our role as navigators over to them. When I first learned to navigate in the days before GPS, or even affordable Loran, I used to say “all navigators are lost. The difference between good navigators and bad ones is how big the circle they are lost in is.” Today, thanks to GPS, we know where we are to within a few feet on an abstract grid called latitude and longitude. But however we navigate, to be real navigators we still need to know where we are in relation to the three dimensional world around us, and to really know that we must log and plot.

[Since this was written we have installed a screen in the cockpit connected to a computer below running Nobeltec with C-Map charts. However, when available we always have a paper chart of the area we are transiting close to hand in the cockpit in case the computer bites the big one at a critical moment.

If we don’t have all the paper charts for the area we are sailing in—who has the money for every chart in both paper and electronic—we at least have an overview chart available and, if we are going to be transiting a tricky area like an inlet entrance, we will print out the critical area of the chart ahead of time.]

The center of our plotting system is our logbooks, some of our most treasured possessions. Years ago, we designed our own page layout and had them printed and spiral bound. Water stained and covered in notes, comments, and doodles, they are our basis for “knowing where it’s at”. We have no set logging period. At sea we may make an entry just once a watch. While sailing along a tricky coast it may be every 15 minutes. Whatever the period, the entry represents a moment in time when we have oriented ourselves to our surroundings. Usually this requires taking a radar-range and visual bearing off a land feature. Yes, I know, we could just look down at an electronic chart and see where we are, but that does not necessarily tell us which of the several headlands we can see ahead is the one sheltering the harbour we are making for. Nor does it visually orient us to the position of the just submerged rock that we will come closer to as we alter course to avoid the trawler with nets in the water that has just appeared though the mist.

After logging and plotting we take a moment to plan for the future by laying off the course and calculating the time to the next land feature or danger that will dictate a new log and plot. Perhaps we place a distance ring on the radar, or identify a range or bearing, that will keep us clear of all dangers. Then we can relax and enjoy sailing until reaching our next pre-planned logging point, knowing that we have an understanding of our surroundings that will stand us in good stead should an unexpected course change be required.

[This has changed a bit since our conversion to electronic navigation: We now lay out a route on the computer, not a course on paper. But the theory is the same: we always have a plan that has been carefully checked and then plotted. We never just sail along trusting to the computer—a dangerous practice that is becoming distressingly common.]

When offshore, at least once a watch we plot a dead reckoning position from our log and then compare it to the GPS fix, making sure we understand the reason for any discrepancy. This process reminds us of where we are, but most importantly, it tells us if any current is effecting our progress.

[Here again the mechanics have changed in that we now compare the DR to the plotter to gauge distance gained or lost to current.  To understand the currents effecting our course, we steer a steady heading taking into account predicted current, and then compare our actual course to the route on the computer to see if a current we have not allowed for is effecting us. We don’t just blindly adjust the heading to keep the cross track error to zero without understanding what is happening.

In Part 3 we will look at some of the inherent dangers in electronic navigation and how to guard against them.]

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Restoring a 30-Year Old Sailboat: What It Takes

posted by John and Phyllis Web Site

Over the years we have received numerous questions from readers asking whether it is better to buy a newer more expensive sailboat or to restore an older less expensive boat. We usually recommend buying a newer boat as, in the long run, the price will probably come out to about the same, so why not have a newer boat and save a huge amount of time and labour?

However, we have come across someone who is restoring a 30-Year old Cape Dory 36 and who makes a good case as to why. But it isn’t easy and one look at John Stone’s www.farreachvoyages.com will reveal the scope of his project.

So if you want to know what it takes to restore a 30-year old sailboat and some tips on how to get going, visit John’s site. It will either convert you to the older-boat-restoration option or scare you witless (maybe both!).

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Knowing Where It’s At (Part 1)

posted by John and Phyllis Web Site

[Colin Speedie’s post “It ain't necessarily so” on the dangers of over reliance on electronic navigation aids, which really struck a cord with me, reminded me of an article of mine that Cruising World Magazine published some years ago on the same subject.

I have also been planning for some time to write a series of posts on the new navigation and communications gear that we installed on Morgan’s Cloud during our recent refit. So it seems fitting to kick that series off by reprinting my article, which, although now six years old, still captures our attitude to navigation well. Here is Part 1.]

It’s an old Newfoundland story. The details change depending on who tells it but the essence of the story is always the same: A young “come from away” goes fishing several miles offshore with a veteran Newfoundland fisherman in an open skiff. The fog comes down “t’ick as shit in a barrel”. There are no navigation aids in the boat, except perhaps an old compass with half the oil drained out mounted right next to the engine. The old skipper is unconcerned and keeps fishing, despite the worried glances from his companion.

At the end of the day the skipper tucks the tiller under his arm, lights his pipe and steers confidently into the fog. Perhaps he stops the engine a couple of times to listen. An hour later he suddenly turns hard to starboard and his fish-store and quay loom out of the fog just thirty feet ahead. The young man is astonished. “Skipper, how did you do that?” “Do what?” answers the old fisherman, his eyebrows raised in perplexity. “For crying out loud Skipper, how’d you find your way home?” The old man looks even more perplexed. This question confirms his suspicion that the young fellow, while very nice, is not that bright. “Well b’y, I knows where it’s at.”

This retired fisherman and lifeboat coxswain from Clarks Harbour, Nova Scotia, is not the hero of my story, but I bet he could pull off the same trick.

Generations of fishermen have found their way with few, if any, modern aids to navigation. The ancient Polynesians navigated the vast Pacific and the Vikings crossed the stormy North Atlantic. Their techniques differed, but all these seamen had in common a sense of space and time and their place in it. They were attuned to the cry of seabirds, the direction of the wind when the fog is in and the feel of the waves reflecting off the land around their intended landfall. They instinctively knew the speed they were making and the time to their destination. They knew where they were, and they knew where their intended landfall was.

Contrast their feel for the sea to the modern sailor hunched over an electronic charting system often installed below. To him or her the crash of surf on the rocks is a fearful reminder of the penalty for a mistake, not a source of navigational information. Or worse still, many a modern mariner does not think of what the noise means, or perhaps even hear it, wrapped in the hubris brought on by ownership of sophisticated electronics.

I am not suggesting that we deep-six our radar, GPS, and chart plotter. In fact, I would never have attempted our high latitude cruises without GPS and radar. After all, many old navigators who lost their boats and died when their sense of place failed them would have been saved by a $200 hand held GPS. But surely there is a reasonable amalgamation of old and new? Phyllis, my partner in sailing and life, and I think so and have found that our continued use of traditional navigation techniques, coupled with modern electronics, not only increases safety but has the added benefit of keeping us more aware of what is around us—much of why we go cruising in the first place.

[Next post will be Part 2 of the article in which I wrote about the specific steps we take on Morgan’s Cloud to keep our sense of place.]

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