Attainable Adventure Cruising—What's New

“Polaris”, The Winter Continues

posted by John and Phyllis Web Site

For those of you who followed our posts while we took care of the Hutting 44, Polaris, wintering over above the Arctic Circle in Greenland, the story and photographs continue on Michael and Martina’s (owners of Polaris) blog. The text is in German, but Michael’s photographs are beautiful and tell a great story in any language.

Michael emails that all is well on Polaris, the sun is now well and truly back and the boat is fully frozen in to ice that is safe to walk on.

Also we are working on a full screen slideshow of my images from our time on Polaris that will appear as soon as I shovel the mountain of paperwork, that accumulated during our two months of travel, off my desk.

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Mooring Failure, The Loss of “Kantele”

posted by John and Phyllis Web Site

On 28th December last year a beautiful Saga 40—an English design not to be confused with this boat—was lost when she went ashore at Sint Eustatius in the eastern Caribbean when a mooring provided for yachts by the local marine park, STENAPA, failed in what looks from the photograph to be benign conditions.

As might be expected, Kantele’s owners blame the mooring provider for the loss and are hoping for compensation. However, the management of the marine park contends that the fault lies with the owners due to the way in which they secured their boat to the mooring.

While our personal sympathies, albeit based on limited information, lie with the owners of Kantele, our purpose here is not to take sides but rather to use this sad incident to warn others of the potential dangers of using loaned or rental moorings, and not for the first time.

The open roadstead at Sint Eustatius is an inherently dangerous place for a boat that is also subject to rapidly increasing and hard to predict ocean swells. It might be logical to assume that moorings provided in such a place would be built to a higher standard than those installed in more sheltered harbours.

STENAPA provides information about their moorings on their web site that includes an unusual instruction that yachts should add their own bow line to the pick up line, rather than cleat the pick up line on the boat. The idea here seems to us to be that the mooring gear alone does not provide sufficient scope to be safe. They also suggest that “During heavy seas, it is recommended to use an anchor as additional support”. The implication to us seems to be that the moorings are not strong enough in and of themselves to survive conditions that often occur at Sint Eustatius.

Bottom line, do not assume that a mooring, even one provided by a established and reputable organization, is up to the job of looking after your boat.

This is not a one-off situation either: Last summer our European Correspondent, Colin Speedie, dragged a mooring after being assured that it was adequate to handle his boat’s size. And, a few years ago, at Porto Santo Island, with a strong gale coming, we were told by the local authorities that we were not allowed to anchor but had to pick up a mooring and that it was more than adequate to handle Morgan’s Cloud’s 26 tons. An assertion that was quickly withdrawn when we dragged said mooring across the harbour with just 1200 rpm of reverse thrust on our engine.

Over the years we have been invited, more times than I can count, to pick up moorings that upon investigation turned out to be grossly inadequate for our boat size, poorly maintained or, often, both.

In summary, we strongly believe that a properly equipped voyaging boat is generally a lot safer anchored on her own gear than on a mooring. And that goes double for places like Sint Eustatius and Porto Santo Island where the result of a mooring failure is frequently total loss of the boat.

If you do decide to pick up a mooring, particularly in a hazardous place, we suggest that you dive on it to verify its construction yourself or failing that, leave someone aboard the boat at all times.

We keep beating on this drum because the hazard of moorings really makes no sense on a fundamental level, particularly to those new to cruising. After all, you don’t check the supports in a multi-story parking garage before leaving your car there. Nor do you need to check the web site of said parking provider to see if you should chock the wheels of your car and park it half a car length back from the marked parking space to be safe.

If you have had a mooring drag or fail on you or if you just disagree, please leave a comment.

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The home of aluminium boats?

posted by Colin Speedie Web Site

Robust aluminium construction

Over here in Europe many people choose an aluminium yacht for the excellent strength to weight ratio, and the sheer robustness of construction. As a result they are more and more the choice of long distance sailors, especially those heading for higher latitudes. Many of them are cruisers from well-known French yards – OVNi’s and Garcias probably being the best represented, and they’ve really made some notable journeys. But these are boats that would be as comfortable going up an African river as up a fjord, capable, comfortable family cruising yachts that with few modifications can (and have) covered much of the globe from pole to pole.

But the French have also designed and built some pretty specialized craft for real polar work, such as Eric Brossiers’ Vagabond which has spent five years overwintering at Spitsbergen as a research base, and Northabout the first yacht to make an east-west circumnavigation of the arctic sailed by Jarlath Cunnane and his redoubtable Irish crew. Both of these are not of excessive size (around 15m) and both come from the drawing board of Gilbert Caroff. Great boats, but hardly your average cruising yachts.

A new boat launched recently on the French market that incorporates a good deal of sound thinking has recently been reviewed in many of the sailing magazines here and has gained rave reviews. The Boreal 44 is the second in a range (the first is a 50) designed and built by Jean-Francois Delvoye and his team at Treguier on the North Brittany coast. Having built and sailed his own yacht on a six year Atlantic circuit (including two years in Patagonia) with his wife and four children, Delvoye returned to France to build his dream boat incorporating all of the ideas he had gathered during their six years voyaging. And it shows, as the boat is full of great ideas, some of which we would have loved to incorporate in our own OVNI.

Things like a really neat hard dodger, with a small chart table and watertight door – excellent from a safety point of view, but great, too, for just taking things in whilst staying warm and dry. A minimum of 8cm of insulation throughout, and all of the portlights are double-glazed and in Securit glass. To assist her sailing qualities the chain locker is sited by the mast, with the chain being fed to the locker via a tube just below the deck. The lead ballast is cast in moulds to fit between the internal frames, and so is more dense than the usual cast ingots encapsulated in resin, thus aiding the centre of gravity.

The deck looks clean and uncluttered, and in the face of current fashion he has stuck with parallel spreaders, surely a better design choice for this type of boat. Everything except the genoa tracks is welded, to keep the water out and corrosion at bay. The only thing I personally don’t like from what I’ve seen so far is the self-tacking staysail, but I’m sure that wouldn’t be obligatory.

All in all it’s a pretty convincing package, and is a welcome addition to the French canon. And for anyone considering a new build aluminium boat with high latitude potential built in she must be a real contender for many of the established yards.

[This post is part of a continuing series on the selection, building, and fitting out of an aluminum Ovni 435 by guest writer and very experienced offshore sailor Colin Speedie. You can read earlier posts in this series here.

If you want to make sure that you don’t miss the next installment in Colin's series, subscribe to our feed or automated notification e-mails. You will then receive a short notice when the next post comes up.

Of course we will respect your privacy and will never divulge your e-mail address or shower you with junk. If you don’t like the feed you can unsubscribe in a moment.]

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Interesting Gear on "Polaris", Miscellaneous

posted by John and Phyllis Web Site

BASEMENT (CELLAR) SUMP PUMP (not pictured)

Many offshore boats are fitted with some kind of high capacity emergency bilge pump, sometimes known as crash pumps. We have long considered one for “Morgan’s Cloud” but have shied away because we don’t like cluttering up the main engine with belted devices and we have yet to find a pump that is compact enough to fit, will run dry—in a flooding situation we would not have time to monitor the pump and shut it down the minute it sucks dry—and handle the kind of trash that will almost inevitably be floating around in a badly flooding boat.

I think we have found the answer on “Polaris”: She is equipped with two 220 volt (also available in 110 volt) high capacity household sump pumps that will move a huge amount of water and munch up just about anything thrown at them. These pumps are readily available, relatively cheap, can be placed wherever needed (even to help another boat) and be powered by our generator or inverter. Of course we would have to be very careful with such voltages around water. Also, if the generator and inverter get flooded, we would be back to our massive Edson manual pump, but then the same is true of engine driven pumps.

COMPACT and CONVENIENT FIRE BLANKET

Fire blankets are a great idea, particularly to smother a grease flare-up in the galley without the mess of a dry powder extinguisher, and we have long carried one on “Morgan’s Cloud”. However, ours is bulky and ugly so it has gotten relegated to a locker up forward, much reducing its effectiveness in a fire where speed of response is of the essence. The small use-one-time-only blanket pictured seems like a nice solution. Unfortunately there is no maker’s name on it but we will look around for something like it to mount near the galley on our boat.

Posted via email from Attainable Adventure Cruising—Travelogue

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Marinas - love 'em or hate 'em

posted by Colin Speedie Web Site

Glenarm marina looking out to Kintyre

I’ve only ever seen one sailing magazine article by the great writer and sailor Jonathan Raban, but the first sentence may explain why – “Marina is a word like rubella – it sounds far nicer than the thing it describes”. And for many of them, maybe that’s the truth. Practical, convenient, yes, but it would be hard to describe what in many cases is just a boat park in other than utilitarian terms.

But there are good ones springing up in out of the way places, and many of them perform a valuable function, offering secure berthing and providing access to facilities such as fuel and shops. In many cases, too, they can provide an economic lifeline to isolated communities, especially where traditional sources of income such as fishing or forestry are in decline. And they do offer a chance to draw breath after long spells sailing independently.

A good case in point can be found at Glenarm in the lovely Glens of Antrim in Northern Ireland. Faced with an almost disused harbour after the local limestone quarrying works closed, Larne Borough Council decided to develop a small marina with simple facilities largely for the benefit of local boat owners, but also to encourage yachts to stop over in a beautiful but little visited part of the world. It’s a basic, practical set-up, a million miles from the kind of corporate “lifestyle” places to be found nearer centres of population, and in my view is all the better for it.

Glenarm is situated roughly half way between the (relatively) major yachting facilities in Belfast Lough to the South and the gateway to the West coast of Scotland via the North Channel. Due to the distances involved it isn’t easy to make the jump from, say, Bangor, up through the North Channel between Fair Head and the Mull of Kintyre in one hop. The tides in the area can run at up to five knots in places, so shortening the hop by stopping off at Glenarm, makes it far easier to be off Kintyre at the right time, and carry the fair tide North as Gigha or Jura. And the same is true heading South, an option we took in 2009.

Leaving Jura at first light in a light southwesterly, we faced several hours of foul tide before reaching the tidal gate at Kintyre. Our aim was to be off the headland at around slack water when it should be quiet, then pick up the new flood down into the Irish Sea and Belfast Lough. All went well, and by late morning Kintyre was well behind us, but in the light conditions progress was slow, and it soon became clear that if we wanted to make Bangor before the tide was against us we’d have to make use of the motor. Both of us were tired, so rushing on didn’t appeal, and we knew Glenarm was not too far away, so we decided to head there instead.

A quick VHF call on our approach confirmed that there was space for us, accompanied by the unusual offer to come down and take our lines on arrival. And so it proved, when the Marina master was there to point us to our berth, take our lines and help us alongside. After nearly 50 nights living completely independently it felt quite good to be tied up for once, and the warmth of the welcome made it even better. The forecast for the next couple of days was not the best, with strong southerly winds, so we settled down to catch up with some rest before bashing on South.

Although the facilities were simple, all were there, and Keith the Harbour Master turned out to be a really friendly and helpful guy, as I (and others making the same journey) were to find over the next few days. Trips up to his little office to check the weather updates online were always informative, too, as you might expect from someone whose other job is as a relief coxswain of all weather lifeboats. And the cost didn’t break the bank, either, unlike some of the big marinas. All in all, if you have to stop over in a marina, I have been in far worse than Glenarm.

Contrast this with our experience a week or so later in a huge mega – marina further South. Calling ahead before entry we were told that if we didn’t get in before 2100 the there would be no-one there to sign us in, and we’d be unable to use the facilities as a result. Why, we asked? It’s September, was the reply. Out of season, and there are no staff on duty overnight. And the cost? Nearly the same as three nights in Glenarm. It wasn’t hard to leave the next day.

Marinas might not all be as attractive as Glenarm, but if they can offer the same level of service and welcome, then they deserve to succeed. And communities as far flung as Shetland and Orkney have followed this development route and in doing so encouraged more yachts to visit, bringing much needed income with them. And if they encourage more sailors to test the waters off the beaten track then they may well prove to be a very good thing.

[This post is part of a continuing series on the selection, building, and fitting out of an aluminum Ovni 435 by guest writer and very experienced offshore sailor Colin Speedie. You can read earlier posts in this series here.

If you want to make sure that you don’t miss the next installment in Colin's series, subscribe to our feed or automated notification e-mails. You will then receive a short notice when the next post comes up.

Of course we will respect your privacy and will never divulge your e-mail address or shower you with junk. If you don’t like the feed you can unsubscribe in a moment.]

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Of Cockpits, Wheelhouses and Engine Rooms

posted by John and Phyllis Web Site

Some years ago, my friend Frank Luke, of Paul E. Luke Inc. in East Boothbay Maine, told me a story: Frank was at a boat show and the proud owner of a new boat wanted to buy a Luke-made stove, propeller, and anchor. First the buyer insisted that he needed the items in just a few weeks, not a trivial request in that they are all custom made. After the order was all filled in, the guy then asked for a discount because he was buying several items at once. Frank, I suspect, gave him that look that only a Maine craftsman confronted with an unreasonable request can produce, and said, “You got your quality, you got your delivery, and you got your price: pick any two”.

After living for a month on “Polaris”, an aft cockpit boat with a wheelhouse but no engine room, the contrast to “Morgan’s Cloud”, a center cockpit boat with an engine room and work bench but no wheelhouse, reminded me of Frank’s story: At least on boats under 60-feet, I think that you got your cockpit, you got your engine room, and you got your wheelhouse; pick any two. I just can’t think of a way to get a good spacious wheelhouse, a decent cockpit for sail handling and lounging, and a good big walk-in engine room with workbench, in one boat. That is, without designing a tub that sails poorly and looks like a Winnebago (camper van).

Anybody got any bright ideas? If so, leave a comment.

The above photo was taken of “Polaris” from the salon looking aft.

Actually, “Polaris” is not strictly a wheelhouse boat but rather a boat with a doghouse—or hard dodger, if you prefer—leading into a raised area with chart table and sitting area. The galley is down one step going forward and the salon down another. If Michael and Martina (owners of “Polaris”) had wanted her that way, she could have had the doghouse and raised area merged together and been a wheelhouse boat; however, her lines would not have been as nice and such a change would have had a negative effect on visibility from the cockpit as the cabin top over the raised area would have to be higher to give visibility over the bow from the wheelhouse. As Michael always says when asked about building “Polaris”: “Compromises, compromises, all boats are compromises”.

The engine is under the raised area floor, right below the companionway. You can see the head to starboard, a feature we really like in that a watch-stander can use it without trooping through the boat dripping water and waking the off-watch, like they do on our boat. Of course the engine could have been placed under the cockpit and a work bench built where the head is, but that would have required a V-drive transmission (additional complication) and put the engine weight in the stern (not good). Even with those changes “Polaris” would not have had a real engine room because the stern area has much smaller volume than the midships area where “Morgan’s Cloud’s” engine room is situated—compromises, compromises.

The point of all this being that there is no perfect layout for a voyaging boat, just different sets of compromises depending on the mission of the boat and the owner’s preferences. On balance, Phyllis and I like the compromises on “Morgan’s Cloud” best, but I’m sure that Michael and Martina would say the same about “Polaris”.

To see more and larger photographs of “Polaris” click here, click on the slide show when it appears and then press the “F” key for full screen mode. You can then control the show by using the thumbnails at the bottom of the screen. Note: This requires Flash 9 or later, but most computers have this installed.

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Taxi?

posted by John and Phyllis Web Site

Posted via email from Attainable Adventure Cruising—Travelogue

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Comments and Answers

posted by John and Phyllis Web Site

Thanks to all of the readers who have made comments, all of which are interesting and thought provoking, to our posts. Please keep them coming. Also many thanks to those readers who sent holiday greetings via a comment. Here are some thoughts arising from the latest batch of comments:

THE FREEZE UP, OR NOT

Comment: Jackson Hole Skier, obviously someone with a lot of winter experience, left some interesting suggestions on how we might handle the freeze up.

Answer: Sadly it looks as if we will not be able to use the good advice since we had another thaw a few days ago. Just about all the ice that had formed around the boat has broken up and gone and it seems unlikely that it will reform in the remaining day of our stay. I have to say that these warm spells have been a disappointment to us in that they have changed this experience from what we expected. But, as I said before, when I think about complaining I remind myself of the terrible toll that climate change is having on the people and animals that make the Arctic their home.

DIESEL OUTBOARDS

Comment: Dick asked if we had ever looked into diesel outboards.

Answer: No, we have not. I would expect them to be both very heavy and expensive for a given power. However, even if those two issues turned out not to be the case, our general policy on “Morgan’s Cloud” is not to install gear that is not widely and generally available. The gasoline outboard and its parts are available just about anywhere there is enough water to float a boat.

SHOREFAST MUNCHING FOXES

Comment: Coastal suggested that we “could try to sprinkle some pepper or Tabasco on the shore lines”.

Answer: Good idea. The fox has had a go at the duct tape, but it seems to be slowing him or her down. We are trying Tabasco.

COOKERS

Comment: Denis Bone is a big proponent of his diesel cooker and makes a good case in two comments.

Answer: Diesel cookers sound interesting, although the only ones I have ever seen were huge, smelly, heavy, and temperamental. We will look at the link you provided when we next have internet.

Comment: Dick really likes CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) and has every reason to since he experienced a propane explosion.

Answer: CNG seemed like it would become the fuel of choice on boats at one point in the eighties but has faded out since. The big drawback with it is that it packs a lot less energy per pound than propane. Also, the bottles are relatively big and heavy because CNG must be stored at very high pressure to remain a liquid. I’m interested that you would say that it is generally available outside of the USA. My understanding, admittedly based on hearsay, is the exact opposite. Anyone out there have any first hand experience with CNG and its availability?

Comment: SeaWitch, very experienced voyagers with a 60,000 mile circumnavigation under their belts, are satisfied with propane and make some good points about using small electrical appliances to supplement that fuel.

General Answer: While we see the benefits of other fuels for cooking and, as any regular reader of this site knows, we are very concerned about the explosion danger inherent in propane, we can’t see changing from that fuel on “Morgan’s Cloud”, if for no other reason than the instant and controllable heat ability of a propane cooker. By contrast, as we understand it, all of the liquid fuels, kerosene (paraffin), diesel and alcohol (don’t go there) require a preheat cycle that unacceptably interrupts, at least to us, the rhythm and timing of cooking. But then we are big time food lovers that like to cook quite complicated multi-item meals, often with sauces as well. Doing a John-make-fire act complete with preheating and flare ups for the three rings and the oven required in the middle of making my pork chops with sherry apricot sauce recipe would be a sure route to tears!

One alternative that does look interesting, and carries SeaWitch’s concept a step further, is that of induction and convection electric cooking. Steve and Linda Dashew have been experimenting with this technology and have found that it is so efficient that using it with battery power, through an inverter, is practical. Of course they have huge battery banks on their boats. We have not got into the details of what minimum battery bank and generation capacity is required to make this practical, but it does bear further study.

Posted via email from Attainable Adventure Cruising—Travelogue

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Subtle with Fog

posted by John and Phyllis Web Site

Two days ago, Mother Nature was brazen with the light. Today, for our last ski tour of the trip, she went for the subtle look with a little fog and a lot of hoar frost—very different, but no less beautiful.

To those readers interested in “Polaris” gear: not to worry, we have three more technical posts in the hopper that will appear in the next couple of weeks, once we come down from our current beauty-induced high.

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Arctic Lightshow

posted by John and Phyllis Web Site

The special quality of the light is one of the many things that keep bringing Phyllis and me back to the Arctic.

While writing the last sentence, it just struck me that since I first visited the Arctic in 1993 I have not gone more than three years without a return. Nine visits in 17 years, including two full years above the Arctic Circle in Norway—now that’s addiction. Phyllis is as bad, having spent a summer in Tuktoyaktuk in the Canadian Western Arctic when she was 18 and having lived in Newfoundland for 10 years—OK, it’s not strictly the Arctic, but it sure has leanings that way! And since 2000 we have been making these trips together. You would think we would have had enough by now. Not a bit of it, today we spent tea time plotting the next return North.

Anyway, back to the light. Even on a foggy grey day, that would be just plain dreary anywhere else, the light is almost always beautiful in the North. But then there are some days when Mother Nature decides to forget subtlety and just go for it. Yesterday, one of our last here, was one of those—what a privilege to see it.

When we get back to fast internet, we will publish a full-screen slide show of photographs from this trip.

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