Dragonfly 32 Anacortes WA to San Fran CA

Dragonfly 32

No sneaking in anywhere in this thing. We were the center of attention in Sekiu and quickly told we could not stay on this dock for long. As we couldn’t fit into the fuel dock we had to carry jerry cans to and from the pump.

High fives and good vibes abound but the crew needs fuel too. #roguebrewery

The trip began in Anacortes at 5:30 AM when our friend Jeff Hulme knocked on the hull. Our morning wake-up came baring doughnuts and coffee! We had planned to do the passage with Alan who was the owner, Jeff, and Lars Stranberg of the well-known and raced local multihull “Broderna“ but medical issues and work were going to prevent this allstar line up from coming together. Even before learning they couldn’t make it I had put out feelers for a fifth crew member as a backup and Maureen Crist had come back saying she was interested and available.

Jeff had been involved with the boat since its previous ownership so he gave his suggestions for backing the boat out of its tight slip on the headwalk. The Dragonfly 32 is a folding trimaran with a 26-foot beam so maneuvering in the marina is on par with a 120-foot powerboat. When you take up the entire fairway it’s good to leave at the crack of seagull farts.

Once clear of the Cap Sante breakwater I brought the little three-cylinder Yanmar up to 2500 RPM and was a little surprised to see our boat speed settle at 5 knots. I had figured the 6500-pound boat would go faster than that. Now thinking about it, three hulls and the drag they produce is not quick.

A call to the fuel dock in Neah Bay confirmed that the res was closed to not native people making the small seasonal fishing village of Sekiu our last opportunity to get fuel. We had four 5 gallon jerry cans to add to our 18 gallon built-in tank. A three-cylinder diesel should draw about .6 gal an hour and I had figured we could turn for 6 knots, breaking my rule of doing all dead reckoning at 5 knots. The weather window we had called for some motoring so we were going to have to get fuel somewhere after Sekiu.

We arrived at the little seasonal fishing camp at 7 pm and found a spot to tie up our beamy craft. We learned that we were going to have to walk our jerry cans up to a self-service fuel station. A small store shares the fuel pump and very generous hours 4 am to 9 pm is better than anywhere I’ve found on the West Coast so we were happy to get fuel at all. We were underway by 8 pm as the sun was setting.

The forecast at this point was for a little bumpiness at Cape Flattery and a Southerly. 11 knots AWS on a port tack and we were sailing as fast as we could motor and pretty much in the right direction. Later the Nightwatch shared a beautiful moonrise.

Tack to Starboard at Noonish not going the right way.

Moonlight sailing is the best

Newport!

As we crossed Astoria’s latitude I got a fresh report and it was looking we were going to have quite a bit more motoring in our future and that continuing would put us at Cape Blanko at a particularly bad time. Next stop, Newport OR. After burgers and a night of good sleep, we were out at the beginning of the flood. Blanko was a little bit of a worry at this point the GFS prediction on the Windy App called for up to 20 and the HRRRR on Predict wind was up to 30. The only good news was that it had an easterly component. Offering a chance of protection from the higher topography near the capes we were going to have to negotiate. We didn’t know how the boat would handle the seas so I delayed the commitment to round till we were off Coos Bay and our last bail-out point. Unfortunately, this lined up with the ebb and the bar reports we got from the USCG told us Coos Bay was closed to vessels under 35 feet. It was getting dark so this was going to be the last bar report and we wouldn’t know if it was passable on the flood. There was a good-sized westerly swell running at this point. Our next last-ditch bailout would be a small anchorage in the lee of Blanko called Port Orford. Then the fog that we had been going in and out of got really thick making that a more risky option. As it turned out the boat handled things quite well but we decided to motor sail with just the jib out. The mast had been broken on a prior attempt to truck the boat south and the replacement had a poorly aligned T track that had blown up some hard-to-get Rosnstan sail cars. It had been filed by a rigger unfortunately, the issue hadn’t been fixed. The big seas showed a bit more of the whites of eyes than I had seen so far. Its moments like these affirm a captain’s caution. The power of the ocean cannot be understood without experience. Just as you cant take pictures of waves that do their scale justice you must have had the experience like this on a boat heading the only way you can and no option to retreat. The experience of only being able to go forward to safer harbors or into a calmer day.

Once passed the worst of it it was looking like the wind was going to shut off and force us to motor the whole way in. It looked like we had another fuel stop in our future as well. These fuel stops sound easier than they are. You have to coordinate your bar crossing with the operating hours of the fuel dock and the time you are passing the port. This requires a bunch of Dead Reckoning to plan and choose a port. Fortunately, Crescent City is both in the lee of some land and is one of the only fuel docks on the West Coast not on the other side of a river’s bar.

We ducked in and through the fog and the temp rose about 30 degrees. Fueled up and were out again with enough to make it to San Fransisco.

We never saw Cape Mendicino but I was glad to pass it without any abuse.

We are 160 nautical miles north of San Fransisco the wind is not quite enough to sail as we gently glide over the now small waves into the damp fog under power. The trimarans trampolines that are stretched between the main hull that’s been our home for the past 5 days billow lightly up and down like white bat wings. The engine drones on as Sade plays on the stereo while the boat owner’s phone charges from the boat’s stereo and our only USB port. The chart plotter and integrated radar don’t have detailed charts uploaded so our phones are our only accurate forms of nav devices on board. Its 17:45 and in 15 minutes we will add the fuel that’s in the three jerry cans lashed under the traveler. After that, the only fuel to get us the remaining distance is in a partially full 5 gal jerry in the lazarette. The forecast is for 5 to 10 knots from the south for the next 24 hours. We will be arriving just after the slack before ebb. It should be about 1.5 knots.

Between fog, fuel limitations, currents on bars, bar closures to boats under 40 feet, and the fact that this boat is made to fold up; this boat’s delivery to SF is no exception in the manifold forms of stress involved with coastal passage making. Just now over the radio, the USCG relayed a tow request for a black Thunder Jet 30 offshore of Crescent City where we fueled up last. Even the cool kids are having a hard time today.

Once under the Golden Gate, the wind picked up adding another form of boat stress to our trip; Docking! We were going to have to partially fold an ama in to fit into the double slip waiting for us in a particularly windy marina.

Moe on the helm while fenders are deployed.

No problem!

Shaw Island Classic

Elsewhere’s crew is made up of the sweetest and saltiest of dawgs.

Wasp Passage used to be know for pirates. I imagine that the strictly sail drivin craft of the past, when floundering in the light wind and strong currants here, were at their most vulnerable.

Elsewhere in her element about to real in all but one boat in the final stretch.

Meridian 441 Friday Harbor to Crescent City

Meridian 441

Friday Harbor to San Diego 

It’s not often that I get to deliver a boat from my home port. I’m not used to the convenience. The job was referred to me by a somewhat antique local captain who told me he wasn’t interested in coastal deliveries but having been the caretaker of the vessel and its occasional captain he could attest that the owners were good customers. I coordinated with him after making some arrangements with the owners to get an orientation to the boat, also something I’m not used to. When we met on the boat we found that the port engine’s battery could not turn it over. Glad to be finding this out before I had a weather window and crew aboard I informed the owner of the situation. I told him the start bank and the thruster batteries were old lead-acid batteries and needed to be replaced to move the boat. He responded by saying that he had just recently spent $18,000 on batteries and didn’t know why I was having problems. This is an example of some of the frustration both boat owners and service people like myself deal with too often. The owner doesn’t know his boat or how half of the systems on his boat works and feels taken advantage of by the shipwright or mechanic who worked on his boat last because it feels like there is always more to repair.

This is because boats require a tremendous amount of maintenance and their increasingly complex systems designed to make the landlubber feel life afloat doesn’t require any compromises compared with the conveniences of shoreside life. In adision, some things like batteries are both parts with comparatively short-term lifespans and require regular preventative maintenance.

Then I come along to help him move the boat he owns and doesn’t feel comfortable operating and find that the maintenance has been deferred and the boat is not seaworthy for the passage. I am in a position where I feel like I have to explain and justify the work that the boat needs to move forward and the owner is running out of patience with the boating world. At this point asked to see the invoice for the previous work on the battery bank to confirm that it was the house bank, not the start bank that had been replaced. After confirming this the next hurdle was the time it would take to have the small local marine repair outfit replace the batteries. Figuring this would take a few months and conflict with other deliveries planned, I offered to do it myself and for a significantly better rate than those he had previously hired to work on the house bank.

Two weeks later and the batteries were down and I was learning all about how to program wireless transmission controllers that needed to be recalibrated. (Old school design uses cables that run from the helm to the engines to change gear and throttle, these engines used a more modern wireless remote system that looked like it came out of the bilge of a spaceship) Once running and after a while spent lashing the oversized dinghy to the undersized davits to raise it further from the water my shipmates Mark and Corey boarded and we were off to the fuel dock. Not long later with Brown Island off our starboard beam, I started to bring the throttles up on the two big Cummins diesel engines. A boat like this, without an oversized dinghy on the back, should cruise at 15+ knots. We were WOT (wide open throttle) and barely doing 12. This was not a good sign. A beautiful rare and long weather window had presented itself to make this passage on what is quite honestly not the most seaworthy boat and I was seeing this window slip away in the periphery of my mind. Already I had an important choice to make: continue on at this very poor performance burning too much fuel while going slow or turn back and lose the day or more to figure out what was wrong. My thoughts were that the boat’s bottom or the wheels (props) were foiled. I called the captain that had run the boat in the past for the owners and asked him what RPM and speeds he had seen. As it turned out in the past three years the boat had moved as many times and never over 7 knots. As luck would have it this captain was also a diver that worked professionally in the marina. As misfortune would have it he could not dive the boat till 3 pm and we would miss the second fueling in port Angeles I had planned on to deduce the fuel consumption on the boat. My fears about the window closing or feeling the pressure to proceed without a confident sense of our burn rate and range moved from the periphery to the center of my mind. 

A raising pressure makes any prudent skipper keen to waste no time putting miles under the keel.

It was 4pm and we no longer had barnacle incrusted props. At 17 knots we going to make it to PA 30 miles away before the sunset. The transient dock next to the fuel dock is an easy approach, often available and more than makes up for the rustic patina of the Port of Angels and its main marina’s bathrooms. 

We didn’t have a good idea about the fuel consumption of the engines because of the foiled props and our turning back in Griffin Bay, so I wasn’t sure of our range with the 400 gallons aboard. The Washington Coast has very few options along its coastline for fuel and they are on the other side of the least fun type of bars. These bars are minefields of crab pot floats best crossed only two times a day when it’s not ebbing, and the fuel dock hours never seem to correspond to when you’re there. 

After a complete rerig of the davit tackle, we could safely run offshore. The weight of this dinghy significantly reduced our speed and fuel efficiency on the trip.

Mark and C

COVID and its effect on the aboriginal communities in the Northwest had caused the tribes to close their respective ports and fuel docks making the best fuel and ice cream stop out of the question. In other times Neah Bay is a wonderful place for a wayward sailor/delivery crew to stop. Their fuel dock attendants and breakfast at Warm House Restaurant are a welcome oasis in the otherwise remote and inhospitable NW edge of the country. We were going to have to make Westport, a place that makes Port Angeles look like a charming tourist town.

As we were heading through the shortcut between Tattoosh Island and Cape Flattery “Hole in the Wall” I realized that it was the perfect conditions to cross the bar at La Push, another port on reservation land. I thought that it was worth a try so I called the number I found before I lost my cell signal. It went straight to voicemail which said that due to covid they were closed to the public but there was an emergency number. Feeling brave and hoping to avoid Westport’s fuel dock and another night waiting for it to open I gave it a call. A nice man answered and I told him that we were a powerboat southbound.

The man on the phone said that he would be a real d*(k if he turned us away so he said he would call the reservation police before we arrived and we could fuel up. Beautiful conditions for my first crossing of this legendary bar.

This is one of those places you can’t help but find a part of yourself glad it is so inaccessible to the general public. A gem of semi-natural protection with the towering rocks you pass to port and in the lee of prevailing conditions. A winding sandy river snakes into the rainforested valley beyond the small but welcoming marina. My guess is no more than 50 boats could moor there. To our starboard just inside the small marina’s entrance was a dock 60 feet long with two pumps dispensing diesel or gas with debit card terminals. There were some fishermen moving crab pots on in the nearby parking lot and among them the man I had spoken to on the phone. He told us we had to swipe the card twice for each tank because any delay would restart the process.

Fueled up we headed out the now significantly less intimidating bar. Even more of comfort came from the new knowledge of the boat’s burn rate and subsequent cruising range.

A few more fuel stops later and we were faced with the reality that our narrow weather window could not accommodate the slower pace unforeseen maintenance issues inflicted on our plan.

Deciding Crescent City was the closest port to leave the boat until the next window could allow, we found a car rental company and headed home.

If we had clean props I have no doubt we would have made the passage in the window we had. Next time I’ll check..

Island Packet 35

Another uneventful border crossing in the books This delivery unlike the Pursuit before it required some skillful current timing. We were doing 8 knots at one point which is impressive considering that the sailboat only has a 3 cylinder diesel and it was towing a 15 foot skiff.

I delivered one of these although quite a bit newer from Seattle to SF a few years ago and the design has an interesting story. These are the last full keel production boats ever made. Not my first choice for sailing in small waters but the delivery certainly made the new owners very happy. They had bought the boat without ever seeing it in person. I felt like Santa Claus bringing them their new toy.

Port Townsend to San Fransisco (almost)

Earlier this year I was contacted by a gentleman preparing for a passage to Hawaii on his, new to him Amel Maramu. The boat was getting new sails from Ballard Sails and undergoing a refit for the cruise. The owner and I discussed options and we discided that the best plan would be to spend a week in the San Juans going over the fundamentals of cruising and then see how far we could get the boat down the coast to its temporary berth in SD.

1986 Amel 48 Maramu “Della Sue”

Port Townsend to Bodega Bay

On June 18th I met the crew of the 1986 Amel Maramu “Della Sue” in Port Townsend at 20:00. Unfortunately, after the pizza place with the best pizza on the peninsula, Waterfront Pizza had closed. I had waited three hours to get on a ferry from Whidbey Island to get there and had been looking forward to a slice. Life can be hard but enough about pizza. A month prior I had sailed with Greg and Eric the owner of the boat in the San Juans to do a little shakedown and cover some of the fundamentals. I had not met Justin the other member of the crew. After we did a round table discussion of everyone’s goals, sailing dreams, and background they told me the story of their somewhat eventful docking in the Port Townsend boat basin’s Commercial docks; explaining that the 30 kit gusts caused them to lose control in the near fairway and make contact with a few other boats. Not a great start

The plan was to sail down to SF and drop me off before they went on to San Diego and then later to Hawaii. Justin was the only crew member with offshore experience having done a South Pacific passage years ago. We had planned to cast off a few days earlier and having looked at the weather, we decided it would be better to push our departure date back for a better window.

Dead Reckoning. 24 hour days in red and ports in green.

Saturday’s GFS forecast promised 15 knots from the west and an opportunity to shake the wrinkles out of Della Sue’s brand new sails on the short hop to Port Angeles and our last fueling opportunity before our journey down the coast.

I should know better than to trust the GFS model inshore and in this area as it is consistently less than what it should be. Saturday we saw 27 knots and not 10 miles from PA when looking in the chart table for the Wagners cruising guide to contact the harbormaster a wave dipped the rail and Justin lost his balance and stumbled across the cabin. In the fall he bent the rail on the ship’s range with the small of his back and broke his pinky finger.

We furled our sails and motored in, the call to the harbormaster going straight to voicemail we tied up at the pump-out dock. Before we started dinner we did another round table discussion. The question was whether to continue with the trip as planned. We now were one hand short with an already small and inexperienced crew. Justin said he had broken the finger before and was fine to go on but wouldn’t be able to handle lines and offered to do all the cooking and cleanup associated then next issue was how would we change the watch schedule with only three. We decided on a four-hour solo rotation where the remaining capable hands would split the days into two four-hour watches per day and Justin would take on all the cooking.

our 9 fingered chief ruining my future expectations for food underway on future passages.

Cooking under power allows for some flat working surfaces. Note the stone inset in the table rendering its fiddles almost useless.

Seagoing Basil

Sunday the wind was 5 knots and less so we motored to our next stop; Neah Bay to anchor for the night.

Monday the HRRR forecast and the QTVLM weather routing had us motoring offshore for 8 hours before we would get into 15 knots of Northwest wind. Nine hours later we were further offshore than I like to be on deliveries but into enough wind to sail at 7 knots and get the engine off. This wasn’t a delivery though. In our discussion regarding the shared goals of the crew, the time we were spending on the boat and the primary focus was to be to gain the experience necessary to continue on south and beyond to Hawaii without my help and we needed the wind to do that. Unfortunately, to get to that wind we burned a significant amount of fuel to do so. The boat we were on, a very well thought of and thought out French ketch designed to be a passage maker had a range of 250 miles under power and we were going to have to be careful watching the weather for wind holes.

Coos Bay (Charleston Fuel Dock)

More motoring had us heading to Coos Bay for fuel and dinner ashore a significant notch below what we had been accustomed to eating when Justen was cooking on the boat. The broken finger hadn’’t got in the way of his culinary skill.

(some motoring later after fueling in Eureka)

We are 30 miles south of Cape Mendocino and the engine has discharged 4 quarts of oil out of the oil vent. We know this because it takes four quarts to fill it back up. The forecast is for the wind to build to 15 to 20. It's 17:00 (5 pm) after a brief attempt to start it I'm certain that it will not run without risk to the engine.

---

The options as I see them are

1- sail back to Eureka into the wind, get a tow or short tack up the channel.

2- Sail south 130 miles to Bodega Bay where we could either anchor in the lee of the bay or get a tow into the harbor (the channel being too narrow to short tack up)

3- Sail south to San Fransisco. This would put us there at…. AM and there is a chance it will be in reduced visibility and in a high traffic area with large unmaneuverable vessels transiting the area. With the additional chance that there will be little or no wind.

4- Sail 300 miles to Half Moon Bay

We haven’t been able to charge other than minimal solar but it is keeping up on the instruments but not sure it would with radar on if we get into the fog for too long.

If we anchor off the bay we would need to use the batteries to pull up the anchor. The windlass is meant to be operated when the engine is on so there is a risk of not having the amps to pull up the anchor and if we drag the only recourse is tying a retrieval line to a fender and the chain’s bitter end.

There is also the risk that if we use the dinghy to tow the boat up the channel to the harbor the outboard that has not been tested will stop running sending the ketch aground as it would drift out of the narrow and shallow channel. 

The watches are running 4 on 8 off with a crew of 3 in rotation. Jibing close to the shore down the coast would mean single-handed jibes or waking the off-watch every jibe. 

Instead, we sail offshore and follow the forecast and route our routing software suggests. This puts us out of cell range until we are 15 miles out at 19:00 (7 pm) A few crew calling all the towing companies on the west coast we learn that there are no towing companies in Bodega Bay. The last company we speak to says call the USCG. With great reluctance we do. We rendezvous with a 45-foot aluminum Coast Gaurd lifeboat off Bodega Rock at 21:00 (9 pm) the wind does not abate in the lee as much as I was hoping and we are told to “drop sails” so we roll in the main and jib and begin drifting under bare poles. They are to weather of us when I yell across the water between us that they may be better off coming along the starboard side in the lee when they choose to tie on our hip. For better or worse my experience skippering a Vessel Assist boat has me having ideas on how to do the tow best. My past experience being on the other side of the maneuver also reminds me that there is only one captain when boats are connected and it’s the one on the boat with the power.

The skipper of the Lifeboat agrees and calls for the fenders to be put out on the port side. At least 3 of the 6 teenagers on the deck start at medium speed to deploy fenders as the boat drifts down to us. The skipper sees what’s going to happen and puts both 435 hp engines in reverse hard and pulls away. We are almost a mile downwind from where we met them and I change the plotter to night mode as the light is beginning to fade. Once clear astern we see the CG boat speed back upwind of us at 15 knots and slow to throw a having line to me on the bow. The kid throwing the floating rubber ball to me on the foredeck throws it straight into the rigging where it gets tangled. As I try and untangle the heaving line to begin pulling the tow rope to our bow the lifeboat begins to drift down on us, eventually hitting the just aft of our beam. Then the skipper puts his boat astern and the much higher freeboard of the CG boat hits our stainless railing. There is a terrible scraping sound of aluminum against stainless and as the boat hits the outboard on its rail mount the railing is pushed in and the outboard is all but ripped from the railing. It looked like the next thing to go would be the dinghy on the davits. The skipper apologizes and comes back now with fenders on his starboard side realizing the distance we have traveled downwind and the time that has passed. We run lines on for aft and begin heading in. It is dark now and the skipper of the CG boat turns on the work lights on their beam. We can’t see much now that our night vision is gone but based on the jockeying of the throttles it sound like the skipper is having problems lining us on our approach to the narrow harbor entrance.

Our bow is not as parallel to the towboat as I would have it…

Eventually, we are dropped at the fuel dock and they wave goodbye.

The next day I speak to every fisherman that comes in to fuel up and ask if they know of a slip or a mechanic. We find a slip and a mechanic and launch the dinghy and by pushing from the port hip before the wind fills in the next day we are tied up in a more respectable spot.

Like a semi amphibious hermit crab person, I make my meandering way back to home waters. It takes three days but I get that slice of pizza in Port Townsend.

Take away

In retrospect I should have been more adamant about the vessel needing an oil pressure alarm before we left. It wouldn’t have change the outcome with the Coast Guard but it would have saved the engine (still no word on what and why a month later)

Also we should have been more serious about changing the plan after Justin had his fall. It would have been fine to continue but when the key pieces of the original plan begin to fall apart you have to reassess. We should have stopped pushing for San Fran or looked for last minute crew to fill in or pushed our departure back.

It is very important to know when its necessary to tough it out and when you just have to ether call the whole thing or revisit the goals.

The go no go call is the most important call a captain can make. The pressure of the schedule and commitments of the crew all push us on and out where we may not have many options. As captain you have to be constantly assessing and reassessing the condition of the boat crew and weather and remain prepared to wait or bag it. The option of not going is the most important thing you can take with you and the most dangerous thing you can have on board is a schedule.

Pursuit 3070 Anacortes WA to Sydney BC

So in the middle of Elsewhere’s refit in Portland, I get a call to deliver a powerboat from Anacortes to Sydney BC. This is hugely inconvenient to leave the boat and the 10 people helping to get Elsewhere ready for The NW Offshore but as all these refits seem to go I’m hemorrhaging money like crazy so I agree to drive up for the one-day delivery. When I arrive I find out that the truck that is driving the boat from Texas has broken down and will not be making it so I drive back to Portland to continue work. The boat’s new owner is a nice young Canadian commercial fisherman and offers to pay me for my lost day if ill drive back up to move the boat when it arrives. This was going to be challenging because the arrival date ended up conflicting with the Elsewhere crew’s availability to help so I called Arnie Hammer to see if he would move the boat from the slings to the temporary slip. This done I could get on the boat with relative connivance.

A few days later I was underway to Friday Harbor to grab my Hobie Power skiff. Yes, that’s right the Hobie that made the Hobie Cat made an unsinkable surf rescue boat. She’s my inter-island zoomer with her 50 horses and weighing only 650 pounds she tows very nicely. The two 250 Yamahas did notice a thing. Oh and the Pursuit is a pretty sweet boat and that’s coming from a sailor. After a relatively uneventful customs visit and the border paperwork done we were zooming back to Friday Harbor. 

Pacific Northwest Offshore

Sometimes you have to go backward…

As the work in the yard came to a finish the forecast for this year’s PNW Offshore race began to come into focus. Last month we had been vigorously taking apart and diligently resembling my 1986 Soverel 33. She now had new deadlights, foredeck hatch, anodized spreaders, paint on the mast, oil on her wood, wax and paint on her hull, a polished prop, a new water pump, and rebuilt starboard chainplate deck. The forecast was anticipating gale-force winds from the south by the time we were going to be approaching the most NorthWestern point of the United States and Washington. This wind combined with the fetch from the south and prevailing Northwest bode well for bounciness. Sailing is a Watersport after all and we were confident in our boat having taken everything apart.  The only unfortunate thing was that the crew had only 4 of the original 8 we had planned to do the race with making it a crew of half substitute sailors who had never sailed together. Two crew left the program the day before the race so we had our work cut out for us but there was no doubt in my mind that despite the 30+ knots in the forecast we had nothing to worry about. Sailboat racing is a game just like other sports and you play differently based on the hand you are dealt. The propensity of the boat; the advantages and disadvantages of its design, the strengths and weaknesses of the crew, and the conditions on the course all go into the approach.

Fortunately, a forecast is just a forecast and after 24 hours of beautiful surfing in nothing over 25 we were approaching Cape Flattery and the halfway mark having seen 14 knots of boat speed and under total control through the night. Asymmetrical kites set on the pole are such a solid option for offshore wavey conditions.

Great shot of the start by Maria Swearingen

Now for the hard part.

We were now pointing our bow into the greatly diminished wind in the lee one the Northern Cascades and a healthy ebb. We were fighting to see over 3 knots of speed over ground and we could see the J 105s in our division tacking up the shore as they hunted for current relief along the weedy shore. This seemed the best course as the boats out in the middle and just south of the now restricted Canadian border showed no heeling and therefore wind and giving the very light and variable forecast there was a chance that if they lost all wind and steerageway they may be pushed across the border or worse; find themselves in front of a very unmaneuverable tanker going 20 knots. Ether of these would result in disqualification. Some ocean racing rules have penalties for sailing in shipping lanes for this reason. We were going to have to tack up the shore and it was starting to rain.

Two watches later and I come up on deck to find a good portion of the fleet had sailed by us and we were at risk of a dodger boat rolling us (see “dodger boat”). I asked my first mate Martin Gibson what had happened and he said they sailed into a kelp patch and had taken a while to remove the kelp from the rudder. After a few moments on the helm, I felt a small wobble on the tiller and said I thought there was still something on it, to which Marty insisted that they had removed it all. One more “rolling” by a slower boat later we backed the boat down and as we were sailing in reverse and a huge ball of kelp came off the running gear. We were back in it and all we could do was hope our competition would run out of what little wind remained and allow us to catch back up. Too much distance had been lost however and after a valiant and long night of just over 1 knot SOG and a three-hour watch with as many spinnaker hoists and we were clawing our way around the spit and under spinnaker ghosting in, out of the current and in the sun again.

A very tired crew receives the famous hot towel and Champaign and bathroom key.

Well done everyone that showed up. Next time!

Advanced Coastal Cruising

ASA 106

The Advanced Coastal Cruising Class or ASA106 is the 5th level in the American Sailing Associations credited courses. This class represents the level after Coastal Navigation and is often the first time many ASA-certified sailors get the opportunity to experience night sailing. The 104 or Bareboat certification that is needed to charter boats is the highest level most students of the ASA programs achieve and due to insurance restrictions charter guests are limited to operating chartered boats in daylight hours. Some that attend the 106 are boat owners and that was the case with the crew of this class. Tom McLeod reached out to me to help him deliver his new boat from PT to Astoria a few weeks prior and Max Heckscher has owned an Ericson 35 for years. Fernando owns a beautiful Scandinavian cruising boat and Nick Duckstein used to own a Hunter he chartered out through a local outfit.

The hosting yacht was the Andrews 53 “Artemis” owned by Captain Tom Muir a friend and shipwright from Seattle and new addition to the islands. Tom is an ASA instructor of the highest order and has been in the boating industry for many decades.

The crew met on Friday and it wasn’t hard to recognize everyone because most had addended the GBA Ground School a few weeks prior. We geared up and began orienting ourselves with the powerful boat speaking at length about the importance of running backstays, something new to many of the crew.

We cast off and had killed the engine by the time we rounded Turn Island on the North end of Griffin Bay. Heading south we reviewed the weather forecast. Our plan was to sail as far out the Straight of Juan De Fuca as possible and turn around to have the crew back by Sunday evening. The forecast was for a small craft advisory later that night in the eastern end of the straight so we planned a possible layover in Port Angeles that night. By the time we were approaching PA we were under jib alone and making almost 9 knots. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind Artemis was a powerful boat. After we furled the jib in the lee of one of the anchored tankers and were motoring across the bay we noticed a small fishing boat crossing from port. As many readers know the vessel to the right is the stand-on vessel in a crossing situation like this but after no coarse correction or acknowledgment was recognized concern that we were about to collide arose. Once eminent and after yelling I called for the helm hard to starboard as ducking their stern was not an option at this point. The boat steamed by with the skipper’s head in a cooler totally ignorant of the near-miss and litigation that would have ensued.

Enough excitement for the day had the boat happily snoring away before 11 and underway before the seagulls were up. The next day the conditions had abated but the forecast called for it to fill in so we started discussing contingency plans. We decided we would sail West as long as we could and turn around when it got too rough and sail back to the San Juans to round the county via Rosario. The next excitement came when after turning around off Piller Point we were southeast of Victoria in about 25 knots and hitting the low teens surfing the wind waves under jib alone. Captain Muir was at the helm when I was tucking myself in for the first nap of the day to prepare for my watch from Midnight to 3 with Nick and Fernando when Tom yelled that he had lost steering. I responded and dived into the stern of the boat where the quadrant was to see if a cable had come free or if something had jammed between the quadrant and the stops. Seeing neither of these more common issues I put on my gear and got on deck to take what little control was left and send Tom into the back of his boat to investigate further. Tom had recently hauled his boat and replaced his rudder bearings so I knew he was familiar with the area of concern. With one foot on the emergency tiller and two hands on the wheel we rolled the jib to its smallest reefing mark and I drove the boat down the waves taking what pressure I could off the rudder. We then send a mediator to relay the communication through an open cockpit porthole to coordinate our efforts. Tom was going to have to loosen the quadrant bolts while I turned the wheel against the tiller to recenter the quadrant that had slipped off is setscrew under the loads we had been inducing as we reaching across the waves moments before. A little wiggling in concert with the waves we were surfing and we were done with the portion of the class where we have to explain the use and importance of an emergency tiller aboard.

At midnight when I was back on deck we were ghosting up the southern entrance of Rosario and as I reached for the handheld radio to hail the down-bound tug and this watch’s source of excitement, her skipper hailed us. Where do you want us skipper I said. Stay where you are, ill leave you to port.

Our next watch we watched the sun come up bleary-eyed and ready to sail out of the lee of Orcas island the tallest of the archipelago. By noon we were anchored off Jones Island and having lunch with a bunch of cruisers.

After lunch and an impromptu man overboard drill had everyone confused turning the wrong way and messing up the runners we were heading back to Friday Harbor.

We can’t underestimate the importance of the fundamentals. MOB is a part of the Basic Keelboat course material. After it is introduced in this class it must be practiced practiced practiced.

Yellow Island cruise on Elsewhere

Yellow Island is a beautiful little preserve located 7 miles North of Friday Harbor and offers a window into a time before the development of its surrounding islands. On it, wildflowers cover its grassy slopes as trails wander a visitor from view to view that can’t help but make you want to slow down and take in the smells and sights. Bees bumble around your feet and the spring air is full of the boisterous song of the small bids lucky enough to call this island home. Not far up the path after landing the 13-foot gig I brought just for the chance to see this famed island (nonmotorized boats are not allowed to land) I passed the caretaker sitting on a bench. He looked up from the drawing he was not going to have to add elsewhere to and said hello. We chatted for. 30 minutes or more and spoke about everything from dinghies that row well to the new rules about whale watching. Matt is as kind as he is lucky in jobs being the caretaker. Eventually, I let him return to his drawing and began my exploration of the island. Here are some of the pictures.

Seattle to Friday Harbor Beneteau 310

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The other day I headed to Seattle to pick up a boat on the lake. These deliveries that require transiting the locks can be hard to get a good time estimate on because the lock traffic and road traffic from bridge openings all slow things down. The Signature Yachts’ broker met me to offer a brief orientation and the boat’s dinghy was brought over. Which was nice. I always have a fear that I’ll deliver a boat to some far-flung place and have forgotten the dinghy. After the dinghy was tied to the boat we were heading back to my home port of Friday Harbor. My crew was a formidable landsman and highly dedicated student of the water. Captain Jon Palmer is a, soon to be retired, fire chief as well as alumni of the GBA Advanced Coastal program. Jon was on board and we had Friday morning till he had to be back at the station to get this boat the 70 miles north where we would rendezvous with a Canadian Delivery Captain to take the boat on to Vancouver BC. Jon was equipped and ready to go through the night to get to FH but I was having second thoughts about the cold night and the about of logs drifting around. No one was sure how much fuel was on board and I never trust the gauges so the first stop was the fuel dock on the lake. We were trying to get out of the lake as fast as possible.

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As we tied up to what I’m sure is one of the oldest fuel docks around we realized we couldn’t get the fill cap off. The boat is French and from the 90s and meant to go fast. Everything is made of cast aluminum (exaggeration) and the key made to fit into said fuel fitting brakes off in the cap. We can’t get fuel in the boat to go. End of delivery right?

Wrong

Just like that time, I was delivering this J 145 from Jamaica to Antiqua and the Yanmar key broke off in the switch before we cast off. It’s a good thing I can hotwire a boat. In this case, the outside of box thinking only meant we had to unscrew the fixture from the deck, remove the hose clamp, fill the boat up, and put it back together. Not much time later and with our snacks and cup o noodles the store provided we were off and were waving at Teddy Doo and Arne Hammer as we buzzed by the CSR docks. Arne and Teddy Doo weren’t over the horizon before I had a call from him asking if we planned to tow the dinghy all the way. I thanked him for his unsolicited advice and implicit faith in my abilities. I told him that we were keeping our foredeck clear for my first mate’s first lock experience and the second we are through the locks we were hoisting it on the deck and putting the hammer down on this speed queen and … going through the night to PT

Well, there was about 8 to 10 knots blowing from the north once out of the locks with the dinghy on deck and well lashed by my crew. WOT we were doing 6.5 and I was thinking plugging into shore power in PT was sounding nice… Even though patronizing the virtues of Sirens bar or getting shy around the hansom wenches at The Pour House would not be in the cards. We reassessed our eta at the bottlenecks and like I feared we were looking at arriving at cattle pass for max ebb at 3 knots. We conferred that a night in PT was in order and took the PT channel. I admit we did double check our conversion of the 15-meter possible air draft in the bilingual boat’s manual before going under the bridge.

After a nice sleep and some awesome Mexican food, we were off to Cattle Pass and Friday Harbor beyond. The fog was pretty thick when we left and we were going slow when the sun came up. It was a spectacular sight, seeing the sun come through the fog There was a little wind but not enough to stay on schedule and sail.

You can have sailing or time constraints but you can’t have both. This is why I love racing. When the wind dies you go slow and with the exception of a race with a constricting time limit you get there when you get there. Going as fast as you can-slowly-is great. The only other time you have a great excuse to not turn on the engine is if you are doing a blue water passage where you only have enough fuel to motor for maybe 1\4 of the trip. People say to me sometimes “Captain Rhys you are a racer and I am a cruiser. You are concerned with speed and I am not”. This is often the excuse for not wanting to learn the finer points of sail trim. To that, I say no I am a racer and a cruiser. I’ll sail a race boat hard when it’s windy and I’m racing and when it’s calm and I’m cruising I’m glad to go only 3 knots all day if it means not turning on the engine and just see where I end up. So many people that cruise the San Juans do so with their main up and the engine on. There are a few reasons for this like the wind is light in the summer and even lighter inside the archipelago but mostly I think the reason is people bring their scheduling mindset to cruising instead of adapting to the conditions. Maybe it’s how tired I get from having to deliver boats on the schedule that makes me want to slow down when not working.

Back to the delivery.

It’s noon and we are at cattle Pass and though it is ebbing a bit we get through without much fuss. Back in FH Jon catches his ferry home and the boat is picked up the next day by a Canadian delivery captain to take it the rest of the way to Vancouver. Done and done. Cool boat.

SF to WA Saberline 42 (coming soon)

Roche Harbor San Juan Island to Port Madison Bainbridge Island

Another great delivery in the books. This one was a real treat; a Swan 46 needed to be moved from Roche Harbor San Juan Island to Port Madison Bainbridge Island after it had been shipped from the east coast. An old race horse and “Mediterranean RV’ according to the long time owners. (23 years) She had brand new tech sails and we had a great forecast to shake some of the wrinkles out. Samuli Järvinen an alumni of the GBA advanced sailing program jumped at the opportunity being no stranger the the reputation of the brand. As a young man growing up in Finland he knew well the renown that the boat carried. I too am a long time fan of the boats. Since I was knee high to a carbuncle I’ve admired the lines and after getting behind the helm of a 44 when I was 13 I’ve been drooling over them ever since. I love a downwind surfer as much as the next person who has tasted the rare and wonderful fruits of surfing a sailboat and sustained planing speeds. That said I’ve spent more than my share of time going to weather as a delivery captain and can really appreciate a boat that can go upwind like a train while taking care of you in the conditions most don’t want to find themselves in. 

Our forecast was for a beam reach from 10 to 20 so dream conditions. We arrived the night before and cast off first thing. The wind howled all night long and we bounced around quite a bit for a boat weighing 31,000 pounds. In the morning heading out mosquito pass we weren’t sure if the wind was going to taper as forecast but of course once we hoisted the main with the second reef things started to calm down. I gave the helm to Sam and took advantage of the calm to cook us up some breakfast. Once we finished our bacon and eggs all the reefs were shook out and we started to move at a pace appropriate to the boat’s reputation.

After San Juan was in our wake it even filled and veered a little for us while still remaining highly civilized on the beam or just aft. It was so much fun sailing we just wanted more but knew that once in the shelter of Admiralty inlet and the Olympics we were going to have to motor. Then that phone rang. “ Are you on a Swan heading south approaching Admiralty Inlet? Why yes captain Jake. Are you on that tugboat? I said. Yes I’m the one with a CPA of 0 on your stern. Very cool I said ..but if you must come so close please snap a shot. 

Always nice to run into a friend on the water.

I’ll spare the boat dorkery that ensued. Jake is not only a very accomplished and young tugboat captain he is also a savvy sailor man. Even though he was helming a state of the art tractor tug in a quiet bridge on his second cup of coffee. He would rather be on our boat. 

It was looking like a daylight arrival was out of the question with the tide as it was against us. Fortunately Ive got some experience with port Madison from teaching sailing out of Seattle in the past. I used to take my students to the public dock and local pizza place in Suquamish quite regularly and the neighboring mooring ball cluttered Port Madison was perfect mooring pick up training grounds. So I knew we had a minefield ahead and to proceed with the same caution I eat the crabcakes my mom makes and my dad picks the crab for. Aphrodite’s dock and her owners were waiting for us and our landing was uneventful.

The other thing that was waiting for us was a three course meal punctuated with fresh baked chocolate cookies and Baileys on the porch around the fire. 

Not shabby at all. 

Note for future delivery customers for arrival procedure. 

Glory days leading the pack.

What a treat and to hear so many great stories about a boat well loved and traveled. 

Oxnard CA to Orcas Island WA Beneteau 393

The following is a log written by the crew on the delivery of a sailboat from Oxnard to Orcas Island in October 2020.

When I first finalized the delivery and started looking for crew I was impressed with how many applicants we got. We got a dozen applicants with a two-week notice of departure. Many of the applicants were very experienced sailors so reading through the applications knowing we had to turn people away was hard. The factors for crew selection were a balance of experience and enthusiasm. These impromptu passages are wonderful opportunities to gain experience and miles so we didn’t want to just pick the most experienced applicants but rather leave with a balanced crew that had good chemistry. I’m glad to say that the crew bonded very well.

-Capt Balmer

Day One: Prep

The provisions run done by three of the crew while Mike and Rhys locate all spares, label the drawers and go through the boat stem to stern. Finding the boat to be very well equipped. A good size Tupperware container of head spares aboard. Unfortunately, the box was resting on the float switch for the bilge pump. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

When the provisions arrive they are stowed by two of the crew and their compartments labeled. A map of everything’s location is posted on the bulkhead.

The same divide and conquer when the day’s mission becomes securing tacos and Mexican beer. Bram heads to the gas station to get cervezas and the rest order food to go. The crew counts themselves fortunate to have a Spanish speaker in their ranks. Mariana is from Uruguay and deploys her charms on the folks working there.

Ships Log Day 2:

Blue Dragon is sailing close hauled in 10 knots of wind about 70 miles south of Monterey. Bram and Mariana made some wonderful burritos as we sailed through a break in the cloud cover we’ve had most of the day. We are fueling up in Monterey tomorrow and can afford to enjoy a little slow sailing this evening. We saw an interesting predatory sea bird called a Jaeger and a humpback.

Capt Rhys out

N35.36

W121.25

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Ships Log Day 3:

After we passed Morro bay yesterday evening, we continued to tack between ~20+ kts. wind offshore and ~10 kts wind coastal, sailing Blue Dragon into the night. We took turns during our 4 hour, partly-overlapping watch schedule, alternating between sail and engine power.

As the night turned morning the engine propelled us into deep fog with less than 0.2NM visibility, dodging small craft and fishing vessels, often w/out AIS, radar deflection or lights. This made for a stressful morning before docking in Monterey for fuel, water and dropping off one of our crew members.

After our quick stop, now with a crew of 4, we set course for Bodega harbor where we plan for our next fill-up tomorrow.

We experienced some issues with our AIS which Capt Rhys found to be due to a loose wire, buried deep in one of the lazarets (ref pic posted earlier today).

Blue Dragon is scheduled to pass San Francisco late tonight, or early in the morning, and we hope to dock for fuel by midday tomorrow.

Crew is in great spirits as we prepare for night watches, currently bashing into 15~20 kts, right on the nose.

Bram, Blue Drago delivery crew.

Out.

N37.05’

W122.24’

AIS wiring

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DAY 4-

After crossing San Francisco and countless shipping lanes in thick fog with no visibility fully relying on our instruments and compulsively checking AIS. We arrived at Bodega bay today around 7am. The entrance was hustling with small fishing boats racing to leave the harbor as we were trying to find our way in. The small boats seem inadequately prepared to be going out into thick fog, some of them lacking proper navigation lights. There was many sleepy cormorants lined up on the channel pilings with their bodies fluffed up and their necks deeply tucked away into their down. As we slowly approached, you could see some of them slowly waking up looking very groggy and annoyed. Unfortunately, I observed one negative human effect on this master fisher bird as I noticed two dead cormorants on those pilings that had hung themselves caught on fishing lines. We arrived at the fuel dock about 30 minutes too early and used this time to cook breakfast and do a small grocery run to get more essentials- “good” coffee and hot chocolate, now we can make mochas at least!! After fueling up in Bodega Bay, we topped off our water and continued on up the coast. The fog is thick and the temperature is dropping as make our way north. The crew has good energy today and it feels like we are all finally getting settled in and able to sleep. We spotted three humpbacks near our boat and have enjoyed watching them surface close enough to say hello and disappear back into the fog. The sea seems calm as of now, we are all eager for some wind up ahead! Next stop- Eureka. Off to cook some dinner!! N 38,56’ W 123,48’

Xx,

Mar

Day 5-

The Blue Dragon and crew continues north breaking the 500nm line and rounding Cape Mendocino. This cape can be a bit lumpy but today it was smooth motoring. My first watch is 6-9am, I get to see the darkness fade and light come over the ocean. We haven’t had actual sunrises as it’s been grey but that seems to fit the mood of the Pacific today, peaceful but brooding. After the Cape we made a quick fuel stop in Eureka, CA and back out onto the track.

Everyone on the crew is getting on well, cooking meals, cleaning up and keeping the boat in order. We had a good chat about options for the OR and WA legs, they will have a very different feal as a large low is tracking towards WA out of the Bering Sea. The plan, we have several, is to head as far north as we can and make the go/no go call nearer the time and as far north as we can go without getting into the new weather. Stay tuned.

I was on dinner duty and rallied a smoked salmon fettuccine Alfredo, as you do. We have been eating well every meal and I had to keep the standard up.

The delivery has been quiet, a few boats, no whales but we were visited by tiny finch like birds that seemed quite happy to sit on our hands and heads. I picked up some wheel wobble for a while but it was just some weed on the rudder that dropped off when we slowed, that was a relief that it wasn’t something mechanical.

Signing out after another day on the Blue Dragon, should be rolling into OR waters sometime overnight.

Mike

41° 41.769' N 124° 23.567' W

Day 6

Today we fueled up in Coos Bay and are now underway to Newport. We have been aware of the unpleasant weather ahead for a while and have waited until today to decide whether we would press on or tuck in somewhere to wait it out. After much deliberation and after having run every possible outcome we decided that we would wait it out in Newport. If we had pressed on our next safe bailout would have been Astoria. We would have arrived in the afternoon when it was forecast to be blowing around 20 knots this paired with the seas pushed from different directions offshore could result in an uncomfortable bar crossing and if the bar was closed we would have to sail back south to Newport or head on north in increasing wind and seas. This paired with a lee shore and a boat not designed for this sort of sailing made the call difficult but unanimous. I’m so glad to have a crew that isn’t trying to push things to stay on schedule and to have the support of Jason Christianson our weather router on shore keeping an eye on things.

We will all be glad for a break and a shower. And as it’s been a dry passage it doesn’t hurt that Newport has a brewery.

More to come.

44.8

124.12

Captain Rhys Balmer

Day 7

Blue Dragon is docked in Newport. Per previous post, we’re going to keep a tight watch on how the weather develops before proceeding. Newport is not a bad place to be “stuck” on

More to follow.

Day 9

After this morning’s meeting we have decided to stay another day and revisit the plan to head north tomorrow with a fresh forecast.

This was not an easy call however. The bar closures that were put in place yesterday were reduced today and it looked like there would be a short abatement in the conditions that may have allowed us to push north the 100 miles to Astoria. The first slack before flood tomorrow at the Columbia river bar was at 5 am and would be the soonest that the bar could be attempted. The wind which has been blowing from the West from 10 to 15 with West swell at 9 feet and a wind wave on top at 3 feet was predicted to pick up to 25 knots with gusts to 30 with a swell of 11 feet and wind wave of 5 feet in the afternoon tomorrow. If this arrived ahead of the prediction the Columbia River bar would close before we got there and we would be stuck out with no plan B close at hand.

When weighing the risks and benefits of this short push the analogy of a desperate football team’s play to gain only a few yards and no hope of a touch down came to mind. Our end zone was the Straits of Juan De Fuca, a 140 miles to the north where once around Cape Flattery we would be home free with wind and lee shore behind us.

The weather isnt the only consideration in a go no go call like this where you are choosing to leave safe harbor for another. The vessel and crew are factors that need to be considered as well. We are sailing a light displacement boat made for fair weather sailing and charters where day sailing and roomy accommodations were the priority in its design. The Blue Dragon is a lighter displacement boat and is relatively shallow drafted drawing 5 feet so breaking seas on the beam would be uncomfortable to say the least if it came to it. She also has an in-mast furling mainsail which although convenient for shorthanded sailing compromises strength and sail shortening abilities. Still another shortcoming in the boat’s design for what we were doing was the lack of proper sea berths below to allow the crew to get rest and charge up while underway.

If we did make it to Astoria we would be putting the boat on the other side of a bar that can only be attempted a few times a day when the tide is right making our next push north and its time of departure quite restricted. Here in Newport we are on the other side of one of the more benign bars on the west coast so we can leave pretty much whenever the next weather window presents itself.

All this paired with the crab pots we can’t avoid at night that could cripple our maneuverability if caught in the prop with a lee shore made the risk too great to take.

The challenges when coastal passagmaking are many. Fog, crab pots, heavy wind and seas, lee shores, seasickness, mechanical issues, and interpersonal friction aren’t all we have to contend with in our adventurous and salty undertakings. The decisions to wait can be be painful too, Under-minding our resolve as the pressure to stay on schedule and get back to land life mount. We should find find solace in the words of our friends and loved ones.

“Take care of yourself”

Captain Rhys Balmer

Standing by

Oct 14

And we are off! The bar opened at 10 am to vessels over 36 feet. The next point to pass is West Port this time tomorrow. Thank god we got out of there before the other bar opened and the crew wandered off.

Oct 15

This post was sent by Rhys using the Sat Phone, at 11:30am

Tough call today as we approached Westport and what would be our last fuel dock for many miles. Our fuel tank holds 35 gallons and we burn 0.8 gallons an hour at 2000 RPMs. At this RPM with favorable water we can make 7 knots. A little rounding gives us a gallon an hour and a range of 245 miles in good conditions. We have gone 140 miles since Newport. And we have another 100 to Cape Flattery and the entrance to the strait. Normally the first stop after rounding the cape coming from the south and the last stop before rounding from the north, is Neah Bay. Neah Bay is a quiet reservation town with a small port for commercial fishing boats. There is an anchorage with decent protection and some great family style restaurants in town. It is a great place to let your crew ashore as there is no alcohol allowed on the reservation. Unfortunately… but understandably, the people that live here have closed the town to outsiders due to covid 19. This puts our next opportunity for fueling 50 miles east in Port Angeles. We have 15 gallons of fuel in jerry cans on deck which extends our range nicely but I believe it is good practice to have 30 percent reserve to give yourself leeway for unknown factors.

The forecast tonight calls for winds building throughout the day and picking up to 25 knots from the west after midnight. Our choice was either go into Westport and fuel up so we have a good reserve of fuel for the rest of the trip but delay our approach to the cape and by doing so, subject the boat and crew to an early morning hammering, OR keep the throttle down and get to the cape before the worst of the weather hopeful we can use that 15 to 20 veering SW wind forecast this afternoon to extend our range and to get around the corner and down the strait to PA.

We put our heads together after coming close enough to the shore to get a fresh weather report off Westport to see if anything had changed since our evening offshore and in waters deep enough to be safe from crab pots, and we decided to push on.

Cruising with an unlimited schedule in coastal waters can be safe and comfortable and in the summer, going the direction of the prevailing winds, you don’t need the patience of a saint. However, delivering boats off season and with the shore side obligations of the mortal and employed one has to make calculated risks. We are weighing risk and benefit all the time out here. The constant decision making is tough even for a rested crew. It is as important to do preplanning and make notes, as it is to be ready to adapt to the changing conditions and data available.

We have been lucky to avoid rough weather at the capes south and even luckier to have a crew with the leeway and understanding to wait when we must but now is the time to push on.

Oct 16

We have arrived in Port Angelies and before the fuel dock opens. Everyone has gone back to bed after docking except me. There are only three bunks aboard which is fine when we are underway but a challenge when stopped. I wrote this the other day about our sleeping arrangements and it seems appropriate to share while I sit at the chart table in this happily snoring boat.

We wake at all hours

Our schedule is new and our days are broken into

1/4s

I have 12 to 3

It’s hard to know when to brush your teeth

Bram comes on at three

I get into the warm bunk he leaves

The warmest bunk is next to the engine

It’s also the loudest

70 decibels of humming iron

The quietest bunk is the Pullman berth in the bow

This is a double bed on the port side forward of the main bulkhead

It has a door but no lee cloth

Lee cloths prevent us from rolling out of our berths when we are sailing

The other berth in the main saloon it’s also on port and is the settee for the table

I made a lee cloth for it before we left

Everyone sleeps with their heads aft in case we run into a sleeping whale... or something else.

So far the best sleeper in the crew is Bram. He can fall asleep in minutes in whichever is the most uncomfortable bunk.

This is a sailor’s virtue

There is a saying that sleep is work underway.

I sleep whenever I can because I never know when I’ll be needed on deck.

We have arrived ahead of any real sailable wind but should see some breeze on the way to Cattle Pass.

Stay tuned

-Capt

Oct 16

In-mast furling is only convenient when it works. Look out for prebend in the rig.

We had an issue with our inmast furling. ... and sometimes there is only one way to fix it

Arrived

Astoria to Everett- Wauquiez Pretorien 35

I packed up my liferaft and EPIRB and headed to Everett to meet a former student to deliver his, new to him , Wauquiez Pretorien 35 from Astoria to Everett. Usually, I am reluctant to have owners join me on deliveries because I know so many well-qualified sailors wanting to crew with me. Some are fellow racers but some like this boat’s new owner Jon and his son Johnson, are alumni of GBA’s Advanced Sailing program. Both were aboard GBA’s former training vessel '“Journeyman” a Cal 40 when we did the Oregon Offshore in conjunction with an Advanced Coastal Cruising Class in 2019. Captain Gavin Brackett and Sir Martin Gibson were co-instructors. (See link)

“The other reason it’s good to do this before the bar is cramming yourself into the yogic pose in what most sailboat designers consider to be “engine access” is best done when the boat isn’t being tossed around. If you were lucking enough to hit up the Pig n Pancake before you hit the bar you might be feeding the fishes after a sub lazaretto boat yoga session”

The purchase had only been finalized a few days before so there were some things to do before we left. New batteries were to be installed and an AIS radio was going to be helpful given that the visibility from fires and fog would be limited.

I confess I was looking forward to heading to my favorite chandlery England Marine to pick up the radio and some last-minute items.

Unfortunately the only AIS radio they had at the store required two VHF antennas and an external GPS. I’ve owned two boats now that have the Standard Horizon 2200 radios aboard which has GPS built in. Oh well at least we had a fancy radio albeit without AIS and no GPS or radar. Don’t try this at home kids.

There's something about being underway in the fog not knowing what you will come across. First, there is stress and then you get so tired that you become all but totally desensitized to the discomfort of sailing blindly into air that is so moist that you can see only a few boat lengths ahead and in the dark, it seems like even less. Your eyelashes become saturated and heavy with water and without a horizon to get a bearing on the boat seems to move beneath you with an alien motion.

Before leaving I spoke with a friend of mine who is a lifelong crabber and asked him at what depth we would find the crab gear. Sometimes it's in close, under 200 feet and sometimes it’s out further. Sometimes it's only open to the aboriginal (native) fisherman. This information helps me decide where to go to avoid the gear and boats. He told me that the crab season had been a bust and that it was so bad guys were having to sell their boats. This was good news for us and the coast was going to be pretty much clear of crab pots and the boats that work them. I would also add that although fishermen have AIS they deliberately do not transmit their location to avoid sharing in their hard-won secret fishing grounds.

When we arrived at the boat in Astoria I turned everything on to check what worked and what didn’t. The boat had what seemed like no updates to its electronics since the 80s and I wish I had taken a picture of the Loran in the nav station to share here. For those that don’t know, Loran is an archaic navigation device that preceded GPS and that used radio direction finding to help mariners find their way in the 70s and 80s. Owning one was a mark of the successful fisherman as they cost quite a bit back in the day. Now with the Loran beacons required for them to work all long gone, it is only a weighty relic taking up space in the nav station.

While going through running lights and the other instruments I noticed the depth reading on the depth sounder. It was low, especially considering where we were on the tidal swing. Let me first say that the Port of Astoria is a wonderful place near to my heart. I have sailed through many times on deliveries and more notably it is where the boats have always gathered before the start of the Oregon Offshore; one of my favorite sailboat races. A race, for those that don’t know, that starts on the Columbia River Bar at buoy two and ends at the entrance to Victoria Harbor. Recently however the meeting location and name of the race were changed due to the decreasing depth in the Oregon’s Port of Astoria marina. Now the boats are meeting in Ilwaco on the Washington side and the race is called The Northwest Offshore Race or something.

Back to our depth sounder: as the reader may know a depth sounder can be calibrated in different ways. The transducer is mounted in the hull often in front of the keel. Without calibration, it reads a depth as much as 3 feet shy of the true depth at the waterline. (See fig 2) It can be calibrated to read the depth under the keel as I have found charter boats often do or the difference from the waterline can be added to its reading thereby giving an accurate sounding of the depth of water the boat floats in. The nature of a delivery captain's work is boarding a strange and disused boat with antiquated equipment and with little time to familiarize oneself with the eccentricities all boats are bound to have. This means bringing tools and a weary outlook that can make allowances for these often dangerous particularities. (LINK to delivery gear)

Sea Bag

A measuring tape is not one of those tools in my kit but fortunately, Jon brought one and we could measure the depth the old way. Well not exactly, traditionally the water the boat was in would have been measured by a lead line which was a long line marked in fathoms (look it up) with a lead weight weighing about five pounds with recess for grease in the end to take samples of the sea bed that would have been thrown forward as the boat sailed so as to measure the depth as the boat passed over where the lead touched bottom.

After finding that the depthsounder was properly calibrated and looking at the tide I realized that we would be aground the next morning when we were planning on leaving to catch the first flood after slack. I remembered Skippering a Hylas 42 about 15 years ago in the Oregon Offshore and “Rage” the famous local built Wylie 70 boat being aground before the start of the race. She has two keels to choose from and races with her deep one that draws 13 feet if I remember correctly. So we called the fuel dock and asked if we could tie up there for the night and leave once they opened and we filled up in the morning. They happily accommodated us and the next day we were underway to the bar.

The Columbia River Bar has an ominous history and its nicknames strike fear in the hearts of those that have and haven’t crossed it. “The Graveyard of the Pacific” is one that comes to mind. Without going into the whole history ill try to briefly explain why the bar has so many wrecks and dead sailors on its bottom. The Columbia River is the largest river that empties into the Pacific, as it does it carries sand and silt from upriver and deposits it in a constantly growing shallow delta and then sand bar or shoal that extends miles out to sea. This shallow water causes the often large waves born hundreds of miles offshore in the Pacific to shorten and steepen as they approach and this paired with the strong current caused by the river's outflow produces dangerous waves. If this wasn’t enough; the effect of the tidal outflow caused by the huge delta upriver can create a current that most displacement boats can’t outrun. The good news is that if you time it right: when the tide is flooding the effect to the tidal current slows the river and if only for a short while: even reverses it sometimes far upriver.

If the fuel dock hours and crew’s morning head visits allow it, I like to catch the last of the ebb downriver for the push to be at the bar at the beginning of the flood. This way the 11 miles to the ocean goes quickly and the bar is calm or calming down by the time I get there. This time however we didn’t get jack-lines run and jerry cans lashed as quickly as hoped so we ended up motoring against a negative current all the way to the bar. This concerns the captain because it uses more fuel and pushes the ETA at the mouth of Juan De Fuca 150 miles north, back. At least the bar was flat and the fog had momentarily lifted. This is a very busy waterway often teaming with commercial traffic and fisherman of every variety so good visibility is a huge plus. At buoy 10 we saw a ship of about 250 feet coming in on the south side of the channel only to be surprised by its standing turn mid-channel and off our port bow within a mile. After the boat’s do se do I noticed its day shapes and corresponding running lights indicating that it was at the top of the right of way precedence and restricted in her ability to maneuver and was in fact a dredge sounding and dredging the bar’s channel as we passed. As we passed it crabbed diagonally across and behind us. (See picture)

Without a chart plotter in the cockpit, we are using our phones and Navionics to navigate. This is a wonderful app but uses a lot of power. This can be offset by putting your phone on airplane mode but after we cleared the bar and I went below for a nap I noticed that this 1985 boat did not have was a cigarette lighter to plug in my phone or my laptop with the navigation software on it. I guess buying an old French boat is like buying a European car without cupholders. It was a little concerning that the only auxiliary power we had was my personal power pack (as seen in the “seabag” page).

We did however have a little handheld GPS and I had my old Magellan GPS in the ditch bag I had brought along with the EPIRB.

The next concern the captain had was the water in the Racor filter (water separator). One of the things that happen when boats sit for a while before they are sold is they accumulate water and growth in their fuel tanks from condensation. This water and growth in the tank, paired with the agitation of crossing a bar shakes things off the sides of the tanks and fills the water separator and combined filter. We had been underway for two hours before reaching the bar and my habitual check showed that it had indeed filled with water. This is best done before the bar so you don’t lose your engine on the bar and is especially important when there is no wind to sail with if this happens, which was the case for us that day. The other reason its good to do this before the bar is cramming yourself into the yogic pose in what most sailboat designers consider to be “engine access” is best done when the boat isn’t being tossed around. If you were lucking enough to hit up the Pig n Pancake before you hit the bar you might be feeding the fishes after a sub lazaretto boat yoga session.

This was going to be a regular check done at every watch change

End of part one

Next: watches, motoring in the fog, and a Millennial’s idea of provisioning.

Elliot Bay to Anacortes Baba 30

Just returning from a fairly uneventful delivery.

Unfortunately, the only sailing we did was when the engine stalled 5 minutes out from Elliot Bay Marina.

The hardly used cruising duty Dacron by Ballard Sails hoisted and unfurled beautifully but the 70 miles to weather we had to go on this cutter rigged, short waterlined, full keeled, crab crusher looked like it was going to take longer than I bid this delivery.

After a while in what Bob Perry thinks services for an engine access to check packing gland and impeller I remembered all the times that being the smallest on the boat found me volunteered to be the one to go in the hole or up the mast. When the lid closed it made be think of the time I got locked in J105 lazerette when everyone was on lunchbreak at Seattle Sailing Club. Flashbacks aside, the impeller inspected, and packing gland loosened I was back on deck. The temp had spiked after the engine stalled which was a worry. When we checked the oil we found an oil soaked diaper under the engine which is not good but not a surprise giving most sailboater’s idea of engine maintenance. Engine on and running cool we were underway again heading north for a short cut.

under the cockpit

Babett in Coopville

A stop in Coopeville found us at Tobie’s with two badass burgers and a pair of fine brews each. We were in our bunks by 10 and although I was looking forward to getting into the second chapter of Patrick Obrian’s "Treasons Harbor I didn’t make it a page before I was dreaming of mermaids.

The next day was as beautiful a putt as you could ask for. We wound our way North through La Conner (or La Compton as the locals call it) and arrived early to Anacortes for the scheduled haul out.

The not high seas

The short cut

La Compton

Positive vibes positive current all the way

Friday Harbor to SF in a Cal 40

The saddest thing to happen in 2020 for GBA was selling “Journeyman” our beloved Cal 40. This was because no commercial insurance could be found for the 50 year old boat when it came time to renew. The only upside to this was getting to deliver her to San Fransisco with friends. Here are some of my and Har Rai’s photos with Eric Cheong’s personal log. This will serve as a bookmark until the 48 North article comes out in January.

-Rhys Balmer

JourneymanFHtoSF2 from Rhys Balmer on Vimeo.

Eric the Science officer keeping predeparture tasks organized.

“An engine likes its oil like a sailor like his rum”

Madison, Ha Rai, and Bandjo. Bandjo couldnt make the trip but joined us for a sunset sail and BBQ before we cast off

Friday 9.4

We race Journeyman in her last local buoy race and win!  We used our kite the others did not.  We then had a bbq with friends during an evening sail.  They kept the showers opened late!  Weary from packing and offloading but excited for the journey ahead 

Everyone but the photographer.

Saturday 9.5

We set off!  7am to reach Cattle Pass at slack tide.  We motor through then set sail in an unanticipated brisk N NW breeze.  We decide to motor to Cape Flattery directly into the now westerly wind. Martin served frozen lasagna.

Nice little tack through the Race Rocks

MAd Dog looking the part

Dream conditions

Sunday 9.6

Kyle recommends book “Two Years Before the Mast”.  Some crew feels sick.  We had the spinnaker flying, but wind and seas increased to require a reefed main and #2 sail, which shortly became a Chicken on a Stick.  We hold wing on wing toward the coast.  Rigged up our fishing gear.  Eric served chili.

Monday 9.7

Woke up to chicken in a stick.  Wind decreasing.  We set the asymmetrical, I’m pretty sure Martin owes Rhys something on this one. (referring to a bet the captain won) A pod of Dals Purposes play in our bow wake to the delight of crew.  By mid day we have to motor due to low wind.  Kyle tried to bath with a bucket that we are now trying to retrieve.  Going down the coast spinnaker flying.  Drone flight shot and retrieval to the delight of the crew followed by a delicious angel and puttanesca dinner from Crew Madison.  At sunset the wind shifted and a hot Smokey wind blew in.  

Tuesday 9.8

Adventurous evening with gusty N NE winds and a terribly confused sea state.  We were wing on wing. Around 1230 am back winded main popped the vang out of the track.  Around 3am the number 2 jib ripped apart.  After that it was a double reefed main with storm jib until the morning.  Around mid day we shook the reefs out and hoisted the Jenny for a pleasant afternoon on a broad reach headed 130 bound for Eureka to fuel up.  Toward the early evening Martin tries to fly the symmetrical, but the wind will not support and we are under iron sail by evening.  

Wednesday 9.9

Early morning motor to Eureka, saltiest fuel dock we’ve seen.  The sky is orange with a lingering smell of smoke.  The fishing center a large industrial warehouse with an excellent chandlery.  The other fisherman hardly notice us.  The shop keep fills diesel tank and through Martin’s inquiry confirms our fishing approach!  We water up, fuel up, dump trash and buy Snickers.  Motor south toward SF hoping for a double digit southerly to fill in.  But the after we run through a hell of a packet of 25knot plus gusts and storm swells from the SE.  We bash through with a double reefed main and engines at 2000rpm. During our four hour circus roller coaster Madison and I spot several grey whales breaching just nearly 10 feet from the Journeyman in the stormy seas, like being on an alien planet and feeling delighted and oh so small at the same time!  The storm swells turn to confused seas throughout early evening.  Kyle straps together a chicken noodle soup dinner amongst the turbulence and after the stove is replaced into its gimbels.  The winds continue from the S SE as we begin along evening of pleasant upwind sailing tacking to and fro the shore til morning...

Thursday 9.10

Martin and Kyle tuck in a reef.

We continue our upwind journey from the early morning to the evening.  Smokey orange skies giving way to gray moisture laden air.  We take long tacks to and from the shore all day with wind from the southern directions.  Pleasant sailing as the wind forecast holds longer than expected.  The day gives way to calmer seas, a sign to us the wind would be subsiding.  HarRai treats us to an outstanding meal of Garam Masala.  By sunset we turn in the iron genny so we can make our way to our final destination.

Madison Rowley keeping an eye out in the fog.

The trademark Martin Gibson smile and the jury rigged vang in the background.

Everyone but the photographer again!

Drying out on Treasure Island

Big thanks to our awesome photographer Har Rai Khalsa

Victoria to Friday Harbor (with a dinghy)

This year has been a crazy one. Fortunately, there were a few more opportunities than usual to move boats. The closure of the border meant many people couldn’t cross the border but professionals moving boats across the border was considered an essential service.

This boat had been put on a ship before the pandemic outbreak. It was going from Florida to Victoria but the owners being American couldn’t pick up their boat when it arrived so they hired me. It’s 16 miles as the sober crow flies from Friday Harbor to Victoria. I figured if I left from the west side of San Juan Island it was an even shorter distance so when the ship came in and I got the offloading schedule I launched my 11-foot inflatable off a small launch ramp on the west side and bombed over. You can imagine the look on the customs official’s faces when they cleared me into Victoria. Once cleared I headed out to the ship that was offloading the various yachts and came alongside the Catalina 50 I was moving and after that, it was a short trip back to Friday Harbor where I met the owners and explained the situation to the US customs.

40 ft Panda from Port Townsend to Astoria

I met the excited new owners of the boat Saturday morning in Port Townsend. Having looked at the weather on Wednesday we thought that heading out into 35 knots and on a Friday and that Friday being the 13th was unnecessary.

She was a fine example of Perry, nostalgia and Taiwanese boat building.

Before casting off one should go through the essentials. Check oil, coolant, raw water strainer, and stuffing box. Fluids all looked good let’s find that packing gland.

Some packing glands are easier to reach than others…

After removing everything from the lazeratte and once inside said lazeratte I found a hatch that granted “access” to the stuffing box. It seems like this should be easier to reach but like most sailboats; engine room and access is an afterthought. The packing gland was dripping nicely once in gear and loaded and I was happy.

We untied her grassy dock lines and headed to the fuel dock. We were running late. The owner showed me the electronic flare that he had purchased to meet our USCG requirements. Unfortunately, he forgot the batteries. Back to the store to get C batteries.

Having missed the slack water we were in time for the rodeo. The Panda 40 is a heavy displacement sailboat modeled off the rescue boats of the late 1800s. Built for the roughest of conditions these early Colin Archer designs were modified into what would become private sailing yachts that would circumnavigate the globe with small or single-handed crews. These historic voyages enamored generations to come with their capabilities. Still, they capture people’s imaginations of Everest Capes and turquoise archipelagos. These new boat owners that would be my crew for the next three days had those same dreams. Fueled by youtube DIYers and the thought of leaving the rat race they were selling their house and planning to sail away. The purchase went through the day before and they hadn’t even gone through the boat. The stoke was palpable. The naiveté was as well. Which way does a winch turn? How do you tie a fender on? They weren’t as green as some though. They had taken ASA courses and joined the crew of a Baja Haha but there was much to learn and the conditions we were going to be contending with brought to mind the image of a kid trying to drink from an exploded fire hydrant.

Heading North around Point Wilson on an ebb into a 20 knot North Easterly was a rodeo indeed but it was behind us now and we had unfurled our in-mast furling mainsail and with the wind abaft the beam, cracked sheets. The wind does an interesting thing between Squim and Port Townsend in a NE wind. Instead of directing the wind to a more easterly direction it slows it. Now the wind had gone from 20 to 25 with 6 foot short choppy swells to flat water and 10 knots of wind. The sun was out. The staysail and all unfurled and we weren’t making our 5 plus knot minumum we had run our dead reckoning off so on went the Iron Jenny. The wind filled after an hour or so and moved further aft. We unrolled the sails and winged out the jib and turned off that terrible sounding engine. The sun set and the wind filled and by the time we were at Neah Bay it was blowing 25 with gusts of 35 with wind waves you would expect from an 80 mile fetch.

A vangless inmast furling set up benefits from a preventer. The working end lead aft to a winch.

We had furled the main into what would have been the third reef or even fourth if it had been a normal mainsail. The size at least was that of a triple reefed sail, the weight of the sail however was not appropriate for that kind of pressure or at least for prolonged periods. ( imagine the reason that the sails made for these furlers are so light is so they can fit inside the sailboats mast. The light weight of this laminated taffeta sail was of some concern which made me insist that we let one of the head sails carry more of the load. This load is substantial. 20,000 pounds is 10 tons and the mast and sails are the engine and transmission required to take that load. Unfortunately before we left I inspected the furling headsails by employing a sailmakers trick id learned from my time working at sail lofts. At the fuel dock waiting for C batteries, I dragged my thumbnail over the stitching that held the UV cover on the Genoa and I noticed the thread broke easily. This means that it needs to be resewn and that we would have to nurse it down the coast of Washington. Fortunately, the other headsail; the staysail, was in much better shape and looked like it could be relied on.

The other thing about our inmast furler rigging that was unusual was that we lacked a boom vang. The boom, as a result, would have been bouncing up and down with each puff if we hadn’t put a snubber from the middle of the boom down to the midship deck cleat. This is all well and good but if you run it back to the cockpit there is no winch to tighten it with on all points of sail but a dead down wind with the jib wind out to the opposite side and even then I don’t like sheeting a snubber to the middle of the boom because if the boom hits a wave it can break the boom.

Back to the sea story

We had been planning on doing the passage nonstop but a few hours into the trip when I was drinking a glass of water I noticed it tasted strange. Now it is very common for the water tanks on boats to have a strange and often unpleasant taste and I like to think I have developed a resilience to strange water tank flavors but this was bad. Not only did the water taste strange and chemically but bubbles seamed to stand on the surface longer than they should. There are a number of products people run through their water systems to reduce tank taste or to clean the tanks. Some boat owners even chlorinate their water to prevent growth and bring separate water containers for drinking and making coffee. Super bleached water makes sense if you only use your water for cleaning but we had a first passage with some green soon to be greener sailors aboard and as most people should know, dehydration is a big factor in the onset of motion sickness. All this meant we needed to head in to my favorite Native American Kwik-E mart in Neah Bay to get some water and snacks! Easier said than done. It was now pitch black and all we could see of the waves we were now surfing was their braking crests in the light of our stern light. We were going to have to turn on the motor, furl the jib, and turn into the stampede of waves we had formerly been riding and furl the mainsail. Now the whole point of an inmast furler system is to make sailing easier. Short handing, single handing and lazy sailors love this idea. For those of us that fly symmetrical spinnakers to make things more colorful and complicated this doesn’t make sense. I say beware laziness and easiness and most importantly; systems with many moving parts. When it goes right in perfect conditions it is a testament to the over engineers of the world but when conditions are less than perfect it can go very wrong. I think about partly furled mainsail stuck out like a broken throttle cable on an outboard stuck with the trottle wide open or a tiger shark in your cockpit. I would much rather be able to drop a sail and let gravity help me get it down before it takes me where I don’t want to go or flogged itself to ribbons.

9:30

The way the furling mainsail works is there is a mandrill much like the head foil on a jib furling unit inside the mast that is turned by a line that runs back to the cockpit to allow for ether furling or setting the sail. The Cunningham is used to pull the sail out to the end of the boom. This means that three lines need to be coordinated to furl the sail and that’s not including handling the mainsheet. Well as you can imagine it didn’t go so smoothly and the sail accidentally was pulled out all the way by the wind this combined with the small dodger restricting full winch handle turns and single speed winches and and and.

Nautical twilight

Once in Neah Bay I was glad to see that it was more protected than I imagined it would be with a NE wind. The Store was closed due, we think, to the COvid 19 outbreak so we settled down for a bit of rest before an early rise. It was 3 am before we were in our bunks and 9:30 am before we were clearing the entrance back onto the Strait. It was blowing 30 plus from the East and on our beam which was great because we had 140 miles to go and a date with the first flood on the Columbia River Bar the next day. The Washington Coast in the winter is dangerous because the weather can change quickly and there is 100 miles of coast with no safe harbors to retreat to after that the harbors have dangerous bars that often can only be safely crossed twice a day. On top of that there are crab pots. On top of that these crab pots location and numbers vary every year. These pots weight about 100 pounds and have two, sometimes black, buoys tied to them. They are located from 30 to 300 feet of water. Some places 300 feet of water or 50 fathoms is as far offshore as 30 miles on this coast. Fortunately we weren’t going to be motoring much with the forecast we had. Most boats sail their best with the wind on their beam and if you stay close to the shore you can limit the fetch and stay inside the big windwaves.

Line handling is a foundational skill. If you want to go big, start small.

About a third of the way south down the Washington coast the wind died. To the east of this area are mountains. I was sleeping when this happened. I came up on deck and asked how long we had been going 4 knots. We needed to maintain 5 to make our date with the Columbia river bar and the flood. With the motor on we changed course to meet up with the Crab Lanes. At sunset we had reached them and where back to paralleling the coast on our way south. It is interesting that they decided to put the lanes in the depth many crabbers don’t even fish. I haven’t seen the coast this quiet while the season is open. About 4 am we came to a crabber who was running a line of pots right next to the lane. Further south the crab lanes converge and it doesn’t seem that anyone follows the rules. Crab pots are in the channel as we cross the bar. The sun is just coming up and an we dodge and weave our way across the bar and by the time we get to buoy 10 we are motoring against 3 knots of ebb. We are late. 3 pm and we have gone from the bar to Astoria 11 miles up river.

The harbor master is gone but the gas dock guy assigns us a slip. It has both wind and current pushing off it. We end up in the slip next door. high fives and good vibes ensue as we enjoy the first adult bevy we’ve had in three days.

Seattle to Astoria 36 foot wood Troller

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The winter before last I delivered a Tayana 43 trawler from Anacortes to Portland. In February I was contacted by a former delivery customer to deliver another boat he was buying from Seattle to Oregon city. I asked what was wrong with the last boat I delivered for him and he said nothing but that it hadn't moved since and he thought this new boat would be a better fit.

The boat was a 1945 wood troller that had gone through what I was told was a 100,000 refit by a couple that after the refit had cruised to Alaska and back. The boat had been repowered and refastened below the waterline.

I had just delivered a Panda down to Seattle and the owner of the troller called saying he was worried that the pandemic would make the April delivery impossible. I texted a few people in Portland and Mark got back right away. Mark was a mechanic in the Vietnam War and knows both dangerous situations and wrenching on things. I rented a car and picked him up. We drove to the grocery store in Seattle and managed to buy some provisions where we were told we could only buy one gallon of water due to covid.

The boat looked a lot worse than the pictures, she had iron sickness pretty bad and had been sitting at Fisherman's Wharf where boats go to die in Seattle. The "Brokerage" the boat had been purchased through was a nonprofit that boat owners donate their boats to and write off taxes. “Second Half” had been sitting there for two years. Unfortunately, there was nowhere to sleep as the bed that the previous owners had used in the fish hold was gone so we were put up on a neighboring Tolly Craft from the 80s. Once on the boat with the food, we started going through all the boat's systems and found that the heater was also the boat's stove. It was a huge diesel cookstove that ran from a day tank the was mounted on the back of the cabin. This did not work.

Looking in the tank showed a lot of growth so we went about emptying the tank. After we emptied the tank and filled it back up we still couldn't get the stove to light. Turns out it was the ball value that had broken. The ball was stuck closed while the handle moved freely. We pumped all the dirty fuel out of it with an oil changing pump, fixed it and it lit. The next morning we cast off with spare filters and a good forecast. For those who don't know Seattle, the fishing fleet moor inside the Ballard Locks where they are repaired and painted before going back to the fishing grounds in Alaska. We locked down with another fishing boat pleased to be taking advantage of the commercial boat priority in the Ballard Locks. Without losing much time waiting for bridges and locks we were out and underway north. We were doing 6 knots at 1400 RPMs which is quite low revs for most boats but when I brought her up to 2000 she only went a little faster and was a lot louder. we settled in at 1700 and 6.5 knots.

We were hoping to make Neah Bay fuel dock before they closed to catch the Columbia River Bar on the next daylight flood but when we got there the store and fuel station were closed. Neah Bay felt like a ghost town. We laid some cushions on the cabin sole and got some sleep. the next day the fuel dock which shares a big fuel tank with the gas station and Quik E mart opened and we topped off with fuel and some snacks.

I've done this trip many times but never cut the corner of Cape Flattery. It was glassy calm we were in a shallow drafted boat and we could use the time saved by a short cut so we went through "Hole in the Wall" as it’s called by the locals that use the channel. There is a dangerous reef in the middle and you can easily see why people avoid the cut but the rock formations are some of the most beautiful in the area and cruising so close to Tatoosh Island with its iconic lighthouse and green grass was a highlight and worth more than the time it saved us. Now we were close to the shore and on the lookout for crab pots. With one engine (single screw) the big concern is fouling in a crab pot thereby losing all control and with a west wind you will end up on the rocky and remote shore of the Washington coast before long. Unfortunately for the fisherman, the crab season was terrible and fortunately for us this meant there were only a few rogue pots to dodge.

somewhere here I was doing an engine room check and I noticed that the water separator was FULL of water. Quickly I tried to crawl aft to where the Racors were mounted and a wave lurched the boat and I caught the side of my knee on the alternator fan. I remember later being wedged between the hot engine and a fuel tank feeling the blood seeping into my longjohns as I drained the water separator. The water and algae in the filter was the result of the low rollers rocking the boat and sloshing the sediment loose in the tanks. I told Mark we would have to check it regularly now.

We were approaching Destruction Island and it was when I was checking the stuffing box that I noticed something I should have noticed before we left. The wood ribs in the hold were rotten and now that we were underway in a rising seaway, water was coming in between the planking. The ribs were so bad that I imagined I could have kicked a plank out. I felt a piece of rib to see if it just looked bad, and it came off in my hand. At this point, the sea state rising and the barometer was falling. I weighed the options. It was about 50 miles back to a small harbor called LaPush but that would have meant we had to go into the now 3-foot seas. Another option was to head to the lee of Destruction Island where, as it turned out, my friends were going to be anchoring in the evening after they set some research buoys. This would have been okay if the conditions weren't changing for the worse. We may have been fine in the lee but eventually, we would have had to continue south.

I had instantly seen the worst-case scenario. First, we spring a plank, the water sprays on the battery bank* that was located in the hold in boxes but without covers and we lose power. This means our electric bilge pump and most importantly, our radio would not work*. This is a beautiful but remote piece of coastline, there are no houses and very spotty reception. We would have had to run the “washdown pump” off the engine. This wasn't a sure thing either because it was actuated electronically and without power, it may not have worked. We would have had to try and heel the boat with the stabilizer. This means lower the port arm and shift all the weight below to rise the plank out of the water, in addition, we would have had to stuff the sun awning into the hole or run it over the outside as a fathering sail. This would have only slowed the progress. If this didn't work plan C was to head for the beach. I admit for a moment I wondered if I could surf my safety-conscious crew in his exposer suit in through the worst of the surf.

To add to concerns I was taking a cup of water out of the Racor every 20 minutes.

Greys Harbor Bar was flooding when we got there so we headed in quite spent from dodging the pots. We had caught one right after dark restricted our view to a small spot that the mast light could illuminate. I had noticed the speed drop one knot and the steering feel strange. I looked to see if I could see the gear trailing behind but couldn't. 30 minutes later we must have lost it because the speed went back up and the steering recovered. It could have also caught on the keel coolers that run under the boat and that would explain why it didn’t foul the prop. As we approached the marina I asked Mark to put fenders out on port because of our right-hand prop. He was so tired he put them all on starboard. It was late and cold so I picked an easy spot at the fuel dock starboard side to and we got a few uncomfortable hours of sleep on the floor of the little cabin.

Before we laid down I asked Mark if he wanted to abandon ship, saying I could totally understand if he didn't want to carry on knowing what we knew then. He said no he wanted to continue and besides, that's why he brought his exposer suit. I didn't mention my plan C.

The next morning was calm as the light of the sunrise showed us the number of pot floats you find this close to a safe port. A watery minefield comes to mind and quite a few in the channel. I was glad that before we left Neah Bay I had climbed the mast and adjusted the spotlight to shine further ahead. It had controls in the bridge but only horizontal. Commercial boats have banks of very powerful sodium lights that help them see the pots. They are so bright that you cant see their running lights to see which direction they are heading. At a distance, they look like ufos surrounded by light bugs as swarms of sea birds fly into the beams of light.

The Columbia Bar was calm and pleasantly uneventful. The Racor was producing less water and the day cleared. The outlook that comes with having recently escaped a dicey situation unscathed shown in our smiles. The only sad thought was The Pig and Pancake was closed due to the virus. With the PnP closed and the sun shining we figured we would press on to Oregon City but not before grabbing some KFC and some more oil. The next fuel dock was Kathlamet a beautiful little river town right out of a storybook…or a Steven King novel. Mark flipped fenders out on Port and we met a very elderly man who after telling us to keep our distance said he used to fish boats like the one we were delivering back in the day. After a little time struggling with the pump he told us we could stay at the dock for free if we wanted to wait for the owner to come and figure out the pump. There were a number of yurts on the bank that created the tiny marina and I asked the old-timer if they were available for rent. The small cabin of the fishing boat was getting cramped. He said yes but the summer rate just started and now would set us back $50.

There was no power at the fuel dock and after measuring the water the bilge pump was pumping out of the boat I figured we were taking on water at a rate of a gallon a minute. 60 gallons an hour is more than I trusted the batteries on the boat to manage so we left the engine on idling. I also ran a line from the Port outrigger down to the dock and shifted a bunch of lead ingots in the hold to bring the leakest seam out of the water. I offered to stay aboard overnight to make sure there were no issues but as the yurt was freezing cold Mark was happy to sleep on the floor of the warm but cramped cabin and let me stretch out in the yurt.

The next day we fueled up and after a lot of thought, I called the owner and told him that I thought the best place to take the boat was actually behind us in Astoria or Ilwaco. Two places that work on boats just like Second Chance and specialize in old working boats. The owner agreed and told me. he would meet us at a yard in Astoria. I joined him as he headed into the shipyard manager’s office where he was told it would require a bond of $1000 a foot to haul the boat out. After some sputtering and shock, the boat owner said he had some thinking to do.

It was the last day before the Astoria car rental place was closing due to lockdown. Mark and I drove to PDX to where I dropped him before heading home.

*(one of which hadn't been strapped down prior to leaving Seattle and in another worst-case scenario could have slid across the floor of the sole and through the side of the boat)

*Commercial fishing boats often have auxiliary batteries up on the bridge for this reason.