R2AK - Whale Watching and Final Course Update from Martin!

Received via email 5:27pm from Martin.

We just had the craziest whale sighting! Dark Star passed us on their way back down, and generously offered us some beers, then, as they were disappearing into the distance, and Rhys was peeing off the back, he gasped and we all looked back. 

Dark Star appeared to be engulfed in white water! Josiah and I both thought they had exploded, but Rhys finally found the word: Whale!!!

Moments later, another breached. It was massive, most of the way out of the water, and made a splash like dynamite! It was so incredible! Really, words don't do it justice. 

In any case, we're just 5 miles or so from the finish and trying not to say what we are all thinking: that we have this thing in the bag. 

It's a trickey finish, narrow, shallow, with rocks and obstacles and light and variable winds. Currents should be helping us but aren't. We have the kite up and are making good progress. 

Wish us luck! All we need to do now is not screw up. Gotta focus. We've fully abandoned our watch schedule in favor of coffee, sugar, and pedaling through the lulls. 

STEAK KNIVES!

Before the wind died and the sun came out.


R2AK - Becalmed

Update from Martin. Received via email 9:14am June 20th.

Since the last update, we worked our way around Cape Nootka which proved to be just as challenging as the stories say. Instead of taking it wide, as is the conventional wisdom, we took note that there were 25 knot winds out wide, with a quick pressure gradient to a dead zone close to shore. We emptied our water ballast, shook out the reef, and used the jib to short tack our way between the 9-14 knot pressure lines, which still took all night, but proved effective. As the sun came up, the pressure gradient disappeared and we were left with light winds all around. We made a sail change to the #2, before immediately making another for the #1, which we carried all morning. Luckily, the wind built a little to 12 knots and backed ever so slightly to allow us to make progress straight along the shore on a close reach. That was until the noon watch change, when the wind all but died and the lumpy seas made it impossible to steer, so Odin and I are peddling again (in our unplanned matching underwear) as Josiah makes modified Ruben sandwiches and Rhys drives.The sun is out and the weather is warm, but it hasn't all been smooth sailing. Our modified ballast system, which involves flooding the engine compartment only to use our second bilge pump to evacuate it into the ballast bags (don't tell OSHA), worked a little too well. You see, we drilled a 2 inch hole in our engine compartment for the pedal drive shaft to pass through, and when the water level gets that high, it floods the battery compartment. Bad news! Odin and I discovered the flooding issue at the same time and exchanged a look of despair. He used the same bilge pump to get two bucket fulls of water out, and I sponged up as much of the rest of the water as possible, but having your head I'm a hole like that can make you seasick in no time, so it wasn't a fun task. Also, our rig is making creepy sounds. We're gonna try to investigate while the pressure is down. Wind building now, lunch ready, and music blasting!

Sail fast!

R2AK - No Updates from the Weekend

Haven't received an update from the guys this weekend, but a quick look at the tracker shows good progress being made, and we're getting regular data updates from their tracking device. A look at the reports from R2AK teams on the inside passage shows that there are logs everywhere and that our guys likely made the superior route choice—both for their speed and the safety of the hull.

As a reminder, it's been expected since the beginning that there will be periods where we don't get regular updates. The boat is well-equipped, both in terms of the knowledgeable crew aboard and the safety and emergency equipment that they have. If they ever needed help, the folks who would need to know would. So fret not, they're just busy kicking ass. I'll let you know when I hear more.

R2AK - North of Ucluelet

Received from Capt. via text at 3:15pm on Friday June 17th.

Elsewhere is currently driving hard under first reef and number 3 just north of Ucluelet. Sun is shining and it’s blowing about 15 knots from the north north west. The seas are choppy and uncomfortable but I’m afraid it looks like it’s going to get rougher before it gets smooth. The scenery is breathtaking if you’re lucky enough to be on watch now. The other half is below charging up after the toll the midnight to four am watch takes early in the schedule. The food Josiah precooked is great and we are keeping our powder dry. After a little non ABYC approved jury wiring our water ballast pumping system is working again.

The pump that came with the wakeboarding ballast bladders that we have on the rail began to fail and is now working in concert with our spare bilge bump.

All’s well.

Har Rai’s notes: The team is currently second among the boats on the outside. The previous inside leader, Malolo, has taken damage from a strike with a submerged log and seems to be stopped and assessing a crack in their starboard hull. The windy model looks to be forecasting headwinds for team Elsewhere that are averaging 20kts, gusting to 40kts over the next 24 hours.

R2AK - Leaving Victoria

Update from First Mate Martin Gibson. Received via email at 7:10pm Thursday June 16th.

I don't know if you ever saw the movie Hidalgo, but it's a great movie about a horse race through the desert. All the racers make a show of galloping across the start line into the dunes, only to then pace themselves when they are out of sight of the spectators. I sorta feel that way about what we just did: now that we are all out of the gate, the real race has started. 

Light winds and strong spirits helped us pedal our way out of Victoria Harbour. We put up our # 1 as soon as we were allowed and crossed tacks with the other teams in the same situation. We quickly learned that we were one of only 3 teams to decide to go outside. We will take it!

As the hour progressed, we switched to the finger licker, then to our AP kite, back to the finger licker, and then back to our #1, before the wind built enough for us to put up the #3 and carry it all the way to race rocks, where we switched once more to the #1 and have been trying to stay in the wind ever since. (Or so I think, I just woke up from a long nap and don't really know what's going on upstairs.)

We've been eating fresh eggs and bread, supplemented with candy. And we were able to successfully use our ballast system to load up the rail. All our systems seem to be working as intended, although the pedal system was derailing for a while in the beginning. Luckily, very luckily, I found a cool chain tensioner on my way back from the showers yesterday morning. It was brand new, in its bag, resting in the middle of the path at 7am. I put it in my pocket and I'm glad I did it because it was exactly what I needed to fix the issue, and the problem didn't really arise until we were already motorsailing our way to race rocks. 

Well, I'm hungry. Better get on cooking dinner. I believe Josiah has prepared beef and broccoli for us.

#elsewheresailing

R2AK Sailboat Race Tracker

R2AK - Proving Ground. Port Townsend to Victoria.

Update from the Captain himself. Received via email at 8:22am Thursday June 16th.

I'm writing from Victoria BC where my crew and I are spending our last hours ashore for what will be about a week of sailing as we head up the outside of Vancouver Island to Ketchikan Alaska in this year’s Race to Alaska. We’ve removed the Diesel engine per this race's requirements and designed and fabricated a double recumbent peddle drive unit that drives the boat’s existing folding propeller. The boat is a Soveral 33 built in 1986 and one of the oldest boats in the race. Her mast is 47 feet tall and she weighs 6500 pounds. We have a water ballast system where we can pump 1000 pounds of seawater onto the windward side of the boat to make up for our lack of crew. These boats were made to be sailed with twice the crew that we have aboard. The good side of this is that there are only 8 stinking feet aboard. The start is at noon today and is a LeMond-style start where the racers run down the dock to their boats and paddle out of the harbor. Once clear of the channel, they hoist their sails and either turn right to go up the outside of the island or left to go up the inside. The boats going up the outside have had to go through a rigorous inspection process to be allowed to transit this exposed water where little assistance is available. We have participated in a few offshore races, so the boat was already equipped with more than the r2ak inspectors required. We have a tracker device onboard that will post our position to the tracker page with a slight delay, so people can check in on where the boats are. I will add that these divices are fallible and it isn’t unheard of for them to run out of batteries. So if you see a boat's beacon disappear, don’t be too alarmed. We have an EPIRB which is a much more reliable beacon linked directly with the Coast Guard and rescue service. We also have a 6-person life raft and some other expensive safety stuff. 

Having had a wonderful shake-down sail on the way over from Port Townsend, we were able to fix the final elements of our water ballast system. While in Victoria, we’ve had beautiful weather and the good fortune of getting a plotter and anemometer installed, thanks to our friends at Anchor Marine Electrical. 

We are all feeling good about the boat and the team and the forecast. Everyone has been asking if we plan to go on the outside and the answer I can finally say after looking at the most recent forecast is yes. The big water suits us better and the captain will sleep better knowing the rocks are far away. This race is such a mix of boats and types of people and it’s been great sharing the docks with everyone these past days. We wish the best of luck to everyone and hope we have no more instances like what we saw on the first leg. As skippers and racing crews, we have to sail our boats as though we were the only ones on the water. We have to sail our own boat to the best of its ability and perhaps most importantly we have to be aware of the limitations of our boats and crew and sail accordingly. Personally, I think one of the more rewarding things about remote sailing is the feeling of satisfaction one gets from this sort of independence. You can feel isolated in the best way while also feeling a sense of camaraderie that you seldom get in this modern world.

Riding the Ebb tide from Port Townsend before the wind picked up shortly after and we tacked to starboard and hoisted the little jib and sketed the rough water before tacking back to port and making it al the way to vic on one tack. Credit: R2AK photographer Jim Meyers @vertizonphoto

Our last-minute crew replacement a veteran of the race and the youngest to compete it Odin Smith will be an asset aboard. 

PT on the pumpout after the marina filled with twice as many boats as the previous year they ran the race.

Our arrival to Victoria from Port Townsend in the gale-force winds that day

R2AK - Updates Start Now!

Greetings race fans! Team Elsewhere social media intern Har Rai Khalsa here. The social media intern position was created for me after COVID sidelined me from being on the boat at the last second—which is a bummer, but now I get to be your connection to the guys and maybe get some school credit in the process if I don’t break anything around here.

I’ll compile a daily update with the info that I have received directly from the team via sat phone, as well as what I can gather from the race tracker and general weather. The tracker is available here: R2AK 2022.

As a general reminder, the team is racing in a remote area with very limited connection to the outside world. There will be times when the race tracker appears offline or when we don’t get timely updates from the boat because they have better things to do. But worry not, that’s normal. They’re well prepared—both in their abilities and their safety equipment. Should they need assistance, the people who need to know will know before we do. They’ve got this.

So let’s get to the racing!

Searay 42 Anacortes to Westport

I was first contacted by the new owner of a brokerage on Oregon to bring this boat down to Portland to be listed there. When I asked for recent survey I was given something from 2019. Truth is a lot can happen to a boat in two years.. In lieu of a recent survey I said I would go inspect the boat prior to agreeing to deliver it.

The murky backwater I first found the boat.

The rotting ribs of a broken relic from another time.

When I got to the boat for this inspection its was up a tiny shallow river called The Samish. The brown muddy water that floated this buff horse was barely as wide as the boat in question was long and nestled in with other apparently mothballed yachts.

“The bow thruster doesn’t work” the former owner said. Immediately i saw that it wasn’t the lack of bowthrust-ability that would be the problem but the fact that the water it was floating on was not marked and beyond any lateral navigational aids. Random pilings stuck up out of the Samish river’s slow moving muddy water, apparently complete with the universal signs for shallow or (relatively) deepwater ie spray painted thumbs up or thumbs down signs. This was not good news and my heart sank at the thought of having to tell the guy I couldn’t move the boat from where it was.

Memories of muddy banks like these from my youth on the Multnomah channel bubbled up in my nostalgic minds eye and made me smile. You can take the River Rat out of the river but you cant take the river out of the Rat.

“How do you get out of here,” I asked

“I haven’t taken the boat out recently,” said the prior owner. “it needs to be a 7-foot tide and you are fine”

After saying this he admitted he gave himself a 90% chance of getting it out of there and as it wasn’t his boat anymore he didn’t want to take the risk.

“How long have you lived here? “ I asked

“My whole life”..he responded “I learned how to sail out there” pointing as he did to the muddy delta

Going on he shared a few stories of drunkenly sailing in and out after dark running aground many times laughing about it.

I had seen what I needed to..or so I thought. I told the owner I wouldn’t move the boat from where it was but if he got it to Anacortes I could do it. Then I asked how the Ocean Alexander was coming along and that maybe could use the coming window to move it from Gig Harbor to Portland. (see previous log entry)


Two weeks later and he sold the boat and the new owner contacts me saying that the running light and the fogged windows had been addressed and the boat was ready to go in Anacortes. I saw a window coming up and called a recent student who hired me the weekend before to teach her some boat handling skills she would need as a yacht steward and said I had a learning opportunity and an adventure to share.

no sauce in the starboard V drive

I arrived at the boat the afternoon before our departure date to go over some things and found that the fluids were low everywhere. The V drives transmissions and oil needed to be topped or filled and I had 45 minutes before the stores closed before the weekend. First I went to West Marine and they didn’t have the oil so I went to North Harbor Marine and big pro service yard in A town and they set me up.

enough wingnuts to give a surveyor a conniption

After topping the fluids that night I thought I would test the electronics and found that the batteries were dead. Upon closer inspection I found that a switch with a sticker on it that said “turn off when engine running” was off. This I surmised was the battery charger breaker switch. I flipped it and went to the Brown Lantern to get some long overdue dinner and the last beer for a bit. The next morning the engine batteries were still dead. The bank that had charged was the “inverter bank” this is what you would call a house bank. What was labeled house bank was nested with the starting batteries was what was dead. These batteries were AGM gel batteries and hooked up the “smart” charger. Well, this charger like many other modern chargers isn’t smart enough to charge a fully discharged battery. It needs to see some voltage before it will turn on so using some automotive jumper cables I jumped from the “inverter” bank that was now fully charged and lead-acid type and the smart charger lit up and started charging at 30 amps.

It’s 9 am and we are supposed to be underway to make it to Neah Bay safely before dark. It’s looking like it’s going to be noon before we can get going.

Underway

Two 3208 caterpillar engines pumping out 375 seahorses of trustpower, stinky smoke, and NOISE. At 2400 RPM it must have been 80 decibels and unless that is 80 decibels of Motorhead I’m spending my irreplaceable hearing on I’m wearing ear protection. (and cranking some Motorhead at the same time) my Bose noise-canceling headphones have been a game-changer. I have a pair of shooters noise-canceling earmuffs that I have used with earbuds which are good but the Bose are sweet and will connect to your phone via bluetooth so you can call your shipmate who is on the bow and share information like distances, traffic, encouragement, and instructions.

Noon thirty and we were underway and making 15 knots. We had a heavy dinghy on the back which I knew would slow us down and on top of that, the bottom still had river slime on it so we weren’t going to be hitting the 20 knots these monsters were supposed to be able to make.

The forecast and our late departure meant that we were going to hit some turbulence in the afternoon. I was thinking that it may be a good thing to see what the boat could do before bombing the Washington Coast. If we were going to stir up some tank goo into our filters it would be better in the straight with more options to bail. It was right when we hit some chop and I was regaling my crew and my captive audience about the Swiftsure Regatta and my experiences in the bay off our beam that the port engine died.

I passed the helm over to my shipmate and dived into the engine room telling her to try and keep the bow into the waves. My first thought was that we had clogged a filter and I switched the valve on the parallel Racor filter. After a little time cranking it was apparent that it was going to take some more work to get it going and as it was the roughest bit of water we had been in yet it would be better to try and do any work in the relative shelter of Clallam Bay conveniently off or just forward of our beam and the subject of my recent yarn. I admit that the main thoughts in my mind at this time were what are we going to do if the port engine clogs a filter now and how many cranking amps do we have in these, so recently abused, batteries and can I jump them or should I switch them with the other bank and also how much of a wide berth I was gong to give the rocky point and our leeshore before I cut into the bay. Clamam Bay is small sportfishing town where many wife free weekend warriors flock to get a chance to catch a fish large enough to take a picture with. This is about all that is going on in the little “town” of Sekiu. The last time I went into the dock it was to get fuel in a 32-foot trimaran and even that ultralight boat had multiple people telling us we couldn’t tie up there. I knew it was going to be a problem but I didn’t want to risk anchoring as the windless was battery-powered and may draw the batteries down more. It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission so I told my shipmate that I was going to be in the engine room and to be as sweet and charming as possible to whoever walked out to kick us off and to buy as much time as she could.

adventure number two

First I opened the top of the Rocor we had been running on before the engine died and I switched it to see how bad the fuel was. It was bad and more important it was half empty. Assuming the worse that it had sucked air through a seal after it clogged and introduced air into the system. After a little more cranking on the new filter, I decided to open it up and although nice and clean it was also half full. As many readers will know: air is bad in a diesel engine’s fuel line. It has to be removed by bleeding the line by opening an injector line and cranking the engine.

That’s when it hit me. Was the Port tank fuel gauge really broken? Did the owner really fill it up before we got to the boat as he said? Did that previous owner really dip the tank as he said? A moment later I was squeezing over the still quite warm Port engine to tap on the tank with a wrench. Empty.


At this point, it was looking like we needed to squeeze into the tiny fuel dock that was (thanks be to Neptune) still open and to do it on one engine. Now like anything there are tradeoffs in boat design. Boats with two engines are much more maneuverable than boats with only single engines but not all twin screws are created equal. The further that “wheels” props are apart the easier it is to maneuver in tight spaces that those with props closer to the centerline but they don’t track well when only one engine is available.

https://youtu.be/8hJ1HDcMowk

This was the case. On par with the maneuvering approach, I had to master when working as a Vessel Assist captain I turned the boat around and around as I was now not an “anbiturner” but unlike Zoolander I could only turn to Port. The trick to going straight with a boat like this is to get enough speed that both the rudders are working. Combined with the surge in the area and the tiny landing dock and the random piling to be woven through I was not happy about the situation the owner’s poor prep had put us in.

Now we see why the tank was empty. The fuel is not going into the tank at the speed it should and after an hour we had 37 gallons and enough to make it to Neah Bay. The vent is clogged no doubt and will require more time and boat yoga than we have daylight for dodging trees on the way to Neah Bay.

Another unfortunate aspect of this situation is that the delay and pit stop has confounded our ability to calculate the fuel economy (or lack thereof) I wanted to know before hopping to Astoria down the Washington Coast.

high tailing in to Neah before it gets to dark to see the trees floating by

The CAT 3208 proved to be a popular diesel engine for trucks through the early 1990s and boats through the late 1990s. Production ended by 1999 mostly due to the engine’s inability to meet global emissions standards established by clean air regulation at the time. The use of the engine was widespread and its performance was reliable. As a result, many vehicles equipped with the CAT 3208 remain in service long after production of the diesel engine ceased.

I can attest that at 2400 rpms two of these under your feet sounds like a diesel power jet airplane and reframes that brochure image in your mind with the bikinis and all as an experience far from relaxation. BUT I am a bit of a sailor snob so theres that. Thunder in paradise it will be.

Caterpillar also offered a marine version of the CAT 3208 diesel engine for yachts, leisure boats, and commercial trawlers. Larger vessels would be powered with twin-turbocharged diesel engines. The marine diesel engine version was modified with bigger heat exchangers, exhaust manifolds, turbochargers and seawater pumps to cool the engine oil. However, the engines were known as gas guzzlers, and consequently, they did not meet the criteria of internal combustion exhaust emissions regulation. Production of the marine CAT 3208 diesel engine ended in 1999 and outlasted production of the diesel engine version for heavy-duty trucks.

Between 15 and 17 knots we went Kate and me with our noise-canceling headphones

My co pilot Kate. Soon to be Captain Kate to you

We came into Neah Bay just as we were losing visibility and it was pitch black by the time we were approaching the dock. Not something I wanted to be doing. Even a harbor as familiar as Neah Bay is to me, risk increases exponentially once you lose visibility. There are two sides to the page. One side is risk or con (broken) and the other side is assets or pros. Things that may seem totally unrelated but the fact that they are on the con side of the page can have a huge effect on each other listed item of concern. It is a captain’s job to assess and reassess these risks constantly. We were going to have to have a serious conversation with the owner in the morning. We found. a spot with power to tie up which was key to a hot dinner as the generator wasn’t working and the inverter bank was not functioning right after finding a short where an outlet was missing on the aft deck.

Unfortunately one of my favorite breakfast places. The Warm House” had not survived the pandemic but a small homely galley was kicking out breakfast burritos and coffee in the Harbormasters office. We paid our night moorage and back at the boat I crawled in a pooka where the fuel vent hose lived and cut the hose off the barbed fitting to clear it out with a piece of wire I stripped from the spares box. After it was cleared we moved to the fuel dock and top off for the trip south. After so much delay fighting the poorly prepared boat, our weather window closed and did not allow us to get the boat further south than Westport.

Some boats are more ready to go than others.

always want to rinse off that saltwater after splashing around in it!

A well deserved brew for the crew

Luhrs 36 Anacortes WA to Eureka Ca

On the 10th of October, I woke up in the worst hotel I’ve ever stayed in. Turns out that staying in a hotel rated 2.5 stars is like spending the night at a crime scene. Signs that the bathroom door had been kicked in at one point and repaired poorly at that, along with more than one person working on their car in the parking lot came as a stark contrast to the room I stayed in Hawaii on the 14th-floor complete with remote controlled blinds and a view of the marina. Maybe having contrast in your life is good.

I made it home for a few days between the Dragonfly delivery to SF to do the Benson Cup on my boat “Elsewhere” and had grabbed some stuff before the Baba 35 delivery but there wasn’t time after that to go home before heading off to PA to get on the Luhrs so I wasn’t as prepared as I like to be. Different deliveries require different prep. I caught a ride to Tacoma with the owners of the Baba and got the aforementioned room where I planned to wait for my crew coming up from the Gorge on the next day. For once I had a little time to kill so I caught a bus to the Goodwill where I found some mugs and a pot to cook with as the boat just sold and didn’t have any cookware. I also got a sweatshirt and shorts and a few DVDs. After that, I caught another bus into town and watched a French film I had been wanting to see at an art-house theater. I have to admit Tacoma’s old town has some charm. My crew arrived and we drove to Sequim where I got us a room. More like those seen in episodes of Xflies than Breaking Bad.

Something for everyone in Westport.

The next day we drove to PA where the Luhrs had been since the Canadian delivery crew brought it over a few weeks before. The boat was out of place in these waters, designed for southern climes and much more suited to a place like Florida with its open cockpit and exposed flybridge. Its three outriggers too did not make sense in the protected waters where downriggers helped catch salmon rather than pelagic fish like tuna and marlin. The only thing that was missing on this strange boat was one of those fighting chairs with the spot for the rods but to go between your legs. 

Pick a spot anywhere in Westport.


The fuel dock attendant mentioned this too but with more colorful language. Fuel dock attendants don’t have to mince their words. We put in 240 gallons in the single 400-gallon tank and were on our way. The boat had been repowered not long before the sale and the engines only had 750 hours. The engines were 500 horsepower Cummins turbo diesels and should be capable of pushing the boat at 30 knots. Far faster than most seas would allow and fuel tanks could supply for long.

The plan was to take it easy until we knew what the burn rate was and could figure the boat’s range. Westport fuel dock was going to be closed when we got there so we would have to fuel first thing and head to Newport the next day. We ran the engines at 1700 and the flow meters said we were burning 21 gph which worked out to a little over a gallon a mile. This was the most conservative rpm and should produce the furthest range 

If you are going to be late and need after hour fuel up the attendant will come down after hours for $75.

In Newport, we arrived just before they closed at 16:00 and the ride was rough. While we were fueling we chatted with the attendant about wishing there was more than Rogue Brewery to eat at on this side of the bridge he told us that his daughter used to work there but now managed a much better place called The Barge in Old Town and would drive us in and buy us the first round. He was a retired fisherman who had “delivered some boats in his time”. We would have been very glad for just the ride over the bridge but a free beer and exchange in sea stories was even better.

Above the door of The Barge reads in bright yellow western font “Home of the Wino’s, Dingbat’s & Riff Raff”. What the grilled cheese sandwich I had for dinner lacked, the service and company more than made up for. Rouge Brewery is great, don’t get me wrong, but the patina isn’t quite there like these ocean-side roadhouse dives have that I love. Not to mention the local knowledge that is invaluable to a mariner in a foreign port is less likely to be found at tourist places.

Once underway the next day we got a surprise. The integrated electronic system in the boat produced an alarm saying we had water in the fuel. Water in fuel is more common than most think and I have a few misadventures I’ve written about on here that go into detail but that’s why we have water separators. Often call Racors because of the popular brand these units separate the water from the fuel while filtering a specified size of particles. These filters have a clear bowl at the bottom where you can see the water if it’s in the fuel. Sometimes these bowls have terminals where an alarm can be wired and when there is water in the bowl it completes the circuit and sends the alarm. That’s not the kind of sensor these engines had. I honestly still don’t know where that sensor is but I did shut the engine in question down and jump into the engine room once I saw the alarm. Different boats have different access to their working parts. If you’ve read any of my other posts you’ve heard me complain about this before. It’s mostly on sailboats designed by Bob Perry so I was surprised to see how poorly this boat’s fuel filter system was designed. In order to see if there was water in the fuel, I had to put my camera phone on video and record a short clip as I held it at almost arm’s length down into the bilge of the boat. I couldn’t see much in this out-of-focus clip so I decided to take a sample of the fuel in the bottom of the bowl. With both hands and a yogurt container set to catch the fuel and possible water below the drain valve, I pulled up the sample and found only a little gunk and nothing to indicate a concerning amount of water in the fuel. The only concern was how hard it was to get the plastic valve open. I could imagine how breaking this would have been hard if impossible for us to fix.

I was actually concerned about the water that was setting off the alarm while we were in a precarious place on the Oregon Coast. Going in anywhere for anything was going to kill the precious little time we had with our weather window. I discussed the risks with my crew and we decided to stay the course. This is important to note because electric alarms are a relatively new part of the marine world. Everything from the annoying AIS alarms to the distressing accidental PLB activation. Even our VHF radios “cry wolf” whenever 20 minutes the USCG cadet must as quickly and inaudibly as possible transmit a “securitay” announcing to every boater in a 100 mile or more radius that an unmanned red kayak was reported adrift in the vicinity of bla bla. These warnings lower our guard just as we lower the volume on the radio. How we as prudent mariners remain attentive to the important information at hand while the din of the modern bridge is a tough question and challenge for today’s boater.

Just when things are sunny and going smoothly..

fuel sample

Other than some sea state that created what bordered on inhumane conditions on the bridge we made it in before the blow and after making friends with all the scallywags on the dock found a spot to tie up in the lee of a big fishing boat. Eureka has its share of patina but I think that with some basic security measures and friendliness to the marinas residents it is fairly safe. We gave our uneaten provision to one of these water folk.

The pretty color overlay here is the result of a poorly calibrated radar. Take your instruments with a grain of salt and be sure you know how to navigate without them.

The end of our weather window and the answering text when asked if we could bring it further south.

If you use Windy for weather on the coast be sure you use the wave prediction feature.







Baba 35

There is a world renown boat designer that lives in the NW named Bob Perry. Mr Perry has designed all kinds of capable boats over the decades he has been drawing them. Some of the most charming of which are his boats that show a very strong influence by the Scandinavian designer Collin Archer. I have written about these Collin Archer designs and their influence before in the piece on the delivery of an Atkin Eric.

“Is that a Baba?” Came the question from a random runner on the path along the waterway we floating on waiting for the Fremont Bridge to open. “Yes, it is” the boat’s new proud owner responded. “Beautiful boat” came back from that landlocked dog walker. She was a beautiful boat. Her bright ultramarine hull, contrasting red canvas, and tastefully varnished sheer spoke of a land far away and long ago when hobbits plied the seas of yore. If her sturdy and graceful exterior didn’t beguile the passing commuters her interior would. Curves of every kind hewn out of tropical wood from the far side of the world wrap around plush cushions in a glossy warm and cozy saloon. 

Unfortunately, there is more to a boat than sweet lines and endangered timber. A boat, even a sailboat, has an engine and this one was on its last legs. Tucked away in such a way that you might have thought the boat was built around it lived a sad four-cylinder Yanmar engine (diesel for those with the dumb questions). Oil seeped from every old seal and the fact that the oil pressure alarm was not working and an aftermarket automotive oil pressure gauge was zip-tied to the top was not reassuring. I had been hired to bring the boat north 70 miles to a yard for the boat’s repowering and this would be the engine’s swan song. The owner who had asked to join me on the short delivery had a service company (Achievement Marine) service the engine before we committed to the passage. They had sent two techs down to check fluids and run the engine to be sure everything worked. The green light was given and I believe the words were “I’d run it up there no problem”. Upon my arrival, I guided the owner through the initial start-up inspection. Belt tension and oil checks were performed after the huge dog house covering the engine was hoisted up to the galley counter being that there was no access door designed for dipstick access. The oil level was fine and the only thing that concerned me was the stuffing box, infamously challenging to access on these Perry boats. On the Baba 30 the water pump is also very hard to access. One has to open the lazeratte (storage under the cockpit seats) and remove the lazeratte floor to crawl under the cockpit. This Baba 35 had an autopilot that the new owner had removed to allow any access at all to the back of the engine to Hobbit or man. 

Pro Tip. The bridges in Seattle are under federal regulation to not lift for marine traffic between 16 to 18:00

 

Through the bridges, locks, and out on the sound we began the 30 mile trip to Port Townsend. A first night passage for the new owner made for some fun quizzing him on the lights and to see if he could see the traffic without the AIS. We didn’t have a hard wired AIS aboard but did have one of the new ICOM handheld AIS radios and I was curious to see how it worked. Myself having finally bit the bullet last year on a handheld with GPS had been quite pissed to learn that the first AIS handheld would come out the year later and be around the same price.

The evening was very calm with only a few large commercial vessels to avoid. About 9 pm a brightly lit ferry was coming up behind us. Outside a shipping lane and any ferry route, its intentions were unclear until the tugboat pushing it came into view shining us with its spotlight. My green crew had thought that the locks would be the scariest part of the delivery. 

When we arrived in Port Townsend we tied up to the north side of a finger and jumped into our respective bunks at midnight. I set the alarm for 6 am when the wind was supposed to fill in. I’m not sure it was a good idea to wait to have some coffee and breakfast at the dock but as it turned out the boat’s new owner had just bought a 120 volt AC coffeemaker so not only did we need to turn on the inverter to make coffee we would have had a hard time not breaking the new percolator. (Pro tip: the only boat Mr. Coffee should be on the bridge of is a river dredge.)

35 knots and heeled with only a little jib rolled out.

By 7 am it was blowing 15 to 20 from the south in the marina and as we were on the north side of the slip we were being blown off the lines were straining. Untying the lines and simply stepping on would have found us scraping our way down the side of our neighbor to leeward. I passed my crew the bowline back through the big bronze hawsepipe in the bulwark and stepped on holding the bitter end of the stern line. I put the engine in reverse and pushed the throttle up to 2500 RPM. The boat pulled out of the slip as fast as a 13,000-pound boat could but the wind on the beam pushed the bow downwind by the time we were clear of the boat next door. Now our stern was facing the exit of the marina and our maneuvering practice on the lake had shown us that the boat did not steer straight backward. Once the bow was straight downwind I put it in forward and brought the revs back up to 2300 and hugging the left side of the marina I threw the helm over to spin us in what I knew would be a painfully wide button-hook knowing as well that any attempt to back and fill would allow the wind to catch the bowsprit and furled sail and force it downwind again. The boat made the turn and when I opened my eyes again the only other person in the marina that was checking his lines waved in a knowing way at our successful exit. 

Out into the fray

The forecast was calling for the wind to build from the south by southeast. We were leaving just before max ebb and were doing 10 knots over the ground as we passed through Admiralty Inlet and the tidal gates of the south Puget Sound. We set our course for the lee of Whidbey Island and a few hours later we shot by Deception Pass with six feet of jib rolled out. Even the little jib we had out we were heeling 15 degrees and things were beginning to settle down below.

We hugged the island and left Anderson Island to port and worked our way up the shore to Guemes Channel. When we arrived at the channel we got our first break from the high wind alarm on the B&G plotter. It had been alerting us that the wind was over 35 knots since we passed Admiralty. But pay the piper all sailors one day must and as we rounded into Fidalgo Bay our speed slowed to 2 knots as spray from the bow waves came over the dodger and down my back. 


Make it or beach it

The boat was being repowered by Pacific Marine and they don’t use a conventional travel lift to lift boats but rather a truck trailer-looking thing with articulated bunks that they drive down a big (not so big) boat ramp. My job was going to be to land the boat perfectly between the bunks with a 30-knot breeze on my stern quarter. I put the engine in neutral and saw that the transmission was very stiff. It had not been that way in the lake when we had been doing our maneuvering lessons. There were about 50 feet of dock space at the end of a long finger inhabited with 60 and 70-foot powerboats and I made the split decision to tie up instead of drive the boat onto the awaiting trailer. The 35-knot wind and chop going into the little fairway tried to slam the boat into the dock to leeward. The boat’s big fenders took the weight of the 13,000 point boat swishing down to a few inches of air between the dock and the boats rubbing strake. At this time a tall man walked out the heaving dock waves splashing up between the dock’s grating and behind the big boats swim steps. The shop’s manager asked us what the problem was to which I told him about the transmission and that I wanted to figure out what was wrong before I took the boat into a spot we couldn’t get out of. We checked the transmission fluid levels and found that there was no fluid and our friends at “Achievement” Marine had not checked all the fluids in the engine when they “serviced” it. The owner ran down the street to get some ATF and I impulsively checked the weather. It was noon and the wind was supposed to taper to 15 knots by one. After the fluid was back in the engine the transmission and tested I spoke to the manager asking if we should wait another half hour for things to mellow out. He pushed back saying that it was an easy landing and shouldn’t be any trouble. To which I asked if he wanted to do it. Backing away he told us he was a powerboater and would leave that to a sailor. I told him as someone who handles both that it was a very unmaneuverable boat and that if things went wrong we would likely damage the boat. He countered by saying that they needed to get it out to pressure wash the bottom so we said we didn’t need that done if it would buy 30 minutes. Then he’s said that was not the only issue and that his guys were only there until 2.

We waited 15 minutes and went for it. 

The wind had died by almost half since we landed and it went fine but the whole exchange represented another example of how sometimes you have to dig your heels in with service personal. It is always a good idea to check after someone says they have done something like top fluids or otherwise.