Kathryn’s Voyage Blog

Publish Date: Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Location: Sarasota, Florida
Coordinates: 27° 20.036′ N 82° 32.814′ W

Grab your favorite snack and a beverage, this is a long one. 🙂 Sections and questions are in bold, hopefully making it easier for you to go right to your area of interest.

• Have you ever felt in danger?
• What about pirates?
• Do you carry a gun?
• Do you get scared when it’s stormy? What about hurricanes?
• Exactly what goes into your weather planning? (plus several follow-on questions)
• Are you afraid of sinking?
• You’re a powerboat, not a sailboat: What about engine failure and being adrift in the ocean?
• What if you run out of food? Water?
• What if you get struck by lightning and lose all you electronics and communications capabilities?
• What if…what if…what if…

By far, the majority of questions we receive about our journey are regarding real or perceived dangers at sea. Wrestling this topic into a blog feels a bit like wrestling a giant octopus with long tentacles branching out in all directions, yet intertwining at the same time. These are incredibly important topics, and ones that need serious consideration when contemplating extended cruising. Safety is our number one issue when making decisions about our life aboard. For us, concerns about safety (or dangerous situations) fall into four main categories:

1. Weather
2. Mechanical Failure
3. Pirates
4. The Unexpected

To make things a bit more manageable, I’ll sort the questions above (plus a few extras) into these four categories. Before diving into each of these areas, let me answer the first question.

Have you ever felt in danger?
I asked Ayla, and she replied, “No.”
“Really?” I probed.
“Really, really,” she said with a smile, and then added with a raised eyebrow, “Why, should I have been?”

Dave’s answer, “Just once, when we lost the ability to maneuver in the Hudson River in poor conditions with a barge turning in front of us. ” This incident happened in May of 2009 when a 12-foot piece of 3-inch-thick polypropylene line wrapped around our shaft and propeller, essentially rendering our main engine and propeller useless. For more details here are links to our blogs about this incident: Work the Problem with Teamwork and Snag in the Plan.

My answer is, I’ve been really nervous on quite a few occasions, but I’ve never felt in life-threatening danger. Most of the situations that I found nerve-wracking were because they were my first time experiencing the situation, whether it be poor weather, fog, the anchor dragging, or shallow water navigation. The more experience we gain, the more confidence I’m developing. Here are links to a few nerve-wracking situations:  Running the Gauntlet with a Guardian Angel, Challenges, Work the Problem with Teamwork, Staring Down the Demon.

Our enjoyment of this journey is greatly enhanced by not getting ourselves into dangerous situations. 🙂 Good planing and preparation ahead of time can help alleviate many problems, but not all…sometimes things just happen.

• • •

Weather
Understanding the weather is critical for safety at sea. After getting caught in a nasty front on the Bahama Bank due to a two-day old weather forecast, we understood more than ever the importance of receiving and evaluating weather for ourselves on a daily basis. I talked a bit about weather in a previous blog, which a raised a number of follow-up questions:

Exactly, what goes into your weather planning?
Like many aspects of boating, this is an area we continue to revisit and refine. The location and length of a passage has a lot to do with the depth of our weather planning. A 1-day ICW (Intracoastal Waterway) run requires different planning than a 5-day offshore passage. When evaluating weather we try and get information from three different sources. We start with an overview of the weather situation (i.e., movement and locations of highs, lows, troughs, etc.) and then look at local forecasts. We also evaluate the information we obtain from GRIB files, such as wind direction, sea state, and pressure gradients. Based on our proposed cruising plan and weather data we determine our course of action. This decision is unique to each cruiser based on their personality, type of boat, schedule, skill level, and desire for comfort at sea.  We tend to be quite conservative, while others we know will just go for it.

United States Weather
When cruising along the U.S. coastline we use:

http://www.weather.gov
NOAA’s website provides a wealth of information, and very specific marine forecast for well-defined locations along the US coast, as well as offshore forecasts.

http://www.passageweather.com/
We have found this site to provide very reliable weather information that’s easily accessible. The home page provides a world map, which allows you to  click on the region you’re interested in viewing. PassageWeather then provides three overlays to the regional map, spanning a 7 day period, showing

1. wind speed and direction
2. surface pressure
3. wave height and direction (Be sure to note the wave heights are in meters. Early in our usage of this site, Dave and I kept thinking waves were always bigger than they predicted, until we realized they were in meters not feet — oops!)

http://www.wunderground.com/
Another site full of useful information.

A number of our sailing friends use http://www.sailflow.com, but I can’t comment on their accuracy as we don’t use them.

Commander’s Weather (http://www.commandersweather.com/)
On four occasions we have used a professional weather router. These are weather professionals who specialize in preparing detailed marine forecasts for cruising and racing boats. They offer a variety of services, from a simple weather consultation before departure, through continuous tracking of you throughout a passage, and providing daily updates helping you to avoid developing weather problems.

In each instance we prepared our own forecast, and then contacted the team at Commanders Weather to get their forecast. We wanted to see how our forecast compared to the professionals. On our 5-day open water passage from St. Augustine, FL to New York Harbor we used the more expanded service of daily information and check-ins. We plan to use a professional weather router on all our major ocean crossings. There are a number of weather routers available, with many specializing in certain oceans or areas of the world. We have been very pleased with the team at Commanders Weather.

Bahama’s Weather
While in the Bahama’s we used passageweather.com and weatherunderground.com along with http://www.bahamasweather.org.bs run by the Bahamas Meteorology Department. Our real source of EXCELLENT information came from Chris Parker, who provides daily detailed forecasts that are invaluable for those cruising in The Bahamas and throughout the Caribbean. You can receive his forecast via SSB radio in the morning or via email by mid-day (which is what we did since we don’t have an SSB radio). You can get more information on Chris’s forecast at http://www.caribwx.com/

Canadian Weather
For local Canadian weather information we used the Canadian Weather office at: http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca

Other good sources of marine weather information are the weather channels on your VHF radio and local cruiser’s nets.

Do you have a Sirius satelite connection?
No. For those of you not familiar, Sirius Satellite is satellite radio that also delivers weather information. We do not have this aboard Three@Sea and I don’t know enough about it to comment on its usefulness.

Do you download weather charts from satelites?
Yes.  After our bad weather experience on the Bahama Bank we promptly ordered a satellite phone upon arriving in Nassau. When cruising out of internet range, Dave has weather emails and local GRIB* files sent to our satellite phone, which he then downloads once a day. It is comforting to have our own trusted weather data to evaluate.

* “GRIB” stands for Gridded Information in Binary form. GRIB is a compressed binary format used by meteorological centers for storing and exchanging meteorological charts and other patterns of wind, sea state, temperature, etc.

Did you take a meteorolgy course before you started?
We did not take a meteorology course before beginning to cruise, but I will take one this year before we leave North America. I know I’ll have a much greater appreciation for what is being taught having been out there for a year.

If you are interested in learning more about weather, I would highly recommend Coastal and Offshore Weather, The Essential Handbook by Chris Parker (available online at http://www.bluewaterweb.com). He takes the mystery out of weather through clear, concise writing and lots of examples (primarily SE United States and The Bahamas). Being an active cruiser, he understands the questions and concerns boaters are trying to address, and provides excellent information on forecasting tools as well.

Do you get scared when it’s stormy?
So far we have not experienced a bad storm at sea. For the most part, the wind, waves, and rain we’ve encountered were expected and not fierce. The few unexpected squalls or fronts we’ve experienced have been uncomfortable, but not dangerous.

When you’re at anchor, its a bit nerve-wracking worrying about your anchor dragging (which we watch vigilantly) or worse, another boat dragging into you. Even at a dock you need to be alert, making sure all your lines are the proper lengths to keep your boat secure given the wind direction and tidal flow, which can accompany a big storm. We often add extra lines to keep the weight of the boat evenly distributed to not put too much strain on any one line or cleat. Keeping an eye on what’s going on around you is also important to make sure another boat doesn’t break lose or have something not properly secured fly off and cause damage.

The strongest winds we have experienced under way are sustained winds at 30 knots with gusts up to 40 knots; at anchor, sustained winds at 35 knots with gusts to 42 knots; and on the dock, sustained winds at 45 knots with gusts just over 50 knots. Mother nature is certainly impressive!

What about hurricanes?
I imagine being in a hurricane would be very scary. Fortunately most hurricanes can be forecasted days in advance, and although their paths are often unpredictable, you do have some warning and can take appropriate precautions. For insurance purposes we stay out of the designated Atlantic hurricane zone between June 1st and November 15th. But even with that precaution we have had to prepare for three separate hurricanes: one in the Chesapeake in September 2008 (Hanna Hanna fo Fanna) and two in the Canadian Maritimes last summer (Another Hurricane- Really?). Fortunately, two diminished to tropical storms before getting to us, and we delayed our schedule to wait for the third to pass.

• • •

Mechanical Failure
This is the area that keeps Dave up at nights. However, just as we try and minimize the impact of bad weather on our safety, we also try and prepare for mechanical failures in three ways:

1. Boat maintenance
2. Mechanical education
3. Spares and tools

I will encourage Dave to write a blog addressing these areas if you’re interested, but here are the questions sent to me in this category.

You’re a powerboat not a sailboat, what about engine failure and being adrift in the ocean?
I really hope this doesn’t happen, and I won’t pretend I haven’t thought about it.  When coastal cruising around North America we have access to SeaTow and of course the US or Canadian Coast Guard in dire situations. However, neither of those services will be available to us in the middle of the Pacific or in other countries. For major ocean crossings, the ideal situation would be to cruise with another boat (a Nordhavn even better). However, plenty of boats have crossed on their own and been perfectly safe. In fact, the reputation and reliability of Nordhavn’s for ocean crossings was the major reason we chose this boat.

The diesel engines on these boats are work horses. We have a Lugger L668D, which is a John Deere engine that has been marinized by the team at Northern Lights (Lugger Captain’s Class). The real key is to prevent problems by doing the maintenance, and ensuring that you are taking on clean fuel. But even with the best laid plans, things happen, and it’s nice to know that employees of Nordhavn, Northern Lights, and other Nordhavn owner’s are available to answer questions and help troubleshoot problems at any time via interent or phone. This of course means having a reliable communications system when you’re at sea, which for us has been a satellite phone and two VHF radios. When we begin our circumnavigation we will take aboard an additional satellite phone (a portable one), and we are still debating the pros and cons of adding an SSB radio.

Taking Three@Sea for a 10,000 nm spin last year was all part of us shaking her down and seeing how well her systems perform. We are extremely pleased with our little ship — her performance and her reliability.

What if you get struck by lightning and lose all you electronics and communications capabilities?
Another nightmare scenario, but one we have thought about as well. We have a lightening arrestor at the top of our stack which is supposed to dissipate static so we don’t get  hit. If we did get hit it will also act as a ground, focusing the electricity through the boat and out the hull without frying all of our electronics. There are very mixed reviews about their effectiveness, so in a storm we take a portable computer loaded with our navigation software, a handheld GPS, and a portable VHF radio, and put them in our microwave oven, which acts as a Faraday cage. If all else fails we have a compass, sextant, charts, and a filed float plan.

What if you run out of food? Water?
This is one thing I don’t worry about too much.  We can carry plenty of food (and I do) along with 300 gallons of fresh water. When offshore cruising, we keep our tanks full all the time, so even if our water-maker should fail we would have sufficient water to survive until we reach our destination.

• • •

Pirates — Arghh!

What about pirates?
Pirates definitely need to be taken seriously, but they do not weigh on our minds as much as weather and mechanical failure. There is a spectrum of piracy from the petty theft pirate looking for binoculars, computers, cash, and maybe a dingy, to the more aggressive kind we hear about in the news which seize your boat and take the crew hostage. Both are bad, but the later gives me shortness of breath and makes my chest tight when I think about confronting that situation. Our plan is just not to put ourselves in that environment. The somewhat good news is that it’s not as common as you might think, and the locations of piracy danger are pretty well known (Live Piracy Map). Just as we don’t travel in countries or cities that are not considered safe, we will also not cruise in areas that are not considered safe. There are plenty of beautiful and interesting cruising grounds in the world that are safe — we have no need to go to the others.

The “rules” of piracy (speaking of the seize and ransom type) have changed in the last few years. It used to be that pirates were primarily interested in two types of boats: a ship with a cargo they could ransom, or a fast boat they could use for piracy activities. Personal sailboats or trawlers didn’t fit the profile.  Unfortunately that changed last year when the Chandlers were taken hostage by Somali pirates now operating further south near the Seychelles Islands. The vast majority of piracy happens in the western Indian Ocean, and international efforts are on the rise to address this issue.  If it’s not safe, we won’t go — same with Venezuela and parts of Indonesia.

We will also make every effort to stay out of areas where there are known theft issues. The cruising community does a great job sharing information about any number of topics, from the best snorkeling and beach bar, to the most efficient ports of entry and safety issues. Many of the same rules apply on the water as they do with your home or car:  Don’t keep valuables in plain sight, lock things up when your away, and when in doubt, travel with another boat in remote areas. Another thing to keep in mind is that many coastal communities depend on the cruiser community for tourism dollars, and they want you to be safe and have a good experience so you can tell others and come back yourselves. Plot a course to the welcoming communities!

Do you carry a gun?
No. Obviously, this is a very personal decision and each cruiser/family needs to do what makes them feel most comfortable. We did not have a gun at home, but did spend time evaluating whether we should carry one on the boat. Ultimately we decided not to because carrying a firearm aboard adds a whole new level of complexity when clearing in and out of foreign ports-of-call. In most every country you visit you need to declare a firearm, and in a majority of countries you are required to turn it over to authorities while you’re in the country. This presents two big problems: 1) you now have to depart that country from the same port you entered, and 2) it is often those countries where you’d like to have a firearm that you are required to turn it over. There are those who suggest you can just hide it. That’s always an option, but you need to evaluate the risk of facing a concealed weapons charge in a foreign country should you be boarded and searched.

Don’t forget: a flare gun at close range is a good self-defense weapon.

• • •

The Unexpected
Even with the best weather, cruising in a sturdy, reliable, properly equipped, well-maintained boat in safe cruising grounds, things can happen. Just like when we wrapped a large line around our prop and shaft in the Hudson, we could hit a shipping container floating just below the surface, or run into a whale at night (it does happen). The key for us is to minimize our risk by being well-prepared in the areas we can be, and  run through emergency scenarios together so should something happen we have a plan to take action.

Are your afraid of sinking?
This isn’t at the top of my list of things to worry about, but we do need to be prepared. Generally I think of sinking occurring when you’ve hit something, punched a hole in the hull, and can’t keep up with the water coming in. First of all, how hard can you really hit something going 6.5 knots?  😉  But if it ever happened, we have bilge pumps (regular, high water, and manual), not to mention 3 buckets. A tip I heard from another cruiser, which he received from a Coast Guard crew, is to carry a variety of nerf balls in different sizes. They said you would be amazed at how useful they are at filling a hole because they are malleable and salt water resistant. In a worst case scenario, we would be prepared to abandon ship with a ditch bag (food, portable water-maker, hats, blankets, etc.), GPIRB (Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon with GPS built in), and portable communications equipment.

Certainly there are things that can go wrong, but that’s true in a land-based life as well.

• • •

On to happier thoughts…
While it is important to think about these issues, and do your best to prepare for them, don’t let them overwhelm you. The magical moments far outnumber the scary ones.

For the next installment we’ll lighten it up a bit with questions about traveling with your pet.  Until then, keep the water on the outside.  🙂