Evanston: a diminished list
Evanston: a diminished list
One of the quiet pleasures known to boat owners is marking something off the to do/to buy list. As I’ve just discovered there is added satisfaction when you can do so without any work or spending any money simply by deciding not to.
Parenthetically, in almost a half century of owning boats, I’ve only once ever reduced that list to zero, and that was on my fiftieth birthday in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1991, when preparing RESURGAM for Cape Horn. I had a little money and thought: If not now, when?
I keep my list at the front of a Levenger Circa notebook, from which I can easily remove or add pages, and write with a uni-Ball pen, whose ink will not leak during or after airplane flights. Before discovering these, I ruined clothes and cushions with pens that did.
When the list gets too crossed off, I copy what is left to another page; but I’ve found it useful to be able to see for a while what I’ve already done.
The above is probably about to be recopied.
I don’t know that you will be able to read the list, but after my recent decisions, there is not much of significance on it.
The most expensive remaining item, a hand-powered desalinator, will probably depend on whether I have $2000 left after I’ve done everything else.
Having downloaded and read the owner’s manual, I have decided not to rely solely, or perhaps at all, on such a device. The membrane requires careful, somewhat finicky maintenance, and at times on GANNET, pumping the device for even fifteen minutes a day will be impossible.
As I know first hand from my two weeks adrift with CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE and my twenty-six hour swim after sinking RESURGAM, thirst is terrible. Incomparably worse than hunger. I am
not comfortable not having drinking water I can see.
Fresh water will be the greatest weight I will put on GANNET. I trust that those of you in the rest of the world will forgive me for keeping to U.S. gallons and pounds. 1 gallon=3.785 liters.
A gallon of fresh water weighs 8.34 pounds. My rule of ½ gallon fresh water per day means a little over 4 pounds of water a day. 125 pounds for 30 days. Averaging 5 knots--and I think that unless becalmed or faced with strong headwinds, GANNET will do better--she will cover 3600 miles in 30 days. You can sail around the world without making a passage longer than that, but on GANNET I probably will.
My memory is that the most fresh water I ever carried on CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE was 20 gallons, 167 pounds, a higher proportion of her approximately 900 pound displacement than it would be to GANNET’s 2050.
25 gallons, weighing 208 pounds, would at 5 knots be enough for 6000 miles, although leaving none in reserve.
When I made the 4,000 mile passage in CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE from Singapore across the Indian Ocean, I reached Aden with only a gallon or so left. That is cutting it a little close.
The other greatest weigh I’ve put on the little sloop is the two Group 24 Lifeline AGM batteries, together weighing 112 pounds, fortunately stowed low and centered.
The maximum crew weight allowed while racing Moore 24s is 825 pounds. I weigh 155, so I tell myself I’m 670 pounds ahead.
Scott in New Zealand asked about my possible route next year, Why Apia rather than Tonga, which would have better wind angles?
The answer is found in my past.
If one is sailing through the South Pacific for the first, or maybe even the fifth time, he should go through French Polynesia. Despite change and bureaucracy, whose etymology is French, the islands are among the most beautiful in the world and should not be missed. But I’ve sailed to French Polynesia seven times: twice from San Diego; twice from New Zealand; three times from Panama.
Likewise I’ve sailed to Tonga three times, most recently about eight years ago.
I’ve only been to Apia once, in 1985, and I’d like to see Western Samoa again, although Scott is definitely right that Tonga would keep the trades behind me on the way to New Zealand better than going farther west before turning south.
On this, I may still change my mind. As, indeed, it is possible that I’ll decide two days out of San Diego or upon reaching Hawaii or any other port, that the voyage is too much for GANNET and/or me and end it.
My comments on self-steering vanes perhaps warrant elaboration. They are very much related to GANNET’s light displacement.
GANNET is easily steered by the smallest size tiller pilot and will at times sail fast enough to change the apparent wind, making it difficult, if not impossible, for a self-steering vane to keep up. Also the drag of the servo-rudder is proportionally greater on her than on larger boats.
Both RESURGAM and THE HAWKE OF TUONELA could be steered by the largest size tiller pilots only in less than twenty knots of wind. I know there are autopilots powerful enough to have steered them, but they draw too many amps for me and would have required significant modifications to the boats. On RESURGAM and THE HAWKE OF TUONELA, self-steering vanes, which become more powerful with increasing wind strength, were almost essential.
The ‘almost’ is due to sheet to tiller self-steering, which I used on EGREGIOUS for roughly the last 10,000 miles of her circumnavigation after the Aries was damaged south of Australia.
Monday, September 2, 2013