Crossing Biscay

We left Vannes with the 9:30 bridge and motored in non-existent winds out of the Morbihan gulf.  As we left the gulf and headed into the Quiberon bay, Patrick suggested we pull into the port of Crouesty to top up the tanks, since it was clear we would be motoring quite a bit the first day.  I didn’t think it was necessary since the gas gauge read 90% (about 120 liters) and we had 2 jerry cans of 20 liters in the lazarette.  Little did we know that this spur-of-the-moment idea would save the day.

We calculated that we could add 10 to 15 liters, max.  The rapidly dispensed 10 liters, then slowly pumped out 15 … then 20 … and then 30 litres.  “Stop!” I went below to look and smell for leaks.  Nothing.  We continued: 40, 50, and finally 65 liters before it was full.  I felt sick to my stomach.  The fuel gauge was clearly not working, and on a whim, we had just avoided heading off across the Bay of Biscay with only half a tank of gas. 

While we were in Crouesty, we heard friends chatting on the vhf radio who we thought had already started their crossing.  A quick call confirmed that three other boats from Vannes headed out only 4 hours ahead of us, heading for Viveiro, Spain and we stayed in radio contact most of the way down.  Always comforting. 

The gas-tank delay and light winds put us behind schedule and we had to punch our way out of the Quiberon bay against a 1-2 knot current - not a great way to start the cruise, but the detour to Crouesty was worth it.

Gennaker !  ...and a little motor.

Around 6:30 pm we finally got a bit of wind and could sail with the gennaker until sundown, then continued under sail until 3 a.m. when the wind completely died and the motor was fired up.  As the sun rose, we put the gennaker back up but we couldn’t maintain more than 3 knots under sail alone.  Before leaving, we suspected we would be motoring a fair bit, and I’d hoped we could fly the gennaker with the light winds, but I never suspected that we would perfect the “gennaker with motor” manoeuver.  It works pretty well!

By late morning after the 1^st night, we decided that the light winds were worse than we had expected and decided to cut a day off our crossing by heading to Viveiro with the others.  That would avoid a 4^th night of sailing and many hours of motoring.

In the middle of the 2^nd day of light winds, we heard one of our buddy boats call to another that was closest to his position and ask if he could “borrow” some gas. (!!) He hadn’t counted on so much motoring and had left with only about 70 liters and wasn’t sure to make it to Viveiro.  Later we learned that the boats got close enough to each other to throw a line to recuperate a small 10-liter jerry can of gas (fortunately water-tight).  We congratulated ourselves (mostly Patrick) on his last-minute foresight.

One nice thing about flat calm seas is that you can see marine life easier…and they can see you.  By the time I could call down “dolphins!” to Patrick, the dolphins were squeaking out “Sailboat!” amongst themselves as they bounded over like to litter of excited puppies to play in our bow wake.  They stayed, as is strangely almost always the case, for 20 minutes before getting bored or hungry or both.  We also saw a whale (most likely a pilot whale).  They are stuck up and never come to play. I also saw a shark (probably a small basking shark) skimming the surface at a distance from the boat, unperturbed and uninterested by our presence.

Dolphins zipping around under the boat show up on the echo sounder.

During the calm period and at least 100 miles from the nearest coast, we picked up a hitchhiking dove.  I was on watch at 4 a.m. and the dove landed on the solar panel arch.  The flapping from out of nowhere just above my head in the wee hours of the morning scared the pee out of me, so I jumped up and promptly scared the poo out of the bird.  The dove took a couple of turns around the boat and decided that it would be more prudent to settle on the mast spreaders, where it sat and shat for the next 36 hours.  Despite the mess, I didn’t have the heart to chase it away.  We migrating species have to stick together.

Hitchhiking dove on the spreader.

On the morning of the 3^rd day, the wind picked up and turned rapidly, building to 17-20 knots in the nose with 2 meters of swell.  The forecast had been for 15 knots on a beam reach.  We put 2 reefs in the main and rolled the genoa down until things were more comfortable and maintained 5 to 6 knots of speed despite the “speed bumps” of the swell.  We weren’t too concerned since I still had some confidence in the weather grib files that said the wind event wouldn’t last more than half a day.  By 9 p.m., the wind died down to a more manageable 16-18 knots and by midnight was an agreeable 15 knots and falling.  The last 6 hours heading into Viveiro were fabulous sailing, still on a close reach but only 12 knots of wind and smooth seas.  The sun shining on the emerald mountains of the Spanish coast was a welcomed site and we even slowed down our approach in the ria to savor the last few hours of our crossing.  Friends were waiting in the marina to help us tie up, and by evening, we had 8 compadres in the cockpit for sundowners.

Cooking while heeled over...

Viva l'Espagna !

Cruise stats:  340 nautical miles in ~78 hours (average speed 4.5 knots), with 37 hours of motoring (47% of cruise), where 24 of those motor hours were at 1500 rpms or less.  I calculated the gas consumption based on our latest fill-up, and it seems that we only used 1.5 liters / hour with the low rpm motoring. 

We left Viveiro after only 2 days because the weather was closing in and would have trapped us for a week.  The departure was rougher than expected, with 30 knots and 2 meter seas around the first headland instead of the 15-20 knots forecasted.  A 40-foot yacht that pulled out about 200 meters in front of us turned around and headed back to port as he approached the point.  Never a comforting sign.  I began working on Patrick, saying there was no shame in turning around and heading back in.  Despite having received several waves head on, soaked through and with red eyes, he said he wanted to push past the point and see if things were calmer.  We hunkered down and pushed through as best we could with 2 reefs and only a handkerchief-sized genoa.  After the point was just behind our beam, the winds died down to 20 knots and the swell was less aggressive, more orderly, and the worst was over.  Coruna is only 60 miles from Viviero, but because we had to tack back and forth against a strong headwind, it took us 15 hours.  We arrived in the Real Club Nautico of La Coruna after midnight.  Patrick tried to squeeze Mareda into the same spot we had for Spray several years ago, just under the bar with good internet, only to realize that Mareda is much larger than Spray.  We had a hell of a time getting back out of the small catway area to a more appropriate pontoon for larger boats.  Sorely regretting not having paid the extra money for a bow thruster !!

The weather in Coruna has been terrible with high winds and pouring rain every day, confirming the good idea to leave Viveiro when we did.  Still, we’ve been able to wander through the labyrinth of little stone streets, enjoy the tapas, the ham, the cheese, and the octopus, a Galician specialty.  Filling up with gas, with water, and with food have been major preoccupations, as well as searching for good internet connections (difficult).  With this, dear reader, I inform you that more timely updates of our whereabouts will be posted on Facebook (Sailing Mareda) with only intermittent postings to the blog depending on internet connections.  

We end this first missive with an ode to our new electric wok, which we adore and which saves tremendously on cooking gas when in port.  We are so enamored of our little toy that we just went out and bought an electric toaster.  Those little gas stovetop toasters take forever and burn a lot of gas for such a piddling little piece of toast.

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Countdown to the Crossing

Wednesday morning (tomorrow!) we’ll leave Vannes by the 9:30 bridge and head out of the Morbihan gulf, out of the Quiberon bay and into the Bay of Biscay for a 350 mile crossing to La Coruna, Spain.  ETA at 5 knots is around 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning.  The weather looks very calm (very very calm) and sunny, with no potential storm activity (CAPE and CIN zero).  We’ll make good use of our gennaker with light winds all the way down and will undoubtedly have long periods of motoring (motor-sailing-fishing).

For those who played along in the betting pool, the winner is Patrick’s pension papers, the last thing to arrive.  They have not and will not arrive before we leave but he was able to get a derogation.  The bike situation was a disaster – the guy couldn’t deliver on time so we canceled.  The gas crisis in France seems to have been resolved, and the Iroko hand railing miraculously arrived the week after it was ordered.  A new problem showed up during our last shakedown cruise.  One of the B&G Triton instrument panels has a button that seems to have a bad connection.  With the Jeanneau guarantee, they’ve decided to replace it but the part won’t arrive until Tuesday.  We had hoped to leave Tuesday with friends heading in the same direction, but we had too many delays.  Besides, Patrick wants to take advantage of the farmer’s market in town on Wednesday morning to get the last of the fresh fruits, veggies, and bread before we go.

The last days are nervous affairs of getting the house ready for abandonment and the boat ready for 6 months of sailing and 5 years away from home port.  We have to think about the stuff we’ll need for the cruise, but also stuff we’ll need for winterizing the boat and winterizing our clothes and other stuff we leave behind from November to April.  But since the boat is only a 5-minute bike from home, we’ve been able to get a lot of work done at a slow steady pace so we’re far from frantic.  With the promise of a very calm crossing, we’re really looking forward to heading off !  Hasta Luego !

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Passage Planning for Biscay

In comparison to what other long-distance cruisers do, a 3 or 4-day passage is peanuts.  It’s not even enough time to get used to a watch schedule or to ease naturally into the rhythms of life at sea.  By the time the first 24 hours of novelty are over, you’ve only got 1 day before you start planning for the actual arrival (“Is the course to steer still good?  Can we make our initial port or do we need to choose a Plan B port?  Are we going to arrive in daylight?  Do we need to slow down for a daytime arrival?  Can we get there before we have to resort to another dinner of spaghetti?”) 

Quiberon Bay to Coruna.  Winds aren't cooperating for a departure before 7 or 8 June.

The Bay of Biscay is a tricky area, but if you get the weather right, it can still be a pleasant ride.  We’ll need to have a good, clear 5-day forecast before heading off, meaning that at least 2 forecast models agree and that the weather forecasted hasn’t changed over the last week.  I’m currently looking at raw grib files (ZyGrib), Passage Weather, Predict Wind, and our local Meteo France offshore forecasts.  Of course, we prefer to have a broad reach (winds a-beam or slightly behind perpendicular to the boat) and I don’t like anything more than 20 knots.  Waiting for all of these conditions to be met early in the season can be nerve-wracking and time-consuming. 

Once we get more than 25 miles off the coast, we won’t have weather updates until we arrive.  We could spring for a satellite phone to get internet, but a $1000+ investment for only a 4-day crossing is a bit much.  Once we’re on the coast, we’ll have access to weather info, and we won’t be doing another multi-night crossing for a while.  If we get surprised with bad weather along the way, we can cut the cruise short by 1 day or so by heading to a closer port and then making our way along the coast as weather permits.

Our crossing strategy for the approximately 350 nautical miles:

Depart as early as the current will permit after sunrise.  Maintaining an average 5 knots of speed means we’ll be sailing about 70 hours and should put us at our destination early in the morning.  I prefer to aim for early morning arrivals, knowing that we will likely have course changes and sailing speeds under 5 knots that will slow us down along the way anyway, which gives us 12 hours of cushion before the sun sets on arrival day.

We have 130 liters of fuel on board plus 2 jerry cans of 20 liters each.  With a fuel consumption of about 2 liters / hour, we have 65 hours of motoring possible with just the on-board fuel.  65 hours at 5 knots (about 2000 rpms) is 325 miles before we have to break open the jerry cans.  If we’re motoring even half that long, we’ve really misread the weather forecast!

We put a reef in the mail sail every night before sundown, even if the weather is calm.  This slows us down, but makes for a smoother and more relaxed ride for the night in case the wind picks up unexpectedly.

Once we are on our initial trajectory, we set a waypoint on the GPS and watch the evolution of our cross-track error.  Depending on the conditions, we’ll allow a 3 to 5- mile error before altering course.  Any course changes at night that require a tack or jibe are done at the change of the watch to avoid waking anyone up needlessly.

For a 3 to 4-day passage, we do not use the refrigerator in order to save on battery power.  We use it as an ice box, with pre-prepared frozen meals serving as blocks of ice.

Our watch system, of course, depends on how many people we have on board.  When it’s just Patrick and me, we use a 2-hour watch system, with the off-watch person sleeping in the saloon berth in view of the person on watch.  The off-watch person stays clothed with appropriate gear at hand to be ready to rush out on deck in case of an emergency.  If conditions are difficult, we go down to 1-hour watches.  (In those situations, no one is sleeping anyway…).  During the day, watches are more relaxed and variable, depending on when someone feels like napping, preparing meals, etc.

Lifejackets are worn at all times while in the cockpit or deck, and tethers are also used from sundown to sunrise.

With the pilot steering, the person on watch can sit behind or underneath the dodger to get out of the wind.  Reading is okay if you’re disciplined enough to look around every 10-15 minutes (look for lights of other ships or land, check sails, check bearing occasionally, make a log entry every hour).  Headphones or anything that affects hearing is frowned upon.

Meals:  we tend to make one-pot meals that can be heated up and served with rice, pasta, or mashed potatoes (here in France, we have wonderful instant mashed potatoes…). Most meals are eaten in the cockpit out of bowls unless the weather is extremely calm.

The draft meal planning looks like this:

Breakfast: Krisp Rolls and/or toast, yogurt, fruit, cereal / muesli, coffee or tea. Eggs if anyone feels like making them.

Lunches:  Quiche (ham, spinach, feta) with salad; sausages with mashed potatoes; Chicken stew with egg noodles; Grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and fruit salad. 

Dinners: Hamburger stroganoff with egg noodles; pork coconut curry with rice; chicken and lamb sausage couscous; spaghetti bolognaise (hoping we’ve arrived by this time…).

Midnight snacks (prepared before sundown or with fixings easily reached):  sandwich roll-ups, hard-boiled eggs, soups, cereal bars, yogurt, fruit, nuts, cookies.

Patrick usually makes his deadly melted chocolate brownie cake served with English cream; I usually make cookies.  Since Patrick is French, cheese is always plentiful.  We tend not to drink any alcohol while we’re sailing. It’s hard on the stomach and dehydration is always an issue anyway.  But oh, that first beer when you reach your destination!

All of this food talk has got me excited to hit the tapas bars in Spain !  

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Cruise Departure Betting Pool

We’re starting a betting pool to see which of the following will block our departure the longest:

The replacement of the Iroko exterior handrail that has a crack in it.  We called the ship broker about this problem over 2 months ago.  It takes time for this exotic wood to be delivered from South America.  The piece arrived last week.  We discovered today that it’s the wrong piece. 

Patrick’s pension papers.  Every year, he has to prove that he’s alive to keep receiving payments.  They send a form that he has to fill out, sign and mail back. They can’t manage to figure out how to send the form by email, so we have to sit at home and wait for it to show up in the mail box.  They said it would arrive around the end of May or the beginning of June.  Still hasn’t arrived.

The new folding bikes.  We decided to splurge and buy some new folding bikes.  We found a great deal with a small company in the south of France and ordered the bikes 3 weeks ago.  Today, after 2 weeks of absence, the owner emails us to say that one of the bikes is missing a tire, but that he’s placed an order for it and will get the bikes delivered as soon as possible. 

Gas strikes.  France is in social turmoil again and the gas refineries are on strike.  They’ve been on strike for the last week, and the government has just approved the use of strategic reserves to try to meet demands.  In the meantime, only 1 gas station in 5 has gas, and there are 1-hour waiting lines at the stations and rationing once you get to the pump. Deliveries are grinding to a halt (apply to #3 above for odds adjustment). It is absolutely positively forbidden to fill up jerry cans. No way are we crossing Biscay without reserves. The government hasn’t shown any signs of backing down and the protesters say they will continue the blockades.

Weather.  It looked like we had a great weather window developing for later next week, but today’s check has scrapped that idea.  The first two days of the crossing would be great, but the last 24-36 hours show 20-25 knots winds straight in the nose. No thanks.

The pool is officially open for bets !  What will it be ?

One result of our delays is that we’ll lose a crew member whose dates are limited.  Another crew member informed us yesterday that he has to have emergency knee surgery.  It looks like we’ll do the crossing “alone together”.  This doesn’t bother either of us too much since we have already done 3 days / 2 nights, hand-steering around the clock on our old boat.  With a more comfortable boat and a reliable auto-pilot, we’ll be fine.  With good weather, it may even be enjoyable. 

 

The first load...

The good news is that Mareda is now only a 5-minute bike-ride (no gas) from home and it looks like I’ll have ample time to stock, arrange, and clean everything to my heart’s desire.  Being philosophical about the situation, a week or two of delay at the start of a 5-year trip is peanuts.

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Update 5: A Year of Reading the Med

This month’s review consists of only one novel.  We’ve been busy getting the boat ready and actually sailing, and the novel in question was a whopper.

BOSNIA: Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andric.  ***1/2

Andric was awarded the 1961 Nobel prize for literature largely based on his Bosnian Trilogy works, of which the Bosnian Chronicle is the cornerstone.  It is a true masterpiece.  That said, the Mona Lisa is also a true masterpiece, and yet, I wouldn’t want it hanging in my living room.  This is how it is with Bosnian Chronicle for me.  The novel follows the travails of a French consul posted to a lost backwoods town in Bosnia during the Napoleonic wars, and the tense cohabitation with representatives of the Austrian empire, the ruling Turkish viziers, the local Serbs and their Russian orthodox supporters, and the hapless and resentful Bosnians themselves.  I truly appreciate the artistry, the craft, the precision, the depth, the local color, the character descriptions, the historical scope, the humor, the drama.  When you begin reading it, it is clear beyond doubt that you are witnessing brilliance.  But I didn’t love it.  I didn’t particularly care about any of the characters. I didn’t, in fact, realize who the main character was until well over half way into the novel. There is very little dialogue in the novel.  It is written in a storytelling fashion where we learn in-depth what each character is thinking, all about their past, about their thoughts on the future, their secret hopes and desires, and anything else the author thinks would make the character come alive.  Did I mention the novel is looooooooong?  An example:  a child dies a tragic death.  After the scene, the author uses the following chapter to examine the personal history of each of the 6 doctors that attempted to treat the child. No, this won’t change the outcome.  No, you don’t need this information to follow the rest of the story. Yes, okay, it may be interesting in that each of the doctors comes from one of the different communities living in the village and has a different perspective on what should have been done to save the child. But by this time in the novel, you suspect that this slog through their histories will take you nowhere and you are right.  

This was a critical turning point in the novel for me where I started shamelessly skimming pages.  Normally, I would have given up, but since I have been finding the literature of the Former-Yugoslavia particularly impenetrable, I forced myself to persevere.  

But at the same time, it *is* a masterpiece and the writing was far better than anything I’ve read in a very long time, even if I enjoyed other lesser novels more.  The irony is that the advice you would give to such an author to punch it up a bit – more dialogue, less description, cut out the scenes with no action – would destroy the work and turn it into a cheap pulp historical fiction novel like so many modern best-sellers.  Like fine art, there are novels that deserve to be appreciated for their mastery and craft rather than for their decorative appeal, and this is one of them.  Bosnian Chronicle is a novel to be savored slowly with a nice glass of scotch.  (Better buy a nice bottle, you’ll be at it for waaaaay more than one sitting…). 

And with this 5^th update and our impending departure, I will be taking a break from “reading the Med”  in order to sail it for awhile.  I need to re-immerse myself in books that really enthrall me (cheap and trashy though they may be by comparison) for the long route ahead.   

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Deep breathing and Green Tea Time

I had a mild anxiety attack a few days ago.  I did something I really shouldn’t have.  I looked at the calendar.  In two weeks, we’ll be “on hold” waiting for a weather window to cross the 360 miles of the Bay of Biscay from Brittany to La Coruna, Spain.  Two weeks?!  But we’ve only had ONE shakedown cruise!  And with everything else we have to take care of, we’ve only got one more 2-day test cruise planned before Mareda goes to the boatyard for a few cosmetic touch-ups.  This means we’ll head across one of the roughest patches of water in the Atlantic without having ever left the confines of our own bay this season. 

Last week's beaching in Sauzon.  Not very useful for a Biscay crossing, but fun.

Okay… deep breathing and green tea time.  (And if you haven’t already done so, you can check out Little Cunning Plan’s A to Z blog challenge from sailing psycho-analyst Melissa, focusing on anxiety from a sailing perspective.)  Reality check:  We sailed Mareda almost 1500 nautical miles last year in some rough areas and came through it all with only good memories.  We’ve already done 2 Biscay crossings in an older and smaller boat, just the two of us, with no reliable auto-pilot and hand-steering around the clock. This time, we’ll have 1 or 2 crew members along for the ride and the boat is fully loaded with new electronics and a strong auto-pilot.  Our previous crossings were only 2 days / 1 night. This time we’ll have 3-4 days and at least 3 nights, but again, we’ve got good experienced crew this time, too.

Two thoughts now keep me from sliding back into a new anxiety attack:  1) No one can force us to go if we’re really not ready.  How simple was that???   And 2) as strange as it sounds, I’m trying to appreciate these anxious moments.  How often do you choose to do something outside your comfort zone?  I was thinking about our possible post-sailing projects: biking across Europe or cruising the canals of Europe. While they are interesting and worthy goals, they don’t send my heart racing. There’s just not much adventure or “unknown” involved.  Maybe this Biscay crossing is the last time in my life I’ll choose to do something that scares me a little bit.  That’s worth savoring, as odd as it may sound.      

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Shakedown 2016: Intentional Grounding

Unlike in American football, intentional grounding in Brittany boating is a good thing.  In fact, it is a very good thing that saved us a lot of headaches this week.  Shakedown 2016 got off to a bad start.  We chose to leave the river by the lock on Thursday at high tide…as did more than 50 other boaters.  This was a long holiday weekend in France and the weather was beautiful.  Boats were crammed into every conceivable patch of water in the lock and there was much crunching and cursing heard from our safe distance outside the lock.  The lock keeper finally signaled that it wasn’t possible to fit us all in, so we returned to our slip to come up with a Plan B. 

There was another lock 2 hours later, but with the falling tide we would not have had enough water to make it out of the river.  We opted for the lock the following morning at 8 a.m. and calculated that we could a) make it out of the river with enough water under the keel and b) sail 38 miles to Sauzon, a drying harbour on Belle Ile, with enough water to enter the drying harbour while it was still wet. 

Sauzon Harbour, Belle Ile en Mer, Brittany, France.

Sauzon harbour entrance from the inside at low tide.

Sauzon up river.

Staying the night in Arzal was not such a bad thing, and I remembered my own advice from last year: make sure your first night on the boat is in your home port because you WILL forget things.  Patrick hopped in the car and dashed off to retrieve a few essentials we had inadvertently left behind. Freshly armed with all we needed, now including the tv remote and the salad spinner, we were ready for adventure!

Friday:  8 a.m. lock passage, few boats, no problems.  No wind but strong current in the river, making 7 knots with only 1500 rpms on the motor.  Hoisted the mainsail for the first time since rigging it.  All well.  Exited river, tested vhf radio at its longest distance (about 25 miles): loud and clear. After 2 hours, wind picked up to 20 knots with gusts on a beam reach.  Put a reef in the sail and rolled the genoa 1/4^th.  Reef points along leech down to the boom were a little bit too far forward, leaving a small pocket in the sail.  Note: move those back asap. Light rain, swell 1-2 meters on the beam.  Pull out rain clothes, cool weather gear.  Rigged boom brake. Things tossed around inside boat.  Museum putty things back into place.  Lunchtime: cooking at an angle, clamps in place.  Tested new “Mareda” embossed thermos mugs for hot soup.  (Thanks Mel!)  Boat is too damn fast!  Ahead of schedule and not enough water in the drying harbour to enter.  Practice tacking and jibing for 30 minutes while the tide rises.  Hailed port office on the vhf: clear to enter.  Lifted keel and entered drying harbour.  Tied up to fore and aft mooring buoys next to friends from Vannes: “Welcome to Paradise!”  Club atmosphere among lifting keel boaters; sundowners with friends as the sun and tide set.  Touchdown at 9 p.m., very gentle, only slight creaking as Mareda settles on the hard sand for the night.  A quick look at the deep-draft boats in the outer harbour, rafted up 4 and 5 deep, their masts like windshield wipers sweeping back and forth… we feel snug and smug as we prepare for a quiet night.

High and dry, ready for a calm night.

Saturday:  learn that clam digging has been banned for the week all around Belle Ile because of 7 cases of hepatitis. Walk (!) over to the bar at low tide for a coffee and to obtain the wireless internet code.  Walk back to boat and test wireless antenna. (excellent signal strength). Cool rainy day, took the bus to the center of the island to our favourite all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant to console ourselves for the lack of clams.  Hitchhike back to port. (thank you, nice young man working at a local creperie for the summer…).  Work on the boat: move the reef points back, tie-wrap all shackles to avoid the pins backing out with strain and vibration, wash hull at low tide.  Whiskey, left-over paella for dinner, reading, early to bed.   

Morning coffee in the drying harbour, Sauzon.

Sunday:  saved dinghy from certain violent death.  We had been warned but were surprised at how fast the tide rises here.  As the water comes back into a drying harbour, dinghies tied up behind boats ALWAYS find their way under the boat.  As the water rises, the dinghy gets trapped under the boat and will eventually explode from the pressure.  Patrick was in charge of keeping an eye on it, but the internet worked so well, he was completely absorbed.  I was taking a nap, but awoke to the lilting “plook plook plook” of water lapping against the hull.  “Pat, has the tide risen already?” “Um… yes.” “And is the dinghy okay?” “Um…I don’t see it…”.  It was stuck BUT GOOD.  The water was waist deep.  Neither of us had swimsuits on board so early in the season.  I remembered we had our shorty wetsuits and quickly pulled one on and jumped in the water. I thought I would simply slip my hand into the dinghy and let out some of the air, but it was so tightly pressed against the hull that I couldn’t get my hand in.  I gave several adrenaline-inspired tugs and it finally popped out, half-full of water.  Next time, we’ll tie it up on the dinghy davits even when the tide is out. 

No, the water wasn't THAT cold... he's just holding up his pants.

At high tide late in the afternoon, we headed out of Sauzon to try our luck with a spot in the tiny port of Hoedic Island (5 boat slips).  The wind was stiff and on a close reach; impossible to make the passage through the islands without quick-tacking among the rocks.  As we approached, the wind died down and the current was stronger than the wind, making sailing in the area a bit precarious.  The Hoedic harbour master gave us one of the local fishermen’s slips for the night.  More local sailing friends showed up and we enjoyed drinks together on Mareda. We hadn’t been to Hoedic in over a year because there is never enough space for everyone.  To our happy surprise, we noticed that they have now added a series of mooring buoys in a small area of the beach that will now be a “drying harbour” for lifting keels!  We’ll be back. 

The last ones to go.

Monday: Our lifting keel allowed us to leave Hoedic at low tide so that we could make it back into our home river with the rising tide and a lock that was not too late in the evening.  We had a fabulous 18-mile sail back to the river, with winds of 18 knots on a beam reach with a large swell that allowed us to surf at more than 8 knots.

Things we did not test:  reef points 2 and 3, and the anchor.  We’ve got around 20 more days before we start looking for a weather window for the 3-day crossing to Spain, and I’m hoping to get some good sailing days in before we go.  We’ve got some small repairs to be carried out by the boat yard and some family commitments to deal with, so the timing is starting to get tight.  Stay tuned !

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Auntie Fouling to the Rescue

Dear Auntie Fouling

Spring is here and my bottom is a disaster!  There is so much advice out there about how to get it in shape - how do I know what’s right for me and my bottom? 

More specifically, I have just bought a 25-year old Catalina 25 lifting keel with, I would say, 25 years of bottom paint still clinging to the hull, judging by the layers of colors I’ve found so far. 

I know I have to scrape until I get all of the old paint off, but how do I know when to stop?  And then what?  Do I need to prep the surface or can I just slap the paint on?  And which paint?!  I’m tending towards the really expensive stuff because I want to do it right, but I’m just not sure what’s right for me. I also read that these bottom paints are toxic and that I should suit up for the Apocalypse. What’s up with THAT? And how many coats of paint should I use? And do I need to do something in between coats?  

Signed,

Bummed about my bottom

Dear Bummed,

If you ask 3 different people how they clean their bottom and apply bottom paint, you’ll get 5 different answers. Confusion is just part of the fun of being a boat owner and you must learn to embrace it.

Scraping your bottom:  yes and no.  (See how much fun this is going to be?)  Ideally, you should try to get as much of the old paint off as possible, but you must keep in mind that your goal is to have a smooth bottom.  If you’ve got pits and rough spots, those need to go.  Usually your epoxy layer is a white or cream color, and as far as I know, no one makes bottom paint that color, so stop when you strike white (or white-ish).  If getting down to the epoxy layer is a massive job, just aim for smooth.  Buy a quality scraper with replaceable cartridge blades. These babies cut through old paint like a hot knife through butter.  When you’ve got things as good as you can with the scraper, pull out your orbital sander and have a go at any uneven spots.

A note about safety:  Bottom paints are toxic to aquatic scum, and very bad for any of your soft tissues, specifically skin, eyes, lungs, etc.  One of the biggest dangers is from the fine dust while you’re sanding the old paint off the bottom.  Before we learned how to suit up properly, we suffered lung infections and eye infections from bottom paint dust and we hope you’ll learn from our mistakes. Tales abound of reckless people eschewing masks who ended up in the hospital for months with severe lung damage, so please take the warnings seriously. 

What's hot in boat-yard apparel for 2016.

When scraping and especially while sanding, cover your eyes, nose and mouth.  Those little filter-type masks with the metal nose clip and elastic bands are, in my humble opinion, good for NOTHING.  They’re hot and sweaty and have gaps in them and make you itchy and miserable.  The best method we’ve found is to take an old tee-shirt and pull it down over your head until it stops on the bridge of your nose and on your ears.  If the sleeves are long enough, tie them behind your head.  Bonus points if you take a magic marker and draw a big smile around the mouth area.  Friendly suggestion:  brush your teeth well before putting on any mask.  You’ll be mouth-breathing in close proximity to your own nose.  Trust me on this one.  For the eyes, use wrap-around eye protection that you can get from a hardware or garden store, not sun glasses with open sides.  When it comes time to paint, cover your skin to minimize contact with the fresh paint (plastic gloves, long sleeves, pants).  Don’t forget a bandana or cap for your hair.  If you have a choice, it’s good to do the painting on a breezy day when the fumes will be whisked away.  See also “Clean Up” below.   

Preparing to paint:  Now you have a smooth bottom and are ready to paint.  Wipe the bottom down with a damp rag to get rid of the dust. Tape off the zone to be painted around the water line.  Do NOT use masking tape.  Once it bakes in the sun it’s very difficult to get off.  Use the plasticky pvc-type tapes for this job found at any boat store.  Bottom paints need to be stirred well before you use them.  Use a stirring stick or paint mixer attachment for a drill and mix for several minutes.  You may need to remix every hour or so if you see any separation occurring.  Read the can for instructions for your particular paint.  Most paints will lose their anti-fouling properties if they are exposed to air for more than 3 weeks, so you should only start painting when you know the boat will go in the water within the time delay.

But wait !  Which paint ??:  This all depends on your bottom, what kind of sailing you do, where your boat is berthed, what kind of water it is in, what the last type of paint applied was, how well you removed (or didn’t) the last coat of paint, and how much money you have.  In general, if you are taking your boat out of the water and re-applying bottom paint every year (as you should), you do not need to do anything fancy.  There are two basic flavours:  hard matrix (modified epoxy paint) and ablative.  The biocide in the hard matrix gets leached out over time but the paint layer stays more or less intact.  It dries to a hard smooth(ish) surface that doesn’t wear off.  The ablative paint slowly wears away, exposing fresh biocide at a regular interval and the paint itself erodes with time as well.  If you sail a lot of miles or if your boat is berthed in an area with a strong current, an ablative paint will wear away quickly, but the advantage is that it’s easier to remove for the next season’s paint job.  The hard matrix will provide continual protection but eventually the biocide will be gone and you’ll just be left with paint and algae, and a bigger mess for the next season.

We have always used hard matrix.  For the way we sail, it lasts longer, it’s cheaper, and we scrape and repaint every year.  This year, however, we’re doing something different.  We’re heading into the Med and we’re not sure we’ll pull the boat out of the water or not for 18-24 months.  We need long-lasting protection.  The Jeanneau boatyard guys suggested the following one-two punch:  hard matrix as a first layer, then ablative as a second layer in a different color.  The ablative will slowly wear away to expose the hard matrix, which will then take over as the ablative fades.  With the color differences, we’ll be able to see the “wear” zones and can judge how quickly the ablative is ablating.

1st coat, hard matrix in grey.  Note red pvc tape at the water line.

Final coat, black ablative.

For you, Dear Bummed, I would suggest 1 good layer of hard matrix.  Your boat is berthed in brackish water in a river exposed to current, and you tend to haul out at least once per year anyway, so no need to go overboard (so to speak…) with fancy high-copper content paints.  Go for plain hard matrix.

Painting:  We like small rollers for applying an even layer.  Use cross-hatched passes to cover an area.  If you want to impress, you can finish the last pass of the roller in the direction of the water flow, which, in principle, may give you an additional 0.1 knot of speed. It’s a long boring job and you may as well amuse yourself.  Start painting the keel and the underside, then paint your way up and out to avoid getting paint on your hat or bandana when (not if) you bang your head. (Hey, you already look pretty silly with that tee-shirt pulled half-way down over your face – why not add an old bicycle helmet to the costume?)   

If you choose to do a 2^nd coat, read the can for instructions about drying times.  If you put the 2^nd coat on straight away, you can just put it on directly over the 1^st coat after it’s dry.  If you have to wait for a few weeks between coats, you will no longer have a chemical bond with the 1^st coat and will have to make a physical bond for the 2^nd coat, which simply means a quick pass with fine-grained sandpaper (HAZMAT clothes and mask again…).  You want to have a little bit of paint left over to cover the patches under the cradle or trailer that you can’t reach.  Do this just before the boat goes in the water – it doesn’t need much drying time.  If you’ve got quite a lot left over, take another pass along the water line, which is where most of the algae will build up.

Note: this should go without saying, but I’ve seen it happen.  Do NOT paint your anodes, folks.  Think about it. 

Change anode.  Do NOT paint it !

Clean up:  Take the tape off as soon as you finish your last coat.  Don’t let it stay on until the paint dries or you risk pulling off flakes.  Dispose of everything as directed on the can.  For any spills on the skin, you can use paint thinner (or gasoline) to wash it off, but hop in the shower as soon as possible and scrub down well (loofa, sponge) a couple of times to “detox”.  Don’t forget the inside of your ears.  That fine dust can find its way into the darndest places.  Rinse eyes as needed with water or a saline solution.  For your nose, netty pot, netty pot, netty pot. 

And now the most important part: no matter how careful you were with the mask, etc., your nasal passages and throat have probably been assaulted.  The best thing for you to do is to pour yourself a large icy gin and tonic.  The ice soothes, the bubbles dislodge any lingering particles, and the lime and gin disinfect. You may need several applications of this phase, but your health is no place to cut corners.     

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Harken Winch Maintenance

After our wildly popular Lewmar Wavegrip winch maintenance post from 2013 in our Spray days, I didn’t think I would even write a post about Mareda’s Harken 40.2 ST and 35.2 ST winches since, unlike the Wavegrip series, they are brand new and the documentation is easily available.

“What could possibly go wrong that might justify a few helpful hints?” we asked. 

On page 10 of the 40.2 ST manual, all goes well down to Step 10: Remove drum support No. 15.  The image as well as an on-line video show a hand simply lifting the drum support up and off.  We lifted.  We pulled.  We shoved.  We twisted.  We swore.  We pulled some more.  We finally called the boat yard technician who said sometimes new winches get a little stuck and that we should tap it with a hammer.  We tapped it with a hammer.  We tapped it to the left, we tapped it to the right, we tapped it to the side.  We tapped until we didn’t dare tap any further.  Today, the technician was on board for another problem, and we DEFIED him to get No. 15 drum support off the winch base. 

He looked over it carefully, positioned himself with knees slightly bent in front of the winch, then hauled back his arm and gave the top of the drum support a sharp karate strike with his palm.  The drum support popped right off. 

The moral of the story is that 1) you can trust the Harken instructions with an addendum or two, and 2) anything capable of lifting 850 kilos (or 1874 pounds) can take a little slapping around.  Go for it.

All went well down to the now-infamous Step 10...

REVISED Step 10: Remove drum support No. 15 (with forceful lateral karate strike...)

...which reveals dirty gears that need cleaning.

Clean the gears with diesel using Patrick's patent-pending bowl-in-a-bowl method.

Re-grease the gears with winch grease.

Use pure vaseline oil in the paws.

And have fun putting all these little slippery bits back together again !  (The Harken diagram and all those photos you took in the dismantling stage are helpful here.)

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Update 4: A Year of Reading the Med

This month’s reads were a mixed bag that left me rather depressed.  For the next round, I’m going to have to focus on countries and novels that don’t feature repressive regimes or war dramas.  I’m not sure I’ll be out of these woods anytime soon with countries like Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Montenegro still on my list. To take a break from the Med, I’ve recently plunged into the modern Chinese Classic Wild Swans by Jung Chang.  It features repressive regimes AND war dramas. Sigh.  

A reminder of my star system:

* = don’t bother

** = okay 

*** =  good 

**** = excellent !

EGYPT:  The Map of Love: A Novel by Ahdaf Soueif.  ***1/2

Short-listed for the 1999 Man Booker Prize.  A true historical fiction novel with equal doses of history and fiction.  The Map of Love (frankly, the novel deserves a better name…) weaves two multi-cultural love stories across time into the tapestry of Egyptian history from Turkish occupation and the Anglo-Egyptian war to 1998.  The story focuses on a young American woman and her Egyptian cousin who piece together the history of their grandmothers and great grandmothers (English and Egyptian) through letters and diaries while living through their own mixed-culture crises.  Through the letters, the story and Anglo-Egyptian history unfold in first-person narratives of several characters, and, in a few confusing bits that seem to have escaped a good editor, by an omniscient author. While the first-person accounts allow us to get to know several characters in depth, the shift in time and voice is often confusing. That said, the story is so engaging that we quickly forgive the annoyance of having to stop to make sure who is speaking.  There were generous doses of true history that other reviews have called “gently nationalist” or “sensitive”.  One of the reasons I embarked on this adventure of Reading the Med was to read Mediterranean authors, not western authors writing about Med countries, and so I greatly appreciated Soueif’s views.  However, the old novel-writing advice of “show, don’t tell” wasn’t always respected.  History should be woven in a living and transparent way into the story as much as possible; otherwise, you just end up with a group of characters sitting around the table discussing the ideas the author wants to get across.  While some important episodes of history (such as the Denshawai incident) are neatly treated, others are dealt with by having characters sit around a table and discuss points of view of history and culture.  It’s still interesting for readers (like me) who have very little background in Egyptian history, but it does make the novel feel a bit choppy and unconnected in spots.  But if you’re a reader like me, you’re not likely to go looking for Anglo-Egyptian history on your own or to stumble onto it accidently, so do yourself a favour and combine the enjoyable with the useful.  Read The Map of Love.      

SLOVENIA: That Night, I Saw Her by Drago Jancar. ***

Winner of France’s Best Foreign Book Prize 2014 written by one of Slovenia’s most popular authors.  This haunting mystery is a portrait of an enigmatic free-spirited young woman in the middle of a war whose refusal to accept the interpersonal changes that war imposes leads to her disappearance.  The backdrop, the Balkans of World-War II, plays an important role in the story, where friend and foe are brought together in close proximity, sometimes within the same family, and where allies and nazis and communists and partisans create a confusion of affiliations that makes it impossible to know who the good guys are. The author intentionally leaves the reader to flounder in this confusion, a confusion that our heroine rejects by treating people as individuals rather as members of a group. Too naïve to realize that she will not be judged with the same tolerance, her multiple affiliations lead to her disappearance. The author tells her story though the eyes of 5 witnesses, each of whom only knows a part of her story and the role they played in her final days.  It is a beautifully-crafted novel that exposes the tragedy and complexity of 20^th century Balkan history, and a story that has left me utterly depressed, but perhaps a bit more informed about the horrors of war away from the front lines.

SYRIA and LIBYA: The Future Arab: A Childhood in the Middle East (book 1: 1978-1984, book 2: 1984 – 1985) by Riad Sattouf. **1/2   Sattouf’s auto-biographical graphic novel about growing up blond in the Libya of Kadhafi and the Syria of Hafez Al-Assad was awarded the Prize for Best Album at the International Festival of Bande Dessinee in 2015, and was the 5^th most widely-translated French book of 2014.  These autobiographical graphic novels about growing up in a repressive society will remind you of the brilliant work of Marjane Satrapi of Persepolis fame.  It suffers in comparison, however, since it is neither laugh-out-loud nor particularly moving.  Sattouf was born to a Syrian father and French (Breton !) mother and these books recount his childhood growing up in countries trying to establish Arab socialist regimes. It is entertaining and educational in a way that sometimes only graphic novels can be… memorable but without feeling like you’ve been hit over the head with “a message.”  If you only want a light introduction to the culture, this may be a good choice.  But if you want something more poignant and profound from Libya, read Hisham Matar’s In the Country of Men (see Update 3).

And for heaven’s sake, after this round of depressing novels, go read Arto Paasilina’s The Year of the Hare.  This Finish feel-good masterpiece is a marvelous antidote to all these heavy dramas.

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