Ken's Other Blog

[KensOtherBlog] The Last Entry

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Greetings all!

A lot has happened since my last blog update…

Our GSSR group shipped a full shipping container of boat parts to Japan. To my complete amazement the parts arrived in perfect condition, on time, and with no customs issues or import duties.

Roberta, Shelby and I will depart for Osaka Japan on April 7th, to begin this year’s GSSR cruise. We will spend a couple weeks in Osaka, doing provisioning, and getting the boat ready for departure.

Some boat preparations have already begun…

I asked Jeff Sanson, of Pacific Yacht Management to go over and prepare the boat for this season’s cruising. Last year, we had amazingly few problems, and I’d like to keep it that way. Jeff has now been in Osaka for about a week doing all the work.

To ensure that this will be a trouble-free year, I asked Jeff to swap every belt, thermostat, hose, air filter, fuel filter and zinc on the boat. With four diesel engines (the two mains) plus two generators, this is a big project. He’s changing the oil on all engines, and checking out all systems. He’s also swapping all of the toilets to a newer model. (A job I’m happy to be 4,000 miles away from!) Much of this work didn’t need done, but I like the idea of starting the season with an ‘essentially new’ boat.

I’ve been speaking with (and back-seat driving) Jeff daily via Skype video chats.

Jeff installed my new anchor, and it fit perfectly. I asked him to drop and raise it a couple of times, so that we can verify that it comes across the bow pulpit smoothly. No problem. One of my blog readers suggested I try adding a stainless steel swivel, which turned out to be expensive, and huge, but appears to have been a great addition.

Here's a picture of a sensor I had Jeff install on the loop for my air conditioning (and heating). Last year there many times when I couldn't diagnose problems with the chilled water a/c system. I was constantly climbing into the lazarette to figure what was going on. This will make life a lot easier.

And as expected, there have been a few negative “surprises”…

Boats like to be run. Leaving them sitting for long periods of time is hard on the boat, and I knew that getting everything going again was not going to be fun.

When Jeff started the main engines, water immediately sprayed from the water injection exhaust elbows. Apparently they had rusted out in the off season. New ones were shipped from the US and have already been installed.

Jeff took the boat out for a test run yesterday, and discovered that it was impossible to get the engines past 1500 rpm. Neither Jeff or I can figure why. He sent a diver under the boat, and the props seem clean. The engines should go up to 2100 rpm, and, when sitting at the dock, they do. My guess is that it is nothing more than the engines having sat for six months and just not in the mood to be run. Or, the bottom was dirtier than we thought.

We spoke to both Lugger (who made the engines) and Twindisc (the engine throttles and transmission). Neither had any great ideas for us. We are sending a diver under the boat to clean the props and will do another test run today.

*** LAST MINUTE UPDATE: I JUST RECEIVED AN EMAIL FROM JEFF. THEY CLEANED THE BOTTOM, AND THE PROPS, AND THE PROBLEM IS RESOLVED ***

Also…

Jeff mentioned that the seachest, and the raw water strainers, were totally clogged with barnacles. We haven’t pulled the hoses yet, that connect the through-hulls and the sea chest, but I’m expecting that they will be totally packed with crud.

I’ve always described myself as a “warm water cruiser” but there are some definitely head-aches associated with cruising in warm water, and clogging of the raw water system heads the list. At the suggestion of another Nordhavn owner I bought some super-expensive blue silicon hose to replace the current hoses. We’re also putting copper into both my sea chest and strainers, because allegedly that helps.

On a different topic…

We’ve continued working on getting our dog Shelby into the various countries we’ll visit. To my complete surprise there is now a very real possibility that she can enter Hong Kong without Quarantine. It means lots of paperwork, and more testing. It is also problematic, in that she would need to stay on the boat throughout our visit to Taiwan. We’ve already made arrangements to send someone to Japan to babysit her, and rented an apartment for a friend to watch over her. So.. I’m not sure what will happen. We’re working through it and suddenly optimistic that she can stay with us.

Anyway.. this is my last post to the www.kensotherblog.com board. It’s time to restart my www.kensblog.com blog, and start blogging to the huge group. In just under two weeks Roberta and I will be back on the boat, and the fun will begin. Most of you are already registered on www.kensblog.com so you don’t need to do anything to continue receiving the blog. I’ll send out a “first blog entry” early next week kicking off the GSSR 2010. If you have friends who you think might want to receive the blog, this is a good time to register them yourself at www.kensblog.com, or encourage them to go register. It should be an amazing year.

In some ways it will be a simpler, easier, year. But, it is not without challenge. We’ll be in an area that it highly technical, with challenging tides and currents. In the coast guard guide it said that nearly half of all marine accidents happen each year in Japan’s inland sea, where we’ll be in the next few weeks. Currents are tides are a huge factor, and whereas I’m accustomed to these from cruising the Pacific NW, we’ll be dealing with a scarcity of information. There is no nice neat tide/current book I can pick up at West Marine. We’ll figure it out, but I’m sure we’re in for a few surprises.

Thank you everyone for reading my interim blog over the past few months. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it!

Ken Williams

Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci

www.kensblog.com

And, for my books-> www.lulu.com/kenw

PS The GSSR will have four boats this year.The 70' Northern Marine, Starr was originally scheduled to be with our group, but got a late start. Instead they took a southerly route, to Hawaii, and are headed to Japan via the Marshall Islands. If you haven’t been following Starr’s blog, you are missing a very interesting story. Starr is currently “stuck”, with mechanical problems and waiting for parts to reach them, on a little inaccessible island, in the middle of nowhere. Check out: http://starr.talkspotblogs.com

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[KensOtherBlog] The "Why" boat

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Over the past two weeks I have received at least 30 different emails asking if I have seen the boat called "WHY". I assume that most of you have also seen these pictures, but given the high level of interest I figured I'd go ahead and post them on my blog anyhow.

Several people asked if the boat really exists or not. My research indicates that it really does exist, or at least it is a real design, in search of someone to order the first one. I would expect, that given the interesting look, some billionaire out there somewhere will want to add it to their collection.

Here's a couple of links to websites with additional information:

http://www.why-yachts.com

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/7570/why-wally-hermes-yachts.html

I had to dig a bit to find the estimated cost: $150.8 million. I don't know whether or not this includes the optional am/fm radio.

On a more relevant note...

The spare parts for Sans Souci have now departed Seattle and are somewhere in the middle of the Pacific. They are estimated to arrive in Japan around March 7th. In other words, all is looking good for an on-time departure for the GSSR 2010 in mid-April!

Thank you,
Ken Williams
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci
http://www.lulu.com/kenw (my books)

[KensOtherBlog] Some cool whale footage

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

My brother and his family visited us in Cabo this week. A few days ago they took a panga out scuba diving and had a very close encounter with some whales. Most interesting to me is that the panga had my two sons, my brother John, his wife, their two young daughters, plus the two guys running the panga. I can't imagine getting that close to the whales with an overloaded panga of people!

Here's a video they shot, which is poor quality, but I think you'll get the idea:

If you don't see the video above, click this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxl57SUvI_c

While on the topic of Cabo...

I was at the Puerto Los Cabos marina in San Jose Del Cabo yesterday, and snapped this picture of the new dry stack boat storage facility that is going in. I've been told that a 150 ton lift is going in, but the lift didn't look that large. I'll back sometime in the next couple of weeks and try to get a better look. It was great seeing the rapid progress they are making, and seeing the marina full of boats. There were a couple of huge megayachts and probably a dozen boats over 100'.

As to the GSSR and our upcoming trip...

The adventure begins around April 15th! That date is coming very quickly now, and there is starting to be a flurry of activity.

As I mentioned in my prior blog entry, we shipped an entire container full of parts to Japan. However, the container literally "missed the boat." I still don't know what went wrong. Everyone is pointing the finger at each other. The story I've heard is that the container holding our spare parts was somehow mislabeled, or not labeled, regarding the hazardous materials inside the container (liquids like oil and fuel additives). Thus, the freighter couldn't carry the container and it was left sitting on the dock. A new freighter has been assigned to transport the container, and it will hopefully still arrive in Japan in plenty of time for our departure. We'll see. I'll be sweating this one until the container clears customs in Japan.

There is some good news...

I was worrying about Seabird's transmission. The transmission was removed from the boat, for overhaul, but has now been repaired. It still needs to be put back in the boat, and some parts are inside the "delayed container" but all is looking good.

Steven provides some good information about all of this in his latest blog entry. Click here to read it.

My biggest project over the past month has been... our dog, Shelby.

As I mentioned in prior blog updates, we've found it impossible to clear Shelby into South Korea, Taiwan or China without putting her through quarantine. She's a very old dog, and we don't want to put her through quarantine.

We've finally got it all figured out. Shelby will be with us until the furthest point south in Japan (an island called Ishigaki) where we'll be met by a friend of ours, Phil, who some of you may remember as having accompanied us across the Atlantic a few years back. Phil will fly with Shelby back to Osaka where we've rented the two of them an apartment while Roberta and I continue with the boat to Taiwan and Hong Kong. It's not a perfect solution, but it works.

As to when the fun begins...

Roberta and I plan to return to the boat around the first week of April. I want at least a couple of weeks on the boat prior to our departure to sort out lots of "electronics" tasks. I've bought new computers for the nav system, and need to swap out the old ones. I'm a computer geek, but still a bit worried about the project, because of the interfacing of the software to the autopilot, the radar and the AIS. That said, if it looks hard once I'm on the boat, I'll simply not do the project. The current ship's computers are fine.

That said, the one thing that argues that I need to make a change is that last year I struggled with Nobeltec's chart coverage in Asia. It just wasn't very good. As part of the upgrade I'll be swapping the boat over to a new charting package, Maxsea Timezero. It's new, and I don't know how stable it is, but it is fast and very fun to operate. The charts of Japan seem much better than what I had on Nobeltec, although... I have a pre-release of the charts, and the copy I have seems flawed. I'm hoping to get a chart upgrade from Furuno before the trip begins. My hope is to have Maxsea, Nobeltec AND Coastal Explorer all installed and operating, so that I can swap between them according to has the best charts for any particular region.

And lastly....

Our GSSR group will be joined this year by Don and Sharry Stabbert, who have the 75' Northern Marine vessel Starr. They departed Hawaii a couple of weeks ago headed towards Japan. It sounds like they are having fun working their way towards us, and if you haven't yet registered for their blog, I recommend it: http://starr.talkspotblogs.com

Here's an excerpt from a recent email Don sent me:

Yokwe (hello in Marshallese) :

We are in a aqua colored lagoon, surrounded by reefs and obstacles on a large atoll south of Majuro called Mili. The village of 400 people here is called MiliMili. It is too windy to take either Starr or the tender to the village which is 14 nm downwind from the entrance to the lagoon. If we could take the tender we would have to run it up on the beach at full speed like a panga in Mexico (I don't think so). We brought some packages from Majuro for one of the World Teach teachers in the village, but we can't deliver them. No one in the village can come to us to pick them up because they currently don't have any fuel for their outboards. We will deliver the packages to some guys on an atoll close by who harvest coconuts for copra, but they don't speak English.

I'm sure you get the picture; this is a very remote place.

Sharry and Don

Thank you,

-Ken Williams
N6805, Sans Souci

[KensOtherBlog] Getting ready for the typhoons

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Greetings!

I just received a photo of my new Rocna anchor which ships today from Seattle to Japan.

This thing is a monster!

The last part of our cruising in SE Asia will be during typhoon season, and I'm not sure how easy it will be to find typhoon-safe ports as we get into the islands around Okinawa. This is my 330 pound insurance policy against dragging anchor.

-Ken Williams
N6805, Sans Souci

[KensOtherBlog] Pictures of our shipment headed to Japan

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Greetings All!

Preparations are continuing for the 2010 GSSR run, from Osaka Japan to Hong Kong.

This is just a quick update to pass along a couple of pictures. In my last update I mentioned that the three GSSR boats (Seabird, Grey Pearl and Sans Souci) are shipping spare parts and tools to Japan. Yesterday, Jeff Sanson, of Pacific Yacht Management, sent me pictures of all of our parts ready to go out. The size of the shipment is amazing!

-Ken Williams
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci
www.kensblog.com
Books: www.lulu.com/kenw

shipment1.jpg

shipment2.jpg

[KensOtherBlog] Some pictures I thought were pretty interesting

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Greetings all!

I just thought I’d pass along a link to some pictures that I found quite interesting…

During our voyage to Japan, one of the boats, Seabird, noted that their transmission and PTO (the hydraulic pump that is driven by the main engine) seemed to be running warm. Steven Argosy, Seabird’s owner, had the transmission inspected, in Japan, and decided that a rebuild was warranted. I forget how many miles Seabird has run, but it is a huge number.

Steven was able to find a great outfit to do the work, and last week Seabird’s transmission was pulled from the boat. When Steven first mentioned the work, I was surprised by two things: 1) That he was able to get the work done in Japan, without him there, and 2) that a transmission can be replaced without hauling-out the boat.

I enjoyed studying the full sequence of pictures. It is impressive to see how they protected the boat’s interior, and the frame they had to construct to get the transmission out of the boat. To see the pictures (about 30 of them), click this link:

http://www.kensotherblog.com/aspx/m/628740

And, on a different topic…

Trip planning is continuing. As I mentioned in my last update, Roberta and I have failed in our efforts to get our dog approved for entry into Korea, China (Hong Kong) and Taiwan. Instead, out latest plan is to have Shelby (the dog) accompany us on the Japanese portion of our trip, and then stay behind, in Japan, while we continue to Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Even this has been tricky. We have a friend (Phil, who some of you may remember as our chef on the Atlantic crossing) who will be going to Japan to watch Shelby for the two months it takes us to finish the trip. We need to find him an apartment in Japan that is furnished, and will accept dogs. We’ll figure it out, but it is being a project.

I also noticed this morning that Japan Airlines filed bankruptcy and is shutting down most of their big planes, in order to focus on short commuter flights. We used Japan Airlines to transport Shelby from Osaka to Hawaii, and this might affect our plans for getting her back to Japan. Argh. I’ll figure it out, but this means another project on my plate…

And, lastly…

We’ll be sending, next week, an entire shipping container to Japan, containing replacement parts for the three GSSR boats. Prior to departing Japan I put together a list of maintenance items for my boat. Sans Souci was in fine condition and could have kept going just fine, but with a boat, there is always something to do. I want to be pro-active and replace all belts, hoses and anything else that might fail. I hadn’t realized how large shipping containers are, and the container will be mostly empty, but there are a few big items. For instance, I’m swapping ALL of the toilets on the boat. The toilets on my boat were a new model and have failed more frequently than they should. I’m also shipping replacement batteries, and also some boat tools, that I thought would be hard to find in Japan. I had also planned to ship a complete set of replacement parts for my Mini Vsat (Internet) system, but hit a surprise with the shipper. Shipping satellite communications equipment is apparently a no-no. Another project to figure out.

That’s it for today. Overall, things are going fine with trip planning, and I’m looking forward to being back on the boat (in April)!

-Ken Williams
N6805, Sans Souci
www.kensblog.com
www.kensotherblog.com
Books: http://www.lulu.com/kenw

Starting to think about trip planning for the 2010 GSSR

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Greetings all!

This is my first blog update in over a month. I would have written sooner, but there’s really been nothing to say. Roberta and I, probably like most of you, were kept busy by the holidays. I haven’t really had time to think about the boat over the past month.

There’s a new blog I’m following that you might want to register for…

http://www.n55delivery.com

It’s for a 4-man delivery crew (three professionals plus a captain) running a Nordhavn 55 from San Diego to Florida through the Panama Canal. The run is interesting because they are trying to make the trip non-stop other than the canal. They’ll be testing the range on the N55, and also their own endurance. It should be interesting.

As to our boat …

Sans Souci is still sitting in Osaka Japan, as are the other two GSSR boats (Seabird and Grey Pearl.) While we were in Japan we asked an American who lives in Japan, and works as an interpreter, to look after the boats in our absence. He knows very little about boats, but is fluent in both Japanese and English. Prior to our departure I trained him on how to start Sans Souci’s main engines and generators, and on how to run the watermakers.

I decided to have him start the engines periodically, even though it isn’t clear that this is a good thing. Starting a diesel engine, running it for 15 minutes, without letting it get warm, leaving it unloaded, and then shutting it down, is almost certainly tougher on the engine than just leaving it shut down. At the time it seemed like a good idea, but now I’m having second thoughts.

This process did discover a problem though…

Within a couple of weeks of our departure the 20kw generator on Sans Souci refused to start. After a bit of testing, we decided the problem was nothing more than a dead battery. One would think that buying a new battery would be a quick easy project. But, that’s not how things work when multiple countries and languages are involved.

As a first step to diagnosing the problem we bought a battery charger, which required at least a dozen emails. I wanted a trickle charger that we could trust to not overcharge the battery, because no one would be on the boat. Once we located a charger, and charged the batteries, the generator started fine, but after 24 hours the battery was dead again.

Finding a replacement battery turned out to be a nightmare. At least 30 emails went back and forth. It’s a bigger issue than just getting the right voltage. I needed an AGM starting battery of roughly the same size as the old battery. Despite having a good interpreter I was never able to get a battery that would work and gave up in frustration. Instead, I’ll ship a battery over from the United States.

One of the other GSSR boats has been trying to work remotely to diagnose a possibly transmission problem. I shared with the owner the effort I had gone through, unsuccessfully, to try to obtain a simple 12v battery, and asked how he thought he was going to get a transmission diagnosed and repaired. He understood the problem and is doing what he can, but is not very optimistic.

Also….

I asked to have a diver take pictures of the bottom of the boat because we had noticed something that looked suspicious on one of the rudders. I need to decide if a haul-out of the boat is necessary or not.

This is a link to the pictures I received:

http://www.kensotherblog.com/aspx/m/602560

There is a bit of white visible around where the rudder connects to the boat. I couldn’t tell if it is some sort of bearing that has come loose. I posted these pictures to other Nordhavn owners, and to Nordhavn, all of whom said that it was just normal barnacle growth, and nothing to be concerned about. I also sent the pictures to the Delta shipyard, who said that they definitely thought I had a problem, but that they thought I’d be fine to wait another cruising season before getting the boat hauled-out. Whether or not I have a problem, I still don’t know.

On a different topic…

Trip planning has started for the 2010 GSSR run. Here’s a picture showing our route, which stretches from Osaka, in Japan, to Hong Kong, in China:

(Click the map above for a close-up)

The route shows as 2,000 nm, which is a huge drop from the 7,000 nm we ran in 2009. Whereas our goal in 2009 was to get across the Pacific within a fairly short weather window, this year we’re hoping to be able to do a lot more relaxing and sightseeing along the way. Also, last year we were on the boats for five months, and this year we’ll only be on the boats a little over three months. We’d prefer more time on the boats, but we’re moving into an area known for typhoons. As the water warms, typhoons will become more frequent, and more ferocious. Typhoons can happen virtually any month of the year, but August and September are the worst. Our goal will be to have the boats safely sitting at a marina in Hong Kong before the end of July.

Traveling with a dog in Asia has become a huge problem. We have given up on getting Shelby into Taiwan or China. The best we’ve been able to do is to receive conflicting information from Taiwan. We now believe that we MIGHT be able to enter the country, as long as Shelby doesn’t leave the boat except to travel directly to the airport in the company of customs agents. China will not allow Shelby into the country at all without a long quarantine.

Roberta and I discussed stopping our cruising in 2010 at the southern border of Japan, and just having a delivery crew run the boat to Hong Kong. We also discussed flying Shelby home from Taipei (Taiwan) and then returning without her. Our current plan, which we believe is what will occur is that a friend of ours will be meeting us in Ishigaki Japan, the southernmost island in the Ryukyu chain of islands. Our friend (Phil, who crossed the Atlantic with us in 2004) will fly with Shelby back to Osaka, where they’ll stay for the three or four weeks it takes us to get the boat to Hong Kong. This is an expensive and complicated solution to the problem, but beats any other option we’ve come up with.

I mentioned in my last update that I was evaluating various nav software packages. It has been a tough decision, but I’m going to go with Maxsea Time Zero. It was a very tough decision, but the bottom line was that I like how Time Zero feels. It is fast and responsive. I was also able to get charts for Japan which seem very good. The major downside is that the other two GSSR boats are still using Nobeltec. I’ll need to also use Nobeltec so that we can continue to swap routes.

And on a completely different topic…

The GSSR group may be growing! Some of you may recall that the GSSR was originally scheduled to be four boats. The fourth boat, Starr, a 75’ Northern Marine, dropped out just prior to the start of the trip.

Instead, Starr, and her owners (Don and Sharry Stabbert), headed to Hawaii. Don and Sharry have recently made the decision to catch up to the other GSSR boats, and hope to travel from Hawaii to Japan over the next few months, arriving in Japan in time to rendezvous with our group.

Don and Sharry will be a great addition to our group. They have cruised 10s of thousands of miles including two trips to Polynesia and this most recent trip to Hawaii.

Don and Sharry MAY be sending out a blog as they go. I have them set up to send a blog, but I don’t know if they plan to blog or not. The website that recounts their past voyages is: http://www.starrvoyages.com, and to the extent that they do blog, you should sign up at: http://starr.talkspotblogs.com to receive them.

And lastly…

Bill Harrington, the Kodiak Alaska based commercial fisherman who was along with us on the trip across the Atlantic, sent me this picture of a new boat he bought for doing scallop fishing. Congratulations Bill!

That’s it for today,

Thank you!

Ken Williams

PS A note about my books….

I just released a Kindle version of my most recent book which is now available at Amazon.com. Just search for “Great Siberian Sushi Run”. To find the printed versions of my book you can go to: http://www.lulu.com/kenw

Jessica crosses the equator, and Maxsea Timezero reviewed

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve been continuing to read Jessica Watson’s blog. She’s the 16 year old currently circumnavigating. Her blog can be found at:

http://youngestround.blogspot.com/

Today's entry: http://youngestround.blogspot.com/2009/11/northern-hemisphere.html

I mention it today because it is a bit of a milestone for her: she has now crossed the equator. (Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6xI1jLmBCs)

When I first mentioned her circumnavigation, I hadn’t realized that she was going around the world NON-STOP. I did read this, but somehow it didn’t make sense. I didn’t think it possible. But, she really is doing it! Apparently, there’s a tradition of sailors doing this, and even a set of rules you have to honor in order for the trip to qualify as a true non-stop round-the-world journey. According to the “rules”, she needs to cross the equator at least once during her circumnavigation. She started on the south east corner of Australia, so to reach the equator she has had to sail north east for 4,000 miles! After this she will head south east, down to the southern tip of South America, and then stay south around the southern tip of Africa. This is sure to put her in some rough weather.

She has been doing daily updates, and thus far hasn’t had much to write about, although I very much look forward to her little blurbs each day.

And on a much more techie topic…

As most of you know, I’ve been evaluating different charting packages.

	I just received Maxsea yesterday. It is incredible, and will almost certainly become my favorite PC-based charting package. A few negatives: - It feels like a release 1.0 (which it is). Poor documentation, clunky install (particularly of the charts) - No Windows 7 support (although, they say it is coming in January) - No S-63 chart support - Large hard drive requirement for the charts (not sure the total, but I've installed about 6gb of charts and already and am just getting started) A few positives: - It supports the 3-d cards, so panning and zooming are incredibly quick. - The user interface feels very intuitive. I like how you can shift time to see future currents and tides - It's the best integrated support for downloading weather I've seen. You just highlight a rectangle on the screen and ask it to download weather. So far, it hasn't charged me. - It supports my screens full resolution. I'm running it at 1920x1200, and can split the window in two - The 3d mode is slick, and fast. I like running with a 2d chart in one window and a 3d chart in the other. You could also split the screen to have a raster chart in one window, and vector in the other, or charting, plus radar. (That said, I'm having trouble getting the radar to appear.) I am early on the learning curve, and haven't figured a lot of things out, so the above is just based on a cursory look at the product. One thing: I had expected it to be based on the Navnet3d code base, and it does seem to have much in common, plus appears to have good integration with Navnet3d. However, it really is a different product, and doesn't have, or doesn't have yet, many of the features of Navnet 3d, such as camera support, depth sounder, arpa support, multiple screen support, etc. It slightly annoyed me that the support is based in France. My questions to support are responded to by someone for whom English is a "second language," and there is a lot of French mixed into the response. The good news is that all questions have been answered within 24 hours, and they do claim Windows 7 support by January, whereas Nobeltec claims nothing. I'm currently puzzling over how to import all my Nobeltec routes, tracks and waypoints. I "think" there is a way, but it certainly isn't intuitive. As to stability, there's no way to say. It is too early in the ballgame. Ask me 10,000 miles from now... Overall, it appears to be a revolutionary step forward, and something that most users will love. However, it also feels like an immature product, and less adventurous cruisers might want to give it a year or two to stabilize before swapping over.

I just received Maxsea yesterday. It is incredible, and will almost certainly become my favorite PC-based charting package.

A few negatives:

- It feels like a release 1.0 (which it is). Poor documentation, clunky install (particularly of the charts)
- No Windows 7 support (although, they say it is coming in January)
- No S-63 chart support
- Large hard drive requirement for the charts (not sure the total, but I've installed about 6gb of charts and already and am just getting started)

A few positives:

- It supports the 3-d cards, so panning and zooming are incredibly quick.
- The user interface feels very intuitive. I like how you can shift time to see future currents and tides
- It's the best integrated support for downloading weather I've seen. You just highlight a rectangle on the screen and ask it to download weather. So far, it hasn't charged me.
- It supports my screens full resolution. I'm running it at 1920x1200, and can split the window in two
- The 3d mode is slick, and fast. I like running with a 2d chart in one window and a 3d chart in the other. You could also split the screen to have a raster chart in one window, and vector in the other, or charting, plus radar. (That said, I'm having trouble getting the radar to appear.)

I am early on the learning curve, and haven't figured a lot of things out, so the above is just based on a cursory look at the product. One thing: I had expected it to be based on the Navnet3d code base, and it does seem to have much in common, plus appears to have good integration with Navnet3d. However, it really is a different product, and doesn't have, or doesn't have yet, many of the features of Navnet 3d, such as camera support, depth sounder, arpa support, multiple screen support, etc.

It slightly annoyed me that the support is based in France. My questions to support are responded to by someone for whom English is a "second language," and there is a lot of French mixed into the response. The good news is that all questions have been answered within 24 hours, and they do claim Windows 7 support by January, whereas Nobeltec claims nothing.

I'm currently puzzling over how to import all my Nobeltec routes, tracks and waypoints. I "think" there is a way, but it certainly isn't intuitive.

As to stability, there's no way to say. It is too early in the ballgame. Ask me 10,000 miles from now...

Overall, it appears to be a revolutionary step forward, and something that most users will love. However, it also feels like an immature product, and less adventurous cruisers might want to give it a year or two to stabilize before swapping over.

And, on a different topic…

I’m now in San Jose Del Cabo Mexico, where I’ve been missing our boat, which is still in Japan.

Separate from our Nordhavn, I’m partners with a neighbor in a sport fisher here in Cabo. We’ve owned jointly for several years an Ocean 48, but this summer we decided to upgrade to a Cabo 52.

My partner owns the majority of the partnership, and I don’t really fish, so he assumed all responsibility for picking out the new boat. I had no involvement beyond answering the phone once in a while to say, “If you like it, I’m sure it will be fine.” I hadn’t seen the boat until a couple days ago, and was very curious about it.

We have a full-time Mexican captain, Ramon, who took me out, just for a quick spin around the bay. And, a quick spin it was. My Nordhavn weighs 120 tons, and has 680 horsepower, most of which I never use. The Cabo 52 has 1,600 horsepower, and weighs about 30 tons. We were quickly at 40 knots! Of course, my Nordhavn typically burns about 12 gallons per hour of fuel, whereas the Cabo burns around 170 gallons per hour at 40 knots. As you can imagine, I won’t be going fast very often.

More interesting to me than the high-speed performance was the low-speed performance. I wanted to know the fuel burn at 10 knots. At 9 knots, I was able to get it to 10 gallons per hour, or about .9 nm/gallon, and at 10 knots the burn jumped to 30 gallons per hour, or .4 nm per gallon.

Specifically, I was trying to figure out the range. There are some islands about 220 nm south of Cabo, called Socorro, that are famous for their diving. There are no facilities at Socorro, and I’m trying to decide if I could run this boat out there or not. I’m a little worried about running these engines at such low rpms for so long, but think I could make it there and back. We’ll see. My next goal is to see if I can get a permit to visit Socorro.

The boat is certainly beautiful, and fun to drive. And, according to my partner, it is very comfortable in high seas. He ran it from San Diego to Cabo between hurricanes, in fairly rough seas, and said it was as not bad at all. I don’t fish, so all I really use the boat in Cabo for is occasional sightseeing expeditions with guests (when you live in Cabo you get LOTS of guests!)

I should also mention, although you’ve probably already heard this…

I released my book about the Great Siberian Sushi Run! A preview of the book can be found here:

http://www.tinyurl.com/nordhavn

You can buy a copies of my GSSR book, as well as my previous books, at:

http://www.lulu.com/kenw

And, lastly, the trip planning for next summer’s GSSR trip is still continuing. …

Roberta and I had dinner a few nights ago with Hugh and Teresa O’Reilly, of the trawler Westward. (http://classicyacht.org/westward/)

Hugh and Teresa recently ran Westward, their historic 85 year old trawler, across the Pacific, through Polynesia, to Japan, and back to Seattle, via the Aleutian islands. I was appropriately in awe.

In addition to discussing their trip, they gave me a link to a website for the sailboat “Shadow of Lorelei” (http://www.sailblogs.com/member/shadowoflorelei/)

There are no cruising guides for the part of the world we are headed towards, so each piece of information has to be fought for one scrap at a time.

Shadow of Lorelei’s owners, Mauro and Pauline, who are Australians, are now in the Philippines, and recently cruised the same places we’re going next year: Southern Japan, South Korea, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan and China. I have made contact with them, and will be studying their blog.

That’s it for now.

Thank you,
Ken Williams
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci
www.kensblog.com

[KensOtherBlog] Charting, disasters, and more

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Roberta and I are now making our annual migration south to Cabo for the winter. We’ve been busy over the past week preparing for our trip, so not much has been happening as far as trip planning for next year’s GSSR trip.

Charting

I mentioned that I’ve been researching different nav software packages. Currently, I run Nobeltec, and am very happy with it. However, their charts, in Asia, are weak. Also, Nobeltec has been recently acquired, and this makes their future uncertain.

Thus, I purchased two different packages; Rose Point Software’s Coastal Explorer, and Furuno’s Maxsea TimeZero.

Thus far, Coastal Explorer seems too do everything I want. It imports my tracks and routes from Nobeltec, and adds support for S-63 charts, which Nobeltec didn’t have. This allows me to import charts from the various hydrographic associations around the world, and to purchase the British Admiralty charts. I have a long list of features I was looking for in a nav software package, including the ability to see tides and currents into the future, and support for BOTH raster and vector charts. There is no feature I’ve wanted that Coastal Explorer doesn’t seem to have. I need to spend more time with it, to see if I really like the interface, but my preliminary opinion is very positive.

Furuno is off to a bad start on Maxsea TimeZero. I gave them my departure date for Mexico over a month ago, and they said “No problem” on getting me the software prior to departure. The day before departure they said they were ready to ship the software to me, which does me no good. Shipping to Seattle when I’m in Cabo means it will sit for months. And, shipping anything to Cabo means it may or may not arrive. So… I’m not sure when I’ll see my copy.

Cabo (in more than one sense of the word)

In Cabo (Mexico), I’m partners with a neighbor on a sport fisher. We have owned an Ocean 48 together for a few years. I’m not into fishing, but my partner takes fishing very seriously. Last year, he was a finalist with our boat in the Bisbee fishing tournament, and made some money. There are millions of dollars in prizes available. He didn’t win the big money, but was very happy. This year, he REALLY wanted to win it, and decided a new boat would help. Thus. We traded in our Ocean 48 on a Cabo 52. I haven’t seen the new boat yet, but expect to see it later this week. He says I’ll be blown away. On his way south from San Diego to Cabo, he said that he ran through extremely rough seas and couldn’t believe how smoothly it ran. Unfortunately though, the tournament was last week, and he didn’t win anything. He had lots of stories about, “The one that got away…” All I really use the boat for is to take our houseguests out fishing, and occasional sightseeing tours up and down the coast. I’m looking forward to seeing the new boat!

Jenny

I just finished reading a book about a Nordhavn 46, called Jenny. I was curious to read it, because during our trip to Costa Rica last year we anchored with Jenny several times, and met her owners, David and Mary Schramm. Several people have recommended the book to me.

It’s a long book, but I zipped through it pretty quickly. Anyone looking for what it is like to live on a Nordhavn, and what it costs, will find many of the answers they are seeking. The book is compiled from David’s blog entries, which I had never read. Amazingly, he shares more personal details than one would expect in his blog. As you read the book he talks about his wife Mary starting to lose interest in the cruising lifestyle, and communications between them breaking down. Finally, on arrival in Panama, she exits the boat, and the 20 year marriage is over. This leads to David continuing his quest for adventure, which now includes young ladies in Cartagena Columbia (both traditional and rented). Unusual content for a boat blog, but compelling reading. Life on a boat is definitely a test of a marriage… and, I’m disappointed David’s failed the test, as is David.

Jenny's Journey: The Reality of Living the Dream, by David Schramm (available via Amazon)

And, speaking of disasters….

Here’s the first story I’ve ever read of a trawler being sunk by a jellyfish:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/6483758/Japanese-fishing-trawler-sunk-by-giant-jellyfish.html

And, here’s a couple of stories that are much too close to home.

Immediately after the start of the Bisbee tournament, that I mention above, a boat caught fire and sank. All crew were rescued safely. Nothing scares me more than fire. Recently, someone told me that on a fiberglass boat, the size of a fire doubles every seven seconds. Basically, you either get the fire out immediately, or prepare the lifeboats. On Sans Souci we have fire extinguishers stuffed pretty much everywhere on the boat. That said, these incidents are a reminder that I want to label the outside of every cabinet that holds a fire extinguisher when I’m next on the boat. It is critical that not a second is wasted once a fire starts.

http://www.bisbees.com/Local/news/2009/articles/2009-10-22_BBB_bottomline.htm

http://www.bloodydecks.com/forums/fishing-chit-chat/165872-boat-burned-sunk-bisbees-today.html

And, coincidentally, and horribly, there was a fire in our home marina in Seattle, the same week:

http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/sanjuans/jsj/news/69182207.html

http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/sanjuans/jsj/news/69237527.html

http://www.rocheharbor.com/aboutus_news.html

And, lastly…

Our plans for the GSSR in 2010 include a stop in South Korea, however, this stop is starting to look dubious. As we’ve been working through the logistics, we keep hitting roadblocks.

Korea is very picky about allowing dogs in, and has a mandatory quarantine. We think we might be able to get around this, or in the worst case, just keep Shelby on the boat throughout our time in South Korea.

However, there’s a bigger issue…

After South Korea, we’ll be cruising the Okinawa Islands, which are part of Japan. Our boats have been cleared into Japan as domestic boats, meaning that as far as the Japan Coast Guard is concerned, we are Japanese vessels. This gives us many benefits in moving from port to port inside Japan. However, if we go to South Korea, we will need to export our boats. This means lots of paperwork. We’ll also have to export Shelby, which is a complicated process. Then, when we return to Japan, we’ll need to go through the expensive, and extensive, process of re-importing our boats, and Shelby. Argh. Momentum has shifted towards just taking a ferry to South Korea from the closest point in Japan.

That’s it for today!

Thank you,
Ken Williams
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci

[KensOtherBlog] Whales sink a boat off Baja

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I thought I'd pass along this article, if you haven't seen it:

http://www.10news.com/news/21457298/detail.html

The quick story is that a sailboat participating in the Baja Haha capsized when it struck a whale, leaving the crew floating at sea. This is the same route as the Fubar (which we ran in 2007), and which kicks off again sometime in the next couple of weeks. I still remember that on our Alaska trip, we started out by thinking, "Wouldn't it be awesome to see a whale?" By the time we reached Glacier Bay, we had realized that whales represent perhaps the most serious risk-factor in our entire voyage. There were several times when we narrowly escaped hitting whales, and Grey Pearl narrowly escaped having a breaching whale land on the boat. I don't even want to think about hitting one at night.... (which is certainly possible!)

As to my own boat... not much happening.

Our biggest project this week was not particularly glamorous: I swapped about 30 emails on the topic of getting new drawer slides for the boat. We've had several drawer slides fail. These are the little metal sliding rails that hold the drawers. I don't like dealing with these kinds of details, so I've been trying to find drawer rails that are strong enough that I could stand on the drawers and not hurt them.

And, a little more interesting, but still not too much fun...

I've spent the week looking at a replacement for my charting software. I currently own Nobeltec which I run on a PC, and Navnet 3d, which is a dedicated charting/radar/depth device. I like working with Nobeltec, and am accustomed to all of its quirks. However, Nobeltec was just sold to the same people who publish Maxsea (Furuno). I'm not sure what this means, and doubt I'd get the straight answer if I asked. My gut says that this means the end of Nobeltec. Surprisingly, I think Maxsea, as it existed previously is also going away. There was just a major upgrade to Maxsea, in which I suspect the only thing kept was the brand name. The newest release seems to be based on Navnet 3d, which is a good thing.

Adding to the confusion, or at least my confusion, Nobeltec does not seem to be capable of loading the charts I need for cruising in Asia. I need support for S-57 encryped charts, aka S-63. Nobeltec does have an add-in which reads s-57, but not the encrypted charts. Argh.

My current leaning is towards buying BOTH Maxsea TimeZero (their latest release) and Rose Point's Coastal Explorer, and then form an opinion. I have already installed a demo of Rose Point's software, and like it. I'll report back when I know more.

The mysterious pictures above are a bit more interesting. These are from inside the dome that holds my satellite dish, that I use for Internet. It stopped working once we arrived in Japan, and now I know why. The belt is stretched, and about to break! I had the maintenance crew at the marina in Japan pull my dome. My guess is that the constant bump-bump-bump of the Bering Sea was a bit much for the dish. It was endlessly repositioning the dish, to point at the satellite. For this next year, I'll have a fresh belt, and PLENTY of spares.

And, lastly...

I've been researching replacing my anchor light and running lights with LEDs. Prior to the start of the GSSR I swapped all lighting in the boat to LED, and had fantastic results (no bulb replacements, cooler inside the boat, and lower current draw). On Sans Souci, the anchor light is located 46 feet above the water. I'm not thinking about replacing the anchor light because of the lower power drain, although this is perhaps an advantage. In my case, I want an LED anchor light, solely because I don't want to ever be in a situation where I need to scale the mast, while sitting at anchor, at dusk, 46 feet off the ground. LEDs tend to last forever.

Thank you,
Ken Williams
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci
http://www.kensblog.com

[KensOtherBlog] The Nordhavn Rendevous, Life Rafts, Laser Beams, and more!

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This weekend I flew, along with three other Nordhavn-owner friends down to Dana Point for the Nordhavn Rendezvous. (Dean Heathcote, N55, John Marshall, N55 and John Henrichs, N64).

Nordhavn asked if I would give a talk about the GSSR, which I at first refused. I get horrible stage fright, plus Roberta and I already had alternate plans. However, when I learned that the 56 Motor sailor, and the 75 Yacht Fisher would be at the show, this pushed it over the edge for me to attend. I thought both boats were great ideas and was curious how they turned out.

The rendezvous started as a small gathering for Nordhavn owners, but kept growing. Nordhavn originally thought that seventy or so people might attend, but over two hundred had signed up when they cut off the registration. Above you see a picture of several Nordhavns that came for the event and rafted together.

In addition to seeing the boats, I was looking forward to meeting Eric and Christi Grab, who just completed a circumnavigation on their Nordhavn 43 Kosmos. Roberta and I met them once before, just as we were preparing to leave to cross the Atlantic in 2004. We had dinner together, and they shared their dream of buying a Nordhavn to circumnavigate. At the time, they had barely been on a boat, and neither Roberta or I took them seriously. Now, they are my heroes, and it was very cool just getting to shake their hands. Their last blog contained a list of questions they are asked over and over again by people they meet, and in my excitement to meet them I think I asked the same old questions they’ve already been asked hundreds of times. They were very gracious, and said they had been reading my blog.

I also was looking forward to seeing Jim and Suzy Sink. They were the first couple to circumnavigate a Nordhavn. Prior to Roberta and I buying our Nordhavn, twelve years ago, we visited their boat to ask them about Nordhavn and their trip around the world. I’m sure they doubted Roberta and I would ever buy a boat and go anywhere with it, but we are working hard to follow in the Sink’s and Grab’s footsteps.

That said, technically speaking, we aren’t following in anyone’s footsteps. The chart above, taken from this issue of Circumnavigator magazine, shows the routes from all known power boat circumnavigations that have taken place. As you can see, we’re the first to take the Northern route. I have no idea whether we’ll choose a more ‘normal’ route after this, or continue our pursuit of ‘uniqueness.’

Circumnavigator magazine can be downloaded here:

http://www.nordhavn.com/circumnavigator/circumnavigatorIV.pdf

As to the 56’ motorsailer, it blew me away! I’m perhaps the wrong person to ask about the motorsailer. I have only sailed with friends, and am no expert. The size of the interior surprised me. There were two very comfortable large-sized staterooms. The salon was very comfortable. There is a full review of the boat, with plenty of pictures in Circumnavigator. I spoke to a couple of different owners, both of which raved about the fuel efficiency of the boat. One said that on their run from Dana Point to Anacortes Washington, a distance of 1,080 nm, they made it non-stop. The motor sailor carries only 870 gallons of fuel, and they were in a hurry, so they motored the entire time. They made the run at 8.9 knots, with 80 gallons left over. That’s pretty impressive! The fit and finish, and the quality of all the running gear was beyond anything I’ve seen before on a sail boat.

I confess to having a non-nautical reason for liking the motorsailer and the yachtfisher. During my business career I was always a fan of marketing, and branding. Nordhavn has a tremendous brand, but it is a very narrow brand. They have the dominant marketshare in a very tiny market. It sounds wrong to say this about someone who makes boats, but they are a big fish in a small pond. I don’t know the size of the total recreational boating market, but suspect trawlers represent a tiny fraction of the overall market. For Nordhavn to grow as a company, they need to expand beyond trawlers. I have no financial interest in Nordhavn, so technically their growth is none of my business, although having spent most of my life thinking about branding, it is impossible for me not to enjoy watching them expand the use of their brand name into new markets. They can’t dramatically expand revenue by adding more models which all compete in the same space.

The yachtfisher is a particularly interesting business case. The sportfisher market is huge, but very different than the trawler market. If you ask a sportfisher owner about his boat, he (and, it is usually a ‘he’) will usually speak about speed in the first few sentences. I am partners on a sportfisher (a Cabo 52), and my partner lives for the fishing tournaments. He wants to race out, catch the fish, and race back to port. An average day of fishing involves getting up early, running twenty to fifty miles out to the fishing grounds, catching some fish, and then running back to port.

Nordhavns are not known for their speed. Full displacement boats are very comfortable on the water, and very fuel efficient, but they are not fast. In a scenario where the boat leaves the port each morning, to zoom off to the fishing grounds 20 miles away, fish, and race back to port, the Nordhavn seems the wrong boat for the job.

However, there is some fraction of the sportfisher market that cares about luxury, comfort, range and fuel efficiency. I live in Cabo San Lucas Mexico, which is a popular sport fishing destination. I watch day after day as hundreds of fishing boats fish the waters within a 50 mile radius of Cabo. Most sportfishers have a range well under 400 miles. It is very uncommon to see a sportfisher more than even 50 miles from port. Are there some percentage of all the people who sport fish that want to break out of this pattern and run hundreds, or thousands, of miles to virgin fishing territory? I think there are. It might not be everybody, but there is some percentage of the market. A Nordhavn can get you anywhere you want to go, in absolute comfort, with very low fuel consumption. I’m not personally a fisherman, so I’m no expert, but what I can say is that I’ve watched repeatedly as friends fishing on my boat drop hooks and pull up huge fish almost immediately. In Attu, a friend caught a 270 pound halibut from my tender!

I don’t know whether the market for a long-range sportfisher (Nordhavn’s yachtfisher) represents 1% of the sportfisher market, or 10%, but I know there is some percentage of the sportfisher market that wants the extreme comfort and range of a full-displacement boat.

Anyway, with that background, I was curious to see the Yachtfisher, and see whether or not it felt ‘right.’ My first impression was very positive. Nordhavn got the look right. When my boat was at Los Suenos in Costa Rica, there were hundreds of sportfishers, plus my boat. We just didn’t fit in. This boat would look right at home, and I would think it would command a ton of respect.

The cockpit is much larger in person than it looks in pictures. The beam is over 22’, and the cockpit is split into two levels, a higher sitting area at the back of the salon, with an immense fishing cockpit below, lower to the waterline. The engine room is huge, easily handling the twin engines. The engines seem overly large for the boat: twin 740hp engines! However, I'm sure this power is a selling feature within the sportfisher market, where guys argue over who has the biggest (engines). The boat surprised me, in that I couldn’t figure where all the cockpit and engine room space came from. The boat is sitting on essentially my hull, stretched another seven feet. The interior had three lower staterooms, plus a large master stateroom, plus crew bunks in the pilot house, offering plenty of space for crew.

And, on a different topic...

Here’s something fun: I noticed another Nordhavn with a hot tub! Here’s a Nordhavn 76, just delivered from the factory. They put the hot tub behind the pilot house. I assume they did it to keep the weight low on the boat, but the view won’t be nearly as good, and they’ll lose this deck, which is our favorite dining place on the boat. That said, I’m sure they’ll love it!

And, on a completely different topic….

Here is a link to my slides from my presentation:

http://www.kensotherblog.com/uploads/42227/nordhavnpresentation.pdf

As feared, my actual speech was a mess. I made notes prior to the talk on what I would speak about. Unfortunately, there was no podium, so I had to hold the microphone myself. This also meant I had no place to put my notes. Of course all of this is just making excuses. Without notes to go by, I just kind of ‘winged it.’ Which wasn’t entirely bad. I had over a hundred slides, and just talked about what I remembered as the slides went by. The good news was that the trip was wonderful, and I had plenty to talk about. The bad news was that I had been asked to keep my talk under 30 minutes, and two thirds of the way through the slides I noticed that Dan Streech (Nordhavn’s president) looked frantic. I looked at the time and realized I had been talking for over an hour. I honestly thought I had been talking for only about fifteen minutes. Oops. I ran through the last third of my presentation in under a minute. Both Dan and the audience seemed to like the pace much better. Oh well… at least I won’t need to worry about being invited back next year.

As bad as I did, it’s tough to believe the audience didn’t get some value from the slides. It was an incredible trip, and I find it impossible to look at the pictures without being overwhelmed with memories. It’s tough to believe we’ll ever top this trip, although, we’ll certainly try!

I asked the group to pose for a photo that I could post on my blog. It turned out very nice, although I probably should have focused the camera.

My talk was followed by a presentation by Sprague Theobold, who previewed some of the early video from his recent trip through the northwest passage. Whereas our GSSR trip across the Bering Sea can be characterized as ‘a pleasant surprise’, the weather gods were not as nice to Sprague. He encountered ice so thick he felt he would be boxed in at any moment. He had to resort to using his Nordhavn 57 as an ice breaker, breaking his way through giant sheets of ice. He had to inch forward as he cut his way through the ice, and emotionally described seeing ice with what appeared to be blood, but then realizing it was his own bottom paint and that he was going in circles. He and his crew were convinced they were going to die, the boat crushed, and them frozen in the ice. He is working now on a documentary about the trip, and it looks like it will be incredible.

I attended a seminar on safety at sea…

I’ve done a few of these, so most of it I had heard before. Although, there was one thing that is on my list to research. The instructor mentioned that no one had been rescued from a life raft as a result of using flares in a couple of decades. This is partially because of the use of modern tracking devices such as epirbs, but also because flares are not really practical on a life raft. Who wants to fire an explosive device from a small rubber raft? There are a thousand ways it can go wrong, and the odds of the flare being noticed are small.

Our instructor mentioned successful tests of small laser devices for signaling.

I had never heard of these, but will definitely consider changing over from flares, which I really don’t like having on the boat. Whereas flares are ‘single use’ items, the lasers last up to 10,000 hours, and are visible up to 20 miles at night, or up to 3 miles during the day. The laser does require batteries, but batteries are easy to find, and they claim a 72 hour life with just a couple AA batteries.

I haven’t researched these, and don’t know if this is a good brand or not, but, check out: http://www.greatlandlaser.com/

I also need to research whether or not these are considered a legal signaling device by the coast guard.

As part of the presentation, they deployed a liferaft. I forget the stats but believe I heard that something like in half of all cases that a ship is abandoned the crew never makes it into the liferaft. There are many things that can go wrong with a liferaft:

- it hasn’t been inspected in a while and doesn’t open
- the line that ties the raft to the boat isn’t secured, and the raft blows away
- the raft snags on the boat, and goes to the bottom with it. It is for this reason that if I ever need to get into a raft, I’ll toss it overboard myself, rather than hoping that the hydrostatic release works

I’ve never watched a raft inflate. It was quick! One tug on the line to it, and in under 5 seconds, the raft was fully inflated and ready for entry. The instructor made one comment I found interesting. The raft that we were looking at looked like it would be tight for two people, but was rated as a six person raft. I have always assumed that the raft companies do this to save money, and bought two eight person rafts for this reason. I figured this would give Roberta and I plenty of space. However, the instructor said that the best protection against cold and hypothermia is each other’s body heat. This made sense, but my hope is henceforth to cruise only warm water. Thus, I won’t be downsizing my rafts.

One more interesting comment from the seminar. In all of the books I’ve read, shark attacks on life rafts are always a huge issue. The instructor pointed out that shark attacks get much worse over time. If you are only in the water for a few hours, the bottom of your raft is clean, and doesn’t particularly attract the sharks. But, if you spend days in the raft, crud starts to grow on the bottom. This attracts the fish, who feed off it, and the sharks, who feed off the fish. I had never thought of it this way. It's another great reason to make sure the epirb is working.

And, lastly…

I mentioned Jessica Watson’s trip around the world on my last blog (the 16 year old Australian girl). I’ve been reading her blog daily, and it is pretty interesting. I hadn’t realized that she is going non-stop! Unless I’m still confused, she really intends to go around the world without stopping. Hence, no clearing of customs or anything – she just keeps going, and has eight months of food onboard! I was critical of her trip, and had a few negative comments on my blog. The debate makes fun reading. To read it, go to the website (http://www.kensotherblog.com) and click on yesterday’s blog entry. I’ve been softened a bit, but just don’t like the idea of any boat running with no one at the helm. The popularity of her blog is staggering. My blog, when we are cruising is considered one of the most popular blogs in the boating community (approx. 7,000 daily readers). My average blog attracts 5 to 10 comments. Her blog is attracting 500 to 1,000 comments a day. Wow! One way or the other, she will come out of this thing famous. Amazing.

That’s it for now…

Thank you!
Ken Williams
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci

[KensOtherBlog] 16 Year old young lady circumnavigating alone?

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

At the bottom of this email are links to the website, and blog, of Jessica Watson.

Her journey, and blog, is just getting started, so it is too early to say how interesting it will be, but my suspicion is: “very.”

She’s a 16 year old young lady, setting off to circumnavigate alone, in a small 34 foot sailboat, named “Ellas’s Pink Lady.”

Her circumnavigation got off to a dicey start a few weeks back when she was struck by a freighter on a practice run.

Here's an article about the collision, from an Austrailian newspaper:

	Watson missed cargo ship on her radar before collision ARI SHARP October 21, 2009 THE teenage sailor Jessica Watson failed to detect a 64,000-tonne cargo ship on her yacht's radar and then went to sleep less than five minutes before the two collided, transport safety investigators say. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau yesterday released findings of its preliminary investigation into the September 9 incident in which the 16-year-old's 10.4- metre sloop, Ella's Pink Lady collided with the Hong Kong-registered carrier Silver Yang. Ms Watson was on the first night of a journey from Mooloolaba, on the Sunshine Coast, to Sydney as a trial run before her attempt to sail around the world, which started on Sunday. In releasing the report, the safety investigators declined to comment on whether it was wise for her to proceed with the eight-month journey, saying it was up to Ms Watson and her support crew to decide. But before Ms Watson departed from Sydney, the safety bureau arranged a visit to the bridge watch keeper's position on a tanker ship in order to help her understand what could be seen from that vantage point. It also suggested she visit fatigue management experts in an effort to help her better manage her sleep patterns on the solo journey, and encouraged her to fit radar reflectors to make her craft more easily seen. The six-page safety report says Ms Watson checked her radar before a planned sleep about 1.46am but did not detect the Silver Yang on her radar despite it being only one mile from her position. But a crew member of the Silver Yang had spotted the Pink Lady at 1.25am, and 23 minutes later altered the ship's direction by 10 degrees in an effort to avoid it. Silver Yang then applied hard-to-starboard rudder to steer out of the path, but at 1.50am Pink Lady's bow collided with Silver Yang's port side. Lead investigator Peter Foley said Ms Watson had used high-quality equipment, but improvements had been made ahead of her journey around the world. ''She's got a very well equipped vessel, and the radar system, no, we're not concerned about the adequacy,'' he told reporters. The agency said it would take up to six months to complete the report, and that it was in contact with Ms Watson's support crew if recommendations needed to be passed on to the skipper. The report released today will be followed by an analysis and then a determination of safety issues. The agency emphasised it did not seek to apportion blame in the case of incidents it investigated, but instead made recommendations to improve safety.

I must admit that I am not a supporter of this type of venture, and not because of her sex or her age. I will get slammed for this comment, but I really do not think boats should be on the ocean, under way, with no one at the helm. I do not like the whole idea of single-handers crossing oceans. She has radar which is supposed to wake her up if another boat comes within range, which I suppose makes it reasonably safe, although I think the accident would argue that it isn't. I can't imagine that insurance companies think this is a good idea.

Her bravery and sense of adventure is awe-inspiring, and I wish her well. That said, were it up to me, I would not think single handing a sailboat, or a solo person 16 years old circumnavigating, are very good ideas.

Jessica's website: http://www.jessicawatson.com.au

And, her blog: http://www.youngestround.blogspot.com/

-Ken Williams
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci

A lunch with some cruisers who have been to SE Asia

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Roberta and I lead complicated lives, and the past couple of weeks have been busy, even by our standards. We live primarily between the boat, wherever it may be, and our home in Mexico. We also have a condo, here in Seattle, that we pass through as we move between the boat and Mexico. When we are here in Seattle, it is usually to do all those things we can’t do when we’re outside the United States. We get haircuts, go to the dentist, visit the doctor, see the accountants, meet with the bank, open months of mail, open boxes, pay bills, and more. We’re usually only in Seattle for a few weeks, and our days are overloaded with errands.

One project which I need to start focusing on is the trip planning for next year’s GSSR trip. I’ve done a bit this past week, googling to find information on cruising Japan’s inland sea, Okinawa, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Mostly, it has been a dead end. There aren’t many boats that cruise that part of the world, and most of the few cruising guides that exist aren’t in English. I’ve found a few blogs, which I’m studying, but that’s about it.

The best source of information is to hunt down people who have been there before. When we were traversing the Aleutians, I heard rumor of a trawler that was running our same route the opposite direction, a 50 foot Diesel Duck named DavidEllis. We passed each other about half way across the Aleutians, but never met. With a little research I was able to track down DavidEllis’ owners, David and Dorothy Nagle, who live in Seattle. I swapped a few emails with David, and discovered that he had spent years cruising in the same areas where the GSSR is heading.

Our discussions led to a lunch between Roberta and I, and David and Dorothy, earlier this week. They were a wealth of knowledge!

David is a retired police officer, who picked up his trawler in Hong Kong, and then spent a few years cruising the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia. David and Dorothy lived in Hong Kong for a year and a half. In addition to wanting to learn all I could about cruising in the area, I also wanted to see if he had any contacts who might be able to help us with our dog Shelby. Roberta and I have been working for weeks trying to figure out the issues associated with taking Shelby into South Korea, Taiwan and China. David had a puppy onboard all the way from Hong Kong to Seattle.

A major topic of discussion was safety in the region. David was very encouraging with respect to Hong Kong saying that he could live there quite happily, and felt completely safe. However further south, in Malaysia, the Philippine islands, and Indonesia, he said that piracy is definitely an issue. There is a lot of poverty, and any time you have poverty, piracy is a factor. I asked if he had ever been attacked, and he said that he was happy to report that he had not been. However, he did have some incidents which were suspicious and could have been a problem. He was boarded a couple of times by locals who looked threatening, but whom he was able to ‘talk’ into leaving. He felt his experience as a police officer helped him in his attempt to defuse a potentially threatening situation. I asked what he did and he said that he just blocked their path into his boat while smiling and encouraging them to sit down and relax. He also related an incident where his boat was scouted by dangerous looking persons in a panga. Once again, he was able to defer an attack by smiling and waving, even though he could read in their body English what they were planning. As soon as the boat had turned the corner he headed deep to sea, despite rough seas and high winds, knowing the panga would have trouble following. As a civilian I don’t know that I’d have his ability to spot or defuse these situations. There are skills taught to police officers that they don’t teach at software developer school, one of which is the carrying and use of firearms. I did ask if he thought we would be safe traveling as a ‘fleet’ of three boats, and he said that he thought it would add significantly to our safety.

David had a lot to say on the topic of typhoons. One comment in particular caught my attention. He said that although there is a typhoon season, every month of the year has experienced a typhoon in the region. There are months when typhoons are less likely, but no months when you are completely safe. He also mentioned that as we get far enough south to venture into the southern hemisphere, the typhoon season will swap. We’ll need to time our travels such that we leave the northern hemisphere before typhoon season, but reach the southern hemisphere after their typhoon season ends. David mentioned getting clobbered by a typhoon in the Philippines which put two of the three boats in the bay, where he was hiding, onto the beach.

Because we’ll be leaving our boats in Hong Kong next winter, I wanted to learn all I could about Hong Kong. I’ve been there a few times, but arriving on a plane, and staying at a hotel, is a completely different experience than arriving on a boat, with plans to stay for several months. During our search for marinas, I had ruled out several places on Hong Kong island, because the boats sit on mooring balls, not in a marina. We did find a marina that we have reservations at, but it will be a 45 minute drive from the heart of Hong Kong. To my surprise, David said that we should reconsider our decision, and not rule out the mooring ball-based marinas. This to me sounded loony. “How do you get to shore?”, I asked. David said that sampans (little shuttle boats) run regularly to shore. “What about shore power?”, I asked. He said that some moorings have shore power which comes from under the water, but that most boats survive without power. He said that he simply ran his generator as needed, and that once you get accustomed to this, it isn’t a big deal. I asked what happens when he leaves the boat, and he said that he hires a local guy to come about every few days to run the generator. I forgot to ask about what happens on hot days, when air conditioning is required, but I know the answer. Air conditioning means running the generator. It would be nice to be closer to the action, but I can’t imagine leaving the boat sitting on a mooring ball all winter.

David and Dorothy’s website is at: http://www.sailblogs.com/member/sempergumbi

And, on a completely different topic…

Nordhavn is hosting an event in Dana Point next week. It’s open to boat owners, and non-owners, and provides a chance to see some of the boats up close, including the newest models; the sport fisher and the motor sailor. I have been too busy to consider attending, but have now decided to be there. Nordhavn has asked that I speak to the group.

http://www.nordhavn.com/news/pressrelease/rendezvous_ca/

I’ll post the slide show from my speech early next week.

And, I’ve started working on my book about our GSSR trip. I’m still working on the copy for the back cover, and don’t know if this will be the cover I go with or not, but here’s the latest thinking:

Lastly, here’s a bit of silliness…

Seattle is a bit of a tourist town. There’s an attraction, called “Ride the Ducks” that uses old amphibious vehicles from WWII to shuttle tourists around town. http://www.ridetheducksofseattle.com

The tour is about 90 minutes of which about an hour is around town, then 30 minutes in the water. I’ve watched the tours go down the street for years, and finally got curious. Roberta and I did the duck tour yesterday. Don’t tell anyone here in Seattle, or we’ll be horribly embarrassed, and written off as tourists. However, it was actually very fun. I wanted to sit up front to watch how the ‘captain’ drove the thing into the water.

The drivers really are ship’s captains, and apparently Coast Guard licensed. Our captain mentioned that he had cruised through 31 countries on a sail boat. He was in a good mood, and our 30 minute cruise lasted over 45 minutes. It was pretty impressive. He just drove down a boat launch ramp, and we were cruising. We hit the weather lucky. He mentioned that the prior day there had been high winds and strong rains, and he had to deal with seasick passengers. I would like to have been in the truck/boat while it was pounding, just to see how it took the seas, but it felt much better than I expected. He was able to get it up to 7 knots, and at the end of our ride, he just drove it back up the boat ramp. The steering wheel was controlling the rudder, and it (the Duck) appeared to have a variable pitch prop.

And, lastly, I mentioned Snubbers in my last blog update.

There is been a terrific discussion on snubbers on the Trawlers and Trawlering board:

http://lists.samurai.com/pipermail/trawlers-and-trawlering/2009-October/thread.html

Thank you,
Ken Williams
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci
www.kensblog.com, and www.kensotherblog.com

The typhoon has hit

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The typhoon made news around the world!

	Powerful typhoon slams into Japan “…TOKYO – A powerful typhoon slammed into Japan on Thursday, damaging buildings and roads, halting train service and canceling hundreds of flights as it swept across the country. One man died and dozens were reported injured. The storm flooded roads and homes, toppled trees and power lines and heavily damaged some buildings….”

This was our first time to go through a typhoon at the marina, so we didn’t know how protected (sheltered from the wind) we would be. The good news is that we are VERY well protected. All three boats made it through the storm without damage. The winds at our boats were not that bad. We had sustained winds at 40 knots, with gusts to 57 knots. The direction of the wind also helped. The winds were on Grey Pearl and Seabird’s stern, and were pushing me off the dock.

A few weeks back, when we were in the Yokohama marina, my boat, Sans Souci, was in the opposite situation. We had tied down the boat for an approaching typhoon, and were feeling good about how well we were tied. As the winds topped 27 knots, I heard a knock-knock-knock on the side of the boat. It was the harbormaster, and he asked if I could move the boat. The typhoon was going to be pushing Sans Souci into the dock, and he was afraid that Sans Souci’s 120 tons of weight were going to smash his dock. I couldn’t believe he wanted me to move the boat in high wind, with a typhoon coming, and grumbled a bit, but knew he was right. Luckily the wind dropped, and I had no trouble moving the boat. Even better, the typhoon made a turn and never came ashore.

Over the past couple of days, as I was watching Typhoon Melor gain strength, and realized that it was going to score a direct hit, I resolved myself that there would be some damage. When we left Japan I was confident that typhoons were over for the season, and yet put plenty of lines on anyhow. I counted the docklines as we left the marina for the last time, and I had 12 lines holding Sans Souci to the dock, most of which were 1 1/8” double-braid, thick heavy dock line. I had also put out far more fenders than were necessary. I wasn’t worried about the boat going anywhere, but did think we would lose some of our canvas covers, and perhaps some of the equipment on the radar arch.

However, thanks to being in an extremely well-protected marina we were sheltered from the heaviest winds. In the days prior to the typhoon striking, Steven and Carol Argosy added additional lines and fenders to all three GSSR boats, for which I thank them immensely. With a little luck Steven will send some pictures from during the typhoon, and if so, I’ll send them out.

And, on a different topic, last night, Roberta and I had dinner with Scott and Teri Strickland…

Scott and Teri crossed the Atlantic with us back in 2004, as part of the Nordhavn Atlantic Rally. Recently, and sadly, they sold their Nordhavn 47. Many of you will remember this picture from the end of the Atlantic Rally, where Teri listed on a rally T-Shirt all of the seasickness medications she took, and joked about selling the boat:

It seems like there have been a number of highly visible drop-outs amongst Nordhavn cruisers this year. A few months back, a Nordhavn 40 owner, Scott Bulger, who has been a very active writer about cruising, sold his boat, after cruising all the way from Seattle to Maine. Circumnavigators, Eric and Christi Grab, who just took their Nordhavn 43, Kosmos, around the world, announced they would be selling their boat.

I think in all three of these cases, selling the boat, after a few years cruising, was always the plan. I remember Scott Strickland’s and my first conversation where he said he had negotiated a deal with Teri to cruise for three years, then buy a house in Minnesota and settle down. Instead, they’ve cruised most of the world over the past five years.

I was curious to see whether or not they regretted selling the boat. And in fact, they are. It's tough to leave a life of world exploration and go back to being a 'civilian.' Both of them are missing their boat, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they are back to cruising within a few years. I asked their favorite cruising destinations, and they said: Turkey and Croatia. I asked where they would go if they ever bought another boat. Scott didn’t hesitate before saying, “Across the Pacific.”

And, of course, when guys get together, and have a couple glasses of wine, the conversation always turns to…

You guessed it, Anchoring.

[NOTE: The following discussion is a bit techie. Those of you who aren’t boat geeks probably want to stop reading now]

Our discussion of the typhoon in Japan led Scott and I to talking about the high winds we’ve both seen while anchoring in the Med. Both of us have sat at anchor in winds over 50 knots, on more than one occasion. I asked what scope Scott normally puts out (the ratio of how much anchor rode to the depth of the water). The ‘official’ coast guard recommendation is for 7 to 1 in normal conditions, 5 to 1 in calm seas, and 10 to 1 in heavy weather. A 7 to 1 ration means that if you are in 30 feet of water, you would put out 7 times as much in chain (rode), or 210 feet. However, as with all things, situations vary, and it is wrong to use a hard and fast rule. Putting out 200 feet of anchor rode means you need a ‘swing circle’ of at least 400’, which isn’t always possible, or, necessary. In Alaska, we often had to anchor in deep water, sometimes water over 100’ deep. I carry only 400’ of anchor rode. Even if I had enough chain (rode) to put out 7 to 1 scope, there wouldn’t have been room for my boat to swing in the anchorages. Plus, there’s a lot of garbage on the bottom. The greater my swing circle, the greater the odds I’ll be wrapping my anchor chain around a log or boulder lying on the bottom.

Here’s some fun with math…

100’ of rode = 31,400 sq ft
200’ of rode = 125,600 sq ft
300’ of rode = 282,600 sq ft
400’ of rode = 502,400 sq ft

The table above shows the area, in square feet, inside the swing circle, based on how many feet of rode is out. It says that if you put out 100’ of anchor rode, then the circle formed by your boat pivoting around the anchor is 31,400 sq ft. However, if you double the amount of anchor rode, the square footage of the circle formed rises exponentially, to 125,600 sq ft --- four times as large! If you put 300' feet out, you now have nearly ten times as much square footage of bottom that you need to worry about. If the bottom is nice clean sand, this isn’t a big deal, but if the bottom is littered with crud, which can include rusted out cars, coral, trees and more – this can be a very important topic.

If you agree with the preceding paragraph, then there should be no more anchor rode out than it takes to hold the boat. Historically, I’ve always put out between 5 to 1 and 7 to 1. Scott mentioned that he regularly does 3 to 1, and in calm protected anchorages drops as little as 1.5 to 1 (meaning 45 feet of rode in 30 feet of water).

Scott’s a smart guy, and I like to think I’m a smart guy, and I also assume that the US Coast Guard is full of smart people. So, how can so many smart people see this issue so differently?

First off, let me say that putting out too little rode is a serious mistake. Snagging the rode on a log would be no fun, but it would be much worse to drag anchor on a windy night while sleeping. If the choice is to risk losing the anchor, or risk losing the boat, it’s an easy decision. In other words, this is a case where the right answer should be to err on the side of safety. Too much safety is not a bad thing. However, as I said earlier, dropping 7 to 1 isn’t always practical.

And, the needed ratio for safe anchoring can vary according to your anchor and your rode. There are many different kinds of materials used for anchor rode. I use heavy 1/2” high-test chain with a 250 lb Rocna anchor (which I’m in the process of upgrading to 325 lbs.) The chain is heavy and the anchor is heavy. My Nordhavn 68 has never dragged anchor, despite seeing some fairly tough anchoring conditions.

When I pushed Scott on how he was getting away with lower ratios, he surprised me by having a good analytical response to my question. Whereas I’ve always sought out anchorages with adequate swing room, Scott has put some effort into to quantifying how much space he really needs. This has all been a bit mysterious to me, so I was happy to hear someone with a good idea.

Scott has taken the time to set his anchor multiple times at the same location, each time putting out a different amount of rode. He then backs down on the anchor until the anchor drags. His contention is that all anchors will drag sooner or later, and it is just a matter of knowing what RPM it takes to cause the anchor to drag. For instance, let’s say that he puts out 300’ of chain, and discovers that the anchor drags at 2130 rpm, and then tries the same test with only 100’ of chain out, and the anchor drags at 2100 rpm. In other words, in this particular exercise, there was no material difference in the force required to drag the anchor, so why not go with the shorter amount of rode? It’s an interesting question, if true. Scott has tried this comparison and said that with his anchor, and his chain, he can’t see a material difference between a 3 to 1 scope, and a 5 to 1 scope or even 7 to 1 scope. If high winds are expected, and plenty of swing room is available, then it’s worth doing the longer scope, however, for Scott’s boat, under ‘normal’ conditions, why bother with putting unnecessary chain into the water?

Scott has actually taken this exercise a bit farther, and has correlated his engine rpm to the wind speed required to drag his anchor. For example, and I forget the exact RPMs he gave me, so don't take this literally, he knows that if it takes 2,000 rpm to drag his anchor, he can sleep without worrying, up to 25 knots of wind.

My guess is that the results vary greatly based on: the type and weight of the rode, the anchor, and the bottom. In other words, Scott’s results may, or may not, be relevant to my boat. Thus, I’m not sure what to do with this information, and there’s no way I’m going to do similar testing with my boat. My policy is to not like to push the limits. Putting enough horsepower onto a well-set anchor, to drag it, is completely outside my thinking. It feels like a formula for breaking something; the windlass, the bow pulpit, a weak link in the chain, or, if anything goes wrong, hurting someone. This kind of testing strikes me as dangerous. I’m glad someone is doing it, but happy it isn’t me.

Indirectly, this whole discussion relates to another topic I was thinking about just a few weeks ago…

I wanted to buy a simple shackle to go into my chain rode. At the marine store, there were a wide array available, each at a different price, with a different holding capacity. I forget the specifics, but I saw a variety of shackles running from $10 to over a hundred dollars, each holding different weights. The rated capacities seemed to run from 1 ton to about 20 tons. My boat weighs 120 tons, which stumped me as to which shackle I should buy. It seemed obvious that I should buy the highest rated one. As they say, a chain is only as strong as the weakest link. However, I didn’t have the vaguest idea what kind of pressures my anchor rode sees during usage.

Last week, Ron Rogers, a reader of my blog, sent me this chart:

For each 100 sq. feet of boat area presented to the wind -

20 Kts = 136 Lbs.
40 Kts = 542 Lbs.
60 Kts = 1220 Lbs.
80 Kts = 2170 Lbs.
100 Kts = 3990 Lbs.
120 Kts = 4882 Lbs.
140 Kts = 6644 Lbs.
160 Kts = 8678 Lbs
180 Kts = 10984 Lbs.

This shows the pounds of pressure exerted against the boat under different wind conditions. Normally at anchor, your bow is pointing into the wind, so to compute the surface area, you multiply your beam times the height of the boat. This isn’t a particularly accurate way to accomplish this, but gets you into the ballpark. Sans Souci is 21 feet wide by about 45 feet tall, or around 945 sq ft of ‘windage’ when pointing bow-to the wind. For purposes of calculations, and to make the math easier, I’ll trim this by about 20% to 800 sq. ft. because the flybridge doesn’t present a solid surface to the wind. So, to apply the table above, I would multiply these values by eight (800 sq. ft. versus the 100 sq ft in the table.) Thus, in a 60 knot wind, there would be 1220 lbs, multiplied by eight, or around 10,000 lbs (5 tons) of pressure on my anchor rode. This is less than I would have expected, and might still indicate a shackle that can handle double or triple this stress. In a 60 knot wind, at anchor, the sea would be unsettled, and a solid chain rode, pulled taut and incapable of stretching, causes major spikes in stress on the rode and anchor. [Note: This brings up the whole topic of snubbing, which I’ll look at in some other blog…]

I was also curious to use this table to compute the pressure on my boat, if it were turned beam-to the wind. Let’s take the same example from the preceding paragraph, with 5 tons of pressure when the boat is pointed into the wind, and try turning my beam to the wind. Suddenly my windage (the ‘sail’ I’m presenting to the wind) represents the length of my boat multiplied by height, or 68 feet times 40 feet, or about 2,700 sq ft. This equates to about 32,000 pounds of pressure, or 16 tons. Ouch. This example is a bit extreme, but there are certainly times I have been maneuvering in tight marinas, in 15 to 25 knot winds, and discovered that when I turn the boat, I’m suddenly shoved sideways. It is critical to know where the wind is, and how strong it is, in these situations, and to remember that as the wind speed increases, the added impact is exponential, not straight line. Compare, in the table above, the force exerted against the boat at 20 knots, to the force at 60 knots. You have three times as much wind, but nearly 10 times as much pressure against the boat.

That’s it for today. Hopefully I haven’t put you to sleep with this discussion, but we spend a lot of time at anchor, and I’m always interested in learning anything that might make anchoring safer. As I look back over our years of boating, all three of my top ‘scary’ experiences occurred while at anchor.

Thank you,
Ken Williams
Nordavn 68, Sans Souci
http://www.KensBlog.com
http://www.KensOtherBlog.com

PS Steven and Carol Argosy (Seabird) emailed this morning their final update from this year’s GSSR cruising. It also includes a bit more information about the typhoon…

http://www.seabirdlrc.com/aspx/blob2/blobpage.aspx?msgid=485656&beid=39047

There's a typhoon coming!

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

When Roberta and I returned home from Japan, we were absolutely certain that typhoon season was over, but it appears that we were wrong.

Steven and Carol Argosy (Seabird) are still in Japan with the boats, while Braun and Tina Jones (Grey Pearl) are on the east coast, and we're in Seattle.

Meanwhile, a typhoon is headed for Osaka, and it looks like a mean one.

Scale	-
Intensity	Very Strong
Center position	N23°05'(23.1°)
	E131°25'(131.4°)
Direction and speed of movement	NNW 25km/h(14kt)
Central pressure	930hPa
Maximum wind speed near the center	50m/s(95kt)
Maximum wind gust speed	70m/s(135kt)
Area of 50kt winds or more	Wide 150km(80NM)
Area of 30kt winds or more	NE560km(300NM)
	SW390km(210NM)

Roberta and I were at a movie theater tonight when I received the call from Steven alerting me to the oncoming typhoon.

While we were in Japan we had four of these typhoons headed for us, and all turned before reaching land. This one was expected to turn, but has kept coming, and is expected to hit Japan within the next 24 hours.

Hopefully, it will make a last minute turn. If not, the GSSR boats are likely to see winds of 90 knots or more.

Steven spent the day adding fenders to all three boats, and adding additional lines. I felt powerless when speaking to him. There's not much I could say except 'THANK YOU.' Luckily, our boats are in a very strong marina, in the best possible location.

To watch the typhoon yourself, as it approaches, and hopefully fizzles before it reaches Osaka, visit the website:

http://www.jma.go.jp/en/typh/

The good news, if there is any, is that Japan has a long history with typhoons. The cities and marinas are built with the knowledge that typhoons are an annual event. I hope the typhoon doesn't run the track that is now projected, because it looks to me like there is the potential for damage. This said, if any country is prepared for an oncoming typhoon, it is Japan.

And, since I mentioned being at the movies, and on a much cheerier note...

We were watching the film "Julie and Julia" about a young lady who wrote a blog about Julia Childs. She set a goal to cook all of the over-500 receipes in Julia Child's book in one year. It was a cute movie, but I most enjoyed watching her (Julie) sending her blog out, and watching for the comments to roll-in, and agonizing over what to write, only to hit the delete key when she decided it was too personal... and, sometimes NOT hit the delete key when she later wished she had (usually about 2 seconds after pressing the 'send' button.) I knew exactly how she felt. Roberta must have liked the film, because we're now slated for a Julia Child's recipe (Boeuf Bourguignon) for Sunday.

More tomorrow when I see if the typhoon missed us. I recommended to Steven that this could be a good day to check into a hotel, but he said that there is no need. He is confident he'll be safe on the boat.

-Ken Williams
www.kensblog.com, and www.kensotherblog.com

Not related to boating

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Here's something that has nothing to do with boating...

In my prior life, I made video games for a living. Someone just sent me a link to a t-shirt which is actually selling pretty well, that involves me.

This is very 'inside' and if you don't know what it means, that's probably good. But, one of my better selling video games was called "Leisure-Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards." In the opening sequence, of the first game in the series (there were eight games), there is a password scratched onto the wall of a bathroom. That password became pseudo famous amongst game-geeks. It was "Ken Sent Me".

And, now you know who Ken is... (me!)

If you are a video game fan, who remembers the old days, you might want one of these shirts.

http://shop.cafepress.com/ken-sent-me

I'm a video game fan from way-back...but, do not need one of these shirts. So, don't feel bad if you also don't want one.

And on a different, but equally non-thrilling topic...

I started the project going today, to convert my blog entries, for the GSSR trip, to a book. I don't make any money on the books, but they are fun souvenirs of the trip, and are handy for holding things down. I have a full time person working on doing all the re-formatting of the blogs as a book, and am trying to move the quality up a notch. My guess is that the book won't be to the publisher for a month or two...

-Ken Williams
www.kensblog.com (and, www.kensotherblog.com)

PS Al Lowe, who wrote Leisure-Suit Larry has just released a joke product for the iphone. Al's a very funny guy, and a good friend. Other than usually beating me at golf, he's a good guy. If you own an iphone, check out: http://www.thebinarymill.com/cyberjoke3000/index.php

An update from a cruiser who went through a Tsunami

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Below is a blog entry from yesterday, posted by a cruiser I've never met, Wayne on the sailboat Learnativity, who was in American Somoa when the major earthquake a few days ago hit. It's amazing reading. I'm reposting it here for your convenience, or you can read it directly on his blog, at: http://learnativity.typepad.com/

It reminded me of that old saying, "Boating is best described as long periods of boredom interspersed with short bursts of terror."

Ken Williams
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci

Doing the Tsunami Tango in American Samoa

Whew! Now THAT was a full day! As most of you will know by now I am in Pago Pago Harbor in American Samoa and yesterday (Tues Sept. 29, 2009) we took a direct hit from the tsunami effect caused by the undersea volcanic eruption that took place about 130nm south of here. Reports seem to estimate it at 8.0-8.3 on the Richter scale so that counts as quite significant I think; certainly was on the Wayne scale!

** Paste my lat/long 14 16.514S 170 41.554W into Google Earth to see for yourself. This is obviously be the "before" photo and we'll have to wait for the next satellite pass to see the "after"

I’m writing this a day later (Wed afternoon) now that I have a bit more time as things have calmed down a bit, both in terms of water action and more recently all the work in dealing with the aftermath. Many of you have been able to follow this via various means thanks to the efforts of my main man ashore and overall phenomenal resource; John Alonso in Florida. Shortly after escaping from the docks where Learnativity was tied up, I was able to get a few satellite phone connections and both talk to John as well as text him while I did my best to deal with the constant draining and then refilling of the harbor and dodge the endless onslaught of other ships, mostly empty, derelict hulls, containers, docks, oil drums and every other sort of debris you can imagine. John was then able to relay these to all of you via Twitter and Emails and I can’t thank him enough for helping to get the word out and let everyone know what was going on here. Now that I’ve got a bit more time let me start at the beginning and take you through the day of September 29th, 2009 on the good ship Learnativity.

I am up as usual about 6:30 and getting ready to go for my morning shower up on the deck when I became aware of a low frequency thrumming that I could both hear and feel. This continued and my first thought was that there was a large freighter or other ship nearby and I was simply feeling the effects of its large propellers churning the water. Stepping up into the cockpit to look around there was nothing in sight and it was otherwise the start of another day in paradise with the verdant hills surround Pago Pago Harbor rising up steeply all around me and piercing the few clouds in an otherwise brilliant blue sky. The calm harbor waters stretched out as Learnativity tugged gently on her dock lines securing us to the large concrete wharf where we have been docked in about 15’ of water since arriving on Friday afternoon and joined about six other sailboats and cruisers from Australia, USA and Canada.

But what IS that vibration?? It is about 06:50 as I step off the boat onto the concrete dock to see if it was perhaps just on Learnativity or the water? No, it continued and was intensifying if anything. Having experienced several other quakes including Mount St. Helens and the big quake in San Francisco and LA in the 90’s I began to suspect this as the source however it was too gentle and going on too long for my understanding of what an earthquake feels like. And I can HEAR it as much as feel it. Over a minute has gone by now and as I look ashore in search of other points of reference sure enough I can see that the lamp posts and telephone poles are waving back and forth like they were blades of grass in a gentle breeze. Hmmm, I’ve only seen poles move like that once before and that was as I looked outside my office window in Sausalito during the 1989 Loma Preita earthquake. OK, it may be different but I’ve solved the riddle and we got ourselves an earthquake.

A few of my fellow cruisers (people who live aboard their boats while cruising the world) have been awakened and are crawling sleepily out of their beds and joining me on the concrete wharf. The mood is typically easy and friendly as we say quietly say good morning, compare notes and discuss just what’s going on. The thrumming continues through most of this and I’d estimate at least 3 minutes in total. We agree it must have been an earthquake and Gary, an Australian from Freemantle on his 52’ Irwin “Biscayne Bay” with wife Lisa, son Jake and Canadian crewmember Chris, joins us and tells that he has just checked it out online and found reports filed under “latest earthquake” of an underwater eruption about 20 minutes ago 130nm south of us

We continued to casually chat and discuss how unique the characteristics were. None of us had ever experienced an undersea eruption or other such disturbances on our boats and we just left it at that as we dispersed back to our boats for breakfast and one person casually joked that we should just watch for any big wave we see. No such wave ever materialized, it was much worse.

Just as I was bout to step back onto my boat it started to drop. Huh? Before I could even comprehend what was happening it then started to rapidly lean sideways as the dock lines strain and screech, tightening more and more as they take on the full weight of my very heavy steel home. My instincts scream GET ON THE BOAT! I jump aboard and grab onto the rigging as she continues to lean more and more and more. THUD! Holy #^%& we are hard over on our side and ……. WHAT the …..? the bottom of the bay is staring back at me as I dangle by one hand from the rigging.

My mind is cycling through every possible explanation, trying to come to terms with all the inputs and amongst the cacophony of sights and sounds as boats smash around me, deck lines snap, rigging strains. These sounds are overlaid and an ominous and enormous rushing and sucking sound as the water all around my boat suddenly drains away!

But a new noise, like fingernails across a blackboard divert my attention to the near vertical deck and I see poor Ruby (my 2 year old cockapoo and sailing companion) trying in vain to dig her claws into the steel deck, her legs thrashing like a cartoon animation character as she gathers speed going the other way and her tail end is headed for all the fish I now see and hear flopping around on the bottom of the bay as they search of their missing watery home.

Ruby’s a gonner if she leaves the boat so I let go of the rigging, do my best imitation of a full 180 mid air flip and lunge after her with one outstretched hand and desperately reach out with the other in the hopes of grabbing some other hand hold. Just as Ruby is launched off the deck I get a right handful of the scruff of her neck and harness as my left hand wraps itself around the lifeline cable. No time to think, just act. Ruby in hand I scramble up to the opposite (Port) high side of the deck. All hell is breaking loose around me both on my boat and all the others and I’m not going to be able to do much with one hand. I look up above me and spot Jake, Gary’s son (14) standing on the edge of the wharf looking down at me and I yell “Jake! Catch!” and throw Ruby up to his thankfully open arms. He makes a great catch, Ruby is in good hands and I’ve got both of mine back.

Interesting how we all react differently. Back aboard Biscayne Bay, Gary and family have been below making breakfast, when they notice the concrete dock rushing up past their porthole windows as if they were in an elevator shaft. Their boat is in much deeper water around the corner from where I Learnativity is docked, so they are going straight down, lines straining, fiberglass crunching and that ever present surreal sucking sound all around. Gary’s reaction, understandably is to GET OUT! and so they all dash up into the cockpit and scramble up the vertical wall of concrete and rubber tires as Gary pushes and shoves each of them up onto the top of the concrete wharf.

The sucking sound stops.

There is a moment of seeming silence that you’d think would be comforting but you’d be wrong. It’s ominous. And then a new set of sounds begin. The volume with a ferocious velocity. Faster than it has left, all that water is now coming back! All the problems reverse. Learnativity rights itself and is now rocketing skyward. I grab my always-on-my-belt knife and dash down the port side from bow to stern slashing all the dock lines. Scramble back into the cockpit, start the engine, simultaneously shove both control levers ahead, putting the transmission into forward gear and the throttle lever on full. All six cylinders pick up speed as the revs cling, the turbine whines, the prop bites hard into the swirling water below and Learnativity starts to pull away from the ………………………… wharf. What wharf? It’s GONE!

The water rushing back into the bay doesn’t stop at it’s previous level, it continues to go up and up and up the sides of the wharf. It floods over the top and keeps going. The speed and force of of the current created by millions of gallons of water flooding into the harbor is unbelievable water and is doing its best to push Learnativity backwards into the dock and marina as I put my faith into the power of diesel fuel and take a minute to look back and see if I’m going forward or backwards.

It is hard to describe what I see. Closest to me, Gary, Lisa, Jake (clutching Ruby) and Chris are running as fast and best they can through the rushing water for a stone walled garden area in the middle of the concrete wharf that happens to have a small but tall light post embedded into it. I watch helplessly as they climb up onto the base of the light pole, wrap their arms around each other and hang on as the water rushes past them, continuing to rise; up, up, up.

I glance along where I know the edge of the dock to have been and watch as one other boat with a great young crew of five from California have jumped aboard even quicker than I and are motoring quickly away. No wait, on the other matching lamp post down the dock I spot one of their female crewmembers who got caught ashore now clinging to this lamp pole. Other sailboats, including Biscayne Bay have now ripped free of their tethers and I watch as they turn with the continuously rising current and crash into each other, taking the other boats in their path like falling dominos. On the left is the “after” picture of this infamous light pole with (from left to right) Chris, Jake, Lisa, Ruby and Gary posing with much different expressions on their faces. Imagine them and the water level half way up this pole!

As my eyes continue to travel further down the dock, I watch in horror as one cruiser is on the dock trying to untie his lines and is swept off his feet by the torrent of water. His wife is aboard and manages to control the boat as it comes free but I can’t see any sign of her husband in all the flotsam and jetsam churning in the water.

Worse than just the water though, almost everything imaginable has been picked up by this flood of water, torn lose from anything silly enough to try to hold them down and is now looking to smash into anything and everything in its erratic path. I glance back to the lamp post where the Biscayne Bay crew are now climbing higher and higher up the lamp post, Gary has Ruby wrapped around his neck so he can use both his arms to hold on to his family and try to keep from being ripped off the post by the force of the water or hit by one of the boats or containers rushing toward and past them. My brain is cycling through the question of “What can I do to help them?” but it is quite literally out of my hands and I have to turn away and bring my attention back aboard and foreword. Fortunately diesel power overcomes even these humbling forces of nature and Learnativity and I escape to the safety of the middle of the bay. Or is it?

No time to think, just act. With the chaos of other ships, some manned, most not, surrounding me and with the water swirling in every direction it was impossible to tell if I was moving forward or back. I pushed Learnativity as hard as I could with full throttle to overcome the unbelievable opposing force of millions of gallons of water now rushing back in to refill Pago Pago Harbor and doing its best to suck Learnativity backwards into the concrete dock we were fleeing. Looking back to try to gauge direction and progress I couldn’t believe what I could not see. There was no dock to be seen! Just boats and water everywhere. Was I that disoriented? Had we drifted that far? Searching for the dock, I finally got my bearings from the buildings on shore and confirmed that I was just where I thought I was, about 100 feet away from the dock that wasn’t there. What I can see is a pencil thin vertical line that is the light post which now has Gary, Lisa, Jake, Chris literally hanging on for dear life and Ruby wrapped around Gary’s neck. I glance further west and see Emily, the stranded young lady from the California yacht Banyan clinging to the other light post. Then I watch as Kirk, Catherine and Stewart on their sailboat Galivanter motor across the TOP of the dock and get out behind me!

When I think about tsunamis I envision this giant wall of water, a monster wave. There was no wave here. The bay simply emptied like someone had pulled the stopper out of a really big bathtub and then equally as fast put it back in and filled it all up from a giant valve below.

** For some great graphics and explanations of how tsunamis work see this “Tsunami Infographics” site which John kindly passed on.

My brain is struggling to process these visual inputs and try to make sense of it all as I realize the whole dock is under water! That safe, solid, secure concrete wharf which used to sit about 8 feet above the water is now about five feet under water and rising. Boats which were previously tied up to the inside edge of the dock between the shore and the dock have broken free and are careening about in the swirling current, posting great threats to Gary et al on the pole. I look west down to the end of the bay and see that it is filling up with a collection of every floating vessel known to man; pleasure boats both motor and sail of every size, 100’ steel purse seiner fishing boats, trawlers, cargo ships and rowboats. Most seem to be unmanned and are randomly dancing together, running into each other and all headed West. Biscayne Bay amongst them.

Learnativity and I escape the clutches of the incoming current and suddenly speed forward. Hmmm, where did all that ferocious current go? The water becomes eerily calm and smooth. Again, you’d think this would be a good thing and again you’d be wrong. The cycle is now reversing. All that water piled up at the end of the bay, having run up onshore and floated everything there from full buildings to cars, now wants to go back out. This is the first sign of any wave I saw through the whole ordeal as the water rushes back from its momentary travels ashore and has now formed a low wide wave that is headed east back towards me. I’ve now made it out into the middle of the harbor where the water is deepest and I have the most room to run and avoid all the oncoming ships and Looking. I turn Learnativity to face this new rush of water, throttle at the ready to ride out the next surge of current.

Glancing ashore through all this I watch the concrete dock magically reappear as if it is rising up out of the water in some perverse magic trick. Then my brain realizes that the dock isn’t moving up, the water is moving down as gazillions of water molecules all rush to join their buddies down at the West end of the bay. I watch in humbled awe as the water again drains away leaving the dock fully out of the water pilings and all.

On the left here is one of the few photos I was able to snap in the midst of all this you can see the concrete dock with the tires on the side and the water at the level it would normally be at. I was only able to take time for a photo because it is in that lull between surges in and out so this water level is between its high and low. Oh, and you might also notice the sailboat that has been deposited up on top of the wharf! Minutes earlier it had been tied up alongside the dock. Think about it and you will have a better sense of the height of the water as it flooded in such that the boat could float up and over the top of the dock and then be dropped on top as the water receeded.

I would estimate the sea level dropped over 15’ in less than 30 seconds. Then someone hits the rewind button on the video I’m watching and as fast as it dropped the water level starts moving up and my friends on the light poles rush back to it and brace for another dunking. As it turned out, the worst one yet.

Due I suspect to the additional forces gained by the water all collecting its energy up on the western shore, the speed of the water now rushing out of the bay is the highest yet. To make matters worse this was no longer “just” water, it was a giant tossed salad of debris from ships to cars to docks to scrap and crap. All headed back for us with increasing velocity. And again I am rendered helpless to watch with the disgust of not being able to do anything and the embarrassment of being so relatively safe and dry aboard strong steel Learnativity. Lisa, Gary, Jake and Chris grip each other and that slender pole, their bodies now trailing off almost horizontal as the slimy soup rises and rushes past them making every effort to rip their hands from the pole and sweep them away like insignificant insects. They would later recount that this second surge out was the worst of them all and they were within seconds of loosing their grip and the torrent of water began to slack and they returned to vertical as the cycle repeats; current subsides, water goes slack and starts to drop again. The photo on the right is of this infamous life saving light pole in the middle of the dock and was taken just after I’ve come back in and tied Learnativity up just across from it. Four people and a dog are alive today because this pole was there, and a similar one right beside me where the Emily from receded was able to hang on and survive.

As the water dropped away and drained off the dock, I can see Lisa and Jake, with Ruby in tow, make a mad dash across the now dry concrete, hit the shore running and kept on going, climbing up the hillside to watch safely from higher ground. I spot Gary and Chris down on the dock and I speed over close enough that we can yell back and forth. I’m desperate to help them get onto Biscayne Bay and be able to keep it out of any further harm. I try to make a pass alongside the wharf so they can jump aboard Learnativity, but now there isn’t enough water beside the dock to float my boat! I head back out to the middle of the bay and watch and wait for another cycle and then try another pass at the dock to pick them up, but the currents are simply changing too rapidly, there is too much debris to avoid and too dangerous for them to jump. We all watch over the next 15 minutes as Biscayne Bay pilots itself westward down the bay being hit and hitting back other boats along the way. With one of the next big surges she is lifted up onto the mud banks and leans over onto her side to rest high and dry, covered in oil and fuels and badly beaten up.

Another cruiser, Mike from Eureka California was having better luck and an amazing experience as his 27’ sailboat motored down the main street at the far west end of the harbor, circled around the intersection and went back out into the harbor! As the surge he was riding went out it dropped him and his boat onto the ground and then just as nicely picked him right back up again on the next cycle and he was able to get it back into the harbor. He quickly headed out to the far eastern end of the harbor for some clear water and space to inspect below but all signs show that he only suffered some serious gouging of the keel and hull. Amazing!

While all this is going on, Joan on Mainly the boat out of South Merrit Island in Florida is letting us know on the VHF that she has still not seen her husband Dan, the one I saw being swept of the docks in the first surge. One of the big disappointments of this whole experience is the complete lack of response or rescue resources from ashore. I assumed, very incorrectly, with this being US soil there would be plenty such resources; again I was wrong. I learned later that the USCG is land based only and it was over three hours later that they were able to respond with any presence on the water. Nor was their any help from the port authority, no Navy presence, and we were left to our own devices to help each other and coordinate as best we could. There were now about six or more other sailboats motoring around in circles with me in the middle of the bay as we turned back and forth to point into the next surge and tried to dodge the continuing barrage of unmanned ships, hulls and garbage. Joan was doing a great job of single handing her boat and I and others started widening our circles to come closer to shore and cover more area in search of Dan or others who were in the water. This cycle of the tsunami “tide” coming in and out continued for several hours and was like a pendulum, continuously decreasing in height and velocity.

When I was first got out in the middle of the bay my instinct for some reason was to get the word out to both friends and family that I was safe and to let the rest of the world know what was going on. I imagined that there would be lots of news reports about the eruption but very little information on just what was happening locally and I also desperately wanted to know if more was coming and what to expect. Fortunately I carry a satellite phone and while expensive it certainly more than paid for itself in this situation. I couldn’t take my eyes and hands off the tasks of piloting Learnativity and searching for people, but I was able to hit my sat phone speed dial and call John in Florida. Thankfully the time worked out, it was mid day in Florida and John picked up! I gave him a quick synopsis of the situation and asked him to send out a note to the Email list of “Learnativity Followers” (people I send my daily updates to while sailing), post a note to my blog and log on as me on Twitter to relay the text messages I would try to send out as regularly as I could. John has been my lifeline in so many ways, so many times, and once again came through with flying colors as he acted as my ship to satellite to shore relay station. With his help and the wonders of modern communication technology I was able to let my friends and family know I was alive and get to the world at large with some first hand news about the situation here. It seemed to work amazingly fast and I received inquiries from several individuals within the first 20 minutes, wanting to know about their friends and family and very soon thereafter started receiving calls and text messages from news centers around the world. The Twitter feed was particularly interesting and seemed to be the one which spread virally the fastest. It also allowed John and I to get a series of time stamped updates out which people could then review and see the progression of events here. (see http://twitter.com/#search?q=wwwayne for the feed of these Tweets)

Meanwhile, back in the all too real and present situation I was still circling the center of the bay with others, trying to see if I could find a Wi-Fi signal to get on the internet to get updates, avoiding the ever present danger of other ships and debris and be on the lookout for Dan and the growing list of other people who were now missing. I wasn’t able to get on the net but was able to get updates from John and was well informed about the second eruption which fortunately didn’t produce any further surge or tsunami that we detected here in Pago Pago. Whew! Maybe this part is over?

I’m not quite sure of the timing, but about 11am, four hours after the mayhem started on this fateful Tuesday, Sept. 29th, I decided that the surges were down enough and not coming back so I headed for the dock and tied Learnativity to the outside and jumped ashore to help others who were following my lead in. I was anxious to find Gary and Chris who I’d not seen in the past hour while I was circling out in the bay and also to see what assistance I could provide to others who were looking for lost crewmembers as well as the whole situation ashore.

On American Samoa, as with most other islands the only real road is the one which circles the coastal circumference so it is all very close to sea level. Normal sea level that is. When the tsunami hit, the water rose up to a level about 5’ above the roadway and several hundred feet inland. It cleaned out everything in its path, picking up vehicles and dropping them inside buildings and culverts. If the buildings were concrete and well built, the water neatly emptied all their contents, if not it simply washed away the entire building. Cars were strewn everywhere as if some giant hand picked up the island and gave it a good shake. As you walked up to the road there were manta rays, eels and tuna still flopping about on the dry pavement desperately searching for their watery homes. Several hardware stores along the road had been emptied and tools were strewn everywhere. Much of the edge of the water was lined with chain link fencing which had acted like a sieve and was now a colorful mosaic chockablock full of a plastic, paper, wood and weeds.

By the time I got up to the road though, people were already pitching in to help others in need and soon people started to clean up the mess that was everywhere. Traffic was at a standstill of course with vehicles all over the road, wrapped around trees, sticking out of doorways and windows and parked in culverts. Many had simply been washed into the bay. There were injured people everywhere and soon the sirens began and continued on through the night and the next few days as more were found amongst the wreckage and on the sides. Miraculously to me no fires had broken out which was a good thing as there was fuel and oil everywhere. The gas station immediately behind the dock had all four of its pumps knocked clean off their foundations as cars had floated by and the water rose up over them. Now they spewed raw gasoline and diesel out of their amputated pipes. While out in the bay the smell of diesel, gas and oil was overwhelming as most of the large fishing and commercial ships that were swept away had ruptured their tanks and the water was slick with petroleum.

I wanted so much to head for the West end of the bay to find Gary and Biscayne Bay and help them find Biscayne Bay, as well as see if Ruby had survived. But I dare not leave Learnativity alone and there was so much to do on the docks trying to help those whose boats were still there and those who were missing crew members. Gary actually showed up aboard Joan’s boat Mainly to help her dock it and there was still no sign or word of Dan. And so the afternoon progressed as we all pitched in and drifted from one job to the next; cleaning, consoling, assessing and trying to comprehend what had just happened. With son Jake on board Biscayne Bay to keep watch as looting had already begun on ships and ashore, Chris and Gary went back and forth between Learnativity and Biscayne Bay in the dingy, moving all their belongings and food aboard Learnativity as I invited them to live with me for the next while.

As we shuttled all their belongings from one boat to the other we decided to try to get Biscayne Bay back into the water and if she was not taking on water to try to bring her back to the dock. Gary and Chris went back to the boat and with the help of some others and the next big surge, miraculously got her upright and off the mud bank and bottom into deeper water. She was taking on some water, but it was minimal and the bilge pumps would be able to keep up with it. The engine would start but something was wrapped around the prop or shaft or both and they were locked up solid. There was limited steering but with a 25HP outboard on his dingy, Gary was able to push and shove her all the way up the bay and around the end of the concrete dock. With Chris at the wheel and Gary using the dingy as a mini tug boat, Jake threw me the bow line as she raced toward the dock and I was able to wrap the line around one of the large steel bollards and with a final crunch against the dock she was back home. It was hard to believe that only 8 hours earlier this crunched and battered dear boat had been quietly tied up next to Learnativity in pristine condition.

The search continued for our missing comrade cruiser Dan and with no sign of him by mid afternoon Joan went to the hospital and sadly arrived just as they were bringing Dan’s body to the morgue. His body had washed up at the west end of the bay. So difficult to comprehend all this. How is it possible that at 7am you are sipping your first morning coffee together as a happy retired couple in the cockpit of your sailboat docked in paradise on the cruise you’ve dreamed of and worked for your whole life, and then minutes later be washed off the dock never to be seen again? We all did out best to be with Joan as she worked her way through such questions and did what we could to be supportive and consoling. Her boat would not start now for some reason and we were all anxious to ensure that our boats were ready to go at a moments notice should another tsunami strike and so several of us went aboard to set it right. There was no shortage of skilled mechanics and electricians and we all provided tools and labor and Jack stayed aboard to find it was a bad solenoid and soon had it replaced so at least Mainly was back in working order. Hearts and minds would require different tools, techniques and time before they would be so mended.

Learnativity, Ruby and I came through it all pretty much unscathed. Just the stainless tubing bow pulpit had been ripped apart and so I set about removing it and seeing what could be done to repair it. It was beyond repair and so I salvaged the running lights and then set about using some low stretch line I had to create a makeshift set of lifelines to enclose the bow.

Fortunately none of this is structural or will prevent me from continuing to sail to New Zealand where there will be lots of facilities to build a new one. And I was planning on building a whole new dual anchor setup and sprit on the bow which would require a new pulpit anyway. I just didn’t plan on removing the old one quite so soon. Mother Nature apparently had a different schedule and I didn’t get the memo.

Gary and family were back onboard Biscayne Bay assessing the damage for the rest of the afternoon and it didn’t look good. The more you looked the more structural damage and failed systems you found. It was floating and they decided they could sleep aboard that night but I had them over for diner and cooked up a big feed of salad (expertly assembled by Chris) and my tummy filling spicy spaghetti and meatballs. None of us had eaten all day and now with a chance to relax just a bit, the hunger and exhaustion set in. We spent most of the evening quietly reflecting upon the day, dissecting it and discussing this extraordinary and harrowing experience. I think it was very therapeutic for each of us as our minds started to deal with the reality of what all had taken place on this eventful day and what we would need to do in the aftermath of the days ahead. Sleep was both restful and fitful for most of us that night.

Writing this now, two days later, we have continued in this pattern of cleanup, helping each other, repair and restoration of both ships, shore and souls. It will be a long process for all of these. The local people have continued to astound me with their genuine kindness and generosity. In spite of great loss of life all over the island we have had a steady stream of people binging us cases of bottled drinking water, boxed lunches and cooked diners.

In the span of two days I’ve witnessed the full spectrum of both human and mother nature and I’ve learned so many life lessons. It is no where near a complete list, but to finish up this posting I’ll share a few of the lessons I’ve learned through this experience.

Some Lessons I Learned from the Tsunami in Pago Pago:

It may sound trite but it is SO true that you never know when the last time will be for most things. Living in the moment, maximizing every opportunity, are attitude and behavior to live by rather than cute phrases and platitudes.
When it is all said and done, people, friendship and relationships are all that really matter.
The best place to be when trouble or disaster strikes is ON your boat and out in open water. Get there and stay there at almost any cost.
I’ve renewed my conviction and love for steel boats.
In times of great stress and disaster, human nature is on full spectrum display and is the same in all places and cultures.
Put your faith and optimism in people. There is much more good in the world than evil, many more good people than bad.
A big powerful working engine in a sailboat is a safety device. Make sure it is always at the ready.
Mother Nature is a majestic and powerful force on a scale that is truly humbling. It is likely a good thing to be reminded from time to time just how small and puny we are.
Technology, especially communication technology is vastly under rated and under appreciated for how profound a difference it can make.
Sat phones are essential safety devices for world cruisers.
If are ever in the vicinity of a large underwater seismic eruption either get on a boat and head for open water or head inland as high and as quickly as you can.

I hope that by sharing some of these experiences I’ve been able in some small way to help others learn lessons of their own. I’m off to bed now for a few hours to let my head sort through more of this experience and get some rest before another busy day of dealing with the aftermath of this extraordinary life and learning experience.

Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog
aboard the good ship Learnativity
docked in Pago Pago Harbor
14 16.514S 170 41.554W

Return from Japan

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Greetings!

You are receiving this because you registered for my ‘off season blog’ at http://www.kensOtherBlog.com.

If you visited the site you know that I decided to experiment with doing my blog in a message board format. I did this because I thought the format might make it easier for everyone to participate in the discussion, and to start their own topics. Roberta and I won’t be on the boat for the next few months, and I really don’t have too much to say. Last year, I kept busy during the offseason getting the boat shipped home from Costa Rica and ready to go. However, this year, there are no major boat projects planned. The boat is in good shape and already positioned for next year’s run. The only major projects on my list are: clearing Shelby (our dog) into various countries, and trip planning for next year.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I experimented with an alternate format for the blog, and no one seems to love it, including myself. Thus, I’ll go back to doing the blog my old way. I’ll still do it on the KensOtherBlog.com website, which has the small list of just over 400 of you, as opposed to the kensblog.com website which has many thousands. Given that I won’t have much of interest to say, I’d rather bore the smallest group possible. Of course, I could do that by simply not writing anything, but, what fun would that be?

Anyway…

This is a brief recap of events since my last blog.

There isn’t much to say about our last few weeks in Japan. Roberta and I really didn't do much more than just hang out on the boat, doing various boat-projects. We knew that getting the boat ready to be left alone for six months was going to be a lot of work, and were in the mood to get all our work done and go home. We woke up a few days and said, “Should we go find a temple? Go to a museum?” We always decided we’d go sight-seeing ‘tomorrow’ and focus on work today. And, tomorrow never came.

Amusingly, I did pass some time asking myself if Japan represented some of the best cruising in the world, or the worst, or somewhere in-between, and I couldn’t decide which it was. It’s a difficult question, and I won’t really know what I think until after next year. Japan is a beautiful country with wonderful people. However, I was very frustrated with the language issues. A few examples:

We were constantly being invited to various dinners and parties. We met people (Japanese) who spent thousands of dollars to entertain us! We were shocked by the generosity of those around us. However, at the dinners, we often wound up talking to each other. We would do what we could to mingle, but conversations between people who don’t speak the same language are rarely compelling. I’m not particularly good at small talk anyhow, and when I am further constrained by a total absence of shared vocabulary, I get much worse. Another example: Roberta and I took a train to nearby Kobe. We were in a wonderful district with 100s of great restaurants. It was clearly my kind of place, and both of us love Asian food. However, we walked for miles, and never saw an Asian restaurant with an English menu. 99.9% have menus that are 100% Japanese. Someone truly adventurous would enjoy the challenge, but we’re somewhat picky eaters. When we were in Hokkaido, I watched as Kirt, a crew member on Sans Souci, put a menu on a table, waved his finger in the air, and randomly plopped it down on the menu. That’s what he ordered. This is definitely not my style, but seems the only viable strategy. Most restaurants do have plastic food in the front window, which can be pointed at, and I have dragged waiters to the curb, to point at the food in the window, but even this strategy often fails. Sometimes, what looks like tofu in the window turns out to be something much weirder when it hits your plate. And, another more serious example of the problems: My focus the last couple of weeks was on getting the boat prepared for our departure. Without using an interpreter I couldn’t speak with the marina staff. I couldn’t go to marine stores. I couldn’t speak with other boat captains in the marina. Etc. I don’t like being in a position where I’m not self sufficient. It just isn’t my style.

And, of course there are cultural issues. The Japanese were so polite and nice to us, and I wanted to try to return the kindness, but always felt somewhat clunky. Almost all Japanese speak some English. It is taught in their schools, and English words appear everywhere. Few speak enough to actually carry on a conversation, but at least they try. I, on the other hand, did not learn Japanese in school. And, whereas we are on their turf, and they know their cultures and traditions, I had no idea what the rules of etiquette were. I was constantly worried that I’d do something horribly offensive, and not know it. It was important to me that we leave a good impression of Americans, and I wasn’t quite sure how to do that.

In dealing with the marina, I was never sure what they were willing to do for me, and what they weren’t. We’re in a ritzy private members-only marina. I’m not certain that the marina’s primary motivation for accepting us was financial. I think it was just kind of cool to them, and their members, to have the funny looking international boats in the marina. I’m thrilled to be there, and I had the feeling they would do almost anything I asked, but I really didn’t want to be annoying. When motivations are financial, the rules are simpler. I asked them to wax the boat, and thought I could see in their eyes that they weren’t delighted I’d asked, but that since I asked, they had to do it. I was willing to pay, so I’m not sure why they wouldn’t have been happy to get the business, or, perhaps they were happy to get the business. I really have no idea, and that in itself is part of what frustrated me. When dealing cross-culture, and through an interpreter, it’s tough to know when the other guy is happy, and as I said, I wanted to be a good ambassador for other cruisers from our corner of the planet.

And, I must say, there aren’t a lot of us cruising over there. We were in Japan for six weeks, cruised nearly the entire eastern coast of Honshu (mainland japan), and the southern coast of Hokkaido, and saw only one non-Japanese boat. Zero boats from Europe. Zero boats from the US. Zero from Canada, etc. We saw one large racing sailboat from Australia, and that’s it. One reason people were so nice to us is that we are so rare. I suspect that at some of the places we visited we were the first foreign private yachts ever to enter the port, in modern times.

It is an incredibly cool feeling just to be in Japan. When people say to me, “Isn’t boating expensive?”, I respond by saying, “What do you think a portable waterfront home should cost?” There is a huge difference in living somewhere, and staying at a hotel. I’ve been going to Japan for over 20 years, mostly on business, and have learned more about Japan by living there on my boat, in just six weeks, than I did during those 20 years. When you are on a boat you see a side of Japan, or whatever country, that tourists never see. I'm not a good enough writer to explain the difference, but being on the boat forces us to deal with a lot of the basic ‘blocking and tackling’ issues of life that you don’t encounter when staying in a hotel, such as: buying groceries, hiring someone to wash the boat, going to the vet, getting a haircut, reading the subway map, etc. Whereas this can be intimidating at times, it can also be fun and educational. This is a little off the subject, but one of the reasons we moved our prior boat to France was that I’m what some would call a Francophile. I have a disproportionate affection for France. I can honestly say that living in France, as opposed to being a tourist, was a real eye-opener. I’m still a Francophile, but the France we lived in is a much different France than I had envisioned, and visited as a tourist. Personally, there's something compelling about the whole notion of owning a home that allows me to ‘sample’ different cultures around the world, and that can be moved once I’m ready for a new experience. I would think that a portable home must be worth more than a house that is nailed to the ground.

I am SERIOUSLY looking forward to cruising Japan next year. I’ve cruised enough to know what I like best. Anyone who follows my blog knows I enjoy trying to discover and understand cultural differences. However, when it comes right down to it, my primary motivation is the time we spend at anchor. I’m seeking warm blue water and white sand beaches, preferably somewhere close to a series of 5-star resorts, world-class golf courses and great restaurants. And of course, a high-speed internet connection! Nothing beats surfing on a remote beach (I mean the kind of surfing you do with a computer…). As you can imagine, we didn’t see a lot of that this year in Alaska, the Aleutians, Russia or even the parts of Japan we’ve been cruising. However, I’ve heard the islands of southern Japan (Okinawa) are referred to as Japan’s version of Hawaii. We’ll be on a much more relaxed pace, and anchoring/swimming/relaxing will all be part of the plan. A fun fact: US Coastline – 12,380 miles. Japan – 18,486 miles. Japan is a series of thousands of islands, many of them with awesome anchorages, just waiting for us to find them.

And, on a completely different topic…

Roberta and I are now at home in Seattle! Our trip home from Japan went quite smoothly, which really did surprise me. When we first planned the GSSR I had serious doubts we would get Shelby into Japan, and if we did, that we’d get her back out. It just didn’t seem possible.

To get Shelby out of Japan we needed a health certificate. Above is Shelby’s health certificate. I have no idea whether or not it says she is healthy. The good news is that this gave us what we needed to get an export permit. It was quite an experience to obtain the actual permission to export Shelby. We took Shelby to the airport, the day before departure, to visit Animal Quarantine. This meant a two hour train ride, each way, with Shelby. Once at the airport, the Animal Quarantine office was buried deep within the airport, in a secure area that few people ever see. We wandered through hallways, and behind doors, that had us feeling like we were in a very strange place. At Animal Quarantine, they gave Shelby far more of a physical than she had received from the vet. It was quite an experience.

We were worried about Shelby being stuck in the cargo hold of an airplane for a long flight. She’s not a young dog, and refuses to eat or drink when we’re not around. To keep it easy on Shelby, we split the flight home into two legs, stopping in Hawaii. This added a huge amount of complexity, because Hawaii is also difficult to get a dog into. We worked with the Humane Shelter in Hawaii to have Shelby go to their facility, just long enough to change planes. We were able to meet her at their office to give her water and food. The people in Hawaii, particularly the humane society, were easy and friendly to deal with, and made the whole experience as enjoyable as it could possibly be.

And, on another completely different topic…

It was very strange leaving Sans Souci alone in Japan. We have dealt with this issue a couple times before. First, when we left her in France, and second, when we left her in Costa Rica. I wasn’t worried in France, because prior to leaving I was able to hire a local mechanic to watch the boat. In Costa Rica, I would have been worried, had I known Sans Souci would be staying for six months, but at the time I thought Sans Souci would be leaving Costa Rica within a few weeks. This is the first time I have knowingly left Sans Souci alone, in a strange country, with huge unknowns as to who would oversee her. I do have a plan in place that I feel good about, but it does contain risk. We are working with an American interpreter, who lives in Japan, who is our ‘point of contact’ in Japan. We’re only a couple weeks in, and he is doing a fantastic job, but the fact of the matter is that he knows very little about boats. He’s a super-smart, very capable person, and someone we are all impressed with, but boats are not simple. I’ve green-lighted him to bring in professionals, as he can find them, but still, there is no doubt in my mind that it would be better if I were there, and could speak the language. I’m sure all is fine, but that doesn’t mean I don’t worry. Everyone does something well, and worrying is what I do best.

So, anyway…

In closing…

I’ve decided to go back to my old style of doing the blog, but will be posting my blog entries on the new website (KensOtherBlog.com). I’m not sure how often I’ll post. Not much is happening, so I'll be writing randomly. I’ll go back to my normal website, and its' huge mailing list, once we get closer to being back on the boat. The current message board will still be on the website, so feel free to use it. Over the next few months, each blog entry I write will be sent via email, and posted on www.KensOtherBlog.com, where all of you are invited, and encouraged, to post your comments at the end of each entry. The comments on my blog are usually better than the blog, so keep them coming!

If you haven't been visiting the website, those of you who enjoy technical issues might want to read the following postings on the message board:

- LED lighting on Sans Souci
- Rocna Anchors
- Bulbous bows
- Rudder Design

And, those of you who are curious about Nordhavn boats may want to download the latest copy of Nordhavn’s magazine, Circumnavigator. Lots of great articles, and a look at their latest boats: http://www.nordhavn.com/circumnavigator/circumnavigatorIV.pdf

Thank you!

Ken Williams
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci
www.kensblog.com, and www.KensOtherBlog.com

This is an example blog entry

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:03:26 GMT

This is my blog entry