Yes, that has been me and in spite of my constant kvetching about being bored in NYC, I have spent this time planning.
For me planning is all about developing the main plan, thinking about the plan, thinking of every possible contingency, but understanding that something will happen that I never thought of.
Planning is all about probabilities. This is probable, but that is still possible. I avoid words like impossible or never. As Sean Connery said: “Never say Never”
Life itself is all about probabilities. The basis of Quantum Mechanics is all about probabilities and thus our world is probabilistic.
Certainly passage planning is about probabilities. One crosses the North Atlantic in high summer, July to mid-August, because the probability of strong storms, with winds greater than 40 knots is the lowest of the year. The North Pacific is similar, though with lighter winds, but a bigger risk of Typhoons.
First thing I do is check out Jimmy Cornell’s Ocean Atlas: Pilot Charts for All Oceans of the World
It’s the place to get newly published Pilot Charts with up-to-date reliable statistical meteorological information.
So, I like thinking of possibilities and preparing for those possibilities and then preparing for those things that I did not anticipate. 90% of my planning is done after I have the initial plan.
I hate surprises. I hate surprise parties. To me, there is no such thing as a good surprise. Oh, I may “hope” for things to occur: I hope I win this lottery; I hope this friend calls me, but to be surprised, is to be unprepared.
Once again I have been reading Cruising Galicia, published by Imray. A well done book, giving me many ideas. Unlike the past summer, when we had specific places we wanted to see, e.g. Tallinn, Riga, Gdansk, Helsinki, this year and next we will be more flexible. More willing to go where the wind pushes us and where we like the food, drink & people.
Twelve hours from now, I will be snugged into an aisle seat on Delta Airlines, watching the minutes drag by like hours.
As many times as I have taken the red eye to Europe over eh past 30 years, I still dislike it, a lot. In fact, I’d rather go to the dentist.
Now, I do like my dentist, a lot. Sometimes I even dress us just for her. One has to stay in the game, even if only in the dugout. When I stop flirting with people, it’ll be time to swim with the fishes.
Speaking of which, in spending more countless hours trying to get my pictures organized once again, I ran across some of our Atlantic Passage pictures.
The water was so blue even with the wind causing some white horses, as many Europeans call whitecaps.
August 28, 2014 250 miles SSW of Ireland
I know it was only months ago when I was gazing at the map in dismay, seeing I have over 1200 miles to do, alone, in September. With summer long gone and autumn rearing it’s windy head I was not looking forward to those miles.
Now I miss it. I can’t wait to get underway again. Listening to the purr of the Lehman, the quiet swish of the Krogen hull cutting through the water like a hot knife in butter, is truly music to my ears.
But I still have 5 months for that to happen.
Tomorrow morning, I will arrive in Dublin, even rent a car, for the first time in years in Ireland. I need to go to New Ross, check on Dauntless, so some winter stuff, minor stuff, defrost the fridge, etc. Talk to the people working on the hull making her look pretty again. And for the right price we will even paint below the cap rail. On Wednesday, I’ll go to Waterford (about 20 minutes away, 3 hours by boat) for two days.
But as much as anything, I am going to Ireland for these four days just to be there, to wish a Merry Christmas to so many of the wonderful people I have met in Waterford. I spent about half my winter last winter in Waterford. IT turned out to be a good mix (half in US, half in Waterford). This year I am already a bit bored in NYC. There is only so much I can do here.
So the plan is New Ross tomorrow, Wednesday & Thursday Waterford, then on Friday fly to Treviso and drive to my friends in Budoia, the little town, very little, that is as much as my home as NYC is.
Three weeks in Italy, almost all with friends will be wonderful, though to mix it up slightly, Julie, who join me on the 23rd, and I will spend New Year’s Eve and day in Venezia. Then taking the water bus to the airport on January 2nd. That will be a first for me. I hope it’s foggy, fog is fun when someone else is doing the driving.
The pictures of interest column on the right posts my Instagram pictures and I will try to post a picture a day to give you an idea of my latest hi-jinks.
And the dollar is getting stronger and oil is in freefall. Can’t ask for much better than that when you have a motorboat that still must cross two oceans and a few seas!
Now, if your first thought is, “I wonder how I missed the first 136 lessons learned?” you wouldn’t be wrong. While almost all of the posts related to cruising on Dauntless have some lessons learned, I don’t label them as such.
So, as mentioned I have fleshed out a general cruise plan for the coming year and into 2017. In a nutshell, we’ll be cruising the west coast of Europe from north of Scotland to southwest Spain by year’s end.
Now, every day, without much else to do, I look at the map, longingly; like porn, maps grab your attention and won’t let go.
I imagine sitting in Dauntless on the Algarve or Cadiz next winter. I know the Med is no fun in the winter. But the spring? The following summer 2017?? How can I not go check it out? A few miles here, a few miles there.
Then, the cold hard facts strike home:
$1.10 per nautical mile fuel cost crossing the Atlantic
$1.34 per nautical mile in fuel cost in Europe this past summer;
$4 per nautical mile for all costs.
So this means that while a good rule of thumb is $1 per nm when crossing oceans; this past summer, cruising along the coast, stopping for the night, eating, drinking and general shenanigans cost money on the order of $4 for every nm traveled.
Sure, this coming summer, I will average less than half the miles every month then we did this past summer. But 30 days on the road is still 30 days on the road. My travelling less, I save fuel money, but that’s it, at only 33% of total costs.
So that $4 figure, may get as low as $3, but won’t go to $2, let alone $1.
Another issue, we still want to be in the Pacific by January 2018! That means, being in the Canaries in October 2017. So, if we are in the south of Spain Jan-Feb 2017 and then maybe go as far as the Balearics in the Spring of 2017, as weather permits, what next?
So I longingly gaze at the charts. I would love to see the Adriatic and Greece by Kadey Krogen. I have friends there. How neat would that be!
So Close, Yet So Far. The red track shows the un-doable trip The Black track is our proposed trip so far.
But the distances! 1,000 miles just to Sicily. One way. 1300 nm to Greece, 1800 nm to Venice. Now double all those numbers, as we have to return.
And now multiply by $4. $12,000 to see the Greek Isles; not happening.
Too many miles, too many dollars, too little time.
But the year not spent in Europe, will be a year spent in the Pacific.
New places, new faces and new friends to make. It’ll be a fun time.
I found this picture of the narrow passage that I was afraid to take. Thought I would include it just to show I have some sense.
So, it took two car rides, four trains, one bus and two airplanes to get home, having spent the last month in Ireland, Germany and England.
It’s great to have the ability to travel; it’s great to visit my wonderful, generous friends and it’s great to be home. None are mutually exclusive. Just the way I like it. I’m just an inclusive type of guy.
So, sitting here, with Squawk Box on CNBC in the background, I thought I would write about the evolution of our plans over the last few weeks.
This link is one of the Chrome tabs that open on my computer each time I am on-line.
I like getting a sense of the general weather patterns over the areas we will be traveling. Also, it gives a sense of how the situation changes or not, from one day to another. In this case, I’m concentrating on the western coasts of France and Spain, as well as the trade winds that will whisk us back to North America and all the way through the Panama Canal.
The long range plan has never changed; but as they say, the devil is in the details.
Before we even acquired our Krogen 42, the overall plan was:
First summer in New England, Nova Scotia
First winter back to Florida and Bahamas
Second summer crossing the North Atlantic
Wintering in northern Europe, the Netherlands.
Third summer in the Baltic
Pretty much as gone according to plan; Ireland replaced the Netherlands and has been the absolutely best choice.
This past summer has taken a bit more money, energy and bruises than anticipated.
This link shows the movement of Dauntless since July 2014. (Note: As you zoom in, the level of detail increases as to the actual route).
As I had already mentioned: first time is nice, second time is great, third time is an anti-climax. So as wonderful Ireland is, both in the people, the country and the cost; it’s time to move on.
Attending the Krogen Rendezvous in early October, helped us decide to keep Dauntless in Europe one more extra year through 2016 and much of 2017. My recent trip to visit sailing friends, Andreas & Annette in Germany and John, Jenny & Ben in England, have further revised our thinking:
First, my original plan of getting Dauntless’ bruises fixed and back in the water ASAP, was scrapped. I came to understand that time out of the water was good and it also made the work schedule for the boat yard easier and therefore less costly for me. So Dauntless will be on the hard until March.
Assuming all is well, then in April we will start our 2016 cruising season, which right now, may not end until we get to South Korea in August 2018 at the earliest.
So right now this is what the general plan looks like:
Year
Season
Locations
2016
Spring
Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Orkneys, Shetlands,
Summer
???, west coast France
Fall
NW Spain
Winter
Portugal, SW Spain
2017
Spring
SE Spain? Med?
Summer
TBD
Fall
Canary Islands, Cape Verde Islands
Winter
Lesser Antilles, Panama Canal, Costa Rica
2018
Spring
When winds allow moving North along west coast to SE Alaska
Summer
Cross Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands, Japan, Southern coast of Korea
So that’s it in a nutshell. 20,000 nm, (36,000 km) in 29 months, 700 nm/month. That’s seemingly a lot, but there are some very long legs, with about 10-12k miles over only three months. Also the last 9 months of the trip will take us halfway around the world. Ummm, that’s a lot. So it may happen that we will add a year in there probably in the Pac NW or British Columbia.
This allows the first 20 months, from April 2016 to November 2017, to be cruised at very comfortable pace.
So stay tuned. Mark your calendar and if you want to do more than just read about our adventures, drop me a line. There will be a lot of miles and days that are better done with company than without.
Sunset over Southern Sweden, Anchored Next to Island
But before talk about the upcoming cruise 2016 and & 2017, we need to take a step back and look at what for me, made this summer so successful, my friends/crew who joined me and made the trip fun and interesting.
With Julie’s limited cruising time, but with us wanting to take advantage of seeing as much of Europe as we can while Dauntless is here, having friends, and even strangers aboard, makes the traveling fun.
I like the company, not only to pass the time, but also to teach. And I even eat and drink better with company.
So my goal is a simple one: I want my friends/guests/crew to enjoy themselves, have a bit of doing something different, that they would not do at home, like even watching Korean Dramas and learn some skills about running our Krogen 42.
Julie and I did a 4 day trawler school a few years ago. Then I joined the USCG Aux and learned the basics of being on a boat crew. I also got my USCG Captain’s and Master’s 100 ton license. So I hope my friends leave with some of those same basics that I have
Karla waiting for the water to return
learned.
Ivan securing lines. He was cold.
So our cruising ends up in part like being in an extended trawler school.
To that end I have been relatively successful. People like helping and learning the basics, like line handling, navigation, etc. And everyone leaves with a little more knowledge than at the start. Some couples, like Karen and Jason have been with us three times.
Docking is by far the most stressful time on a boat. I continually strive to do a better job of communication with all on the boat. It’s important to describe beforehand exactly what will or can happen and lay out possible courses of actions. Included in that is the best and worst case scenario and what we will do in case such and such happens. Also, to make sure everyone understands how to handle contrary instructions from those on the dock trying to “help”.
So let’s talk first about those who were on Dauntless this past summer.
Dauntless Finds a Buddy Too
In a nutshell, I had people with me from the time I left Ireland in late May until the very end of August.
I am very grateful to all those who spent time on Dauntless. Everyone contributed something. Here is the gist of time spent. Of the 125 days of the cruise from May 25th to Oct 1st, I had someone on board for 90 of 125 days. Of those 90 days, couples were on board for 60 days, I had singlets on board for almost 40 days.
That is further broken out in chronological order:
Larry and Karla, from Waterford to Honfleur, France
Pierre-Jean, helped me move the boat up the English Channel, from Honfleur to Oostende. He lives in Paris and had contacted me just to spend some time on a Kadey Krogen. I was happy to oblige. He also brought me some exquisite wines and cheeses. It was also his misfortune to spend the two roughest days of the whole summer.
Ivan and Bas along a Dutch Canal
Ivan, the youngest at 14 years old, grandson and son of my Italian friends, met me in Holland in June. The good news is that Ivan, after having spent 28 days aboard going thru the canals and locks of Holland, Friesland and Germany, returned home with most of his limbs and body parts intact.
Bas, oldest son of our Dutch friends, joined Ivan and I in Friesland, the province of his father. He left us after the Kiel Canal (Ost-See Kanal) passage, at the end of June. I’ve known Bas for all of his 25 years and it was a joy being with him in his father’s birthplace.
With their help, I got to the start of the Cruising Association Baltic Rally on July 5th in Rugen, Germany.
Martin fixes my charger by plugging it in
Eve and Nigel, joined Dauntless as the end of the Rally on the same day that Ivan left to return to Italy after an exciting month on Dauntless. Eve and Nigel then left after 10 days in Gdansk, where Julie joined us.
The time lines for these three weeks were largely built around Julie’s vacation time and our desire to see the Baltic States, Latvia and Estonia in particular.
Karen and Jason then met us in Riga. This is their third cruise on dauntless having also joined us previously in the Bahamas and Maine.
We ended up spending a lot of time in Helsinki. Far more time than it was worth. I was disappointed in that it was
Eve and Nigel in Poland
the plan I had made up. But Karen and Jason left from Helsinki, Julie left a few days later and Dana and Peter arrived from New York.
Dana and Peter only cruised in the one country, Finland, as the weather was not conducive to return to Tallinn as I had planned originally. We cruised east and west of Helsinki. At the end of their 10 days, they took the fast ferry back to Tallinn and Leonie and Martin arrived on the ferry from Tallinn.
Leonie and Martin then cruised with me in Finland, the Aland Islands and Sweden, two weeks later they left from Stockholm and I was all alone for the first time in three months.
Julie and Dauntless in Liepaja, Latvia
I already commented on September above. It’s interesting to read that now and know that as unhappy as I sounded, it was actually worse.
Finally a month later, Jennifer, daughter of my dear Alaskan friends of 30 years, spent the last week on Dauntless as I got back to Ireland. I have no pictures of her on the boat because they were lost when my phone died cruising up the river to Waterford.
Having spent the month of September alone, I was really happy to have someone for the last week of the trip. It makes it a little easier to finish everything up. It was a great way to end the summer, as we flew to NYC together and she stayed with us in the Bronx and we even had a great Korean dinner the next night in Flushing.
So the trip ended where it began 4 months and 6 days earlier.
This is probably the last time for quite a while that we will go full circle. From now on, we will be making slow, but steady progress towards a destination.
What I had done this past year was to make a tentative plan, then send it to anyone who had expressed any
Peter and Dana in HelsinkiThe Stars & Stripes over Estonia
interest in joining us at some point. As plans were solidified, I built the final plan around my guests as they bought plane tickets, made vacation days, etc.
I know it’s not good to cruise on a schedule, but it was not so bad and the times we had to make minor adjustments, everyone understood. The main problem was the pressure I put on myself, which is something I must work on. This coming year, I’ll probably let people lock in the time they will be on Dauntless, but not the exact location for arrival and departure. I’ll give a country and probably port, but make sure all know it’s subject to change.
Julie watching her eyelids. She loves the KK42 because of its Pilot House
We averaged 1,100 nm (2,000 km) a month this past summer. Too much.
My goal and tentative plan will be closer to 600 nm per month, once cruising season starts in April and ends when we get where we are going.
Leonie & Martin and our $100 solution to getting off DHelsinki Ferry Terminal. Not a Crew Member
Jennifer and I in Waterford. That’s her hand. I’m not clear why she was not included in picture.Leonie seeing only blondes in Helsinki
This is the table for our Summer 2015 Baltic Sea Cruise on Dauntless
OK. Sorry about the black background, but I have spent too many hours today just f…ing with this “picture” imported from Excel via Word.
Some of the things that jump out at me:
While the Fuel cost was a third of total costs, it wasn’t more.
Eating and food costs were also a third of total expenses.
My morning treat of coffee and some kind of pastry, is not an insignificant cost at almost a thousand dollars.
It really helped that my friends/guests/crew paid most of the marina fees.
By the time I got to Germany, I realized that fuel consumption was actually running much higher than anticipated, around 1.75 gallons/hour. So I made a conscious effort to run at an “economy” speed, about 1400 to 1500 rpms, for the rest of the trip and it clearly worked. I was able to average 1.35 gallons per hour and 3.84 nm/gal at an average speed of 5.2 knots.
By contrast, crossing the Atlantic, the respective numbers were 1.59 gallons/hour and 3.6 nm/gallon at an average speed of 5.7 knots.
All these numbers speak to the efficiency of the Kadey Krogen and the KK42 in particular. We love this boat. She is a tough little girl. Far tougher than me. I really don’t understand why, but I am more, not less, prone to sea sickness than last year or even our first year.
Maybe the weight of responsibility weighs on me more? Maybe I am going out under more adverse conditions? Who knows?
I did get back to NY 5 pounds lighter than when I left in early May. That is nice. But my sense is that being alone on the North Sea for three days will make anyone lose weight. Maybe Oprah should have invested in Dauntless instead of Weight Watchers.
Still to come: I hope to write a summary of the entire cruise; talk about the recent Krogen Owners Rendezvous I just attended and lastly, get my Instagram account up and running so, even if I am not posting, I can at least post pictures with a few snappy captions. Or is that snippy?
30 September 2015, 13:10 hours, we passed the track off of Dunmore East that we had made leaving Ireland 4 months and 5 days earlier on the 25th of May.
Bost in Vadrarfjordr. The Only City in Ireland that Kept its Viking NameDauntless in her New Spot in Waterford
As I motored slowly up the River Suir, it is impossible to describe my feelings. Much like crossing the Atlantic, this was another 4,000 nm, 7,200 km trip milestone completed.
Spread out over four months instead of one, was both a blessing and a curse:
A blessing in that time is spread out, so schedules are more flexible and the scenery is constantly changing, as is the places visited and the foods eaten.
A curse in that it’s almost exclusively coastal travelling and the stress that entails, rocks, narrow channels, and worst of all, expensive marinas.
And much like the Atlantic Passage, coming full circle was a culmination of years of dreaming and planning. As soon as the Atlantic was planned, still years before we actually had a boat, I had moved on to phase two, the first full spring and summer in northern Europe. So of course that meant the Baltic and those lands of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia that were almost totally new to me.
Arklow Inner Harbor
For the most part, if the plan has been well thought out, events unfold as planned. As I look at the Dauntless Cruise Plan that was finalized in April, I pretty much stuck to the plan into September.
Arklow Inner Harbor
Sadly, as I cruised up the Suir, I was occupied with trying to get my cell phone on. It had gone to sleep and never woke up. No sign of life, even when being charged or when I changed its battery.
Today, 48 hours later, I have accepted that its demise is permanent. And sadly today, I just realized that I had not downloaded any pictures since the end of August.
Still of the 600 that were on the phone, I had uploaded a few pictures and videos to WordPress and I have the hundreds of pictures I took with the Samsung K-30, but I like the Note for its ability to take good panorama shots. All of the pictures I post with these blogs came from the Note. That’ll change now.
Now the previous week, I had talked to Johnny, the Waterford City Council guy in charge of the marina and I think a bunch of other things too, to find out where to tie up as the docks were almost full. We had planned that I would call again coming up the river. But now I couldn’t., which always adds to the stress since knowing the spot I was going to is one less thing to worry about.
Trawler unloading in Arklow
Spotting an empty spot at the end of one of the three floating docks (pontoons in British English) there was a sign saying it was a private spot, but any port in a storm, is a lesson I have learned the hard way. Also, there are a number of these marked spots on the dock, but they are not necessarily up to date and the owners had moved on long ago. I was in such a spot all last winter.
Thus I took it, got tied up, changed to my street clothes and then the owner of the spot motored on up, with his wife and two daughters.
Oops.
I went out and apologizing profusely, asked him what I should do, telling him that I had not been able to call Johnny and dreading the response, to move to who knows where?
BBQ in Arklow
Instead he was really nice and said no problem at all; he would just raft outside of Dauntless until I found my place. I thought that was particularly gracious since it meant he had to hang around until I got things sorted out.
Just then, I look down the pontoon, and who do I see walking towards us was Johnny, himself. Now, I was surprised, knowing how busy Johnny is, as well as the fact that the marina (dock really) is just a small part of his job, very small.
Turns out while he had not heard from he, he had spotted Dauntless coming up the river on AIS.
What a relief. I did not want to inconvenient my new found friend Danny any more than I already had. Johnny did have a tight spot for me on the inside of the pontoon, one that I had not considered knowing the water was very shallow on the inside, but in this case it was deep enough.
So 15 minutes later, we were retied to the spot we are currently in. Johnny also called the boat owner in my previous spot to confirm they were pulling their boat this coming Saturday, so I could move back there then.
A wonderful welcome back to Waterford. There are simply no more friendly people than the Irish. Virtually every encounter over the last 13 months had been of this sort. Always willing to help, always friendly to all boaters.
Stopping over in Arklow, the evening before illustrates the point:
It’s a small fishing town. Everyone is so nice. We just stopped in Arklow for a few hours to wait on the tide to turn in about 5 hours.
There was a big sailboat tied to the wharf wall, a commercial dock, with large rubber tires and old timber. I told the sailboat skipper I just needed to stop for 5 or 6 hours. So he suggested I raft (tie up to his boat) next to him. As we were tossing lines, a guy came by on Kayak to tell me the hammerhead on the dock in the small inner harbor with fishing boats was open.
So realizing that was better I moved the boat there and after getting tied up, two different guys, working guys, came by to tell me the access code for the gate and we had a discussion about the tides and currents and the best time to leave.
And of course, this dock was free.
One thing you see in Ireland is that they really like everyone on a boat.
You don’t see the class warfare you see in many places. Fisherman always wave and talk with you. When I spent last September rafted to fishing boats in Castletownbere, Dauntless fit right in, in both size and the lines of the boat. (I wrote about this in the post, “Now It’s Miller Time” sometimes we were rafted 4 or 5 deep.
So my welcome home was better than I could have even hoped.
The Krogen Cruisers have their annual rendezvous next week, so of course I am going to that. I like talking to other owners about our boats and its amazing prowess.
So Tomorrow I fly to my real home, but I’ll be back in a couple weeks to sort out what needs to be done this winter.
In the next weeks and months, I will backfill these posts with the events of the summer that I never had time to write about such as: Cruising with Another Krogen in Holland, Estonia, Finland and Sweden and single handing thru Denmark, Norway and Scotland, the Caledonian Canal and of course, Crossing the North Sea.
Have you ever been unreasonably angry? You know you have no cause to be angry, thus “unreasonable”, but you still can’t shake it.
Maybe not angry; just f…ing irritated.
So I’m sitting on the wrong side of the last locks before town and Neptune’s Staircase.
Maybe because while I understood that I would not get out of the Caledonian Canal system today, I had looked forward to being in town. In the last week I have spent too many days, nights, alone. No one to talk to, no internet, no Wi-Fi, no nothing.
So, I sit here, looking at the beautiful scenery, but disappointed that I’m not in town.
And it’s certainly quiet out here.
The View From Dauntless
But hark; I hear a sound, I go investigate. Alas, it is but the refrigerator compressor.
Welcome to my world.
So, since we last talked it’s been 4 days and 400 miles.
The two day crossing of the North Sea became three days.
A long three days, exactly 72 hours.
I’ve been too tired to write about it. Maybe tomorrow.
Tomorrow is here. Now I’m really tired. Neptune’s Staircase took it all out of me. And then we still had another three locks and a bridge or two to go.
Finally, at 14:00 hours Dauntless is on the sea heading for Oban.
And being at sea you know what that means? Winds of course. 25 knots on the nose. Knocks about a knot off our speed, but I am keeping the rpms higher than usual, 1800 rpms, because the engine has been running cool the last few days have spent basically two days at idle.
I wanted to get this posted, but the pictures had not uploaded and you need pictures to understand what I write some times. I’m not the best when it comes to descriptive detail.
My hands ache from handling cold, wet lines for two days.
It’s Thursday morning, cloudy, rainy, and of course windy, but Dauntless and I are sitting snug in the harbor of Egersund.
Egersund is a medium fishing town and the little central area is just a minute away. We are tied to the endo of the dock near the SAR boat. The marina itself is all finger piers, so I may be to move later, but prefer not to be in a finger.
We entered the fjord just after sunset and then it was another half hour coming up into the town.
Yesterday went as well as I had hoped. Maybe better.
One of the biggest drawbacks to being alone is not the physical stuff, or even docking, but it’s the stuff in my head, and being alone I dwell, maybe obsess is a better word, as my imagination goes crazy.
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Not a Bad Day
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With people around me, unreasonable thoughts come, hang around for a few minutes and then the interaction with others snaps me out of it.
If you watch Cesare, the Dog Whisperer, he’ll make a sharp sound or tap the dog, to get the dog’s attention away from whatever the dog is obsessing about. That’s exactly what I need occasionally.
Before yesterday, I had looked at the route to Scotland 50 times. But even the evening before I left Mandal, I got out of bed to get the tablet to look at the route again. I was looking for an excuse not to leave Mandal. Any excuse. I was in the grip.
But no matter how I looked at it or how many times, it was still clear that if I went direct from Mandal to Scotland, I added 50 miles on to the trip, that’s 8 hours. And it made no sense to add 8 hours to a trip that was already above 40 hours.
I had to leave Mandal and the only weather window I seemed to have was yesterday.
I got off a little later than expected; as I spent some time helping my Danish sailors move their boat. They, in particular, the wife, were so helpful when I docked in Mandal. Besides the ubiquitous wind, there was a current and a vicious steel ladder near the end of the dock that I initially wanted to tie to.
They were not only quick to understand I needed someone to receive the lines, but also, as the boat was getting more and more out of shape, she could see I was getting stressed and gave me some calm, encouraging words. It helped and we were tied up minutes later.
So, leaving the dock late, I then had to go get fuel, which was right by the entrance to the harbor. As I am getting closer, a small skiff pulls up to the dock and I had to wait 10 min for him to finish, but then as he is pulling out another boat jumps in. Another 10 minutes of me making circles in the harbor looking at the crashing waves outside the harbor.
Well, I finally get to the fuel dock and got 500 liters of fuel for $5.20 a gallon, $1.35 per liter (double the price in Ireland, which is a major reason I did not want to leave the boat for eh winter in Norway)
So at 10:35 I FGFU. I’ll let you guess at that.
Within minutes of being in the open water, I realized I got my MOJO back.
Having spent much of the previous day getting ready for action, Dauntless was ready.
I put things away that I had not put away we I checked all the stays for the paravanes and went through the boat from top to bottom making sure everything was secured.
That made all the difference, so when we encountered our first big seas, 6 – 8 feet, 2-3m, everything was tight.
The first few hours were in somewhat protected waters, but then I had 5 hours with the wind and seas on the beam, 6 to 12’, 2-4m.
And that’s when I remembered how well the paravanes work under these conditons. The paravanes are most effective in a beam sea. As the wave approaches, the boat rolls into the trough, just in front of the wave, but then as the wave lifts the boat, the paravanes stop the boat from rolling to the lee side. So as the wave goes under the boat, the boat rights itself and stays that way as the wave passes under the boat.
Now I knew all this, but I had forgotten about it. So I just sat in the pilot house marveling at how nicely that boat was handling all of this.
Depending on the wave period and other things, sometimes the boat would roll to the lee side, but again when that happened, the paravanes stopped the oscillation that would result without the paravanes deployed.
SO now I am waiting in Egersund for a weather window. I’d like two days, but it’s late in the season for that. Right now, I thinking late Saturday or certainly Sunday, arriving in Scotland Monday night or Tuesday morning.
I’ll watch for the next days. I’d like winds less than 20 knots and seas not more than 4 meters and the winds and seas can come in any direction from 80° to 280°, with the bow being at 0°.
I won’t go with any head wind, seas, component.
I’ll try to post some videos. I should get a Go Pro.
I will even drag my 37 pound laptop to the café so you may hear my last words, just in case.
No, I’m not worried about dying; I’m more concerned that one of my faithful readers will die because I left them in the lurch too long. Not my fault. This marina in off season charges $5 per day, yes, that’s five dollars, but for your five dollars you do not get internet.
However, you do get the best laundry I have experienced in 4 months. Only $2 and the dryer actually dries in 40 minutes.
And I’d get free electricity and water, if I deigned to squeeze into the finger piers; I don’t.
Even though I have bene having battery issues the last weeks.
So just a few days ago, I discovered on of the 8D batteries was low on voltage, so it’s out of the program. Today I checked the cabling of the other three. After this weekend’s run, the truth will be revealed.
Norway has been a great experience. I am not saddened with leaving only because it has always been in the plan to return next spring and summer. It will be May and June next year, make your reservations early.
So, a little follow up about weather.
While I have distained weather forecasts, I do look at them. I just don’t trust my life, my health or my boat on them.
So for example, in this case, I have been watching for more than a week. Winds over the North Sea have been as high as 50 knots in the last two weeks making 9 meter, 27 foot seas. Forgetaboutit.
So I’ve been looking for the best two day window I can get at this time of year. A few days ago it looked like Sunday and Monday and maybe Tuesday. Winds 10 to 15 knots out of the NNW or South.
I can live with that, as I have said, I just don’t want a component on the bow. If tomorrow the winds are NW, I will go SW, accepting some extra miles.
Now, I have noticed today that the winds are less than forecast, in fact, down right mild, 8 to 12 maybe.
On one hand that’s good, as it will let the North Sea settle down, but on the other hand it could mean the forecast is a day behind, the next storm system could be coming across the UK not Tuesday, but maybe Monday.
In any case, I am still going, became to me it’s about what is happening now and not in the future. Therefore, as long as I don’t have strong winds on the bow, I leave. I would not leave if I must hope for a change of conditions. .
I’ve spent much to the day preparing Dauntless to cross the North Sea in the next week. Now you would think that there isn’t that much to do.
When you consider that in the last 14 months, we have travelled over 8,000 nm and virtually all of those miles have been on the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, one wonders why I am having such angst about the North Sea.
I’ve been pondering the same question for the last week.
Finally I realized there are two issues:
The North Sea is ferocious. Yes, I should have crossed two weeks sooner, but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. There is nothing I can do about that now.
So, let’s tackle what I can control. It is the small things rolling around the boat that upset me, as I always imagine something far worse than the reality. I do have a very vivid imagination.
Looking forward in the Engine room. It may not seem that orderly, but it’s better than it was.
Coming to Mandal a few days ago, there was an exposed stretch of only 6 miles, but it was like riding a bucking bronco. I did not have the paravanes out, and we rolled a few times to 30°.
I’m secure in the pilot house, but it is the noise of loose things crashing that drive me crazy. And then when things settle down and I go to see what the damage is, expecting to see the refrigerator on the floor, all the contents broken and now mixing into a weird kaleidoscope of colors, dripping down the hatches into the engine room.
Instead, I find the wooden business card holder and the old cards it was holding rolling around and making a racket that would wake the dead. Everything else is sitting there sedately, wondering what the excitement is all about. And this is not the first time that stupid card holder has done this to me.
So I realized that if I don’t want to have a heart attack in the coming days, I better make sure everything is put away. It’ll take two days to cross the North Sea. I am hoping for at least one good day, but I assume the second day will be bad.
So everything must be put away. Even the stuff that has never moved. By doing so, this is the only way I will have the peace of mind to be willing to tackle the North Sea. And I mean everything. All the stuff that has been fine over these last 8k miles is now put away or secured.
Two possible routes. The top one is direct, the lower one in the shape of a “V” is that way because i may have to go SW due to strong NE winds.
The transformer that is sitting on top of the battery box is now secured to the wall. It had never moved before, but why risk it.
The crap that has collected on the helm. The 4,000 pens and pencils, the markers, the rulers, sun glasses that I have not used in three years, all put away.
The 8 different chargers and cables, all put away.
Virtually everything that can cause a problem is secured.
That way, next week as I roll my way west, I’ll be miserable, but at least I won’t be worried.
Dauntless track in magenta showing the jog we did to avoid one of these large ships. This was actually midnight, but I put the screen on “daylight” because i needed to make sure i understood the situation.
Plan B did not last very long. Once it got dark, surrounded by giant behemoths, I knew I needed a new plan, ummm let me think, let’s call it Plan C.
So let’s recap:
Plan A. Run for 12 hours, stop for 12 hours, do this for three days straight.
Plan B. Run continuously for 36 hours through the day, night and another day.
its dark and It’s near midnight.
There are lots of ships all heading for the same point around as we are all heading around the same point of land.
There are six ships in sight, not counting the trawler that I had to go around a few miles back.
I have a new plan.
There is too much traffic not to pay constant attention. It was busy enough in the afternoon, but now that it’s dark, it has become really taxing.
The Navigation Program, Coastal Explorer with the Maretron display on the same monitor
One must correlate with what you see on the radar, then with the AIS depiction and what you actually see out of the window. The last four hours have been constant scanning, the radar, the nav program (with AIS), what do we see out front, and on the beams?
And most of all, what do we see behind us? These cargo ships are going at least twice my speed and Dauntless barely shows up on radar.
I must constantly go from side to side in the pilot house, open the door and check to make sure of what is behind me, then return to the radar and AIS to make sure I am seeing everyone. And they can see me.
Without AIS there would be a whole different problem, more like something like this, when small boats meet Giant Behemoths:
AIS display at 19:34 I’ve been able to get to the far right side of the fairway (just like a highway, with a center line (the white line just to the right of Dauntless, whose track is depicted with a magenta line.
I will anchor just on the west side of the Skagen peninsula. I will curl around to the west and anchor just offshore in about 20 feet of water. Now, the only problem is that is still 25 miles away, more than 4 hours. I probably won’t get anchored until after 04:00, but it’s better than being run over.
P.S. In writing this, I apologize for not having more pictures to help me describe the situation better.
i thought I did, but in the heat of the moment, I was just trying to get run over or run into someone or something,
Evidently this is the reward for being patient and getting the things done yesterday that needed to be done:
Complete bus heater installation
Dauntless Travels over Flat seas while Richard makes his first and last selfie
Replace port side Racor fuel filter
Replace both engine fuel filters
Open the starboard tank, yet again and clean out
Change the starboard tank vent line
By 18:00 hours all was done. The fuel tank opening was necessitated by once again having some water in the starboard tank. Which led to only the second engine shutdown and the first one in over two years?
Opening the inspection port, which I hate doing, was necessitated by my not having moved the fuel vent previously after cleaning the tank. Just plain lazy on my part, and I paid the price by now having to do double the work.
The newly installed Bus Heater under the stairs
The tank turned out to be in not bad shape, only about 1 quart of water, along with about a pint of black sludge. When I was done, I put about 30 gallons back in the tank so it would not sit totally empty and start rusting, again.
On removing the hose for the fuel vent from the fitting, there were some drops of greenish liquid on both the fitting and the hose. Since I’ve been suing green tinted fuel, I thought it was that, but I figured I better taste it to find out.
It was sea water, sweet and salty. Almost refreshing.
Yep, the smoking gun was revealed. That helped me feel better and justified moving of the vent once and for all.
So today, Wednesday, Plan A, its 190 nm to Norway, that will take 30 hours, 10 hours per day for three days, putting me into Kristiansand, Norway Friday evening.
Wanting to take advantage of the light winds I got up early, cast off and was underway before 07:00.
The next time I must open the fuel tank, I will get a helper
The day has only gotten nicer. The winds are even less than earlier, now down to 6 knots, with flat seas, or at least as flat as we ever see. Dauntless is motoring at its most efficient engine rpms of 1500 getting 6.1 knots.
This means a little better than 4 nm/gal (6.1nm*hr-1/1.5gal* hr-1)
We both could not be happier.
Also, I am reminded how much I love being on the water when I am not being tossed around like in a washing machine.
Plan A: motor 12 hours today, anchor for 12, then do it twice more, so on the last day, Friday, head WNW from the northern tip of Denmark to Norway; is being modified into Plan B. The forecast calls for light winds today, then tomorrow continued light from the east, but getting stronger Thursday and Friday.
And while the forecast winds for Friday are going to be stronger, 15 to 20 knots, with seas building to 4 feet, since it is from the east and I would be going just north of west, it would be following sea and the KK loves following seas.
But I think I will hedge my bets. I’d rather not take the chance on Friday’s winds. If they are off even by just 40° it will make the trip much more miserable.
Coastal Explorer AIS depiction of the ships off Anholt Island, everyone is heading for the same point to head north. The dashed lines in front of each ship represent the distance the ship will do int he next 6 minutes.
Mid-afternoon, I am coming upon the marker just to the east of Anholt island and it seems everyone has the same thought. I have seen a lot of ships today, far more than I saw while in the English Channel.
And now we all seem to be chased to the same spot. the problem is these behemoths are so much bigger, like a fly compared to an eagle and they are usually going twice my speed.
It’s going to be a long night.
It’s 19:45 hrs. Evening depiction of the AIS tracks. Alongside the Maretron environmental info
Yes, that has been me and in spite of my constant kvetching about being bored in NYC, I have spent this time planning.
Dauntless at Sea 