Dauntless – Page 9 – Dauntless at Sea

Some People Are Just Slow Learners

Really slow.

But let’s start out on a more positive note!

And I’m posting a number of writings at once for who knows when I will have internet again after tomorrow,

Day 4 out of Stockholm, 31 August 2015, Grey skies, flat sea

Clouds — Darkening clouds building into thunderstorms

I awoke in the little cove of Rödskär to grey skies and flat seas. While the skies were much like yesterday morning, the seas were not. The wind had turned around to the north overnight, but was very light, just a few knots.

I have decided to take advantage of these great motoring conditions. Last night, I was getting tired following the meandering channel in the skärgärd with treacherous rocks ready to make one mistake an expensive one.

So I had spent the last hour a few miles off shore, in the wind and waves, though the wind had died down to 12 knots and the waves were only 2-3 feet, but bow on.

But as you shall soon see, bow on winds and seas are always more trouble than its worth. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The cove I found turned out to be perfect. No waves at all, so I put out 100 feet of chain and had a very quiet night with hardly any movement at all. When I awoke, the boat had turned to the north and after I had hauled the anchor, I then decided to finish making my cup of coffee and to plan the day’s route.

Dauntless just sat were she was, so I figured maybe today I need to take advantage of these ideal motoring conditions and keep going due south on the outside of the skärgärd area.

The Track at Anchor This was a good night — The Track at Anchor
This was a good night

We’ll see how it goes.

We did how it went; not well. After 60 years I am starting to see a pattern in what I do.

As you just read, the day was going very well, though the winds starting picking up as the afternoon progressed. Nothing unusual in that, everything else being equal, winds increase as the day gets warmer.

But the more I motored south, not only were the winds getting stronger, but there was an uncomfortable swell seemingly produced by the waves diffracted around the south tip of Öland island.

I decided to prepare the paravanes for action, but I was hoping not to use them since we had been carrying a good speed and the birds in the water would slow us by 0.7 knots.

I was still hoping to make the dash of 90 miles south to Ustka, Poland, but had already decided that if I needed to use the paravanes, the trip would not only become slower, but also harder and thus, no point.

I did alter my course to 180°, instead of the SSE I had been on for a direct line to Ustka.

Less than an hour later, the winds had increased to 20 knots, the seas were building yet again, I threw the birds in the water and altered course to WSW, a direct line to the east channel entrance to Karlsrona. Now, I did check the charts and saw that a better nighttime entrance was one hour further to the SW, but I figured how bad can it be? Also, I just wanted to get out of these waves. I had started about 6 this morning and it was not past 20:00 I was tired.

So to answer my observation about the pattern I see, when things are going easily, I push the envelope, maybe go longer, and take the riskier entrance.

Simply put, the easier things are, I seem to have the need to challenge myself. That is the only explanation why I get myself in the yet another perilous night time entry to a channel that I have never seen before and even knowing that the markers are NOT lit.

It was a nail biting hour just to get to the spot I thought it would be safe to anchor for the night in about 12 feet of water.

My driving lights saved the day or I should say night. Without them, I could not have done it. The markers were not only not lite; the channel was very narrow, maybe only one fat boat width. But it turned out this worked in my favor because the driving light lens got broken by a fishing boat in Castletownbare. Thus the light pattern was not as uniform s it should be. So I was having to point the bow in the direction I thought the next marker was. But the channel was so narrow, I only had seconds before I was out of the channel and the navy program starts yelling;” pull up, pull up”

OK that’s the wrong warning, but you get the idea, I only had moments to find the marker and get on stay on course.

So that where the narrow channel helped. Had the channel been wider, it would have been harder for me to see the next marker. This was made even harder because it’s only been literally days since its gotten real dark. I became accustomed to the dusk where you could see something in the distance. This was dark. I saw lights for some small towns, and that’s it.

And the markers did not even have reflective tape on them.

Well. I finally got to the point I could turn off into deeper water to anchor. I did and was very grateful.

Day 5 1^st September

I got up relatively late, 08:00 and was quite pleased how well the night went. In spite of strong easterly winds, the boat rocked a bit but nothing terrible.

And of course in the daylight, it was an easy two hour cruise along the channel to the marina at Karlsrona.

Even easier docking, although I was alone, I had prepared all the lines, so it was easy just to pull alongside the dock, throw the looped line over a cleat, and as the slack came of the line, I used a little power to keep the boat parallel and against the dock, while I got off and fastened the bow line.

Within minutes, we were safe and secure.

After stopping by the marina office, even though I was fine where I was, I decided to move the boat to the other side of the same dock. Then its stern would be facing the town, which is what I preferred.

Still alone, that went without a hitch, in fact made a bit easier because now the wind was pushing us on towards the dock.

That was great start to the two days I spent in Karlsrona.

So I did some shopping. Having had too many close calls since Stockholm, I decided to get a one meter shepherds hook to use for the stern buoy.

I also got three driving lights. Had I had more lights the night before, it would not have been so stressful.

Day 6 A long, but fruitful day

12.5 hours, 73 nm. Leaving the dock, I decided to pull around and get just a little bit of fuel. Being expensive, $6 a gallon, I didn’t want too much.

All went well, and the only thing I forgot was to check the sight tube on the starboard tank that I had just fueled. No matter. I was running off the port side tank all day so I’d check it at the end of the day.

I did the log entry and as I’m looking at the numbers, I had remembered seeing 500 Swedish Kroner. But then I realized I must have seen 5,000 and figured I got 334 liters of fuel or just over 80 gallons.

The day went well, the strong winds had finally abated and the first 8 hours went by quickly. Though the winds proceeded to pick up during the afternoon, right on our nose, so I reduced speed a bit and bounced around for a few hours.

Finally, with the sun setting, the rain showers moved to the east, and I anchored about 1 mile off shore. It was very rolly, but other than some rattles, I don’t mid the rolling when I’m asleep.

Day 7 On to Copenhagen

I wanted to start early, so I got up at 04:30 and was hauling anchor and underway an hour later. Took me a little longer since I had also deployed the paravanes and birds yesterday. They do reduce the rolling at anchor by about half. Not as significant as when underway, but then the birds are maximized to be moving. I should probably get those flopper stopper disks that are made for when anchored.

Checking the boat, fluid levels, etc. I finally checked the starboard tank and saw only 5 ½ inches fuel. That’s strange I thought, it was a 5 inches two days ago and had not been used since. 88 gallons should raise it about 6 inches higher!

Then looking at my fuel chart, I see that in fact it was raised about 10 gallons.

Umm, maybe I did see 500 SK after all. So I spent 20 minutes to put 8 gallons of fuel on board.

Moving on. At least today is going as planned. It’s 10:00 and I am just passing the southernmost tip of Sweden. I had wanted to get stared early because the winds were forecast to veer from the NE in the morning to SW by mid-afternoon and continue to get stronger for the next two days. I wanted to be heading northward by the time that happened.

So now the winds have increased and are now on my beam at 15 knots. What else is new!

Waves have increasing from less than a foot to 2 feet just in the last 20 minutes. I have 20 more minutes on this course before I can head WNW. That will help a bit, but then only an hour past that, I come to the Falsterbo Canal which will take me into the Öresund between Denmark and Sweden. Also the waters have no southern fetch, so waves won’t be that bad and I’ll be going due north in any case.

I also think I will stop in Copenhagen tonight and probably for two nights. That will allow me the opportunity to finish the bus heater installation that I got ¾ done thanks to Martin’s help. It’s getting cooler and on days with no sun, the boat stays at water temperature, which is still 62°, but will be cooler once I leave the Baltic which will happen in just hours.

Well. heater did not get finished, though I spent half a day on it Saturday.

(It’s been a week now, and I still can’t get that song, I think sung my Danny Kaye in the Magic Skates?? Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen,…)

Day 8 Sunday Leaving Copenhagen

Some People Are Just Slow Learners

And I’m clearly one of them. Even as I am editing this and see what I wrote just days ago. I see I constantly ignore my own advice:

Having made it quite clear my distain for using weather forecasts to make a go/no go decision. I think I did exactly that today. I had planned on leaving Sunday. The forecast was for northerly winds, 15 to 20 knots, but small seas at least until I got past Helsingborg. But I’m so smart, I figured I would just get to Helsingborg, about 20 miles up the road, and stay there tonight. Then the winds should lesson on Monday and I will be further along.

Well as soon as I got out of the harbor, within 30 minutes it was clear that the forecast was wrong, the winds and seas were much stronger AND there seemed to be a current running against us.

What did i do? Nothing. Just rolled along, as my mother would say, like a jackass.

Within 30 minutes Dauntless was down to 3 knots and burning 2 gallons per hour to get those three knots. What did I do now?

Nothing. I decided to put out the paravanes, which should have been another warning sign that I was on a fruitless mission.

Now out speed was even slower and the waves, while not too big, maybe 3 to 4 feet, were right on the bow.

Up and down we went. Probably did 3 miles of up and down for every 1 mile of forward progress.

This was the English Channel debacle all over again.

So what did I do, I changed course and changed course and changed course.

Heading into winds and seas at 2 to 3 knots, vowing never to do it again, only to find myself doing it again. Sometimes even in the same week!

Yes, Jackass comes to mind.

When I moved back to NYC, I found myself chauffeuring my mother around a lot. She was losing her eyesight and could not drive herself anymore. I never have lived in Brooklyn before, found myself lost a few times.

My mother may have been losing her sight, but not her wits and she could see well enough to recognize we had passed the same place three times in the last 45 minutes, Not being the most patient of people, she’d give me her sideways glance, which meant she was trying to figure out if there was a purpose in what i was doing or if I was jsut being a jackass. It was usually 50-50; and sometimes both.

I should have turned around and gone right back to the cozy spot I had right in the center of Copenhagen.

6 hours later, I was all of 15 miles from by departure point, the winds were howling at 33 gusting to 40 knots and I now had to enter a harbor and get tied up.

Maneuvering in the harbor trying not to hit anything

Well, at least it wasn’t dark!

One thing about the Kadey Krogen. While entering harbors under such conditions is still a nail biter, the power and control the boat has is excellent. I ended up in this little harbor, having to get between a very narrow channel with jetty on one side and rocks on the other in a cross wind gusting to above 40 knots.

The Krogen did fine. Her big rudder can really swing her tail around.

But now I had to get tied up. Had there been cleats it would not have been that hard, it my first two attempts I got within a few feet of the dock, but I had already seen that it only had f…ing rings. and not loops that were verticle, no actual 6″ diameter rings attached thru smaller ring that is fastened to the dock. therefore the big ring is just laying there, without even the possibility of the boat hook grabbing it.,

I just don’t get the ring thing. Many docks have a mixture, 50-50. That’s reasonable, but to have only rings.???

I’ve noticed all the new docks are like that. Maybe it’s another brilliant idea from those EU folks in brussels. Even jackasses could do better. And they don’t even have thumbs.

After about 10 minutes and now I was getting more and more worried, no, panicked was more like it, I even attempted to drop the anchor right in the harbor entrance. But it was a halfhearted attempt as I had kept Dauntless from hitting anything so far and was a bit worried that the anchor may be more of a hindrance than a help. It was an unknown that I did not want to experience with right now.

The beach on the other side of the jetty

Finally I see someone on the far dock on a bicycle, I think he had come to help, but had come down the wrong dock, in any case, as he was riding away, I gave him a blast on the horn, and a few minutes later he finally made it down the right dock.

But then he had to put his bicycle so that the wind would not blow it in the water.

Finally, after 15 minutes of increasing terror, I was able to toss him a line and once that is done, it’s all downhill from there.

An hour later, I finally had the boat tied the way I wanted.

But who knows when I can upload them since the Wi-Fi doesn’t work.

But I had a tasty dinner and tomorrow will peddle to town to find a part for the bus heater.

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Thanks for listening.

One Dead End Leads to Another

Day 2 started beautifully, at least the sun rose I the east and as I hauled the anchor, I marveled at the beauty of the tree covered rocks that is the east coast of Sweden.

Quickly getting underway as I plotted my route for the day, I made my coffee and warmed up Danish like thing I had found in Helsinki and then froze for mornings just like this.

The Helsinki Danish really wasn’t; a Danish that is; and like many pastries in eastern Europe, they look better than they taste.

Within minutes I am motoring south between islands to the passageway to the next series of parallel islands.

After passing two, quite small passageways, I turn the corner to enter the third and don’t see it.

I reverse to stop forward movement while I get the binoculars to look that the passageway which is marked on both my charts as a “recommended track”.

I’m in an alcove with the exit not more than 3 or 4 meters wide. There is a sign saying the depth is 2 meters, which works, but the more I look at this passageway, the more I fear going in, getting stuck, half in and half out.

Within minutes, I accept that I shall have to turn around and go the “outside” route.

So an hour later, I am just past my morning’s starting point.

The outside route is less protected from building seas and the winds have been blowing 15 to 30 knots for the last 48 hours at least.

But in the lee of this long, 4 mile long island, seas are only three feet and not so bad.

I get to the bottom of the island, wondering why I have not seen another boat on the water this morning, whereas yesterday, there were numerous boats out everywhere, when as I round the corner, we are hit by 6 to 8 ft. waves with a short period.

Really annoying, with Dauntless bouncing up and down like a pogo stick.

Checking the charts again, I see if I take a direct route to the southwest, it’s only 16 nm. I can put out the paravanes and just suck it up. But I also see that our speed has fallen to 3.9 knots. This is looking like the English Channel all over again.

So I look again at the charts and if I go NW for an hour, I can then turn west and get into sheltered waters after maybe another hour or two. I decide this is the best option, as I am not mentally ready for an ocean like journey yet.

So, now, an hour later as I write this, I have just completed the NW leg and am now heading west. The seas are becoming calmer, now only 3 to 4 feet, and as I go west they will remain choppy, but small, in spite of the wind I hear blowing thru the rigging.

I am also very close to the point I would have emerged had I been able to take Darget’s Kanal, earlier.

I awoke this morning really happy about the journey back to Ireland. Alone for the first time since mid-May; a certain efficiency comes over me when I have no one else to depend on either for physical or mental assistance.

Other than my near debacle leaving my slip yesterday, pretty much everything else goes well.

I even bbq’d 4 lamb chops while underway yesterday, realizing that one of my big problems being alone is that I like to go until just before sunset, but by then, it’s too late and I’m too tired to cook dinner. Therefore the solution is to eat earlier in the day, like mid-afternoon. And I decided yesterday to see if it works.

It did and once anchored; I could relax, do my end of day checks and get ready for bed.

So, I’m looking at today, as a reminder, that I can’t totally ignore the weather, but even in these relatively protected waters, I must plan accordingly.

I have 28 days to go 1600 nm. If I subtract 5 days for a stop in Poland and a weather day or two, that means I must go 66 miles per day. Not terrible, a not so long 11 hour day.

This portion of the trip should actually be the prettiest of the whole trip, and sadly I’m alone for this portion, because I do like to share the good things and prefer being alone for the bad things.

Having got to the sheltered waters, winds still 20 knots, but with no fetch, the seas are choppy at about a foot, sometimes a bit more, I decided to pull in the paravanes, also because it will become shallow again and that’s one more worry I don’t need.

So with my current, refined system, I stop the boat, get to the fly bridge and use the winch to pull up poles and birds simultaneously. I then come down to the side decks, lift the paravane (now right above the rub rail, just below the cap rail) put it on its spot on the cap rail. At which point I must go back to fly bridge and let the small line out which is whipped to the larger lines on the birds. This just allows me to use the slack to tie the bird to the pole while it’s on the cap rail.

All that took only 4 minutes, and felling very proud of myself, I bounded up the side deck stairs to the pilot house, only to hit my head on the overhang. I’m not an inch shorter I think.

Hubris never goes unpunished on a boat.

First Times

Are always hard.

I still remember vividly every mistake I made during my first winter in Fairbanks, Alaska: having to change a tire at 50° below zero (-45°C), because I had not put enough air in it when it was warmer, and now, at minus 50°, the tire was so flat it had a flat spot, that would not allow the car to move. Even with thick gloves on, I froze the end of my index finger.

That same winter, same car, I spent a week not being able to start it. One night, walking the 5 miles to work at my first weather forecasting job, I almost froze to death. I was so cold, when I finally got to the get at Ft. Wainwright, the gate guard took pity on me and called for a car to take me the last mile.

You have heard enough about our first Atlantic crossing and what we would do differently.

My first year of teaching was unreal. Swimming across the Atlantic may have been easier.

Dauntless still has the dent in the swim platform from the first time I tried to back into a slip.

So, I find myself relishing the thought of the coming winter.

Why?

Because it’s the second winter for Dauntless in Europe and Ireland. I know what to expect; I know what to worry about and what I don’t have to worry about.

It doesn’t get simpler or easier than that.

I know that with Dauntless secure in Waterford, I can spend a bit more time in the U.S.; not only with Julie in N.Y., but also visiting other friends throughout the country and Europe.

A “Real Life of Reilly” A TV show that that as a young kid I found fascinating, why? It was about this foreign place called Brooklyn. Reilly worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard; which also says a lot about New Yorkers in that we are a city of neighborhoods. Also, since I lived on the west side of Manhattan, it was out of sight.

Literally, my sight.

Had I perhaps lived in the Lower East Side (from which the Brooklyn Navy Yard is quite visible) maybe I would not have thought Brooklyn so foreign. It did have Coney Island, which I was a frequent visitor. But again, in those days, the train to Coney Island took the tunnel under the East River; so again, I missed my opportunity to the Navy Yard. (Nowadays, it takes the Manhattan Bridge, giving a wonderful view of New York (Manhattan), Brooklyn and even the Statue of Liberty.

OK, so back to the story.

I can also spend a bit more time on the continent, taking advantage of Ryan Air’s cheap flights, while I scope out some possible places for winter over next year.

Yes, the second time is great.

So while my second winter in Fairbanks, didn’t come for another 10 years, I knew to put 60 lbs. of air in the tires (double the normal amount) before winter started and the gas station air pumps all froze.

I also knew contrary to local wisdom, to start the car engine with no choke initially, otherwise it would instantly flood and I’d be walking for a week.

And in our second year on Dauntless, I know when someone asks me to back the boat into a slip to make it more convenient for them, I kindly decline.

So, I’m really looking forward to my upcoming second winter and second summer in Europe.

But after two, three starts looking the same as one and two.

So it’ll be time to reset the clock again.

Better to have a new first time; than a boring third time.

So just like that we start all over again.

Spanked in Finland

60° North; 24° East, probably as far east as we will get in Europe this year.

Our first night in Finland, bow to shore.

Since leaving Latvia, Estonia and Finland have been interesting. Later this summer I will have to have a Baltic Sea recap, but for now, just a little saga that we have probably all heard before.

We got beat up a bit going between Tallinn and Finland, but what else is new. Maybe we should have named Dauntless, “Windfinder”, because she certainly does that well. The Dog Days of summer, high pressure, hot and windless; not.

We have the Cat Days, high pressure, but not so hot and always windy, 12 to 18 knots. Why “Cat Days”? Have you ever held a cat too long? How do you know it’s too long? One second they are purring contently in your arms; then the stealthy too long switch clicks on, the nails come out and they use your body to spring away, faster than you can say, “kitty, why didn’t you just tell me you wanted to me put down?”

So why Cat Days, because you get up, go outside to marvel at the beautiful sky, just some wispy cirrus at 30,000 feet, not too cool, not too warm, you think it will be a perfect day for being on the water.

As you get underway, it is perfect. You have managed to get out of your tight dock space without hitting anything, you call Port Control asking for permission to leave (mandatory in all eastern European ports so far) and they respond in accented English, yes we may, with a tone that says: thanks for asking and knowing our rules, have a nice day. A feeling of satisfaction comes over you.

It’s mid-morning, you want to make 40 miles, and winds are less than 10 knots, with little 1 foot waves. The Kadey Krogen is slicing thru the water with that reassuring hiss that tells you all is well and this is child’s play.

Speaking of Cats; The Cat Building of Riga

An hour or two later, not quite halfway, you’re feeling a bit off; not queasy, just not right. You realize the winds are up to 15 knots, the seas have now built to 3 feet and you’ve lost a knot of speed as the combination of wind and waves slows the boat.

Paravanes out to reduce the roll, immediately, the roll is reduced 50 to 90% depending upon wind direction (less for a following sea, more for a sea on the beam).

Now you look at the speed and see that your speed is further reduced, the birds on the paravanes reduce our speed by 0.6 knots.

Umm, our 6 hour trip has become an 8 hour trip. I contemplate increasing power to make up for the loss, but it just kills me to burn 50% more fuel to go an extra knot faster.

8 hours it is.

Today, since Tallinn, we are travelling with our new found sailboat friends, John and Jenny. It’s nice to have thinking partners in new waters like this. But they stay safely behind us. What do they know that we don’t?

By early evening, our first time in Finland, we found a sheltered spot with no houses in sight, one of the criteria for anchoring in Finland. The problem is, there are billions of islands and many times, it is unclear if there are any houses until the last moment, which means we must then turn around and keep looking.

The cove we find is OK, but we decide to try to find a more sheltered cove for the next day.

We use a stern anchor with 150 ft. of rode out. I then slowly motor up to the cove, until our bow just barely kisses the rocks. Some intrepid person must then jump on to the rock or land, and we take a line to a tree and return it to the boat, so that we do not have to get on land again when we depart.

So the next day, our first full day in Finland, we are scoping out a place to stop with simple criteria in mind: a house should not be in sight, especially an occupied house and it has to be on a lee shore.

Since there are millions of islands, there is a lot of choice, clearly too much choice for some simple folk like Julie and I.

Mid-afternoon, we are slowly motoring, looking for a place for the night, I see on both my Navionics and C-Map charts the cross signifying a rock dead ahead, about a half mile ahead, 2 minutes at 4 knots.

I’m steering and I say to Julie, we must watch out for that rock.

Julie sees that point I am talking about and acknowledges it.

We both promptly then forget about it, as we go back to trying to figure out where we can stop.

Until two minutes later, with a large bump, dauntless’ bow rises out of the water like Moby Dick.

We had been going slowly because there are so many obstacles, so dauntless stops as soon as I put her in neutral in about 20 feet, with the weight of the boat on the keel on the rock.

I put her in reverse and we slide right off. I spend the next hour trying to feel any change of vibrations and berating myself for seeing a rock, plainly and correctly marked on the chart and then hitting said rock. No vibration, no holes in the boat. Could have been worse. Far worse.

Julie summed it up best: Richard Sees the Rock; Julie Sees the Rock; We Talk About the Rock; We Hit the Rock.

My first mistake, was that I could have altered course a bit, but instead I tell Julie, make sure I don’t hit that rock.

My second mistake was to then totally forget about the rock.

In hindsight, knowing we were in rocky waters, I was going just above idle speed, about 4 knots, maybe a bit less.

This enabled me to get the boat stopped quickly, so I did not run over the rudder or propeller.

That was about the only thing I did correctly.

When I first saw the rock, I should have altered course so that in the “unlikely” event that I somehow forgot about it, I would not be heading directly for it.

So an hour later, as we had our dinner, we celebrated another day that ended well.

And I vowed to never do that again.

But as Sean Connery learned, never say never.

And my “never” didn’t even last 24 hours!

Former Mined Area 151

Has a catchy ring to it, doesn’t it? If there are no more mines left, I wonder why they annotate it on the chart. Maybe just in case?

In any case we decide to go right through; what’s the worst that could happen?

It seems the Russians mined large swaths of the Baltic and what wasn’t mined was closely watched; well, as closely watched as can be with conscripted soldiers living on vodka and potatoes.

But all good things must come to an end and with the fall of the Soviet Union, the Baltic Republics were allowed to have their own destiny again and the rest of us can now enjoy that benefit.

Sadly, we did not go to Lithuania as it required a large detour around a current mine field. Well, it isn’t listed on the charts as a mine field, but then I doubt the hundreds of mine fields presently annotated were so listed prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Oh yes, after the Russians moved Poland west by a few hundred kilometers, they took a chunk for themselves, Königsberg, threw all the Germans out, the lucky ones that is, and renamed it Kaliningrad, because the name Stalingrad was already taken.

So, during the last two weeks, we have been exploring country never before visited by me at least. First Poland and now Latvia, Letland in Dutch, Land of the Lets.

Poland and now Latvia have been a wonderful experience, the people, the food, and the warmth showed to us by virtually everyone. Dauntless probably had her picture taken a thousand times in Gdansk. I wish she looked better, Dauntless I’m referring to, not Gdansk, but we’ve already travelled more than 2,000 miles since leaving Ireland, so who has the energy to wash and wax?

I did regret not speaking Polish. Had we stayed another week, we would have probably gone viral. People would ask how long we are staying docked against the wall in downtown Gdansk, because they wanted to bring the family for a photo session the next time.

Wonderful people who also make the most wondrous smoked meats and fishes.

Then Latvia.

Compared to Western Europe, the prices is Poland, not in the Euro zone and still using the Zloty, were good, maybe 30% cheaper than in Germany.

Latvia on the other hand is in the Euro zone and prices are still amazingly low. So low in fact, that we felt compelled to find out why.

In talking with the marina “bosman,” in Liepaja, he explained that Latvia prepared for the change to the Euro in a very methodical manner. They used strict conversion tables, unlike in most places, like Italy, which saw a doubling of many prices within the first year of conversion, but no doubling of wages, pensions and salaries.

Dauntless in Liepaja docked in front of a warship

We ended up spending only two nights. Having seen the outdoor and indoor market in the small city of Liepaja, the market in the capital, Riga, was literally 10 times the size. We have never seen so many berries, blue, black, red, etc. in my life. Clearly, people would buy large quantiles to preserve for the coming winter.

The harbor itself was a mix of old and new, with modern bridges, next to Soviet style cranes and trains. I’ll try to upload some pictures.

Today, our adventure in Estonia begins. We had a windy passage yesterday and it looks like the wind will continue for the foreseeable future, maybe forever.

Dauntless is doing well, though I was a bit shocked last night as I gazed at all the scrapes, scratches and gouges I’ve put on her hull in the last two months.

I’ve also used far more fuel than anticipated, 50% more. The actual fuel consumption has been good, the problem is the distances I had calculated. It’s been 60 days since leaving Ireland. What I had not anticipated was that so many harbors and docking places would take a significant amount of time, 30 minutes to an hour to get in and then the same going out.

Therefore, 25 to 30 stops times 2 extra hours for each, is 60 additional hours of fuel consumption, about 90 gallons, at 1.4 gal.hr, which is our average so far in 415 hours so far.

A shot from the pilot house during the 32 hour passage from Liepaja to Riga

Coming up, Estonia, Estland in Dutch, land in the east.

And We Never Spoke of it Again

Just when you thought it safe to reenter the water…

Waking up in the now Polish town of Swinoujscie, I had two problems to solve; one more vexing than the other.

But first, let’s talk about Swinoujscie, gateway to the Baltic and until 1945, a German city, aka Swinemünde. With the looks of an old German town, it boasts a certain charm, with a few modern touches. One of those being an almost identical fountain in the main square to that of the Brooklyn Museum, that I had mentioned in a previous post, you know, the one that started out much like this one in Swinoujscie, until the lawyers got involved.

So Swinoujscie, aka Swinemünde, became one of thousands of cities and towns in which whole populations were uprooted and “moved” at the war’s end. Why because Stalin wanted half of Poland and therefore Poland moved west, but never fear, the western powers and the press don’t talk about it, better to tut tut about displaced people in third world countries, than issues they created themselves.

So on that note, let’s get back to our story.

As you recall from our previous episode, Dauntless limped into Swinoujscie, with her tail between her legs, well maybe not a tail, but a thin line that had wrapped around my bow thruster.

But I was determined to at least fix the autopilot.

If you have read our Atlantic Passage, you may remember that the autopilot was one of the most critical pieces on the boat and I had absolutely no spare anything’s for it.

Having Eve and Nigel onboard, did mitigate the loss, but even with three people, hand steering a power boat for long stretches of time is both boring and fatiguing.

Assuming there is no such thing as coincidences when it comes to mechanical problems, in other words, you change, add, replace any part of a particular system, and then that system craps out on you, there is about a 99.9% chance you whatever you did caused the problem.

So, I got out our hydraulic fluid and the handy fitting for the upper helm station and proceeded to run the system and turning the wheel to get the air out.

But little air came out.

At this point, I figured I better get serious, I got the ComNav book.

In the book I discovered a self-diagnostic the ComNav can run. I ran it and got the ominous response “hard right rudder too slow”.

I could not find the bleed screws that were supposed to be on the hydraulic ram. But I did not want to screw with the ram in any case, since it worked fine; it was the autopilot part that was not working.

I ran the self-test again. Same result.

I went down into the engine room to look once again at the ComNav pump. Maybe I could bleed it there. No, no fittings I could see for easy bleeding.

I took a picture of the pump, maybe the writing will give me a clue or I can better see bleeding screw fittings. Nope. Nothing. Nada.

Run the self-test again. No change, but I realize that while I can turn the wheel and the rudder responds as it should, in fact better than before with no groaning while turning it quickly, meaning I had gotten what little air there was out of the system, when I used the auto pilot control head to turn the rudder, it barely moved the rudder to the left (port).

Clearly the auto pilot was the issue, not the hydraulic steering itself.

I looked at the autopilot’s control panel. A lot of green lights. So at least electronically, the autopilot thinks all is OK.

Back to the engine room to look at that pump again. I crawl over to it. I read both sets of labels on the pump. One reads, “to remove the pump without losing fluid, close the thumb valves”

What thumb valves? Those brass “T” handles that I occasionally play with, wondering what they do? The ones that I had decided should be tighter, but not too tight the other day, while I was changing the main engine oil and in a moment of “let’s turn this and see what happens” madness??

I noticed the one on the left side was tight, the other two, one on top and one on the right, were close to being closed, but not tight.

Umm, could these be the valves that are to close when removing the pump? And if so, should not they be OPEN now?

I have Eve use the autopilot control head to move the rudder, it now moves, not quickly, but better than before. I open all three and she tries again. Much better, almost like it’s supposed to.

We run the self-test again. This time, rudder movement is normal.

I had changed the oil on the main engine a few days earlier. So I was working at the back of the engine and it my spare time I was fiddling with those three T valves. Sort of aimlessly fiddling.

So it seems my fiddling closed at least one valve and we had a few days of indifferent autopilot response, culminating in it not working at all.

Now all is fine. No air, valves open and the autopilot has worked better than ever.

When people ask me about crossing the Atlantic and why I like Kadey Krogen yachts, I say that quite simply I have never had a problem with the boat that was not caused my operator error.

We just passed 4000 engine hours. That’s 2300 hours we have put on the boat in the last 28 months.

I’ve put 300+ hours since leaving Waterford two months again.

I have also been breaking down the cost of this trip during the last few days. That will be the subject of a later post.

We love Dauntless because she never lets us down. Now if only I could find a way to control that nut behind the wheel.

And we shall never talk of it again.

Coming up,

Leba, Gdansk and leaving Poland for the lands to the east

A Gaggle of Greece and Two Ugly Ducklings

It’s been an eventful few days. Now into Day 5 of our 8 day Cruising Association’s 2015 Baltic Rally, having all those sail boats around keeps you on your toes. The winds had been howling since Wednesday. Therefore it was decided to remain in Kröslin until Saturday morning.

Dauntless in Ueckermünde with the fish boat restaurant to the left. — Dauntless in Ueckermünde with the fish boat restaurant to the left, not leaving me a lot of room for the U turn

But I needed to be in Ueckermünde, the next stop and our last in Germany, Saturday morning, as Ivan my dutiful crew member was returning to Italy that day and Eve and Nigel were scheduled to come that afternoon.

Therefore I decided to leave Friday morning in spite of the winds.

And they were howling, 25 knots, gusting to 38. But at least, my position at the end of the “T” combined with the winds pushing me off the dock, made for a relatively easy launch.

Between Kröslin and Ueckermünde, there are two bridges with set opening times, a few times a day.

We got to the first bridge early, we had 45 minutes to wait. After a few anxious moments, we got a line onto a large steel piling and made a bridle from the bow cleats. Worked well and Dauntless kept her bow to the wind at about a 30° angle. Easy Peasy.

We got to the next bridge, in spite of traveling as slow as I could, we still had an hour to wait. There was a shallow anchoring area for boats waiting for the bridge. Only 7 feet of water, (D takes 4.7 ft), but it was on the windward side, so that meant if the anchor did drag, we would at least be push to deeper water closer to the channel. And the day’s winds meant there was virtually no one on the water except for us and two sailboats, one German and one Danish.

Dauntless flying the Kadey Krogen flag in Ueckermünde, Germany

Anchor out; I also have an anchor buoy, which is attached to the anchor with a very thin, but strong Amsteel line. Too strong.

An hour later, we weigh the anchor and get underway down the very narrow channels (much like the ICW in Georgia) towards Ueckermünde.

Arriving in the quaint town, my directions told me to proceed until the bridge, at which point one cannot go further and tie up along the wall close to the bridge. Sounds easy; I was calmer than usual knowing Graham and Fay of the Cruising Association would be on the dock to help tie up.

As I come into the narrow part of the channel, towards the anticipated docking spot, I turn on the power to the bow thruster. I try to minimize bow thruster use, but I will use it and would hate not to use it and hit another boat as a consequence of me being stubborn.

The 25 knot wind is now right on my stern. I know D turns well to the left and backs to the right, so I can usually do a 180° turn to the left within a 50’ circle. With not winds that is.

I pull to the right as much as I can. But leaving room for the stern to kick out to the right and still miss the restaurant boat.

All went well, until about half way through, so now I was perpendicular to the canal, the fish restaurant boat was just a couple feet from the swim platform, the dock wall just feet in front of us and the bridge, that effectively made this a dead end for us, about 50 feet away with the wind blowing us towards it.

Then the light on the bow thruster went off, which told me, it had blown the fuse.

I was actually unfazed about it, I try to minimize my bow thruster use in any case, just for reasons like this, and though the wind was now pushing me closer and closer to the bridge, it was still a boat length away.

Backing and filling like I have practiced many times, the Kadey Krogen with its large rudder swung her stern around quite smartly and we were parallel to the dock 30 seconds later.

Ivan on his last full day on Dauntless got us tied up and I thank the lucky stars for another good end to a stressful day with 25 to 38 knot winds, a narrow dock space and having to wait two hours for two bridges in winds in strong, gusty winds.

Now as for the 300 amp slow blow fuse, this had happened once before a few months after we got Dauntless. Then I did not have a spare fuse and since it powered the Inverter also, I had to resort to extreme measures. Don’t do this at home.

This time I had a spare, so I promptly found it and replaced the blown fuse. I simply assumed it had blown because I had used the bow thruster for too long or continuously.

I had also changed the engine oil while in Kröslin. With Ivan’s help it went easily, too easily.

Ivan left on the train early Saturday morning, it was sad to see him go. A great kid, and a real big help.

Eve and Nigel were there to replace him and I looked forward to leaving Germany on Sunday and entering Poland for the first time in my life and Dauntless’ too for that matter!

With a bit of a hangover from the night’s before bbq. A comment about German bbq’s. They are just that, meat on the grill. By speaking to the cook in German, I even got extra meat. Maybe too much meat. Since there was virtually no salad or other fillers, I ate a lot of meat and washed it down with a lot of white wine.

Meat, wine and great company, one cannot ask for a better life.

So, the next morning Sunday, a bit hungover, but all seemed right with the world.

The fuse was replaced, the oil had been changed, and D was really for new places. But one nagging problem. Leaving Kröslin, having to stay in a number of narrow channels for hours on end, the ComNav autopilot did not seem up to its usual precision. It was over correcting too much and also more noise than usual, usually an indication of air in the hydraulic lines.

So, we had a late morning departure planned for Ueckermünde and the two power boats would bring up the rear of our little gaggle of sail boats and the two ugly ducklings following behind.

The plan was to travel at about 5 knots which was the fastest speed for the slowest sailboat.

I knew it was going to be a slow day, very slow, in any case. While Dauntless is not fast, nor even quick, she does like to travel around 6 to 7 knots. Any slower and she starts to get ornery, below 5 knots, she gets downright rambunctious.

So I figured once I started the engine, I would be in no hurry to leave and would check the hydraulic fluid of the wheel and autopilot. So we did, but discovered no great amount of air in the steering system, in fact virtually none. That made me worry, if there was not air in the system, then why was the AP acting strangely. The day before, even though I had it set on the highest sensitivity to keep us in the very narrow channel, it was not responding fully like normal. As the heading drifted off, it was not correcting quickly. On numerous occasions we had to quickly shut it off and hand steer to get back into the 5 mile long, straight as an arrow channel. But then we would try it again and it would sort of work. And then do the same thing.

So when we get underway from Ueckermünde, while I hoped I had fixed it, I also knew I had not done anything significant and this was more like a wish and a prayer.

Well we catch up to the fleet and now, the one power boat, Tudora, a beautiful maintained older cabin cruiser, came by to tell me I had a line in the water.

Now, I had remembered that a day earlier I had seen the small, thin line that is connected to the anchor buoy had fallen in the water. I had forgotten to get it out and now, I was a bit embarrassed that another boat had to remind me.

As I pulled on the line, it was stuck; on what I didn’t know, but clearly it would not come up.

I pulled harder. No change and it did not budge an inch.

I had a brainstorm. I fastened the anchor buoy to it and let it go. I figured if it was stuck on the prop, it would trail behind the boat. Now, I was sure I had purposely not had enough line for it to reach the prop, but then …

After a few seconds the buoy bobbed the surface; at amidships.

In a flash, it all came together.

The line had been in the water when I made my U turn. I had used the bow thruster for a longer period of time, maybe 20 seconds versus just a few seconds normally.

The line had been sucked into the bow thruster, wrapped itself around the shaft, stopping the shaft from rotating and lo and behold, the fuse blew.

Sure enough, as I pulled on the line, it was clear it was emanating from the front of the boat.

Knowing that, I was not overly concerned, I don’t use it very often and now, my practice backing and filling would reward me, so in spite of my fellow travelers concerns, we’d be fine without it, until haul out at least.

What had made the day so difficult was that the autopilot was acting like never before. In the past I had had problems, significant ones at that, with the compass connected to the autopilot.

I knew how to deal with that. This wasn’t that. That was the problem.

The last few hours, the autopilot went from bad to worse. It was not even following its own commands. This to me was a more serious problem. The end result was that Eve and Nigel had had to hand steer virtually all day. The times we did try to AP, it would work for a bit, but then as the compass heading changed, first a few degrees, then 10, then 20°, nothing would happen. I would lunge for it and turn it off so we could get the boat back on track and in the channel and the gaggle we were supposed to be following.

Pulling into the dock at Swinoujscie, it was good to be tied up, but it had been a long day that ended with two major problems, the worst being an autopilot that all of a sudden wasn’t.

I went to bed that night with two issues, not the best ingredients for a good night’s sleep.

Italy, Holland, Germany and the Tower Incident

IMGP1762 (1280x848) — THe Tower on Ruden

Sort of like the “Bedford Incident” but without Sidney Poitier, or a submarine or the drama, but let’s start at the end.

So, I just had a little conversation with the conductor of the train taking Ivan to Berlin for his plane to Venezia. The fact that I could have this conversation in German reminds me how comfortable I am in Germany, in spite of a few glitches and now being locked in a tower.

This past year, having Dauntless in Ireland, afforded me the opportunity to spend much more time with my old friends in Italy, the Netherlands and now, new friends in Germany. Since September, I’ve spent five weeks in Holland and three weeks each in Italy and Germany. The most time in many years. I do like Germany, maybe not as much as Italy or Ireland, or Holland, or Spain, or …, but I do like it.

I have some wonderful friends from Germany and being here this long actually makes me miss them more, but that’s a saga for a different day.

So it is with an understanding eye that I relate my incident in the tower.

Let’s set the scene.

For the last week Dauntless has been in the company of about 20 boats, all members of the Cruising Association which is headquartered in London. We are doing a week long “rally” in Eastern Germany and into Poland. I figured it would be a good way for me to wet my feet, figuratively, but hopefully not literally, for my first ever trip to Poland.

While all these travels are new to me by boat, before I became a boat based gypsy, I was certainly a car based gypsy and travelled extensively all over Europe, but never Poland or the Baltic Republics.

So on a windy, but sunny day, our little band of boats set off for Kroeslin from Stralsund, with a small stop for those who are interested on the island of Ruden.

Now, one pleasure I get out of being on a tour organized by others is that I don’t have to do any thinking. I don’t have to worry about bridge opening times nor actual routes. In fact, it was only after I was tied to the wall, just outside the little, very little harbor of Ruden that I realized only about half a dozen boats made this detour to check out Ruden.

OK, I was here now, so I figured I may as well traipse down the dusty path and check out the watch tower that looked south over the V1 and V2 rocket development area of Peenemunde and later as the observation post to make sure no one left the people’s paradise known as the Deutsche Democratic Republic (DDR). It’s actually comical to write that. You have to hand to the commies; they certainly have a sense of humor.

So, there was Dauntless, right at the entrance to the harbor, flying not one, but two Stars and Stripes, with of course the German flag, a large one mind you and my newest addition, a Kadey Krogen flag thanks to the great people in their Seattle office.

Thus while I was securing the lines and then changing from by boating clothes to my walk a dusty path clothes, a little German boat, carrying maybe six people came in and tied up in the inner harbor in a spot reserved just for them.

One of the Displays of a B-17 Over Germany

So an hour later, I find myself walking down the dusty path, past the island caretaker’s house, past the 1960’s style barracks, though it could be 1930’s, it’s hard to tell in the DDR, with not a soul in sight.

On the path just in front, I pass a German coming from the tower and figure he was with that little boat that came in after me.

The tower is basically a four floor, 20 feet by 12 feet structure. Each floor had one room looking south towards Peenemunde.

Now, while I was alone in the bulding, I was making noise. Under such circumstances, I usually talk to the photos and ask them questions. I don’t get many ansers though. I was also humming a tune; rather loudly as no one was about and it turned out the tune was from the Victory at Sea soundtrack done by RCA Victor and Robert Russell Bennett. It had been in my head for a few days as I had played it after some arduous crossing. At the time, I had no idea what particular track I was humming, but did discover later it was “D-Day”.

On each floor they had some information on the wall about the history of the island and one floor was about the war years. There was a photo of a B-17 in flight over Peenemunde. Now my German is not so great, but I could glean from the explanation, that they were not thanking the B-17s for liberating them from the madman who was Hitler.

And I really had no idea the tune I was humming was titled “D-Day”.

Really, I didn’t.

Having walked to the top floor, I figured I may as well go one more flight up to the open air roof.

It was open air and it was the roof. 30 seconds later, feeling my duty was done, I go down to the ground floor, but realize something is different; it’s dark. The metal door, which had been propped open when I had entered, was closed.

I actually went to look for the stairs to go down one more floor thinking I had forgotten how I came in.

Nothing. I go UP one floor, maybe I was in the basement? No, I can see I’m two stories up.

The German Boat with Tower in the Background

I go back to the metal door, which I had tried to open initially.

I try harder this time, now 98% sure it was the door I came in, I push really hard and see that there is a chain holding the doors closed. I push harder. Nothing.

Now, at this point, I am not panicked; but simply perplexed. I am still thinking I had possibly come in some other entrance.

Now, folks, this is a simple building. We’re not talking Taj Mahal. So, I realize that someone has chained me in the place.

OK, I check out the windows. Not only are they bolted closed, but the first floor has those iron gates covering them. I do see an English couple walking up, so I go wait for them and they confirm that the chain is padlocked.

Now, my phone is on the boat. Who would I be calling on this island?

I thought to myself, maybe I should have brought my chain cutter with me. The fact that it weighs 20 pounds and is three feet long was probably the main reason I didn’t. I also am not sure why I even bought it, as I can never remember using it. Maybe I bought it for just this occasion?

No, brute force will be my last resort.

Free at Last, Free at Last, the Eyebolt hanging down with the nut I put back

I look at the door and the eye bolt the chain is connected to on the outside has one nut holding it in place. I pull on the end of the bolt hoping to relieve the pressure and maybe I can get the bolt off.

I do; it does and I unbolt the eye bolt.

Push it through and I am as free as a bird.

I consciously put the nut back on the bolt.

I start walking back to Dauntless, who is probably now wondering what is taking so long on this forlorn island.

Just before the harbor, I pass one of the Germans I had seen earlier, now sitting on a bench waiting, watching or maybe just plain resting.

He smiles. And it all becomes clear.

His smile gives him away. He gives me that mischievous smile that explains the whole situation to me at a glance.

I give him my “we’ve beat you twice and we could do it again” smirk and continue down the path, back to Dauntless with her two American flags standing straight out in the brisk wind.

I’m proud to be an American.

And, I really didn’t know the tune was titled, “D-Day”

Germany, A Few Thoughts and Bugaboos Too

Yesterday, we arrived at the harbor of Stralsund at 23:15. Jeremy from the Cruising Association was ready, waving a flashlight so I knew where to go and I cannot tell you how relieved I was having that last uncertainty removed.

Ruden the little Island North of Peenemunde

We had D tied up and engine off in 10 minutes, surely a record.

Saturday started in a frustrating fashion and ended the same way.

I use my Kindle for most books and I use the Kindle app on my phone for magazines and newspapers. The app works better because it’s in color and the newspaper I read, the Wall Street Journal is formatted far better for that medium.

Why do I like the WSJ?

As I moved around the world, the WSJ was the one paper that one could get consistently and I liked the mix of world, US and business news. Since I’ve gotten it on my Kindle, I like it even more since the version I get is for NY and has stories of the NY sports teams.

During this past year, I have come to realize that after a long day or before a long day starts, I really like having my cup of coffee and the newspaper. On reflection, I realize that while Dauntless is my main job now, almost as important, is reading the newspaper in the morning.

I grew up that way and since my first job was delivering newspapers, a job that was setup by the upstairs neighbors who wanted the four morning newspapers and therefore found another half dozen customers for me to make it worth the while of a 10 year old. So, I had the paper every morning to read before school. As I got older, work and organizing my day mentally took precedence.

But now on Dauntless, I find a satisfaction on sitting down in the morning with the paper and my coffee that can hardly be described.

With my Samsung Note I can take it with me anywhere has been great. I’ve even gotten used to the fact that it is not available until just before 8:00 Ireland time; which means an hour later on the continent.

OK, fine. But since I have been in Germany, my internet connections seem to have vanished. Last week I was in a particular foul mood all day, just because I could not get the day’s paper. Now Amazon certainly has its issues. About once a month, the kindle has a hissy fit and tells me something stupid like all of a sudden I have too many devices or there is no new paper today.

If you email Amazon support, they now give you the boilerplate answer: cut off your pinky, use the blood to wipe the screen, say praise be to whatever god your believe in or not, and that should do it.

Well, not exactly, but it’s usually just as bad, erase everything on your phone, reinstall everything and it will work. Sometimes.

Yeah, I don’t do that either. Strangely most of the time, within a few hours it starts working again.

OK, but now, it’s not Amazon. It’s the many places that say they have Wi-Fi, but really don’t. And that now includes the Telco’s.

So no paper, email for days. I didn’t miss it crossing the Atlantic, but now people think when I don’t respond to their email I’m ignoring them. Worse, Gmail manages to send some stuff, but other stuff sits for days in the Que.

So this weekend ended on a sour note for me. No paper, made worse because it took me a day to figure out the WSJ had not published on Saturday, the 4^th.

Then Monday dawned bright and first thing it was back to the O2 store that sold me a data only SIM on Saturday to find out why I still had no Internet. Now, I had returned to the store Saturday afternoon, just before closing to ask why it was still not working and the response was many people are having the same problem. That was confirmed by my German friends who had checked online for me.

OK, so off I was to the O2 store for a resolution one way or another.

But this time, when I inquired why still no joy, I asked the question, that I should have asked on Saturday, but naively didn’t, assuming I would be told the whole story from the beginning.

But I had forgotten I was in the former DDR. Germans are a bit reserved, at least compared to Italians or Irish, but the denizens of the former DDR are even more reserved. With extra information, words, even necessary information, comes the risk of saying the wrong words to the wrong people. Living for three generations, 60 years, under the watchful eye of the Gestapo/Stasi will do that to you.

So I was understanding; I smiled and did not say what I was thinking as he finally told me I needed an APN (an internet protocol). In Italy, and with Verizon, the phone needs an APN, but is not needed in the Netherlands, or Ireland. But, behind my tolerant smile, you know, the kind you give your puppy after he eats your favorite shoe, I wondered how he could have neglected to mention this after I returned to tell him it still wasn’t working?

But little did I realize how my mettle would be tested just 36 hours later locked in an old watchtower on Ruden.

Unexpected Noise is Never Good

I am striving to post twice a week. Sometimes it will be more and sometimes less, but at a minimum I like to have a post out by Saturday morning. I didn’t make it this week, because I’ve been sick with the flu or something these past few days, having absolutely no energy to do anything.

It’s even one of the reasons we are still sitting in Arnhem today, Monday.

Nijmegen and Arnhem are special places for me. My ex-wife Leonie is from Nijmegen and her sisters have lived in Arnhem the past 30 years, so it’s like coming home.

So in spite of my feeling not the best, it was great to have people over every evening for dinner, since Wednesday, to see the D, aka Dauntless. Dauntless does appear to have gotten bigger in Europe, either that or all the docks and marinas are smaller.

So after entertaining the Vinks all weekend, I awoke this morning, with a goal to sit in my chair and do nothing. Doing nothing is really hard for me. That Corona ad, where the guy goes to the beach and sits with his beer watching the sunset, looks like torture to me.

So this morning, I figured, maybe I would sit in my chair in the salon and organize the two large bins I have of stuff that keeps growing, yet seems unclassifiable, so I can’t put it where it belongs. Maybe I’ll just store it and let Leonie sort it when she and her husband Martin come out in August.

Speaking of Martin, Dauntless has three battery chargers. A Heart Inverter/Charger, A Neumar True Charge and another one with a yellow case.

The Neumar is the only one that can take shore power here at 230 volts and charge the batteries. Of course when I spent that week in Horta, we were hooked up to shore power and I tried to get it to work and for the life of me, it seemed dead. Would not even work with the generator, the way it used to. In the Azores, I was also delayed in fixing it in that I could not find that female plug that is ubiquitous in the US for computer power supplies.

I had removed the cover that says, so not remove under pain of death, and even checked the fuses and everything else I could find. Neumar sent me the wiring diagram and offered to send another selector switch. This while helpful, ended up misleading me.

Even after I came back from the US in the fall, I had a cable and plug, I had labeled it all, ground, neutral and load. Blah, blah, blah. NO luck.

But with the solar panels and not really needing much 12 v power form the batteries while at the dock, it got put to the back burner.

So finally yesterday, while I am burning our dinner on the bbq, Martin seemed fascinated with this Charger, so not to look a gift horse in the mouth, I got him the electrical meter and found a plug we could use for the 230 system.

Locking with Willie carrying 1,000 tons of sand

He gets it all wired up again and plugs it in. I said this is how far I got, but once plugged in, I never saw any power past the plug pins. He plugs it in and within a minute it starts working!

Frankly, I was as flabbergasted as I was grateful. One less thing to worry about.

B y the time I finished washing up, I was exhausted, so I got to bed early, feeling not so good, slept on and off until 09:30 and frankly did not feel that much better, thus the decision to do nothing.

So I’m looking at the Victron battery monitor and see a draw of 7 amps. Other than a phone charger plugged into a cigarette lighter outlet, there is nothing else on. I take the flashlight to check the charger, and sure enough, it is not working, but then I knew that, otherwise I would not have seen the negative 7 amps (yesterday when working it was putting 20 amps into the batteries).

I check the fuel levels to write in the log and then I hear it. A slight whine. But I can’t place it. It’s not the fuel polisher, which is much nosier.

It seems to be coming from the rear section of the engine room, near the charger.

I open the salon deck panel and look down into the bilge and see a foot of water flowing rapidly, almost like a garden hose full open.

My initial panic, within seconds gives way to measured panic. At least the bilge pump is just keeping up with it as in the little time I’ve been watching it, it has not gotten higher. But this also explains why the batteries were down 220 amps this morning. That poor little pump had been keeping us afloat all night.

Of course, this was one of the topics of conversation over the weekend. I explained that while Waterford is a great place to leave the Krogen, once I’m gone for two weeks, I start getting antsy and must return within three weeks. And I gave the example of a thru hull failure that lets a lot of water into the boat that the two pumps can keep up with only so long as there is battery power. So even though I have friends in Waterford who keep an eye on Dauntless, they could go by every day and see nothing out of place, then all of a sudden, the batteries finally go flat and D sinks.

So all of this is going on in my mind in the first minute.

I see all this water rushing around, but where is it coming from? I turn off the generator thru hull, because it’s right there and I figure I ran the generator for the first time since October last evening and this started last evening, so maybe they are related.

No change in flow.

Look under the engine, see nothing, but close the main engine thru hull. No change.

I look all over the engine room, the stuffing box had been my first guess, but just it’s steady drip, drip, drip. I can’t figure out how the water is getting there. So I decide to take the chance and turn off the bilge pump and then I can see where it is coming from.

Turn it off, run over to the hatch look down and it’s the same amount of water, just sitting there sedately. Not getting deeper; now just calm.

I turn on the pump, the whirlpool starts again, turn it off, it stops.

So, I don’t have a leak, this is the water that has come from the stuffing box in the last 12 hours (I do need to tighten it, I like a drip every minute, now it’s up to every second).

I pull the hose up to get the pump out and the hose comes up without the pump. That explains that.

Two hours later, I’m sweating like a pig (it must be the flu, the boat is not even warm), but I put a new piece of hose on the pump with a new clamp. The failure was caused by the old clamp disintegrating.

At 12:30 I am finally able to sit and do nothing.

So I end up spending the next three hours trying to get my wxx3 email with yahoo to work again. It just stopped working last week.

And an hour writing this, it’s 18:30, almost time for bed.’

Another day done just like that.

Oh by the way, remember I said that I initially had the charger problem in Horta last August?

It seems pretty obvious to be now that the reason the charger did not work was that the solar panels put out enough power, the charger would not be able to see the true state of batteries with the solar panels on. Here in Arnhem yesterday, not only are we much further north, but it was also cloudy.

So I will sleep tonight knowing that I spent countless hours on that charger looking for complicated problems when the simple solution was right in front of me. All I had to do was turn off the solar panels.

It’s Dark at Night

As I look at the videos I shot with my phone conditions don’t look that bad. Monday morning unfolded into seas that were still less than 6 feet.

With a “normal” day cruising, we should be in Vlissingen in 12 hours.

Error

This video doesn’t exist

The https://share.delorme.com/dauntless site is pretty nifty. You can click on each circle and it tells you the time. I can also see that I made the decision to abort and head for Oostende at 21:20 Monday night. Only 12 nm away, it still took 4 and half hours to get here.

And those were the must miserable 4 hours.

The winds having built to 25 gusting to 33 knots, had built very steep, choppy waves. Only 4 to 6 ft. early in the evening, due to the proximity of land, about 10 miles off our starboard beam, the waves were coming from a multitude of directions, having bounced off the close by land.

Pierre-Jean liked hand steering; he really liked the Krogen and I let him for the most part, though as the evening progressed, I preferred being on the ComNav Autopilot because it does really well in the worst conditions. At a certain point it dawned on me that for PJ, this was a test drive. He got to drive a Krogen in conditions that 90% will never see. He was as sick as a dog, but I give him credit, he found a boat far tougher than he was. He left happy.

Dauntless Docked. There was a Sailboat 10' in Front — Dauntless Docked 3 Days later. There had Been a Sailboat 10′ in Front

Me too. PJ had left me with a bunch of wonderful French wine. And if we have one rule on Dauntless it is all sins are forgiven with wine.

With the mixed up seas, Dauntless was being hit by the tops of waves periodically. So I not fixing the two problem areas, the warped pilot house doors needed new thicker gaskets. The center pilot house window, that flips open, had a rubber flap, to stop water from directly hitting the gasket on the hinge.

I had removed that months ago, with the intent to replace it. I hadn’t. Why, because I was looking for a white rubber mat, that would fit, be inexpensive and look good. So periodically, as the pilot house got bath, water would splash down onto the helm. Only a half a cup at a time, and looking on the bright side, I was happy that the water did not stay in the ceiling, but immediately drained down to the helm!

But still, a half assed oversight on my part. So the helm was covered in wet towels.

The pilot house doors were another issue. A lot of water was coming in, maybe a quart at a time. There were a lot of times.

The Entrance to the Harbor From Shore. Just to the ld=ft of the tower you can see the two green lights that initially confused me

So for the last few hours that side of the pilot house floor was covered in soaked towels, mats and other materials so the water would not make a waterfall into the salon.

As there was no reason to move around, not so bad of a problem. But as we were minutes away from the harbor entrance, I got soaked just moving around the pilot house.

Then to add misery to discomfort, I needed the pilot house doors to see what was where and get the lines ready. So we had a 30 knot wind blowing through the pilot house it was cold, wet wind. The Krogen has a tendency to stay at whatever the water temperature is. Thus, a 55°F water temperature meant at night the pilot house was about the same. Add wind and being wet, just set the stage for a true disaster.

OK let’s set the stage. I’m a mile from the entrance to Oostende harbor. I see the red and green lights marking the channel, I also see two green lights, on the red side of the channel. I see numerous Sodium vapor lights and the orange glow they produce. With all those lights, I see no channel; only darkness and shadow.

But I have no choice. I am in 20 feet of water, winds are up to 35 knots, waves are crashing into us from all directions, and there are all sorts of sand banks close to shore with all sorts of names, meaning they have a history, i.e. “remember when poor Jacques floundered on the Grote bank?”

The wind is pushing us fiercely to the south, to the right (green in Europe) side of the channel. I am trying to keep the boat on the red side, but clearly still not seeing the entrance.

TheMarina Entrance — The Marina Entrance

Finally, I trust to the charts, C-Maps by Jeppesen, (did I ever tell you I was a Product Manager at Jeppesen?? you’d think I could get a discount on their charts!), aim for blackness just to the right of the last red marker and as soon as I enter the shadow, I can see the rest of the channel straight ahead and the seas flatten.

But this is big commercial channel. I need to get the paravanes in. Pierre-Jean has never done that before, so I must leave him in the pilot house, while I go to the fly bridge and winch them up. It only takes two minutes and I am thankful that all the tweaking I have done on that system works so well.

I race back down, and aim for the right channel which will bring us to one of three marinas in the harbor.

I am cold, wet and miserable. I’ve gotten only a couple hours sleep in the last 24; but this is where I am pleased with my decisions.

As we motor slowing down the channel, maybe a mile, I am conscious of the wind pushing us along. I want to reconnoiter the marina, but not get us in a position I cannot get out of.

Sure enough, as we get to the slips, mostly short (30’) finger piers, there are no “T”s and the left side of the marina which has longer docks is filled with small ferries. I am adept at making the Krogen do a circle in about a 50’ diameter without using the bow thruster. While docking I turn on the bow thruster, an electric Vetrus, but try not to use it as my experience has been bow thrusters are like banks. If you need it, it won’t be there.

So on a calm day, no current, bow thrusters work great. But this is not that kind of day.

The Dutch Boat on the right is tied to the dock right after the slip. This is where I initally docked and let PJ off. In Hindsight, I too Could have stayed there., — The Dutch Boat on the right is tied to the dock right after the slip.
This is where I initally docked and let PJ off.
In Hindsight, I too Could have stayed there.,

I decide there is no room here. Though I keep in the back of my mind the possibility of rafting to one of the ferries.

We then proceed back to the other marinas, right near the entrance to the harbor. It is a narrow entrance that widens after the opening.

The one long dock is occupied by one of those new plastic, three story, small penis boat. Clearly American, though it says Bikini on the back and flies no flag.

Turns out there was room on the opposite side of the same dock, but that would have meant I had to go around the end of the dock to an uncertain fate and after all I went through I was not about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

So we proceeded towards the third marina and a set of locks, which while closed did have a waiting dock that I could use. We looked around and did see a spot, along the inner dock, maybe 55’ long, between two sailboats. It was in cul de sac and just opposite the waiting dock.

We prepared a midships line and I tied to the waiting dock to think about what to do. The bow is facing the lock and southward, the empty 55’ spot is 100 on our left beam and the wind is coming from the stern at 20 knots.

I figured I could stay at the waiting dock until early morning, but my problem in situations like this, is that I do not sleep, anticipating the knock on the hull telling me in a foreign language that I cannot do whatever I am doing

There was also a seaweed covered wall, 50’ high, but we saw nothing to tie to.

So, I decided the spot between the two boats was feasible. But with one caveat, Pierre-Jean had to be on the dock. I would then throw him the midships line we had prepared. That way, once a line was on the dock, he could control my movement to the sailboat behind.

He was a bit dubious, maybe he thought I was going to leave him, but I liked it and it was the only way I would attempt that spot. (The waiting dock was connected to the other dock, like three sides of a box.

And it was a box I was going into to.

Plan A:

My first attempt was halfhearted. The boat was facing south, wind from our stern and I thought just maybe if I put her in reverse, I could use the bow thruster to push the bow around 180°. At about 90°, abeam the dock and piling I had just left, the wind was pushing the boat so hard, this was not going to work in a million years. I gave it full left rudder, full throttle forward to kick the stern away from the pole and pier. No problem, just a little too close.

Plan B:

Let with wind take me in forward, I’d through the line to PJ, out her in reverse and PJ could pull us into the slip. With the wind behind us, I was going too fast from the beginning. When I slowed, I had no way and no control. I backed up and got out, just narrowly missing that same f…ing pillar.

Plan C:

Just like in NY, I would parallel park. After all the above shenanigans, this turned out to be easy.

A Diagram of the Three Attempts. North is on top, and the wind is from the North

I backed into the box at an angle aiming for the empty spot but wanting to keep the bow close to the sailboat that would end up in front of us.

When I was abeam the stern of the sailboat, I threw PJ the line and he put it on a middle cleat. I yelled at him to watch the stern and I would watch the bow. He would control how far back to let the boat go.

Worked as planned as and with less drama than anything else I had attempted that night.

Dauntless on the other hand looked at me when it was all over, yawned and thought, “All in a day’s work”.

And as I thought about it, happy to be lying in my warm bed, with no new scars to deal with, I realized though the worst of it, while I was certainly unhappy; there was no noise from below. The salon, the staterooms, the engine room, nothing was banging, rolling around or otherwise out of place. Books stayed on the shelves in all three rooms, and pother than the second monitor in the pilot house that I had to re-secure, everything was battened down.

A great boat is a sea way.

I hung up all the wet things and at 3:00 a.m. took a hot shower, crawled into bed and was ever grateful that I had remember to turn on the 12 v heating pad a few hours earlier.

With that, All’s Well that Ends Well.

What Not to Do

All’s Well that Ends Well. Why do I repeat that so often? To remind myself not to think of the pain and suffering caused by my own foolish behavior. And besides, that’s the ONLY good thing I can take out of the last two days.

A Honfleur Pistachio Ice Cream Cone My High Point of the Last Few Days

During the past few days, I broke about every rule I had vowed never to break:

Don’t enter a strange harbor at night
Don’t back up the boat to dock
Don’t enter strange marina at night
Don’t set out on a cruise with winds in your face from the get go
Don’t travel with current and strong winds in the opposite direction.
Repair little leaks before they get to be big ones
Move the fuel tank vents
Don’t let one problem lead to others
Do preventive maintenance things the day BEFORE departure
Run the fuel polisher while in port
Don’t delay in changing fuel filters as needed
Always do a visual check that all lines are clear when leaving dock
Don’t get a case of “get home-itis”
And if any of the above develop, pull into a port in the daytime and wait it out.

I did none of that.

Let’s rewind the tape and see why that happened.

Larry and Karla were leaving Dauntless for the gay lights of Paris and by coincidence; they were being replaced by someone from Paris, Pierre-Jean who had contacted me a few months ago, as he is really interested in Kadey Krogens.

Our goal was Vlissingen, in the southwest corner of Holland, about 190 nautical miles (210 sm, 350 km), 30 hours at just above 6 knots.

I had been looking at the weather for days, http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-2.69,50.52,3000

This surface wind chart at earth.nullschool.net is pretty much the only thing I look at. It goes out 4 days and by clicking on any specific point, it provides the wind direction and speed for that point.

Now, listen carefully, when you go to your favorite weather site to get a specific forecast, with all pretty colors and forecasts every minute, all you are getting is the same information in a format that has been made to look attractive. The danger is that those more specific forecasts give the impression of significance that does NOT exist. OK moving on.

Sunday looked to be a good weather day, light winds, but the forecast for the coming days had steadily increasing northeasterly winds from Sunday night thru the end of the forecast period on Wednesday.

NE winds was our worst case scenario, as we had to go NE. In addition, the currents in the English Channel are very strong, 3 to 5 knots, and we had already encountered even stronger currents, contrary winds and very steep standing waves just getting to Honfleur. After that encounter, I had vowed never again.

Never lasted only two days.

I have found that 15 knots of wind is the magic number. Below that speed, no matter the direction, seas stay small and travel is relatively easy. Above that speed, seas start building and the direction and currents start making a big difference.

Well, my forecast was right on. Should have been easy.

Sunday looked to be the best day, light NE winds, increasing to NE at 10 to 15 knots Monday, increasing to 25 to 35 knots Monday night through Tuesday night.

We were leaving Honfleur at 8:30, the time the bridge opened to let us out of the inner harbor. Then one hour down the Seine we would be turning NE ward just as the currents also revered to run NE. Our ETA to Vlissingen was 04:00 Tuesday morning. Now this would mean the last 10 hours would be into strong winds. Pierre-Jean and I talked about the plan and figured if it got bad, we would just pull into French or Belgium port before it got too bad. But how bad could it be?

Famous last words.

Because I had not yet moved the fuel vents, I was diligent about feeding from the windward tank, as Dauntless rolls a bit more to leeward. Having left Waterford with full tanks, the port side tank was finally about 5 inches less than full and therefore showing up on the sight tube. So, I decided to leave Honfleur running on the starboard tanks, to level the boat.

When we had arrived in Honfleur, two days previously, the Fuel Polisher which had been running the whole time while underway, indicated 10” of Hg, which meant it needed to be changed. I also noticed a little water in the bottom of the bowl. So I wrote in my log to change the FP and the port side Racor filters.

I am still mystified why I did not do this before the Sunday departure.

We must be waiting in front of the bridge for the 8:30 opening. I had started the engine and turned on the fuel polisher for the starboard tank at 08:00, we would use the starboard side Racor, which was new.

At 08:15, I do a last minute check in the engine room and decide that I would now change the two filters, thinking better late than never, though I hated the thought of starting my day smell of diesel.

Changing the two filters took about 5 minutes, so with 10 minutes to spare, our lines are cast off and I’m backing out of the slip, with my hands smelling of fuel, even though I had washed them three times.

I must have been distracted.

As we back out, all of a sudden, the bow starts swinging quickly to the right, towards the bowsprit of the two sailboats docked perpendicular to Dauntless. Thinking that it’s wind driven, I quickly give a burst of left full rudder in forward to push the bow to port. That works. OK I try backing straight again, same thing happens at which point the sailboat folks are getting concerned. I straighten the boat again and as I go to look, Pierre-Jean yells that there is still a line tied to the end of the finger pier to our stern. Well, that explains that. We get the line untied and I pull out finally with no drama.

No, in reality the drama was just beginning.

To be Continued

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