Krogen 42 – Page 9 – Dauntless at Sea

Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back in the Water

I left the marina finally.

Southern Costa Rica is like Vietnam, hot, 30° and humid. Maybe more humid. But that thought prompted me to check the latest obs from VVTS, Tansonnhat Int’l. Nope, their morning dew point is 77°, while it was only 72° this morning in Golfito.

My chart of the anchorage. The marks are where where my anchor is and the mooring ball

In any case, after the stress of leaving the marina for the first time in almost 4 months, it’s time to check and double check.

While still in the Caribbean, I had tried to use the generator. It ran for a minute a then shut itself off. So, we had spent a miserable night before arriving at the marina in Colon, Panama.

I’ve planned on anchoring a lot over the next three months, so a working generator was no longer an option but a necessity.

Last week I tackled the problem, having been guided what to look for from a mechanic friend on the East Coast.

In minutes, I found the suspected problem, a bad connection to the exhaust temperature sensor, and set it right. The generator than started and ran for 30 minutes, with load, no problem.

I was leaving in mid-afternoon, as much to save another $40, but also to get my sea sense back. We were only going a few miles to anchor, so after a hot day, in the heat of the afternoon, the generator would be called upon almost immediately.

Not being born yesterday, just before leaving the dock, I started the gen for just a few minutes, just to make sure, maybe 5 minutes.

15:00, finally ready to leave.

But Sergio, who was going to be with me for some days, then told me he had to go home.

Maybe a language issue? Certainly not the first time for me.

Then the guy on the marina is throwing off the dock lines. OK. I’m sort of ready.

But what about the two pangas fishing 20 feet in front of Dauntless? No problem, they were told to get out of the way. Slowly evidently.

Once the lines are off, I need to get underway. My bow wave must have nudged them the last few feet,

Now, out of the slip and safely past the pangas, I look to my chart to check my route in and the depths.

But the chart isn’t on. Why?

Computer’s on, Coastal Explorer is running, but the magic “M” key is not bringing up the C-Map.

This kind of crap happens when rushed by other people’s schedules or perceived schedule.

I had put Dauntless in neutral not wanting to go in water I had no idea what was the depths.

Finally, I see the keyboard was turned off. Easily solved, my chart comes up and confirms that my route into the marina was good and the one to follow out

I poke along at 5 knots in no real hurry. Just happy to have the sea under my feet again.

The spot I was anchoring in is a quarter mile off the beach in front of a friend’s house I meet on the bus to Golfito. It’s a steep slope with a big 15’ tidal range. I can’t get too close, even though I have 35’ below me now.

I drop the anchor, it catches quickly like it always does (a much beloved Delta). It’s hot, very hot and humid. I’m dying. I put out 110 of chain on top of the anchor. Then I realize the mistake I made. With the steep slope, large tidal range and 100+ feet of chain out, when Dauntless swings around (we’re now facing the beach) her behind may end up high and dry. Not the first time, but I’m trying to have a year without a grounding.

I decide to throw the stern anchor in. Oh, no stern anchor. Must have been stowed for the Atlantic passage. Just then I see a mooring ball, just within reach of my short boat hook (they charge more for longer ones!)

I quickly grab the line from the mooring ball and put a short line thru it.

Worked like a charm. Dauntless soon went parallel to the beach, but that was fine.

Now I’m sweaty, almost dead for the heat, stress and whatever else.

I turn on generator to get a much-anticipated relief.

It runs for one minute then clearly can’t handle a load. It putters to a stop.

I feel like crying.

I start it again, it starts, but with no power, like before. What changed? I asked myself. Only I put the cover back on. Could it not be getting enough air?

I take the front cover off, it continues to run poorly, then stumbles, then starts running normally.

I power up all the accessories, A/C’s, Inverter Charger.

For the next few hours, with the passing of every bird and fish, I think the gen is dying, but no, it runs steadily, until I turn it off for bed.

Now, the next test, how hot will the boat become without the A/C. The water temperature is 92°. I’ve never been in such hot water; the engine room never gets below 100° and that’s only with the Inverter and Water heater working there.

Dauntless hardly moved.

Just when I was finishing my shower, a peal of thunder overhead made me think that we’d run hard aground. I flew out of the shower.

It was only Mother Nature having a little chuckle before I went to sleep.

Spring Cleaning

Since spring happens once a year in most places, one would think that spring cleaning is a yearly event.

Though not on Dauntless. With a surely, lazy crew, when I have even thought about a through reorganization, the look I see in the mirror is downright mutinous.

Of course, besides being, Master, Captain, Skipper, I am also the crew.

So, it’s no surprise that upon returning to Dauntless after my 3-month hiatus, it was time to evict the hitchhikers and other life forms.

I’d managed to go four years with nothing worse than the occasional fly or mosquito on board.

Well now the intrepid explorer has been put in his place by a bunch of roaches and a mouse or maybe two.

Last week the whole upper part of the boat was cleaned and I threw away, I’m embarrassed to say about 8 trash bags, large ones, of crap that should have been thrown away eons ago.

Stuff like three copes of the bus schedule for the Waterford Bus. Won’t need that for a few years.

The skills we learned in the pre-internet years, have gone by the wayside. A coveted bus schedule, or even a phone book could always come in handy.

Maps though. Only when we got Dauntless did I reduce my map collection. How can I explain to someone who uses Google to get anywhere, how I use to have two or three maps of places and countries of interest? Balancing them on your knee, finding the quickest way, having to know when and where traffic was bad and hot to avoid the worst.

Even with this week’s boat cleaning, I had one small file of European maps. My most coveted ones, that I justified in not throwing away saying to myself that the next time I go to Europe, I’ll use them.

But it’s not to be. I put them on the dock and only later after the latest rain storm did I remember them. In a normal environment, I would have dried them out, but on a boat, nothing dries out that is not already dry. Into the dust bin they went.

Today, it was time to empty the engine room. Well not really empty, but to take out all the things that are not fastened down.

The picture below shows the things stored in the back of the engine room, on either side of the generator. It’s a lot of stuff. Most of which I’ll never need. But it gives me piece of mind to venture far away or at least far away from the closest Amazon delivery.

It’s spare parts for almost all of the systems on Dauntless. It’s plumbing, electrical (both 220v and 110v) and woodworking, parts, replacements and spares. It’s what allows this 29-year-old Kadey Krogen to make its own electricity, power, water. Just like a self-contained city, the only thing missing is snow removal; Oh, we’ll have that next year.

An Opportunity

The plan is coming together.

Dauntless Rests In Fish Hook Marina, Golfito

With my new USCG Document clutched in my sweaty hand, Dauntless and I will get underway in July.

It will be three months of moving north to winter in northern Mexico. So, the trip that started in Ireland a year ago will come to a close this fall.

But I also find myself alone for the first time in a long time. Being on the ocean, cruising alone is not so bad, boring more than anything.

Coastal cruising, what we’ll be doing for the next couple years, is much more stressful. People, rocks and fishing nets are all close to shore and give you the opportunity to get into trouble.

Therefore, another set of eyes or a couple of sets becomes very helpful.

I have people coming in September and probably late August, so for now, I am looking for a couple or single(s) who would like to spend some time on Dauntless as we cruise north in Costa Rica and then the three-day passage to Mexico.

This will be a good opportunity to experience some coastal and an off-shore cruising. Email me if you think you may be interested and we can talk about more specifics.

Richard on Dauntless

Below is the current tentative schedule:

06-Jul-17		Costa Rica Golfito
13-Jul-17		Costa Rica Punta Arenas Azul
21-Jul-17		Costa Rica Playla Coco
28-Jul-17		Costa Rica Santa Elena
04-Aug-17	P	Mexico Check-in Chiapas
09-Aug-17	P	Mex Puerto Angel
13-Aug-17	P	Roquita Island/Acapulco
16-Aug-17	P	Zihuatenjo
20-Aug-17		Caleta de Campos
24-Aug-17		Cabeza Negra N
26-Aug-17		Manzanillo
31-Aug-17		Puerto Vallarta
05-Sep-17		Mazatlán
25-Sep-17		Guaymas

Cruising Costs of a 42 foot Kadey Krogen

Having some time on my hands for another couple of weeks, I thought I would share with everyone what the Cruising Costs have been for Dauntless, a 42 foot Kadey Krogen Motor yacht over the last two years.

I’ve broken out the numbers, so for instance, if you only go to a marina 10% of the time, you can adjust the numbers accordingly.

If you have any specific questions, I will be glad to answer them, but please email me vice PM.

May Thru October 2016 My approximate route. Most of the little black dots are stops

The number don’t add up to 100% because there are some personal travel expenses, which I track but are not pertinent to the story.

Also, the significant difference is that in 2016 I was able to buy 900 gallons of fuel in Ireland for very reasonable prices (far less than UK “red” diesel).

In 2015 because Dauntless range under such conditions, I had to refuel with very expensive fuel in Finland, Sweden and Norway, arriving back in Ireland with almost empty tanks.

Marina costs were significantly higher in 2016 because Portugal, southern Spain, Atlantic France are significantly more expensive than many Baltic and North Sea marinas.

Food costs are pretty much for a couple.

In the next weeks, I will update the latter half of 2016, the trip from Rota Spain to Gibraltar, Morocco, the Canaries and Martinique.

2017 update will be from Martinique to Panama Canal, Costa Rica and up to Mexico for the winter.

The Summer Plan 2017

I’m having a wonderful time in Vietnam. The longer I am here, the more comfortable I’ve become. Having a motorbike and not having killed myself yet, is a bigger accomplishment than crossing the Atlantic, twice.

But I am missing D so much too. I want to be back on the water. I promise to never complain how hot it is anymore. Even if my eyeballs are baking, I’ll repeat the desert southwest mantra, It’s a dry heat.

So, when I get back in early July, with my new Coast Guard Document clutched in my sweaty little hand, it will be all hands-on deck to get moving north.

All two, hands that is.

Having Micah on board for so many months, clearly spoiled me. I don’t even remember that person who crossed a third of the Atlantic alone. I haven’t been alone since the Stockholm to Waterford run of September 2015. That was eons ago.

The table below is my tentative cruising program. So, for example, it shows I’ll spend about three weeks in Costa Rica, with the last stop around Santa Elena before heading to Mexico.

I’ve made the difficult decision to bypass Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras. El Salvador ends up being a casualty, in that it’s too hard to stop there and avoid the other places. Some of my friends say I’m being ridiculous and too much of a gringo frady cat, but, I am a gringo frady cat.

I know and understand the ocean; people are harder.

I use sites like No onsite and Active Captain, to point out problem areas and then I avoid them. No matter how beautiful a place is, it’s simply not worth it for me, if I have to worry about the safety of my friends & crew, me for the boat.

Here is what the trip looks like so far. The stops listed are the primary overnight or multiple day stops, with there being no overnights except for those with the “P” in the second column. Other than the initial Santa Elena to Mexico, all the others are open to stopping:

Because of my delay in getting back, I am a bit more pressed for time than I would have liked, but it’s still a third less than I’ve done in the past.

I have friends joining me from mid-August until the end of September (I think J).

My July people are not answering my calls. Ummm, I think I need to find replacements.

Envy

So, I was reading the adventures of M/Y Dirona as she crosses the North Atlantic.

Check out Dirona’s Atlantic Passage

It made me envious; I know, that’s ridiculous, but still.

Dauntless spent two and a half years in Northern Europe because I knew we would like it. The weather, the people, the cultures all, the food, fit my number one criteria of staying off the beaten track and living well as I did so.

I Loved the Baltic, Sweden, Norway, Scotland & Ireland

That was expected. All the lands of coastal Northern Europe have a real seafaring culture. Every boat waves at you, especially fisherman. From Galicia in northwest Spain to the far eastern Baltic, it was a wonderful experience with minimal bureaucracy.

In those 2+ years, 20+ countries, 100+ stops, mostly in towns and cities, I probably spent less than 120 minutes on the formalities of checking in (Passports, boats documents, crew lists) and checking out.

No wait, there was no checking out.

The peoples, the lands, met and greatly exceeded my expectations.

Then, we headed south. 90% of all boats are south, mostly in the Mediterranean, you know, Italy, Greece, Turkey and southern France and Spain. Everyone wants to go there, so that’s a big Do Not Enter sign for me.

So, we headed south with low expectations. Little did I realize they were not low enough.

Prices trebled, temperatures doubled and bureaucracy was like a pig is slop. The first two stops in Portugal took the same amount of time as the last 100 stops of the previous two years.

And then it got worse.

In virtually every stop, 5 to 10 pieces of paper to sign to check-in; make sure you return tomorrow to fill out and sign the same papers to check-out. Don’t even mention the expense.

But you have read all of this before. Turns out Martinique was the high point of the entire Caribbean. It’s almost weird to say that they were the least bureaucratic. In fact, they were just like northern France. But that was certainly the exception.

So now, having endured all of that and more to get Dauntless a quarter of the way back around the world, I sit here with envy of Dirona.

But I realize it’s not Dirona I’m envious of, it’s being in the middle of the ocean.

I’m a traveler, so when I’m not, I’ll always be envious of those who are.

Hindsight & Foresight

I love Atlantic Europe. The people, the cultures, the food, everything. The fact that these are all very old boating

My approximate route. Most of the little black dots are stops

communities, ties them together even more than language, though all of them do have Celtic ties and culture.

For a fascinating discussion of genetics and human migrations in Europe and western Asia for the last 50, 000 years, check out:

http://www.eupedia.com/europe/maps_Y-DNA_haplogroups.shtml

So, my thoughts return to two issues:

Should I have stayed in northern Europe for another year?
The route I ended up taking between Galicia in the Northwest corner of Spain and the Canaries.

First the additional year. I love Ireland, the people, even the weather (you never got bored). But Ireland itself is not really cruising country. Getting up and down the coasts can be a bitch, at best. I did love A Coruna though. Why not there? That was Plan B after all.

Then Schengen reared its ugly head. For those of you who still don’t know what “Schengen” is, it was the city in Luxembourg in which almost all the countries of Europe (nothing to do with E.U.) decided to have open borders in 1989. Open borders meant just that. Prior to 1991 or whenever it went into effect, one had to stop at each and every frontier and show passport. On my many drives from the Netherlands to Italy, that meant 3 border crossings. But they were pretty quick (nothing like the USA-Canada boondoggle). They never even stamped your passport. While the rule was, you were allowed in 90 days in each country, no one cared and as I said, no one stamped passports other than at airports and not even then many times.

But with Schengen and the open borders, they decided they still had to control immigration. Therefore non E.U. people could only stay 90 days out of every 180 days. So, before you could move from country to country every 90 days a stay within the rules, now, you had to leave the continent or go to the U.K. or Ireland. That’s why Dauntless was in Waterford.

Ultimately, I realized that to keep Dauntless in A Coruna for the winter would not be feasible, since I could no longer go to NYC for 3 months and then return.

By the way. So, Schengen was written to keep people from overstaying, yet today the E.U. gets about 200,000 people a month from Africa and the Middle East.

But they got Dauntless out so all is OOOKKK.

And another aside. While those morons in Washington debate who to let in. NO ONE, Dems or Republicans, talks about we have no system to track who leaves. Wouldn’t you think if we really cared, the first thing would be using one of the billion computers the government has to track people as they leave and compare that list to who came in. What a clown show!

Now, sorry for the diatribe. My route which took me down the coast of Portugal and around the corner to Gibraltar. I didn’t even see the Gibraltar Apes.

I suppose the real issue here is that we were really beaten up almost the entire trip from Porto, Portugal all the way to the Canaries. By stopping in Gibraltar, I added about another 360 miles to our trip.

I actually had a sailor in France tell me that I should go direct to the Canaries from Vigo in NW Spain. But I wanted to see Portugal and I am glad I did.

But southern Spain and Morocco, ended up being exactly what I expected, hot, dry and dry and hot.

I could have spent those weeks in the Canaries. The Canaries reminded me of everything I liked about Galicia. Great people, food and a boating culture.

Oh well, I’ll have to go back.

2016 Retrospective

Looking for something else, I came across my 2015 Post Mortem of my First Atlantic Passage. It’s fascinating. Makes me feel I should write another one for this passage. I will, but also think I would like to do a compare & contrast, a great teacher’s tool.

But this is not that. This is more about the how and why I went the way we went. In thinking about this post, I’ve been thinking a lot about this in the past couple weeks. But even now, I go back and forth, would I or would I? That is the question.

Not my usual rainbow and sunset picture, but appropriate none the less. Being in Saigon gives me the opportunity to think, reflect and plan for the future.

Being away from Dauntless, longer than originally planned, but in fact, it’s worked out for the best. When I am on Dauntless, short term takes precedence.

As I have reflected on the events of 2016. I found myself racing through some places I really loved, like Galicia; while staying months in places I really didn’t, like Southern Spain, Morocco.

It was a tumultuous year, in every aspect. The year started with Dauntless was in the capable hands of the Kehoe Boys in New Ross, Ireland, another place I miss very much. I, in the meantime, was in NY and then Julie and I took a trip to Galicia in mid-February to see if we could keep Dauntless in A Coruna or Vigo, for the winter 2016-17. We both loved Galicia as much as we thought we would. Thus, Plan A to return to North America became Plan B.

Plan B: Ireland, Scotland for the summer, then France in August and Galicia by mid-September for the winter. Now, the Schengen three-month rule really puts a crimp on spending time (and money) in Europe for non-E.U. cruisers, but I’d spend the off times in NY and USA.

Then Life Happened and the Plan Changed, again.

Even before leaving NYC at the end of March I found myself going back to Plan A, getting Dauntless back to the New World.

So far, so good. Plan A would get me to Asia sooner rather than later. But I did not think about how much I liked the cruising in Ireland, Scotland, Atlantic France (Brittany) and Spain (Galicia).

The route from Ireland to Panama is dictated by climate and currents. Not a lot of options, but I’m not sure I really thought about the choices I did have well enough.

And that will be the topic of my next post.

The Last 7 Days

A video of the morning after.

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If I’ve learned nothing in the last 60 years, it’s that I need 6 to 7 hours sleep on a routine basis to not get into a sleep deficit. The watches on this passage were set up to facilitate that.

In spite of the drama I like instilling in my life, for every one day of “crisis” we spend about 5 to 6 days of peaceful boredom. It’s even possible that the weekly crisis is not totally random.

Why, you wonder?

Not so much on this trip, but in the past, most of my problems were caused my me. Complacency, boredom, who knows, I decide everything is going so well, so I may aa well see what happens if I do this. This last crisis was a case in point. I was “experimenting”.

My only point here is that in spite of the appearance of the narrative, very little time is spent dealing with anything. The hardest part of a long passage is not getting bored, even more so in these conditions that virtually never changed.

So, December 23^rd dawned to bright skies and easterly winds; we were feeling good.

The one lingering issue was the amount of air still in the Hydraulic steering system (which is controlled by the helm wheel or the ComNav autopilot), which caused a hellacious banging every few seconds as the auto-pilot moved fluid thru the lines. This was exacerbated by the location of my cabin directly under the pilot house.

Normally our brains filter out routine noises. I once lived next to a church steeple in a small town in Germany. Every 15 min, some combination of bells would ring: 15’ after the hour 1 gong, 30’ after 2 gongs, 45’ after 3 gongs, then 4 gongs on the hour, followed by the number of gongs based on the hour, 1 = 1, until 12.

Within a few days, I didn’t even hear it any more. But I did find it nice to be able to know the time in the middle of the night, without turning on a light. I do love Germany.

Even years later, when I would visit and sleep in the same house, after the first gong, I’d “hear” no more.

This wasn’t like that. Since the noises had no pattern, with a variable duration and frequency, my brain did not do what to make of it, so it made sure I heard everything. As the days wore on, while the noises were decreasing, they were still significant and I found myself getting less and less sleep. Three hours overnight, then an hour here, maybe a couple there.

Did that contribute to our travails on the last night? Probably a bit, maybe more, but Micah and I had the worst night of the entire trip on our last night before pulling into Martinique.

The days since our big repair had been good. In fact, Christmas, December 25^th, was one of our best weather days, with winds not going over 25 knots, thus our ride was great with light rolling to 10°, worst 15°. I made our last big steak and candied sweet potatoes. We even opened a bottle of Bordeaux that my French friend PJ had given me.

That was also our second whale sighting. There were two whales, about 30’ long cruised with us for about 15 minutes. Very nice.

The Whale Video

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Dauntless rolling along, watching this makes me miss the ocean

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Our ETA to Martinique was noon on the 28^th. Therefore, the night of the 27^th, was our 20^th night at sea since leaving the Canaries.

I started the last 24 hours by putting the last of our oil, 1.1L into the engine. I estimated that at worst, we would arrive about 1 liter low, which is normal. (and we did). But there was no point in shutting down the engine to check at this point, as I had no more oil anyway.

Just as I go to bed at 22:00, ETA in 14 hours, the starboard paravane pole bounces vertical. This necessitates stopping the boat and letting the pole fall back into position, once the rearward pressure is taken off the line to the bir

The starboard pole has never done this before in the previous 15K+ miles!

25 minutes later, it does it again. Something is not right, but I am tired and even in hindsight, it’s not totally clear to me under the circumstances what I should have done.

All evening the winds had been increasing. They were now easterly at 25 steady gusting to 40. Clearly the seas had grown, again with the annoying swells from both NE and SE and the wind driven waves from the east. Our rolls were getting substantially more, routinely to 20° and the worst, a few times an hour to 30°.

Even on a rally boat like Dauntless, a 30° roll is significant. Or I should say, it feels significant in the pilot house. If I am in the engine room, I hardly notice, even the salon is much better, but I digress.

I attributed the increased rolling to the winds and seas. It was dark out, so it’s hard to estimate seas. Also, since we were approaching the island of Martinique, the waves would start to change.

But at 02:40, all of a sudden, the boat rolled over at 15° (normal) to port, but was really slow in rolling back. This meant the opposite stabilizing bird was not working for some reason.

Sure enough, I had gotten up to see why the boat motion was different and saw right away the starboard bird being pulling along the surface.

We stopped to retrieve it. It was broken and later that morning as I looked at it, I realized the bolts that held the vane in place had come loose. That was probably the reason the pole went vertical earlier in the evening, as the bird was no longer running straight. That added a tension that eventually broke the plywood wing of the bird in half.

Now, in a strange occurrence, maybe due to lack of sleep, after we pulled the bird, we continued on with just the one port side bird deployed. I’ve run many times with only one bird. It is quite effective on a beam sea with winds that are not too strong.

But with a following sea, only one bird, is only half effective, so we rolled our way into Martinique that way.

I say strange because all that morning, I had been tripping over the extra bird that was no longer in the lazerrett. We had gotten the bird that was jammed in the lazerrett out and even cleaned up the lazerrett. So, it was sitting, inconveniently, on the port side deck. It would have taken all of 30 seconds to attach it to the starboard pole and throw it in the water.

Oh well, All’s Well that End’s Well.

And of course, as we approach the harbor of Le Marin, the only sailboat we’ve seen in 19 days decided to tack right in front of us. Much like the last idiot on our first night out of the Canaries.

Warning. Harsh language is involved and I don’t hate all sailboats. But for the life of my with an entire ocean in front of him, why he cut across our bow is beyond me. I had been watching him for quite a while, had he delayed his tack 10 seconds or changed his course by a few degrees he would not have ended up directly in front of our bow. I had to virtually stop as to not hit him… umm, maybe that is the answer, could he have needed a new paint job?

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And my feeling were certainly exacerbated by the fact that this was only the second SV we had seen and the previous encounter, our first night out, was eerily similar.

Crisis in the Mid-Atlantic – How Can So Few Chickens Make So Much Noise

A long day is ending, but crossing an ocean, there is no rest for the weary. This video shows the view from the fly bridge looking aft as we were topping up the hydraulic fluid after my first temporary repair.

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Of course, I had been looking at the manual for the helm and Auto-Pilot. They being connected, the Auto-Pilot has an Octopus pump which takes its direction from the ComNav AP computer. This pump then controls the rudder piston. Now that the broken hose was replaced, we had too much air in the system.

And believe it or not, the manual for the system says to just keep topping up the fluid at the upper helm station and in a few weeks, all the air would be worked out of the system.

Maybe a few weeks if we were on Jupiter, but in a few weeks of Earth time.

So, two hours after getting the big repair done and getting underway again. I had cleaned up, showered and even took a nap because I was hit by a bad bout of seasickness or what until this time I had attributed to be seasick.

But now, we found the Auto-Pilot was hardly working. It would hold a heading for a few minutes, but at a certain rudder angle, it would try to move the rudder, the air in the system was not allowing it to work properly. At which point, it would decide to do a Walk-About.

Yes, I can speak Australian. I saw Crocodile Dundee.

The problem with a Walk-About in 10 to 20 foot seas is the KK designed to go with the seas. So, lying dead in the water, we bob like a cork. But underway, we do not fight the waves we go with them and underway, while turning beam to the seas, the first few rolls will be dillies, until the paravanes are totally effective again.

So, every few minutes, our heading would drift off and before you can say, here we go again, we would have a 20-degree roll. And the subsequent roll would almost always be greater unless immediate action is taken.

This at 20:00 the prospect of having to hand steer was a nonstarter, therefore, drastic action was needed.

So, I found myself once again in the hot, 100-degree engine room, on my belly, with feet dangling over the shaft that is still spinning since the boat is being pushed along my wind and current. I had decided to “bleed” the system. The Octopus pump does have three valves for each line (port, starboard and return) that can be closed to stop fluid draining from the system if need be. In this case, I opened each one in turn until it literally comes out, and I let ATF run out until I saw no more air, while Micha turned the wheel in the specified direction.

15 minutes later we were back underway. The Auto-Pilot was much more responsive, but still only at 50%. Worse, there was enough air in the copper lines, that they resonated like somebody playing the cymbals 6 inches from my head.

We decided to keep track of the number of walk-abouts. From 22:00 that night, it occurred 7 times an hour. By 02:00 it was down to 3 times and only once at 03:00.

Though when I came on at 04:00, it was still not working as well as I’d like. This ComNav does really well in bad seas. But now, with its impaired performance, we were getting into some large pendulum rolling motions. Motions that when working correctly, it has no problem stopping.

Micah was already in bed, it was dark out, but it drives me crazy when something is not working as it should (under the conditions). I decided it needed burping. So, I went to the fly bridge and totally took out the fill plug, thinking it needed more venting.

It didn’t hurt and I didn’t fall overboard.

For the next 6 days, we periodically worked the helm steering, trying to get air out of the system. Slowly, but surely, air came out and we would top up the system.

The bigger issue for me in particular was that the racket the air in the pipes would produce every few seconds. It really hindered my sleep and made out last 6 days really hard. Especially considering there were really no other issues until the last day and night, which of course, ended up being the worst night of the entire passage.

Crisis in the Mid-Atlantic – The Chickens Come Home to Roost

Just After the 1st Repair. It’s 13:33 this is the normal screen I run with. I’ll minimize the Maretron data (black box on left) is there is more traffic or is I have a reason to look at the chart. In this case, what’s important: winds 090 at 23 g 28; Apparent Wind Angle (How is the boat feeling the wind) is right on our stern at 180 degrees. Bottom right shows the roll and one can see the roll reduction while the boat was stopped at the same time the pitch increased. Then the roll greatly increased once we got underway again.

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This video shows the day before, Dec 21st. Even before the preventer stick broke (which you can see going form the fly beige rail to the middle of the paravane pole)

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This is from the afternoon. GIves you a nice idea of the seas. This is what we had plus or minus for 21 days.

So, as December 22nd dawned, (end of Day 13 and beginning of Day 14), the little problems that had popped up were solved quickly.

Though during the night, my last second and last preventer stick broke. It wasn’t critical, I had not used it since it was made three years ago, but still, this morning I wanted to find a real solution.

The winds had been very strong since daybreak, in the low 20’s, gusting to 35 knots.

I decided to stop the boat, just put her in idle and adjust the paravanes somehow. It nice to know that the boat will bob more than roll when stopped. While not underway, Dauntless rolls at about half the rate of our underway roll. So, we’d been rolling 10 to 20 degrees, pretty consistently, now we settle in the trough of the waves, but bob as much as roll.

Now, months later, my brain refuses to remember why I actually stopped the boat. It must have gotten superseded by the traumatic events that followed.

Autopilot disengaged, Idle, then neutral, the boat will coast to a “stop” in about three minutes. Winds and current are still pushing the boat, in this case about 1.5 knots.

Then before I did whatever I had intended to do, I decided to turn the rudder to see if it made any difference in the boat motion. Not a stupid plan; yet.

The rudder was already hard over to port. And then in an act of gross stupidity, I turned the wheel more to port. Why? Why? Why?

I knew the rudder was at or close to the stops. The steering system had had some air in the system for a long time. No matter what I did, I could not get it all out. So, I thought a little more turn couldn’t hurt.

Oh, my God, it could hurt. After turning the wheel about a quarter, I felt it go slack in my hand.

I knew exactly what happened and turned to Micah to say, “We’re fucked now”.

I knew because I’ve had this sickening sense before: pushing on brake pedal that goes all the way to the floor or turning a steering wheel and nothing happens. When a hydraulic system goes slack: clutch, brakes, steering. It means the hydraulic system has no more pressure, A hose, fitting or part has given way.

He knew from my tone that I was serious, very serious. I was so angry at myself. Had Micah done something like this, it’s an accident. For me, I knew better than anyone the consequences of over-pressurizing a system.

The Kadey Krogen has does have an emergency tiller that connects through a purposeful hole in the hatch. But I hate even manually steering the boat in a sea. To stand, sit in the stern deck and hand steer for 7 days like were some god-forsaken sailboat, fuhgeddaboudit.

But I also immediately realized I couldn’t afford the Pity Party. I also could let Micah start thinking of the consequences. Now was the time for solutions and solutions only.

When the Going Gets Tough; the Tough Get Going.

We had 200+ feet of hydraulic lines and the failure could be any place. gain, trying to control the sickening feeling in my stomach, If I’ve learned anything on this boat, it’s to always look for the easiest solution first.

So, we’d start at the rudder piston in the lazzerrette. Open the hatch, and at this point, a wonderful sight (on a boat everything is relative), hydraulic fluid oozing from a hole in the hose just above the fitting. This hose, one of two, for the rudder piston.

First thought, let’s try easy, easy solution, rubber tape, with hose clamps around it.

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This video is after i had completed this repair and also shows how I stopped the paravane pole from bouncing by using a fender.

It worked. We got our filing funnel for the upper helm station, from which the entire system is filled with AFT, Automatic Transmission Fluid, which conveniently, both the hydraulic steering and the Borg-Warner manual transmission use for lubrication and pressure.

The system took about 2 liters of fluid. But I only had a total of 4 liters. I’m starting to think of chickens coming home to roost.

We get underway just under an hour later at 10:28. Everything is working reasonably well. You can see from the Maretron data how the boat roll is about half, while the pitch increases when dead in the water.

Coastal Explorer, our main navigation program, running on a dedicated solid state 12-volt boat computer had been acting up. For a few days, it had not been displaying AIS information, no matter what little tricks I had used in the past to “wake it up”.

Now, I knew I was still sending, which is actually far more important, as since I have had transmit capability large ships always stay away. Having seen only one ship in 13 days, the display wasn’t critical, but I wanted it working. I like everything working.

So, as a last resort, I decided to reboot everything. Everything off and on again, in order, about a 4-minute process. The log shows at 12:15 all was well.

We had been checking our repaired hose every hour, as well as topping up the fluid as needed. In the last two hours, we had put another liter into the system. The hose was leaking enough, probably a few liters every 12 to 24 hours.

Now this would have been no problem in coastal cruising. We would have just topped it off until port. I didn’t have that option. So about 7 hours after the first fix, I knew I had to find the real fix.

Two Issues I had to solve: Hose & Fluid.

For the hose, I knew I had a number of spare hydraulic hoses in two different places in the engine room. One set stored with all the extra hoses and tubing, the other set stored in the long-term spares containers on either side of the generator.
The fluid was a bigger challenge. I used the Delorme InReach to text my contact Roger, who got in touch with Ski in NC. Ski, a long-time diesel expert, had been really helpful in the past, so I needed to figure out what I could use as substitute ATF.

The answer turned out to be simple and vexing, 4 parts diesel fuel to 1 part engine oil. Yes, the engine oil of which there was not extra. The engine needed every bit of oil. Dauntless was now full of chickens. They had all come home to roost.

The offending hose, steel braid rusted to the core.
I’m replacing these hoses and standardizing the fittings.

OK, first I had to clear out all those chickens. They were all over the place. Before we did anything, I found the spare hose with the correct fitting in seconds. So far so good. I then stopped the boat again and also the engine, as I wanted to check the oil level to make sure of my calculations (on a passage like this, I just fill the engine at its usual use rate, without turning it off).

Oil level was just were I expected, so I decided I could spare one liter of oil. Worse case, we would arrive in Martinique one liter low, but that’s not a big deal for a day.

I got my tools and wrenches. Getting the old fitting off the three-way control valve ended up taking me 15 minutes. I even heated it up with my kitchen torch, but I was very careful not to make my hose problem into something far bigger and unfixable.

Finally, it came out. I put pike gunk on all the new fittings, makes for a better seal and I don’t want any more leaks.

In the video Micah took, you see one time water came across the deck. That’s water that enters thru the scuppers, usually on rolls of more than 15 to 20 degrees. As I said, dead in the water, we bob more than roll, so I was only inundated with water twice in this operation which took about 40 minutes. I wanted Micah to get more pictures of the outside scene not just the top of my head, but he was nervous and I think he felt better not looking out much.

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Me on the other hand, I may not look it, but I was pretty ecstatic. I’d fucked up and was able to fix it. We now had 5 liters of substitute ATF which would be more than enough.

The finished product

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At 18:00 we were underway again. Immediately, it was apparent that I had way too much air in the system. The Auto-Pilot was acting errantly. It would work for a few minutes, but once the rudder got far enough over, there was not enough pressure to get it back. We would have to turn off the autopilot, then turn the wheel lock to lock three times until pressure built up in the system, check and top up the fluid at the upper helm station and reengaged the autopilot. This went on for a couple hours until I realized I needed to go to sleep to get ready for my 04:00 watch and the boat almost needed hand steering at this point.

That would not do. I did not do all this to have to hand steer for 7 days.

As One Chapter Ends Another Begins

Asia, via the North Pacific is still a goal.

But now that transiting the Panama Canal, a set structure in time and space, has been done, I have time to take a breath.

I want to enjoy the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia and Southeast Alaska. These areas provide the spectacular scenery of Norway with wildlife that has been long gone from Europe.

The western coasts of Central and North America pose a formidable challenge for little boats: long stretches of coastlines with inaccessible harbors when you most need them and predominantly head winds and seas.

If I’ve learned anything in the last few years, this Krogen does not like head seas. They make for a miserable ride that takes twice the time and fuel.

So, the first step is understanding that with any northerly component to the winds, one must stay put.

We are also constrained by a relatively short cruising period, 5 months, maybe 6 at best. That’s 150 to 180 days. Climo says that the winds are northerly 66 to 75% of the time. That means of those 150 days, maybe only 45 are useable.

In those 45 days, I can reasonably assume that gets me about 2100 nm or someplace in Northern Mexico from Golfito.

The following summer, 2018, I’d have 2400 nm or about 49 days to get to the Pacific Northwest.

Lastly, in the third year, 2019, that time will be spent in British Columbia and Southeast Alaska.

So, I now have a more realistic time table.

Three seasons of cruising, also means three seasons of idleness. And we all know that idle hands are the devil’s workshop. So, while Dauntless is safely tucked in, I must keep busy at an affordable pace.

The west coast is considerably more expensive than Northern Europe, thus I find myself having to be open to new money saving strategies for the winter in particular.

Since re-crossing the Atlantic, I have been slow in updating my digital log. Maybe because the data simply does not change very much:

In 2016-17, Dauntless fuel consumption remains constant at 1.45 gallons per hour or just above 4 nm/gallons. This number is only 1/10^th of a gallon different from 2015.
My costs, total expenses for Dauntless and for myself have averaged just less than $100 per day for everything. This is also slightly less than 2015. While marinas in southern Europe were much more expensive than northern Europe, the large number of passage and anchoring days equalized that cost. Also, a passage day, 24 hours x 1.5 gallons = 35 gallons per day at $2.5 = $90/day. So, using fuel for 24 hours pretty much equals the cost of a marina and eating and drinking.

The long-range plan, a circumnavigation in a 30-year Kadey Krogen, is still the plan. I’m already thinking of where I am crossing my track and what comes after that. Northern Europe, Sweden and the Baltic still have an attraction that is hard to beat, but who knows.

I’m always thinking of the future; reflecting on the past. While that doesn’t leave much time to appreciate the here and now, it’s who I am. I get far more enjoyment having the Plan come together, then just winging it. I can read a hundred self-help books about living in the moment. What they all have in common, is that they are written by people who are adept at living in the moment and figured out how to monetize that.

So, this finds me taking a break from D right now. We’ve been together almost 24/7 since November. My nephew Micah went home to enter Law School, so I decided to take a little break and do a little reconnoiter for this coming winter.

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