Refuge

It was a blustery morning in Blind Bay - winds gusting to 17 kt out of the SW, and Eolian yawing back and forth on her anchor.  Our destination for the day was either Roche Harbor or Westcott Bay, depending...

Wasp Passage was even more blustery, with the wind changing from nearly zero up to 20 kt in the space of just a few feet, as it tested and found narrow little passages between the islands, or as the rotors formed by it skimming over the tops of the trees brushed the water.  Despite this, we did manage to get the mizzen up in a prolonged (ha!) calm spell.

But when we exited into San Juan Channel, we got the full brunt of it.  Given that the wind was forecast to be from the SW, and that we had indeed seen it from the SW in Blind Bay, I anticipated that we would have a reach (of some kind) in San Juan Channel, and indeed we did - 18 kt gusting into the high 20s, and not warm - temps in the 50s.  We raised the staysail which gave us a balanced rig, but Eolian seemed to be struggling some in the lulls.  So we put up the mainsail.  With this, we were making 5.5-6.5 kt thru the water - a comfortable speed.  But the mainsail added too much sail aft of the center of drag, and in the gusts Eolian wanted to round up - no, demanded to round up.  There was too much wind to fly the yankee, so we just tolerated the weather helm and proceeded up and into Spieden Channel.  In retrospect we should have dropped the mizzen - that would have moved the center of effort forward and paradoxically would have speeded us up, since I wouldn't have had to hold the rudder so far over to keep us off the wind and on course.

In the weird way of the winds in the San Juan Islands, when we entered Spieden Channel the wind veered around until we were sailing close hauled, at least part of the time.  We had to constantly fiddle with the sails between a beam reach, close reach, and close hauled tho our course remained constant at 270°.

Finally we reached the point where we could make the left turn into Roche Harbor.  Taking the sails down in that kind of wind is never easy, but we got it done.

Motoring into Roche Harbor, we continued to see wind speeds continuously in the 20s.  We toyed with the idea of just anchoring there - it had been a long, tiring day, and the attraction of being at anchor was powerful.  But Roche was not protected.  Tho there were no waves, the water was black with the wind everywhere.  This is where the 'depends...' came in.

We had talked about going to Westcott Bay or Garrison Bay as a destination this morning, and really, could it be any worse than Roche Harbor?  There should have been some protection from the contour of the land, and perhaps the wind would be thwarted some.  These bays are fairly large, but are shallow, meaning that anchorage available to Eolian would be limited.  And they are popular.  We had visited here one other time and the bays were packed shore to shore with boats.  Today however, there were no AIS signatures appearing in either bay.

Motoring directly into the teeth of the 25-30 kt wind howling down narrow, winding Mosquito Pass was not encouraging by any stretch.  I decided to give Westcott/Garrison a chance, but that we would probably have to turn around in there and go back to Roche.  At least that would be a downwind jaunt.

Miracle of miracles!  Almost as soon as we entered the narrow little cut into the twin bays, the wind dropped down to single digits -  I even think I heard angels singing...

We put the anchor down in the narrow channel of deep enough water in Westcott Bay, and began to unwind.  For us, today, Westcott Bay was the very definition of the word 'refuge'.

Ahhhh...

Refuge 

Melancholia

I really love getting under way early in the morning!  This morning it was dead calm, the water like glass.  Just a tiny burst of power got Eolian moving out of the slip, ghosting along at far less than a walking pace.  We were moving so slow in fact, that the rudder didn't bite and start to turn her stern until we were well out in the waterway.  A couple of quick bursts in Fwd and Rev (you single screw boaters know what I mean), got her bow pointed down the waterway, and then out of the marina.  A warm, calm, peaceful sunny morning, latté in hand, we left the marina and headed for the Islands.

The melancholy part is, that despite it being a perfect day to be on the water, warm and sunny, this could be the last trip out to the Islands for us this year.  So, in just the same way that you savor the last glorious days of summer when there is a hint of fall in the air telling you, that like everything else, it has to come to an end, the trip across Rosario Strait to Thatcher Pass was filled with not only the enjoyment of a perfect day on the water, but also with the memories we made this summer:

• Set a new record boat speed:  8.7 kt under yankee alone, in 35+ kt of wind, on our way to Sucia
  
• Speaking of Sucia, we ended up making four visits there this year.  It is a magical place...
  
• We discovered that going by north of Guemes Island and on to Sucia, one can mostly ignore the tides...
  
• We discovered a wind tunnel between Orcas Island and Clark/Barnes islands...  if there is wind anywhere, it will be here...
  
• Truly a mountain of crab!
  
• The stack-pack I made for the mizzen is wonderful!
  
• New friends on s/v Odyssey and m/v Konocti Bay
• And many, many nites at anchor, throughout the islands.
  

So...  here I sit, typing away in the last days of summer and the last days of the sailing season for us.  I am endeavoring to be present in each and every moment so that I will have enough days and nites stored away to get me thru the long, wet, dark winter that is inexorably coming...

Melancholia

Trip planning in the Pacific Northwest

Here in the Pacific Northwest, trip planning is more involved than it is in, for example, the Chesapeake.  Sure, you need a starting point and a destination.  And if the path is complicated, you should set up some way points, either on paper or electronically.  These parts are true everywhere.

But here in the Pacific Northwest, trip planning must also take into account the tides.  With as much as 16 feet of tidal difference, the currents generated just about everywhere are something that must be taken into account by all sail and most power boats.  Even in places with "benign" tidal currents (say, 1 kt) taking the tide into account on a boat making 5 kt can mean the difference of hours in a trip.  And if you're burning diesel, the difference is financial as well.

Here's a realistic example:  The trip from Seattle to the San Juan Islands is roughly 60 miles, depending on your actual origin and destination.  This can be made in a boat making 5 kt thru the water in a single day.  If there were no tide, the trip would take 12 hours.  Working with the tide, the trip can be made in 8-9 hours.  But working against the tide, you might not be able to get past Point Wilson at all.

On Eolian, we try to time things so that we are moving up Admiralty Inlet on a strong ebb tide (1-3 kt ride, rising to as much as 5-6 kt at Point Wilson), timing things so that we arrive at Partridge Bank, more or less in the middle of the east end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca,  at low slack.  Then by the time we are approaching Cattle Pass in the San Juan Islands, the flood has started, giving us a ride all the way to Friday Harbor.

This having to deal with both ebb and flood tides seems to be a feature for us.  Now that we are located in Anacortes, we have to consider the current in Guemes Channel and in Thatcher Pass.  And once again, going from Anacortes to Friday Harbor, we want to leave Anacortes on an ebb, but time it so that we have a flood tide by the time we reach Thatcher Pass.  The current in Guemes Channel is pretty benign, but that at Thatcher Pass is significant.  Tho we might stem the tide in Guemes Channel, I'd strictly avoid doing that at Thatcher Pass.

It's never easy, is it?  But it's all part of boating, in the PNW anyway.

Trip planning in the Pacific Northwest

Conflicted

We're sailors, right?  Wind is our means of movement, our propulsion.  We know how our boats respond to it in all of its vagaries.  We need it; we want it; we crave it.

And yet.

Saturday here in Seattle was wonderfully calm.  And I confess that I felt guilty pleasure in floating around in the marina in the dinghy, unmolested by wind.  Yesterday I joined the ranks of power boaters, for whom smooth water is the ideal, for just while.

I don't think I am alone in this...  We sailors are a difficult to please lot; we want wind when we are off the dock or anchor, but once we tie up or drop the hook, that wind that we so ardently sought is now an uninvited guest, causing the boat to yaw about or squeeze her fenders against the dock.  It's noisy and it disturbs our peace.

We're conflicted people.

Conflicted

Best small sailboat for Puget Sound

A reader recently visited this blog because it showed up in the search results for "best small sailboat for Puget Sound".  Sadly, the reader did not contact me :( 

Dear Reader, please imagine that you had contacted me, and that consequently we are sitting in Eolian's cockpit on a warm spring afternoon, sipping beers.  Here's what I would say:

I'm sorry but I cannot answer your question without a lot more information.

First, you ask for the best small sailboat...  what is your definition of "small"?

• Do you have a particular size in mind?  How did you settle on this size?
• Are you looking at a particular price ceiling?  What is it?  
• Are you looking for a new boat?  A used boat?  Why?  Are you willing to do a little work on the boat?  (You had better say "yes" to this question - whether new or old, boats all require work...)
• "Small boat" could imply trailerable.  If this is what you have in mind, do you have a rig capable of pulling the boat (Accords and Camrys need not apply)?  Do you have a place to store the boat when out of the water?  The disadvantage of a trailerable boat is that a fair amount of time (roughly an hour) needs to be spent rigging the mast and transferring everything from the towing rig to the boat before use.  But it does enlarge your cruising grounds considerably - The San Juans are close when you are traveling at 65 mph.

Next, what is it you see yourself doing with the boat?

• Racing?
• Day sailing?  Where?  
• Cruising?  Do you want to overnight on the boat? 

Does the simplicity of sail power appeal to you? Or do you enjoy all the bells and whistles?

Will your boat have a motor?

• Outboard or inboard?
• Gas or diesel?

Finally, what do you mean by "Puget Sound"?  Are you talking about:

• Day sailing on Lake Union?
• Lake Washington?
• The Sound itself, above the Tacoma Narrows?
• The South Sound?
• The San Juans? 

And the items are interrelated too.  The price of the boat is going to directly reflect its condition (are you willing to work on it?), the included gear and systems (simple or complex?) and intended use (day sailor, cruiser, racer).  Trailerable boats will not need moorage, thus saving that cost, but at a cost of time required to rig and derig at each use.  And you will have to pay for, license and maintain the trailer.

And now that you have answered, "Well, all of them!" to some of those questions, then I must say that you have some further contemplation before you are ready to make a purchase.  No boat is going to be good at racing, cruising and day sailing, for example.  You really do need to prioritize things.  A boat that tries to be all things does none of them well.

And now that we're done with that second (third?) beer, I'd tell you to go look at boats. Look at lots of boats. Look at boats that are in your parameters, and boats that are not.  The seller (whether broker or private) wants to show you their boats - take advantage of that. Sit aboard and imagine yourself under sail.  Feed the dream.

Come back again when you have done that - we'll have a lot more decisive conversation then.  And more beer.

Best small sailboat for Puget Sound

Demo ride

Never been on a large sailboat?

Ever wonder what it might be like?

Here's a short video I shot near sunset last Thursday from the bowsprit, looking back over Eolian as we sliced across Puget Sound at 6.5 kt under ideal conditions, making our way to Port Madison.

Sailing this way makes the perfect day for me - excitement for a while, followed by serene time at anchor...  the perfect mix, and a guaranteed solid nite's sleep.

Now imagine sitting in the cockpit at sunrise with a warm latte, watching the birds and the seals play.  Yeah, it *is* that good.

Want to try it?

Demo ride

I Learned about sailing from that: Carrying the Mainsail Downwind Too Long

I apologize if you have seen this post before. It ended up with the wrong date in Google Reader, and therefore was invisible to anyone who uses that tool to see this blog. As a correction, I am re-posting it and deleting the old version

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In 2004 we made a trip up to Desolation Sound. Because of the path we chose, we had to cross the Strait of Georgia at its Southern end, and then sail most of its length from South to North. The Strait of Georgia is a large body of water, and can experience some prodigious wind, which can produce significant wind-driven swell.

We will join our log, picking up the thread as we were leaving Silva Bay:

We were excited about crossing the Strait of Georgia.. we both woke up before the alarm, and it was set for 06:00. So we got off pretty early - the log shows 06:40. We motored out of Silva Bay and into the Strait, and found a 10 kt SE breeze. Great! We hoisted all the sails, but soon found that our course was forcing us to choose between the yankee and the mainsail - the main was blanketing the yankee, and it was impossible to keep it filled and stay on course. So we rolled up the yankee.

As the morning wore on, the wind built. It had been forecast as 10-15 kt, but those darn Canadians! After it went over 20 indicated, we had to get more sail off as the boat was getting severely overpowered... steering was becoming difficult. Clipped into the jackline, Jane went forward and gave a mighty effort. To no avail.

Now, Eolian's mainsail is 391 ft²- a 1XX lb woman is simply no match for it when it is full of 20 kt of wind. So - there we were - barreling up the Strait of Georgia, the mainsail winged out, too much sail on the boat and steering becoming more and more difficult. Driven by the rising wind,the swell was rising too, contributing to the steering problem.

What to do?

It was obvious that we needed to turn the boat into the wind to take the wind out of the main. But the swell was high enough now where that was becoming a risk in itself. Here's what we did: I started the engine so the prop thrust would make the turn as quick as possible. Then I tried to time the turn so that we would be most of the way around by the time we were seeing the next crest. This meant that we had to start the turn as a wave was beginning to pass under us.

It worked, more or less. It was a wild ride, but we didn't broach, we didn't dip the boom into the water, and Jane quickly got the main down (hooray for lazy jacks!). But the cabin was a mess. Lots of things got loose from their sea rails and found their way to the floor. Books, for example. It seems like most of the paperback books we had on board were on the floor. However, nothing was broken.

We finally dropped the sails (just the mizzen and stays'l... the two sails I have always regarded as somehow "extra" - and here they had powered us most of the day) and put into Ballet Bay, at the entrance to Jervis Inlet. Even there tho, the wind continued to plague us, swinging us back and forth on the anchor until very late.

Learnings:

• Sailing downwind can be deceptive. Wind speeds are higher than they seem, and you can become lulled into a false sense of the real situation.
• A mainsail full of wind cannot be dropped. A yankee can.
  
• A strategic error was made early in the voyage when we dropped the yankee because it was being blanketed by the mainsail. We should have dropped the main.
• Reduce sail early. It is easier to add sail in a dying wind that it is to get it off in a rising wind.
• When to reduce sail? When the thought crosses your mind. If you are thinking about it, you probably should be doing it.
  

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Years ago when I was a kid, I used to read Flying magazine. I particularly enjoyed a long-running series of articles entitled "I Learned About Flying From That." Each article was written by a pilot, who humbly admitted to having made a mistake, and then having lived, told about it in the hopes that others would not have to make the same mistake. I thought then that it was a good format, and I still think that now. This series of postings is my attempt to recreate that article series with a new subject and new technology.

(If you would like to help others to learn from your mistakes, please send your article to: WindborneInPugetSound at gmail dot com)

I Learned about sailing from that: Carrying the Mainsail Downwind Too Long

Keel? Why Is There a Keel?

(For those of you reading because you are attracted to the romance of sailing into the sunset, or the peace of being anchored in a quiet cove at dawn... There is no romance in what follows - it is the technology which enables the romance. But I promise: no equations or vectors, just common sense and analogies)

Why would you take a perfectly good boat, and then handicap her by hanging 6 tons of lead (in Eolian's case) from her bottom?

Two reasons. The keel actually performs two separate functions that, in a wonderful bit of convergence, work out to require the same structure.

First: Keep the boat from falling over.

A sailboat has a tall mast, and carries a lot of sail up there, The weight of the mast and rigging alone, plus the sails would make her unstable and likely to fall over without the weight down below the waterline. Then there is the tremendous force that the wind adds! The hull actually acts as a fulcrum on which the mast/keel arm pivots. As the mast descends due to weight and force of wind, the hull rolls and forces the keel to rise, like a teeter-totter (<-- I think that may be the first time I have ever typed that word... it looks strange to me). As the boat rolls farther, the keel is pulled out farther away from directly below the hull, increasing the roll resistance. At the same time, as the mast goes more and more toward the horizontal, it becomes less and less effective at catching the wind. therefore the system is stable and self-correcting. As the boat heels more and more, it becomes more and more difficult to increase the angle of heel. The greater the weight, and the lower in the water below the hull it is suspended, the greater the stability which results.

Second: Keep the boat from sliding sideways in the water.

When the boat is sailing in any direction except dead downwind, the force of the wind on the sails is not along the boat's line of motion. To make this possible, something is needed to create a force which will resist the hull's desire to drift downwind. Once again, the keel comes to the rescue. In this case, the shape and surface area are the controlling factors; weight is irrelevant.

In the early days of yacht design, it was the "keel-as-a-barn-door" theory that prevailed. The idea being that a barn door would be really hard to push sideways thru the water. And in fact this is true. It leads to the full and modified-full keel designs which have been with us from antiquity. These boats (including Eolian with a modified full keel) are additionally very stable and easy to hold on course.

Tho the full keel design works well at optimizing one parameter: lateral resistance, it fails badly at optimizing another: wetted surface. Dragging anything thru the water takes effort - an effort that is proportional to (among many other things), the amount of surface area submerged in the water. Given a constant propulsive force, decreasing wetted surface will result in an increase in speed.

In the middle part of the last century (that would be the 20th century...), the search for a keel design that would provide the needed lateral resistance with decreased wetted surface was on. This led to the modern fin keel, when it was recognized that the keel moving thru the water could be viewed as a wing (much as the sail can be viewed as a wing operating in the air above), and thus could be designed as a hydrodynamic lifting body, - long and narrow with an airfoil cross section, instead of a barn door. Fin keel boats are faster, but are a little less stable - it takes more steering to keep them on course. However, they are far more maneuverable in close quarters, like a marina, since the boat pivots easily on the narrow fin.

Convergence

At first, the fin keels were just (nicely shaped) slabs of lead or cast iron. But then another conceptual breakthru came when it was realized that, if the keel material were strong enough, the bulk of the weight could be concentrated at the bottom in the form of a bulb, maximizing the righting moment that any given amount of keel weight could deliver.

Next, bear with me for a moment as we consider the keel as a lifting body. Consider the more familiar form of a lifting surface: an airplane wing. No matter how you describe the mechanism that makes it generate lift, it is a truism that the pressure on the bottom of the wing exceeds that on the top, if it is generating lift. Now what happens at the end of the wing? Yup... air flows out from under the wing and tries to fill the low pressure area on the top. This leads to the tip vortices that force air traffic controllers to space out flights at an airport. And it leads to a decrease in lift. The small vertical winglets seen on the wingtips of the most modern planes are effective at blocking this bottom-to-top flow.

Now back to the keel... it needs to lift from either side as the boat moves from one tack to the other., making each side of the keel alternately the high pressure and then the low pressure side. And yes, tip vortices rolling off the bottom steal away some of the effective lift of the keel. The same thinking that brings winglets to airplane wings has brought the wing keel - but with winglets on both sides. And in addition, the winglets are usually a modified form of bulb - that is, they contain a substantial fraction of the keel's weight. Because the wings increase the keel's effectiveness as a lateral plane, and because they allow weight concentration at the bottom where it is most effective, wing keel boats can have shorter keels than their fin keel counterparts with equivalent performance. Conversely, with the same depth and weight, a wing keel will increase both the boat's stiffness and its pointing ability.

Divergence

Working in the opposite direction, it is also possible to divorce the functions of roll stability and lateral resistance into two separate structures. The shoal draft/centerboard boat is such a case. In this design, the ballast keel is increased in weight, but held relatively high up, giving a shoal draft configuration. Because this keel generates very little, lateral resistance is provided by a retractable centerboard, which is weighted only enough to keep it in place. With the board extended, excellent lateral resistance is generated; with it retracted the boat can venture into thin water (tho the keel alone will not provide enough lateral resistance to allow thin water sailing without making huge amounts of leeway, unless nearly directly downwind).

The Future

So, what comes next? Venturing into prognostication, I have seen some interesting developments that have been tried on the "any $$ for 1/10 of a second" boats. Some of these are:

• Canting keels - they can be hydraulically tilted from side to side to increase the righting moment
• Keels with tabs - flaps really, keeping the aircraft wing analogy. The flaps increase the lift that the keel generates
• Boats with two steerable keels, fore and aft and no rudder

All of these ideas presume that something movable can be kept working in an environment that features barnacles, mussels, crab pot lines, and the occasional ill-placed rock. To survive in this environment, things have to be simple and robust - no delicate linkages need apply.

We'll see.

Keel? Why Is There a Keel?

28 Knots, Safe and Warm

This evening, we sat in the cockpit, safe and warm, and watched (over the breakwater - it was high tide) a boat trying to take down his sails in 28 knots of wind. We know what he was going thru.

We last experienced it in the Strait of Georgia, on our way to Desolation Sound. We were sailing downwind under the mainsail, with a building wind. When it became apparent that we had too much sail up because Eolian wanted to broach after crossing each wave crest, we were faced with a dilemma: how do you take down the sail? It is full of wind and pulling the boat at more than 7 knots. There is no way to pull it down in those conditions. And working on the deck is dangerous because of the motion of the boat in those seas. We had jacklines strung bow to stern, but no one wants to have to depend on them - that would be a disaster layered on a problem. We had to turn the boat around so that the sail would empty. So, I started the engine in order to make the turn as fast as possible, and tried to time things to minimize the roll as we spun around in the trough between two waves. There was a cacophony of crashing sounds from down below, but Jane, on the cabin top was getting the sail down, finally.

After rigging more appropriate sail (the staysail), we surveyed the damage below. Lots of stuff was on the cabin sole - all the bookshelves had unloaded, despite their searails. The garbage can had tipped over. Cushions were everywhere. Dishes had escaped the cupboards. Nothing serious, but the boat was a mess.

We learned our lesson: never carry the main downwind beyond the point where turning upwind is easy.

And that boat out beyond the breakwater? I'm sure that he is still picking things up and straightening his cabin.

And we opened another beer and saluted him.

28 Knots, Safe and Warm

Imprinting?

Looking like a mother duck and her ducklings, a cruising sailboat tows a gaggle of Optimist dinghies out of Port Madison on a recent evening. Did they imprint on it? Was it the first boat they saw as they left the dock?

The older/more experienced sailors get themselves out of the harbor by sailing. I could not capture all of them at once in the camera because they filled the harbor, but it is like being surrounded by a flock of butterflies - beautiful, graceful and silent.

Actually, sailing is a school sport on Bainbridge Island (boy, that's not the way I remember school!). I don't know if these pictures represent the school sessions, but there was definitely schooling going on. Here is one way to do it: Put an outboard on a dock section, set up a flipchart to make it an impromptu schoolroom, tie the Optimists to it, and take the whole shebang out into the harbor for on-site training.

Imprinting?

Upwind? How does *that* work?

Jack o' lanterns, and 747s. Huh? What?

I need 'em both to explain this.

Really.

Nobody has any difficulty understanding how a sailboat can sail directly downwind. All you need is lots of square feet of sail up there. The wind pushes on the sail, the sail pulls the boat. Piece of cake.

And it is not a very big leap to sailing at 45 degrees from downwind. The boat has a keel, which serves to make it difficult to push it sideways in the water. So, you put the sail up angled to catch the most wind, except that now it will be pulling the boat partly sideways. You pretty much still go where you want. But the keel is not on rails, so there is some, small sideways slippage, towards the downwind, or leeward direction. (This slippage is known as leeway - the origin of the common usage of the word.)

But upwind?? How does that work?

Well, first a sailboat cannot go directly upwind, into the eye of the wind. The best it can do is about 45 degrees either side of the eye of the wind. But how?

Those sails are not just big bedsheets up there. They are carefully constructed to have a particular shape when they are full of wind. If you looked at a horizontal cross section of a loaded sail, you might recognize the shape - it is the same general shape that an airplane wing has. And we know what air flowing over an airplane wing does: It provides lift. It is the air flowing over the carefully shaped wings of a 747 that keeps that million pounds up there.

Now imagine an airplane wing turned up on end: starting to look like a sail, isn't it (in fact, some high-speed racing boats have been built with solid "sails" that bear a whole lot more resemblance to airplane wings than cloth sails). Which way does the lift on the airplane wing pull? Well, up, of course. But when that wing is tipped up on end, the lift is sideways, pulling on the curved side (wings are flat on the bottom, aren't they).

Now come back to the sails. When sailing upwind, the sails are not oriented to catch the most wind. Instead, now is when all that carefully engineered shape comes into play. They are oriented so that the wind flows over them, like that airplane wing. And like the airplane wing, they generate lift. So, sailing upwind, the wind is pulling on the sails.

Still, how does that move the boat? I am not going to draw vector diagrams here. Instead, here's an analogy: the pumpkin seed. Huh? I know it is early for Hallowe'en, but imagine that you have pulled a fresh, slimy pumpkin seed out of a pumpkin. Now, put that seed between your thumb and forefinger, and squeeze it. If your finger tips are the slightest bit out of parallel, that seed is going to squirt out. Now come back to the boat... one "finger" is the wind, pulling the boat, and the other is the keel, preventing it from going (very much) sideways. The result of being pinched between the wind and the keel? It squirts forward. That's the best I can do without vectors.

There is also art and careful engineering in the arrangement of the sails on the boat, beyond the effort to get the most square feet in the wind within the physical constraints of the boat. Again, the airplane. Next time you are on final approach, look at what the pilot has done to the wings. In flight they are streamlined. But on final approach, when airspeed is much lower, the same lift is still needed, or the plane will fall out of the sky. To generate this extra lift at low speed, the pilot changes portions of the wing to create slots at the front of the wing. The air moving thru the slots is greatly accelerated, thereby providing the missing but needed lift.

Now look at the slots created by this boat's sails:

There are three of them, and because the sails are arranged one ahead of the next, they each accelerate the flow for the next one. The effect is very real, and amazing. On a light wind day, if you go forward and stand in the slot between the main and jib, the wind will be very significantly stronger than if you stand in the more or less free air at the stern. And it works, very, very well.

After all, that 747 stays up there...

Upwind? How does *that* work?

The new toy

I need to preface this with the observation that many of you probably have tools like this on board. For us, who have been using a very old Garmin hand-held most of our boating career, Arthur Clark was spot on when he said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Magic indeed.

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You may remember that we got a new GPS before our last trip to the San Juan Islands. As you saw in the picture there, it came with just some low-res satellite photos to add context to the display. Well, this was infinitely more than the old hand-held did, and it was a lot of fun on the trip. But now... Now...

I purchased a data chip which plugs into the device. Now, I get a whole lot more! All the aids to navigation are located on the display, and the shoreline is now a high-res satellite image. In the closer-in views, the depth contours are shown. And if I choose, I can see a fish-eye view of our course (this is the view from our slip - that is the shoreline looming over to the right).

The accuracy is stunning. With the hi-res photos turned on, the boat icon actually overlays the blocky pixels that are actually our boat, in our slip, in the satellite photo!

Now the real challenge will begin: to continue to look out over the bow and enjoy sailing for what it is: wind, water and boat, and not let this instrument turn the experience into a video game. I can easily see how tempting this would be...

The new toy

Grocophobia: Fear of the Marine Head

It could be an embarrassing moment.

You are aboard someone's boat, and after an afternoon of sun and adult beverages, the inevitable pressure buildup happens. But you've heard stories about marine toilets, and are filled with disquieting thoughts... What if I do something wrong? Could I sink the boat? What if I have to call the boat owner? What if I have to call the boat owner with my work product still in the bowl?? So you cross your legs and contemplate swimming, even tho the water temperature is only 54 degrees. And you vow to never drink beer on a boat again.

Never fear. As your guide to all things living aboard, I will take you thru those fears, and give you the confidence of foreknowledge.

The marine toilet (head) is different from your familiar household appliance, because it is adapted to a different environment:

• First of all, because of the cramped quarters onboard, it is smaller. There will be overhang. It's not you.
• Your household toilet uses about 5 gallons of water per flush. Now, at 45 gallons, Eolian has a very generous holding tank, but with a household toilet, that volume could only accommodate 9 flushes. So the marine head does not flush like a household toilet, in order to reduce the volume of waste. And because fresh water is precious (all you have is what is in your tanks), the marine head flushes with seawater.
• Your household sewer plumbing is 3" or 4" in diameter. On a boat, the plumbing is 1.5" in diameter (it's the white hose in the picture), and at least as critically, the path from the bowl to the holding tank is very tortuous indeed. You may have heard the adage, "Don't put anything in there unless you have eaten it first," (small amounts of tissue exempted). Believe it. If something jams in there, I am the one who has to disassemble the system and dig it out, and everything that piled up behind it.
• The marine head does not use gravity to do its job. Instead, a pump is used to move the waste from the bowl to the tank. There are manual pumps, electric pumps, vacuum pumps... but there is always pumping involved.
  

So. How does this device, which looks vaguely like it might have come from Frankenstein's laboratory, work?

The familiar household toilet has one, "do everything" lever: flush, and the contents are swept away and the bowl is rinsed. With the marine head, these are typically two separate activities. On Eolian our heads are Groco Model HFs, and they work like this:

1. Operate the pump by alternately pulling up and pushing down the handle. This will alternately draw contents from the bowl and then push them into the white discharge hose. Continue until the bowl is empty, or nearly so.
2. See that small brass lever? It is in the horizontal position in this picture. In this position, it prevents the entry of the flush sea water. Move the lever to the upright position, opening the flush water valve.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Again operate the pump handle. Now with each complete up/down cycle, flush water will rinse the bowl, and then be pumped into the discharge hose. Rinse enough to be clean, but don't overdo it - remember that 45 gallon tank. If it is night, enjoy the swirling points of light as excited plankton spin around the bowl.
4. Return the brass lever to the horizontal position. THIS IS IMPORTANT! If the flush valve is left open, seawater will slowly fill the bowl, overflow onto the floor, and... (so, yes. I suppose you could sink the boat...) Always leave the head with the brass lever horizontal.
   
5. Pump out any remaining rinse water. The bowl should be left empty - this is a sailboat. We don't want remaining water to slosh out when the boat heels underway. Even if we are tied at the dock, it is a good habit to get into - leave the bowl empty.

Other marine heads will have slightly different operation, but the basic principles will be the same.

Fear gone? I hope so. And armed with this knowledge, if the next head you encounter is not a Groco, at least you will have the basics down, and should feel confident.

Now go ahead, uncross those legs...

Grocophobia: Fear of the Marine Head

Lightning

There is lightning and thunder outside right now... yes, right here in Seattle! For those of you in far away and exotic places like the midwest, a single clap of thunder in Seattle will bring out all the news reporters, with breathless eyewitness accounts of the event, on all the channels.

As I sit here typing this, I am less than three feet from a 65 foot tall aluminum lightning rod, and fervently hoping that it doesn't strike here.

One time in Wisconsin on Green Bay, we were tied up at a marina where lightning struck a boat (not ours - we had the shortest mast in the marina). The sound was deafening, and afterward there were pieces of masthead instrumentation on the dock. It was comforting to be the shortest mast.

We no longer have that comfort. Tho we are not the tallest mast in the near vicinity (I think Wind Dancer gets that honor), we are definitely vulnerable to a strike.

I am very happy that we are in Seattle where lightning is a newsworthy event, rather than in Miami or Indiana.

Still, there is thunder out there...

Lightning

Timing

Timing is everything.

A high is going to move over this area tomorrow... sometime. This event will drive the wind strength and direction for the next couple of days. The NOAA forecasts have been all over the map - basically driven by when and where the high passes over us.

Nonetheless, we will throw off the docklines tomorrow morning. The plan to be in Port Ludlow tomorrow night may need to be modified... depending on the forecast. The next one is due about 9 PM.

Waiting... Learning (again) to live on the Earth's schedule starts right now...

Timing

Weather whine

So, when we needed to have light wind for the birthday/fathers day cleats 'n eats cruise, we have 20+ kt out of the South.

For tomorrow and Saturday, when we are traveling North, the forecast is for light winds, up to 10 kt, out of the North.

GAH!

Weather whine

Provisioning

We are getting ready for two weeks offshore... the plan is to cast off at 07:38 when the tide turns on Friday morning, and head North to the San Juan Islands. We want to have everything we will need for two weeks on board, so Jane has begun the task of getting everything, and getting it stowed aboard, somewhere. Here is the first load - is that really going to be enough beer?



One of the things we have learned over the years on Eolian is that our most limiting capacity is garbage. Therefore we discard as much packaging as we can before we leave. For example, here are two boxes of saltines and two boxes of instant oatmeal, sans packaging.

A great advance in food lately has been the advent of ultra-pasteurized milk. This stuff has a really, really long expiration date. Which means that we will be able to enjoy lattes for the whole trip, every morning. I mean, how else would I get Jane up every morning?

Excitement is building...

Provisioning

Contents may have shifted

Here's a difference...

Like in your house, there are small cabinets in the galley where dishes, glassware (above the sink) and spices (above the refrigerator) are stored.

And like in your house, there are cabinets in the bathroom where small bottles and other containers are stored. We put the same kinds of things in there that you do in your medicine cabinet.

Now, imagine what would happen to your house if you tilted it to one side at 10 or 15 degrees, and then shook it for an hour or two.

Yeah, exactly. "Contents May Have Shifted."

Before we leave the dock, there is a routine list of tasks we have to undertake to get ready for sea. One of these is to make sure that the sliding door on the cabinet over the sink is closed. But on one particularly boisterous passage in the Strait of Georgia, the motion of the boat caused the sliding panel to open of its own accord, and the glassware that had been trapped inside began to escape, one after the other, like little transparent skydivers. Jane thought quickly, and subdued them by stuffing bath towels into the cabinet.

Unless you live in California, I'm guessing that you don't have to deal with this.

We had two good sails across Puget Sound this weekend... and judging by the shifting of the contents of the cabinets, they were great sails!

Contents may have shifted

The Rhythm of Life

The rhythm of life off the dock is different than it is on shore. It is, most importantly, much slower. And, unlike ashore where man-made urgencies and deadlines control everything, it is simpler, interwoven inextricably with the rhythms of the Earth: tide and weather.

This last holiday weekend, after so long on the dock, we got a refresher course.

Barring the need to rise early in order to make a long passage with the tide, or to beat a weather front (not usually a good plan...), this is how a typical day away from the dock goes for us:

Whenever:

(In practice, this seems to be 06:30 - 07:30) Rise. Check the water depth, and the positions of the other boats in the anchorage. Turn off the anchor light. Check the temperature in the freezer (since reworking the temperature setpoints in the refrigerator last fall, the refrigerator is no longer on the critical path for refrigeration - only the freezer). If the charge state of battery bank #2 can handle it, and if it is needed, turn on the refrigeration. Enjoy the absolute peace. I like being awake before everyone else.

Whenever + 15-30 minutes:

Turn on the inverter and make two lattes. The sound of the espresso maker serves as Jane's alarm clock. If it is nice, move to the cockpit and enjoy the lattes while watching the birds in the quiet harbor.

+ another 20-30 minutes:

Make another pair of lattes. While working on these, listen to the NOAA weather on the VHF, get a gander at the tide book, and talk about where we will go today. We usually have a Grand Plan (like "Go to the San Juans", or "Go to Poulsbo") but these are purposely vague. Consider tidal currents, wind, impending weather, etc... and make a destination decision. This could be a confirmation of an earlier decision, a confirmation of the Grand Plan, or something entirely different.

Until time to go:

Monitor electrical state of the batteries. If the departure (and the engine-driven battery charge while we hoist anchor and drive out of the harbor) is a long way off, it may be necessary to run the generator, but we try not to do this until say 09:00, when everyone is pretty much awake in the anchorage, so everyone can enjoy the morning peace. Cook/eat. Read. Talk. Play guitar. If crabbing season is open: crab.

Departure:

Tide, weather and all other things being equal, we try to get to our next anchorage before 16:00. That way, we are not rushed in the evening. Hoist anchor, drive out of the anchorage, and hoist sail (if there is wind).

Under Way:

We love the peacefulness of being under sail. Other than the sound of the wind and the water as the boat makes its way, it is silent. Occasionally (like last weekend), we are joined by a dolphin or a porpoise for a while, or sight some Orcas, or even a grey whale, and feel privileged and in awe. I have lots of pictures taken under way of the ever-changing canvas of sea and sky.

Arrival:

Drop sails. Drive into the anchorage, survey, choose a spot, and drop anchor. Shut down the engine. Drink a ceremonial Anchorage Beer, and watch the next boats coming in to anchor. Cook/eat. Read. Talk. Play guitar. But now add: drink wine, wine cruise, or visit other boats if we see someone we know. If there is a town, there will probably be a dinghy trip to shore. If crabbing season is open: crab.

Late:

Check water depth, and the positions of the other boats in the anchorage. Turn on the anchor light. Check the temperature in the freezer, and give it another shot of runtime if necessary.

Retire.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

It usually takes 2 or 3 days to get me slowed down to the pace of the Earth. Until I get there, I am anxious and somehow unsatisfied.

But when I finally synchronize, there is an amazing peace.

The Rhythm of Life

The Rule of Twelfths

When we arrive in an anchorage and the tide is in mid-cycle, we need to estimate how much more (or less) water there will be at high or low tide. We use the Rule of Twelfths. It goes like this:

• In the first hour, the tide will rise 1/12 of the difference between low and high tide
• In the second hour it will rise 2/12 of the difference (for a total of 3/12 = 1/4)
• In the third hour it will rise 3/12 of the difference (for a total of 6/12 = 1/2)
  
• In the forth hour it will rise 3/12 of the difference (for a total of 9/12 = 3/4)
• In the fifth hour it will rise 2/12 of the difference
• In the sixth hour it will rise 1/12 of the difference

For falling tides, use the same rule, but it will fall 1/12, 2/12, etc.

The Rule of Twelfths