I grew up reading some of the great adventurers -- John Caldwell, Sir Francis Chichester, Robin Lee Graham, John Guzzwell-- Who made epic voyages across the oceans. For much of my life I dreamed of making the same kinds of voyages, and devoured any books and magazines that came along in that genre. I would study the boats and design my own versions so I, too, could accomplish nautical heroics. One thing that I noticed early on was how much these guys came to value simplicity. That was the beginning of my evolution as a sailor.

Then Life interfered, and I detoured mostly ashore for a while. Somewhere in that detour I discovered the joys of exploring bug-infested backwaters where one could nose into a reed bed and scramble up the hill looming over the boat to take a nice picture. Tying up to a marginal weedy bush instead of carrying five different anchors and 3,000 feet of chain. waking up in a cozy cove, silent and peaceful instead of listening to the neighbor's generator all night long. As that process unwound, my idea of a heroic boat also underwent a few revisions. The prospect of equipping and managing a boat to cross an ocean seemed less appealing the more I thought about it.

I subscribe to a couple of sailing magazines besides Small Craft Advisor. I like to see how the other side lives, and it sure is nice looking at the latest fancy sailboats. The other magazines provide a view into a vastly different world of sailing than I inhabit, which leaves me alternating between wistful envy and amused horror.

Those magazine are rather amusing. To start, I don't think that any of the boats advertised in there are under 35 feet long. Sure, that is much more comfortable that my 19-foot Potter, but when one of those things runs aground thanks to the 5-foot draft, it's a whole different experience for them than it is for me. If I'm lucky, a few energetic strokes with the paddle, or maybe a good pole off with the boathook and I'm back in action. If I'm really stuck I crank up the daggerboard a couple of inches, sail off, then crank it back down. That's generally not how it works when you run your floating Condominium up on the sandbar. In fact, pretty much everything about those big boats is more serious. If I jibe accidentally, I can sometimes snag the mainsheet and slow the boom down as it flies across. If I tried that with one of those serious ships, I'd launch myself over the horizon for sure. And the ginormous bludgeon would still rip some expensive chunk of hardware off the boat.

There are advantages to a bigger boat, I'll agree. Sometimes I have trouble fitting all the chow into the cooler along with enough Ice Packs to keep the stuff alive in the Arizona heat; a growing trend seems to be for new boats to have not one, but two refrigerators on board. Two Fridges! Now that's luxury. I'm sure they can pack in a lot of beer, but then I have never had to fly a mechanic in to fix my cooler, let alone two of them. One prominent theme I pick up from these magazines is how cruising has been boiled down to "fixing your boat in a variety of exotic locations"-- I always thought that was a joke, but now I read about it in every month's issue. Two fridges!

On most days I can steer my boat by shifting my weight, without touching the tiller. The boats appearing in the other magazines have, along with the two refrigerators, two wheels. One on each side. Personally, I'd get confused if I had two wheels to choose from. It's hard enough with just the single wood thingy hanging on my rudder. And these are not little wheels, either. These are BIG. The mechanical advantage must be formidable, but you know, I never really appreciated even the dinky little steering wheel-sized helms that I've encountered in my travels-- They seemed to lack a certain liveliness that my wood stick has. I know when the Potter is overpowered, I can feel it in the tiller. If I insist, eventually she'll round up. One wonders how much feedback you get with those America's Cup-sized wagon wheels spanning the cockpit. Do you get any feedback, or does the beautiful machine hum along, the driver oblivious, until the fancy high-tech carbon fiber mylar super duper space-age rig busts a gut?

Speaking of high tech rigs, I love how every couple of years some rig innovation becomes the Next Big Thing. All the new boats have it, whatever it is. The cruising-oriented magazines tend to not emphasize the latest whiz-bang rigging, I imagine, because most of the people out there need something that will actually reliably hold their gigantic rigs up as they motorsail from Exotic Port A to Equally Exotic Port B in search of a good mechanic. Their rigs are last year's Big Thing, and they write plenty of stories about how the Wonder Crimp Rod Thingies are starting to come apart if the wind blows more than 10 knots. It's the magazines that are closer to the racing world that swoon over the latest cool stuff from the likes of the Open 60's.At one point I too drooled over stuff like Rod Rigging, until I read the follow up stories. For a few years now, I have been devolving rig-wise to the point where I am fairly sure that my next boat will have an unstayed mast (or masts). If I have to have rigging, it'll be simple, cheap, low-stress, and easily repaired. And I won't be submitting articles to the other magazines about how I spent thousands of dollars swapping out last year's Next Big Thing for this year's Next Big Thing.

I'm of two minds with regard to the navigation of a sailboat. Now I love GPS, but I shot my first celestial fix just outside of Mombasa, Kenya in the 70's, and never really shook off the romance and pure seaman-like utility of navigating the way the old-timers have been doing for hundreds of years. When I was forming my vision of myself as a World Voyager, running fixes, points drawn on a paper chart and positions established by the stars and sun figured prominently-- None of this setting the autopilot to home in on some glowing dot on the LCD while I raided the double fridges for a beer and sandwich. Pretty much every time I sail, I practice the old techniques of shooting bearings and plotting my position, even though I do have a nice little portable GPS that provides endless amusement as it shows me sailing merrily half a mile inland, over the saguaro cacti. The GPS is also extremely useful on family road trips. I keep the Wife appraised of our progress regularly: "We'll arrive in 23 minutes, 18.715 seconds, Sweetie!". She is very appreciative and only threatens to stick the thing up my hawsepipe if I update her too frequently, say more than once.

But I digress. In the magazines, Some of these sailors have electronic navigation suites that cost more than my entire boat. They have radar. They have depth finders (I have a lead line). They can see their position from space, and see what the terrain looks like under their boat. They know the temperature of the water. And yet they still manage to run up on reefs, get lost, and generally make fools of themselves fairly regularly, so much so that the Super Navigators now regularly run articles that try to keep the double-fridge crowd from making spectacles of themselves and dinging their gelcoat because they pushed the wrong button or loaded the wrong datum (whatever that is!).

But even if the Modern Navigator is on top of things, having all those electronics aboard is just asking for trouble, in my opinion. I have just one battery on my boat. It could disappear in a puff of smoke and my general nautical happiness would not be impacted in the least. Stories abound of sailors whose electrical systems gave up the ghost-- What happens when your 60 foot beauty's power grid shorts out? Not only do you no longer have the navigational video game to keep you amused, but now your electric winches, electric roller reefing, and electric refrigerators are gone as well. I would not want to find myself in that situation on a lee shore. Warm beer! Oh the humanity!

In a nutshell, I get my sailing motto from some guy named Albert Einstein (whom I think was a great sailor, or something): Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. On a small boat, that's a lot easier to do than otherwise. And, I would argue, more fun as well. This also is not a limitation on my voyaging potential-- Lots of people who think just like me have made epic voyages in small, simple boats.

Finally: A recent advice column in one of the magazines goes on at length about how to stop the bottles of wine from clanking around and disturbing the off watch; my solution is to dispense with the bottles altogether and purchase boxes of booze instead. Noise problem solved, and when you run up on the reef in a drunken stupor you can inflate the plastic bladders for additional flotation! Simple, and elegant. That's why I'm a committed gunkholer.

Although two fridges does sound kind of nice, now that I think about it...

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Wow, I never knew Paul Butler had posted these articles of his. Talk about a tremendous resource. —Eds

 

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What appears to be a very well-designed power skiff offering remarkable performance in various conditions. Looks like they're coming aboard as advertisers. If you're interested take a peek at their website here.

 —Eds

 

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Two weeks ago 'Jo, I, and Bosun traveled over to Channel Islands Harbor to sail with Captain Howie and his group, The Socal Potters. It's a seven hour trip for us to get over there with Dauntless in tow but it's a trip we've made every year for the last four years. In fact, it was the first place and time that we actually launched Dauntless after acquiring her and having to do major repair work. So, it's kind of like an anniversary every time we go.

We usually stay for 3 or 4 days and the group either sails out to Anacapa Island or up to Ventura, or both. Well, this year the wind just didn't cooperate. A high pressure system set-up right over us. Temps soared (for the coast anyway) and winds dropped. On Saturday morning the group assembled to head the 11 or 12 miles offshore to Anacapa. There was no wind.....none. Hoping that as we got offshore the breezes would pick up, off we went under motor. Jo and I weren't planning on going the whole way, anyway, but we were hoping to head out with the group and find some sailing. It wasn't to be had.

We were trailing behind the main group that was pushing to make time for the trip out to the island. A couple of other boats were in the vicintiy of us. Suddenly we were surrounded by a pod of dolphins. Not 5 or 10, or even 15 or 25, but lots of them. They were everywhere. We circled around to stay in the area. As I turned the boat the dolphins that were riding our bow turned with us. I looked over at Howie's boat, Sweet Thing II, and the same thing was happening to them. Craig in his P-19 was experiencing the same thing.



We played with these guys for well over an hour, circling around they would jump from our boat to Howie's, then Craig's, then back to ours. They'd split up and give us all a group of our own and then all converge into one group again. As they would swim alongside the boat you could literally see them looking at you. You could see them switch their gaze from me in the cockpit to 'Jo on the bow. It was amazing. I've seen it before, but never for such a prolonged time. Their motion through the water was effortless and they could speed away from us at will....but then they'd come back! Occasionally you could even hear their high pitched sonar sounds they make.

The entire episode lasted well over an hour. Eventually we turned for home as the pod started moving on.

Motoring back to the harbor was a time of reflection for me. In my everyday life I sometimes find myself so caught up in things. Like so many of folks out there, recent times at work have involved budget cuts, manpower shortages, and leadership that at times seems so out of touch with reality that it's hard to believe. Power struggles within the organization disgust me, especially when they lead to decisions the are made for entirely the wrong reasons. I came looking to find a get away from the whole situation and turn my brain off for a while. I knew a good stiff ocean breeze would distract me, at least for the short time that we'd be there.

 I didn't find that breeze......
 
What I found was better. That pod of dolphins opened my eyes. My focus has been on such a microcosm that my viewpoint has been skewed. All these people that I have been so frustrated with, the ones that are the "movers and shakers" (at least in their eyes), the ones that make the decisions based on personal motivations rather than the good of all, the ones that abuse their power to attack anyone that challeges their motivations, regardless of the damage it may do...they are only kidding themselves. They are big fish in a very little pond. Yes, in this little town of 50,000 people they have the power to do what they do....but in the overall picture they are little people and inconsequential. There is a great big world out there that moves along whether we know it or not. That pod of dolphins is somewhere out there in the Pacific, right now as I type this. They are hunting for food, giving birth to and raising their young, and playing on someone else's bow wake. The pod lives on with no ill will towards anything. Their motivations are pure. Acquire what is neccessary to support their own. Period. They don't destroy their own environment. They don't seek to acquire perceived wealth or worry about their own self-importance. It makes me think that maybe they look at us (humans) in amazement...of our ingnorance as a race. It made me wish that my world was more like theirs.

We returned to the dock early. Most of the group had gone the whole way out to the island. With no wind, and our four legger (Bosun) aboard, we figured we'd head back, get some lunch, and let him make a pit stop.

As afternoon moved into evening the boats began returning. Everyone arrived back in the harbor and smiles and laughter soon filled the docks. An impromptu dock party began. Someone decided we needed pizza and soon six or seven pizzas were being devoured by the group. The finger dock between Dauntless' starboard side and Sweet Thing's port side became "The Spot".

People were sitting on the boats, on the dock, in beach chairs, or just milling around the group. Open pizza boxes covered the concrete dock. Multiple conversations could be heard at any one time, all interspersed with laughter and joy.

 

Pizza boxes on the ground, chips and salsa on the cabin tops, drinks for everyone......soon crews from other boats nearby, not even associated with our group  began to mosey over. They were welcomed with open arms and joined in on the the feeding frenzy.

As darkness set in, Bosun indicated it was time for a walk. He and I took a little stroll up the dock and through the park like surroundings of the harbor area. The whole time we were walking my mind was thinking about the dolphins. We walked for about 20 minutes before returning to the docks. The tide was out making the docks quite a bit lower than the walkway above. As we came down the gangway to the dock I could see the whole scene from above. All the crews were there in the dim rays provided by the dock lights. There were so many conversations going on that it was difficult to pick out just one from a distance. Someone had turned some music on in the background. Every body was eating, laughing, and moving about. One second there would be a group by Dauntless' bow and Sweet Thing's stern, then as the laughter continued the group mingled around and reformed on Sweet Thing's bow and Dauntless' stern. Then everyone momentarily got on the same conversation and an uproarious laughter was heard before they broke up into indiscernable conversation and reformed their groups again.

Right then it hit me: I'd seen this before—I'd found my Pod ;-)

Thanks gang I needed that.


Casting off

—Sean Mulligan

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The word ping is very evocative for me. As I put that word on paper the clear sound of two champagne flutes toasting a romantic brunch comes to mind, as does the ring of a hammer forging a chunk of hot steel into something useful. Generally, a ping is a pleasant sound to hear, a cheerful exclamation point on life.

But sometimes, ping is not so good a sound. Especially when it comes from the nether regions of a sailboat. I have gained a new appreciation of ping as an opening act for potential disaster through a couple of experiences.

The second time I had ever sailed my Potter P19, I was lowering the mast for trailering: The mast got down to around 45 degrees, and the shackle holding the block and tackle to the gin pole decides it is a good time to practice auto-releasing. Ping! in slow motion, I watch the mast drop the remaining 45 degrees and bounce off the companionway hatch, accompanied by a painful crunch! as the vang shackle punched a neat rectangular hole in the hatch. Fortunately, the aluminum bludgeon missed my daughter in the cockpit, though her tender ears did receive some rather salty commentary from the stupefied Captain Dad. Besides the perforated hatch, no other damage, except to my daughter's innocence and my opinion of certain kinds of shackles. But the thing I remember most vividly from that was the ping! just before the mast toppled.

My next ping-related calamity was shortly after I had discovered the marvel that is a quick-release pin. What a boon for the trailer sailor! No more of this fooling around with fussy little wire circle cotter pin thingies that were diabolically difficult to thread into the correct hole unless blood was sacrificed in the process. No more chasing the damn things down the launch ramp to the amusement of the (pin-free) powerboat guys. No more 45 minute rig-the-sailboat flails while bored children attempt to drown themselves off the end of the finger pier. No, just stick it in there and go! When de-rigging, push the little button and presto! A brilliant idea. I wanted to buy a case of the things and install 'em all over my boat.

I connected my forestay using one of those quick release pins one fine day. The boat was rigged in record time, and my sons and I were soon out on the lake, tacking about and having a good old time in about 5 knots of breeze. Then: ping! The quick-release dives for Davy Jones' Locker, releasing the forestay from the deck. One minute I'm sailing along, the next I am watching my rig perform a maneuver that I had never before experienced, or imagined.

Fortunately, the roller reefing line, skinny little thing that it is, held the reefing drum close enough to the front of the boat that nothing unduly embarrassing happened after the quick-release jumped ship. I retained enough presence of mind to immediately turn the boat downwind, which took the pressure off the skinny line, and cast off the jib sheet. This time it was the boys' turn to learn some new sailor terminology as Captain Dad scrambled forward to interrupt a slow-motion dismasting at sea. While they observed, wide eyed, from the cockpit I managed to secure the forestay (using the anchor rode no less, though I had to drag out 20 feet of chain first!), all the while trying to explain to the boys how to keep the boat going downwind with shouts, curses, and wild one-handed gestures, as the flailing genoa wrapped itself around my head.

Disaster thus averted, albeit comically, we limped back to the ramp under power where I replaced the delinquent quick-release pin with, you guessed it, a regular pin and circle wire thingy. Lesson Learned-- Quick release Good when done intentionally. Not so good otherwise.

So now I have a more visceral appreciation of ping! than I did when the sound was simply two champagne flutes. As a sailor, I am determined to never hear that particular sound again while on a boat, if for no other reason than to avoid the looks from The Wife when the kids demonstrate their new grasp of nautical terminology learned from Dad on the high seas. I now scrutinize anything on the boat and try to anticipate any potential ping-crunch-dagnabbit scenarios before they happen. Anything that even looks like it might go ping! at an inopportune moment is treated with deep suspicion, or replaced outright.

So far so good. Now if I can just do something about the gurgles, thumps, squeaks, groans and pops when trying to sleep in a bumpy anchorage, I'll be a happy camper.

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