Update to post regarding Windigo

We received more details on the rescue effort regarding Windigo. The vessel was not abandoned as had been reported this morning. She was rolled and suffered some damage and is taking on water through leaking hatches. The crew is still on board and two large vessels were en route to the scene as of noon today.

First cyclone of the season?

We have been watching the barometer rise and the winds rotate into the west as a deep low has passed south of us. While we have not heard it called a cyclone yet, I think it could be classified as one. Some boats on its less violent northern side reported gusts of 74 knots. Our friends Bruce and Marcelle on 'Adventure Bound' reported 10 meter seas and winds in excess of 55 knots yesterday and this morning. They sounded very unhappy to be where they were, which today is the area with the highest forecast seas (at 7 meters) south of the center of the depression. Yesterday we heard they were hove to, but today they are making their way slowly (at 2 knots) north in response to a request from New Zealand emergency response.

As far as we can understand from sketchy reports, a 39 foot Beneteau named 'Windigo' was rolled over in heavy seas 30 nautical miles to the north of 'Adventure Bound'. They set off their EPIRB and took to the life raft. A New Zealand Orion rescue plane has been standing by and 'Adventure Bound' has been asked to head towards the life raft and take the passengers on board. Chris tells me that for a boat as large as Windigo to roll completely over requires a breaking sea of about 8 feet - that would be on top of the non-breaking part of the swell. I do not know for sure if the vessel was completely rolled. Perhaps she may have suffered a knock down that filled her through open hatches.

The rest of the fleet en route to New Zealand are all experiencing rough weather (winds 30-40 knots) and high seas from 3-5 meters. On the Pacific Drifters Net this morning several sailboats reported less severe damage, for example a broken boom vang and leaky portlights. Believe me when I say that I am not looking forward to this passage at all! I volunteered to winch Chris up the mast to inspect the rigging before we set off.

Closer to here, about 130 miles south of Tongatapu, an unregistered EPIRB was set off. Because it was not registered, we have no details of which vessel set it off. Also, just south of us in the Vava'u Group there is a sailing boat on a reef. The Tongan police are trying to rescue the vessel, but its crew is not in danger.

Finally, our friends on 'Kindred Spirit' had their mooring in Neiafu part company last night around dusk but were able to react quickly enough to save their boat. I am glad we did not take them up on their kind offer to raft up with them! We are anchored off a somewhat surfy beach with about a 2 mile fetch to the west, from which the wind is now blowing. I had some concerns about our anchor chain being wrapped around coral and spent an uneasy night wondering if it would be sawn cut but Chris reassured me that there are small rocks not coral close to the anchor. Being a worrier, I still kept a close eye on our GPS position, ready to hop out to start the engine if the anchor drag alarm sounded.

The front is moving quickly away now and we anticipate better conditions later this evening as the wind swings behind a nearby island and the fetch subsides.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the people out on the open ocean today, in particular the folks off 'Windigo' and Bruce and Marcelle on 'Adventure Bound'.

Highs and Lows

At least it is not the first cyclone of the season, but there is a deepening low passing through Tonga today that has had the cruising community worried for days. With our SSB long range radio, we have been able to download weather forecasts and listen to radio nets discussing what is coming. This is so different from the trip I made a few years ago to take our smaller boat back to Canada when we had a poorly functioning radio receiver and less knowledge about receiving weather information in this way. At that time, I could only look at the barometer and the sky and try to work things out from that and a few rudimentary rules of thumb.

This low will pass south of us with the winds rotating anti-clockwise from east to west as it passes. We sailed about 90 miles north yesterday, returning to Vava'u from the Ha'apai Group. Here the winds should be lighter and the protection is much better, especially in westerly winds. It was rough sailing once we were clear of the low islands of Ha'apai. With large and closely spaced swells just ahead of the beam, the decks were awash with water for many hours. We noticed two leaks on the starboard side - one we knew of already and another around a portlight frame. Winds were about 20 knots from the east and we averaged a respectable but bouncy 6 knots close reaching under 2-reefed main and partially furled jib.

Our arrival in Vava'u well after dark was made possible by the fact we had been here before, and had sailed through most of the channels we followed into this maze of islands. Also, we had newly surveyed charts, with land masses and reefs in roughly the right places. Still, we ran the charting program and radar and kept a close eye on the depth sounder as we made our way through more than 10 miles of passes and channels. We anchored around 11pm just off Nuku Island, the only boat in the area. Most other boats that returned to Vava'u are in Neiafu where they are tied securely to moorings, but there were none left by the time we neared the islands.

This morning we re-anchored Ladybug in a better position for the winds expected and in deeper water off the beach. I snorkeled around carrying a leadline with float attached to mark the spot. The anchor looks well set with a large fishing float holding the chain above some coral bommies nearby.

There is a great deal of camaraderie in the cruising community and we received helpful emails from our friends Don and Deb on 'Buena Vista' as well as assistance via VHF as we approached from Brad on 'Kindred Spirit' and Mike on 'Picara'. When you are beating your way through rough weather towards a safe haven, it is a great comfort to hear a friendly voice!

Grahame Shannon's Walker Bay

Grahame Shannon designed both Ladybug II and was one of the designers of the Walker Bay dinghy. Walker Bays are manufactured in the thousands by a company out of Washington state in the US. Mr. Shannon's website states that the Walker Bay is the most popular dinghy in the world. There is an 8' 3" model (the Walker Bay 8) and a 9' 9" model (the Walker Bay 10). We bought our Walker Bay 8 in Mexico, second-hand and in well-used condition, but with a nice sailing rig and upgraded oarlocks. We named her 'Little Annie' as a tribute to the lovely lady who runs Yoga classes in La Paz and who sold her to us.

The Walker Bay 8 is a good fit for Ladybug. At just over 8 feet, she fits nicely on deck with her bow tucked between the windlass and the starboard rail and her stern resting on the coach roof just forward of the two large hatches. She covers the V-berth hatch, but this can still be opened for ventilation in very light seas. 'Little Annie' is the same cream colour as our hull.

The Walker Bay 8 rows very well with one person, but has been criticized for her ability to row with two. This stems, I believe, from a problem in balancing her out with a passenger sitting in the obvious place - the transom. Unless the passenger is a child, the transom submerges and the extra drag from this makes the dinghy very sluggish under oars. There are three solutions to this on our slightly modified boat. Rani and I share the center thwart, back to back, with me rowing facing aft. This works well if the forward passenger is lighter than the rower - otherwise the boat is a bit down by the bow and may be more difficult to keep tracking straight. The transom does not dip in either case.

The second solution is for the passenger to sit on the forward or center thwart, depending on how heavy they are relative to the rower and for the rower to row facing forward. Some people find this position awkward because you must push instead of pull, but it is good exercise and allows you to see where you are going. It does not work well in higher winds because you cannot put your back into it - maybe I am just a weakling!

Finally, you can install a second set of oarlock sockets further forward, between the main thwart and mast partner, as we have on 'Little Annie'. This allows the rower to sit on the mast partner and the passenger on the aft thwart. The rower must row cross oared as the beam is much narrower this far forward.

A word on oars. 'Little Annie' came 5 foot long aluminum dinghy oars, which are much too short to work well on a boat with more than 4 foot of beam. The standard (I believe, 6 foot) oars are ok, but adding an extra foot gives you a lot more power. We added closet poles to our aluminum oars, which fit perfectly inside the aluminum handles and give us 6'6" oars.

Some negatives - 'Little Annie' is much less stable than an inflatable. Friends who are used to their rubber dinghy admired our walker Bay, but found it too tippy to be practical. Inflatables are also better for carrying dive gear and getting back into from the water. That being said, we snorkel from the Walker Bay and get in and out no problem, but I weigh only 150 lbs and Rani about 100. The plastic that the dinghy is made from is soft and flexes a lot when sailing into a breeze. She also flexes a lot when used with even a small outboard motor (so I am told). Finally, she is tricky to repair. Plastic welding - at least the way I do it - does not yield a strong repair. I have had to back up my welding with riveted patches of aluminum sheet.

Some pluses - rows well with one or two people, so long as you keep her transom out of the water. She glides along far better than our previous hard dinghy. She carries enough load for two (lightish) people out cruising. Despite flexing a little too much for comfort, she is a good little sailor with our 40 sq foot Bermudan rig. This allows us to travel far greater distances than by oars alone - no motor required. I like the simplicity of this approach and it is also great recreation in a sheltered bay with a nice breeze blowing. Her soft polypropylene does not mar our topsides or decks and hence require no deck chocks or padding of the gunwales.

Thank you to Mister Shannon for an excellent small dinghy.

Why They Do It

This is a follow-up to my last post - a reply via email from our friend Kurt, which I hope he does not mind me publishing. Kurt made the passage form Hawaii to the US in a very small boat back when that was a not particularly common thing to do...

...I liked your post about why folks do it now. When Jack London had the Snark built (apparently a pretty lame designed wooden schooner) and announced that he was going to sail it to Hawaii, locals in Oakland took out a betting pool on whether or not he would survive and how far he would get. This illustrates an important point - the psychology of the thing. Of course it's MUCH safer to do that same run today than it was in 1904, or whenever that was, but it's still the same ocean. The big difference is that in our mind's eye the distances have shrunk dramatically. Instant communications and jet travel are part of that, but bigger still is the very real likelihood that we all know that a run to Hawaii is not a big deal, and perhaps know others who have done it. Hawaii used to be a death defying stunt that marked you as a fool. Now it's a milk run. The Westsail 32 is probably as responsible for this as much as anything else. There are moments when the collective consciousness shifts, and what was obvious to one generation is not so obvious to the next, or perhaps more-so. You and Rani were freed up to do this by all those who went before, and some you know personally. Harry Pigeon's book is so charming because he makes it all sound like no big thing. In his day that was amazing. But I'll feel better when I hear you are safe in Aukland, because this next jump can be a big thing. Be careful.

Why there are so many people doing this

The other day we were chatting with a cruising couple who have been living this life since the early 1980's and they mentioned how different it is now from when they were first out here. There are so many people out cruising that the people in the places they visited are no longer as curious and welcoming as they were. The anchorages are more crowded and there are far more marinas and moorings, making it difficult in places to find a place to anchor.

I have already discussed discussed some of the things that make long distance cruising so much easier now than it was even a generation ago. But a few more things have occurred to me, so please forgive me for some repetition.

Increased cruising infrastructure: More marinas and related infrastructure makes it possible to break up a trip, fix the boat, and even leave the boat in a safe place for a trip home. If you reach the point where you don't want to continue, you can ship your boat home via one of the long range boat carriers.

Improved weather forecasting: Available via long range radio, satellite communications, or wifi (when near a port), we have access to powerful computer-based models as well as dedicated amateur and professional marine weather forecasters. For example, each day I can tune into a radio net out of New Zealand called Gulf Harbour Radio, where forecasters answer cruiser's questions about the weather.

Custom weather routing: Some cruisers sign up for custom forecasts and routing on passages like the one from Tonga/Fiji to New Zealand.

Better communications: Most cruising books still talk about sending letters to communicate with those at home. Nowadays, email via radio, satellite, or wifi access is the norm - instant and relatively hassle-free.

Availability of boats: The market, in North America anyway, is replete with 1000's of cruising boats available for prices ranging from that of a good second hand car.

Reliable inboard diesel engines: Make anchoring and maneuvering in tricky places much simpler than when one had to do this under sail.

Support nets: Radio nets connect cruisers to each other and those at home (via position reports posted on the internet). For example, each day when we are on passage we check into a radio net called the "Drifter's Net" that keeps track of vessels en route to New Zealand and Australia.

Improved navigation electronics and software: GPS, radar, electronic charting, AIS, and tide and current software make it far easier to know where one is and avoid hazards and other ships.

Labour saving devices: Inflatable dinghies and reliable outboard motors remove the need to be fit enough to row ashore, the electric windlass allows even a 90 pound weakling to hoist a heavy anchor, electric winches do the same for heavy sails, roller furling jibs and mainsail furling remove much of the effort required to hoist, lower, and reef sails. Self steering via wind vanes and autopilots relieves the crew of the 'tyranny of the helm'.

Shipboard conveniences: Water makers, water heaters, and pressure water provide the same convenience we are used to ashore. Propane stoves and compact refrigerators and freezers make it feasible to eat as well as you do ashore. Solar panels, big alternators, small diesel and gas generators, and wind generators provide electricity galore.

When Slocum and Pigeon did the kind of voyaging we are doing now, they had to build their own boats of wood. They cooked with kerosene or wood and ate the same sea-going diet that Columbus's crew endured. They navigated with compass, lead line, and sextant. I don't believe there was even a winch on board the Spray, although she may have had a capstan to help raise anchor. They had no electrics of any sort, nor an engine to move them on calm days or in and out of tight places. They had no radios and weather forecasting would have been done by consulting the sky, the sea, and the barometer. No wonder that, until recently, so few people went voyaging for pleasure.

Ha'apai and correction to last post

We finally sailed from Vava'u yesterday making an overnight passage to the Ha'apai group. These islands are mainly atolls - lower than the Vava'u group but with fantastic sand beaches and reefs everywhere. We sailed close-hauled all the way into a light SE wind, heaving to around 2 am off the islands. This morning we anchored off a 2 mile long sand beach after a few hours of interesting tacking between shoals and reefs.

There is a deep low forecast to come through here with winds to gale force that has everybody worried. Some boats on passage to New Zealand have actually returned to Tonga to take shelter rather than face the high winds and seas while on passage. We shall find a safe anchorage nearby, although the Ha'apai are not renowned for anchorages with 360 degree protection.

My friend Kurt points out that the last post should read 3200 liters per heating season - not 32000! He also suggest that solar panels take maybe 10 years to produce the amount of energy they took to make in the first place.

Carbon footprint while cruising - lower or higher than at home?

For a couple of years I volunteered for a climate change group at the University of Victoria. My area of focus was transportation - how to reduce the university's carbon footprint by encouraging people to take the bus, ride bicycles, car pool, etc. One of the most interesting aspects of working with this group was that it helped me understand how incredibly reliant we are on fossil fuels in our society. They underlie every aspect of our life because almost everything is manufactured using fossil fuels - from our houses, appliances, and cars, to the food we eat, and even the water we drink. In a northern country like Canada each of us has an enormous footprint due mainly to heating costs, transportation over large distances, and importing food from far away.

Sailing on a boat in the tropics goes a long way toward reducing one's short term carbon footprint, even though the energy needed to build our boats in the first place is large. For a start, we have been eating food that is grown locally and organically - some of which we have actually picked ourselves. It has been estimated that each calorie of a typical food in Canada requires about 10 calories of fossil fuels to grow, process, package, and transport. So eating locally grown un-processed foods goes a long way to reducing this consumption.

Heating a modest home in Nova Scotia, Canada, which does not have particularly cold winters used to consume about 32000 liters of heating fuel (diesel) per season. Combined with driving a car (1500 liters) and electricity consumption (via diesel generators - say 500 liters), that would have a couple burning 5200 liters of diesel per year. On Ladybug, we have used about 220 liters of diesel to move the boat over 8 months from Mexico to Tonga and around the islands along the way. Some of this (maybe 20 liters) was used to recharge batteries when we had a problem with our fridge not shutting off. We have also burned about 22 kilograms of propane for cooking. We have not had to use our little propane heater because the places we have visited are warm. Oh - we use about 3 liters of oil per engine oil change - every 100 hours of running.

Because we generate our electricity primarily via solar panels, the carbon footprint from this is the initial cost of manufacturing the panels and controller. I will not try to estimate this, but we can assume that the cost would be amortized over 20-25 years - the life of the panels. Many cruisers have additional fuel costs for generating electricity, mainly to run larger fridges or freezers and to make water.

So our extrapolated yearly consumption of fuel for transport, charging, and heating is about 250 kgs * 1.5 (12/8 months) = 375 kgs/year. This compares to about 5200 kgs/year if we were living in a house in Nova Scotia and driving a car - about 7 percent or 1/14 as much.

One spanner in the works is air travel. Back in British Columia, when I lived on a boat and drove only a bicycle, this made up a very large part of my carbon footprint . Each year I would fly across the country to visit my parents. Similarly Rani would visit her parent in the UK. Here the problem is worse. Rani will fly home to the UK from Aukland in a few weeks. This is a trip about half way around the world. Based on the ticket cost (about 2.5 times that of a ticket from Vancouver to UK) we can safely assume that our footprint from air travel will more than double during this voyage. The way we are minimizing this is for only one of us to make the trip this year.

A still night at Taunga

We sailed south to a new island anchorage yesterday - four long tacks into a light south west wind. It took more than two hours to accomplish what had taken 45 minutes a few days before when the winds were stronger and from the north. There were virtually no waves and the wind was so light that we chose to hand steer to make the most distance on each tack.

We have on board now a new set of charts for Tonga, created from surveys carried out by the New Zealand navy. Mike on 'Kokoamo', a Scot who spends his time between here and New Zealand, had watched as the navy ship cruised through the islands taking soundings a few years ago. New Zealand has made the charts available for free and when I visited Mike on his boat, he copied the charts onto our hard drive. These are raster charts that come as a series of '.kap' files. I believe these are simply image files with some extra meta-data (such as their location and scale) to make them usable with charting software.

We use excellent free charting software named 'OpenCPN'. To add the new charts, you simply specify the directory in which they are located and the software displays these charts along with others you previously loaded. This makes comparison between charts easy and it is clear that the older surveys of Tonga are not perfectly accurate. We are often shown as being anchored on the land or as passing over reefs when in fact we are in deeper water. You can see this by toggling between the CM93 vector charts of Tonga and the new ones. In the area we are in now, the old charts are transposed by a couple of hundred meters to the northwest on average.

When I snorkeled the anchor, the wind had vanished and the water was so still that I could lie with half my mask in one world and half in the other. I cannot recall another time on this trip when I have swum in still water. Later we sat on deck watching the sun dip into the clouds and a full moon rise. Beams of moonlight filtered through the high scudding clouds and the anchorage was lit by the reflections dancing lightly on the lapping water. As night descended, the bird songs quieted and a gentle chorus of insects took their place reaching across the bay from the nearby jungle. We feel so lucky at times like this.

Today we must find water, for our tanks are running low. We know of a cistern on an island a few miles from here, so will sail there when the wind returns.

Tapana part 2

The anchorage at Tapana (#11 on the Moorings charts - S 18 42.5 W 173 59.2) is most things one would want in an anchorage. Good shelter, a bay in which you can sail a small dinghy on flat waters but with good breezes, sand beaches, some snorkeling, access to Neaifu, about 5 kms away by paved road, a nearby (Spanish) restaurant, and good holding in sand.

An American couple has operated a floating art gallery here on a little houseboat, along with 9 moorings that you can hire if you would rather not anchor. This operation is now for sale as the couple has decided to retire. I hope for the sake of the cruisers, who use these moorings as a hurricane-safe place for their boats, that someone buys the operation and keeps up the moorings.

Going ashore on Ano beach, you can scramble up a cliff to the right of the beach and hike through tall grasses to a dirt tractor road that runs along the peninsula of the main island. The road takes you through small plantations of coconut, mango, taro, potatoes, and pineapples. We even saw a garden with tomatoes and pepper plants. Many of the mangos were picked for shipping to the capital last week, but there were still enough wind-falls left to make another batch of mango chutney yesterday.

To some New Zealanders, Tonga serves the same purpose as Mexico does to a west coast Canadian cruiser. It is a wintering place where you can pretty well be guaranteed good weather and warm waters while it is wet and cold at home. One of our neighbors, Mike, lives here 6 months of the year and spends the other 6 in New Zealand. He is actually a Scott from near Aberdeen, but is retired and has been living this lifestyle for 5 or 6 years. He lives on a 40 foot plywood/glass boat that has 800 liters of water tankage - enough to last him for several months without refill. Our other neighbors here are also on their way back to New Zealand. They sail a similar boat to Ladybug - a 32 foot double ended WestSail. This year, one of the owners sailed her solo non-stop from New Zealand to Victoria, BC - our home port. This was about a 60 day passage! He sailed due north from New Zealand to somewhere around Midway island (about 1000 miles west of Hawaii) and then turned and sailed for Juan de Fuca. His wife, sensibly, flew across and after the season in BC they turned around and sailed her back to Tonga. This makes our passages look puny by comparison.

We are now waiting for some wind to sail south - probably around the end of this week.