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What do I need to charter a sailboat? 

That’s one of the most common questions that ­prospective sailing-school students ask, says Jonathan Payne, executive director of the American Sailing Association.

“If someone wants to charter, they need to feel confident,” he says. “They should have confidence in their sailing skills, docking skills, and know how to troubleshoot an engine. They should have navigational skills to manage unfamiliar waters. And they should have minimal anxiety.”

Although some sailors may already have the chops needed to bareboat charter, many look to the ASA and US Sailing to gain the skills—and the paperwork—that charter companies around the world often require.

Basic Keelboat Sailing (ASA 101), Basic Coastal Cruising (ASA 103), and Bareboat Cruising (ASA 104) are the foundational courses for learning to sail and charter a sailboat. The ASA has over 400 schools around the world. Local and weekend classes are spread across six-week courses, while destination schools in Caribbean hotspots offer seven-day liveaboard training.

US Sailing, the national governing body for the sport of sailing, offers similar building-block tracks: Basic Keelboat, Basic Cruising and Bareboat Cruising. 

“Our students are often people who want to explore the world under sail and visit destinations you can get to only by boat,” says Beth Oliver, vice president and director of sales and marketing at Offshore Sailing School, which offers one-week training courses in Florida and the British Virgin Islands where students earn US Sailing certifications for boats up to 50 feet.

While many US-based charter companies do not require a ­specific license and will look at training along with a sailing résumé, most charter firms in European waters require an International Certificate of Competence, or ICC. US sailors can apply for the similar International Proficiency Certificate once they have completed bareboat-cruising classes. Many international charter companies accept the IPC, but sailors should check ahead of time. Understanding the process, selecting a course, and choosing where to train can be confusing. Companies that offer classes can help narrow the options. 

“When someone interested in a charter calls, we discuss options and steer them in the direction we think is right for them,” says Amanda Kurland, charter sales representative for Sunsail and The Moorings. These sister companies offer numerous choices. “The Moorings offers Royal Yachting Association courses in the Med and Offshore Sailing School courses in the BVI,” Kurland says. Sunsail has destination sailing schools in the United Kingdom, Croatia, Greece, Australia and Grenada. These are destination schools where a week of sail training is often part of a long-planned vacation.

Blue Water Sailing School, an ASA-certified company based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, offers destination charters closer to home. All levels of classes are available in Florida, Rhode Island, the Virgin Islands and the Bahamas. The (relatively) close offerings might appeal to sailors who aren’t ready to commit to a week in Dubrovnik.

“We try to get people to the point where they are confident enough to take their family out for a daysail or, more advanced, maybe take a boat and live aboard for a week,” says Blue Water owner David Pyle.

West Coast Multihulls in San Diego operates a sailing school with training exclusively on multihulls. Students who complete ASA 101,103 and 104 can take ASA 114—the Cruising Catamaran Certification—a five-day liveaboard class offered around Catalina Island and in the Sea of Cortez.

For all types of sailors, once the foundational training and courses are complete, the world really is your oyster. US Sailing and the ASA offer auxiliary certifications on navigation and safety at sea, and advanced courses such as Offshore Passage Making. Barefoot Offshore Sailing School in St. Vincent and the Grenadines offered three trans-Atlantic courses in 2022 on board a Bali 4.1 catamaran. ASA and Sail Canada certifications were available on all three passages.

See the following pages for special charter education resources offering more information on sailing schools.

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What is it with boats that sail with their fenders out? I’ve observed this apathetic habit nearly everywhere I’ve been on water, but never so much as I see it in Southern California. I have called Los Angeles home for the past eight years. Maybe it’s the old New Englander in me, or perhaps I’m just getting older, but it seems that every year, I see more and more boats underway with their fenders out. They bob from the lifelines like a pair of dirty running shoes dangling from knotted laces on a railing the day after track season ended.  

I’m not whining about boats motoring to the fuel dock or headed back to their slip after an afternoon cruise. I’m talking about the boats I see when I am halfway to Catalina, a 30-mile sail from Marina del Rey. Out there, I’ve seen more boats than I can recall sailing hard over with their sails full, rail in the water, and fenders out as if the owner were anticipating a collision with one of the many container ships crossing their bow in the commercial shipping lane. 

It’s not like fenders enhance a boat’s aesthetic. And don’t get me started on how many fenders I have seen out during the cruising-class starting line on the Wednesday-night sunset-racing series.

Matty, a dedicated ­crewmember on my boat for our cruising-class races, calls those dangling fenders “California racing stripes.” He is an Angelino native and, until this past summer, enjoyed the liveaboard life in Marina del Rey for eight years on his 1974 Coronado 35 sailboat. Matty’s coined phrase set the stage for an engaging debate while the rest of our crew laughed, like a sitcom audience, at our passionate opinions about fender etiquette. Matty claimed that stowing fenders was not worth the effort. I’m obsessed with a clean and tidy deck, always. 

Unlike Matty, who is a recreational sailor through and through, I used to earn a living crewing and skippering a variety of yachts in places such as New England, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. I spent much of my career working under sailors of a different generation. The result: I believe anything on a boat that is not in use should be securely stowed. 

I argued that leaving fenders out and tied to the lifelines could be a hazard. A jib sheet could unexpectedly snag during a tack or jibe and wrap around a fender. A crewmember could lose his or her footing when rushing up to the foredeck, and maybe trip or even fall overboard. 

Stowing the fenders does not require much effort. My 7-year-old daughter, Samantha, is the person on my boat who stows and sets the fenders, and she does a marvelous job. To help make the task easy for her or anyone else pitching in, I fitted each fender with a brass fixed-eye boat snap (an inexpensive stock piece of hardware that is like a carabiner but has an eye cast to the end of it) to the short run of line that is tied to the top of the fender. On a calm day, with my boat secured to the dock, I clipped the brass fixed-eye boat snaps to the lifelines and ran the fender lines through the eyes on the snaps. I lifted the fenders to the desired height, just high enough above the water to keep them dry and prevent marine growth from building up on the bottom of the fender and cover. I knotted each fender line to the corresponding snap with two half hitches so that the fender would always hang from the same height every time. 

My lifelines are close to level on my boat, so I set all my fenders to the same height. This way, nobody has to think about which fender goes where, tying knots, or adjusting heights when setting the fenders. Also, the brass fixed-eye boat snap makes for an easy clip-on, clip-off process. 

When we depart for a sail, Samantha pulls up each fender and lays it on the deck after we are clear from our dock. Then, she unclips the fenders from the lifelines and carries them back to the cockpit one by one. We have a space in our lazarette reserved for the fenders when we go on our daysails. When we’re out cruising, I lash the fenders to the mast and stow them under our dinghy, which is tied down to our foredeck. When we are moored or anchored, I sit the fenders on our deck up at the bow and lash them to the bow pulpit.

After our sails have been furled and we are heading back to the dock, Samantha works in reverse order. She pulls the fenders out of the lazarette one by one and walks them forward to clip them to the lifelines. To ensure that the fenders are always set in the right location, I wrapped a strip of black electrical tape on the lifelines where each fender should be set.

I also have fender covers, which are well worth the money. I buy dark ones that don’t show much dirt. Without them, the rubber surface of the fenders becomes sticky and collects grime. That grime then rubs off onto my topsides, making for an ­unpleasant-­looking boat. 

But sailing with dirty topsides is a whole other topic. Don’t get me started on that one either. 

Will Sofrin is an author and wooden-boat builder who has sailed professionally throughout Europe, New England and the Caribbean.

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I used to get stressed out about docking, especially when a crowd was judging every step of my technique. But, after countless rounds of practicing the art of parking on water, I’ve realized that I am much more anxious about disembarking than docking. It’s the going from a dead stop that flusters my feathers, especially if there is a lot of traffic. At least when I am approaching a dock, my boat has some way, meaning I have steerage and control. 

Today, I have the most manageable docking situation one could dream of. My slip is deep in California’s Marina del Rey basin. It points west into the prevailing wind and is shrouded by a row of tall buildings. Disembarking is an easy affair because the water is almost always like glass, and I never have to contend with currents or tides. I simply cast off my dock lines, push the boat back, hop on board, and turn the rudder. I don’t even use the reverse gear. I wait until I have cleared the dock, and then I shift the engine into forward just before I spin my wheel to head out.

Disembarking has not always been this easy. The trickiest scenario for me was the Nantucket Boat Basin in Massachusetts, during the Opera House Cup Regatta in August 2022, surrounded by millions of dollars’ worth of pristinely manicured wooden boats with miles of shimmering varnish. Many of the boats raft up, packing the basin so tightly that the first boat in must be the last boat out to head to the racecourse the following morning. 

Simply casting off the dock lines and pushing back is not an option. Most boats have traditional underbodies, meaning they have a keel-hung rudder, and backing straight out can be a real challenge. This is even truer for the ones with an offset prop, which is a propeller that is not on centerline. These heavy, old wooden boats don’t do so well moving in reverse, even before you add the potential adverse effects of prop walk.  

Prop walk occurs when a vessel is at a dead or near-dead stop. With no forward way, the sudden force of the propeller turning causes the boat’s stern to pivot laterally, also known as yaw. Understanding how this works can make you look like an absolute whiz when docking your boat in a tight situation. 

The effect occurs on a ­majority of single-engine vessels because most have a shaft that is angled slightly downward, resulting in a propeller blade that is not oriented perpendicular to the water’s surface. The downward angle of the propeller blade results in a downstroke thrust that is less than the upstroke thrust. The differential in thrust output pushes the vessel’s stern sideways.  

The effects of prop walk can vary. It’s more pronounced on boats with keel-hung rudders, but it’s still present on boats with spade rudders. Other factors, such as shallower depths and wind, can reduce its effects. Boats with saildrives should not experience prop walk because the saildrive is oriented parallel to the surface of the water. 

And then, there are multihulls. Catamarans typically have an engine in each hull. They spin in different directions so that the torque balances out. As many sailors will tell you, the luxury of having twin engines can be helpful when trying to pivot any boat in tight quarters. God forbid one of the engines goes out because your steerage will then be limited mostly to turning the boat in the direction of the lost engine in forward gear, and the same when in reverse gear.

So, how does one use prop walk to their advantage? Well, the first thing is understanding the direction of spin. A right-handed propeller rotates clockwise if viewing it from the stern looking forward. A left-handed spin rotates ­counterclockwise. A right-handed fixed propeller will tend to push the stern of a vessel to port when in ­reverse, and to starboard when ­running forward. 

How do you determine if your boat has a left- or right-handed prop? My boat has a Yanmar 2GM20F. The online engine manual confirms that the direction of rotation is clockwise. My boat has a right-handed prop.

To teach my wife, Alicia, how to use prop walk to her advantage, we motored out into the center of a channel on a day with little traffic and no wind. We brought the boat to a dead stop about two boat lengths from a channel buoy. Alicia turned the rudder hard over to starboard, shifted the engine into forward gear, and throttled up for two seconds. She then quickly throttled down and shifted the engine back into neutral. 

Next, Alicia shifted the engine into reverse gear for two seconds, stopping any forward momentum. She then shifted back to neutral. Both bursts had to be quick and strong because we were trying to prevent the boat from moving forward or backward. 

The prop wash encountered resistance from the hard-turned rudder. As a result, our boat began to rotate on a center pivot access to port. 

Watching the buoy for reference, Alicia repeated the process multiple times, rotating our boat to 180 degrees within a boat length. We then brought our boat over to the fuel dock and tied up starboard-­side to. When ready to disembark, without springing the boat, we cast off our dock lines. Alicia ­repeated the process we had practiced. As expected, the stern kicked out to port. She then shifted the transmission back into reverse gear, throttled up slightly, and smoothly backed our boat away from the fuel dock like a pro.  

Will Sofrin is a wooden-boat builder who has sailed professionally throughout Europe, New England and the Caribbean. He is also the author of All Hands On Deck: A Modern-Day High Seas Adventure to the Far Side of the World. 

Wrangling Cats

Disembarking on a catamaran requires a whole different skillset. Collin Marshall, head sailing engineer and commissioning skipper for Kinetic Catamarans in South Africa, says that he prefers to back out off the dock because the stern takes longer to get blown back in compared with the bow. This is due to the lateral resistance that rudders create, as well as the forward windage on deck from deckhouses and the mast, which is typically stepped farther forward than on a monohull.

Marshall starts by springing the catamaran forward to help kick the stern out from the dock. Then, with the stern out and engines in reverse, he splits the throttles and aims the stern in the direction he wants to go, away from the dock.

“Keep the rudders straight,” he says. “Remember that you have two engines very far apart, so forget about the rudders and wheel. That’s where people make mistakes, because they will turn the wheel and then forget to straighten it out, and then, in a pinch, they might focus on the throttles, forgetting about the rudders being turned over, adding more chaos to a situation.”

He also says that having a bow thruster (even in just one hull) can make all the difference. With that tool, he can parallel-park a 50-foot catamaran on a dime no matter where the wind is coming from. -WS

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“Rammed by a whale!” That was a recent clickbait title in an email newsletter, after a sailboat headed to French Polynesia from the Galápagos sank (the humans are all OK).  Yes, it was whale versus boat, but who really benefits from hyperbole suggesting the whale attacked? How do we know the real story? 

The incident prompted my husband, Jamie, and me to reflect on some of the many encounters with cetaceans we’ve had over the years on our Stevens 47 Totem. Although our Pacific Northwest home waters of the Salish Sea are home to many whales, we didn’t spot a single one in our thousands of miles of pre-cruising sailing and our years logged commuting by ferry. But as cruisers, our experiences with these massive creatures have been numerous and magical. They’re a reminder that our lives include leviathan encounters we can never take for granted.

Whale-spotting 

Mexico has provided whale encounters more numerous than I can remember. The migration of cruising boats down the west coast aligns pretty well with the migration of humpback whales. Bahía de Banderas is a destination for an estimated 500 humpbacks annually, and a hub for cruisers in wintertime. At anchor there, we were treated to routine afternoon breaching sessions that Jamie dubbed “The Whale Show.” We never tired of stopping whatever we were doing to enjoy it. These displays became so routine that the kids couldn’t always be coaxed to join us in the cockpit. In the mornings, we’d wake to the sound of whale song, which we could hear through the hull.

During our first hurricane season in the Sea of Cortez, fin whales—the second-longest species, after blue whales—fed in the channel aptly named Canal de Ballenas (“whale channel”) between Baja and Isla Coronado. We logged many nights there at anchor. The whale calls could be heard through the hull there, too. In a magical twist, the kids’ quiet time one afternoon turned into “press your ears to the cabin sole” to listen to the whales singing.

We had one slightly shocking encounter when a fin whale gently surfaced next to our dinghy during an evening drift. No drama, but an unforgettable close-up.

Another time, we completed a starboard-to-starboard pass with a whale roughly double Totem’s 47-foot length overall. We were sailing south in the Sea of Cortez late one fall, when we saw the blue whale, the largest creature on the planet. Oh, and Jamie was treated to a spectacular breach from what we think was a Bryde’s whale near Loreto that year.

We were out looking for the fishy kind of whale—whale sharks—around Bahía de los Ángeles one summer when a tall, narrow fin in the distance tipped us off to migrating orcas. Finally, thousands of miles from our home waters, we were treated to a small pod passing nearby. One passed directly under the dinghy in a move that some people might have interpreted as threatening, but that we felt was pretty playful. That whale departed with a tail slap that splashed us all.

Those examples are cherry-picked from many others, most beyond Mexico’s borders, like the time we saw the distinctive, blocky profile of sperm whales between Thailand and Sri Lanka. A pod of pilot whales danced in front of us in the Maldives. We saw humpbacks that skirted around basalt pillars in Madagascar.

Extra-close encounters

A few cetacean encounters were extra close. In Papua New Guinea’s Hermit islands, during a remarkable series of days, we helped residents assess why a pod of false killer whales had taken up residence in their lagoon. Ferrying leaders out to take notes, and to hang off our dinghy in the water as the magnificent creature hurtled by a few feet away, we felt keenly observed (and very small).

Similarly memorable: the day we spent floating among gray-whale mothers and calves, near their nursery. With a mother parked immediately below us, her curious calf first spyhopped, then rode up her back for an even closer view. Magical.

The time we hit a whale

Not all whale encounters have been storybook experiences. Outside southern Baja at 4 o’clock one morning, Totem shuddered to a near halt, lifted up and slid sideways. We did not get a visual on the whale, but we don’t doubt that’s what it was. The humpback highway runs off the coast of Baja, and we were entering peak migration season. I was shaken out of my off-watch berth. Jamie raced around with shaky knees, checking bilges for water incursion. 

A few months after that close call, we approached a tricky spot as light was fading. We wouldn’t get multiple chances to set the hook in the fair-weather anchorage at Isla Isabel, and as we were arriving, so were several groups of whales. Trying to steer clear of multiple mamas and calves in close proximity can be stressful. As a new cruiser, I may not have held in my stress very well that day.

Sailing past Cape Town, South Africa, gave us similarly jangling nerves as multiple pods moved in varying directions near Totem. What we believe was a southern right whale appeared on our port side and dove neatly underneath, passing under Totem’s rudder without breaking rhythm. It rolled to give Jamie a one-eyed glare as we held our collective breath.

During our last passage in that region, on watch under a moonless night sky, I heard and felt the impact of a whale breaching uncomfortably close by. The night was so inky, I couldn’t tell where the whale was. A boat length? Two? If there was any doubt, a loud, stinky exhale quelled it. My heart raced while listening to a series of additional breaches, staring breathlessly, looking out into the dark. 

There are themes here: having a healthy respect for whales, and using our senses as critical tools to avoid them. The latter can be difficult, even in the deprivation of darkness. But when proximity happens in daylight, one off-label use of a laser range finder is to track movement or ensure proper distance (800 feet is standard).

The sinking of Raindancer

On March 13, the Kelly Peterson 44 Raindancer collided with a whale between Galápagos and French Polynesia. There’s nothing to suggest the incident was anything but an unfortunate accident that humans and surely the whale would have preferred to avoid. But with words like “ramming” in the headlines, there’s handwringing in cruising forums about the personal risk of hitting a whale. 

There is one corner of the world where this is a legit risk (orcas snacking on rudders along the Atlantic coasts of France, Spain and Portugal), but there may be just enough media circulating to make it feel like a realistic possibility everywhere. It’s simply not. The news coverage irks me because Jamie and I land strongly on a bias to help folks realistically anticipate cruising, and the cheap headlines cast fear, uncertainty and doubt that would give some would-be cruisers pause.

Instead, what should be highlighted in the forums and articles on Raindancer is how the reaction to the collision and the sinking of the sailboat is a showcase of seamanship and technology coming together for a swift, safe rescue. The outcome here was exceptional in ways that are earned through proper preparation, with the backup of emergency systems. And that the crew successfully took a preparation approach similar to the one we took in redesigning our ditch kit (stream our seminar about what to put in your ditch kit): a focus on communications equipment and ease of disembarking. 

After the collision, the captain set off an EPIRB, which alerted officials in Peru, who contacted the USCG’s rescue coordination center in Alameda, California. From their life raft, Raindancer’s crew used an Iridium GO, a SPOT tracker, and a PLB which transmitted both GPS and AIS. A parachute flare, visible at night, was activated when the rescue vessel, sailboat Rolling Stone, was on approach. The incident also demonstrated how Starlink enabled swift triangulation of private vessels rendering assistance, allowing other boats to communicate in real time and facilitate updates. Raindancer’s crew were rescued in an incredibly brief 10 hours.

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The captain of the 55-foot Holman sailing yacht was crouched down and leaning over me with great anxiety. “Are you OK?” he asked. “Dad, are you OK?”

I was, indeed, OK, which was as much a surprise to me as anyone else, given that I had hurtled across the galley like an unstrapped astronaut at liftoff. The boat had pitched, I hadn’t been paying attention, and I had gone flying so fast that I would have just kept going if not for a cabinet that stopped my midair trajectory. 

My ego was bruised—“Pain, Dad, is a great teacher,” he said—but I was fine, which is more than I could say for the cabinet door. And that, in itself, was really saying something, because the boat dated to 1985 while I dated to 1939.

Yes, my friends had told me that I was “loco” to sign on as crew at age 78 for a 2,850-nautical-mile passage from San Diego to the Panama Canal. It wasn’t the first time that my son, Christian Pschorr, who is service and program director for Hylas Yachts, had asked me to join him on a passage, but for the past few years, I had refused. Days and nights of getting pounded by bad ­weather, I feared, might leave me unable to hold up my end of the responsibilities. I didn’t want to let down the rest of the team.

It’s not that I was unfamiliar with boating, or with tough physical challenges. At age 22, when I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania as an ROTC Marine option, I was a commissioned US Marine Corps officer. The philosophy back then was to break the recruits physically and mentally, then build us back up and teach us that we were capable of doing far more than we imagined. And, in my 30s and 40s, I’d spent plenty of time as crew on my uncle’s 45-foot steel-hull ketch, cruising from New York’s Long Island Sound up to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket in Massachusetts. I also owned an 18-foot Mako. I loved to fish off that boat.

So, I had the right background, albeit no recent experience on the water. I agreed to join Christian this time because the Holman was his boat, one he had just bought and wanted to move to its new home port. No deadline would force us to push our schedule in bad weather as we cruised in a straight shot from San Diego to the Panama Canal. 

This time, I thought, I ain’t getting any younger. I’ve never done a bluewater passage. I’d like to try it.

My close friend Mike Johnson, an international award-­winning sailor and adventurer, became my mentor and coach. He urged me to step up my usual workouts at the gym, so I enlisted a personal trainer, who increased my treadmill and elliptical speeds until I was doing intermittent jogging and running. The trainer also helped me build strength with free weights and on machines where I used my legs to push. There were pushups and situps, just like at Quantico a half-century ago.

I heeded more good advice from Mike, who he told me: “You’ll always be the father. Christian, he’s your son, but he’s the captain. So keep your mouth shut. Be quiet and do your job.”

From the moment I stepped on board, that’s what I tried to do—an admittedly difficult task for someone with my bullish disposition. Our fellow crew were a married couple, Nathan Zahrt and Vivian Vuong, who had sailed with Christian before. Nathan was close to qualifying for his US Coast Guard captain’s license, and Vivian was a professional photographer as well as a great cook. My job was to follow orders and research everything we’d need to know about taking a boat through the Panama Canal—a job Christian was smart to give me, because I could do it well, building up yet more confidence before we set off. 

As we left the dock on May 9, I felt good, but nervous about my first overnight watch from 0300 to 0600. After everyone else was asleep below, I had to rely on myself to settle down. Finally, I thought, quit babying yourself. You have a job to do. I did it—and everything went just fine. There was simply no room for fear.

A few days out of San Diego, our engine failed. It had run well during the boat’s sea trials, but it wouldn’t cooperate now. That malfunction meant we not only had to make an unscheduled repair stop, but we also had to hand-steer for long periods of time because we couldn’t charge the boat’s batteries if there was insufficient sunlight for the solar panels. No battery power, among other things, left us without the autopilot.

With the autopilot on, I was able to adjust and hold the boat’s course, but without the autopilot, I found it a lot harder to maintain our course, heading, and speed with all the water high above and all around us. I kept saying to myself, I will not use bad language. My friend Mike had told me: No swearing on the boat. So, I said to myself, Expletives deleted.

Instead, I focused on doing whatever Christian ordered me to do, and I gained a new appreciation for why so many of his Hylas clients and students had complimented him as a teacher over the years. I got to see my son as other people see him, and I was more impressed than ever.

For instance, there was a time when I was steering through the vast harbor of Panama City—doing six hours straight at the wheel—and a huge rock loomed ahead. Christian said, sharply, “Dad, you’re luffing.”

Now, I know better than to argue with the captain. But I replied that I was altering course slightly to avoid hitting the rock.

“Lose our headway, and we will hit the rock,” he said. “Hold your course, and do exactly what I say.”

He was right. “Aye, sir,” I said, suggesting that he explain everything to me in simple terms, as if I were his Boston terrier. 

I always knew he was just footsteps away in case I needed him. I had done a lot of studying to learn about lights at night on boats, but once we were at sea, a lot of the lights seemed to be the same color. The first couple of times I saw them from the wheel, I was nervous because I couldn’t identify the vessels around us. I could see their courses, sort of, but I took comfort in Christian’s rule for the whole crew, which was to get him on deck immediately if there were any doubts. 

For the most part, I just had to get over myself and try. Only once did I feel real panic. It was blowing like all the Furies of Hell, and I couldn’t see with all the water coming into my face. Christian went forward, and I lost sight of him. I thought he’d gone over the side.

This was my beloved son. I was in a momentary state of terror, calling, whistling and yelling his name. 

Finally, he reappeared. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” I told him.

“Dad,” he replied, “I’m not up there sightseeing.”

Enough said. 

I found new levels of my own confidence—albeit with a dash of mutiny. One of Christian’s rules was that when we were on deck at night, we were not to leave the cockpit. We were tethered to a metal eye by the wheel. Well, one night, I could hear something flapping up forward. I got tired of the damn flapping. I knew the rule about staying in the cockpit, but I unhooked, attached myself to the jackline that ran bow to stern, and went forward to secure the piece of sail. I then took a big, deep breath and went back to the cockpit, where I snapped back into the metal eye.

Nobody was the wiser. I did tell Christian after we were home again, and he was not pleased. But I got away with it, and I felt useful. 

There was also a lot of fun. Christian is a vegan, and Vivian is a great cook, but on my night in the galley, I got to make sushi from freshly caught fish. We had a red-footed booby perch happily on the pulpit one day, soon joined by others that sat on our bow railing and spinnaker pole, jostling for their favorite positions. One afternoon, I looked up just in time to see a huge manta ray leap out of the water. The majesty was breathtaking.

There was one night under beautiful, starry skies when I was doing a great job at the wheel. The boat was planing with sparkling phosphorescence in the bow waves and wake. I couldn’t help but start to sing in a bad impression of the Beatles: “Lucy in the sea with diamonds…” 

Shortly after that, I saw the Southern Cross for the first time since years ago, when I had been on a hunting safari in Namibia. It was a glorious sailing night. You sure can’t do those kinds of things unless you take a chance and step aboard.

My run-in (or, should we say, fly-in) with the galley cabinet was not the only harrowing experience either. Both the Gulf of Tehuantepec and Punta Mala—just outside the Gulf of Panama—can have sudden, strong winds that extend 100 miles into the Pacific. I felt like I could see the gods smirking as they pounded us for days and nights. We had quite a few evenings of absolutely fierce lightning. I had never heard thunder like that booming stentorian basso profundo. Not since the monsoons of Okinawa, Japan, during my 13-month tour with the 3rd Marine Division, had I encountered such torrential rain. And we were truly alone out there—so much so that Christian, at one point, told Vivian to call out on the VHF radio, just to see if anyone answered. Nobody did. You know that cliche about how small we are? Well, we are.

It was during one of those storms that I took my header across the galley, but that moment was just one among many that were overwhelmingly positive. When we cruised into Panama City’s harbor under sail, amid all the ships anchored and underway, I was at the helm. Christian sat in the cockpit, calling out headings to me, while Nathan and Vivian stood as lookouts.   

Suddenly, a huge container ship loomed, brightly lit from stem to stern. “Dad,” Christian said, “when she clears our bow, fall in behind her. Follow in her wake until I give you the new heading.”

I prayed that the wind would not die. I had to keep the sails full and maintain course. High above, I watched as the stern of the more than 1,000-foot-long container ship passed us. 

From there, Christian wanted me to take our boat in, but I relinquished the wheel to Nathan, not wanting to push my luck. It was midnight on June 10 when, after a month at sea, we tied up at the pier. We had made it with no injuries to the crew and no damage to the boat. And I had accomplished my goals. I had stared down Neptune in his angry moments without flinching. 

As I write this, I am now 83, and I don’t think I could trust myself to handle the physical or mental rigors again. But I’m very glad I made that trip with my son at age 78.

It was a highlight of my life. 

The post Leaving My Comfort Zone appeared first on Cruising World.

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The morning breeze was light as we ghosted past Sable Island. The mainsail and asymmetrical spinnaker were keeping us moving off the Canadian coast, and we embraced the moment, knowing it wouldn’t last. Wind was coming our way: The forecast called for near-gale-force winds by midnight. We were bound for St. John’s, Newfoundland, 400 miles across the Grand Banks. 

By late afternoon, with the apparent winds steady at 18 knots, we doused the spinnaker, unfurled the genoa, and set the whisker pole. By evening twilight, it was time to reef the main. Quetzal, our Kaufman 47 cutter, is fitted with traditional slab reefing. We were on a sweet reach with the apparent winds 110 degrees off on port tack. Without changing course—that’s right, keeping the apparent winds well abaft the beam—we tied the first reef in the main and rolled in a bit of headsail. A few hours later, with the winds steady at 25 knots, we furled the genoa completely, dropped the pole, unfurled the staysail, and tied the second reef in the main. We didn’t change our heading and didn’t flog a sail. The wind kept ­building and, just past midnight, increased to 30 knots sustained with gusts in the low 40s.

We were flying, punching out double-­digit speeds, but it was a rough ride. The Grand Banks is infamous for raising nasty seas in a hurry. It was time for the third reef in the main. The idea of coming up into the wind to reef in those conditions was madness. While still on port tack, the winds had clocked slightly to about 90 degrees off. We fell off a bit to tie in the third reef before resuming course. We also rolled in a bit of staysail, to keep the sails balanced. The boat settled down, and we charged through the night sailing fast but in control. As conditions moderated, we shed reefs in the same fashion, off the wind without flogging or drama. 

When we reached St. John’s, we learned of the tragedy of the CNB 66 Escape. Just a week earlier, while on passage from Bermuda to Nova Scotia, husband-and-wife owners Karl and Annamarie Frank died from injuries sustained while trying to reef the main head to wind in a Gulf Stream gale. It’s a profoundly heartbreaking story. Reports indicated a struggle with the headsail and boom furling systems. The ensuing chaos of a flogging headsail, the boat rounding up violently, and a wildly out of control mainsheet proved a deadly combination. (For more, see “Deep Thoughts” by Herb McCormick, Cruising World, October.)

The tragedy triggered a sober ­discussion on Quetzal. Coming upwind in those conditions to reef the main comes with a mountain of risk. For that reason, we always reef off the wind. It’s a proven technique; we’ve completed 161 offshore training passages aboard Quetzal and logged more than 150,000 miles. We’ve encountered several deep ocean storms. Reefing off the wind requires good gear and the coordination of several moving parts, but it is not a difficult process. 

However, before we discuss the details, it is critical to understand that falling off the wind, to flatten and stabilize the boat, should be the first step in nearly every offshore sailing maneuver. We are taught to come up into the wind to deal with issues, including reefing the main. To my experience, it’s almost always a bad idea. Sailboats are remarkably stable with the wind abaft the beam, and the apparent loads are dramatically reduced. Flogging your sails and running rigging is dangerous on any boat, but especially on a big boat.  

Our strategy for reefing off the wind begins by steering down (or up, if we’re on a deep reach) to 100 to 110 degrees off the apparent wind, and making sure the boat is happy on that heading. We dump the traveler to leeward to shorten the mainsheet, and we tighten the preventer to keep the boom under control. The boom preventer is always deployed when reaching, and it runs from the end of the boom forward to a fitting near the bow and back to the cockpit. If you don’t have a rigid vang, make sure the topping lift is relatively tight. With the boom secured, it’s time to reef. 

Our main halyard is led aft to the cockpit. As it’s eased, the reefing outhaul, which is also led aft, is tensioned. It does not need to be a simultaneous operation, and the more slack in the halyard, the easier it is to secure the reef outhaul. The sail might bunch a bit as it drops, and occasionally, the sheet needs to be eased to reduce tension, but the sail never flogs, and there’s no tendency for the boat to round up. We don’t lead a separate reef tack line aft, so someone goes forward and secures the tack to the rams horn. With the boat flat, it is not dangerous to make your way forward. Sometimes, a bit of tugging along the luff helps the sail drop, but usually at this wind angle, the sail drops on its own. 

Once the tack is secure, and the reef outhaul tight to the boom, the halyard is slowly hoisted. A bit of sheet control might be required as the sail goes back up. Once the halyard is tensioned, we stay off the wind and rig reefing ties, making sure not to lead them around the boom. They’re not for sail shape, just for gathering loose sail.  

With the reef deployed, we take a minute to make sure everything looks right. Reefing isn’t frantic when you’re off the wind. When we are satisfied, we trim sails and resume course.  

Naturally, there are nuances. Reefing off the wind means that loads stay under tension. You need stout gear, from halyards and blocks to winches and clutches. Also, always reef early, because doing so is the essence of good seamanship. I have a simple rule: If the thought of reefing flashes through my brain, even for an instant, I reef.  

With slab reefing systems, the first reef is the most challenging. You are dealing with more sail area, so the sooner you take it, the better. Taking the second reef is significantly easier if the first reef is in place. The same goes for the third reef. Also, the sail flakes better on the boom when it’s reefed sequentially.  

Quality mainsail cars and a slippery track are vital for effective reefing off the wind, especially if you have a ­full-battened mainsail. Full battens create side load on the cars, and I am not sure why bluewater cruisers insist on full-batten mainsails. Quetzal has a “two plus two” main, with the top two battens full (where you need them the most) and the bottom two partial, allowing us to reef off the wind with ease. 

Selden, Harken, Ronstan and others make ball-bearing cars for full-battened mains facilitating off-the-wind reefing. Replacing the main halyard with smaller-­diameter, less-stretchy Dyneema, and replacing the sheaves at the masthead and in the boom, will reduce friction. Tides Marine offers a one-piece, low-friction, ultra-high molecular weight (UHMW) track with custom slides and batten receptacles that can be added to almost any mast. 

Friction is your enemy reefing off the wind, which is why I don’t like single-line slab reefing systems. There are too many turns, adding friction at every bend. Lazy jacks are also problematic for reefing off the wind. Quetzal is fitted with retractable lazy jacks that are quick to deploy for dropping the sail, and easy to retract when sailing. If your boat is fitted with a lazy bag and fixed lazy jacks, talk to your sailmaker about finding a way to retract them for offshore sailing. 

In-mast furling systems are ideal for off-the-wind reefing. You need to maintain balance between the outhaul, furling line and mainsheet as you reduce sail. Back in my delivery skipper days, I made several Atlantic crossings with in-mast furlers, and successfully reefed off the wind using the same principles used for slab reefing. 

Remember: In every off-the-wind reefing situation, start with establishing boom control. Off-the-wind reefing with in-boom furling is more challenging. The tragic tale of Escape is a graphic example of trying to cope with a boom furler on a big boat in heavy weather. However, it can be done. I recently sailed a Tayana 48 across the Atlantic and a Hylas 49 from Hawaii to Seattle. Both were fitted with boom furlers, and we consistently reefed the main off the wind. Boom angle and the ­coordination between the furling line, which is almost always controlled by an electric winch, the halyard and the ­preventer, is critical. You need to be patient, and you can be if you are not on the wind flogging sails and plunging into waves. 

Manually turning the furling winch is hard work, but it gives you more feel as you reef, and sensing resistance helps prevent the sail from running forward at the gooseneck. Also, sheeting the headsail tight, despite being well off the wind, backwinds the main, which helps it reef more smoothly. Reefing early and ­incrementally is paramount with in-boom furling. 

  Fitting your mainsail for off-the-wind reefing, and practicing the technique in moderate conditions, will make your next offshore voyage safer and less stressful.  

John Kretschmer has been sailing professionally for 40 years, logging 400,000 miles and completing his 30th Atlantic crossing this past summer. He is the author of the international bestseller Sailing a Serious Ocean. John Kretschmer Sailing offers training passages, workshops, ­webinars and Captain’s Hour—a monthly meeting about all aspects of offshore sailing.

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One year ago this month, as director of this magazine’s annual Boat of the Year contest, I joined our judging team aboard the CNB 66 Escape in Annapolis, Maryland, to conduct our sea trials on Chesapeake Bay. The high-end, long-range cruising boat was owned by a vastly experienced German couple named Karl and Annamarie Frank, who’d been based in Annapolis the past several years while rambling up and down the East Coast. Generally, our test sails involve yacht designers and manufacturers’ representatives. It was unusual, though not unprecedented, to go sailing with a couple on their own boat (our earlier dockside inspections occurred on a newer sistership model of the CNB 66). When it happens, though, it’s always interesting and enlightening. 

Karl Frank was clearly one hell of a sailor who’d optimized the deck layout for singlehanded sailing; we all shared a joke about “German engineering.” He’d put a lot of thought into everything, and quickly got our attention and respect. (Annamarie told us that she didn’t care much for offshore sailing but loved the destinations, and opted out of passages when she could.) Later, in deliberations, judge Gerry Douglas said: “The build quality was just impeccable. The owner understood how to sail it well, and he had a system where he could handle it solo. He proved that you could operate a big, sophisticated boat alone.”

Here are a few excerpts about this ultra-sophisticated yacht from my own notes that day: “German couple on board their personal boat… Have laid it out beautifully… Running backstays with split fixed backstays adjusted belowdecks w/ hydraulic ram… Complicated… Carbon rig, in-boom furler… Huge Park Ave.-style boom….”

I hadn’t thought anything about Karl and Annamarie until late in July, when I learned that they both died in mid-June after a reefing maneuver gone very wrong in stormy conditions en route from Bermuda to Nova Scotia. Both had been airlifted from Escape by a US Coast Guard helicopter but succumbed to their wounds before ever reaching shore. 

A lengthy report, first published by Blue Water Sailing magazine and later reprinted in the newsletter Scuttlebutt, recounted the entire horrible tale, as told to veteran cruising sailor Sheldon Stuchell by one of the two additional crew on board for the trip (I was surprised by this detail because Karl had been quite clear that he preferred sailing without outside assistance). In essence, it appeared that Annamarie, handling the mainsheet, lost control of that big boom, and both she and Karl subsequently got tangled in and clobbered by its flailing sheet. 

So, if there even is one, what’s the moral of all this? Pretty simple. If it could happen to the Franks, it could happen to any of us. 

Earlier this year, I took a sailing trip with a famous, world-class mountain climber. Late one night after a few belts, we got around to talking about the perils of our respective passions, and of our friends and acquaintances who’d perished pursuing them (see “The Sail to Nowhere,” September). As I started to mentally take inventory of the longish list of ocean sailors I personally knew who have been lost at sea, it occurred to me that offshore sailing isn’t quite as hazardous as high-altitude mountaineering adventures. But it’s a damn sight closer than most of us would ever care to admit. 

A decade ago, as I’ve written before, I was part of a 28,000-nautical-mile ­expedition that sailed around North and South America via the Northwest Passage and Cape Horn. Before we shoved off, our core crew had a sobering conversation about what to do with our bodies if we didn’t make it back to shore. My answer was quick and straightforward: Commit me to the deep. I’ve got a few mates waiting for me.

And now Karl and Annamarie are waiting there too. 

Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large.

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We were tucked in behind the reef to windward of our anchorage in the Grenadines’ tiny isle of Petit St. Vincent aboard my old friend John Kretschmer’s Kaufman 47, Quetzal, and it had been a wild night indeed. 

In the breezy blasts of 30-knot gusts, the big superyacht just upwind of us had dragged anchor in the wee hours, and it was actually pretty comical watching its headlamped crew, their beams blinking like fireflies, scurrying about the deck trying to reset the damn thing. Come dawn, however, the unsettling view of the angry, whitecapped, deep-blue Caribbean Sea on the other side of that reef was a lot less humorous—and that’s precisely where we were bound. 

Ostensibly, if incongruously considering we were closer to the equator than the Labrador Sea, we were in the midst of a ­weeklong jaunt that Kretschmer had dubbed “the polar ­navigation summit.” He’d summarized it to me in an email a couple of months earlier:

“I have a great scheme and I’d love you to be part of it. I’ve become good friends with Mark Synnott, an amazing climber and writer. He was part of Alex Honnold’s team (when he climbed Yosemite’s El Capitan without ropes), and is featured in the movie Free Solo. But he’s done incredible first ascents on his own. He summited Mount Everest and wrote a great book about it, The Third Pole. Anyway, he’s totally into sailing, and is planning to do the Northwest Passage in his Stevens 47, Polar Sun, this summer. It’s part of a big National Geographic project and super cool. While Mark is tough as nails and really smart, he needs more sailing experience and certainly more navigation experience, especially high-latitude stuff. 

“I’ve also become friends with Porter Fox, ­another great writer. His latest book is called The Last Winter. It’s a beautifully written story of Northern travels and climate change, and is terrifying and poetic. His dad was Crozer Fox, who founded Able Marine and later sold it to Tom Morris. Anyway, he has a beautiful Whistler 32 and is contemplating a long voyage with his family but wants to sail aboard Quetzal for some experience, or at least spend some time aboard chatting about the ocean, climate, life, etc.  

“So, here’s the proposal. It’s crazy, but I was thinking of having you three join me aboard Q in Grenada, the perfect place for a polar voyaging and navigation summit meeting—straddling the 12th parallel! I am not sure what will unfold, but some thoughts on ice and navigation—Neptune knows you know a lot about that—some thoughts about serious passagemaking, some good trade-wind sailing, some drinking, some scheming, some talk of climate and of the North, just a boys’ polar navigation summit. It’s crazy but will be a great time. I kind of see this summit as a couple of old dudes like us sharing what we know, or think we know, with some ‘youngish’ bucks.”

As a veteran of the Northwest Passage, it appeared (­somewhat laughably) that I was the supposed “Arctic expert.” A superb writer and author himself, Kretschmer’s main business is running offshore training voyages aboard Quetzal, and he had a big ­summer voyage lined up to Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Norway, hence his interest in getting into his own ­high-latitude mindset.

During the pandemic, with his usual alluring, distant destinations off-limits, Kretschmer had kept his operation going by conducting offshore trips to waypoints (not landfalls, but “sea falls”) he’d set a few hundred miles off the US Virgin Islands (which were still accessible) on round-trip instructional voyages of several days’ duration that he’d jokingly dubbed “reaches to nowhere.” He’d included a briefer one in the itinerary of our trip.

It all sounded great in his email, and we’d had a good time sailing north to Petit St. Vincent from our meeting point in Grenada. But after upping our own anchor and plowing into the staunch easterly trades for an hour or so—the offshore “­nowhere” segment of our summit now underway—I was ­beginning to rethink the entire enterprise. 

Still on the relatively shallow inshore shelf fronting the Grenadines, the motion on board was quick and violent, and for the first time in quite a while, my mouth was suddenly very dry, the rising sweat on my brow was cold and damp, and my tummy wasn’t feeling so swell. Which is when the rather ­unsettling question regarding my suddenly shaky sea legs came to me: Son, it’s been some time since you’ve been offshore, hasn’t it?

As I waited in the customs arrival line at the airport in Grenada, it was quite clear that the very fit cat ahead of me was none other than the accomplished Synnott, also recognizable from the jacket photo of his bestseller The Impossible Climb, an excellent book that combines simultaneous accounts of Honnold’s famous ascent with a memoir of Synnott’s own career on cliffs and mountains. We made our acquaintances and shared a cab to Quetzal’s slip at the Port Louis Marina in St. George’s, where we were greeted by our shipmates for the week: Kretschmer, Fox and Nathan Zahrt, Kretschmer’s young protégé who also conducts training trips on his Compass 47, Ultima.

Seeing as how we had gathered for polar discussions, the talk quickly turned to “the ice.” As in, we required some for the rum. And with that, the storytelling portion of the summit was underway. 

Kretschmer is a master, and had some wild COVID-era tales to spin about his recent travels; Synnott was equally entertaining. His climbing remembrances were pretty crazy—his yacht, Polar Sun, is named after the nearly 5,000-foot Polar Sun Spire on Baffin Island in Canada, on which he lived for 39 days while scaling its sheer face. But he had some fine and outlandish sailing stories too. 

The best was the time back in 2005 when he convinced National Geographic to sponsor a climbing expedition to remote Pitcairn Island in the southern Pacific Ocean, where many inhabitants are descendants of the HMS Bounty mutineers. This expedition required chartering a 66-foot yacht with a churlish Australian skipper to sail from French Polynesia with his team, providing several misadventures. Plus, the “climbing” on the shaky, volcanic peaks of Pitcairn was not exactly like summiting Everest; his editors weren’t exactly thrilled with the photos of everyone playing badminton on a reef. But the trip’s magical moment happened when he was standing a night watch by himself with the moon reflected in the shimmering Pacific Ocean. Bam! That’s when the sailing bug bit. And now, on his own boat, he was heading north, to Baffin and beyond.  

The next morning, understandably, our collective crew was not exactly moving with vigor or dispatch. But we rallied quickly. Once the coffee kicked in, we had sails to hoist. 

Kretschmer had laid out a course some 20-odd nautical miles to the north for the popular anchorage of Tyrell Bay on Carriacou; according to the notes on its noonsite.com webpage, the island was first settled by the indigenous Caribs, who called it Kayryouacou, meaning “land of the reefs.”

At the outset, ambling up the leeward coast of Grenada with a full main, staysail and genoa, we were sheltered from the easterly trades right up until clearing the hilly island’s north shore, at which point the easterlies commenced pumping. Time to shorten sail.

Kretschmer had promised us a bit of a sailing clinic, and our first lesson was his preferred style of reefing: bearing off to a comfortable reach at a wind angle of 110 degrees (as opposed to going head to wind, like many textbooks advise) and simply dropping the main and tucking in the reef(s). It was a gentle, no-drama maneuver, with the added benefit that we didn’t need to drop the genoa to accomplish it. Duly noted. 

After the long beat to Tyrell and a nice dinner with a dash of red wine, it seemed we’d be having a more restrained, mellow evening…right up until Kretschmer fatefully unscrewed the cap on a bottle of scotch. More stories, perhaps some even truthful, were dispensed. 

The next morning, we hired a cab for a nice tour of the island and to search for Kretschmer’s acquaintance who was building a schooner on a beach, the subject of the documentary Vanishing Sail. Alas, when we rolled down the hill to the purported building site, the hearty ship was complete and at anchor. However, we did chat up some locals constructing a very cool workboat nearby, then got underway for Petit St. Vincent, tucked around Carriacou’s northeast flank. Other than Kretschmer nearly drowning me in the early going on an exercise demonstrating tethers and man-overboard situations (see “Tethers and Other Matters” below), it was a pretty routine, ho-hum day.

Check that: It was a fantastic one, with absolutely killer ­sailing. Quetzal is named after the sacred birds of the Mayans, and is synonymous with the notion of freedom. “It’s one of the few animals that refuse to live in captivity,” said the skipper, another being who pretty much refuses the same. The boat was built in Taiwan in 1987, and Kretschmer has put in countless miles, in the six figures, aboard it. He keeps it in Bristol fashion; after all, it’s responsible not only for his livelihood, but also for his life. With its longish fin keel and skeg-hung rudder, it absolutely hauls the mail and is a flat-out gas to drive in staunch winds and rising waves, the helm always responsive and forgiving. 

I was happy to let the other guys steer until Kretschmer asked, “You want a go?” I couldn’t say no, my sole task for the next couple of hours or so keeping the telltales streaming aft while tacking to weather past Palm Island and Union Island and right into the paradisiacal isle of Petit St. Vincent, the steering as light and balanced as could be. Sorry, guys, but once I got hold of that wheel, there was no way I was going to relinquish it.

Nowhere:

That was our next destination. The original plan had been to reach offshore for 50 or 60 miles, heave-to for dinner, then jibe and enjoy another reach back to Grenada. But that had been predicated on an expected northeast flow to the trade winds. What we actually encountered was solid wind hammering directly from the east, which meant a more southerly heading toward Trinidad and, gulp, Venezuela, which these days is no place anybody wants to be. That meant closehauled sailing as we broke into open water. Which led to my brief, sweaty and, thankfully, passing moment on the verge of blowing lunch. 

Luckily, as we sailed into deeper water, I got back into the old familiar rhythm of being at sea. Like riding a bike, my friends, you never forget. 

And then we were ocean sailing. Conditions were squally and sporty, to say the least; those overnight 30-plus-knot gusts had not dissipated. But the cutter-rigged Quetzal was most certainly in her element, trucking along at an easy 7 knots under a shortened-sail combo of double-reefed main and staysail. Kretschmer kept an attentive eye on the compass. “I think we’re going to end up more south than we think,” he said prophetically.

He also was a nonstop fount of information: “On port tack, as we are now, all the loads are happening from left to right, so maintain your situational awareness. Right now, anything bad that happens will happen to starboard.

“When any sort of issue arises, bear off. When the wind angle changes from 60 degrees to 100 degrees, everything levels off and the loads are lessened across the board. Your whole world changes.

“If you detect water down below, tack. It has to be coming from the low side. It buys you time and will probably expose where the problem is. It can be hard to find where the ingress is.

“These are beautiful waves. Long, long waves. Feel that temperature drop a little bit? That means we’re about to get popped by a squall. Bear off a bit. We’ll drop down to 80-degrees apparent and sail right around it.”

To get my attention at one point when I was driving, Kretschmer suddenly appeared from below and tossed something over the side. “Man overboard!” he cried. We’d practiced the old quick-stop maneuver the day before, after I’d sputtered back aboard following the tether drill, and I once again immediately put the bow head to wind, jibed, and luffed up right next to it. To be honest, I was surprised it worked as well in the open sea. We heaved-to, and Kretschmer pointed out the defined slick to weather, settling the seas as Quetzal calmly bobbed among them. Yet another set of experiences to etch in the memory bank.

A pretty sunset punctuated the eventful day, and with no moon, at roughly 11 degrees north, the Southern Cross and North Star both magically appeared, in all their ­celestial glory. It was indescribably beautiful. Kretschmer served up a fantastic chicken dinner that had been percolating all afternoon in the pressure cooker. Life was damn good. 

At midnight, we spun the boat around back ­toward Grenada, some 45 nautical miles from our real ­destination: Prickly Bay on the island’s southeastern shore, a well-known hangout for cruisers from near and far. 

The squalls kept coming. Kretschmer and I stood the first watch of the new day, to 0300, shooting the breeze while dodging the weather. In an offhand remark, he mentioned that he’d conducted 153 training voyages on Quetzal. 

Make that 154, I thought. 

We dropped Quetzal’s hook at precisely 0730 after one final rip-snorter of a dawn squall, which I had the honor of negotiating. The resulting rainbow right as the anchor grabbed made for a storybook ending to our unique summit.  

I’d successfully been “nowhere” with a great group of characters. And now I want to go back. 

Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large. For more info on John Kretschmer’s books, seminars and voyages, see his website. To track Mark Synnott’s voyage aboard Polar Sun, visit his website.

Tethers and Other Matters

A professional sailor and writer who has knocked off seven sailing books in his “spare time,” John Kretschmer has nearly 400,000 offshore miles in his wake, including 26 trans-Atlantic crossings. Along the way, he’s come to many conclusions and beliefs about “safety and seamanship,” which he says equate to one and the same. Near the top of that list are tethers—the leashes that connect one from a harness or life jacket to a jackline, with the vested goal of keeping one aboard and alive—and the right and wrong ways to employ them.  

As he would on a dedicated training voyage, Kretschmer tugged on an inflatable life jacket and reviewed its operation, including manual inflation. He then made his way toward the bow, reciting the key points as he went: Always go forward on the high side of the boat. Keep your center of effort low. Take your time; in rough weather, when moving to the mast, two settled minutes is better than 10 frantic seconds. If you’re feeling shaky, sit down and regroup. Don’t hook into the lifelines; think of them as an electric fence. Do not clip into the jackline continuously; instead, clip and unclip, moving purposely to where you’re going, and then clip in. And above all else, do not use a tether too long, one that will allow you to go into the drink if you go overboard. If you do, make sure the tether has a dedicated quick-release fitting, and that you know how to use it.

To get his point across, Kretschmer gave us all too-long tethers and sent us over the side. Time for a drill.

Mark Synnott was first, his vest inflating on ­contact with the water. Being the athlete and climber that he is, as the boat bobbed along, not making way, he hauled himself back aboard. But Kretschmer’s point wasn’t about what happens when a boat is standing still; it was about when it’s underway, as it would be in any oceangoing situation. Synnott jumped back in, and Kretschmer instructed Nathan Zahrt, at the wheel, to put it in gear and throttle up: 1 knot, 2 knots, 3. And it was suddenly very clear that movement through the water introduced a whole new dynamic. At 4 knots, Synnott had had more than enough, pulled the quick-­release shackle, and swam back to the boat. Porter Fox was next, repeating the sequence.

Then it was my turn. I consider myself a good ocean swimmer and a competent seaman. I like to think that I know what’s up when I’m sailing and when I’m in the water. But once in the sea, at 2 knots at the end of the tether, I was pretty uncomfortable. At 3, I felt the first surge of panic. At 4, I was underwater and thrashing, signaling that I was in distress just before pulling the rip cord. What the hell would it be like being dragged at 5 or 6 knots, as you would be on any actual passage if you tumbled overboard? The answer was clear and unnerving. 

Kretschmer’s point was made. Short tethers. Considered movements. And the most important lesson of all: Don’t go over the bloody side in the first place. 

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When we arrived in French Polynesia in May 2013, we saw the island group as a stopover on our way across the South Pacific. We’d heeded the advice of Jimmy Cornell’s World Cruising Routes and arrived after the end of the cyclone season, but we found lots of contradictory information in our research about everything from temperature to ocean swell to rainy seasons. 

As it turned out, there’s a good reason for all the confusion. French Polynesia is a big place. It has 118 volcanic islands, makateas (raised atolls) and atolls that stretch out over an expanse as big as Europe. The five archipelagoes—Society Islands, Tuamotus, Gambier, Marquesas and Austral—have different languages, different cultures and quite different climates. 

Based on our pre-arrival research, we expected to find a tropical climate year-round. That turned out to be true for the Society Islands but not the Gambier, where we shivered in temperatures below 68 degrees Fahrenheit. In August, we fled northward from the Gambier to escape the cold Southern Hemisphere winter, only to roll miserably in the Marquesas during the season with the highest swell.

Despite these rookie mistakes, we fell in love with French Polynesia and decided that we needed more time than just one season to explore this vast and diverse cruising ground. The temperatures and seasonal variations can be quite different across the five island groups. If you know your way around (like we do after eight years), you can find a pleasant corner for each season.

The distances between the archipelagoes are considerable—sometimes 800 to 900 nautical miles. What we’ve learned during our years cruising the region is that you can use the weather patterns to your advantage for fairly comfortable, easy passages. 

With the benefit of hindsight, we would plan our arrival and itinerary for the first year in French Polynesia quite differently from what we did in 2013. Wind patterns and seasonal shifts play a major role in planning west-to-east passages between the island groups (see sidebar on page 55). Here’s more of what we have learned about each archipelago.

Marquesas

Sailboats crossing the Pacific in December or January from Central America or the Galapagos Islands should have fairly reliable wind on the way to the Marquesas. The northernmost group of French Polynesia, the Marquesas ­archipelago lies outside the cyclone belt, so there is minimal risk of running into a developing storm underway. 

An early start means that you will arrive before the fleet of puddle jumpers starts crowding the anchorages. The islands’ high, rugged mountains are great for hiking, but the often murky, dark water discourages snorkeling—even though you may have impressive encounters with manta rays, pelagic sharks and groups of dolphins around the anchorages. Southerly swell, which makes the open anchorages very uncomfortable during southern winter, should not be a big issue at this time of the year. 

With a bit of luck, you’ll spend quiet nights even without a stern anchor. No-nos (biting little flies) are always a nuisance, but the situation is better during the dry season from October to April.

Tuamotus

Continue toward the Tuamotus in April after the end of the cyclone season, when the region is still warm and not too windy. That’s a good time of year to explore the motus and lagoons, and to enjoy snorkeling the spectacular passes. The low atolls give access to an incredible underwater world (take nothing but pictures; the resources of atolls are limited), and from June to October, humpback whales are often sighted on the outer reefs and even in the lagoons. 

Cyclones are rare in this archipelago, but sitting one out in the unprotected anchorages would be a nightmare, so we avoid cruising here in the cyclone season. During the strong trade winds in July and August, it gets quite cool. High waves and swell fill up the lagoons, so the currents in the passes are faster. Snorkeling is less fun, and the choice of anchorages is limited.

Society Islands

Head to the Society Islands in July, in time for the Heiva i Tahiti festival, which is filled with spectacular dancing and drumming events. The pleasantly dry, breezy winter weather (Southern Hemisphere winter) is ideal to go hiking on the high, mountainous islands of Tahiti, Moorea, Huahine, Raiatea, Taha’a and Maupiti. 

Unfortunately, the coral in the lagoons is mostly dead, but there are some nice dive spots on outer reefs. Humpback whales roam the area between July and October.

Before the onset of cyclone season in December, it is time to leave again. The following months will be hot, humid and oppressive in the Societies. During an active South Pacific Convergence Zone, many lows pass over the islands and bring a certain risk of cyclones. 

Austral Islands

Start looking for weather windows to sail to the Australs in October and November. The islands of Rimatara, Rurutu, Tubuai, Raivavae, and Rapa are spectacularly beautiful and have a thriving culture. 

They are also the least-visited islands of French Polynesia. While southern summer between December and March would be the most pleasant time there, it’s also the cyclone season, and these islands are right in the path, particularly when the South Pacific Convergence Zone is active. The best time to visit is November and December, when it’s already warm but the cyclone season is only in its beginnings.

After March, it’s already southern autumn, when frequent depressions start moving by, sending high swell, strong winds and cold air masses. 

Gambier Islands

Finding a weather window to sail to the Gambier Islands with favorable winds might require some patience. Convergence zones often bring northerly winds that facilitate easting. If you arrive in the Gambier in December or January, you can spend the pleasantly warm summer months exploring the numerous anchorages. 

The Gambier has a mixture of high, mountainous islands with clear lagoons, healthy coral reefs and low-lying motus on the barrier reef. For us, it is the highlight of French Polynesia. 

This archipelago has well-protected anchorages and a low risk of cyclones, particularly during El Niño-neutral periods, when the temperatures can rise to the mid-80s Fahrenheit, but the days are usually pleasantly breezy (there can be rainy days or even weeks). 

Leave before the southern winter hits from July to September and the temperatures drop to 60 degrees, which feels much chillier than it sounds when it’s blowing hard and raining.

On the way west, there is still time to see more of the Tuamotus and Societies before heading on in the next sailing season, or you might even decide that you need another year or two to enjoy French Polynesia, just as we did.

Wind Patterns of the South Pacific

As a general rule, the trade winds blow predominantly from the east between February and April, from the east to southeast between May and November, and from the east to northeast in December and January. Disturbances are common: During southern winter, fronts of strong low-pressure systems move far in the south. During southern summer, convergence zones influence the weather patterns.

Sailing westward in the trade-wind belt is most comfortable during a stable period of easterly trades. Frequent troughs interrupt the trade winds in the Pacific, which is annoying during a long passage westward. It’s best to have a series of possible stopovers in mind in case the window does not last long enough to reach the planned destination.

When sailing eastward, we use those interruptions to gain easting. When a trough passes, the wind shifts from east to northeast, then north/northwest, followed by a calm period and sudden southern wind (when the convergence passes over your location), or back to east (when the trough moves by to the south). With some patience, it’s possible to sail from Tahiti eastward to the Tuamotus and then hop from atoll to atoll. The predominant southeast wind facilitates passages northeastward to the Marquesas from May to November.

Passages southeastward to the Gambier archipelago are better undertaken later in the year, when phases of northeast wind become longer and more predominant from December on. —BH

Birgit Hackl and Christian Feldbauer have been cruising for 10 years, eight of them in the South Pacific. They have explored westward to the Cook Islands and Tonga on their 41-foot S&S-designed Pitufa, but French Polynesia is their home base. They are currently in Fiji. Check out their blog for weather information, cruising guides and more.

The post How to Use Weather Patterns and Seasons in French Polynesia to Optimize Regional Cruising appeared first on Cruising World.

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It figures that a hurricane’s projected track aimed right at our Stevens 47, Totem, while we were an ocean away from it, having traveled by jet from Mexico to Europe and South Africa. That was Hurricane Kay, in early September. Last week brought Hurricane Ian, which we watched approach Florida, glued to updates, fearing for the boats and livelihoods of friends along Florida’s west coast.  

Actively tracking weather is one of the most consistent features of life on a cruising boat. You don’t just feel the elements more directly; your immediate security is weather-driven. Looking at GRIBs through PredictWind remains our mainstay weather tool. And, we love the new GMDSS addition: graphical display of GMDSS text forecast details (lows, highs, tropical depressions, fronts) over a GRIB. Anyone in my husband Jamie’s classes at Cruisers University in Annapolis from October 10-16 will see a bunch of these. 

Other specialty tools provide input to keep informed and make decisions about our everyday comfort and safety. Writing recently about chubascos, a weather phenomenon in the Sea of Cortez, we focused on how valuable the GOES band 11 viewer is for anticipating these weather bombs. Here are other tools that may be less commonly tapped, but helpful for those of us living at weather level. 

Weather Radar

Radar is an excellent tool when it’s available. Radar on a boat is a fine way to get squall size, location and tracking to mitigate the conditions (Squall tracking, more than avoiding hazards at the night or in fog, is the #1 use of Totem’s radar, in fact). Weather service radar, accessed via the internet, offers a dynamic wider-region view. This requires internet bandwidth.  

A weather radar source with a time loop helps visualize movement and the squall or front’s increasing or decreasing footprint, to preemptively adjust course and or speed. You may not be able to bypass the weather, but even reducing the duration of your exposure to volatile weather is useful. 

On our last days in South Africa, we actually had more wind than Puerto Peñascohad, Mexico, from Hurricane Kay’s attempted swipe—this front line brought 50-plus knots. It was wild to watch (from inside a cozy beach house), but for locals, was “just another Sunday.” 

Real-Time Lighting

Real-Time lighting strike maps show where the sky is more or less electric. Like radar, this tool provides a visual for a storm’s size, intensity and track. For folks on boats, the devastating power of lightning can be even more daunting than wind and rain. 

We like the display on the website Blitzortung for this, and there are a range of real-time lightning map mobile apps as well.

Satellite Imagery

Another satellite imagery resource is Zoom.earth. It’s instructive, but not targeted. Still, for sharing satellite-informed views of your location without freaking out your kids or in-laws, try giving them this view. The red areas show heat detected by satellites. This tool influenced our driving route to avoid hot-season wildfires.

Surge Estimators

Hurricane Kay ended up tracking outside of Baja, California, a much lower risk to Totem than it might have been if it tracked up the Sea of Cortez. But it was late when we considered that, even though the system was relatively distant, there might be a surge effect near our boat’s location. And, as Murphy’s Law would dictate, of course it would coincide with peak tidal swings in an area notorious for extremes (22 feet isn’t unusual). We watched CERA, a collaboration between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Louisiana State University, for modeling surge. It indicated that water might not just rise above the level of the slipway, but also spill further into the yard. Not so good for boats in sand or gravel, and not good news for things on the ground. Like our new-in-the-box engine.

Water level exceeding the slipway would have been a first at the boatyard. (We still, by the way, feel this is the best possible option for hurricane season on the Pacific side of Mexico.) From South Africa, we watched and waited for updates. 

And recently, we watched as the surge forecast from Hurricane Ian developed for Florida—especially Southwest Florida, where folks we care about in Punta Gorda have their catamaran. It was tough to see the surge increase and consider the havoc it caused. NOAA’s estimate was 12 to 18 feet. There’s not much good that comes from an 18-foot surge (or even “just” 12 feet) when you’re tied to a fixed dock. 

Wave And Swell

Boaters tend to focus on the wind forecast, the sea state tends to be a much bigger influence for real feel on a boat. And yet, wave and swell forecasts have long been the least accurate reflection of real feel in the weather toolkit. GRIB Wave forecasts only display one wave forecast at a time. Secondary or tertiary waves and swell, such as a swell from a far-off gale, can really increase the motion of the ocean. The information is often available, but clunky to view and interpret. PredictWind has a new tool set that uses all wave and swell data, and then models roll, pitching and slamming based on specific dimensions of a given boat. Its new Automatic Wave Routing feature is a big step toward interpreting a real-feel to make go or no-go decisions. 

If we’re near a surfing region, we also sometimes use surfer websites such as Magic Seaweed to understand the magnitude of local swells. Farther offshore, there might be a weather buoy near a planned route. Looking at real-time data, such as NOAA’s National Data Buoy Center site, can help determine the accuracy of forecast information.  

Tsunami Danger

This isn’t something we really thought about a lot before cruising, but we’ve ended up needing to track tsunamis a few times when we were potentially in risk zones. It’s no joke, and we know enough people who have had truly dangerous tsunami events while cruising. 

While our first tsunami was a nonevent, the second warranted more attention: We watched as the depth changed 6 feet up then 6 feet down in 15-minute intervals. One boat missed a swing and ran aground in a channel.

What are your tools for this? A U.S. Geological Survey website details earthquakes worldwide, and a global scattering of tsunami monitoring stations are on this UNESCO-funded site.  

The 2022 hurricane season finally did get spicy, as promised. While Hurricane Ian left a trail of heartbreak in Florida, we received news that our friends’ boat in Punta Gorda came through nearly unscathed. So many others did not. Neighboring boats were found sunk, or on top of the dock, or in the adjacent yard. And now, on the Pacific side, we watch Orlene. The tropical depression is expected to become a hurricane, and is tracking toward Mazatlan and the Sea of Cortez, where we lie at the northern tip.

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