November 2008 Archives

The day after Thanksgiving we invited a big part of the Taylor family to see (and hopefully sail) Tahina. Preparations started with the trip to the boat the previous weekend where we did some cleaning, taking down more linens, and asked someone to look at the autopilot issue. The autopilot issue turned out to be a simple loose wire. So that was easy.

On Thanksgiving Day, Karen and I left my Mom's in Winston-Salem around 5 PM and drove home. We packed and took another load of food/linens and drove on down to the boat (arriving around 11 PM). Next day, I got up early: tested the autopilot and started cleaning inside a bit. As it warmed up I began washing down the boat. Thankfully it got to be a beautiful and warm (60 F) day. It took more than 2 hours to wash. Karen was setting all the beds and planning food inventory. Karen came out and helped wipe the stainless and wipe windows. I began washing windows inside and out as well, and polished off a few marks on the outside.

The boat was really gleaming by the time the family arrived (all 9 including 5 adults and 4 kids). They arrived about 3 PM. After a quick tour, I looked at the wind and the nice weather and suggested we go ahead and go for a sail right away. Fortunately the seas were really mild (about 2 feet) so we managed to use Carolina Beach Inlet. Winds were in the 10 knot range. We had a nice sail after motoring out the inlet. We averaged over 8 knots and came close to 10 knots a few times. Unfortunately, we had to stop less than an hour out because of the approaching sunset. I had to put the fishing lines out right away because the kids were insistent. But, we didn't catch any. They sure enjoyed looking at the color sonar though and expecting every blip to result in a bite! Check out the GPS track in Google Earth .

That night we cooked up some dinner. It was a bit crowded because we didn't want to eat outside due to the rapidly cooling temperature (plus our daughter - who lives in Wilmington - came down to join us). The kids had a great time exploring around the marina. One of the boys managed to capture a nice-sized blue crab which they released later.

The next day we had planned to go out for a more lengthy sail. But, the weather turned worse than forecasted the night before. We had rain all day. So, we instead decided to visit the NC Acuaurium at Fort Fisher about 15 minutes away. Everyone had a great time. Afterwards we prepared a nice lunch and managed to get everyone (all 12) around the salon table. A short while later, the boat was peaceful as the family had to leave and start their trips home. It was a very successful, if brief, first visit from family on Tahina!

We just spent a few days (since last Thursday) on the boat and accomplished several tasks.   Just a sample of the tasks accomplished:  Tahina name put on life buoy, finished temporary carpet install to protect wood floors from dog claws, got new Navionics card for Carolinas back (after previous one had problems showing 3D data for Carolina beach) - only problem was the new card exhibited the same problem, explored Raymarine RayNav software more, trouble-shooting on new autopilot problem, asked for quote on wind screen/spray dodger up front of cockpit, checked engines and topped off oils, bought water hose and filled port tank with shore water, and thoroughly washed outside of boat.

We also had one of our daughters visit over the weekend along with two of her friends.  We took them for a nice afternoon sail on Saturday out about 4.5 miles off shore and back.  It was a very nice sail considering early in the day the seas were pretty rough and winds were strong.  Instead we had relatively small seas and nice light winds with a few fun stronger periods.  We managed to go out and back in Carolina Beach Inlet for the first time (greatly reducing the motoring time to and from the marina).  It helped that the Army Corps just finished dredging the channel and it was approaching high tide.

Unfortunately our autopilot stopped working - it kept saying "Drive Stopped" when it was barely turning.  The manual did not provide strong clues on how to fix this problem.  I suspect the problem has to do with the pump which drives our hydraulic steering, or the auto pilot control computer.  Someone is coming to look at the system tomorrow.

It's important Karen continues to get comfortable driving the boat, so she drove a while as I put away the sail in its cover and put away the halyard, the blocks, and winch handles.  I'm still doing the parking, but soon Karen will get some practice at that as well.

We also did some preparing for family visits expected after Thanksgiving Day.  Cleaning inside and out, adding the water, making beds, taking linens home for cleaning, provisioning, etc. 

We're getting more comfortable living and working on the boat.  And the boat is becoming more like our second home every weekend we spend down there.  Even the dogs are starting to get comfortable with the boat as well.  They didn't even get seasick on their second time out.  But, we have just as much to do at home as well, so we're back at the house catching up until Thursday when we go for Thanksgiving Day at my Mom's house.

Preparing for a circumnavigation of the Earth by sailboat is not anything like a planning a two week vacation.  First, you can't sail around the world in two weeks.  Even if you went non-stop at an average 7 knots, it would take you about 150 days conservatively to get around the world.   But, unless you're in a race, why would you want to go non-stop?  The whole point is to stop and see unique places around the world.  So, our plan is to take 5 years.

When you're planning a trip for 5 years away from home, you have to make a lot of decisions.  In our case (as many circumnavigators do) we decided to sell our house and cars.  We decided since the boat would be our home for the next five years that we should purchase something we would not only be comfortable with, but could also enable friends and family to join us.  So, we concentrated first on buying a boat - in our case a 50-foot catamaran.  Four queen-sized staterooms - plenty of room to invite a few guests.  Still, it will be a lot less space than most of us are used to for living.  A lot of our accumulated belongings will have to be stored for our eventual return.  A great deal of it will need to be sold before we leave (we'll get used to Craigslist and eBay).

Preparations go way beyond just getting your house ready to be sold, and selling extra belongings.  You have to figure out and handle many important personal details:  healthcare plans, prescription medicine sources, insurance, wills, emergency contacts, mail handling services (someone has to open your mail and let you know if something urgent arrives, and arrange to forward an accumulated stack occasionally to your current location), how to handle taxes (yes, they follow you everywhere), and much more.

Thankfully with the age of Internet many things are easier than they once were on a long trip:  Online banking, electronic payments, E-mail and Skype (for less expensive - or free - international voice communications), online purchases, online support for many products you'll break along the way, and don't even get me started on the travel planning tools available thanks to Google Earth!  A lot of essential tasks and communications will be very practical compared to even 10 or 15 years ago.

Another big aspect to the preparations for the trip is getting the boat properly outfitted.  Our boat came "blue water" ready.  So, it already has many things like a lifeboat, a good compliment of sails, anchor, chartplotter, radar, freezer, stove, electric winches, watermaker, TV/stereo, BBQ grill, and more.  But, every captain has his own ideas about essential equipment - and some things didn't come with the boat we purchased.  A few examples of things we'll be adding:  a dinghy (this is the essential "car" for our "house" - it will be a small partially inflatable boat with an outboard motor capable of carrying a few people and provisions between our boat and shore), AIS (Automatic Identification System - which is even better than radar in some respects), shortwave radio system, satellite phone/Internet access, a small washer/dryer unit, custom software and electronic charts, a couple of laptops, scuba gear, and of course digital cameras.  The boat will also need a lot of spares in case some essential piece of equipment fails along the way.  Then, we mustn't forget essential things like galley needs (dishes, flatware, cooking utensils, cleaning supplies, etc.), linens and beddings, curtains, and many other decorations.  This will be our home remember.  Oh, and lets toss in a few fun (but possibly essential) things like fishing gear, a kayak, bicycles, DVDs, books, etc., etc.

As you can imagine, planning, identifying, shopping, purchasing, installing, and testing these many systems is a complex job in itself.  And you want everything important working properly before you leave.  The boat will need one last visit to the boatyard to insure the bottom has fresh anti-fouling paint, and all the systems are in top condition.

Over the coming months, you'll get more of a taste of the complexity as we describe the trials and tribulations, joy and excitement as we go through the process of our preparations.   And, you'll see there's a whole lot more than what I've just described.

A couple of months ago, when I was planning to take our sailing catamaran Tahina down to Carolina Beach, North Carolina, I used Google Earth to research the new location before we made the decision to go down. Not only was I able to identify some candidate marinas, but I evaluated access to the ocean, where the bridges and roads were located, availability of stores, weather, etc. We ultimately settled on a recently re-built marina called Joyner Marina in Carolina Beach. They have nice facilities, a fuel dock, a beautiful view of the Inter-Coastal Waterway (ICW), and a great staff.

In order to reach the marina from the sea, there is a nearby inlet called "Carolina Beach Inlet". After some searching I discovered this inlet often needs dredging and you can see in Google Earth that the inlet mouth is not protected by a jetty. This is the reason why NOAA nautical charts do not show depth data for the inlet. The Google Earth imagery for the area is dated 2002. I discovered the inlet is regularly surveyed and maintained by the US Army Corps of Engineers. On their web site for NC inlets, they listed the most current surveys with a series of waypoints for the best route for the Carolina Beach Inlet channel (PDF). When I plotted the waypoints for the Carolina Beach Inlet route as placemarks for Google Earth, I was surprised to find they crossed over the land in the Google Earth imagery! For a moment, I jumped to the conclusion the imagery was mis-aligned (back in 2005 there was a misalignment of imagery in the Wilmington area, which has since been fixed). However, after checking with Google, they confirmed the imagery is not misaligned. So, I checked with other imagery providers and discovered the inlet has actually changed dramatically since 2002. In fact, the northern shore of the inlet has moved north by over 120 meters (400 feet)! I took a screenshot of the USGS imagery from Microsoft's Virtual Earth which is much more recent (I believe late 2007 or early 2008) and overlayed it in Google Earth . Select the overlay and use the transparency slider below the Places pane to compare how the inlet has changed. You can see in the screenshots below the comparison of the route with Google Earth (top) and more recent USGS image (below):

The Carolina Beach Inlet is best used with fair weather and when the currents are right. It's generally best to use the inlet when the surf is down, at the top of a high tide while the current is still headed in. But, if we need to go out to sea at other times, we can head up to the Masonboro Inlet a few miles north. Masonboro Inlet is charted, and sheltered by a jetty so you can get out under more conditions. You can read more about our first trip down to Carolina Beach here including a GPS track of our path viewable in Google Earth.