Hazards and Safety

Most people have no idea of what it takes to prepare a boat for sailing off shore. Preparation is serious business since you are taking your life and the lives of anyone on board into hazardous conditions that can be life-threatening. The hazards are numerous and include stormy weather, collisions with other vessels, falling overboard (the three biggest hazards) and becoming ill, having engine and rigging failures, losing electrical power, and spoiling your supplies of food and water.

The good news is that an off-shore boat is made to float like a cork in the most menacing conditions, and modern technology makes off-shore sailing much, much easier and safer than even ten years ago.

My Flicka, like any competent off-shore sailboat, has a keel of sufficient weight (1,800 pounds) so that even if rolled upside down she will right herself much like those inflatable clowns with the sand in the bottom. The companionway leading from the cockpit to the cabin can be boarded up in rough weather so that the cabin is essentially water-tight. The boat could be completely submerged in a wave and the boards would keep all but a trickle of the water out. When the wave passes, the boat rights herself, and water in the cockpit will quickly drain out the scuppers.
The Flicka is way overbuilt for a boat her size. Who would guess that her 20-foot length would weight 6,000 pounds before loading her with people and supplies? The rigging is the same is would be typical for a sailboat in the 40 to 50-foot range. The 30-foot mast, with its rigging, weighs nearly 175 pounds and is held up by nine (yep, 9) stays: 2 back stays, 6 side stays, and 1 forestay.

Safety at sea in Jubilee is my #1 priority. Following are just some of the steps I am taking to mitigate the risks:

• Storm preparation: I plan to engage a land-based weather and course advisor. These folks will track our progress and through a daily communication, will advise of weather developments forecast for our area and make suggesations when appropriate for altering course to avoid the worst of the developing storms. second, I plan to shorten sail early in anticipation of rough weather. The Flicka has two reefs on the mainsail and one on the jib. If it looks like it will be too rough for the reefed main and jib, we can put up the storm trisail (small main) and storm jib. In the worst conditions we can heave to and deploy a sea anchor (looks like a parachute that drags in the sea) and clip on a stern line to balance the boat at about a 40 degree angle to the wind and waves. This has an amazingly calming effect on the incoming seas and is a tried and true way of riding out a storm. If the storm is blowing from a direction that helps us on our course, we'll deploy a drogue instead of the sea anchor (my drogue is like a small sea anchor) and sail downwind. The purpose of the drogue, which is deployed astern, is to slow the boat, keep the sterrn pointed into the oncomeing waves, and prevent the boat from running down a wave so fast that it puitch-poles (summer-saults) end over end.
• Falling off the boat: We will always be "clipped on" when outside the cabin. What this means is that our inflatable life jackets, which are worn at all times outside the cabin, have built-in harnesses, and the harness will be attached to "jack-lines" (nylon webbing) that runs the length of the boat from the boat to the stern. A six-foot tether connects the harness to the jack lines. If one of us goes overboard, the tethered harness should keep us with the boat until we can climb back on board. We will also practice Man Overboard (MOB) rescue procedures.
• Collisions at Sea: Collisions are rare but can be a disaster if it happens. We will be sailing in some busy shipping lanes, at night and in fog. We are taking many precautions. First (aside from being on watch and scanning the horizon continually) we have radar. Mine is a Furuno 1623, mounted on the port back stay, facing aft on a Waltz gimbol. This radar can see about 16 miles and will be on at night and in foggy conditions. It can be set to sleep most of the time to minimize poer consumption but to awake for a scan every 5 or 10, or 15 minutes. It will emit an audible sound if it sees something on a scan. Second, we will have an Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponder that will be programmed to constantly send out our identity, including our speed and bearing to any other vessel in the area. It also will receive and plot on our GPS screen the identity of any other vessel in the area and show their speed and bearing. If there is a possibility of a collision it emits an audible and shows on the screen where it might happen. This is a new thing in recent years, but all commercial vessels are required to have this equipment functioning. It is a huge improvement in safety. Third, I have installed a tri-color light at the top of the mast whch is much more visible to ships than the standard navigations lights on the hull. We will also hoist up a radar reflector that will definitely make us visible to anyone with radar. Finally, we have a ship's bell and a fog horn to use in the fog.
• Illness: Sea sickness can be expected in rough weather, and I will have tablets (and a bucket) for that. Colds and the flu are rare since there is no one around to give you the bug. The most serious kind of illness would be a severe injury or heart attack. In a seriously life-threatening situation we will call for help wherever we are. For less serious injury we will have standard first aid and splints to stabilize broken bones. We will never expect to be more than 5 days from shore.

The Plan, the Boat, and the Background

Summary of the Passage
In the last week of May, 2010, I plan to depart from Beaufort, SC on my Flicka 20 sailboat, "Jubilee" for a passage that is expected to last about two months. The first stop will be Bermuda, about 820 nautical miles (nm) to the east. A friend, JD Shriber, plans to sail with me to Bermuda and then on to Nova Scotia as well. The leg to Bermuda is expected to take about 8 days. After a rest and re-provisioning, we will depart Bermuda bound for Nova Scotia, Canada, which is about 780 nm due north, another 8 days. After a short visit with my friends Kiersten and Bill Gilkerson near Mahone Bay, I plan to sail to Portland, then Newport, then Oyster Bay, NY. A fellow Flicka sailor plans to join me in Newport for the leg to Oyster Bay. Another fellow Flicka sailor will join me at Oyster Bay for the very exciting trip past New York City, down the East River and out the Narrows, to Sandy hook, NJ. Departing Sandy Hook, the plan is to sail south to Delaware Bay, up the bay to the Delaware-Chesapeake Canal, past Baltimore, to Annapolis. My patient and trusting wife, Alice Lynch, will join me at Annapolis for the sail down the Chesapeake Bay to the historic towns of St. Michaels and Oxford on the Maryland eastern shore. Then, with short stops at Hardyville, VA and Norfolk, I plan to return to Beaufort in the Atlantic (except to use the Intracoastal Waterway in bad weather). The final legs will include brief stops in the Outer Banks, Wrightsville Beach, Southport, Georgetown and Charleston, with various friends joining me along the way. I hope to arrive back in Beaufort by early August, before the serious part of the hurricane season.

A Flicka 20, and "Jubilee"
A Flicka 20 is a sailboat that, despite its relatively diminutive 20 foot length (on the deck), is built to take you anywhere in the world. These boats weigh about 6,000 pounds (empty) and have a cult following for their beauty and functional capacities. Numbering 434 ever produced, most of them were built by Pacific Seacraft between 1975 and 1996. "Jubilee" was built in 1993 and was hull number 418. She has a Yanmar diesel engine (one cylinder, using about a quart of fuel per hour), an enclosed head, a galley with alcohol stove, sink, and icebox, V-berths forward, and a quarter-berth aft. "Jubilee" is sloop-rigged, but I have also added a staysail to make her a cutter, and she carries a cruising spinnaker ("Gennaker") while reaching and running down wind. You can learn more about Flickas at www.Flicks20.com.

I bought Jubilee from Frank Durant in February 2008. Frank had just returned from a 6-week trip to the Bahamas where he bought some property and wanted to sell the boat to build a house. The original owner was a lady who lived in Iowa where she sailed Jubilee on a lake during the summers. The boat had never seen salt water until frank dipped her in the Atlantic in 2007.

Pacific Seacraft stopped making the Flickas in 1996 when the costs of production simply outstripped the price people were willing to pay. I have read that a new, equipped Flicka in 1996 would cost the buyer nearly $100,000, although I would think about $70,000 was more like it. Still, that would be a lot for a 20-foot sailboat in 1996.

In a later blog I will describe what it takes to get a boat ready for an ocean passage. I have invested over $30,000 (after buying the boat) and she is not yet quite ready.

Background
I have dreamed of making a passage like this since I was a kid. I am now 68 and plan to do this at age 69.
In the 4th grade I was drawing technically correct sailing ships although I had never been on a sailboat. Atlanta, GA was not a port city. I was just fascinated by the idea that boats could be pushed through the water by the wind. Lake Allatoona, near Atlanta, was created in 1949 by damming up the Etawah River, and my parents bought a Snipe Class sailboat and joined the Atlanta Yacht Club when it was formed in 1950. I crewed a few times but wanted to be the skipper as I understood quickly to the dynamics of sailing. After demonstrating competence at the helm of my father's Snipe, he passed it along to me in 1953 and bought himself a new one. Throughout the 1950s I raced competitively in regattas around the USA. I servesd as the Racing Team Captain (and Commodore) of the Tulane University Sailing club in the early 1960s. After graduate school at The University of Chicago I moved to new york City and sailed the summer Long Island Sound Circuit on a 35 foot yawl, "Escape", owned by Harlow Reed. This was heaven to me, although in retrospect, it was unfair to be leaving my wife and kids in the city for the sumer week-ends. After 2 years in NYC we moved to Florida and then back to Atlanta, and I was too busy developing my career and raising my family to be sailing off shore. I did resume sailing Snipes, 15 1/2-foot dinghies, both in the USA and abroad.

Gradually, I lost interest in sailing dinghies around the buoys. Lake Allatoona is not big enough for larger boats, and the sailing conditions, even in dinghies, are, well, not ideal. On a visit to Nova Scotia in 2003 to visit our friends, the Gilkersons, I was introduced to a Herreshoff 12 1/2 owned by Kerstin. After five minutes at the helm I knew I had to have one.

I had "Myrdie" built at Cape Cod Shipbuilding (www.CapeCodShipbuilding.com) and took delivery in May 2004. This boat was perfect for doing adventures in the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). I took he over to Beaufort (about half way between Savannah and Charleston) and sailed further and further distances until I started visualizing making an ICW "passage" from Savannah to Charleston. In April 2005, with the help of my wife and some friends, I made this passage, with overnight stops at Hilton head Island, Beaufort, Edisto island and Seabrook Island. It was a wonderful adventure. As other people heard about it they all seemed to think it was a neat idea, so the following year we did it again with about 10 other boats. This event turned into "The Classic Boat Rally", for boats of classic design in a size range 15 to 24 feet. See www.ClassicBoatRally.com.

By 2007 I was starting to modify "Myrdie" to be able to take her off shore, installing a battery-operated bilge pump among other things. Then it dawned on me....what was I thinking??? Taking a 15-foot open boat off shore was a dumb idea. About that time I tripped across the Flicka 20 web site, and just seeing pictures of these boats took me back to the days of my mid-life crisis in the late 1970s when I was reading books about sailing around the world and researching boats in which to do it. I remember thinking then, 30 years earlier, that the Flicka was one small boat that could do it. Excitedly scanning the list of Flickas for sale, I stopped when I saw "Jubilee". Uniquely, this boat was in near perfect condition, almost as new, with little time on the engine, a scant 6 weeks in salt water, and located in Florida, a one-day drive away. I paid frank his asking price when I picked her up in February 2008. Then I sold my Herreshoff 12 1/2 "Myrdie", getting almost what I had paid 4 years earlier.

It takes at least a year to prepare for an off-shore passage. I started serious planning for my 2010 passage in the spring of 2009. "Jubilee" will get me where I need to go.

Blog Site Plans
I am starting this blog at the urging of my friends for several reasons. First, I plan to document the process that I am going through to plan and prepare for this passage in the hope that other who are contemplating a similar undertaking might benefit from my experience. Second, I hope that those with experience relative to my planning and preparation efforts will respond with a reply that will be of benefit to me and to others with similar plans. Third, I plan to use this site for reporting progress and developments as I make the passage. I will share the joys and the challenges experienced along the way.

Pictures are worth a thousand words, and I plan to post pictures and a chart of my route when I learn how to do this.