Where Is The Far Reach--Part III

[John Stone]

There are three wrecks near our mooring in Elephant Bay, St Thomas, USVI. The water was not particularly clear today. But it was great to get my gills wet regardless. Two of the wrecks are pretty much completely intact. One is in a high state of deterioration. Lots of fish. I found my lobster. But I didn't get him. He is a little small. There were two a few days ago.

So here are a few pictures to share.

[John Stone]

And a few more.

[wikakaru]

...
My current genoa luff length won't fit though if I add a furler because the drum and top swivel take up 12-18". It's a full hoist jib with only a few extra inches between the tack and the halyard diverter. That's why the sailmaker thinks if sewn together and converted it will be about right with the furler. When I take the sail to the loft and we lay it out on the floor I expect the way forward will be revealed to me. All option remain open.

Ah, I forgot about losing some luff length for the drum and swivel. I think the sail I had converted happened to have a pendant, so removing the pendant was about equal to adding the furling drum/swivel and the sail didn't need to be cut down.

Yet another option is a new (or new-to-you) genoa with a bit more overlap to make up for the lost luff length. Of course then you run the risk of not having the correct lead angle for the sheet, but that depends on what your genoa track situation is like. Or go really crazy and add a big Code 0 as your light weather sail and go for an intermediate-sized roller furling jib somewhere between your current genoa and your current working jib that can handle a fairly broad range of wind speeds.

I'm sure, as you say, that the right answer will reveal itself in due course.

Smooth sailing,

Jim

[John Stone]

...
My current genoa luff length won't fit though if I add a furler because the drum and top swivel take up 12-18". It's a full hoist jib with only a few extra inches between the tack and the halyard diverter. That's why the sailmaker thinks if sewn together and converted it will be about right with the furler. When I take the sail to the loft and we lay it out on the floor I expect the way forward will be revealed to me. All option remain open.

Ah, I forgot about losing some luff length for the drum and swivel. I think the sail I had converted happened to have a pendant, so removing the pendant was about equal to adding the furling drum/swivel and the sail didn't need to be cut down.

Yet another option is a new (or new-to-you) genoa with a bit more overlap to make up for the lost luff length. Of course then you run the risk of not having the correct lead angle for the sheet, but that depends on what your genoa track situation is like. Or go really crazy and add a big Code 0 as your light weather sail and go for an intermediate-sized roller furling jib somewhere between your current genoa and your current working jib that can handle a fairly broad range of wind speeds.

I'm sure, as you say, that the right answer will reveal itself in due course.

Smooth sailing,

Jim

I don't want any overlap. I won't lose much SA converting the jib. My SA/D is about 20 with 100 percent foretriangle. A stock CD 36 has SA/D of 15.8. And the helm is essentially neutral. I do have and carry with me a lovely 140 percent 1.5 oz drifter @ 620SF. Maybe someday I'll put it on a continuous line roller. But for now I fly it out of the bag.

With the Dyneema forestay pulled back the boat short tacks quickly and reliably with the genoa or working jib. I don't want to sacrifice any of that easy and fast maneuverability under sail.

I'm interested to see how it all turns out.

[wikakaru]

...
I don't want any overlap. I won't lose much SA converting the jib. My SA/D is about 20 with 100 percent foretriangle. A stock CD 36 has SA/D of 15.8. And the helm is essentially neutral. I do have and carry with me a lovely 140 percent 1.5 oz drifter @ 620SF. Maybe someday I'll put it on a continuous line roller. But for now I fly it out of the bag.

With the Dyneema forestay pulled back the boat short tacks quickly and reliably with the genoa or working jib. I don't want to sacrifice any of that easy and fast maneuverability under sail.

I'm interested to see how it all turns out.

I'm with you on keeping the boat as easy to short tack as possible. I once owned a steel cutter that had roller furling on both headsail and staysail, and even though the headsail was a non-overlapping yankee, it was an iffy proposition getting it to go through the slot between headstay and forestay on a tack. When I later bought a Pacific Seacraft 34, I made the inner forestay removable and sailed it as a sloop in coastal waters, only fitting the staysail when sailing offshore. I was happy with the setup. And of course I love my Typhoon and CD22, both of which are usually sailed with non-overlapping jibs. I don't even have a genoa for my CD22. Maybe I should look at getting a free-flying drifter like yours for her.

I think you made a really good choice going with a larger rig when you re-rigged the boat. I didn't realize your SA/D was that high. And that drifter gives you even more oomph in light air. It sounds like even if you lose a bit of area re-sewing the genoa, it shouldn't hurt your passage times much given the rest of your sail inventory.

As usual, the more I learn about your setup, the more I see how much thought you have put into it.

Smooth sailing,

Jim

[John Stone]

I am working my way through pre-voyage projects. Not in a hurry. I don't see departure likely before early May and even then I could get delayed by a lack of wind NW of the VI like I did back in 2019. That year my departure was delayed till 10 June due to a lack of wind.

I spliced a new dinghy painter today. I also made up two more soft shackles. I made these from 1/4" dyneema because that's what I have on hand. I made them to attach a small block to the stanchion base (port and starboard) to give the stays'l sheets a better lead past the aft lower turnbuckles to the secondary winches.

I ordered an external GPS antenna for my Vesper Watchmate 850 AIS a couple days ago so I'll need to install it when it arrives. Since I installed the AIS in the spring of 2016 I have relied on the internal antenna to receive the GPS location signal. It worked pretty well. But sometimes I loose the signal and at night that causes me some anxiousness when the "lost GPS signal" alarm goes off while I am sleeping in my bunk. I can eliminate that problem without adding any extra complication or additional power draw by installing the external antenna.

Vesper no longer makes the Watchmate 850 (too bad because it is simple to use and draws little power). However it requires a specific external GPS antenna. That antenna is discontinued but I found one on-line so figured I should get it now before they are all gone. Additionally, I learned Vesper was bought by Garmin. I don't know what that means long term for Vesper products and quality.

I need to tighten the uppers a turn and about the same for the backstay. I'd like to run up the trys'l and sail around a little with the stays'l. I want to make sure I have all the running rigging routed correctly for that specific sail combination. I need to use running back-stays when the stays'l is employed in rough weather as my spar is more flexible and lighter (50 lbs lighter even though it's four feet taller) than a stock spar. I'd also like to apply two coats of varnish to the coamings, even though I have thought about removing them when I get home. I'd like to modify them in such a way to make it less invasive to remove them for varnish stripping and revarnishing.

I need to set aside some time go back over my celestial skills as I plan to use it on the way home.

[John Stone]

I'm starting to get myself ready for the voyage home. Running the long wire antenna up the back stay in the mornings to listen to Chris Parker on my portable SSB receiver. Takes some finesse to pull in a strong signal so refreshing my skills.

Spent a couple hours yesterday going over my Celestial calculations. I intend to give it a good workout on the way home--both a LOP and star fix.

Took my lobster snare with me yesterday to a local wreck. Lost two lobster free diving (I didn't lock the snare down aggressive enough) but I caught one. He was too small though by 1/2" so released him. I might see if I can film the technique on my GoPro.

Wind is supposed to go NNE early next week. Perfect for sailing to Sint Maarten. But it might be a little late for me to sail there just to turn around and head back to NC. Plus it would mean I have to clear customs in the US which is a PITA in NC. Nonetheless, it's something to consider.

[Steve Laume]

If you plan on trips outside of the USA, you should look into CBP Roam and becoming a trusted traveler. You can do it all on a phone now. Both the application and check in. It's nice to get home from a long trip and not have to worry about meeting with a customs agent.

[John Stone]

If you plan on trips outside of the USA, you should look into CBP Roam and becoming a trusted traveler. You can do it all on a phone now. Both the application and check in. It's nice to get home from a long trip and not have to worry about meeting with a customs agent.

Welcome home Steve. Look forward to hearing about your voyage.

I have ROAM. Does it work coming from another country with required negative test?

[Steve Laume]

I didn't have a test from the Bahamas, and they let me right in with a phone call. The USA is being pretty lax these days.

[John Stone]

Last night at twilight I was able to shoot Procyon off the fantail. It's not ideal as I only have one edge of the SW horizon visible and there are boats moored there so I have to bring the star down between them while the FR is swinging on her mooring. LOL. But I got to go through the reduction steps. Just a single line of position so only one "leg" of the "x". Looks to be about 3-4 nm off my actual position which is better than I deserve shooting between the boats. It took too long to work the reduction as I am out of practice. I need to do it over and over so it's absolutely in my head. Should only take 20 min max. Took me a lot longer last night. What I really need to do is purchase a practice bubble sight tube for my sextant so I can practice all this at home and have it down before I am off sailing.

I replaced the whole-horizon mirror in my sextant last year with a traditional split mirror. The star is supposed to be a little brighter in the split mirror. I think it was but I'd have to use both mirrors side by side to be sure.

I'd like to work the celestial hard on the way home. Last time I focused on star shots to get a fix but we had a lot of cloud cover so this time my plan is to rely more on a running fix with sun shots which provides more opportunity throughout the day. My dream shot though is a dawn star shot of Polars to the north then cross to the east and bag Venus in the east. A perfect 90 degree cross for a true fix. But it seems like the conditions would have to be ideal so neither celestial body is obscured by clouds. But it would be neat if it worked out. The simple joys in life....

[Steve Laume]

Glad you are having fun with this, but I wouldn't toss out my GPS units just yet.
I have fully embraced modern navigation systems. Fact of the matter is I would not be doing the trips I do, if I had to rely on a sextant. It is amazing how far we have come as far as navigation is concerned.

[John Stone]

Glad you are having fun with this, but I wouldn't toss out my GPS units just yet.
I have fully embraced modern navigation systems. Fact of the matter is I would not be doing the trips I do, if I had to rely on a sextant. It is amazing how far we have come as far as navigation is concerned.

Its more than fun--it's kinda like a quest. And it's not that hard. It's just a lot of reading followed by a lot of practice followed by more reading, like anything else that is challenging to learn. But it sure seems to me that many people today have the attention span of a gnat. It seems people read less. They want someone on YouTube to tell them or show them how to do it. They would rather sit back and be passively entertained day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

Anyway, for those that learn some celestial it makes you really appreciate the accomplishments of all those offshore sailors and voyagers before GPS and what they accomplished, especially in the non trade wind routes. I can say this with 100 percent confidence, if there was no GPS available today and sailors had to rely on celestial I suspect there would be a whole lot less people out "cruising" via the offshore routes.

There is not much navigational accomplishment when we rely on GPS. We are still sailing, and handling our boats, and making lots of hard decisions, snd mastering all kinds of challenging skills...that's all true. No doubt about that. But GPS took a big chunk out of the skills required for successful offshore voyaging.

I'm not planing to give up my GPS. One reason is good charts are getting very hard to come by. That's just the world we live in today. But I'd like to get to a point where I can make a couple difficult voyages without GPS. There is a kind of anxiety or fear missing that you can't duplicate when you have GPS on board. And for me anyway, and probably many others as well, dealing with anxiety and fear makes life worth living.

I'd sure encourage anyone out there that has an interest in celestial to give it a try...even if you never use it offshore.

[wikakaru]

Its more than fun--it's kinda like a quest. And it's not that hard. It's just a lot of reading followed by a lot of practice followed by more reading, like anything else that is challenging to learn. But it sure seems to me that many people today have the attention span of a gnat. It seems people read less. They want someone on YouTube to tell them or show them how to do it. They would rather sit back and be passively entertained day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

Anyway, for those that learn some celestial it makes you really appreciate the accomplishments of all those offshore sailors and voyagers before GPS and what they accomplished, especially in the non trade wind routes. I can say this with 100 percent confidence, if there was no GPS available today and sailors had to rely on celestial I suspect there would be a whole lot less people out "cruising" via the offshore routes.

There is not much navigational accomplishment when we rely on GPS. We are still sailing, and handling our boats, and making lots of hard decisions, snd mastering all kinds of challenging skills...that's all true. No doubt about that. But GPS took a big chunk out of the skills required for successful offshore voyaging.

I'm not planing to give up my GPS. One reason is good charts are getting very hard to come by. That's just the world we live in today. But I'd like to get to a point where I can make a couple difficult voyages without GPS. There is a kind of anxiety or fear missing that you can't duplicate when you have GPS on board. And for me anyway, and probably many others as well, dealing with anxiety and fear makes life worth living.

I'd sure encourage anyone out there that has an interest in celestial to give it a try...even if you never use it offshore.

For many people sailing is mostly a means of travel, and the reward for them is in all the places they can visit by boat, not in being exceptionally good sailors. For those people, the most expedient way to travel by boat is to use a GPS to tell them where to go. In general that is a good characterization of many of the YouTube sailing channels.

You call it a "quest"; I call it a "sport". ToMAYto, ToMAHto. To me it's all about taking a mundane task and making it far more difficult than it ought to be by adding some arbitrary set of limitations. It is the limitations that yield the reward. Robert Frost said that writing poetry without rhyme is like playing tennis without a net. To me sailing is like that, and I have mentioned in the past that my figurative tennis net is sailing without an engine. When I sail in Maine, I choose to sail without an engine, and I find that having that extra hurdle makes the sailing much more rewarding than the sailing I do in Florida where, by necessity I have to have an engine to safely get in and out of a channel that is busy with commercial barge traffic.

If your figurative net is not using a GPS, then more power to you. I think that limitation ups the level on the sportiness scale well beyond that of traveling without an engine. It sets a high bar that few people achieve these days. You say it's not that hard, and while I agree that the mechanics of taking a sight and reducing it to an LOP aren't all that hard, making a safe landfall or avoiding some offlying shoal after days of overcast without a celestial fix really IS hard. I'm sure the personal reward will be commensurately high when you eventually do make a voyage without using GPS.

I have to say that in some ways navigating without GPS today has got to be more difficult than it was 50 years ago, before the coast guard started decommissioning light houses, light ships, radio direction beacons, and other aids to navigation that people in those days would use in approaching the coast. That is arguably the most dangerous part of a voyage. I personally would enjoy reading about your progress towards that goal, John, and wish you safe travels while doing so.

Smooth sailing,

Jim

[John Stone]

Its more than fun--it's kinda like a quest. And it's not that hard. It's just a lot of reading followed by a lot of practice followed by more reading, like anything else that is challenging to learn. But it sure seems to me that many people today have the attention span of a gnat. It seems people read less. They want someone on YouTube to tell them or show them how to do it. They would rather sit back and be passively entertained day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

Anyway, for those that learn some celestial it makes you really appreciate the accomplishments of all those offshore sailors and voyagers before GPS and what they accomplished, especially in the non trade wind routes. I can say this with 100 percent confidence, if there was no GPS available today and sailors had to rely on celestial I suspect there would be a whole lot less people out "cruising" via the offshore routes.

There is not much navigational accomplishment when we rely on GPS. We are still sailing, and handling our boats, and making lots of hard decisions, snd mastering all kinds of challenging skills...that's all true. No doubt about that. But GPS took a big chunk out of the skills required for successful offshore voyaging.

I'm not planing to give up my GPS. One reason is good charts are getting very hard to come by. That's just the world we live in today. But I'd like to get to a point where I can make a couple difficult voyages without GPS. There is a kind of anxiety or fear missing that you can't duplicate when you have GPS on board. And for me anyway, and probably many others as well, dealing with anxiety and fear makes life worth living.

I'd sure encourage anyone out there that has an interest in celestial to give it a try...even if you never use it offshore.

For many people sailing is mostly a means of travel, and the reward for them is in all the places they can visit by boat, not in being exceptionally good sailors. For those people, the most expedient way to travel by boat is to use a GPS to tell them where to go. In general that is a good characterization of many of the YouTube sailing channels.

You call it a "quest"; I call it a "sport". ToMAYto, ToMAHto. To me it's all about taking a mundane task and making it far more difficult than it ought to be by adding some arbitrary set of limitations. It is the limitations that yield the reward. Robert Frost said that writing poetry without rhyme is like playing tennis without a net. To me sailing is like that, and I have mentioned in the past that my figurative tennis net is sailing without an engine. When I sail in Maine, I choose to sail without an engine, and I find that having that extra hurdle makes the sailing much more rewarding than the sailing I do in Florida where, by necessity I have to have an engine to safely get in and out of a channel that is busy with commercial barge traffic.

If your figurative net is not using a GPS, then more power to you. I think that limitation ups the level on the sportiness scale well beyond that of traveling without an engine. It sets a high bar that few people achieve these days. You say it's not that hard, and while I agree that the mechanics of taking a sight and reducing it to an LOP aren't all that hard, making a safe landfall or avoiding some offlying shoal after days of overcast without a celestial fix really IS hard. I'm sure the personal reward will be commensurately high when you eventually do make a voyage without using GPS.

I have to say that in some ways navigating without GPS today has got to be more difficult than it was 50 years ago, before the coast guard started decommissioning light houses, light ships, radio direction beacons, and other aids to navigation that people in those days would use in approaching the coast. That is arguably the most dangerous part of a voyage. I personally would enjoy reading about your progress towards that goal, John, and wish you safe travels while doing so.

Smooth sailing,

Jim

Jim, you described it very well. I absolutely see sailing as a sport. I just meant the pursuit of celestial is more of a quest than "fun." To me anyway. But no question it is a component of making it a more challenging sport.

And you are right about the difference between the mechanics of CN being a magnitude less difficult than employing it operationally offshore on a small boat. I've done enough of that to really appreciate those intrepid sailors navigating celestially to appreciate their skills. And that's also what I meant about on the non tradewind routes--often up wind and with a lot of cloud cover. I'm awed by what they accomplished.

I'm working through a collection of 8 books by HW Tilman about his head shaking voyages to the high latitudes to climb glaciers and mountains. I'm on the fourth book now about his second voyage to Greenland and Baffin Island. Snatching sun shots and stars when they could get them. Dodging icebergs. What an amazing individual. The sport of sailing and exploring at its highest level.

I am certainly enjoying reading to improve my knowledge of celestial nav and applying it much as I can. As I mentioned on my last voyage home I took a number of star shots for true fixes and it worked but we had a lot of cloud cover which really made it difficult to rely exclusively on stars with their very narrow window to shoot them (dawn and dusk). That's why I am learning more about how to employ a running fix based on multiple sun shots taken through out the day. Then, I will grab the star shots for an accurate fix when the opportunity presents itself. That's my plan anyway. To do that I have to get faster and more comfortable with the reduction. Tilman says we make it out to be more difficult than it is. He got comfortable with good DR plots augmented by sun shots when he could get them. For me, and I think for most modern sailors, I have to let go of the comfort of always knowing exactly where I am 24/7. So there is a mental component to this I am still getting my arms around. That's why I think to get the real experience you can't have the GPS running in the back ground (or even on board really). Like engineless sailing. If you are executing a difficult maneuver under sail but the engine to ticking over "just in case" or even if it's off but you can start it with the turn of a key, it's not engineless sailing.

Neither is right or wrong. Just depends on what your looking for.