Fenix in Panama

[fenixrises]

Hi all,
Well I`m finally in Pananma.

The trip down was at first quite slow. Initially I though I could make Panama in about two weeks. BUT during the begining of the trip I had very little wind. I only took 25 gals of diesel with me and was burning it at a prodigious rate.

By the time I reached the Caicos Islands I used over fouteen gallons. I decided that it would be prudent to stop in Kingston, Jamaica to refuel.

In the wee hours of the 14th day since leaving Jacksonville There was an unexpected windshift while I was asleep. I awoke quite groggy and really didn`t want to get up. But i did anyway...Good thing. I looked outside on the near moonless night and there was Jamaica off to starboard.

I could see the island and realized the wind had shifted bringing me much closer than expected. Fenix was going only about two knots in a very light southerly wind when I noticed that the large swells coming in from the southeast seemed to disappear. While I pondered this seemingly unexplainable event I heard that most frightening of sounds....

SCRUNCH!!! Fenix just hit the reef. Almost outright panic and fear welled up inside me. It was 4 AM and I was a bit punchy and half asleep. I dashed below to Turn on the power so I could start the engine, SCRUNCH!!! again. quick back on deck, check course, swing tiller hard over to go on reciprical course, one more little SCRUNCH!!! and we were clear, seating bullets. We were just south of the very eastern most end of the island and hit the reef that extends for a number of miles offshore.

Later that day we finally entered Kingston harbor almost two weeks to the minute after leaving Jacksonville, running on fumes. I had maybe two gallons of diesel left in the main tank, of which only about one half gallon is usable.

A frustratingly slow start to the voyage. Went through one small storm. Mostly when there was wind it was forward the beam and usually light.

Stayed for four days and met Rooney, one of the hams who run the mariners net on 14,300mhz. Checked the bottom and found only a few small straches up forward on the keel from our encounter with the reef.

Set off on Monday about 9 am. Wind was pretty strong 20-25 knots from SSE-SE and off we went with main and Yankee. Ran into another small gale a bit further south for about a day but at least we were sailin. Had best days run of 134 miles on Wednesday I think.

Making good time and I hoped to make it to PC by Friday afternoon. Once again the fickle winds and local conditions foiled the plan. As the day progressed the went lighter and finally stopped altogether only to be replaced a short while later by a booming rainstorm from the SW, almost on the nose. Fortunately the wind was just far enough off the bow so Fenix could powersail at a good clip.

After dark I could start to see the loom of the lights of Panama on the southern horizon along with the big ship nav lights that were all around. Of couse all this time the rainstorm was closing in and eventually visibility was down to 100 feet, no moon light and big ships all around. And we were cooking along at 5 knots. I hoped the charts, GPS, the land and we were all where we were supposed to be!! We were. A bit soaked and tired we passes the breakwater at 1,15 am and were nchor down about 3am.

Presently am done with paperwork for transit and await time for transit. Should be early next week.

For now happy sails to all,
Fred

[tartansailor]

Nice going Fred, really enjoyed your post and look forward to more, from the mundane routine to the adrenaline rush.
Dick

[s.v. LaVida]

Sounds like that was a very scary morning!

Good luck on your transit and keep us posted on your progress.

Fair Winds,
Rit

[jefff]

Our fingers are crossed on your transit, also no more reefs at 4am, even with our boats, good thing you were waking up! Great Story!

[Russell]

I hope you sustained no serious damage in your meeting the reef.

Are you planning to cross the pacific right after your canal transit? Or are you waiting till after cyclone season?

[fenixrises]

Hi all,

I am going through the canal tomorrow June 3rd.
It is set up so that west bound is half way in late afternoon then finish next morning.

I will depart for the Galapagos and points west about the 6th.

Met a very interesting man here. His name is Al. He is finising a civcumnavigation, that will end in San Diego, CA. AL started just 13 months ago aboard his Nor´Sea 27. He is single handing, 71 years old and has had a heart and kidney transplant. So don´t think you can´t go sailing just cause you have a few years under your belt.

Happy sails to all,
Fred

[Tom in Cambria]

Thanks for the post about Al the Circumnavigator. I'd like to shake his hand and pat him on the back. An inspirational voyage to be sure. I don't want to intrude on his privacy if he's trying to stay under the radar, but if not, I'd like to know the name of his boat and his full name and do you know if he has ham or SSB radio aboard? You can write me directly off board if he's set up to and wants to talk. In any case thanks for the posts about your journey and congratulations. You have many admirers here following your voyage who don't post on the BB. How about you and a ham or SSB set up? We get a pretty good signal here on the West Coast all the way to Moorea and beyond. My own radio is in the shop right now, but my ham and SSB friends are available. Great voyage and good job and thanks for the account as the others have said.

[Bill Cochrane]

He's been out 13 months now and has gone most of the way around on his boat, Catalyst. Through the canal, up to San Diego and he'll cross his outbound track. His Ham call is N7PCY and he's on shiptrak.org; read about him and the trip at http://www.organ-donation-for-life.com/ ... /index.htm

Quite an inspiring story, to say the least.

[Tom in Cambria]

Interesting link and obviously he wants attention for his cause since he's promoting organ donations and looking for donors. Quite a feat for a guy in his 70s. Northsea 27 is a Lyle Hess design, I believe, and a sea worthy boat but doesn't have the storage that a Cape Dory of the same length would have and that clinker style hull has a lot of wetted surface. Still he's averaging 110 miles a day which sounds pretty good. Quite an accomplishment for a healthy person much less someone with a heart and kidney transplant.

[fenixrises]

Hi all,

After 13 very frustrating days we are in the Galapagos.

The transit of the Panama canal was easy. We started in the late afternoon uplocking and then went directly to a big mooring bouy in Gatun Lake. There we spent the night and were retrived by 7 AM the next morning. We completed the passage by around 2PM that day.

Fenix went through each lock side tied to Little Coconut a 32 foot steel Tahitiana. The owner, Pete, was from OZ. He bought the boat in FLA and was returning with it to OZ. This made things very easy as Coco was a heavy vessel with a good sized motor and we just sort of tagged along.

After all the years of reading and hearing about the whole thing I must say the transit was a bit anticlimatic, but in a good way as all went very smooth. Acutual distance was about 32 miles.

The Atlantic side is where most boats start and the people at the Panama Canal Yacht Club were well oiled in the process of the transit. A bit too well oiled!! Typical of many third world countries the prime directive seems to be to extract as much money as possible from anyone who has more.

I got into quite an argument with one extractor. It turned out in my favor, but just. My transit was a day late...seems the Advisor wasn´t informed of my passage date? Which was a good thing as the side tie to Coco made the transit easier.

Colon, the Atlantic side of the canal zone is a dangerous place. Many have written about it. During my stay 2 sailors in thier 60´s from different boats were mugged on different days in broad daylight in the city. Bystanders were just that... standing by doing nothing to assist. One of the mugged guys was actually half way in his taxi when he was dragged back out of the taxi by his assailant. The taxi driver of course did nothing.

Balboa, the city on the Pacific side seems much nicer. It is certainly much cleaner. I did not stay but one day. Just repleneshed diesel, water and a few food stuffs.

When we finished the transit and went to the moorings at the Balboa yacht club, it was horrible. The wind had come up quite strong and the mooring field was a rolly bouncy place during my stay. The locals said that this was quite unusual.

Fenix and I started off about 7 in the morning. As typical, so far the wind was forward of the beam. Getting out of the Gulf of Panama was quite a trick as the course is due south for about 120 miles.

The main problem is that the water is shallow, under 200 feet until you actually get out of the gulf. So there are swells from 2 or 3 different directions and a short steep chop from different directions as the wind sort of sworls around in the gulf. Miserable!!!

And it didn´t get any better. We took 13 days to get to the Galapagos, straight line distance about 860 miles, over the bottom miles probably 1,100. All the time the wind was forward the beam and we were often close hauled. On top of that there is the Humbolt current to fight.

The cutter re rig proved it´s worth however. With main, yankee and staysail the boat had good drive and balance. It was easy to drop the staysail or throw a reef in the main to reduce area. Even so, I often could sail no closer than 60 degrees to the true wind. This was because of the sea condition, not the boat´s ability to point.

We arrived yesterday. There are gooseneck barnacles growing on the starboard quarter from being under water for so long. And there is algae growing halfway up the port bow from being constantly wet.

But all things considered we had a good trip. A number of days over 100 miles, very good since that was often hard on the wind in very tough sea conditions.

Next the Marquesas. Plan to leave the 27th. BTW Santa Cruz is no longer a sleepy little Galapagos island. South America, Equador, has been transplanted here. Complete with cell phones, internet cafes, retaurants galore, tourits traps everywhere and probably 5,000 Equadoreans.

But they do have food and hardware supplies in abundance.

Till next time,
Fred and Fenix wish you well

[Neil Gordon]

Fair winds!!!

[jefff]

as Mr. Burns says on the Simpsons, Excellent!

[Frank Vernet]

Fred,

Inspiring posts. I visited the locks and the PC when TAD to Rodman NS...before the May 1999 handover to the Panamians. I remember Colon being a rather rough place. Wathcing the PC ops was fascinating though.

Looking forward to future posts. Let us know how Phoenix bears the wear-n-tear of a trans-Pacific voyage. I'm always musing how what it would take to get Sirius up to trans-oceanic standards.

May Neptune favor you.

[fenixrises]

Hi all,

Some more info.

The previous info about Al Lien is correct. He´s an experienced sailor but even so what he is doing is remarkable. We spent many hours in the Panama Canal Yacht club outdoor restaurant spinning yarns. I helped him with a few small projects and he bought me cold Cokes... a fair trade.

He arrived in Balboa the day after me. When leaving the slip in Colon he backed into a dock which caused his self steering to jump and disengage the gear. When he got to Balboa I saw him come in and went out to say hi. After his family went ashore he got out the manual, Monitor, and I looked through it. Re engaging the gear was easy and only took a few minutes.

Al should still be at sea as of now. I think he is headed this way but I will most likely be gone before he arrives, though I would like to see him, again I can´t wait.

I also have a ham radio. Call sign is KI4MMB, Kilo India 4 Mike Mike Bravo. I report in to The Pacific Seafares Net, usually nightly when at sea. My position is reported on the Pangolin site and I think ShipTrak as well. Sometimes I monitor 14.300 during the day, but no set time.

There´s the Intercontinental Net, 7am EDT to 12 noon EDT.
Maritime Moble Net noon EDT to 10 pm EDT. The Pacific Mariners Net from 0300 UTC till it is done. They all operate on 14.300 MgHz. Are all volunteer and are a great group of people. They offer any assitance possible to ships at sea. I used them for 2 way phone patches many times. While sailing I heard them assist two boats that lost rudders while underway and one boat under assault by a small boat full of refugees just north of Pueto Rico. All have websites so check them out.

On the passage down from Panama once again I used the motor quite a bit. Mostly in calms or very light wind conditions. Used about 20 gallons this time. Since leaving FLA it seems I have powersailed or motored almost 25% of the time. Once I leave the Galapagos I will most likely not use the motor as much crossing the rest of the Pacific.

Those of you familiar with my website know that I did extensive work on Fenix. Probably the number one thing was water proofing the boat by glassing the hull and deck together. This single thing paid major dividends. The boat remained relatively dry below. Only dollops of water occasionally entered the compainionway, which I wanted to keep open along with at least one portlight, for ventilation.

Never having sailed extensively with the stock sloop rig I do not know if the cutter re rig is easier or more efficient. However it does work well for me. The main sail with two reefs and no battens is a mu,st IMO. Three reefs are not needed. Usually anything more than two reefs it is time to bring the main all the way down.

The self steering required some more modification. What I eventually did was rework the wind vane so it creates 4 times more power. The area is the same I just moved the material further aft. To compensate I had to add quite a bit to the counterweight. This combination worked wonders on the whole system.

The reason for doing this is a bit complex. In very light wind the trim tab, because of water flow off the main rudder, would actually push the wind vane around. I know sounds weird but that is what was happening. Now with the more forcefull vane that does not happen.

Another big but stange sounding plus, is the increase in mass of the whole wind vane. This makes the whole self steering system more stable. Of course the key is the ball bearings to keep friction low. Now the system will steer the boat in very light appearant winds and has handled 25+ knots without a problem. I think now it is ready for the long offwind passages ahead.

As for modifying your boat... Keep the water out #1. Bulletproof rigging #2. How you handle your sails is up to you. I chose traditional reefing, because of cost and reliability.

I´m 57 and not very nimble but can handle the boat myself in every thing I have encountered so far. One helpful thing I found is to heave to. I will do this at the drop of a hat. Reefing or changing sails is much easier this way as well as other small things that need to be done while underway from time to time.

My crew for the transit were two Assie lads from one boat. Great guys, Steve and Clinton are taking Steve´s boat to Oz from the states. They were scheduled to transit on the 11th. I might see them here in the Gals b4 I leave. The other two line handlers were a young couple from Brazil who were bicycling up through central america from Brazil.

Imagine a CD 28 with 5 people aboard and two bicycles and related backpacking gear. We were full. Thankfully Clint volunteered to sleep in the cockpit, a notion voted by all as a good idea cause Clint is a self professed extreemly loud snoorer.

Thats all for now folks, take care and enjoy the summer sailing season,

Fred and Fenix

[Dick Barthel]

Fred,

Your adventure is inspiring to a coastal cruiser who's chance for adventure is limited. Thanks for taking time to keep us all updated. I'm sure many are enjoying your well written accounts.

Dick