Where Is The Far Reach—Part II

[John Stone]

Yesterday it was time to sail back to Elephant Bay, though truth be told I’d prefer to have remained in the calmer and quieter Brewers Bay. I have about two weeks to get ready before I enter my departure window for the 1250nm sail home.

So, with some regret, on the morning of 30 April, I hoisted a single reefed main and stays’l and broad reached out of the anchorage. Once past the runway exclusion zone, I hauled in on the sheets and beat passed a fuel tanker anchored south of the airport, past Lindbergh Bay, and out towards Porpoise Rocks. I tacked over and gave a wide berth to a heavily laden fuel tanker being towed into Krum Bay by two tugs. With the wind about 20 kts, I tacked up the West Gregerie Channel tearing past Honeymoon Bay to our mooring about a mile up the channel in Elephant Bay. 
Tomorrow is 1 May. I have about two weeks to get ready for the voyage home.

I now have a few more pictures of the Far Reach under sail. Phil Richmond took these as I was sailing out of Brewers Bay.

[John Stone]

It was a dark and stormy night...

Ok. So not exactly...but we have a bit of a squall coming through. The wind is up and jumping around a bit. The temp has dropped some so it’s a little cooler at the moment.

I was sitting here reading. Been reviewing my celestial nav today and going through the steps getting reacquainted. Took a few shots earlier today and working the solutions. Decided to light off all the oil lamps. The Far Reach feels comfortable and inviting. Simple yet elegant. Got everything I need. Well almost...Gayle’s not here. It’s 2330. Time for sleep....

[John Stone]

Nothing major happening right now. Waiting for the wind to fill in along my planned route home to NC. The sub-Tropical Azores-Bermuda-Florida RIDGE is not fully established yet. Cold fronts are still pressing in to the subtropics and suppressing the winds in the Atlantic along my path.

What to do? Well, I’ve been reading some celestial nav pubs and shooting the sun and working sight reduction problems. More on that in annother post. But yesterday, I picked up a bottle of air from Scotty at Hi-Tech Dive Center. Today, I rigged up the hookah and spent about 90 min in the water. I wore my farmer john shorty with a long sleeve rash guard, so I was toasty warm the whole time. I spent 50 min cleaning the bottom. It was mostly just green and grey slime. It came off easy enough.

After the hull was clean, I spent about a half-hour cleaning all the growth off the mooring pendant, riser, chain, and shackles and then inspected the whole thing. Looks in good shape. Then, it was back aboard and time to rinse off my gear.

I really enjoyed hanging out under the boat in the clear water. As I looked at the hull, while scraping the slime off with the plastic squeegy, I thought back to the years of work rebuilding the FR. I remember back then thinking to myself “someday I’ll be swimming under this hull cleaning the bottom and enjoying the warm clear water.” So today, I remembered thinking that very thing and it gave me a big smile. OK, I admit I also did a few arm pumps under water and then I fist bumped the FR and she fist bumped back. I’m sure I heard her sigh too and say “thanks man for the new lease on life. We sure are having fun aren’t we.” Yes we are....

[Vincent]

Great post. Millions are jealous. Well, at least one,lol.

[mgphl52]

Great post. Millions are jealous. Well, at least one,lol.

Plus 1...

[John Stone]

On my last passage home from the VI to NC in May 2016 I took a few noon sights for LOPs. Simple stuff to compute latitude and if you take the shot exactly at local noon, then you get your longitude too. But it’s a very limited capability...you get one chance a day to get the shot. I was a youngster when I learned the noon sight technique, back before anyone but a rocket scientist dreamed of something called GPS. But, I never got proficient past this basic skill. And when I made those shots in 2016 I hadn’t done it in 40 years. I was not impressed with my skill. I, like most people in the modern world, have come to rely on GPS because it’s quick, simple, and accurate. But...using GPS always leaves me feeling unsatisfied. Like I cheated. It’s too easy. There is zero challenge. There is no reward.

Since I have some time to kill waiting for the winds to fill in for the trip home to NC, I decided now was the right time to pursue a practical level of proficiency in celestial navigation. I started by going back to the very book I used to learn how to take a noon-sight when I was 17 years old...”Self-Taught Navigation: Ten Easy Steps to Master Celestial Navigation, by Robert Kittredge. While I also read this week parts of “Celestial Navigation in the GPS Age” by John Karl, Kittredge’s Ten Steps is my go to source. It was printed in 1970. Back then, Kittredge lived in S. Florida. He taught lots of sailors celestial navigation. I lived in S. Florida then too and was just starting to sail when the book was published. It was popular...and for good reason—he insisted that it’s just not that hard. His entire aim was to demystify celestial navigation by breaking it down into its basic parts and keeping it simple. He argued you don’t have to learn astrophysics before you learn the 10 basic steps for sight reduction. Turns out he was right. And, interestingly, Kittridge was a good friend of Eric Hiscock, who devoted a whole chapter to him in his book “Atlantic Cruise in Wanderer III.”

For the last three days I have pretty much just devoted myself to reading. To be fair, to teach yourself celestial is a lot of reading. Patient reading. Reading for comprehension. Some of it’s confusing. But thoughtful reading, persistence, and some trial and error is the key to sorting it out.

So, I read for many hours each day then rowed Seeet Pea down-channel in the afternoon to open up a small section of the western horizon and took a series of sun shots. Then back to the FR where I spent a number of hours working through the sight reduction process. By yesterday afternoon, I could reduce a shot without looking at the instructions. I also practiced using plotting sheets and the techniques for maintaining a “running Fix.” Last evening, at dusk, I took a star shot of Sirius. After reading through another chapter this morning on reducing star sights I reduced it in about 10 min. My latest fix was an acceptable 2 NM...room for improvement but close enough to get me home.

This is a good time to mention that I am using HO 249 Sight Reduction for Air Navigation. HO 249 is not as accurate (.5’) as HO 229 (.1’) taught at the professional trade schools but it’s simpler and faster than 229. And the small boat navigators I have read about seem pretty emphatic that 1-2 NM is about as good as you can expect on the pitching deck of a small boat off shore. Additional advantages of 249 are it requires less books and has a better process for using pre selected multiple stars for quick-shot true fixes. It’s also the same system used by Larry Pardey, Eric Hiscock, Miles Smeeton and many other legendary small boat navigators.

Because I have only a small section of the horizon available to me I can’t practice the pre computed shots of multiple preselected stars that Kittredge claims can all be reduced in 10 minutes total...for all three shots. I can set it up and learn the steps but can’t make the shots due to mountains all around me.

I’m currently writing a longer more detailed post for my blog and will provide a link when I post it.

[John Stone]

I practiced quickly acquiring and bringing the sun down to the shoreline from the FR. Then I made the shots using the real horizon after rowing down channel in my dinghy Sweet Pea.

[drysuit2]

I've been off the board for awhile. So I just "Binge Read" this thread.
Thoroughly enjoyable.

Thanks for sharing with us all.

Frank

[John Stone]

While I wait for our departure window I am continuing to work on celestial navigation. Night before last I could not make the LOP from a shot of Sirius work out. Triple checked it. Clearly I made a mistake somewhere. Could be I shot the wrong star—but I dismiss that. Possible, yes. Probable, no. I have a pretty good grip on star ID.

Could be the half moon near Sirius plus the lights of St Thomas plus the “whole horizon mirror” on my sextant washed out the star enough that I simply did not shoot it accurately. So, I’m a little frustrated by the failure but not worried about it. The previous night I had a good sight reduction of Sirius. More practice and perhaps better results once I get to sea. I know the procedure.

But, my celestial frustration continued unabated yesterday as two sun LOPs failed to reduce accurately. They were too far off. I looked over the math and right away saw some errors. I had transposed a critical number from the Almanac. I wrote down 105° 45’.5. But I should have written down 105° 54’.5. Thus the calculation to get to Local Hour Angle was inaccurate, which meant the calculation derived from the tables in HO 249 were busted.

I corrected the numbers this morning and reworked the problems and one LOP was within 1nm the other 2nm. So good to go. Big, though obvious, lessons for me—the devils in the details. Be damn careful with the numbers! I’ll also refine how I actually look at the thousands of numbers in the many columns and rows of data.

To avoid running out of worksheets I scribbled out my own form for the practice shots—picture below. Hand writing the data field adds to the fake drama created by the picture of the math. Seriously, there is only 6 or 7 calculations and it’s adding and subtracting only. I’m having fun and it’s very rewarding.

In other news, the winds in the in the Atlantic to the NW of me remains too light to start the voyage home. I attached a snap shot of my planned route on the Windy App. There is still very little air out there with no improvements projected for the next week. When you are a windjammer you have to be patient. So the Far Reach has her wings folded. We are patiently waiting together enjoying each other’s company.

[Paul D.]

I always loved writing down all the work reducing sights. It made me feel so math-smart when I grew up in serious math self consciousness. I, like many, was a victim of New Math.

You're right too, it really is simple math and most of the battle is finding there right method for the tediousness of the actual process.

Keep it up,

[jbenagh]

John,

the nighttime cabin photo from 5/6 is stunning! You've built yourself a cozy home afloat.

Jeff

[wikakaru]

I had transposed a critical number from the Almanac. I wrote down 105° 45’.5. But I should have written down 105° 54’.5. Thus the calculation to get to Local Hour Angle was inaccurate, which meant the calculation derived from the tables in HO 249 were busted.

I corrected the numbers this morning and reworked the problems and one LOP was within 1nm the other 2nm. So good to go. Big, though obvious, lessons for me—the devils in the details. Be damn careful with the numbers! I’ll also refine how I actually look at the thousands of numbers in the many columns and rows of data.

To avoid errors like this, try this trick: after copying the number from the nautical almanac or HO249 to your worksheet, double-check it by verifying each digit of the number BACKWARDS one digit at a time. So if the number is 105° 54.5', check it as 5, decimal, 4, 5, degree, 5, 0, 1. When you view the numbers backwards like this it focuses you to concentrate harder, see the numbers in a different way, and find your errors quickly and easily. It is especially helpful when you are tired from standing watch or feeling queasy from the motion of the boat.

Smooth sailing,

Jim

[John Stone]

Paul and Jeff. Thanks for the kind words and encouragement.

Jim, that’s a great technique I had forgotten about. I have used it in the past when checking a paper for spelling/grammar errors, though clearly I have not used it to proof my missives on this thread..... Thanks for taking the time to suggest it. I’ll incorporate it as suggested and see how it works on my upcoming voyage home.

[wikakaru]

To avoid running out of worksheets I scribbled out my own form for the practice shots—picture below. Hand writing the data field adds to the fake drama created by the picture of the math. Seriously, there is only 6 or 7 calculations and it’s adding and subtracting only. I’m having fun and it’s very rewarding.

You may want to try plastic-laminating a few blank copies of each kind of worksheet (noon sight, LOP, latitude by Polaris, etc.) and doing your work on the laminated copies with a grease pencil. This has the benefits of making your worksheets durable and waterproof and avoids carrying stacks of blank worksheets. The same goes for plotting sheets. The drawback is that you don't have a full paper record of every day's calculations, but it's rare to need to go back that far. You can always take a photo of the day's worksheets with your phone or other digital device so you can zoom in and have a look at older work if you need to. Combine the modern with the archaic!

Smooth sailing,

Jim

[mgphl52]

You can always take a photo of the day's worksheets with your phone or other digital device so you can zoom in and have a look at older work if you need to...Jim

Digital device??? On Far Reach??? Surely you jest...