The first thing everybody asked was, why
are you doing this again? Or, you're doing it again? I guess I just
wasn't finished yet. On shore we see the world through filters. We put things in
categories, and that's how we get through the day. But sailing is phenomenological, it
puts you right there, there are no filters. It puts you right in contact
with the world around you, the fish, the birds and the wind on your face. It
teaches you what living is in the same way a violin teaches the player what
music is. This is a new boat for me, a 1984
Ericson 38 which I spent a year preparing for this voyage because it's
2,300 nautical miles from Los Angeles to Oahu. Funny how I didn't remember the
seasickness on the second day. Well, you're the one who wanted to come. How do you like it? Let's go on deck and put in another reef. We'll be doing this four or
five times a day, I'll take you through the steps. First, we need to slack off on
the main sheet to relieve pressure on the sail. Now we can lower the main
halyard -- see the sail coming down? and take up some tension on the luff downhaul that will keep it there, and then we can crank the main halyard back up Now let's take the main sheet off of its
winch and replace it with the reef line. When we crank the reef line tight you
can see the sail drawn out toward the end of the boom, we're just making a
smaller sail out of a bigger sail. And now we can take the reef line off of
the winch and replace it with the main sheet again, crank the main sheet in-- Wind vane's doing fine. And we're riding
better, wouldn't you say? One thing about sailing--you don't just sit there, you take
some action. So how's it look out there? Water temperature 66, I guess we're not in Hawaii yet. Why look--the sun almost came out. After four days in my long johns I'd forgotten about the sun. So I can stroll around the deck and try not
to think about home, where there's a
holiday today. I'm just not good at this. Well that's very exciting. Happy Fourth of July. Oh-- a message. How many people were living in the
United States in 1776? Hmmm. Three million. Two point five million people lived in the USA in 1776. What year did the movie "Independence Day" come out? That was one of the stupidest... Human beings are busy little balls of
energy who always have to have something to do and I'm one of them. But 500 miles offshore you're not the
world anymore, you're in the world, and you know it because you can feel the
rain on the end of your nose and the cold in your fingers. You don't have to
do anything, you just hold on. You're not it, you're part of it--a small part of it,
and paradoxically as the world gets bigger so do you. You can see by the
amount of dirty dishes how much I've eaten in a week. This is a salt water
pump, all the water you want just with your foot. Is a rainbow the diffusion and
refraction of sunlight by water droplets, or is it a rapturous arc across the
heavenly sky? Well, you can't Google it out here, so it is what it is. But you can
look upon the works of man and despair, because my wonderfully designed deck top
fuel jug racks have shifted during the night as a result of the leeward shrouds
becoming slack. But I think that if I just pull them up and jam them into a
new position so that they're outboard of the grab rails, they'll sit more
vertically and be just fine. I think that'll work. Why wouldn't it work? Looks fine to me. We carry 75 gallons of diesel--55 gallons in the main fuel tank and 20 gallons on deck and we've used six or seven gallons, so
let's put one of the five-gallon jugs in using a 15 dollar rattle siphon, the best
invention since bubble gum. Sleeping on a boat going seven knots in
a seaway is a learned skill. You learn to wake up every hour or two to
make sure nobody's going to run you down, and since the bunk boards turn your bed
into a sort of a coffin, sleeping at all can feel like a journey to the other side... [music] Hey! Hey! Your watch, count. And if anybody's wondering who steers the boat while we're biting the bridesmaids, it's
a self steering vane on the stern. Couldn't be a singlehander without one. This is Day 10, it's my birthday. I'm 74. It feels great. And I just saw the biggest flying fish I've ever seen, and if one of those lands on deck tonight we'll have flying fish with our eggs for breakfast tomorrow. [teapot whistling] [wind and wave sounds] A carbon-fiber whisker pole is a marvel.
I believe this whole rig weighs only 12 pounds, compared to 20 pounds for an
all-aluminum non-adjustable version and for me this really makes things easy up
here. The length of the pole is adjusted by this line here. They need to have
something to hold them up -- I'm using a spinnaker halyard, and then to keep
it down you just run the genoa sheet back
through that block, and you always need a downhaul as well. Well, I did bring that
flying fish down below and I held it over the frying pan and then I had
second thoughts. The idea of a flying fish along with my pancakes and eggs and bacon, the idea of a fish covered with maple syrup just didn't have much appeal.
After 10 days I was very relaxed. All the gear was working well. The boat was
sailing her course-- -Oh give me a break, that's a brand new expandable whisker pole which just collapsed without any warning at all. "Replacing the line...Untie...You'll have one chance at this...Push and twist the line... ...do not pull all the way...you will need a
20 inch hook to grab...do not pull the messenger out of the pole on the new
line..." A long whisker pole let's me me balance the sails, and that makes the self-steering
gear work better. It falls into the category of annoyance, or irritation, and
I can just hear the boat saying Please carry on -- or, stop carrying on? Well, this ain't good. Looks like we've sailed into a hole in the trade winds With a diesel running for 24 hours a day,
every sailor starts an immediate hunt for everything that buzzes or rattles
from the vibration. I got every single one, except [buzzing] [buzzing] yes! [buzzing] No. [buzzing] [ohhhh] [buzzing] Ha ha ha... The wind always comes back, I'd just like
to know where it goes. All right, we're sailing again, you can come out now. No, I don't think there are too many rules on this boat. Listen, nobody likes an engine running
but you didn't hear me rattling about it. You're a valuable member of the crew. Many a cold night in Los Angeles you've warmed this cabin. No, I don't think it's too hot here. This is Hawaii, it's supposed to be like this. You're doing fine. I just wish you could be... more like your sister. Fruit is very healthy on a boat and we
should have some several times a day. Day 16. What a good nap that was. Well,
another really pretty sunset. Well, it's over the back of the boat so I guess actually it's a sunrise. So, ah, let's forget the spaghetti and just get some hash and eggs going. This is a world where a bucket over the side brings up the Fountain of Youth. The water's 85 degrees now, crystal
clear, the sailing is as good as it ever gets on planet earth and all yours for
the taking, day and night. A shower is just that -- do
rinse off with some fresh water, though, so you don't sleep with salt crystals in
your ears. There aren't many surprises out here but here's one of them -- what is that? You know, we passed some Transpac boats yesterday. you don't see this on the ocean at all It--it's a lifeboat. We'd better get over there. If it isn't a life
boat--what is it? It's a very uneasy feeling to come upon
something like this with nothing for a thousand miles. It looks like -- I think
it's probably a fishing boat, lost months or years before from some factory ship. If it had been a lifeboat we would have
had to attempt a rescue. Now we attempt a cocktail. Here's a toast to them that ain't us. In fact, we've made really good progress. We should make a landfall sometime tomorrow morning The last 24 hours nobody sleeps much. You have to be alert. Things might change. Gear might fail -- and you just sort of welcome that fuzzy feeling and settle in for a long night. Make some coffee and put some cookies out. I think it's one of the most exciting parts of any voyage. The idea
now is not to screw it up, make a silly mistake. Not to fall overboard, or fall
asleep, To sit out the night with your binoculars. There are some lights. They can only be
the lights of Oahu, in the pre-dawn. There's our waypoint on the chart --
30 miles down the side of the island of Oahu, where we'll make our turn. We're
going fast, surfing at 10 knots. What a great time for breakfast -- sunlight -- and first sight of the island itself, ten miles off the port beam. And then the turn, and then that final channel marker that
you've been looking for for eighteen days, the entrance to the harbor at Ko Olina on the leeward side of the island. Everything changes now. The big seas stop, the water's protected. That's "Runaway," she did very well in the Transpac . For the first time in a long time the boat will be steady underfoot, we'll be tied by lines in a slip. We'll have to meet people again, and try not to be
weird, or see them as sense data, because they fall into the category of people you love. So true... ...great idea...very accurate Hey, it's stopping, right on cue... But now never mind all the lessons of offshore -- suddenly the universe is broken, it needs to be repaired and examined and checked off.
The Zerk fitting needs to be greased so the steering wheel on the way home will
turn freely. Oh, there must be lots of other things to do. Let's work on the
self-steering gear before the family arrives, we can re-rig everything if we
want to, we have time, and what about that whisker pole that broke, how're we going to fix that? I think I'll call Forespar on the phone and spend a
couple of days shopping for tools... But I did manage to get the line rerun and to make the hole bigger and to have a pole that would work for the way home. In fact, it felt very powerful to once again be able to fix the universe with my toolbox. And on every island in the deep blue sea--it's 5 o'clock somewhere. Tom Hatcher, "Sequence." Simon Engler,
"Adventuress," rafiki cutter. Jobeth Mary H I am on the "Naughty Girl," and she's a 47-foot Catalina sailboat. Keegan Conway, I'm lucky enough
to be aboard the "Big Buzzard," one day I'll have a boat of my own, Cheers.
Olivia Oliver, I am aboard "Big Buzzard" and I love the universe ,okay, take care of it.
My name is George, and "Big Buzzard." My name is Tim Knopf I'm on "Moondrop," which is a 36-foot Union Polaris. I'm Eric gold, my boat is "Liliana," an Ericson 32-3 at the Ala Wai. Hi, I'm Carol, I live on "Kuleana," which
talks about responsibilities, personal, spiritual, kind of my philosophy,and
happiness. Hi, I'm Izzy, I'm also on "Big Buzzard" and
she's a 52-foot sloop, racer-cruiser, and I'm Melissa, another one
of these people on "Big Buzzard." Aloha, I'm Octavia on "Bella Marina," a 44- foot hunter and I love Hawaii.
I'm Petter I'm also on "Bella Marina", I also love Hawaii but I'll soon to be loving Tahiti. After a great week with my family and
friends on the North Shore of Oahu I put them all on an airplane, where they
lowered their seatbackg tables, and I got back on "Thelonious II" and headed offshore again. I hoped that the universe was still there. it was. In a few days I had my sea legs back. I could eat again. I was relaxed,
ready for anything, which was a good thing. When the line on the self-furling headsail breaks violently, the whole sail immediately deploys. So, up and at'em. [muffled] Now...if this is long enough... [sound of loud luffing, banging] Insult to injury. We'll get this done. So I reeved the new...the end of the old genoa reel...went back in there and wrapped it up, and now, in the seas we lost we lost our genoa pre-feeder so I''ll have to hand feed it, and since the halyard is on the mast ...this will be fun. Wait till this squall dies down... It looks all right! Four hours, start to finish. I've been reading [Nigel Calder] on this
topic of roller furlers so I didn't put it back together backwards I should like to say what he writes: "Taking down roller furling headsails can be tough but setting the new sail is even worse. It has to be fed into the luff groove just right and eased up with the
halyard. The portion of sail set will be banging around. The sail still to be set will be billowing all over the deck no matter what claims are made for various
pre-feeders.Headsail changes on roller furlers are no fun, especially for the
short-handed." Well, maybe a little fun. Right now we have a flapping genoa leech, but there's an easy fix for that, too. Here's a question: Am I fixing the
boat, or is the boat fixing me? The sail home from Hawaii to the mainland is always longer than the sail there because of weather patterns -- the North
Pacific High. It brings rain, it brings squalls, it brings a sea that's as flat as a Mill Pond in Maine. It lets you know your boat, and you come to believe a boat is a living thing. [Whale songs] We've been motoring a lot, so the
question is how much fuel do we actually have left? The best way to find out is
measure with a stick. Look at that--lots of fuel left. [music montage, 00:01:00] Good morning. Well here's a change for the better -- we've had 25 knots over the deck for the last couple of days and now weΚ»re down to 20. The Grib files show that the wind has diminished some for the next week and so our slant back to Los Angeles which is about 700 miles away will be easier than I thought it was going to be. And I have found that -- [ducks] -- I have found that wearing foul weather gear out here is a good Idea-- --I found that keeping the third reef in under these conditions is very useful because of the squalls that come through I can adjust the sail area of the boat using the roller-furling genoa. I use a satellite telephone hooked up to a laptop to send my noon position report
home every day. I learned to type using Mario Teaches Typing, and he never said the keyboard would be moving around like this. In fact, dining at sea with elegance can
be a challenge for some people. As my own sommelier, I've learned to accept about 80% of the Chianti making it into the glass at table, and there are no
complaints so far. That, believe it or not, is Dinty Moore Beef Stew. Hold the plate so it doesn't pour on the floor. That was not just a ship alarm, that was
a collision alarm -- which said that a 1,000-foot-long containership going 20
knots was going to come within .10 miles of my position. The answer to that is a quick course away, away, away. Thirty miles from land and completely becalmed. Hey-- haven;t we met somewhere before? WhatΚ»s your plan? Umm. You know, I think you could
make it home from here. Really. Uh, the whisker pole will be up there, you know. That's the self-steering gear, we're gonna need that. And in an hour he did fly off, and I
did what I do when becalmed offshore, which is to turn on the engine and make
spaghetti Land ho -- the Channel Islands of Southern
California. And we had arrived on a doubly fortuitous day -- a scheduled
seventy percent eclipse of the sun to begin at 10:15 Shield your eyes now because here we are
at the height of the eclipse, the sea has changed from miles around from the way
it used to look to the way it still looks. All the sea life has risen up in
celebration and the land is boiling and fuming like it was a prehistoric times
and we're going 17 knots now instead of four and a half because of the effect of
of this remarkable lunar and solar experience. If it doesn't look any
different to you, well, eclipses are about imagination. With only a hundred miles to
go I could already feel the old wiseguy returning, that's how we live in the
world. I was back to the future again. Offshore it was always the present I lived
in, but I knew that the present is really a construction of memory and that
it would take me weeks or months or years to find out what I had seen and
understand what I had learned. We'd sailed more than 5,000 miles.
We'd circumnavigated the North Pacific High. We'd seen wind and rain and reefs
and calms, and now home again. The education continues. "You've been here 30 seconds, how is it?
Let's go home and have a drink. It's -- what time is it? ItΚ»s midnight, right?
No, not quite. You came down and saw the boat
come in, that's the first time anybody's done that. And I'm very proud of us both
for getting through this. 11:25. 11:25. [Music]
I'd love to do something like this one day.
I found it interesting that he was wearing harness while on deck. I did not think of it, but slipping overboard would be a certain death as you are solo crossing over the ocean.
Just imagine a tall wave or a sudden shift in wind and you lose balance over the railing, your body splashing into the water. Then you surface and look on to see your boat sailing away much faster than you could swim to it, and all you can do is tread water before you tire out.
Sick. Loved this.
This is a dream of mine, but being a Midwestern born and raised means that I have absolutely zero experience sailing or being at sea.
Assuming that one day with a little luck I am able to afford something like this, how would I go about learning the skills that are required to enable me to do so? Is it like getting a pilots license? Or is it less restrictive / supervised
That's really cool. I'd love to tag along with someone like this who could teach me how they do it.
How long does it take?
This last June I bought a "totaled" boat through a salvage broker. The boat is a 55' steel cutter rigged custom sloop. She had about 2' of water inside for around a total of about 6 hours. The interior is nearly perfect. I hope to have her back in the water soon. I will probably live on her for a bit, but I will probably wind up selling her fairly soon.
Well that was fun.
I enjoyed his dry humour while describing mundane things. Although you'd need humour being that far out without any help near by... the sea can be angry my friend.