Belgian skipper Quentin Debois has set a new world record for the fastest solo east-to-west Atlantic crossing, completing the passage from Cadiz, Spain, to San Salvador in the Bahamas in 24 days, 19 hours and 31 minutes. The time is subject to ratification by the World Sailing Speed Record Council.

Debois crossed the finish line at 6:30 UTC on January 31 aboard his Mini 6.50, beating the previous record by nearly six days. The mark had been held since April 2024, when Aina Bauza completed the same route in 30 days and 22 hours.

At 38, Debois becomes the first Belgian sailor to hold a world record for a solo transatlantic crossing. His run covered 4,466 nautical miles and combined disciplined weather routing, conservative sail management and steady mental focus over nearly 25 days at sea.

“I’m really happy with the performance, morale was excellent throughout the crossing,” Debois said. “This second transatlantic race confirms that this is the right thing for me. I gave it my all, keeping a cool head and enjoying every moment. Above all, it’s a team victory.”

Debois left Cadiz on January 6 and maintained consistently high averages across the Atlantic while following a carefully managed routing plan. His strategy focused on staying inside stable wind systems rather than chasing extreme pressure patterns, allowing him to preserve equipment and avoid prolonged light-air transitions.

The crossing was not without challenges. Two downwind sails were damaged, and the bowsprit suffered stress, but the boat remained fully functional throughout the passage. According to his team, careful sail handling and disciplined risk management were central to the successful outcome.

“What made the difference was Quentin’s consistent pace and his ability to stay focused over the long term,” said coach Quentin Droneau. “He managed to avoid too much damage, which means the boat was well prepared and he sailed cleanly.”

Routing support played a major role. Basile Rochut, Debois’ router, monitored weather systems throughout the crossing and helped guide the boat through complex ridge transitions.

“Quentin was very precise and always on time,” Rochut said. “His sailing was clean, error-free and clear-headed.”

Debois also credited his broader support team, which included a technical coach, mental coach, communications staff and project partners. For Debois, the record was less about individual performance and more about collective execution.

“This record is the result of a long-term collective effort based on shared values,” he said. “From preparing the boat to crossing the finish line, I benefited from the advice and support of my entire team.”

For long-range cruisers, Debois’ achievement offers a modern reminder that successful ocean passages rely less on maximum speed and more on disciplined decision-making, equipment preservation and mental resilience.

Debois is now looking ahead to his next challenge. In June, he plans to attempt the solo west-to-east North Atlantic record between New York and Lizard Point, a route generally considered faster but more demanding due to weather variability.

“I’m listing a few technical improvements to be made and starting to think about how we will choose the weather window,” Debois said. “This second crossing won’t be easy. It’s the North Atlantic.”

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In all the years since renowned 1950s yachtsman Carleton Mitchell coined the term “The Thorny Path” for the often difficult and taxing passage from Florida to the Virgin Islands via the Bahamas and Puerto Rico, sailors have, in great numbers, taken this well-trodden route. Numerous books and articles have addressed the tactics and the pitfalls to be overcome when making this classic run, and yet, it seems that many sailors are missing some of the simplest and most important strategies that can assure a relatively easy, if not completely painless, experience.

The biggest problems most sailors face are the nearly incessant easterly trade winds and large sea conditions that prevail much of each year along the southern parts of this route, as well as winter cold fronts that can strongly affect the northern parts. Many people undertake this passage as part of a year or longer cruise to the Eastern Caribbean and often eventually return via this same route at the end of their adventure. If a priority is given to timing, and if a careful watch of weather conditions is undertaken, it is in fact entirely possible to travel all the way through the Bahamas and on to the Virgin Islands without bashing to windward or beating up the crew in rough conditions. It is all about when you leave and how willing you are to make use of good weather windows when they arrive.

There was a book written some years back by a now-retired cruiser named Bruce Van Zandt titled Passages South. For years, from the late 1980s up until not too long ago, this was considered by many newbie cruisers to be almost akin to a textbook on how to make the run down through the Bahamas to the Eastern Caribbean. While some of the tactics and ideas in that book are good, all too often, people seem to overlook the most obvious ways in which to truly have a painless passage south. 

Number one is timing. Try to leave Florida or the Southeast United States no later than early to mid-November, making use of the early autumn cold fronts. Instead of stopping at each island along the way or avoiding overnight runs, ride these favorable windshifts for as far and as long as you can. In the late fall, it is not uncommon to see periods of two to five or more days when the winds go ­northerly, or even northwesterly, or very light. If the wish is to get south and east quickly, leave as soon as conditions allow, and ride the favorable weather window until the wind and sea conditions change for the worse. 

The advantage of taking the path through the Bahamas and along the coasts of the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico is that you can stop at one of many harbors along the way and enjoy a new place when the winds crank back up and the seas get too large. When things die down again, leaving as soon as conditions permit allows for an easy way east. 

While heading directly offshore from farther north and making the run out to 65 west and south is surely the quickest way to the Eastern Caribbean, the chance of being caught in heavy weather is always present along that route. By taking the path via the Bahamas, you will always have the option of stopping when conditions become ­uncomfortable. If you begin the passage in November and plan to be in St. Thomas or the British Virgin Islands no later than Christmas, then chances are good that you will have lighter and more favorable winds and smoother ­conditions all the way.

Another good time to head south is in May and June, and even into early July. As long as care is taken in choosing a window for departure, and a close watch is kept for potential early-season tropical development, the wind and sea conditions during these months can be quite benign.

Making use of early- or late-season cold fronts—or a high-pressure ridge, if you are lucky enough to encounter one—will usually ensure ­several days of good sailing, or at least comfortable motor-
sailing conditions. If your wish is to see the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic, and to spend a month or two cruising those areas, consider exploring these islands on the return trip. It is much easer and more fun to sail the whole way through the Bahamas going downwind, stopping whenever you wish instead of bashing upwind to each island along the route. Sailing downwind on your return voyage will be enjoyable and relaxing, and then who cares if it’s blowing 20 to 25 knots? You will have only a nice, fast sail rather than having had to beat into it.

Although it is possible to make the voyage to the Caribbean islands via the Bahamas in almost any month and have good conditions, in the height of the winter season, favorable weather windows tend to be shorter, the seas rougher and the windshifts more abrupt. Still, riding a cold front south and east can gain you precious miles without the need to motor or bash to windward. Be prepared to put into a port by the time the winds clock to the northeast and east, and be ready to wait for two or more weeks for your next chance to move along.

I might be a bit old-­fashioned, but I still strongly believe that in addition to a satellite phone, inReach or other satellite messenger device, or even Starlink, it’s a great idea to have an SSB radio. In fact, the ARC Caribbean 1500 rally requires participating vessels to have this ­important safety item installed. The Salty Dawg Rally also strongly encourages this as one of two approved ­redundant ways to communicate. 

If you have an SSB radio, in addition to monitoring the National Weather Service’s offshore weather broadcasts, listening to weather guru Chris Parker’s Marine Weather Center forecasts can be a real help when choosing your weather windows for moving east. Radio networks are also a good way to stay in touch with other cruisers and relay important safety or security messages. Many boats access internet through cell towers in the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, and along the coast of the Dominican Republic, and many of the larger cellphone providers allow for limited high-speed internet usage along this route. Iridium Go and Starlink are also becoming quite common on cruising yachts, allowing for frequent weather monitoring using some of the weather apps such as PredictWind and Windy, and others can allow astute captains to choose the right time to leave and, more important, plan where you will be when the conditions change for the worse. 

This all demands a lot of careful planning and paying close attention to the various computer models, as well as listening regularly to Parker’s morning synopsis. For a modest fee, you can also subscribe to his daily weather updates via email, or even check in with him by SSB radio or email if the need arises. Usually, keeping a close ear on the daily changes in the forecasts will give you a pretty good idea of when to leave for each leg of your voyage. These long-range forecasts can be a great boon as you anticipate how soon the conditions might change or how far you might go before deciding to put into a port. 

With all of the ever-­improving advances in weather predictions, planning and completing comfortable passages should be a simple exercise. A willingness to do a few overnighters or two- to three-day runs makes it entirely possible to voyage down to the Eastern Caribbean islands in a painless way through The Thorny Path.

Websites & Apps Worth a Look

Chris Parker’s Marine Weather Center
mwxc.com

Passage Weather
passageweather.com

Wunderground’s Tropical Weather Page
wunderground.com/tropical

National Hurricane Center
nhc.noaa.gov

Windy App
Loads of useful user-friendly ways to interpret the various computer-generated weather models. One of the two most popular apps for cruising sailors.

PredictWind App
An app with virtually all the same weather models as Windy but presented in a slightly different format.

Mike’s Weather Page App
A subscription service with almost too much information but a great site full of links and assessments.

The post Smooth Sailing on the Thorny Path appeared first on Cruising World.

Why were we in French Polynesia during cyclone season and an El Niño year? Well, our plan was to sail to New Zealand after six months of cruising in Tahiti, but we fell in love and stayed. So, we ran into cyclone season, which is from November through April in the South Pacific.

The behavior of cyclones changes during El Niño because of differences in sea surface temperatures and atmospheric conditions, influencing the frequency, intensity and paths of the storms. El Niño started in 2023 and continued into 2024, giving the central and eastern parts of the Pacific Ocean warmer sea surface. This can shift the cyclone formation zones eastward. Islands that are typically less affected by cyclones, such as the Southern Cook Islands and French Polynesia, have higher risk.

The Marquesas Islands are outside the typical cyclone belt; their only close call was Tropical Cyclone Nisha-Orama in February 1983. It developed north of the Marquesas during an El Niño year and had sustained winds of 115 mph in the Tuamotus. Areas more frequently affected by cyclones include Australia, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga—but it is not impossible for cyclones to affect the Marquesas if conditions are right, such as during El Niño years.

Preparation in Tahiti

After a wonderful time diving with humpback whales in Mo’orea, we went to Tahiti to prepare the boat for the journey east to the Marquesas. Wanderlust, our Seawind 1600 catamaran, is equipped with daggerboards. It adeptly sails upwind. This feature, combined with the robust design and comfortable living space, has made it the ideal vessel for us in our long voyages across challenging waters.

In Tahiti, we inspected the rigging and systems, and unfortunately found cracked wires in the cap shrouds and the cross-beam cable (the martingale). The good news was that there are excellent riggers in Tahiti, but the bad news was that the cable had to come from Australia with a lead time of at least two weeks that turned out to be a month. By then, the easterly trade winds would be in full force and on our nose.

Meanwhile, we stocked up at the island’s markets, which are brimming with fresh produce. At every visit, we packed our bags, ensuring our boat was ready to face whatever the ocean had in store.

Papeete Marina

Papeete Marina is on the northwest side of Tahiti, which means it’s open to northern wind and swell. Large waves enter the basin, creating a significant commotion, chafing and breaking dock lines, ripping off docks or surging them over the pilings. In cyclone season, when the northern swells are more frequent, boats are often asked to seek shelter at anchor. As the inclement weather was approaching, we could already feel some of its effects. The monohulls started to behave like bucking broncos.

Finally, our cables for the repair arrived, and Wanderlust was ready.

Strategy

We tossed the lines on December 4 with a plan to sail to Fakarava, setting us up for a good angle to the Marquesas, but the next round of squalls was hot on our tail so we decided to pull into Tikehau, 150 nautical miles to the northwest. The atoll’s sparse population and natural beauty provided a serene backdrop and time to plan the journey ahead. We were held by the weather, but it wasn’t bad at all.

A couple days later, the weather changed, and we had a spectacular sail during the day. Wanderlust chugged miles quicker than expected, and we realized we would arrive in darkness—when it is unsafe to enter the atoll. We furled our screecher and set the jib to slow down a knot or two. A few hours later, the wind disappeared and was replaced by torrential rain. We had to motor and arrived at the atoll’s pass almost two hours after the desired slack tide. Not a real problem with two 80 hp engines, but it could have been with a smaller boat.

Fakarava greeted us with the rare convenience of a fuel dock. However, we did not make use of it, thinking we would be fine with the fuel we had. Rookie mistake. This amenity would have allowed us to bypass the cumbersome process of ferrying fuel in 5-gallon jerry cans, saving time, effort and my rotator cuffs, which I later destroyed in Hiva Oa by shlepping more than three dozen of them.

Fakarava hosts a vibrant underwater world and UNESCO-protected status, with unbelievable diving at the south pass, the famous wall of sharks, and the grouper spawning under a full moon in July. We were fortunate enough to enjoy that during our previous stay. This time around, the squally weather continued, and we did not even take a dip in the water.

Final Leg to Fatu Hiva

With a northwest wind, we sailed close-hauled for three days. Then the wind disappeared, and we motored in flat-calm waters that are unusual for that time of the year. The silver lining was that we were able to land a 143-pound yellowfin tuna that fed us and our friends delicious sushi and tuna tartar for months. And we learned another important lesson: While trying to lift the tuna using the main winch, I may have used the wrong size rope (I admit nothing). The winch stripper arm broke. It was a most expensive tuna, too.

On day four as the sun was starting to set, the southernmost island of the Marquesas, Fatu Hiva, presented its rugged landscape: the perfect gift on Christmas Eve. Giant clouds resting on jagged peaks, the sun’s evening light casting a golden hue on its face. A distant squall reminding us of what we’d been through. We had navigated Wanderlust about 1,000 nautical miles from Tahiti, upwind, to this Jurassic-like sanctuary for cyclone season. In the day’s final light, we anchored in the stunning Bay of Virgins, a spot already marked on the chart plotter from our previous visit.

Fatu Hiva

This land boasts a rich cultural heritage, friendly people and breathtaking landscapes. After spending some time on the island, we found ourselves reverently walking paths surrounded by raw beauty. Eventually, we stopped trying to articulate our awe, and we became part of the larger tapestry of life and nature. Gently running our fingers on the leaves of holy basil to release the magical scent, inhaling the pungent whiffs of drying copra, and bowing over gardenia flowers to take in their exhilarating aroma. Long-tail tropical birds circled above us in the backdrop of lush volcanic peaks.

Kahoha was the greeting we exchanged with the locals. Even Yoda, our dog, became a beloved figure on the island, responding joyously to calls from across the river. We made friends, bartered rope and other items for fruits, and for wild pig and goat meat. We felt a profound connection to this island.

Getting there was worth every bit of effort it took. We lived an unforgettable adventure that brought us closer to each other.

The post Dodging Storms, Chasing Thrills in French Polynesia appeared first on Cruising World.

I’m walking down the street with a roll of new navigation charts under my arm, and it makes me smile like a drunken fool. The tight, heavy roll gives off the sour scent of new paper, telling me that I’ll soon be smelling the salty air of the sea.

I want to shout, sing, crow out this welling of joy. I want to call out to the woman with the kid hanging off one arm and a shopping bag on the other: “Hey! I’m going off to sea. Look at my new charts! Yes, I’m going sailing ­somewhere new!”

The thrill began as soon as I stepped into the map seller’s shop. The fact that I stepped through that door meant I was a sailor because no one else does business there. I told him my plans, the region of the world I wanted to see in paper and ink. Out came the catalogs, and we compared scale and coverage for the waters I’d planned to sail. I jotted down the numbers of the charts I wanted, and he went to the storeroom to retrieve my order. I browsed the bookshelves filled with almanacs and pilot guides, and admired brass instruments measuring time, humidity, and pressure and space—and I waited for my treasures to appear.

I had second thoughts when the map seller jotted up the total—Holy! I could buy new running rigging for that! Heavyweight, 50 percent cotton nautical-chart paper isn’t cheap, with each sheet big enough to paper your bulkhead. But the ink doesn’t run when the sea finds its way through an open hatch to douse the navigation station. Paper charts are so expensive that I’ve been forced to sell mine after a long voyage to pay for my flight home.

Then the map seller updated my charts, accounting for all the changes that had taken place in the physical sea while this chart lay waiting for me. With a fine-point violet pen, he noted changes in depths, buoys that had moved, and coordinates that might be off by a second or two. If there had been land reclaimed or new sea walls built, he would have glued an entire patch onto the chart, bringing it up to date. Then he rolled them tightly and wrapped them in protective paper, and finally I felt their precious weight tucked under my arm.

I bought a chart that shows an entire sea, its ratio 1-to-3,500,000, which means I’m going on a long voyage. Long enough for the weather to change, the waves to turn against me, and the sea to show its rage. We’ll lose sight of land for days and nights, and maybe even a week, just to get across this one chart. The harbor charts, 1-to-10,000, show me the rocks that the locals know by heart, the sandbanks and the curve of the jetty wall. These charts mean I’ll arrive in unfamiliar waters, where strange lights will wink at me in the night. I’ve bought the chart for that little port, this protected bay. I have charts for places I don’t plan to go—small insurances in case we don’t make it across the sea and must run and hide due to a broken spar, a storm that blows too hard.

It’s a dying thing, these lithographic charts. Most commercial ships don’t carry them anymore. Charter yachts no longer have a navigation table big enough to spread out a chart, or a designated cupboard to store them in. On my yacht, the paper charts are a back-back-backup plan for chart plotters, a handheld GPS and a smartphone. I’ve sailed many miles with only the glow of a digital screen to guide me—it worked out just fine. Chart plotters track your every mile, show you exactly where you are, and contain more chart information than you will ever need. Paper versus digital has been debated ad nauseam, and paper lost. I don’t need paper charts—just like I don’t need to write with a fountain pen or whistle when I walk through the park—but I buy them because they give me joy. They give me a joy that a zoomable, adjustable screen with endless functions can’t deliver.

I know that once at sea I’ll spend more time staring at my chart plotter than I will poring over my very expensive paper charts. But it’s a tactile thing. The snap of the rubber band that holds the roll together. The yesteryear quality of the paper. The ritual of unrolling them on my dining table at home, weighting down the paper and letting my finger trace the depth lines. Tiny squiggles and letters and numbers, each rich with meaning. The comforting palette of mustard yellow and pale blue with magenta highlights marking the traffic zones. Calibrating my brass divider on the left-hand side, and then dancing it across a clean chart like a ballerina twirling across the stage. The deliciously monumental first pencil mark, the first tiny X at a crucial waypoint. Carrying the charts in a cardboard tube as I board an airplane that will take me to a foreign port and a waiting boat.

It’s the little surprises I stumble upon while perusing a chart, seeing the entire coastline in one sweep of the eye. Finding out that there’s a beach on the far side of that peninsula. Spotting the rock that lies in wait just outside the fairway into the harbor. Intricate observations of the land, towers, steeples and cliffs. And the names you’d never been aware of before, the wakes left by captains and heroes passing centuries ago.

It’s the pleasure I get from reading the notes in the corner, warning me of whirlpools and shifting sandbanks. And, on the most often used charts, for familiar home waters, notes have been added over the years, marking good anchorages and fishing holes. Like when I borrowed a friend’s boat and sailed it in the Finnish waters he’s explored for 70 years. With the boat came his charts, marked with tiny X’s where he had anchored over the years. He requested that I mark my own spots, adding to his boat’s long narrative.

I enjoy sitting inside a cozy saloon after a long day of sailing, planning the next day’s voyage with a wee dram of rum for company. I pore over the precious sheets of paper, imagining what each mile will bring. I explore the coastline and poke into little coves and find they are too shallow for my yacht. I land on pebble beaches and slip through turbulent channels—the tip of my finger a prow that leaves a wake in my mind.

All of this is yet to come as I exit the map shop into the sunny, crisp afternoon air, the stiff roll of charts nestled under my arm. I feel jaunty with anticipation of the voyage to come, the romance of a sailor heading off to sea.

I can’t hide my smile, and it’s all I can do to keep from laughing. To the guy in the suit, on his phone, walking and talking like he owns the place, I want to shout: “Look how thick this roll of charts is! They cost me an arm and a leg, almost as much as your suit, but these charts mean I’m going sailing!”

Cameron Dueck is a sailor and writer, based in Hong Kong.

The post Point of View: Paper Chart Dreams appeared first on Cruising World.

“Should we skip Tahiti?” A question I never thought I’d hear was asked seriously over sundowners last week as we discussed 2020 plans.

The popular cruising destination is sending a strong message that cruisers aren’t wanted anymore. Last week, a local cruiser reported that police began clearing boats from the busy Taina anchorage in Tahiti. This is overwhelmingly where transient boats anchor when they visit the largest island in French Polynesia. There was little notice for the meeting called to discuss plans, and no alternate option offered; the marina in Taina is typically booked in advance and not a ready option.

Tahiti isn’t the only spot in French Polynesia that’s tightening regulations and forcing out boats. Bora Bora has banned anchoring entirely. Moorea is expected to follow suit soon. There is a wider trend in French Polynesia to grow restrictions: local press report that the goal is to regulate anchoring throughout the islands. Meanwhile, in Tahiti, the port authorities clearing the Taina anchorage stated clearly that “there is no Plan B” for relocating the cleared boats; particularly unfortunate timing and tone given that cyclone season begins there this month.

Maybe it’s not a big deal to be required to use moorings or marinas. But it’s more complicated than just planning ahead and budgeting a little more. Ask the Hynes family on the Outremer 51, Archer. His family returned to the mooring field in Bora Bora where they’d left their boat to go ashore for dinner in July. Archer wasn’t there: a search found the boat blown downwind until it hit the unforgiving structure of a resorts’ overwater bungalow after the mooring (about $30/night) they secured their boat to broke, causing massive damage to the vessel.

“It’s really sad what happened to our boat,” Seth reflects, “but even sadder to see what’s happening regionally. I think it’s great the locals want to protect their islands, but I wish they would have worked with the cruising community to do this safely rather than rush in change. By enforcing the “no anchoring” law before the infrastructure was in place it has put all of us in a very dangerous situation. I’m glad no one got hurt on our boat or at the hotel as things could have been much worse.”

Bonaire has done a fantastic job of protecting their fringing reef by requiring boats to pick up affordable moorings. It is magical to swim under your boat on a vibrant, thriving reef at snorkeling/freediving depth that this setup makes possible.

Cruisers all know the mantra not to trust a mooring until you’ve been able to check it. Easy in Bonaire, and we replaced the fraying line. But how could Archer have realistically been expected to check the shackle at 85’ of depth that broke? Of course they can’t, they have to rely on the integrity of the owners/managers, and that chain in Bora Bora clarifies a motivation for profit over vessel security.

Why is this happening?

The move in Tahiti is due in part to a development plan, but read the local press articles about restrictions and local sentiments come out. It hurts to know reader comments indicate they’re happy for cruisers to go away, angered at the lack of respect they feel is shown for the local community and environment.

In Huahine, a youth group staged a protest that included floating a big mainsail painted with “no anchoring” – and gave press pictures of the coral damage caused by careless boats. Here, at least, is a positive move to direct boats to anchor in a boxed area away from the reef and vulnerable coral (fantastic, but sad they had to take this in their own hands). In Raiatea, the next most populous island after Tahiti, there were problems this past season with local boats aggressively threatening cruisers, with tactics ranging from verbal assault to cutting anchor rode.

Are there just too many boats? A couple of factors combined to significantly increase the number of boats in the area. A few years ago, French Polynesia began allowing vessels to remain three years before requiring importation (previously, boats were limited to just a few months). Then long-stay visas became easier to acquire, so not only visiting boats but their crews can readily spend more time in the islands. There are simply more boats, and enough of those boats are not respecting the local mores. This is a response to a perceived invasion of disrespectful cruisers. The complaints range from cultural to environmental, and they are not for you or I to judge as the guests in a place; it’s for the hosts, who seem ready to stop playing that role.

All this played into that conversation over sundowners a few nights ago, as we sat under Totem in the not-so-romantic shipyard with visions of much-more-romantic tropical anchorages in mind. Should we consider a major re-route and skip French Polynesia altogether? Hey, I’d love to visit my family in Hilo. The off-track destinations of Kiribati hold deep appeal. We want to skew towards places we haven’t visited before, anyway.

We were dead serious for about 20 minutes, then snapped back to reality. Of course we’ll go to French Polynesia! There are MANY islands, and we plan the least amount of time in the areas most subject to restrictions.

I’m keen to find the lesson in any situation. What’s the lesson here? That we (cruisers) need to lose entitlement and gain perspective for our negative impact, real or perceived. It’s incumbent on us to proactively be good citizens. Helping in this regard is AVP (Association Voiliers Polynesie); they’re meeting with authorities to represent cruisers and find a bridge to educate cruisers and charterers on visiting responsibly, while boosting local confidence that these boats contribute to rather than detract from their community. Anyone can join the organization and help them advocate for the cruising community. Visit the website for details.

My friend Holly Scott sails her boat out of Raiatea, and rightly pointed out – these islands pushing out cruising boats are both the least interesting and the most touristed. They are exactly the places we prefer not to spend much time in. But they are the popular names that are familiar to outsiders, and have a historical draw based on beaten paths and accessibility. There are many nicer places to explore in French Polynesia. And hopefully, as they are visited by those with a keen eye for respect to local customs and environment. We’ll keep an eye on the situation, spend less (or no) time in the Society islands, and always be mindful that we’re guests in their home.

My facts will not be perfect here, in great part because the situation is changing so quickly. Big thanks to Linda Edeiken of Jacaranda, amazing ambassadors for the cruising community – I first learned about this from Linda; to Ryan Levinson, for his work in FP representing cruisers with AVP; thanks Seth Hynes for contributing, sorry your lovely Archer had to be the canary in this coal mine!

The post Sailing Totem: Time to skip Tahiti? appeared first on Cruising World.

Occasionally we hear complaints like these from ­fellow cruisers about the unsteady weather here in the South Pacific: “The weather here is lousy. We should have stayed in the Caribbean!” Or, “The Pacific is so cold!” Admittedly, there is some truth in these simplified conclusions; the trade winds are frequently interrupted by disturbances and some areas really do cool down. So, some crews do seem truly surprised by the mixed weather after their arrival in Polynesia. However, by analyzing the patterns responsible for tropical weather in the South Pacific, it’s possible to plan favorable itineraries and perhaps avoid any unpleasant surprises.

Wandering Trades

Trade winds, as we’ve learned from the weather textbooks, are caused by the air-­pressure difference between a high-pressure area (or ridge) in the subtropics and the low-pressure area along the equator. This weather model applies nicely for the North Atlantic, where the Azores High (or Bermuda-Azores High) behaves rather predictably—it’s big and fairly permanent.

In the South Pacific, the model is less reliable; the Pacific Ocean is simply way too big. Instead of a single ridge in the subtropics, there are (at least) two highs. To the east lies the South Pacific High with its center typically close to Easter Island. The other one is farther west, closer to New Zealand. French meteorologists call the first one Anticyclone de Pâques after the French name for Easter Island, and the western one Anticyclone de Kermadec after the subtropical Kermadec island chain between Tonga and New Zealand.

Like the Azores High, the South Pacific High is quite permanent. As a consequence, steady trade winds prevail in the eastern South Pacific, which make a passage from Galapagos to French Polynesia relatively easy. The Kermadec High, on the other hand, is neither permanent nor stationary. It arises from the Tasman Sea, or north of New Zealand, and travels eastward via the Kermadec Islands and south of the Austral Islands of French Polynesia, and may fade away to be replaced by the next one. More persistent examples travel farther southeast and join the eastward procession of lows in the Roaring 40s. The transitory and wandering nature of the Kermadec High is the main cause of the frequently interrupted trade winds in the western and central tropical South Pacific. In other words, there is quite a bit of weather going on.

The Influential SPCZ

The two separate highs in the subtropics result in a different air-pressure gradient in the tropics than a single ridge. Between the highs, there is clearly an area with lower pressure, and isobars encircle both centers. Where those circles approach each other, air masses from different wind directions collide and cause a zone of convergence—the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ). This zone typically stretches from the Solomon Islands to Fiji and Tonga, or to Samoa, and often continues farther to the southern Cook Islands or the Austral Islands. As the Kermadec High moves eastward, so does the SPCZ (or a part of it), and often there are several disconnected branches of convergence zones.

To the south (or west) of the SPCZ, dry and cool southerly or southeasterly winds can be found, and to the north (or east) the wind is from the northeast, north or ­northwest and brings warm and humid air. The consequence is cloud formation, squalls and ­thunderstorms, as well as developing fronts. Due to a lingering upward movement of air, the air pressure drops and parts of the zone may evolve into a trough or low pressure.

Around every eight to 10 days, a new transitory high starts its journey eastward, bringing the SPCZ and the accompanying troughs along for the ride. An approaching trough is foreshadowed by the trade winds shifting first northeast, then north. When a trough passes, the wind turns farther to the west and then south. The southerly wind typically arrives with a front and strong squalls. Deepened troughs and lows may also develop a front on their northeastern side where the wind turns north.

When we compare weather charts from different government meteorological offices, we see that even experienced forecasters seem to be divided over how to classify the weather phenomena in the SPCZ. For example, French Meteo may see a convergence zone with an associated front or just a stationary front, while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association observes a (weak) trough. A pattern we observed over the last six years is that strong and weak events usually ­alternate. Another observation is that GRIB files based on the Global Forecast System (GFS) model do a poor job at ­depicting those fronts.

Squash Zones

When an east-traveling high is very strong and/or moves very close to the tropics, the isobars on top of it are squeezed together and the resulting trade winds are strong. Such squash zones of enhanced trade winds occur frequently during the southern winter and are called mara’amu in Tahitian. The southeasters generally arrive with a nasty cold front after the convergence zone or trough has passed. The strong winds may last for several days and carry numerous squalls as the agitated sea causes increased vaporization and the formation of cumulus clouds.

Seasonal Variations

During the cyclone season (the Southern Hemisphere ­summer), the subtropical highs are farther away from the tropics than during the colder season. As a consequence, the trade winds are weaker, squash zones are rare and calm periods are more likely. The SPCZ moves slower or tends to become stationary. For instance, a branch likes to linger over the southern Cooks and the Australs and brings rainy weather to those areas as well as the Society Islands. This branch also causes plenty of warm and humid northeasterly and northerly winds over French Polynesia, particularly in December and January.

The SPCZ is the birthplace of most cyclones in the South Pacific. With the warm ocean surface in summer and high activity in the SPCZ, the risk of cyclone formation is great, particularly when an additional, extensive area of cloud formation and rainfall coincides with the SPCZ.

In southern winter—the so-called sailing season—the trade-wind belt paradoxically does not cover the entire tropics. As the highs are so close to the Tropic of Capricorn, the southern fringe lies in the belt of variable winds, particularly in the central and eastern Pacific. In Tonga, it is not unusual to get an extended period (five to six days) of westerly winds around August.

RELATED: Pacific Passage Planning

As to the cooler temperatures, most yachts cross the South Pacific outside the cyclone season, in the Southern Hemisphere winter. When an itinerary then includes places at the fringe of the tropics like Pitcairn and the Gambiers, the Austral Islands, the southern Cooks, Niue, and/or the ­southern parts of Tonga, cold weather is unavoidable, particularly when the fresh southeasters blow hard. In July and August, the water temperature in those areas is not far above 68 degrees F (20 degrees C). Bring a thick wetsuit in case you gather enough willpower to go diving or snorkeling.

Summing Up

The eastern South Pacific has relatively undisturbed trade winds, the result of the big and stable high around Easter Island. Also, there’s a wide equatorial area that has steady trade winds and fine (but hot) weather. When moving closer to the equator and farther away from the subtropical highs, the isobars become more or less straight lines and resemble those caused by a single high-pressure ridge, and so the area does not see a convergence zone. In addition, the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) is typically located well north of the equator (around 5-10° N). Apart from occasional warm fronts and squalls, when the trade winds blow strongly, the Marquesas, the Line Islands and Penrhyn in the Northern Cooks are blessed with stable weather all year round. Farther west or south, the SPCZ already starts to influence the weather. On the other hand, New Caledonia lies far enough west to also experience less convergence-zone typical weather.

In summation, it pays to take some time and conduct proper research, including pilot and climate charts—after all, the Pacific is a huge and diverse area. Simplified textbook principles do not always apply everywhere; for instance, it is not true that all archipelagos have their rainy season during the summer months. Avoid extra-tight itineraries as they leave no time to await favorable passage weather when bold plans include picking up and dropping off a constantly changing crew or visitors, especially from ambitiously distant places. With some clever planning, as well as a lot of flexibility, cruising the South Pacific is undeniably an extraordinary experience.

Finally, it is not advisable to solely rely on GRIB files to find good passage weather. An ­additional look at ­surface-analysis weather charts shows where the convergence zone and nasty fronts exist, particularly when sailing between French Polynesia and Fiji, or farther west. The SPCZ that causes so much variable weather in the Pacific also has a good side: the numerous ­­disturbances with shifting winds provide good-weather windows to sail eastward.

Birgit Hackl and Christian Feldbauer set out from the Med in 2011 aboard their 41-foot S&S-designed Pitufa. Two years later, after an Atlantic crossing, time in the Caribbean and a transit of the Panama Canal, they reached French Polynesia, which has become their home base. For more on the couple, visit Pitufa.at.

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Northwest Passage

In the hundred plus years since Roald Amundsen transited the Northwest Passage, 184 successful voyages have been made across the top of the world, east and west bound. In the summer of 2012 alone, 21 vessels, 11 percent of that 184 total, made the transit: 18 private yachts, 2 cruise ships, and a tanker. One of the cruise ships, the 196-meters-long The World, was the largest ship to ever to do the trip, according to the data collected by R.K. Headland of the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge.

The rise in traffic from commercial, research, recreational, and offshore operations over routes made more passable with the record loss of polar ice ushers in a range of challenges. In September 2012, officials from the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and private industry gathered in Seattle at a program called Safe Navigation in the Arctic. Presented by the Transportation Research Board, part of the nonprofit National Research Council, its mission was to address navigational, policy, and international concerns in U.S. Arctic waters.

Seen in the context of melting polar ice, the numbers, especially in more recent years, loom larger. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, as of September 16, 2012, Arctic sea ice appeared to have reached its minimum extent for the year, 1.32 million square miles, the lowest seasonal minimum extent in the satellite record since 1979, further proof of a long-term
downward trend.

The 2012 minimum was also 293,000 square miles below the previous record minimum extent in the satellite record, which occurred on September 18, 2007. That loss is about the size of the state of Texas.

In terms of boats and passages, what does this mean? From 2007 to 2012, with passable routes, 75 transits of the Northwest Passage took place. That’s 40 percent of all recorded transits. Ketches, catamarans, and sloops were part of the mix, along with the icebreakers and tugs. And in those totals are boats and voyages familiar to CW readers: Cloud Nine, owned by the late Roger Swanson and the first American sailing vessel in history to transit the Northwest Passage from east to west; Ocean Watch, whose circumnavigation of the Americas was documented in these pages by crewmate and CW senior editor Herb McCormick; and the 27-foot St. Brendan, whose captain, Matt Rutherford, set a record for singlehanding the smallest boat ever through the Northwest Passage.

One can only wonder who’s next.

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But how? That’s the question I faced 10 years after Ranger‘s Mediterranean adventure began. (Click here to read “Ranger‘s Refit—and the Real Rewards,” from CW‘s June 2003 issue.)

The options were easy: sail her back, hire a delivery crew, or ship her on a freighter. But the choice, made routinely by hundreds of transatlantic sailors every year, was complicated, and personal.

Driven from Spain by a tax crackdown at the start of Europe’s economic woes, I’d docked Ranger in Tunisia at an upscale marina. She’d been in the water for three years tended by a German expat who regularly started her engine, ran through her gears, and adjusted her lines.

But she was a mess, sirocco sand-blasted, her dodger sun-rotted, her bottom a microbiologists’ encyclopedia. Her flares, EPIRB, and life raft were out of date. Basic systems were in good shape—sails, rigging, even the batteries—but the list of to-dos, no matter which route I took home, would take time and money.

Shipping Her Home

Until the mid-1980s, shipping a yacht on a freighter was a rare, pricey move. But there are now four major companies in the business, rates are competitive though not cheap, and the service, with occasional exceptions, is reliable and safe.

Unique among them, because of its float-on/float-off semi-submersible freighters, is Dockwise Yacht Transport of Florida. The other three—Yacht Path International, Sevenstar Yacht Transport, and Peters and May—rent space on freighters going your way and use cranes and cradles for deck shipment. This year, the four companies will ship some 1,200 to 1,500 sailing yachts all over the world.

Because its schedule seemed as reliable as an Italian train, give or take 14 days, I asked Dockwise for its cheapest option, which turned out to be a ship returning to Florida after delivering luxury motorboats for the Med’s summer season. The price for my 42-year-old boat, valued at $45,000, was a shock: $11,600.

Sailors I interviewed shipped their boats for a number of reasons.

Phillip Yaffa of Miami shipped his Tayana 47, Peregrina, home from Turkey after three years of cruising in the Med. With business demands, he couldn’t afford the time for the long sail back through the Canaries after hurricane season. After pricing a cheaper delivery option, but adding wear and tear, he paid Dockwise $25,000.

Fabian Mueller of Zurich, Switzerland, shipped his 30-foot steel sloop Habichuela back to Europe from Florida in the fall of 2010 because he was out of vacation time and the boat had suffered damage to sails, the autopilot, and sailing instruments on its passage from the Canaries. After gathering bids from Sevenstar and Peters and May, he negotiated the lowest fee, $9,500, from Dockwise, and thought it worth the money. He estimated that he would’ve spent at least $5,000 to repair and ready her to sail home himself. “I didn’t have that many options,” he said. “The day the boat arrived in Genoa, I was very happy.”

Time and tenderness were on the mind of Pascal Oddo when he hired Dockwise to carry Falcon, a 1930 Lawley Boatyard-built Q racing boat from Rhode Island to France just in time for the Les Voiles d’Antibes, a classic-yacht race in the spring of 2012. The 52-foot wood sloop had been restored in 2007 and listed for sale at $495,000.

Sailing the Atlantic was out of the question, and after comparing bids, Oddo chose Dockwise for the convenience.

“The plan was to race her. When we arrived to meet the freighter, we put the sails on, and we were ready to sail off, which was fantastic,” he said by phone from Paris, where he manages a private-equity fund. “We did well. We came in second.”

Eric Korchia, a Miami developer, shipped Maxilana, a Jeanneau 53, on Dockwise after being stranded in Athens, Greece, for more than a month by Yacht Path. At the last minute, he hired a delivery crew to meet the Dockwise freighter in Italy. Dockwise charged him $25,000.

While there was a grin on his face when he saw his $700,000 boat in Florida, Korchia remained livid with Yacht Path, which had promised, but failed, to pick the boat up in Greece. After being threatened by an attorney, Yacht Path returned his $26,000 fee, although not an additional $20,000 that he says he spent on marina and delivery fees.

Yacht Path manager Kevin Cummings blamed unforeseen freighter delays and said that his company kept Korchia informed. The company, started by Cummings and his siblings, whom he describes as “working-class guys” without venture-capital backing, will ship 650 boats this year. It routinely fulfills its promises, and it’s often the cheapest. But it’s the only one of the carriers with complaints—there are four—that are on file at BoatU.S.

Hire a Delivery Crew

Shopping for a delivery captain is a bit like hiring a nanny. Price isn’t as important as experience, reputation, and chemistry. That said, the first thing I wanted to know was how much it would cost to put my baby into the hands of a stranger for a risky couple of months.

My queries produced a gaping array of charges ranging from $4,000 to $14,000. To help me judge, I consulted John LeFevre of The Moorings, who hires delivery captains to ship the company’s charter fleet between the Med and the Caribbean. His average cost for a delivery skipper from Greece to Tortola is $13,250, including airfare and food.

The Moorings’ boats are privately owned catamarans and monohulls that are less than five years old and well equipped for an ocean passage. (See “If You Go It Yourself,” below.) Captains basically get on and go.

As I went over Ranger‘s equipment, I realized how idiosyncratic my 35-foot Allied Seabreeze yawl had been—a one-man boat full of decisions, compromises and, yes, defects, that no one else could be expected to know. There was no manual describing the periodic clunk in the anchor locker, the loose mizzen stays that were OK, or how the autopilot connected through that hole using this pin kept in one of those plastic bags in the middle drawer on the port side by the cabin door that won’t stay latched.

It always took me a week to get to know her when I paid a visit. Her condition made selling her in Europe impossible—especially during the Euro crisis. How could I ask a delivery captain to take her across an ocean?

“I have to know how to fix, identify, and work every single system, even though I’ve never seen it, because my life will depend on it,” said Blaine Parks of Parks Marine Services of Palmetto, Florida. Unlike most delivery crew, he insists that the owner be aboard on a voyage as long as a transatlantic.

Parks charges $250 to $300 a day, plus $150 a day for a mate, an average rate among professional delivery crews. For an ocean crossing, he wants a third mate at $100 a day.

He recommended that I look for captains with multiple transatlantic crossings, experience in the voyage’s ports of call, and a good reputation backed by references and their own insurance.

Gerry and Darby Gragg were rank beginners when they bought So Bella, a Passport 42, in 2000 and began cruising in western Costa Rica. “We took off knowing as little as someone could about cruising and sailing,” Gerry told me in Gaeta, Italy.

After reading a Cruising World spread on the Mediterranean (see “Promise of the Mediterranean,” November 2007), they decided to head there. Yacht Path offered to ship So Bella from Golfito, Costa Rica, to Palma de Mallorca for $34,000. The Graggs chose instead to use Yacht Path to move So Bella to Fort Lauderdale, at a cost of $13,000, in time for Gerry to sail the Atlantic. With their “savings,” they hired a captain and mate from Oceans Captain. Were it not for a transmission failure in Bermuda, the crossing would’ve been cheaper, he said.

“These two men had 15 crossings under their belts. It was essentially an advanced-sailing seminar on my own boat, and it was an experience I’ll always treasure,” he said.

Gragg has decided to ship So Bella back to the United States next year so he can sell her on the East Coast during the summer. Dockwise provided a cheaper quote and a firm shipping window between April 22 and May 6. “To get my boat from Genoa to Fort Lauderdale in 15 days with hopefully little wear and tear for $23,000 is a good value, if one is honest about the indirect expenses of a crossing.”

Sail It Yourself

For the vast majority of transatlantic sailors, sailing home is the only choice. Cruising funds may be running low, but while living aboard, they’ve likely kept the boat in working order. Provisions, dock fees, and a couple of months of their time are the primary costs.

A survey by the World Cruising Club of participants in the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers shows that on average, boats spent around $2,500 for provisions and $1,400 for fuel during their three- to four-week crossing from Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands, to St. Lucia.

Joining the ARC costs $1,000 or more, but the rally’s care and safety requirements—tougher than ones that independent sailors might choose themselves—are designed to produce successful crossings.

When I took a sober look at Ranger, I estimated that upgrades, crew travel, and food costs would top $7,000. Having done the crossing, I knew that a few thousand dollars more should be in an overdraft account just in case. Clearly, my cheapest alternative was to sail home myself with a couple of volunteer crew.

My Choice

On March 1, 2012, I flew to Genoa, Italy, bought a reconditioned life raft for $500, and carried it on a ferry to Tunisia. After two weeks of work on Ranger, first mate Wally Wallace and I departed for Sicily. I’d rendezvous with Dockwise in Genoa during the first week of May.

Ultimately, my decision came down to time, money, and a large X factor. Crossing the ocean to Europe in my little old boat was an achievement, a costly, exhausting journey of a lifetime. Ranger and I were now 10 years older. With “transatlantic sailor” inscribed on my heart, I had neither the need nor the desire to sail home.

When my father died, my share of the sale of his house yielded enough to buy a ride. I decided to turn the 1,000-mile sail up the Italian coast into a shared vacation with friends and family, likely my last great offshore adventure aboard Ranger. Having made the decision, I ordered charts for the Keys and the Chesapeake.

Ranger arrived in Fort Lauderdale on May 23 looking like a floating peanut in the vast hold of Dockwise’s Yacht Express. I climbed aboard and motored into a Florida sunrise.

The next morning, at Bahia Mar, the bilge pump died.

If You Go It Yourself

Before setting out on a transatlantic crossing—or on any bluewater adventure, for that matter—a prudent skipper makes sure that the boat is well equipped. The equipment list below is based on recommendations from the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers and The Moorings. The gear requirements for the Newport-Bermuda Race and ISAF race recommendations are both other good sources for the gear you’ll need.

Emergency Equipment

• Offshore life raft large enough to carry all crew
• Life jackets with harnesses
• Flares
• Abandon-ship bag with flares, water, food, and survival tools
• Offshore first-aid kit
• Rescue lines
• Signaling equipment

Electronics

• EPIRB
• Satellite phone or SSB radio
• Automatic Identification System receiver, preferably with transponder
• Electronic tracking device similar to SPOT or to DeLorme’s InReach
• VHF radio
• Handheld VHF
• Navigation lights
• Searchlight
• LED flashlights

For the Boat

• Navigation tools and charts
• Compass
• Sextant and tables
• Binoculars
• Depth sounder
• Fog horn
• Radar reflector
• Fire extinguishers (3 of them, all up to date)
• Fire blanket
• Companionway washboards
• Through-hull plugs
• Emergency tiller
• Hacksaw and blades
• Buckets
• Dinghy and oars
• Storm jib and trysail
• Second manual bilge pump
• Sea anchor

Jim Carrier is a CW contributing editor. Ranger now lies on the hard at Glades Boat Storage, west of Lake Okeechobee, Florida. Her to-do list remains a work in progress. This article first appeared in the Hands-On Sailor section of our December 2012 issue.

Ranger Crosses the Atlantic

Ranger Delivery

The post How to Cross an Ocean: Bringing Ranger Home appeared first on Cruising World.

Best Boat Equipment

When we were preparing Osprey, our Adams 45 steel cutter, for full-time cruising and living aboard by a family of four, we did what so many other soon-to-be-cruisers do: We read and researched. And talked and listened. And read and researched some more. Though we’d been sailing all our lives, liveaboard cruising would be an entirely new thing for us. And while we had some pretty firm ideas about what we did and didn’t want, much of the new equipment and even some new systems on Osprey were more or less experiments, based more on how they’d worked for other boats and people than for us.

This is the leap of faith that, to one extent or another, we all must make, whether we’re placing that faith in our own judgment and capabilities or in those of an experienced boatyard staff or other pros. Sometimes it doesn’t work out. When that’s happened, we’ve had to suck it up, financially and emotionally, and find something that does work. (And it’s often far more than just a financial issue when something fails. It’s no fun to have one’s confidence shaken in one’s judgment, and it’s almost invariably a logistical challenge as well.)

Sometimes, though, things work really well, even better than we’d hoped. So we’ve come up with a list of the ideas and gear that have consistently proven themselves—both on passage and hanging out on the anchor—over the four years we’ve cruised aboard Osprey in the hopes that it might provide food for thought for those of you chewing over similar issues.

One caveat: These have worked for us, on our boat, in the places we’ve sailed. They might not work the same way for others. You still have to make the choices that seem best for your own boat and for the type of cruising you want to do.

Wind generators: Our pair of Eclectic Energy D400s, while complicated and expensive to install, have been worth every penny. We’re happiest on those windy days at anchor, since they work best when we have winds of at least 15 knots, even better with a little more. Their production falls off sharply at low wind speeds. What we love most about them—and what constantly draws other cruisers to ask questions—is how quietly they operate. Even in 20 knots of wind, we barely notice them. Interestingly, when we first came out here, we rarely saw D400s, and then mostly on European boats. Now we’re seeing them everywhere, and on more American boats.

Solar panels: Our four panels—two Shell 85s and two Kyocera 135s—and the controller have worked extremely well. The only thing we’d change would be to add more of them, and to build movable brackets so that the panels—ours are presently fixed in place—can be angled to capture more sun throughout the day. When we were prepping for cruising, a good friend who’d been out already for two years recommended a combination of wind and solar power. We listened, and we’re passing on the advice here. Many times we’ve been under way or at anchor on cloudy but windy days or on windless but sunny days and still able to make plenty of juice in either situation, while friends with only solar or only wind power—or, worse still, neither at all—had to resort to a genset or the main engine to keep their batteries up.

A single-sideband radio, Pactor modem, and SailMail: While some may pooh-pooh this gear as sunset technology, we wouldn’t go without it. It takes a bit of attitude adjustment to go from iPads and hot-and-cold running Internet to working with the SSB, but its value is its dependability, no matter where you are. In Panama’s Kuna Yala, for instance, our cruising would’ve been tethered to the sole island that had Internet (three hard lines run off a solar panel, at the equivalent of $3 per hour) had we not been able to remain in contact with friends and family and access our Gmail account via SailMail through the SSB. True, a new SSB will set you back at least $1,500 initially, with another grand or so for a Pactor modem. Once they’re installed, though, a $250 annual SailMail account gets you email, weather GRIBs, and weatherfaxes, and you’re immediately linked to the SSB community, an intangible but real benefit you can never enjoy with a satphone.

Harken sailhandling equipment: Osprey is completely Harken, with the exception of two snatch blocks and her original Australian-built Barlow winches. Even if her deck hardware hadn’t been in dubious shape when we bought her, we would’ve replaced it with race-ready Harken gear. It’s been our experience that no matter the boat, when it comes to sailhandling, speed and efficiency equals safety. And the easier it is to sail the boat, the more you’ll actually do just that: sail. Our adjustable genoa leads, mainsheet system, main-halyard system, and turning-block system have worked flawlessly in this harsh, difficult environment and have proven their worth time and time again by enabling us to quickly and easily adjust the sail plan according to conditions.

A four-stroke outboard: Ours is a four-stroke Yamaha 15. It’s been

extremely dependable, easy to fix when necessary, and easy to find parts for, even in such places as Guatemala and Panama. Fuel-efficiency, though, is where it really shines. Many of our friends run 6-gallon tanks on their two-strokes, with mixed oil and gas. We run a 3-gallon tank with straight gas and fill up half as much as they do. When you’re relying on the dinghy to be your car, and gas costs the equivalent of $6 a gallon or more, this fuel savings adds up in a hurry. And it’s environmentally better in every way.

The biggest rigid-bottom inflatable dinghy we could manage: This was another recommendation from a well-seasoned cruising friend, and rarely a day goes by when we don’t thank him for it. Osprey doesn’t have davits, so we were limited by what would fit overturned on the foredeck while on passage (which we happen to believe is the safest way to carry a dinghy offshore). We have a 10-foot Caribe. Coupled with the Yamaha 15, it’s been a real workhorse for our family of four, letting us plane easily, even loaded with groceries or dive gear, and keeping us mostly dry in sometimes pretty snotty conditions. We can’t tell you how many friends we’ve watched get drenched and pounded trying to get groceries or do laundry because they went with the smallest or cheapest dinghy they could get away with. We also recommend covering the dinghy with a good set of canvas chaps. They reduce wear and tear and the brutal effects of the sun.

A Cape Horn Extreme watermaker from Spectra: This was also an expensive and complicated system to install on Osprey. But like the wind generators, it’s worked extremely well overall and made our lives, especially in remote places, much easier. We’ve had friends without watermakers who’ve had to limit their cruising because they were worried about the unavailability of safe water or the need to beg it constantly from people who could make their own. True, you can always hope for rain. But we’ve been in places where it hasn’t rained for four months. Our experience has been that the watermaker has broadened our cruising capability. The Cape Horn Extreme is mechanically the simplest of Spectra’s products (i.e., no circuit boards), and we recommend it because there’s less to break and go wrong. Spectra has proven to be an excellent company with which to work. When our Clark pump broke unexpectedly in the Bahamas last winter, a replacement pump arrived there within five days at ultimately no charge, except shipping.

An AIS transponder: We began our trip carrying only an automatic

identification system receiver, feeling that we didn’t really need a transponder; they were also a lot more expensive then. But two years ago, we installed a transponder, and it’s proven its worth repeatedly, particularly in areas with a lot of shipping but not always a lot of decipherable English spoken from the bridge deck. Imagine being among five ships offshore in the dark with CPAs of less than a mile and a half converging; one of the ships is the largest cruise liner in the world. That ship ended up calling us because they could see us easily via the transponder. Many times we’ve asked ships if they had us on radar and they said no, but they did see our AIS signature. We’re a small boat on a big ocean. Any device that makes us more visible and helps remove the guesswork in busy situations is a no-brainer.

Aries windvane self-steering: This system hung on Osprey‘s transom for two years before we used it on a 1,200-mile passage across the Caribbean. Now we use it whenever we can. In the right conditions, it becomes our primary offshore steering, quietly and efficiently tracking us along and costing us not a single amp. And it’s a backup for the electric autopilot if that system fails or we have some battery problem that prevents us from using it. We’d discourage people from ditching an installed wind-steering system to make room for, say, dinghy davits. We know one couple who, as a wise precaution, reinstalled their windvane before sailing from the Bahamas to Puerto Rico. Two days out, they lost their electric autopilot. Had they not reinstalled their windvane self-steering system, they’d have been hand steering for days.

A Reverso fuel-polishing system: Most people associate fuel-polishing systems with large motoryachts, but they make eminent sense for cruising sailboats that travel long distances to remote places. Osprey carries approximately 195 gallons of diesel in two tanks. That’s a lot of fuel that more often than not just sits there—we are, after all, a sailboat—having ample time and opportunity to grow stuff. Also, some of the places we’ve purchased fuel have been dubious at best. In one memorable establishment, a fellow poured diesel from a 55-gallon drum into a 5-gallon bucket through a T-shirt filter while it was raining. The fuel polisher is independent of the fuel lines for the engine. It draws from the very bottom of the tank and returns to the very top. Running it about once a month, three to four hours per tank, keeps the fuel clear and free of water and growth. The proof’s been in the pudding: Several times we’ve set out to replace the Racor fuel filters but have simply reinstalled them because they’re so clean. As an added bonus, when one tank is getting low, we can use the system to move fuel to the opposite tank and keep the boat in trim. And more than once we’ve been able to help fellow cruisers polish their contaminated fuel. It wasn’t a particularly easy or cheap system to install, but it draws little power when it’s working, and it’s been worth its weight in diesel.

We also boosted Reverso’s income by purchasing its oil-changing system. This fairly simple device has a hose connected to the bottom of the oil pan. A reversible pump sucks the oil from the pan and through a hose into a container of your choice. After wiping the discharge hose off, you can use it as the suction hose and install the new oil right back into the engine. It takes about 10 minutes to change 6 quarts of oil in Osprey‘s engine, and other than the unavoidable mess of changing the filter, the whole process is clean, quick, and easy. Anything that makes such a vital but potentially sloppy bit of routine maintenance easier is worth it, and this system keeps everything nasty contained and out of the bilge.

A Honda EU20i portable suitcase generator: One of the first items we bought was this tough, compact unit. It’s proven invaluable when we’ve had periods of windless, cloudy days and our solar panels and wind generators aren’t putting out much. The Honda is far more efficient at recharging the batteries than the boat’s main engine and alternator (and this also saves wear and tear on the main engine, since running it “unloaded” is tough on a diesel). On eco-throttle, which is its conservation mode, the unit will run for almost eight hours on a single fill-up of less than a gallon of gas. We also use it for projects that involve a lot of electricity, like drilling, grinding, and sanding, rather than drawing off the boat’s batteries and inverter.

The Clarke family is currently aboard Osprey in Annapolis, Maryland.

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Trepidation. I get antsy in the days just before I go offshore. There’s so much mental preparation. See this person, say goodbye to that person, do this, write that, go there one last time. It’s exhausting – but the chance to sail offshore is, to me, a sublime pilgrimage. And if given the opportunity, I will not turn it down for anything else.

I leave October 2nd for a six week research expedition aboard the SSV Robert C. Seamans, a 134 ft. schooner brigantine operated by Sea Education Association. We will embark from San Diego and arrive in Honolulu in early November.

The Seamans, pictured above, is gorgeous. Built in 2001, she has over 8,500 square feet of sail. If you cut all nine of her sails up, you could canvas the floors of a seven bedroom house and still have plenty of sail to cover a regulation-size racquetball court.

I’ll be a volunteer deckhand on a team investigating an area of the ocean some have referred to as “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” This “garbage patch” has attracted plenty of press (much of it exaggerated) due to the large concentration of plastic debris that have been found floating on the surface. Some say it’s “the size of Texas”, others “twice the size of the continental United States.” One Dutch architect has even drawn up plans to build self-sustaining “recycled islands” out of the plastic debris.

Ideas and size statistics like this are imaginative but fail to convey the problem plastics pose to ocean ecosystems. For starters, you can’t “see” much of the plastic debris, let alone build houses on it. Due to wave action and U.V radiation from the sun, large pieces of plastic break down into millimeter sized pieces called “microplastics.” If you didn’t have a net capable of catching these tiny pieces of plastic, you would never know you were in the world’s largest landfill.

Two years ago, I sailed with S.E.A. to study the lesser known “Great Atlantic Garbage Patch”, located just southeast of Bermuda. It was the first federally-funded research expedition to study plastic debris in the open ocean. A bunch of news outlets covered our progress such as National Geographic, NPR, and the Boston Globe. A filmmaker even created an award-winning documentary using footage taken from the trip.

This will be only my tenth time leaving land completely behind. Looking around the horizon and seeing nothing but the gleam of the ocean is like receiving a hug from a stranger: curiously warm but tense. It takes a few days to get acclimated. Thank god I don’t get seasick.

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