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December 2nd, 2009 – At Sea, 02 17S, 041 54W
by Mark Schrader, Dave Logan and Herb McCormick
On Wednesday, the crew of Ocean Watch continued their ongoing quest to reach Rio de Janeiro and points farther south. Today’s log is in two parts. This week, we’ll be looking back at the refit of Ocean Watch for the Around the Americas expedition in a multiple series of reports called “The Boat that Ballard Built.” Also included is Skipper Mark Schrader’s voyage updates in his regular Skipper’s Log.
The Boat that Ballard Built (Part 2)
by Dave Logan and Herb McCormick
Many first-time visitors aboard Ocean Watch, descending below-decks for the first time, remark upon the boat’s unusual cork floor. “The boat came with some sort of indoor-outdoor carpeting made of petrochemicals,” said Dave. “It’s pretty cheap, affordable and easy to put down. Because it’s inexpensive, you can rip it out and replace it when it gets funky.”
The lack of aesthetics aside, the stuff immediately was removed from Ocean Watch. “Our trip is about ocean health and planet health, and it didn’t seem like the right option,” Dave continued.
“For most of the materials we used in the boat we tried to accommodate that philosophy. Cork is a renewable material that grows on a cork tree. You take the bark off and the bark grows back. It’s incredibly durable, lightweight, and easy to clean: just a great, all-around green product. You put it down with a water-based glue that doesn’t have any VOC’s so you have a healthy environment on the boat. The wood-finish product we used on the floor and all the woodwork is called Osmo and is really a single-coat floor finish but if you massage it a bit, it’s a beautiful fine wood finish. It was chosen for the same reasons. According to the manufacturer, you can even drink it, it’s just about as green a finish as you can get. We just didn’t want to live in a toxic environment.”
As with so many features on “the boat that Ballard built,” the local marine community stepped up in a major way. Cork flooring isn’t inexpensive, but the contractor, Mark Overdick, “found us cork for about half price, and charged us about half the cost of the labor to put it down,” said Dave. “So that’s why we went with cork.”
With the boat bound for the high latitudes – the Northwest Passage, and later, Cape Horn – a reliable heating system wasn’t a luxury, but a necessity. “I convinced myself I wasn’t going to do the trip if we didn’t have one,” said Dave.
An 80,000 BTU Webasto central-heating system donated from Sure Marine proved to be the answer. “It’s a boiler system that heats hot water, which in turn is circulated throughout the boat in PEX tubing installed by my lovely wife, Joanna Wehrwein, of Joanna’s Plumbing,” he continued. “It runs to radiators in several compartments of the boat, each of which is controlled by an individual thermostat in that compartment. The system also heats the domestic hot water and there’s even a circuit that heats the engine block. In essence, it keeps the heart of the boat warm all the time.”
On a yacht like Ocean Watch with vast arrays of computers and electronics, this last point is crucial. In a typical sailboat environment, much of that gear would’ve been rendered useless in short order due to the harsh conditions. “The heater is so efficient we very seldom have the radiators running, even in the Arctic,” said Dave. “Just the water circulating through the boat in the tubes and keeping the engine block warm is usually enough to keep the interior of the boat at 70-degrees, even when it’s below freezing outside. It’s just an extremely efficient system that operates on its own dedicated 50-gallon diesel tank.”
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| The fuel manifold. |
Actually, that tank is just one of seven fuel tanks aboard. The generator has four separate, dedicated tanks totaling 80 gallons, and there is a pair of 175-gallon tanks for the main engine. A fuel-transfer system gives the crew “the ability to transfer fuel from one tank to any other tank in case we have a bad batch of fuel, or if we’re just running low in one particular area,” said Dave. “So we can move fuel in any direction depending on our needs, even for trimming the boat if we’re on one tack, or slant, for weeks at a time.”
For the galley, Ocean Watch is equipped with a new, three-burner stove and oven. The propane tanks were rebuilt and recertified, and a new propane system was implemented with new “bilge sniffers” and alarms from the tanks to the stove. In addition, new circuits were added for the “shut-offs” and the entire system was brought up to current standards. Ocean Watch’s propane tanks are now certified for filling anywhere in the world.
On the delivery north from Mexico to Seattle, the boat’s refrigeration system proved to be what Dave generously described as “dodgy. We had a remote thermometer readout in the main saloon to we could keep an eye on it every minute, because we never knew what the temperature was going to be.”
For the long passages on the voyage around the Americas, reliable refrigeration was going to be a must. Ocean Watch was equipped with a single, front-loading fridge and an adjacent freezer, located in the galley, as well as with an extra-large, top-loading freezer stationed in the workshop off the main cabin. But none of it worked very well, that is, until Mark McBride of Miller & Miller Boatyard arrived on the scene.
Mark revamped the entire system. “He spent countless hours calibrating, tweaking, adjusting, replacing, and rebuilding the whole system,” said Dave. “He vacuumed out the old Freon, repaired all of the old stuff he could make work, and rebuilt everything to accommodate the new refrigerant. It’s pretty much worked flawlessly thus far.
For the electronics package, Ocean Watch is now equipped with a state-of-the-art integrated system donated from
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| The flywheel. |
Raymarine, including a Raymarine autopilot (which engineer Paul LaRussa was able to artfully accommodate with the boat’s pre-existing, unusual hydraulic steering system); navigation package (including chart-plotter, depth-sounder, fish-finder and radar); and wind instrument array that provides instant data on everything from wind speed, direction, and angle, and also includes a trip log and even a seawater thermometer, which is indispensable when negotiation waters like the Gulf Stream.
The other extremely important part of the navigation system, from Jeppesen Marine, is Admiralty Marine’s Nobeltec system of electronic charts that have been installed on two computers on the boat, once again ensuring redundancy and back-ups (though Ocean Watch also carries standard paper charts as well). One Nobeltec software package exists on the main navigation-station computer, while the other is on an entirely different GPS antenna in the event something happens to the first. All computers are protected by the new, pure sine wave Magnum Energy inverter.
“The computers on this boat probably have better electronic protection than the average home, as far as surges are concerned,” said Dave. “Even shore power is run through the inverter to protect it.”
Tomorrow, in the conclusion of “The Boat that Ballard Built,” Dave will address the rigging, sails and overall philosophy that went into the pre-voyage refit of Ocean Watch. The AtA crew and team would like to thank the following companies for their generous support, without which the voyage “around the Americas” would not be possible.
Around the Americas
Marine Industry & Communication Partners
Euro Marine Trading/Antal Marine Equipment/Lopo Light
Fisheries Supply Company
Iridium Satellite LLC
Northern Lights/Lugger Marine
Raymarine Instruments
Samson Rope
Seaview Boatyards
Stratos Satellite Communications
Sure Marine Service
Winslow Life Raft
Around the Americas
In-kind Supporters
Bainbridge Sailcloth
Blue Sea Systems
Chihuly Glass
Freeborn Concepts LLC
Hatton Marine
Helly Hanson
iBoatTrack
International SeaKeepers Society
Jeppesen Marine
Lewmar
Logan Services
Miller & Miller Marine
Navionics
Northwest Rigging
O’mega Graphics
Outdoor Research
Pacific Maritime Institute
Pinnacle Painting
Port Townsend Sails
Remote Satellite Systems
Scanmar International
SSI Shredding Systems
Swedish Hospital – Ballard
Vi Reno, Reno Law Marine Attorney
Warren Light Craft
Quietly Coasting Down the Coast of Brazil
by Skipper Mark Schrader
On this 185th day of the voyage conditions are much like they were on day number 184. Today the wind is a little stronger (+/-20kts); the seas a little larger; the outside temperature the same (27C/80F); the current not as strong (-1/2kt); and, we’re making reasonable headway toward a much-looked-forward-to turning point called Punta Jericoacoara.
So far, the strategy of staying close to shore seems to be paying off. Since Itaqui the adverse current has rarely been over one knot. For a brief stretch yesterday we actually had a favorable current. At the moment we’re 20 nautical miles offshore directly east of the Rio Parnaiba, an enormous river system extending some 450 miles inland. The mouth of the river forms a delta much like the mighty Mississippi as it dumps into the Gulf. By the color of the water it appears we’re far enough offshore to avoid floating trees and debris but on the charts the entrance to the river is littered with wrecks, cautions and hazards. I’m happy to give it a pass.
Punta Jericoacoara is important because it is the point at which our course can take a significant bend to the south, hopefully giving us a better angle on the wind and the seas. Our speed should increase and our comfort should improve as we bend around the coast and make a course for Natal. At our current speed and heading we should cover the 92 miles to the point by tomorrow morning. We have the option of stopping at Fortaleza-in fact that was the plan until Itaqui-but Natal is only another 300 nautical miles down the coast and appears to be a better place for a quick stop so that’s the new plan.
Maybe it’s the heat or the pounding conditions-or both-but in the absence of Rick and Jen it seems we’ve become a quiet and slightly subdued group. Everyone has their favorite book and semi-comfortable spot, daily chores happen along with sail trimming and engine monitoring but there is a definite economy of energy going on. Change-of-watch conversations cover the basic subjects (here we are, no squalls, one ship, nav lights on, good night, etc.), otherwise it’s reading a book or writing emails. I’ll have to ask Michael to make another graph, something like number of words spoken over 24-hours vs cabin temperature – pithy research.
Assigning that project to Michael seems apt, since he just finished reading The Great Gatsby (probably for the 5th time because Long Island was also Michael’s stomping ground) and he sent me, via internal email(!), the following quote from F. Scott which appears as the last line in the book: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Now just in case you think we’ve suddenly become too serious, this great quote sent via friend Marco Rossi: “Any damn fool can navigate the world sober. It takes a really good Sailor to do it drunk.” – Sir Francis Chichester (while loading his boat with gin). I bet he was Knighted before that quote surfaced.
We’re all just fine, senses of humor still intact and sometimes even smiling…
I’m happy to report all are well aboard Ocean Watch.
- Mark Schrader, Dave Logan and Herb McCormick
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
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