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June 17, 2009 – Gulf of Alaska, 57 55N 143 32W
by Herb McCormick
(June 17): Today’s Crew Log originates from the decidedly tilted main cabin of the ocean-going cutter Ocean Watch. From my perch at the settee alongside the dining table to starboard, it is actually an uphill climb to the navigation station to port, an unsteady roundtrip I’ve just negotiated to confirm our latitude and longitude from the GPS unit. The reason for this, of course, is that Ocean Watch is heeled over and leaning into a fresh southwesterly breeze. The reason is that we’re sailing.
It’s been a long time coming, which makes it all the sweeter. Ocean Watch is presently beam reaching on a port tack in a 15-knot south-southwesterly breeze-for the non-sailors in the audience, all that verbiage simply means the wind is blowing directly across the left-hand side of the boat, a particularly pleasant point of sail-making anywhere from 7-9 knots, though we actually notched a 9.5 in a puff. The engine is mercifully shut down, and its absence is magical. We’re flying a full main, a yankee jib and a staysail, all built by the artists-it’s the only word that fits-at Carol Hasse’s Port Townsend Sails loft, and the perfectly trimmed foils couldn’t be prettier or more efficient.
In our previous dispatch from yesterday, Ocean Watch was in full motorboat mode over seas so flat one could water-ski over them, provided, of course, that they weren’t aboard a 44-ton steel sailboat. But once we were about 80 miles offshore, the dark clouds back to the east began to disassemble, and as the sky cleared we were treated to the remarkable, distant vista of the Fairweather and St. Elias mountain ranges. The capper, literally and figuratively, was the mighty peak of Mt. Logan, rising above the middling clouds to almost 20,000 feet, a truly awesome sight. I’m embarrassed to say that before yesterday I’d never even heard of Mt. Logan, and now I’ll never forget it. Honestly, the visual and natural abundance of the vast state of Alaska is the gift to its visitors that never stops giving.
Still, it was a strange evening. Between us, skipper Mark Schrader, mate Dave Logan and I are the veterans of multiple ocean races to Hawaii, and once the mountains had receded once and for all, we looked around and thought we were midway to Honolulu. The puffy clouds, the blue seas-heck, there was even a dark squall on the horizon-had the distinct look and feel of a trade-wind seascape. Obviously, it couldn’t last. And it didn’t.
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| Mt Logan |
A quick note on our watch system: Now that we’re again offshore, we’re running the same schedule as we did for much of the trip from Seattle to Juneau. Our two three-man watches are comprised of Mark, David Thoreson and Andy Gregory on one shift, and Logan, scientist Michael Reynolds and me on the other. We run three, four-hour watches during the day from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and four, three-hour watches during the night. I’ve used this watch system plenty of times on trips and races with smallish crews, and like it a lot. Every other day each watch gets eight hours off in the daytime to catch up on sleep and chores. And the three-hour shifts during the night make the long evening tolerable and keeps everyone rotating before your attention really starts to wander.
Logan, Reynolds and I came on at 0300 this morning-3 a.m. for you early risers-and were greeted by falling temperatures, gray seas and an angry-looking sky. So much for the hula girls. In the background, the sounds of BBC News were being piped into the cockpit courtesy of our satellite radio. You learn all sorts of interesting things from the BBC, all delivered in urbane British tones. (With its wealth of international news, one of the chief things you learn is that, outside of Hollywood, and to a lesser degree Wall Street, the majority of Americans are colossally ill-informed on much of what’s going on in most of the world.) For some reason, I decided I needed a dose of U.S. news, so switched to American Morning on CNN. Maybe it was the hour, or the fact that I suddenly couldn’t believe anything unless it was presented to me in a clipped British accent, but I’ve never heard more blabber and drivel in my entire life. From now on, I’m turning the sat radio on for three things and three things only, in this exact order: Red Sox baseball, music and the BBC. Oh: And possibly New York City traffic reports, which I always find hilarious, except when I’m in New York City.
But I digress.
By 0430, the first inklings of the fresh breeze began to fill, and Logan unrolled our roller-furling yankee and eased back on the engine RPMs. By the change of watch at 6 a.m. the wind was continuing to fill, and since I was asleep about 17 seconds after my head hit the pillow, I can only assume that our skipper and his mates set the remaining sails shortly thereafter. Because they sure were set and drawing, and Ocean Watch was a seriously going concern, when I woke a few hours later.
In the early stages of this project, when Mark told me he’d put the deposit down on a Bruce Roberts-designed 64-footer, I can’t say I greeted the news with excessive enthusiasm. The Aussie-born designer is well known for strong boats, but speedy ones? Not so much. And when we delivered the boat from Mexico to Seattle last spring, for numerous reasons, it was a long trip. But Ocean Watch has been transformed in the months since, and with her new suit of sails, revamped rig and new Lugger diesel engine, she is proving to be a solid performer under power and sail. On the latter point, as we’ve discovered today, given the right conditions she can roll like a freight train.
As I’ve been typing, Logan and Reynolds called down with the news that not one, but two humpback whales were cruising alongside us, matching our speed, less than a boat length away. I popped up on deck, and sure enough, there they were. Like Ocean Watch, they seemed powerful and purposeful, and at one with the elements, coursing ever westward as the miles ticked away.
- Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson
*This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
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