Posts Tagged ‘sailors’

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February 7, 2010 – At Sea, 45º 25’S, 074º 41’W
By Herb McCormick

Tom Hoymer is a great, funny, hardworking guy; an excellent sailor; a father and grandfather. A longtime best friend of skipper Mark Schrader, Tom joined the crew of Ocean Watch in South Carolina last fall, and was an invaluable mate – and the source of endless laughter – right through the voyage to San Juan. Tom knows his ropes, but what made him so valued was his sense of humor, his constant smile, his dry wit and his irrepressible spirit; in, short, his love of life. Aboard Ocean Watch, Tom was living his dream of offshore, blue-water sailing, and his sheer joy at the wonder of it all rubbed off on all of us.

We’ve been thinking about Tom a lot these past days, for right now, this instant, Tom Hoymer is in a hospital in Norway, in a coma and on a respirator, battling a vicious infection for his very existence.

He was just up there, in the cockpit, sipping a beer and sharing a sea story.

That, of course, is life. It can happen, to any and all of us, in a moment’s flash. The only consolation we on Ocean Watch have about this, is that not so long ago, Tom was right here with us, having seized the day and the opportunity to chase his passion.

Chasing your passions, of course, is not always simple, as the crew aboard Ocean Watch also learned in the last 24-hours. This afternoon, the boat was in the open Pacific Ocean but aimed at the Canal Darwin off the coast of Southern Chile. The problem with these waters, and it’s a considerable one, is their geographical location and make-up. The westerly winds here in the Roaring Forties are tenacious and endless, but the Andes Mountain range extending up the coast is what really makes them fierce and lethal, for once they stack up against the long line of peaks they have nowhere to go, no release for their powerful energy. Instead, they funnel and blow, stacking up tight stripes of isobars that parallel the continent. The end effect is exponential.

Last night, crossing the miserable Golfo de Penas, we learned what those weather maps look like in reality.

People who’ve sailed across oceans with me know I have a fairly strong stomach and constitution. This wasn’t always the case, it’s something I’ve gotten used to and learned to overcome after many, many miles. Until last evening, that is, when I was wracked with the most vicious spasms of seasickness I’ve experienced in over two decades. Mal tiempo equaled mal de mer. I can say this only because Tom Hoymer would appreciate the sentiment, and at least a small attempt at humor, but for a while there, a coma sounded pretty good.

The skipper, of course, was right in the fray, and he’s addressed last night’s events, and summarized the current situation, in the latest entry of his ongoing log:

“On some passages we’ve compared the motion on board Ocean Watch to what being inside your home washing machine on the wash cycle might be like.  I think it’s an apt comparison, only last night we were in the industrial variety, known for its long cycles and vigorous turbulent action.  If I were a pair of dirty coveralls, I’d be spotless now, ditto the whole crew. The spin and rinse parts were less fun than the wash cycle.  It wasn’t comfortable but we’re fine.

“Since leaving the relative calm of Schroder Island (I’m sure they misspelled it, that “o” was certainly meant to be an “a”) and starting across the Gulfo de Penas, we’ve covered 160 open ocean nautical miles and are now headed into the recommended Canal Darwin.  Darwin connects with about a dozen other named inside canals that should eventually lead us to Puerto Montt, 310 miles north of our current position.  Most of the canals are charted and marked (lighted) so we can safely navigate at night. That’s good because we have a pretty narrow window of weather for a timely arrival (I know, we’re already late) in Puerto Montt.

“Besides being ace photographer and humorist, David Thoreson finds, downloads and summarizes our daily weather forecasts.  His latest from Buoyweather.com looks like we have a 36-hour period of moderate westerly winds before a strong gale arrives and brings with it very strong northerly winds along the coast and in the channels.  For us, strong northerlies means finding a place to hide and letting it blow over.  We know in these channels we can’t sail or motor against steep chop and strong wind.  All of us would like to be in Puerto Montt before this gale makes its way to the coast, but it will be close, odds on the gale arriving before we’re tied to the dock.

“When I mentioned to a local sailor the disparity between the wind speed we’ve recorded with our masthead instruments and the instruments the Chilean Lighthouse keepers report (when we were next to one yesterday they were reporting 10 kts, when we had 27 kts) he said they routinely mount their instruments inside the lighthouses so they don’t get blown away.  Apparently, since he repeated the story a couple of times, he takes this as fact.  I have no other explanation.  If I were stationed on one of these coastal lighthouses I wouldn’t go outside either – step out of one on a windy day without your tether and you may end up somewhere in the Andes.

“Okay, trivia time.  I’ve just followed our longitude (75°13’W) north to see our relative position in North America.  The ‘line’ touches the eastern tip of Cuba, runs just a hair west of New York City, and just east of our last stop in the Arctic, Pond Inlet.  Do the same thing with our latitude and the only thing you hit is the city of Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand.  I don’t know if any of this is of general interest but for some reason I like knowing where we are relative to other places on the planet, and I like entering a channel called Darwin.

“From right here, I’m happy to report all are well aboard Ocean Watch.”

To second Mark’s thoughts, yes we are (a little lighter, too!), and we’re very grateful for it.

Here on Ocean Watch, thanks to many, many individuals, we are living our dream of sailing Around the Americas. It’s not necessarily easy, but anything truly worthwhile rarely is. If you have a moment today, we’d ask you to take a second or two to join us in saying a prayer or thinking positive thoughts for our friend and shipmate, Tom Hoymer, a very good man dealt an exceedingly bad hand.

Tom didn’t take anything for granted, and neither do we. So on behalf of our mate, Tom, we’ll leave you today with two questions.

First, what’s your dream?

And much more importantly, what are you going to do about it?

-Herb McCormick and Mark Schrader with photographs by David Thoreson

*This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos

*To add a comment to this story click on the comment link below the post title. Please direct your messages for the crew to crew@aroundtheamericas.org instead of submitting them here. Thanks for following the Around the Americas Expedition.

Open the below photos in a full-screen slideshow in Flickr

February 4, 2010 – Puerto Eden, Patagonia, Chile
By David Rockefeller, Jr. with an introduction by Herb McCormick

It’s been an eventful 24-hours on Ocean Watch. The crew has left the Furious Fifties and returned to the Roaring Forties, this morning arriving in the small fishing village of Puerto Eden (49 08’S, 074 24’W) to take on fuel. Puerto Eden is a very remarkable place, and we’ll revisit it in detail this weekend in upcoming crew logs.

Today’s log, however, is from Sailors for the Sea (SFS) co-founder David Rockefeller, Jr., who has been serving as co-navigator aboard Ocean Watch since our return to South America from the Falkland Islands, including our successful rounding of Cape Horn. In fact, along with David, our sailing team for this stretch of the voyage has been the strongest, and most experienced since leaving Seattle: both Ned Cabot and David Treadway, also aboard for the trip around the Horn, are seasoned long-distance, transoceanic sailors (“DR,” however, is our only America’s Cup veteran, having crewed in three campaigns, aboard Nefertiti, Constellation and Valiant during the 12-Meter era off Newport, Rhode Island).

Tomorrow, David R, Ned and David T – all board members of SFS, our partner in Around the Americas – will be leaving the boat to continue traveling in South America. So it’s fitting that, in his final hours aboard Ocean Watch, DR is wrapping up his time aboard with today’s log:

A Crew of Captains by David Rockefeller, Jr.

Ocean Watch has only one man in command, and that’s Captain Mark Schrader.  But all eight of us in crew – four permanent and four guest crew – have served as captains of sailing vessels at sea, and most of us have been doing that since we were teenagers.

The crew’s average age is 61, and collectively we have logged half a million miles at sea.  I’m the short hitter with only 30,000 miles, while Mark has done 130,000, the equivalent of five circumnavigations of the globe.  In fact, he’s done that twice – alone.

Successful companies, ball teams and governments take many forms, but I suspect that a company full of former CEO’s or a football team made up of quarterbacks or a government Cabinet comprising only ex-Presidents would not work.  Too many cooks…too much second-guessing. But a boatful of captains can be an effective enterprise, and Ocean Watch is one such vessel.  This made me wonder whether some of the lessons learned aboard could apply to other terrestrial situations.

The reasons for Ocean Watch’s success begin with the style and experience of our Captain, a Nebraskan turned Californian who “signed on as cook” at seventeen for his first voyage at sea.  In my view, Mark possesses the key ingredients of a successful Captain: SELF-CONFIDENCE AND COURAGE, as when he and the crew had to re-attach mooring lines in the middle of the night with sixty knots of wind and rain pummeling them and driving the boat backward.; A BROAD VISION PLUS ATTENTION TO DETAIL, enabling him to plan a 25,000 mile circumnavigation of the Americas while also remembering to keep a good supply of butter and chocolate aboard;  A CALM DEMEANOR AND A SENSE OF HUMOR, so that when faced with headwinds in the Strait of Magellan for four straight days, he asks wryly, “Whose idea was it anyway to go this direction?”

A second reason that Ocean Watch’s Around the Americas expedition has succeeded with a boatful of captains is the shared sense of mission for the journey (“saving the oceans by educating people about the threats to ocean health”) and feeling a shared responsibility for its success.  In addition, each member of the permanent crew has a distinct and important function:  Mark is the Captain as well as writer of a daily log and a member of the Strategic Planning Team for the project; Dave Logan is the meticulous and skilled First Mate, in charge of boat systems and much of the steering; Herb McCormick is the eloquent chronicler of the voyage and an expert sail hand; Dave Thoreson is the extraordinary photo journalist and another expert sail hand.  The latter two are also Watch Captains, in charge of alternating teams when Ocean Watch is at sea for long periods.

The Guest Crew on Ocean Watch – all captains in their own right – each bring additional talent as writer, photographer, navigator, translator, physician and even a family therapist..  In sum, we have a great Captain, a clear mission, and a group of experienced crewmen who have separate responsibilities for carrying out the mission.  But what are the particular characteristics of being a crew that lead to success?

At the top of my list I would put ADAPTABILITY to extended life on board:  to the hardships of a lumpy sea, to the different personal styles and moods of others, and to someone else’s suggestions or commands. Other important characteristics of a good crew would include:  PHYSICAL STRENGTH and endurance; CALMNESS under pressure; and CONSIDERATION for others.

The crew of Ocean Watch is well-endowed with these qualities, and in addition their average age suggests they don’t have “something to prove,” and they certainly have seen what works and what doesn’t on many other boats.  Finally, the permanent crew has been engaged now for eight months and has learned how to cope in a thousand subtle ways with the preferences and eccentricities of their teammates.

Some of us on board have wondered, as I mentioned, how the lessons learned by this “crew of captains” could be transferred to other contexts: perhaps to sports teams, or corporate leadership groups, or even to national and global governance.  Just imagine  how much more successful Copenhagen’s COP 15 gathering on climate change would have been if the world’s leaders had really taken hold as the crew responsible for Spaceship Earth and made the necessary course corrections.  Taking a page from the experience of NOLS or Outward Bound, perhaps the leaders should have teamed up and rafted down a white water river before negotiating the rapids of climate policy.

Ocean Watch and her crew of four have another 150 days to go before achieving a successful return to Seattle and a full circumnavigation of this “Isle of the Americas.”  As I prepare to leave the crew here in Chile, I am totally confident they will complete the mission and make a significant contribution to raising awareness about the health of our oceans.

-David Rockefeller, Jr., with an introduction by Herb McCormick and photographs by David Thoreson

*This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos

*To add a comment to this story click on the comment link below the post title. Please direct your messages for the crew to crew@aroundtheamericas.org instead of submitting them here. Thanks for following the Around the Americas Expedition.

Open the above photos in a full-screen slideshow in Flickr

February 3, 2010 – At Sea, 49º 55’S, 074º 25’W
By Herb McCormick

Before I joined the crew of Ocean Watch, and we rounded Cape Horn, and were befriended by a like-minded crew of mariners known as The Brotherhood of the Coast, I had the opportunity to meet and sail with a whole other group of excellent Chilean sailors. Now that Ocean Watch has been cruising in Chile for a couple of weeks, I’ve come to realize that highly proficient, yet fun-loving sailors who truly love the sea, are not the exception in this awesome part of the world, they’re the rule.

And man, they rule.

As the crew of Ocean Watch pressed on without stopping for the second straight day, finally making some steady progress toward the next scheduled port of Puerto Montt, I was reminded of this while reading Alberto Mantellero’s excellent sailing instructions to these vast and wondrous waters, The First Yachtsman’s Navigator Guide to the Chilean Patagonia. In a roundabout way, Alberto’s fine book – with detailed instructions, waypoints and sketch charts for almost 300 separate anchorages – was my introduction to Chile in both the literal and figurative senses, and I’ll return to this story in a moment.

First, an update: Last night, as the sky cleared over several hours of long twilight, the vistas along the Canal Smyth opened wide and we were treated to the finest weather, and the best visuals, since traversing the Beagle Channel at the outset of this post-Cape Horn leg from Puerto Williams to Puerto Montt. The solid rock walls and islands were one thing, but the most memorable sights of all were the snow fields and the soaring ranges of the Southern Andes mountains, our first glimpse of them in the canals. The low light was so perfect it’s hard to describe the scene in mere words, but thankfully, once again, we have David Thoreson’s practiced eye and humbling images to record the moments for posterity.

The fine weather continued through the evening, and we were able to make steady progress, despite the onset of night, thanks to working radar, wide channels, skilled navigators and even the rare light of the waning moon. By morning, it remained so still that at one point we stopped the boat and emptied our jerry cans of diesel – 35 gallons in all – into the fuel tanks.

Once that chore was done, we spent a long day snaking our way north through a series of straits and canals with exotic (and less-so) handles: Collingswood, Sarmiento, Inocentes, Concepcion, Wide. With the variety of waterways came a variety of conditions, namely rain, fog, calms and wind. Looking back at our travels prior to Cape Horn, we thought the Falklands had a changeable climate. By comparison, however, Chile is the absolute Sybil of weather, the land of multiple meteorological personalities.

Along the way, mate Dave Logan and I referred to the local charts and cruising guides to determine possible anchorages for this evening, or earlier, if the wacky weather really took a turn for the worse.

All that brings us back to Alberto’s well-thumbed copy (well, copies…we now have three on board!) of his Navigator Guide. Several years ago, Alberto’s longtime friend and fellow yachtsman, Santiago businessman Mauricio Ojeda, sent me a review copy of the first edition of the book when I was working as an editor at Cruising World magazine. Not only did Mauricio send me the book, he also graciously noted that if we ran his email address in the magazine, he’d be happy to help any sailors cruising to Chile with plans or other assistance. In many ways, Alberto and Mauricio were way ahead of their time. At that point, foreign-flagged cruising boats in these waters were few and far between, but today – thanks in no small part to Alberto’s helpful volume – more and more sailors are discovering the joys of Southern Chile.

A true gentleman, in thanks for the review, Mauricio sent me a note saying that he and a few of his longtime friends – like him, graduates of the Chilean Naval Academy, who launched successful careers in other fields after their mandatory stints in the service – were hoping to sometime sail around Cape Horn, and if their plans came together, I was invited.

“Sure, Mauricio, count me in,” I replied, thinking the kind gesture would never actually come to pass.

That is, until about two years later, when I got a letter from him that totally called my bluff. It said, basically, buy your plane ticket to Chile, my friend, we have a date with the Horn.

And that is how I ended up rounding Cape Horn the first time, years before setting sail with Ocean Watch, aboard Ronald Phillips’s well-found Nauticat, Chucao, with a crew of ex-Chilean naval officers, lifelong mariners and mates. I was the only gringo aboard, but I laughed as hard as I ever did, even though I’m sure many of the jokes were on me. But it wasn’t all folly; these good men were great seamen, and their love of their fine country, and their reverence for the amazing waters and coastline, is not something I will ever forget. Before I was inducted into The Brotherhood, along with my fellow brethren on Ocean Watch, it was my true honor to be accepted by a completely separate set of brothers of the sea.

A retired rear admiral in the Chilean Navy, Alberto Mantellero “retired” to the canals as a sailor and wrote his book, a labor of love, so that other cruisers, whatever their nationality – it’s written in Spanish and English (for more about it, check out this web page: www.chileansailing.cl) – could benefit from his vast local knowledge. On behalf of all those sailors, and especially the crew of Ocean Watch, we thank you, sir, for all your efforts on our behalf.

And I’ll thank you again, Alberto, for extra good measure. No one – and I mean no one – has gotten more from its pages than me.

-Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson

*This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos

*To add a comment to this story click on the comment link below the post title. Please direct your messages for the crew to crew@aroundtheamericas.org instead of submitting them here. Thanks for following the Around the Americas Expedition.

Open the above photos in a full-screen slideshow in Flickr

January 28, 2010 – Isla Stewart, Chile
By Herb McCormick

We never got to implement Plan A today, and it’s a shame, because it was a good one. After running ninety-miles down the Beagle Channel yesterday, we tucked into a secluded hidey-hole off Seno Pia, a grand fjord surrounded by blue glaciers, snowy summits and flowing waterfalls. The idea was to enjoy a lazy morning kicking around the ice-strewn waters in the dinghy and kayaks, and taking long walks ashore. But we awoke to steady rain and skipper Mark Schrader made the call to take advantage of the calm winds – even though the visibility was crummy – and keep pushing on.

The skipper, mate Dave Logan and I did have a brief scramble into the woods before untying the two shore lines we’d run ashore the evening before and getting underway. On the way out of the harbor, we made a pass by the face of one of the trio of glaciers and were treated to a huge slab of ice calving into the sea with a splash and a roar. For good measure, new Ocean Watch crewman David Treadway scooped up a big piece of brash ice, a good idea as our 12-volt cockpit cooler had self-immolated the day before.

With that, we were off, back into the murky, misty Beagle Channel.

Before the advent of GPS satellite navigation systems, radar and the like, navigators found their way by a system known as dead reckoning. In practice, the navigator determines his whereabouts by keeping track of his course, speed, heading, landmarks, navigation aids and so on…in effect, using any and all visual clues available, as well as simple but constant mathematics, to find his way. The “dead” in dead reckoning is short for “deductive,” but it’s also a double entendre, for a navigator who lacks the skills to dead reckon surely puts his boat, and himself, in peril.

Logan does the lion’s share of our underway, hands-on navigation on Ocean Watch, and today he got the opportunity to truly practice his coastal piloting and navigational proficiency. The poor conditions were one thing, but the more hazardous element to the day’s proceedings was the fact that the latitude on the electronic charts in the Beagle Channel were off by as much as three-quarters of a mile. At times, the charting software showed us driving right across a mid-channel island. Once, David Thoreson popped on deck from down below and said, “We’re climbing that mountain, right there.”

It wasn’t the first time the charts had been incorrect; on a couple of poorly timed occasions in the Arctic, the same problem arose. “But given the complexity of things down here,” said Logan, “a half- to three-quarters of a mile is way worse than the Arctic.”

However, Logan was on top of his considerable game, and the day passed without incident. Well, almost.

Compared to yesterday, when the scenery for long periods held us in a trance, today’s lousy weather made it seem like sailing by Braille. Our course took us down the Beagle and into a long channel called the Canal O’Brien. Right before we entered, a warship materialized before us, clearly a Naval vessel. But it wasn’t Chilean. That fact was confirmed when the ever-watchful Chilean Armada tried for a good half hour to raise the vessel via VHF-radio. There was no response.

Our translator, Horacio Rosell, solved the mystery for the authorities when he radioed them and told them what we’d seen: a French-flagged ship on maneuvers. Another followed shortly thereafter. We wondered if we were on the verge of witnessing an international incident, but the airwaves went silent.

We did hail a friendlier vessel, yet another sailboat from Seattle in the high latitudes. Like most cruising sailors, Brandy and Mark went by their first names and that of their vessel, a Panda 38 called Restless. They’d been outbound from the Pacific Northwest for four years and had spent the previous seventy days in the Chilean Canals. We’d heard from lots of sailors in the Falkland Islands and Puerto Williams that more and more sailboats are transiting these waters – not two decades ago, they were an extreme rarity – and everything we’ve seen confirmed that notion. Brandy and Mark passed along some recent information about the weather and anchorages, and after wishing each other good sailing, we both continued on our way.

Once through the Canal O’Brien, we transited an open stretch of water before our final approach of the day, to an anchorage called Puerto Fanny on Isla Stewart. The wind was rising and the temperature falling – with the rain slanting sideways – when we finally got the hook down. Big williwaws were whistling down the hills and streaking the water with dark, patchy puffs. But the day of travel was done.

We never did get to enjoy Plan A. But we’d successfully executed Plan B.

- Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson

*This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos

*To add a comment to this story click on the comment link below the post title. Please direct messages for the crew to crew@aroundtheamericas.org instead of submitting them here. Thanks for following the Around the Americas Expedition.