Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2021 i Cruising World

Skipper Norbert Sedlacek set sail in mid-August from Les Sables d’Olonne, France, chasing the claim to become the first man to sail unassisted, nonstop, and singlehanded 32,000 nautical miles around the world, through five oceans, and both the north and the south polar regions. Sedlacek hopes to complete the voyage in 165 days aboard his innovative 60-foot Open60 AAL, or Ant Arctic Lab, Innovation. His quest aims to highlight climate change and put to the test several innovative yacht-design concepts. The first leg of the sail takes him west of the British Isles and north to Svalbard, Norway, where the route rounds the archipelago’s northern coast counterclockwise, sailing into the Arctic Ocean and passing through the polar regions at 80 degrees north. From there the plan is to sail south,…

Fall sailing brings crisp breezes on the water and the anticipation of seasonal fruits ashore that will freshen up a garden salad. While cruising the US East Coast, Bahamas and Caribbean in Scaramouche, our Tayana 58, venturing into local markets was a highlight of provisioning. Many harbors have great access to markets offering local farm-grown fruits and produce, as well as baked goods, jarred preserves and marinades. One of my favorite fall salads consists of late-summer figs, early-fall pears, and pomegranates over baby arugula greens. The combination of textures from the soft figs, firm pears and crunchy pomegranate seeds (you can substitute dried cranberries if pomegranate seeds are unavailable), along with their sweet and tart flavors, are fabulous for a healthy and beautiful salad. Sprinkled with crumbled feta or goat…

My friend Larry Tyler and I have known each other and sailed the Caribbean together for years. Larry has been chartering The Dove, his 54-foot Bill Crealock-designed yacht, in the islands for 30 seasons. So he was the natural person to ask perhaps a not-so-simple question: What are your favorite places to drop the hook in the Caribbean? “What criteria do we use?” he wondered. “What defines a desirable anchorage?” “I want clear water for swimming, and to see the sunset each evening,” I said. He took that simple yardstick and ran with it. “It must be unspoiled, a near-empty place,” he added. “With good holding ground and access ashore. My charter guests want it calm, with no swell. A nice local or French restaurant ashore is always a must.…

MONTHLY MAINTENANCE When I’m engaged in vessel inspections, I encounter many scenarios that make me wince, from mismatched seacock threads and open AC-power splices to broken strands in standing rigging wire and unseized anchor shackles. But there’s one thing in particular that evokes strong emotions within me: rusty or improperly maintained tools. Tools are to a cruising vessel what paintbrushes are to an artist; without them, your passage, and cruising life, simply would not be possible. And yet, all too often I encounter vessels where tool maintenance and care are seemingly an afterthought. As a die-hard tool aficionado, this to me is sacrilege; as such, my goal is to inspire cruisers to take better care of the contents of their tool cabinets. Clearly the greatest threat to most tools—at least…

Scarfing wood together dates back ages. Scarfing is the process of cutting corresponding angles (or sometimes shapes) on two similar pieces of wood and gluing them together to create a larger piece of lumber or plywood. The most common place scarfing is used is in building a stitch-and-glue canoe or kayak. I had plans to build two kayaks over the winter, with five scarfs on each hull. I’d only done a few scarf joints over the years, so this was an excellent opportunity to learn the pros and cons of the West System® 875 Scarffer. There are several different ways to join plywood but for stitch-and-glue construction, scarfing allows more of a natural bend to the wood that you can’t achieve with a butt block or a half lap joint.…

Begin with the Right Tool for the Job The application tool used to apply the epoxy coat will have a significant bearing on the outcome. I prefer our West System® 800 Roller Covers. Their 1/8"-thick foam provides excellent control over film thickness. They are less likely than thicker (paint) rollers to make the epoxy overheat, and they leave less stipple on the coated surface. The 800 Roller Covers are easy to cut into smaller sections for tipping off uncured epoxy coatings. After applying the epoxy coating with a foam roller, tip it off by dragging a cut section of foam roller over the surface. This smooths the coat of epoxy and lets you control how much epoxy stays on the surface. As an experiment, I decided to roll coats of…

I guess I’m one of those guys who finds retirement much busier than work. In fact, I wonder how I ever found time to work. One of the first projects I started after retiring was helping my brother Nelson build two Chesapeake Light Craft (CLC) stand-up paddleboards (SUPs). We were building them for the best kind of friend—the paying kind. Choosing a Model CLC offers various options to fit their customer’s pocket book, ambition, and skill level. (1) You can simply order the plans and cut all the parts from plywood in your own shop. I doubt many take that option because of the inner grid work. (2) The next option is ordering the kit with all the parts delivered pre-cut by CLC. This is the best option, in my…

FIJI’S DRUA PAST MEETS THE PRESENT Long before Cruising World magazine, before production fiberglass boats or even square-rigged tall ships, there were a variety of different canoe designs sailing the tradewind-kissed waters of the Pacific Ocean. Widely recognized as one of the first bluewater fleets in the history of the world, the multihull canoes of the Pacific covered vast expanses of water as pioneering voyagers and nomadic islanders settled everything from volcanic island chains to tiny, geographically disparate coral atolls. Of these many different canoe designs that sailed the Pacific, few were as grand as the mighty Fijian drua. The drua were revered throughout the Pacific for their incredible size and performance, along with their huge cargo-carrying ability. The largest of them were more than 120 feet long and capable…

Few things feel finer under bare feet than a sun-soaked teak deck. Yet after years of overharvesting, Burmese teak is in short supply. Lignia Wood Company, a supplier of sustainable modified timber, based in South Wales in the United Kingdom, has created an alternative to teak using fast-growing softwoods sourced from sustainably managed and Forest Stewardship Council-certified plantations in New Zealand and Chile. The softwoods are processed with Lignia’s “ligniafication” treatment, resulting in a manufactured wood that is harder, lighter and more durable than teak. The Lignia Yacht wood product comes with a 50-year warranty against rot and decay. Lignia Yacht wood is currently being used by high-end builders, including Spirit Yachts, to produce beautiful, teaklike decks. It’s also available to boat owners who are interested in DIY refit projects.…

Oftentimes referred to as “The Seven Mile Miracle,” the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii, is a rugged stretch of coastline that has become more historically significant in the surfing world than any other place on the planet. With reef breaks and deepwater bays that pick up the big north swells of passing winter storms—combined with a deeply ingrained Hawaiian surfing culture—the North Shore has become a mecca for the sport. Naturally, the North Shore has produced some incredible surfing talent over the years. When the trade winds build and the waves go flat in the summertime, however, some of the future kings and queens of surfing inevitably find themselves bored and looking for other ways to score cheap thrills out on the water. One of them is the North Shore’s…

SEAMANSHIP Before we entered our first reef pass in Tahanea, in the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia, we were quite anxious. We’d read several atoll-pass horror stories featuring punishing currents, breaking waves and dangerous eddies. To our surprise and relief, as we sailed toward Tahanea’s entrance, we found the broad pass laid before us at slack water with no visible threats. Our entry was entirely unspectacular. The weather was calm. We had arrived at the right time. Predicting slack water in a lagoon pass is not always easy—atoll entry is a hot topic during South Pacific sailor sundowners and at beach barbecues. Different kinds of software tools designed to assist entries are passed around between boats. But often the data intended to help is completely off, particularly when the local…

As if to prove the old saw “good things come to those who wait,” sailboat builders are poised to introduce a stunning array of new models as boat shows here in the States open their doors for the first time in nearly two years. Looking through the line-up that’s set to make a debut at venues this fall and winter, the assortment of designs and options is impressive, to say the least. For our 2022 New Sailboat Showcase, we count entries from builders in a dozen countries, from the US to Europe to the Far East to South Africa. One country, France, dominates the waterfront with 13 new models ready to make a splash. But nationality isn’t the only element bringing variety to the new-sailboat market. Buyers will be able…

CHARTER PRACTICE FOR CROATIA The nonprofit Green Sail offers instruction about chartering and environmentally sound practices in the online courses “Yacht Charter: An Introduction to Croatia” and “Introduction to Marine Sustainability.” The free courses were developed to save crews time at check-in and safeguard the popular Dalmatian Coast cruising grounds of the Eastern European country. The videos are 20 minutes and an hour in length, respectively. The introductory charter course topics include onboard safety equipment, how to use a bow thruster, and how to dock and moor in Croatia. Best practices for releasing black and gray waters and onboard waste reduction, as well as recycling, are also covered. Besides identifying contributing factors to climate change, the marine sustainability course raises awareness of the global problem of marine litter. Contact Green…

I purchased my 1953 Chevrolet 3100 pickup truck in 1975 from my best friend’s older brother. Years earlier, it had been the first vehicle I’d ever driven. For the next 29 years, it was stored outside and used sporadically. In 2004, I half-heartedly began restoring it and finally got serious about the project when I retired in 2018. After being exposed to Minnesota weather for many years, most of the truck’s wooden bed was rotten or missing. With a few sections that survived and the help of YouTube, I was able to reproduce the eight wooden boards close to the original ones. I used some black walnut that my dad—a woodworker for many years at a local grandfather clock company—obtained that wasn’t up to their standards. However, the truck’s original…

When I retired three years ago, I had plans to do a lot of camping. We have a small travel trailer that we love, yet there are times when camping alone that I prefer to keep things simple by leaving the trailer at home. Sleeping in the back of my small SUV works fine for me. There is even room to bring my canine pal along. One of the challenges with car camping is getting fresh air without allowing mosquitoes in for their blood-letting endeavors. I decided to devise a simple window screen that can be easily attached and removed. The screen panels that I came up with can be made in a weekend. The thing I like most about them (besides the fact that they keep the mosquitoes out)…

Have you ever heard of a single-speed winch that has a double-speed winch handle? I carried them aboard my 46-foot cutter, Iolaire, for three decades. I discovered that if you had a boat with single-speed winches but a crew that wasn’t especially strong, it’s cheaper to make a two-speed handle than to buy two-speed winches. The idea was developed by the Merriman hardware company for the old J-Class America’s Cup behemoths. To increase the power of the racing winches, Merriman made a double-socketed handle: the first socket 10 inches from the handle and the second socket 14 inches from the handle. A sail trimmer started cranking on the inner socket; when he stalled out, he switched to the outer socket. It increased the power by 40 percent, changing the winch…

I have been called a serial circumnavigator. Among other things. I do like to go around in circles, and so at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday morning in late February, I walked down from our condominium on South Carolina’s Hilton Head Island overlooking Skull Creek Marina, where my Moore 24, Gannet, is docked, to prepare her for another epic voyage: my seventh circumnavigation. Well, really not so epic. The first six were around the planet. My seventh would be somewhat more modest: around Hilton Head Island. § Getting ready took a while. Gannet is no longer self-sufficient. When really voyaging, I can leave and return to the little boat with nothing more than the devices I carry in my messenger bag. No longer. I’ve removed as much from her as…

PROJECTS Rudders on good old hard-driven, classic-plastic cruisers always seem to leak, and it’s been our practice to drain them whenever possible. So when our 1975 Kaiser Gale Force 34, Kraken, arrived in New Jersey after a road-trip delivery from Florida, we drilled a hole near the bottom of its transom-hung rudder. After drying out for a year on the hard, it still oozed black, nasty-smelling stuff. Kraken was largely in good shape, but the passage of time and the hard environments of salt water in various climates—from the Canadian Maritimes to the Caribbean—had worked to split the seam between the rudder’s two thick fiberglass sides. This had been awkwardly repaired, and the lower of two massive castbronze pintles, which connect to gudgeons on the transom, was cracked. Though we…

If you’re anything like me, you probably don’t spend much time thinking about onboard refrigeration systems. But then again, I race and sail on the OPB program (other people’s boats), so I’m not the one who has to take the blame for the warm beer. But if you’re the one responsible for making sure the fridge stays chilled, here’s some food for thought. Marine refrigeration has existed in different forms since the first ancient mariner figured out that scooping up some ice kept the food edible longer. Today, there are a variety of options, from the tried-and-true cooler (see “The Old Fashioned Way,” page 92) to quite-efficient DC-powered cycling evaporator systems. As a rule of thumb, contemporary refrigerators and freezers are usually more efficient and generally offer better performance than…

To prevent future issues, it was important to investigate why the wood in the transom had rotted. The water intrusion appeared to be coming from the screws holding the rub rail onto the boat. To evaluate the extent of the damage to the transom, we needed to remove the inner fiberglass laminate. We pulled out the motor and removed the transom assembly to gain access to the inner laminate. This way, enough of the structure was left intact so the hull maintained its shape. The trailer was supporting the hull so additional blocking was not needed and we only worked on the transom. Our plan was to repair the plywood in the transom from the inside so we wouldn’t need to perform cosmetic repairs to the outside fiberglass laminate; it’s…

The project, while simple in scope, posed a few complications: • The two original thru-hulls were quite close together• These thru-hulls were close to the centerline of the bow• From the inside, the thru-hulls were near some laminated stiffening for the bow as well as some tabbing to the inside liner We reached out to Gougeon Brothers, Inc. and were connected with Technical Advisor Don Gutzmer. We sent some pictures over and he assessed our situation. This was truly the best thing we could have done. Don’s technical expertise was evident throughout our discussions. He recommended we start by reinforcing the inside area with two layers of biaxial fiberglass cloth before making the repair from the outside. On the outside, to eliminate the obsolete thru-hull, we needed to taper the…

I’ve always wondered if LuLu wasn’t the largest trailerable sailboat on record. I’ve been sailing this 35', self-designed and homebuilt motor sailor since launching her out of Morro Bay, California in 2010. I laid the keel in 1993 after three years of testing on a half-scale model I’d built. Her construction consists of ¾" planks bent over bulkheads on strongback and closely fitted, layered joints held together with a lot of West System® Epoxy. I also used West System® when I sheathed her with fiberglass. Because LuLu is water-ballasted, she’s easily towed with my ¾-ton 2015 GMC pickup. We now sail her exclusively out of Marina Del Rey, California and will cruise to Catalina. Lulu’s flood hatches total 3'2" of bottom area, allowing her to morph into a 14,800 lb.…