Category: Boat design

Keep Swimming, Keep Rowing, Keep Sailing

Keep Swimming, Keep Rowing, Keep Sailing

Building the hard dodger for Tranquility is a project made possible by a chain of events that stretches several months in the past. A key element to this transformation was the dinghy, also knows as auxiliary boat or tender.

Tranquility in Fairhaven MA

Looking at this older picture of Tranquility you can notice that the plastic Walker Bay dinghy sat on top of the companionway, in a very secure spot, but making it impossible to protect the cockpit and companionway, and forcing the crew to duck considerably to get in and out. On small boats like the Columbia 29 the stowage of dinghies is not a trivial matter, as the auxiliary boat is an indispensable tool on any cruising vessel and the space on deck is limited.

The 8 feet long Walker Bay is a dependable and solid dinghy, and I grew accustomed to its carrying capacity and good rowing abilities. I was not ready to renounce such luxury. The solution to this problem appeared to be a nesting dinghy, an auxiliary boat that is comprised of two parts that can be nested one inside the other, reducing its length when stowed. It was basically impossible to find a nesting dinghy where I was on the Atlantic Coast of Panama. Building one became the only option.

I built that boat out of fiberglass and nida-core panels while in a secluded marina surrounded by jungle, a project that took a lot of time, money and energy, but that unlocked the possibility to both have a decent size dinghy (8 feet in length) and a future dodger. As I was building it from scratch I decided to make it also a sailing dinghy, putting together pieces that people almost spontaneously donated.

I have never shared the details of the building in this blog and I will not do it now. Those months spent in the Panamanian jungle coincide with a very difficult time for me.

As many key moments in one’s personal life those times are colored by often extremes emotional tones that progress on their own course. Kate and I were finding more and more difficult to work as a team in life and the dinghy project became for me both a refuge and a statement of identity.

What I will do instead is telling a story that came from that time. It does not describe technically the building process nor the chronology of the events, but it gives an idea of the motives and the discoveries that happened inside and around me while building a small boat.


THIS IS THE STORY OF ARCTIC TERN

Arctic Tern is a little boat.

She was born near Nombre de Dios in Panama, under a roof between two containers, surrounded by a 15 meter mast and assorted junk coming from boats in advance state of abandon.

Kind souls donated the elements that put together gave her wings: A fiberglass tube that a Spanish Explorer had no use for, a beautiful sail with the emblem of a horse offered by an Argentinian Sailing Teacher, a dagger board forged by a Polish Engineer in the sultry womb of a steel ship, a weird looking rudder from the nautical collection of an Australian Firefighter.

Giving birth to Arctic Tern was a lot of suffering and pain. It of course cost a lot of money to buy the materials, a lot of sweat in transporting them, and to put them together.

Arctic Tern was also the last nail in the coffin of a failing relationship. She gave her creator spiritual and physical wounds, broken hands and even a chemical burn in one eye from a drop of resin. Many tools broke and clothes were destroyed in the process.

But it was also fun. In those long weeks that stretched into months the creator was busy overcoming design and construction problems, in endless discussions with curious standbyers, crossing all the boundaries from feeling hopeless and stupid to be elated and proud.

When Arctic Tern was born she was ugly.

It is better said she was not symmetrical and she was on the heavy side, definitely sturdy.

Ogni scarrafo’ è bello a mamma soia” say people from Naples. Every cockroach looks beautiful to its mom.

She was immediately loved. Not just by the creator who built her from stem-to-stern, but from the neighbors who saw the long process unfolding, both the enthusiasts and the naysayers.

It was a fool’s idea, with no logic whatsoever and it could not be stopped. The mothership Tranquility was ready to let go of Walker Bay, the reliable companion of many landing and explorations, and she welcomed the weird looking boat made of two halves.

The launch was a long awaited moment.

When Arctic Tern touched the water she started flying. She is very good at it.

The creator sat in her lap and he was very afraid of going out in anything blowing stronger than a mild breeze, doubting the abilities of his creature and his own’s as sailor.

Arctic Tern was born ready.

Her flat belly dances on the surface of the ocean. She almost takes off when her two wings start to act in harmony in a lively wind.

The big one opens catching the breath of the sky, the small one points down in the deep ocean gripping invisible streams.

The two wings balance each other and so the dance is possible.

The creator took Arctic Tern out for more and more dances, sitting in her lap while she was doing what boats do.

Through Arctic Tern the creator is learning to fly, and when he is with her out In the ocean, the real teachers come to see them.

Ospreys, terns, pelicans, the graceful gliding vultures. The masters of Air.

They look down to watch Arctic Tern and the creator progress.

They show them how to dance in the currents, how to float about.

They are always vigilant as they glide undisturbed.

The creator down below feels very nervous, scared of the big waves, afraid of breaking a bone or a wing of Artic Tern.

They see each other and a feeling of communion is established. They are the same even if they fly for different purposes.

They are all part of the Great Dance, a dance that follows different rhythms and that contains them all.

THE GREAT DANCE

The creator of Arctic Tern learned that in those very moments on the surface of the ocean by the rocky headland all the freedom lanes become one.

How simple it was just to be out there doing their part!

He understood that we share the dance with everybody even those who try to be small and invisible, and that everything, even his sturdy little vessel and not just himself, is temporary.

It doesn’t matter if you are on a tiny sailboat on the surface of the ocean, a petrel swooping on the crest of a wave or if you are a bluefin tuna just below it.

You are just doing your part, so why worry?

It was then that he felt bizarre thoughts invading his head, as if they were coming from the outside. He felt a question brewing.

What if the Mighty Tuna comes and swallows us all? The Slim Sardine asked in the Creator’s mind.

After few second of perplexity he welcomed this alien consciousness as a guest.

What Can you do about it? Not a whole lot, Slim Sardine. Yes, you can swim away from the Mighty Tuna mouth and look for shelter in tube-like swirling spirals, with family and friends, in your community of sardines.

But when the The Mighty Tuna is coming for you… What you can really do Slim Sardine is keep swimming, keep rowing, keep sailing.

You’re doing it good or doing it bad, but you’re doing it, as long as you won’t stop dancing.

Be a little patient and keep swimming. keep rowing, keep sailing.

It is as simple as that.

The same is true for me, thought the Creator. My hands will hurt, my eyes will be dry and red, my buttocks will be sore and sun and dry air will crack my lips and tangle my hair.

And when the storm comes I might drown. What can I do about it?

Keep swimming keep rowing, keep sailing.

The creator’s eyes turned wet by the upwelling of emotions. Salty jewels from the body poured back into the ocean.

The Heron taught him how to be patient, that good positioning and one precise strike is worth much more than a lot of fussing around. He heard the Heron’s thought merging with his own’s.

He felt this idea was beautiful and true, so he decided to address the Mighty Tuna itself…

Do you Mighty Tuna worry about the little sardines you’re swallowing whole? You follow your hunger Mighty Tuna.

But look behind your back, the Savage Shark may be coming soon for you. So what you can really do is to keep swimming, keep rowing, keep sailing.

After all, even if the shark may never find you, nothing’s going to change you are still going to disappear. Maybe you’re good. Maybe you swim fast because you are mighty. But if you’re in the wrong place then you get swallowed.

You may think you have to leave the dance floor because there are more important or more urgent things do. Serious business.

You are running and you are doing a good job, and maybe you are so good that the shark is going to miss you, and you’re not going to bite the hook. You know better than that. You’re faster than the spear. You’re the best. Nothing can touch you.

You are just fooling yourself Mighty Tuna, you’re going to end up digested by something. Microbes, bacterias, mushrooms, something is going to chew you to bits.

And even when you are the Savage Shark you are not safe. Maybe you will bite a hook on a fishing line. Maybe it’s the Killer Whale. Maybe it’s a disease, or some plastic in your guts. It doesn’t matter.

Swimming, rowing, sailing… you skim the surface and participate in the Big Dance.

Everybody’s dancing. Birds in the sky, people holding cocktails, monkeys in the jungle.

So again Mighty Tuna, Savage Shark or Slim Sardine. It doesn’t matter what you do or what you think.

Keep swimming.

Keep rowing.

Keep sailing, and keep dancing.

Escaping death just for one day wont’ grant you a special treatment. Just do what you want. Somebody is going to swallow you and there are no medicines, Science can’t stop that.

Nothing can cure you from the disease, because there is no disease.

There’s enough beauty in a single note of the music and in each single step of the Great Dance to keep you raptured forever. Every day is a gift, and for every bad day you can be happy that you don’t have to live it again.

Keep swimming, and stretch your wings

Keep rowing, and learn

Keep sailing and dance with me.

The music keeps playing. You want change. Everybody is still dancing and you can decide to do whatever you like because this is not going to affect the dance, it keeps going with or without you

You can be in the dance or out of the dance.

It doesn’t matter what you do, all you have left is to keep swimming, keep (G)rowing, keep sailing.

The Slim Sardine, the Mighty Tuna and the Savage Shark said goodbye to Arctic Tern and the creator and swayed back into the Great Dance.

The creator realized he just lectured a bunch of fishes and a heron, who could care less about the lecture as she was catching dinner. For some reason it didn’t feel as strange as it sounds.

The creator eased the line that controlled Arctic Tern’s air wing to catch the following breeze while he raised the water wing. He felt the acceleration radiating through her solid belly as they bounced on the surface of the ocean.

He understood that the logics he told himself and others behind that building endeavor were nothing but wishy washy rationales encircling a deeper motivation. He acted and then needed to justify his actions.

He was doing his thing, taking part in the Great Dance.

Keep swimming, keep rowing, keep sailing.

Does this sailing thing make sense?

Does this sailing thing make sense?

It is forty days since departure deadline, and things start to look busy here at the boatyard.

The Covid-19 arrived in the US in full blown mode as it is in the rest of the World. Italy just confirmed that school will be closed till April 15th. They have been closed since February. Friends from Hong Kong tell me that the country is fearing a second bout of infections brought by people coming from abroad. As I am writing the Azores are closed to arriving vessels, as many other countries are denying arrivals to sailors. This concerns me a little since the Azores are my next port of call.

I’ve been dodging this Coronavirus since my departure from HK in February. Then I got out of Italy just in time before the great lockdown. Now it has finally caught up on me, even if in this dire scenario my life changed very little. I noticed that by talking with friends whose life have radically changed since it has been confined between four walls. For one time I feel my experience to be more similar to other people’s.

Maybe the difference is just that I was already self isolating in an old boat in rural Georgia. My day goes by tending to a small vessel by myself, I move stuff around, build things, repair objects, redesign systems. I consume my meals alone or seldomly with other self isolated sailors. My life changed very little because my plan to upgrade Tranquility and cross the Atlantic is still underway.

The past weeks were key in trying to get everything here, materials, tools and equipment, and I am still planning ahead and guess what I exactly need in case distribution grinds to a halt, a remote possibility to be frank but I prefer not to take chances. Now I am finally putting things together slowly and painfully as usual, trying to cram together way too many projects.

It is a process I know well since it is the fourth time I take apart and put together this boat in order to make her better. The first time was when Kate and I bought Tranquility as an unfinished restoration project in Fairhaven, MA. The second time in the marshes of Glynn where we performed the heaviest rebuilding. The third one in Panama where it became clear that this crazy project was becoming mine only as I could not stop messing around with this boat despite my failing marriage. Maybe because of my failing marriage I found solace in even more boat projects. It is hard to tell which. The current refit is getting bigger than expected, which is not a surprise as my imagination often gets wild when it comes to boat improvements.

This thing called sailing

After ten years of this sailing life spent repairing boats and sailing them I still struggle to explain to others what is this thing I am doing. My family has still not gotten used to it either, in fact they met this whole idea of an Atlantic crossing on a small boat with skepticism, worry and even anger.

What is this thing I am doing?

I feel I am moving between an obsession that forces me to isolation and a blissful existence in Nature that for one time help me stay away from the danger of human contact. It makes financially no sense as the money poured into my old boat will never come back and it keeps me away from employment for long bits. It is not a socially relevant quest as it involves mainly myself and I. It adds very little to the progress of human knowledge as sailing is an obsolete technology. All these sound like red alerts and yet I can’t keep away confronting this questionable choice.

To be honest I am not completely alone. Bill my neighbor is doing exactly the same thing. He is also fixing his boat all over again, to take it across an ocean once again. The same is true for some people I have met of that I am aware of. We are a small number but we tenaciously stick to this nonsense.The comfort of knowing that others are engaged in a similar pattern is not enough and questions keep showing up.

Even if I can’t understand what this is, I know where it comes from.

It comes from visions inside my head, daydreams which I am not fully responsible for that clog my judgement and hijack the focus on building a socially respectable life. Those are visions that taken literally would drive you to madness but if harnessed with caution can propel you to great achievements. Or at least this is my hope.

The technical finesse behind the discipline of sailing is a never ending climbing route to perfecting many skills. It is so incredibly vast involving knowledge that span through so many departments that an expert sailor becomes close to be a master-of-all-trades. I like this idea.

Sailing takes you in the heart of the present moment, as you insert yourself in the ever changing reality of water and air, the breathing apparatus of planet Earth. This experience reminds me that I grew out of it and I am equipped to find my way between wind, waves and currents. I can say that I have the biggest home there is.

It can be done. Necessary knowledge can be acquired, discomfort and fatigue are a just transitory moments and we as humans can adapt and thrive in many situations. These experience are good tests to take and help building personal resilience. Resilience and resourcefulness is becoming so important in the current world where reality changes at a very fast pace and we are often not prepared for what comes next.

Despite the isolation from common human experience and the difficulties of this life I take great pleasure and pride in what I am doing. The effort of writing and documenting my experience are an attempt to fill this communication gap. So maybe for one time my family or friends will tell me: ”I understand what you are doing and I am proud of you”.

In the meanwhile I look for other signs that tell me I am on the right route. I think I found one in the irony of sailing. Contradiction and Paradox are the essence of life and the ironies of sailing, one of the most expensive way to feel uncomfortable and risk your life, expose its nonsensical nature.

If years ago sailing was the only way to move people and goods across long distances, today sailing loses its meaning and role. Is sailing a sport or a hobby? Is it both? If so, why all this discomfort and even danger? Despite these drawbacks sailing did not disappear in history because it still has a lot to say about us as human beings. There is a community of people involved in this nonsense, so there must be a little sense after all.

And if all this fails to provide sense, I will stick with Good Old Gandhi, who seemed to have learned quite few things about life and humans beings:

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”Mahatma Gandhi

Simple anti-intrusion bars for our companionway

Simple anti-intrusion bars for our companionway

 

Among the many projects we are hurrying to complete there is one that concerns our security while at anchor or when we leave the boat to go ashore.

In our world without air-conditioning, the possibility to lock ourselves in when we go to sleep and still be able to have some airflow from what is the biggest opening we have is a big advantage.

Beta likes to roam on deck when possible and we want him to be able to go in and out of the boat even when we are not onboard. On the other hand, in warm climates it’s good to be able to leave the boat locked while letting air in and out. It makes a more comfortable boat at our return and also it avoids that Beta gets baked in the process.

I followed the concept that James Baldwin’s developed for his boat Atom to design our anti-intrusion bars. Here is a picture of the bars he built from his website.

We made some changes to the design to make it more simple to build and less expensive overall. The bars go in place of two of the three drop boards that locks the companionway. The top drop board sit atop and locks the companionway, and they all slide into solid stainless steel tracks that I installed back when I rebuilt the companionway.

Design of the security bars

The bars are made of 1/2 inch 316 stainless solid rod bought on Buymetal.com and sent from Pennsylvania, which makes Kate even prouder as she is originally from Steel Country.

James Baldwin at the welding station

The construction took 3 hours and James helped with the welding and the use of his equipment and power tools. I have to say that metal construction is fun, exciting and very useful. I look forward to polish my skills in this subject.

Polishing metals is always satisfying

 

 

 

 

 

Building sustainable boats with biocomposites

Building sustainable boats with biocomposites

Humankind had been building sustainable boats for millennia using biodegradable material. Most commonly the materials used was wood or bark. Picture for example the canoes of the American natives.

In the last 150 years progress in the industrial manufacturing made it possible to build metal hulls. Big ships needed a solid structure due to their size but also pleasure yachts started to use the same technology. Steel and aluminum became broadly utilized.

Finally reinforced plastic (fiberglass) appeared as a convenient technology to build boats that were cheaper and lighter yet strong. Fiberglass became the main material used in production of mall and medium boats and yachts. Yacht design in recent years started to look into new syntethic fibers, like carbon fiber and Kevlar, to build lighter and stiffer boat, especially suitable for racing.

Natural fibers in boatbuilding

sustainable boats

There is a new and revolutionary attempt to use fibers from agriculture such as Flax and Jute to build boats.

Flax in particular seems to be an interesting alternative to synthetic fibers as a reinforcement material in composites instead of fiberglass or carbon fiber. This fiber was used by the Romans to make the sails of their ships two millennia ago, and its relative stiffness and durability make it an interesting ingredient for sustainable boat building.

Beside the ecological advantage in carbon emissions over synthetic fibers, natural fibers have a low specific weight and very good insulating properties. They also tend to absorb water and that’s a concern when it comes to boat building.

Manufacturers are trying different technologies to create a fiber that will not absorb water, including innovative waiving and coating. So far, the use of resin such as polyester or epoxy and the adoption of synthetic fibers with different ratios have proved to be good solutions in sealing the fibers and preventing water to penetrate into the fibers.

At the beginning of this pioneering method sport canoes were the favorite prototypes because of their low cost production, but after the first encouraging results somebody moved the bar a little bit higher. The great challenge lied in achieving the high mechanical resistance required for ocean sailing. It appears that this is not only possible, it is a reality.

The revolution of biocomposites sailboats speaks French, and I wish I did too because a lot of videos and references available online are in French. However I will try my best to introduce some pivotal characters in this story, and present sustainable boats that were not just manifactured using biocomposites, but that also achieved important results.

Tara Tari Shipyard and Watever

Watever is a NGO that aims to assist the population in Bangladesh with floating solutions. One of the first project was to build floating-ambulances and that’s where the collaboration between Yves Marre and Marc Van Peteghem started.

Marre sailed to Bangladesh on a river barge in 1994 and then decided to live there and help the local population founding a floating hospital. Van Peteghem is an acclaimed naval architect who designed some of the fastest boats that ever sailed, including the class MOD70 trimarans and BMW Oracle trimaran.

The two frenchmen started to collaborate in a local shipyard, Tara Tari Shipyard, managed by Marre, where they build “optimized, safe and sustainable boats, combining traditional knowledge and modern technologies“.

Offering safe and affordable boat to the coastal communities of Bangladesh means also bringing modern boatbuilding into local building methods, which relies mainly on fiberglass with polyestere. In 2009 a young engineer started to work at Tara Tari Shipyard, and he came up with the idea of replacing fiberglass with jute fiber, which is grown locally.

Gold of Bengal

Corentin is an innovative engineer, and you can bet he is from France. Life in Bangladesh opened his eyes on a resource that is very important for the local economy, and that is in danger: jute. He started to develop an idea and then a mission: to build sustainable sailboats, without relying completely on fiberglass, and adding natural fibers to the matrix, in particular the jute fiber.

sustainable boats
Tara Tari from the sketch-board of Van Peteghem

The collaboration with Watever brought to the building of Tara Tari  in 2010 (design by Marc Van Peteghem), a traditional sailing boat built using a mix of fiberglass and jute. and following the traditional lines of the sanpams, fishing boats of the Bangladesh delta.

The combination of a traditional desing, the use of jute fibers for the construction and the addition of parts salvaged from the local ship breaking industry (plus Plastimo and Harken as sponsors) give her the look of a steampunk apocalyptic sustainable boat.

With a LOA of 29.5 ft (9 meters) Tara Tari, which means “quick”, is built with 25% of jute in the hull, 45% in the bulkheads and 65% in the deck. Once the boat was ready, Corentin started a long voyage of 9,000 miles, mostly singlehanded, from Bangladesh to La Ciotat, France, where he was warmly greeted by friends and media.

After his exploit, Corentin became quite famous in his home country, winning the 2011 Prix Bernard Moitessier and writing a book  about his adventure. This sudden attention from the media gave him the opportunity to raise money and to go back to Bangladesh to start a new ambitious project.

sustainable boats

But Tara Tari was not left alone for long, because in the meanwhile she found a new skipper, the 28 years old french Capucine Trochet, who took the boat across the Atlantic, from France to the Caribbean. During the trip she had to fight with winter, a leak (then fixed in Gibraltar), and winds up to 45kts, that knocked the boat down a couple of times.

This chapter of Capucine’s life is a little part of her beautiful sea story. I like this picture of her and Tara Tari in the Atlantic, it’s because of this picture that my interest for sustainable boats built with natural fibers began.

sustainable boats

Back in Bangladesh Corentin founded his own NGO, Gold of Bengal, a name that symbolize the jute, which has a golden brown color and it’s also an economical resource for Bangladesh. In 2013 he built “Gold of Bengal” this time made 100% with jute.

He set sails for seven months, first solo, then with a group of friends, from Bangladesh to Malaysia, through the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, with an onboard tropical greenhouse, two chickens and manual water maker. With the aim of being self sufficient Corentin did not bring any money with him.

In 2014, as a mature attempt to build a bigger and more complex hull, Gold of Bengal gathers with Watever and Roland Jourdain for a new prototype: a 50 foot catamaran built entirely from agro-composites (jute and flax fibers).

This boat will be the support for the next program of Gold of Bengal association: the “Nomade des mers” expedition, a floating laboratory that will sail the Indian and Pacific Ocean to experiment low-tech solutions: homemade wind turbine, comestible insect farming, hydroponics greenhouse and a solar desalinization system.

The aim of the project is to create an autonomous boat that will support the crew indefinetely without needs for restocking.

A fast trimaran sailing the South Pacific

Roland Jourdain is a star in the gotha of sailing, and he is French of course. Beside being a celebrated solo sailor he is also  involved in making the world a better place to live. And he likes to play with biocomposites too.

Gwalaz is a 23.5ft trimaran built with flax fibers and cellulose, cork and balsa wood. The project was meant to build “a cleaner, sustainably developed boat, but also to remove reliance on fossil fuels and think about recycling right from the product’s design”. They idea came from Kairos group, an association lead by Roland Jourdain, with the financial support of the Brittany Region. This boat sailed in Bretagne, France for a trial before being transported into a container in the Pacific Ocean for the film project “Lost in the Swell“.

 Araldite, a mini 6.50 prototype

Not only humanitarian dreamers and ecologists are building boat with composites. Even an industrial giant as Huntsman Advanced Materials sponsored a boat building project involving flax fibers. The mini 6.50 class is once again the perfect environment for testing new ideas and tecnhologies.

Araldite, was built in France (oh, really?) using 50% of special coated flax fiber ( supplied by Lineo, a Belgium company) and 50% carbon fiber. The combination made for a very light boat. Araldite took the 15th place in the 2011 Mini Transat, a solo transatlantic race that starts in France and ends in Brazil, a tough test for any desing.

The future is now

Biocomposites are quickly becoming a viable option for composite boatbuilding. Every country is experimenting with the ready available and cheaper crops, flax for Europe, kenaf for the USA and jute for Bangladesh. France is once again the leader of innovation in the sailing world, with shipyards and professional boatbuilders already producing boats capable to stand the fatigue of an ocean crossing.

The revolution has already started in different industrial and craft products such as speakers, tennis rackets and bicycles but boat building represent the most challenging frontier, as the result would have reach high standards of mechanical stiffness and resistance.

Now we are in the beta version era but the results are encouraging and it seems that soon natural fibers could replace syntethic ones, or at least work together in the composite building. It’s fascinating because it’s not only an exercise in eco-friendly style, but a sustainable alternative in the direction of building sustainable boats.

A tough adventure: Race to Alaska

A tough adventure: Race to Alaska

Just recently I bumped into a boating event that really aroused my imagination and fantasy. It’s a long (750 nm) proving course for self-reliant, un-assisted boats. There are very few rules and the most important one is no engine onboard. You can sail, row, or paddle your boat in 50 degrees waters in one of the most difficult and beautidul scenario on earth.

The R2AK ( Race to Alaska ) is possibly one of the toughest races ever. The organizer is Northwest Maritime Center, “a 501c-3 non-profit committed to engaging people in the waters of our world in a spirit of adventure and discovery“. The spirit of adventure must be high in order to participate to this event. The possible dangers range from low water and air temperature, wildlife  encounters (bears and killer whales), squalls, strong tidal streams and marine traffic.

The modest prize for the winner (10k USD) will keep the stardom of professionals boaters with expensive gear/requirements out of the competition. The sum it’s still some interesting money so will attract a lot of DIY boaters and dreamers with small modern and traditional crafts. This could be dangerous as the money prize may push unexperienced and unfit people to try something out of their skills. To avoid that, the organizers divided the race in two parts: the first qualifier leg from Port Townsed, WA to Victoria, BC will offer a callenging 40 nautical miles open water crossing in the reach of rescue squads; entrants who qualify for this stretch are admitted to the full race which is 710nm from Victoria BC to Ketchikan, AK and where you will be on your own.

For this second leg there is not a predetermined course. The only two obligatory waypoint are Seymour Narrows (a treacherous channel famous for strong turbulent tidal currents) and Bella Bella. The participants choose their route, which can be in the open ocean or following the Inside Passage, so the strategy and the type of boat will be the key factors.

During the summer the prevailing winds blow from the NW, on the nose, but generally light and variable when storms and rain come from the SW. Offshore the southern branch of the North Pacific Current (California Current) is unfavorable until boats reach half of the course and encounter the favorable north branch, Alaska Current, but in order to take advantage of oceanic currents boats would have to sail far from land.  On the Inside Passage route entrants have to face strong tidal currents, rivers and any kind of coastal hazard, and possibly have to cover a bigger distance.

Under this unpredictable and generally adverse conditions the organizers are expecting a minimum of 3 weeks for the first boat to reach Ketchikan in Alaska. Around that time a “Sweep boat”will leave Port Townsend and covering 75 miles per day, will disqualify each participant reached, offering a tow and assistance. If their estimation is correct it means that the winner will move at an average speed of 1,5kts. This estimation include possible layover time for rest/provisioning, which is not forbidden unless the help is prearrenged by a team. Entrants could land and find assistance, repair the boat, camp and hunt/fish along the way (beware of Grizzlies!), or book a night in a hotel, provided it’s not pre-arranged.

Endurance is going to be the vital skill to win. The boat who can achieve steady progress in the variable conditions of the race has the best chances of victory. This mean the boat shouldn’t stop overnight keeping a crew member on watch all the time. Constant but little progress will pay in the long term and to do so boats need a crew of at least tw0, a shelter for cooking and resting, and enough storage capability to carry water and food for the entire race. You look for maximum light air performance if you sail, and the ability to propel the boat without an engine in adverse wind conditions (tide stronger than wind).

This is what makes the Race to Alaska so exciting. Beside the extreme weather conditions and the challenging course what really triggers my interest is the fact that so many different boats will compete. I am sure that will push people to invent some new boat designs and build interesting hybrids, using classic boats that where designed when engines were not an option. It’s not even 150 years since the first engine was installed on a boat, and humans have been sailed all over the planet for thousands of years without one.

So which boat will be the winner of the first Race to Alaska? No one knows, the course conditions are unpredictable and for sure we are going to see many different crafts on the starting line. Here I enjoyed playing and I imagined different boats types compete for the first place:

1. Sailing trimaran

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Trimarans have a very good overall sailing speed, they can be fast in light airs, but difficult to paddle/row and subjected to drifting in non favourable wind condition.

 2. Sailing Tri-canoe

canoepage17full.jpg

This concept is becoming pretty popular among camping/cruisers for the wide range of uses in different conditions. Shallow draft, light air performance and paddles. Beside some series production most are custom built assembling different crafts. The double handed designs are usually very light and with minimum space for provisions and gear, but it’s not impossible to customize or even build a more heavy duty version to fit this race.

 3. Yawl-canoe and dories

yawl-photo2.jpg

There are a lot of classic canoe/skiff/dory designs that can be sailed and rowed, and can accomodate two people plus gear for a non-stop trip. Traditional working crafts are epitomes of seaworthiness. For sure we are going to see a lot of them at the starting line.

4. Kayak? (Freya Hoffmeister will think this race is a piece of cake for what she has done so far)

20.-Packing-the-long-awaited-custom-Epic

Slower but virtually unstoppable, with daily average of 30-50 miles per day can make it a possible winner if sailing crafts encounter adverse conditions. a bigger tandem kayak would allow for overnight sleeping altough not a comfortable one.

5. Viking longship?

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Big crew, shelter (and shields!), it can be sailed and rowed. Bear coats foulweather gear included

6.Row boat/canoe?

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As for kayakers these crafts may be slower but virtually unstoppable. Designs offer lightweight boats with shelters and a potential big crew. I wonder what might be the best balance between crew number/overall weight.

7. Traditional First Nations Canoes

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First Nations of British Columbia Coast have been invited by the oganizers. Hopefully they didn’t forget their traditions and should still have the knowledg of the race course and the necessary skills to survive and complete the race.

 8. Mod70 Oman Trimaran

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Probably the fastest racing boat on earth (ocean), even in rough conditions. In 24hrs of favourable winds she  can cover more than half the total distance. We won’t see this boat on the starting line, but a fast performance bluewater sailboat can really be competitive in this race taking the outside route and hoping for the best.

Sailing ulu in Guna Yala

Sailing ulu in Guna Yala

I took three hours of my free time to fulfill a desire I had since the very first moment I arrived in Guna Yala. Everyday,  you can see the shapes of Gunas on their sailing ulu, setting sail at the first light in the morning and heading for the fishing destinations or to the mainland.

This image always inspired me a deep sense of freedom and satisfaction and an intense desire to sail one.

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The Sailing Cayuco

Cayuco is the name the Spanish explorers gave to the dugout canoes built by indigenous people of the Antilles and other American regions. It describes a monohull with flat bottom and no keel or daggerboard, propelled and steered by a wide paddle. In Guna language it is called  “Ulu”, or “urmor”, ù but they often use the name cayuco, at least with non-Gunas like me.

Cayucos are built with the dugout technique: this means that the hull is shaped by carving a log of suitable dimensions, usually mahogany which grows in the well preserved forest of the Comarca (indigenous territory) . Similar to other canoe designs the bow and stern are pointy, and have a streamlined skeg, that help them tracking in the water.

Looking at the bilge you notice the rough marks left by the tools during the chipping out. It is remarkable how Guna shipwrights can obtain such a regular shape with this method and the amount of labor behind every single piece must be enormous.

In Guna Yala cars are useless and the transportation happens on water. Cayucos are everywhere, and sometimes it is hard to find docking to the main piers. They come in very different size and dimensions, every family has at least a small paddle one, but sailing cayucos are longer and more expensive. The modernity brought outboard engines and fiberglass boats named “pangas” or the more common spanish name “lancha”.

The cayuco Dino and I sailed is owned by one of his cousin. The man told me that it was built from a tree donated by his father. When his father died he had the permission to cut the tree and have it carved and painted.

On the sailing ulu the rig is a spritsail (similar to an Optimist): the mainsail is attached with a loose foot to a boom, and the “sprit” is a spar that support the leech. The main is sheeted to a hole through the gunwale and tied with a simple knot. The boat comes also with a headsail which is set flying from the bow to the mast head. The simplicity of the construction is a demonstration of how little techonology is really needed to sail. Even if a lot can be done to improve the performance of this system, it is enough for the essential living of the Kunas, and I am still amazed about how good it is the windward performance without a centerboard. You just need to be equipped with a lot of patience, a skill which Kunas culture is rich of.

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Cayuco Mainsail: the sprit

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Cayuco Mainsail: loose foot

The rudder is substituted by a wide paddle, called cammi. In fact, the helmsman can be very much called a paddler as you need to paddle the boat into the wind in order to tack. It took me a while to understand how to steer the sailing ulu with a wooden paddle and the fuzzy wind of the afternoon was not helping, but it was nothing too complicated. There is definitely a more close feeling of how the rudder operates and the forces that act on it using this technique  rather than turning the wheel of a performance cruiser.

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Steering the cayuco

As often happens during fishing trips, especially the ones you improvise, we didn’t catch any fish. Nonetheless I had an interesting day on a sailing ulu, I learned about traditional crafts and fulfilled a little dream of mine. I hope I am going to do it again,  next time I hope with a bigger sail, just to have more speed sensation and capsizing danger.

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