By Capt. Dave Abrams
I’ve had a love of the sea for as long as I can remember. I didn’t have a boat growing up, but I had enough friends and extended family with boats that I was able to spent many days of my youth on the water, even if it was only aboard a rowboat.
I joined the Navy through the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) scholarship program and made my first ocean crossing from Pearl Harbor to San Diego as a midshipman. The ocean cast a spell on me. I spent almost 3 years after my commissioning on a guided missile destroyer, USS Kidd (DDG-993), cruising mostly up and down the east coast and Caribbean.
An encounter with Hurricane Hugo off Cape Hatteras in 1989 taught me about the power of the ocean, and that weather forecasts aren’t always accurate, especially back then. My second tour on a merchant tanker out of San Diego gave me the opportunity to cruise the Pacific coast from the Columbia River down to San Diego. It was during that time I bought my first boat, a 20’ Pacific Seacraft Flicka, and dreamed of cruising off on my own.
Out of the Navy and three boats later, I had only done localized cruising — and never more than a week at a time. About to turn 50, I decided that I needed to either do some serious cruising, or just shut that dream down for good.
So, I “retired” (briefly), bought a 58-foot Cape Horn steel trawler and went cruising. I loved it. The first big trip lasted about two months up in the Pacific Northwest, followed by a cruise down the coast to Mexico, and then successive cruises from San Diego to the Sea of Cortez and mainland Mexico leading the Cruise Underway to Baja Rally (CUBAR). Part of CUBAR is teaching fellow cruisers how to prepare for a two- to three-week trip, with 200-plus mile legs between stops and limited support services for 750 miles down the Baja coast.
I’ve cruised from Maine to the Bahamas, Alaska to Mexico. So now deciding to move my new boat from Virginia to San Diego, a 5,200 mile journey through the Panama Canal, I am ready for my longest passage to date.
The Vessel
My new (to me) vessel is a 1970 former Norwegian Society for Search & Rescue (NSSR) vessel that was converted to a yacht. M/V Paul Johansen, or PJ for short, is a 75-foot, 140-ton trawler style yacht, with .4-inch (10mm) Norwegian steel hull plating. She was built ice rated and designed for operations in the North Sea. The yacht conversion added modern accommodations, electronics, and stabilizers. The twin Detroit 8V71 engines and Tenfjord rotary steering gear are about the only original pieces of equipment left on board. I’ve cruised PJ through 40-knot sustained winds and 8- to 10-foot short seas (off Cape Hatteras again, with an incorrect weather forecast) without any issue. PJ can dish out much more than the crew and I can handle, as is the case with most well founded vessels.
The Trip
The first half of the voyage, from Norfolk to Panama, will be a “delivery trip,” with stops only for provisions and rest periods. I’ve done the trip down the coast several times, and with draft restrictions (PJ draws 10.5 feet), there are few places that can take us that I want to see again. The planned route will take us from Norfolk to Charleston (contingent stop) to Ft. Lauderdale. We will re-provision in Ft. Lauderdale, then down to Key West (contingent stop), Grand Cayman (contingent stop) and direct to Colon Panama. By contingent stops, I mean that we’ll only stop if needed for crew rest, maintenance or weather. Otherwise, we just keep going.
The second half of the trip will be a little more enjoyable. We plan to cruise the San Blas Islands before going through “the ditch,” then head north to a few stops in Costa Rica. From Costa Rica, we’ll make a straight run to Mexico, bypassing Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala, mostly because of draft restrictions and time limitations. Once in Mexico, we’ll check in at Chiapas, then head north to Zihuatanejo, Manzanillo, and Puerto Vallarta (La Cruz) before crossing over to the Baja Peninsula. After a stop in San Jose del Cabo, we’ll continue “the Baja bash” up the coast to San Diego, with planned stops in Bahia De Magdalena (Mag Bay), Bahia Tortugas (Turtle Bay) and Ensenada.
Weather
Over the years I’ve become somewhat of a weather geek when I am aboard the boat. We all have our favorite sources of information — I use PredictWind, Windy, Passage Weather and Buoy Weather. I compare all my sources, and when I can get them to mostly agree, I’m happy.
For long passages of more than a few days, I like to have a little expert help, so I engage a professional weather router to help guide my trip. Weather routers are great for helping to choose between alternate routes using many years of compiled weather data for any time of year. Additionally, having an expert following your track and providing real time updates on potential weather issues provides piece of mind for a nominal cost.
There are many great weather routers out there. I’ve used the good folks at Weather Routing Inc. (WRI) for many voyages over the past five years, and like any relationship, as we get to know each other better, the information that’s shared is more tailored to my personal needs. I was on a trip from New York to Norfolk when WRI called me up to alert us to a developing storm system that hadn’t been forecasted for the area we were in at that time; that call helped me avoid anchoring in Sandy Hook, which was subsequently hit with sea spouts and lightning strikes at the time that I would have been there. That’s the value of a weather router.
Securing for Sea
The leg from Norfolk to Charleston is likely to be lumpy with a chance of getting worse, so we secure for the sea. If it can become a projectile, it gets stowed or strapped down. Museum Wax works well for small items on a shelf. For larger items, I’ve learned not to trust “buckle” type straps, opting for ratchet straps, especially for heavy items.
The legs going north from Panama will be all head seas, so particular attention is paid to things that can be impacted by vertical acceleration, like anchors and anchor chain. While I don’t want to do anything that’ll inhibit a rapid deployment of the anchor in an emergency, I don’t want to rely on just the windlass/brake to ensure the anchor doesn’t deploy when I don’t want it to. A pelican hook with a through-bolted or welded connection to the deck is the best, but a strong line from the anchor to a cleat will generally do the trick.
Emergency Supplies
Benjamin Franklin said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Captain Ron said, “If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen out there.”
Emergency preparedness falls under six categories for me: Fire, Flooding, Medical, Personnel Recovery, Rescue & Survival.
Here is what I carry for each category:
- Fire: A fixed fire extinguishing system in the engine room. Portable extinguishers are in every occupied space and there’s a fire blanket in the galley. We also happen to have fire hoses on PJ, but most boats are not set up for these.
- Flooding: I carry a damage control kit that includes hose clamps of various sizes, rubber sheet, wooden plugs, silicone Rescue Tape, and Splash Zone underwater epoxy with mixing and application tools. A mallet (for pounding in the plugs), socket and wrench (for tightening the hose clamps), and cutting shears (for the rubber mat) complete the kit.
Dewatering systems on board include high capacity bilge pumps (fixed hydraulic and electric) along with portable submersible pumps with hose. A one-inch hole in the boat three-feet below the water line will let in 34 gallons per minute, or more than 2,000 gallons per hour. Ocean Navigator published a still relevant article about bilge pump selection and sizing: https://oceannavigator.com/pumps-and-priorities/.
- Medical: When cruising offshore, help can be many hours if not days away. So whether it’s dealing with sea sickness, lacerations, contusions, burns or rashes, you must be prepared. There are several companies that offer great medical kits for offshore cruising. I use a customized kit from Seaside Marine in San Pedro, CA. The company will tailor a kit to your specific cruising needs and can write prescriptions to the vessel itself, and has been doing so for over 100 years. Medical kits should be reviewed at least annually because many items in the kit have expiration dates. The kits also include step by step instructions for treating many common ailments, but a good medical first aid book would be a great companion. For things that require hospital care, having evacuation insurance or medical insurance that covers you outside of your normal networks could be a literal life saver. I have a DAN (Diver’s Alert Network) policy that covers me and my family in the event of an emergency for both medical care and emergency evacuation.
- Personnel Recovery: I carry a Life Sling man-overboard recovery system in a hard shell case, and an emergency safety ladder by Plastimo that is attached to a rail and allows someone in the water to deploy by themselves. Many people focus just on systems to aid in finding someone who has fallen overboard. But if the 100-pound wife can’t get her 200-pound husband with hypothermia back on board the vessel by herself, just finding him may not be enough. A Life Sling can be connected to a crane or boom/winch for lifting. A Jason’s Cradle is another option, especially for an unconscious victim.
- Survival Systems: We have two life rafts and two tenders on the upper deck in the event of an abandon ship situation. Underway, the keys remain in the tenders so we are not searching for those in an emergency. With life rafts, check the manufacturer’s servicing interval, which is usually every one to three years. We also carry immersion or survival suits (known affectionately as “gumby suits”) for every person on board. They do come in different sizes from youth through large adult. Survival suits are like a personal life raft with excellent flotation but also help prevent hypothermia when worn inside a life raft. It’s important to practice trying on immersion suits and life jackets before you need them.
- Rescue Systems: We carry two ACR EPIRBS and a Garmin In Reach. I am looking at Personal Locator Beacons (PLB) by either ACR or Ocean Signal, again as that “belt and suspenders” approach. I favor the In Reach over the PLB because of the ability to communicate via text, but if someone from the crew gets separated from those with the EPIRB or In Reach, the PLB would be invaluable. With all emergency equipment, it’s important to not only practice using the equipment to be familiar with the operation before you need it, but conducting briefings/drills with every new crew is critical so everyone knows how to stay calm and deal with the problem. I have a laminated set of emergency procedures that I go over with everyone that gets underway, so I don’t skip anything and everyone gets the same briefing.
- Spare Parts :I have a general philosophy about boat systems. “Two is one, and one is none.” If you have two of something, one can break and you are still OK. If you have one of something, and it breaks, it can make for a bad day, especially if it’s a critical component. So what’s critical? Propulsion, electrical generation systems, steering, communication, navigation, water, sewage treatment, refrigeration, cooking, and ground tackle are all systems that can end a voyage if you lose those capabilities. And each of those systems has sub systems that require redundant capability, like fuel pumps for propulsion and water pumps for water systems.
Because it’s not always practical to carry two of everything (think of a single screw boat), I at least carry spare parts for all the major components that are most likely to fail and render the system worthless. It’s best to check with the manufacturer of each piece of equipment for recommended spares. Having the spares is only half the battle — knowing where you stowed them is the other half. Tearing the boat apart to find that solenoid for the shifter in dark stormy weather (because things usually break at the worst possible time) can be dangerous, especially if time is not on your side. Keeping an up-to-date spares list that has the locations is critical. So is checking that spares list before departure (physical verification) to make sure you didn’t forget to replace something after you last dipped into the spare parts bins.
- Provisioning: Keeping a crew well fed is key to keeping them happy. I get a preferences list for everyone on board and try to accommodate as many things as I can given space and preparation limitations. I generally let people fend for themselves for breakfast and lunch, and then we rotate dinner preparation and galley clean up. It’s a good idea to have some meals that can just be heated up quickly or without any preparation when the seas get a little too bouncy. Protein bars, plain crackers and Gatorade are good to have on hand when someone is dealing with seasickness.
This is by no means an all-inclusive list of things to consider when preparing for a long offshore passage, but hopefully provides a starting point as you plan your own adventure. Most of the lessons learned here apply to every coastal cruiser, regardless of vessel size. Once your boat is ready for its first long offshore passage, every trip after that gets easier. So have fun out there, and safe voyages.
