Seamanship & Navigation - Ocean Navigator

26 Mar

Sailing from Panama to San Diego

Bill MorrisNewsletter, Seamanship & Navigation

Most Pacific sailors and published cruising guides will tell you there are two ways back to Southern California from Panama: a motor bash 3,400 miles along the coast of Central America and then up along Baja, or out to Hawaii, over the Pacific High to San Francisco, and then down the coast, rounding Point Conception (a.k.a. Little Cape Horn). But there is a third way back: a sail from Panama to California via Clipperton Island with very little motoring. Jimmy Cornell’s directions in World Cruising Routes take you directly from Panama out beyond Clipperton Island, and then north until arriving…

23 Jan

Windvane self-steering maintenance

Bill MorrisSeamanship & NavigationSeamanship

by Bill Morris No matter how hard the wind blows, a windvane self-steering system is your vessel’s round-the-clock helmsman. So it makes good sense to maintain the vane gear in top condition at all times. Performing the following procedures will keep your windvane steering system functioning properly with fewer hassles and will aid you in making major repairs in the unlikely event that something goes awry while under sail. Inspection Your predeparture checklist starts with checking all fasteners, which should be snug, particularly at the mounting brackets. Large rings of brown rust around bolt heads or nuts indicate a loose…

09 Jan

Out of Sight

Jesse OsbornHome Page Hero, Ocean Voyaging, Offshore Sailing, Seamanship & Navigation

My young sons and I were about to sail my 50-foot yawl, Empiricus, from Ketchikan to Seward, Alaska. Moving back to my hometown of Seward from my current home in the southeast part of the state with my boat would mean crossing the Gulf of Alaska. “It’s just wind and waves out there, boys,” I assured my sons: Isaac, 10 and Steven, six. “We just have to keep the ocean out of the boat and stay onboard. We’ll be fine.” READ FULL ARTICLE >>

28 Nov

It’s you, not your anchor

John J. KettlewellSeamanship & Navigationanchoring, anchors

By John Kettlewell We all have a tendency to blame the hammer when we hit our thumb with it. It's the same with anchors. You sail into a beautiful but crowded harbor, drop the hook while looking forward to celebrating with an evening cocktail, only to find the darn thing isn't holding and instead of that Marguerita you have to pull on a mucky chain. Sometimes this process is repeated several times until something goes right and you have a solid bite, or you give up and look for a mooring. Since I've been anchoring cruising boats for close to…

25 Jul

Crossing the Atlantic: left or right?

Laurie ThyrreSeamanship & Navigationpower voyaging, voyage planning, voyaging in Europe

By Laurie Thyrre We are planning to cross in 2025 aboard our Nordhavn 64 Gratitude and we need to decide whether to go left or right (from the Azores). This is the question that every voyager must ask when crossing the Atlantic from North America to Europe and it isn’t as straight forward to answer as one might expect. Due to the lovely Bermuda/Azores high pressure that dominates the North Atlantic in the month of May, most people will opt to cross eastbound at this time. Logical stops for weather or fuel are Bermuda and the Azores. But from there,…

30 May

How to get over an override

Will SofrinSeamanship & Navigation

By Will Sofrin Sailing offshore, on a coastal passage or racing, winch overrides can happen. How do you deal with them effectively? The energy on board is tense. Our rail is pressed hard down, and I am getting covered by walls of white water breaking over our deckhouse. Unfortunately, I wasn't dressed for these conditions since I thought it would be just another one of our typical Wednesday night beer can races. The race committee was usually pretty good about calling the race off if the conditions got too intense, but not tonight. "Thirty seconds!" our timekeeper shouts, who is…

25 Jan

Thinking about Right of Way

Will SofrinSeamanship & NavigationColregs, Navigat, Rules of the Road

by Will Sofrin When I first started learning how to sail as a teenager, I was given some pretty simple advice that should not be considered absolute. I was told not to worry about any power boats so long as I was under sail. Then if there was another sailboat on the water, the one on starboard tack has rights over the boat on port tack. Then of two boats on starboard tack, the leeward one has the right of way. Yes, the advice was correct, to a point, but I can think of at least a dozen situations on…

22 Nov

Flooding or ebbing?

Will SofrinSeamanship & Navigation

Sadly, I’ve recently realized that, sailing out of Los Angeles, I don’t think as much about the tide as I should. The changing of the tides has little impact on our Wednesday night races, and being tied up to a floating dock in the very sheltered Marina del Rey basin means my boat always feels to be in a safe place. There have been times when I had to be very aware of what the tide was doing, like when sailing along the southern coast of England or crossing Long Island Sound. Growing up in Connecticut, I was taught that…

28 Jul

Log books

Will SofrinCrew's Picks, Seamanship & Navigationnavigation, Seamanship, voyaging

The first thing I ordered when I purchased my boat were two log books: a general log and a maintenance log. The general log book is where I record the underway activity of my boat. A short afternoon sail will get one log entry when I return to the dock, but an extended distance sail like a race around an island may get entries every few hours. My maintenance log is where I record all maintenance and repair activity. In the front, I record chronologically the work done and the related cost. This could mean replacing a turnbuckle or having…

30 Nov

Seamanship & Navigation, November 2021

Ocean NavigatorNewsletter, Seamanship & Navigation

Stories of repairs at sea always make for fascinating reading. Not the fairly routine substitution of a spare part but rather a failure so horrendous that great ingenuity was called for to get the ship to port. You can learn a lot from these episodes; many yachts have made it safely back to land with jury-rigged masts, usually broken offshore in heavy weather. Miles and Beryl Smeeton lost their masts twice during an attempt to round Cape Horn from the Pacific in a 46-ft ketch, Tzu Hang. They made it back to Chile both times to effect repairs. The first…