Short Tacks - Ocean Navigator

31 Dec

Weather models and GRIB files

Peter IslerShort Tacks, Weather

Weather models and their digitized end product, the GRIB file, are key facets of weather forecasting. An understanding of these elements will help any voyaging sailor to better decipher the weather. When I was in college, I was primarily a dinghy sailor and was just getting started in offshore navigation and race tactics. I knew how to read a weather map and listen to the marine forecast on the VHF radio, but beyond that I just took what Mother Nature gave me. In college, I majored in meteorology since it was the closest subject I could find to my favorite…

31 Oct

The Transpac Race: A legacy of teamwork

Story and photos by Craig SmithShort Tacks, Transpac Race

Editor’s note: Ocean Navigator was a co-sponsor of the 2021 Transpac. Below is a story detailing one crew’s experience from the race. When sailor David Dahl and his two sons, Michael and Sean, started the 2021 Transpac Race aboard the Andrews 77 Compadres, they were taking part in and extending a company tradition that goes back to 1923. Dahl is the CEO of Whittier Trust in South Pasadena, Calif. Ninety-eight years ago the company founder, Max Whittier, purchased the 107-foot yacht Poinsettia and entered the race with his three sons in the crew. “You realize at 1,100 miles offshore, you…

01 Sep

Timing the tides

Ocean NavigatorShort Tackscoastal navigation, Fire Island, Great South Bay, high tide, International Folkboat, low tide, marine tides, New York Harbor, NOAA, NOAA tide charts, passage planning, tidal current tables, tides

Navigation is fundamentally about discovering the rules that govern nature. Unlocking these secrets is one of the most gratifying aspects of sailing; from observing the physics of weather to revealing our position relative to the celestial bodies. Another one of the most rewarding elements of navigation is understanding the tides. And tide considerations became central to the planning of a recent 60-nm passage I made in late summer of 2020 from the Great South Bay on Long Island to New York Harbor. Tides express themselves in two distinct but subtly interrelated ways: vertically through tidal height and horizontally through tidal currents.…

01 Jan

Searching for Slocum's clock

Ocean NavigatorShort Tacks

To the editor: “At Yarmouth, too, I got my famous tin clock, the only timepiece I carried on the whole voyage. The price of it was a dollar and a half, but on account of the face being smashed the merchant let me have it for a dollar,” so says Joshua Slocum in Sailing Alone Around the World. Slocum’s well-known volume whimsically chronicles his three-year voyage, the first solo circumnavigation, between 1895 and 1899. He met famous people and fought off cannibals. He weathered storms, sickness, calms and hallucinations. But of all the interesting and telling parts of his fascinating…

01 Jan

Classic schooner's sad end in a Spanish river

Ocean NavigatorShort Tacks

Running the boat aground in the river was, in fact, only the last in a long series of misfortunes. Indeed, since I had signed on as crew four months earlier in Key West, it seemed we had lurched blindly from crisis to crisis. For though there was no denying Constellation was a beautiful boat, there was also no denying that she was an old one as well. A friend had warned me about this prior to our departure. andquot;A wooden boat,andquot; he said, andquot;especially an old one, is nothing but a collection of leaks loosely organized as a hull.andquot; But…

01 Jan

Bowditch's British cousin takes a livelier approach

Ocean NavigatorShort Tacks

In a recent issue, there were two articles referring to Nathaniel Bowditch and the American Practical Navigator, the navigation tome that bears his name. There is no question as to the great value of this book, and any student of navigation should certainly own a copy. At the same time there would hardly be any dispute among those familiar with this book that the presentation of information, though complete, is, to say the least, dry to the point of inducing sleep. There are those who would argue that the technical information in American Practical Navigator must be communicated in a…

01 Jan

Ocean Star's encounter with a Cuban reef

Ocean NavigatorShort Tacks

The crossing to Cuba from Key West was rough (13- to 15-foot seas and 30- to 40-knot westerly winds). But the 88-foot, steel-hulled schooner Ocean Star motorsailed at 1,500 rpms under the storm trysail and fore staysail, easily handling the gale conditions, although many of the crew were seasick. Within 24 hours of departing Key West we were approaching Cuba's 12-mile limit. I contacted Marina Hemingway on channel 16 only to be informed that the marina had closed due to the dangerous conditions in the marina's entrance channel, which I remembered from a visit two years before as a dubious,…

01 Jan

Fisherman's approach to roll stabilization

Ocean NavigatorShort Tacks

To the editorCongratulations on publishing your recent Power Voyaging section, and especially Earl Hinz's piece on preventing power voyagers from rolling ("Roll stabilization," Issue No. 93, Nov./Dec. 1998). Unfortunately, the author perpetuates some misconceptions about paravane-type stabilizers introduced by the Beebe/Leishman book Voyaging under Power. First, as any commercial salmon troller can tell you, "stabies" ("flopper-stopper" isn't used by commercial fishermen) are not hard to deploy and retrieve. I used them on three boats, up to 40 feet, and could singlehand them, either stopped or slowly underway. Some fishermen operate these devices on boats larger than 50 feet alone. If…

01 Jan

Correction changes Chichester's course

Ocean NavigatorShort Tacks

There was a small error in a recent nav problem ("Biplane sextant sights," Issue No. 62). On his 1931 flight, Chichester actually took his departure from a harbor in the north of New Zealand, not from Auckland as shown. Chichester accomplished this remarkable feat of navigation by precalculating his observed altitude (ho) and setting his sextant to those readings for set times. By steering a course that would carry him west of Norfolk Island, he was able to turn right 90° when his LOP became his course line. Interestingly, investigators trying to solve the disappearance of Amelia Earhart have found…

01 Jan

A racer's perspective on climbing the mast

Ocean NavigatorShort Tacks

As a racing sailor, the recent article on how voyaging sailors should climb a mast ("Climbing the mast," July/August 2000, Issue No. 107) grabbed my attention, and I thought readers might like to hear how racers handled this task. Racers discarded bosun's chairs long ago. I have been using a mountain-climbing harness for 30 years. The recent article does not mention the most important features of a climbing harness as contrasted with a bosun's chair. First, with a climbing harness, you can actually climb the mast, with the halyard(s) being merely an assist. The point is that, with a climbing…