Ocean Navigator - January/February 2023

The Golden Globe Race loses a boat

Fifty-four years after Robin Knox-Johnston won the first round-the-world solo sailing race, organizers are again in the midst of a Golden Globe Race. And now one boat in the race has been lost in spectacular fashion. All vessels must be production boats between 32 and 36 feet with an underbody like Knox-Johnston’s Suhaili, which was based on a full-keel Colin Archer design with keel-hung rudder. GGR skippers can only use the kinds of navigation equipment available on Suhaili, including sextants and trailing logs for speed. On September 4th, 2022, 16 boats crossed the starting line at les Sables d’Olonne. By…

CUBAR 2022

The 2022 Cruise Underway to Baja Rally (CUBAR) wrapped up on November 13th, with 25 motor yachts completing the 950-mile journey from San Diego to La Paz. CUBAR is organized by San Diego Yacht Club and runs every other year. The all-volunteer CUBAR committee helps participants with customs and immigration for Mexico, provides a courtesy vessel safety inspection, safety and cruising seminars, and coordinates lots of social activities along the way. The 2022 CUBAR kicked off with a send-off party on Oct 28th, with a departure for Ensenada on October 30th. After completing customs and immigration at Hotel Coral Marina,…

Florida deals with derelict boats

If you’ve ever sailed or driven through the Sunshine State you know that we have a lot of boats here. At last count there are over one million registered recreational vessels throughout the state, which makes Florida the nation’s number one home of pleasure craft. But not all of them are floating. Along with the surfeit of boats and marinas the state also has had a long-standing problem with derelict and “at risk” vessels: those that are abandoned, sunk or in danger of sinking — not to be confused with liveaboard and transient boats that may be anchored nearby. In…

US Sailing Report on Newport Bermuda fatality

On June 19, 2022, Colin Golder, owner and skipper of the Centurion 42 Morgan of Marietta, drowned while participating in the Newport to Bermuda race. Death in high-profile sailing events provides an opportunity for the sport to reassess itself and the race hosts asked US Sailing to review the incident and make recommendations aimed at enhancing the safety of offshore racing. In October 2022, the US Sailing panel released its report. The panel started with outlining the facts of the Golder’s death. At the start on June 17 winds were 15 to 20 knots predicted to increase to 20 to…

Celestial navigation simplified?

There have been many attempts over the decades to simplify celestial navigation. Now a new celestial nav simplification effort is about to launch called StarPoint. Still in the Kickstarter stage, StarPoint makes use of a small fixed optical device based on the Bris sextant originally developed by Swedish sailor Sven Yrvind. The StarPoint offering is more than merely a reselling of the Bris device, however. It’s a complete package that developer Brian Villmoare, assisted by fellow developer James Weisheit, has crafted to make celestial nav more accessible. Using the StarPoint system, users can get a lat/long fix with two sights…

Starr

Not many power voyaging vessels put 100,000 sea miles under their keels — a figure that includes multiple Pacific crossings. For the Northern Marine 75 Starr, owned by Don and Sharry Stabbert, that kind of mileage has become routine as the Stabberts have voyaged to more than 18 countries around the world. Starr was designed by Steve Seaton and built in Anacortes Washington in 1997. The 100-ton power voyager is currently homeported in Hawaii and Seattle. The Stabberts have owned a variety of boats, from a 17-foot Thistle sailing dinghy to a Cal 40 sailboat to 47-foot Bill Garden-designed trawler. Based in…

AC raw water failure avoidance

Most marine air-conditioning units rely on seawater for their operation. The pumps and plumbing associated with these systems can pose a significant flooding threat, one that is exacerbated by the sheer volume of hose that is required to plumb the average cruising vessel’s condensers. For these and other reasons detailed below, HVAC raw water systems benefit from close scrutiny. Air-conditioning 101 Air conditioning systems aboard most boats rely on raw or seawater to cool down pressurized, hot refrigerant after it leaves the system’s compressor. Via a heat exchanger or condenser, the seawater absorbs heat from the refrigerant, heat that has…

Changing conditions in Chesapeake schooner race

by Rob Laymon Strong winds and cold rain, the sailor’s delight. Four days of it came from a nor’easter spawned by Hurricane Ian, jumbling the plans for the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race, held October 6 through 8. This annual event attracts schooners of all sizes to race in four classes between Annapolis and Norfolk. I sailed aboard Prom Queen, a 50-foot Campanella owned by Roger Worthington, an intermittent participant and a past winner of the race. In this year’s race, the schooner Virginia, the current record holder, had made it as far as Smith Point before turning back to…

Battling the Bay of Biscay late in the season

There are many horror stories of yachtsmen running into trouble in the Bay of Biscay. If you want to do a good crossing heading south or are coming north particularly during the latter part of the year, there are some things about the bay you need to know. There are many fine pilot books available nowadays about these passages south. They don’t much talk about it during the colder months, however. But Ocean Passages for the World, particularly the second blue-paged part written by professional sea captains from the days of sail, still has, in my opinion, some of the…

Voyage planning 101

One of the lessons a new pilot learns is to never let the airplane take you somewhere your mind hasn’t gone before. New pilots often spend more time on the flight planning than they do actually flying. I would have no sooner flown without a solid flight plan, including weather along my route as well as at any place I may stop, than I would have set out on a cross-country drive without gas. Which is to say, the planning was as important as the execution. I’m not sure if our early training in planning led us to living on…