Transpac Race wrap up

Transpac Race wrap up

The 2023 edition of the Transpac Race is in the record books. Fifty-seven boats in eight monohull and one multihull classes entered the race with 52 finishing and five retiring for a variety of reasons.  With some big sleds in the Whitter Trust division three — like the well-known Andrews 68 Pyewacket, owned by Roy Disney, along with five Santa Cruz 70s — you might expect a boat from that division to take first place. Due to the effort of a well-run race and the benefit of a good race rating, however, it was the Santa Cruz 52 Westerly, owned by…
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El Nino and hurricanes

It’s officially an El Niño season. That means that certain climate conditions have aligned. Sea surface temperatures are above normal in the east and central tropical Pacific Ocean and are expected to stay that way for at least several months, and air circulation in the atmosphere has shifted away from the “normal” state of rising in the usually warmer far western Pacific and flowing east to sink over the usually colder water in the east. The circulation reverses, with air rising in the east and sinking in the west to flow back east over the ocean, with lighter tradewinds.  Air…
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Yacht fire traced to oily rags

Yacht fire traced to oily rags

On a sunny July afternoon, the owner of the 79.9-foot yacht Pegasus and an employee refinished wood surfaces with teak oil at Peninsula Yacht Basin in Gig Harbor, Wash. The task involved applying the oil with a brush then wiping away and excess with a cloth. They wrapped up for the day at about 16:30 and left the oily rags in a bag under a wooden table on the vessel’s aft deck. Some nine hours later, smoke and flames were visible on Pegasus’ aft end. The fire continued to burn until the stern sank into the water. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators traced…
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ON photo contest sponsored by ICOM

ON photo contest sponsored by ICOM

Don’t forget the Ocean Navigator photo contest sponsored by ICOM. The ON Photo Contest will be awarding an ICOM handheld radio  to each of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. We will announce the winners in the Jan/Feb ’24 issue. Send your photo (high res and one entry only please) and a brief description to tim@maritimepublishing.com. To be considered for the photo contest your email must have the subject line “ON photo contest.” Send us your best photo today!
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View from a buoy

View from a buoy

Access to weather forecasts has improved tremendously in recent years. Getting weather data in Grib format via satellite has made the process of voyage planning and in-passage weather adjustments vastly easier than in years past. What if you could know the situation ahead on your course while you were voyaging? Turns out that in many ocean areas that is actually possible via deep water buoys that collect a slew of data, including images of the surrounding sea state. And now a company in Canada is offering a product that further increases buoy awareness.  There was a time when buoys were…
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Boat Focus: Sorcerer II

Boat Focus: Sorcerer II

Explorations of the globe under sail, like Darwin’s voyage aboard the ship Beagle and the voyage of the Royal Navy ship Challenger in the 1870s, were scientific milestones that greatly increased our knowledge of the planet. For biological scientist and lifelong sailor Dr. J. Craig Venter those passages provided a major inspiration for his extensive voyaging aboard his 95-foot sloop Sorcerer II. On two separate expeditions Venter, along with a group of fellow scientists and Sorcerer II’s crew, gathered biological samples from the world’s oceans. Sorcerer II sailed more than 65,000 miles and harvested a vast biological trove that is…
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Installing diesel tank access ports

Installing diesel tank access ports

Among the most frequent advice to new boat owners is to start with clean fuel and keep it clean. Before leaving the dock for the first time have your fuel tanks cleaned/fuel polished to avoid engine failure due to clogged fuel filters. In 2020 when we took delivery of our 2004 Nordic Tugs 32. We closed on Wednesday afternoon and departed the following Sunday morning, doing little to the vessel other than upgrading the anchor, changing the engine oil and filter and filling the diesel tank. Last year following a couple of bouncy passages on Lake Michigan, fuel starvation due…
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A sustainable future for shipping?

A sustainable future for shipping?

A hundred and fifty years ago big ships under sail crisscrossed the Atlantic Ocean, sailing south from Europe to cross on the trade winds then up the coast of the Americas to return on the westerlies. With current concerns over climate change driving the need to cut carbon from using fossil fuels, will we once again see fleets of ocean-going trading boats loaded down with flying canvas and no engines?  A recent book, Trade Winds: A voyage to a sustainable future for shipping, by Christiaan de Beukelaer looks at the complex journey the shipping industry is on to cut its…
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Winward Passage By the Stars

Winward Passage By the Stars

The 238-nautical mile voyage from Matthew Town, Bahamas, to Port Antonio, Jamaica, was a navigationally interesting one. Our route transited the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti close to the Cuba side where a traffic separation scheme is in place. Though relatively short, the dogleg path made things slightly more challenging than our previous open water crossings with no obstructions. It also provided some coastal navigating opportunities. Additionally, our path passed about eight nautical miles from dangerous reefs near Jamaica. One of those reefs is only 16 feet deep with large breaking swell and an exposed shipwreck.  My wife Monika…
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A new battery system

A new battery system

When we found our project sailboat dream-hull in a remote Southeast Alaska village, there was essentially no useful batteries and no electrical system installed. We had to determine what we wanted for batteries and then install them and build an electrical system around it.  The electrical items that Glacier Gem, our aluminum schooner, did have were limited to two large, unsecured batteries connected to a rusted-out and hotwired engine gauge panel. None of the gauges worked and there was no key. The giant batteries were best suited to a farm tractor or to a bulldozer than to a seagoing vessel.…
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