Webb Chiles 6

Webb Chiles is publishing another book. It’s available to order now on Kindle but it’s available to read November 14th.

There won’t be a paper edition in a world where publishing photos costs money and we are, most of us all electronic, but that suits me the nomad with hundreds of books stored on my Kindle reader. I’m looking forward to GANNET 6 not least because Webb knows how to write about travel. In a world filled with illiterate influencers I am eager to grasp good travel writing where I can. 

If you don’t know who Webb Chiles is there is a biography attached to the book: 

One of the world’s most experienced sailors, Webb Chiles, set out on his sixth circumnavigation at age seventy-two.  No other American has ever circumnavigated six times in his own boats.  He was seventy-seven when he completed the voyage.

On his first circumnavigation, completed fifty years earlier, he became the first American to sail alone around Cape Horn and set what was then a world record for the fastest circumnavigation in a monohull, breaking Sir Francis Chichester’s record by more than three weeks.

Two years later, seeking an even greater challenge,  he set off to circumnavigate in an 18’ open boat, an undecked Drascombe yawl, in which he crossed both the Pacific and Indian Oceans, before after 20,000 miles being arrested and held as a spy in Saudi Arabia.

Webb Chiles has written that the defining responsibility of the artist is to go beyond the limits of human experience and send back reports.  That is what he has done for fifty years.

For his sixth circumnavigation he chose an unusual boat, an ultralight Moore 24, known to sail exceptionally well and intended to be raced around buoys in harbors.  Some had been raced to Hawaii, but no one had ever sailed a Moore 24 farther.  Even at seventy-two, Webb Chiles wanted to push limits.

He named his boat GANNET, after birds he admired when in New Zealand.  He made her totally self-contained.  Once he owned her she was never connected to shore power.  She ran from sun, wind, and his aged muscles.

The voyage was one man sailing alone, without sponsorship or shore team.   And it was sailed.   In 30,000 miles GANNET was under (electric) power for less than 15 miles.

It is an inspirational true tale for readers intrigued by what can be done in old age, at any age, if you have the will and the gifts and don’t let others define you.

GANNET 6 is more than just a sailing story.  Webb Chiles has been called the most talented living writer in the sailing world.    It has often been said that he takes the reader with him into his boats, causes them to feel the experience of fifty-knot gales, masthead in the water knockdowns, as well as the beauty and serenity of what he calls the monastery of the sea.  

But he writes about more.  About the places he visits,  often visited before.  The kindness of strangers.  The books he is reading.  The changes in the world he has seen.

Readers attracted to what they think of as an adventure should know that Chiles, who is an original, has written:  “Amateurs  seek adventure; professionals  seek to avoid them”;  but still in GANNET 6 there are storms, knockdowns, freak waves, and soul eroding calms.

GANNET 6 will take you where you have never been, and may make you seek to do more than you thought you could.  If so,  Webb Chiles will be pleased.

Gannet:

The great cabin:

Read this excerpt then decide for yourself if you would go sailing or drive a delivery van in comfort: 

As soon as I opened the companionway I knew we had too much sail up. The wind was much stronger than I had realized down below: gale-force. GANNET was being overwhelmed.

I hesitated only a moment before deciding to let the main halyard go and continue under furled jib alone. The windward running backstay was already in place as had become standard practice when I expected the wind to be on the same side of the boat for an extended period. The fully battened main slid down the Tides Marine track. I grabbed a line from a cockpit sheet bag, crawled the few feet to the mast, and, hanging on with one hand as twelve to fifteen foot waves crashed over us, crudely lashed the sail to the boom. Back in the cockpit I felt that even the remaining scrap of jib was too much and furled it down to T-shirt size.

The fourth and last tiller pilot had died the night before so GANNET was sailing on a close reach with the tiller tied down, but the tiller pilot had lasted long enough to make it possible that we would reach Opua on this day after a three act passage from Neiafu.

The first act was fine sailing with GANNET covering almost half the 1200 miles in four days with days runs of 131, 144, 145, 145.

Act two was nearly incredible as we sailed through a high-pressure system. For three days GANNET made only sixty to seventy miles a day, but she did so with no apparent wind. The days were sunny, the ocean flat. We might have been in a perfect anchorage, except the water was miles deep. The little sloop kept moving when almost no other sailboat would have. She was perfectly level, and the tiller pilot almost silent. Our course was straight. There wasn’t a ripple to cause the slightest deviation. I stood in the companionway and tried to find the wind.

I turned my head from side to side to feel it against my skin. Nothing. I held up my hand. Nothing. Yarn tied to the shrouds hung limp. GANNET sailed on wind imperceptible. And those improbable two hundred miles had brought us within forty miles of Opua and Act 3: a chance to get in before the northwest gale backed southwest and headed us, effectively shutting the door and keeping us at sea for several more days.

I have always sailed without outside assistance. No sponsors. No shore team. No PR agent. No weather routers. But I do not consider it inconsistent to listen to AM radio as I near land, and so I had heard the forecast on Radio New Zealand National, though I know how wind circulates around lows in both hemispheres and would have expected the wind to back given the falling barometer.

For that matter the radio forecast was partially wrong, predicting the west wind would veer northwest the day before. I very much wished it had. Twenty-five knots on the beam would have made the ride easier and faster and we would have already been in. But the wind remained west until well after dark, and GANNET labored south at around 210º True.

After more than 6,000 miles in four months, the little sloop was unraveling. Tiller pilots were dead. The port pipe berth was unusable after the tube had jumped from its socket when GANNET became airborne off a wave and crashed into a trough. One of the two floorboards was split along its full length. Insufficient solar charging was caused by two of the six panels not functioning. GANNET’s interior had never been wetter, messier or more chaotic.

There was not a dry surface anywhere. I had slept the night before—when I slept at all—in full foul weather gear, including sea boots, with a sleeping bag as a blanket over me. We needed to reach port before the cascade of failures become a torrent.

During the night the barometer dropped sharply, and the wind began to veer perhaps being bent by the land. Now, finally, it was on the beam which was good and bad. GANNET was thrashing into the waves, but she was heeled 30º to 40º, and when waves broke they rolled her dangerously.

Taking a flotation cushion to sit on I made my way aft to the tiller, untied it, and turned GANNET a bit farther off the wind, bracing myself with my left sea boot on the far side of the cockpit and my right on the post through which the backstay control ran up to the main sheet traveler bridge.

The overcast sky was dark, solid and low. It seemed to press down on us. I could feel its weight. Rain was falling, colder than the water from the ocean. Although it was 0900 the light was that of pre-dawn. And when darker lines of cloud came toward us, which I quickly learned meant a five to ten knot increase in wind and torrential rain, the sky was night, but the surface of the ocean frothed ghostly white.

GANNET was not hard to steer. But the waves were coming from starboard, slamming unexpectedly into and over us, literally blindsiding me. They were hard blows, as though we were being punched by a ranked heavyweight. Several knocked me from my seat, lifting my body so that I started to fall forward and down into the sea. I couldn’t possibly leave the helm long enough to go below to get my safety harness, so steering with one knee, I looped a sail tie through the slotted toe rail and tied a bowline as a strap for my right wrist. Now so long as my arm remained attached to my body, I would remain attached to GANNET.

When the heaviest rain hissed down, I couldn’t see the mast-mounted Velocitek and steered by feel, turning GANNET and surfing down waves. She ran beautifully true with no tendency to round up, her bow wave rising above the deck. When visibility returned, I often saw speeds of eleven or twelve knots on the Velocitek, but by then GANNET had slowed, so I don’t know how fast she had gone. Whatever the number it is the fastest I had ever sailed.

I couldn’t see my watch, but after what surely had been an hour, I started looking for land. Cape Wiwiki should be off the starboard bow. Cape Brett off to the south. The nine mile wide mouth of the Bay of Islands in between. But I found only cloud.

I had to twist my neck a long way to see the oncoming waves. Surfing down some, I turned up into others—a split-second decision, often based on how much crest was toppling, sometimes based on instinct. Still a few caught us and rolled GANNET almost to 90º, until feet braced, tiller in left hand, sail-tie strap around right wrist, I was standing parallel to the surface of the ocean and looking down into it. As the waves passed, gravity brought GANNET back onto her keel and sat me down.

Beneath my heavy set of foul-weather gear, I was wearing a Polartec fleece and Columbia Omni-heat pants over my usual shirt and Levis. Despite rain and waves, they were staying dry and only my exposed hands were cold. My left knee began to feel the constant strain. I tried to ease it and take more weight on my right foot.

The last position I had seen on the iPad Mini chartplotting app before coming on deck put us twenty-four miles north of the waypoint at the entrance to the Bay of Islands. Surely we had covered seven or eight miles since then. But still no land.

Another estimated hour passed. We shouldn’t be more than ten miles out—perhaps less. Land should be visible. And then, off to the south, clouds thinned and Cape Brett materialized, followed by the ridge leading west from it. Pleasure flooded over me, as well as a wave, both at seeing the familiar landmark and because it was the first solid indication that we were likely to make it in before the wind backed.

A little later Cape Wiwiki appeared much closer. I began to steer more toward it, wanting to stay to windward as much as possible. I knew that even this close we could still be in trouble if the wind suddenly headed us and we were forced east of Cape Brett.

The low, dark clouds continued to lift, and patches of blue sky appeared ahead. I expected the wind and seas to diminish as we closed the distance to land, but they remained strong until Cape Wiwiki was abeam.

As we entered the partial shelter of the mouth of the bay, I was able to tie down the tiller long enough to duck below to grab a protein bar.

GANNET’s bilge has a narrow sump. Usually in rough weather a couple of inches of water collects there and I pump it out with a hand pump that has a hose long enough to go out the companionway and reach overboard. With us now heeled 10º to 15º the bilge was overflowing. I got the pump and emptied it. But when I went down an hour later it was full again, and I began to wonder if the hull was cracked.

I took the protein bar back on deck just in time to see two of GANNET’s handsome namesake birds glide across our bow.

GANNET meet gannets.

We still had fourteen miles to reach the quarantine dock at Opua.

While the water was smoother, squalls that buried the lee rail continued to hit as we sailed deeper into the bay. I furled and unfurled the jib, and alternately hand-steered, tied the tiller down, hand-steered.

Familiar islands drew closer, a cloud of birds on Bird Rock, white with guano; vivid green hills; exposed brown cliffs falling into the sea; tiny foot-long penguins bobbing on wavelets. I smiled when I saw Paradise Cove on Urupukapuka Island where I have often anchored, and the lookout platform high on Roberton Island to which I’ve often climbed.

Not until we made the final dogleg turn beyond the rocky ledge off Tapeka Point, just north of Russell, did the wind moderate. I brought GANNET about and hove to so I could fit the outboard bracket, Torqeedo, fenders, dock lines, and Q flag. Then I turned us and continued south under sail. I knew the way.

Just north of the car ferry crossing, within sight of the quarantine dock, the wind died. I furled the jib, turned on the Torqeedo, and lowered the main. Misty rain began to fall as we powered the last two hundred yards at dusk.

Opua’s quarantine dock is the easiest to approach of any I know in the world. I had GANNET prepared to tie up port or starboard. With no wind the current was decisive. It was running out, so I continued forward to tie to port.

GANNET and I were weeks ahead of the herd. The long marina breakwater, of which the northern two hundred feet are the quarantine dock, was empty. I turned the Torqeedo tiller arm to neutral, glided the last few feet, stepped off, and tied dock lines.

I went back on board and into the Great Cabin for the bottle of Laphroaig in which I had saved an inch for that moment. Crystal glasses broken, I poured my favorite liquid into a plastic tumbler, straightened up, and, still wearing foul weather gear, stood in the companionway indifferent to the light rain, which was nothing compared to the total immersions of the morning. The little sloop’s deck came to just above my waist. I looked around at familiar hills and took a sip. Then I took another.

The date was September 20, 2014. We had sailed from San Diego on May 20. 6,408 miles by day’s runs in four months—or, actually because of crossing the International Date Line, a day less than four months. And from Neiafu we had again come remarkably close to sailing the rhumb line with day’s runs totally 1208 miles for a minimum possible distance of at least 1190.

Passage over.

Ocean crossed.

And though an American and not a New Zealander, I was home. In coming days I was honored to receive emails from several New Zealanders welcoming me back to my second home.

The New Zealand Met Office reported that the wind gusted fifty-five knots that day with 4.5 meter/15’ waves.

That night the wind backed to the southwest, closing the door on a 31’ cutter that left Neiafu the day after GANNET. She reached Opua a week and a day later. In harbor, water continued to trickle into the bilge from odd corners of GANNET’s interior for several days, and then stopped. – Webb Chiles

Weekend Rain

 30 mile an hour wind gusts pushed GANNET2 around all Friday night. We had heat, we had a dry space to look out at the rain slashing through the trees and Rusty came in well before dark to underline how wintery it was out there. By Saturday morning the rain was sporadic and the skies lightened as if sunshine might break through.  It didn’t.

Rusty wanted a walk and I figured I had plenty of dry clothes if the heavens opened. 

Saturday morning in Uruguay in the middle of a week predicted to be wet and windy. Our battery levels went from 65% when we parked to 46% when I got up at 7:30, but with no real prospect of sunshine to charge our batteries it was time to hunt down a campsite to empty waste tanks, fill the water tank, take hot showers, plug in to electricity and thus regain RV equilibrium.

I’d really like to know where summer is at this point, if not here at least in the horizon. I was looking at pictures of Pensacola after the arrival of a category two hurricane, the usual newspaper pictures of flooding, flying roofs and falling light poles, civilization on the ropes drama. For me the worst was always the dreary truce to clean up and restore order long after the drama seekers had moved on to new shock horror scenes. I must say 105 mph winds a category two seemed like ball beer compared to what we have been seeing in years past.

I need no more hurricanes in my life, mind you there is a volcano rumbling into eruption in the back of the van as Layne hunts for a suitable ticket to fly to California. I miss the days of travel agents personally, as computerized do-it-yourself takes over our lives to reduce corporate costs…

I was talking to Jeffrey my tech guru friend in Florida who keeps this page on track when something goes wrong, and he was telling me how he harnesses artificial intelligence to do the mundane tasks while he directs the work and sets the path. While it is making him more productive he can see the struggle ahead for humans to relevant in the AI world that is coming. 

I see photographers playing with imperfection as a way to reassure viewers the photos are made by fallible humans. I listen to Layne arguing with an airline robot as she seeks a conference with a human booking agent. Rusty remains my inspiration as he snores his way past a wet windy robotic powered world.

I suggested to Layne that I’d like to stay in Uruguay while she is in California so she’s going to fly out, according to the robot, on Wednesday from Montevideo’s Carrasco airport.

I’ve been asking myself why I want to be in Uruguay and not Argentina while I’m alone. I know for a fact I don’t want to be sitting still like last time when she went to Brazil but traveling around Uruguay there is a feeling that I am in a familiar place. 

Uruguay feels normal to a visitor from North America, it’s mostly organized, tidy, middle class, with decent roads and street dogs are few and not starving and though there are areas of poverty most of southern Uruguay is quietly, shyly, well to do. 

It’s easy to drive a camper van here in the non summer months, even though campgrounds are usually closed…

There was no one around and as we waited to see if someone would show up I emptied our porta potty into their loo and then we left. We found another campground and that too was locked.

But the sun had been out a tiny bit allowing our 860 watts of solar panels to generate a few amps of electricity alongside the engine generating a few more so we had plenty to spend the night in a weird sort of open space parking lot in a nearby coastal village. Let’s spend the night we said; so we did. 

It’s the obelisk of the town of Salinas and I know nothing further about it. It’s abandoned and there’s trash lying around but I have no concerns about wild camping like this in Uruguay. In Argentina I might not be so sure and that’s makes Uruguay attractive to me at the moment. I feel like keeping it easy, stopping frequently to let Rusty roll in the grass, enjoying the empty beaches and being ready to drive north when she gets home at the end of the month. 

We found a supermarket and Layne of course was grumbling about the quality of the fruits and vegetables but they had everything she was looking for so I counted it a good score. 

Oh and there was pafkibg, always good to find when you are driving a large van.

Yup. Uruguay should be easy for the next couple of weeks, pottering hither and yon like a small sailboat nosing into coastal creeks and hidden lagoons, nothing quite so much fun as pottering about in …vans. 

Some views of Uruguay: 

The automated weigh stations keep flashing at us telling us to drive through. I really need to learn to ignore them. 

Another classic Vespa: 

A giant soccer stadium in the middle of nowhere. 

A Friend For A Reason

One of my least favorite sayings in the English language is “Everything happens for a reason…” which to my way of thinking is an expression of privilege at its most thoughtless. If you avoid a fatal car wreck because your yoga class was canceled that was blind luck in my rather austere world view, but if everything happens for a reason you’ve got some explaining to do, to a mother watching her child starve in Gaza or South Sudan or in far distant Burma. No reason I can think of justifies such misery helped along by abolishing USAid. Nevertheless on a more cheerful note there is a reason why we are stuck in Uruguay and the reason is not one more disaster falling unbidden upon Team Lost.

We are back at one of our preferred camp spots overlooking the River Plate, a wild and windy place as yet another cold front blows up the estuary off the South Atlantic Ocean.

We wandered around a bit checking out the town campsite closed for the season.

It seemed rather depressing so we took off to spend a night on the cliff tops. 

Rusty was heading to the beach when he spotted a big white dog running on the sand. He turned around, the prudent older dog. 

I didn’t see the dog until after I had spotted the solitary person on the empty winter beach, but Rusty, supposedly developing glaucoma was well ahead of me and I had my glasses on. We returned to our cliff top estate. 

The awful weather has impaired our solar panels from doing their job but a 90 minute drive and some mild solar assistance ( up to 15 amps under bright grey skies) we got the batteries up to 65 percent (300 lithium amps) to see us through the night. Layne got busy looking for flights, I walked the pest. 

Layne got a call from a friend in California, a friend from a group of defense lawyers from forty years ago. She has a remarkable ability to stay in touch, with old friends or new friends met on the road in South America. The call intimated one of their number in Santa Cruz is going through a rough patch. It’s part of the aging process, spouses losing mobility and needing nursing, the body slowing down needing more time, fears ballooning irrationally perhaps but causing real anxiety. Layne had been voted  the best friend to help and she answered the call. 

It’s a matter of finding tickets and figuring out a route and spending two weeks in California. It’s the right thing to do of course but Rusty and I have another stationary period to deal with. 

Except my plan this time is to drive around Uruguay while Layne is gone. I’m thinking about seeking out free camps and visiting campgrounds to use the facilities suffered a few days off the grid. I can’t stand the thought of two more weeks sitting still in a campground. School pickup :

Highway 1 to Montevideo. 

More rain promised all week. 

“Put your cap on” police check ahead. 

Not really, as the substation is abandoned. Cops don’t seem interested in us, even the ones at mobile check points. 

Layne is looking to get a flight Monday from Buenos Aires as flights are cheaper than from Montevideo so she’ll incorporate a ferry ride across the River Plate then take an Uber to the airport. I’ll be driving Rusty up the coast.

He takes things as they come. But I’ll tell you he is coming indoors a lot more than usual this week. The weather is too much even for him and he loves being outside. So much for Spring. 

I keep telling myself at least I’ll be driving, looking for places to park and so forth. I am ready to go north but here we are.  

The heater is working nicely and it’s such a luxury to sit in warmth. The engine is still leaking coolant but not badly and so far it’s not getting worse so we can drive which is a very good thing. It’s been a hard year since we decided to drive to the Guyanas and I’m ready for it to be over and put all these modifications and repairs  and flights behind us. But of course everything happens for a reason. Doesn’t it?