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Jeff's Offshore FAQs
August 2002
- Q: Does self-steering work going down wind in 25+ knots?
- A: Self steering (Monitor wind vane) worked well under gale conditions; however we found a lot of fish tailing due to down-wind run. Surfing down 10-12ft waves was a bit unnerving with self steering on so we hand steered through both gales. The boat would gyrate about 40 degrees causing your stomach to do backflips.
- Q: What is the food (if any) of choice under those conditions?
- A: Food under gale conditions? What food? We went 48 hrs on crackers, junk food and anything to keep you awake due to no possible chance of sleep. Actually we found that we didn't really eat which was bad, simply because of lack of sleep and difficulty in cooking anything. This resulted in eating only prepared items that were handy and snacky.
- Q: What is the temperature?
- A: COLD! I wish I had brought more poly. The air temp in the open ocean has been consistently 40-50 degrees with a biting wind chill. We've lived night and day in 3-4 layers of poly, heavy poly underwear and foulies for wind block and warmth. I'd say wind chill drops down to the 30's or less and I've been wearing more long underwear than when skiing in the coldest of temps. It's the dampness that gets you chilled to the bone.
- Q: Are you seeing any other cruising boats out there?
- A: Only a few other sailboats spotted close in to land — none in the open ocean
- Q: Do you still like your dodger?
- A: The dodger rocks! Warmth factor underneath it increases tenfold and blocks the wind and waves when they break over the boat (ie.. heading into the wind for sail changes, reefing etc)
- Q: Are you wearing harnesses?
- A: Always WEAR HARNESSES, never go on-deck without them. We have a fervent rule that you wear a harness and tether even while in the cockpit. Most of the sailing was done single-handed while the other person was sleeping. It would be impossible to hear a "man overboard" let alone find someone overboard under some of the conditions we have seen and without a strobe at night, your odds of survival are nil. Besides the water temp would get you before you could be found.
- Q: When sailing in these conditions, do you keep the hatch boards in?
- A: Yes, hatch boards in at all times. We got pooped and learned a great lesson. Fortunately we had two of the three boards in and only got a little water down below. Could have been MUCH worse. The pooping caused probably 300 gallons to enter the boat within seconds. Most all of it stopped at the hatch boards and literally filled the cockpit full.
- Good Things
- Electronic navigation, warm clothes, GPS, RADAR!
- Bad Things
- No sleep for days, eating junk food to survive, constant motoring, no wind!
- Side notes:
- Radar has been a godsend and I wouldn't recommend going offshore without it. We've used it every day/night to pinpoint targets and identify ships' direction and range. Not to mention the heavy fog and plethora of fishing boats we encountered all along the way. In some instances we had less than 1/4 mile visibility and without radar would have repeatedly been in a hornets' nest of fishing boats.
- Weather routing:
- Don't go offshore without a good system of getting weather data. We used a PC and HF radio to get weatherfax data and it paid off in spades. You can't outrun storms, but you can certain try to evade them or get into areas where the storm is mitigated. Granted they were only right about 25% of the time (frown).
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