Debriefing

Airplane drivers are regulars at “debriefings”. After every sim session during recurrent training the crew and instructor retire to a briefing room. There, every decision made during the session will be rehashed, along with a diagram of the flight paths just flown. Such discussions are particularly enlightening when the flight path diagram ends up in a simulated smoking hole in a field somewhere. Just like in racing, you can't really know just where the line is until you bin a couple. That's why all good pilots love simulators. You get to try things you would never try for real, and crashing doesn't hurt anything but the ego.

Kintala left Boot Key and motored sailed to Rodriguez Key for a beautiful night in a nice anchorage. The next morning she headed for No Name Harbor. The forecast suggested there would be enough wind to let the Beast take most of the day off. And so it was. The only real challenge was that the Hawk Channel isn't particularly wide and the wind was directly off the stern. Normally we would have just spun out the head sail, and we tried that. But there wasn't enough wind to get to Biscayne Bay before nightfall. So we got bold and flew the main as well, setting the sails wing on wing; head sail flying off the port side, the main on a preventer, flying off the starboard side.

We haven't done much wing on wing in Kintala. Usually the head sail is all we need and, well, wing on wing sailing is (for my money) a lot of work and some risk. Getting the wind on the wrong side of the main sail and having it slam across the boat is a nightmare thought for any sailor. Rigs come down that way, booms get bent, and to do it right one also needs to use a jib pole on the head sail.

I have never made friends with the jib pole. With a back still a little stiff from hauling the anchor out of the clay of Boot Key, after it was set by days of 30 knot winds, I wasn't enthusiastic about dancing on the foredeck with that unwieldy and cantankerous thing. But it was the sailorly thing to do and, someday, I hope to be a sailor.

After my normal amount of fumbling around the jib pole was set and the preventer secure. For a couple of glorious hours Kintala flew up the Hawk Channel with her wings spread wide. Deb even tamed the wind vane and it was working like a champ. A great point of sail, vane working, following seas, flying along...how does it get any better than that?

But the channel bends a little, and the winds were shifting a little, and the fun had to end. It did, with two fingers of my left hand tangled in the preventer and jammed against a cleat just as the line picked up the load from an accidental jibe cased by a passing powerboat wake. It was an interesting (and painful) couple of seconds before Deb cut me free with her knife. (Mine, of course, was down in the cabin where I always put it at night so I don't forget it the next morning.)

Hand now free and still functioning to a degree, we managed to get things back under control and sailed on. Me pretty embarrassed at such a bone-headed move. Deb still a little buzzed by the adrenaline hit. A few hours later things got really interesting.

By time we made the markers for the channel into Biscayne Bay the wind was a solid 25 knots. Kintala was humming along at better than 7 knots, with a lot of sail up for that kind of wind in a narrow channel. Too much, actually, which is why I had considered dropping the main while still out in the Hawk channel and easing our way into No Name at a less frantic pace. Considered, but didn't mention. Later the effort to reduce the head sail without being able to turn much in the narrow channel just off the light house point proved...unfortunate. The furling line back-lashed and froze, there was no rolling that sail in. Believe me, I tried. In fact I tried so hard that the lazy sheet got away from me, spun out into the wind, whipped around the forestay, and ended up in the water on the other side of the boat. With the wind behind us there was no way of getting the main sail down either.

With the line trailing in the water all the way back to the prop, any thought of waking up the Beast, turning into the wind, and getting things under control went away.

We blew past the entrance to No Name at better than six knots, head sail flogging, sheets flying, and Deb working hard at the helm just trying to keep everything together. I scrambled madly around the deck not accomplishing much of anything though, eventually, I did get the wayward sheet under control and back on the boat. Deb woke up the Beast and sailed us into the bay proper, where we had enough room to actually turn up into the wind. I dumped the mainsail into the lazy jacks and tried to un-jam the furler, which was a no-go. Deb saw me getting ready to drop the jib to the deck but, at that moment, I was trying to remember which halyard was which. The stay sail is on a furler as well and it has been a couple of months since we put those back on the boat. Finally I just picked one and let it free. It was the right one, the first break of the day.

As the jib started down Deb swung the bow just enough to put the flogging clew inside the life lines. I wrestled the wayward sail down onto the deck, a rope burn on my left arm and the loss of part of the fingernail on one of the fingers already mashed was the only toll required.

I was glad to pay up. Sails down and Beast rumbling, I tried not to think about the anchor still tied, pinned, and cabled. Should the Beast join in the fumbling of the day it would be questionable if the hook could be dropped before we were blown into shallow water. But sometimes the very worst doesn't actually happen, and we limped into No Name.

We had planed on using the pump out station there, then anchoring for a couple of days. It turned out that pump out station is out of service. That would be five out of five. We tried to get pumped out before leaving Boot Key. Not a single marina had a pump out in service, and the pump out boat was booked full for the next couple of days. We couldn't get on the list before the weather window north closed.

So we are tied to the wall near the inoperative pump out in No Name. Our tank is full so the bathrooms here are the only option until we figure out what to do next. The Park Ranger, being told that the boat was broke, I was hurt, and the holding tank was full, was kind and understanding. He told us to say tied-to as long as we need to figure out our next move and get the boat back in sailing shape. The jib is flaked and stored on deck, the main sail is flaked, tied, and covered, halyards are secured, and Kintala and her crew safe and secure.

We did so many things wrong today, yet did everything right we needed to do to keep from hurting the boat or getting hurt too badly ourselves. (I'm a mechanic, smashed fingers and burns are pretty much a regular occurrence. The minor bang ups of today hardly count.) Oh, and just to add insult to injury; while flaking the jib I managed to put my bare foot deep into an ant hill. It still feels like it is on fire.

We are still not exactly sure how to characterize today. Back in my old life I actually knew what I was doing. Today, more than three years into my new life, I don't seem to have a clue. Tomorrow we will start fixing things, re-assembling things, and try to find a pump out somewhere in Florida that actually works. I am all for not pooping in the ocean, letting the land dwellers add my small contribution to their overwhelming flood of sewage. But if they are going to pass “no discharge” laws, the least they can do is give a person a chance to comply.

And that's the debriefing for today.

A Carlyle kind of day

In 2012 B.C. (Before Cruising), we used to go sailing on our home lake, Carlyle Lake in Illinois. For the most part, the wind on Carlyle was pretty light, with the exception of the occasional approaching line of Midwest thunderstorms. The genoa would have just enough wind to keep a shape while we ghosted along at 3 or 3.5 knots, the waves doing their gentle slap on the hull, the warm early summer breeze and sunshine on our faces, and the occasional cry of seagulls fighting over their lunch. We would sail toward the dam, tacking through the many obstacles and shallow spots on the lake, and debate whether we should turn back with that last tack or go on. The lowering sun would usually beckon us toward our slip, but Kintala would urge us on. "Just one little bit farther," she would say.


Yesterday was a day like that. While the water was much bigger and a prettier color of green, we left Boot Key Harbor fully loaded with water, diesel and ice and a freshly emptied holding tank. Our goal was an easy 12-mile sail to Bahia Honda, and a little more than half a day to do it in. After checking the weather the previous night, we had expected to motor this piece, but after clearing the channel markers,we were pleasantly surprised to find that we had just enough wind to sail. It would be a bit of a challenge, the wind being very close to where we wanted to go, but with expeditious tacking through the shallows and hundreds of crab traps we thought we could do it. Kintala was able to maintain 3 knots most of the rest of the day, even easing through the Mosier Channel twin spans of the 7-mile bridge while dodging fishing and diving boats.

Our destination anchorage began to take shape on the horizon about an hour and a half before sunset, but it became obvious that our initial route wasn't going to be possible given the winds. We pushed on a little deeper toward the shallows to give us a better angle on the tack, dodged the worst of the crab traps, and settled the Mantus just a few minutes before the sun hit the horizon, and the conch horn was blown. A large dolphin broached, slapping his tail just as twilight was fading, and a turtle cleared the surface a few times as he finished his dinner and headed home.

It was a great sail. Some great sails are blustery 25-30 knot days with reefed canvas and the rail nearly in the water, the likes of which we've had in the Bahamas, the Chesapeake, and even Carlyle. Those sails are like a shot of really good Cuban Coffee. But some great sails are these days where you have all day to make just a few miles. After the bustling pace of places like Boot Key Harbor, the peace and quiet is a welcome respite, interrupted only by the occasional teasing gust of wind that brings the secondary bubbling around Kintala's stern indicating we're approaching 5 knots, only to fade away. Those sails are like a long deep-tissue massage, relaxing you to your very core and leaving you with wispy smiles.

The morning sun is clearing the horizon, and after a week of sitting still, Kintala is eager to be moving again. "Just one little bit farther," she says...

ASA 103

ASA 103 is now under our belts, with our instructor's signature freshly in our logbooks. We did have more wind this time for most of one day which was refreshing after our "jello" water last class (not a ripple anywhere). ASA 103 was much of the same material as ASA 101 (in fact it's the second half of the book) but all in much more detail. We learned about charts and the MULTITUDES of symbols one finds on them, soundings and how one must remember one's gradeschool math so one is not embarrassed in front of a whole lake of sailboats, bouys and the multiple shapes and colors and names of them and a most useful skill of assembling a head door handle so that the piece with the opening post falls inside the head when it breaks instead of the outside. A few tense moments of claustrophia while examining the broken lock to see how to get it open with only half a handle. Note to self: Always tell someone you're going to the head so if you don't return promptly they can check on you! We had a great time this weekend and learned a great bit, the nicest of which is that you always seem to meet the most interesting people around boats. Here's some pictures for you:

My favorite Skipper:

Jerry:

 Tim, Bob & Chris:

George, Larissa and me:

Waiting for the wind:

Our ever-patient instructor:

A great crew!

Knot Practice:

And a short video of what it looks like inside the cabin while you're sailing pretty quickly:

Miscellaneous pictures

Sailing "Wing on Wing", when you sail downwind and have the mainsail on one side and the jib on the other. This allows the wind to push the boat downwind more efficiently.

Tim at the entrance of the cabin so you can guage the size.

The inside of the boat facing aft.

One-entry logbook

Day two complete and I am the proud owner of a new sailing logbook with an ASA101 endorsement in it. The day started out with the completion of our 100 question written test and then some time on the water. By 12:30 the wind was dying off so we heaved to and ate some lunch. The wind remained calm and the water glassy in spite of the weatherman's predictions of 8-12 knots after 1:00. Here is how Tim entertained himself. Quite adaptable, don't you think? 

 We finally turned on the motor and practiced man overboard drills under power since we had to prove the skill to pass the test. After the drills we decided to head out under power a little and explore the other end of the lake. Half way there the wind suddenly picked up so off went the motor and out came the sails. We got to practice the man overboard drills under sail and I even beat Tony's speed record with a whopping 2.87 knots. Wooooooo Hoooooo! We actually had some good sailing for the rest of the afternoon and then headed back. It was a wonderful experience that answered our initial question of whether we want to try to do this. The answer is a resounding "Yes!"