Great to have you aboard, Maurice and Louise-Ann!

What are the three most important lessons you have learned about
successful passagemaking since you departed Singapore?

--Georgs

Georgs Kolesnikovs
Your host at Trawlers & Trawlering, formerly Trawler World, since 1997

Georgs,

Only three...that will take some thinking; we've learned so much over
the past few years, much of it the hard way.

Weather:  The Admiral (Louise-Ann) says that the first one has to be
"know your weather" and I have to agree.  We are very cautious. In the
thousands of sea miles that we've logged, we've had our fair share of
bad weather; but only once got caught in gale force winds.  Generally,
we get what we think we will get, the exception was a trip last year
between Vanuatu and New Caledonia.  An easy 2-day trip of only a few
hundred miles turned into a hard three days, with an unexpected
night-time arrival at the reef entrance.  I'm not prone to seasickness,
although I do get queasy.  LA fares well too, but not quite as well as
I.  On this trip we started out in nearly calm conditions with a
forecast for calm increasing to moderate on the port bow.  After a half
day the winds started to pick up, and by the end of the first day they
were howling and the sea was building.  We both got seasick.  LA took
two pills (we never take them) and was knocked out cold for two days.
Meanwhile, up in the pilothouse, I stopped taking the pills to avoid the
same fate, and ended up keeping watch for two days straight.  While
doing this, the weather built to sustained 35 to 40 knots, with gusts
well up over 50.  The rain and spray found many ways to infiltrate what
we thought was a tight boat.  Our height of eye in the pilothouse is
about 15 feet and when level in the trough I was often looking up at the
crest of the next wave.  We were occasionally taking greenies over
AKAMA, but due to the reverse angle of the windows, Portuguese bridge
and the large overhang of the pilothouse roof, took nothing but spray on
the windows.  In contrast, for the passage from New Caledonia to
Auckland, nearly 1000 miles, we had beautiful conditions the whole way,
except for the start.

So, what to do?  Well, first is to be educated.  Both LA and I are
advanced pilots and former boating course instructor/proctors in the CPS
(Canadian Power & Sail Squadron).  Along the way, we both took the
weather course, an elective.  We were lucky enough to have as our
instructor one of Canada's foremost meteorologists, who is also a
yachtie.  Second, we plan our routes for the year for the best weather
(very rough times for approximate voyages and alternatives, WITH NO
"DEADLINES" TO MEET) using the Admiralty Pilot Charts (we have them in
computer form in a program called VPP), and we use Jimmy Cornell's
excellent book, World Cruising Routes.  When doing this, we have to bear
in mind that most of the advice is for sailboats.  They have to flirt
with danger by seeking the wind, whereas we like nothing more than a fat
and not too high high-pressure cell, preferably stalled, right on our
rhumb line.  With lots of practice, one learns to extrapolate data
intended for sailors, making it suitable for power vessels.  Third,
before setting out we get up to date information, beginning weeks ahead
of any major passage.  We get our primary weather information over the
HF radio.  We order, download and analyse the GRIB files using the
Airmail software (a free download).  GRIB files cover the whole world
and although an average, computer-generated, thing, are fairly good.  We
receive and analyse the WeFax from the local meteorologists.  What we
are looking for is seasonal weather patterns.  We attempt to leave in
good, or in poor but improving weather, with a forecast for dropping or
low wind.  The idea is that if you are going to get beat up at all, it
is better to have that happen when you start out and be a "known", as
the current local forecast will be much more accurate than the long
range forecast a thousand miles away.  We plan the route so that any
increasing winds that will come up along the way go aft the beam. If any
are forecast on the nose, we don't go unless the forecast is for light
to moderate and the distance not too far.  Finally, we talk to other
yachties who have made the same voyage (usually in reverse) or who are
planning to go a similar route, although you have to be careful as they
sometimes don't have good weather skills, which is how we got beat up
going to New Caledonia!

On that fateful trip, the Aussie weather service had been showing a huge
stalled trough.  Many of us had been waiting quite a while in wind and
rain for the right weather to leave Port Vila.  One morning the wind
died and the trough was gone from the WeFax.  The sail boaters all
started moaning about there being no wind to sail; we took this as
"data", when it was nothing but ill-informed gossip.  We looked at the
sky and despite the heavy overcast we set out.  We should have known
better; that overcast did not remain without good reason.  As it turned
out, the next day the WeFax again showed the trough (perhaps somebody
forgot to draw it?).  The high that should have moved slowly eastward
was still (again?) stalled, by an emerging and deepening low to our
west, not a good thing for the route we were on, to the southwest.

Well, that's enough for now.  We will have to think about what the other
two biggest lessons learned are.

Best to all,
Maurice & Louise-Ann
AKAMA (KK Whaleback #2)
Currently near Auckland NZ

-----Original Message-----
From: Georgs Kolesnikovs [mailto:waterworld@rogers.com]
Sent: Sunday, 27 November 2005 08:15
To: Passagemaking Under Power List
Subject: [PUP] Travels with Akama, was Hello

cruising

Great to have you aboard, Maurice and Louise-Ann!

What are the three most important lessons you have learned about
successful passagemaking since you departed Singapore?

--Georgs

Georgs Kolesnikovs
Your host at Trawlers & Trawlering, formerly Trawler World, since 1997

Passagemaking-Under-Power Mailing List

Georgs,

You asked what were the three most important lessons we learned.  By far
the most important one is knowing about the weather, which we covered in
some detail earlier.  We were a bit disappointed to see that nobody
discussed this, seizing instead on our comments about seasickness, which
we don't consider to be much of a real problem (it just seems like it at
the time).

We've been thinking about the second one and conclude that it is proper
route planning and scheduling.  Part of this includes weather
considerations, but there is far more to it.

The first aspect is having a written long term plan of approximately
which countries we plan to visit or avoid.  We always have such a plan
for about five years ahead, the detail being little more than where we
will be year by year.  We research routes and destinations at leisure,
as we don't dwell on the detail.  Without a plan, one might stay in one
place forever!  Now, this might be a plan in itself; we know lots of
cruisers who arrived in SE Asia, loved the place, and now sweep back and
forth annually with the monsoons between Thailand and the Philippines.
There's a lifetime of boating there.  We, on the other hand, are setting
out to explore as many areas as possible, eventually ending up back in
Canada before we grow too old or infirm to carry on this lifestyle.

Next we make a medium term plan.  Each year, we consider where we are
and where we want to go during the next year or so along the way to this
ultimate goal.  Making this plan entails knowing on a month by month
basis to where we will be moving.  Generally, the most important aspect
is climate.  We try to stay where it is warm, but not hot, and move
during favourable climactic seasons.  This plan is also not very
detailed, the time frame being about monthly or bi-monthly.  On it we
list little more than the distances for the passages, major ports, the
best and worst times to go, and the time we plan to go (usually stating
just the month).

Once we settle on a good intermediate plan, which is loads of fun and
very informative work, we make a detailed plan for the coming season
(about the next six months).  Now our research turns to the specific
sights that we want to see in each country.  We generally know within a
few weeks specifically where we will be, sometimes reserving a marina
berth and scheduling specific maintenance.

Although we have dates and times, our overall cardinal rule is DON'T BE
DRIVEN BY SCHEDULE.  So, if we are not ready to go, or if the weather is
not cooperating, we stay put, keeping an eye out to be sure that we
don't box ourselves in for the next few major moves.  So, while guests
and crew are always welcome, we rarely have either.  Not many people are
able to accept our stipulation that we will get there when we get there
and we will leave only when we consider the conditions right, plan or no
plan.

When we are seriously on the move, as opposed to just exploring a
specific area, we also lay out detailed routes, using C-MAP.  These are
only for the next week or a few days, but we always want to know where
we will anchor for the night, where we will go if the WX changes, and so
on.  We rarely move the boat anywhere without such a route marked out
right on the E-chart.  Of course, this does not stop us from altering
course to stick the nose into interesting coves and bays, but even then
we always look at the chart first and physically change the route on
C-MAP.

One of the things we ensure when making our more detailed plans is
setting aside time for sight seeing.  We've met several yachties who
were going around the world in two years.  Invariably they are a haggard
bunch, and if you ask them about it they all opine that they should have
set aside much more time.  Even Jim and Suzie Sink, who we talked to at
a TrawlerFest told us that four and a half years to circumnavigate was
way too fast.

Our major tools to make these plans are:
--C-MAP-EPS (electronic charts)
--Talking to other cruisers and local boaties
--Cruising guides, bought, borrowed and (blush) copied
--Jimmy Cornell's Cruising Route book
--Virtual Passage Planner (electronic pilot charts)
--The Internet (www.noonsight.com is good)

Well, that's about all we can think of for planning.  It must sound
rather pedantic to those on the list who are not gypsies.  But it isn't
really.  It's nearly as much fun making these plans as actually
implementing them.

Cheers,
Maurice & Louise-Ann
M/Y AKAMA

-----Original Message-----
From: Georgs Kolesnikovs [mailto:waterworld@rogers.com]
Sent: Sunday, 27 November 2005 08:15
To: Passagemaking Under Power List
Subject: [PUP] Travels with Akama, was Hello

cruising

Great to have you aboard, Maurice and Louise-Ann!

What are the three most important lessons you have learned about
successful passagemaking since you departed Singapore?

--Georgs

Georgs Kolesnikovs
Your host at Trawlers & Trawlering, formerly Trawler World, since 1997

Passagemaking-Under-Power Mailing List