Comillas49

For the first real installment of Gear Talk I wanted to cover the topic of sails. How working with sails has changed on a typical sailboat with the advent of furling sails, electric winches and other things and in particular our own personal experience comparing sailing aboard a Morgan ’42 Mark II racing yacht twenty-five years ago vs. O’Comillas today.

Some terminology:

• Furling sails: a sail that can roll on itself to reduce the surface exposed to the wind.
• Reefing: the process of reducing the main sail by lowering and reattaching it at a lower point on the boom. Thus exposing less surface to the wind.
• Trimming: the process of adjusting sail angle to the wind.

As I explained in the weather info section, for any given wind direction, wind speed, and waves there is a corresponding combination of course, sails and trimming that is optimal and a range under which such a combination will operate safely. This premise has not changed in the last twenty-five years, what has changed is how easy it is to adjust how much sail to use at any given time.

So lets take a look back at sailing aboard Sagitta, a Morgan ’42 Mark II racing yacht. This sailboat had multiple sizes of genoas and jibs and a mainsail that can be reefed. So basically in the front sail you had a selection of sizes and depending on the wind you would take one down and put a different one up. On the main sail you had four, perhaps five, reefing points. The winches for raising and lowering the sails where at the base of the mast while the mechanical winches for trimming the sails where on the cockpit.

O’Comillas has a furling genoa, a furling jib and a furling main. Once the sails have been raised, they stay up the whole time unless they need to be taken down for repairs. To reduce size, a sail is rolled or furled on it’s self. All of which can be accomplished from the cockpit without having to move to the base of the mast.

So lets put both boats through the simple scenario of going from light winds to heavy winds.

On the Sagitta, you may go through several reductions in the front sail. This entails going below deck picking a new sail and bringing it up. Then for example, you would lower the large genoa, tie it, and then raise a smaller genoa. Both of these tasks have to be done at the base of the mast. Then repeat the operation until you are using a smaller working jib. For the main sail, you may also need to reef twice or more. Each time, you need to go to the mast to partially lower the sail, reef it by hand since we didn’t have one of those reefing systems that exist today, and then raise it again. All these operations can be physically demanding for a short handed crew.

On the O’Comillas, you will start with the genoa and the main fully unrolled and as the wind picks up, from the cockpit area you would roll up more of the sail to make it smaller. At some point it will be better to completely roll-up the genoa and then unroll the working jib but that operation is also easy to do from the cockpit area as well. No going below deck, no physically changing anything on the base of the mast. Easy. The electric winches are also a huge improvement. When talking about a large genoa with a surface area of 754 ft² (70.1 m²) trimming with an electric winch is a cinch.

We do have extra sails such as a spinnaker, spares, and a storm main but for the most part everything can be done without having to move from the cockpit area. Furthermore, rolling a sail is much less challenging than raising it. All these changes make it possible to operate a 49-foot sailboat between two people very reasonable. A task that would have been impossible aboard Sagitta.

We are now in Newport! The whole family got to see the sailboat and we went out sailing with our friends from Buffalo (Jim, Rosanne & three wonderful kids) My son’s first word when he saw O’Comillas was “enormous.” My wife Kristi, on the other hand said she thought it would be bigger. I guess 50 feet seems smaller or bigger depending on your perspective. I can think of a bunch of other jokes involving wives and sizes but I’ll leave that to another day.

José Manuel went out shopping at Costco and he must have bought half the store. I guess he must be thinking that we just keep sailing around the world while we are at it and thus why the massive amounts of food. He does have a point though; if we have too much we can use it in Spain or donate it, but in the middle of the ocean, like I’ve said before there are no stores.

Unfortunately, after all the preparation and anticipation work, you can still get it wrong or something unexpected happens. Here perhaps is the best lesson I learned sailing in the Caribbean many years ago. If you find yourself with too much sail surface area, and the sailboat is sailing uncomfortably on the higher end of its range, get everyone ready aboard and reef and/or change sails to reduce the area exposed to the wind. Always!

Regardless of how tough conditions may be, and how difficult it may be to reef any of the sails, you will always be better off. Even if the maneuver involves going to the bow (front section) to bring down a genoa (large jib, a type of sail) in rough seas. Of course, don’t rush to do the maneuvers before everyone is ready. But remember: if you think a given task is risky now, always consider the possibility that the weather may get worse and the maneuver will become more and more dangerous the longer you wait. Furthermore, the larger the sail’s surface area the higher the forces exerted. Therefore, the longer you go with too much sail in rough weather, the more you expose the mast, the sails and the whole sailboat to conditions beyond their designed limits risking all sorts of bad things happening.

In the occasion I was referring to in the Caribbean, I was quoted as saying to my cousin Amalia “El miedo es libre” which in Spanish roughly translates to “you are free to fear.” I guess I didn’t have anything inspirational to assure her that everything was going to be ok. After all, fear had grabbed a hold of me as well. In forty to fifty knots of wind with rough seas that are completely soaking you, changing a sail is the last thing you want to do. But as I’ve said already, if you think it is tough now, how about with fifty to sixty-knot gusts of wind? Thankfully, my father gave the order, we did the maneuver regardless of puking all over, and I mean all over, and we survived to tell the story.

Do not ever let fear cloud your judgment. Fear is not useful in the middle of a dangerous situation. Be respectful of the sea. Be aware of your own capabilities, of those on board, and your sailboat; and always anticipate the likelihood of conditions getting worse.

We’ve received requests from family in Venezuela that we write Sloopy in Spanish. Since O’Comillas has a Spanish flag, I found it only fitting that Sloopy would be bilingual. So we’ve translated the last two posts and added a new post. From now on, all Sloopy entries will be bilingual.

In terms of the main blog, I’ll continue to write in English, not because I’m better at it, but because it is easier. I’ll leave it up to Dad to write blog entries in Spanish once the voyage starts.

We leave for Newport on Saturday, so this blog is going to get very active very soon. Scheduled departure date for the voyage is Friday May 30th.

The first question to ask is what do you mean by a GPS failure. If we are talking about a malfunction in the main GPS charter/plotter this is where redundancy comes in. We carry two backup portable GPS units on the sailboat with extra spare batteries. Therefore, the odds of everything malfunctioning are next to nil. That is of course provided the signals from the GPS satellite system are all functioning. Yup, it is actually possible (thankfully not too probable at this time) for the US Global Positioning System to stop working as hypothesized in Wired’s Oh, Nooo! What If GPS Fails?

Not so much because we are paranoid of such massive GPS failure, but because this is totally retro-cool: we are taking a sextant onboard O’Comillas along with a 2003 Almanac and Norie’s Nautical Tables and paper charts. Odds are, we won’t “need” any of this, but Dad and I felt it would be really cool to trace our voyage on paper charts using a sextant. The sextant we chose was a Mark 25 Sextant which instead of a split mirror (the kind I’ve seen before) it uses beam converger or full horizon mirror. Of course, until we get completely confident with the entire sextant process we will be double-checking our answers with, you guessed it, one of the GPSs onboard.

Yesterday, I added a new entry for Sloopy so I thought I would explain what on earth Sloopy is all about.

When I was born my father did an animated cartoon using paper silhouettes and freeze – frame on an 8mm video camera. This is real film that had to be developed before the days of Hi8. To this date I still cherish that movie . It is a little corny , but very cute.

So I came up with the idea of narrating the journey across the Atlantic ocean for my son in a way that he could read it for himself every morning when he woke up, share it with his sister, and other buddies from his first grade class. I will write brief updates at first grade reading level with large fonts every day of the journey, weather and other factors permitting of course.

Why the name Sloopy? O’Comillas has one mast and is therefore a “sloop” so when thinking of a name for a cartoon to represent the sailboat Sloopy was the best I could come up with.

We are two weeks away from departing on our voyage and reality is now really setting in. Until now all the planning and preparation work seemed somewhat academic , as if we were doing this on behalf of someone else. Furthermore, every time I found myself daydreaming of the journey I had this image of wonderful high-pressure systems, good weather, everything working smoothly, and whales swimming along side us. La, la, la…

Spent a week in Newport fixing tons of things from the shakedown voyage, talking with the crew that brought the boat from Spain, not having my wife Kristi or the kids nearby, and suddenly the voyage doesn’t seem so rosy anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still extremely excited about the whole thing, but a good serious dose of reality sets in when you go try on GoreTex off-shore foul weather gear. Now I have a picture of low-pressure systems, high winds and soaking waves, things breaking, missing my family. Blah, blah, blah…

I’m certain we will have a little bit of everything. That is the nature of these trips. Coming home from Newport and seeing my two precious kids running to hug me was awesome and all I could think of, was how on earth am I going to be away from them for three weeks?

I predict some sappy blog entries in the future. You’ve been warned …

We now have a third and final addition to the crew. An old family friend, José Manuel Aguilera will be joining us on the journey across the Atlantic aboard O’Comillas. I’m certain that José Manuel is the only person my father and I would agree to have joining us on a trip of this nature. So welcome aboard José Manuel!

It is now after 10pm in Newport and this is the first time since Dad and I got here that have we been able to stop working on something and rest. We are currently listening to some classical music. Dad is reading a book and I’m blogging.

We have been fixing stuff left and right. I should be saying port and starboard, but I guess that doesn’t sound quite the same. What is this fixing all about? Well, since this is a new boat that was purchased in Spain we actually had a very experienced captain sailed the boat from Spain to Newport. As expected during the first voyage of any sailboat, things break and this is why it is often called the shakedown voyage. We are now about 85% done fixing things and what remains will be addressed before we depart.

In terms of things braking, it seems things have not fared better back home as blogged by Kristi at K Pasa!? Maybe Kristi is right and she is emitting some kind of magnetic field that breaks things, or maybe just perhaps maybe, I actually do something around the house once in a while

The captain and crew of O’Comillas for the shakedown voyage, three in total, were all from Spain. This shakedown voyage was indeed a shakedown. O’Comillas went through very rough seas and over 50 knots of winds and handled very safely. The boat reached just over 20 knots surfing down the waves. This is very fast indeed for a cruising boat and the crew was very happy with her performance.

A more typical performance is about 9 knots which we have done consistently in the past two days of sailing here in Newport with winds around 18 knots. O’Comillas is indeed a very fun sailboat to sail.

We have put a few photos of the past two days of sailing in the Photo Log.

We spent most of the day reviewing little things here and there that had broken down in the shakedown voyage. From what we hear, what a trip. I’ll tell you all about it when I get a chance. Right now it is midnight here in Newport and we have a long day tomorrow. Shopping for parts and fixing things in the morning and sailing in the afternoon.

Today was foggy and misty, lets hope for a nicer afternoon tomorrow

Well, Dad and I are off to Newport, Rhode Island for the final round of testing prior to the trip across the Atlantic. We will also need to review the list of any breakdowns or things to repair from the shakedown voyage.

More on what this shakedown voyage was all about when we get to Newport.

Well, Dad and I are off to Newport, Rhode Island for the final round of testing prior to the trip across the Atlantic. We will also need to review the list of any breakdowns or things to repair from the shakedown voyage.

More on what this shakedown voyage was all about when we get to Newport.

Why? That seems to be the first thing people ask when we tell them about our plans to sail across the Atlantic. Why are we doing this? Why is the sailboat named O’Comillas? Why did we create this blog?

It is not that the plans are so unique or daring that seem to intrigue people. After all, we are not climbing K2 where one in four people die in the attempt. Perhaps what intrigues most people is what is motivating my father and me to do something that involves the combination of uncertainty, isolation, and self-reliance.

Our current answers do not seem to satisfy anyone, partly because we are not sure we really fully understand ourselves. In fact, we often feel like responding with “Why not?” since after all that would probably get the same reaction.

The journey is in itself a discovery process — discovery process for my father and me. It is not just about getting to the other side of the ocean. If that were the case, we would just fly on an airplane. It is about the journey itself. We cannot yet truly explain to you why, other than never in our lives have we felt so compelled to do something together as we feel about this. So this blog is our attempt to answer many questions for ourselves, our families and our friends.

We thought about doing this just on email, but then the geek in me surfaced. Why not publish it on the web? In preparing for the journey I came across web sites that discussed equipment for ocean journeys, interesting captain’s logs from similar voyages, and books about ocean cruising. All of these things were both very interesting and useful to read so one definite goal behind our writing and publishing online is to help people who are contemplating similar adventures.

But what if we took the concept of writing about this journey a step further? What if we do it live as the trip unfolds, without the benefit of hindsight or clever editing after the fact? What if my father and I were to write independently, him in Spanish and me in English? What if we could allow people to check out where we are and what the weather is like?

Well, of course, we need a blog!

If this blog helps our family and closest friends participate in the journey and on top of that it helps one single person contemplating a dream to move forward and act on it, then we would have achieved the main purpose behind publishing this.

So keep coming back to visit and discover with us.

This blog will record the journeys of O’Comillas, a 49 foot single mast sailboat. In May, we will be sailing across the Atlantic – from Newport, Rhode Island to La Coruña, Spain with a stop in the Azores – and we will chronicle that journey live on the blog. We are currently testing the sailboat and fine tuning things, but feel free to check out the other sections of the blog.

Once the voyage starts, you will be able to track our weather, location, see photos, read our journals and hopefully participate with us in this experience.

Until then, happy voyages !