How to Scare Your Socks off! ***Sailing in Storms, Sailing without an Engine, & Night Sailing***

One Saturday afternoon after a nice sailing trip, a friend said to me, "What can be so exciting to write about on your sailing blog?"

Ok, that's a fair question! I mean, its definitely not Cape Horn with 40 knot winds almost every day and thirty foot waves - right! To the ordinary sailor in Southern California, we get good weather most of the year and if your like most, you plan your weekend to go sailing in the afternoon when the wind is usually fresh and there's plenty of light. And that's usually fun! But due to some unusual circumstances and some really bad luck, I found the key to high adventure - right out of my harbor! So this evening, as the sun was going down over the water and the wind was pushing my sails firmly to port, I recognized what those things were and thought you might enjoy knowing what they were - even if you wouldn't want to copy them!

So these are the very distinct keys to high adventure in your own local waters:

1) First, if your looking to increase your odds at finding adventure, sail at least once a week at night. A night sail will increase your odds for adventure at least ten percent. I mean, here's a good example. Tonight I did not really have any weather problems, the wind was steady and the waves were normal. As I was sailing back towards the harbor from out at sea, suddenly I was frightened out of my mind by what sounded like a lady crying out in pain or my dog being run over by the boat! It honestly sounded a little different than a human voice but nonetheless freaked me out! Thankfully it was neither as I was alone and my dog was safe and happily sleeping in the V-birth. But here's the question. What WAS it? All I can guess was that I must have scared a sea gull or a seal. I'm also pretty sure there was no one swimming there too! They would have been sure to of seen my navigation lights or yelled out for help. Okay, so would that have happened it I hadn't gone out at night? I think not. I guess its not exactly a positive thing to happen for the seal or bird but it sure was weird! I've gone out at night for three years and never had anything like that happen. Birds and seals are usually very aware of what's happening - much more than you or I. So I'm still honestly unsure of what it was. But it was a tiny adventure non the less. And this brings me to my second insight.

2) Second, do NOT use your engine for any reason except for emergencies. This alone will take ten years off your life! But after you get good at it, watch out because it gets exciting and it has its benefits. For one you are forced to become a much better sailor.

3) Third, sail each and every week in whatever weather may come your way; ie...calms, storms and what may. After a year of this, you will have some hair raising stories! Just be really careful, as you will no doubt have some adventures you may not want.

Okay, now that we're clear on the basics, let me give some instructions before you go for it. When sailing at night, always make sure you have navigation lights and a couple flashlights handy, an extra lantern and a fog horn. After escaping being run down by big party boats many times, I'm glad to tell you one of these will help save your life! One night I put out my lantern, flashed my lights, turned the boat so my navigation lights were obvious and the party boat still didn't see me! So I finally blew the fog horn a couple times and that worked! Thank you God!

Now if the fog horn did not work I could have gone on my VHS radio and hailed the boat on channel 16 and then used my oars to seriously get out of there! I know, yes you would have put on your engine by that time. But you would have never learned that rowing a twenty foot boat and larger is actually possible and will get you somewhere if you're persistent. Really when you think about it, I would never had that problem if I was using my engine in the first place and wasn't sailing at night. Its true that a temporary calm put my sails out of action and slowed me down to almost a standstill. So you say, how fun is that? What can be learned by such foolishness? Well, I'll tell you. One of the first things I learned after losing my engine, was that the wind becomes fickle after sunset. It sometimes takes half an hour to an hour for it to come back - but it usually does. After this, you have a couple hours before the GREAT CALM happens. So this means that if your not using your engine - make sure you get back before then! Now how did I learn this lesson? By sitting patiently for endless hours without wind is how! So you must be thinking, 'isn't it just better to learn from your mistakes? Now that I know this, I can still use my engine - right? Well, not if you want to learn how to sail in very light winds and how to save your life if your engine DOES ever happen to fail. I'll tell you, one year on a nice evening, the wind started kicking in and gusting and I did what every normal sailor does and took down my sails after getting safely into the harbor. My engine then proceeded to die and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why. So what to do now with the wind gusting twenty knots down the channel and with the inevitable just waiting to happen! I needed to figure something out fast! Well I tried raising my sails, but I couldn't get into the wind like I wanted and with the gusting winds, the mainsail just got stuck. So did the jib. You'll be happy to know that even with the mainsail three quarters up and the jib only up partially, I was able to crawl away from hitting the docked boats and get back to my slip. But it was scary and REALLY stressful! Now from plenty of practice, I know how to sail into my slip even in a storm and using an engine is just one more plus.
One more thing about night sailing: Know the 'Red Right Returning rule and your buoy and harbor entrance lights. I'd say its pretty important to know coastal navigation too. But for sure its MANDATORY to go out with someone who knows what they're doing first, as its really easy to get lost at sea at night and not know where the harbor is. And sailing in fog is a whole different monster.

Now about going out in storms, my first advice after having been in several of them is to carry storm sails. A storm jib is a good beginning. Second, have safety harnesses available to clip into when it gets rough. Attach a safety line from the bow to the stern in which to clip the harness onto. Third have a good boat with a good keel. Have safety lines running around it from bow to stern and learn all you can about heavy weather sailing from books and video's before you do. My final suggestion is to go one step at a time and if you get scared - really scared, turn back. Of course it's good advice to have someone go with you who knows what they're doing - but good luck finding them!

Now if you're seriously reading this and are going to do what I said, than you are definitely crazy! I only do it because I love sailing at night, I lost my engine in a big storm and I want to be ready and know what to do when the worst happens. If this article really challenges you to try these things please realize that you are at your own risk and that it can be dangerous. Just read some of my stories - you will see! To tell the truth, I learned all I have (which is not much compared to some) by lots of mistakes. IT'S THE MISTAKES THAT TEACH YOU BETTER THAN ANYTHING ELSE! Hopefully you will go slow, do your homework and ask advice (please, please email me too) and don't make the real costly mistakes!

So these are the three ingredients to making yourself a real adventuresome soup. If sailing in storms and without an engine are too much, try just sailing at night! There's nothing like it! The sea is so dark and mysterious - that alone will scare your socks off the first few times! I remember having this fearful feeling that after having just gone a little too far out to sea, and the boat would just sink. The keel would find a way to come off or something bad would happen! Exactly my point. When you come back and all is well, you'll thank me for a real level one adventure!

The Fake Million Dollars and the Sea!

Today Joe got to come sailing with me! It was supposed to be wild weather and a small craft advisory again. But when we left, little did we know that it had blown itself out. But the rain had not left. Closing the hatches we put on our warm jackets with hoods and weathered the sporadic downpours. The wind still seemed to be strange enough to have the storm behind it as it was blowing midday right from the east - which it never does! It blew us right down the first channel without having to tack once. That was a nice treat! Then the wind clocked around to the north. And then when we got out to sea, it changed again to the south and then to the south west and then to a complete calm!

Joe and I sat out at sea for a whole hour with a very light breeze and just talked. 'X Box Live' and the 'Assassin' video game became the topic of conversation. And then we had our first fake million dollar bet (with interest of one penny). I bet Joe the wind would come out at 6:10 pm and Joe bet me it would come out at 6:05. We were both wrong as we sat and watched the flat calm. So then we tried again. This time Joe said 6:20pm and I said 6:18. Again the wind did not come. So I changed mine to 6:30 and Joe's to 6:35. At 6:30 on the dot, the wind switched again to the north and I won the fake million dollars and one penny! We came cruising in over a flat sea with the wind blowing firmly on a close reach. Meanwhile Joe suggested that our original X Box was not being sold anymore by stores and was worth $700. I told him this was a great insight but that we would probably get no more than $100 or less for it. So we took the fake million dollar bet again. We have still to find out who's the winner! Once inside the breakwater, the wind faded almost out again - leaving just enough pressure to take us a quarter of the way in. So we again took a bet on the wind and then had some hot chocolate to pass the time away and warm up. Mmmm! It tasted good and the cup was warm on our hands. Being out there in the water with my son going through crazy windless circumstances, drinking hot chocolate on a cold rainy night was really fun!

We then got the opportunity to row together until the next breeze blew up. The breezes did eventually come and that helped. Rowing was fun at first until it got old (an hour later!) Now Joe was getting tired and wanted to just be home. Someone actually was nice enough to offer pulling us in but at the very moment they offered, the wind sprung up again and I declined the invitation. Tacking twice and with some more rowing after that, we finally got home two hours past our ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival). So we had been out to sea for 6 hours instead of 4. Joe was at first happy to be back - until it hit him that he had truly and unforgettably dropped his cell phone that afternoon in the sea and there was no way of getting it back. I asked him if he would like to write something for my sailing blog and he replied that he was just sad! Okay Joe. I understand. I lost my cell phone in the ocean too and it was definitely not fun. Lost pictures, phone numbers, etc...you know how it is! 'Like father, like son!'

Fear of the Storm

There would be no mistaking those huge monster waves!' I said looking out to sea. Dark silhouettes would form along the horizon confirming the wave height. I wasn't seeing any. The darkness of night didn't help either and made it difficult to make certain. I remember a night like this about a year ago. Coming out of the breakwater, I looked along the edge of the sea and saw these massive forms of water suddenly break out of the dark horizon. Those were the big cresting waves crashing forward with white water as they moved speedily ahead. But I wasn't seeing that tonight. I also looked for white caps too but there was none. The wind wasn't blowing hard enough yet. The weather report had said the wave height was five to seven feet tonigh! And the wind report had been for at least 20 - 30 MPH winds and gusts. Could I be so deceived? Surely I wasn't wrong. So I steered my Columbia 22 cautiously out into the waves. A couple minutes out. Not getting that 'big wave' sensation. But there was something. What was it? I looked up at the next wave coming my way. It was deceptively bigger than it looked! 'Must be five or six feet!' I thought. There also was a significant valley below the wave too, which confirmed my suspicions. The wave wasn't breaking and the intervals between it was long - which took the fury out of it. Still it was definitely bigger than the average and I would need to keep my eye on these.

I tacked the boat to the northwest on a close reach and suddenly I caught a lot of speed. 'This is amazing!' I thought watching how the boat tore through the wave, cutting white water as it went. And yet because of the waves size, it almost seem to squirm up to the top! A very strange feeling! The sailboat must not have had as much wind at the bottom of the trough but as it made its way up, it was hit full on by the increasing wind. Then it would suddenly lean heavy into it giving it this 'squirming' like feeling. It was fun! I crawled out over the deck and knelt at the bow watching the boat approach each new wave. Yes, the swells were definitely bigger than they at first appeared. Suddenly the boat began to heel heavily and I held on tight to the safety rope so I wouldn't fall off into the sea! 'Man alive, we were going fast!' The wind was gaining power before my eyes. 'I better get back to the cockpit.' I thought. 'If anything goes wrong...'
Quickly I exited the safety rope and held on to the bottom of the boom as I jumped down into the cockpit. Taking the tiller in my hand, I turned the yacht downwind a bit and steered it from going so fast. It sure wasn't a storm yet but the sailing was incredible!

I tacked into the headwinds, going out to sea in a northwest direction. The ocean was very dark and foreboding. I had seen it this way many times before and calmed my spirit with the assurance of experience. Nevertheless, its important to remember that just when you think you can handle the sea, the sea can turn it up to the next level on you. This thought always keeps me humble. The wind would just have to increase to 20 MPH and the game rules would change. Right now it must be blowing 8 - 10 - so not so bad. I had my small storm sail all set up and ready to hoist in case things changed too. As it was, my little jib was up right now - but things would have to get a lot worse before I raised the storm sail. Nevertheless, it was true. I was flying along this fast with my small jib. It was after 9pm too. 'Hmmm. Warning signal.' Usually the wind calms at this time - but the wind was just getting stronger. I got a ways out to sea and was greatly enjoying the ride. But I wasn't going to be foolish tonight and either wait for the storm to really hit or for the winds to die. So I tacked back. On this reach, I was close hauled heading directly for the red beacon signal, with the big waves thrusting the sailboat forward with every interval. Nothing seemed to be boring tonight. It just kept getting better and better. I had to keep a watchful eye out because at anytime it could cross the line from 'better' to crazy. Ok, at least I was ready.
And within half an hour the 'crazy' began. Out of control gusts and this 'howling' noise in my ears. Thankfully I was nearing my slip by this time. 'What's concerning me is the angle of the wind! It's coming out of the north east and very hard. Because I don't have an engine, I use the sails all the way into my dock. And I usually ease out my sail as I come in to slow the boat down. But that's not going to work tonight! What to do? I'll have to take the main sail down just before I turn the corner to the dock!' I said trying to figure out how to take it down that fast and safely so I wouldn't crash into the half million dollar boats that would be nearby.
Ten minutes later when the time came to really take the main sail down, I knew I would literally only have 20 seconds to make this work. So I headed upwind into the gusting wind, jumped up on deck and tried to drop the wildly beating sail. I pulled down on it with all my might - just hoping against hope it wouldn't get snagged! It didn't. The wind was now pushing the boat fast sideways and in less than a minute would have me bumping into a docked sailboat. So I turned the boat 180 degrees and entered the last small 'finger channel' where my dock was. I came in to the slip - going super fast as if demons were on my heals! Unclipping the lifelines, I jumped out onto the wooden platform and ran with all my speed to the end so I could slow the bow of the boat down. As it approached the wooden dock, I was just able to stop it from hitting! Imagine how fast I would have come in if I hadn't taken my main sail down? With my main sail up and the wind pushing directly behind, it wouldn't have been pretty!

Albion

Get Away and Enjoy Some Sailing Adventures!

Welcome to Sailing with Me!
I made this blog because I wanted to share my adventures at sea with all of you! Some of you may be wishing they had their own boat or just want to 'get away' even if just at home on the web. So each week I dedided to write down my feelings while out at sea and share them with you. If you enjoy them, please feel free to come back here weekly and see what's new. Also please share the blog wih your friends and with those who you know like sailing!

This week check out my new post: Sailing Adventures And One Million Other Thoughts!