The importance of good anchoring skills

From Pasman island we proceeded towards south and in the evening we anchored in the bay of city of Primosten. Bora (local SE wind, always blows from land to the sea) was blowing pretty heavy whole day (which made Tomaz happy) and the forecast was that wind will blow even harder in the night. We have plenty of trust in out big new anchor (33kg Rocna), nevertheless when we set it we always reverse the boat quite strongly to test the holding.

We were having a quiet evening after the dinner, Tomaz fiddling about the boat and myself battling with mobile internet to finish some mails. It was at about 10 in the evening as Tomaz shouted: "Watch this!" I looked into the darkness and saw a boat, almost as big as ours, drifting with the wind, obviously without the crew and without any lights. It missed our boat by 2 boat lengths and took direction towards the boat anchored next to us. I started shouting to alert the people on that boat and Tomaz brought our big lamp to light the drifting boat. The people from neighboring boat came out, only to see, how the drifting boat missed their boat by inches. The drifting boat then managed to miss two other boats and drifted towards open sea. We were all very happy nothing happened to our boats, especially our neighbors since they didn't even had the time to get the fenders. And after few minutes we saw a dinghy with couple of men paddling fast towards the run away boat. They were twice lucky - they saw what was happening pretty fast and they were able to catch the boat before it sailed all the way to Italy!

Then they motored the boat back into the bay, without any lights, of corse, and after several attempts they were happy with how they anchored the boat. And i was happy they didn't anchor in front of us (in the wind), but several boat lengths to the side. So if it was to happen again, they would surely miss us ....

And the next morning Primosten looked calm and peaceful like nothing ever happened .....

Great recipe for a big octopus

Our friends Irena (lovely lady on the left) and Pik (nice man in the middle) took good care of us, while we were staying with them. Food was plenty and excellent, drinks as well. We really had a good time - as it can be seen from our smiling faces ...

One day we bought a big octopus, and i learned a great recipe for preparing it from our friends. By the way, our octopus weight  2,7 kilo.

The octopus is washed, put in pressure cooker, in goes the generous portion of good olive oil, then the lid is closed and put on stove. When the pressure builds up, turn the heat to minimum, and cook the octopus another 15 minutes. After letting it cool down sufficiently to open the cooker, take the octopus out, use the best pieces for delicious salad, and the rest - together with the stock - for most yummy risotto you ever ate!

First week at sea

Kvarner bay on a peaceful day ....

So, here we are.... It's been a week since we sailed off from Koper marina. At 6pm last saturday exactly. Last days before that were exhausting, we were working hard and sleeping very little, trying to get the boat ready, to pack everything that we wanted to take with us and to prepare the house for new tenants. And an top of that there were all the emotions with saying goodbye to our families, friends, cats .... It was hard.

Some of our friends came to wave from the pier and they also helped us in finishing stage of packing - i don't know how we would have managed without them, by the evening of same day we would have killed each other or at least divorced... Mirjana, Natasa, Urska and Grega - many many thanks...

Our journey started with bad weather, strong SE wind was blowing when we sailed towards Croatia. We sailed on genoa alone, furled to third reef and our speed was still around 8 knots. The wind didn't bother me, but the waves did - they were 1,5 to 2m, coming directly at us, spraying sea all over the boat. And i thought to myself - what a way to start a vacation.... We spent the night at the buoy in Umag and next day sailed to Veruda near Pula. In the morning it was still windy and cloudy, but by the evening there was sun again. Next day we crossed Kvarner bay and anchored in Silba.

And the next mornig the summer begun .... Finally the weather was sunny and warm, the water nice and very clean, surroundings gorgeous ... And it got even better.... In the evening after the day spetnt mostly motoring we moored the boat at pier in Baratul on island Pasman. We spent next couple of days with our friends Irena and Pik, sailing, eating, having fun.. It was true summer vacation feeling, and slowly all the stress from packing, hard work and saying goodbye was disappearing ...

Folding propeller

Heron came equipped with a fix 3 blade propeller.
This is fine for motoring, but sailing with a fixed propeller is adding a lot of drag.
It is like dragging a large bucket behind the boat and some measurements showed that propeller contributes 40% to total boat drag.
This studies (mostly sponsored by folding prop manufacturers, of course) also suggest that replacing a fix prop with a folding or feathering prop will add almost a knot of speed to your boat.
One knot of speed does not sound like a lot, but at average boat speed of 5 knots this is a lot. This means that after full day of sailing you can land two hours earlier. This can be a difference between coming at anchorage at daylight, anchor and have a nice cocktail, have a swim, watch a sundown and then wait in the dark for your friend with identical boat and a fixed prop. You can make Atlantic crossing a few days faster.
Most manufacturers claim about 15% increase in speed.
Well, I was a little skeptical, although this study seemed a good one:
http://www.flexofold.com/upload_dir/docs/Test_YachtingMonthly_low.pdf
So, we bite the bullet (folding props are expensive) and we ordered a three blade flex-o-fold.

We had Heron on the hard early May and my wife and myself mounted it.
By the way - dismounting the old one is a good story for a long evening.

We also had our boat cleaned and had new antifouling - so I knew I can not expect a fair competition, but Wow!
I was impressed.
We can motor now at lower RPM and we can sail faster with less wind.
It feels like a completely new boat.
Boy, am I happy we did this improvement.
I sail only few weeks with this new folding Flexofold prop, but I am happy.
We also have less prop walk in reverse (which I kind of miss as I liked to come to the pier and with some reverse thrust I was able to move the stern to port (left).
But the boat is easier to steer in tigth quarters now.
And the true value comes when you kill the engine, put it in reverse for a second to stop the prop from spinning and then she just glides.
I really believe now in 15% increase in speed.
I now more often sail and I motor less as I can sail in very little wind.
We also have less vibrations - but that can be from havin a clean prop and hull.
I would strongly recommend a folding prop for every sailor.

Safety at sea

DRAFT - still working on this
Safety at sea is in theory very easy:
You have to keep the people inside of a boat and water outside of the boat.
As long you achieve this two simple objectives the rest are details.
There is another saying I heard in Croatia: "Čuvaj brod od kopna, a on če tebe od mora" This means: protect the boat from shore and she will protect you from the sea.

As usually the devil is in detail. To achieve this simple principles one have to develop a lot of active and passive tactics and actions and you still need a bit of luck.
Never forget to respect the sea.

In the next few entries I will try to write about some of the tactics or systems related to safety.
I will try to:
a) avoid bad weather in the first place
b) equip the boat to be able to survive the bad weather
c) have a backup plan in case the boat doe snot survive

a) To avoid bad weather:
- we will avoid periods and places with known bad weather like hurricane sessions, south oceans, North Atlantic in winter and similar
- we will listen to weather reports and have bought some equipment to enable us to get weather forecast while off shore. I will write about SSB radio and weather fax in a separate post.
- we will observe our surroundings - temperature, air pressure, clouds, rain fronts (on radar), wind changes, ... .

b) We are now buying a lot of equipment to be able to better survive bad weather. More about storm sail and a massive anchor later. Today I will write about Jordan series drogue.

c) Well, we have off shore life raft, EPIRB, hand held VHF, satellite phone and tons of equipment we hope we will never use and we are constantly developing our plans in case things go really wrong.

But today let us take a look Jordan series drogue.

In bad wether one can use active storm tactics: sailing with storm sails or passive tactics like heave-too. 
In really bad weather after it is too rough to use active storm tactics or the crew is not capable of doing it any more and the waves are too high to safely heave-to on a modern sloop one can resort to other passive tactics like sea anchor or Jordan series drogue.
I personally do not like sea anchors. There are too many things that can go wrong with them. From collapsing or fouling the chute, blowing it out or breaking the rudder while moving backwards, ...
Jordan Series drogue (JSD from now on) is deployed from stern and not from the bow of a boat.
It is made of large number of small cones attached to a line with a weight at the end of a line and a bridle on the boat side.
As ther are many cones (in our case 132) the force distributed and applied gradually. This reduces the forces and the stress. Also as there are many cones they can not all foul  at the same time. But you better read it from the designer:
http://www.jordanseriesdrogue.com/

Unfortunately Jordan is no linger alive (he passed away in 2008, he was 92 years old) , but his work lives on.

We purchased the JSD from Neptune's Locker, a company in UK. It is a small company (maybe one man show): http://www.oceanbrake.com/
His price was best we could find and we like to purchase inside EU to avoid problems at delivery and customs issues.
I think he is more of a sailor and manufacturer then a seller - no flashy internet store. You order, you pay and you get the product. There is no status or order on-line tracking system. He did not even inform us about actual shipment. The package just arrived.
And it was heavy. This boat stuff looks so big when you bring it into the house.
The line is substantial - heavier then my mooring lines. I found the line a bit soft and not very tightly woven, but this is probably OK for the purpose.

Equipment: Part 1 - Sat phone

There is a lot of stuff we decided we need and want on our sailboat for the journey. Ok, not all of it is necessary, but we (or should i say I) have a soft spot for gadgets, have to admit.

This one is one of my favorites - the Inmarsat IsatPhone Pro. I knew from the start that i want a sat phone, mostly because of our parents - i felt they need the assurance that we can be reached wherever we are and that we can contact them anytime and from everywhere. Couple of years ago, when i start looking at sat phones, there was not very much choice and the prices were high. I kept on looking at the market in hope that over the years things would improve, but for couple of years not much happened. And last year things finally came together - Inmarsat announced the phone that was affordable, had good coverage and a prepaid plan. In details - the phone itself costs far less than my iphone, Inmarsat satellites cover almost the whole globe except the poles (where it is to cold for me anyway) and in our 2010 summer sailing holiday in Seychelles i payed for calling my mom from my mobile almost 4 times the price i would pay, had i already owned the sat phone.

There are couple of shops in Europe that are selling sat phone with prepaid plan over the internet and it pays to check the current prices, they dropped considerably in few months since the phone was released. Currently phone costs about 500 €, one minute of calling about 0.8 €, SMS about 0.4 €.

We got the phone from Germany a week ago, 5 days after ordering it. It was loaded with 100 units, next day additional 125 units were loaded. I have to say, with Germans one can always count on speedy delivery and great customer care - we bought our phone on  www.m-cramer-shop.de . Of course i tested the phone immediately, standing in our yard in my warmest winter coat - it was freezing outside, but the antenna must point towards the sky. Everything worked perfectly, from receiving and sending SMS and placing and receiving calls. Menus are very intuitive, so luckily i did not have to read the user manual in that freezing cold. Our friends will for sure mostly love the possibility of sending SMS from Inmarsat web site to our sat phone for free!

Isn't it kinda sexy.....

It is not as small as todays mobiles, but my first mobile was bigger and heavier :-)

Some pictures of Heron in Koper

 Speed log did not work on our delivery trip. I pulled out a paddle wheel in Koper and it was clear why. The wheel was covered with barnacles.

We want to build stern arch for solar panels and dinghy davits. Look, here will go the panels..

 We also need to buy a spray hood. Something like this.

 Here you can see our new registration number.

 The anchor is undersized. 20kg for 47 feet is not enough. 20 kg delta was good for 423, but I do not feel safe with it on a 473.

We are buying a Rocna 33 kg.