Sailing the Atlantic solo

Beryl (update July 7 20:00 hrs)

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Beryl is a no-show…

Sunday July 7 13:00 Forecast: Landfall of Hurricane Beryl around 100 miles north of Corpus.
Latest Chart:

Hurricane Beryl. Elevated winds between Corpus and Galveston and still 7 hours for the path to change. Rotating clockwise, it should continue to bear NNE.

Sunday July 7 07:00 Forecast: Landfall of Hurricane Beryl around 75 miles north of Corpus.
Latest Chart:

Heavy winds will hit Corpus, >39mph, with 3-5 ft tidal surge, but hopefully the eye of the hurricane will land 100 miles NW of Corpus, along the coast around 7pm Central. Anything can change in the next 12 hours.

Saturday July 6 10pm Texas ChaCha and I spent a hot afternoon on Frank in Corpus replacing fenders and upgrading/changing/moving lines.
We drove home through 4 hours of non-stop cloudbursts, thunder/lightning storms etc which came from Houston heading SW. Not the hurricane.
Latest forecast (pic at bottom) says that Corpus may miss the worst of the hurricane, Corpus (and Frank) now being just outside the South-Western edge of the “cone”. Hopefully it keeps moving North East along the coast. I feel sorry for Rockport and Bay City if they take another direct hit as they did in 2017.

I dislike the June-November period – Hurricane Season.

Hoping that Beryl keeps moving right as it rotates through the Gulf of Mexico.

Beryl, forecast to be a Hurricane by the time it lands on the Texas coast

The 16:00 CST forecast had it tracking straight at Corpus, so the tracking/forecast line has moved a few hundred miles up the coast in the last 24 hours, from Mexico to North East of Corpus. Due to the very warm, shallow coastal Gulf of Mexico waters the storm will pick up energy, but that also increases its clockwise rotation over the water, giving it impetus to move to the NEN (I hope).

Maybe Beryl will prefer Houston…
July 6th, 07:00 CDT – No change in track.

July 6th 22:00 CDT – Forecast track has moved North along the coast a tad and the cone (“spread”) has narrowed slightly as Beryl moves closer

Louis Robein’s unintended landfall

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https://globalsolochallenge.com/louis-robeins-argentina-en/

The hero of the Global Solo Challenge, Frenchman Louis Robein, went aground in a sandy bay on the southern Argentinian coast, having rounded Cape Horn. He was given a ride to a navy base and his boat was towed to safety with him, after 50kt winds had him pinned to a sandbar but kept him off the shore.

Towing off sandbar

Hopefully he will get his autopilot fixed and head back to sea pronto. Sea is safer than shore. Marco’s purple prose (link above) clearly wants Louis to surrender, the guy being obsessed with safety. I mean, everyone who sails solo around Cape Horn is thinking safety first, aren’t they?

Takeaways for when I eventually do my own solo rtw:

  • Autopilot: have spares
  • Make sure windvane works and has spares
  • Follow the winning track
  • Minimize advice (it dilutes energy)
  • Replace Iridium satcom with Star link
  • One rudder, heavy displacement and double skin is preferable to twin rudders light surfing hull.
  • Stay away from land.
  • Don’t let images like this get published:
Louis Robein arm-wrestles two Argie sailors

Courage, Louis!

Frank’s 3rd Leg!

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I have been so busy that I’m years behind editing the 3rd and 4th leg videos of Frank’s solo sail from Gosport England to Corpus Christi Texas. This weekend I managed to put together a video of one day, from Dawn To Dusk, March 2nd 2015.
The audio is poor. There is so much background noise on a sailboat, which you tune out when sailing. Lines banging and all sorts of other noises, plus the GoPro has a very limited microphone. I’d assumed it would be better. Next time I will wear a better mic.

Sadly, WordPress has reduced the definition so much that I can either make the video postage stamp size, or bigger but a blurry mess. The original idea was a spoof on One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich”, a movie I have never seen but which was extensively advertised in the flicks when I was a schoolboy (I went to the movies most weekends back then).

New Sails

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I bought this new fully-battened mainsail last year. These pics are from the local UK Sails guy, Doug Weakly, in Corpus.

Doug ran the mainsail up the newly-installed tracking, installed by Matt Sebring at Coastal Bend, who also arranged the sail making. UK Sails’ loft in in Houston.

UK Sails – https://www.uksailmakers.com/lofts/texas/

Coastal Bend Yacht Services: Matthew Sebring cbyscc@gmail.com 361-461-4067

The sail is strengthened to give protection against high winds. The full battens will provide extra stiffness. Hopefully I’ll get out to sea next spring, to try them out!

Stern View
View from Starboard

Fettlin’ Day! October 29, 2023

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Colin aboard Frank.

Frank used to have a 12volt fridge, which also ran off mains when alongside.

I mentioned (https://wordpress.com/post/frank-justfrank.com/306 October 2015) the fridge, which I extracted from its hole by the engine : “Most useless kit: the refrigerator. I donated this to a charity in Dartmouth. Every time I had a problem with the electrics or engine I had to haul it out of its home.”

So ever since I have had this hole, having converted the icebox to be a fridge:

The gaping hole where the fridge lived.

I am going to finally turn it into a storage cupboard. I’ll leave access to the engine water inlet. There is a separate access door under this pic.

Crow’s Nest

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Frank is at the end of her pier. Originally I was Billy Nomates, and happy with it. Less busy and easier to park (Frank is a bitch to park..).

Now, it is busier. But a disadvantage of being here is the bird shit. The birds make free, and some of them are baby pterodactyls. With poop to match.

People put streamers on the standing rigging and rubber snakes on the deck. Owls and eagles on the mast. Here is my solution:

Bird Spikes! Here’s the view tonight as the foul fowl avoid Frank (mind you, me sat here might be a factor…

Frank’s Boom…

Unhappy Crow – Happy Frank.
Crows’ Night: Hitchcock’s “The Birds” Movie Started Like This.

Will it work? Dunno. The pterodactyls break off my windvanes and antenna atop the mast. I think this is a pterodactyl: gotta be 2 feet high. Zoomed in pic on someone else’s boat.

Pterodactyl in boat in Corpus Marina.
Stop Press: Just turned up. 3 foot high pterodactyl. Giving me the evil eye.

The Yucatan Tango

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I’ve been looking for these files for 6-7 years!
Just a quick view of my route to Texas, passing between the Yucatan Straight between Mexico and Cuba. I’d been going 5-8 knots from St Croix, north of Jamaica/South of Dominica/Haita, since leaving St Croix on Christmas Eve, 2015. On Jan 2, 2016, around 10 am, the engine would not start (to charge the batteries). Then the wind died. I had some solar panels but was cautious about draining the batteries.

So I was becalmed, in a busy ship lane, slowly drifting North. Later, the wind picked up, so I started doing 4-5 knots North West- and then it turned into a storm. I dropped the sails and was sort of spat out of the wind, doing a 360º turn right on the line between Mexico and Cuba.

Then I ambled West for a while. By now I’d figured “it’s a sailboat – I don’t need the engine”. Next came the wind and the waves. It was awesome – just like skiing moguls into the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately I have no video – I was too busy sailing.

Here’s a quick animation.

Frank’s route in the Yucatan Channel, January 2-5 2016.

Motoring back to Corpus , 2022. New Prop Makes a Big Difference.

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My refit took way longer than I expected it to – should have been a 4-6 week stay and was around 9 months, at ~$800 boatyard ground rent a month (Hooking Bull). That’s on top of the nearly $400/month I pay for the marina berth. Ouch.
One holdup was the weather – pretty crappy for Texas. Another was work – it was incredibly busy. The other was waiting for a new propellor and cv joint from Bruntons. The original MaxProp that came with Frank was not up to the job. So I bought a new folding prop, an Autoprop, which has the same power going forwards as well as in reverse.

This extra power can be very useful when in close-quarters combat in a marina with little turning space, when the lag, prop-walk and drag effects of shifting direction can make accurate parking difficult. Those boats that turn on a dime usually have bow thrusters. I have an offset prop, so Frank turns easier to starboard than to port.

Anyway – the “drive” to the boatyard had been a 1 kt crawl into headwinds, even after I’d paid to have my prop cleaned if all the accumulated growth from a couple of years sat in the berth. My return journey was totally different. 5-7 kts of joy! And here’s the thing – that was in reverse! I’d re-worked the controls to accommodate the ever-flipping prop and they were now the wrong way for the (correctly installed) prop!
I screwed up the install, because I mixed the threadlock up from the Bruntons’ cv joint – the Sigmadrive, which compensates for the difference in angle of the gearbox mounting and the propellor shaft, to reduce vibration, wear and noise. So I put red threadlock from the sigma drive into the grubscrew hold for locking the prop to the shaft! EEEEK! I lost a few weeks getting the grubscrew out, the hole re-tapped, new grubscrews ordered.. But both are on.
One surprise about the Sigmadrive fittings – the mounting bolts are not 316 stainless. My bilge pump failed in a series of storms in Corpus and sea water (which seeps in through the prop shaft gland) backed up, covering the brand new Sigmadrive. The bolts corroded. I cleaned them up as best I could and coated them with WD40 Grease, but that was a major disappointment in an otherwise happy buying experience.

Motoring down the ICW (Intra Coastal Waterway) from Rockport to Corpus, October 21 2022.
Approaching Corpus at sundown, October 21 2022.

Copper Bottom Antifoul

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I thought I had posted this.
Rather than do the ablative paint antifoul, I had Coppercoat put on. Basically powdered copper suspended in epoxy resin and painted onto the stripped hull.

At some time in her history, Frank (as Rainbow) was owned by the RAF Sailing Club. They had painted red and blue (RAF colors) boot stripes at the waterline. Rather than remove these, someone had just painted antifoul over them. For 30 years… Being at and above the waterline, the paint didn’t “ablate”, so it just built up and was a bitch to remove. Below is a video from January 18th, 2014 when I had her on the hard at Gosport Premier Marina for a refit. This was (I think) my first look at her out of the water – you can see the thick band of blue which was slapped on to cover up the Red White Blue paint. Until I had to remove it, I’d never paid any attention to it.

Frank as Rainbow, January 18th 2014, Gosport Marina, Hants. England. Ready for her name change and refit.

Anyway, in Texas copper coating is rare as hen’s teeth, so I had all sorts of odd looks. I bought the kits from the Florida dealer – it’s a UK product. 😉 Great support from the dealer.

I like it! Now she’s in the water it has turned blue/green. Should last 10 or more years.

Frank with new Coppercoat antifoul paint job.

Autohelm Tiller Arm (update).

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(Updated Sept 29th 2023 with pics at bottom of fitted tiller arm, fitted May 14th 2023)

If my Hydrovane is a 1st mate, then the Autohelm is 2nd Mate – or at least a talented Cabin Boy!
I have no idea if my old version can be upgraded to work with the as-yet-uninstalled new Raymarine radar system. I’m assuming not.

Back in November 2015 the control head was deluged by a freak wave halfway across the Bay of Biscay (I know..what else happens on a sailboat? But there we have it!) and burned out, leaving me to handhold Frank to Camariñas in a (what else in November?) storm. Parking up in the aforesaid fishing port for Christmas, I returned to Texas and found a new unit on ebay.

But at the other end of the Autopilot, attached to the Type 1 hydraulic ram, is an arm. This connects the ram to the tiller shaft. It was still working, but badly corroded. Here is is after I managed to get it off:

And here is the new one!

The hole for the tiller shaft has been machined to 1.25″, but the key is not uniform to 3 decimal places (it has had a hard life..) so I took the arm without a keyway cut. I’ll have to find a shop to get it machined.

This tiller arm is bronze and weighs maybe 10-15 pounds. Slow progre$$, but progre$$.

The Key to success is a key that fits!

I was convinced that installing the new tiller arm was going to be a brutal job, and that I’d probably have to buy a different one. So I kept finding easier jobs to do. Back in May, I stiffened my sinews, plucked up courage and squeezed myself into the transom.
Fitting it took me all… all of 30 minutes. Gobsmacked.