Sunset Forecast

As the sun gets low to the horizon, it would be hoove you to take a good look at tonight’s weather. The sun will soon be gone and clouds will disappear into the dark night sky.  

If you see towering columns of clouds, demonstrating the rapid uprise of warm moist air, you are being shown that the weather around you is unstable and you should prepare for squalls during the night. This is a great time to reef down to your storm sails while you still have light instead of waiting for it to hit in the dark of the night.  

On the other hand, if you see few flat clouds, then you are being shown that there is little upwards movement in the air and can expect a peaceful night of sailing.  

We stopped downloading weather faxes and instead opted for the “local forecast” at sunset.  

Exercise While Cruising

When you are crossing an ocean, you are forced to spend many weeks at sea in a small floating hallway.  Every now and then you walk to the bow to enjoy the view or you make your way to the mast to raise or lower a sail, reef, or check for unlucky flying fish that have landed on the deck.  It's possible that you will remain with the same sail plan and tack for days on end, however, and with automatic steering, crossing an ocean becomes napping, reading, or watching for whales on a bobbing platform for a very long time.  This is not exactly conducive to an active lifestyle. Coastal sailing is hard work, but crossing an ocean requires very little actual physical activity.  It is therefore very important that you make an effort to exercise in some way while you are out.  I found it very difficult to force myself each day to try and keep my muscles from inevidibly depleating.  I often turned to yoga since it is easy to do in a small area, but it is a practice that is rooted in stability and that can become a problem if the seas are at all choppy.  Both of us lost a substantial amount of weight on the journey and I believe it was more from lack of eating excessively than anything else, but we definitely lost muscle because it is almost impossible to do the amount of conditioning necessary to maintain what we had when we were running and hiking.  I recommend planks.  Your core gets a nice workout from simply stabllizing your body throughout the passage, but planks are great for many additional muscle groups including legs, shoulders, and back.  It is easy to do a plank at any point in the cockpit, on the bow, or below in the cabin.  You will find that a few 30 second planks a day will do wonders.  I tried to run in place a few times, but that was not great for the boat's surface and it was difficult to keep my balance.  For legs, I recommend squats.  Be sure to hold onto something if you have to, and stand on your tiptoes to include the calves.  Leg lifts, crunches, and push-ups are all easy, low to the ground exercises that can be done on a boat during all weather.  

I mention all of this because it is easy to forget to take care of yourself during an ocean crossing.  This is because it feels like a fantasy.  You are so far from the norm that you are used to, and you measure your time very differently from when you are on land.  Everything slows down, and you can forget to eat, drink, and exercise because life has a different pace out there.  Give yourself a schedule.  Set a time to eat, a time to do a plank, a time to take medications or vitamins.  Because the physical effect that cruising has on your body doesn't have to be immense at all.   

Dawn

Sunrise is a magical time on the ocean. Overnight is not a time for sleep, but a time when your ears do the looking.  

The sun sets and the stars come out, your ability to see diminishes but sound carries incredibly well over water. Sleeping whales breathe loudly in the obscurity of the night, just at the waters surface. They are invisible to your eyes, but not to your ears! 

All night long, your imagination runs wild as you peace together random fragments from your senses; and then dawn comes. The sky to the east begins to glow in preparation for the suns glorious arrival.  

When the sun comes up, you get to change watches and get some sleep. Imagination fades as your eyes squelch out your creativity, showing you what “is” there rather than letting your mind believe it knows what is “to be” there. 

Electric Motor Regeneration

Electric motors have one key advantage over a diesel when it comes to blue water cruising: regeneration.

It is common practice to run your diesel motor once or twice a day to "charge up the batteries" while crossing an ocean. The winds are consistent offshore, so you don't need the motor for propulsion, but you do need the motor for power. 

Imagine being out on a gorgeous day of sailing and then have to crank on your motor for a few hours. All the peace and tranquility is ruined as your diesel clanks and clunks away, shaking the boat and your eardrums for hours!​

Electric motors can not be "run" to make power. Running them actually consumes power! The only way an electric motor will produce power is if you are sailing fast enough that the water passing over the propeller actually causes the propeller to spin. This in turn spins the electric motor and causes the motor to act more as a generator, producing power that is then fed back into your battery bank.​

There is no need to tarnish your perfect sailing day with a noisy diesel motor. The propeller is spinning all the time and producing power that keeps all your batteries topped off! In this particular moment, we were sailing along at around 7 to 8 knots and the motor was constantly producing between 6.0 amps and 6.9 amps. That might not sound like much until you recognize the fact that this in in 48V. When this is stepped down to 12V, the amps are multiplied by a factor of 4. This means that 6.0 amps @ 48V becomes 24 amps @ 12V and 6.9 amps @ 48V becomes 27.6 amps @ 12V!​

Imagine having a quiet source of power that cranks out 24 amps continuously, day and night! Needless to say, we had no issues with power demands while we crossed the Atlantic in the summer of 2018, all without the need for a noisy diesel motor.​

Bait for Fishing

If you plan on fishing while out at sea, you don't need to worry about taking bait along for the voyage. Flying fish live a sad life, as everyone wants to eat them. When they are in the water, predatory fish will pick them off and eat them. To escape this fate of certain death, flying fish will take to the sky and fly above the water where they are safe from predatory fish, but fall prey to birds that also love to eat them. 

By day, these little fish will take flight and skim over the surface of the ocean as they escape their inevitable fate. By night, these little fish won't see your yacht and will smack right into it. The force of the impact will knock them out and stun them as they lay on your deck to dry out and die. Every morning, we would find multiple flying fish scattered around the deck which we would then use as bait. 

Preparing the flying fish with hooks turns the flying fish into a "real fish" lure. Unlike plastic lures that merely look like a real fish, you have something that looks like a real fish and smells like a real fish as well! Best of all, you won't have bait smelling up your fridge.