:) Blue sky / blue water thinking

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PhillM

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Today was the sort of day that makes me want to leave home, work and sail off to Bermuda single handed. Bugger the lot of them!

On a more practicle note, I am in the middle of a 2 year refit so it got me thinking .... I might want to plan a bit more just in case I ever follow the dream.

I should start by saying that last year was my first as an owner and I haven’t sailed out of the Solent yet. All that follows is purely speculative and probably never going to be used but ...... you never know.

Apart from my obvious complete lack of experience and sleep deprivation by keeping a good lookout, it strikes me that the biggest problem would be my ability to carry enough to eat and drink and ability to make enough power.
It looks like the longest leg would be around 2000 miles and at 4kn, I would estimate that I could make 100 miles a day – so taking 20 days. I guess I would need to have enough stores to give me 50% extra range (30 days) in case of bad weather etc.

I can easily estimate how much food would be needed for 30 days, but am struggling to figure out how much water and fuel I would need. Currently I carry 50 litres of water. That isn’t going to be enough and I guess I could put more jerry cans somewhere. I have also seen a couple of hand pump water-makers, so I guess this could be a backup?

My boat is an old wooden 25 footer. I don’t have many instruments, I would only need power for radio, perhaps radar & / or SeeMe or similar, nav lights and one cabin light. I would expect to put solar & / or wind generator on board.

Cooking is on a spirit stove and cabin heating / lighting is by oil lamp.
I have an aux engine but would not want to use it, except for port entry / exit and in emergency.

I would welcome any comments, but please do understand that this is only a pipe dream
 
PhillM said:
Cheverton Caravel 1961
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Thats a nice boat.You should have pleanty of displacement to carry adequate stores.As a small experiment fill a 5 lite container with water and see how long it last you at home,drinking,washing etc.I think eric Hiscock included some lists of storehe took.In any cas once on you trip you will find out unless you intend going straight out into the Atlantic without stoppingon the edges.....
 
Get a bigger boat! ........ actually many people have done long voyages in Vertues at 25 ft ... better seaboat than yours but shows that it's do-able in a boat that small ... people have done it in smaller boats than that ... but you wouldn't want to!
 
Most people these days would be horrified at the idea of such a voyage in a boat like yours, but read some older books and it seems that 40 years ago it would be seen as, well, not a doddle, but not foolhardy either.

And that was before watermakers were invented :)

How many jerrycans can you fit in the bilge, and can you lash a bar over them to keep them there?

Pete
 
prv said:
Most people these days would be horrified at the idea of such a voyage in a boat like yours, but read some older books and it seems that 40 years ago it would be seen as, well, not a doddle, but not foolhardy either.
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I find it interesting that a boat that came second in the JOG in 1958 would now been seen as too small for an ocean corssing. IIRC Morning Cloud was only 30' somthing and today would be seen a a bit small for fastnet etc.

I believe that a chap called Mike Winter used a MK1 Cheverton in one of the Jester challenges.

So it looks like I have the right sort of boat should the need / opportunity to leave in a hurry arise.
 
I took 110 litres for what turned out to be a 23 day voyage. Poor planning on my part as I intended to take 130. Got worried so I collected 15 l in rainwater, but only used that for washing. Finished the leg with 15 litres still in bottles.

I was eating freeze-dried food almost exclusively, and ended up using about 4 litres per day, including re-hydrating the freeze-dried food.
 
bbg said:
I took 110 litres for what turned out to be a 23 day voyage. Poor planning on my part as I intended to take 130. Got worried so I collected 15 l in rainwater, but only used that for washing. Finished the leg with 15 litres still in bottles.

I was eating freeze-dried food almost exclusively, and ended up using about 4 litres per day, including re-hydrating the freeze-dried food.
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I am in awe of you!
 
This is an interesting thread for me as I have just decided to keep the boat I have rather than trade for a more modern one for going long distance. She carries 42 gallons in two stainless tanks under the bunks and I would reckon to increase that with plastic bottles (for three, occasionally four, people).

I am very interested in the question of worm proofing wooden boats these days - Cascover used to be the simple answer but I don't know if it is still made.

I am having a think about electrics and reckon that a towed generator is pretty well unavoidable.

Radar is a huge consumer of power and it "ought" not to be needed if you have a good chart plotter and an AIS transponder.. but am I right?
 
Minn said:
I am very interested in the question of worm proofing wooden boats these days - Cascover used to be the simple answer but I don't know if it is still made.
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No longer made, although Wessex Resins still have some expertise on the subject. If it is done properly (like my boat) it is superb. When I do repairs, or as recently after having nearly 50 years of paint blasted off, I use epoxy (and glass cloth if needed). However my hull is Ply so is very stable and one of the advantages of Cascover rather than epoxy/glass is that it can take movement making it arguably better on a conventional carvel hull. The original also used a flexible vynil coating to fill the weave before painting and that is no longer made. I rollered epoxy into the weave and then faired with an International epoxy fairing compound recommended by Wessex. Looks good so far.
 
Kenichi Horie did a very tight water budget for his 1962 solo crossing of the Pacific Ocean. Japan to San Francisco in 94 days aboard a 19-foot (5.8 m) sailboat called the Mermaid.

I will dig out the book.

IIRC it relied on catching some rainwater. This was not regarded as unusual back in the Golden Age of yot cruisin'.
 
PhillM said:
Today was the sort of day that makes me want to leave home, work and sail off to Bermuda single handed. Bugger the lot of them!

I would welcome any comments, but please do understand that this is only a pipe dream
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Phill, I share your aspirations, even though I've not yet been beyond the Channel.

You don't need radar, certainly once clear of land and shipping after which you'd keep it permamently off so no drain, although an active transponder, AIS and/or a radar detector would be useful.

You're allowed more than one cabin light (chart-table, galley, bunks, heads) although you don't have to have them all on at the same time! I recently replaced all my festoon bulbs with LED's: each one only draws 0.1 Amp or 10% of the old incandescents.

You need to store enough water low down. Buy a bulk load of 1 or 2 litre plastic bottles, which you can refill for the return passage.

You don't need a bigger boat! All anyone ever needs is a well-found boat and the right attitude - have you read any of Roger Taylor's books or seen his Simple Sailor website?

And, for your sort of boat, you simply have to keep Eric Hiscock's 'Cruising Under Sail' by your bed and above your bunk.

:)

PS I see you're Solent-based. I'm on the Hamble, so PM me if you fancy a beer and/or a sail.
 
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Tranona said:
No longer made, although Wessex Resins still have some expertise on the subject. If it is done properly (like my boat) it is superb. When I do repairs, or as recently after having nearly 50 years of paint blasted off, I use epoxy (and glass cloth if needed). However my hull is Ply so is very stable and one of the advantages of Cascover rather than epoxy/glass is that it can take movement making it arguably better on a conventional carvel hull. The original also used a flexible vynil coating to fill the weave before painting and that is no longer made. I rollered epoxy into the weave and then faired with an International epoxy fairing compound recommended by Wessex. Looks good so far.
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Thanks very much. I am tempted to say, "Oh, bother!".

Copper sheathing is out (carvel teak on oak, but iron keel and floors) unless I spend a fortune replacing the ballast keel and floors, and the idea of relying on paint is not wonderfully attractive.
 
Minn said:
This is an interesting thread for me as I have just decided to keep the boat I have rather than trade for a more modern one for going long distance. She carries 42 gallons in two stainless tanks under the bunks and I would reckon to increase that with plastic bottles (for three, occasionally four, people).
...
I am having a think about electrics and reckon that a towed generator is pretty well unavoidable.

Radar is a huge consumer of power and it "ought" not to be needed if you have a good chart plotter and an AIS transponder.. but am I right?
Click to expand...

FWIW - I bought a few 10 litre and one 20 litre fuel container (they are thicker than jerrycans for water), and filled them with bottled water. 5 litre bottles of water are about €1, and I didn't think it was worth the risk of contaminated dock water to save a few €. 20 litres is pretty heavy to lug around, so consider whether you would prefer 10 or 20 l containers.

For electricity you have two options - consume less, produce more (or a combination of both). LED masthead lights would be a worthwhile investment. Radar not necessary offshore. An AIS transceiver would be a good investment (look at the Wathcmate 850), as would a radar target enhancer (SeaMe, Active X) with an alarm to tell you when you are being painted. Both are low power draws.

I had but didn't use an interior light. Just used my Petzl headlamp and took a lot of spare batteries.

For electricity production your options are solar panels (I would recommend having some solar, either fixed or flexible which you can move around), wind or water generators, fuel cell (expensive) and dedicated generators. I have seen suitcase generators and, for small boats, petrol engines used as generators. I mean small petrol engines - maybe an engine from a leaf-blower or something of that nature.
 
For a planned 20 day passage 30 days food but add another 30 days subsistance. Rice beans oatmeal etc.

Set up a water catchment system working off the mainsail. A cutaway bucket with a spigot in the bottom works. You may need to raise the end of the boom to maximise catchment.

Get hold of a copy of Shrimpy by Shane Acton for inspiration. Shane did a cirumnavigation in an 18 ft plywood Caprice.
 
re using the mainlsail to collect rain water - a round the boom roller reefing mainsail is great for this...wind in a small reef and top the boom up and put the bucket under the gooseneck...but always be sure that all the salt and muck has been rinsed off the sail first, or your efforts will be counter productive.

You can go quite a long time without food but you need water.
 
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