Voyage of Commander "Faith" Chicago to California

[commanderpete]

Came across this webpage.

These guys are about 3 weeks into their trip now. They got down the Rivers to New Orleans. Then they're going to make their way to the Panama Canal.

Pretty cool

http://www.geocities.com/sjfaul/Sailing.html

[c_amos]

Great name! :D

Can't get the link to work for me yet, but can't wait to read it.

[eric (deceased)]

by looking at the their website it would have been alot easier to get there by trailering it.the boat itself seems to be very plain...they have the convienience of gps,since theres 3 on board theres no need for self steering,I would bet they have a large outboard with extra fuel,and at least since its mostly coastwise,they can stop off for a burger any time they please :o

[commanderpete]

Yeah eric, I wonder how many people told you to go back and forth to Hawaii on a 747 instead of an Ariel? What's the fun of that?

I enjoy reading The Log. Well written, good attitude.

A properly provisioned boat

[eric (deceased)]

when I helped sail a 90 foot schooner to hawaii that same year I came back on a 747.I just hope they get as much out of their experience as I did mine.I know many people had doubts about my capability at that time.I dont have any doubts about the boats potential. I only hope that they studied as extensively as I did

[iceman]

Right On!!

Just launched Blue Penguin Commander 264
For new season on Lake Champlain

If any one visits our fair state this summer..please email me for a visit to the yacht..possible sail..shot of rum at the least

Iceman

[iceman]

My computer is not letting me save and download this adventure website
Can any of the Association members tell me why??

Iceman

[SailorLiz]

My computer is not letting me save and download this adventure website
Can any of the Association members tell me why??

Iceman

Iceman,
Are you are receiving this message on their web page? "The web site you are trying to access has exceeded its allocated data transfer. Visit our help area for more information. Access to this site will be restored within an hour. Please try again later." Some sites that host free web pages also regulate the traffic that "visits" the site. So if you have many people hitting the site and creating to much "network traffic", they take it down for awhile. Just keep checking it, and eventually you will be able to see it.

[iceman]

Thanks
Sailor Liz

Ill just be patient
Iceman

[c_amos]

If any have not been following, the fearless crew of the Commander 'Faith' have made San Pedro, Belize. The log is a good read. Here is an excerpt drawn from the days '40-47' (http://www.geocities.com/sjfaul/sanpedro2.html).


"For the first time nothing broke. There wasn't a crisis. We began to feel that we were healing, and I include Faith in that. The columniation arrived as we – as a functional team – sailed up to the south end of Chinchurro Banks Reef on the evening of Sunday the 15th. The reef is one of the only atolls in the Caribbean, just off the Mexican/Belize boarder. It is also completely invisible at the surface of the water. Wrecks litter the east side of the reef, marked on our chart as little half-sunken boat-shapes. Slowly, carefully, we approached the color change delineating the shallows from the deep. We watched over the side as the bottom came up to meet us, a touch we very much desired to avoid. At last, just yards from a coral forest whose branches came inches shy of breaching the surface, we let the anchor fall gently to the bottom.
We unpacked the flippers, masks and snorkels. Our breath came fast as we prepared for the plunge and – the world under the sea welcomed us! We swam about the boat like children, for everything was new. Each fish was brightly swatched in yellows, blues, greens….wait, that brown one is invisible under that coral overhang! There's a conch shell! Wow, look at the size of that round thing! I don't even know what that is!! Later, drying in the last rays of the day's allotted sun, we grinned like fools. Tired in the most relaxed sort of way, we all drowsed and finally slept. Very, very well.
I woke first, checked the time (10:30 pm) and roused the others. We whispered to each other not because it was necessary but as an instinctual reverence for the solitude. The mainsail was raised as the anchor line was retrieved, our about face away from the reef was accomplished with only the ruffle of the sail. We wouldn't try the engine and break the silence here. In gratitude the wavelets whispered in the coral behind us.
Perhaps coral reefs talk to each other. We sailed the night through, arriving off the town of San Pedro, Belize, about 10:00 the next morning."

Get the most current update, and leave a comment in their visitors log at;

http://www.geocities.com/sjfaul/Sailing.html

[Tony G]

SAN PEDRO!!!

I just got back from there the 8th. I wish I had known :(

[commanderpete]

Our intrepid voyagers have reached the Pacific. Wish them well

More log updates coming soon

[ElBeethoven]

I'd be VERY interested to hear what the charges were for their canal transit and if they had any of the alleged problems with the Panamanian management of the canal.

Best,

J.

[c_amos]

Ok, if anyone has not been following here is how it began. Drawn from day 53;

"It was in the fall of 2003 that I began to consider graduate schools for a PhD in dinosaur paleontology. I'd been living, landlocked, in Montana for five years and would be completing my Masters before long. My main stipulations were that the school be further west and near the ocean (and of good name, of course). Berkeley suggested itself immediately – in no small part because I'd grown sick of frigid winters and the utter lack of waters broader than one could step over – and I started planning. "I should live on a boat," I figured, wanting to get as much as possible out of returning to a near-shore environment. (The fact that it would be a sailboat was a foregone conclusion.) My father had placed Faith up for sale by then (which always rankled something deep inside me) and retired to Florida. Not that I believe for an instant that he really wanted to sell her – he could have dumped her off fairly easily with minimal effort. But he could no longer afford the energy of her upkeep. I called him one day and we got around to talking about my future plans: "I think I'm going to go live on a boat when I get to California," I said. "Have you found one out there?" he queried in return. "Not yet but I haven't really looked very hard. I doubt it'll be real complicated, it's the ocean and there are plenty of older boats that wouldn't be too much to get and fix up…”
"Why don't you take the Faith?"
A thunderbolt. The thought had dimly occurred to me before, a pipe-dream or an impossible wish, but here it was: the actual possibility that a resurrection, if you'll pardon the metaphor, could occur.
"You're kidding!" I spouted, "Dad, if you're serious, I'll take Faith! I'll take her down the rivers and through the Canal!"
"Call your brother," he responded, "he's been talking about that for 20 years."
As soon as our conversation ended I dialed my brother in LA. Brian is 15 years my senior and a professional Hollywood production scion. This means he has summers off. He's also an avid sailor.
"Brian!" I said, "Dad just gave me the Faith!"
"Wow," Brian returned, "that's great!"
Then I tossed him the hook: "I'm taking her to San Francisco – through the Panama Canal. You in?"
"Uhmm, I'll have to think about it," three second pause, "Of course."

How could you not root for these guys?

[commanderpete]

More log updates now posted up till June 10th, covering the passage through the Canal, rudder repair and further adventures

http://www.geocities.com/sjfaul/log.html

They've since been to Nicaragua, El Salvador and are departing today for Mexico

Small boat, big cojones

[Faith]

Hello all!
We love the fact that other Pearson owners have keyed into the journey! We have been sailing through hurricane season (yes, Eric, we've researched this transit ;) and are on the way to Baja tomorrow. New updates were posted yesterday, more to follow when we get to Cabo San Lucas. Any of you in California who might be interested in meeting up with us? Just leave a message on our message board! We'd love to sail with a sistership!
Fair winds and following seas!
Sean, Brian, and Eric

[iceman]

Hey Faith crew
Great going..I do have a problem//

Why cant I download and save your log entries for re reading??

Iceman..Commander 264

[commanderpete]

This trip is an inspiration to all us dreamers.

Been following your progress on the Globe that I'll be using for navigation.

All hail The Mighty Faith

[iceman]

Hey Commander Pete

Why cant I save log entries to my computer
I have tried evry angle here

Iceman :confused:

[commanderpete]

Sorry iceman, don't know much about computers.

I'm waiting for the story to come out in paperback.

[RichardPearson]

On my computer, you can save a log entry by highlighting the text (hold the mouse button down and scroll down), then go to edit and press copy. Then open a new Word document, go to edit and press paste. Then save the new word document.

[iceman]

That copy paste method worked out a.o.k
Thanks :)

[frank durant]

heh iceman.....nice to see I'm not da only guy trying to figure out all theses computer tricks....real easy stuff if ya know how..but us ole 'techno fobes' take a while ta figure it all out !! By the time I'm 80 I hope to "get it"

[commanderpete]

More log entries up.

Here's a taste:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Up on deck Brian was heartily enjoying his stint surfing Faith in seas that had grown to twenty feet, winds that had increased to 40 knots. Miles were being sliced off faster than limbs in a Star Wars movie. Then a sonorous rumble from behind that made my ears perk: something big moving in mercurially – a wall, no, a bastion of water thirty feet high! The stern rose; through the hatch I watched Brian's face go tight with concentration; Eric's leg, the only part I could see, stiffened against the side of the cockpit; I braced the computer in my lap with one hand and grabbed a bulkhead with the other. The bow was dragged backwards up the slope of the wave-face and our momentum pressed us all hard against whatever holds we had. My stomach got that weightless butterfly effect like when the rollercoaster begins its steep descent. The stern pitched forward slightly, bow laboring to come up....and....making it....as we reached the summit of the wave. The froth boiled up over both gunrails – the bow rose level with the stern and we were all forced to lean still further as the G-forces bore us back. Faith shot along the top of that wave for an eon, a little blue cork on the precipice of a waterfall. Our breathing was all exhale through lips pressed firmly together. And then the stern gradually dropped, the bow going high, Faith slipping backwards as the wave, having had its way with her, gently lay her in the comfortable trough of its passing. "SEVENTEEN POINT SIX!!!!" Eric broke into the mystic reverie of motion, "Guys, we just got seventeen point six!!"

[ebb]

We got our selfs a regular Joe Conrad here!

[Robert Lemasters]

I want to thank the crew of the Faith for sharing thier adventure with us. Thier message log is full and will not except any new messages. Impressive, well written, look forward to reading more. Answers the question for me about wheather or not our Pearson Commanders are blue water seaworthy boats. I had some fear about the cockpit size and heavy seas. Looking at some of the posted pictures I took notice that much of the original equipment was still in use such as the old wenches, that says a lot about American craftmanship and the design of the boat itself. Did I read correctly that the Faith was almost knocked down and that one spreader was in the water and seconds later the old gal just popped back up? Impressive, good seamanship and prepardness. Godspeed Faith.

[commanderpete]

The Mighty Faith arrived at Berkeley Marina after a 5 month journey.

Congratulations to her Crew. Well done.

[mbd]

Kudos guys!

[ebb]

SUPERB!

Haven't been able to sit here for the time it would take to witness the whole voyage. Don't know if it is Sean or Brian who kept the journal - it has an appealing, friendly, sane and happy quality (amongst other adjectives) that I also hope can find its well deserved way into book form.

Don't know how you'd market this adventure, but there must be a huge pre-mid-life-crisis reading pubic that would find it a real pleasure and a relief from all the hard stuff. Maybe Borders would do a books on tape - it would make a great contrast to Master and Commander (Patrick O'Brion) - that poor saps in commuter traffic could listen to on their way to work.

Hope the story remains available on site here and doesn't fall down into the bottom of the bag. Never know, it might have been a whole different adventure in a sailboat other than a 40 year old Commander! (about the same age as the crew!) :D

[frank durant]

Hats off to 'the lads'....great reading too.Inspiring and gives a sence of confidence in our lil boats...OK OK.. lil yaghts ! PS Ebb..I think the boat is older than they are.

[Faith]

Ahoy, all!
Just wanted to share the new updates (long in coming, much to my chagrin) at larkoffaith.com go to the Ships Log. The rest of the journey will be forthcoming over the next week or two and updates will be available every day or two. I and my crew appreciated your support much more than you'll ever know. In many ways it kept us going - it gave us another reason to make the voyage happen.
Also, I wanted to answer a couple of queries:
Yes, the boat is older than all of us except Brian, who's got five years on her.
Sean writes the log with help from the crew for getting the exact details exactly detailed.
Yes, we will be putting it out as a book with about twice as much material as the log contains...you know, all the juicy details we left out due to time and taste.
Lastly, all of you Pearson owners are sailing the finest boats ever built in their class! Fair winds, Amigos!
Sean

[commanderpete]

Good stuff, Sean. Keep 'em coming.

I like Juicy bits too. We're all adults here, mostly.

Must have been an incredible amount of planning and logistics involved in the adventure.

I vote to nominate Sean as Asst. Vice Commodore of the entire West Coast Fleet (Commander Division), with all the rights and privileges attendant thereto

[commanderpete]

Motion passed without opposition. Congratulations

The log is now complete detailing the voyage. Over 7500 miles

http://www.geocities.com/sjfaul/log.html

[c_amos]

Having just spent the better part of the afternoon, and evening reading the excellent log of this journey I have a couple thoughts.

The fact they made it is quite a testimony to the crew, and to the 40year old boat they sailed.

There was little (no?) mention of any 'off shore' mods done to the boat, yet it endured everything short of a hurricane with no serious failures other then the steering casualty (and that not a catastrpophic failure).


"Faith faired well, as she always does in seas of this type. Technically, the event was a knock-down: her mast went over on its side so far that the starboard spreader (the crossbar a little more than halfway up the pole) was dipped in the brine while the starboard combing (to which Eric still clung to the forward portion) allowed copious amounts of water to spill over. With two thousand pounds of lead in her full keel, the little Pearson Commander is designed to pop right back out of the water when this happens and that is just what she did. Within the space of three seconds from total prostration Faith had righted herself and was back on course. Man, I love this boat!"

The log was so well written, what a wonderful gift! To have shared the voyage, bringing us along.

As I formulate my plans, and endure the sideways glances of those who believe they 'know better' I am inspired.

Lord willing, I hope to share the adventures of the (Ariel) Faith, till then

Thank you Captain Sean, and the bold crew of the (Commander) Faith......