Sailing an Ariel to Hawaii and back

[Bill]

It was nearing time for me to pull up anchor and head back to California. According to the books, the return sail should be done before hurricane season reaches its peak in September. It was now the end of July.

I picked up a used 2 hp outboard as a spare since the one I had was really in poor condition. That engine barely got me out of Keehee Lagoon, but it was soon no longer needed as the wind picked up smartly. As I rounded the leeward side of Oahu, I was to throw a lei in the water. Legend has it that by doing so, some day you would return.

Conditions on the first night heading north were not so bad. I was able to keep the north star slightly off to my left. That assured me that I was headed east of north. The second day I thought I had picked up some debris on my fishing line. There was no fight just a constant drag as if it was a large plastic bag. It turned out to be a beautiful mahi mahi about 5 feet long. I saw its blue yellow green profile shining about 15 feet under the boat. But it snapped the line and got away.

Beginning the second night and continuing for the next four days, I had the worst seasickness in it truest form – headache, nausea, chills, fever, vomiting. It was brought on by the boat’s constantly pounding into the trade wind seas. Every 5 seconds the boat surged upwards and pounded downwards on the backside of the waves. I distinctly remember the boat pounding so hard on one wave that I ran up into the V berth to check on the repair job where I had filled the thru hull holes for the head. The pounding lasted until latitude 27 or 28 when the winds finally died and I was no longer in the trades. As ill as I felt, I now forced myself to eat small tidbits of food and take small sips of water.

Although that first five days heading north was pure misery, everything worked fine including the vane gear and the generator. The top of the working jib, however, was in shreds. Keep in mind that as miserable as it was, the boat had no problem heading north. Just keep the north star off to the left....and each day it was 2 degrees higher.

After all the pounding into the trade winds, at about latitude 27 or 28, I sailed into the high pressure system and the wind died. According to the books I had read, it could have stayed that way for weeks. I took advantage of this by trying to regain some sense of normalcy(???). I was about 600 miles due north (and slightly east of) the Hawaiian Islands. That’s the middle of nowhere. Five miles to the bottom.

I took a sea water shower and ate my first decent meal of fresh cooked spaghetti. I used a can of beef stew as meat sauce and sprinkled parmigiana cheese on top of that. After five days of not eating, I remember that meal as a feast. I also regained regular bowel movements. As it would turn out, the worst was over.

I was becalmed for four days in this particular area. It was quite scenic. The sunrises and sunsets were spectacular. The sea was as flat as your kitchen floor. What I needed was a diesel inboard, but instead I had two non functioning outboards. And even if they worked, they had only a limited range. So I drifted. I rationed my food and water, not that it mattered. I grew tired of the canned food and only ate out of necessity. I felt my self losing weight. On the second day, a school of mahi mahi appeared directly under the keel, so I tried fishing. They did not bite.

Then I noticed that even as calm as it was, the fishing lure went down at an angle. Checking the angle against the compass, the lure appeared to be heading to the south. What that meant was that the boat was riding a northbound current.

On the third day of drifting north, I went rummaging through my provisions and found a bottle of Kalua that someone had given me before I left. I don’t drink alcohol, but half of that bottle went down like chocolate milk. When I "came too" the next day the jib was back winded and I was headed west. I don’t know for how long, but it didn’t last.

With the end of the fourth day came the end of the first spell of no wind. The next day brought 15 knot winds out of the east for 36 hours. This was fantastic. The seas were less than 2 feet and this great wind drove the boat 180 miles in 36 hours. I was headed 35 degrees magnetic, well east of north, and we carved an arc in the sea under full working sails.

Then the wind died for the second time. Now the weather was cooler. No more tropics. Latitude 34, or 35. Grey overcast skies. There were yellow tail under the boat and I caught a small one and cooked it up. The seawater was now cold and this hindered my desire to bathe.

Four more days of no wind. As before, on the 5th day another unforgettable sight. On the northern horizon, as far as I could see, it looked like a never ending team of horses racing from the east to the west. It was the wind. It was a good wind and those horses were wave tops. No more becalmed. This was good wind headed my way and soon the sails began to sing.

There was, of course, just one problem. The number one rule in sailing is that you can’t sail into the wind. And this wind was dead out of the east and that’s the way I wanted to go. For five days I carved a northeast arc in the sea under full working sail area or less. According to the books, the east bound tack should be made around latitude 38.

Meantime, another problem developed that could have caused serious navigational problems. The horizon mirror on the sextant was corroding and there were no spares. Actually, the horizon mirror situation wouldn’t be as bad as I thought at first. It was corroding alright, but I could still make out the horizon, the sun or moon with it. The stars and planets, however, were out of the question. It was very important that northbound, I have the north star for latitude. I could have done noon sights, but this is not a favorite method of mine. It can only be done once a day during the meridian passage of a celestial body. If you don’t catch it right on time you will miss it. This is very tedious and time consuming compared to the relative ease of a Polaris sight, which can be done twice daily at sunrise and sunset.

So I figured thusly: I would sight Polaris through the un-silvered portion of the horizon mirror, just as if I were sighting a star. I would bring the horizon up to the star, swing it upside down (you won’t find that in any book) and I read the arc. I did these sights very carefully as it is not a recommended way of navigating. I figure that the reading had to be accurate to within one degree.

I spent five days headed northeast like a bat out of hell at hull speed or better. It was cold and I kept putting on more layers of clothing. The ride was also getting too ruff to light the stove. The alcohol just wouldn’t stay in the preheat cup. As a result, I was eating beef stew cold, right out of the can. And, I was still losing weight.

After some 30 days of sailing or drifting north, it was becoming a long and arduous voyage. In fact, I had spent too much time headed north. I had long passed latitude 38, but it was not possible to tack east due to the unfavorable wind direction. No problem headed northeast.

[Bill]

Now I was always on the VHF trying to contact people and did make many such contacts. One large bulk freighter called the Fort Brontenac actually contacted my home and told them of my situation. This large freighter passed about 3 miles astern of Starcrest as they motored on a great circle route to Kobe Japan from Los Angeles. Finally, at about latitude 46 plus, I made contact with a cruising vessel that I had met up with in the islands. They were headed to points further north than I and said that there was no reason for me to be this far north. They advised me to "flop over now," which I did.

The next day or so took the boat far south. I lost latitude rapidly and was afraid I would end up in Mexico, as a friend of mine did a year earlier. But, this would not be the case. Soon the wind shifted to the north east, then the north. There was now no problem heading east. In fact, these were the most majestic sea conditions I had ever experienced. The beam-to swells were about 10 to 15 feet and they would surge up and down, or undulate much in the fashion that a snake moves its body. In the trough of one wave all I could see was a wall of water. As the boat would surge up on top of these huge swells, I could see forever.

The challenge now was navigating, as sighting the horizon was tricky. I used special 90 degree azimuth bearings which I had to figure by doing the calculations backwards. This could be done twice a day any time the sun or moon was bearing due east or west.

It was about 1,100 miles to the coast after turning east. Soon I began laughing as I knew I was indeed truly homeward bound. Through the next few days, I had to interpolate from the way north and then extrapolate from the way east – just where was I when I turned east? To this day all I can figure is that I was above 46 north and slightly east of 147 or 148 west. That’s about 600 miles south east of Kodiak Alaska. And the weather was cold enough for it to be so.

[Bill]

Heading east was not with out its own special set of events. On one dark moonless night, as I gazed star ward, a couple of interesting celestial sights were visible. First, I noticed that the north star was unusually high in the sky. Second, the winter constellation Orion was visible very low on the northern horizon, way below Polaris. Orion was minified in size from its usual winter appearance and it was also inverted.

Then there were the sailing events. For several days the lee rail was constantly awash and it was frequently necessary to bail the bilge. Just a nuisance, but then I discovered that both the anchors were gone. They had been secured to the bow rail and the hawser pipes sealed before departing north from Hawaii. Also, I had removed the rhode from the shackles on the anchors. I guess those anchors made their way to the bottom

This time of sailing was very much an up and down ride, but there was no pounding. And thankfully, no seasickness what so ever

The weather was very cold when I began sailing south. I tried in vain to lite the stove for heat, but no luck. It was also clear that after two weeks of no showers and wearing the same clothes, I smelled really badly. But who was I going to offend, the fish? Now, however, I needed to prepare myself for the return to civilization. Once I got down into the warmer latitudes, I filled the Sun Shower apparatus with fresh water from the inboard tank. Those plastic solar heater bags work really well. I took a fresh water shower and changed my clothes. It was then I noticed that my clothes were literally falling off my body. I guessed that maybe I had lost five or ten pounds. It would later turn out that I had lost more like 50 pounds!

It was now possible to “home in” on the AM stations along the coast using the RDF and get some sort of a vector indicating where I was. Somewhere along the way I decided to throw the sky dive harness overboard. To make a long story short, a few years back a friend of mine borrowed this skydiving rig from me and got killed on that jump. I decided that it was not something I wanted anymore.

Some 48 hours of fluky, light wind showed up about 200 miles from the coast. The situation was, however, nothing like the earlier drifting of four days at a time.

At about 200 miles, I was able to home in on the long range beacon at point Arguello on 302 KHZ. This was important for my safety. I was nearing land, the skies were becoming somewhat overcast and that made the sextant useless. I kept the angle to the beacon slightly off to my left to pass it to the south and not to end up right on top of it. If those beacons are followed close enough, it is quite possible to end op on the rocks on which the antenna is located.

After a number of attempts, I was finally able to contact a marine operator somewhere in Central California. I spoke to my parents for the first time since before leaving Hawaii and told them that I would likely reach Ventura within a day or so. Not that I was exactly sure where I was. I knew I was getting close to land as I was now seeing kelp, seagulls and sea lions.

It was the 40th day since leaving Hawaii. There was a fair wind, but now there was fog and no sight of land. As I lay half asleep in the cabin, I was suddenly alerted by the sounding of five prolonged warning blasts from the horn of a nearby ship. Quickly I ran up on deck, and there coming out of the fog I saw a huge ship. It crossed my bow only about 350 yards away! I immediately released the wind vane and altered course to cross its stern. Clearly, I was in the northbound coastwise shipping lanes.

After that incident, I began keeping a constant lookout for ships. I also needed to navigate around several oil rigs and their related mooring buoys. The afternoon of that same day, either the fog bank lifted or I sailed out of it, but like magic, sightly off to my left and about seven or eight miles ahead, I saw the rotating beacon on Point Arguello. Just a few miles off my left beam was California’s mountainous coast. This was my first sight of land since leaving Hawaii.

Going around Point Conception had its own set of problems as things on the boat now started to break. The jib tack pennant fitting that I devised did not allow for enough free play for the jaw end of the turnbuckles and they each broke in succession. I went forward using the mainsheet as a lifeline and created one turnbuckle out of two broken ones. Then the gooseneck failed. It just isn’t over till its over, is it?. There were two tangs, one on the boom and one on the mast, that allowed me to jury rig a gooseneck with just one bolt. At this point, I was quickly learning how to be resourceful.

That night, the stories about how rough it is around Point Concepcion proved to be at least somewhat true. Somehow, the boat broached momentarily and seawater came flooding over the coamings and swamped the cockpit. I swear this water was glowing bright green from all the phosphorous. This was nothing, however, that the scuppers couldn’t handle. Just in case, that night while in the main salon I wore a float coat and kept an EPIRB nearby.

The next morning I was in the lee of Santa Cruz Island, well inland of the ship lanes. With less than 20 miles remaining to Ventura harbor, I sure could have used an outboard. I made another radio telephone call to my father and I asked him to try contacting me using the VHF on his boat. Soon I heard him calling my boat’s name. Next thing I heard was the Ventura harbor patrol respond that I was no longer in the area, but rather that I was in Hawaii! My father informed them of my return and told them my approximate location. As I started to respond to my father on the VHF, someone began to stepping all over my transmission with unnecessary conversation that belonged on another channel. He was broadcasting on channel16 mind you! I was finally able to make contact and get him switch to another channel.

[Bill]

That wind was very light as I slowly sailed past the breakwater. When I headed into the familiar turning basin to drop the main, people on nearby boats started blowing horns. I guess word of my return had spread quickly. As I proceeded under jib alone to the fuel dock, I noticed there were people on the sea wall watching. I didn’t know them, but I guess they knew of me. When I jibbed into the Ocean Services fuel dock and got off the boat, I was simply not the same person I was 90 days earlier. I was brown, bearded and nearly 50 pounds lighter.

The security guard at the dock advised me to stay onboard until the harbor master came. They were concerned that I might have had fruits and vegetables onboard. Not likely. I was down to just three dozen cans of food and maybe ten gallons of water.

As I stepped onto the dock, I noticed that my legs had atrophied from the knees down. Lets face it, there’s not much leg room on any small boat. Any way, the voyage was over.

I left the boat in the care of a trusted broker and a few weeks it was sold. I don’t know where this boat is today, but if you see it, please do me this favor: Take hold of its parallel forestays and pat it on its bowrail for me. Starcrest gave me the most unforgettable 3 months of my life during the summer of 1985. That little boat honestly truly and really did...RUN WITH THE BIG DOGS

I was brown, bearded,and devoid of fifty pounds. . .

[Bill]

Several weeks after returning to California, I was off again. This time I was the navigator on a 90 foot schooner sailing to Hawaii. I flew back from that trip. Taken together, that means that I sailed to Hawaii twice and back once in1985. Three years later, I was off to Hawaii again on a Triton. That 6000 miles sail was done completely single handed.

[commanderpete]

Wow, eric. Quite an accomplishment.

Thanks for taking the time to write it up. A good read.

Stick around. I'm sure we would all like to hear more.

[frank durant]

Thanks for the story Eric .We all appreciate it !! Any additional sailtrim or combo's to sea conditions appreciated. Thanks again #50