By Peter J. Imbesi
It was already 4:00 p.m. when I cleared Sandy Hook, NJ, en route to Block Island, RI, aboard my Pearson 35
Little Wing. I had been up since 8:00 a.m. stowing provisions and completing last minute preparations. The lea rail was getting wet as we worked to windward against a 12 to 14-knot wind, and a four to five-foot chop. Under full main and 150 percent geny, the helm still felt good and my
GPS indicated we were doing 6.5 knots over the ground, getting a nice push from the ebbing tide. One of the great things about sailing is you don't have to quit your job or circumnavigate to have a real life adventure. Even a relatively short passage can offer numerous opportunities to test your skill and mettle.
Over 20 years ago, this trip had been my first overnight passage. At that time I was an inexperienced, self-taught sailor aboard my Pearson 26. My crew was a friend whose experience was limited to sailing a sunfish on a lake as a young boy. That passage provided more than enough adventure for the both of us, and for me a deep feeling of accomplishment at its successful completion. Since then I have made this trip dozens of times and that sense of adventure and accomplishment has not diminished.
This time I was undertaking this passage alone. My regular crew (wife and young son) had jumped ship a few days before our planned departure. After a few halfhearted attempts to sign replacements, I decided to go alone. Why not? I had just finished re-reading Gypsy Moth Circles the Globe. I figured if Chichester could circumnavigate at the age of 64, in poor health, in a cranky behemoth, I could easily sail solo to Block Island in my aged but well-mannered sloop. Besides, although I enjoy sailing with experienced crew, I have grown increasingly weary of crew who are not dedicated sailors. Over the years my poorest command decisions have been made in efforts to comfort a crew member who couldn’t cope with the realities of sailing, or because I was trying to adhere to a strict schedule. This time I had allowed myself plenty of time.
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At 6:00 p.m. I rigged jack
lines and got into my
harness. I tacked onto the offshore (port) tack, put the first reef in the main, and rolled up the genoa to about 135 percent. The wind had only increased to about 16 knots, but conditions were a little rough due to the chop. I was still doing about 6.5 knots over the ground, but I chose to bear off slightly in order to power through the waves. In spite of the slightly rough going to windward, we were doing well. It had been a beautiful late summer day, and the oncoming evening promised to be warm and clear. I turned on the
autopilot and went bellow to warm up some seafood gumbo for dinner. Life was good!
By 11:00 p.m. the wind was still south of east but had become light. The tide had turned and our SOG had diminished to less than four knots. I considered shaking out the reefs, but decided to wait and see what would happen. After all, caution would argue for reefed sails at night, and experience had taught me that the wind would always blow at gale force shortly after shaking out a reef. By 2:00 a.m. Fire Island Light was abeam and the wind had died. I secured the sails and proceeded under power and
autopilot for the rest of the night, occasionally nodding in the cockpit.
The new day dawned clear and hot. What little wind there was came out of the east, and I were making slow progress going up and down the four to five-foot waves left over from the previous day. At 6:00 a.m. we were still 64 miles from the Great Salt Pond, and I hadn’t had any real sleep in 22 hours. I was tired of motoring, and had just started worrying about whether the vessels motion would stir up sludge in the fuel tank when we started to lose power.
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"A check of the primary filter showed that a thriving colony of algae had taken up residence." |
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Clogged
fuel filters have been a recurring problem on this boat. Usually the problem is confined to the primary filter, which is relatively easy to replace. However, I remembered one particularly troubling experience where the main filter was clogged while the primary filter was clear. I have taken many steps to cure the problem including
fuel additives, keeping the tank topped up, filtering all
fuel before it goes in the tank, and replacing the original
fuel tank. Seasons have passed with trouble free operation, but whenever I think I have the problem solved it rears its ugly head. I quickly shut down the engine before it could stall and require bleeding.
A check of the primary filter showed that a thriving colony of algae had taken up residence. Fortunately, my sophisticated
fuel system allowed me to change the primary filter (I carried several spares) quickly and conveniently while dousing the cockpit, sections of the accommodations, and myself with diesel
fuel. This task completed, I sat back to ponder the more serious question. Should I attempt to change the main
fuel filter?
Prudence would dictate that both filters should be changed. However, changing the main
fuel filter is not a task to be undertaken lightly on my boat, even when tied to a dock on a calm day. It is common knowledge among P 35 owners that the Marquee de Sade was the design engineer for the engine compartment. To access the filter I would have to empty the starboard cockpit locker, remove a dividing panel, and hang in a head down position as the boat lurched in the chop. Blood pooling in my brain, I would struggle to maintain consciousness while I worked to replace the filter element, while dangling vital, though ill-conceived, pieces of the assembly over the cavernous, inaccessible bilge. Of course the
fuel system would then need to be bled, and while it is possible to do this task without help, it does require my presence in several, barely accessible, places at the same time. Without changing the main filter, I fired up the engine and got underway in the calm.
Eventually I realized that even if I continued to motor we would probably not make Block Island before dark. I decided to stop the engine and rest until the wind came up. I hadn’t had any sleep in 26 hours. I was only about two miles south of Moriches inlet, much too close for extended sleep. So I set my alarm to go off in 20 minutes, stretched out in the cockpit, and closed my eyes. I managed about 15 minutes of sound sleep during the next two hours. Then a light breeze began to fill in from slightly west of south. I set sail and got underway.
At first we were only able to make minimal progress, but the wind steadily built to about 12 knots and we were soon moving along very nicely on a comfortable reach. I was very tired and the thought of heading offshore, heaving to, and getting some real sleep was inviting. However, the weather report was calling for 15 to 20-knot winds out of the northeast on Monday, and I now thought it best to take full advantage of the fair wind. I was steering by hand because I wanted to make sure I had sufficient battery power to facilitate bleeding the engine, if the
fuel problem made that necessary. In spite of my fatigue, I was thrilled to be moving. I took pride in finding the boat on course and in perfect trim whenever I jerked awake from an impromptu snooze.
It was just getting dark as we brought Montauk light abeam. The course to the Salt Pond put me dead before the wind, which had risen to about 16 knots. The seas had increased to about six feet as the wind drove against the tide streaming south from the race. As the boat rolled horribly I suddenly became aware of my growing exhaustion. The main was blanketing the genoa, and the possibility that the massive boom would crush my skull in an uncontrolled jibe seemed very real. I decided to douse the main.
I am normally very comfortable handling my boat alone, and I move around the deck with an ease bred of long familiarity. However, in my current state (I had now been more or less awake for 39 hours) I found that I was extremely clumsy, and at serious risk of hurting myself in a fall. I managed to get the sail down and lashed to the boom, but while I was securing the halyard it became tangled in the standing
rigging. In the darkness I could not see where it was tangled, and therefore had no way to re-hoist the main. I moved toward the aft end of the boom to raise the topping lift and attach the pigtail to secure the boom.
My topping lift is attached to the boom end by a piece of
line rove through two blocks and secured to itself with a rolling hitch. I jokingly refer to this as my “Tarzan Topping Lift System” since it requires me to support the massive boom manually while I tie or untie the rolling hitch. I know this is a bad set up, but I somehow never get around to fixing it.
On this night it wasn’t so funny. At just the wrong moment, while I was holding the weight of the boom on my shoulder and securing the rolling hitch, an exceptionally big wave caused the boat to lurch to port. Somehow I managed to keep the boom from smashing onto the cockpit combing and dragging me over the side. I could feel the blood pounding in my brain while I secured the boom and got back underway with the genoa.
When I looked astern beyond Montauk Light, a half moon cast a beautiful light on a relatively tranquil sea. Ahead Block Island Sound was a void of velvety blackness. Nothing was visible except a semicircle of dim white
lights, which seemed to bar my way. At first I thought the
lights were on Block Island, then I thought they were fishing boats, but I couldn’t determine if they were small boats very close by, or large boats in the distance. I didn’t want to run downwind toward the
lights powered only by the genoa because this
rig would allow only limited evasive action.
I furled the genoa, and started the engine. Given my previous problems with clogged filters, this was not a good idea. In my exhaustion I started to become a little unglued. I was sure that at any moment the engine would stall, leaving me with the genoa as my only means of propulsion. I’d had enough! I was desperately tired, clumsy, and not thinking clearly. I decided to shut it down, lie a hull, and go below to think. I plotted our
GPS position on the chart and saw that we were 5.6 km due west of the entrance to the Salt Pond. The wind was from the southwest and had diminished to about 12 knots. However, the waves were out of proportion to the wind speed, due to the opposing current. I wondered how anyone could consider lying a hull as a viable storm tactic as we were knocked around by the moderate six-foot waves. In spite of the rough ride, I felt I had made a sound decision. Sleep was unlikely, but I could lie down, and I wouldn’t run into anything while I waited for my mind to clear.
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"I considered anchoring, but I doubted that my 300-foot rode would be sufficient to hold in the 100-foot depth." |
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After an hour, I stuck my head out of the companionway, and was horrified to find myself surrounded by a fleet of moderately sized boats with lots of white
lights shining through their ports. No navigation
lights were visible, and although I could not identify
anchor lights I thought they were anchored because they did not seem to be rolling. The closest of these vessels seemed to be no more than a few hundred yards away, and I was extremely worried that I might drift into one of them. I considered anchoring, but I doubted that my 300-foot
rode would be sufficient to hold in the 100-foot depth, and I didn’t like the prospect of complicating any evasive maneuvers by dragging my
ground tackle through the fleet or struggling to retrieve it in my exhaustion. I decided to keep a good watch, and rely on my engine or genny if evasive action became necessary.
Somewhere, just bellow my consciousness, I was aware that the halyard was just fouled on the wrong side of the spreader and could be freed with a flip of the wrist, and that the boats were probably larger and farther off than they appeared. But that information did nothing to ease my conscious mind. The night was spent trying to get some rest in the violently rolling boat, and agonizing about my position relative to the mysterious
lights. At one viewing the
lights would seem to be a safe distance off, the next dangerously close aboard. I cursed myself for a lubber for letting the main halyard get tangled. If I could raise the main I could heave to comfortably, and be ready for effective evasive action. Instead, I was tormented by images of drifting into a fishing boat, or being ignominiously towed into the Salt Pond with a dead engine and a fouled halyard.
Then somehow through this morass of fatigue-induced self-pity, I realized that sunrise was only about an hour away, and so far nothing really bad had happened. I set my alarm for 6:00 a.m. and crawled back into my bunk.When I opened my eyes the day was beginning to brighten. My tormentors of the night before had vanished, and Block Island was clearly visible to the east. I made myself a cup of coffee and went on deck where a quick flip of the wrist got the halyard put right. I unfurled the genoa to the warm 12-knot southwest wind and headed for the Pond.
Before I'd had enough of this sail we were comfortably hanging on our hook in 25 feet of water in the northwest corner of the Great Salt Pond. As I went bellow to get some sleep, I felt exhausted, but confident and utterly content. The anxiety of the night, though not forgotten, quickly giving way to the joy of being alive on my own boat.
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