Sailing with Nine of Cups

Vessel Name: Nine of Cups
Vessel Make/Model: Liberty 458
Hailing Port: Denver, Colorado, USA
Crew: Marcie & David
About: We've lived aboard Nine of Cups since 2000 and have managed to accumulate 86,000+ nm under the keel since that time. We completed a circumnavigation in April 2015 and managed to sail around the five great southern capes. Come along with us for the ride!
Extra:
Visit our website at www.nineofcups.com for more photos and info about Nine of Cups and her crew. We also have a more extensive blogsite at www.justalittlefurther.com. Are some of our links broken? Links break from time to time. Please let us know which ones are broken and we'll fix them. You [...]
05 January 2017 | Chesapeake, VA
07 July 2016 | Us: East Walpole, MA / Cups: Chesapeake, VA
06 July 2016 | East Walpole, MA
04 July 2016 | East Walpole, MA
02 July 2016 | East Walpole, MA
01 July 2016 | Virginia Beach, Virginia
30 June 2016 | Chesapeake, VA
29 June 2016 | Chesapeake, VA
28 June 2016 | Intracoastal Waterway from St Augustine to Norfolk
27 June 2016 | Intracoastal Waterway from St Augustine to Norfolk
26 June 2016 | Intracoastal Waterway from St Augustine to Norfolk
25 June 2016 | Intracoastal Waterway from St Augustine to Norfolk
24 June 2016 | Intracoastal Waterway from St Augustine to Norfolk
23 June 2016 | Intracoastal Waterway from St Augustine to Norfolk
22 June 2016 | Intracoastal Waterway from St Augustine to Norfolk
21 June 2016 | Intracoastal Waterway from St Augustine to Norfolk
20 June 2016 | Charleston, South Carolina, USA
19 June 2016 | Charleston, South Carolina, USA
18 June 2016 | Intracoastal Waterway from St Augustine to Norfolk
17 June 2016 | Intracoastal Waterway from St Augustine to Norfolk
Recent Blog Posts
05 January 2017 | Chesapeake, VA

Happy 2017!

Happy New Year, Everyone!

07 July 2016 | Us: East Walpole, MA / Cups: Chesapeake, VA

Taking a breather ...

Since we'll be off the boat during July and August, we plan to post only three times per week. The Captain will continue writing a practical Blue View post each week, we'll keep you up to date on what's happening with us and then throw in some cruising nuggets as well.

06 July 2016 | East Walpole, MA

Keeping fit

We’ve written before about keeping fit on the boat. David is so much better at a regimented exercise program than I am. I have all the best intentions, but I can always think of something better to do than sit-ups, push-ups, leg lifts and running in place. It doesn’t take much to distract me. Walking, [...]

04 July 2016 | East Walpole, MA

Happy 240th Birthday, America

Growing up in New England, I took for granted just how lovely a summer’s morning can be in Massachusetts. It’s comfortably cool and everything smells clean and fresh. Spider webs glisten with morning dew and it’s just great to be alive and breathe in the new day. Being back at Lin’s house conjures up wonderful childhood memories of summer mornings past. And this is not just any morning … it’s the 4th of July, the best holiday of the summertime in the USA.

02 July 2016 | East Walpole, MA

Leaving Cups and a Road Trip

Leaving Nine of Cups is never easy. We know she’ll pout while we’re gone and so we do our best to make sure she’s as comfortable as possible before we leave. We were whirling dervishes trying to get everything ready.

01 July 2016 | Virginia Beach, Virginia

Hunting & Gathering - Virginia Beach

We had lots to do before leaving Cups. David was intent on getting as many chores done in advance of our departure as possible so that once we return in September, we can spend time sailing in the Chesapeake rather than doing repairs and maintenance. Much of what we needed in the way of parts and supplies, [...]

Blue View: Storms at Sea

29 July 2013 | Boston, USA
David
In 1805, a British Naval officer named Francis Beaufort devised a system to standardize the descriptions of wind conditions. He defined 13 wind levels, zero to twelve, ranging from no wind (Force 0) to "winds so strong, no canvas sails could possibly withstand them" (Force 12). According to the Beaufort Scale, Force 10 storm conditions exist when the sustained winds are between 48 and 55 knots (55-63MPH or 89-102 km/h). That's a lot of wind.

In the open sea, along with the wind come huge waves. The wave heights for a Force 10 Storm are immense - 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12.5m), with large patches of foam and considerable tumbling. Often the seas are much more dangerous after the worst of the storm passes. As the wind direction changes, the wave direction starts to change as well, causing confused seas and the occasional rogue wave.

Looking back through our passage logs, we have been through five Force 10 storms at sea in our 13 years, and maybe twice that many Force 8 or 9 gales. We saw three storms in the Tierra del Fuego/Cape Horn region, one on a passage from the Chatham Islands to the North Island of New Zealand, and one on a passage to the Cook Islands.

With modern weather forecasts, we usually have ample warning of approaching bad weather even at sea. If we are close enough to a safe anchorage, we will head there, otherwise we want as much sea room as possible and try to stay well away from hard things - rocks, islands, and coastlines. As long as we have time to prepare and lots of sea room, Nine of Cups handles the rough weather pretty well. In two of the storms, however, only Force 8 gales were predicted. We didn't properly prepare for a storm, nor did we switch to our storm sails soon enough. In both cases, we sustained damage - once a shredded mainsail, and once a knock-down with a few broken deck fittings and stanchions, a shredded dodger and some lost gear.

While Nine of Cups, if properly prepared, may handle the rough weather in fine form, we both know that the crew is in for an unpleasant, and very long, two or three days. The shriek of the wind and the noise from everything that is banging about, slapping and sloshing is deafening. When off watch, it is difficult to sleep because of the erratic and extreme boat motion. When on watch, especially in the high latitudes, even with layers of clothing and foul weather gear, we are always cold. We are usually seasick, no matter what meds we take. Everything takes twice as long to accomplish because of the pitching and rolling of the boat, and we can be sure of sustaining half a dozen new bruises. Even doing something as mundane as using the head is an ordeal.

Topsides, it is total chaos. We usually remove the dodger and bimini, so there is very little protection in the cockpit. The sea spray and rain are horizontal, stinging our eyes and making it hard to breathe. We have often donned our diving masks and snorkels, just to be able to see anything. We use safety harnesses, of course, and clip ourselves to the boat, even in the cockpit. If it becomes necessary to leave
the cockpit to attend to some problem, even though we take every precaution, it is still dangerous. The harness and jackline may save our lives, but it won't prevent us from getting hurt, and we're invariably totally drenched by the time we make it back to the relative safety of the cockpit.

If anything can be seen, it is the towering waves rushing towards the boat. We can't help but recall all the stories we've read about boats being pitch-poled or rolled, and can't imagine how the boat can possibly survive that next really big wave. But it does, and then the next one and the one after that. We try to focus, instead, on all those other stories we've read, about crews, fearful for their lives, that sent out Mayday calls and were rescued, only to learn that their boats were found a few days or weeks later, floating along peacefully and totally undamaged.

Then, when the storm has passed, the winds have calmed down to a relatively calm 25-30 knots, the seas and seasickness have subsided, and the sun comes out, life is good again. It is always amazing to me how quickly we forget how miserable we were, and how much we appreciate that first fine day following a storm. And at the end of a long passage, what we remember are the wonderful beam reaches, the moonrises, the dolphins leaping in our bow wake and the magnificence of the stars at night. The memory is a funny thing in its subjectivity, and that's a good thing. Otherwise, we would have swallowed the anchor and moved ashore a long time ago.

For our checklist for storms at sea preparedness, the Beaufort scale, more pix and links ... visit JustALittleFurther.com.
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