SV Panta Rhei Retirement Trip
| Vessel Name: | Panta Rhei |
| Vessel Make/Model: | Able Apogee 50 |
| Hailing Port: | Seattle |
| Crew: | Larry and Karen |
| Social: |
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18 September 2017 | Seattle
We are back in Seattle
It feels like home. Of course we are not in Silshole. Maybe we will be, someday, but there is a list and we are on it. In the meantime we are at Bainbridge Island Marina.
23 August 2017 | Prince Rupert
The dinghy holds air again
It wasn't very nice of the bear to tear the fabric across a seam. We were worried that we couldn't patch it but tried anyway. The glue had a job to do and it did it!
15 August 2017 | Anan Bear Observatory
A Grizzly Bear damaged our dinghy
We were visiting the Anan Bear Observatory south of Wrangell. It is one of the best places to visit in all of SE Alaska BECAUSE it has bears. But (as we learned) there is a dark side to this bear concentration. And of course, there is a story to tell.
19 July 2017 | Petersburg, AK
Moving On
"No matter where you go, there you are" (unknown reference). By now we have been there and done that. Most recently that included Cannery Cove on Admiralty Island. The photo shows the quiet grandeur of the setting with Ron and Suzie's boat SV Tango in the foreground. It has been like that for the last [...]
17 June 2017 | Hoonah, AK
We are in Hoonah, SE Alaska now
We got something resembling a high pressure ridge so we moved expeditously across the Gulf of Alaska. The crossing took three days and weather stayed as forecast. That was a very good thing. The weather changes in the far north far more rapidly and dramatically than we ever experienced in the more southern [...]
03 June 2017 | Seward AK
Crossing the Gulf of Alaska
We are still in Seward, AK. Now that spring has come, why not start south?
Passage Notes 13: Heave To?
The sun is keeping up with our electrical needs. Karen is making us some macaroni and cheese with ham and peas. We love this comfort food. It warms the boat cooking it and the stomach eating it. The general rule is that it is too much work to eat, but we still manage to get enough. Doing anything is too much work.
A little more about making the decision to lay ahull. How does that work? Why not heave to? Well, first you don't end up in that condition just by deciding to do it. A whole string of things has gone wrong before.
In our case we were right on the edge of the front where it was both super windy super gusty super rainy and super rough. Then the gype preventer broke. Big noise now and confusion. What was that? It didn't sound good. A boat breaking, particularly the rig, in the MIDDLE of the xxx voyage is the stuff of nightmares. We need that rig to complete the voyage. NEED. Get it?
But eventually we found a fairly simple connector had broken and we could fix it. Yay. Of course, by then we are soaking wet and cold and still full of adrenaline. And the super windy, super rough stuff has never stopped. So we sail forward as the tail wind turns east and we come almost instantly into a 30+ knot headwind. That way way way overpowers our sails. We cannot go on course so we turn east and roll up the last of the jib leaving only the storm staysail. This sail is about as big as thong on a model. Even though the wind is big and we are taking it on the beam, we are also taking seas and wind on the boat.
The autopilot holds course for a while while we settle down for a very slow and pointless (we are making no headway at all toward the destination) night. Somehow, during the night the boat slowed a little further and the autopilot could no longer control the heading of the boat. It disconnected and went into standby. No doubt it annunciated this event but somehow we missed it. So later when we checked we found the boat had turned around now facing northwest beam to the wind and seas and was lying ahull. So, notice that there is little to no difference between underway at 2 knots and lying ahull. That is how you end up lying ahull. You just discover it and decide to let it all be.
That is our story and we are sticking to it.
Larry and Karen
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