...This is F'n Crazy!
We made it! We departed Seattle Tuesday 9/1 on an ebb tide at 6:30 AM, then left Neah Bay early Thursday morning, and sailed under the Golden Gate early the following Monday evening. With just 4 1/2 days at sea, it was a very fast trip, and we arrived just in time for a great sunset sail around the Bay before tying up in Sausalito.
For Susan and I, this trip was the culmination of two years of intense preparation. Our boat, S/V Athanor, is a very stout aluminum sailboat, designed and built in France 1978. In addition to our "day jobs" - Rob, as Founder & CEO of a consulting firm; and Susan as Executive Director with College Access Now - Susan and I have been diligently working over the past two years to refit Athanor for this trip -- starting with removing the masts and deck hardware in the Fall of 2013, stripping off all of the coatings, welding to address any corrosion, and then re-painting and putting her all back together. A well-fit boat is comprised of many inter-related systems packed into a very small amount of space, with lots of redundancies and back-ups built in, and we've been through almost every system on this boat. Everything worked as intended, and the boat performed amazingly well as we put her through the paces.
What an amazing trip we had! Whales, dolphins, a sunfish(!), fresh tuna on the line, dark skies full of stars, moon rises, amazing sunrises and sunsets; and, intense stress as we were challenged, tested, and pushed to our limits. Some months back, I hired a captain to accompany and coach us on this part of our trip and, in retrospect, it was a great decision. Stuart formerly captained the ocean racing ketch Atalanta, and has sailed the coast between Seattle and Central America some 30-odd times. His calm demeanor and patience helped us trust in our boat and, most importantly, in ourselves. He pointed out early on that most boats, but especially ours', can typically handle MUCH more than the crew itself can handle.
At one point in the night, we were 60 miles off shore with winds consistently at 35 knots (topping 40 at one point). We had taken in all of our sails except for a deep second reef in our mainsail, the boat was being steered (flawlessly) by our autopilot, and seemingly flying through the water in the pitch black dark of night. Greg and Anna were on watch, while Susan and I were trying to sleep until our 3 AM watch, but we were all honestly starting to freak out a bit. At one point, I came up on deck to see how Greg and Anna were doing. Greg looked around, looked down at our knot meter, looked a-stern as another large wave roared up behind us, and said "Rob, I've never done anything like this. This is F'n crazy!!" We woke Stuart to help us assess the situation. He poked his head out of the companionway, took a look around, asked us a couple of questions, and then in his eerily unflappable demeanor said, "well, hmm... the boat seems to be handling it quite well, and there really isn't much more we can do at this point. We could go to bare poles (no sails) but the boat can easily handle what we've got up and there's really no need to reduce sail any more unless we start seeing consistent boat speeds of 12 knots through the water." And with that, he returned below to his cabin and continued reading To Kill A Mockingbird. Not much we could do at this point? Nothing to do, except to trust -- trust in ourselves and trust that the boat would keep doing exactly what she was prepared and designed to do, while continuing to sail through the night!
As we sailed under the magnificent Golden Gate Bridge, perfect wind and warm skies, we were appreciating how very few people ever have the opportunity to see the west side of the bridge. The chaos from the previous nights quickly fell away as we enjoyed this precious moment moving into the next phase of our journey.
--Rob
For Susan and I, this trip was the culmination of two years of intense preparation. Our boat, S/V Athanor, is a very stout aluminum sailboat, designed and built in France 1978. In addition to our "day jobs" - Rob, as Founder & CEO of a consulting firm; and Susan as Executive Director with College Access Now - Susan and I have been diligently working over the past two years to refit Athanor for this trip -- starting with removing the masts and deck hardware in the Fall of 2013, stripping off all of the coatings, welding to address any corrosion, and then re-painting and putting her all back together. A well-fit boat is comprised of many inter-related systems packed into a very small amount of space, with lots of redundancies and back-ups built in, and we've been through almost every system on this boat. Everything worked as intended, and the boat performed amazingly well as we put her through the paces.
What an amazing trip we had! Whales, dolphins, a sunfish(!), fresh tuna on the line, dark skies full of stars, moon rises, amazing sunrises and sunsets; and, intense stress as we were challenged, tested, and pushed to our limits. Some months back, I hired a captain to accompany and coach us on this part of our trip and, in retrospect, it was a great decision. Stuart formerly captained the ocean racing ketch Atalanta, and has sailed the coast between Seattle and Central America some 30-odd times. His calm demeanor and patience helped us trust in our boat and, most importantly, in ourselves. He pointed out early on that most boats, but especially ours', can typically handle MUCH more than the crew itself can handle.
At one point in the night, we were 60 miles off shore with winds consistently at 35 knots (topping 40 at one point). We had taken in all of our sails except for a deep second reef in our mainsail, the boat was being steered (flawlessly) by our autopilot, and seemingly flying through the water in the pitch black dark of night. Greg and Anna were on watch, while Susan and I were trying to sleep until our 3 AM watch, but we were all honestly starting to freak out a bit. At one point, I came up on deck to see how Greg and Anna were doing. Greg looked around, looked down at our knot meter, looked a-stern as another large wave roared up behind us, and said "Rob, I've never done anything like this. This is F'n crazy!!" We woke Stuart to help us assess the situation. He poked his head out of the companionway, took a look around, asked us a couple of questions, and then in his eerily unflappable demeanor said, "well, hmm... the boat seems to be handling it quite well, and there really isn't much more we can do at this point. We could go to bare poles (no sails) but the boat can easily handle what we've got up and there's really no need to reduce sail any more unless we start seeing consistent boat speeds of 12 knots through the water." And with that, he returned below to his cabin and continued reading To Kill A Mockingbird. Not much we could do at this point? Nothing to do, except to trust -- trust in ourselves and trust that the boat would keep doing exactly what she was prepared and designed to do, while continuing to sail through the night!
As we sailed under the magnificent Golden Gate Bridge, perfect wind and warm skies, we were appreciating how very few people ever have the opportunity to see the west side of the bridge. The chaos from the previous nights quickly fell away as we enjoyed this precious moment moving into the next phase of our journey.
--Rob
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Who: Robert Bordner & Susan Mitchell
Port: Seattle
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