Part 5: Caribbean - Atlantic
The Caribbean Sea was too gentle. A smooth wave with a mirror surface, the breeze that appeared from time to time walked within 180 degrees, caught its slightest breaths and slowly moved towards the southern tip of the Dominican Republic.
Sometimes it was necessary to lower all the sails so that in calm and on the wave they would not clap. A bad job, you don’t get tired physically, but psychologically - it would be better if there was some kind of storm. Certainly not too strong. It is night in the yard, it would be necessary to sleep a little, but at great depths and ships sometimes roaming around the sailboat, the desire is impossible. Closer to the morning I go to Fr. Saona .
The chartplotter marked the anchorage between about. Saona and Fr. Haiti (a very strange location, since Haiti is the western half of the Dominicana island, and Saona is located southeast of the Dominicana - editor's note). I arrived here, no, I barely crawled and anchored at a depth of 15 meters. The dream was good, but not long, apparently the tension associated with starting into the unknown, until it let go. Although I think the whole thing was a conditioned reflex: for three months the body got used to getting a dose of rum before going to bed, and now it was ina complete misunderstanding whether to sleep or not to sleep. But while I am in complete safety and almost in the absence of pitching I am resting, it's time to talk about the sailboat, my sailboating experience, supplies, etc.
A little bit about yourself
I started swimming in 1978 at the reservoir on the river. Tuloma, in the Murmansk region. Part of the summer was spent on the "Dragon", and in the winter, using the capabilities of the Murmansk shipyard, where I then worked, we began to build an 8.5-meter cruising catamaran according to the drawings of the Riga designer Aldis Eglais of the "Venta" type. Volodya Nikolaev, who later became my friend and instructor, was the locomotive of the whole enterprise. Indisputable authority for me in sailing matters so far. Have you ever met a non-drinking rigger? So it was himVolodya! We see that we do not have time for the season, we built the Tornado catamaran in the interval. It turned out to be somewhat heavy, but it ran so well that in a strong wind it overtook the Kazanka with a motor! There was not always an experienced crew on board, often you had to go alone. I didn’t have any experience then, but I never had any difficulties with management. Apparently, this is just a natural ability.
At the end of the season, we decided that if we continue building a catamaran, then let it be a 12-meter Centaurus type of the same designer. That year we were lucky: our CEO went on a business trip to Nikolaev. In addition to standard entertainment: booze, baths and girls, the host party took him for a ride on a sailboat. In his heart, he turned out to be our man and decided that in Murmansk there is something to show guests from the waters of the Kola Bay. So we got two quarter-tonners, I became the captain of one of them. They were also based ondepository, but I immediately began to finish my "Note", adapting it to sailing on the seas. Unexpectedly, my career took off rapidly, bringing me closer to managing all the money of the Murmansk shipyard - I became a chief financial officer. Well, I've always been lazy. Therefore, I decided that it is much easier to use the fund of social-cult events to buy a new sailboat than to finish building our Centaurus. Aldis Eglais enthusiastically approved our decision, and for the first time in the vast Kola Bay, a local catamaran sailboat of the same type, which romanticNikolaev suggested giving the name "Gentle Winds". We ourselves distilled it from Riga to Murmansk under the control of an experienced Riga captain, I don’t remember the name of this respected person. For a couple of years, we have attracted experienced captains for catamaran trips. It didn't work out every weekend, so in between I poked out into the Barents Sea on the Nota.
Once, already being the captain of the Gentle Winds, I undertook a solo passage from Murmansk to Kandalaksha on a quarter-ton. The journey across two seas took 12 days (650 nautical miles). Until now, only a few of my friends know about this epic, I carefully concealed this adventure from the sailboatsmen of Murmansk, since in the event of any incidents, I would have set up sailboating that was just emerging in the Arctic, which hardly made its way through bureaucratic problems. I am ashamed now, but I do not regret that I did it. Until 1988, we almost allsome went out on a catamaran to the Barents Sea, once they ran away to the White Sea, but all this was within sight of the coast and did not give much in terms of navigational training. The next two years I managed to walk around the Mozambique Gulf, where I was on a business trip. I consider my experience of meeting foreign sailboatsmen useful for everyone, so I will focus on its description. Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, is often visited by sailboats under various flags. I approach them, introduce myself as a Soviet sailboatsman and ask permission to get acquainted with the sailboat. On the wave of changethere were no failures. And then, quite by accident, I had a bottle of our native Stolichnaya with me. After about 15 minutes, we all became good friends, there were no misfires. From conversations with foreigners, it turned out that it is not customary for them to get acquainted in this way, but if it works, why refuse? In fact, since 1990 my foot has not set foot on the deck of a sailing sailboat. And not sailing either. When I decided to buy a sailboat, I bought a chartplotter with a Russian interface and Russian instructions, I had time to practice with it, and I decided that withmanage navigation. With the designs of various sailboats, questions should not have arisen, I was confident in my management skills. I came to the director of the Moscow Yachting School and asked for a course in meteorology, about which, apart from its name, I knew nothing. There were no courses at that time, but the director suggested that I purchase Morozov's book "Hydrometeorological Support for Yachting", published by the Moscow Yachting School, 2003. Priceless purchase! With its help, I was not only guided by the signs of a change in the weather, but also determinedwith the prevailing winds and currents in various places of the ocean and seas, found the Gulf Stream and branches from it. The author repeatedly warns that one cannot be guided by these data in each specific time and place. Not true! This book proved to be extremely accurate in my conditions.
The attentive reader has already noticed that it is in my nature, in difficult circumstances, not to restrain my emotions in relation to other people. In a raised tone, sometimes obscene, I tell them everything that I think about them at the moment. This is a good quality, it helps to defuse your emotions, relieve yourself of responsibility and shift it to another person, increase your own self-esteem. I'm used to doing this. And then suddenly he was alone and there was no one to splash out his emotions on. I feel some discomfort. And, perhaps, at the moment of the described flurry, I becamerefer to yourself in the third person, like: “Well, you are a goat, Igor Borisovich!”. And that's putting it mildly. So I got another person on the sailboat, an awkward slob and a clumsy one. It was he who clicked the approach of the squall, he fixed the staysail-halyard on one hose, he constantly drowned earlobes, pliers and even an aluminum pipe in the ocean, adapted by me for pulling the clew of the staysail on passing courses. He often stumbled, spilled hot coffee on me, was in no hurry to change the front sails and take reefs, lost loose fenders and what other sins are not infollowed this Igor Borisovich. I could not imagine that I would get so many reasons for the most sophisticated swearing at him. I was strict and did not miss a single opportunity to lower it below the plinth. And very often I thought of poor Maxim. Although he got much less than Igor Borisovich (after all, I am a restrained and condescending person), I was really ashamed. When meeting with Maxim after the end of the trip, immediately after “Hello!”, I said: “Sorry!”. I consider this psychological discovery the most important event in my life.his solitary voyage, which changed my character, and I hope to always remain indulgent towards the people around me. Hey captains who are always right, try this method on yourself. I am sure you will be very surprised.
Not much more about "Wakawa"
You already have a general idea of u200bu200bWakawa. In particular, I will remind you of the presence of a separate aft cabin, which I turned into a warehouse of unnecessary things such as an idle motor generator, and into a warehouse of necessary things such as sails, of which I had two sets. I used the old kit on this trip, saving the newer one for later. The water tank held 450 liters, so I did not use the sea water system at all, it was enough for everything and without uncomfortable savings. Just in case, he had a supply of drinking water in 5-liter cylinders, 30 liters. fuel tanks andThey have a capacity of 250 liters, as well as the sea water system, I did not use them. The capacity of the water and fuel tanks was of great importance to me when choosing the type of sailboat. For all that, the sailboat is very light, its displacement in deadweight is only 3.75 tons with a keel weight of 2.5 tons. These are passport data. Sincerely sympathizing with the helmsmen, I look at the cockpits of most modern sailboats, blown from all sides and irrigated with rain and spray. On the Vakawa, if you do not jump out of the cockpit, the helmsman remains dry, and from wind and rain on the backstay and gybe, I adapted the awning abouttons of sun that hung from the speyhood to the cockpit deck, forming a kind of closed wheelhouse. Even before the rains, I used this structure to protect against the rays of the Sun, which incredibly baked my back when heading north. There was no life raft on the sailboat. There was a 3-seater dinghy. Losing the situation with a hole in the hull, I realized that fighting for survivability and losing in this fight, I simply would not have time to pump up the boat. And that's good, because. to be in the ocean on such a shell - only to prolong the torment with practically no chance of survival.
Of the means of salvation in this situation, I had only an electric drain pump with a small capacity and a limited supply of energy and a manual pump. The pump pumped well, but I still don’t know the answer to a simple question: if water enters the housing, should I eliminate the cause or pump out water? How to do it all at the same time? There were enough pyrotechnics on the sailboat with long past expiration dates, but I bought a new fire extinguisher and kept it next to me in the cockpit. My doctor sister provided me with a list of all kinds of things before the trip.skin diseases and methods of dealing with them. I bought most of the first-aid kit in Moscow before flying to Venezuela, the rest I got there, but I could not get such a simple and necessary drug as potassium permanganate either in the Caribbean, or in Bermuda, or in Europe. He's not there! Thank God, I didn’t need it, but you should take care of acquiring it in Russia or Ukraine. I also didn’t need anything from the first-aid kit, money and a lot of it was wasted, but it was the most useful money thrown away in my entire prone to squandering life. In case of accidental dropand the board I had the hope of catching on a floating rope, I already wrote about it. He was always aft and I affectionately called him Eraser, from the English "Last hope".
As for the products, it's all simple. I stocked up on canned fish and vegetables, fine Argentinean stew, canned sausages, bouillon cubes, various seasonings and sauces, biscuits, biscuits and crackers. Potatoes, carrots and cabbage were preserved almost all the time from port to port. In a storm or just when it was too lazy to cook, Chinese dried noodles, chips and canned corn and green peas came to the rescue. In general, I often caught myself thinking that the food turned out to be tastier and more varied than on land.
Well, I just woke up at the anchorage near Fr. Saona . It was late in the morning and the wind was 10 knots from the east. I drank coffee and sandwiches, set the sails using the genoa, and slowly circled the island. In the strait, I had to go to the tack against the current. It's good that the wind is opposite. Without interference, fixing the steering wheel on the tacks, he prepared a replacement for the previously eaten borscht. Approaching the Dominican coast near Punta Cana , he waved his hands to tourists relaxing on the beaches. They answered with enthusiasm, apparently they were ours and they welcomed the flag of Russia. At the exit fromthe olive had to look ahead carefully, Dominican and Puerto Rican fishermen blocked all approaches to the strait with their nets. I passed the net safely, it’s good that I didn’t walk here at night. And here it is, the ocean! A small gently sloping wave with a long period, by sunset the wind had completely died down and the ocean turned out to be gentle and not at all scary. He set the Vakawa adrift under sail, lowered the ladder and, just in case, tying himself with a safety line, dived into the warm waters of this ocean for the first time. Hello Atlantic!
The warm southern night has come. The air temperature does not fall below +30 degrees, the water is 28-29. Sitting in the cockpit, admiring the incredible stars. Nowhere, never on our Earth is it possible to see such a starry sky as in these latitudes and far from civilization. At the same time I see the North Star and the Southern Cross, although it is already trying to hide behind the horizon. From time to time, shooting stars pass by, insanely bright and less hasty than I'm used to seeing. I often make a wish. Now I have only one and you all guess it. Maybe eand therefore the described voyage ended happily.
Sometimes in the darkness above the water I see swiftly rushing silhouettes of birds, the size of our sparrow. Only in the morning I figured out that they were flying fish, I had never seen them before, and in the morning I found a couple on the deck, one was saved. And in general, all the way across the Atlantic, they constantly fluttered out from under the nose and scattered around, strictly maintaining the height of the flight above the water surface and following the bends of the waves. Running lights do not turn on, carefully looking around the horizon. Here, near the Caribbean Islands, I often see the lights of ships, but none of themgot close enough for me to start recharging my batteries. Sometimes I allow myself to take a nap, no more than for 15-20 minutes, I wake up without an alarm clock, which is surprising for me. Do not think that I am awakened by a sense of responsibility for the success of the enterprise, this is an elementary fear. Before sailing, I met in Sevastopol with the sea captain. He asked me to be careful in the seas-oceans at night: “On watch in the ocean, we all get tired of looking into the dark glass of the wheelhouse very quickly, from time to time the most cheerful of usThey can look at the locator, and your sailboats are not always visible on the locator. It's better to sleep during the day." That is, the slogan is the same: "The salvation of the drowning is the work of the drowning themselves." East wind at a speed of 5-7 knots, with my compass heading of 35-40 degrees, it allows me to go full-hauled with a fixed rudder and there is basically nothing for me to do in the cockpit. Node speed 3 +-. With difficulty, I sit out until the morning sky clears up, change the genoa to the main staysail (God willing!) and go to sleep in the cabin.
I wake up every half an hour or an hour, check the course, look around the horizon in search of ships that may have a desire to ram the Vakawa. The weather is sunny, but powerful clouds began to appear in the sky in the distance. Eh, I inattentively studied the book of Mr. Morozov, he warned me. At some point, the sailboat abruptly falls on board, I wake up instantly, even cold sweat did not have time to come out. I jump out into the cockpit, all around is twilight darkness and the wind whistles not like a child. I turn the sailboat into the backstay, give the main and mizzen sheets, but give the sheet of the staysailI can not. When I left, the breeze was weak, I replaced the genoa, only on the basis of the principle: when I sleep, let the canvas be smaller, but the staysail sheet was laid on the winch with only one hose. The tension was such that I could not give up the sheet from the duck. And I have a knife in my cabin, otherwise I would have sacrificed both the sheet and the staysail. It was a powerful squall, the sailboat ran backstay, with sheets completely unraveled, except for the staysail. I kept the course so that the mainsail and mizzen would relieve the pressure of the air a little, but also so that the sails would not flutter dangerously, it's a pity. The speed was greate 12 knots with a pennant wind of 25 knots. I had a feeling that the jib was about to break or the mast would break. You know this feeling when you feel in your gut how hard it is for your sailboat. The course was directly on Luperon and I was preparing to throw myself ashore, which was 40 miles away. It seemed to me that I was in a squall for more than half an hour, in a calm atmosphere I decided that it was about 15 minutes. And then the wind died down, the sun shone again. The ocean behaved as if it hadn't caused this whole nightmare. Well, of course, but what, is it my fault, or what? Thanks to this pOccurrence, I finally decided to continue my solo journey. After all, the sailboat showed itself in all its splendor, I learned some lessons and felt the strength to cope with such minor troubles in the future. Decisively turned from Luperon to Bermuda, but the staysail had to be replaced, because. from strong tension and old age, the metal grommet on the clew crumbled.
And the conclusions were as follows.
1) Never again in my practice will I, under any circumstances, leave sheets not draped over the winch by less than 3 hoses.
2) I will always carefully examine the surroundings in search of a creeping squall.
3) On the same day, I fixed the knife on the post of the helmsman's seat. But I will talk about the last and most important conclusion in the next post.
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