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SHIPS LOG OF M/Y MARY ANN
September, 2002
Night is beginning to fall on our first day at sea. We are twenty-five miles off the Washington coast in smooth seas with 8-10' swells at 10 seconds, more or less. There is no chop and the sun has been shining most of the day. The boat is performing as one might expect considering it is relatively new and has just had several weeks of modifications and tune up repairs at Philbrooks Boatyard in Sidney, BC. We're running at 1500 RPM and making about 12 knots, burning 30 gallons of diesel per hour.
The crew for this initial leg of our journey to whatever destination we finally reach is all family; Mary Ann, Shannon, Kevin, and myself. Spirits are high, as the weather reports are good for several days, plenty of time to get us to California where we expect calm seas and more accessible harbors for overnight moorage. This first leg of the journey will be 24/7 with three hour two person shifts during the dark hours and one person solo during the daylight.
Our journey didn't begin in the most auspicious manner as the power cord retractor decided to be recalcitrant at the docks and we later discovered that none of the four depth-speed-wind indicating instruments was working. I had visions of disaster in the morning fog near Victoria without the depth sounders, but the problem turned out to have something to do with a newly installed transducer so it was another of my most persistent bumps on the boat learning curve ... neglecting to turn things on. I was concerned because the entire pilothouse panel was torn out and rebuilt during the past several weeks and these instruments were all replaced with new equipment.
But we're underway, things are fine, and we're all enjoying our latest adventure.
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It's a day of Remembrance for all of us and will always be so, but here at sea there is a lot to do so our devotions are brief. The fuel read out on the DDC engine displays say that we have burned 875 gallons of fuel in 31 hours, pretty good so far, and since I thought we left Sidney with about 2900-3000 gallons we should have about 2000-2100 gallon left. Not so my happy sailor! In fact we have, I think, only 1450-1500 gallons of fuel on hand. So where did the remainder go? Something is certainly amiss which I hope can be resolved at an upcoming fuel stop at Coos Bay, Oregon. We could go much farther without fuel, but the next closest fuel stops are all at a distance such that we would arrive in the middle of the night and I do not want to lay over waiting for them to open up. Also, we're set on getting to San Diego by Monday and one fuel stop should do it. I'm inclined to think that we aren't carrying as much fuel as the specs say, even though I filled one tank up in 200 gallon increments to measure its capacity and found it to be 1250 gallons, which in total would give me 3,000 gallons on board. Further on the boat issues, the stabilizers are working, but they have something called a speed log that tells them what to do and since that part isn't working the devices are somehow operating on memory. Wonder how they do that?
We're working on learning the various electronics with modest success. The single sideband radio is absolutely indecipherable and I suspect it will never hear a friendly voice, and the email communications by either cell phone or satellite phone are dead, but we are making headway against the navigation computer and its' software and the radars are beginning to display wonderful talents in tracking vessels and such. Nothing overwhelming so far, other than the SSB, but even it has two buttons that, when you hold both down at once, alert everyone on earth that you need help so they could be worth the price of admission some day.
So, after one day we're still going south and still enthusiastic about this little adventure.
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We're a little south of Cape Mendocino and 170 miles north of San Francisco as night falls again and the first watch takes over for the 0800 to 1100 shift. Seas are still benign so we're feeling very fortunate about the weather. Tried to come in to Coos Bay this afternoon (or was it yesterday evening), but dense fog and uncertain bar conditions, combined with an untimely failure of the primary navigation computer to find the Coos Bay harbor chart, made us decide to continue on to a more hospitable harbor.
We proceeded on to Eureka where the Coast Guard gave us a favorable report on the bar ("...two to four feet, and that's as good as it gets...") and entered easily to search out the fuel dock. It turned out to be a fish boat place with those great high creosote covered pilings that you can't fend off from, but we took on a little under 2,000 gallons (at $1.28). It took almost three hours to fuel up as I fiddled and faddled around, pumping fuel from one tank to another seeking to get them all full to the brim, at which endeavor I was eventually successful. Last night I was only able to squeeze 315 gallons out of the center tank that I thought I had filled with 513 gallons, so I an still wondering how much fuel we are actually carrying, which would be a useful thing to know on a long voyage! My present opinion is that the center tank holds only 349 gallons, which is how much I put into it today, making our total fuel capacity 'about' 2600 gallons, a far cry from the 3,300 gallons called out in the specifications. At 1200 RPM we are presently making near ten knots, with a helping 1.5-2.0 knot current, and burning about 15 gallons per hour, so our range is something around 1,700 nautical miles down the coast. Not exactly ocean crossing range.
We have picked up a vibration from the starboard engine somehow. My theory is that something got wrapped around the stbd propeller at the fueling dock since it arose immediately as we left, but it's manageable so we will continue and get a diver in San Diego to check it out. Other than that, and that we have a small fresh water leak in the aft port lazarette and that the twin bed stateroom sink is leaking large volumes of water on the floor, things are fine and everyone has settled into a 24/7 routine. Plan now to make no more stops before San Diego.
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What happened to September 13? This business of sleeping for three hours at a time and then sitting up watching for all hours of the night gets a little confusing. Nevertheless, we have passed Point Conception without incident and are legging along at 1200 RPM making 10.4 knots and burning 17 gph. I just spent an hour and a half in the engine room and forward bilge cleaning up the mess I made (for the third time) of letting the grey water bilges overflow by accidentally turning off the automatic pumps. I hate that job so this time I finally labeled the switches for the benefit of myself and all other compulsive switch flippers (you know who you are.)
The trip has been amazingly smooth so far and quite as comfortable as it could be considering we are 50 miles out in the ocean.
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Darned if we didn't get here! Made Point Loma at 0830, right on schedule and were introduced to the US Navy, post 9-11 version, as we made to enter the harbor and were accosted by a Navy inflatable with a couple of M-16 armed dudes in camo togs ordering us away to 300 yards from the submarine that was blocking the entrance to San Diego harbor. "OK by me," I thought as I backed away from the entrance buoys and tried to look compliant. We made it to Shelter Island Marina by 1030 and were assigned to a 150' slip and told that (1) we were early, and (2) we were in the Yacht Fest show, albeit the smallest 'yacht' at the event. I didn't care about either bit of news as we pulled into a huge slip with 100 amp power, phones, and television hookup. This place is heaven! Warm sunny skies, blue water, palm trees, and completely protected moorage. This leg was 1174 miles and took 117 running hours, thus an average speed of 10.0 knots and an average fuel consumption of 22.0 gallons per hour.
The kids left at 1330 to fly back to Seattle and we were sorry to see them go. Our excursion this week has been a great family experience and I think we all got something kind of special out of it. Being out to sea a little bit, alone and self contained tends to bring you closer together. So far, so good.
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So here we are at Yacht Fest with Mary Ann having the time of her life giving interviews to the television stations and the newspapers. Of course everyone saw her on channel 8, the San Diego CBS affiliate, at both the five and six o'clock news so she is now on a first name basis with nearly everyone in San Diego who can spell b-o-a-t. There are parties every night put on by the Yacht Fest sponsors and we are having quite a nice time meeting and greeting the wads of people who have paid the $50 per person entrance fee to come aboard the twenty motor yachts moored here for the show. We think that our boat is the prettiest one in the show, but whether it is or not it is certainly just about the smallest boat in the show. We're doing this as a courtesy to Sovereign Yachts since we were going to be here at this time anyway, but it's a fun experience no matter what the reason.
I have retained a Skipper type person to manage the odds and ends of maintenance items needed before we head south. I am leaving him a 25 item punchlist to get done in the next couple of months while we are in Seattle, but the most important item is to track down the source of the starboard side vibration and excess fuel consumption that began immediately after we took on fuel at Eureka. I have spoken to the Detroit Diesel people here and to a yard that can haul a 100 ton boat in case that becomes necessary, but I am hoping that Detroit Diesel will find something amiss with the engine since both propellers were just tuned while we were in Sidney. It's always something with boats, isn't it? At least in being here we are gaining a lot of local knowledge about what to do and not to do between here and Panama, so we are both feeling better and better about proceeding south after the first of the year. More at that time.
Content, Pictures, Logos, Copyright © M/Y MAry Ann
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