4.11.18@ 1700 Zulu Day #16 Latitude: 04°40 N Longitude: 128°43 W Covered Distance Last 24 Hours: 132 NM Distance to the Marquesas: 1054 NM Distance from Punta de Mita, Mexico: 1894 Weather: 30% Cloud Cover Winds: NE 13 Knots Sea State: NE 3’ Sea Temp: 98.2° Air Temp: 84.3° Course: 192°T Speed: 5.5 Knots Barometer: 1014° Crew’s Mood: Loving sailing through the ITCZ with NO MOTOR!
All that’s been happening with SV Aftermath has had me thinking about how people asked me over and over if I was afraid to take this journey. Hmmm. I had to really sit and ponder this a while. Why? Well, fear is clearly different for everyone. Some people are afraid to step outside of their own homes while others hardly fear anything at all. Me, I guess I fall somewhere in the upper middle. I’m not scared of everything but I do have a healthy respect for many things. And honestly, in my humble opinion, I believe anyone who approaches something like this without a certain amount of fear is crazy. After all, Mother Nature and King Neptune can be your best friends yet both can turn on you like a snake in a matter of seconds. So is my respect for the dangers that surround us a form of fear? Maybe. But, it obviously isn’t something that kept me from embarking on the journey. After all, I could just as easily meet my demise in a parking lot in Florida during terrorist, I mean tourist season. So, really, what’s more scary?
Out here we take nothing for granted. Why do you think we don’t drink alcohol underway? What if one of the Gods gets their bustle in a ruffle? We need to have our brains firing on all cylinders to handle whatever they decide to throw at us. Yes, we take this very seriously.
Here’s a great example. We were dousing the spinnaker and it was pretty calm. The only reason I am on deck is to let out the halyard while Dan pulls down the shoot. Did I really need to put on my life jacket and clip into the jack line? Probably not. I’m sure I would have been fine but what if…I mean what if a rogue swell came out of a different direction and knocked me off balance? That’s all it would take to possibly send me overboard without any flotation device whatsoever. Now I’ve put my life in serious danger and for what? To save a minute or two and the minute hassle of clipping and moving my tether as I move up the deck. No. I assessed that it was not worth it so I went below and got my safety gear. Does that make me afraid or does it simply mean I’m using good judgment? I believe it’s the latter.
When weather gets a bit nautical and all hell is breaking loose like it did during the chubasco in La Gringa last summer, was I scared? No, not really. Was it stressful? Oh heck yeah! But the fact is there wasn’t really time to be afraid. There were orders being given and I had to react with strict precision. Any deviation from that could have resulted in the loss of our beloved Dazzler and even possibly our lives. By the time it even dawned on me that I should have been afraid, the danger had past and we were safely anchored down in Bahía de Los Angeles.
Because of Dan’s Highway Patrol background we constantly discuss “what if” scenarios. What if someone falls overboard? What if we have to abandon ship? What if someone gets hurt? What if? What if? What if? Because, when the bad stuff happens your mind won’t function normally so you have to have practiced what you would do in an emergency. This way your mind goes right to that training and you react quickly instead of hesitating which could lead to disaster. Yes, we’ve prepared and practiced everything. We’ve even taken CPR and first aide classes where we learned how to suture on a hog leg. Really…I’m serious!
We also practice something out here that we call situational awareness. It simply means that you need to constantly assess the dangers around you. Are you standing in a stack of lines that could pull you overboard? When walking on deck, are you on the high side or low side of the boat? If you are on the low side you risk falling out of the boat whereas on the high side you would fall into the boat. Are you watching every step to be sure something didn’t fall on deck that you could slip or cut yourself on? Is there a strange part lying on deck that doesn’t belong there? If so, you need to find out where it came from. It could be a really important part off the rigging. Yes, these are all potentially dangerous things that one could be afraid of but by employing situational awareness you limit the possibility of accident or injury.
When I look at the situation on SV Aftermath I can’t help but think they would have benefited from some of the practices we employ each day. Situational awareness would have made them look at everything needed to keep them afloat and alive. They wouldn’t just today have realized they are about to face a water shortage because they would have assessed that in the beginning of their crisis. When Dan and I see an issue, we don’t just micro focus on that one thing. We look at the big picture to see how that one thing can affect everything around it. In their case it appears, at least from our viewpoint, that the captain is micro focused on the repairs and isn’t seeing what else needs to be addressed which honestly, could lead to disaster. Maybe that’s because he isn’t prepared or maybe it’s because fatigue has set in and his mind is not functioning at peak performance. Either way, consistently practicing “what if” scenarios could have helped him to make better, wiser decisions as to the safety of himself and his crew. Better planning and looking at the big picture could certainly have helped as well.
So you see, it’s hard to say whether or not I was or am afraid as that all depends on your definition of fear. For me, I don’t think fear has played any big role in how I feel out here because of the fact that we have prepared for this journey to the nth degree and we practice safety each and every moment on board. And, as a matter of fact, the longer we are here, the less fear plays any part at all in how I feel. You see, once you are here and you see and face whatever fears you had, they diminish in size exponentially.
Would I recommend this type of adventure to everyone? No! It takes a certain kind of person to do this, stay safe doing it and to enjoy the ups and downs of the trip. Not everyone can handle the stressful moments and many would simply be too afraid to try or would freeze up in the times of crisis. As for me, my body is sore, I’m tired and I’m looking forward to a nice long walk on a white sand beach with a fruity cocktail. Oh, and I can’t wait to go out to dinner somewhere and have someone serve me dinner on a stable surface where I don’t have to hold onto my plate for fear of it being launched into next week. But you know what? I’m having the time of my life; I wouldn’t change a thing and fear is nowhere in sight!
Until next time…
Jilly
P.S. Having the best, most prepared Captain in the fleet on board gives me a whole lot of comfort as well!

4.8.18 @ 1000 Local, 1700 Zulu Day #15
Location: 06°13N/127°47W SOG: 6.0 knots COG: 215°T Wind speed: 6 knots Sea State: #3 on the Beaufort wind scale (Jim the H2O is 93.2° F) Cloud: 70% BAR: 1013 Mood of Crew: Great! ! !
Jacks or Better
One of the things that I have used extensively while boating over the last fifteen years is a Jack Line. This is a safety line that is usually set up along the length of the vessel and along both side decks. It is secured at the bow and the stern of your vessel. This line is then clipped onto by persons onboard the vessel with safety tethers while on deck. The basic concept is to not be disconnected from you vessel while at sea. You may be drug through the water upside down and backwards, but you’ll still be attached to your vessel. That makes the identity of the owner easier when the boat is found.
Jack lines are made of different materials such as flat webbing or line. The line could be three strand or double braid line. Both types of lines or webbing should have sufficient breaking strength for obvious reasons. What good is the line if it breaks when you are hurled over the life lines of your boat and your tether reaches maximum length with a loud snap. See you later alligator. I have chosen to use the flat webbing for jack lines, because when you step on them they don’t roll under your feet and potentially cause you to lose your balance. There is already enough movement onboard underway without a rolling jack line.
The tethers that we use on Dazzler are flat webbing of sufficient break strength as well. The tethers are double tethers with one three foot long and the other is six foot long. They are attach to a harness or combination harness life vest. The sailing hardware used on the tethers are also of sufficient break strength and load rated. I read an article from SV Morgans Cloud that suggested that a maximum break strength should not be less than 5000 pounds to more than handle the forces involved in being hurled like a dog toy at the beach over the side of your vessel’s railing. So, I kind of used that as a good rule of thumb for our Jack lines.
Last month while performing the last minute preparations, I wanted to experiment with a different configuration with our jack lines. Traditionally, I laid the lines out along each side deck from bow to stern. It was simple and always seamed to work okay. A few articles I had read over the past several years regarding jack lines suggested rigging them off the deck about chest high and closer to the center line of the vessel. I had always wanted to attempt this configuration, because of some interesting advantages. For starters the tethers could be shortened and you wouldn’t be always tripping over your tether or getting it tangled in other rigging or wench handles, etc…. In 2009 Dazzler was fitted with a stern arch for mounting solar panels, wind generator and the antenna farm. It also makes a great platform to attach a jack line to at about chest height. I luggage tagged one end of the jack line to one of the largest tubes of the arch. Going forward with the line it passes through external handles on the outboard edge of the hard dogger, passes through the boom gallows handle forward to the mast where it wraps around the mast and is secured to a mast cleat. This configuration keeps the line off the , further inboard and at approximately chest height. One of these lines is on each side of Dazzlers cabin top. The foredeck required a bit more thought process. Dazzler’ tender is inverted onto its top on the foredeck while underway. So I decided to mount the jack line along the center line of the inverted bottom of Dazzler’s tender. I then used a luggage tag loop with the jack line and fastened it to a pad eye mounted on the bowsprit as an anchor point. Yes it is on the deck of the bowsprit, but anything higher would interfere with the running rigging of the headsail furling gear. The line passes aft over the foredeck and over the bottom of the inverted tender along the centerline and makes a few wraps around the mast and is secured to a mast cleat.
The purpose for having the chest high jack lines was to be able to use the shorter tethers (three foot long) thus shortening the distance to the side of the boat and maybe just prevent you from being hurled over the railing and drug through the water. If the tether lines are not long enough to allow you to reach the side of the boat, maybe you won’t go over the railing. Sounds good to me!
So far our daily use of the newly located jack line system and tethers has proved to be an improved fit for Dazzler. Jilly likes the elevated jack lines, because she didn’t like stepping on them and getting them tangled around her feet. I like the new configuration because when working on the main sail your tether is closer to your work and the distance to travel over the rail is now much shorter. While sitting in the cockpit the lines are elevated above our heads and this makes it easier to move and work in the cockpit while being attached to Dazzler.
One last thing, while modifying my existing jack lines for this project, the use of our handy Sailrite sewing machine made stitching in loops on the ends of the jack lines a snap. I used PTFE thread for the stitching and made the same stitch pattern as was originally used by the jack line manufacture.
Something to consider in the safety arena. That’s the way it was April 7, 2018. Have a great day!
Cheers!
Captain Dan
PS Sorry for the bad location information yesterday. It wasn’t my turn to be ring master at the circus. Jim, the air temperature is cooler than the water temp. But, the thermometer isn’t speaking with me today for some reason.