A message from John Woodworth read, “Day before departure and I see Moli is missing her prop.”

Indeed, Mo is again on the hard at KKMI Boatyard where, on Thursday, I extracted her propeller, shaft, and thrust bearing two days before she was to sail under the Golden Gate Bridge.

New Figure 8 departure date: October 28.

What’s going on?

Here’s the back-story.

In August, when I hauled the boat to inspect her rudder and drivetrain, I found that the plain bearing that carries the after end of the propeller shaft had failed. The material, a soft metal alloy called Babbitt, had fractured in several places.

View of the inside of the old Babbitt bearing. Note fractures in the casing.

What is Babbitt?

By today’s standards, Mo’s drivetrain is ancient technology. Instead of the standard stuffing box and water-cooled cutlass bearing arrangement, Mo’s propeller shaft passes through a long tube filled with grease. Two plain bearings (no moving parts) hold the shaft in place, and two lip seals at each end of the tube hold the grease in and the water out. This was cutting edge machinery when the Model-T came rolling off the line but is now only found on old fishboats.

How this shaft bearing had failed was unclear, but I decided to update the old Babbitt with a high-tech plastic called Vesconite, a product that is used as bearing material by the tugboats in the Bay Area.

While everything was apart, I also decided to replace the thrust bearing.

Once back in the water, problems with the drivetrain began immediately. The shaft tube spat its grease into the bilge after only a few hours of operation, and on one occasion, I heard the shaft squeak as it rotated. I also noted that the new thrust bearing wobbled slightly and got warmer (160 degrees Fahrenheit after several hours of hard motoring) than I thought warranted.

I’ve been working the problem with Mo in the water these last weeks. Did I damage the lip seals while installing the new shaft? Had I popped them by pumping too much grease in the tube? Had I used the wrong grease? Had I damaged the thrust bearing while pressing it in place; was the press a straight one? Most importantly, could I live with these issues for the duration of the Figure 8, including 5,000 miles of mostly motoring in the Arctic?

All this was happening in the run-up to departure. Food, water, and fuel were aboard; charts had been audited and augmented where necessary; new electronics were installed and tested. Mo was otherwise ready and the season, getting on; so, I decided to worry about this problem later. I bought great quantities of grease and explored places to haul the boat in New Foundland when I arrived in the spring of next year.

But the last straw was plucked from my confidence when I noted the new thrust bearing, a non-serviceable part, was spitting its own grease. I had another look at Figure 8 weather windows and, after a conference with Joanna, decided a two-week delay here carried less risk than a departure with such problems below the waterline.

So, we moved Mo’s sailing date from October 15 to October 28, and I hauled the boat last Wednesday.

As Mo slid into her slings, I thought I was looking to solve two problems, a leaky grease tube and a leaky thrust bearing. However, a third issue quickly made itself evident: the new plastic bearing had melted.

New Vesconite bearing going in back in August.

Vesconite bearing as found last week. Note scoring.

Thomas Merton never reached deeper into his soul than have I these last days. With so few moving parts, disassembled with the help of Caleb at KKMI and now laid out singularly on a table, one would think the problem to be as evident as a pot-hole on a country road.

It is not. Bent shaft? Nope. Misaligned shaft? Nope. Injured lip seals? Nope. Bearing swell due to exposure to grease and water? Nope. Wrong tolerances for the new bearing? Unlikely, as work was done by a professional shop. Wrong grease (Calcium-based axel grease)? Maybe, but unlikely to be the cause of such extreme failure.

Dave at The Prop Shop checking the shaft for true with a dial indicator.

Lacking a definitive culprit and with no time for further experimentation, I’ve decided to ditch the new technology in favor of the old. Though I have a spare Vesconite bearing, I’m having a new bearing machined from Babbitt. On Friday, I visited RotoMetals in San Leandro and bought nine-pounds of Babbitt ingots, and on Monday, Dave at the Propeller Shop will pour and then machine a new bearing to meet the exact specifications of the bearing that has worked in Mo for 30 years.

Nine pounds of Babbit ingots plus their elemental breakdown.

And with that done successfully, the Figure 8 will be back on schedule…

Nope. Not expired. Neither the sailor nor the project.

Rather, a long absence from this site indicates that both have been, as can be imagined, busy. The former is readying self and boat for an extended voyage while the latter, said voyage, keeps creating previously unimagined urgencies that translate into yet more items on the task list, a list that refuses to shrink no matter how much gets done.  Which is to say, things are progressing about as they have for pretty much every expedition, ever.

Being a recovering procrastinator with plenty of experience at foregoing until the morrow the anchor-weighing scheduled for today, I have given myself a wide sail-away window, simply stated as “the first part of October.”  But even by this measure, I am well within 60 days of quitting the shore for a very long cruise. Necessarily, blogging has had to be deprioritized for a time, to be picked up again prior to departure as/if things ease off but more likely after the adventure commences.

I have been posting daily progress reports to FaceBook here, so, not all is silence.

While I’ve got your attention, let me say how grateful I am for your contributions to my Virtual Stowaway Go Fund Me campaign. I’d like to send video updates from sea while on the Figure 8, an expensive proposition, and I’ve been humbled by your interest in my project and your generosity. Most importantly, we’re getting close to the final number. Last month, media tech company, WideOrbit, offered to match contributions toward the goal, which has really accelerated our progress. So, thank you to WideOrbit and to you.

Well, since you’ve made it this far, here are a few project updates…

Moli was hauled in June by the good folks at KKMI, the rudder was removed and the propeller shaft, propeller, and stern-tube bearings were all replaced. This began as an inspection job only, but one should not go looking for problems without some expectation of finding them. In this case, the bearings were worn beyond salvage, and the 30-year old feathering propeller had several broken teeth. So, better to start fresh with high-tech Vesconite bearings and a new, four-blade propeller from Variprop. While at it, I rebuilt the Aquadrive thrust bearing.

Mo is back in the water and I’ve just returned from a couple days of put-putting around the bay at high revs and into stiff breezes and chop (an imitation of the Northwest Passage to come). Thus far the new propeller is delivering a much-needed boost in power and the rest of the drive train appears to be operating as should.

Provisioning is now mostly complete, though food-stuffs are still clogging up the living room. This week, I’ll build out storage lockers in the forepeak and begin migrating boxes and bags to the boat, much to the relief of my wife, who wants her house back.

I’m now living aboard several days a week, am sleeping in the bunk I’ll use when on the Figure 8, cooking on the new stove, re-organizing the galley, testing-out the new electronics, tweaking the rig. Mo is in a berth that allows us to come and go at will for tests of various gear. It’s time to start imagining the boat on the move. We’re getting close to the starting line…

“What are the chances you won’t be ready?” asked my wife one evening.

It’s not crunch time yet, but it’s getting close. My first-of-October departure is now less than four months out, and though many, many items have been crossed off the expansive (to be kind) list, the items undone still trail to the floor. I’ll admit I’m getting nervous. At this point in the project, I’d like to be packing lockers, studying charts, testing gear; instead, I’m still tearing stuff apart.

“Zero,” I said. “The question is how much won’t get done before I go. I’ve got to ensure none of it is critical.”

This is what plays out in every adventure book I’ve ever read. Said adventurer, whether he be Shakelton or Tilman and regardless of experience, resource or expedition size, finds himself in a rush at the end. On that morning that his mooring lines slip from the bollard and his bow turns toward the horizon, he can only hope he’s not forgotten his sea boots.

–

For a week I was able to work on deck, a real privilege after messing about with fuel tanks and wire runs.

Where the mast passes through the deck, I installed a gasket of Spartite. The rubber shims that had held the stick in her partners for 30 years didn’t survive my mangling of them when stepping the mast in Homer, and from below I watched as she pumped and whined all the way across the Pacific. This would not do in the more serious winds of the deep south.

The rebuilt furlers, now slick as snot, were installed into their headsail foils, new halyards and sheets were whipped and run, and the sails were bent on. I tuned and then retuned the rig.

Moli looked like a rocket ship again and even went for a couple quick sails in the estuary, one with Robin Sodaro of HOOD Sails in Sausalito, whom I’m excited to announce as the Figure 8’s newest sponsor (more on which soon).

That fun past, it was time to dive back into Mo’s interior. While in Hawaii last summer, I’d spotted some hull corrosion below the insulation in the galley, and had vowed then to inspect the other below-the-waterline areas of the boat when I got home. “Inspect” here entails ripping out insulation, polishing the hull, inserting a plastic spacer (to allow air circulation between insulation and hull) and new insulation, a not insignificant commitment of time.

Another vow from Hawaii was to inspect the water tanks and measure their contents. Mo carries all her water in two large tanks in the keel, the forward of which had a habit of putting brownish sediment into my drinking glass on rougher days. Once open I found that brown sludge cowering in the bottom (easily vacuumed out), but the tanks were otherwise clean. Great.

Filling the tanks with a flow meter showed one to contain 95 gallons and the other, 101.

With luck, that will be it for interior jobs for a while. Next up? Mo was hauled at KKMI last Friday so we can drop the rudder and have a look at the post and prop shaft…

After days with my head in Mo’s bilge or the now typical 3 a.m. wake-and-worry, I sometimes need a pick-me-up, a reminder that this part of the process does, in fact, lead to the launching of a ship into that wild blue yonder, a thing for which both ship and sailor yern.

In years past, I would have reached for a much-thumbed copy of The Long Way or Ice with Everything or any of a number of friendly volumes just to the right of the chair. Recently, however, I’ve been rereading my logs from previous voyages. Read More

“Great literature is nothing more than an extended complaint,” said my good friend Dr. David R. Kelton. “Dante’s Inferno, Hamlet, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and all of quality in between, can be seen as but artfully woven epics upon the theme of ‘Oh, woe is me.'”

This lesson came in response to my missive titled, “Dammit, I am so tired of boat work!” in which I made the case that moral and physical ruin would soon issue from Moli’s seven-day-a-week refit schedule.

Read More

To me, writing up the adventure is half the fun of having it. Sinking the land, being entirely, irretrievably at sea, is like breaking earth’s orbit and entering beautiful, untresspassed, limitless space. It’s not just freeing, it’s exhilarating, and those who have followed my previous passages know this transition tends to light the afterburner on my keyboard.

But for the Figure 8, I’d like to take adventure communications to the next level. I’d like to (please forgive the mixed metaphor) stream from sea.

During this expedition, I’ll be visiting some of the remotest places on the planet, the wild Southern Ocean, the Arctic’s Northwest Passage, places less frequented than the summit of Mount Everest.

And for this attempt, I’m shooting to send back video reports of the voyage as it happens.

Amazingly, this is possible.

Yes, satellite solutions exist that allow small yachts like mine to transmit and even stream video from these remote places. But the technology is expensive, is well beyond my means.

So, I’m excited to announce the launch of a Go Fund Me campaign targeted at allowing you to join me as a “virtual stowaway” on the Figure 8 Voyage.

Want to stay connected to the journey as it unfolds? Please visit my Go Fund Me page below.

Many thanks to the folks at Latitude 38 for their May 2017 feature of the Figure 8 Voyage.

Moli is back at KKMI and is again in pieces. The life raft, the dinghy motor, and the autopilots have all been sent out for overhaul or repair; the fuel tank lids are off in preparation for a good scrub, and the headsails are down, their furling drums disassembled on a bench in the pilot house. Tools and boat parts are scattered everywhere, creating a sense of chaos that could hardly be improved upon by a hand-grenade.

So, when Latitude’s reporter, Tim Henry, came by for a gam, I was sure it would take all the guile I could muster to convince him Mo would ever sail again!

You can judge my success by jumping to page 60 and 61 in the magazine’s electronic version, below, or simply keep scrolling…

Read More

Friday, March 31

The show manager, Jorgen, had been quite clear. “Your vessel will be accepted into the Pacific Boat Show marina before noon on Tuesday, but after that the basin will be closed.” A reasonable enough requirement as I had known about it since the previous January.

But it was now the Friday before that Tuesday, and I had a peculiarly boat-refit kind of problem. After three months of seven-day work weeks, Mo was still in pieces. Read More

This isn’t my first rodeo. It’s my second. I should know better.

The first rodeo was a 31-foot Far East Mariner built in 1972 that my wife and I purchased in the summer of 2001. I liked the boat because she liked the boat, whose interior spaces felt vast next to the 24-footer we’d been using for weekends on San Francisco Bay, and because the ketch rig and full keel reminded me of Moitessier’s Joshua and because it was what we could afford.  Read More

Nothing is quite so sobering as the realization that the Figure 8, this seemingly massive undertaking, this voyage that is a test of imagination (not to mention intellect, physical stamina, and funds), has already been done … and by one’s own boat!

Moli is a rare bird. Her purposeful, stout beauty would be obvious to a baby. But I never would have guessed that first time I Read More

“Faye. Faye! Psst. Wrong envelope.”

—

When not cleaning coffee grounds from the floorboards during last summer’s 7,000-mile shakedown cruise in Moli, I kept myself occupied by shooting passage video.

The exercise was an experiment intended to answer three questions:

1. What is the minimum technology required for video capture at sea? Read More

“I’m looking for a boat named Moli,” said a friend, Burt Richardson, as he stepped up to the KKMI front desk.

“You bet,” said Emmy, “just head to the back of the yard, make a left at the water, and keep an eye out for the covered wagon.”

—

The first order of business on Mo has been largely cosmetic, to refasten the non-skid tread and lay down new deck paint, jobs any novice knows would be better timed for Read More

In the previous post, a critical boat system–coffee making–failed in such dramatic fashion (twice) that, months later, I am still cleaning grounds from between the floor boards. Once home this launched a search for the perfect boat brewer, whose requirements are:

1. Be easy to use in rough weather. Read More

Since the last refit report, I’ve moved Moli two miles up the channel to KKMI, a big, resourceful yard with a sense of humor and a small but practical chandlery that (bless it) requires no driving to get to.

Here the first order of business has been to pull the mast so as to initiate the rerigging project.

The ease with which this operation came off was disheartening and left me nothing whatever to write about. At 10am on a clear morning, two guys in green hard hats clambered aboard and before I could say, “Hold on, what about the…,” the mast had been launched on its way to the cradle.

Read More

Aboard Moli is a small hardbound book titled Rund Amerika, the story of my boat’s initial adventures with then owners, Clark Stede and Michelle Poncini. It’s in German. I can admire the photos, like the one above, but I can’t read a word.

So, I was grateful to receive this week the below Yachting Monthly article from 1991 where Stede/Poncini, in translation, describe their Northwest Passage in Asma.

Read More

WARNING: for several months to come, many of these blogs will wander off into the badlands of boat refitting. My apologies if block-and-tackle-type discussions are not to everyone’s liking, but the work is a necessary prerequisite to minimizing excitement levels during the voyage itself, and writing about them, nearly so.

With the Figure 8’s September of 2017 launch decidedly in view (seems as close as next weekend), the race to the starting line has commenced in earnest, a race that has largely to do with preparing Moli and her skipper for a year at sea.

Read More

The first weeks of flying down the Atlantic were interesting enough (it’s been a year of record times), but only as the boats encountered the difficulties of the Southern Ocean did my interest become acute.

Read More

Once I got her home to San Francisco, the first job on Moli was a quick haul at KKMI in Richmond.

While at anchor in Hanalei Bay the month before, I dove on the hull and found two lengthwise scratches in the new bottom paint so expertly sprayed into place by the guys at Homer Boat Yard.

Read More

The September 25th discovery of abandoned vessel Wavesweeper left me with an interesting mystery whose many clues are outlined in the previous post. At the start of this investigation, I had thought to find a single failure that would lead, step-by-step, to the Wavesweeper disaster, a failure profound enough in itself to seal the boat’s fate. But the evidence does not so neatly resolve, and to my reading no such central clue has emerged. That said, what does emerge is compelling and equally horrific.

To review, the key questions are

• What event(s) disabled Wavesweeper?
• What was done to save the vessel and over what period of time?
• Why was such a well-found vessel (floating on her lines) abandoned?

What event(s) disabled the vessel?

The narrative that sifts from available information suggests that Wavesweeper succumbed to not one but a series of compounding failures precipitated by a knockdown, or knockdowns, events that injured her rig and mechanical systems beyond recovery.

It has been a summer of unusually strong winds in the North Pacific. This is corroborated both by my own experience during the recent Pacific crossings in Moli and by the remarks of racers I met in Hawaii. By way of support, the opening sentence from the 2016 Pacific Cup race results:

Kaneohe, HI, Saturday, July 30, 2016 – The 2016 Pacific Cup will be remembered for the big wind and seas that challenged some racers with broken boats and bodies, but pushed many in the fleet to record-breaking passages.

This wind map shows typical 2016 summer winds, in this case for June 30th, and the red dot is Wavesweeper position on July 15th.

Also characteristic of the year was a generally unstable Pacific high-pressure system, often with multiple centers that bounced around the north and were augmented by frequent lows. A sailor passing through these regions could easily experience multi-directional eight to ten-foot seas and winds to 30 knots, as Wavesweeper reported, and such seas could easily generate the occasional something much larger. On a small boat in such conditions, a knockdown would not be difficult to come by.

Given evidence from the photos and the July 19th report where Wavesweeper’s owner (henceforth referred to as “Skipper”) states, cryptically, that “weather had torn the sails on the vessel’s lower mast,” one can imagine a sequence of events like the following:

• Wavesweeper is in brisk weather and steep seas under a partially reefed genoa and main when a first knockdown fills the headsail with water and parts the furling line. The sail pops open, and before Skipper can release the sheets, it wraps fatally.
• The main also fills; and under such sudden and extreme weight, the halyard parts.
• When Skipper attempts to replace the halyard with the topinglift, another knockdown pulls it from his hands. While the boat is down and the mast is in the water, the line wraps the masthead.
• This second wave shears the pin in the mainsheet shackle, at which point the boom goes over the side. Skipper hasn’t seen that the toppinglift-cum-halyard is now wrapped (like me, he may wear glasses, which have been swept overboard). He retrieves the toppinglift, attaches it to the head of the main and hauls the sail halfway up before the line jams hopelessly, having bound to itself at the masthead.
• Before the second knockdown, Skipper has also readied the staysail, but as the boat is laid over, that halyard becomes fouled in the lower spreaders. No amount of tugging frees it.
• With the jib halyard jammed, the main halyard lost into the mast, the toppinglift bound on itself, and no mast steps, Skipper has no way to get to the masthead to free-up a line, even if weather allowed.
• And without functioning halyards, Wavesweeper’s rig is beyond Skipper’s control. Her genoa is in its death throes, dragging the bow off dangerously at every gust. Skipper attempts to quiet things by cutting the sail down, but above head-height, it simply won’t tear away. Left with only one option for control of his boat, and as a hedge against a third wave, Skipper deploys the drogue.

The above sequence accounts for the state of the vessel as I discovered her, but given scant corroboration, many such scenarios are possible. One could argue, for example, that much of the visible damage occurred after Wavesweeper was abandoned. But my hunch says that’s not the case.

What was done to save the vessel and over what period of time?

To all outside appearances, nothing. In fact, with decks all ahoo–lines tangled or jammed, staysail loose and main and solar panels at odd angles–and no evidence of attempted jury rig, I assumed upon arrival that the scene was fresh; I even thought there might be a person in the water nearby.

Wavesweeper gave the impression that the scene was fresh.

Frustratingly, the two articles describing ship visits do little to clarify interim events. The APL Singapore report from July 15th makes no mention of Wavesweeper’s troubles save that she is short of water. Did Skipper not mention the injury to his rig or how long he’d been out? If not, was the crew not curious enough to ask about damage that was clearly visible? The only clue here is that the water drop was intercepted. If sails were useless at this point, as they must have been, then Wavesweeper still had engine power as of July 15th.

The second report from July 19th adds the mention of sail damage and that the “operator” was “having issues with [the boat’s] engine and batteries and was running low on water.” The jugs on the cabin-top and life rings on the stern rail, which had been retrieved from APL Singapore a mere four days earlier, make that last remark a nonsense, but it is conceivable that during a first or second knockdown, Wavesweeper took enough seawater below to kill her charging system.

For example, a wave down the companionway hatch could have soaked the various regulation devices for the engine, solar panels and wind generator and shorted-out the alternator, all without disabling the batteries or engine. This would explain the solar panels being askew (why bother to align them to the sun if they are no longer useful?) and the secured wind generator.

An inability to produce power would also explain the water shortage. If we assume an early May departure from Mexico and a slow, 100-mile-a-day crossing of the 2,700 miles to Hilo, Hawaii; if we assume a brief, one week stop-over and then a departure to the north in the first week of June, then Wavesweeper could have been underway for only four or five weeks at the time of the first ship intercept.

According to the Reliance specifications, the boat’s original design included 130 gallons of water tankage, enough for a solid four months of passages without rationing. But Wavesweeper’s tankage may not have been built to this spec or may have been modified and supplemented with a watermaker, now useless because Skipper was “having issues with engine and batteries.” With far less water to start with and no way to produce more, a call for potable water would have been of first importance. And that the call was for “30 or 40 gallons” suggests that as of July 15th, Skipper thought he could save his vessel and make landfall.

Why was such a well-found vessel abandoned?

That Wavesweeper floated on her lines 68 days after abandonment makes it tempting to think she was abandoned without cause. But floating is only the half of it; a vessel must also be able to make way. Without functioning sails and lacking the ability to produce power, Wavesweeper was out of options.

Skipper would not have expected to drift ashore in any reasonable time frame. Even if winds were pushing him east while he was aboard, he must have realized that the coast’s prevailing northwesterlies and the increasing number of southerlies would have prevented a close approach based on drift alone.

Even after 68 days of drifting, Wavesweeper was still 600 miles offshore and positioned to trend along the coast for a very long time.

He could not have motored the distance either. The Reliance specifications show fuel tankage at 70 gallons, so that even if Wavesweeper’s engine was operable after the accident (as the water retrieval exercise suggests) and even if he carried extra fuel in jerry cans (there’s no evidence of this), the boat’s range under power would have been insufficient given her position 1,000 miles west of the Columbia River.

What happened, then, in the intervening four days between the call for water and the call for rescue? The attempt to save disabled Wavesweeper, even to simply exist on her after the accidents, must have been deeply fatiguing. Especially after the first knockdown, the rough weather, flogging sails, and waterlogged cabin would have made sleep all but impossible. Could it be that a tired Skipper accidentally and irretrievably foul his own halyards? Or was it that a second knockdown after the water drop did that work, putting further repair beyond his reach?

Whatever the case, by July 19th, Skipper had decided to call it quits. Wavesweeper’s drift was setting her slowly south of the shipping lanes; Skipper knew that if he didn’t act soon, he risked moving forever beyond rescue. He made another call. When OOCL Utah arrived to take him off, his fatigue and feelings overwhelmed his seamanship, and he failed to scuttle now dead Wavesweeper.

—

Hopefully, the above reconstruction reveals more than just my bias, my affinity for a solo sailor who got into trouble where trouble is so easy to come by. One could argue, as my friends have done, that a 70-year old Skipper became overwhelmed early and simply gave up, that he should have continued to fight as long as the vessel floated.

But another conclusion emerges when the evidence is taken in total. Wavesweeper is well-equipped and well-maintained. Her return to the north Pacific comes after several years of cruising and several long, successful passages. When given the first chance to abandon, Skipper chooses to remain aboard and keep fighting. All this suggest a man who knows his business, and I contend that only when Skipper is out of options, out of ways to get Wavesweeper safely to port, does he unwillingly leave her to make her own way on the sea.

On September 25th of this year and during a crossing from Hawaii to the mainland, Moli and I discovered an abandoned yacht named Wavesweeper at a position roughly 600 miles west of the Oregon and California border. Such a find can be soul-rattling, as I reported on this site that same afternoon.

After the there-but-for-the-grace-of-god-go-I feeling subsides, one is left with an interesting mystery whose key questions are

• What event(s) disabled Wavesweeper?
• What was done to save the vessel and over what period of time?
• Why was such a well-found vessel (floating on her lines) abandoned?

What We Know

The day after my initial post on the Wavesweeper find, the story was picked up by 48 North, the sailing magazine for the Pacific Northwest, and run with a query to the community for more information on this Vancouver-based boat. The query netted two reports: a back-page article in West Coast Sailors, the newsletter for the Sailor’s Union of the Pacific, which detailed a tricky and successful water-drop for Wavesweeper by container ship APL Singapore on July 15, 2016 (link/PDF); and a press release from the Coast Guard summarizing the rescue of Wavesweeper’s owner by the container ship OOCL Utah on July 19, 2016 (link/PDF).

Other information gleaned from the community included the vessel’s build and rough itinerary.

A summary of the facts is as follows:

1. The registered name of the vessel is Wavesweeper (one word). She’s a Reliance 37 out of Vancouver, BC.
2. Wavesweeper is last noted in San Blas, Mexico, in late April. At that time her 70-year-old owner, who has been cruising Wavesweeper in the south for several seasons, is in the final stages of preparation for a singlehanded return home.
3. Wavesweeper next pops into the public record on July 15th, when the container ship APL Singapore, enroute San Pedro, California, receives a distress call from her via USCG Juneau, Alaska. The report states the vessel is making for Vancouver from Hawaii, has run low on potable water and requests a drop of 30 or 40 gallons. APL Singapore’s crew gathers six water containers from the ship’s life rafts and tethers them in series with a life ring on each end. The crew lowers this rig into the water from the gangway and notes, “It drifted astern of the ship as the sailboat made way and intercepted it.” The article does not mention APL Singapore’s position nor the cause of the distressed vessel’s need for water.
4. On July 19th, USCG 13th District (Pacific Northwest) contacts the container ship OOCL Utah enroute South Korea with a distress call from Wavesweeper (noted as Sea Sweeper in the press release), then located 990 miles west of the Columbia River. Per the USCG, Wavesweeper states that “weather had torn his sails on the vessel’s lower mast, [and that he] was having issues with [his] engine and batteries and was running low on potable water. During his transit the operator was also battling 30 mph winds and 8-foot seas.” OCCL Utah diverts course and successfully rescues the owner, transporting him to its next port. No mention is made of the water drop on July 15th nor when the adverse weather and sail damage occurred. The report does state that the now disabled vessel lacks an EPIRB and a life raft.

To sum up, Wavesweeper departs San Blas for Hawaii sometime after late April, receives a water drop from the APL Singapore on July 15th while enroute Vancouver and is abandoned when her owner is rescued by OOCL Utah on July 19th.

Note that this information answers none of the key questions listed above, save some portion of the first.

—

My discovery of Wavesweeper on September 25th came 68 days after her abandonment. I would never have guessed this as I drifted nearby, awaiting word from the Coast Guard. In fact, what made my heart pound was how fresh the scene appeared to be. There was no sign of weed on the hull, no dark scum marks on the top-side, no bird droppings on the deck. Most tellingly, she floated on her lines. Only her sails, jib in tatters and main down, boom end dragging in the water, suggested something terrible had occurred.

Why Wavesweeper had been abandoned was not obvious.

Reconstruction of Wavesweeper’s route noting the position of her abandonment and where she was found 68 days later.

What the Photographs Show

Once home, I took a closer look at the photos from that day and made the following discoveries.

Wavesweeper as she first appeared. I had approached from starboard, swung around her stern and was now coasting in on her lee. Note the jib in ribbons and the main half down, boom in the water.

This photo from a closer approach shows that A) the wind generator is not spinning, and the blade position suggests it has been secured, though no lanyard is obvious; B) the air vane for the servo pendulum-type wind vane, possibly a Cape Horn, is in its socket and pushed hard-over by the wind; C) drogue lines trailing from the quarter are slack (they are slack in all my photos).

A full boat shot as I pass under Wavesweeper’s lee. This is a large file. You can open and zoom in as I point to details below.

Note the water jugs and the life rings (D) referenced in the APL Singapore story and that the main sheet has parted from the traveler (E). Also note that the solar panels on the stern arch have been knocked out of alignment. Optimally they would have been tilted slightly aft as Wavesweeper made her northing.

There are several places along the jib foil that suggest the sail has wrapped; the arrow at (F) is one example. The jib trails in the water, and the sail on deck is a staysail (G). The sail appears to be hanked to removable stay (H) clipped to the rail, but is otherwise loose. The Kayak on deck seems not to be secured but is itself the secure-point for another line headed up the mast.

This photo shows the staysail’s head and clew (I). The sheet can be seen running up through a series of blocks (J), the first of which is attached to a staysail traveler (K).

Follow the staysail stay (H) up to its terminus at the upper spreaders and note that it is slack. Now follow the line that’s attached by a red strap to the aft of the kayak (L). This line appears to be the staysail halyard and it appears to be badly fouled in the mast.

This shot from the stern shows a line (M) that has wrapped around the top, starboard spreader. If this is the staysail halyard, the positioning suggests that it has jammed into the spreader-end assembly or around the radar reflector hung just above the spreader.

Perhaps the most intriguing clue is this barely visible line that has wrapped the head of the mast. If the jib halyard is internal, as it appears to be, then this line is either the main halyard or the main topping lift, but how it got this way is an utter mystery.

Any self-respecting detective would have to admit that abandoned Wavesweeper offers a goodly number of clues with which to solve the case, but which of these is the smoking gun?

In the next post I’ll attempt to reconstruct a chain of events …