Another Mike Hennessy article. I've inserted my comments in red. If you don't see a comment then that means that we're in agreement.
American Michael Hennessy is competing in the 2018 Route du
Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe on his Owen Clarke designed Class40 Dragon.
There were 53 Class40s when the race got underway on November 4, but
hard times has reduced the field to 38 skippers in the class.
Hennessy stands 12th in the solo transatlantic race, and after 15 days of sailing, he discusses a popular topic this week… food:
A question I get a lot is “what do you eat”? The short answer is as many calories as I can in the easiest possible way.
It’s hugely important because every action out here takes energy.
Changing sails, steering, stacking gear, trimming sails, fixing things.
Just standing around takes energy given how much the boat is constantly
moving.
But the solution is actually a more complicated answer because there are a few challenges.
1) Equipment. I don’t have a stove, oven, pots or pans, or a
refrigerator. Not enough room and too much weight. All I have is a
single burner camping stove that is good for boiling water, a Jet Boil. I have a two burner stove so I have a few more options.
2) Weight. Everything is about weight out here. I suppose I could
haul around cans of soup and jars of spam but those are heavy calories
with heavy packaging and we don’t litter out here. If I bring it out
there, I bring it back in. If I'm doing a long race, without crew, I usually have a few cans of vegetables or pasta. With crew I'll carry more "heavy" food.
3) Appetite. I lose my appetite out here. It’s not that things don’t taste good, it’s just that I’m not hungry. Ever. I almost always lose weight during the long races, I forget to eat or I just don't feel like eating. I find all those lost pounds during the off season.
For the latter issue, frankly the only answer is to make sure I
have variety and that it tastes good. Then it is just a matter of
forcing the food into me. For the former, I bring a lot of dried food,
either freeze dried or dehydrated, and then add water. I carry both the
food and the water (If it's a short race, say 150 miles or less, AND I'm expecting a lot of port tack I put water in my water tank, located on the port side, to offset the weight of my diesel tank located on the starboard side. I also carry bottle water because I can crush the bottles after use and recycle them at the finish), and can stack both for weight advantages.
Breakfast is usually either instant oatmeal or granola with powdered milk and water.(Same)
Lunch is often a Ramen noodle, with my favorite Mama Ramen. (I leans towards PB&J sandwiches, but if it's Ramen I go with Maruchan Noodles) I add
these packets of dehydrated vegetables from Packit Gourmet to add to
the noodle mix and amp up the flavor and the calories.
Dinner is usually a package of freeze dried that turns into a
meal when you add boiling water and let it sit for 10 or 15 minutes. The
package is powder and small chopped up pieces of food to make it easier
to reconstitute, and the result is something like a softly chunky mush. (Same)
There are lots of different brands and everyone has their
favorites. I tend to carry meals from Packit Gourmet (chili, gumbo,
chicken and dumplings, Tuscan beef stew) and Mountain House (chili mac,
beef stew, lasagna). (In addition to the above I also use Wise Food)
When it is really rough with lots of boat motion, I try to avoid
boiling water because there is risk of burning yourself when
transferring it from camp stove to food bag. So for the first 10 or 11
days I ate a lot of meals from O Meals. These are fully cooked meals in
pouches, and all you do is add a bit of water with a catalyst pack that
when they get together produce heat that warms the food pouch. It’s
heavier so I don’t use it for all meals, but it is safer.
Snacks include nut/fruit trail mix, dried beef, Clif Bars, chocolate (Almond Snickers and/or Hershey Mini's), and I usually bring fresh fruit.
That’s it, Dragon’s cafeteria plan. What I crave when I get to shore is a steak, big salad with lots of tomatoes and ice cream. (Same, along with butter pecan or chocolate brownie ice cream)
Background: The 11th edition and 40th
anniversary staging of the Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe solo
transatlantic race got underway on November 4. Held ever four years,
this iconic 3,542-nautical mile course takes the record entry of 123
skippers in six divisions – Ultime, Multi 50, Imoca 60, Class 40, Rhum
Multi, and Rhum Mono – from the start off the Brittany port of Saint
Malo (France) to Guadeloupe.
Source: Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Monday, November 19, 2018
One Of My Favorite Pictures (It's the background if you haven't noticed)
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
A Late Night Adventure
Another Mike Hennessy post. I love his style of writing and I think that most anyone that races single-handed can relate to what he's going through. ( https://www.dragonoceanracing.com/single-post/2018/11/14/A-Late-Night-Adventure )
November 14, 2018
November 14, 2018
"It's
30 minutes into the new day, according to Universal, or Zulu, time.
You use Zulu because it makes as much sense as anything. All
you know is that it has been dark for several hours, and will be dark for several more.
You just woke up from a nap, and are worried. Earlier in the day you fetched fresh weather files from an electronic bird way up in space and loaded them into the navigation software running on your computer. They told you that your location was going to get rolled by the bottom of yet another low over the course of the night. You check both the euro and the USA files, and yep, they agree. Or at least they mostly agree about the next 48 hours.
The wind is going be from the southwest, they say. Coming from where you want to go, but they tell you that you can and should go west or
just north of west, beating into the bottom of the low. Then, as you head towards the low and it heads towards you, at some point the winds
will shift. They will swing from the south west to the west, then they will swing to the north west. And that is when you want to tack the boat, turn left and start sailing out of the low.
The French even have a term for it, translating as the "sea gull's wing". Of course it sounds sexier when said in French, because the French can make any thing sound sexy. But they call it that because the shape of your track as you curve into the low, punctuated by the point where you tack, followed the shape of the curve of reciprocal track as you leave the bottom of the low. It looks like the outline of the gull and their wings.
So that's just a bunch of exposition so I can avoid reliving the bad bits of this story. Where was I?
you know is that it has been dark for several hours, and will be dark for several more.
You just woke up from a nap, and are worried. Earlier in the day you fetched fresh weather files from an electronic bird way up in space and loaded them into the navigation software running on your computer. They told you that your location was going to get rolled by the bottom of yet another low over the course of the night. You check both the euro and the USA files, and yep, they agree. Or at least they mostly agree about the next 48 hours.
The wind is going be from the southwest, they say. Coming from where you want to go, but they tell you that you can and should go west or
just north of west, beating into the bottom of the low. Then, as you head towards the low and it heads towards you, at some point the winds
will shift. They will swing from the south west to the west, then they will swing to the north west. And that is when you want to tack the boat, turn left and start sailing out of the low.
The French even have a term for it, translating as the "sea gull's wing". Of course it sounds sexier when said in French, because the French can make any thing sound sexy. But they call it that because the shape of your track as you curve into the low, punctuated by the point where you tack, followed the shape of the curve of reciprocal track as you leave the bottom of the low. It looks like the outline of the gull and their wings.
So that's just a bunch of exposition so I can avoid reliving the bad bits of this story. Where was I?
Oh
yeah...worried. I had done my part, followed the instructions and
sailed into the low. And let's face it, as lows in this race go it was
an under achiever. Maybe steady 25 knots and gusts to 35. Except
(insert pregnant pause) the sea state. It was filthy, wretched and
vile.
Dragon was being man handled like a shopper at Best Buy on Black Friday. Bullied like a school boy. A particularly unpopular one at that. Some waves would roll under you and reach your center axis at which point the bow would pivot down to slap into the water with a dull percussive BOOM. Others the boat would be moving fast enough that the whole wave gets past the boat, leaving it hanging in air until gravity takes over and drops her about 4 feet with a SLAM. Those are teeth rattlers. But the worst are when you feel the boat's bow go down and your body rises off of what ever you are perched on as the boat goes into free fall off of a wave. 6 feet down, and the hull is stopped
by the water 's surface while everything else on or in the boat tries to continue to fall. Those are the ones where you can feel the after
shock as the mast and keel waggle in opposition to one another, as you bang around like a ping pong ball and wonder if the boat is going to
come apart and sink 13,000 feet to the closest dirt.
So that is the story. It's dark, we've been headed this direction for while, it's howling and entirely unpleasant and you are waiting for a shift that is overdue. And waiting. And waiting.
It wants to shift. The wind has definitely turned and your first wing is starting to trace a bit of a curve. But you've been do in this for hours. And it hurts. And you know you have lots of race left that you need a boat for.
So you make the call for the tack. At this point it's a routine. You move the gear below, and you have an order for it. It's hard and hot
work, and you build a sweat up inside the full kit you are wearing. You do it by the light your head lamp, dim because you need new batteries but you have not changed them out yet because this race is taking longer than expected and you don't want to run out of batteries
So the last thing you do when you leave cabin is set up the gate valves to transfer the two tanks of ballast water. And up on deck you go.
It's a malestorm. The wind's howl hits you full on, the deck is moving every which way under your feet and water is everywhere. Wind driven
spray, waves, rain. Water is everywhere, and you keep having to wipe it out of your eyes to see what you need to do.
Run through your check list in your head and do it. New runner on leave handle on winch, open clutch on old runner, load new sheet on
winch, move bagged A5 from old windward rail to cockpit.
Pause. Got cotton mouth, exertion, or fear that always creeps up when doing a move at night in a blow? Move forward. Pull the two handles
that let the water ballast transfer. Count 15. Drop handles. Boat is on its ear with all the weight to leeward. Turn off pilot. Swing tiller over. Release old sheet from winch, hold in hand. Leap across cockpit. Blow old runner. Release old sheet. Haul in new sheet. IT WON'T MOVE.
Jib is flogging like mad and won't stop until you can figure out what is wrong and fix it.
Boat is over on the new tack but without a jib wants to go head to wind. Can't let that happen. Push tiller over further to get to broad reach. Put on pilot. Pull sheet. IT WON'T MOVE.
Look forward with dim light. Curse battery frugality. Let go sheet. Crab-walk up deck. Think about all the ways this trip up deck can go wrong. You have got your vest and tether on because you promised, but they feel like weak armour against the elements. Get to mast. ....the sheets and one other line are tied into a knot around the mast winch. Knots, actually. Like a evil Boy Scout with bad skills had been to work.
Sail is flogging like mad, cracking the air around you, sheets flailing like whips. Every flog pulling the knots tighter. Grab the twisted sheets several feet forward of winch to create slack to untie knot. Immediately get pulled off feet. Recalibrate. Brace knee on mast. Grab sheet with left hand. Sheets loosen and tighten and yank and whip your hands arms head with every flog. One head shot feels like a hammer. Desperately yank, pull and plead with knot. Gradually loosen. It's free. Crab walk back to cockpit. Grind on new sheet. Sail actually
starts to do its job.
Pause. Pause. Pause.
Back forward to finish clean up, back aft and move A5 bag to new windward rail and decide another reef in the main. Open halyard, drop main, grind on new leech reef line. Open Cunningham clutch. Crabwalk to mast. Set Cunningham on new luff talk. Crab-walk back. Grind on Cunningham. Trim main.
Pause. Pause. Pause.
Boat is on the new tack, moving smoothly and a bit more calm. Clean up the cockpit lines and go below to assess the damage. I am soaked,
sweat from within, rain and waves from without. I am parched. Every wound on my hands from the past week is reopened and some new ones added - I am bleeding. I am grateful, because that could have ended much worse.
And smiling, because as I change the batteries in my head lamp, the shift comes. Now I am pointing properly SW and reaching out of the
low. Not even beating any longer - the first time since the start."
Dragon was being man handled like a shopper at Best Buy on Black Friday. Bullied like a school boy. A particularly unpopular one at that. Some waves would roll under you and reach your center axis at which point the bow would pivot down to slap into the water with a dull percussive BOOM. Others the boat would be moving fast enough that the whole wave gets past the boat, leaving it hanging in air until gravity takes over and drops her about 4 feet with a SLAM. Those are teeth rattlers. But the worst are when you feel the boat's bow go down and your body rises off of what ever you are perched on as the boat goes into free fall off of a wave. 6 feet down, and the hull is stopped
by the water 's surface while everything else on or in the boat tries to continue to fall. Those are the ones where you can feel the after
shock as the mast and keel waggle in opposition to one another, as you bang around like a ping pong ball and wonder if the boat is going to
come apart and sink 13,000 feet to the closest dirt.
So that is the story. It's dark, we've been headed this direction for while, it's howling and entirely unpleasant and you are waiting for a shift that is overdue. And waiting. And waiting.
It wants to shift. The wind has definitely turned and your first wing is starting to trace a bit of a curve. But you've been do in this for hours. And it hurts. And you know you have lots of race left that you need a boat for.
So you make the call for the tack. At this point it's a routine. You move the gear below, and you have an order for it. It's hard and hot
work, and you build a sweat up inside the full kit you are wearing. You do it by the light your head lamp, dim because you need new batteries but you have not changed them out yet because this race is taking longer than expected and you don't want to run out of batteries
So the last thing you do when you leave cabin is set up the gate valves to transfer the two tanks of ballast water. And up on deck you go.
It's a malestorm. The wind's howl hits you full on, the deck is moving every which way under your feet and water is everywhere. Wind driven
spray, waves, rain. Water is everywhere, and you keep having to wipe it out of your eyes to see what you need to do.
Run through your check list in your head and do it. New runner on leave handle on winch, open clutch on old runner, load new sheet on
winch, move bagged A5 from old windward rail to cockpit.
Pause. Got cotton mouth, exertion, or fear that always creeps up when doing a move at night in a blow? Move forward. Pull the two handles
that let the water ballast transfer. Count 15. Drop handles. Boat is on its ear with all the weight to leeward. Turn off pilot. Swing tiller over. Release old sheet from winch, hold in hand. Leap across cockpit. Blow old runner. Release old sheet. Haul in new sheet. IT WON'T MOVE.
Jib is flogging like mad and won't stop until you can figure out what is wrong and fix it.
Boat is over on the new tack but without a jib wants to go head to wind. Can't let that happen. Push tiller over further to get to broad reach. Put on pilot. Pull sheet. IT WON'T MOVE.
Look forward with dim light. Curse battery frugality. Let go sheet. Crab-walk up deck. Think about all the ways this trip up deck can go wrong. You have got your vest and tether on because you promised, but they feel like weak armour against the elements. Get to mast. ....the sheets and one other line are tied into a knot around the mast winch. Knots, actually. Like a evil Boy Scout with bad skills had been to work.
Sail is flogging like mad, cracking the air around you, sheets flailing like whips. Every flog pulling the knots tighter. Grab the twisted sheets several feet forward of winch to create slack to untie knot. Immediately get pulled off feet. Recalibrate. Brace knee on mast. Grab sheet with left hand. Sheets loosen and tighten and yank and whip your hands arms head with every flog. One head shot feels like a hammer. Desperately yank, pull and plead with knot. Gradually loosen. It's free. Crab walk back to cockpit. Grind on new sheet. Sail actually
starts to do its job.
Pause. Pause. Pause.
Back forward to finish clean up, back aft and move A5 bag to new windward rail and decide another reef in the main. Open halyard, drop main, grind on new leech reef line. Open Cunningham clutch. Crabwalk to mast. Set Cunningham on new luff talk. Crab-walk back. Grind on Cunningham. Trim main.
Pause. Pause. Pause.
Boat is on the new tack, moving smoothly and a bit more calm. Clean up the cockpit lines and go below to assess the damage. I am soaked,
sweat from within, rain and waves from without. I am parched. Every wound on my hands from the past week is reopened and some new ones added - I am bleeding. I am grateful, because that could have ended much worse.
And smiling, because as I change the batteries in my head lamp, the shift comes. Now I am pointing properly SW and reaching out of the
low. Not even beating any longer - the first time since the start."
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
Tacking and Gybing and Cursing
This was written by Mike Hennessy, a Class 40 racer currently racing single-handed in the Route du Rhum. Anyone that has done any single-handed long distance racing knows exactly what he's talking about.
For
those of you who are new to this sailing thing, one of the truths about
physics and the wind is that you can’t sail straight into the wind, and
you can’t sail with the wind coming straight from behind you. Think
about your hand when you stick it out of the window of your car. If you
tilt it up or down, the hand moves. If you keep it perfectly flat,
pointed into the air rushing down the side of the car, you hand stays
put.
For sailing, it’s the
same deal. We have to be at an angle to the wind to move forward. If
we are going upwind (wind in our face) we need to be at least 40 degrees
or so away from the direction of the wind. If we are going down wind
(wind at our back), then we need to be about 25 degrees away from the
direction of the wind.
But
if the wind is either blowing from or to exactly where we want to go,
then we have to zig zag our way towards that destination, sailing for a
while in a direction that is 25 to 40 degrees away from the real
destination, then flopping over and sailing 25 to 40 degrees away from
the real destination but on the other side of it. Each time you flop
over, you are still moving in the general direction of where you need to
get to, but you have to keep flopping from one side to the other to
avoid going too far out of your way.
If you are going upwind, that flopping is known as
“tacking”. If you are going downwind, that flopping is known as
“Gybing”. I have no idea where those words came from or why they are
different if you are going upwind versus downwind, so if you do have a
clue please share.
At the moment, we happen to be
doing a bunch of tacking / gybing. If you are checking us out on the
tracker, you see a lot of zig zags in our course. What’s involved? I am
so glad you asked.
- Decide you need to tack or gybe
- Check the horizon for traffic in the new direction you are going to be headed after the maneuver
- Clean up the sheets so the old ones will run free when you release them, and the new ones are loaded and ready to be hauled in
- Move the cabin stack, a total of 190.5 kg (419.1 lbs) of gear from one side of the boat to the other. Strap it down so it stays in place.
- Take a drink of water and curse your fate
- Move 140.6 kg (309.3 lbs) of sails on deck from the high side to the cockpit.
- Drink another slug of water and curse some more
- Open the outside gate valves on the water ballast system, both sides of the boat. This won’t cause the water ballast to drain from one side of the boat to the other yet, but it sets the stage for it.
- Center up the traveler on the main sail. The main sail centered up is going to make the boat twitchy and the pilot is going to be working harder to keep her sailing straight, so right about here is when you start to enter the danger zone.
- Bone on the new runner, the one on the side the wind is going to be coming from after you flop over so your mast stays upright. This is an important one… losing your mast is very slow.
- Check the horizon for traffic. Don’t want to get run over.
- Tack the water ballast by pulling the last two handles up and counting to about 15. Savor every second of rest.
- Now it is all going to happen really quickly. The boat is going to hate all that weight on the wrong side and you are firmly in the danger zone. The higher the wind speed, the greater the danger. Making a mistake in the next 8 steps could seriously damage the boat, or you. Run through it all again in your mind to make sure you did not miss something in your exhaustion, take a deep breath and….
- Turn the boat to the new heading
- Quickly blow the old runner so it runs free and won’t keep the main from dropping down.
- Without tripping all over the stacks of sails in the cockpit, tack the head sail from the old side to the new side
- Grind on the head sail to the new board.
- Ask yourself if maybe you picked the wrong sport
- Grind on new runner
- You are panting now, with barely enough oxygen in your lungs to gasp out one last curse
- Drop the main sail down to a more forgiving angle and prevent the boat from catastrophically rounding up. You are finally leaving the danger zone.
- Adjust course to optimal angle
- Check the horizon for traffic. Getting run over is even slower than losing your mast. Terminally so.
- Trim the head sail, little tweaks to get it set perfectly
- Trim the main sail for the same optimization. Grimace because you know what is next.
- Move the 140.6 kg (309.3 lbs) of sails from the cockpit up to the new windward rail and tie down. You are too tired to curse at this point.
- Close the water ballast gate valves.
- Top off the water ballast for any lost water.
- Take a nap
Easy peasy, lemon squeezey. Hope you guys are having fun back home.
You can follow Mike at: Dragon Ocean Racing (https://www.dragonoceanracing.com/?fbclid=IwAR2OeySlugFup5tJiH7g7zIG974WWK8e60J_zFq8MM_zeQObdw5xx5MW1Kk)
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Winter is Coming
Tuesday, September 11, 2018
Chicago to St Joseph, MI Race - Tri State Regatta
Storm front moving over Chicago and onto the course. More bark than bite, but it put on quite the light show with all of the lightning. It was reported that a boat, Fantome, south of us was hit by lightning. All crew are OK. (photo courtesy of WGN)
Leaving Chicago for the start.
Lazy sailing before the start.
Making our way to the starting area in the distance. 105 boats registered.
David S. started the race. He and Tricia R. drove the entire race and did a fantastic job.
The 2018 Tri-State Regatta turned out
to be a 59 mile (51 NM) drag race. It was dry, it rained, we had
light air, we had 32 kts, lots of lightning, clearing sky's, flat
seas, and chop....we had a little of everything. We ended up
finishing fourth, and the best way to have improved our results would
have been to have had a #1 genoa. Which we didn't. So as a buddy of
mine, Joe, has said, “you make the best of what you have,” and we
did.
We finished at 2:24 in the morning
which I believe is the fastest Tri-State (Chicago to St Joseph, MI)
that I've ever done.
The crew consist of myself, David S.
Nathan J, Tricia R, Mike and Charlie L
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