[PUP] The Evolution of a Long Range Cruiser

[John Marshall]

Great perspective, Phil. I'm just now starting to comprehend how  
vulnerable I am to failures given my "ordinary" spares set. Preparing  
one of these boats for a long passage has only partially to do with  
navigation and weather and general "captaining", but far more  
importantly, its an engineering problem.

One point your Navy background reminds me of... I was attending a two- 
day factory "Captain's" course at ABT TRAC facility in Northern  
California, and one of the guys attending (who was buying a Nordhavn)  
was the captain of a supertanker. He was retiring and he and his wife  
wanted to cruise the world on their own boat.

I thought... ah, ha, here's one of those "old salts" I can learn from.

Surprising, he claimed that his learning curve was going to be as  
steep as the rest of us, and given he didn't have his boat yet, he was  
way behind those of us who are out there. But if I wanted to learn all  
about captaining a supertanker, he was the man!

What it came down to, was that on his monster ship, he was like the  
CEO of a corporation. When something was wrong with the ship, he  
called the Engineer. Navigational issues are dealt with by the Bridge  
crew. Software planned the most economical routes. Weather forecaster  
was handled by professional routers (plus, in a million ton boat,  
standing a hundred feet off the water, sea conditions are regarded  
differently). The list went on and on. He was the ultimate decision  
maker, mostly about nuances of cargo management and the dynamics of  
the oil market and maximizing profit for ships underway (which  
deserves a book of its own). But he didn't have to get his hands dirty.

When it came to becoming self-reliant on a modern, complex trawler  
yacht, he had mostly the same curve to climb as any other new owner.  
His 'gigantic ship' experience (with experts handling every aspect  
except the top-level planning) and his thirty years at sea were not as  
useful as I'd have expected, and might even require a fair bit of  
"unlearning".

Bottom line... the only way to know how to successfully make passages  
under power in small boats is to listen to people who do such  
things... and then do it yourself. No other experience, other than  
perhaps passagemaking under sail, contributes very much to the process.

John Marshall

On Aug 31, 2009, at 9:14 AM, Philip Eslinger wrote:

> First of all, Georgs: PUP is my favorite.  It most specifically  
> addresses exactly what we are doing aboard Flat Earth.  I keep up  
> with the Nordhavn Owners site and Trawlerworld but my posts come  
> here first.  After I got so little reaction to my Pacific Crossing a  
> month ago, I, too, feared it was dead.  The discussion of fouled  
> props , OTOH, created quite a buzz on Trawlerworld.
>
> I am in the same category as John Marshall when it comes to  
> cruisers.  I had owned a 20' ski boat prior to taking delivery of  
> Flat Earth in 2003.  The background was there but not the  
> experience.  I graduated from the Naval Academy some 40 years ago  
> and I spent my career maneuvering large pieces of machinery, some  
> more than 200 tons, around this planet.    Two of the gentlemen who  
> have impressed me the most in the my life have been mentioned here.   
> They fall into the first category that John mentioned:  "The Old  
> Salts"   The first was Scott Fleming down in French Polynesia last  
> year and the second was Dave Cooper.
>
> Polynesia was a true eye opener for the crew of Flat Earth.  We had  
> put some miles on her, but never had much go wrong.  On the way down  
> to Tahiti, a passage of about 2400NM, we had a whole series of pumps  
> fail, some we had spare parts for and some we didn't.  We ended up  
> cruising the last 1200NM without stabilizers or air conditioning and  
> only limited use of the generator.  Why did these parts fail?   
> Heat?  It was just their time?   Getting replacements was a  
> nightmare as Dave Cooper suggests.   Once you leave the confines of  
> civilization, you have to learn to be self sufficient.  And boy, did  
> we learn.  "Overnighted" parts from the US took three weeks to get  
> there.  Then they would be the wrong part (three more weeks) or we'd  
> need another one to complete the repair (three more weeks).
>
> Scott Flanders:   In the middle of all this, Scott and Mary Flanders  
> pulled into our anchorage aboard Egret. Egret had crossed the  
> Atlantic with the NAR, spent a couple of years in the Med., crossed  
> the Atlantic again, down the East Coast of South America, around  
> Cape Horn, up the West Coast of South America, across to the  
> Galapagos, and then to French Polynesia.   Scott had the same  
> generator as us and helped us fix the fresh water pump.  We helped  
> him mount his spare inverter.  I learned from Scott how ignorant I  
> had really been.  Scott had spare parts for EVERYTHING.  He had a  
> spare pump and a rebuild kit for EVERY single pump he had on board.   
> There wasn't an inch of wiggle room down in his engine room because  
> of spare parts.  Scott even had a spare anchor chain snaked around  
> below his engine in the oil drip pan.  I can't imagine how much over  
> gross Egret must be. It is the essence of self sufficiency.  Egret  
> was a huge epiphany for me about how woefully ill-prepared I was.    
> It will take a couple of years to get Flat Earth to the level of  
> preparation  that Scott had Egret.  I'm sure Peter Sheppard is  
> experiencing the lesson we learned in French Polynesia right now.
>
> Dave Cooper: Another "Old Salt".  Dave was nice enough to pay us a  
> visit on a trip to Hawaii.  We had a nice visit and swapped some  
> stories.  Then he asked to see our engine room.  I welcomed the  
> opportunity for such an experienced boated to see out mechanicals.   
> Within two minutes of entering, Dave identified the system that had  
> given us so much trouble in French Polynesia and began discussing  
> solutions without my even mentioning it.  Self sufficiency and  
> experience.  By the way Dave, Rick completely redesigned the system  
> using a double shiev pulley and heavy duty 'B' belts.  It seems to  
> work well now.
>
> Crew:  Dave mentioned the importance of good crew.  He is right and  
> I am blessed.  When my first wife died while waiting for delivery of  
> the boat, my brother agreed to help me run Flat Earth.  Rick is  
> quiet and likes to stay private, but he is an essential piece of  
> equipment aboard Flat Earth.  He is my co-Captain and Engineer.  We  
> each have our own areas of expertise, but without him the job would  
> be infinitely harder.  Scott has Mary Flanders; Dave has Nancy; I  
> have both Jean, my wife now, and Rick.  Without these good crew  
> members, operating and even enjoying these cruising boats would just  
> not be the same.
>
> All of this cruising boils down to not being a spectator in life,  
> but a participant.
>
> Phil Eslinger
> Flat Earth N50
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