Engine issue, electrical and battery charging challenges, sleep deprivation, and crew drama seem like the norm with an ocean passage on a small boat with strangers. My recent offshore passage from St. Martin to Bermuda was no different. The Catalina 470 was a beautiful yacht for the passage. We were an experienced 3-man crew to sail and take round-the-clock watches as we headed almost due north for this May, 850-miles passage.
I flew into St. Martin on a Friday, arriving on the runway made famous by YouTube. This runway, only a few yards from a beautiful beach, gets blasted with plane prop-wash during each landing or takeoff. The beach goers photograph airplanes one minute and then roll across the beach as they are blown away by the gale force winds from jet engines.
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The inside of the boat was huge. Comfy reclining bucket seats on the starboard side and the galley table dropped down to make practically a king size bed. It all felt rather extravagant. Not surprisingly, it was tough to negotiate this enormous cabin every time the boat heeled. Handholds were rare. Lunging across the salon to get to my bunk in the bow was always a thrill. Luckily I never landed on any sleeping crew. While there may have been some drawbacks to the size of this luxurious boat, it also allowed for 200-gallon fresh water tankage and 80 gallons of diesel. Both extremely essential on an ocean passage.
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The deck and cockpit with dual helm stations were nicely laid out with lots of room to move around. All lines led to the cockpit with an electric self-tailing winch on the coach roof, roller furling main and head-sail. We also got plenty of shade from the dodger and bimini. Electronics were pretty standard: Raymarine chartplotter (qty 2), AIS, auto-pilot (rock solid), RADAR (never used), a GlobalStar Satellite Phone, and SPOT tracker. Tony, the boat owner had done a great job prepping the boat for our passage. He was experienced with blue water sailing and knew the drill: we prepared for the worst and hoped for the best. We had spare fuel, lots of extra bottled water, new EPIRB, life-raft, jacklines, tethers for our harnesses, and much more.
The first red flag of our trip came the moment I boarded the boat. I noticed 2 generators, spare group 27 batteries stashed in lockers, lithium jump starting batteries, chargers and other odd quantities of battery gear. Something was telling me to expect electrical problems. I would not be disappointed.
The follow morning we provisioned the boat with food for the 3 of us to last 8 days. St. We loaded up on lots of fresh fruit, veggies, eggs, and snacks. We planned for cold cuts for lunches and pasta dishes for dinners. Tony was generous to ensure his crew was happy.
We needed to be off the dock at Porto Cupecoy Marina by 3pm sharp in order to pass through 2 swing bridges during their limited opening schedule.
The first red flag of our trip came the moment I boarded the boat. I noticed 2 generators, spare group 27 batteries stashed in lockers, lithium jump starting batteries, chargers and other odd quantities of battery gear. Something was telling me to expect electrical problems. I would not be disappointed.
The follow morning we provisioned the boat with food for the 3 of us to last 8 days. St. We loaded up on lots of fresh fruit, veggies, eggs, and snacks. We planned for cold cuts for lunches and pasta dishes for dinners. Tony was generous to ensure his crew was happy.
We needed to be off the dock at Porto Cupecoy Marina by 3pm sharp in order to pass through 2 swing bridges during their limited opening schedule.
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Within 2 hours of leaving the dock and navigating the bridges, we were out in open waters crossing the Anguilla Channel. With winds out of the East we needed to navigate around the island of Anguilla before setting a due north course for Bermuda. With the SPOT beacon we sent location updates to family and friends every 6 hours. The SPOT also forwarded lat/lon information to a cool tracking website called www.ocens.net. By evening, we were well on our way. Darkness crept up, the moon was just a few days from full and the winds out of the east were a perfect direction to let the boat steer itself with autopilot at about 7 knots. We established a strict watch system at night from 8pm to 8 am. With 3 crew on the boat, we each took a 4-hour time slot. Tony took the 8pm-midnight slot, John volunteered for the dog watch of midnight to 4am and I took care of 4am to 8am. During the day, one of us was always in the cockpit as there were no assigned watches. It worked out great and I loved my watch. I took a cockpit shower at dawn each morning while everyone else slept. It was a great way to start my day. Later in the trip I offered to swap watches but everyone was happy with theirs.
The second red flag came when I noticed that the 2 bow and 1 stern navigation lights were wrapped in saran wrap. I thought I had seen everything but this was a new one. I forgot to get a photo, but yes, each fixture was wrapped with a few layers of that wrap. Apparently the lights were loose and leaked as the wrap kept them secured in place and protected them from potential waves splashing up on the pulpits. I also learned that the navigation lights used 75 watts (3 x 25 watt bulbs) of power and the boat's electrical system didn’t have the capacity to run the lights all night without our autopilot eventually shutting down when power got low. So ... we ran the engine. All night long. And ... in order to start the engine, we had to start one of the 2 generators first to provide enough cranking power to turn the 75hp engine over. If neither generator started, we had the lithium jump start batteries and other backup options. Now things started to get interesting.
The second red flag came when I noticed that the 2 bow and 1 stern navigation lights were wrapped in saran wrap. I thought I had seen everything but this was a new one. I forgot to get a photo, but yes, each fixture was wrapped with a few layers of that wrap. Apparently the lights were loose and leaked as the wrap kept them secured in place and protected them from potential waves splashing up on the pulpits. I also learned that the navigation lights used 75 watts (3 x 25 watt bulbs) of power and the boat's electrical system didn’t have the capacity to run the lights all night without our autopilot eventually shutting down when power got low. So ... we ran the engine. All night long. And ... in order to start the engine, we had to start one of the 2 generators first to provide enough cranking power to turn the 75hp engine over. If neither generator started, we had the lithium jump start batteries and other backup options. Now things started to get interesting.
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For the next few days our passage went totally smooth. With winds 12-18 knots from the East, we maintained a very consistent 170nm each day and were making excellent progress. Eventually we went without navigation lights at night and didn't run the engine in order to charge batteries. However, as John, the other crew was not comfortable sailing all night without navigation lights, tension was building between him and Tony.
Around day 4 we suddenly had all sorts of power issues. My suspicions about electrical issues continued to come to fruition. We had no power to start the engine and even after starting a generator, we could not start the engine. Obviously, the only reason for the generators was to get the engine going. Tony relied on the engine to charge the system and he relied on the generators to start the engine. However, even with the generators running, running, the engine would not turn over. So, we ended up wiping out spare batteries and jump start batteries only to not start the engine anyway. Sweat dripping everywhere from anxiously working in the cabin, we took a break to gather our thoughts. An hour later Tony worked his magic as he connected batteries directly to the engine with a remote starter switch. The engine fired up. We were about 200 miles from Bermuda.
We slowed our progress to time our entry through the cut at Saint George harbor perfectly. We arrived at the Spit buoy at 6am as the sun began to rise. I motored our craft through and to the concrete wall to tie up at the immigration building at about 7am. In just a little over 6 full days, we arrived in record time to beautiful Bermuda.
Around day 4 we suddenly had all sorts of power issues. My suspicions about electrical issues continued to come to fruition. We had no power to start the engine and even after starting a generator, we could not start the engine. Obviously, the only reason for the generators was to get the engine going. Tony relied on the engine to charge the system and he relied on the generators to start the engine. However, even with the generators running, running, the engine would not turn over. So, we ended up wiping out spare batteries and jump start batteries only to not start the engine anyway. Sweat dripping everywhere from anxiously working in the cabin, we took a break to gather our thoughts. An hour later Tony worked his magic as he connected batteries directly to the engine with a remote starter switch. The engine fired up. We were about 200 miles from Bermuda.
We slowed our progress to time our entry through the cut at Saint George harbor perfectly. We arrived at the Spit buoy at 6am as the sun began to rise. I motored our craft through and to the concrete wall to tie up at the immigration building at about 7am. In just a little over 6 full days, we arrived in record time to beautiful Bermuda.
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