Hecate Strait: Advance Class in Feeding The Fishes

An unnamed cove west of Welcome Harbour, BC, 13-JUN-2018 – We’ve crossed Hecate Strait twice now. Jennifer says it’s not too bad this second time. In the past she is thought of this as the worst possible thing that could happen. Now, she tells me you just vomit and get it over with, again and again and again. No pictures in this post, the waves are never as impressive in pictures as they are on the water, and the rest of the activities we engaged in are not pleasant to watch.

Hecate Strait, we were told by more than one person, is the fifth most dangerous body of water in the world. It is quite shallow, generally less than 80 feet, winds of 50 knots are not uncommon nor are four meter waves.

You pick your weather carefully.

The winds generally run either north or south, the length of the strait. If there is much wind, the waves are very steep and oftentimes quite confused.

So, because we’re crossing the strait, the waves are abeam or nearly abeam.

It is unpleasant in even the largest of vessels. The crossing itself is between fifty and sixty nautical miles. The two times we’ve done it the winds have been between fifteen and thirty knots.

I have to admit, with practice, the seasickness is not as bad or as lingering as it is as a novice.

As everyone describes, the seasickness produces an intense lethargy and a desire to sleep. Jennifer and I find ourselves nodding off.

In Queen Charlotte City and Sandspit, we met the people who live in these tiny outposts at the end of the world. At the marina, except for visiting yachts, we only met men.

We spoke for a while with Lohn (yes, with an L) who was covered in what I think of as jailhouse tattoos. He and other men we met deserve a post each themselves, something I owe them. They were not the men Jennifer and I normally meet in our lives. For the most part they’ve had jobs, not careers, lives in hard work and raised families, and now we meet them living alone on boats.

Our big-city, university-educated, well-spoken selves have to put some effort into listening to what they say with serious credence. They are experts in their areas.

When we were speaking with Lohn about crossing the strait the second time, we told him the wind would be from the southeast and we should be able to just reach across. He replied that most people think that, but the wind will be much more on our nose than we would expect.

We nodded and listened, and then looked at the map of the wind, and it was clear to us that a close reach would take us across to Larsen Harbor.

Once in the strait, it became apparent that we would need to beat to Larsen Harbour across 50 miles of unhappy water. Our course made good would be to 3 kn if we were lucky, meaning it was plainly not doable in daylight hours, and it doesn’t get dark here until 11 PM.

Jennifer looked at the course we could make good close hauled and picked Welcome Harbor, which Lohn had suggested, for where we would end up. We set the sails close hauled and off we went.

Generally, CaroBabbo will hold course close hauled all by herself. Most fin keelers will. But with these waves, no soap. After an hour or so, the wind clocked around, and we found ourselves on a close reach. The electric auto helm can’t handle this. The best it could do was a yaw that was probably close to forty degrees, but the course made good was a straight line to where we wanted to go.

With the lethargy, and the apathy that comes along with it, taking hold, I was very content to allow the auto helm to get us were needed to go. The wind continued to pick up, probably averaging 18 kn with gusts to twenty-five. It was time to reef, but I did not. Instead I left a full sail up and found that we were averaging something a small amount over hull speed.

This was something to think about. Have I been reefing too early?

We hammered along at an average speed of about 7.6 knots, with bursts over 8.0.* Between bouts of vomiting, Jennifer and I would each nod off. My dreams were only seconds long and the written signs and labels that populate my dreams never flashed long enough for me to read them accurately. The predominant colors were rust red, black, and brown.

As the wind continued to build, CaroBabbo was finally beginning to have trouble staying on her feet and there could be no case made, no matter how specious, for not reefing.

I put in two reefs, CaroBabbo came back up on her feet, but lost half a knot. But, we were still clipping along at 7 knots on a 31 foot boat, so we have no complaints.

Shelter from the wind and waves was less than an hour away. Our sea sickness subsided in anticipation of smooth water. We fell off onto a broad reach without removing the reefs and still made six knots in the smoother water with lesser winds. We hardened up as we turned right across the top of the island. The wind picked up to probably 15 kn, but the water was lake flat with small wavelets.

To get to our anchorage required beating to windward. Neither Jennifer nor I could be bothered. Jennifer bled the engine, started it, and after I doused the sails, we motored an hour to our anchorage: very good holding in clay and mud, protected from the winds and waves.

For dinner, we had popcorn followed by a light soup. Then we slept.

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* Hull speed is 1.34 * Sqrt(LWL in ft). Load water line on Caro Babbo is 25.75. Hull speed should be 6.8, but we regularly exceed this in water where we believe we have no current. Either Caro Babbo is easily pushed past her hull speed, or there is current where we believe there is none.

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