By John – Page 9 – Caro Babbo

What Broke This Year — in depth

19-DEC-2019 – This was written last month. It is more depth on what broke than the most recent post.

Manele Bay, Lana’i Island 11-Nov-2019 – We’ve been in Hawaii a month now. It is a stretch to remember what broke on the passage. Things continue to break as others are repaired.

The major items that broke, and as a consequence changed Jennifer’s view of offshore sailing, were the two self-steering devices.

Fifty miles off Cape Flattery, about eight hours after leaving the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the wind vane self-steering broke, literally broke. When the boat went off course, I looked over the transom: the steering oar had broken off and was trailing by its leash.

The transmission weighs about 17 lbs (8kg) and hangs off the transom. The second problem was caused by a dinghy smashing the small shaft upwards forcing a set screw out its detent. The set screw left a small gouge in the shaft.

Continue reading “What Broke This Year — in depth”

What broke when, 2019

Stony Brook Medical Center, Stony Brook, Long Island, NY, 15-DEC-2019 – I’m sitting in my Dad’s hospital room.

We’re in the belly of his recovery. The immediate recoveries have slowed. He is able to move is his right thumb and right index finger. If his right arm is supported, he can flex and extend that arm. He can inconsistently move both his legs a bit. Nothing in left arm. He is beginning to swallow a bit, but can still not move his tongue, nor move his eyes right to left.

More devastatingly, he has dropped into depression becoming difficult to engage. When asked if he thinks he will improve, he says No. He can show his emotions in his face and he cries. This morning during rounds when he started to cry his nurse started to cry, as did his doctor. When his doctor recovered she said to me quietly, he can show emotion, that is a good sign.

Locked In

Rocky Point, NY, 5-DEC-2019 – On a nondescript day in March, 1977, my mother drove towards McCarrick’s Dairy, the local convenience store, three blocks away. As she crossed Prince Road a car on her right ran the stop sign pushing her car into a LILCO light pole that was so far into the road way that the paving crew paved on both sides of the pole.

The impact of the car hitting the pole, together with the twisting force of the car on her right, caused her head to hit the “A” pillar between the windshield and the car door. She severed her spinal cord at ‘‘C4’’, the fourth cervical vertebrae. She was a quadriplegic for thirty-one years.

An Unexpected, Unwanted Flight Home

UA334 HNL-LGA, 1-DEC-2019 – It isn’t often I let down my guard. I have an elderly father, Jennifer has children. We travel with satellite communications so that we can always be reached.

But yesterday, because we had spoken to the kids and my dad, who is the Babbo of Caro Babbo, when everything that was in imminent danger of failing on Caro Babbo was repaired, when both VRBO properties had paying guests and all the airline holiday-season tickets had been booked and paid for, we did relax. Continue reading “An Unexpected, Unwanted Flight Home”

Cascading failures, Repair Story #2

Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor, Honolulu, HI, 25-Nov-2019 — Ever since Jennifer learned that the failures on Caro Babbo are not unusual, she has been reading more about equipment failures while cruising.

The idea of cascading failures has grabbed hold of her and sometimes awakens her from sleep.

Repair stories, #1

Iridium GO, won’t. Yoda saves us.

Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor, Honolulu, Hi, 22-Nov-2019 — For every story of breaking something, there is a story of fixing it. Most repairs on Caro Babbo are solitary endeavors, hopefully carried out on a dock with a reasonably priced chandlery near by. Many are carried out underway, and under pressure. All successful repairs are points of pride.

Bravery, Preparation and Sailing, pt2

Hilo, Hawaii, 10-NOV-2019 – After the preparation and finally leaving, there is being in the place that we’d read about: offshore, no land in sight, and, by some lights, nothing but danger.

As we were repeatedly told by our offshore sailor friends, who have been our biggest fans and supporters, we were now members of the family of Bluewater Sailors. Continue reading “Bravery, Preparation and Sailing, pt2”

Bravery, Preparation and Sailing

Hilo, HI, 9-Nov-2019 — One evening, while we rigged a spinnaker aboard a T-Bird sailing out of Dorchester Harbor in Boston, I confessed to the skipper of the vessel that I was not very physically brave. I could see his face, and he looked at me dumbfounded and said “you sail a T-bird from New York to Boston? If that’s not brave I don’t know what is.”

Life on a Caro Babbo passage, but first…

Hilo, HI 7-nov-2019 — I think I may have redeveloped a caffeine addiction. By 2009, I was up to twelve espresso a day, and then quit, cold turkey. It took two years before I no longer got that heavy dentist’s x-Ray blanket feeling from no caffeine.

The ocean as background

17-oct-2019, 24° 06.53N 138° 27.58W — I think to make this work, this being sailing across large bodies of water, the ocean and the weather must become the background to life… the canvas upon which life is lived, rather that the central uncertainty upon which life hangs.

We have been offshore a total of nineteen days so far this trip.

The first seven days, the segment from neah bay to bodega bay, are a grayed-out trauma, from which we gleaned our readiness and preparation to go offshore. I think time ashore will let us recover that memory.

On this leg we have enough time and continuity that we less fear we will die, than our navigation choices well unduly lengthen the trip. Yet, we are not living life in the context of the trip. The trip is first and foremost in our life. Continue reading “The ocean as background”