Of course not..... but nothing replaces seat time or experience. Many do great things late in life, starting late in life. Also he is not talking about racing in this thread.
Of course not..... but nothing replaces seat time or experience. Many do great things late in life, starting late in life. Also he is not talking about racing in this thread.
Here are a few on my shelf - available to loan to any SSS member.
117 Days Adrift - Bailey
500 Days - Serge Testa (post voyage served a stint as live-in manager at Berkeley YC)
A Voyage for Madmen - Peter Nichols
A World of My Own - Know-Johnston
Alone Through the Roaring Forties - Raban
Classic Sailing Stories - McCarthy
Close to the Wind - Pete Goss
Desperate Voyage - Caldwell
Fatal Storn - Mundle
Fastnet, Force 10 - Rousmaniere
Gipsy Moth Circles the World - Chichester
Godforesaken Sea - Lundy
In the Heart of the Sea - Philbrick
Mine's Bigger - Kaplan
My Old Man and the Sea - Hays
N by E - Kent
North to the Night - Simon
Rough Water - Chris Willis
Saved - Tony Bullimore
Sailing Alone Around the World - Slocum
South - Ernest Shackleton
Taking on the World - Ellen McArthur
The Hungry Ocean - Greenlaw
The Loneliest Race - Gelder
The Long Way - Bernard Moitessier
The Proving Ground - Knecht
Two Years Before the Mast - Dana (cool 1st edition I found in Portland - I have a 2nd copy to loan)
I left out anything Tristan Jones - cause I wanted to keep it to non-fiction
Selling the Dream - Guy Kawasaki (couldn't hurt)
Of all these ... which 3 do you suggest to start with for a circumnavigation. I like books that speak of the pragmatic aspects of the preparation and sailing, with a fast boat. I fee like I've read enough books about boats going slow in storms, but maybe not ...
Also I recall you saying Anasazi Girl wasn't worth the $100,000 with the smaller alloy mast. Why? What's it worth then?
One more thing ... None of these VG guys are doing these races alone ... It's teams of 10-20, all pros in their field.
Unlike my preparation for the SHTP I think I will go silent on this stuff. There doesn't seem to be a point in documenting my trials. Thanks for the few encouraging words and coconut ice cream incentive.
Best to contact me on my email going forward, which is my forum handle at Hotmail dot com. Not that I anticipate a need for this.
Out ...
Hi, sorry I just ran across this thread as I thought it went dormant a while back. Feels like it has taken somewhat of a difficult turn.
As I think about the journey and prepare Sparrow, it really is an entirely different deal than the SHTP & Return. Boat preparation is much more than I had originally anticipated, and you have to know the systems deeply because most marine technicians don't have to for the coastal boats they typically work on. And there is no one else to fix things along the way. As was pointed out earlier, knowledge of all these systems does indeed take interest, a certain type of mind, and time to acquire.
I will say that having a boat fast enough that can at least position itself to avoid the worst of the weather systems is a faster and more comfortable way to go. But for this money from somewhere is needed. Money is an issue in this game. Everything is expensive. I've had to wait until quite late in life to be able to get serious about this.
Having a full keel, slower boat that just gets rolled by weather systems seems inelegant, and I wish the GGR boats fair winds.
I will be leaving from SF & head for the island of Hawaii to gain the miles for an "official" circumnavigation. This allows for at least some comparison of my efforts to those in 50 footers that leave from the North Atlantic, both historically and in the future.
BobJ - I hope it's OK to say, but this makes me sad.
The WSSRC confirmed that there is no location on the US West Coast that makes the distance long enough if you go straight to Cape Horn. I made the suggestion that if I kept the island of Hawaii to Port outbound would it be long enough and they confirmed that it was. It's not a bad sail to Hawaii, obviously and if a problem occurs early on there is a clear bail-out point. Downside is the serious wind shadow behind Hawaii's big volcanoes.
I smell a rat. Jeanne Socrates intends to depart Oct.1 for solo RTW, apparently believing Victoria to Victoria is sufficient miles to comply with WSSRC requirement of 21,600 nm.
In a recent e-mail to John Reed, Secretary of the WSSRC, inquiring as to possible ports of departure for RTW attempts, his reply was "No, I afraid that I cannot help. Our remit is to verify record claims under sail and our workings are confidential." I'm surprised you were able to glean that rounding the Big Island of Hawaii suffices for increased distance.
By WSSRC's interpretation of RTW distance, by my measurement, the GC mileage from SF to Cape Horn direct is 7216 nm. The required mileage around Antarctica at 63 degrees is 27.24 nm x 360 = 9806 nm.
And the return distance to SF is again 7216 nm. That totals 24,238 nm, more than sufficient without going to Hawaii first...
If going to Hawaii is felt necessary to give the required distance, a perhaps faster and more direct alternative would be to round Hawaii on the return rather than outbound. Just my 2 cents. Good Sailing!
Hmmm.
First, it could be that leaving from/returning to Victoria provides enough distance, I don't know. I don't have interest in leaving from Canada as I'm unware that anyone has left the USA and made it non-stop, unassisted, so I'm hoping to be the first.
Second, Mr. Reed confirmed my proposed route meets their distance requirements. He was gracious enough to calculate it at 21,734 miles. It only makes sense that he would do this as I found the language in the rules insufficient for me to accurately calculate the distances, especially when it's just a few hundred miles that may disqualify the trip. You are right it would be faster to round on the return, but I don't think the distance requirement would be met, and I'm not going to quibble over 134 miles.
Third, you may be calculating the rule distance incorrectly? You multiplied the 63 degree latitude number, 27.24nm x 360 degrees. I think it should be something like 240 degrees (Cape Horn to South Island, NZ) or 6,538nm.