Trip to Nigeria

Recently agreed to assist in the delivery of a 120-foot workboat from Biloxi, MS, to Lagos, Nigeria.  The crew will consist of Captain Ray O'Quinn, his cousin who also holds a Captain's license, an Engineer, and myself.  We plan to leave shortly after Thanksgiving.  The boat has large tanks used for hauling water to oil rigs.  Filling these with 20,000 gallons of diesel fuel will be necessary to cross the Atlantic Ocean.  Even so, we will stop in Barbados and top off.  The trip should take 30 to 35 days and the roughest section should be past Barbados for a few hundred miles, until we enter the intertropical convergence zone close to the equator.

Cleaning the Hull

Jim Boernge and I dove in the muddy marina waters today to clean our boat bottoms.   We were afraid that a summer's worth of marine growth and barnacles would be quite bad.  I was particularly worried about barnacle fouling on my propeller.  Fortunately, the marine growth was easy to remove and no barnacles were found.  But the water was so foul that visibility was only 5 inches using a strong flashlight.  And a cold front had just moved through, so the weather was quite cool and the wind was blowing about 20 knots. 

One-Winged Pelican

Spent most of today working on mounting the wind vane, but was pestered by a one-winged pelican.  Most pelicans swoop down and scoop up fish to eat, so a one-winged pelican must get pretty hungry.  It really begged for food, but then spit out the banana pieces I threw to it.

Mounting the Wind Vane

Started mounting the wind vane self-steering mechanism.  It is a used Norvane unit from another Albin Vega, like Pequod.  The challenge is holding it over the water at the right height to figure out where to drill the holes.  Wind vanes are generally preferred over autopilots for small sailboats on offshore passages because they do not use any electricity.  They do require much more attention to sail trim and the overall balance of the sails and helm.  This unit will be able to steer in most conditions, allowing time to cook food, take a nap, and make repairs.

Beach Report -- Pensacola Beach

On Sunday, I checked out Pensacola Beach while waiting for the local surf shop to open.  The white sand and blue water of Pensacola Beach is amazing.  A few surfers were riding small waves by the Pensacola Beach Pier.  The beach population was growing, even though it was an overcast Sunday morning.  Overall, this seems to be a first class beach.   Then I headed over to Yancy Spencer's Surf Shop in Gulf Breeze and talked to Greg about a longboard, but am still not sure where to carry a surfboard on Pequod. 

Sailing Report -- WFORC

Spent Friday and Saturday sailing on Tom Stokes' boat Free Spirit in the Western Florida Ocean Racing Circuit at Pensacola, Florida.  Saturday night, after five total races over two days, we were in a solid 4th place out of six boats in our class.  The courses were Windward-Leeward with about 1.5 mile legs and twice around.   I was the bowman and the bottom line is that was a lot of work for a big, heavy boat on such short courses.  But it was a good time and great experience.

Sailing Report -- S/V Cool Runnings

Spent yesterday afternoon and evening helping Scott Corey move his boat, S/V Cool Runnings, from the boatyard at D&H Marine in Gulfport back to his slip in Pass Christian Harbor, a trip of about 30 miles.   At first, we motored because one of his wooden spreader tips had rotted off and the mast was only supported by the lower shrouds.  With a perfect wind for sailing, I finally tired of motoring, so I climbed the mast and used a couple pieces of strap iron and 4 hose clamps to splint the spreader tip back in place.  After that we had quite an enjoyable sail, mostly by the light of a half-full moon.