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“More than what the sea conditions would be, my fear was how five people in a small space would get along.”
By Susea McGearhart We STILL don’t know what happened. I had stripped off my PFD (personal flotation device), boots, insulated clothes, and collapsed into bed in the master suite. Underway it isn’t that comfortable, because it sits on the “shoulders” of the boat, but it offers total privacy, and by shutting the door I could turn on a light and not compromise anyone’s night vision. But this night, our second night out, I was too tired to turn on a light and read. As my head hit the pillow, one deep sigh is all I expelled before the roar of a charging rhinoceros stampeded into Moody Blues’ bow and “shoulders,” engulfing the boat inch by inch, foot by foot, meter by meter. “Something’s NOT RIGHT,” my brain sizzled. “The wind’s WAY TOO STRONG. SOMETHING IS HAPPENING. THIS IS FREAKY!” In a fraction of a second the storm-force breath of that rhino-wind blew Moody Blues’ left side (port quarter) over to the right side (starboard), then snorted louder, hooked its horn into the double-reefed main and flung the whole boat back over to the left—the side it started from. Down we went. Moody Blues’, 36,000 pounds, suddenly as light as a kid’s sand based punching bag. In the split seconds this happened, I laid there eyes wide open, staring into the darkness. In a strange, orderly fashion I remember thinking, “I wonder if we’re going all the way over?” (You know, as in, are we capsizing?) I never thought, “We’re gonna die”. All that crossed my mind, smashed up against the hull was, “I wonder if we’re going all the way over?” Almost as quickly as the hull knocked down she suddenly righted. I didn’t move. I couldn’t hear a thing except the sea skidding across the hull—the outrageous rhino-wind had charged away. Finally, I began to wonder if everyone was okay. I jumped up, opened the door into the main salon and found chaos. The area rug had been flipped on its side by books and whatnots falling off the shelves and sliding under the carpet. David and Elizabeth were standing near the companionway yelling topside to Gene and Bob. I remember hearing David say, “Maybe it was a rogue wave.” Everyone was stunned and baffled, repeating, “What was it?” We hurried to clear the floor so Gene could lift the floorboards to see if we were taking on water. Thank God, we weren’t. “What do you think it was?” someone asked. By now it was about 4:30 am and we were running parallel off the coast of Oregon, fifty miles off Lookout Point. (Lookout—no kidding!) Gene was below plotting the course I should have plotted (wasn’t that sweet of him) when the “rhino-wind” hit. I had just gone to bed, David and Elizabeth were asleep in the aft-cabin, and Bob had just come on his main on-watch, which switched Gene into his two-hour dog-watch. Apparently when the near-knockdown hit, Gene ran topside yelling, “Dump the main! Bob, dump the main!” When Gene got up there Bob was fighting with the huge seat locker that had flung open. Gene flicked the mainsheet off its self-tailing winch and Moody Blues popped right up. Amazingly, the autopilot kept on driving and Moody Blues never lost her heading. Bob was, of course, in his PFD and tethered-in as anyone on-watch in the night has promised to be, but still, the thought if he hadn’t of been, he could have been lost in the night. The fact we all wore Raymarine Life Tags while on watch—they transmit the exact latitudinal and longitudinal position of where a person has fallen overboard—helped, but didn’t diminish the fear-factor of dealing with a man overboard anytime, day or night. The night continued. As I lay back in my berth, every hard list to starboard made me think, not again, not again, not again. How horrible—bittersweet—it would have been so early in the game (our shake-down cruise!) to capsize, or lose our expensive rig, or sink! And then if that had happened, we’d all be stuck in the Winslow life raft (and I thought five people aboard 50-feet was a bit much!), but a Winslow life raft is nothing to sneeze about. I lay there reflecting on the final farewell at Shipyard Cove, only three days prior and how that was bittersweet. Bitter for me in knowing I’ll miss family, friends and hearth, and sweet for Gene because his life-long dream became real the second Jim Ulmer chopped the dockline free with that big, old, sharp ax of his. I didn’t know or believe we were really going to duplicate Jubilation’s departure from Friday Harbor back in 1993. I thought the idea of Jim Ulmer chopping our dockline free like he did for Frank Jensen and those five other male maniacs (no offense) that cast off for New Zealand with Frank was a joke. But the joke was on me, as was Gene telling me we were casting off between 8 and 9 am, and then in fact we left at 10 minutes to 8! (I’m getting over it now, but, Arrrgh. If anyone else came to Shipyard Cove that morning and we had already left—sorry.) As I tried to fall asleep, I smiled recalling how we motored away from Shipyard Cove with cheers ringing in our ears. I hadn’t realized how many people say they’re going to take off cruising and never do. Everyone knows this isn’t my dream, but Gene’s. Gene is my dream, but I don’t like being left out of things. (What’s around that next corner? What’s on the other side of that point? Will the locals understand my Spanish?) I think I was in as much shock to really leave, as I was over the near-knockdown or whatever it was. (What was it?) Yet, I finally slept, but fully clothed! When I got up about 9 am our near-knockdown was still fresh on everyone’s mind. David said he thought we got into a wind tunnel, somewhat like a tornado. That was the most logical conclusion. After the two squalls Gene and I had experienced during that watch prior to the “rhino-wind” hitting, it was dry, no rain. So it couldn’t have been a rain tunnel. Eventually I dug out Weather Predicting Simplified by Michael William Carr and found an answer (or at least one we can live with). More than likely, we sailed into a vorticity cloud. Vorticity means “spin.” So a vorticity cloud appeared (remember it was pitch-black out so we couldn’t see), other factors created an “inflection point” and that created counterclockwise air flows and a low-pressure center. It’s complicated. Basically, we were going one way and a new wind came from the opposite way and flung us over one way, picked us up and knocked us down on the other side. I think in boxing this is called a “roundhouse.” Anyway, it had to be the vorticity cloud and inflection point (unless it was some sort of microburst), because it suits me much better than thinking we had hit the “Twilight Zone.” For hours we sailed under double reefed main and staysail then we started the motor to try to make better headway. It was rough, but tolerable. We continued our shifts of 2 hours on-watch, 2 hours dog-watch, to blessed sleep. But the creaking, bouncing, pounding, bow surging into the seas, made it difficult. At one point, Gene, Bob and David were transferring fuel from the bow (to help the bow from burying into the sea) when Elizabeth and I noticed an approaching squall. Elizabeth grabbed her camera and quickly shot the rain tunnel, before yelling down the companionway hatch: “David, will you come up and look at this?” David took one look and quickly said, “Let’s roll in the staysail.” We dodged the squall, but barely. We had headwinds at 26 MPH apparent, but we were still making about 4 knots of headway toward our destination. This was David’s fifth trip down ?the coast from B.C. and Elizabeth’s fourth. We had first met them in 2003 at San Juanico on the inside of the Baja at a cruiser’s potluck on the beach, and we “clicked.” They have a sweet cabin and dock on Saturna Island, BC, where we’ve visited them a couple of times on Moody Blues since we met. This year they had their Fast Passage 39, Pacific Passage, trucked to Blaine, Washington, from San Carlos, Mexico, and they came through Friday Harbor at just the right time, saying they’d love to help us sail Moody Blues down the coast if we wanted. Not only are they experienced sailors, and very real people, but Canadian doctors too. We jumped on it (and would have even if they weren’t doctors!). But then, Bob Freeauf, our buddy since 1979 on Eagle Crest, thought with David and Elizabeth coming, he’d be out—off the boat. But no way, we wanted him onboard too. Even though five is a lot of people, a 50-foot boat is a lot of boat, and with a destination of a thousand miles away, with plans of moving twenty-four/seven, it would be exhausting without a lot of help. So rub, a dub, dub, three men and two women in a tub, a pretty good tub at that and off we went. On our fourth day out, it was Bob’s birthday. Bob had brought a zillion pounds of potatoes he had dug up out of his garden and he decided to make us potato pancakes. It was amazing to me that Bob could get right into the galley and cook up a storm. He rode well with the sea swell on his maiden voyage—no seasickness!—much to his and our relief. We totally pigged out on those scrumptious potato pancakes. It was a great way to start the day. Then David saw some action in the water—gurgling—and threw out his homemade hand line, complete with surgical tubing and a colorful lure he calls the “Mexican flag” due to its bright orange and green feathers. In 15 minutes David had a fish on the line. All hell broke loose. “Get a gaff. Get a gaff.” “We don’t have a gaff.” “No gaff!” “Get something!” Gene dug out a bucket and boat hook, and with help, David landed the sucker. “Get the fish pounder!” “We don’t have a fish pounder.” “No fish pounder!” “Try vodka down the gills,” the anesthetist in Elizabeth declared. But no one wanted to waste good vodka. Ultimately, Gene clobbered the poor thing with a crescent wrench, and David went to work. David is not only a GP, but a surgical assistant! Our fillet knife was a bit dull for his skills, but he managed to fillet the gift from the sea perfectly anyway. We’re guessing it weighed 30-40 lbs. Later, we dug out a fish book and determined it was an albacore. Our lunch was fresh albacore tuna with soy sauce, wasabi, and left over lasagna. That afternoon, after everyone took a hot shower, Elizabeth made Bob a ginger cake for his birthday. She even had these screwy, sparkly candles. That night we had seared albacore, mashed potatoes, veggies and salad. Then we toasted Bob’s 58th year with champagne and the delicious, brightly lit cake. Bob opened presents, got out his accordion, David got out the spoons and we danced the night away. Of course we couldn’t get too crazy, we still had about 400 or 500 miles to go! After celebrating Bob’s birthday, the wind roared in our faces for two nights. We hit another sort of “Twilight Zone” about 4am Sunday, August 19th, where the wind twirled and we lost our footing. ”I can’t get the boat going,” Gene said to Bob and me. We’d been sailing a broad reach, albeit pounding our brains out by the confused seas, when off of Cape Mendocino the “Twilight Zone” hit. Although it was dark out, the wind swirled and the seas frothed white—a crock of witches brew eager to gobble us up. Gene decided we needed to turn the motor on for speed to get back on our heading. The NW wind averaged 20 mph, there were beautiful stars, and even shooting stars. Their distraction took the edge off. The morning’s calming sea was a relief, except that we now were relying solely on the AIS (Automatic Identification System) and radar to safely guide us through the pea-soup fog. The wind was only 4 knots out of the NW, but we were making 8.4 over the bottom. We motor-sailed with a double reefed main and the genoa. A photo of the nav display shows 16 ships surrounding us as we rounded Point Conception. It was cold with all the morning fog. Elizabeth and I threw the I-Ching and drew Tarot cards. They told us to go to Ventura instead of Marina Del Rey! When I went on watch, for what would be my last night watch, it was cold and foggy. David and Elizabeth were both wide awake, David not eager to hit his berth. He never seemed to be, always making sure I checked our stats and knew what ships were ahead, beside or behind us. Then he’d let himself go to bed. We had entered Santa Barbara Channel. Bright banks of lights ended up being the numerous oil platforms. 
Crossing the shipping lanes was timed. As one ship went by one way, we quickly cut across, keeping an eye off the bow and port quarter for the ship we could see was coming on the AIS. We had sailed almost all night under a double reefed main and staysail. We had a steady 22 mph of wind, with gust up to 35. With the NW wind and following sea we rolled a lot, side to side, side to side. I think about how I had “Together wing ‘n wing” engraved in Gene’s wedding ring. Sails are beautiful flying wing ‘n wing, but it’s a rocky ride, swaying from one side to the other. I didn’t understand that much about sailing when we first got married. Who wants to be on opposite sides of the mast? When I remarry Gene, I’ll have, “Together on a broad reach,” engraved on something (he never wears a ring). A broad reach is comfortable.
At 9am we reached Ventura Harbor all safe and sound and in awe. I will always feel blessed by this passage. The near-knockdown could have really hurt us. Much of what made this passage successful was the crew. We had five people who worked well together. There was no complaining, no arguing, it was a group of friends considerate of each other and each other’s space. More than what the sea conditions would be, my fear was how five people in a small space would get along. I was really worried about that. So, when friends Susanna and Thaddeus showed up to our impromptu “open-house, come see the boat” party the Sunday before we left, I was especially pleased. I wanted Moody Blues introduced to their energy. (They are extraordinarily calming and intuitive people.) There’s no question Thaddeus is a Sage. I expressed to him my concern over five people being on board for a week or two, he handed me a gift: a bundle of sage neatly tied in red string. He suggested that if I was feeling overwhelmed, that I go off by myself (like in the head) and burn a tiny bit of it, waving it over myself. Then he set the sage inside the teak handrail along the hull side of our berth. He said, “The boat has really good energy,” and smiled. Perhaps that’s why I never thought, “We’re gonna die!” when the near-knockdown hit. Thaddeus had no idea how badly I needed his, in particular, blessings. Or, maybe he did . . . Fair winds and special blessing to all of you. By the way, I never needed to light the sage. ...back to 48° North title page.
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