2010 and sailing

Once again Hogfish maximus is in the shallow seas of the Bahamas, tacking her way back home. Captain and crew all sound and no doubt enjoying the clear water and fish abounding and getting off the hook.
The photos are on board so no new postings of pics. Sorry.
I am on the hard so to speak without the boat! School and work are keeping the shore crew busy but soon all will be together and tackling the task of showing you what Hogfish m. is all about.
Exciting times for the Tiger.
thanks for reading, though not much to read,
Rachel

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14 days sailing to the Leeward islands

It was great to be at sea again with nice bit of open ocean in front of me with only some ships and nothing too big to hit or avoid. This would be my third singlehanded passage down on two different Hogfish designs of mine. I have done the return trip 4 times which can be a lot easier as it should be mostly down wind. This trip is a challenge because you have to make at least 400 miles of easting to get far enough out so that when the trades are encountered you can lay the course down to the islands. On three previous trips with three different boats every trip was different but the easting was made , albeit in rough going for the first 4 days hard on the wind.

The forcast was perfect, the first 3 days the wind was to be in the north and then slowly veer to the NE and by that time I should have been out far enough to catch the trades on down for the last 700 or so miles. The forcast was right on for the first day and night with 20-25 knot winds with the Hogfish close reaching along with "Sinclair" the wind vane steering perfectly or I should say steering well enough that I could stay out of the wet and wind. This was to be our first real offshore passage together and I had to figure out all of his wims and needs. By the end of this trip I can say that this Aries Mark IV vane is the best vane Ive every owned. 

By day 2 day the wind was dropping out to under 10 knots. I still had to go due east another 300 plus miles before the wind would veer into the east. I can carry 85 gallons of diesel onboard but never have more than 20 gallons in the tank. We just dont motor that much. I left with a total of 30 expecting this to last me the whole winter. My mistake . 

Stowing our 123" fiberglass dinghy on deck is very easy with two people but its just a process doing it alone. This skiff I designed and built to be out sports car, truckster, dive boat, sailboat and our lifeboat. My idea is it will not sink even with a hole in it, it can move instead of just floating about and you can just untie it as the boat goes under and roll it over and bail it out. Of course Iam not a cold weather sailor so I have to limit my disasters to temporate climates.

This chart has a few of HFMs passages on it to and from the Caribbean. The red dots are this last trips daily runs. You can see I just got out far enough to lay the Virgins. 650 miles of beating to weather. Glad my girls were flying down as this would not be fun for them.

 

Some other passages in the Hogfish flat bottom line of boats sailed alone or with my family.

Sunrise on the third day out sailing in a bit of breeze.

There it is ! Another day but could use a bit more wind , still making eastward progress.

Sunset on day three with "Sinclair" doing the steering.

I reefed  the mainsail 28 times on this trip. Went through 12 squalls that I pulled the jib in while I Steered through them. And used 28 gallons of diesel when it went flat .

I love Tropic birds. They are almost always in pairs. I wish life was as simple as theirs when all you did was fish all day and think about where you were going to procreate next. Simple life.

The beginning  of 4 days of next to no wind. This can be lots of fun as you get to see lots of stuff in the water that you would normally not see.

A Dominican fish attractor. You cannot see them but a huge ball of fish down bellow.

Ghosting by a nice bucket with a Triple Tail fish hanging out. I wanted to swap out our split yellow bucket for this grey one but did not want disturb him and the other small fish. I could spear these fish with my HeadHunters pole spear as they dont move but I was alone and had plenty to eat.

Heres some more that are camouflaging themshelfs in white next to a five gallon jerry jug.

I counted 15 that I passed by.

I can open my diesel tanks and look right inside to clean and to really see whats left. Takes a minute.

Now its calm, with next to no swell, I have no electric auto pilot as I dont motor much and dont want to have an expensive thing just hanging around waiting to be used. So I ended up hand steering for 16 hours a day till night. For two nights the wind would come up after 8:00 and we could sail along at 2-3 knots till day light when it would go flat again. It was a nice way to move along at night. I take short naps with a timer at night lasting 15 minutes each. Iam always rested.

Sunrise after being becalmed all night long. I had 2 gallons of fuel left so I just drifted all night moving south 6 miles in 18 hours.

The Wind started to pic up on the 7 th day out and this French sloop came by to ask for cigarettes as they had run out 5 days ago sailing from the Canary Islands heading to the Bahamas. I dont smoke  

Six days more of sailing hard on the wind I was just able to lay the Annagodda passage and sailed into Virgin Gorda in the BVIs . The wind had headed me going into the SE so I decided to see an old friend Argorn in Beef Island. The BVIs are packed with boats. It was a Hugh culture shock to be suddenly trust back into a world of hundreds of very expensive boats to avoid. But the BVIs are very pretty.

Lots of boats , and vacationing people. With Hogfishes shallow draft I was able to anchor in 3 of water so could stay away from all the liabilitys of so many boats.

After my visit with Argorn and a few cold beers i made landfall at St. Martin sailing 98 miles tacking to weather in 20 knot winds to cover the 78 mile direct course to get here taking 26 hours. I passed by within a mile of Anguilla and its out laying islands . Ahead is the French side of St. Martin.

Iam now in St. Martin waiting for Rachel and our dog Bequia to fly in. This island is the busiest place in the islands for yachts and turist. Its nosiey , tons of traffic, good food and lots of good people watching but I cant wait to get out of here. Soon they come.

The best part is beers are only a dollar and rum drinks only two!!! So I can relax after a days work on the Hogfish and talk to all kinds of real sailors from all over the world. 

Next stop Saba ... Talk soon.

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Shallow minded sailing

The past few days Lillian my daughter and I went out for a few days exploring with our sea dog Bequia on the Hogfish Maximus . The island that we live on is one of 18 in a small bay on the north coast of Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas. From our house we can see about half of these with the farthest one away being 7 miles. All have good anchorages in their lees depending on the wind direction. The best all weather anchorage being the landlocked harbor on Royal Island. The entrance to Royal Island has a small rock island almost in the third middle of the channel. The entrance for deep draft is to the west side of this rock. But when entering the east third looks so logical that lots of competent and lesser seaman think this is the way to go forgoing the pilot books and guides. Unfortunately just under the water in this part is a nice big shoal that has enough keel grooves in that the guest book it must have is in volumes. I love sailing in and out of here when the harbor is full of newbies at anchor on Hogfish Maximus she looks to have a deep draft which most times is drawing a bit over 7 with her board down. We know the bottom by heart so always go in and out the wrong way with all the crowd giving good advice as to the danger ahead via VHF radio . Reading old sailing yarns like Peter Pyes Moonrakers cruises , it is neat to know that he made the mistake and ran Moonraker up on this ledge too. I like diving along its length feeling the limestone ledge, with its multiple colored scrapes along it and think of old Moonraker here in the 40s stuck with no one to see her embarrassment.

I being a very cautious navigator have never run aground, but there has been multiple times when there has not been enough water to go where I am headed. This is only a temporary setback which we are used to being in the mode of calling out water depths in inches . An inch under our bottom is plenty but it can be slow going as the mass of displacement sucks the water away and we kind of inch worm along stopping and filling back in and going and sucking and stopping with a messing dusty underwater wake. This is not running aground its just not having enough water. When we do run out of water its really no big deal as the HFM just sits upright as solid as a concreat parking lot. With a 9 wide bottom you dont  lean her over you just climb down aft into the water hopefully with a Sandy bottom with only your shorts gettin wet. If in mud then its a bit deeper . My usual thing is to wade to the bow squatting  down with my back to the boat grabbing the chine with both hands behind me and lifting a bit. By lifting up just a couple of inches the boat rocks aft and with the added displacement of the stern sections an inch of draft is gotten and so with the 32,000 lb boat now floating I spin her around and push her back into deeper water, something like 28". This is why I say we never run aground. The times we are being inconvenienced by not having enough water to go when and where we want I just blame on the moon as not keeping in sync with us.

Dont ever follow us as we take a lot of short cuts . We have found that in a simple breeze pif the seas are not breaking a bit or the swell is not giving a slight hump then there is enough water for us to go. So on we press but only in daylight and not over coral reefs or steel ship wrecks.

When we are sailing with the daggerboard down fully the HFMs draws 710"s. We have hit many unmarked sunken boats in far off harbors when tacking into them. This usually stops us dead in our tack- tracks... But only for a moment as we quickly let go the floating daggerboard down line and up pops the board and away we go with one of us quickly cranking the board back down. Most times nobody notices us in our impromptu bottom surveying of this new harbor. 

When racing and cutting corners on shoals , cruising and thinking we can make it over some shoal the same drill happens with only a little less glass on the tip of the board, a shagrinned skipper and off we go. That is another reason why we never run aground.

Anchored off of Egg Island in 7 

Looks shallow but at least 7 here

Nothing like clear water

This is actually 4 of water.

Our friends the Underwoods summer camp house on Egg Island

When the tide goes out we would be on the bottom. No big deal if the wind stays this way. If not when the water comes back we would have about a half an hour of bumping before lift off. This we have done with both Hogfishes at least a thousand times. These boats were designed and built for this.

One of many small islands in our bay. Water is 3 deep here now . As they say in the Bahamas  

  " We have lots of water here, its just spread out very thin."

Beach coaming treasure ! A free cleat from a wreck.

It sure is nice having a shoal draft vessel but if your draws a bit more then you will be anchored out a bit farther than us. The fun difference between keel and non keel boats is that when you run aground you are aground, no lifting your skirts and moving on. Sorry

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More Argie 15 Sailing

John Read in Cape Town built himself an Argie 15  and has been sailing it a year or two. He has made a video of him sailing it in breezy and gusty conditions on Rietvlei, in the suburbs of Cape Town. John has learned much about his boat and is now very comfortable with her characteristics. In this video she shows some of the speed that these boats manage to achieve.

John is obviously enjoying his Argie 15, which is our most popular design.

The beautiful Table Mountain stands guard over Cape Town and is visible in the background of some of the shots.

Please visit our website at http://dixdesign.com/ for more on this and out other designs.

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Hogfish Maximus sailing videos on You Tube

Tim Evans, our friend off of the sailboat Wild Bird, has posted for us lots of videos he and Gayle Evans have taken of the HFM while we sail in company throughout the Caribbean.

You will hear their Patterdale terriers yapping away not at us but at the waves as they pass us.

Yes their Trintellla 44 ketch is very fast so we up anchor before them and they always pass us at the midway Mark or earlier. Of course they are 6 longer and have twice the sail area as us and I could go on with my list of excuses but on this Van De Stat design and with their very competitive and competent sailing we are always last. 

But we do pass other boats so are not always last.

Just go to You Tube and look up ; Chris Morejohn sailing Hogfish Maximus

                                                       jim679able

Wild Bird passing us on our way to Nevis. 

You can just see Wild Bird catching up to us by my elbow. Sheesh they give us no slack.

Ah! Here we are passing an Amel 47 Ocean Hobo ketch on the east side of Martinique. Hogfish is not always last.

Another victim of HFM, the 47 cutter Carpe Diem sailing in company with us and the others. Wild Bird of course trounced all of us.

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Hogfish Maximus sailing photos

Being a photo boat taking pictures of a  Roades 41. Same speed both boats.

Off the Canary Islands doing 7 knots 

Finishing the Carriacou single handed regatta. Mid fleet.

Leaving Barbados for Bequia trying to keep up with Grace May a Prout Catamaran. The boat behind was a Tyanna cutter being single handed around the world. Last leg.

Glen Maxwell with the Matt Layden Paradox design that he built called Zoey. Our dinghy on deck is bigger. Glen and I left a few weeks later sailing the Hogfish to the Azores .

Sailing down wind the other day to the Exumas single handed with Bequia the sea dog.

Exumas

Sailing with Lillian at the helm.

Off Royal island on the way home

Rachel posing next to the ultimate shoal draft sailboat in Denmark . All you do its tilt the 12 keel to the side ,drop the rudders and this sled draws less than Hogfish!

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