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november/december 2016cruisingworld.comhit one of those pesky low- lying isles like
the Tuamotus. The Indian Ocean isn’t so
kind. She doesn’t allow you to wearily row
from reef to shore. Instead she literally
shakes boats to bits in deep ocean. This
season, by the reckoning of the transiting
fl eet leaders, 5 percent of the cruising fl eet
leaving Southeast Asia and Australia didn’t
make it, being either forced to retire with
severe damage or sunk.
Gulp!
Bear in mind that these sailors and their
seasoned craft are the best of the best, not
that it matters to the Indian. My point is
this: Nobody who has ever transited this
ocean takes it lightly. Thus, Carolyn and I
worked very hard for almost three months
to prepare.
One of the fi rst things I did was attempt
to get in sync with the ocean itself. I did
this fi rst in the old-fashioned way, by
peering at my worldwide Pilot Charts for
historical wind and swell data. Next I fol-
lowed the transiting vessels on my SSB
radio. Third and most surprisingly, I moni-
tored a top-secret Facebook page.
That’s right, top-secret and by invita-
tion only. Why? Because of the Somali
pirates to the north. Paranoia gets thor-
oughly mixed with reasonable caution in
the Indian, until you’re never quite sure
what is prudent, what is paranoia, and
what is just plain nutso.
Regardless, someone transiting hasto vouch for you before the Facebook
administrator ashore will send you the
password. I’m not even allowed to men-
tion the name of this (occasionally silly
but also highly useful) Facebook group.
Heavy sigh. What would Joshua
Slocum say?
In my research, one thing was apparent:
It was a particularly rough year. Many
South African sailors returning home,
who had done this passage many times,
were given a “good thrashing,” as one
put it. These guys are tough. Anything
that makes a Cape Town sailor frown
would make me burst into tears, scream
“Mommy! Mommy!” and call the U.S.
Coast Guard for a helicopter.
Carolyn, of course, has other priori-
ties. She is not only my wife, lover, best
friend and fi rst mate of 46 years, but also
our ship’s seamstress. In addition, she has
another title: Mistress of the Drogues. A
few months ago, she inspected our Para-
Tech sea anchor, our slowing drogue made
from webbing, our self-designed exper-
imental Fat Flat drogue, and our Jordan
Series drogue. Why so many? Because
they do dif erent things under dif erent
conditions at dif erent times.
Most of the time we deal with gales
simply by heaving to. However, a number
of things (sails, track, sheets, blocks, rud-
ders, rig, etc.) have to function properly to
ef ectively heave to in 40-plus knots. Thisis where our quiver of slowing drogues
comes in. They act as backup.
If there is a lee shore and I desire min-
imal drift, I toss a parachute-type sea
anchor of my bow. This is easy to deploy
while heaved to but hellaciously danger-
ous to retrieve.
If I want to continue moving down-
wind (for instance, to escape the storm
track or close with my destination), I
toss over the Jordan drogue from my
stern, with perhaps just a scrap of sail up
to dampen my roll. Nice! (Though you
get pooped often and your rudder is inconsiderable danger this way, there’s no
such thing as a free lunch, especially of
the Cape of Storms.)
Our other drogues are just smaller
slowing drogues. The term “slowing
drogue” can be a bit of a misnomer, as
one helps us make better daily runs in
heavy weather by reducing any tendency
to round up and eliminating any possi-
bility of pitch- poling. Thus our Monitor
self-steering vane can steer far longer in
truly gnarly conditions.
While Carolyn had her ancient bilge-
scented Pfaf sewing machine out, she
whipped us up yet another version of the
Fat Flat drogue — basically an experimen-
tal Jordan-style device that’s cheaper and
stows more compactly.
Carolyn’s seamstress duties don’t stop
with the drogues, however. She happily
sewed my McMurdo Smartfi nd S20 pouch
to my safety harness. (If I fall overboard,
an AIS alarm aboard Ganesh immediately
rings and Carolyn will be able to, hope-
fully, return to my position.)
Yes, I am a big believer in AIS, which is
increasingly required in many countries,
such as Singapore and Thailand. So for
this crossing, I updated my Vesper Marine
WatchMate 850 to a WatchMate Vision,
which even displays via Wi-Fi directly on
our iPad charts.
Since Singapore and South Africa are
both so heavily transited by commercial
trai c, I also swapped out my old dysfunc-
tional radar for a new Furuno wireless. (It
is not really wireless, since it requires a
power cord, but it is wireless in the sense
that it reads out on both our nav-station
iPad and our helm iPad.)
Next up was a major project: fi ber-
glassing an easily opened drain onto my
Aqua Lift-style mul er so if I roll 90
degrees or more to starboard, no water GARY M. GOODLANDERCarolyn re-bolts the Monitor windvane to Ganesh’s transom. It was removed
while the Goodlanders were in Asia so the grandkids could use the swim ladder.The Indian Ocean literally
shakes boats to bits. Thus,
we worked very hard for
three months to prepare.