Down the West Coast

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Shawn Severn

(Editor's note: The following is a brief diary from Indigo Sea owned by Shawn and Corinne Severn. Eight-year liveaboards, they followed Shawn's job to Los Angeles and sailed their Hunter Passage 450 down the treacherous west coast. Besides being great people and experienced sailors, Shawn and Corinne were also my dock mates for four years.) I thought it might be amusing to relate some of the stories of our trip. On the whole the trip went pretty well. We underestimated the amount of delay we would have waiting for weather windows. Corinne and I decided we never want to sail down the northwest coast again. However, if we changed our minds, we will never do the trip when we have a schedule to meet. The wind, seas and breakdowns are just too hard to predict. The trip was marked by extremes. We either had no wind and calm seas or very high wind and rough seas. Either the boat was working perfectly or it had serious problems. In general the first half of the trip had most of the boat problems and bad weather and the second half of the trip was pretty benign. However, that is generally to be expected. We left Seattle on October 2nd, a Thursday. We had strong winds blowing from the north, which meant that we had to beat our way up Puget Sound. It was a fun sail although quite a bit of work. The next day we had no wind at all but started to get a sense that our equipment might not be working correctly. We could not seem to charge our batteries. We left Port Angeles the next day and motored to Neah Bay. The weather then closed in on us. A gale was blowing between the Columbia River and Neah Bay and it continued to blow a gale for 3 days. The Macaw Indians have built a new marina in the Neah Bay and they were extremely helpful and just plain nice. In fact, almost every one we met was very helpful and nice. We are very appreciative of their help getting weather faxes and pointing us in the direction of the fisherman who could interpret the weather pattern. We left Neah Bay on the 4th day and motored out of the bay into 7 foot rolling seas and a light wind. We actually ended up motoring approximately 3 hours until the wind came up enough to give us a nice sail for the next 18 hours. We discovered that our batteries were getting worse. (Just prior to the trip I had replaced the batteries with the best money can buy. So you can imagine my frustration with the continuing problems.) We had a nice sail as far as the Columbia River. That night the wind calmed and then started coming from in front of us. This generally makes for very rough seas because the swell was still coming from behind us. With a little experimentation, we were able to sail with a reefed main and the engine running. We made pretty good progress and didn't seem to bash into the waves too much. At the time, we though we were going pretty slow but we later found out that other sailors out in the same weather were making about half as much progress as Indigo Sea. We got to Yakina Bay, our first port in Oregon, two days after we left Neah Bay. We slept most of that day and then did chores on the boat to prepare to leave on the flood tide the next day. These small ports on the West Coast of Washington, Oregon and California all have sand bars at their entrance. These bars move around and are affected by wind and waves. When the weather gets bad the bars become impassable and are closed by the Coast Guard. Once you are inside a port you have to get permission to leave. This is primarily because going over the bar can be extremely dangerous. I called the Coast Guard to get permission to go over the bar. The radio operator indicated that the bar was open, but asked me if I knew that there was a gale expected approximately 140 miles down the coast. I said that I did but that we would not get there for at least 24 hours and expected it to blow itself out by then. He then asked me if I knew there was a gale 140 miles down the coast but 200 miles off shore. I said that I did but that we would not be going that far off the coast. The Coast Guard shore boat that was out on patrol then broke into our conversation asking if I knew there was a gale 140 miles down the coast. I then asked then if they were trying to tell me something. They said they were not allowed to tell me not to leave. The Coast Guard is not allowed to tell the skipper of a boat what to do. I asked them how they would feel if I went back to bed. They both thought that was a very good plan, but of course it was up to me. I went back to bed. Later that day we met some other sailors making there way down the coast. They all heard my conversation with the Coast Guard and had decided to go back to bed. They were impressed with my discussion with the Coast Guard because generally it is very hard to get them to provide any advice. We were able to leave Yakina two days later and had a lovely sail for about 4 hours. Unfortunately, our navigation electronics started fail. By that night we were hand steering and only had power if we kept the generator and the engine on at the same time. When the wind came up the bouncing was too much for the generator and it had to be shut down. We hand steered for about 10 hours. Coos Bay was not that far away so we decided to make an unscheduled stop. About midnight the fog rolled in. Things were going from bad to really bad. The visibility was down to about 10 feet (no kidding - you could not see the front of the boat from the cockpit). We were concerned that we were about to loose all of our navigation electronics (radar was the important one) and navigation lights. So I called the Coast Guard to let them know that we were having some electrical problems and that we were making our way to Coos Bay. I also gave them our position in case something really went wrong. They would have a place to start looking for us. (We were afraid of getting hit by a larger ship. A large ship would not even notice us). When we got close to Coos Bay the Coast Guard offered to come out a lead us into the harbor. We did not want to enter the harbor in the fog with iffy electronics. As it turns out there were two dredges working the channel. We would certainly have gotten ourselves into trouble if we had tried it on our own. The Coast Guard boat arrived when we got to the outside marker and led us into the harbor. There were a couple of tense minutes when Corinne tried to hit one of the buoys but we made it in and tied up without further incident. We found out why most people do not like having the Coast Guard help them unless it is really necessary. It turns out, once you are tied up they board and search your boat. They also check to make sure that you have all of the safety equipment on board. If you do not they will fine you. We were happy to be at the dock and if they wanted to come aboard that was fine with us. By inviting them on board they seemed to loose interest, saying that they were short handed and wanted to get back to the station. We got a really good electrical guy down (Ray) to the boat the next day. He found the problem. It was not the batteries. As it turns out, our electrical system goes through an AMP meter. The meter had broken and was causing a voltage drop. That is why none of the electronics would work properly. We took the AMP meter out of the system and all of the electronics started working and worked fine for the rest of the trip. The next morning we left Coos Bay and had a short sail in the morning and then motored for a while. The wind started to rise at about 1 PM and continued to raise all afternoon. At about 6 PM the wind really started to get going and got so high that with the waves (9 ft rollers with a 5 to 7 ft wind wave) the boat got broached. Basically we got rolled over on our side. Just as the boat righted itself we got rolled a second time. The second knock down caused the circuit breakers on the autopilot to blow. I finally got my wits about me and begun hand steering. Corinne and I then hand steered for the next 12 hours. We worked a watch system of an hour on then an hour off. The other person got warmed up and watched the radar. The wind calmed down by the morning, but during the night we were sailing with our storm jib and reached speeds of more than 10 knots. The next night was a repeat of the first, but without the knockdown. We were also able to get the autopilot to work so we did not need to constantly hand steer. The following morning the wind calmed -- and that was the last we saw of it for the rest of the trip. We stopped in Monterrey for a rest, just south of San Francisco. Nothing much happened in Monterrey, except that I broke the transmission dip stick. I did get the stick out but did not have anything to replace it with. We spent the day looking for a bolt that might fit. We never did find one. However, I figured out that a pipe fitting would fit. So we plugged it with a pipe fitting end and continued on to LA. The pipe fitting leaked oil the whole time and I am hoping that I did not severely damage my transmission. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We powered our way down the coast, through the maze of drilling rigs, around Point Conception (one of the places on the coast with the worst weather), but it was sunny and 80 F when we got there - no wind. We reached LA the next day found a new home at slip #C211 Dolphin Marina.
 
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Jeff Walker

Great story, glad I was safe at home

Shawn, Sounds like you had quite an adventure. I am very interested in your electrical problems. We have a H410 and I'm not sure about the way our Ammeter is wired. We only read AMP's being used which leads me to believe that the alternator is charging the batteries directly through the inverter and does not run through the gage on the panel. Does this sound different than your 450's system or should I still be worried. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us. Jeff Walker/Carol Donovan s/v Twilight ps. We're your new neighbors down in King Harbor, Redondo Beach. Slip M09.
 
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Shawn Severn

AMP Meter - Major Pain the #$%&*

Jeff: Our AMP meter was (note past tense) wired to mearure the power draw from the bateries by the systems on the boat. We have approximately 750 AMP-hours on board and draw around 25 to 30 AMPs during the night hours. The AMP meter was really to small (50 AMPs) to deal with the sustained and spiking (autopilot) draw. Consequently, it started to malfunction. The problem was the the AMP meter was causing a voltage drop that was dependent on the number of AMPs that were being pulled by the electrical systems. It turns out the drop was about 2 volts from every 10 AMPS. So at night I was suffering from a 6 volt drop. Unfortuantely, the voltage meter in wired in parallel so I could not see the voltage drop but the autopilot, radar and GPS sure noticed. The reason I could keep things going by running the generator is that it puts out a higher voltage trying to chareg the batteries. However, when the bateries a fully charged, even running the generator did not give me a high enough voltage to overcome the voltage drop. Bottom-line the 50 AMP meter is probably too small for a boat that has a high power requirement, according to Ray (the electrical guy). I will probably keep the voltage meter but not replace the AMP meter. I will measure my draw the old fashioned way with a good quality electricians electrical meter! I hope this helps. Shawn
 
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Bill Sheehy

Amp Meter

Is the Amp Meter ther one thats in the panel or is it something you added to the boat? How long did it take you to get from Seattle to LA? I know alot of people who have made the trip and if you can do it you can sail almost anywhere. For most people things start to get bad half way down the Oregon coast. Once they are past San Franciso it gets a little better.
 
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Shawn Severn

AMP Meter - Comes with the boat

The AMP meter that I am referring to comes with the boat. The electrician said that I should have upgraded it when I added the extra batteries and electronics. The north west coast is certainly a challenge. This was actually our third foray on to the north west coast. We have decided that sailing where the butter melts is more appealing
 
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