Cruise of the S/V SELAH from Marina del Rey, California to Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico. November 5-14, 2003 (This is a report by one of the crew, Rick Dinon, and should not be considered authoritative in any way nor a reflection of the quality of any gear or equipment.) The vessel: SELAH is a 41.5 Dickerson ketch, made by Dickerson Yachts sometime in the mid 1970’s. Dickerson was a family business I’m told and no longer exists. The builder’s brother, a naval architect, drew her lines. Her displacement was 30,000 pounds (before addition of a generator, additional batteries and a water maker). She probably weighed north of 35,000 at the time of the trip. She has a cut-away full keel and a max-prop. She is fiberglass with a teak deck and wood deckhouse and interior. Her decks are teak. She is a center cockpit, carries 100 gallons of water and 140 of diesel. Her first owner commissioned her with years of experience. Her file contains 4 inches of correspondence between the owner and Dickerson. When that owner became terminally ill, he wrote extensive letters to the subsequent owner concerning her design, equipment and character. He had no idea who the subsequent owner would be; the boat was sold from an estate. Eddie McHugh purchased the boat from the second owner, shipped it from the Great Lakes to southern California and began a five-year refit. His plans are to take a four year cruise, through the Panama canal, up to the US, then on to Scotland where he will spend some time (he has forced-air heating). He will then head south and return. The refit: The new owner, McHugh, is a contractor with a background in historical building reconstruction in the northeast. As you can imagine, he is well equipped skill-wise to undertake this project despite having no prior marine or sailing experience. He gutted the interior and made up new cabinetry, drawers, lighting and bunks. He made a new (large) freezer and fridge, using vacuum panels for insulation. He made tool drawers for his large inventory and a great navigation station. He put in a Heart 2500 inverter/charger, a Village Marine 220 volt, 25 gallon per hour water maker, 5.5 KW generator, 15 gallon water heater, all new electrical panels and wiring. He also put in a Skipper head and a tiled head compartment. He installed a Raymarine color radar with a chartplotter repeater and chartplotter/radar repeater below. He had a B&G wind and Simrad autopilot, with hydraulic drive. There are two ICOM VHF’s and an ICOM SSB. The rigging was all refit and a staysail added. New sails were cut by Air Force sails and were a cruising laminate. She has lots of ground tackle. McHugh took off to cruise SoCal for about five months before departing to shake down the systems, but the electronics did not get fully installed and integrated until the last moment. The crew: Three members of Santa Monica Windjammers Yacht Club joined Eddie McHugh. Hans Schwarz and Jim McDonald are both motor yacht owners, but have extensive sailing experience. Rick Dinon has a Hunter Legend 40.5. We are in our 60’s. The crew was self-sufficient, and like most boaters, reasonably handy. The voyage: The plan was to sail directly to Puerto Vallarta from Marina del Rey, a distance of about 1200 NM. Although scheduled to leave November first, we did not get underway until the fifth to allow additional time for last-minute electrical integration and for Dinon to determine if his house had survived the mountain fires in SoCal (it had). The plan was to sail 70-100 miles offshore to get better wind and avoid vessel traffic. We motored for the first night with no wind, and had to detour about 60 miles due to USN drills off San Clemente Island. After that, winds picked up to 15-25 at night and somewhat less during the day. Total motoring was in the area of 35 hours. McDonald fished and got one excellent Albacore and three Skipjacks that were released. We were buzzed by a twin engine jet several times south of Ensenada and out about 60 miles. In his last pass, he saw us land a fish and he rocked his wings in celebration. We don’t know if the jet was Mexican or US. The sail down was great, running at hull speed for hours on end. We had our share of mishaps, mostly avoidable but for a broken mizzen gooseneck that we repaired. We made great time, breakwater to breakwater in 8 days, 21 hours. Commentary and other: 1. The owner had two PC-based charting systems he expected to utilize to Panama. However, the NEMA input to the PC crashed a short time out and never recovered. He had a Mexico to Panama chart kit aboard which, at $100, was a real bargain. We did not have a large-scale Mexico chart aboard and missed it. The C-map charting software in the Raytheon proved terrific to use. The author purchased a Mexican chip before departing, not feeling comfortable with the PC system and was glad he did. 2. There were some oddities in the function of the two linked Raymarine plotters. Nothing major, but they were not 100% duplicate functions. 3. The ability to overlay the radar image on to a chart proved interesting but not useful. There was simply too much going on in that mode. Likewise, we did not use split screen, opting instead to toggle back and forth between full-screen displays. 4. Despite losing the NEMA connectivity with the PC, it still was a useful back up and was helpful for route planning. The Windows XP laptop did some hard crashes while using the software, however. 5. Some of the other PC-based programs were a pain or not reliable. The remote for the ICOM SSB never did work and the weatherfax was iffy. The Sailmail set up with the Proctor modem was a nightmare but worked like a champ once we got the modem to take its registration. However, it took it only after we were in PV, so we had no e-mail while passagemaking. It turned out to be a space in a string that was not called for in the unlocking code provided. Lesson: do it at the dock and allow lots of time for de-bugging. Clearly, e-mail is the way to go. I was only able to stir up contact with a marine operator three times on SSB and lost the connection all three times. 6. There was a lot of NEMA interfacing. Wind to A/P, chartplotter to A/P, GPS to chartplotter, wind to chartplotter, etc. There was some loss of signal to contend with, enough to make using the wind or NAV mode in the autopilot unreliable. The interface seemed delicate and needed more work. 7. When transmitting on SSB, it was not uncommon to lose the autopilot. We had some exciting moments until we figured out to shut it off first. 8. Even when the B and G wind to A/P NEMA connection was working, it was a pain steering by the wind since it sounded alarms a lot when the boat was being knocked around by quartering seas. 9. The Simrad autopilot was wonderful, steering 98% of the time. It had a great display and we used it for wind direction, both true and apparent, course, heading, waypoint and speed. The display was bold and the readout of the fluxgate compass well damped. We rarely used the steering compass, which was a good thing in that the light was out. The only down side was the noise on the hydraulic pump. It made sleeping in the aft cabin almost impossible. It is probably fixable but will require some engineering. The sound was just like the sound of a humpback whale. It was loud enough I thought we could be attracted to a mating male! 10. Communications were problematical. No one had SSB experience before leaving (the crew thought the Captain did, but he had not received his license until departure). The manual was thorough in an operations sense but not in a functional sense. Clearly, a ham class would have been really useful to help understand frequency propagation and HF quirks. A cruising guide I had with me was very useful. Still, it was very different from the VHF we use all the time. I wonder how many marine telephone operators are really monitoring the channels? It seemed forever to raise one, and more than once I was sent to an occupied channel. However, as said earlier, the e-mail seemed to be the way to go as a communications means. Having said that, I would have rented a satellite phone for the trip so as not to worry the folks back home. 11. When we were 150 miles south of San Diego, I tried the marine operator in San Diego as a lark. I not only reached him but also completed a call through him. Not bad for a 25 mile VHF! 12. Radar, a color Raymarine, was great. We used it on the 12-mile range usually, checking the 24-mile from time to time. We used the MARPA to track targets in the 12, 6 and 3 mile ranges. Somewhat helpful. 13. SELAH had a tri-color masthead light and a strobe. We used the strobe twice to signal ship traffic and assure we were seen. It was very comforting having that powerful nav light way up, and some day I’ll definitely add one to my boat. 14. We used about 35-40 gallons of water per day. Showered every two or three days. The shower should have had a shut-off at the head to conserve. Washing dishes consumes a big chunk of water. I would have put in a salt-water pump in the galley for dishwashing. Bet it would have knocked down consumption by 50%. 15. The refrigeration was good. The ability to carry large amounts of food frozen was a big help. When water temp went up to 80 degrees, and the engine room temperature (where the compressors were located) soared, the unit had to work really hard. The Captain will have to add some powered vents for the compressors. 16. The full keel and ketch rig was nice on this trip since it tracked really well, even in 8-12’ quartering seas. However, it does not maneuver well in close quarters and it was a pain to jibe and tack. I got whacked on the head by the boom once when I was resetting a preventer. A double-ended preventer that you could set from the cockpit would have been nice. Same for the mizzen. 17. We all wore harnesses and tethers at night. However, we did not have jack lines run due to the gear on deck. We should have done a better job stowing the gear and run the lines. A lot of the action was at night. Good deck lighting proved its worth. We did have to take care to keep our tethers out of each other’s way. I kept a small (AAA-powered) Pelican light on a snap hook on my D-ring. It turned out to be a very important piece of night gear. 18. Most of the running gear was Garhauer and it was fine except for a limited articulation on a turning block. Both the mizzen and main had Garhauer vangs that were especially valuable without travelers. The reaching pole was a Forespar Line Drive. It was an important piece of gear that we used about 70% of the trip. We avoided DDW running, opting to get the wind on the quarter. This did mean we had to jibe several times during the day and night, but made for a much-happier boat and one that did better on VMG. Still, it was the most dangerous thing we did, and getting the outboard jaw to engage on the clew was tricky. Some sailors say to never put the jaw on the ring, just the sheet, but I have never had good luck with that method. 19. We had a set of stabilized binoculars and a generation-three night scope aboard. The night scope proved to be useful to pick out lights at night and determine a ship’s silhouette. When we came upon a fishing fleet at night, it proved its worth again. 20. We broke a gooseneck the second day out. We lashed it with a sail tie overnight. We determined we could use the Garhauer vang mount if needed as a substitute, but were fortunate to have a replacement aboard. It required some drilling and routing of the mast track, but it was a fix. The lesson is to have good tools aboard. I would have some hardwood and strapping to use as a splint for broken stuff. A good quality cordless drill is a must and a second battery a nice addition. 21. 20 miles from Puerto Vallarta, we tossed a fresh-water pump belt. Of course, we had to remove two alternators to replace it. Tough job in a hot engine compartment with the boat wallowing without any wind. Again, good tools paid off. 22. We provisioned in a rush. My wife Marlyn did such a good job, I ought to hire her out! Putting non-skid in the drawers and on the galley surfaces was a real help. She got plastic containers and transferred most of the foodstuffs into them, which was very helpful reducing the trash burden. We discarded paper at sea after shredding it and cans after ripping them. We kept the plastic for disposal ashore. 23. We ate well. Hans Schwarz was a really good cook, having been in the restaurant business at one time. We had stew, London broil, ham, rack of lamb, steaks, burritos, fresh fish, and other dinners I’ve forgotten. We had salads and bread and vegetables to go with it. For breakfast, we had cereal, eggs and sausage and potatoes. We had fresh fruit, including apples, oranges and bananas. We had to toss about half of the oranges, but the apples lasted the trip. We purchased two boxes of individually wrapped sweet rolls. They, along with a couple of dozen hard-boiled eggs, were good AM snacks. We made both coffee and tea. I fell off the no-caffeine wagon. Instant dry-soups and canned chili satisfied day-cravings. We took some booze, but used very little. It was just too dangerous. You could really feel one drink. We did find a glass of wine at the end of a shift helped a couple of us sleep better. 24. Marlyn purchased space-saver bags from Lats and Atts. They have a one-way valve so that you can store bulky items in much less space. They require no vacuum; you just roll out the air. Highly recommended. 25. We all took a mix of clothes. Long underwear and lots of layers for the trip down with gloves. Then shorts and T’s for warmer weather. Also foul weather gear. Towels were a pain to dry. I used one of the compact quick-dry kind and it was much easier to use. 26. Routing offshore 70-100 miles was a good decision. Much less stress watching out for other vessels and probably better wind. Not a lot of sea life out there. We were concerned early on about a depression taking form but had options if it did. 27. Pre-departure prep was poor. We were rushing since we were leaving late and the electronic set-up was occupying the Captain and technician. As a result, the boat was messy below and stayed that way. Just a day of organization would have been an asset. Also, learning as you go is possible but difficult as you find you have a lot to do on a long passage. 28. I developed two options for watches. Both had four on, four off during the day. At night, we had the option of two or four hour watches. We opted to rotate watch partners every third day. As it was, the crew opted for the four-hour night shifts. We rotated the 1800-2200 and 0200-0600 shifts daily. During the day, we were informal about shifts. It worked well and everyone developed a rhythm after the third day. Sleep was not a problem even in small dosages. No one was too tired although the first two days were a bit hyper and no one was able to sleep much. 29. Calamities were several and mostly avoidable. Besides the gooseneck failure, a box in the aft cabin slid into the water spigot and turned on the water, emptying about 75 gallons. Fortunately, we had a big water maker. We also lost about ten pounds of propane when the Captain forgot to turn off the valve to the barbecue and it leaked out the quick connector. Fortunately, we had a back up. The laptop programs were a mess and the NEMA interfaces were not reliable. We almost lost the spinnaker when it tried to crawl out of the turtle. And, when one of the crew had a pretty good cut, we opened the new first aid kit to find it way sparse. All those kits need augmentation. Also, two of us had our VISA cards refused when we tried to check out of the hotel, despite their use in town. Seems the anti-fraud kicked in. In a follow-up call, they advised to call them when travelling outside the country. Odd when you consider they were both United Airlines mileage cards. 30. Prices in Puerto Vallarta were US levels. Dock labor was $10 USD per hour. Slip fees were about $35 per night. (We were told of $95 per night in Cabo!) Good dinners were $15-20. Cocktails were $3-5. Taxies were reasonable and hotel charges a good value. We stayed at a hotel on the water for $60 per night including a sail-in discount (!). In general, we had a great trip. Good winds, able crew, well-found yacht. Nearly every boat is going to head off shy some prep and rushed in some way. Indeed, we met several people on the Baja Ha Ha run who also had gear they were never able to square away or figure out. The sky was clear, stars bright and the air clean. When it warmed up about 200 miles north of Cabo, it got even prettier as we had warm winds and mild weather. It was a trip to remember. Rick D.
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