The past … from idea to a boat in Belgium

From idea to buying a boat
Sitting at my desk at work, one monday morning somewhere in early 1994, I heard a woman on the radio, telling about a long sailing trip she and her husband made and I said to myself “mmmm, not a bad idea … why not do something like that myself one day“. And after talking to myself, I had to start thinking

What do I need?

• I have to learn sailing
• I will have to get quite a lot of experience
• I will need a boat
• I will probably also need money

So …

• I learned sailing
• got quite some experience on chartered boats (sailing the North Sea, the IJsselmeer and in the Croatian waters)
• got quite some experience in the (Belgian) military sailing team
• read a lot of books like “heavy weather sailing”, “desirable and undesirable characteristics of ocean-going yachts”, all sorts of guides telling me what to do and what not to do, …
• refused further promotion in the army, making it possible to retire with a full pension at the age of 51
• and after a while I came up with a wish list of what my future boat would have to look like:
  • steel
  • cutter-rigged
  • long keel
  • a tiller, not a steering wheel
  • between 33 and 40ft
  • lots and lots of storage space

In 1997 I started searching the internet for a boat that would suit my needs, all the while being affordable. I came across many boats, but most -if not all- of them were either too expensive or too badly finished (the interior was usually ‘home built’ and looked more like ‘home grown’). But … I wasn’t in a hurry since my retirement wasn’t to be before october 2010.

And then lightning struck: in 2004 I found what looked like the perfect boat at a more than reasonable price. The current owner had lived on it with his wife, while sailing around, for 12 years and now wanted to sell it quickly because they wanted to settle on land again and needed the cash to start a new business.

Smoke, while she was still Sovereign

The boat was lying in Brunswick, Georgia, which meant that the first thing I would have to do (after buying her), would be to sail her over to Belgium. I skipped the fact that my sailing experience was limited to daysailing (to be correct: I had sailed once during the night) and asked the owner some pertinent questions:

1. you look about the same size as me … do you have enough headroom in the boat?
2. knowing the boat, would you sail it across the ocean in the state that it is now?

the answer to both questions was “yes”, so … without ever visiting the boat and without having her surveyed by some independent specialist I went ahead and bought her!

Next came the task of sailing her to Belgium: I had bought the boat in february and figured to sail her over during my summer holidays (i.e. during the month of june), or to put it differently … at the start of the hurricane season, but I figured that it would be real bad luck if a hurricane would develop so early in the season.

I got a crew together (a girlfriend and two brothers that I used to know when they were still boys) and flew over to Georgia to finally see my boat…

But first: here‘s a link to a copy of the internet site where I found the boat (although I have now adapted the contents to reflect the equipment that I’ve added – look here).

Taking control
We (the girlfriend and me) arrived around midnight in the marina in Brunswick and quickly found the boat. It looked exactly like the pictures I had seen, but then came the first problem … I had the code (a three number combination) for the lock of the companionway but no matter how I tried, the lock wouldn’t open

Seeing a police car in the parking lot, I decided to ask the officer for help: I wanted him to break the lock in some way (preferably without using his gun). Note: this was the end of june 2004 … already quite some time after the infamous 9/11 attacks and security had already been beefed up in the entire western world, so I approached him very carefully. He came to the boat without hesitation, looked at the lock and spoke the words that everybody visiting the US must already have heard: “please, step aside sir” and within 5 seconds he opened the padlock. Then, US style, showed me twice how to open this type of lock, while giving clear instructions, and returned to his car, accompanied by my overwhelming gratitude.

And so, at about 1AM (which for our tired bodies was actually 7AM) we could finally enter (and inspect) the boat – my boat! It was exactly the way I had imagined it when looking at the online description and pictures! The first night we managed to get the toilet clogged and discovered that the kitchen sinks didn’t drain.

We filled the next couple of days with picking up the two brothers from the airport, provisioning (after a while the manager of the local supermarket came to greet us whenever we came around – watch the video, imagine this happening two or three times per day and you’ll understand why) and getting all the paperwork done (like e.g. a cruising permit for US waters).

The previous owner (Jim Mueller) came to meet us the day before we planned to leave, and explain to us whatever we wanted/needed to know about the equipment and the boat. The first tasks/questions were: why is the toilet clogged and why can’t we drain the sinks? And he put himself to fixing these right away:

1. I put on my swimsuit and jumped overboard. With Jim’s help (high and dry on board), I located the toilet outlet and the sink outlet. The toilet outlet was ‘clean’, whereas the sink outlet was closed by some plant that loved whatever had remained in the outlet. I punched it open and voila … the sink problem was solved
2. The outlet not being the problem, Jim set himself to disassembling the toilet and he found the problem quite quickly: a small rubber ball that used to sit between the toilet door and the wall (to stop the door from banging against the wall) had fallen right into the bowl the first time one of us used the toilet (closing the door) and without noticing that person (me or my girlfriend) had flushed the ball right into the toilet plumbing

This being solved, Jim further explained about the SSB-radio (Single Side Band), how to use the Monitor wind vane, and most of the other equipment. So … the next day we felt ready to leave.

Have I already mentioned that I didn’t have any mentionable ‘night-time sailing’-experience? Well, one other thing that might be worth mentioning: none of the crew had any sailing experience. A nut-job? Of course, but apparently you sometimes just have to do things without really thinking them through . Apparently Jim felt the same …

From Brunswick to Nantucket
Finally we were ready to leave Brunswick and head for Nantucket (the most eastern island of the USA). In the late afternoon we motored until we left the entrance to the Saint Simons Sound behind us, raised the sails and headed NE.

Last view of the US coast for 9 days

While thunder showers were developing behind us (between Florida and Brunswick), we enjoyed the sunset and then I explained the watch system (2Hr per person between 2200 and 0600, and 3Hr during the day, with ‘nobody’ between noon and 1pm) and proposed to take the ‘double watch’ from 22 to midnight and from 6 to 9.

At 2230 I started the engine because there wasn’t enough wind to keep us going at a reasonable speed. With the engine running, I connected the other autopilot (the ‘classical’ one connected directly to the tiller and making a sound like R2D2).

I called the next one on watch at midnight and quickly fell asleep in my bunk, only to be woken at 0215 by the girl: “we’re capsizing!!!”. To be honest, I hadn’t even noticed that we were heeling . I got out of bed, didn’t bother to put on clothes, other than the underwear I was wearing -we were close to Florida and temperature was still between 25 and 30 °C- and went on deck to find

• pouring rain
• frequent lightning
• much more wind
• a mainsail that was set much to tight
• the boat heeling about 20°
• lightning all around

hence … we were in the middle of a thunder shower that had slowly caught up with us .

Easing the main rightened the boat immediately and made tension on the crew drop a few notches. I then turn to adjust the wind vane, so I could return to my still warm bed, to find its rudder out of the water. One of the brothers tought that this was giving us too much drag and had had the brilliant idea to lift it!

So I find myself in my underpants in the pouring rain amidst lightning in the cockpit with a tiller in my hand, trying to ignore all the advice I had read about lightning and steel boats. I send everybody inside and handsteer until the rain stops and the wind drops a bit, giving me the possibility to lower the wind vane’s rudder and turn the boat over to Mr. Monitor again.

Since the person whose watch it’s supposed to be seems to be inspecting the toilet bowl from up close, I take her watch.

At 0730am the throttle cable breaks and I get an early “rise and shine” to come up with a jury rig (a piece of rope running from the engine to the cockpit). Looking around, I discover that ‘blue water’ sailing is really sailing in truly blue water .

The next couple of days are quite uneventful, except for:

• the occasional school of dolphins joining us once every two days
• the outer seam of the headsails slowly dissolving (being unprotected in the sun for 4 months doesn’t seem to have done them much good)
• a daily (or rather: nightly) tropical thunder shower and
• an occasional cruise ship in the distance


The first cruise ship we encountered (with a Swedish communication officer)

Especially the “dissolving headsails” are a constant nuisance: by the time we got to Nantucket, we (mainly me, sometimes the girl) had sown the entire leech and foot of both sails . Who said sailing would be boring?

Half an hour before entering Nantucket harbour, a dense fog catches up with us and envelopes us … visibility is reduced to 10m … luckily we have a radar and much of experience using this kind of equipment (we have already switched it on once to see what kind of image it gave ). The image on the radar matches what I see on the map and surrounded by the horns of ferries we enter the harbour and find ourselves a visitors buoy. At 2045, after 9 days at sea, we have officially arrived . The girl and me turn in, while the brothers row to shore (the outboard runs for about 10 seconds and then gives up … gummy bears in the carburetor)

Atlantic Crossing

After 2 days of re-provisioning (including 48 gallons of diesel) and making long phonecalls home, we were ready to set sail again. According to the logbook we left Nantucket harbor on July 9th at 1045 with all sails set.
If I would have to report about the trip from memory, I would say: dull, lack of wind, mist, and one storm. Luckily … I have a logbook where I can follow the trip hour by hour and some pictures and footage so, let’s go:
While getting ready to enjoy a beautiful sunset (from now on, all the sunsets will be behind us, whereas we’re sailing into the sunrise), we’re seeing a seemingly motionless ship in the distance and are approaching it slowly while the wind is dropping. The ship seems to be some sort of mothership, with several dinghy’s in the water. We don’t get closer than approx. half a mile of the ship, but it’s close enough to see that they are whale watchers … there must be more than a dozen of whales around us . Some of them just swimming and diving -showing their tails- while others are jumping .

While the rest of the crew is watching the whales -mostly on our port hind quarter- I spot two of them (whales, not crew members ) coming straight at us from up front … they pass the boat at a distance of about 1m and surface right behind us!

To end this perfect sailing day, one of  the whales goes for the perfect picture, but misses it by just a few metres:

Whale diving in the setting sun

That first night we are treated with an incredible number of stars on a dark blue canvas and spot 2 lights in the distance ahead. Could be 2 other sailors -they travel at about the same speed as us- but we’ll never catch up, so … we’ll never know.

The next couple of days is just a sequence of furling and unfurling the headsails, watching dolphins and a first record of 132NM in 24 hours, until … on tuesday morning (july 13th) we have a contact over the radio (VHF) with a P&O Nedloyd ship: we’re heading for a low with very strong winds and will reach it -according to my estimates- the next day in the evening. And here lies the big difference with coastal sailing: when you get this kind of forecast, you look for shelter in a harbour or marina and wait for the storm to pass; here on the ocean, you have no option but to weather the storm, so … we prepare ourselves and the boat as good as possible and just keep on going . The next day, while the sky is still blue, I suddenly realize that we’re already entering the storm at about 1700Hr. We continue with a triple-reefed mainsail and only the inner jib unfurled.

Everybody is ordered inside, the Monitor is given control and the hatches are battened. Everybody tries to rest as much as possible, though for some this extra motion seems to oblige them to inspect the toilet bowl from close up again. The person on watch sticks his or her head out and scans the horizon every 30 minutes and then, at 0400 the wind suddenly dies -we’ve made it through the storm

The next evening we notice that our toplight doesn’t work anymore, so I get hauled up in the mast to see what’s wrong … apparently the storm has blown the light away . That same night I discover that the flashlight I had was really waterproof … it stays on while it sinks and disappears in the ocean.
From the next day on, we are in what the Dutch refer to as “erwtensoep” (peas soup): a dense (and very wet) fog, and this fog will stay with us for more than a week (something I am unfortunately able to see in advance on the weather maps I get through the SSB radio). I’ve got a really cool video showing this fog, but you might just as well go take a hot shower in a small bathroom … you’ll get the idea (except for the temperature).
Dolphins keep popping up at an average of once every two days, and after a while the person on watch doesn’t bother to call the rest of the crew anymore because he’s getting reactions like “are they doing circus tricks? If not, then we’d rather stay dry inside”.
The wind varies from none at all to force 4 at best, obliging us to motor for many hours in a row, something we’ll have to do much to often during this trip.
When we’re finally out of the foggy area, the wind keeps playing hide and seek. I would never have thought it possible to get the following images in the middle of the Northern Atlantic:

A group of birds (petrels?) resting

Not a puff of wind (notice the repairs on the headsails)

Then one night, the girl wakes me -short of panicking- saying there’s a big ship burning near the horizon and approaching fast, so … I get out of bed, stick my head up the companionway, look in the indicated direction and dryly explain: “that’s the full moon rising” and go back to bed .
The next night we get a fantastic lightshow, offered by a school of dolphins and the always present plankton: the conditions are just right to create ‘bioluminescence’. Every disturbance of the plankton creates a fluorescent green light (also giving streeks of green when flushing the toilet ), and when the dolphins start playing around the boat, we see them passing under the surface as green streeks of light and when they jump they are phosphorescent green. It’s an incredibly beautiful show that lasts for two hours, and for once everybody gets out of bed again to enjoy it. Unfortunately, everybody is so mesmerized by the beauty that nobody thinks about taking pictures
A nice intermezzo is the encounter with two British warships. The contact (on VHF) goes as follows (Smoke was still called Sovereign at that time):
Me: Big ship, big ship, this is Sovereign, Sovereign over
no reply
The ships approach and I get the impression that they have a military silhouet, so …
Me: Military ship, military ship, this is Sovereign, Sovereign over
Them: This is the UK warship …

and then follows a normal conversation. During this time I’m replacing a piece of rope in the Monitor, which must have made our course look a bit erratic, so the turn about to check out what’s happening (at least: I suppose that was the reason )

During one of the countless times of “not enough wind”, the crew takes the occasion to “go swimming” in the ocean. The water being too cold to my liking, I sacrifice myself to be the one who’s not enjoying the swim, but handing out towels and steering the boat.

Note: since the boat is still making 2 knots through the water, everybody jumping in has to wear a safety harness and stay connected to the boat at all times.
And then, at last, something everybody should have experienced at least once in his sailing career … the toilet gets clogged! Remembering what happened back in Brunswick, we first search for the (in)famous ball and find it exactly where it’s supposed to be. Next thing is checking the throughull: while on a port tack, I remove the (toilet) hose and get an unobstructed view of the water rushing under the boat. Finally, bending the hose gives us an indication that the blockage is situated close to the last part of the tube, so … start poking in that tube and have a bucket ready to collect everything that comes out. I won’t go into detail about everything that comes out, but suffice it to say that it ranges from petrified to rather soft :/.
Next comes an outburst of rage (from me): the girl decides to shake out a reef of the mainsail, without asking or saying, and forgets to undo the knot from one of the reef points. She firmly pulls the uphaul of the mainsail, aided by a winch, and … produces a nice big tear in the sail. Two hours and many tears (hers) later, the sail is provisionally repaired and I hope that this will hold in stronger winds.
At times the sailing -especially during the lonely 2Hr watches- is incredibly boring, so even the tiniest of reasons is enough to get people excited

Luckily there are also more exciting rides …

And one of the culinary highlights … pizza:

We’re now slowly approaching our first goal (Dover), and start to encounter fishing vessels. They turn out to be a real hazard at night: busy working with their nets, they don’t keep a VHF watch and some strange fate puts 2 of them exactly on our path, forcing us to change course.
We enjoy the last sunset on the ocean

Last ocean sunset

and enter the Channel.
At about 700NM from Dover, I had begun to worry about our fuel: we had left Nantucket with a full tank and 4 jerrycans (giving us a total of about 90 US gallons, which equals to roughly 340 liter), but I had no idea about the fuel consumption. When peeking into the tank, I can see that most of our diesel has already been consumed, so we’ll have to use the engine as little as possible, even if this means sailing a sub-optimal course. The last day I take the risk, and motor the last 20 odd miles to Dover to arrive in time to have access to the Wellington dock. When fueling, it turns out that we had less than 30 liter left .
During the last night at sea, the girl and I are forced to stand all watches because the boys refuse to do any more work. The reason? When I woke up (the morning before) I found this entry in the logbook: “Close encounter 2x; Second was really close, I could smell the exhaust!“. This made me go through the roof, because it was the third time that this guy had such a ‘close encounter’. On the first two occasions he called me out at the very last moment, making it necessary to do a ‘crash’ course change, and now he hadn’t taken any action at all (he claims to have called me and that I had said that I was coming, but that I never came). I said that he clearly had a problem to estimate if we were on a collision course and that I didn’t want to take any chances, given the fact that we were approaching one of the busiest traffic zones of the world. Therefore I relieved him from the duty of night watch, taking his watch myself. This was apparently quite a shock for his ego and one word led to another, resulting in him not wanting to do anything anymore, an action (no pun intended) that was immediately taken over by his brother.
And then finally … Dover. The sight of the harbour made some ‘land-crazy’

and one more ‘story’ about the extra security measures after 9/11: when arriving at the quay, 2 customs officers were waiting for us (I had asked for them, since our last port of call was way out of the EU). We started chatting; they were impressed by the fact that we had sailed directly from the US to Dover. After a while I asked if they didn’t need do see our passports, resulting in “oh yes, wait a minute, we’ll come down to the boat“. Some more chatting until I asked if they didn’t need to inspect the inside … “no sir, no need at all” . He did ask if we had firearms or an excessive amount of alcohol on board. I answered no to the firearms question and sort of yes to the alcohol one, explaining that the crew hadn’t felt like drinking much beer or wine during the trip and that we had overestimated a bit the consumption . This was no problem at all.
So … clearing into the UK was quite relaxed and as soon as it was done, the two boys took their stuff and rushed to the ferry … never to be seen again.
I stayed a bit longer to get all the information about paying the VAT and to take all the necessary actions to achieve this. One of the questions I got from customs: “why don’t you just continue to Belgium and pay VAT there?“, after which I explained that this would cost me quite a bit more, giving the higher VAT rate .
Anyway … all’s well that ends well and about one month after arriving in Dover, we’re ready to sail to Belgium with a new crew …

Ready to sail again