Dear friends and family,
Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!
I am at my temporary “residence” of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, camping in the bed of my new to me pickup truck. I towed my little sailboat over 1300 miles to get here over the last four days. No snow at the passes so an uneventful trip so far.
This journey’s story should start at the beginning where I first became interested in a rowing boat that you can sleep in.
When I was the shoreside support guy for Mick Bird, who rowed his ocean rowing boat from the coast of California all the way to Java, I thought about boats and rowing them great distances. I hadn’t ever learned to row yet, but the idea of rowing for days on end seemed to appeal to me.
The boats used to row across oceans are big and heavy. When I first saw Mick try to move his new boat from a standing start and saw the look on his face about how hard it was to make it move, that impression stayed with me.
Here is a picture of one of that style boat ( not Mick’s)
The designer and builder of Mick’s boat both used to joke that a ping pong ball dropped into the ocean at the start of his journey might beat him to his destination as it would move quicker with the currents, as the currents provide more movement than rowing often in these long distance rows.
Just last month two women rowed nonstop from Peru to Australia in one of these boats. Their trip somewhat mimicked the Kon-Tiki route of ocean currents across the Pacific. How much was current and how much was rowing? I don’t clearly know.
Then a few years later Chris Duff, an acquaintance from Port Angeles, WA who had ocean kayaked on really long and hard expeditions decided to try rowing a sliding seat boat, with a tiny cabin to seal himself off from the elements, from Scotland to Iceland in the North Sea.
Turned out that the boat he planned on using was the same design as the one I was rowing at the time (by now I had gotten into rowing). This was a Merry Wherry by Wayland Marine. There was a single and a double model. Mike, the owner of the company, built mine for me, but usually they come as “stitch and glue” kits of marine plywood held together by epoxy. He was helping Chris with his design and even built specially designed oars for the trip.
So when Chris was decking over this same model boat and building his very tiny cabin into it. I spent a few hours discussing the design and modifications with him as I had spent a lot of hours rowing this model and he was a kayaker and not a rower, so was very new to the sport.
His modified boat weighed several hundred pounds less than the typical ocean rowing boats. He intended to row fast with the lower weight so he would have less hours exposed to the Noth Sea weather.
Turned out that he did embark on this adventure after shipping this boat to Scotland, but had to be rescued and unfortunately abandon the boat to the sea, as the conditions of his rescue didnt allow for saving the boat as well as him.
Since then I had started to row an EXPEDITION WHERRY design by Chesapeake Lightcraft, which is in a way like a kayak as it has waterproof compartments to keep your camping gear until you get to shore and make camp.
Being a big chicken about camping in Alaska where I row it, I have been looking at alternative boats for a few years. Setting up a tent and knowing that the tent fabric of only millimeters thin was the only thing between me and an Alaskan brown bear has prevented me from that type of adventuring with shore camping.
So, Ive been looking for alternatives: isn’t there a rowing boat that can actually be rowed (I dont think I really want to cross oceans and use the currents for half or more of my progress) and still has a tiny cabin to sleep in so I can anchor out and not sleep in a tent on land?
Here’s pictures of a couple of boats that I looked at for ideas, one is a smaller version of an ocean rower and the other a home built with a sleeping cabin, or you might say; coffin. Neither got me particularly excited as a working model for near shore trips.
Then,in year 2018, the owner of Liteboat of France had a boat designed to sail in the Race to Alaska. This is a nonmotorized race from Port Townsend Washington to Ketchikan Alaska of 750 miles ,with a $10,000 first prize and steak knives for a second prize.
Two men sailed and rowed this boat and did quite well in the race.
It fascinated me: designed around a true rowing station with an unstayed carbon fiber mast, this boat unloaded weighs only 330 pounds. Mostly built of carbon fiber to be strong and light, it only draws about six inches when the centerboard is up, so can sail in really shallow water.
Once loaded up with stores and gear, it will probably weigh in at just under 500 pounds, but that makes it about a third the weight of the typical ocean rowing boat.
Last winter, when I was in France, I contacted the company and expressed my interest in buying or renting one for one of their demo weeks, where about ten people try out the boats while doing a tour of some beautiful location in Netherlands, France, or Germany. They don’t schedule these very far in advance, so I waited to see how my schedule would work out for the fall.
Then, out of the blue, when I was visiting Port Townsend between my Europe ride and the summer plans for Alaska, I got a call from the North American sales rep for the company from Victoria BC.
He said that someone in the seaport (smile) of Twisp, Washington, had purchased a boat with all the extras for a planned participation in the Race to Alaska and changed his mind so decided to sell the boat for less than half of what a new one would go for.
I continued the conversation with the buyer after I arrived in Wrangell, and trusted the seller that it was in good shape (basically brand new) and bought it over the internet and the seller delivered it to Port Townsend to the storage space I reserved.
So, now I had the boat I was thinking about and only lacked a plan as to how to use it. It had to be in the fall or winter as I was not wanting to give up a Southeast Alaska summer on Hongvi.
I found out through my research that the Intracoastal Waterway that goes from New York City all along the Atlantic coast to Key West continues around the western side of Florida and goes all the way to the Mexican border along the Texas coast. Part of it is just a passage inside Padre Island and the remainder was dug for a protected passage for freight along the Texas coast.
It seemed like a great plan to explore in the fall, except, oh yeah, hurricane season typically ends November 15th, but due to climate change now is said to officially end the end of November.
So, just bike ride down the Pacific Coast until December, then get me and the boat to Texas and start a long row and sail.
When the bike tour ended early I needed to adjust the plan. What about if I found a place to learn the boat in easy waters and where I could return back to base every evening before the big departure?
Luckily, someone damned up the Colorado River and created a huge lake; Lake Havasu and even transported the London Bridge from it’s falling down location in London to create a tourist attraction and a retirement and snowbird city.
More on this altered plan coming up in future postings.
Sending love and having a whole lot to be thankful for,
Charley
Love that that’s called a cabin.
Great plan – can’t wait to hear more! Peter