In his latest video, Patrick explains how he navigated around the world with a sextant and a keel for a depthsounder on his Catalina 27. We then shows you what the marine electronics on Brick House started off with and now have evolved to. From Sextant….to Iridium GO! An old dog really CAN learn new tricks!
Make sure to watch this video and share with your younger sailing friends so they don’t forget how lucky they are these days!
Here is a historical post…from September 5, 2007, days before departing the dock. I think it’s my way of saying goodbye to my SSB Radio and my Modem.
What I had to do to Make SSB Radio and Pactor Modem work!
This was written only a few days before untying the dock lines, more than 11 years ago. It has some good information on what I did to get the SSB radio and Pactor III modem finally working.
…While Patrick was working, I hooked up yet MORE copper strapping to our SSB ground. I put copper strapping from the tuner to the copper foilplane, as well as from the tuner directly to the fridge/freezer copper thru hull, with a hose clamp.
This has made VAST improvements to the SSB and Pactor Modem operation! UntiI now, could not turn the power past RF2 on the radio without losing the connection from the modem to the PC. Even at RF2, it would often lose it. I could never connect to anything more than 1100 miles away no matter how I tried, on the best day.
Now I was able to connect at RF3-the highest power, far and near. I could connect to stations 2300 miles away too! So this is a big improvement…which I am very happy about…been struggling with this all summer as some of you know! Cant wait to listen to some nets again to see if things improved there too… We will be heading out this week sometime.
Its getting cold, although this week it has warmed up…wish I knew if it was going to get dramatically cooler again before next week. I’d like to stay for one last going away party too…but not at the expense of wearing parkas on the water when we leave!!! SO we are in the final stages of leaving the dock. Will we ever leave? Will we find engine problems that we need to stay here for? Will be need a different prop that we will have to wait here for? If poor Patrick has to dive too many more times, and come up shivering with dashes to the hot shower in between , he may die of pneumonia before we ever leave the dock. We need to get out of here!
That was more than 11 years ago. Now our SSB Radio and Pactor Modem sits at our nav station, slowly decaying one more time…It has been all but replaced by the technology of the Iridium GO (pictured on the right below…click the photo for more information.)
We have no regrets but it is still sad to see an old friend die.
We have been contemplating what to do, where to go in 2019, and though we enjoyed Madagascar…ecspecially the lemurs…we are wondering if it’s worth it to strategize to get back there from Tanzania, to then have to strategize and struggle to get back to the east coast of Africa…where we are now, in order to go south again.
Note: These are currents today…in December. It is quite likely they will be quite different in April/May.
So we will stay in Tanzania for about 3 more months, til the end of March, working our way south to the border by the end of March, at the latest. We will then depart for South Africa via Mozambique. But we won’t be departing Tanzania until we can do one more grand, excellent Safari here, for nearly a week, and then a big music festival!
Here is what I have learned about our trip south from Tanzania, along the coast of Mozambique, to South Africa.
This chart, part of this above article is particularly helpful: It is the 34.5 percent that I am most concerned about as those cyclones don’t have that much notice…The 28.8 percents…the most northern ones, will be earlier in the trip and we won’t leave safe harbor if we see one of those coming. The bottom two will be out of the way by the time we get that far south, and they have a much longer warning period.
I have looked closely at the cyclone patterns since 1972 on the climatology plugin on Open CPN. Again…May is in the clear…
During the passage, my Iridium GO and Predictwind Offshore will be activated again so that I can get updates every 12 hours to see the details of what may be stewing…This will be very important not just for early cyclone warning, ecspecially the ECMWF model, but also for the all important currents.
I have consulted with a local weather guru, Des Cason down in South Africa, and have talked to and will continue to talk to local sailors who have gone up and down this coast more than once or twice. There is some conflicting information here so I need to keep talking to them! It may be my understanding of what they are saying…or it may be a difference between months traveling. It could also be the effects of cocktails while the sun sets.
I have closely examined Jimmy Cornels Ocean Cruising Pilot Charts, and April looks very mildly risky while May looks to be totally in the clear.
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Some things are very clear to me after all of this research, and while they are still clear to me I thought I would document them for future sailors considering this route, straight down the Mozambique coast in the April, May or early June timeframe. I also invite anyone who has recently made this trip to comment below on your experiences, and with any advice. One can never hear too much about the next leg of one’s passage.
One MUST get down to Mtwara on the Tanzania/Mozambique border by mid March or risk going against wind and potentially current too to get around Capo Delgado just over the border in Mozambique. Des Cason and local sailors give conflicting reports in regards to where the current splits as it hits the Mozambique coasts. Pilot charts agree with the local sailors…Predictwind as we get closer to that time will give us a very good idea as to where it splits and if we will have a helping or hurting current as we found this Cape.
March is still a very strong chance of a cyclone, and though they don’t hit this coast often, it’s still a chance. So we won’t go much past the border until April. In April there is still a very minor chance of a cyclone, and it will NOT have much notice to us since the ones that hit in northern mozambique either develop just northeast of Madagascar, or develop near Mayotte…so we have to be prepared to sail fast one direction or the other to escape it. We need to stay as north as possible until mid to late April to be totally in the clear.
May is ideal. The Southeast winds have arrived, but they aren’t strong.the current down the Mozambique Channel is a helping Southerly flowing current. The Southwesterly busters…periods of very strong south and Southwest winds only happen a few times a month, unlike the traditional October/November Crossing from Madagascar, so you have much longer weather windows (which a slower boat like ours needs).
Late June until mid September is a bad idea since you can get Winter Storms, and who wants to sail when it’s cold anyways, never mind in a storm?
From the chart above, if we can get one third of the way down the coast, we have escaped the short notice cyclones late season cyclones, and then only have to watch carefully for the cyclones developing in the central Indian Ocean which end earlier.
We will get to the Tanzania/Mozambique border by middle of March and then hold up there for as long as possible. And then fly down the coast as fast as we can in late April/ early May. We have heard mixed reports about clearance in to Mozambique so we aren’t sure yet if we will spend time there. I guess it will depend on weather.
Here is a historical post…from September 5, 2007, days before departing the dock. I think it’s my way of saying goodbye to my SSB Radio and my Modem.
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