IP460 Flying Fish shows her lines and traditional full keel as the bare hull is released from the mold

It may not be prudent to view the Robert Redford film All is Lost when you are planning a long, singlehanded ocean passage.

It is definitely not a good movie to watch if you are also recovering from knee replacement surgery and you are semi hallucinating on the narcotic painkiller Percocet.

In the film, Redford is sailing alone through the Indian Ocean when his boat collides with a partially submerged shipping container. His hull is gashed by the collision and much drama ensues. The nightmare scene for me, however, is when the boat is being ravaged by a storm that turns the hull upside down. The view through the hatches and portholes becomes one of bottomless ocean–a view I hope never to see when I look out of the windows in my boat.

This is why in the selection of a builder for Flying Fish I wanted to know about stability curves and ratios, and the critical point of boat heel and recovery. In physics, these forces work like a lever arm. The center of gravity pushes down on one end and the center of buoyancy pushes up on the other. This combined force is known as the righting moment and it works to rotate the hull back to an upright position. But it is not enough that the design simply resist rollover; if a capsize does occur what is critical is the recovery time for the hull to return to the upright position. A more detailed explanation of stability curves and righting moment is attached here.

Heavy displacement full keeled sailboats like the IP460 being built for me are not considered very sexy in this new world of lightweight wing keeled supersonic sailing machines. I’m okay with that. I’m not one of those sailors who needs to get there first; I just need to get there. And when I look through my hatches, I want the view to be sunny side up.

A complete knee replacement is what I need to become physically seaworthy. Leg issues didn’t seem to slow down Ahab in pursuit of his obsession.

I don’t want to be a bionic anything.

I am attached to my own flesh and bone. But when I walk, my knee joint grinds bone against bone and that’s when the neuropathic fireworks begin. The cartilage in my left knee is gone. Aging and accidents and osteoarthritis have taken a toll. God’s own caulking compound in my knee has worn away leaving a raw set of nerve endings that hurts so bad it makes me want to whack a white whale.

So tomorrow I go to the University of Miami Hospital where a surgeon will replace my flesh and bone with titanium, ceramic, and ultra-high molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE). I’m getting a new knee. I’m going in for an anatomical refit.

I have been assured that knee joint replacement surgery is hardly more complicated than filling a tooth cavity. More than 600,000 knee replacements are performed each year in the United States. With an aging population and obesity on the rise, demand for total knee replacement surgery is expected to exceed 3 million by the year 2030. Note to daughter Lilly: Forget about sailing for a living and consider orthopedic medicine–ka-ching!

Recovery is said to be quick. A healthy person can be ambulatory in six to eight weeks, if they pay attention to the counsel of their physical therapist. Pay attention? Heck, I’m thinking about moving in with her! I want my legs back.

I would never consider setting sail across three oceans if my boat was in any way unseaworthy. Likewise, I feel I have a responsibility to myself and to my family to be physically fit for this voyage. I need to be kneeworthy.

The schooner America reefed and reaching through Key West Harbor

While it may seem odd to become nostalgic about a home port before having even left it, Key West is the kind of place that a person cannot leave lightly. I am thinking about my home port today as I watch schooners tack across the harbor in preparation for the annual Wreckers Race.

The schooners represent a golden age of sail when over 100 ships per day passed by Key West. The waters they were sailing were known as some of the most treacherous in the world. On average, at least one ship per week would wreck somewhere along the Florida reef. The captain of the first ship to reach a wreck became the “wrecking master” and he controlled the salvage operation. The goods salvaged from the wreck would later be sold at auction in Key West with the wrecking courts awarding anywhere between 25 and 50 percent of the profit to the wreckers.  In 1822, the U.S. Navy chose Key West as its base for suppressing piracy in the West Indies but by 1860 wrecking had made Key West the largest and richest city in Florida, and the wealthiest town per capita in the United States.

The Key West economy has always been fueled by a little bit of piracy. The wreckers were followed by sailors running guns and ganja. Refugees still wash ashore clutching figurines of the virgin Caridad del Cobre, the patron saint of Cuba and protector of those who go to sea.

These days the schooners race to the reef with a cargo of sunburn tourists but Key West is still a seafaring town. From the vantage point of a balcony on a widow’s walk over Duval Street it is possible to look north to the Gulf of Mexico and south to the Atlantic Ocean. Our little Island in the Stream is less than a mile wide. I’ve made my living on the water in Key West for more than three decades. Our daughter was born here. It is home.

Two thousand years ago the Roman philosopher Pliny said, “Home is where the heart is.”

I will keep those words close to me as I set my sails for points west next year. It may end up being a voyage of 36 months and 36,000 miles, but I know if I just keep following the setting sun that it will eventually lead me back to Key West.

Sailing at night, without a horizon, and only a star to steer her by.
Photo: Paul Carson / http://www.SailValis.com

On a dark morning this week I will be en route to the Marquesas–the Marquesas Keys west of Key West, not the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia. That trip across the Pacific will come later–next year, God willing. Nonetheless, the Marquesas in the Key West National Wildlife Refuge is still one of the most beautiful places on this earth. I know these islands well having made this 20-mile passage from Key West more than a thousand times during my 30-year tenure as a Florida Keys fishing guide.

I have always loved the pre-dawn departures, especially on moonless nights when when the sea and the sky seem to blend together as one. Those passages to the Marquesas were made in a small skiff, not a sailboat. It was work then and not what John Masefield called the “vagrant gypsy life.” Still, I cherished these mornings. The route west of Key West is away from civilization. There are no city lights, although on a very dark night in the Marquesas it is possible to see the lume of Havana glowing in the clouds 90 miles to the south.

These dark nights on the water have always reminded me of being alone on my transatlantic passage nearly 35 years ago. In mid-ocean on a calm night the stars would reflect off the water. Without a horizon it would seem as if I was a celestial being hurtling through space; as if the little sloop was in a physical universe beyond the surface of the earth. And how often is that possible without the help of mind-altering substances?

So, as I wait for my new ship to be built, and my star to steer her by, I will be content to to find my way on the water by whatever means possible and I will consider myself blessed when I can make a passage through the darkness.

“Sea Fever”
I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

By John Masefield (1878-1967).
(English Poet Laureate, 1930-1967.)

A 17th century astrolabe from the Museo Galileo

It is difficult to imagine that getting from Point A to Point B was ever any more difficult than pushing a “Go To” button, but maritime historian Randy McDonald gave an excellent lecture on Ancient Navigational Techniques in Key West this week reminding us that it wasn’t always so easy finding our way at sea.

Randy is a craftsman as well as a historian and he has replicated instruments used by ancient mariners thousands of years ago. Included in his collection are 14^th century cross staffs, latitude hooks, astrolabes, quadrants, and a remarkable Polynesian stick chart.

Maritime navigators have always made due with whatever materials were available to them and with ingenuity they navigated safely across thousands of miles of ocean. Singlehanded sailor Steve Callahan spent 76 days adrift in an inflatable raft after his small sloop sank near the Canary Islands in 1981. He found his way to safety in Barbados by measuring the angle of the sun and stars using three pencils bound into a triangle.

My 1981 singlehanded transatlantic crossing in the 23-foot sloop Betelgeuse was made just before the era of GPS became prevalent among offshore sailors. I had no electronics. I used a sextant, passed down from my father, for the celestial navigation from Florida to Portugal.

The voyage of Flying Fish, scheduled to begin next year, will be different. The navigation station on the new IP460 will have an array of computers, flat screens, radios, and electronics. Prudent sailors, however, think about worst-case scenarios and if all those fancy electronics go blank… I’ll always have Dad’s sextant to help me find my way.

I may choose to use the sextant anyway, just to be a little closer to the sun and the stars.