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C25 - 2013 - GLSS Chalenge

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JeanAndre
Navigator

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USA
224 Posts

Initially Posted - 03/08/2012 : 19:00:52

Hello C25 friends.

First let me tell you all how much the forum has helped me so far, so I feel compelled to share with you my latest project:

I am starting a new personal challenge and my aim is to have a C25 on the 2013 GLSS Mac Challenge (http://www.solosailors.org/allmac.php)

I am open to suggestions, tips and any advice you want to throw at me.

You can keep an eye on what will be happening here: http://sailingclarice.wordpress.com/

Cheers

I am Captain ! !
Yelled I to my wife and daughter...

Jean André - St. Louis - MO
1981 C25 SR/SK - OH LALA #2591
1977 C25 TR/FK - CLARICE M. #0042
2011 9.8 Nissan XL shaft
USCG Master, sail and tow endorsements
ASA instructor
Aspiring boat designer (Westlawn)

Edited by - on

dlucier
Master Marine Consultant

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Virgin Islands (United Kingdom)
7583 Posts

Response Posted - 03/08/2012 : 20:01:26

Jean,

Completing the GLSS Mac Solo is indeed a personal challenge and one that I had hoped to do myself even going so far as to attend a GLSS sponsored Mac Challenge safety seminar, but alas, it never came to be. One of our members, Greg Jackson, did sail his C25 singlehanded for 87 hours straight in the Chicago-to-Mackinac Solo Challenge becoming the first, and only, C25 to complete the challenge. With the C25 being the smallest vessel allowed, you'll also be the slowest, and of the requirements, having a self-inflating life raft is the most costly although these can be rented.

I wish you all the best as you work to meet the challenge and I'll be pulling for you.

Edited by - on

Prospector
Master Marine Consultant

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Canada
3159 Posts

Response Posted - 03/09/2012 : 04:51:01

Good Luch Jean! I've been eyeing the Lake Ontario 300 for a while. Now that we are on the big lake it may be do-able. I'll be keeping an eye on your progress!

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pfduffy
Captain

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USA
317 Posts

Response Posted - 03/09/2012 : 06:10:00

Best of luck!!!

Edited by - on

Greg Jackson
1st Mate

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84 Posts

Response Posted - 03/10/2012 : 09:23:03

Jean contacted me offline with questions about the GLSS, suggesting that I reply on the forum for the general interest of the group. I’ve put together some notes based on my recollection and on my ships log. I did the GLSS race in a 1989 Catalina 25 with a wing keel in June of 2001. I finished last, but had a great time and was happy for the experience.

Boat Prep
The boat was generally kept in Lake Mendota, Madison, WI and then occasionally taken into Lake Michigan for longer trips. My habit had been to sail very hard in Lake Mendota and seek out days with 25 to 35 knot winds. The idea was to find any weak points in the boat as it was better to break things in Lake Mendota than 30 miles offshore in Lake Michigan. That led me to replace a few elements, like moving to ½” Lexan in the forward hatch and rebuilding the rudder. I actually broke the rudder in a broach one day. Details of the boat modification are found in a old PDF file that is left online from when I sold the boat a few years ago (http://webpages.charter.net/compassrose/1989Catalina25.pdf). I also did the mandatory prerequisites of collecting all the safety equipment required by rules committees.

Personal Training
GLSS requires a good sailing resume and at least one continuous 24 hour solo stint covering at least 100 miles as a requirement of race entry. A lot of people cheat on that but I suggest that the requirement be taken very seriously. My first attempt at a 24 hour sail was to leave Sister Bay in Door County, Wisconsin, sail around South Manitou, then back to Door County. That’s about 105 miles and should take about 24 hours at 4.5 knots. I had a great sail over to South Manitou in a beam reach with 2 to 3 foot waves. As I was rounding South Manitou around 1:00 AM I realized that I was physically exhausted. Until that trip I never realized how much muscle work it is to simply sit still in a boat as it’s bouncing around. I dropped anchor at South Manitou and slept about 12 hours, still tired when I woke up. Long distance solo sailing in a small boat is not just about staying awake, it’s a combination of stamina, physical work, and monitoring personal resources.

I remember reading a round table discussion between famous sailors a while back. Some famous short race guy (Dennis Conner?) said everyone was always cold, tired, hungry, and exhausted near the end of a race. Robin Knox-Johnson was aghast at such a statement. According to Knox-Johnson, allowing one’s self to get cold, wet, tired, and exhausted was nothing short of poor seamanship. The sailor had to manage his/her internal resources and hold energy in reserve, to be ready for emergencies. I’m not much of a sprinter and I think more like Knox-Johnson. Maybe that’s what separates sprinters from long distance people.

Someone at GLSS said I could use my trip as a qualifier, despite the fact that I had 12 hours at anchor, since I never set foot on land. I figured I needed more experience so I put off my race entry a year or two. The next year I sailed non-stop from Kewaunee, WI, round South Manitou (147 miles) and then later sailed from Kewaunee, WI and circumnavigated the Door County peninsula (125 miles). They call it a peninsula but you can actually circumnavigate it due to a ship channel near Sturgeon Bay. Having completed 2 qualifying trips I felt much better prepared.

My method for long distance solo sailing is pretty much the recommendations of the GLSS. If a freighter is coming at you, from the time of spotting a freighter on the horizon to the time the freighter runs over you over is about 20 to 25 minutes. If you look around and scan the horizon every 15 minutes, you’re unlikely to get run over. That’s the basic operating theory. Sailing multiple days, I never slept more than 15 minutes at a time. I’d have two kitchen timers and set one to 15 minutes and set my Trucker’s Timer to 17 minutes as a backup. Trucker’s timers can be found in any truck stop. It’s pretty much a typical kitchen timer but instead of a buzzer it has a 105 dB alarm like a smoke alarm. It’s scary to realize we’re on the highways with guys who need something like that when the pull over to take a nap. Other common sense rules include: 1) do your sleep periods on tacks heading to open water, not tacks headed toward a shore 2) do your sleep periods in deep water or way from ports to avoid salmon fishing boats, 3) be aware of freighter lanes. Big freighters must stay on lanes marked on the charts. Be aware that the most dangerous commercial traffic is usually tugs towing barges. Barges are poorly lighted and can be ½ a mile behind the tug. Tugs with a tow have no obligation to stay on the shipping lanes and you might see them anywhere on the lake.

It was actually pretty easy for me to get into the sleep rhythm and you can get a tremendous number of 15 minute periods into a 24 hour period. One trick is to not fully wake up. When the timer rings, get out and look about, reset the timers, and go right back to sleep. If you spend less than 60 seconds looking about they you’re not fully awake and you’ll be back to REM sleep almost immediately. Sleep cycles are series of 15 minute periods, maybe 4 or 6 hours worth. I would not start a sleep cycle when I was tired, but rather started them anytime weather, wind, traffic, and direction of sail seemed good. It’s essentially stocking up on rest and maintaining an inventory of personal resources. I don’t know how long I could keep up that sort of thing, but I do know that I felt no worse after 87 hours of sailing than I did after the first 24 hours. It becomes a continuum.

My GLSS race
I had arranged for crew from Milwaukee to the starting line in Chicago, then other crew to help back from Mackinac to Milwaukee. My first crew fell ill and my return crew had work place issues, so I ended up sailing it all myself. It was 50 hours to the start, an 87 hour race, and 77 hours on the return to Milwaukee. I had quite a bit of solo sailing in an 8 day period.

I got off the line well, but I had the slowest boat in the fleet and the wing keel C25 does not point well. Overall there was on 7 hour stint with almost no wind, and another one of about 3 hours. I’m not much of a racer and bobbing in still air with all the sails and running rigging clanking drives me nuts. Hard core racers will still be in racing mode, even if they are near to parked, but I’d take down the sails in those conditions and wait it out. That also hurt me because I’d see they were maybe a couple miles ahead of me when the wind finally came back a few hours later. That means they outpaced me during the still periods by 0.15 knots. I didn’t care much.

I did sail through a pretty good storm front with 25 – 30 knot winds on the return trip. It came up quickly and I was rushed to reduce sail around midnight as I had been drifting downwind with dual headsails, the genoa poled out to starboard and the cruising chute poled out to port. The most memorable part of the event is that, 3 or 4 minutes AFTER the front passed, there was a Coast Guard warning broadcast indicating that the front would be in my area within 10 minutes. They were a bit off in their timing and 10 minutes before the front would have been a lot better than warning after the event.

Retrospect
I found that I was feeling much better than most people at the post-race celebration, despite the fact that most of them had 12 to 24 hours of sleep since they finished. A lot of guys just try to tough it out, staying away as long as they could, and getting by on as little sleep as possible. That was quite the opposite of my approach, trying to get sleep whenever I found opportunity. I don’t think their approach provides for a faster race and is certainly more dangerous. I heard lots of stories of hallucinations and decisions that they openly admitted where stupid and due to a lack of sleep. Learning the technique to get rested in multiple sequential 15 minute periods may or may not help you finish first, but I’m certain it helps you finish alive and allows you to see the whole event as enjoyable.

The GLSS is still a great event. A great group of people and, as you might expect, a bit unusual. Anybody who thinks it’s fun to be sailing solo non-stop for days and days is a little different than your average boater. Boating is even safer and cheaper now. I got the Switlik Rescue Pod at about $2500 back then. Now I see there are even less expensive options.

I do think the activity is a little more dangerous than I had initially assessed. One of the sailors I got to know sailed a double handed race in Lake Hurion the week after the 2001 GLSS race. There was a front that came through in that race that forced most of the boats to retire and killed two people. Just last year the big Chicago-Mac race that happens in July had a couple people killed. Solo racing is even more dangerous since you have no one to assist.

I sold my C25 a few years back and thought I would go boatless, but maybe do an occasional charter. After 3 years I couldn’t take it anymore, I just had to get back on the water. Last spring I got a 2006 Catalina 36 which I’m keeping in Milwaukee. I think 36’ is about as big a boat as I can handle solo w/o resorting to power winches. I think solo sailing with power winches is exceptionally dangerous, so I’m unlikely to go bigger in the near term. I like long distance sailing, but I’ve given up on long distance solo sailing, so I’m frequently looking for crew. If anybody wants to do a round trip to Beaver Island, it’s only 100 hour round trip from Milwaukee and I’m ready to go. Boat launches in May. Contact me using the email you would logically derive from: greg at Tormach dot com.

Greg Jackson
SV Jacqui Marie
Catalina 36, tall rig wing keel

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JeanAndre
Navigator

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USA
224 Posts

Response Posted - 03/10/2012 : 09:48:53

Hi Greg,
Thank you very much for your input. I, like you am a believer of the many short period nap.
Have you heard of Dr. Claudio Stampi and the polyphasic sleep study?
And there is also this site: http://www.sleepwarrior.com/ that has a number of tips on managing sleep.
I salute you on your accomplishment and even more so after knowing you took the the boat to the race and back by yourself too.
I would love to go sailing with you sometime and hear more about this "adventure" over some beer and a barbecue. My launch this may will be the commission of Clarice I my baby girl daughter currently in the making in my beautiful wife´s "baby yard". But if in the future you need crew I´ll more than gladly join you for a sail.
Thank you for your time
Fair winds

Edited by - on

PCP777
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
1225 Posts

Response Posted - 03/10/2012 : 10:31:33

Awesome read Greg, thanks for sharing.

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dlucier
Master Marine Consultant

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Virgin Islands (United Kingdom)
7583 Posts

Response Posted - 03/10/2012 : 15:09:47

Thanks Greg for the insight into your solo challenge as it is both interesting and informative. You may have come in last, but as the GLSS emphasizes, anyone who completes the challenge is a winner!

As to sleeping underway, I practice this quite a bit and your observations about taking a nap, waking up and looking about, then going immediately back to sleep are spot on. When I'm pulling an all day'er on the water, which is just about every Saturday and Sunday in season, I'll take mid-day mini-naps underway and sometimes I may only be awake for a few minutes in a 1-2 hour period, and surprisingly, with the motion of the boat, it is some of the most restful sleep one can get. The only thing missing is a hammock.

I discovered singlehanded sailing fairly early in my sailing career and although I enjoy the occasional sail with crew, I much prefer heading out alone as it is a very different sailing experience.

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