1000 days at sea
As I sailed alone around Cape Horn on day 658, the day I broke the record for the longest continuous sea voyage without resupply, a giant rogue wave flipped the Anne, my 21-metre steel-and-fibreglass schooner, upside down. I was roughed up, but managed to get the boat seaworthy again and back on a good course. This incident was the ultimate test of my schooner, my equipment and my abilities.
I had prepared the Anne for this eventuality when she was designed. She was able to flip over and come back up because of her three-metre full keel, 20,000 kilograms of ballast, and 3,800 litres of fresh water in four water tanks built in over the keel. All floors, bunk boards and equipment were secured down, and the interior of the boat remained surprisingly in order.
I took some hard knocks and a big tumble, but luckily I was only dazed, shaken up and doused from the water coming in through the Anne’s hatch slide. I was cooking at the time, and the first thing I did when I came up on the rebound was turn off the propane stove burners and reach through the little opening in the galley to close the top of the gas bottle (in 38 years of captaining my homemade ocean-going sailboats, I’ve always used propane fuel).
Running repairs
In the next seconds, I heard the shrieks of the wind and a banging against the side of the boat. I looked out of the galley hatch and saw that the masts were still standing. But the staysail, which had gone underwater, had burst into ribbons and was almost all gone. I also saw that the gimballing solar panel had broken loose and was hanging by one precarious bolt off the stern quarter of the schooner.
I left the staysail to shred noisily in the wind as I dashed through the pilothouse and into the motor room to check the bilge, even though neither of my bilge alarms had gone off. It was dry. I, however, was soaked with salt water through to my thermals. I quickly pulled on my thin neoprene booties and one-piece Mustang Survival work suit.
My Mustang, even though it wasn’t waterproof, kept me warm during all of my cold-weather sailing, especially when I worked on deck. I also wore my Henri Lloyd foul-weather jacket, which is easier to don and is more comfortable than the Mustang. But it was 15 years old and beginning to break down as a result of the abuse I had put it through.
I hurried outside to try to secure the broken staysail boom and, most importantly, the solar panel. I had already lost two solar panels and couldn’t afford to lose another, as it kept the batteries for my navigation and communication systems charged. For the first half of my sailing career, I navigated with an old brass sextant, but as time went on, I carried a global positioning system (GPS) with spares double-wrapped in plastic bags.
I often wondered whether I would rather have my GPS unit or my satellite-tracking unit break down. Hypothetically, I could have used my sextant, my radio direction finder or dead reckoning in order to stay out at sea for as long as I said I would. But who would have believed I was really on the ocean for hundreds of days? I needed the tracking unit.
In good company
There are only a handful of people who have been out to sea continuously without resupply for longer than 300 days. Bernard Moitessier and Robin Knox-Johnston were the first people to do so in 1968. Then in the 1980s, Jon Sanders sailed for 420 days on a double circumnavigation and 657 days on a triple circumnavigation.
I spent day 658 wet but adrenalin-warmed inside my foul-weather gear. I took the solar panel and staysail down, changed the blown-out staysail for the storm jib, and got the schooner back on a steady downwind course. When everything was secured on deck, I peeled off my wet clothes, lit the antique French wood stove and said a prayer of thanks that all was well and I was able to keep going.
I installed a wood-burning fireplace in the pilothouse when we built the schooner in 1976 because we were preparing for Antarctica. After 33 years of sailing the Anne, I’m on my third wood-and-coal burning stove. All three fireplaces were rusty second-hand models. The one I have now is a French antique. It’s a beauty and draws so well that it starts to roar when I light it.
These small stoves are great for drying wet gear and making cold-weather sailing a comfortable, cosy endeavour. The stove cement I bought to patch her up with also worked well on the propane cooking stoves. I carried two propane stoves and 30 five-gallon (19-litre) bottles of compressed gas. Gas bottles always stay outside under the cockpit seats or in a specially built deckhouse.
I carried plenty of wood and coal that was double-wrapped in thick plastic. Like the sailors of the past, I brought stacks of wood for cooking on my wood stove in case my propane stoves broke down. I also learned from experience that all boxes should weigh less than 18 kilograms and be labelled on at least four sides. At sea, when one is tired and being bounced around while in an awkward position, shifting boxes around can be difficult.
A 21-metre heavy-displacement schooner is a seaworthy boat and can carry an incredible load of gear. Like a pack rat, I carried an enormous amount of extra gear, thinking that everything would come in handy, and it did. For example, my set of Doyle sails were damaged in a blizzard in 2001, and they were seven years old when I departed on this voyage. After hundreds of days of constant use, they needed major repairs. It was a good thing I built the schooner myself and had all the tools I needed on board.
Eating well has always been very important for enduring the rigours of being at sea. I never ate canned food, expensive camping meals or space food. Most of my food consisted of dry products such as oats, dried fruits, powdered milk, rice, beans and pasta. All of these required a lot of water, but of course the Anne doesn’t have a problem with carrying a lot of weight. I spent years packing the schooner as shipments of food came in.
The most deluxe food I had was Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, which ages well for many years and goes great with almost everything. But the key to my diet for three years at sea without resupply were the sprouts I grew on board so that I could eat a fresh green salad twice a day.
Incommunicado no longer
The morning after capsizing, I spotted rice and lentils stuck to the ceiling directly above the stove. This told me that the Anne and I had turned through 180°. I took a photo of the ceiling with one of my digital cameras, transferred the image to my computer and sent it back to shore via a data cable connected to my Iridium phone. The story and picture were posted on my website by my onshore team.
For most of my sailing career, I never had a radio on board. That was the way I liked it. Being completely cut off from the rest of the world is a great opportunity to tune into the majesty of nature far from the influence of humanity. But on this voyage, I felt that it was my responsibility to share this unique experience with the world. Modern technology allowed me to do this live.
After two and a half years non-stop at sea, both of my low budget, second-hand computers froze and my live show was reduced to very short updates from a handheld emergency email unit. Still, I was happy that so much of what I experienced on the vast blue seas was available for anyone to access.
From Antarctica to eternity
The concept for the voyage began when I built the schooner in 1976 as a boat that could go anywhere at any time and stay there indefinitely.
I didn’t prepare the schooner for 1,000 days at sea; I prepared her for an eternity. I imagined that I would be gone for much longer than my goal, and this helped me to get ready and evolve, because I was content to go on forever.
In 1986, before sailing to Antarctica, I thought of sailing 1,000 days non-stop at sea without resupply. After Antarctica, it took 20 years before I was able to depart on what became the longest sea voyage in history. During those years, I made test sails, worked on the schooner and tried to get sponsors. Most people couldn’t imagine this feat and didn’t think it was possible for any man or boat to achieve it. However, I did receive many donations of equipment, and in the years before departure, I tested this gear repeatedly. I even wore out my tools, and became quite good at repairing them and building new ones.
I have a lot of old equipment and gear on the schooner that has held up well for more than 30 years. I’ve noticed that most new tools and equipment aren’t made the way they were in the past. I still have some 33-year-old pulleys; I was given new ones and they wore down quickly. My desalinator broke. My collision-avoidance detector never worked. My advice: always buy the best tools and equipment you can afford.
Ten of the best
Spending 1,000 days at sea without putting into port is an immense feat of endurance that required a huge amount of forward planning. Not only did Reid need to ensure that he had enough food, water and power to last for three years, he had to take on board equipment for every possible eventuality. Here’s a selection of some of the garments and technology that made his journey possible
Don’t forget…
…to ensure that your satellite tracking unit sends your position back to an independent company that is able to verify where you are, and how long you’ve been there, to quiet any disbelievers
Reid Stowe has voyaged worldwide with his home-built sailing boats since 1972. He is now rebuilding and preparing his schooner to set sail again. www.1000days.net
April 2011
I had prepared the Anne for this eventuality when she was designed. She was able to flip over and come back up because of her three-metre full keel, 20,000 kilograms of ballast, and 3,800 litres of fresh water in four water tanks built in over the keel. All floors, bunk boards and equipment were secured down, and the interior of the boat remained surprisingly in order.
I took some hard knocks and a big tumble, but luckily I was only dazed, shaken up and doused from the water coming in through the Anne’s hatch slide. I was cooking at the time, and the first thing I did when I came up on the rebound was turn off the propane stove burners and reach through the little opening in the galley to close the top of the gas bottle (in 38 years of captaining my homemade ocean-going sailboats, I’ve always used propane fuel).
Running repairs
In the next seconds, I heard the shrieks of the wind and a banging against the side of the boat. I looked out of the galley hatch and saw that the masts were still standing. But the staysail, which had gone underwater, had burst into ribbons and was almost all gone. I also saw that the gimballing solar panel had broken loose and was hanging by one precarious bolt off the stern quarter of the schooner.
I left the staysail to shred noisily in the wind as I dashed through the pilothouse and into the motor room to check the bilge, even though neither of my bilge alarms had gone off. It was dry. I, however, was soaked with salt water through to my thermals. I quickly pulled on my thin neoprene booties and one-piece Mustang Survival work suit.
My Mustang, even though it wasn’t waterproof, kept me warm during all of my cold-weather sailing, especially when I worked on deck. I also wore my Henri Lloyd foul-weather jacket, which is easier to don and is more comfortable than the Mustang. But it was 15 years old and beginning to break down as a result of the abuse I had put it through.
I hurried outside to try to secure the broken staysail boom and, most importantly, the solar panel. I had already lost two solar panels and couldn’t afford to lose another, as it kept the batteries for my navigation and communication systems charged. For the first half of my sailing career, I navigated with an old brass sextant, but as time went on, I carried a global positioning system (GPS) with spares double-wrapped in plastic bags.
I often wondered whether I would rather have my GPS unit or my satellite-tracking unit break down. Hypothetically, I could have used my sextant, my radio direction finder or dead reckoning in order to stay out at sea for as long as I said I would. But who would have believed I was really on the ocean for hundreds of days? I needed the tracking unit.
In good company
There are only a handful of people who have been out to sea continuously without resupply for longer than 300 days. Bernard Moitessier and Robin Knox-Johnston were the first people to do so in 1968. Then in the 1980s, Jon Sanders sailed for 420 days on a double circumnavigation and 657 days on a triple circumnavigation.
I spent day 658 wet but adrenalin-warmed inside my foul-weather gear. I took the solar panel and staysail down, changed the blown-out staysail for the storm jib, and got the schooner back on a steady downwind course. When everything was secured on deck, I peeled off my wet clothes, lit the antique French wood stove and said a prayer of thanks that all was well and I was able to keep going.
I installed a wood-burning fireplace in the pilothouse when we built the schooner in 1976 because we were preparing for Antarctica. After 33 years of sailing the Anne, I’m on my third wood-and-coal burning stove. All three fireplaces were rusty second-hand models. The one I have now is a French antique. It’s a beauty and draws so well that it starts to roar when I light it.
These small stoves are great for drying wet gear and making cold-weather sailing a comfortable, cosy endeavour. The stove cement I bought to patch her up with also worked well on the propane cooking stoves. I carried two propane stoves and 30 five-gallon (19-litre) bottles of compressed gas. Gas bottles always stay outside under the cockpit seats or in a specially built deckhouse.
I carried plenty of wood and coal that was double-wrapped in thick plastic. Like the sailors of the past, I brought stacks of wood for cooking on my wood stove in case my propane stoves broke down. I also learned from experience that all boxes should weigh less than 18 kilograms and be labelled on at least four sides. At sea, when one is tired and being bounced around while in an awkward position, shifting boxes around can be difficult.
A 21-metre heavy-displacement schooner is a seaworthy boat and can carry an incredible load of gear. Like a pack rat, I carried an enormous amount of extra gear, thinking that everything would come in handy, and it did. For example, my set of Doyle sails were damaged in a blizzard in 2001, and they were seven years old when I departed on this voyage. After hundreds of days of constant use, they needed major repairs. It was a good thing I built the schooner myself and had all the tools I needed on board.
Eating well has always been very important for enduring the rigours of being at sea. I never ate canned food, expensive camping meals or space food. Most of my food consisted of dry products such as oats, dried fruits, powdered milk, rice, beans and pasta. All of these required a lot of water, but of course the Anne doesn’t have a problem with carrying a lot of weight. I spent years packing the schooner as shipments of food came in.
The most deluxe food I had was Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, which ages well for many years and goes great with almost everything. But the key to my diet for three years at sea without resupply were the sprouts I grew on board so that I could eat a fresh green salad twice a day.
Incommunicado no longer
The morning after capsizing, I spotted rice and lentils stuck to the ceiling directly above the stove. This told me that the Anne and I had turned through 180°. I took a photo of the ceiling with one of my digital cameras, transferred the image to my computer and sent it back to shore via a data cable connected to my Iridium phone. The story and picture were posted on my website by my onshore team.
For most of my sailing career, I never had a radio on board. That was the way I liked it. Being completely cut off from the rest of the world is a great opportunity to tune into the majesty of nature far from the influence of humanity. But on this voyage, I felt that it was my responsibility to share this unique experience with the world. Modern technology allowed me to do this live.
After two and a half years non-stop at sea, both of my low budget, second-hand computers froze and my live show was reduced to very short updates from a handheld emergency email unit. Still, I was happy that so much of what I experienced on the vast blue seas was available for anyone to access.
From Antarctica to eternity
The concept for the voyage began when I built the schooner in 1976 as a boat that could go anywhere at any time and stay there indefinitely.
I didn’t prepare the schooner for 1,000 days at sea; I prepared her for an eternity. I imagined that I would be gone for much longer than my goal, and this helped me to get ready and evolve, because I was content to go on forever.
In 1986, before sailing to Antarctica, I thought of sailing 1,000 days non-stop at sea without resupply. After Antarctica, it took 20 years before I was able to depart on what became the longest sea voyage in history. During those years, I made test sails, worked on the schooner and tried to get sponsors. Most people couldn’t imagine this feat and didn’t think it was possible for any man or boat to achieve it. However, I did receive many donations of equipment, and in the years before departure, I tested this gear repeatedly. I even wore out my tools, and became quite good at repairing them and building new ones.
I have a lot of old equipment and gear on the schooner that has held up well for more than 30 years. I’ve noticed that most new tools and equipment aren’t made the way they were in the past. I still have some 33-year-old pulleys; I was given new ones and they wore down quickly. My desalinator broke. My collision-avoidance detector never worked. My advice: always buy the best tools and equipment you can afford.
Ten of the best
Spending 1,000 days at sea without putting into port is an immense feat of endurance that required a huge amount of forward planning. Not only did Reid need to ensure that he had enough food, water and power to last for three years, he had to take on board equipment for every possible eventuality. Here’s a selection of some of the garments and technology that made his journey possible
Start the slideshow (10 pictures)
Don’t forget…
…to ensure that your satellite tracking unit sends your position back to an independent company that is able to verify where you are, and how long you’ve been there, to quiet any disbelievers
Reid Stowe has voyaged worldwide with his home-built sailing boats since 1972. He is now rebuilding and preparing his schooner to set sail again. www.1000days.net
April 2011
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