Anxiety from Offshore Cruising

[wayne.b]

Originally Posted by boatingnewbie

Thanks for all the great feedback everyone! Really appreciate it.

Does one become more used to the "not seeing shore" feeling after doing it more often?

===

As you gain more confidence in your navigation instruments, and in your own ability to use that information, you won't even notice that you're out of sight of land. If you sail in Rhode Island or Maine you'll quickly realize that you can be out of sight of land when only half a mile away. I still remember the first time we were overtaken by a fog bank along coastal Connecticut. It happened almost instantly and we were on a small boat with no electronics at all. Suddenly I was called upon to remember and use everything that I'd learned about charting and dead reckoning. Sure enough that next buoy that we were aiming for suddenly popped out of the mist exactly when and where it was supposed to be. The next buoy did also, and the one after that. It was a huge confidence builder even if there was some dumb luck involved. Practice using your charts, compass, GPS, radar, depth sounder or whatever in good weather, and build your expertise and confidence. After that, no worries. As to the other things that can go wrong, think things through, and figure out how you would deal with them. That can be a confidence builder also. First and foremost, take care of the boat and it will take care of you. Last but not least, stay on the boat, whatever it takes.

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Great plan Brian, but you should invest in some new charts. Even following the curve northwards to hug the shore in the bight it is less than 2000 miles from Perth to Melbourne. And since the majority of the passage is well north of 35 degrees South, and the furthest south is around 38 degrees, it is hardly "across the southern ocean".

But otherwise it seems a reasonable plan, so good luck with the wx windows.

Jim

Its 2500 miles from Perth to Melbourne by road, Its almost dead straight for most of it,
I have driven it by car, So I do know what its like across the Nullabor,
By the time you drop down from Perth to cape leeuwin, Around the corner and then across the bight, Its close to 3000 miles,
Thats with out stopping at all the scenic spots on the way, Which I intend on doing,
Thats not a shore line you want to hug in a boat,
You need to keep well clear of it unless your stopping in a sheltered bay along its length,
The bottom of OZ is the Southern Ocean, There is nothing between it and Antartica,
I also get my information from people who live there and have crossed it in yachts and Cats, ,
My daughter races the west coaster every year, Melbourne to Hobart down the west coast of Tasmania, Thats the Southern Ocean,
She actually won it last year with an all female crew, On a Cat, Very impressive, I might add,

My son in law does the Sydney Hobart race, Thats the Tasman sea, and at the bottom of it is the Southern Ocean,
He also does Yacht deliverys around the world,

Tasmania sits in the southern Ocean, Its surround by it,
The top of it is Bass Straight, Where I live,
We get all our bad weather coming up from the Southern Ocean, West coast of Tasmania,
It gets jammed between Tassie and the hills in western Victoria,
And blows the crap out of us, Last couple of days have been horrendous here in Melbourne, Extremely high winds,
Where your boat is on the east coast, You would be protected by the ranges to the west of you,

As for getting close to these cliffs in bad weather, You would either be mad or been forced there by the bad weather,
Either way, You would be in big trouble, It does get 40 foot plus waves,

Only in good weather and a good safety margin you would get close to these cliffs,
There are a couple of good protected bays across there, But they are a long way apart,

You can see the road across the top, Thats the road from Perth to Adelaide, Thats the Nullabor Plain,
Its the only road across there,
The ocean part is the Great Australian Bight, Its also the Southern Ocean,

Cheers, Brian,

[Jim Cate]

Brian, have a look at this:

Note distance from Perth to Melbourne, skirting the coast at a reasonable offing is 1910 miles. If you cut across the bight it is a bunch less. Not 3000 miles. Look at a chart for yourself, or was that already part of your careful planning?

Further, most folks believe that the Southern Ocean begins at a minimum of 40 south, some (like Snow Petrel) say at least 50 degrees S.

You get your information "from people who live there". I get my information by having sailed to Tassie from the mainland exactly 16 times, and 16 times back again. I've circumnavigated Tassie twice, done quite a few round trips from the D'EntreCasteaux channel to Port Davey, around SW Cape, and spent a total of several years sailing in those waters.

I've never driven from Perth to Melbourne, so have no opinion about your experience doing that.

Jim

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Brian, have a look at this:

Note distance from Perth to Melbourne, skirting the coast at a reasonable offing is 1910 miles. If you cut across the bight it is a bunch less. Not 3000 miles. Look at a chart for yourself, or was that already part of your careful planning?

Further, most folks believe that the Southern Ocean begins at a minimum of 40 south, some (like Snow Petrel) say at least 50 degrees S.

You get your information "from people who live there". I get my information by having sailed to Tassie from the mainland exactly 16 times, and 16 times back again. I've circumnavigated Tassie twice, done quite a few round trips from the D'EntreCasteaux channel to Port Davey, around SW Cape, and spent a total of several years sailing in those waters.

I've never driven from Perth to Melbourne, so have no opinion about your experience doing that.

Jim

The blue bit in your piccy is the southern ocean, No matter what you like to call it,
Your being pedantic with your 1910 miles, Who the hell travels in a straight line,
If you actually read my post, It stated quite clearly that I intend visiting a lot of the places across the Bight,
So its a very zig zag course Im taking,
Melbourne to Perth is 2500 miles by road, Thats what my speedo stated,
Ive also stood on the top of the cliffs and looked down on the ocean across there,
The road runs along the top of the cliffs,

I take my Informatiom from people who have actually crossed the bight,
At best, Yours is only a guess as you have never crossed the bight,

The best info comes from people who have drone flights over the coast that show the protected bays from the air above,

[gulfcoastsailor]

Baby steps. Don’t start thinking today about a ocean Crossing. Think about taking the boat out of the harbor and turning around and coming back. The next time take the boat down the coast a bit spend an hour out at sea. I think you get the idea. Extend your sails in distance and in time. The confidence you gain will be with you forever but there’ll always be a butterfly or two.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Mr B

The blue bit in your piccy is the southern ocean, No matter what you like to call it,
Your being pedantic with your 1910 miles, Who the hell travels in a straight line,
If you actually read my post, It stated quite clearly that I intend visiting a lot of the places across the Bight,
So its a very zig zag course Im taking,
Melbourne to Perth is 2500 miles by road, Thats what my speedo stated,
Ive also stood on the top of the cliffs and looked down on the ocean across there,
The road runs along the top of the cliffs,

I take my Informatiom from people who have actually crossed the bight,
At best, Yours is only a guess as you have never crossed the bight,

The best info comes from people who have drone flights over the coast that show the protected bays from the air above,

*********
From the Australian Antarctic Division:

"The Southern Ocean refers to the ring of ocean that circles Antarctica. While the Antarctic continent provides a clear southern boundary, the northern limit of the Southern Ocean is not so clearly defined. Oceanographers usually consider the Subtropical Front - a transition zone between cool, fresh, nutrient-rich subantarctic waters and warm, salty, nutrient-poor subtropical waters – to indicate the northern extent of the Southern Ocean. Although the position of the Subtropical Front varies with longitude, it lies roughly along 40°S for much of the Southern Ocean. Defined in this way, the Southern Ocean occupies about 20% of the surface area of the global ocean."

Cape Leeuwin is at around 34d 24m S, the southern point near Albany is around 35d 10m S, the middle of the bight is around 32 d south and Cape Ottway, the southern point of the route is at 38d 50m S. No part of the route is south of 40,so according to the folks in the Antarctic division, it not only does not "cross the Southern Ocean", it does not even touch it.

My 1910 miles figure isn't pedantic at all. It follows along the coastline with enough offing for safety, but close enough to duck into harbours as required without adding very much total mileage. If you cut straight across the Bight from Cape Leeuwin to Cape Ottway and thence to Melbourne the figure drops to around 1675 miles.

You are correct in saying that I have not sailed across the bight. However, I have basic navigation skills and can read a chart, from which fairly accurate distances can be derived. I actually do that before making a passage, so that I have a realistic estimate of time and distance to my destination.

This may seem like a trivial discussion, but IMO, when you are offering advice to a questioning newbie, it is incumbent upon you to get the numbers right and not inflate them for rhetorical emphasis.

I do hope that you get your boat back afloat soon and have a good passage back to Melbourne. I also hope that it doesn't take you 3000 miles of sailing to get there.

Jim

[puffcard]

Anxiety keeps you sharp, use it and take Tums.

[KiwiKen]

ape Leeuwin is at around 34d 24m S, the southern point near Albany is around 35d 10m S, the middle of the bight is around 32 d south and Cape Ottway, the southern point of the route is at 38d 50m S. No part of the route is south of 40,so according to the folks in the Antarctic division, it not only does not "cross the Southern Ocean", it does not even touch it.

My 1910 miles figure isn't pedantic at all. It follows along the coastline with enough offing for safety, but close enough to duck into harbours as required without adding very much total mileage. If you cut straight across the Bight from Cape Leeuwin to Cape Ottway and thence to Melbourne the figure drops to around 1675 miles.

"You are correct in saying that I have not sailed across the bight. However, I have basic navigation skills and can read a chart, from which fairly accurate distances can be derived. I actually do that before making a passage, so that I have a realistic estimate of time and distance to my destination.

This may seem like a trivial discussion, but IMO, when you are offering advice to a questioning newbie, it is incumbent upon you to get the numbers right and not inflate them for rhetorical emphasis.

I do hope that you get your boat back afloat soon and have a good passage back to Melbourne. I also hope that it doesn't take you 3000 miles of sailing to get there."


Jim,
I think you will find the confusions is the difference between kilometers and nautical miles.
One would not normally measure road distance Perth to Melbourne in nautical miles.


I agree that pilotage and coastal navigation in marginal weather is more demanding and requires more attention than sailing mid ocean.
In the separation zone in the English channel, on one occasion i counted over 60 vessels that i could see in part or wholely; the sobering thought is that in poor visibility and or bad weather the volume of traffic in the channel is very much the same

[Jim Cate]

Jim,
I think you will find the confusions is the difference between kilometers and nautical miles.
One would not normally measure road distance Perth to Melbourne in nautical miles.

Could be, could be... I hope that Brian works out the differences before undertaking the trip. But then some time ago he posted that the distance from Fiji to Bundaberg was over 3000 miles...

Jim

[KiwiKen]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Could be, could be... I hope that Brian works out the differences before undertaking the trip. But then some time ago he posted that the distance from Fiji to Bundaberg was over 3000 miles...

Jim

Still be a bit high if he went via Auckland. could he be measuring distance off a circle of latitude rather than from the mid longitude scale on the chart.
An error a bit like doing an sight reduction and using lat and dec contrary rather than the same or vice versa and getting an outlandishly long intercept.

[Pigpen Pete]

Way back before GPS I had a little 27footer. I wanted to practise ocean passages so on Friday evenings I'd leave work and get down to the boat with a friend and take off immediately out into the Tasman Sea from Sydney Harbour. We'd sail eastwards through the night and at lunch time Saturday we'd make a 180 degree turn and sail back home again - usually arriving Sunday morning.

This was a terrific exercise. We had a couple of nights navigation at sea, a dusk and a couple of dawns to practise star sights, a return to a coastline which we already knew well so if we were blown off course we knew of alternative safe harbours. In that part of the world you always have a 50% chance of a stiff southerly change to sail through.

So making a 180 degree turn back to our starting point gave us a repeatable mini ocean passage any weekend we wanted to do it. From then on I always felt safer out to sea than on a coast. It greatly helped us build confidence and the right instincts for heavy weather.

[oleman]

I feel much safer at sea on a trusted and proven vessel than in the seat of a vehicle in the air or on the highway operated by some unknown individuals with no way of knowing their qualifications.

[Paul Elliott]

A friend recently gave me an old email I had sent him when he was considering crewing for me on a long passage:

As for sanity, this is definitely a "different" thing we are doing. When you will really start to wonder is during the first couple of days at sea, which can be pretty trying, psychologically. As for myself, first I get stressed and worried, then bored, then it gets transcendent. Finally, as we approach our destination, I feel glad, and excited, and at the same time I wish we could just keep going. This will probably be unlike anything you've ever experienced.

Of course, it could be pure hell, and then we die. But that's pretty unlikely.

This still holds up quite well for me (although I should have added "exhausted" between "stressed" and "bored"), and my friend told me it was spot-on for him. That was his first long passage and he has since sailed tens of thousands of miles with me and on other boats.

And I sometimes point out to my crew that we are never more than six miles from land -- straight down, anyway. I'm not sure if that helps...

[Sailmon]

Great wisdom in the responses above. I would only add a couple of specifics. When sailing off shore (even in calm conditions), we always wear our inflatable PFDs with integral harness when leaving the cockpit. We also clip in (jack lines) when leaving the cockpit after dark and at all hours in rough conditions. Some of our cruising friends don’t agree with us, but we always carry a 4 person of shore (double floor) life raft on deck, have ditch bag readily available in cockpit locker and EPIRB mounted in companion way when crossing from Florida to Bahamas. These measures, in addition to good planning and careful (PATIENT) weather planning, provide peace of mind.

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Could be, could be... I hope that Brian works out the differences before undertaking the trip. But then some time ago he posted that the distance from Fiji to Bundaberg was over 3000 miles...

Jim

If you had of read what I said properly, That 3000 miles was what the GPS had said the boat had travelled,
Not the distance from Fiji to Bunbaberg, Which if I could have sailed the boat like you can, Is about 1800 miles,

Considering, I couldnt sail for **** at the time, and ended up higher than Cairns on my way home a couple of times due to the prevailing winds,

Your in luck, BUD,
I will be down your way in Oct and November, We are doing a couple of big runs down there, All along the coast, Great bike roads down there,
Eden, Bega, Tathra, Batemans Bay, Nowra,

So I will get to meet you in Person, Im looking forward to it,

Cheers, Brian,