We made it! It took 7 full days, but we’re finally in Dubrovnik. The sail was mostly uneventful, but punctuated with several memorable incidents, so I’ll split the post in half so it’s not so long.
We headed out on Saturday, June 5th around 10:30 am with good wind. On our way out, barely 3 miles offshore, Anthony was at the mast, playing with the sail when we passed a large RIB (rigid inflatable boat) with about 5 people on board. Anthony said he thought they were flagging him trying to get his attention, but he couldn’t be sure. We had full main and gennaker flying (a lot of sail and difficult to get down), so we couldn’t really turn around very easily. The next best option was to hail CrossMed (US Coast Guard equivalent for the Med) and let them know what he saw. But wait, how do I do that? We’ve had lots of training, but the intricacies and procedures to use all of the electronics on board is daunting….How do I turn the lights to “night mode” (because it’s messes with your night vision)? Where’s the button to see the radar screen? How do I Zoom in/out? Press the wrong button and you’ve just placed a MOB (Man Overboard) marker on the chart – which we’ve done several times by accident. Anthony had the electronics training – not me…. But I’m getting there.
Back to the distress signal – Anthony figured out how to call the French Rescue –CrossMed and provided all the details about what he saw and the boat’s position, # of passengers observed, etc. The French officer was very professional and spoke great English. Not sure what the outcome was but we felt better knowing we alerted someone.
Just a few miles after that, we got a visit from several dolphins. No matter how many times we’ve seen dolphins, they’re always a delight to watch. They escorted us out to sea for several miles, swimming around the boat and diving around the bow. Seemed like a good omen.
A bit later – we saw a French aircraft carrier and two of the jets were practicing “touch and go” maneuvers. I wish we could have sailed closer, but they were doing 20+ knots and we needed to just stay out of their way. For security reasons, they weren’t broadcasting on AIS (so they only showed up on radar). We would later be able to recognize navy ships that way throughout our passage: large radar reflection, but no AIS signal.
The next few days were pretty monotonous. We slowly made our way south towards Sardinia (~150 miles every 24 hours). We were having a terrific sail around the southern tip of the island, so Anthony decided to capture the scene by flying the drone. The weather was perfect and we got some great footage of Moxie under full main and gennaker (the red sail)!
Unfortunately, we lost the drone upon landing! I caught it and flipped it upside down to stop the engines, but the carbon rod we use to catch the drone came out. Then there was one of those slow-motion, I know disaster is imminent, kind of moments, as it bounced down the transom stairs almost skidding to a stop before plopping in the sea. Oh no!!! Engineering fail! Hopefully we can learn from this and not make the same mistake with the bigger drone.
About mid-afternoon, the wind picked up as we were in a compression zone around the island. The wind built into the mid-20s and we quickly had to put in two reefs in (shorten the sail for less sail area). After reefing, Moxie was under control again and we were doing anywhere from 7.5 to 12 knots. Conditions were sporty but Moxie was sailing very well and smoothly given the building seas. We hit 14.1 kts on a wave, which was close to matching Moxie’s all time speed record of 14.2 kts.
This video shows a view from our escape hatch (which leaks by the way) of how fast the water is moving past our boat and waves breaking underneath.
As night came, the wind started to die down below 20 kts, so we shook out one of the reefs. Anthony took the 10pm-2am watch and I went to bed. Less than an hour later, the wind built quite suddenly into the high twenties, and Moxie didn’t feel in control anymore. We needed that second reef. Before I could get out of bed, a strong gust sent us careening down a wave at 15.2 kts, a new speed record, but admittedly a bit scary in the dark with several cargo ships around. At this point, the seas were a short 6-7 feet and the bridge deck (the salon area between the two hulls) was getting slammed loudly (one of the downsides of a catamaran). We managed to get the second reef in, reefed the jib, and Moxie was under control again.
The rest of the night was mostly uneventful with winds in the 20-30 kt range. Sailing was a little uncomfortable with the bridge slamming, but still good. We have a bio-waste garbage chute in the galley. It’s basically an open hole to the ocean, about 5 inches in diameter, into which we can throw bio-degradable waste when we are far offshore. It has a strong lid. About 1am in the morning, a wave slammed the bridge deck so hard, that it blew the lid off and showered the galley in salt water! Salt water on the ceiling of the salon, the clean dishes, the oven, and the floor. Not a lot of water, mind you, but not a good experience. Now we put something over the cover when sailing offshore, to hold it in place better.
By morning the winds were back to below 10 kts as we inched our way towards the West coast of Sicily at around 4-5 knots. We had to motor most of the day and through the following night as we made our way about 5-10 nm offshore of the north side of Sicily, which was about the half-way point for us and a good place to split the story.
Give me a few days, and then you can read the “rest of it”!
