Sailing South

By Dave Case

In the fall of 1979, Vickie and Dave Case set out from San Francisco in a 29' sailboat built from a semi-kit. They harbor hopped down the coast to Manzanillo, Mexico before bravely heading the 2700 miles over open ocean to the Marquesas. Using a compass, sextant, and sumlog they covered the distance in t

• Language: English
• Publisher: URLink Print & Media, LLC
• Release date: Oct 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781647539535

Dave Case

I learned to sail on Alamitos Bay at eight years. It wasn't until I reached age sixteen that I solo's in an airplane. My family was rich in culture, poor in money; no matter, Mother said I could be anything - do anything - I wanted. That gave a lot of confidence to a sickly kid with asthma. As a result I flew for forty-four years; everything from biplanes to the huge DC-10 that carried 350 passengers. There were revolutions in the Congo, wars in Laos, Vietnam, and Desert Storm I participated in as a pilot. Good times - bad times - it has all been the stuff of legend. Sometimes scared out of my wits; other times having more fun than the law allowed - seldom bored. Then there was the sailing. Little boats, big boats, around the bay, across the ocean with the same sense of excitement and adventure that I experienced with flying. Amazingly my China-born wife was at my side as we crossed to Tahiti in Quark, the 29' boat I built. (Something worked; we've been married forty-four years this June.) With the airlines a pilot must retire at age sixty. Since I quaified for a marine captain's license, I changed hats and began a whole new career delivering yachts up and down the Coast between Canada and Mexico. This continued for ten years until the writing bug insisted I put down some of my experiences for others to share. And that, ladies and gentlemen is how I've come to write Sailin' South, Maverick Pilot, volumes I, II, & III, and soon to be finished, my first fiction novel, Keeper of the Secrets - an MIA Laos yarn.

Book preview

Title Page

Sailing South

Copyright © 2021 by Dave Case. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author except as provided by USA copyright law.

The opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of URLink Print and Media.

1603 Capitol Ave., Suite 310 Cheyenne, Wyoming USA 82001

1-888-980-6523 | [e-mail]

URLink Print and Media is committed to excellence in the publishing industry.

Book design copyright © 2021 by URLink Print and Media. All rights reserved.

Published in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021918834

ISBN 978-1-64753-952-8 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64753-953-5 (Digital)

02.09.21

Table of Contents

Introduction

Meet the Crew

Down the Coast

Mexico

The Crossing

Marquesas

Passage to Tahiti

Society Islands

On To Rarotonga

Rarotonga

A Short Hop

American Samoa

A Struggle To Hawaii

Honolulu

Homeward Bound

Post Script

The Surveyor, a bit of whimsy

Glossary of Terms and Phrases

Introduction

Time is a thief. It has been over forty years since my wife, Vickie, and I finished building a small boat and decided to take her for a jaunt around the Pacific. We were gone just a little short of eighteen months and covered about 14,000 miles. I kept a journal with the idea of publishing the perfect cruising book (equal parts of how-to, memoir, travelogue, with a bit of humor) when we got back home. Well, forty years is a long time to getting around to publishing a second edition that corrects some errors and give the buyer a big price break! Stuff happens!

We had a sextant, some charts, and later a VHF, and a lot of luck. Our voyage must have taken place during an El Niño visit, for the weather was all upside down. Mr. Frustration was always waiting to pay a visit, but humor and cussedness kept him at bay most of the time. We met an abundance of genuinely nice people. A few jerks added a touch of spice. We would not trade our experiences for the all the kisses in Mr. Hershey’s chocolate factory. On the other hand, we would not care to repeat the trip even with roller furling, GPS, refrigerator, and a watermaker. However, looking back, it was high adventure.

If you, the reader, come across an unfamiliar nautical word or phrase please reference the glossary at the back of the book. It will give you an explanation of seafaring language.

Vickie and I had confidence, attitude and were eager to face the journey that lay ahead.

Meet the Crew

My wife Vickie and I both are rolling stones. She was born on mainland China and when we met, in the mid-sixties, was working with the airlines in Hong Kong. I was flying an old C-47 (DC-3) round-trip, from that vibrant city to Cam Ranh Bay in Viet Nam. It was a slam-dunk compared to the flying I had been doing up-country in Laos.

Intuition has always been a very valuable part of my reasoning, so when we first met, something in Vickie’s look told me this was the woman I was to spend the rest of my life with. She had traveled extensively in Europe and spoke five languages; I had tramped the world flying airplanes and could muddle through with English and Spanish. We had known each other all of five weeks (during two of which I worked a contract down in Indonesia) when I proposed. She was twenty-six; I was thirty-two – a good time to get married. I told her we might live in a mansion or a tent, on the beach or in the desert. We would be rich, or poor, or a combination of everything. The only thing she could be sure of was that she would never be bored. Moreover, that is pretty much how it has turned out. Up, down, all around, it has never been boring.

How did I learn to sail?

As a kid of eight or nine, I would ditch school and head for the Alamitos Bay lagoon, near Long Beach, California, where they rented sailboats for seventy-five cents an hour. There were no truant officers out on the bay. Later, during the summer, I would help the owner by rigging, cleaning, and being a general all-around gofer with the tourists.

Why did I/we want to make a trip like this?

Why not? One of my fantasies is I am up at the Pearly Gates, when St. Peter, perusing a long scrolled list, says to me, Hmmm, Dave Case: yep, here you are – down the hall, 23C, on your right. You’ll like the view. He then hands me a key. I respond with, Right. What time is dinner? He looks at me for a minute and says, Aren’t you going to tell me you’re not ready to go? That you still have some things to accomplish, like most of the other people I get? I answer with, Naw, been there – done that. What’s next on the plate?

In short, I feel God, or whoever, gave me a life. My job has been to live it to the hilt. Sailing the Pacific was just something that needed doing. Although, I never wanted to climb Mount Everest – too cold.

Was Vickie for it?

Vickie is an adventurer. She is very creative and intelligent. She claims she went with me just to keep me company. Not true. She beefs and moans, but loves the challenge. She is one of the few women I have known who loves the sea and loves boats. It sets well with her. She laughs easily. She is one of the most beautiful, most charming – most everything women I have ever met. We have always owned a boat. We have almost always lived near the ocean. It is practically a religion with us.

How did I learn all the skills required?

My grandfather was a tinkerer who could take anything apart, fix it, and put it back together in his garage. I was his favorite; therefore, it was natural that I learned the skills he taught me. The garage was my schoolroom: wrenches and screwdrivers became my friends. Drill motors, clocks, cars, and later cameras held no fear for me – they were all an intriguingly enjoyable task to be conquered.

Why did I build the boat?

Having a bit of Scots blood in me, I started out with the idea I could save some money. A factory-finished boat bore the designation of Farallon 29. Complete, ready to sail, out the door, it sold for about thirty thousand dollars. For only six thousand I could purchase a molded hull (with an extra layer of fiberglass) and deck. That’s how Quark started out. The thought of saving money went quickly by the wayside when I realized that even by buying everything wholesale it would still cost more to build the boat than if I had purchased a new one out of the factory. I kept a log of expenses when I built Quark. When it reached forty-six thousand dollars I threw the log away. Why could the factory build cheaper than the individual? Because in my case everything had to be top quality and a little stronger than the factory delivered. Later I came to realize I could build a boat that was better, stronger, and safer than anything produced for a profit – but not cheaper.

Where did I learn to build boats?

I had previously built an ocean-going 34-foot ketch from a fiberglass hull and deck; Mr. Bill Crelock, AIA, helped design her. I hired a shipwright who said he could finish the boat in three months while teaching me how to do it. In four months we agreed to separate – he wanted to use nails, I insisted upon glue and screws. It took two years to finish the boat. The only problem with it was, I could see every mistake I had made. Every scratch, every bond that was not perfect, everything that did not turn out exactly as I thought it should, bothered me. I kept the boat less than six months, selling it to a guy who made several trips to Hawaii with her. He always came back to tell me what a fine boat she was, but I could not see it.

A few years later a company I was flying with went out of business. There were no jobs available, so I thought, Why not construct a boat and sail the Pacific? Quark was conceived from unemployment and an itch to do something. By that time, I had learned to live with minor mistakes and not focus on them. I had the tools and the know-how – surely, I figured, with all my experience and smarts I could build Quark in six to eight months. It took two years. Words of wisdom: Build your boat as if your life depends on it – it will.

What about money?

You will never have enough. If you wait until you do, you will never go – or you will be an old man.

What about career?

Jobs come and go. Careers are only as good as the last job. If you wait to do something when you retire, the only thing you may do is have a stroke or heart attack or divorce or whatever. The dream fades with age. Screw careers; they are good for bosses, lousy for workers.

Describe Quark.

Quark. Sweet Quark. Lovely Quark. She was, is, and always will be, my favorite. She started as an empty fiberglass hull, deck, and lead ballast from the manufacturer. As I previously mentioned, I ordered an extra layer of fiberglass for her hull; she had to be strong to cross oceans. I say she, because boats are always female. They have the temperament, the character, and the way to handle a man, which makes them female.

To give her more strength and still try to keep her weight down, I took some ideas from the way airplanes are built. A plane is very strong and able to withstand vicious storms, yet it must be relatively light in order to fly. Aeronautical engineers achieve this by constructing so that everything gives strength to everything else. I built Quark the same way. First, I installed ribs around the hull every sixteen inches. Then I bonded the hull and deck together, using four layers of fiberglass, to form a solid, unbroken, egg-like structure. All of the horizontal surfaces, counters, shelves, etc., were also bonded to the hull and deck. In the end, there was no place bigger than 16 x 14 on the hull that was not supported. She was solid. Into her final assembly went tips learned from authors Eric Hiscock, Hal Roth, and Lin Pardey. I did the best I could, with safety always being the first priority, economy became a distant last.

Quark was twenty-nine feet six inches, stem to stern. She had a respectable beam of nine feet. Her full keel drew just five feet. Fully outfitted she weighed less than eleven thousand pounds. Her mast was stepped on the keel, as a mast should be. She was sloop rigged for speed and ease of handling.

During her sea trials, she justified my efforts. She sailed very well on all points; sail could be shortened easily. Her twelve horsepower Volvo diesel moved her along at hull speed while burning a pint an hour of fuel.

In short, she was everything we wanted and expected. I gave birth to her. The gestation period was two years, the same as my first boat.

Oh, the name? At the time, a quark was the smallest known subatomic particle in the universe. There is a mariner’s prayer that starts out, Oh Lord, your ocean is so big and my boat is so small… Hence, Quark: The ocean was so big, and she was so small.

Now, let us cast off and go voyaging.

Down the Coast

October 17, 1979: Golden Gate, San Francisco.

If there is not an old saying that says, Never leave on a voyage if you’re stung on the finger by a bee while going under a bridge, there should be. My wife Vickie and I, after two years of building, planning, scheming, and saving, were just passing under the Golden Gate Bridge on the first leg of what we hoped to be our dream cruise, when I was stung – without provocation – by a lone, maverick, bull bee, while lowering the pendulum rudder on Sinbad, our wind vane. From that point on, the shakedown leg became an absolute nightmare of what can go wrong on a cruising boat.

Amid cheers and wishes of goodwill, we left Alameda Marina the evening of October 16, 1979. We powered to Clipper Cove, a distance of eight miles, to escape the marina environment, thereby breaking our mainland ties. The short trip was peaceful, our anchorage secure. A restful night was followed by breakfast of sausage and eggs with several cups of Vickie’s perfectly brewed coffee.

Clear skies and a calm wind meant we would have to motor out the Gate to catch the Ten to fifteen knots of northwest wind forecast by the weather guesser. Passing Gas House Cove, Vickie suggested we top off our diesel tank. I did not really think it was necessary because we were headed down the coast, and having made several trips up the coast, I knew we could expect a following wind and seas all the way to Los Angeles – or to Cabo San Lucas, for that matter. To please her, my Gordon Good Guy side said, Sure, why not? And I can buy one last pack of cigarettes before I quit smoking.

To this last part, Vickie gave me an unspoken look that said, Baloney.

We topped off our thirty-eight gallon tank (useless weight as far as I was concerned) and I asked for pack of Merits – again, my final-final.

Sorry, we don’t sell cigarettes, said the female attendant. She looked at me as if smokers were some low form of animal life destined to pollute the world with their tubercular fumes.

Ah, what the heck, I’ll just quit right now, I thought, as we shoved off for Leg #1 of the Great Journey.

That was when the bee stung me.

Ouch! Oh dammit! Get me the tweezers! I shouted to a bewildered Vickie.

What did you do, hurt yourself on the vane?

No, I just got bit by a bee! I snapped back. Where the devil are the tweezers?

Stop yelling. And stop jumping up and down. I’ll get them. What good are the tweezers, anyway?

I can use them to remove the stinger without squeezing the poison into my finger.

This I did, and my finger still went numb up into the back of my hand. It was a good thing I still had a few cigarettes left; if ever there was a good time for one, it was at that moment.

Dragging on the last of the butt as Mile Rock approached and a little wind began to blow, I thought, Well, this isn’t so bad. I mean, it’s only a bee sting. And I’ll soon shut off that noisy engine to enjoy our downhill sleigh ride to Los Angeles.

No such luck: Right after Mile Rock, the ocean’s bottom becomes shallow and the sea, which has traveled all the way from Japan via Alaska to arrive at San Francisco, has a huge, long, rolling, undulating swell. This swell is indeed formidable. The mild breeze we experienced sailing toward Mile Rock became a wind, and the wind blew right on our bow. Well, we could tack, or we could power. Powering seemed like the better idea, because I wanted to make the best time south to warmer weather and away from an approaching front due to pass San Francisco in a couple of days.

Vickie announced she was not feeling well and was going below.

Did you take your seasick pills?

No. I didn’t think I was going to be sick.

You always get sick the first day; why didn’t you take them, dear?

Because I didn’t. That’s why.

This ended our conversation for the next twelve hours. Vickie hates it when I call her ‘dear’ in a condescending way.

A little farther down the coast, the huge Pacific swell dashed itself on the beach and ricocheted back out to sea. This made for a rather nasty crosscurrent that rolled and splashed ice-cold water over our Quark. Vickie was buried under a sleeping bag with a pillow over her head, and I was feeling queasy.

When the sails were not set and drawing, Sinbad was useless, so we also carried an electronic autopilot named Homer that fastened directly to the tiller. Homer performed outstandingly in calm seas. He did a creditable job in the large, steady swells. However, Homer just could not handle that rolling, banging crosscurrent. I noticed that poor little Homer was developing asthma, together with a touch of hyperactivity. His steering arm would wheeze out, then wheeze back, trying to hold our course. I fiddled with the sensitivity control to lessen this arduous task, but to no avail. Homer was working his asthmatic little heart out. Finally, he let out a long gasp and I realized he had stopped performing. I flipped the on/off switch, checked the fuses, reset the power plug, and nothing happened. Homer had had it – he was not going to stand any more watches until he got some rest.

I wanted to pack it in myself. We had been motoring for twelve hours and I was getting bushed. Vickie came on deck, looking a yellowish green, and said she would take it for awhile.

I went below to get some rest, dozing to the sounds of her upchucking and moaning as she steered us down the coast. This is cruising? This is what it’s all about? I must be crazy. It has got to get better, I thought. This is just northern California and it is always lumpy on this coast. It’ll get better after Point Sur. I drifted off.

My nose began to pick up a scent like onions rotting in a field. Yuck. What in the heck is that? Something Vickie stowed must have broken. The smell got stronger. Then it hit me! I jumped and scrambled to the battery locker. Shoving boxes and cushions aside, I lifted the hatch, and there I saw both batteries menacingly hissing and boiling!

The smell was hydrogen sulfide gas, a highly explosive vapor.

Shut off the engine! I shouted.

What is it?

Hydrogen gas. Shut it off!

Don’t light a match. Please, no sparks. Please, God, don’t blow us up, I thought through panic.

The engine sputtered and died, while the batteries continued their dangerous bubbling. I opened all the vents and with crossed fingers flipped the switch on our large exhaust blower to clear the bilge. Gradually the batteries settled down and the air began to clear. As this was happening, I was disconnecting the wiring behind the alternator/regulator to isolate the electrical generating system. The only reason I even remotely knew what hydrogen sulfide gas smelled like or that the voltage regulator had failed, allowing the alternator to dangerously overcharge the batteries, was because I had suffered a duplicate experience less than two weeks ago in the Delta. However, this was a new regulator. Now, why in the devil has it failed in the same way? I wondered. I must have messed up the wiring somehow. I needed a cigarette.

We motored on in calm wind and clear skies. Gradually the wind began to shift around to the northwest. I shut down the engine and hoisted our 150 genoa and 160 drifter. Wing and wing, just like the big guys, we started sailing in light wind with moderating seas.

Vickie started to feel better. The sun was shining. We had been at sea twenty-four hours. We were beginning to get a few breaks.

The chill left my body, to be replaced by a feeling of pleasant warmth.

This lasted all of about nine hours. As the sun went down and the wind died to a whisper, a cold dampness returned to Quark. Surely, it would get warmer soon.

About this time, I began to notice water in the bilge – no big deal, but still more water than I wanted. I turned on the electric pump and… nothing. The motor ran, but the pump did not pump. A little investigation proved the pump had an air lock. I removed the exhaust hose, burped the pump, and everything was right again, except we kept making a small amount of water, and each time I had to burp the pump to make it work. This could be serious if the leak gets worse, I thought.

The wind dropped off to zip; I fired up the old iron horse, wondering how many starts I had before the batteries went dead. I was afraid to reconnect the alternator for fear of boiling the batteries again. It was dark and a light rain had started to fall; the sea was flat calm.

Again, my nose gave me a warning – something did not smell right. Glancing around, my eyes fell on the temperature gauge. It was pegged out on the far right side! The engine was super hot!

Dammit!

I shut the engine down and opened the hatch. I was thinking, What broke? What hose let go? Where did I mess up the plumbing? What have I done wrong? A quick inspection immediately showed the problem. The shaft on the engine salt-water pump had thrown its pulley and destroyed itself in the process. I thought I had sufficiently tightened the Allen screw holding the pulley to the shaft, but obviously, I had not tightened it enough. It was an annoyance, but not a real problem to a journeyman do-it-yourselfer. I would just bypass the freshwater system and reconnect the engine to direct saltwater cooling – no big thing, except the engine was plumbed with ⅝ hose, and the fresh water adapter kit is equipped with ½ hose. Why the engine manufacturer did not use the same size hose to allow for this type of emergency, only God and cost accountants know.

After searching high and low on the boat for something to adapt ½ to ⅝, I finally came up with a short piece of ½ copper tubing. This I cut in half, and using a ⅝ open-end wrench as a guide, I wrapped enough black electrician’s tape around one end of the copper tubing to form the correct diameter. Four hose clamps, some random curses, and some scraped knuckles later, the good ship Quark was once more under way.

I smoked the last cigarette and wondered if the Hiscocks or the Roths ever suffered days like this.

Things settled down a bit as evening came on with its usual cold dampness. Vickie asked me to help her open the main sliding hatch.

It’s stuck again, she complained.

Even when one builds his own boat, not everything works to one’s liking. Our main hatch was a case in point. No matter how much I worked on it, no matter how easily it worked at the dock, it always stuck open about a foot at sea. I reached up with both hands and gave a mighty tug. At the same time, the sea gave the boat a little lurch. The hatch hesitated, then flew open with lightning quickness, stopping with a bang against the stop. I flew back into the cabin, losing my balance and plopping down onto a bagged sail that was lying on the cabin sole.

Something was wrong. I hurt. I hurt worse than I had ever hurt in my life. I suddenly wanted to sit on that sail and pee in my pants. No, I wanted to puke. No, maybe just moan and cry. God, how I hurt! It seemed when the hatch flew open I had neglected to get my thumbs out of the way in time. Both thumbnails were suddenly red-black with blood. The thumbs were swollen and pumping blood out the joints where the skin had burst from the smashing. I wondered if I was going to lose the ends of both thumbs.

Ohhh – oh God, Ohhh!

What’s wrong? What happened? cried Vickie.

My thumbs. My Goddamn thumbs. Oh Jesus, they hurt.

Oh, honey. What can I do?

Help me up. I think I’ve got to throw up. I was trying like crazy to keep from peeing. Both thumbs were now throbbing with a hammering beat that matched my racing heart. Vickie gave me a lift to the sink. I wanted to upchuck, but nothing would come up. Crying seemed like a good idea, but I guess males do not have tear ducts. I could have peed a gallon, but for a muscle that would not relax. Instead, I leaned my head over the sink and moaned a lot, wishing the pain would go away or shock would set in. As it turned out, neither took place. I tried willing my heart to slow down its beating, to make the throbbing go away. I remembered some APC and codeine pills in our medicine chest and proceeded to eat them like after-dinner mints. Wrapping the thumbs in gauze bandages, I prayed they would not be permanently damaged, thinking thumbs are the most important part of the hand.

October 19, 1979: Off California Coast.

Notes from Quark’s logbook: Smashed both thumbs. Fog. Rain. Wind light, from the south.

It was a black, moonless night with a light fog and southerly breeze, which meant more motoring. Morro Bay looked very inviting on the horizon, the lights of the village glowing softly through the fog. I was tempted to try a night entry, but the fog and the tricky entrance scared me off. We pressed on.

As the evening progressed, a moderate rain began to fall. It felt good on my face and cooled me. I swallowed painkillers whenever the thumbs started to throb. I figured I was going to lose both nails and possibly have to have one thumb set in a cast at Santa Barbara. This bothered me most when I thought what it might do to our schedule down the coast. After all, sailing with a hand all bandaged up – my right hand – would without a doubt lead to more accidents under way. Dawn finally arrived and found us by Point Arguello, under power. The rain had stopped and the sea was an oily flat calm with a low overcast.

Towards late afternoon, we spotted the flashing light of Point Conception. Still powering, I stayed close to shore, not wanting to lose the light in the approaching evening fog.

We’re getting awfully close to shore, aren’t we? Vickie said.

I know. But I don’t want to lose the light.

But if anything happens, we’re only about a quarter of a mile out.

Nothing’s going to happen.

With that exchange, the engine suddenly dropped from its 1700 cruising rpm to 1500.

I must have bumped the throttle with my knee, I thought as I reset the engine to 1700 rpm. Gradually, the knotmeter began to fall off towards zero.

What is wrong with that gauge? I muttered. Then I noticed we were not moving!

The engine was going at its normal speed, but Quark was dead in the water a quarter mile offshore with darkness approaching.

I jumped below and opened the engine hatch. Sure enough, everything looked okay: The engine sounded normal, the prop shaft was turning in the stuffing box. Everything told me we should be moving, except we were adrift!

I tried full throttle. The engine banged and wheezed its little heart out at the top of its lungs and we did not move an inch from all that racket.

I looked over the side for rope or seaweed that might have fouled the prop. I could not see a thing that would have prevented us from moving. The prop could not have left the shaft without crashing into the rudder, and I would have heard that.

I’m going over the side to take a look, I announced. Codeine and stupidity are an often-lethal combination.

No, you’re not. I don’t like that – besides, there are sharks all around here, Vickie retorted.

Yeah. You’re right. Well, let’s put up the big drifter and maybe we’ll catch a whisper. We raised the 160 drifter. It hung like wet laundry on a line. Ever so slowly we began drifting backwards towards the rocky cliff between Point Conception and Point Arguello. The light of Conception flashed a slow, steady beat, matched with the mournful, threatening blast of the horn, warning all at sea to stay away. It was very unnerving as we drifted out of control.

I had two sea anchors that I launched to delay our apparent fate. I turned on the strobe periodically, attempting to attract some attention.

I wish we had a radio, Vickie said.

Who would answer us in this fog? And how would they find us?

I don’t know, but I’d feel a lot better if we could talk to somebody.

Well, we’re okay. The boat is sound; we are not in any real danger yet. It’s just that it doesn’t feel good to be stuck here.

Will we go on the rocks?

"I don’t think so. The sea anchors have slowed us quite a bit. When we get closer, I’ll