Kretschmer - Sailing a serious ocean : sailboats, storms, stories, and lessons learned from 30 years at sea

You know it by the northern look of the shore

By the salt worried faces,

By an absence of trees,

By an abundance of lighthouses,

Its a serious Ocean.

Ann Stevenson, North Sea off Carnousti

Copyright 2014 by John Kretschmer. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. The name International Marine and all associated logos are trademarks of McGraw-Hill Education. The publisher takes no responsibility for the use of any of the materials or methods described in this book, or for the products thereof.

ISBN: 978-0-07-171812-7
MHID: 0-07-171812-5

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Foreword by Tania Aebi, author, Maiden Voyage

CHANGES OF THE WATCH | MIDNIGHT WATCH | TRUE VS. APPARENT WIND | WHAT IT TAKES TO GO TO SEA | SHIPMATES | HOW THIS BOOK WORKS

IS THERE SUCH A THING? | A HEAVY-WEATHER PASSAGE | SHIPMATE OVERBOARD

OCEANGOING SAILBOATS | BUYING A SAILBOAT | OWNING A SAILBOAT | NAMING A SAILBOAT

LAUNCHING JITTERS | BUYING/FLYING A LIFE RAFT | DESIGNING A SAILBOAT | HERRESHOFF, PERRY, KAUFMAN, AND OTHER DESIGNERS | PRODUCTION SAILBOATS DESIGN FEATURES OF A BLUEWATER SAILBOAT

ASSEMBLING A CREW | FIRST DAYS OFFSHORE | THREE KEYS TO HAPPINESS AFLOAT | SITUATIONAL AWARENESS | CREW OVERBOARD PROCEDURES | ABANDONING SHIP PROCEDURES | DISTRESS BROADCASTS | FLOODING AND SINKING AND NOT SINKING MAKING A LANDFALL

CHOOSING A ROUTE | PILOT CHARTS | WEST TO EAST CROSSINGS | MEDITERRANEAN SUMMER | LOSING A STAYSAIL | EAST TO WEST CROSSINGS | KNOCKDOWN ON THE EVE OF A LANDFALL

HEAVING-TO | CHAFE IN HEAVY WEATHER | FOREREACHING | LYING AHULL | MYTHS DEBUNKED | SAIL TRIM IN HEAVY WEATHER | PREPARING FOR HEAVY WEATHER | TO DROGUE OR NOT TO DROGUE

HEAVY-WEATHER SAILING 2.0 | EQUIPMENT FAILURE | FORCE 13ATLANTIC CROSSING GALE | CAPE HORN SNORTER | HURRICANE MITCH | NORTH SEA FORCE 10 | CAPSIZE IN FORCE 10 | UNEXPECTED HURRICANE BOB | CAPE HATTERAS STORM | BAY OF BISCAY FORCE 10 | OTHER NOTABLE HEAVY-WEATHER EXPERIENCES

MEDITERRANEAN CRUISINGDANGERS OF AN INLAND SEA | MISTRALS | COCKPIT/DECK ENCLOSURES | LEAVING A BOAT FOR LONG PERIODS | TORNADO DAMAGE TO A BOAT ON THE HARD | FITTING AND ERECTING A NEW MAST

CREW RETRIEVAL | STEEP WAVES IN THE GULF STREAM | DISMASTED AND DRIFTING IN THE GULF STREAM | SOLO SAILOR LOST AT SEA

GATHERING A CREW | PREPARING FOR PASSAGESTHE WORK LIST, INCLUDING RIGGING DYNEX DUX BACKSTAYS | THE MANY MEANINGS OF OCEAN PASSAGES

To everyone who has stood a watch aboard Quetzal.
Some of you are mentioned in the pages that follow, most are
not. But we are shipmates one and all. I thank you for your hard
work, for putting up with my cooking, and mostly for your
friendship and support. You have allowed me to keep sailing and
without you this book would not exist.

by Dallas Murphy

IF SAILING A SERIOUS OCEAN is your first meeting with John Kretschmer and his work, its probably Johns own fault. Hes a modest, self-deprecating man. He doesnt advertise himself or his business or tout his eminently toutable nautical accomplishments. So Ill take up some of that slack.

Kretschmer is an original. Who else has for decades and without serious incident captained a one-man charter operation specializing in long-distance, open-ocean sailing? Who else would have thought to sail from New York to San Francisco with a windward slog around Cape Horn aboard a Contessa 32, perhaps the smallest boat ever to do so? As a charter operator and delivery skipper, Kretschmer has made some twenty Atlantic crossings, many long Pacific passages, and multiple transits of the Med. He annually puts more nautical miles on his beloved Kaufman 47 Quetzal than statute miles on his car; he quit counting those nautical miles at 300,000. Hes a brilliant seaman whos handled most every condition that serious oceans mete out to sailboats, but that alone is not what makes him an original. Its that in combination with this: the man can write. Which brings us to Sailing a Serious Ocean.

Kretschmer is a skillful storyteller, and with those 300,000 miles of experience to draw on, he doesnt need to make anything up. Some of his stories are downright frightening, like that terrible trip through Hurricane Mitch, and some are hilarious, like the time shortly after 9/11 when his brand-new life raft suddenly inflated at the check-in desk at Heathrow, prompting nervous security guards to level machine guns at his head (Dont shoot him! cried the desk clerk). In addition to being well told, the sea stories share another characteristic. Theyre charmingly modest and self-deprecatingas I said, like John; the jokes usually on John.