After being informed on August 12 that my transit through the Russian Arctic, and hence my solo Arctic circumnavigation, was no longer possible because the NSRA determined that ice and weather conditions were too difficult and dangerous for small boats, I started looking for a weather window to return to the US East Coast.
I waited until August 16 for that window. After motoring from Hammerfest to the open ocean, I was met with strong winds out of the north, much stronger than forecast, with attendant high seas. It was a fast but rough 3 – 4 days of sailing. Arriving east of Iceland, things only got worse with now upwind sailing conditions, with variable wind directions, as I tried to work my way south and west around the southern side of Iceland. The winds finally rotated to the south but for 12 hours I was on a very rough beam reach with 30+ kt winds and 3 to 4 meter seas. Very rolly, heeled over conditions. Three reefs in the sails. Some of the roughest sailng I can recall.
I’m past Iceland now in lighter winds and seas, on a route largely southwest toward Newfoundland, my target landfall. I don’t know if I’ll stop there, but perhaps move on to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, for a rest stop instead. I’ve never been to Nova Scotia.
There’s a big low pressure system looming in the forecast between Newfoundland and my current position, several days off. Hopefully it will dissipate or I can work my way around it without too much drama.
The photos are of Iceland as I sailed by along the south side, taken on one of the very few blue sky days I’ve had on this entire voyage into the Arctic.
Because of the very difficult and dangerous ice conditions in the Russian Arctic along the Northern Sea Route (NSR) this year, the NSR authorites advised us yesterday to postpone our planned transits until next year when more favorable ice conditions may be present. Currently, things are so difficult that ice-rated commercial ships are getting stuck and requesting icebreaker assistance. The weather forecast calls for sub-zero temperatures across the Chukchi and New Siberian Seas next week. Obviously, ice conditions will worsen with such weather.
In a previous post I noted how I was waiting in Hammerfest, Norway, for ice conditions to improve in the Vilkitsky Strait. Well, now I will be looking for a weather window to head back to the US East Coast; my plans are uncertain after that. It’s unlikely I’ll try this solo Arctic circumnavigation next year.
There were four solo sailors attempting to transit the NSR this year. Matt Rutherford in Chimera and me in Phywave were trying to sail eastbound. Ella Hibbert in Yeva and a young Brazilian woman, Tamara Klink, in Sardinha 2 were attempting to sail westbound. All of us will have to make new plans.
I’m on “ice watch” in Hammerfest, Norway, sitting here on my sailboat Phywave. My route through the Russian Arctic is currently blocked but uncharacteristically extensive, stubborn ice in the Vilkitsky Strait (shown by that big patch of red in the strait). The NSR guys I’m working with don’t have a forecast date for when it will open up, so until then, I’m biding my time in Hammerfest.
After a catastrophic failure of my compass and associated autopilot failure that forced me to retreat to Iceland to figure it out, the voyage from Husavik to Hammerfest went pretty smoothly with the compass and autopliot performing well.
As always, the weather was a challenge with one particularly large low pressure system I had to navigate around to the south before turning back north again. The southerly winds were so fierce, 30 – 40 kts, when I arrived in the Hammerfest channel in the middle of the night, that instead of trying to enter the harbor and marina then, I decided to heave-to out in the channel until the winds weakened several hours later. At around noon on Saturday, August 1, I was finally able to get in and tie up in the small 8 berth marina they have which is literally right in the center of town with many nearby restaurants and shops. After making a phone call to arrange to meet someone to complete entry formalities at the police station, which is normally closed on weekends(!), I reviewed my tasks list while having lunch across the street.
One thing I haven’t mentioned before is the screwed up whisker pole I use to wing out my genoa headsail when sailing downwind. One end of the pole is attached to a bracket called a mast car that slides up and down a T-track bolted to the front of the mast. When normally stowed, the pole is vertical in front of the mast. To deploy it, I pull the bottom end of the pole forward until it’s more or less horizontal and then attach it to the clew of the genoa. When I do this, the top end of the pole with the car slides down the track. The mast car is supposed to have plastic inserts that let it slide smoothly along the track. At some point, I don’t really know when, those inserts fell out or were worn away so that there was metal on metal as the car slid on the track. Worse, without the plastic inserts, the car was too loose on the track and would fall off so the rig fundamentally was not working. The only fix was to get replacement plastic inserts, about $25 a pair, but $250 for express shipping to Norway, to Vardø in this case.
Which brings up my conundrum when I changed my Norway destination from Vardø to Hammerfest. In addition to whisker pole car inserts, I had a couple of other things shipped to Vardø, including a new Spade S140 anchor coming from France. As I mentioned in a previous post, I had serious problems with the Rocna Vulcan anchor hanging so low in rough seas, catching waves, and yanking on the windlass. I finally got so disgusted with it, I decided to replace it with a new Spade anchor, an S140 30 kg model, one size bigger than 25 kg model I had before on my solo 7 continents circumnavigation voyage. But at the time I ordered it I still had Vardø as my Norway destination so had it shipped there.
There are direct flights from Hammerfest to Vadsø, an hour’s drive from Vardø, but you don’t bring a 30 kg anchor (in two heavy packed boxes – fluke and shank) as checked luggage on the small commuter plane making that run. The alternative was to rent a car and drive to Vardø to get it, which I did, 7 hours each way across the roads of northern Norway threaded around fjords and across windswept, treeless, highlands. Anybody who knows me knows I’m steely-eyed endurance driving fool but even that was a lot for me – to Vardø on Monday, back to Hammerfest on Tuesday. I had a nice night at the Vardø hotel (the only hotel) and a delicious dinner – their dish named “Cod is Great”.
After I saw Vardø, I was immensely glad I changed to Hammerfest as my jumping off point for the Russian Arctic, a choice I should have made in the first place if I’d done more effective research. Vardø is a sad, dilapidated little fishing village with one hotel (a few guest houses as well) three or four small restaurants with limited hours, and a fishing fleet. The thought of Phywave being in a berth on the bouncing dock along with the fishing boats, with a long walk to the very few places in the town like the grocery store, was a really depressing thought, especially compared to where Phywave is in Hammerfest. Even the fuel dock in Vardø was a rundown set up. It didn’t help that the wind was blowing 30 kts with driving rain when I arrived – a terrible first impression. Well, at least I got good at typing the “o” with the line through it. Just hold your finger down on the “o” and a bunch of alternatives will appear you can choose from.
So Hammerfest. I fixed the whisker pole, installed the new Spade anchor (I’ll probably unceremoniously dump the Vulcan at sea), and am now thinking about installing a Furuno SCX-20 GPS compass which is staring at me from a box on the galley counter. After the fiasco with my compass in Iceland, several experienced high latitude sailors said to get a GPS compass. A GPS compass uses an array of GPS antennas to establish direction so it’s immune to magnetic or electrical interference, but like any GPS system, needs a reasonably clear view of the sky. Until now, I didn’t even know GPS compasses existed. Another failure on my part in my inadequate preparations for this voyage which have become apparent in a number of ways.
The Navico dealer in Iceland connected me with a dealer in Norway who, extraordinarily, was able to find this compass in stock and have it shipped overnight to me in Hammerfest. It plugs right into the NMEA2000 backbone network and should show up along with the Precision 9 compass as a source I can select for heading information. I’m not sure how and where I’m going to mount it. It’s a waiting-on-ice project.
It’s been a while since my last post. A lot has happened, none of it good.
While sailing north of Iceland I was hit broadside by a big, but not unusally big, wave. The boat was temporarily thrown off course which the autopliot immediately tried to correct by pushing the rudder all the way to one side. This will sometimes result in a rudder limit alarm indicating the rudder is as far over as it can go, as it did in this case. I canceled the alarm but surprisingly, that apparently disengaged the autopilot (AP). The boat quickly swung off course and out of control, coming to a stop facing the wind. At the time the wind was blowing 25-30 kts and the seas were a rough, short period 2 to 3 meters.
I’ve dealt with a randomly disengaged AP before in rough seas and high winds. Ususally there is no way to sail back onto the right course so I started the engine to get some speed to turn the boat back. Once I did that, I re-engaged the AP but it wouldn’t hold the course. It started rapidly turning away to port. I also noticed the compass heading for the boat was completely wrong, 80 degrees from what it should have been, and feeding the AP bad information. When I manually tried to turn the boat it wouldn’t respond normally so I also suspected I had a mechanical problem with the rudder that was contributing to my inability to hold a course.
For the next 3 hours I tried to resolve the situation and get going again but nothing I tried worked. I finally called the Iceland Coast Guard on my satphone and explained that the boat and I were in no danger but I was uncertain if I could continue to navigate in a known direction. They made some contacts and came back by email (via Starlink) and said there was an Iceland research vessel, the Arni Fridriksson, a few hours away that offered to tow me to the port of Husavik where they were headed anyway. The last thing a sailor wants to do is accept a tow, a blatant admission that you’ve failed in your ability to get your boat from A to B under your own power. I was exhausted and at that point didn’t really see a means of fixing my problems while at sea so I accepted their offer of a tow. The alternative was to bob around at that location for a few days waiting for the sea and wind conditions to calm enough for me to try to hand steer while motoring to get to help in Iceland. That certainly would have taken more time.
They hooked me up around 0600 Thursday morning and I was tied to the visiting boat dock in Husavik at 1600 on Friday.
From there it was a matter of figuring out what had failed to see if it could be fixed. That evening a couple of engineers from the research ship donned drysuits and went under Phywave to check the mechanical integrity of the rudders. Thankfully, no problems were detected so that reduced the problem to electronics and perhaps the AP drive unit. I had an AP drive unit fail before crossing the Atlantic.
The most obvious thing that was wrong was the Precision 9 (P9) electric compass. Tied to the dock, Phywave was pointed almost exactly north but the compass said the heading was 268 degrees. I tried a static calibration of the compass that did nothing. I tried a factory reset of the chartplotter – no change. I concluded the compass must be bad. Fortunately, the Navico dealer in Reykjavik had one in stock so I flew down there to get it, not wanting the delay involved in shipping it. I made the same move when I needed engine parts in Indonesia.
Back at the boat I installed the new compass – no change, still reading around 268 degrees for the heading. So the problem was not a bad compass.
The only thing left to consider was the environment around the compass, that some magnetic or electromagnetic (EM) interference was causing the erroneous reading. I placed my hand bearing compass next to the P9 and it read the correct boat heading so I knew it wasn’t magnetic interference at that location.
I was perplexed. That compass, in that location, had been solid and correct for the 4 years I’ve sailed Phywave. Nothing around it had changed. How could it suddenly go wrong?
To further investigate, the technical manager at the Navico dealer suggested removing the compass from its mount, connecting it to a long NMEA2000 network cable, and moving it around to see whether EM interference was the culprit. That, in fact, was the problem. I was able to find a new mounting location for the P9 in the same locker just a few feet from the old location (see photo). In the new location the P9 correctly indicated the boat heading was north.
With an accurate heading from the compass, and no indication of other electronic problems, I left Husavik around 0830 on July 23, almost a week after the whole episode began. I am bound for northern Norway as originally planned, just crossing the Greenwich Meridian as I write this, but with big questions and concerns about my boat and what I’m doing. It’s a risk assessment question like I had when I abandoned my first attempt to fly solo to Antarctica because I decided the way my plane was equipped and configured made it too risky.
During my solo voyage to 7 continents and around the world I had various equipment failures. In each case I was able to understand why the failure occured and be satisfied that I had properly addressed it. In this case, however, I have no idea why a compass mounting location that had worked for years suddenly became untenable. It makes no sense. Nothing around the compass changed that would introduce EM interference of some sort. But having it happen, I must consider what major new mystery problem might emerge that will bring me to a halt.
I have changed my destination town in northern Norway from Vardø to Hammerfest which is better for a number of practical and weather reasons. It is only a bit farther away from the start of the Russia NSR passage but is much larger, has better facilities, and an airport with scheduled service. It is also situated on the southwest side of Norway’s northern region making it much more convenient than Vardø if I decide to abandon the Arctic circumnavigation and sail south instead.
I should arrive in Hammerfest on Friday or Saturday.
After departing Newfoundland on July 1, I’ve reached the first milestone on my attempt to complete a solo circumnavigation of the Arctic. At 260713.1310Z I crossed the Arctic Circle northbound. I’ll remain north of it until I cross it again sailing southbound in the Davis Strait. At this point I turn substantially east to my next stop is Vardø, Norway, about 1,200 nm away for final refueling before crossing the Russian Arctic to Barrow, Alaska, which must be done non-stop. Barrow most likely will be my next refueling stop.
It seems that fuel shouldn’t be so important with a sailboat but this circumnavigation is a voyage with an expiration date. The Northwest Passage will re-freeze in October and become impassable. It’s essential to keep moving even with no wind, a common occurrence in the Arctic. Motoring is also essential to carefully navigate around sea ice that will certainly be encountered.
To provide some scale to the map, it’s about 3,000 nm from Vardø to Barrow along the shown route. From the western boundary of the Northern Sea Route Area (NSRA) at Cape Zhelaniya to its eastern boundary in the Chukchi Sea is about 2,000 nm.
My blog posts have been scarce since I’ve been busy sailing in surprisingly rough conditions, 25 – 40 kt winds and 3-4 meter short-period seas for much of the last 3 days, a very rolly ride with the boat periodically getting slammed by waves breaking right against the hull. I’m expecting easier conditions for the next several days, at least, that’s what the forecast is telling me.
The weather has also been dominated by overcast skies and fog. I think I’ve had only 2 sunny days during the 13 days since I left Newfoundland. Other than the dolphins I saw leaving Conception Bay and the ubiquitous sea birds, I haven’t seen any wildlife. I hope to see whales crossing north of Iceland where apparently they like to hang out, but the fog’s reducing visibility to 100 meters right now. Hopefully it will lift later.
In the first three parts of this series of posts I described the equipment problems I was having in some detail. In contrast, the sailing side of this shakedown passage was relatively trouble-free.
I had a rigging contractor at HHN inspect the rig, completing the deck level things while Phywave was still in the boatyard and going aloft once it was in the water. Other than a few chafed lines to replace, they found the staysail furler was very hard to turn. I rarely use the staysail; in fact, couldn’t remember the last time I used it, so I wasn’t aware of any issues.
The problem was in the drum mechanics. Getting replacement parts from France would have taken weeks but the riggers managed to find a complete new furler, the same model, already in the US so I told them to replace the whole thing, which they did. Overall, the furler replacement, rig tuning, and various line replacements didn’t delay my departure. HHN put Phywave in the water on Monday, June 1, and I sailed away from HHN early on the morning of June 5.
Skipping the C-D canal exit at the north end of the Bay, I sailed and motored south under the Chesapeake Bay bridge to the open ocean, with one overnight stop in Little Bay. Once on open water I quickly got back into the rythmn of working the boat and sails and wind, generally sailing east and north toward Newfoundland until engine problems and other issues interrupted my progress, as decribed in Part 1.
One unexpected issue occured with the anchor. I had replaced my rusty Spade anchor with a new Rocna Vulcan anchor, which is a Rocna anchor without a rollbar. Because of the wide, curved anchor shank, it doesn’t fit well under my bowsprit. It hangs very low compared to the Spade anchor I had before. I didn’t think this would matter much but I was wrong. As soon as I got into rough seas with the bow plunging into a wavefront, water caught the anchor and dragged the chain a bit out of the windlass. Eventually this became great enough the anchor was free to swing and bang around on the bow. This clanking was a new sound I’d never heard before and quickly realized it must be a loose anchor. Using the windlass to reel it back in only worked temporarily. I set the chain hook on the chain to hold it but that eventually bounced free. Finally, I took a short piece of line and tied a link in the chain to the strong cleat in the anchor locker. That solved the problem but isn’t a very elegant solution. Normally, I can drive into an anchorage and drop and set the anchor from the helm using the chain counter without ever having to go to the bow. Now I’ll have to go to the bow and undo the supplemental line first. I wish I had my Spade anchor back.
So that’s where things stand on the afternoon of June 25. Phywave is in berth 96 at the Royal Newfoundland Yacht Club with no firm departure date set yet.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I had replaced the Webasto heater and associated fuel filter, pump, and fuel line. Before I removed the old heater I verified that it was sending the correct pulsed signal to the fuel pump and that the fuel line was delivering the metered fuel to the heater end of the fuel line.
Once I installed the new heater unit and had everything connected in the boatyard, I should have fired it up there to make sure it all worked, but I didn’t. Big mistake.
On passage, when it eventually got cold enough to use the heater, I turned it on. It went through it’s normal startup sequence successfully but came up with the same “no fuel flow” error as before. For a new startup unit it may take several tries to prime the line and get the thing going. After doing that, I realized I never heard the fuel pump pulsing as it sends fuel to the unit. I open the floor panel so I could put my hand on the pump and feel whether it was pulsing during startup. It wasn’t. The new unit apparently was not sending the pulsed voltage to the pump, or the pump is bad. I thought the former because this same pump was new and had been pulsing correctly when connected to the old unit. I’d need an oscillscope I don’t have to see if the unit is really sending the correct pulsed voltage to the pump. I don’t know where to get one here in St. John’s.
Calls to Webasto tech support didn’t lead to a solution for why the pump was not pulsing. Since the heater unit itself is new, they could only conclude the pump is bad. I swapped in a second pump I got with the new replacement unit but that didn’t solve the problem so I’m back to thinking the unit isn’t sending the pulsed voltage to the pump.
At this point, as I write this, I see the problem as impossible to diagnose and fix given my current location and tools at hand. There are no competent Webasto service people around here. I may have to sail to the Arctic without a working heater which has been done before, like winter camping on a boat. I have warm clothes and a great sleeping bag. I can also get a small ceramic electric heater to provide some relief from the cold. That would turn diesel fuel into electrical power into heat. Super inefficient compared to the Webasto heater but it’s something. Still working the problem.
After my solo voyage to seven continents and around the world, I wanted to upgrade my battery capacity and recharging speed to avoid using the generator so much. With the available space for batteries on Phywave, the only way to do that was to replace my existing AGM batteries with lithium batteries and associated monitoring and control equipment.
I was reluctant to make such a major change in the electrical system ahead of a demanding Arctic voyage. I gave the contractor a strict deadline of June 1 to complete the work which actually included replacing all the battery boxes. Even though the lithium batteries were advertised as the same Group 31 size as the AGM batteries they replaced, because of the lifting handles they actually aren’t. I had them install three 300 Ah Epoch heated batteries for a total new capacity of 900 Ah compared to the 440 Ah capacity I had before with the Victron AGM batteries. I also had them install two new dual use 125 Ah AGM batteries as start batteries but with a crossover switch that would allow me to use the start batteries for the house loads if the lithium battery bank failed for some reason.
In addition, they replaced my Victron invertor with a Victron Multiplus that serves as an invertor and a battery charger. Since this is now basically a Victron system, they installed a Cerbo GX communications hub and a GX Touch 70 display/control to monitor and configure it all. To their credit, they completed all the work the Friday before my June 1 deadline.
After I got underway I noticed some quirky things. The Epoch batteries have their own internal Bluetooth connection to an Epoch app. The state of charge shown on the app was much lower than on the Victron GX. Fortunately, the Victron system can also be remotely accessed, in my case, via Starlink. When I explained the problem to the contractor, they were able to remotely adjust the system so the state of charge shown on the Victron more closely matched (within a few percent) the charge shown on the Epoch app. That problem was resolved.
The second problem arose when I tried to charge rhe batteries with my generator through the Multiplus. My 6 kW Northern Lights AC generator essentially mimics shore power in my system. It was only charging at about the 100 Watt level, not nearly enough to recharge the batteries. It should be charging at the 2 kW level, essentially all the charge current the Multiplus is capable of sending to the batteries. When the generator wouldn’t charge the batteries I tried to turn the engine on to charge them. That’s when I discovered there was no seawater flow cooling the engine (as described in Part 1) so I had to shut down the engine. I was far offshore in the fog with no effective way to charge my batteries and keep the navigation system, radio and auotopilot running if the battery charge got too low. Not a good thing.
Thankfully, by remote control the contractor was once again able to step in, assess the generator charger problem, and come up with a fix a day later by having me go through a sequence to completely reset the Multiplus.
So as I write this the new lithium battery installation appears to be working OK, but given the problems I experienced, I’m wary of it. At least the installers are able to remotely help if new problems arise.
The passage from Chesapeake Bay to Newfoundland was meant to podition Phywave at a decision point where I could attempt a solo Arctic circumnavigation along Russia’s Northern Sea Route (NSR) or sail solo westbound through the Northwest Passage (NWP). It was also meant as a shakedown sail to test whether Phywave was really ready to take on either of these very demanding voyages. The test turned up several problems with Phywave, some fairly serious.
Many maintenance tasks and new equipment installations were done while Phywave was in the boatyard at Herrington Harbour North (HHN). These turned out to be sources for problems on this passage. I’m going to discuss these problems across a few blog posts because there’s a lot to say.
Last Fall I had a contractor at HHN winterize Phywave which essentially mesns draining any systems with water (whicj could freeze) and and replacing the water with non-toxic anti-freeze. In the Spring the process is reversed, called commissioning. I did the commissioning myself which went well. However, it appears the winterization contractor also drained most of the coolant from the engine. There’s no reason to do this since it doesn’t freeze. They didn’t tell me they did it so a few days into my passage during a stint of motoring the engine overheated and I had to shut it down. Given where I was, the nearest place to get help with it was Newport, Rhode nto MarinatheIsland, some 180 nm to the north. I had drift around in calm conditions and wait until the wind picked up that evening to sail there. I was able to do that over the next 30 hours or so. I poured all the coolant I had on board into the engine in hope I could run the engine long enough to make it into the marina at New England Boatworks in Portsmouth where I had arranged for a technician to investigate the problem. I also bought morecoolant and a replacement thermostat in case that problem. The tech concluded it was just a low coolant problem. We topped up the coolant. I bought 10 more liters to take with me and I thought all was good. It wasn’t.
Most marine diesel engines have a cooling system that consists of a so-called fresh water loop which is really filled with a 50/50 mix of coolant and fresh water. That coolant mixture itself is cooled by passing it through a heat exchanger along side cold seawater which is drawn up from the ocean with a seawater pump. After passing through the heat exchanger, the seawater is ejected overboard with the engine exhaust gases. For the engine to be properly cooled, it must have seawater flow.
The seawater flow we were getting in Portsmouth was correct; no indication of a problem. However, once I was underway again from Portsmouth to Newfoundland a problem emerged with the seawater flow. It was intermittent. At one point I successfully ran the engine for 17 hours during forecast dead calm conditions with no problem. The next day I started the engine – no seawater flow. I started investigating, thinking first the seawater inlet was clogged by something I picked up in the water. To confirm it was clear, I back-flushed it using the washdown pump I have at the bow to wash mud off the anchor and chain. No difference. I confirmed all the hose connections and the lid on the seawater strainer were tight – an air leak would defeat the engine seawater pump from developing the suction needed to start the flow of seawater. No difference.
I was sailing at the time and knew I could at least make it to St. John’s on wind power where I could get a technician involved to help resolve the problem. I didn’t suspect it was the impeller in the pump because I just had it replaced in the Spring by the same maintenance company that apparently screwed up the coolant.
I was able to limp into St. John’s and tie to the commercial wharf. A tech came the next morning and started investigating. Although the impeller didn’t look that bad to me (no broken or missing fins) he said it was worn and trashed and replaced it with a spare I had on board. The seawater flow starting working again so I guess he was right. He also said the water pump housing itself and the impeller cover were worn and recommended replacing the pump as well. The pump I have is obsolete but Volvo-Penta has a new drop-in replacement pump. I asked if he could get one quick and install it this week. He managed to find a new pump and order it. In the meantime while waiting for the pump, and with the engine running again, I sailed and motored 40 nm around to the Royal Newfoundland Yacht Club (RNYC) in Conception Bay South where there is a marina and facilities for yachts, unlike the commercial wharf in St. John’s.
Today the tech came out to install the new pump. Once the old pump was off it was apparent the seals were in bad shape so it would have started leaking at some point. Replacing it was the right move.
Given the remote places where I want to sail, I don’t mind spending the money to make the boat as perfect as a five-year old boat with 40,000 nm of worldwide sailing can be.
