SIGHTINGS
THIS ROW / SNAP YOURSELF!
LATITUDE / JOHN
a watermaker and refrigeration? Do you have to stay in marinas? What are the best itineraries? And if they don't have the answers to your question, they can direct you to sources who do have the answers. The Poobah has done a lot of Ha-Ha seminars in the past, but is thinking they don't give members of the audience enough time to ask all the questions they want or get the answers in as much detail as they need. So this year we're trying the 'unseminar' all afternoon April 2122. We're looking forward to seeing you there — and at the October 29th start of the 25th annual Baja Ha-Ha. — richard
"These two high-latitude legs — to Cape Horn and from the Horn to Tasmania, have been brutally difficult — I have made what I consider to be a number of heavy weather mistakes and (having survived) have learned a ton from them. I'm excited to apply what I've learned to what comes next." That was the word from Randall Reeves, who emailed us from Hobart, Tasmania, at the end of March. Reeves suffered numerous knockdowns in the Southern Ocean a month earlier, leading to the loss of a cabin window and some navigation electronics (as well as other miscellaneous damage). This is Randall's second unscheduled stop on the Figure 8 Voyage, and it's not yet clear if he'll continue on his planned circumnavigation of Antarctica before crossing the Northwest Passage and returning to San Francisco. "I'll only say that the season is now late and the decisions aren't easy." But after his arrival in Hobart, a team of Tasmanians went to work as if Moli, Reeves' 41-ft sloop, were a Formula One car at a pit stop. "Mo Mo is ensconced at the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, and within an hour of mooring to the emergency dock, my contact John Solomon, Randall Reeves at the Royal Yacht Club of Port Captain for the Ocean Cruising Club, had Tasmania. "I have such introduced me to a guy who could replace Mo's an appreciation for the shattered window, a welder who could repair people here," he told us. the bent lifeline rail I cut away after the knockdown, and a mechanic. So, projects were underway almost before I got checked into the country. Also, the club has the hottest showers and the best gin and tonics in the Southern Hemisphere." Randall was also forced to stop in Ushuaia, Argentina, in December for repairs, just before passing Cape Horn. On his blog (which can be found at www.figure8voyage.com gure8voyage.com), Reeves has been incredibly frank about the trials and tribulations of sailing around the world alone. "Do I question my motives when there is a big blow bearing down on Mo and me that I'm not sure how to manage — when the risks of this reward loom? Yes," he wrote on Valentine's Day, describing the "emotional complications" of leaving his wife, Joanna, for a year to do the Figure 8. In early February, a month after he'd departed Ushuaia and was sailing in the Southern Ocean for the first time, Reeves wrote: "I'd like to say that after 30 days sailing at 47 degrees south and below, I am finally comfortable and in the groove. But I am not. There is too much raw power down here for one to settle in. One is constantly anticipating future days and weathers or cruising the deck for gear that is on the verge of failure." Earlier in February, after he was becalmed, Randall wrote: "The swing between confidence and its lack I find difficult to manage. One day we make good miles and I am happy; the next is like today, and I sink. We have so far to go, I think, as many miles back to Cape Horn as we have already come from San Francisco. And in this ocean I feel exposed. A rank novice in a realm that eats novices like candy. So much I don't know. So many mistakes already made. But I don't want confidence or its lack. Both are an annoyance, a distraction. Did you ever want of confidence in the Pacific? No, you just sailed. You didn't think. What I want is to be here, to figure out this groove, to ride that swell, to catch today's wind in the sails just so. To solve this problem knowing that tomorrow there will be another." In his email to us, Reeves recalled a meeting with Scanmar owner Mike Scheck at the boat show in Oakland in 2013: "Even then I was chasing the Figure 8, but at that time, I was very worried about the challenges associated with the Northwest Passage. When Mike asked me how I was going to manage the Southern Ocean, I said, 'Well, that's just more sailing down there'. Am I ever eating those words!" — tim April, 2018 •
Latitude 38
FIGURE 8 VOYAGE
randall reeves' second pit stop
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