InsidePassageNews.com

Overwhelmed, Jack Eichmann left the marine supply store in Southern California loaded with NOAA charts for the Pacific Coast of the U.S.; the four Yachtsman Northwest Chart books that cover the coast and the Expanded 2nd edition of Exploring the Pacific Coast San Diego to Seattle by Don Douglass and Réanne Hemingway-Douglass. The search for his perfect, first boat had ended, unexpectedly, in Newport Beach, California with a beautiful 25-year old 33’ Hans Christian. Jack had basically sailed just on Puget Sound on friends’ boats and he had assumed he’d find a boat more locally. Now, all of a sudden, he had a chance to live a dream—to bring his boat up the coast. With 14 days off work, though, he had to find a crew, buy navigational tools, fly to California, buy the boat, provision her and come up the coast.

On October 8th, 2009 with a green crew—one had offshore dreams but didn’t own a boat, the other who was a proficient sailor but instructed on Lasers—Jack pushed off from Newport Beach in his newly purchased cutter-rigged boat he christened Annie.

“Until I bought the boat,” Jack said, “I hadn’t given any thought to navigating the coast. In the past I’d taken a navigation course, read books, looked at charts and asked questions gaining enough experience to feel confident when it was time to make a boat go where I needed it to go. This whole purchase happened in a couple weeks. There was no time to know what to buy for planning, for studying the different resources and charts. The chart salesperson recommended the Douglass’ Pacific Coast book. I noticed there was a lot of information in it; it had telephone numbers for the ports if I needed to stop someplace. And, it covered the whole span of the trip.”

“The previous owner had set waypoints for as far as the boat’s electronic charts went—the 35th parallel, north of Santa Barbara,” said Jack. “It was a 3-day trip to Monterey—our first fuel stop—so we had time to practice what we needed for navigating the rest of the way. We learned to use the boat’s chart plotter and autopilot, basically, by reading the manuals underway, and we used the autopilot 99% of the trip. I didn’t crack the Douglass’ book until we were underway. On watches I had the crew start reading the foreword and the first three chapters. We physically charted the trip on the Yachtsman Northwest Chart books.”

“Rounding the point into Monterey, we made the approach in the dark trusting the waypoints in the Douglass’ book more than the chart plotter’s ghost map (which put us in the middle of the city of Monterey). That’s where we finally gained a trust for the waypoints in the Douglass’ book over the other charts and doing it ourselves. With the number in the book, we called the dock master to find out where we could anchor until the fuel dock opened at 8 a.m. We could see from the book’s diagram where to anchor and, because we didn’t have to fumble around that evening, we got a good night’s sleep.”

“San Francisco got hit by the biggest storm they’d had since 1962. We sat it out for two days north of Monterey in Half Moon Bay. When the storm broke we topped off the fuel and left at 8 a.m. in 4’ seas at 9-second intervals. We got through the traffic intersection in San Francisco and headed toward Bodega Bay. Hitting Bodega Bay around noon it was overcast but OK and, as we approached Point Reyes, the sun came out, the water was blue and the sun was shining off the condos on the shore. We decided to keep on going. Our next fuel stop was Newport, Oregon.”

“We took the Express Route outlined in the Douglass’ book all the way. Approaching Newport at 8 a.m., it was getting rough with the winds and seas picking up. Hearing a small craft warning, we called the Coast Guard’s number in the book. They said small craft was anything under 24’ but asked if we were requesting aid through the passage. The crew said, ‘Why not?’ We told them we were a green crew and it might be nice to have assistance and they came right out. We had the waypoints set from the book and would have made it through the bar without any problems but it was reassuring to have the Coast Guard’s help. They escorted us to the fuel dock and, with the number from the book, we called the Harbor Master for a slip.”

“I’d been cautioned about the time of year, but coming up the coast we could count the ships that passed; there was nothing out there is October. Probably because I was the Captain, I was a worrywart all the way up. I’d been concerned about the San Francisco interchange because of freighter traffic, the same with the Columbia Bar and the San Juan de Fuca Strait. Crossing the Columbia River intersection I had the whole crew up. You could barely see land and the only thing we saw were the lights of a fishing boat on the horizon. Coming around Cape Flattery it was so calm they didn’t even wake me. In the Straits we saw 90% of the ships on radar, never visually. The waypoints from the book took us right into Seattle with the Seattle traffic channel helping us understand who was in front and behind.”

“Learning on the fly to use the chart plotter, we plugged in the waypoints from the Douglass’ book the entire trip. From one waypoint to the other you’re talking four or five hours. When we plotted the waypoints, we found the ones in the book to be in the right places.”

“The book also allowed us to look at all the possible ports. We chose Monterey and Newport, Oregon because the other ports were less inviting or in the wrong spots. Since we were on a schedule of two weeks, we just barely made it. We weren’t looking for sightseeing, we were looking for efficiency. And the book gave us the information we needed for making those decisions.”

“We went from a green crew to fairly proficient. The book helped. It reassured me and quenched a lot of my curiosity. Ultimately I made a good decision in choosing the Douglass book without knowing for sure at the time whether it was good or not.”