While we have a plethora of safety equipment aboard, it all needs to be checked and updated periodically.

We have a Kannad EPIRB that is malfunctioning for some reason. The battery is good until 2022, but the self-test is failing. Instead of trying to find a McMurdo/Kannad service center, of which are few and far between here in the United States, we’ve ordered a new ACR GlobalFix V4, Category 2 EPIRP. We should be able to get this new EPIRB serviced much easier in the States if required. We, of course will need to register the new EPIRB with NOAA/SARSAT, but that’s pretty straight forward to do.

Not a lot of boats here in Chicago have EPIRBs, but then again most do not venture more than 20-miles from shore. We are getting ready to head out in the next few years and are upgrading a lot of the systems onboard.

We also have two Spinlock Deckvest pfd’s for Janet and I, which both need to be serviced and updated. I’ve ordered new Re-arming kits plus two extra so that if one gets deployed the pfd can be repacked with a new kit and put back into service. Also we’re changing out the Pylon Lifejacket Lights that eject a small strobe light atop a tiny mast that makes finding overboard crew-members easier in the dark. We’re adding Ocean Signal MOB1 Units to each pfd so that when activated the MOBs will emit a signal across AIS and DCS, lighting up chart-plotters of not only Tortuga but also other near-by vessels. Finally, we’re also adding a couple of Safety Line Cutters to each vest just to have if needed.

We also have a JonBouy Recovery Module that hangs off the transom that was just serviced here in Chicago by Total Marine Safety.

The concept is to ensure that all of the safety equipment is up-to-date and functional. Neither of us want to have an emergency and have to wonder if the emergency equipment is going to work as expected.

I’m spending the winter months working on my U.S. Coast Guard 25-Ton Master Captain’s License with the U.S. Maritime Academy.  The class meets three days a week for 8-weeks here in Chicago and covers all aspects needed for the license: Chart Navigation, General navigation, Rules of the Road, Deck General, etc.   

Overall, the class has been a really good ‘dusting off’ of the topics that I learned in the ASA curriculum, as well taking a much deeper dive into the 72 COLREGS and the Inland Rules.  I’ve found that the charting problems from the ASA 105 Coastal Navigation course to be more arduous, but it’s been a really good overall refresher.

I have no idea what I’m going to do with the license.  I wouldn’t mind doing some sailboat deliveries in the future, but I have no desire to do charters.  I don’t think that I could handle a group of strangers running amok on Tortuga.

I began sailing late in life. I never sailed as a kid, never crewed nor raced, never had any exposure to sailboats or sailing of any kind.

It wasn’t until my late forties when we decided that instead of building a retirement home on the coast of Maine, that we would instead purchase a cruising sailboat, and thus always have oceanfront property wherever we were. Janet, the practical one in the marriage, accurately stated, “But, you don’t know how to sail”. Me – “I’ll learn” , and this is how we did it. Keep in mind, this was my path, YMMV.

I began with American Sailing Association’s (ASA) certification curriculum, and over a short amount of time I took…

• ASA 101, Basic Keelboat Sailing – I stepped through this two-day course on Lake Michigan, and it was my first time actually on a sailboat

• ASA 103, Basic Coastal Cruising – Traveling to Ft. Lauderdale, I took this and subsequent ASA courses from Blue Water Sailing School

• ASA 104, Bareboat Cruising

• ASA 105, Coastal Navigation – This was a pretty technical course that, over several weeks, I studied for. This course has a pretty dismal first-time pass rate and should not be taken lightly.

• ASA 106, Advanced Coastal Cruising

Modern cruising sailboats can be quite complicated with a myriad of systems onboard that need to be constantly monitored and maintained. There was a lot to learn, so I sought the best resources that I could; targeted courses, books, videos, SMEs and began to tackle each one.

• Diesel Mechanics – We have a Volvo Penta 55 onboard with a very robust diesel fuel system. I poured over schematics, owners technical manuals, Nigel Calder’s Marine Diesel Engines. I talked to my nephew, a professional diesel engine mechanic, and absorbed everything that I could.

• Electronics – This is a personal weakness that needs to be strengthened. I’m still pretty clumsy with a multimeter, but I have poured through Calder’s Boatowners Mechanical and Electrical Manual, as well as Charlie Wing’s Boatowner’s Illustrated Electrical Handbook. I’ve read all of the technical manuals onboard that relate to the various power systems. I’ve learned about marine batteries, smart chargers, inverters, generators, solar panels, wind generators, and how they all work together to keep the boat powered.

• Advanced Sailing Skills – There’s always much, much more to learn. We attended a Parasailor course in St. Petersburg to better understand our massive, winged headsail. I read and reread Lin and Larry Pardey’s seminal book Storm Tactics, Marchaj’s Sail Performance, Hinz’s The Complete Book of Anchoring and Mooring. I’ve poured over every YouTube video ever made on boat handing and docking. Still on the bucket list is ASA’s 118 – Docking Endorsement class. We also set aside times every year to find an isolated spot and practice boat-handling skills.

• Emergency Medicine – As a Paramedic and my wife, the ER physician, I believed that we had this well-covered, but we have a blog post that discusses medical topics. I believe that for a non-practitioner a CPR/AED certification is a necessary first step. After that, I highly encourage taking the EMT-B course. The more illness, trauma and disease that you see, the more comfortable you become with them.

• Weather – There are several books (Dashew’s Marine Weather Handbook), apps (Predict Wind), blogs, and courses available to assist people to better understand maritime weather. At some point I’d like to return to ASA and take its ASA-119, Marine Weather Endorsement as a way of rounding out my overall ASA experience. Aside from that, it’s necessary to be able to read and understand GRIB files, weather patterns, NWS/NOAA reports, etc., and incorporate all of them when planning a passage.

• Communications – As a retired Army Special Forces officer I believed that I had this covered. One of my mentors was an 18E (Special Forces Communications Sergeant), subsequently I was well-schooled in radio and antenna theory. Regardless, it’s important to understand VHF and UHF systems, and HF if you carry that capability as well.

Other skills that I’ve worked on:

• Sewing – Sailrite is by far the best source for marine sewing applications and instruction
• Knots – Have a handful of knots that you can flawlessly tie blindfolded
• Photography, videography and sound – If you plan on multimedia content
• Drone skills – This is a recent FAIL

What’s left to do:

Time on the water is the greatest teacher. After every sail we purposefully review what we did right and what challenged us. How can we be better, safer, more efficient?

USCG Master’s License – This is the goal for this year. I do not plan to use the license commercially, but I believe that the information in invaluable.

Yesterday, we moved Tortuga from her winter home, 70-miles south to Chicago. The conditions were spectacular, 25+ knots of wind on our aft beam pushing us at over 8-10 knots the entire passage. We put in a single reef early on just to make the trip a bit more comfortable, but as the wind was predicted to come down, we shook it out about ten miles from Chicago, then the issues began.

Adopting my mantra, “do the hard thing”, I broke out the drone with the intention of flying it off a moving sailboat. Janet was a bit skeptical, and my first mistake…not listening to her.

Sailing with the wind masks the actual wind speed, in sailing parlance known as apparent wind versus true wind. So on the boat, yesterday, the wind felt “manageable”…but the featherweight plastic drone believed differently. With the quad propellers whirring we hand-launched the Mavic Pro off the stern. The drone shot straight up in the air, as we sailed away from it.

All at once the drone began fighting 25+ knots of wind. The controller started audibly complaining about almost gale force winds, and it was obvious that there was going to be a significant challenge getting the drone safely back aboard.

As a safety feature, drones remember where they take-off from and label that ‘Home’. When things get rough or power gets low, drones automatically return to ‘Home’. Where we launched our drone and where Mavic now considered Home was now a few miles behind us among the waves of Lake Michigan.

Aside from the stupid decision to even launch the drone in these conditions, I also failed to update the maximum distance that the drone was allowed to wander from its identified ‘Home’, about 2 km. So once we hit that point the drone refused to proceed any further… as we sailed away from it. The last messages from the drone were, “Its too windy, I’ve reached my max distance allowed from my Home, my battery is critically low, I’m going back Home”.

That was the last I saw of our Mavic Pro as Janet stared at me, the idiot husband that she married. Her words, “you’re not buying another one of those anytime soon”. I hung my head…should have known better.

I’m essentially a lazy sailor. Sometimes I’ll just set the mainsail and jib to about the correct point of sail and move on to something else… set it and forget it, time for lunch. The result is that I’m not getting the full potential out of either the boat nor myself.

This year I’m adopting the mantra, “Do the Hard Thing”, in other words even though it may be uncomfortable, inconvenient, or just a downright pain, I’m intent on making choices that will make me a better sailor and use Tortuga’s full arsenal of capabilities.

To that end, I publicly vow in front of Neptune and swear on my copy of Chapman’s that I will…

• Anchor out instead of renting a slip for the night
• Rig and fly the Parasailor as much as possible
• Rig the running backstays on all downwind points of sail
• Manually helm the boat
• Rig the bimini when at anchor
• Fly the gennaker
• Shorter and more frequent tacks and jibes
• Run the motor less
• Tune the sails more
• Get my USCG Masters license
• Fly the drone more
• Wear sunscreen

It’s Commissioning Week for Tortuga, coming out from a long winter’s nap, dipped gently back into the still chilly waters of Lake Michigan, and painstakingly reassembled. This is always a fun time of year as we get reacquainted with our boat, remembering adventures from only a few months ago.

The standing and running rigging went up earlier in the week, the mast was plumbed and tuned, and all of the 17 lines ran back to the cockpit into their appropriate clutches. All of the control lines run underneath the relatively inaccessible coachroof, so if a routing gets lost it’s an adventure trying to make it right.

Aside from keeping copious written engineering notes in the logbook, we use an app called Wunderlist to keep track of boat projects. We have lists for commissioning, other lists for stuff that we want to do during the season that are not so pressing, and also a long-term list of dream modifications and improvements (my favorite).

Since we have a lot of first-time sailors as guests aboard Tortuga, we’re particularly sensitive to people getting seasick. Nothing can ruin a day faster or potentially turn someone off from sailing forever than spending the day vomiting over the side of the boat . To that end, we implement our own seasickness protocol.

Firstly, identify those who have been seasick before or who suspect that they might be prone to it. Many people have experienced motion sickness before and already know that they are at risk.

Our first line of defense is Sea-Bands, a simply wrist bracelet that uses acupressure as a means of staving off motion sickness. Per the Sea-Band website, “A plastic stud is attached to the inside of the wrist band which exerts pressure and stimulates the P6 (or Nei-Kuan) acupressure point. It has been proven that pressure on this point relieves nausea and vomiting”.

We carry both the adult and child Sea-Band sizes onboard and give them out freely to anyone that may want them. They are unobtrusive, washable, and reusable, so for the price we found them to be a great investment.

Next on the protocol is ginger. Ginger has long been used as an alternative medication to prevent motion sickness. Pretreatment with ginger (1,000 and 2,000 mg) will generally reduce nausea. We carry bags of candied ginger that people can chew on, We also have ginger beer, but normally reserve that for Dark ‘n Stormies

Now medication. Scopolamine patches, sold under the brand name Transderm, can be applied prophylacticly to people that simply know that they are going to get seasick. These work similar to antihistamines but often have fewer side effects. In the States you need a prescription, but any family physician would be happy to write for them.

Next on the medication list is Benadryl 50mg. This will generally work, but will induce drowsiness, and your stricken crew member or passenger will likely sleep the rest of the day. If they are having a really rough time of it, this is not necessarily a bad thing from their perspective.

Our final medication step is Zofran (ondansetron), an antiemetic that is often prescribed to cancer patients to prevent nausea.

Other measures that we encourage are obviously to watch the horizon. This means dissuading people from spending too much time below decks. We also encourage people, especially kids, to take the helm for a while as it forces them to keep an eye on the horizon.

Janet is an Emergency Medicine Physician and I’m a Paramedic, so suffice it to say that we pay a lot of attention to our medical kit aboard Tortuga. We keep track of our medical kit inventory with the app MyStuff Pro, which notifies us when stocks are running low or medications are about to expire. More on MyStuff Pro later.

Below is a list of what we normally carry in the ship’s medical kit.

• Ace Bandages – assorted sizes
• ACLS Handbook
• Albuterol Inhaler
• Aleve (Naproxen) 220mg
• Antacid (Calcium Carbonate)
• Aspirin 81mg
• Azithromycin 500mg
• Band Aids – assorted
• Benadryl 25mg
• Bentyl 20mg
• Blister Dressing and Mole Skin
• Blood Pressure Cuff
• Chest Cough Relief (Guaifenesin)
• Ciprofloxacin 500mg
• Cotton Tape – assorted sizes
• DayQuil
• Famotidine 20mg
• Fluconazole 150mg
• Non-Latex Exam Gloves: large-small
• Glucometer kit
• Halls Cough Drops
• Headlamp
• Ibuprofen 200mg
• Loperamide 2mg
• Pepto Bismol tablets
• Pulse Oximeter + spare batteries
• SAM Splint
• Scalpel – 10 Blade
• Scopolamine Patches
• Sea-Bands – child and adult sizes
• Silk Tape 1”
• Simethicone 180mg
• Staple Remover
• Sterile Gauze Pads- assorted sizes
• Sterile Gloves – specific sizes
• Steristrips – assorted sizes
• Stethoscope
• Sutures and Misc Instruments
• Tongue Blades
• Triangular Bandages
• Trimethoprim 100mg
• Tylenol 500mg
• Wound Care Pack
• Zinc Lozenges
• Zofran 4mg

A few random thoughts on medical emergencies while underway:

Have a Plan: Give some thought to actions during a medical emergency. Who would you call for help, and how would your reach them? Having two reliable means of communication to reach assistance, and then test them often. Remember, “Two to make One, One makes None”.

Medical Evacuation Insurance: Consider how you would get a sick crew member or yourself home if you or they were hospitalized in a “less-than-developed” area or country. How can you be sure that the diagnosis and treatment that are being provided is accurate and medically sound? There are companies, such as Global Rescue, that will provide those services for an amazingly small annual subscription fee. As a disclaimer, I used to work as an Operations Paramedic for Global Rescue and know first-hand the value of having thought these challenges through before you cast off or travel.

An AED is an extremely useful piece of kit and should be strongly considered. While we do not carry one aboard Tortuga, we probably should.

There are several good books on wilderness medicine. The ones that comes to mind are:

• Where There Is No Doctor by David Werner and Carol Thuman
• Ditch Medicine by Hugh L. Coffee
• Where There Is No Dentist by Murray Dickson
• Auerbach’s Wilderness Medicine, by Paul Auerbach
• Tarascan Pocket Pharmacopeia – to understand various names and dosing of medications, especially traveling outside of your own country

Since our boat is currently in the Great Lakes, we pull her out every autumn and place her into heated storage. The mast comes down, the sails all come off, and we work on the punch-list throughout the cold months.

As soon as the weather warms we splash Tortuga and reverse the winterizing process. Top of the list is re-rigging her, which is always a bit complex given the shear amount of running and standing rigging that we have. Tortuga has a main sail with three single-line reefing points, twin backstays as well as two running backstays, two forestays each with roller furling sails, a lazy jack system that can often be puzzling, and an SSB rope antenna that goes up on a spare halyard from the transom. Lots of stuff going on, and that’s just the rigging. The myriad of electrical systems need to be sorted out, a water maker, the marine toilet (MSD); the list goes on.

All-in-all it takes a solid week to get Tortuga commissioned, cleaned, and stocked and provisioned. The intent is to have her in her seasonal, Chicago slip on 1 May.