December 20, 2005 - First Time Lucky (We Learn as We Go)
by Michel & Jane DeRidder

	Magic Dragon under sail - 40 years later and still going strong.

We were ill-prepared for our first offshore passage in September of '65, even though we had launched the boat over a year previously, and had sailed a fair amount in that time year-round. I just reread our journal of that first voyage from Victoria to San Francisco, and marveled at our sheer audacity and our great good luck. Spirits high, we left Victoria with a Kiwi crew, a couple of nurses seeing the world, able sailors and fine shipmates - our first piece of extraordinary good luck. In spite of a succession of dramas they endured the trip uncomplainingly.

An hour out, the first of a string of minor catastrophes happened. While filling the gravity tank for the diesel heater, we let it overflow, soaking precious books, magazines and the kapok life jackets in the bin beneath. In the heady excitement of our departure we'd forgotten what we were doing. We sponged the bilge, wiped the books, hung the life jackets in the engine room. Then came the second minor catastrophe. In replacing floor boards we shattered a plastic coupling on a water pipe. Water ran madly into the bilge until we turned off the water pump. Thus with the addition of a little detergent, we washed out the dieselly bilge. We spent our first night in Becher Bay - to quote our log: "the cabin a shambles, without having been able to enjoy Race Rocks or the calm sea or the setting sun". We replaced the water coupling and put the ship to rights before gobbling a stew prepared the day before.

In early morning mist, towing our Walker log impeller, we set forth down the Strait of Juan de Fuca, leaving behind the resident bald eagle, a fleet of tiny spinning phalaropes, and a great bold blue heron. Flat calm meant our life jackets were drying out in the engine room. By nine we could hear the Sherringham Point fog horn abeam. Hurried along by an ebbing tide with our log under-reading (as we later realized), we found ourselves by mid-afternoon in wild and unruly seas, visibility fifty feet or so, with not enough wind to fill the sails to steady the ship. We were in the tide rip off Cape Flattery and, we discovered just in time, dangerously close to Dunstan and Duntze Rocks. We peeled off, held a brief counsel, and decided to carry right on rather than enter Neah Bay in the fog. As darkness fell, various people were green. Ever since that enforced departure we have seldom left on a long voyage late in the day.

During the night we experienced our first blow. Dragon rode it out well with the wind vane steering, "going like a freight train to windward, packing the odd sea over the bow." It was a starry night, and on my watch I brought out the star finder to see what I could identify. The wind fell off, but not the slop. By morning we were on a broad reach in a confused sea. The only casualty of the brief blow was a stern dorade, wrenched off by the mainsheet. "We spent the day sleeping and trying to get our sea legs. Our meals consisted of a bowl of cornflakes (breakfast), Rye-Vita and Beef-in-a-Mug (lunch) and a cup of tea and biscuits in the afternoon. We enjoyed only the latter." The skipper became "green as grass trying to attach a retainer to the boom, as the wind fell off rapidly." These first sea trips are hardest on the captain, I realised early on, he who must mastermind the running of the vessel and do the hard bits. I just go along for the ride. "We managed a good big hot supper so I guess we're getting our sea legs. We even got the dishes done."

Sextant and watches.

Soon, according to our dead reckoning ("pretty wild guess work") we were 100 miles off the Washington coast as planned, heading roughly parallel to it. The idea was to perfect our celestial navigation en route to San Francisco. We had learned the rudiments of the navigator's art from a slim green cloth-covered volume called Celestial Navigation for Yachtsmen by an Englishwoman called Mary Blewitt. If a woman could write a book, I could jolly well understand it, I reckoned. It seemed to fall to me, the one with the iron stomach. But it wasn't until day three that I managed a Noon Latitude, about the same time we sighted our very first albatross. By this time Winnie the wind vane was "steering a surprisingly steady course" on a broad reach or wing-and-wing in light air night and day.

Our log reads: "This business of everyone sleeping all night is all right. We were warned that we'd never be able to find time to catch up on our sleep. Big laugh. We're about three months ahead. We've been sleeping twelve hours solid."

"...Long johns are only necessary on night watches, and since we don't stand any night watches, who needs long johns?..."

"...This warm wind does strange things to the crew. Shelly sees palm trees, June sees autumn leaves. All day yesterday I saw overcast skies...We had a hard time getting the sun to peak through for a sight. The sunrise was beautiful - red, red, red. We could see it from our bunk..."

"...I've been well over an hour working out a sight. My dead reckoning is for the birds. Anyhow, we've got a position line which is something. We'll get a latitude at noon. Just had our morning consommé and crackers. We started it when we were sea sick and it's become a pleasant habit. We've all (even Shelly) got our sea legs."

We sighted two killer whales heading north, three more albatrosses, and bits of drift wood from time to time, most of which we avoided. "A USAF reconnaissance plane flew by, possibly to see if we were some kind of Russian submarine spying off the coast. While we were all looking at the plane we just missed a huge BC-like log by a foot or so." Then we passed through a fleet of jellyfish, clear sails on a blue-black oval island, one of which we caught in a fish net to examine. It turned out to be a velella, according to Rachel Carson, apparently not one animal, but a colony of individuals each performing some particular function. A second plane flew out from the coast, circled us, and went straight back from where it came.

"We're flying along nicely now under goosewinged main and poled genny at 7.7 to 8 knots according to the Walker log." (We counted the revolutions on the counter, timing to see how many seconds it took to reach 50, then looked at the speed table on the cockpit bulkhead to determine our speed.) The barometer climbed to reach 30.38 inches of mercury, which is how we measured barometric pressure in those days. "We spend our free time reading, except for Shelly who doesn't read at sea. He just contemplates." By this time we were managing to get a noon running fix with a morning position line and a noon latitude. Then we took a Polaris sight come evening to confirm our position. We were eating well by then - baked spuds, tomato and steak, the poor skipper's portion lost overboard.

Our navigation wasn't all easy. Once it took me nearly two hours to get an afternoon position which appeared accurate. "I make such stupid mistakes and end up having to do it all over. I can subtract wrong - look up the sun under Aries by mistake - or what happened this afternoon - take an average of three sights, obviously bad as the seas were big at the time - and end up with a most disappointingly unlikely position line - and have to start all over again." A roast chicken dinner followed.

A WWVH time signal showed our chronometer to be 40 seconds slow. It was a blow, as we'd invested in a Waltham railway watch with a thermal-compensated double-spring movement for our time piece, taking it in to the Vancouver watchmaker who serviced the watches for the UBC rowing sculls to be cleaned and checked just before our departure. When we collected it, it had had the double-spring action movement switched to an ordinary single spring. When Michel pointed this out, the watchmaker, never dreaming that it would be noticed, was adamant that it was what had been brought in. What could we do? Our word against his. Still, it rankled for a long while. A chronometer must be spot-on to be able to get an accurate position. This theft necessitated listening to a time signal daily to discover the exact time, and compensating.

	Walker patent log.

On the eve of our final approach, a great grey warship passed close astern of us, changing course to have a look. We hoisted the Canadian flag to identify ourselves. They slowed right down, came well off their course to answer our salute by dipping the stars and stripes, then sheered off into the north. Their deck was bristling with guns, launches and even a helicopter. After getting an 8 PM fix, we watched anxiously for Point Reyes Light. We sipped cocoa with a dash of rum to sharpen our sensibilities. The skipper said to the girls on watch: "The light should appear dead ahead flashing every five seconds, but keep a lookout 180 degrees". It wasn't until just before midnight that June and Marg wrote in the log "AT LAST, WE'VE SEEN THE LIGHT! MY GAWD, WE THOUGHT IT HAD GOT ITSELF LOST. SAN FRANCISCO IN THE MORNING." We altered course to suit. An hour and a half later, we were fogged in. We held a course for the San Francisco light vessel, which showed up just where it was supposed to be, much to our delight.

On the morning of our eighth day out, as we approached the Golden Gate Bridge and the fog cleared, the whole bay became alive with racing boats maneuvering every which way. We wondered how we could run the gauntlet. As we passed under the bridge, photos duly taken, a great seal looked so interested in our log line that we hauled it in. It registered 842 miles from Becher Bay. But the gods had more excitement in store for us. The mainsheet hooked the second of the stern dorades and swept it off into the drink. There was general panic in the cockpit when the depth sounder registered 5 feet (it was actually 65 feet) during which mayhem we lost sight of the dorade vent. We spent half an hour making circles in the harbour before we found it, so only had to make one replacement before continuing on to Hawaii. (The crew signed on for that leg too.)

We powered into Saint Francis Yacht Club, where we weathered customs and immigration formalities, when who should appear on the dock but Danny Daniels, a Kiwi friend who'd been racing beyond the bridge and saw us as we made our goosewinged approach. He recognized the boat even though he'd only seen it upside down when it was a-building in West Vancouver. And so, thanks to Danny, began a whirl of happenings with folk we still keep in touch with after all these years, and many more whom we remember warmly. Americans do have hearts of gold. The welcome could not have been warmer. Picnics, dinners, outings, help, advice, tips, books for the trip, and other thoughtful gifts. Their generosity was overwhelming.

Though it was more of a challenge in those days without GPS, plotter, speedometer, radios, weather fax, email, C-Map, radar and all the various electronics that people take for granted today, perhaps the feeling of accomplishment was stronger. It was a heady feeling as triumph replaced trepidation. We'd managed to make our very first ocean passage.