The Voyage of the MARTINI - Part 3
A Brief Prehistory
By Dave and Jaja

Storms are the unpredictable factor that lend gusto to the cruising life and add capital letters to the word A-D-V-E-N-T-U-R-E. My dad and I found plenty of adventure during a grueling three-day storm two hundred miles off the Oregon coast.

When the first horizontal knockdown inspired us to remove all sail, we deployed our stylish, decorator yellow, Cal June sea anchor. It disintegrated five minutes later, forcing us to realize that the storm was no joke, even if the quality of the sea anchor was. We tied all our lines together and dragged water jugs, anchors, and towels - anything that would take a bite into the sea and slow our maniacal descent down the Tibetan waves. The warps slowed our bare-poled speed to under two knots but the Martini would not do anything other than lay broadside to the breaking seas - even with half our belongings trailing astern. For seventy hours my dad and I hand-steered on three-hour watches, the only tactic that would keep us perpendicular to the vertical walls of water and prevent us from getting rolled. We were too preoccupied with saving our lives to feel scared.

When we arrived in San Fransisco, nine days after our departure from Cape Flattery, I looked back on the passage as the coolest thing I'd ever done - even though by the end of the storm we'd been hallucinating from fatigue. My dad did not think the storm was very cool but my enthusiasm was infectious and it matched his resolve not to back down from a dream. We carried on sailing and discovered camaraderie.

The few basic modifications which we had made to the Martini prior to our departure had allowed us to survive. Following the advice from our friend Bill Watkins (who realized we were actually going to go) we permanently sealed the two large cockpit lazaret hatches with silicon and screws. Although access to the aft locker via the quarter berths was cumbersome, sealing down those lids had been the primary reason we made it; by day two of the storm we'd lost track of how many times the Martini's cockpit had been filled to the brim with the cold North Pacific Ocean. Another modification was replacing the standard Cal-25 "pop top" main hatch with a completely waterproof hard dog house. We also engineered a companionway that was smaller, featuring gasketed door boards and a removable sill that was as high as the cockpit gunwales. When a cockpit is filled with sea water most of it sloshes out when the boat heels. Keeping the initial deluge from out of the cabin is crucial. A small boat, even a flimsy day sailer like the Cal, can be incredibly seaworthy providing water is prevented from flooding the cabin.

Another aspect to our survival was we did not have a ham radio, a life raft, or an EPIRB. During the storm we'd believed in our ability to survive because we had to.

Attitude.