Record for time spent Hove-to

[micah719]

What is the record for spending time hove-to at sea, out of sight of land?

Or sailing, but not on a journey with an anchorage as the immediate destination to be reached. A series of waypoints chosen to keep the boat on its most comfortable point of sail, avoiding the more "interesting" weather regions. Such as no wind, or more than you'll ever honestly want to see in a lifetime.

I was wondering which of the folks that sail actually enjoy it so much they deliberately take their time out there, prolonging the pleasure. Nobody determining their schedule. Not on a quest to visit the most anchorages, or tick off a kind of prerequisite list of foreign places.

The boats can certainly be designed, built, equipped and provisioned to spend a long time severed from land. Rainwater and fish to supplement the diet and extend the voyage even more.

Now I know this isn't likely to appeal to people that sail everywhere like it's a race, and for whom the boat is merely a fun way of getting somewhere else on land, but certainly not to be lingered on a moment more than absolutely necessary. Or the "he who dies with the most/best toys wins" crowd. I used to subscribe to that....foolishly forgetting that the dead care for none of these things, and they're awfully hollow even in this life and make one hollow, insatiable.

It won't appeal to the folks that get easily bored, or for whom solitude is so frightening that a car without a radio is unimaginable torture, where some means of occupying the mind is never far away lest one get thinking rather than be amused (a-muse....means; to not think).

For some, it would be daunting when one were to soberly consider that you are at great risk of for the first time in your life getting to know someone you've been living under the same roof with for many years, now that the quarters are a little more intimate and the human world's influence is greatly reduced you may discover that you never really knew each other at all. Hopefully a pleasant surprise, but if not, perhaps also not a completely bad thing. Integrity is better than a mask anyday, and that one starts at home....in the mirror. Then come right 90deg....

The worst of it would be for the singlehander. I notice that the solo sailors frequently report hallucinations....seeing people on the boat that plainly are not there, interacting with them, etc. Not sure if it is fatigue, that is certainly a symptom of being stretched a little too thin for one's own good. Perhaps sensory/social deprivation? And yet, the real salty sailors that often are the most admired and awed (or condescended to and feared as madmen, ar at least as not having all their marbles) are precisely these people that dared go it alone and came back to tell the tale. Even these are not a homogenous group.

Lately it seems as though circumnavigating is a fad, though judging by the actual mechanics of it merely a matter of throwing a raft of cash on the ocean, with rescue services on tap if all does not go exactly according to plan/schedule. Children even climb Mt Everest nowadays. Not sure if they even understand the magnitude of such an achievement...or if it actually is the same achievement anymore, especially when it seems to be done on a stage for the purpose of applause.

It isn't a suggestion to go and do it.....it isn't an order either, or a law, or a challenge. It can be done as part of the cruising life, or a standalone, or not at all. At this moment, the day where my as-yet unbuilt and un-named boat leaves the land is in the mists of the future....but I find the important questions would be better asked now rather than later.

Enough of my "why?" of sailing, for now...it is different for everyone. How long at sea? I'd like to hear from the old salts..

[capn_billl]

Climbing Mt Everest when all you had were your wits, and determination, WAS a completly different task than today.

Not that I blame climbers that use all the tools at their disposal to make the task easier, but the original climbers didn't have canned oxygen, heat tabs, thermal tents, a paved road to the summit, etc...

Ditto for sailing, when you had to periodically make landfall to replace rotted, or cracked beams by chopping down a tree, and carving it with hand tools to make it flat and boat shaped. Or repairing a broken mast with metal bands and a handfull of nails. When your water came from rain or not at all, (no watermakers), your life boat was a long boat, and your stores were salt pork, and hard tack, and if you were lucky limes.

It is a different era. Technology has made a number of things easier, and safer. If you really want to cross an ocean with only a handbuilt wooden ship, and a lodestone, no one is stopping you, but don't try to climb Mt Everest without buying a support team, (the sherpas will beat you up).

[rtbates]

who was that dufus that sailed around in circles for 3 years with his girlfriend??

That's a record of some sort. "Most stupid sail adventure"

[minaret]

Originally Posted by rtbates

who was that dufus that sailed around in circles for 3 years with his girlfriend??

That's a record of some sort. "Most stupid sail adventure"

Reid Stowe?

[micah719]

the sherpas will beat you up

Ah, so it can still be a challenge for traditionalists!....I'm happy with the struggle to climb Mt Outofbed daily, and no smelly sherpas beating on miserly me. Gimme a boat any time....

Btw, you forgot the daily ration of rum...probably to disinfect the salt pork and drown the weevils in the hardtack.

The thing is though, in those days the only folks setting out from shore for fun were the ultra rich & royalty...everyone else was going to work or to war, usually to support the other lot. We are an anomaly in history, non-rich (mostly) and non-royal, going sailing for personal reasons...there are tons of articles and stories and discussions about boaty bits and how to break, er, fix, um, I meant use them, but precious few about the reasons we go or why our giblets tingle when we do.

There are even threads about destinations, but not a whole lot about the journey, unless it was something unusually good, or unusually less-than good.....the bit in between is what I'm trying to look at, over the shoulders of the folks that are there or have been there.

For example, I look forward to sailing out to the middle of an ocean, and simply heave to for a month for the fun of it. It's not like I'll sit on deck and look at water wishing I were somewhere else....I'll finally have time to do the things that I want to but cannot, because I'm chained to this blasted Molech that demands I sell my life by the hour and tells me when to get up, when to go to bed, and everything I do in between. Anyone tried camping out mid-ocean for even a week?

[tropicalescape]

I once heard a fellow say(he was very introverted)A man that can be happy by himself is a truely happy man!..good luck ..DVC

[sailorboy1]

you would think some of the members that complain about fees, govt, rules etc. that always post they want to "give away from everyone" would just go out into the open water and heave to for months of end

wonder why they don't take that route? (no internet access maybe?)

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by micah719

........
For example, I look forward to sailing out to the middle of an ocean, and simply heave to for a month for the fun of it. It's not like I'll sit on deck and look at water wishing I were somewhere else....I'll finally have time to do the things that I want to but cannot, because I'm chained to this blasted Molech that demands I sell my life by the hour and tells me when to get up, when to go to bed, and everything I do in between. Anyone tried camping out mid-ocean for even a week?

What is it that you will be doing while hove-to on a rolly ocean that can't be better done while anchored, alone, in a remote safe, tropical anchorage?

[Therapy]

Overnight.

We were tired.

[micah719]

"Happy" depends on what "happens" and is fleeting and fickle.....joy is something different. One can be distinctly unhappy, corresponding to one's external condition, but have joy. Difficult and rare in the scramble to vanity that is modern life....all these "labour-saving" devices, and we are unhappier than ever before, and have less time and enjoy what we have even less. We've been had...

[Nemo55]

Whats the longest anyone has been stuck on a flat ocean with no wind? bout the same thing as heaving to ,,no??

[barnakiel]

I do not know what the record is but I find this style worthwhile.

To depart from a place, sail round the oscillation taking a series of broad reaches only to get to the departure point some 2 or 3 months later. I will try this one day.

I think when one sails like this then a boat can be sailed into the eye of the high to 'park' - just in case the journey seems too ... short.

barnie

[micah719]

Originally Posted by Paul L

What is it that you will be doing while hove-to on a rolly ocean that can't be better done while anchored, alone, in a remote safe, tropical anchorage?

The safety bit is debatable....weather, for instance, especially tropical. The sea is not as dangerous as the hard bits on the edge.

Remote....no, someone owns it, or wants to visit it. Nobody seems to want to claim a bit of sea, and I can surely heave-to, and mind my own business; and object if someone chooses just that patch of sea to heave-to as well. No windmills, no generators, no PWC's, no blaring music, no hawkers, no thieves, no tv, no movies. I've been remote before, only to be disturbed by these things that someone brought. They said they wanted to get away from it all, but brought it all with them. I hated to object, would probably have been futile and frustrating anyway. Out at sea, the objection would be valid....I'm hove to, choose your own patch or go on by, there's room enough. I like laying on the deck looking at the stars, but seeing the satellites going over spoils it a tiny bit. A reminder of presumptuous man with his puny vanities, against an infinite backdrop.

I don't mind the rolly ocean....I actually like it. I'm the sicko that enjoys mid-air turbulence and wishes the pilot would throw the machine around a little more, though I do draw the line at landings...those do worry me. Still a thrill, but not as pure as the air. The ocean is awesomely powerful, only a fool would not fear it...but it is like the book Lt.Col. Chapman wrote: The Jungle is Neutral. An armed neutrality, sure, and you're trespassing, but it isn't of itself malevolent. You have to mind your P's & Q's, and know when it's time to take a position less exposed, but it puzzles me that sailors these days seem so different than the old one....saying they love the sea, but do their best to get across it as fast as possible like a man scuttling from his house to his car with a newspaper held over his head.

Plenty to do out there....if you heard me sing, you'd tow me out there and hacksaw the masts off....so music practise is one thing I'll be doing!

[ixtlan22]

Near as I can tell out of this discussion, is that being Hove-to is sorta like being married ... One wants to go one way, the other wants to go the other, and you sort of drift around and let the storm blow on by.

On a more serious note...

Longest I was ever Hove-to was four nights...On the morning of the fifth day I realized I was still tied to the dock.

[bobconnie]

To us the trip is the thing !! we sail till the wind stops then we may motor if a couple of days pass. We are not that worried about when we get anywhere, we have been know to go eleswhere when the wind was wrong ! the trip is whats important to us! and the getting there is the Iceing on the trip ! as far as remote ancorages are concerned, we seem to still find a few !! Personaly, heaveing to just contimplate my navel has never seemed to be anything I wished to do !! But I believe in different strokes !! heck we once left mexico for the French Isles, and ended up In peru LOL so we dont worry we just go where the wind blows us !! and enjoy it when we get there !!