Experience required to cross the Pacific

[Tsuru]

I don’t disagree with any of the posters above everyone is different. In 1917 Harry Pidgeon started construction of the 34’ yawl “Islander” and a couple years later did a shake down sail to Catalina, then Hawaii and back to the USA West Coat. In 1921 started his first of 2 solo circumnavigations. He had very limited previous sailing or navigation experience. In his book he states that his Hawaii trip was his first time he sailed offshore.

[Cynara]

They only time you work on an engine is when it needs work so if it doesn't fail ij the first year you won't learn anything except how to change the oil. You can also take classes

[Apollo366]

My experience sailing the pacific islands, the west coast Anchorage to Panama, the east coast, & the Caribbean, is that finding & entering any harbor, esp coral reefs passes is one of the things to learn.
Also, how to anchor in all types of bottoms.


Pretty much all else you can learn from reading & crew experiences of several days passages.

[mikk60]

Some people can never learn “mechanical skills “. You need to know up front if your that type of person.

[team karst]

Originally Posted by Cynara

They only time you work on an engine is when it needs work so if it doesn't fail ij the first year you won't learn anything except how to change the oil. You can also take classes

I would recommend these tasks on a typical/used small diesel found on sailboats before taking off very far:

Valve adjustment
Engine oil change
Primary and secondary fuel filters
Accessory belt replacement
RW pump impeller and seal replace.
Measure alternator current
Inspect the inside of the exhaust elbow
Inspect the tube bundle IDs
Measure glow plug current
R and R the starter.

In the end, you will gain confidence and as a bonus, stronger hands, fingers and arms [emoji1320]
And even more important: what tools to bring
There is nothing on that list i have not done during the first year of ownership. Usually, x2.

[Dockhead]

There is no answer to this question. Just go and do it. Maybe you will die. But probably not. You will have different adventures which you will post about here.

[Snore]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

There is no answer to this question. Just go and do it. Maybe you will die. But probably not. You will have different adventures which you will post about here.

Dockhead, your posts are normally insightful. But, "just go and do it" is just bad advise.

I agree there is no one answer. My general guidance, is that if you have to ask- the answer is no.

A good way to develop the skill set is to start with a few thousand miles of coastal miles and the some hops offshore behind you.

[JPA Cate]

Should he have cut a chunk out of the mast you think and tried to stand it up?

Depends on how it fell, really. A singlehander friend of ours, in a rtw race, made a jury rig from his two spinnaker poles, and sailed that way around Cape Horn, to the Falklands, where a replacement mast had been shipped for him. It is a tricky subject because in general, one's mast weighs way more than one person can handle (for example, it took 3 men to carry the mast from our 36 footer), but it you can figure out a way to use sections of it, and get some kind of sail up, you can still travel. How inventive or successful an engineer you might be is beyond my power to guess.

Ann

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Snore

Dockhead, your posts are normally insightful. But, "just go and do it" is just bad advise.

I agree there is no one answer. My general guidance, is that if you have to ask- the answer is no.

A good way to develop the skill set is to start with a few thousand miles of coastal miles and the some hops offshore behind you.

You're right of course. My experience is that people asking this question don't usually listen to the answers, and I got tired of talking them out of it.


Of course, being more serious, it's desirable to at least learn to sail first. And then, even more importantly, learn to operate and repair all of the systems you need to stay alive days or weeks from shore and infrastructure of any kind. And then, get the boat into sufficient condition that you can rely on the systems to work.


And even then you can never really say whether anyone is ready for it or not, Remember Rebel Heart? He thought he was God's gift to sailing, and spent a fair amount of time preparing his boat, then set out to cross the Pacific where everything broke and he lost comms and he couldn't fix anything and he ended up calling for a rescue and abandoning.


There is no way we can answer this question for this guy. He will be ready when he thinks he is. If he has enough food and water and an EPIRB he probably won't die. The more preparation the better. That's about all you can say.

[carstenb]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

You're right of course. My experience is that people asking this question don't usually listen to the answers, and I got tired of talking them out of it.


Of course, being more serious, it's desirable to at least learn to sail first. And then, even more importantly, learn to operate and repair all of the systems you need to stay alive days or weeks from shore and infrastructure of any kind. And then, get the boat into sufficient condition that you can rely on the systems to work.


And even then you can never really say whether anyone is ready for it or not, Remember Rebel Heart? He thought he was God's gift to sailing, and spent a fair amount of time preparing his boat, then set out to cross the Pacific where everything broke and he lost comms and he couldn't fix anything and he ended up calling for a rescue and abandoning.


There is no way we can answer this question for this guy. He will be ready when he thinks he is. If he has enough food and water and an EPIRB he probably won't die. The more preparation the better. That's about all you can say.

yes Rebel Heart was quite the story. Dockhead you are right - there is no end to what one needs to do to prepare, but basically you need a well-founded boat, sailing skills and courage.

that will get you most places

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by carstenb

yes Rebel Heart was quite the story. Dockhead you are right - there is no end to what one needs to do to prepare, but basically you need a well-founded boat, sailing skills and courage.

that will get you most places

Plus a fair dose of luck..

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Plus a fair dose of luck..

Indeed. About which the great polar explorer Roal Amundsen had this to say:


"Victory awaits him who has everything in order, luck, people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time, this is called bad luck."

[capn_billl]

Originally Posted by team karst

I would recommend these tasks on a typical/used small diesel found on sailboats before taking off very far:

Valve adjustment
Engine oil change
Primary and secondary fuel filters
Accessory belt replacement
RW pump impeller and seal replace.
Measure alternator current
Inspect the inside of the exhaust elbow
Inspect the tube bundle IDs
Measure glow plug current
.

Good CALL. I'm gonna do that right now. That way if a glow plug fails I'll know because of current change.

R and R the starter.

[HuR]

I responded about boat type and sailing experience in another of the OP's threads, so will not repeat that here. I will say that I am glad I did, and will soon return to continue from Fiji, basically what he wants to do, sail solo across the Pacific and enjoy the islands and atolls. It was a blast, and I even put some simple videos up on Youtube about it - https://www.youtube.com/@SVSeaChange/videos

Here I just want to comment on the issue of going solo, assuming of course that the OP is serious, which I cannot assess. I chose to go solo because my wife had read too many books about sailing adventures, which in order to sell must have some drama to them, sinking, liferafts, drownings, deaths, storms, dismasting, you name it. She was even given a book by her SIL where a guy managed to get himself into a hurricane in the North Atlantic, a cyclone in the Pacific, and a typhoon in the Indian. I'm amazed he did not manage to find a hurricane in the South Atlantic! When she left Panama the day before I slipped my lines, she was not sure she would see me again. She is a keen sailor, owns her own Thistle dinghy, and loves local racing. For me, that is painful, and I love bigger boats. And there were several nights she would have been very unhappy on the boat, in the thick of squalls or strong winds. My friends who sail and kite with me all are married with kids and often grandkids, and even if they had been keen their wives would have objected. There is no way I would entertain picking crew up somewhere, or online, although I met quite a few boats that did that without issue, mostly.

Instead, I loved going solo and will try to complete a circumnavigation solo. The downsides seemed minor, for example, waking up in a stupor in the middle of the night to find myself in a squall and the boat overpowered racing out of control, and wondering why nobody else would do something about it and eventually hauling myself out of my bunk into the wind and rain and reefing down. And of course, not having my wife or friends to share all the experiences with sucked, but I tend to be a bit of a loner anyway. My wife visited for a week in Fakarava Atoll and will hopefully visit for a week or two each year along the way.

But the upsides are enormous. First and foremost you are not responsible for someone else. This means you can take lots of "risks" you could not if crewed. For example, no need to maintain a lookout, just trust your AIS (and I only receive, would like to transmit but the additional cost of the equipment and power is prohibitive), and hope any other non-AIS boat is maintaining a lookout and will see you or your navigation lights. From past the Galapagos to Nuku Hiva I had no AIS alarms, did not see any other boats day or night when I was up and looking around, and heard nothing on VHF16. That's for 3000+ miles of ocean sailing! It also means I feel free to move about the boat without safety gear, I only clipped in three times when I had to go forward in rough conditions to take the main down completely.

Beyond that, you do exactly what you like, sailing the boat how you like, eat what you like, play music you like, don't wear clothes if you like, swim when you like, etc. And did I say I had a blast? The crossing was everything I had imagined since being a teenager growing up in South Africa and sailing in Sea Scouts. And the islands were beyond even that.

[Fore and Aft]

Lawnmower there is lots of good replies here. For me I would say luck and a good attitude is what you need most. I have met so many cruisers that have crossed the Pacific with not much experience at all. One skipper I met; his first offshore voyage was from Vancouver to Hawaii with the wife. They had never even sailed at night before. Another guy I met was blown ashore on Fraser Island here in Queensland. When talking to him he said I always wondered what a lee shore was. He had deliberately anchored of the beach in strong winds and was more worried about getting ashore for a walk than his yacht beaching. He had managed to make it across the Pacific with zero idea of anchoring in a good spot.
What about the book "Love with a chance of drowning" that couple drifted around the Pacific for a few days because they had no idea how to change a fuel filter on their motor. The whole book is full of rookie mistakes but somehow, they managed to get to Australia.
What a lot of these old cluckers forget is that you could download a range of videos on your Ipad or USB stick showing how to jury rig a mast, service your diesel engine or any other issue you are worried about. You could even employ a mechanic and film him showing you how to service your engine. Same with the jury rig, you could get an experienced skipper to talk you through a jury rig set up using what you have onboard.
Cheers