by Jackie Parry
6 September – Darwin
14 September – left Darwin, Australia (two days after I received my Australian residency!)
17 September – Ashmore reef – finally free!
20 September – received our first ever Weatherfax!
24 September – arrived into Bali harbour
10 October – Kangean Island
14 October – Borneo
23 October – Crossed equator for the first time
31 October – Nongsa Point marina
9 November – departed Lumut
14 November – Langkawi
9 December – Ko Rok Nok
12 December – arrived Phi Phi Don
19 December – Yacht Haven, Phuket
2001
18 January – left Thailand
19 January – traversed the Nicobars and lightning storm
24 January – Noel wrote in the log, ‘hey, we’re in 3,800 metres of water! – feel better?!’
27 January – Sri Lanka
14 February – St. Valentine’s Day, arrived at Maldives
24 February – Noel wrote in the log, ‘someone has stolen the moon.’
3 March – arrived in Oman
21 March – arrived Eritrea (Massawa)
4 April – scampered into Marsa Halaib – strong winds
10 April – left Marsa Halaib
11 April – Ras Banias, another hidey hole (bilge/water/vomit)
12 April – Solmates arrived and did their unique flour delivery!
14 April – left Ras Banias, stopped at Fury Bay
15 April – arrived Lui Lu – safe haven in strong winds
19 April – anchored at Marsa Imbarak taking shelter
21 April – El Quesire anchorage – taking shelter
22 April – Safaga at last
30 April – arrived Suez into sand storm
5 May – on second leg of canal and out to the Med
7 May – Larnaca Cyprus
1 June – left Cyprus
3 June – now on a course for Rhode Island (Lindos)
12 June – Kaio, Greece, small beautiful harbour
14 June – left Kaio en route to Kalamata to meet my sisters
27 June – left Kalamata Marina
28 June – I found the Snickers bars and kept eating them! (Noel hides my chocolate).
30 June – arrived in Bangara, end of Messina straits
1 July – left Bangara
2 July – arrived Lipari (marina for shower treat)
5 July – arrived at Olbia, North West Sardinia
11 July – Cala de Volpe
13 July – Ajaccio in Corsica (France whoo hoo)
23 July – arrived Golfe de Fos – start the French canals
October finished French canals
Remainder of 2001 and all 2002 we stayed in England recouping the coffers.
2003
10 June – left Shenley
12 July – Falmouth harbour
4 August – Bay of Biscay
6 August – Muros, Spain
20 August – Leixious Portugal
23 August – anchored at Barra de Aveiro, thick fog followed us in
1 September – my new niece is born, Samantha Louise Lawrence
2 September – arrived Lisbon marina
9 September – anchored Caiscais (pronounced Cashkysh)
5 October – Sines (our tenant in our UK house gives notice)
8 October – arrived Casablanca
10 October – left Casablanca – note in log: ‘lots of boats tonight, I especially like the ones that feel it necessary to turn off their navigation lights as they approach us!’
12 October – arrived Agadir
15 October – Port Naos, Lanzarote, met Frodo here
17 October – Rubicon Marina, Mum and Dad holiday with us
2 November – my new nephew is born, Efezino Owhe
20 November – Grand Canaries – Noel’s brother Den passes away
27 November – hit a whale
1 December – Isle de Sal in the Cape Verdes. Noel’s sister-in-law, Joy, passes away.
10 December – left Cape Verdes for Barbados
27 December – landfall Barbados after 17 days! Arrival into Speightstown
30 December – moved to Bridgetown anchorage after having to move in middle of night (boat on rocks!)
2004
29 January – farewell to Barbados and Frodo
30 January – St Lucia
12 February – Rodney Bay
19 February – left Martinique
21 February – anchored in beautiful port of Portsmouth, Dominica
28 February – en route to Guadaloupe – only 20 miles away
6 March – leaving Guadaloupe for Puerto Rico
Passed Monseratt, volcano spitting ash
10 March – anchored at San Juan
13 April – anchored at Mayaguana Bahamas, awaiting front to pass
20 April – left Mayaguana (didn’t check in)
24 April – arrived at Lake Worth, Palm Beach, Florida and nearly sunk the boat!
30 April – Mum and Dad spent time with us
Completed The Great Loop well into 2004
During the rest of 2004 (from October) we were in Alabama and did the trip to the UK to sort out our house.
2005
5 March – what a year! – leaving Demopolis Alabama
6 March – rang ‘Tash (Frodo) in Holland, they’ve had twin girls (Debby and Kim)
17 March – short run to Tampa
26 March – Florida Keys
27 March – Dry Tortugas
30 March -Cuba, Havana
6 April – anchored in San Pedro Bay, South Cuba, awaiting better weather
9 April – Caymens at last (birds visited, died!) Find Dad
16 April – Jamaica, anchored for one night – Dad a real trooper
21 April – San Blas
24 April – Colon Panama, greeted by Barry & Judy on Theta with a heavenly breakfast
28 April – all aboard Theta as line-handlers and practice run through the canal
4 May – Colin arriving into Panama to do transit with us on Mariah
13 May – leaving Balboa
21 May – crossed the equator for the second time
22 May – Galapagos
28 June -Fatu Hiva
11 June – Daniels Bay
15 July – Tuamotos
21 July – Pape’ete Tahiti, Melanie spent four weeks on board with us
6 September – Aitutaki
14 September – Palmerston Island
22 September – Niue
27 September – Tonga
21 October – left Fiji for New Caledonia (arrived at Fiji between 11/10 and 20/10 – this part of log book damaged!)
28 October – Noumea marina
11 November – arrived in Bundaberg QLD and completed our circumnavigation
2006
January – moored at Greenwell Point, NSW
26th January – Matilda Jade was born, Noel’s a grandad
October – sailed south to Moruya to attend Master 5 course
December – bought house in Greenwell Point
2007 – sad time, as we sold Mariah and a happy time, as we started a new chapter.
Glossary of Nautical Terms
Apparent wind: The wind as it is experienced on board a moving sailing vessel, as a result of the combined effects of the true wind and the boat’s speed.
Backing sails: Pushing out a sail so that the wind fills it from the opposite side. It is used to slow a boat. In effect, it is stalling the sail by putting the wind at its ‘back’. The sail is no longer drawing the boat along, but rather acting as a brake.
Beam: Widest part of boat.
Bowsprit: A spar running out from a ship’s bow, to which the forestays are fastened.
Broaching: When a sailing vessel loses control and is forced sideways to the wind and waves. This can become ver
y dangerous in heavy seas as the boat will often heel heavily, leading to capsize. The change in direction is called broaching-to.
Canoe Stern or Double-ender: Describing a vessel with no transom at the stern, both the bow and stern come to a point.
Collision Regulations or Col Regs or Rules of the Road: International regulations for preventing collisions at sea.
Cush drive: Part of an engine drive-train that is designed to reduce stress from engine torque damaging other components during gear or throttle changes.
Cutter Rigged Sloop: One masted sailboat, similar to a Bermuda sloop, i.e. forestay meeting the backstay at the top of the mast. A cutter rig has the addition of an inner forestay. The inner forestay can carry the staysail or storm jib. Both our boats had this type of rig with furlers on the forestay and slab reefing on the main.
Displacement: In maritime the displacement (mass) of a floating boat equals, exactly, the mass of the water it displaces. Remember Archimedes principle? – any ‘body’ partially or completely submerged in a fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the body. Another way to say it is; a floating object displaces a volume of water, equal to the mass of the object. As an example, when you get into a bath of water, the water rises a certain amount. Weigh that amount of water (the amount it has risen by) and that would be your displacement.
Draft: Maximum depth of vessel in the water.
Drogue: A conical or funnel-shaped device with open ends, towed behind a boat to reduce speed and/or improve stability. We used a Sea Squid. We named it Mr Squiddly!
Faraday Cage: An earthed metal screen surrounding a piece of equipment to exclude electrostatic and electromagnetic influences. A metal oven can work as a great place to safeguard the GPS in an electric storm.
Foot (of sail): The foot of a sail is its lowest edge, bound by the clew and the tack (the clew is the aft corner, and the tack is the forward corner).
Fuel cock: A valve that is used to control the flow of diesel.
Genoa: A type of large jib-sail (pronounced like the city, or as jenny). The term genoa is often used interchangeably with jib, but technically there is a clear delineation. A jib is only as large as the fore-triangle, which is the triangular area formed by the mast, deck or bowsprit, and forestay. A genoa is larger, with the leech going past the mast and overlapping the mainsail. To maximize sail area the foot of the sail is generally parallel and very close to the deck when close hauled. Genoas are categorized by the percentage of overlap.
Gunwales: The upper edge or planking of the side of a boat or ship.
Gypsy (on anchor windlass/winch): A notched wheel that engages the links of a chain.
HF: See Radios (below).
Hove to: Heaving-to or to hove-to involves backing your jib, releasing your mainsail and pushing and holding the tiller away. This causes conflicting forces on the boat. The backed jib is trying to push the bow away from the wind and the rudder is turning the boat into the wind. The flapping mainsail and the backed jib prevent air flow over the sail and therefore stops the driving motion. Heaving-to is a sailing tactic that gives you time to stop and rest, wait for daylight for a safe entry into a new port, and when the conditions are rough.
Jib: A triangular staysail set ahead of the foremost mast of a sailing boat. Its tack is fixed to the bowsprit, to the bow, or to the deck. The clew does not extend aft past the mast.
Jib sheeted amidships: The jib sail was hauled in to the middle of the boat, using both sheets.
Jibe or Gybe: A sailing manoeuvre whereby a sailing vessel that is reaching downwind turns its stern through the wind, so that the wind direction changes from one side of the boat to the other.
Leech (of sail): The aft edge of the sail, between the head and the clew.
Low or low pressure system: A low pressure area, or a low for short, is a region where the atmospheric pressure is lower than that of a surrounding area. A low pressure system develops when warm and moist air rises from the Earth’s surface. Air near the centre of this mass is usually unstable. As the warm and humid air rises, it can become unstable enough to produce rain, storms and strong winds.
Luff (of sail): The forward, or leading edge, of the sail, between the head and the tack.
Main or mainsail or mains’l: Usually the most important sail, raised on the aft side of the main (or only) mast of a sailing vessel.
On the hard: Where a boat has been hauled out of the water and is placed in a yard.
On the quarter: If the wind is on the boat’s quarter, it is said to be on a direction of forty-five degrees or less from the stern of the boat. (Not directly behind and not on the beam (side) of the boat, but in-between).
Painter: Is a rope that is attached to the bow of a dinghy, or other small boat, and used for tying up or towing.
Pick: Another name for an anchor.
Pole out: See Spinnaker Pole.
Radios – Marine Radios: VHF (very high frequency), short range. Maximum range is usually when aerials are in line of sight. HF (high frequency) -long range radio, works by a radio wave signal that is transmitted, it then bounces off the ionosphere, and reflects down to another point on earth (the ionosphere consists of layers of ionized gas situated a few hundred miles above earth). This means that the range of the HF radio could be thousands of miles, with good equipment, set-up, conditions and propagation (behaviour of radio waves). (HF can be referred to as SSB, which means Single Side Band).
RIB: Rigid Inflatable Boat.
Rounding up: Rounding up is when your sailboat, against your will, automatically turns up into the wind. Rounding up is caused by many factors. One is too much wind and force aloft which tends to heel the boat over, when you have too much mainsail set. Another is the centre of pressure of wind on the sails moves far aft which then pushes the aft of the boat downwind and thus the front of the boat up wind. It is prevented by reducing sail and/or easing sheets.
Scheds/Nets: Radio Scheds and radio Nets are ‘Schedules’ and ‘Networks’. This just means that they are a planned meeting of people on the radio at a set time and frequency.
Seacock: A valve sealing off an opening through a ship’s hull below or near to the waterline (e.g. one connecting a ship’s galley sink to the sea).
Sextant: An instrument with a graduated arc of one-hundred-and-twenty degrees and a sighting mechanism, used for measuring the angular distances between objects and especially for taking altitudes in navigation.
Sheets: In sailing a, a sheet is a line (rope, cable or chain) used to control the movable corner(s) (clews) of a sail.
Snubbers: Used to prevent transferring the shock load from the anchor chain to the boat.
Speed – over the ground and through the water: Speed over the ground is true speed, a GPS provides speed over the ground. Speed through the water is how fast you are moving through the water.
Spinnaker Pole/Whisker Pole: A spinnaker pole is a spar used on sailboats to help support and control a variety of headsails, particularly the spinnaker.
Spinnaker sail: A special type of sail that is designed specifically for sailing off the wind from a reaching course to downwind. The spinnaker fills with wind and balloons out in front of the boat when it is deployed, called flying. It is constructed of very lightweight fabric, and is often brightly coloured. The use of this sail is usually limited to apparent winds under 12-15 knots.
Staysail or stays’l: A fore-and-aft rigged jib sail whose luff can be affixed to an inner forestay (aft of the forestay), running forward from a mast to the deck. Triangular staysails set forward of the foremost mast are called jibs, headsails, or foresails. The innermost such sail on a cutter, schooner, and many other rigs having two or more foresails is referred to simply as the staysail, while the others are referred to as jibs or flying jibs. The inner jib of a yacht with two jibs is called the staysail, and the outer (foremost) the jib. This combination of two jibs is called a cutter rig. There are differences between European and American terminology, h
owever, a sailboat with one mast rigged with two jibs and a mainsail is called a cutter.
Storm jib (or any storm sail): A sail of smaller size and stronger material than the corresponding one used in ordinary weather.
Tacking: A sailing manoeuvre by which a sailing vessel turns its bow through the wind, placing the apparent wind on the opposite bow.
Traffic Separation Zone or Scheme: An area in the sea where navigation of ships is highly regulated. It is meant to create lanes in the water, and ships in a specific lane are all going in (roughly) the same direction.
Transom: Flat stern of the ship, at ninety degrees to the fore and aft line.
VHF: See Radios (above).
Victualling: To take on or obtain victuals (victuals: food, supplies, provisions).
Wake (of vessel): A vessel’s wake is the region of recirculating flow immediately behind it, caused by the flow of surrounding water around the boat.
Water line: The level normally reached by the water on the side of a ship.
Wind Vane: Wind vane self-steering gear is an entirely mechanical device which senses the apparent wind direction and holds the vessel on a course relative to it. The power to steer is provided by the force of moving water over the water vane part of the wind vane apparatus.
Windward: Facing the wind.
Yankee: A Yankee is a high clewed headsail and is a very common sail on an off-shore yacht. Having the clew set high allows the waves to wash past the foot of the sail without adding extra stress loads on the sail. This sail can be used for reaching and upwind sailing.
From the Author
Thanks for purchasing and reading Of Foreign Build- I hope you enjoyed it.
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Acknowledgements