Indiscretion in Heavy Weather

Most captains pay close attention to weather forecasts and will postpone departures to protect the comfort and safety of the ship and its passengers. But what if the skipper has a track record of being too cautious? And what if the ship is an ocean-capable Nordhavn trawler?

I’m the first to admit it: I’m a cautious skipper. Even with decades of sailing experience across a half-dozen vessels, my nerves still rattle when the wind pipes up. Unlike a car, maneuvering a boat has an inherent wildness to it, an out of control feeling more akin to riding an elephant than the surety of a stick-shift, particularly in close quarters around docks and other boats.

Before any trip, I read the NOAA marine forecasts and will, as a rule, postpone a departure if the winds are expected to exceed 20 knots in velocity. It can be windy here during the winter, which has prompted more than a few trip cancelations by this careful captain. I often second-guess these decisions later, especially when the forecasted storm fails to materialize.

Since moving from a sailboat to our Nordhavn 43 trawler, I have relaxed my caution a little. This little ship is built for heavy weather and can safely transport its passengers just about anywhere in the world we dare to sail. In our year and a half of trawler life, we’ve made long passages and pushed through weather systems that I wouldn’t have enjoyed at all on a sailboat. Yet, on every passage, I’m continually assessing wind speed and direction and thinking through the conditions we’ll face when we arrive at our destination.

This aversion to docking in high winds conflicts with our desire for adventure and exploration as we make our plans for open ocean voyages down the Pacific Coast to Mexico and beyond. We will undoubtedly face our share of dicey situations in our travels. I know the boat can handle it, but I have questions about the captain.

Which brings me to our most recent trip from Vashon Island to Bainbridge, a leisurely four-hour cruise. It was the first week of school closures from COVID-19, but before the stay-at-home order, and we planned a little social distancing on the water. Our daughter is home from college, and our son invited one of his friends to join us for the three-day trip. I had been monitoring the marine forecasts for the previous few days and it hadn’t budged:

Small Craft Advisory, N wind 15 to 25 knots, wind waves 2 to 4 feet.

This same forecast has been issued for days on end with short-lived bouts of foul weather, but nothing really troubling.

***

We pile in the car and drive to Quartermaster Marina, where we find a blustery scene. The yacht basin is exposed to north wind, and the bay is foamy white with wind waves and spray. We pack our food and gear for the trip into a dock cart and head for the boat. Our slip faces north, and plumes of sea spray pelt the dock and Indiscretion’s stern. The extra bedding we packed in the dock cart for our guest takes a good wetting from the spray before we can stow it inside.

The view from the cockpit inspires awe: large cresting waves march toward us like an endless army of orcs. The waves break on our swim platform, launching showers of spray as we watch.

We gather in the pilothouse to listen to the marine forecast on VHF and consider our options. The starboard door catches a gust of wind after being left slightly ajar and flies open. The slamming noise is shocking, and everyone jumps. I tell myself there is no way in hell we are going out in this. I begin to formulate a new plan: we try again tomorrow, or make a day and night of it right here at the dock.

I watch the wind speed gauge while the marine observations continue on the radio. 15 knots, a boat lurching 25 knots, then 10 knots, 25 knots again. Gusty. I feel eyes on me, particularly Connor’s. At eighteen, his love for adventure and excitement has yet to be tempered by risk or loss. Our eyes lock and I don’t need telepathy to know his thoughts. “We can handle this! It will be fun! Let’s go!”

I turn to Lisa. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know.” The concern in her voice matches my own. “It’s really stormy. You’re the captain. It’s your call.”

Connor chimes in: “Dad, we’re in a Nordhavn. She was built for this.” He is repeating what I’ve said about the boat dozens of times. He has a friend along and doesn’t want me to abandon our plans.

Ah, the loneliness of command. I climb up to the boat deck to get a better look at the exposed sea. I’m nearly bowled over by a gust. I decide to return the cart to the head of the dock to give me time to think. The crew, watching my every move, interprets this to mean we’re really going to do this. Which I guess is right. Our destination should be well-protected from strong north winds. And, if I’m honest, I don’t want to disappoint my son. The world feels like it’s unhinging from this pandemic. Some time on the water will do us all good. After all, ships weren’t built for the safety of harbors. With misgivings, I decide we’ll give this a go.

Departure

The comfort of a decision and practiced routine settles my nerves. I fire up the main engine and energize the stabilizers. I power on the navigational instruments and maneuvering thrusters. I walk around the perimeter of the boat while the engine warms up to check fenders and gauge how we’ll be blown once we release the dock lines. I give instructions to the crew: Mallory will catch dock lines at the bow, Connor will handle the stern line, and Lisa will release the remaining lines from the dock, beginning with the bow, and leave the stern spring line for last, the only thing keeping us from bashing into the dock. Lisa and I don our wireless headphones. I climb up to the flybridge where the visibility is better.

From my high perch, I see Lisa standing on the dock near the bow, ready to cast us off. With headphones, we can talk without shouting over the wind. “Let’s wait for a lull,” I tell her, and she nods up at me. I test the bow and stern thrusters as we wait.

I look astern once more at the whitecaps and rolling waves. A heavy gust pummels the boat, pushing her hard against the dock. 28 knots. “Shit,” I say to myself, but Lisa of course hears me. The fenders groan in protest. And then, the lull. The wind drops to ten knots.

“Let’s go,” I say.

In surprising rapidity, the bow line flies through the air to Mallory who’s there to catch it on the foredeck. Connor unties the stern and steps aboard the swim platform, which is awash in sea water, his sneakers now drenched. I engage slow reverse to keep us in place while Lisa unties the spring line and steps aboard. We’re free. So many things can go terribly wrong in the next five seconds.

A fresh gust hits us as we begin to back out of the slip. I give the engine a boost of power, and we glide out, weathervaning directly into the wind, more gracefully than my anxious mind had imagined. The bow clears the dock without a scrape, and I give the engine more power.

“We’re away,” Lisa reports from the cockpit.

“I’m going to back us out a ways before I try to turn into the wind. I don’t want to chance being blown back into the dock.” I say this with confidence, but I’m in new territory here.

We get about three boat lengths away and I put the engine in neutral. The wind stops our momentum abruptly. I engage forward gear and give her some throttle as I turn the wheel hard to starboard. I use both the bow and stern thrusters to help with the turn. I inch up the throttle as the ship starts her slow turn. As we come abeam of the wind, I feel a gust, and the entire boat begins to heel to port, ten degrees, then twenty. A scene from The Perfect Storm pops into my head, and I give her more throttle. Lisa’s dismay floods my headset: “we’re tipping!” She cries, but the ship rights herself, and we plow ahead, into the wind, on an even keel, making way.

Gale Force Winds

Once clear of the marina and the congestion of inner harbor, we proceed south through Outer Quartermaster and then east along the southern end of Maury Island. The crew settles in for the four-hour trip, and I steer from inside the warm and dry pilothouse. Blue skies and a frothy blue sea make the weather seem a little less ominous. The diesel engine pushes us along at seven knots, and its low rumble from the engine room provides a familiar comfort as I scan the wind-tossed sea ahead. Wind speeds hold around 25 knots until we reach the southeastern edge of Maury Island, past the Point Robinson Lighthouse, and make the turn north into the wide open expanse of East Passage.

Two things happen at once: first, the wind speed climbs to 35 knots with gusts now topping 40. A fresh gale. Second, the waves grow much steeper. An ebb tide and strong opposing winds create a maelstrom of cresting waves before us, bunched closely together. Indiscretion has active fin stabilizers that limit the boat from rolling side to side, but these can’t stop this fore-and-aft pitch. Unlike ocean swells which have a certain cadence, the motion is constant and lurching. Sea spray instantly showers the pilothouse windows and the upper flybridge. On several occasions, larger waves crest over the bow, and green water floods the foredeck.

Lisa stands next to me in the wheelhouse, hanging on to the helm chair for balance.

“This is bad,” she says. “Should we turn back?”

“Nah. It wouldn’t be safe to take her back to dock in Quartermaster. We’re better off forging ahead and trying for Bainbridge. The boat’s doing just fine.”

Link: 15 second video during the tempest from the pilothouse

And fine she is. Other than some clanking gear that hadn’t been stowed properly, and the hinged salon TV requiring some makeshift tie-downs to secure it, our little ship simply puts her shoulder down to the winds and waves and plows forward at a respectable six knots, slowed only slightly by the gale force winds and whipped up seas.

My daughter turns a little green with the motion, but finds sanctuary in one of the teak chairs in the open-air cockpit facing aft. She soon feels better.

As we proceed north, the wind doesn’t dip below thirty knots. Most of the time, we see true wind speeds in the high thirties and low forties. Other than ferry boats and one southbound container ship, we have the sea to ourselves. I keep my eyes peeled for logs that might be hiding in the steep waves.

A canvas cover on the windlass comes loose at the bow, and I ask Lisa to refasten it. She struggles to open the pilothouse door and retreats after feeling the full force of the wind. Better to buy a new cover than risk venturing forward in these conditions. With the door closed, It astonishes me how quiet and insulated we are within the pilothouse of this sturdy trawler.

It’s times like these that I wish my Pop was still alive. He ran fishing boats in the Bering Sea in his younger days, and I know he would have loved to be here with me, to feel the surge of the sea beneath his feet again, his eyes shining with the blue and white of the sea and sky, regaling me with stories of storms, and drunken misfit crews, and heroic repairs at sea.

Time seems to creep, matching our slow but steady northward progress. Lisa takes the helm while I check on things in the engine room. Nordhavns have handholds just about everywhere, and I find I need these to get around. All is well with the engine, the hydraulics, and the stabilizers. The bilges are dry. I take over at the helm and smile to myself. We’re in the worst sea conditions I’ve experienced as a captain, and yet I know we’re safe and secure.

I learn that Connor’s friend has no previous boating experience. He comes up from the salon to the pilothouse on his way to the head, apparently no worse for the wear. I tell him these are unusual conditions, but he doesn’t seem to mind or care. I hear him whoop down below a few minutes later as we navigate a particularly large wave.

“Are you OK?” I holler.

“Yeah! This is fun!” He yells back. I like this kid.

Safe Harbor

As we approach Bainbridge Island, the wind and seas show no sign of letting up. So much for the marine forecast of 15 to 25 knots, I think to myself. I worry about maneuvering within Eagle Harbor in these conditions.

We tuck behind Blakely Rock and hug the shore of Bainbridge to avoid the massive ferries that serve the island. The wind drops to a calming 25 knots. We time it right and follow a ferry into Eagle Harbor. Once inside the harbor, we are greeted by flat seas and a manageable 15 knots of wind. Whew.

We put out fenders and dock lines and tie up smartly to a vacant spot on the outside of the public dock. Once shore power is connected and the ship is properly secured, Lisa and I return to the pilothouse for beers to celebrate our safe arrival. The boys take our two shell-shocked dogs ashore.

“Well, that was an adventure,” I say to Lisa. I feel happy here in this calm harbor, having brought us through a tempest.

“Next time, let’s stick to our 20-knot rule,” Lisa replies with a smile.

“Definitely,” I agree. We tap beer cans. Deep down though, I am thrilled we did this. We all gained confidence, skipper and crew, in our abilities to handle the ship in rough water and heavy winds. We tested some limits. Conditions we are sure to face, again and again, both on land and sea.

I am reminded that Shakespeare introduced the word Indiscretion, our ship’s namesake, into the English language some four hundred years ago, giving the term a positive spin:

Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well
When our deep plots do pall,
and that should teach us
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends
Rough-hew them how we will¹.

Even the great Bard suggested a little indiscretion now and then might be a good thing. I am coming around to his way of thinking.

The crew of Indiscretion remains in harbor during this period of quarantine and social isolation. Fair winds and calm seas to all as we navigate the unsettled times ahead.

1. Hamlet, Act V, Scene 2 ↩