Definition of destiny; the choices by the actions of an individual. However fate is something outside of choices of an individual. What if there was such a thing as destiny and fate intermingling together. What would that be called?
I bought Stella Polaris my Vancouver 32 in the April of 2021 from Saku and his wife both Finnish owners. I bought her with circumnavigation in mind. Like Barada my Nicholson 32 both are under 10 metres in length.
I always felt this being an ideal size for solo or short handed sailor. However Stella Polaris is much more comfortable sailing boat inside being a wider berth more spacious layout of the saloon.
I saw Stella Polaris for sale on Vancouver association website. It was in 2020 at the height of the Covid pandemic. No one had gone out to see her due to travel restrictions in Europe. Nothing stops me when I’m on a mission so to speak.
I had to get the boat surveyor and Saku to authorise my first visit and I went via Amsterdam to Malmo in Sweden not far from Hölviken where Stella Polaris was located. I liked the boat from first instance I saw her.
She was well built and had a long encapsulated keel my first important criteria. Small cockpit with large self draining sea cocks. Aries windvane. Electrical tiller pilot. Both a must for long passage solo sailing.
The auxiliary propulsion was a 3 piston 30HP yanmah Japanese engine. Reliable and quiet. Two running back stays for cutter rig inner forestay. Furling forestay and single aluminium mast with slab reefed mainsail.
The boat was constructed by Northshore a British fibreglass builder. There were only 65 of Vancouver 32 ever built. I first come across a Vancouver 34 number of years before taking part in the ARC race across the Atlantic in 2007. I liked the look of her thought she looked a good solid sailing boat.
I thought she looked a good solid sailing boat. Which she proved to be. After my second visit to Hölviken via the Danish capital of Copenhagen. I sailed via Gothenburg to Inverness and from Inverness via Caledonian canal to Northern Ireland and on to Conwy in North Wales.
I had some strong winds sailing through the Skagerrak sea which is the narrow part between Northern Denmark and southern Norway. Uneventful crossing to Inverness. I bought Stella Polaris with circumnavigation in mind. I sailed from Conwy to Gibralta in April 2022 with a stop in Brittany with two crewman, finally arriving in Sada north west Spain in Galicia. I went there because of an excellent boatyard called Cadenote.
From there I sailed to Gibraltar Cartagena, Valencia, Majorca, Sardinia, Sicily, Leros, Rhodes and Cyprus.. Stella Polaris is waiting for me at the Artemis boatyard Leros.
I rejoin her on the 6 February of 2025 for my biggest life adventure. These past two years I’ve done some contract engineering work to boast my savings for this up coming world odyssey. This is an important year and now I am planning my trip in detail.
I had re read Joshua Slocum book of his circumnavigation from April 21 1895 – June 27 1898. I had initially intended to sail into the Pacific from east to west via the Magellan Straits. A few before on my 65 birthday I took a cruise around South America on the small Fred Olsen cruise ship called the MV Boudicca.
She had been built in Finland. I remember clearly after she left Punta Arenas she had to battle her way through the straits engines thumping hard to transit the Magellan straits. When we sailed out into the pacific we hit a very hard gale. I thought at the time this would be dangerous place with strong gale force westerly winds being on lee shore in such mountainous hostile Chilean land scapes.
Joshua and Spray entered the Pacific Ocean by Cape Pillar, he ran into bad weather and gale force north westerly winds. Joshua went out in westerly direction and had to run down wind and was forced back towards the treacherous lands of Tierra del Fuego. Luckily and with excellent seamanship he transited the Cockburn channel back around to the Magellan straits. Knowing what it was like that night on MV Boudicca and in those seas, I feel Joshua was a lucky man to have survived such dangerous coast line.
Later again he made a strange decision off Australia’s southern coast when he tried to sail against the strong southern ocean westerlies. Joshua had to back track up the east coast of Australia. And transit the Torre straits and into the Indian Ocean.
After re reading his book I thought deeply about this route. It took Magellan many days to transit the Straits named after him!
I decided to look at the things more methodically. I used the synopsis weather app Windy.com and did an experiment with my girlfriend.
She isn’t a seasoned sailor and I explained to her about how the gyres work in the northern and southern hemisphere’s. How the gyres and the high and low pressure systems influence wind patterns. These influence the ocean currents and the ocean winds. Which are called the prevailing or trade winds.
In the northern hemisphere the gyres circulate from west to east in a click wise fashion. The opposite is true in the southern hemisphere circulating from east to west in an anti-clockwise fashion. Whereas the southern ocean winds blow from around the globe from west to east. In fact you could say the planet ocean gyre systems act like a massive heat exchanger moving waters from the equator to the north and south poles.
Transporting hot water from the equator to colder latitudes. There is a large interaction between the gaseous atmosphere and the liquid atmosphere of the oceans with the circulation of warm water and cold water. The evaporation of liquid sea water into fresh gaseous water vapour. This produces the interaction between liquid to a gas and back to liquid fresh water. The build up of water vapour into clouds then into rain which is an amazing constant cycle. When crossing oceans you see this interaction with rain and wind squalls. A life force which without we wouldn’t exist!
70 percent of planet earth is covered with liquid salt water. Only two percent is fresh water and this is the important part that maintains life on the terrestrial part of the planet. Without fresh water we would perish and die within three days. Like the oceans we have similar senility and are 70 percent made of liquid water. I laugh on occasion’s to myself when I pass water, gosh where does all this liquid water come from? From what we drink and eat! Like the oceans and the atmosphere its another liquid water natural cycle.
Joni looked at Windy.com and the overall wind patterns. High pressure systems like huge blocking mountains dominate global weather and wind systems in both the northern hemisphere and southern hemispheres these high pressure systems are dominant. More so when each hemispheres tilts towards the sun.
Winds circulate around these systems. Interrupted when low pressure systems track along outside of these high pressure blocking systems. These low pressure systems give close isobars with winds trying quickly fill in these lower pressure depressions. Fortunately they pass quickly. During the summer in the northern hemisphere when water temperature increases usually September/October the big powerful hurricanes can pass across the Atlantic starting from Cape Verdes at about 10 degrees north to create the large spiralling vortex’s.
They build up power by sucking up hot water and track across the North Atlantic towards the Caribbean. They sweep across the Caribbean Sea up the eastern sea board of the United States of America. These large powerful hurricanes follow the revolving gyre of North Atlantic Ocean. If they don’t strike land they can track across the North Atlantic eastwards eventually becoming an ex tropical storm system.
Joni looked at these prevailing winds for best point of ocean sailing down to South Africa. Good sailing is on a broad reach where the wind is on the side or the beam. followed by down wind sailing winds blowing at the rear or stern of the boat.
Stella Polaris is in Leros Greece close to Turkey. I will sail out of the Mediterranean hopefully taking advantage of northerly spring winds. Or southerly or easterly winds. I’ll wait if I get blocked at the western end of the Mediterranean by westerly winds. I want good winds in 15 to 20 knot range ideal or higher with max of 30 Knots.
With sailing timing is everything. Certainly I want to reduce windward sailing or sailing against winds! That’s hard work and laborious.
Once I get out of the Mediterranean Sea I’ll pick up the northerly winds head to the canaries with stop over at the Gran Canaries capital of Las Palmas which has excellent marine services. From there to Cape Verde and across to Brazil’s eastern sea board. I will sail down the Brazilian coast to Rio de Janeiro and from there cross to Cape Town South Africa. Hopefully picking up the westerly winds below the high pressure southern oceanic systems.
From South Africa I’ll work my way around South Africa coast line into the Indian Ocean via the eastern coast of Madagascar. I need to get above the Indian Ocean high pressure zones to pick up the westerly winds to push me across to Indonesia. I plan to sail up the lee side of the Island of Kalimantan or Borneo. From Borneo sail to the Philippines and on to Japan.
The biggest ocean to negotiate is the Pacific. Sailing out again eastwards using the northern Pacific Ocean clockwise circulating gyre and westerly winds to the Hawaii islands and south to pick up the easterly winds near the equator to sail westerly using the easterly trade winds to blow me across the Pacific Ocean ( Mare Pacifico ) to make land falls of the many Polynesian islands of central Pacific belt. As Joni highlighted always trying to take advantage of the prevailing wind patterns as best I can.
Like any adventure in life you can’t cover every eventuality things happen that will be totally unpredictable. However I must choose the most suitable winds to reduce wear and tear on Stella Polaris. Hence the first importance of having a good sailing sea boat. However with sailing things can fail and go wrong with any mechanical equipment. That has to be taken as part of the adventure. Beauty of sailing boat is its ability to sail coupled with a resourceful caring skipper! I will always remember Air Vice Marshall’s Ted Hawkins poignant words about my first sailing boat Barada, “ If you look after her she’ll look after you”!