Oslo, Thor Heyerdahl, and Kon-Tiki

Back in Scandinavia (and hence the column actually being on time today).

I surprised Mia on Monday morning, arriving in Stockholm immediately following her green card meeting at the US Embassy. It's one of the few modern-looking buildings in the city, and completely surrounding by fence. Mia waited in the cold for half an hour before they let her in for her 8:30am appointment. Meanwhile, I was sitting in the Oslo airport waiting for my connecting flight and wondering if she'd been let in yet. And eating a bar of chocolate I bought at the news stand.

The view from the coffee shop in Oslo

I arrived at Arlanda airport in Stockholm around 10:30 in the morning. Unbeknownst to me, Mia was already in and out of her interview, and was out jogging around the city. I made it a point not to try and call her until I got into the city so I could use Skype and not tip her off by calling on my Swedish cell phone. 

I took the Arlanda Express train from the airport into T-Centralen. I have ridden it before, but they must have upgraded the cars. They seemed brand new. High-back seats contoured to fit the back and comfortably padded, clean white walls accentuating the minimalist / futuristic design, flat-screen, high definition monitors mounted in the bulkheads as if they were part of the wall itself, displaying daily news stories and the odd advertisement, no doubt which paid for a lot of the upgrades. The train has it's own magazine, it's glossy cover peering out from a skeletal stainless steel rack mounted beneath the window next to my seat, which faced backwards as the train raced forward towards the city.

In twenty minutes I was back in T-Centralen at the little coffee shop where we last had a latte with Clint when he headed back to Norway after New Year' Eve in Åland with Johanna. I managed to get Mia on Skype, who was confused as to why I wasn't calling from my cell phone like I normally do from home. I told her to go meet a friend at the Kultur Huset in town, and that's when she suspected it was me. I called her back on my Swedish phone to see if she understood the implications of that number appearing on her own phone (she did), and ten minutes later she walked in and joined me at the table I had in the corner.

We spent the evening in Stockholm, sleeping on the Rygerfjord, an old passenger ship they converted into a hostel. The restaurant upstairs had a view over Gamla Stan, and we were only steps away from Södermalm. We walked around the island that evening and stopped for a coffee near a small theatre on Hornstull Strand, just down from the place Mia saw Peter, Björn and John last summer. I was asleep by eleven, and didn't wake up the next day until ten.

I wanted more than just to go back to Dunderbo and wait out the mailing of Mia's greencard. We went back to T-Centralen next day and hopped a train to Oslo, where I had arranged for us to stay with Clint, whose working there as a tree surgeon and living in a nice flat with his boss, who, conveniently, was away for the week, leaving the place to the three of us. It was a six-hour journey, but I love riding the train.

Oslo is hillier than Stockholm, situated at the north end of Oslofjord, and a major shipping center. The downtown area is crammed with new construction, but the city is decidedly more compact than Stockholm. We took the bus into town, about twenty minutes from Clint's place the next morning, and after walking twenty minutes from Oslo Sentralen, were in a nice neighborhood where we found a pleasant coffee shop and lazed away the afternoon. It was cold and blowing snow outside.

Kon-Tiki museum in the snow...

Mia had grabbed a map from the station that showed the city layout. On the map in a wooded corner of town was listed information for several museums - Amundsen's polar FRAM ship is located next to the Norsk Maritim Museet, adjacent to the Kon-Tiki Museet. We went on Thursday.

I read Kon-Tiki years ago, and always knew that Thor Heyerdahl, the guy behind the expedition was Norwegian, but it never occurred to me to look for him in Oslo. We took another bus to the museum yesterday morning. 

Heyerdahl was one of those guys I get my inspiration from. He had an idea and he acted on it, damn the consequences. For those unfamiliar with the story, Heyerdahl was an anthropologist who had moved to Tahiti with his wife in the 40s, where he spawned the theory, based on his observations of life on the island, that it's original inhabitants may in fact have come from South America. His idea was revolutionary then, and still is to some degree, and he set out not really to prove it, but only to prove that it was possible. 

Thor Heyerdahl

A telegram went out to as many adventurous compatriots as he could muster, informing them he intended to set sail across the Pacific from Peru, but only after first building a raft from Balsa wood trees harvesting high in the Andes and transported downriver to the coast, whereby they'd load a cargo of coconuts and set forth. His theory held that the prevailing winds and currents, with the help of a small square sail set from an a-frame mast, would carry them the several thousand miles across the ocean. Eventually they'd wash up on one of the islands scattered about the vast watery wilderness.

Well, they set out. 101 days later, they accomplished, in dramatic fashion, exactly what Heyerdahl had predicted, literally pounded onto the reef by swells that Heyerdahl described as being higher than their mast (a documentary film played at the museum - a film that won Heyerdahl an Oscar in 1951 for 'Best Documentary', and the original award is on display outside the museum's theatre - and in it, Heyerdahl filmed the aftermath of their collision with the reef. The raft is in tatters, and he described it a miracle that none of his crew was killed in the maelstrom). They waded ashore with their belongings. It was, astonishingly, 1947.

Heyerdahl's Ra II

But Heyerdahl wasn't finished. The museum included artifacts of his later expeditions, including two attempts at crossing the Atlantic from Morocco in a raft built of papyrus, based on ancient drawings found near the pyramids in Egypt (in fact, he built the rafts, named Ra for the Egyptian sun-god, at the foot of the great Pyramids, with local labor). The first attempt sank a couple hundred miles from the Caribbean, and Heyerdahl and his crew were rescued by a freighter from Barbados. Undeterred, he returned a year later and completed the voyage successfully in Ra II, which is on display at the museum. 

Heyerdahl's theories were based on knowledge that mariners since before recorded history were keenly aware of, that of prevailing wind and ocean currents. Pilot charts that the Clipper ships used in tracing their routes round the world were based on the same, as are the pilot charts yachtsmen use today (or should be using). It's the same theory that took Mia and I north to Nova Scotia last summer en route to Europe, and the same reason the ARC rally goes south from the Canaries, following precisely the same route Heyerdahl did in his Ra expeditions. And the same reason that Matt Rutherford has some distinctive kinks in his course around the Americas as he tried to play the winds and currents to his advantage.

But more than anything else, Heyerdahl provided me a strong reminder as to what's worth pursuing in life. That of latching on to a passion and taking it beyond it's logical conclusion. Matt is doing the same thing. That serendipitous finding of Heyerdahl's museum during a spur-of-the-moment trip to Oslo really made an impact on me.

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Matt Resupply Update

Greetings! Check out some photos of Matt's resupply last week. Photos are courtesy and copyright court@crosby. See more on Matt's blog at solotheamericas.org, and don't forget to donate to CRAB!

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Friday Column: Matt Rutherford's Resupply

Note: Okay, at the bottom of this post is some audio I recorded with Matt, I think back in April last year. It would have been a few months before his departure. His Pearson 323 was docked one block away from Arcturus in Annapolis, at the little marina at the end of Burnside Street. I had been friends with him since the summer before when he returned from his double-Transatlantic. We sat down in the clubhouse and talked for a couple hours on a bunch of different topics. The audio is completely unedited and slightly embarrassing for me to listen to, but it's pretty cool nonetheless and gives some interesting insight into Matt and his trip. He doesn't start talking about the NW passage until about the 45-minute mark, but touches on his motivations and why he's involved CRAB. Very enlightening stuff. I left the entire 1:52:00 intact because I enjoy listening to uncut stuff like this, and so will you! On that note, look for some more interviews I've done with some other interesting people to pop up here in the future. I've always wanted to start a podcast, so maybe this is the first episode....

Two days ago (on February 29), I received this email from Simon Edwards, Matt's longtime delivery skipper friend and biggest shoreside support in Matt's Around the America's expedition:

"It's done. He picked the gear up this morning. Fantastic response from people, $30,000 [for CRAB] and still coming. Will write more, trying to anchor up in Sandy Hook in freezing rain. Still, hard to complain being as Rutherford set the bar too high!!!"

Can't argue with that. Matt is in the middle of setting the bar arguably higher than it's ever been set before. He's been compared to some of the sailing pioneers like Chichester and one of his heros Knox-Johnston. And the cool part is, those comparisons came from Herb McCormick, who recently completed his own Around the Americas expedition, albeit one with stops and aboard a boat with heat. The comments below came from an interview that the Washington Post conducted with McCormick for a recent article.

“What Matt is trying to do, I’m absolutely blown away by it,” McCormick said. “He’s doing this in a boat that, frankly, I’d be scared to sail from Newport to Bermuda. I’m in awe of the guy. This is such a mammoth undertaking, and to do it without stopping — alone — is mind-boggling."

But everyone who has been following Matt's adventure in the slightest already knows that. At this point it's almost beyond description.

So, to the original point of this update. Matt’s resupply, and my effort to get him as much publicity as possible in his effort to raise money for CRAB. It’s the third of his voyage so far, if you count the one off St. John’s, Newfoundland in which he received a replacement watermaker when his original exploded on him. At that point, so close to the start of his voyage, it was nearly a fatal blow to his hopes. In Alaska he was interviewed by NPR, given some pizza and beer and restocked with a few essentials. And now Recife.

Matt talks often in his blog about his water generator, and how he tried to fix it with an improvised propeller he cobbled together from an old boathook. It reminded me of Yves Gelinas and his similar repair aboard Jean du Sud, the Alberg 30 that Gelinas sailed around the world via the Great Capes, his only stop in Chatham Island thanks to a capsize and subsequent dismasting. Gelinas is also the inventor of the Cape Horn windvane, which saw Mia and I across the Atlantic on Arcturus last summer. He's a great and humble man, and Matt reminds me of him, particularly in his determination and ability to see something through.

Alas, some things are beyond his control. St. Brendan’s engine is officially dead in Matt’s estimation. 

“I took off all the wires and cleaned the connections with sandpaper,” he wrote in his blog at solotheamericas.org. “I was hoping it was a bad ground wire but unfortunately that wasn’t the problem. I tried to take the starter off but for some crazy reason it is connected to the engine with round bolts with a large Allen key fitting in the center. So I didn’t have the rather odd tool required to remove the bolts. Why they couldn’t have used normal hex head bolts is beyond me. So after three days of getting covered in engine grime I came to the conclusion that it is beyond my abilities to fix the engine.”

Gelinas didn't even have an engine, by design, so Matt will be just fine without it. And Moitessier dove on his Joshua to remove the propeller before long passages to cut down on drag, knowing that far offshore it would be of little use anyway save for using as a generator, which is precisely what Matt needs it for. Without it, it might mean less internet updates and radio contact, but it won't affect his ability to sail the boat. Marcos in Recife gave him a few small solar panels, which should suffice for his minimal power requirements.

Not to get too far ahead of ourselves - Matt still has several thousand miles to sail to reach the Chesapeake and close the circle on his journey - but there is already talk of what's in the works in Annapolis for his return, and it includes some pretty high-profile boats and people. At this point, the mission is to continue getting the word out, both for CRAB, and to give Matt the heros welcome that he deserves, hopefully sometime in April. 

Simon Edwards, in an email to me last week, did a nice job summing up the absurdity of trying to plan for his arrival:

"In a perfect scenario for their plans, Matt will sail round Thomas Point on the 14th April to arrive at the Hall of Fame dock at noon."

Of course he will. Oddly enough, and I wrote this in the current issue of Spinsheet about Matt's Cape Horn rounding, people back home might be thinking about it arrival, but I doubt (and hope, for the sake of his sanity), that Matt is not. He's still in his world. 

Read about the rest of his resupply from the man himself at solotheamericas.org. And donate to CRAB online at crabsailing.org. Check out the audio of my chat [which will be uploaded shortly - check back] with Matt before his adventure, which is posted below. Enjoy.

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Friday Column: Don Street & Sailing to the Caribbean

Street speaking at the
2010 Annapolis Show

I have known Street since the 2010 Annapolis Sailboat Show. I’ve told this story several times in a few of the magazines I write for. Street actually approached me, wondering if he could use an article I’d written about him in All at Sea Caribbean. Well, kind of about him. More about his Imray-Iolaire charts that he created years ago, exploring the waters in his engineless yawl for which the charts are named. He was speaking at the show and ended up passing out copies of the article to people in attendance (myself and Mia included). See it here.

Over the past two years, we’ve kept in email contact now and then. Last fall, upon making our landfall in Crookhaven on Arcturus, we more or less invited ourselves to his house in Glandore, a short daysail down the coast. We had run out of propane only a few days after arriving in Ireland, and on the rural south coast, there was nowhere to get any. Clint had already left by then, so Mia and I survived on tuna salad and cold beans, with no hot coffee in the morning. Donald came to our rescue and invited us in before his day out racing the Dragons just outside the gorgeous little harbor.

Mia and Arcturus in Street's
hometown of Glandore, Ireland

In this month’s Cruising World, there is an article that Street wrote about sailing to the Caribbean. It’s a follow-up to a few stories the magazine ran last month about the havoc that was wreaked on the NARC fleet after they left Newport and got beat up by a few gales en route to Bermuda, a story that’s been beaten to death by the sailing media and does not need to be repeated here. I was involved at the time with the Caribbean 1500. We sat in Hampton, VA for five days waiting out the weather, which included a freak subtropical storm the forecasters named Sean, which had to be one of the few times a named storm actually formed above 23 ½º north. I spent hours formatting and re-formatting the GRIB files we used to show the fleet their weather routing info prior to the start of the event. They changed so often that I think we ended up giving three full weather briefings, a few with information drastically different from what it was only twelve hours earlier.

I touched on the chaotic nature of the weather in a recent article I wrote for Yacht Essentials, which will be out in March (look for it in the archives soon). Everyone knows the weather is one of the most unpredictable dynamic systems in our world, and yet everyone seems to try and forecast it anyway.

Street’s article in CW recalls another that he wrote for a different magazine way back in 1964, extolling the virtues of sailing south from Little Creek, VA or Morehead City, NC, bypassing Bermuda altogether in the fall. He made a good point in 1964, and it’s a good point today. My favorite part reads “Sailors heading south to Bermuda in November should stop asking for weather windows, and weather routers should stop providing them: these windows don’t exist except for 90-foot sailing rocketships that can reach Bermuda in three days. US East Coast weather becomes so unstable in November that forecasts are good only up to 48 to 60 hours.” The problem is, and Street alluded to this, that everyone is so accustomed to seeing their seven- and ten-day forecasts on the news everyday that perhaps subconsciously, they take them as fact.

If you’ve ever taken the time to evaluate the accuracy of those long-range forecasts (which the television never does), you'd be shocked. Everyone seems to inherently agree that the weatherman is never really right. They become the butt of a lot of jokes. Yet still people take what they say on faith, particularly sailors, even when they know better (myself included). Try this sometime – download a GRIB forecast and run it out as far as it will go, usually at least seven days. Save that GRIB image. Now, seven days later, download the GRIB again for the same region and see how the picture compares to the forecast from before. Except in areas affected by regular trade winds, the two images will more than likely differ dramatically. Case in point – the GRIBs from that same storm Sean in the fall. One day it’s not there. The next day it is. This is, in a nutshell, what I think Street is trying to say.

November 9, 2011 GRIB file, advanced from a November 2 Download. No sign of 'Sean.'

November 9, 2011 GRIB File - Actual. 'Sean' is easily visible just east of Florida.
Note also the differences in the weather way up by Greenland.

Ironically, Street and I had exchanged some emails shortly after the fall season on this very topic, and I’m sure I have on in my inbox somewhere that nearly replicates the CW article. I was wondering then when I read it if he’d get it printed anywhere – Street is old enough now that a few people don’t remember him, and some that do, disregard him as obsolete, especially when he starts quoting himself from fifty years ago. But the fact that he’s been around so long and still gets published has to say something to the effect that he is still relevant.

One of the fascinating things about ocean sailing is that out there, you’re basically sailing the same waters and the same weather patterns as the Vikings, and sometimes it’s wise to heed the ancient advice, even when it comes from Street.

Street’s article (and this essay) could come across as an “I-told-you-so” rant, but I hope that’s not the case. Every year there are examples of the tragedies like those that befell the NARC fleet in 2011, it just so happened that that one was well reported on considering the time of year (the annual migration south). And every year there are different reasons for what went wrong. When it comes to ocean sailing – like any other adventurous pursuit – there doesn’t always have to be someone to blame. Risk is part of the deal, part of what makes it exciting in the first place. I don’t think anyone would admit to be willing to pay the ultimate price to what basically boils down to a form of recreation (despite those of us who see it more as a way of life). It’s not worth the ultimate price to me, which I suppose is why I’m sitting at a desk right now and not out in the North Atlantic. It’s winter – the risk is too high. It’s the same reason we transited the North Atlantic at 50º in August. Historically for that region, the weather is most stable that time of year. Certainly no guarantee - again, 'Sean' is a perfect example of an anomaly that history would not have predicted. The Fastnet Gale is another. But still, less risk. And we weren't not going to go.

What’s the point? I’m happy that CW published Street’s article, and I’m glad people still take him seriously. There are some things in life and in sailing that are constants, no matter the time or the times. The weather is probably the biggest of all, and I hope his article gives a little bit more insight into understanding and handling it.

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Friday Column: Extreme Hunting

Heartless Bastards baby! They are rocking my world right now.

Dane had an ‘afternoon with the White Stripes’ in the gym yesterday. He and I were debating the merits of Black Math, a few days prior, a song, which, I might argue, is about as hard as a rock and roll song can get. I listened to it several times out running with the dogs in the forest this week. Gets the juices flowing.

I am sat at the kitchen table in the small cabin that Kevin’s parents rented for the weekend adjacent to Elk Mountain. I just made him turn the fire off (it’s gas, so you can do that), because it’s an oven in here. There is a sauna downstairs, but nobody wants go in it naked with me. Kevin is my sister Kaitie’s boyfriend.

Her and I (Kate) were out early this morning on the mountain (if you can call it that. It is only the second time I have skied since our Tahoe trip in college, so I won’t complain. The skiing was remarkably decent). I left the house at 5:58 this morning, two full minutes before I anticipated, and made fabulous time on the highway, despite several patches of zero-visibility fog. I did not have to stop en route. I was early, so took a few runs before Kevin dropped Kate off (only after waiting in line for ten minutes at the rental shop, mentally swearing at myself because I left my poles at home. Rentals were five dollars), and then met her by the American flag outside the lodge. We skied for five solid hours without stopping, enjoying a beautifully sunny morning and a surprisingly snow-covered hill (there wasn’t a trace of it on the road until about five minutes before I got here, which did not bode well). Upper Tunkhannock was all bumped up (!). Until the sun disappeared and it got icy. Little kids practicing their snowplow technique in the moguls kept cutting me off on my last two runs. Then we quit.

I came home from Sweden about two weeks ago now, on a Sunday, to be with my dad at home to help take care of my mom. Ask me sometime and I’ll tell you about her, but I’m not interested in writing about it. It was sad leaving Mia, but sometimes it is okay to be sad for a while. It’s not about us this time around.

Dad encouraged me to come skiing with Kate and Kevin this weekend. I felt slightly guilty, because somebody has to be home all the time, and with me away, that somebody is now dad, who had gotten back into a more or less normal routine with the family business since I came home, precisely the reason for me doing so (mostly). If there is one thing my mom’s health is teaching us, it is to get out and live as much of life as you possibly can. So I came skiing, partly because of that, but partly because it’s also important to keep family as the number one priority, and Kate fits the bill there. Dad was happy to stand in for two days so I could spend some time with my little sister.

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I heard a song in the car by Ani DiFranco on XPN called Whose side are you on? Unsurprisingly it was vehemently political, actually calling for some ‘socialism’ in America, which I assume was meant to ruffle some feathers. The chorus asks you to pick a side. Hence the title.

When the dust settles, people need to live with each other. I feel like this sentiment is getting lost in the shuffle, whether in politics now with a looming election, or globally.

During a few of my SFI (‘Swedish for Immigrants’ – or ‘Idiots’, depending on who you asked) courses in January, I was interacting with many folks from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and northern Africa. It’s not difficult to imagine the conversations, which were in Swedish – part of the lesson – and decidedly simplistic, which was the point. I chatted with Makhmoud (from Iraq) and we asked each other the typical introductory questions – where are you from? what do you do for a living? how come you’re in Sweden, etc etc. I touched on this before, but Makhmoud is a refugee, who fled Iraq thanks to the war between America and his own country. We never got into whether or not he fled for fear of his life, for political reasons against the USA, for political reasons against Iraq or whatever. Obviously he fled because of war, but I’m not sure whose side he was on. But I felt oddly uncomfortable in that situation explaining that I had met my Swedish wife on a backpacking trip in New Zealand, and that I was here of my own accord and living more or less in pixieland while my countrymen are killing his ‘brothers’ (and them my countrymen).

That situation was difficult for me to reconcile, and I could not shake my unease. And Makhmoud was one of the most genuine, friendly people I have come across as a stranger, did not seem at all uneasy speaking with an American (a sentiment I have gotten all over the world in fact. Most people I talk to who have a negative opinion of America direct that opinion towards our foreign policy and not our individuals. Kind of the same way American’s who have a negative opinion about America feel. Like there is some greater force at work at home that creates the ‘America’ people disagree with, while the American people abroad generally are well-liked. American’s abroad claiming to be Canadian is just stupid). At the time, it felt inappropriate to even be talking with him (Makhmoud) due to the conflict between our countries. We have to live together when the dust settles. Was I beyond that? Did he think the same thing? Was there resentment? Must we choose a side Ani DiFranco? Or can we freaking work it out on the same side. When a competition creates higher stakes than that of a game or a sport, the consequences of ‘winning’ can be scary. Nobody ever actually wins in real life.

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For the weekend I am going to enjoy the skiing and the camaraderie. Kevin just broke out his binder of information he’s collected on the Appalachian Trail. In less than a month he’ll set of from Georgia, walking north, and won’t stop until he gets to Maine. He’s tackling the whole thing in one go, packing forty pounds on his back and making a run for it. His last day of work was on Wednesday, and the boss let him leave early.

I am almost unfathomably envious of him right now – for three years the only thing Mia and I focused on was getting our boat across the Atlantic (and the wedding), and after such a huge summer last year, we’ve sort of reached an anticlimax, a calm period where we don’t quite know what to do with ourselves. There is nothing to plan anymore – it’s suddenly easy to understand why some people never leave the dock.

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I had intended on ending this post just there, but I had to add a description of the community game room in this little development of cabins we’re in at Elk, the only place where there is wireless internet (and where Kevin and I had to come just so I can post this online).

There is a small gray building, ‘adjacent to that little white one over there,’ the concierge at the small check-in desk told us. Downstairs is a pool and a hottub where little kids are making noise. Upstairs – where we are – is the actual game room, a place that I think can only possible exist in upstate Pennsylvania. A pool table is the dominant feature of the room, with a small gym (a stationary bike, treadmill and weight machine) at the top of the stairs (no kidding, in the midst of everything, which would be odd if you actually wanted to work out. I imagine it does not get much use). Two skylights provide the ambience, and a pair of ceiling fans hang from the slanted roof. An old jukebox is at the far end of a line of 1990’s era arcade games, including a submarine game called ‘Sea Wolf’ and a shooting game called ‘Extreme Hunting 2: Tournament Edition’ (this game has audio, and every 30 seconds or so a dude comes over a speaker and announces the title of the game). Next to that is a classic Pac-Man machine, a ‘Cruisin’ USA’ (remember that?), a Star Trek pinball machine and finally a change machine for quarters.

On the opposite wall is one of those games that gives away prizes, not dissimilar to the ones with the hook that lets you think you can grab something. Then there is another hunting game (‘Deer Hunting USA’), another shooting game, aptly titled ‘Target: Terror’ (the ‘o’ in Terror has a crosshairs on it). And of course a soda machine (RC Cola!) and a snack machine filled with Fritos corn chips. Actually I just noticed there is one of those hook grabber games, right next to the jukebox. Missed that one.

Kevin and I are sat in white wicker chairs around a round outdoor table you might find adjacent to a pool in summertime. An American flag hangs on the wall behind me over a dusty piano. Last but not least, there is a ‘Love Fever’ machine, where ostensibly two people touch their fingers to a sensor and the machine tells you how hot your love fever is.

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