Well, this is it, our first big cape crossing. Cape Mendocino is notorious as one of the worst capes on the West coast. It’s a place where voyages are defined in their entirety. Skippers will tell you, oh we had a great voyage, or, it was murder- Cape Mendocino kicked our butt.
Several things conspire to make Mendocino unique amongst the west coast capes. First, it’s the western most cape, and pretty far north as the significant capes go. Second, it lies in an area of significant geological activity and topography. Three of the earth’s tectonic plates converge off of Cape Mendocino resulting in a area of intense earthquake activity. Not surprisingly the land mass rises out of the ocean quite abruptly and reaches great height. The effect this has on ocean breezes is dramatic. Not unlike an airplane wing, air will accelerate around an object when deflected by something like a land mass. I’m not certain if it’s the Bernoulli principle that accelerates the velocity of wind, but the result is that in the vicinity of Cape Mendocino it blows, and Blows and BLOWS. So, as we left Eureka we were delighted to hear the forecast:
.Cape Mendocino: Light winds and calm seas with a 1 to 2 foot swell from the west expected throughout the forecast periodThis was unbelievable. Here we were approaching one of the most treacherous parts of the west coast and by all rights we were going to have a sled ride. We were delighted. Below is a picture of Paloma as we slipped gracefully around the cape!
With the cape behind us we got focused on our arrival at Shelter Cove. Shelter Cove is a tiny cove of land that offers protection from Northwest swell. It does not provide protection from waves with any southerly component or even westerly component. We knew it was going to be a crap shoot to arrive at Shelter cove with enough light to anchor by, so we put the pedal to the metal and ran at close to 2,000RPM to try to get a few minutes of extra light upon arrival. Approaching Shelter Cove Marian and I saw a Humpback Whale flopping it’s fins in and out of the water, it was the most amazing thing to see. He would lounge on the surface and raise his huge fin in the air, perhaps 20 feet or more, and then SLAP it down on the water. The picture below isn’t too good, but we just had to include it. 
After several hours we turned the corner and edged into Shelter Cove. Patrick had a difficult time anchoring here on his trip up the coast, so we were a bit apprehensive. We had spent some time discussing where to anchor and various techniques, so we were both delighted when we each caught the hook on our first attempt. With over 200 feet of chain out in 30 feet of water we were well prepared to sleep soundly through the night. As the sun set Marian and I were deployed our flopper stopper for the first time.
A “Flopper Stopper” is a pole that hangs off the side of the boat with a large plate dangling in the water. The plate is hinged and opens up if you pull it up through the water and closes when it drops. The effect this has on the boat is to stop it from rolling in one direction and only one direction. The reason you need this piece of gear is that a Nordhavn trawler has a round, displacement bottom. While this bottom is very good for fuel economy, it sucks for dampening roll. I can walk from side to side on the boat and get it rolling 30 degrees each way. If I stop moving from side to side it will take 2 minutes for the boat to stop. There is simply little or nothing in the way to prevent the boat from rolling. So, deployment of a Flopper Stopper is critical for a good nights sleep. Well, we deployed the pole, threw the plate in the water and everything “seemed to be ok”. I had read the laminated instructions for deploying the FS several months ago and thought I’d done a good job. Then I looked over at Paloma and noticed that Patrick had positioned his FS pole about 35 degrees up in the air, instead of parallel to the water, as I had. My logical mind told me that putting the pole parallel to the water would get the plate as far out as possible, yielding the most stabilizing force. What I didn’t consider in this analysis was the influence of loading and unloading that would occur as the seas worsened.
So, we had a light dinner of breakfast cereal because, despite the flopper stopper, we were still doing some significant floppering. We went to bed about 9:30. About 1:00am I woke up. Something just didn’t seem right. I heard a new sound, kind of a “ker thunk, thunk, thunk”, pause, “ker thunk, thunk, thunk” repeat… The boat was moving, rolling a fair amount. So I slipped out of bed and went up to the pilothouse. I noticed we had rotated 180 degrees and were now facing east. The wind had picked up and was blowing from our starboard side and we were really rocking, probably 15 degrees from side to side. I turned on the deck lights and watched the flopper stopper. The more I watched it the more concerned I became. As I looked at the pole it became obvious to me why Patrick’s was elevated at 45 degrees. What was happening was that each time the boat would reverse its direction of roll the flopper stopper would lift slightly and then thunk back down as the plate came taught. The problem was when I put the pole out parallel to the ocean surface there was no force or moment that held the pole down, all three attachments points were pulling the pole up. So, when it became unloaded it would actually lift a little bit. I then realized I needed to fix this or it was going to be a long, long night.
So here it is, 1:30 in the morning and I’m considering going out on deck. I sat there for about 30 minutes trying to decide if I should go out on deck without waking Marian up. Part of me didn’t want to admit to her that I had screwed this up and part of me just didn’t want to bother her. But I started to think about some things we had discussed that we would adopt as “POLICY” on the boat. One of the things was that if one of us was standing watch at night, we would NEVER go outside the pilothouse without the other being awake and at the helm. The reason for this is that if you went over the side, there wouldn’t be anyone there to notice and it could be hours before the partner awoke to find they were alone. That thought is horrifying to even consider. So, after some time pondering the decision I went ahead and asked Marian to sit at in the pilothouse while I went on the boat deck to try to solve the issue. I put on a life jacket and went out into the pitch black, but comfortable night air.
Standing on the boat deck was not difficult. While the boat was moving around, it wasn’t so much that being up there was a problem, this was a big relief. So now I needed to resolve the issue of the pole being too low. The problem I was facing was trying to figure out how to raise the pole without bringing the plate back aboard the boat. Trying to retrieve the plate at night, in the cockpit was a scary task. What I was trying to figure out was if there was a way to take up some line on the halyard that supported the pole, without untying it. I was worried that if I untied the line it could get pulled out of my grasp and result in the pole collapsing into the side of the boat. Fortunately there was another cleat below the place where the halyard was tied off. It seemed like it was in just the right spot that if I pulled the line down to it, it might end up with the pole at 35 or 45 degrees. I did a few practice pulls to see if I could gain enough slack to make it to the cleat. The test pulls left me feeling like it might make it, so I waited for a rolling cycle where the boat pulled the plate up in the water, then as the boat rolled into the plate I pulled down with all my strength. I got about an inch away from the cleat as the boat stopped rolling and I remember thinking “I better get this right now, because if I don’t I might not have the strength to try it again”. So I dug deep and put the hurt on it, and sure enough it slipped right around the cleat. When I looked over the side of the boat the pole was up in the air exactly where I wanted it. Sure enough the thunking was gone and the boat motion subsided significantly. I watched the pole for about 5 minutes then went back inside the pilothouse. Both Marian and I went back to bed and fell fast asleep.
Several things conspire to make Mendocino unique amongst the west coast capes. First, it’s the western most cape, and pretty far north as the significant capes go. Second, it lies in an area of significant geological activity and topography. Three of the earth’s tectonic plates converge off of Cape Mendocino resulting in a area of intense earthquake activity. Not surprisingly the land mass rises out of the ocean quite abruptly and reaches great height. The effect this has on ocean breezes is dramatic. Not unlike an airplane wing, air will accelerate around an object when deflected by something like a land mass. I’m not certain if it’s the Bernoulli principle that accelerates the velocity of wind, but the result is that in the vicinity of Cape Mendocino it blows, and Blows and BLOWS. So, as we left Eureka we were delighted to hear the forecast:
.Cape Mendocino: Light winds and calm seas with a 1 to 2 foot swell from the west expected throughout the forecast periodThis was unbelievable. Here we were approaching one of the most treacherous parts of the west coast and by all rights we were going to have a sled ride. We were delighted. Below is a picture of Paloma as we slipped gracefully around the cape!
With the cape behind us we got focused on our arrival at Shelter Cove. Shelter Cove is a tiny cove of land that offers protection from Northwest swell. It does not provide protection from waves with any southerly component or even westerly component. We knew it was going to be a crap shoot to arrive at Shelter cove with enough light to anchor by, so we put the pedal to the metal and ran at close to 2,000RPM to try to get a few minutes of extra light upon arrival. Approaching Shelter Cove Marian and I saw a Humpback Whale flopping it’s fins in and out of the water, it was the most amazing thing to see. He would lounge on the surface and raise his huge fin in the air, perhaps 20 feet or more, and then SLAP it down on the water. The picture below isn’t too good, but we just had to include it. After several hours we turned the corner and edged into Shelter Cove. Patrick had a difficult time anchoring here on his trip up the coast, so we were a bit apprehensive. We had spent some time discussing where to anchor and various techniques, so we were both delighted when we each caught the hook on our first attempt. With over 200 feet of chain out in 30 feet of water we were well prepared to sleep soundly through the night. As the sun set Marian and I were deployed our flopper stopper for the first time.
A “Flopper Stopper” is a pole that hangs off the side of the boat with a large plate dangling in the water. The plate is hinged and opens up if you pull it up through the water and closes when it drops. The effect this has on the boat is to stop it from rolling in one direction and only one direction. The reason you need this piece of gear is that a Nordhavn trawler has a round, displacement bottom. While this bottom is very good for fuel economy, it sucks for dampening roll. I can walk from side to side on the boat and get it rolling 30 degrees each way. If I stop moving from side to side it will take 2 minutes for the boat to stop. There is simply little or nothing in the way to prevent the boat from rolling. So, deployment of a Flopper Stopper is critical for a good nights sleep. Well, we deployed the pole, threw the plate in the water and everything “seemed to be ok”. I had read the laminated instructions for deploying the FS several months ago and thought I’d done a good job. Then I looked over at Paloma and noticed that Patrick had positioned his FS pole about 35 degrees up in the air, instead of parallel to the water, as I had. My logical mind told me that putting the pole parallel to the water would get the plate as far out as possible, yielding the most stabilizing force. What I didn’t consider in this analysis was the influence of loading and unloading that would occur as the seas worsened.
So, we had a light dinner of breakfast cereal because, despite the flopper stopper, we were still doing some significant floppering. We went to bed about 9:30. About 1:00am I woke up. Something just didn’t seem right. I heard a new sound, kind of a “ker thunk, thunk, thunk”, pause, “ker thunk, thunk, thunk” repeat… The boat was moving, rolling a fair amount. So I slipped out of bed and went up to the pilothouse. I noticed we had rotated 180 degrees and were now facing east. The wind had picked up and was blowing from our starboard side and we were really rocking, probably 15 degrees from side to side. I turned on the deck lights and watched the flopper stopper. The more I watched it the more concerned I became. As I looked at the pole it became obvious to me why Patrick’s was elevated at 45 degrees. What was happening was that each time the boat would reverse its direction of roll the flopper stopper would lift slightly and then thunk back down as the plate came taught. The problem was when I put the pole out parallel to the ocean surface there was no force or moment that held the pole down, all three attachments points were pulling the pole up. So, when it became unloaded it would actually lift a little bit. I then realized I needed to fix this or it was going to be a long, long night.
So here it is, 1:30 in the morning and I’m considering going out on deck. I sat there for about 30 minutes trying to decide if I should go out on deck without waking Marian up. Part of me didn’t want to admit to her that I had screwed this up and part of me just didn’t want to bother her. But I started to think about some things we had discussed that we would adopt as “POLICY” on the boat. One of the things was that if one of us was standing watch at night, we would NEVER go outside the pilothouse without the other being awake and at the helm. The reason for this is that if you went over the side, there wouldn’t be anyone there to notice and it could be hours before the partner awoke to find they were alone. That thought is horrifying to even consider. So, after some time pondering the decision I went ahead and asked Marian to sit at in the pilothouse while I went on the boat deck to try to solve the issue. I put on a life jacket and went out into the pitch black, but comfortable night air.
Standing on the boat deck was not difficult. While the boat was moving around, it wasn’t so much that being up there was a problem, this was a big relief. So now I needed to resolve the issue of the pole being too low. The problem I was facing was trying to figure out how to raise the pole without bringing the plate back aboard the boat. Trying to retrieve the plate at night, in the cockpit was a scary task. What I was trying to figure out was if there was a way to take up some line on the halyard that supported the pole, without untying it. I was worried that if I untied the line it could get pulled out of my grasp and result in the pole collapsing into the side of the boat. Fortunately there was another cleat below the place where the halyard was tied off. It seemed like it was in just the right spot that if I pulled the line down to it, it might end up with the pole at 35 or 45 degrees. I did a few practice pulls to see if I could gain enough slack to make it to the cleat. The test pulls left me feeling like it might make it, so I waited for a rolling cycle where the boat pulled the plate up in the water, then as the boat rolled into the plate I pulled down with all my strength. I got about an inch away from the cleat as the boat stopped rolling and I remember thinking “I better get this right now, because if I don’t I might not have the strength to try it again”. So I dug deep and put the hurt on it, and sure enough it slipped right around the cleat. When I looked over the side of the boat the pole was up in the air exactly where I wanted it. Sure enough the thunking was gone and the boat motion subsided significantly. I watched the pole for about 5 minutes then went back inside the pilothouse. Both Marian and I went back to bed and fell fast asleep.
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