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FROM THE HELM
Going Motorless
I recently came across Cruising in
Serrafyn, one of the many books by
Lynn and Larry Pardey. I remember
several things about the Pardeys: They
built their own boat, a wooden 24-footer;
they cruised around the world many
times; and they sailed without an engine.
Before I read their book, I cruised
the Bahamas in 1979 on my first liveaboard
boat, a beautiful, seaworthy,
wooden, 26-foot Folkboat, named
Trifid. I sailed the waters of Lake
Worth in Palm Beach County, FL, for
about five months before I decided to
take it offshore. My girlfriend was
coming out from California in June,
when we were planning to leave for
the Bahamas for three months. But
before we left, I wanted to make a
two-week shakedown cruise to the
Bahamas with a friend of mine who
had been there before.
We made all the preparations and
were pretty much ready to go, when,
the day before our planned departure
in early May, Trifid’s outboard motor’s
driveshaft broke. There was no getting
it repaired in time, but my friend and I
decided to go anyway. I had sailed the
boat all over Lake Worth and along the
coast on day trips many times and felt
I knew her quite well. So, one morning,
we sailed out the slip, out Lake
Worth Inlet and south on an overnight
trip to Miami, where we anchored for
a day before leaving from Fowey
Rocks one evening, heading across the
Gulf Stream for Gun Club Key, just
south of Bimini in the Bahamas. All
was going pretty well, although leaving
the slip with almost no wind was
slow going, but otherwise, we felt
pretty confident in being able to
maneuver the boat, as in an anchorage,
without a motor.
We did have a bit of problem
crossing the Stream. In the middle of
the night, we lost all wind and started
drifting north. After several hours, we
decided to raft the dinghy with its 2-
HP Seagull to the side of the boat and
aim southeast—in hopes of escaping
the Gulf Stream’s grip. We succeeded
(read about it online in the January
2006 SOUTHWINDS), and eventually
made landfall much farther north in
STEVE MORRELL, EDITOR
the Bahamas. We spent a week cruising
the Berry Islands—maneuvering
everywhere without a motor. It was
not only easy enough, but fun and
challenging. When we finally made it
back to Lake Worth, we sailed right
into the slip like old salts.
In June, my girlfriend and I took
the same route to the Bahamas—with
the outboard—making landfall in Gun
Club Cay, as originally planned, and
spent three months cruising the
islands, going as far south as Staniel
Cay in the Exumas. With all that experience
behind me, we never used the
motor whenever we came into an
anchorage or left, although we would
sometimes have it running—out of
gear—as a backup when currents were
strong and threatened the safety of the
boat in some tight passages through
reefs. We became so good at going
motorless, that we powered up the
engine just to check it out more times
than for any other reason.
So, here’s to going motorless—fun
and challenging. Not only that, it’s
quiet.
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6 September 2010 SOUTHWINDS www.southwindsmagazine.com