Norwegian Steam: Noon Report -- Cabo-Hawaii Day 4

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Noon Report -- Cabo-Hawaii Day 4

1800 UTC, June 7, 2012. Our day's run was 126 miles. After the first 10 hours, we were on track for a 150 mile day, but then the wind weakened. Earlier in the evening, the wind had increased into the 20 to 25 knot range and the boat was overpowered, so we took a second reef in the main and dropped the staysail. She was still going fast. Unfortunately, that did not last all night. We are still sailing with yankee and double-reefed main, but now we definitely need to make a change. The wind has dropped to an average of 15 knots and has veered to the north, so that we are finally on a beam reach. As we travel west, the weather charts tell us that we we will encounter winds that are progressively more and more from the east, until we are broad-reaching in the northeast trade winds. That might take three or more days.

In between trimming sails, keeping a lookout for dangers and steering (or tweeking the Monitor wind vane self steering), eating is one of the more important things we do. Not having been affected by queasiness on this voyage, one of my jobs is to get people to eat. When I woke up this morning, Pete was on watch in the cockpit, while Amy and Gay were asleep on the settees, port and starboard. Pete did not feel like breakfast yet, so I got him a granola bar and some orange juice. Following Pete's lead, I ate the same. When Amy woke up, after drinking lime gatorade she agreed that she could eat some orange slices, so we all enjoyed a couple of the very delicious oranges I bought in San Jose. I then decided that I personally needed more to eat, so I made a batch of oat meal, for myself of course, but twice as much as I would eat in the hope that I could induce others to partake. It worked. We all had oatmeal with apples and raisins. Later, when Gay woke up, he ate a bowl of granola. A little later, I made sandwiches for Amy, Pete and myself, but Gay declined, saying he had just had granola. But then, when he saw the rest of us eating our sandwiches, he asked me to make one for him too. Very simple fare, but its the only restaurant in these parts.

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Norwegian Steam, the vessel

Norwegian Steam is the name of our 35' sailboat. She was designed by Ted Brewer. About 40 hulls were constructed by Miller Marine on Bainbridge Island, Washington between 1976 and the early 1980s. It is rumored that additional hulls were constructed in eastern Canada. Because many of these boats were completed by owners, there is a very great diversity in the fleet. To learn more about the basic design, you can find information about Ted's Jason design on his web site.

NS was completed by Alan with the help of friends, some of them professionals, over many years. She has been sailing since 2001. She differs from most (perhaps all) other instances of the Jason design in that her mast is 6 feet taller and she is rigged as a racing cutter, with large overlapping staysail. This rig design was inspired by the work of John Illingworth, the great English yacht designer and sailboat racer.

Norwegian Steam, the name

The phrase, Norwegian steam, may originally have been somewhat pejorative. When a vessel was powered by sails or by oars instead of by a steam or diesel engine, it was said to be powered by "Norwegian steam", the implication being that the Norwegians were so poor they could not afford engines for their boats. As time passed, the Norwegians themselves adopted the phrase to indicate a "can-do" attitude or doing whatever it takes to get the job done, even with limited resources or under adverse circumstances.

During the great era of America's Cup racing in J-Class yachts, the term took on a slightly different meaning. Many of the American defender boats had Norwegian crews and thus were said to be powered by Norwegian steam. A website has been dedicated to this bit of history.