Norwegian Steam: Noon Report -- Cabo-reHawaii Day 5

Friday, June 8, 2012

Noon Report -- Cabo-reHawaii Day 5

We crossed the 120th Meridian this morning and finally the wind is coming from east of north. Little by little we move into the trades. Our day's run was 130 miles, the best yet.

The morning was overcast, but now there are a few hints of blue. Maybe there will be some clearing this afternoon. We are traveling across a true oceanscape, with the wavetops of the swell being separated by several hundred feet. With the true wind on the beam, it is rare now that we hit a wave so hard that it causes the boat to shudder.

It had seemed to me that our consumption of electricity was a bit more than expected. Gazing at the electrical switch panel last night, I noticed that the small bilge pump was going on and off quite regularly. Then I remembered the bow anchor which is installed in a roller right through the stem of the boat, inside a baffled ventilation box. If water enters around the roller, most of it is trapped in the ventilation box and flows out a drain hole at the bottom. When water is entering with a lot of force, as it would if the bow were plowing into a wave, some water might flow over the opening at the top of the back of the box, where the chain exits over a second roller. I crawled over sails, duffel bags and provisions to get right up into the bow of the boat, opened an access door, peered right at the back of the box and observed that about a pint of water was pouring down every 15 seconds or so. I then cut a piece of foam and was able to force that up into the space under the roller. That cut the flow more or less in half. The boat is in no danger from this. The small automatic bilge pump is capable of 800 gallons per hour. A foot above it in the keel is the large automatic pump which can handle 2200 gallons per hour. That pump is 2.5 feet below the cabin sole and if it were to start up, a siren would sound. We are a long way from that happening. If the large pump ran, it would probably mean that the small pump had worn out. We carry a complete replacement on board. In a few more days we will be running and the bow will not be nearly so wet. If the problem does not go away, I will go to the bow and stuff foam all around the anchor opening. In Hawaii, I will make some sort of a plug so that we are ready for the Sitka leg.

Our current location, at 1800 UTC, June 8, 2012 is 22 36.223 N, 120 17.902 W

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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.