What Almost Prevented Our Sailboat Trip Around the World

Many obstacles might have stopped or delayed our sailboat trip around the world. Recently, we put together details on how we avoided or resolved them © Dan Reasoner

A compelling account of how planning, risk management and luck helped overcome obstacles during an ambitious around-the-world sailing voyage.

Description

This book, which is available on Amazon, depicts numerous serious and comical situations that may have prevented or delayed the around-the-world voyage of TRANCE, an Island Packet 45-foot sailboat. Many incidents were avoided with appropriate preparation, planning and risk avoidance practices. Yet, others were averted by sheer luck and mitigating action.

“If you attempt to be completely prepared for a sailboat journey, you may never cast off your dock lines to depart”

“I’ll be the first to admit that we and the boat were not 100% prepared to sail around the world, yet it seemed all was ready and safe enough to begin”

“When we finish our journey around the world, we will finally be ready and prepared to start the trip”

About the Author

Dan Reasoner began sailing activities in his early twenties crewing on Thistle sailboats in western New York, while at the Rochester Canoe Club, then later, on larger yachts out of the Rochester Yacht Club. Soon after their marriage, Dan and Marlene purchased their own Thistle and raced together with children and others for over 40 years. During all this time, Dan nurtured The Dream of sailing around the world. Then, as retirement approached, the desire and means of fulfilling The Dream became apparent. As a result, serious planning for the trip began, and the voyage around the world became a reality.

Excerpt – The LaConte Glacier

While Marlene and I leisurely traveled through the picturesque channels and passageways of southeastern Alaska, we decided to visit our first glacier, the LaConte Glacier. When a glacier “calves”, ice brakes away from the face of the glacier and drops into the sea. It’s an incredible site to see glaciers calving. You are observing ice that was formed thousands of years ago splash into the water. Yet at the same time, it’s sad to think the glacier is losing some of its structure, especially since in recent decades most glaciers are receding rather than growing. Indeed, we saw many glaciers that don’t calve anymore and their ice drops on land at the base of the glacier.

You can imagine there’s a lot of floating ice and icebergs near a calving glacier. Also, it’s recommended to stay at least ¼ mile from a calving glacier since large waves may develop because of falling ice. As it turns out, the LaConte Glacier is the southernmost glacier in the Northern Hemisphere that calves.

Sailing down the Frederick Sound, we noticed in the distance ahead of us, large white objects in the middle of the waterway. What looked like floating refrigerators turned out to be icebergs from the LaConte Glacier. Then, the icebergs became larger and more numerous as we entered LaConte Bay. Some icebergs were the stunning deep blue color of solid ice, and many were larger than TRANCE!

To get to the face of the LaConte Glacier, you need to proceed about seven miles to the end of the bay, which is more like a curvy river that eventually narrows to less than ½ mile wide. We nervously and slowly navigated around iceberg after iceberg, while smaller ice chunks were nudging against the hull. Some ice chunks were translucent and floated at, or just below the surface of the water, making them difficult to see. Marlene often reminded me that most of the iceberg is below the waterline ready to rip a gash in TRANCE, like what happened to the Titanic.

We could see the top of the glacier, yet to get a good view of the face, we needed to proceed around the last curve in the bay. We were still 2 miles from the Glacier, and it was there that the ice closed-in all around us. At that narrow section of the bay, the steep rock walls, and the deep water was freezing cold. Fearfully there was concern, TRANCE might be crushed like a tin can. It was getting too frightening for us and we decided to turn around. Marlene was on the bow of TRANCE, using the extended boathook, she was pushing ice chunks away from our path. We exited the bay mostly unscathed, except one underwater gremlin that likely left a scar on TRANCE’s keel.

While leaving the bay, I realized some of the recognizable larger icebergs were actually closer to the glacier than before, rather than floating away. I checked the tide chart and realized high tide was approaching. Much of the ice was moving back toward the glacier, in the rising tide’s current. No wonder the ice was closing in on us! From then on, we always approached glaciers after high tide, when icebergs were shifting away from the glacier.

New book will help those intending to set sail RTW - photo © Dan Reasoner