The Morning Muster Sailing Podcast

Let's talk about boat projects! We love them and hate them, or do we? They require alot of planning and thought, in addition to the actual labor. We chat with two sailors — Steve Swartz and Daphne Douglas, who are both knee-deep in large refits of their boats to discuss the ins and outs of the process. They offer some tips on planning and execution, as well as finding the right balance between money, time, and sailing.

Daphne Douglas is a field geoscientist and anthropologist turned sailor. She began refitting her “antique” 1979 Fast Passage 39, Izadora, during the summer of our pandemic year. The engine died on her way down the Chesapeake, landing her in Deltaville where she now spends the better part of the year. Having sat out the bulk of 2021 to attend to other things, she returned to the boat a year ago to discover that water had found its way in from the topsides and turned the interior into a moldy swamp that has sent her on a refitting and refinishing journey. Daphne has fallen in love with the journey and the process. You will never know your boat better than when you have to tear it all apart and rebuild it with your own hands.

Find her Instagram:
@svizadora (the boat journey)
@daphnephilia (personal, travel, artistic)

Steve Swartz likes to tinker! He has worked on and around various vessels for the past 16 years. He has made his living exclusively through boat work for 11 of them, and the past 8 as Captain. The vessels have ranged from commercial fishing and dredging, to traditional Schooners and high end yachts. All of them were broken at some point! Steve is a firm believer in "Boat Karma" — do good things for your boat often, ideally when it's somewhat convenient, and that will pay dividends down the road, hopefully when it wouldn't have been convenient.

Find him and his wife Jenny on Instagram:
@gambellandhunter

This episode is sponsored by:

Outland Hatch Covers. Outland makes next-gen hatch covers made from PVC that protect your hatch-acrylic from harmful UV damage and help keep the cabin cool. They’re also super easy to put on and take off.

We’ve got Outland Hatch Covers on all our hatches and even all the ports in the cabin and hull. We love them. Check out outlandhatchcovers.com for more info.

Music by Tim Eriksen: timerksenmusic.com

Biz Wallace (she/her) is a captain, artist, waterwoman, and activist. Originally from North Carolina, Biz has spent the last ten years sailing professionally around the world. She has a BA in Design from USC and holds her 100 ton USCG captains license, commercial able seaman endorsement, and is a certified lifeguard and rescue diver. She volunteers for several climate justice organizations and is an outspoken advocate for the inclusion of BIPOC women in maritime. You can find out more at Biz's website: bizwallace.com

Jesse Weigel started sailing about a decade ago as an intern aboard a schooner in Washington state. After that, he went full fledged into the tall ship world, sailing on schooners on both the east and west coasts. He did some transatlantic square rigged time, and various small boat program work in my hometown of Port Townsend, Washington. He spent a few summers as a watch officer for Hurricane Island Outward Bound both in Maine and Florida. His last tall ship contract was aboard the Dutch sail training vessel Gulden Leeuw, sailing with the Canadian program class afloat. He prefers to teach sailing as a vessel towards self discovery and teamwork rather than for the sake of sailing (although that is a very worthy cause!)

Episode is sponsored by Beta Marine
For over 20 years Beta Marine has been providing smooth, reliable marine diesels. These are 100% mechanical engines, built on the Kubota block, with widely available parts and a 5 year warranty. Beta Marine USA has a new online parts store; plus: saildrives, alternators, custom mounts and feathering props. betamarinenc.com

Music by Tim Eriksen

Guests:
Emily Whebbe of Sailing the Bakery
John Kretschmer, offshore junky, fantastic story teller, author, educator

Sponsor:
Fiorentino Para-Anchor
Fiorentino makes smart products that slow or stop your boat's drift during a storm or mechanical failure at sea. They have an improved parachute anchor and a Shark Drogue which can be used as either a speed limiting drogue or for emergency steering.

We’ve tested both aboard Rocinante,when we were doing emergency preparedness drills. They were easy to store and deploy, and super stout. And, fiorentino is offering discount if you mention the Morning Muster Podcast.

Music:
Tim Eriksen, Ben's Brother.

Rough Outline:
What's your food philosophy?! When you're eating your best, you're eating your best! How to store food for a passage with 6 people aboard. We try to remove as much trash as possible and get rid of the styrofoam, and plastic packaging. We like to pre-freeze our meat. But we don't bother removing labels on cans, but we don't even buy that much canned food. How do you balance how much produce to bring and know how much to buy before it goes bad? We generally eat all the produce first. We like using inventory lists and a menu to help keep track of what we have. But early on in the passage, theres more seasickness. Day 1 is usually pasta, because it's easy on the belly. The next few days are tacos with rice and beans and various toppings, depending on how you are feeling. But rice and beans and tortillas are usually pretty good options for seasickness and settling stomachs. John likes to plan out meals, and has it all worked out in his head, and cooks during his passages.

Cooking in the galley is a nice time to just chill and putter around in a little galley-oasis! We all seem to enjoy cooking in the galley. It's always a good idea to have a few super easy options on the menu for those days you just don't feel like cooking. The watch schedule plays an important part in how you schedule your meals. But often times we keep meals aligned with watch changes. And it's important to establish a routine with food. It helps people get over the seasick hump. In general, its good to push good healthy meals pretty hard in the beginning. Not eating, doesn't help you adjust. When you lose your eating routine on land and just climb into a bunk, you're more prone to seasickness.

Captains hour on board Quetzal. Your life on the boat should reach a state of happiness and well being thats equal to your life on land. It tends to relax people, and start to tell stories. It's an equalizer. Theres different levels of experience, and it's easy to feel intimidated. When everyone starts telling their own stories, Captains hour gives you time to tell your story. And having a glass of wine sometimes help that. And the goal is to help people find their groove. The time between point A and B is what it's all about. It's a very self regulating thing. You're generally so tired and trying to get yourself together, you don't abuse it. There's no peer pressure. And there's often plenty of club soda with lime!

What we're talking about is food rituals. What do you keep aboard for the ritual? It's great tp keep treats on board - like fancy olives! If all else fails, we have olives. But Emily loves dessert, and her 9 year old loves em too! A treat offshore at the end of the day is a great ritual. John is always selling people on things like canned Octopus from Spain. But it was profoundly disappointing! Teresa like to sneak treats into Bens duffel bag and fills his water bottle with fizzy water!

One day we decide to eat everything on the boat before we went shopping again. To help clear out the lockers. Newfoundland and Labrador is depressing how poorly and unhealthy they eat there. The vegetable selection is pretty much limited to potatoes.There's a lot you can do with a can of tomatoes or chickpeas toward the end of a passage. Creativity is important as the fresh food disappears. There was a french family with 40 cabbages in the bilge. How long can we go without shopping? Emily went 5 weeks without shopping. Kale and cabbages were lasting forever, and it became a competition with myself to see how long we could go. 😎 In Grenada, there was a huge rush on the stores during the early days of the Pandemic -- and now we have some really weird cans aboard, because it was panic buying! On Rocinante we found a random can of beans that exploded in the bilge and there was mold all over the place.

How do you stay hydrated? Water gets so boring after a while. Carbonated water is the go-to. Emily has a 5lb bottle of CO2 that lasts about a year! Great idea! Sometimes ...

Ben sat down with Jon Bilger, the founding director of PredictWind, a weather app – well, more than a weather app. It helps sailors plan voyages and find weather windows. Ben also talked with Behan Gifford, Circumnavigator and cruising consultant. The three of them talked about Weather forecasting tools and the professional-level data that is available to all of us now, anywhere in the world.

About Behan:
Behan has made her home aboard a Stevens 47 for the last fifteen years, circumnavigating with her husband and three children. It's given her meaningful experience with weather routing and predictions. The prospect of sailing offshore is intimidating for many: demystifying that, taking the mystery out and making it feel addressable, is addressed in the coaching service she and her husband have to help folks successfully cut the docklines.

https://www.sailingtotem.com/

About Jon:
Jon Bilger is the founding director of PredictWind, and a keen competitive yachtsman with achievements in Alinghi Weather as Team Manager, a winner of the Americas Cups in 2003 and 2007, and as the Alinghi Weather Team Manager for the 2010 Dog Match. Also competing in the 1992 in Barcelona grabbing a 7th place in the 470 class.

https://www.predictwind.com/

The Music:
Stands For Nothing

A discussion about GPS! We all use it everyday, more than we probably even realize. But is it all it's cracked up to be and will it last? We chat with Pauline Cook, formerly a Coast Guard captain who's involved with the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation and Scott Logan, a GPS consultant and expert.

This episode of The Morning Muster Podcast is sponsored by:
Our friends Katie & Lyall at Sun Powered Yachts who helped us expand our solar array. They’re a SunPower authorized dealer and offer both flexible panels and fixed frame panels ranging from 50w to 410W. They’re super high efficiency solar panels, which means more power in less space. Katie & Lyall are both sailors & have lived off grid for over 8 years. They provide free consultation to help you size and build a DIY system. Check out their website for more info www.sunpoweredyachts.com and use the promocode MORSEALPHA to get 10% off their flexible panels.

Music By:
Tim Eriksen is acclaimed for transforming American tradition with his startling interpretations of old ballads, love songs, shape-note gospel and dance tunes from New England and Southern Appalachia. He combines hair-raising vocals with inventive accompaniment on banjo, fiddle, guitar and bajo sexto - a twelve string Mexican acoustic bass - creating a distinctive hardcore Americana sound that ranges from the bare bones of solo unaccompanied singing on Soul of the January Hills through the stripped-down voice and bajo sexto Christmas album Star in the East to the lush, multi-layered arrangements on Josh Billings Voyage, an album of northern roots American music from the imaginary village of Pumpkintown.