Consider the story of Sheri Schneider of the Gozzard 44 Procyon. After many years of preparation and short-range trips to the Bahamas and Maine, Sheri and her husband Randy — in their 40s, fit and with Randy recently retired from the US Coast Guard — left Beaufort, NC bound for the Panama Canal by way of the Western Caribbean. They had a long-planned rendezvous with friends they’d made in the Bahamas to transit the canal and head for the Pacific. All went well on the transit, and they got an auspicious start on their first long passage – six days from Panama to the Galapagos – with near perfect sailing conditions.

On their first morning in Puerto Ayora, however, Randy woke with stomach pain. “We blamed it on the arrival lunch with our friends the day before and continued on with an island tour. But throughout the day and the following night, Randy’s conditioned worsened, and after some fruitless visits to the local clinic we realized the problem was becoming serious.” Thanks to their membership in DAN*, Sheri was able to make one call and the medical evacuation to Quito was arranged. Within a half hour of arriving in the emergency room, Randy was in surgery for a perforated ulcer!

Being sick in a foreign country where the language is different and the standard of care may not seem to measure up to what we’re used to is an anxious experience many cruisers encounter in their travels. Likewise, leaving the boat in an unfamiliar anchorage does not help. Yet both these experiences went well for Sheri and Randy because of two fundamental assets: membership in DAN, which coordinated every aspect of the emergency evacuation, and friendships with other cruisers they could rely on. Unfortunately, because the doctor in Quito recommended six weeks of recuperation, Sheri and Randy were forced to watch those friends sail on without them.

“When we finally departed for the Marquesas, we made great time, averaging over 160 miles a day the first nine days.” On May 8, however, with 1266 miles to go, a badly-timed lurch knocked Randy over and he fell onto the cockpit table hitting his back and his head. “At first we were most worried about a concussion, but the next morning Randy woke with major stomach pains again. “ Although the symptoms were somewhat different, by the 10^th, he could no longer manage his watches and was out flat below. He could not keep food, medication or water down, and he had not passed anything in days. Abruptly Sheri found herself single-handing a forty-four foot boat, standing all the watches, doing the navigation, handling the sails, even attending to the engine. They were halfway across the Pacific. “I was very much afraid Randy might die.”

From their first boat, a Macgregor 26’, Sheri and Randy worked at their sailing together. Obviously his Coast Guard career gave Randy a huge head start, but he insisted Sheri learn everything he did, and she was lucky that he was a good teacher, “a natural explainer.” They continued to learn together as they graduated over the next twelve years from the Macgregor in California and Oregon to a C&C 37 in Newport, RI, and finally in North Carolina to Procyon which they had built for them. Having the boat built meant they could have her fitted just the way they wanted, and four years later Sheri would have cause to appreciate the cutter-rig’s furling sails, controls led back to the cockpit, integrated cockpit navigation, and the single electric winch installed in consideration of Sheri’s bad shoulder.

But to Sheri on her own in the Pacific, the most important piece of equipment on Procyon was their SSB radio. Although their closest friends were long arrived in the Marquesas, Sheri could still be in touch with them via the morning crossing net. Alerted to her crisis, other boats on passage joined in to lend moral support by radio throughout the day, and three nearby Norwegian-flagged boats listening to the net changed course to maneuver into VHF range. Additionally Dr. Tom Walker of the catamaran Quantum Leap, although 500 miles ahead, daily talked Sheri through monitoring Randy’s vitals and administering treatments (enemas fashioned from a first aid kit syringe and some heat shrink tubing administered ten minutes every hour in an effort to ease the suspected blockage and combat dehydration.) “You can’t get that kind of support over a satellite phone.”

While Sheri juggled being both a full-time skipper and nurse, her friends, recognizing that Randy’s deteriorating condition required evacuation, took on contacting the authorities. Working with the USCG and French Navy, a nearby container ship enroute from Panama to Papeete was diverted to a rendezvous. Meanwhile, the Norwegian boats converged on Procyon and launched a dinghy to facilitate the transfer to the 700’ vessel.

This was Sheri’s worst moment. The ship could spare no crew to help with Procyon. Would Randy’s care aboard be any better than she was giving? Could Randy last the 2-3 days it would take the ship to reach Papeete? And should she go with him…which would mean abandoning the boat?

Suspecting he would refuse to go on that basis, Sheri decided to stay with their boat, but watching the ship steam away after Randy was hoisted aboard was an awful moment. “How would I find him? How would I get news? Had I made the right choice? As long as he was in the bunk below, I’d known I could count on him for a hug and to answer questions. Now I was on my own.” That night Jan and Eva on Necessity shadowed her and kept watch for both boats so Sheri could try for some much-needed sleep, but all the uncertainties continued to haunt her.

The morning brought good news. Unknown to them, the container ship had a French woman doctor as passenger who’d promptly put Randy on an IV. Hydrated and on a stable platform, his insides finally got a break, and the blockage, probably an intestinal adhesion from the surgery that had broken away in the fall, passed. Randy rebounded overnight and was able to tell her himself on the morning net.

Unfortunately, with 800 miles still remaining to Nuku Hiva, the wind was dying. Motoring now, Sheri had to deal with such practical issues as fuel supply and a clogging filter. Alerted to her concerns, their friends on Endangered  Species and Wind Pony in Nuku Hiva filled all spare fuel jugs and shuffled crew so that one boat could motor out to meet her with help. “I can’t tell you what it felt like when I saw Wind Pony motoring over the horizon, blasting Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” over their speakers.”

Now, fifteen months (and some thorough medical checkups later), Sheri and Randy sit on the lovely Procyon shifting gently on her mooring in Musket Cove as Sheri tells me this story. Around us are moored many of the players from this saga, friends for life. The Schneiders have sailed 5000 more miles since the Marquesas, including the vigorous roundtrip to New Zealand, with no further problems, and they have many more they mean to sail. “I didn’t want to go, you know,” says Randy. “It was a fait accompli by the time I knew about it. But I knew she would be okay. She had the abilities to do it.”

“And that’s the point of telling this story,” says Sheri, “that women need to know. They need to know about evacuation insurance, and they need to know about the importance of an SSB radio and how to use it to get help and support from nearby. But most of all they need to know their boat systems and how to sail the boat if the worst happens. Women came up to me afterward and called me a hero, but there’s not a thing heroic about it. It’s just being able to do what you have to.”

*DAN or Diver’s Alert Network is not just for scuba divers. Join at http://www.diversalertnetwork.org

This article was published in the December 2007 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

Related articles (on this website)

• Peace of Mind—Emergency Skills (Admiral’s Angle column #4)
• Taking Care of Ourselves (Admiral’s Angle column #30)

Most of my Admirals have, like me, been cruising long enough that, when they started, their onboard options were the same ones that served generations before us. As Jean of Jean Marie says about their first circumnavigation, “We were only able to call home from land once when we were about to depart and once again we’d arrived. For detailed news, we depended totally on snail mail, and when a letter was waiting it was a highlight.” Getting snail mail in far-flung ports required an itinerary that both they and their contacts back home could stick to, and breaking news of, say, a sick parent might reach them weeks late!

As little as eight years ago, when Don and I set out on our open-ended cruise, our onboard communications options were only one step higher…but it was a big step. Our HF radio transceiver (SSB and Ham) gave us access to the give-and-take of radio nets through which we could talk to other cruisers or get access to help – medical or mechanical – via phone patches to experts. HF radio also brought us voice weather and , with a computer, weatherfax via the easy addition of a software program and a demodulator. We could even receive phone messages and make return phone calls home via the Marine Operator. I couldn’t (and still can’t) imagine cruising without my radio.

Besides being unable to receive calls directly, the big problem with phone calls by radio, besides cost, was that at least one half of the conversation was open to eavesdropping! To make a private phone call, we had to get off the boat, buy a phone card and find a phone booth.

The advent of email began to change things for cruisers. Initially, it was only available ashore in Internet cafes. Fortunately, most of the out-of-the-way places cruisers like to go quickly embraced the Internet café concept, since it was often a huge jump forward in communications for the locals. About the same time, Pocketmail became popular, enabling cruisers to compose short emails on a calculator-sized device and send from anywhere they could get a phone connection. Ironically, one of the biggest stumbling blocks in this new age was persuading family members back home, often older parents, to get computers and get connected.

Internet cafes and Pocketmail still depended on being ashore in a port with at least a phone connection. Everything changed with the introduction of Airmail . This wonderful software program coupled cruisers’ onboard computers via TNC modems to their HF radios and brought email right aboard, whether in port or in the middle of the ocean.

Today, almost every cruiser I know has either a Winlink (Ham version) or Sailmail (commercial Marine version) email address or both. With a General Class Ham license, a cruiser can send up to 30 minutes of email a day through more than a hundred volunteer stations around the world at no charge. Without a ham license, or if needing to do business-related communication, a cruiser can connect to any of Sailmail’s commercial stations around the world 15 minute a day for a reasonable annual fee. With onboard email, not only have cruisers been able to reassure folks back home with regular communiqués and position reports but to stay in touch with each other as well, a revolution in the connectedness of our worldwide floating community. Winlink and Sailmail have also brought us increased access to weather information, downloadable by requesting specific products to be put in your e-mailbox, as well as to remote troubleshooting of onboard equipment malfunctions via email exchanges with manufacturers’ tech reps.

The one thing radio has not been able to bring us is the Internet. Cruisers are heavy users of the Internet. We use it to research passage information and weather (from sources like Jimmy Cornell’s Noonsite and NOAA); share experiences through personal websites; pay bills via online banking; locate spare parts; book air travel home; keep up with the news; and to make international Skype voice calls at a fraction of overseas telephone rates. We can even collect our radio email, Winlink or Sailmail, right online via their built-in Telnet Options.

There are three ways to bring the Internet on board. The simplest is to bring your boat into a harbor or marina that has WiFi, a service which seems to be proliferating everywhere. While the built-in Wifi modems in laptops aren’t designed to work over distances much wider than the inside of a house, the addition of an external WiFi antenna and amplifier can increase reception range up to several miles.

Coastal cruisers in many countries can often get decent cell phone service, and another way to get Internet aboard, is a cellular broadband card. Cell reception can also be enhanced with an external antenna and amplifier; however, it’s good to remember that cell companies have little incentive to aim their towers out to sea. In the US, cellular service contracts are often inflexible annual commitments with one company. In Fiji we are getting Internet on board Tackless II through a cellular card for a reasonable month-by-month charge. In Europe, Mary of Iwanda tells us, cellular is a good option. “Cruisers can purchase an ‘unlocked’ cell phone (or broadband card) into which you insert a SIM card chip for the amount of prepaid service you want, changing the SIM card in each country you visit to minimize long distance charges.”

Last but not least are satellite telephones. Out here in the Pacific, for example, Iridium’s worldwide service with special compression software lets cruisers get email and weather anytime of day in a minute or two download. We can call home from anywhere for special birthdays or a forgotten Mother’s Day, pay credit card bills, argue with insurance companies, even call the Coast Guard if we’re sinking. Being portable, we can take it in our abandon-ship bag, and it’s the perfect backup should a dismasting bring the antenna down with the rig. We can even have Internet access….. if we’re willing to pay the per-minute price.

So, you see, it is really much less a question of whether you can stay in touch than how. Obviously, not every cruiser will have every system. It will largely depend on where you are cruising and how much you want to spend. Most cruisers today are equipped to take advantage of a variety of options in particular situations and to cover different needs. Radio may not be able to give you the Internet, but WiFi, cellular and satphones can’t give you your cruising community.

An unexpected outcome of all this technology is that communication can become a burdensome obligation. Emails need replies, websites have to be updated, and, most importantly, radio skeds – where someone keeps track of your position on passage –must be kept. You may find you are spending more time than you want “online” instead of “out experiencing”.

Plus, there is one more caveat to all this hi-tech stuff; any or all of it can break. “People get used to hearing from you,” says Jane of Cormorant, a Corbin 39 currently heading for Indonesia and Singapore, “and if the communication stops, they panic and think you sank! We sometimes regret the loss of some of the freedom we used to have. There was something quite nice and liberating about really being out of touch.”

Contributing Admirals: Jean Service, Jean Marie; Mary Verlaque, Iwanda; Donna Abbott, Exit Only; Jane Lothrop, Cormorant; Marti Brown, HF Radio for Idiyachts, plus others. (And thanks very much to my webmaster, Sherry McCampbell on Soggy Paws)

This article was published in the September 2007 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

So, at the top of the list are emergency procedures starting with how to turn off that autopilot, preferably followed by all the steps to execute a successful man-overboard recovery. Practice of this skill, under sail and under power and on your own boat with your own gear, will take away the single biggest anxiety on the minds of most cruising women (as it ought to do for male captains…only they never imagine they’ll go overboard.) Yet it is rarely practiced. Too much bother to free the man-overboard pole from where it’s jammed in, bring the boat around, drop the sails, get the LifeSling wet. And God forbid you should push the MOB button on your GPS; it’s a bitch to get turned off. Hey, I’m not pointing fingers. I can’t remember the last time we practiced on Tackless II. Tomorrow, honey.

Probably the next important skill is knowing how to use your radios, in particular to call for help. You may already know that VHF 16 is the emergency and hailing frequency, but when offshore out of VHF range do you know how to use your SSB? There are many good radio books, but one I like is Marine SSB Radio for “Idi-Yachts by (Ms.) Capt. Marti Brown. Marti will tame that glowing, squawking box into something you can use everyday to keep in touch with your widening circle of mobile friends (as well as those you left behind), and in Chapter Three she lays out everything you need to know about emergency calls. Copy down the official USCG format for Mayday calls, fill in all the specifics of your boat, and post it by your radios, so you won’t have to think when you can’t! If you are cruising in foreign waters, use the ready-made pages on emergency radio calls in Kathy Parsons’ indispensable Spanish for Cruisers and French For Cruisers

Even if you have taken all the sailing courses in the world, if your captain becomes unexpectedly unavailable, finding yourself in charge of your own boat the first time is a sobering moment. You must, essentially, singlehand. For example, it is more important for a suddenly-single hander to know how to reduce sail than to raise it. Learn how to take a reef (or two), furl the headsail to a handkerchief, set the staysail (especially if it is self-tending), or get rid of the sails altogether and start the engine You may want to get where you are going in a hurry, but making your boat “smaller” and less work will help you feel in control.

Next, you need to know how to get where you are going, i.e. navigate. In this day and age of GPS and electronic charting, this is much easier than it used to be, with point-and-click waypoints, tracks you can follow in or out, and a boat icon on the screen you can steer away from hazards. But like traditional navigation on paper charts, just having the tools does you no good if you don’t know how to use them. Take a Power Squadron navigation course. Admirals often end up being their boat’s primary navigator!

Lastly, when you anchor with your captain, you are probably either on the foredeck or behind the wheel. Get in the habit of switching places so you are comfortable both with the principles of handling the boat when setting or retrieving the anchor as well as operating the windlass and “man”-handling the anchor at the roller. Then formulate a plan for doing both by yourself, and practice in different conditions.

Emergencies will hopefully never happen, but are emergency skills ones you’ll never use? Hardly! Every one of the above skills can be something you use every single day you are cruising …even the MOB drill….for the ball cap your captain loses overboard!

This article was published in the November 2006 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

Related articles (on this website)

• The Need to Know (Admiral’s Angle column #17 )
• Getting Started (Admiral’s Angle column #3 )
• How We Learn – Women tell us how they have learned the skills they need to sail and cruise (Women and Cruising blog)