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)

The sailing world is certainly full of pirates: the ones singing along to Jimmy Buffet, watching Johnny Depp videos, and, of course, the ones running boatyards! The Jolly Roger signals to us not a nautical brigand, but a free-thinking, free-sailing anarchist, the sort of person who stands outside the strictures of the fixed world.

But the pirates those landlubbers are asking about are a different sort. They’re asking about pirates-as-muggers, people deliberately perpetrating bad stuff against cruisers. They see us as particularly vulnerable out there, floating about on our own. I’d sure like to write that it’s a groundless question, but I can’t. Bad things do happen in this world, even to cruisers. But the good news is they happen very rarely, far less often than bad stuff ashore, and there are many things we can do to reduce the chance of it happening to US! Like so much in boating, prevention is the key.

The easiest way to prevent problems is to avoid problem areas. Cruisers have many resources for learning about troubled areas, official government websites like America’s www.travel.state.gov, or Canada’s www.voyage.gc.ca or, more to the point, like Jimmy Cornell’s cruising-specific website www.noonsite.com. The Seven Seas Cruising Association (SSCA) (www.ssca.org) and Canada’s Bluewater Cruising Association (www.bluewatercruising.org) publish monthly bulletins with pointed articles by active cruisers with up-to-date information from cruising destinations around the world. And finally, we have our Ham and SSB radio nets on which we all share the most current information. The Caribbean even has a specific net devoted to “Safety and Security” issues (www.safetyandsecuritynet.com)

Beware, though, of paranoia. One cruiser’s mountain may prove to be another’s molehill!

When traveling through dicey areas, many cruisers opt to travel with buddy boats. For example, in 2000, when we cruised the Caribbean coast of Colombia, the twenty-some boats making the trip traveled in loosely-organized groups of four or five boats, maintaining radio contact and reporting anything suspicious. A more formalized version of group travel are rallies like Sail Indonesia’s annual rally (www.sailindonesia.net) from Darwin, Australia to Kupang and then onward to Singapore. Indonesia is a prime example of an area with a reputation for pirates but which cruisers can’t stay away from.

This leads to the other question that cruisers hear over and over: Do you carry a gun aboard? No one has admitted to me that they do. The red tape for declaring guns in foreign ports – where you often have to leave them locked up upon arrival and then return to collect them upon departure – is way too inconvenient for most small boats, and the penalties risked in carrying undeclared weapons is high. The reality is you may not be able to reach your concealed gun quick enough, and, since most of us aren’t trained weapon handlers, it is as likely to be turned against us. Consider instead “alternative” defenses such as an extra flare gun, a can or two of pepper spray (Bear Spray from hunting stores is the jumbo version!), a fishing club, or even your spear gun – all (except the pepper spray) things with other real uses aboard.

A more realistic anxiety is petty theft and burglary at anchor, and here prudence is the watchword. “We ALWAYS lock the boat,” says Jane of Cormorant, “even in a ‘safe’ place, because we decided it was foolish to always be deciding if a new place is safe or not. And realistically, a thief is as likely to be another boatie as a local.” Fearing a boarding at night while they sleep, many cruisers prep their boats against these eventualities, fabricating custom-made grates for the companionway and hatches, mounting simple motion detectors on side decks or companionways, or, as we have, wiring deck lights and a siren to a switch over our bunk. Donna of Exit Only recommends a flashlight in every cabin, and Debbie of Illusions keeps an air horn at her bedside and locks herself in at night. And then, of course, there are dogs. Marjetka, a Slovenian single-hander aboard Little Mermaid, rescued a scrawny pup from mistreatment in Martinique and gained a loyal –and watchful – cruising companion. “Many island men see a woman alone and think they are doing us a favor with a midnight call. They think twice with Cherie aboard.”

One of the most enticing possessions cruisers have is their outboard engine — universally in demand and hard to identify. To hold on to yours, lock it to your dinghy and hoist the dinghy out of the water at night, either on davits or with a halyard and harness alongside the boat (which will also keep its bottom clean!). In areas with a bad reputation, take the extra step to lock the dinghy to the boat with a cable run through the engine and gas container…and use the same cable to lock it up at dinghy docks.

The stuff we leave about the deck is also tempting to locals passing by: gas cans, fishing rods, snorkel gear, spare lines, towels, T-shirts. From a passing canoe or panga it is too easy to lift simple items like these, often something the locals may actually need. You may be surprised to find that respect for personal possessions is not a world-wide fundamental, especially in communal cultures where all things are readily shared.

For the same reason, exercise discretion about who you invite on board, especially who you invite below decks. You will certainly make friends as you cruise, and you will want to reciprocate native hospitality by entertaining them on the boat. But differentiate between new friends and people you hardly know. The less innocent among them may use a visit to “case” your possessions.

In areas where cruisers more regularly gather, theft of opportunity may have advanced to deliberate burglary. It is easy to become careless when talking on the radio, to say on the air that you will be off the boat for diner ashore or will be flying out for a trip back home. Publicizing by any means that your boat will be unattended is unwise, and whenever you must leave it, leave a bright light on in the cockpit and try to arrange with a known buddy boat to keep a watchful eye. When leaving your boat long term, stash anything valuable and portable well out of sight.

Finally, when going ashore don’t “bait the hook.” Dress down instead of up, taking care not to affront locals customs (eg. Short shorts and bikini tops!), and leave your glittery jewelry on board (although a simple wedding band can be good insurance for women!) Use the same street smarts you would in any downtown area, and carry your bag across your shoulders with a hand on it, and put in it only what you need for the day.

The key to safe cruising, I think, is to avoid romanticizing the innocence of the paradises we visit. As Jane of Cormorant says, “Back home there are muggings in every city, and yet we went freely to stores, to work, or to the movies. We locked our cars and our house and knew not to go into certain areas at some hours. We used normal caution. Why less on the boat? It may be that the world is becoming more dangerous, but I think it would be a horrible life to give in to fear and live in a locked-up, gated artificial place. There are so many wonderful people and places in this world, and I hope and plan to get to know more of them.”

Contributing Admirals: Jane Lothrop, Cormorant; Debbie Leisure, Illusions; Jean Service, Jean Marie; Donna Abbott, Exit Only; Judy Knape, Ursa Minor; Kathy Blanding, Sunflower; Marjetka, Little Mermaid; and others. (And thanks very much to my webmaster, Sherry McCampbell on Soggy Paws)

This article was published in the October 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)