Exploration 45

It's been a long time since my last post but summer is a very busy time for the Morgan family.  Sailing takes precedent over everything!  We had a small issue with our current boat, a Shannon 43 Ketch, which required much of my time recently.  Seems the yard forgot to shrinkwrap it over the winter and we suffered a wee bit of water damage.  More on that later.  The good news is we have confirmed our build slot with the yard for our new Gracia Exploration 45.  This is the custom Allure 45 that I eluded to in earlier posts.  We'll be busy for the next year planning the build and with project management.  The crew at Garcia/Allure is very tech savvy and post pictures of the build on an almost daily basis.  Much easier option than having to be over in France!  We're still very excited about how the boat has been modified for the "expedition style" of cruising.  If you click on the link above, and go to the downloads section, you can see the various configurations available.  We're going with the Jimmy Cornell version as we hope to have a full crew for most of the time.

Anyone interested in a Shannon 43 Ketch?  In the middle of a total refit, should come out just like new!!!

Arctic Monkey Options List

Here is the factory Option List for Arctic Monkey.  I welcome all comments and suggestions.  We'll be adding a few aftermarket things too.  Zetty also has a special cook top in mind but I don't have the specs yet.

Arctic Monkey Base Boat - Custom Allures 45

Hot water at swim platform shower - Must have for high latitude sailing with 4+ girls!

MaxProp upgrade - I'm a performance sailor at heart.

Remote Windlass Command

Power Upgrade to 75hp Volvo D2-75 Sail-Drive - Safety reasons, when you have to get somewhere...

Mooring Package, anchors fore and aft.

Safety Package for 8 - Includes Life Raft, flares, harnesses, etc.

Port Aft Cabin instead of technical cabin - 2 more bunks.

Workbench in sail locker

Lee cloth for all bunks

Foot pump for sea/fresh water in galley

Washing Machine

Katadyn 160E Watermaker

Microwave Oven

Upgrade to 1 frig, 1 freezer drawers

Radiant Heating - Wabesto

40L Water heater

Electro-Scan for One Toilet

Electric Gas Shutoff

Dual Racor fuel filters

ALGAE-X fuel conditioner system

Upgraded Electricity Package to include USA 110v

Battery Manager

D400 Wind Generator

280W Solar Panel w/Charge Controller

Watt&Sea Hydrogenerator

Isolation Transformer 3600W

B&G Zeus 8" Navigation Package

B&G AIS Black Box

NAVICO WiFi GoFree Box

B&G 4G Broadband Radar

2 Waterproof cockpit speakers

Performance Sail Package - No bed sheets on this yacht.

Self tacking Staysail, furler & back-stays

Mini Doger with handrails

ICOM M802 SSB with Pactor III modem

Backstay Insulation for SSB

IRIDIUM antenna on arch

8 Hella Turbo2 Fans

1 Electric Toilet, 1 Manual

Complete HARKEN upgrade for all winches, furlers and running gear.

New Name and Possible New Boat!

  I realize that its been a long time since my last post but we've been working hard.  We've decided on a new name for the new new boat, Arctic Monkey.  Kind of mixing our Arctic journey and our current name, Monkey's Orphan.  Everyone called us the Chunky Monkey so now we're just chill'in it out.

As for the new new boat, that's where the time has been spent.  Our friend Jimmy Cornell called about a month ago to ask if we had purchased a boat yet.  I said no, his reply was "good LJ, I'm going to get a new boat and you may be interested too."  Turns out that Jimmy has been working very hard with the Allures yard in France on a custom Allures 45.  It's setup for world cruising and has all the things that you'd need.  We took one look at it and decided that made economic sense.  Since then we've been working with Allures Stephan Constance on the options for the base boat.  As this is the Blue Planet Odyssey, we've gone as green as we can with Solar, Wind and Hydro for power, ElctroScan for the holding tanks.  We done quite a bit of research on the equipment but thankfully there are some very thoughtful owners out on the water sharing their ideas on the net.  One thing I had to insist on was Harken gear where we could and Allures said no problem!  This is a big plus for us as Harken is a very big company close to our home town and Olaf & Peter are very good friends!  On the next post, I'll get into the equipment we've chosen and why.

Arduino Uno + Grove = Ultimate Boat Sensor

We've been pretty busy on the boat front lately but nothing solid yet.  Still working on all aspects.

On another front, I've been working on the ultimate boat sensor setup.  I've combined an Arduino Uno and a Grove Base Shield along with the following sensors:
1) Real Time Clock

2) MQ-5 Gas Sensor (LPG, NG, little alcohol..)
3) Barometer
4) Temp and Humidity
5) MQ-2 Gas Sensor (LPG, i-butane, alcohol)
6) Compass
7) I2C Chain (Can use up to 7 I2C devices)
8) Compass
9) Moisture Meter
10) Air Quality Sensor (Carbon Monoxide,..)
11) Light Sensor
12) 2 Relays
13) Motor Control for 2 small motors
14) GPS  (Backup, location/time for logging data)

All the sensors are from Seeed Studio purchased from EpicTinker.com.  The Arduino has a USB port so all the sensors will output a NEMA0183 type sentence which can be read from any MFD or software.  Should be fun.  Future enhancements will be motion detector and maybe a touch sensor and WiFi.  The Arduino is a lot of fun to work with and uses very little juice so we may have a few more for other things???

This should cover a lot of thing that might go wrong on the boat but also monitor our environment as we travel through uncharted territory.

Finished "The Ice Master" book last week, very well done, recommended reading.

Cheers,
LJ

Preparing for Arctic Sailing

In preparation for our Arctic sailing adventure, I've been putting together a list of books on the subject and reading what's available on the web.  I've read a few over the years, my favorite is actually Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing.  I know it's an Antarctic adventure but I hold it as one of the most amazing pieces of seamanship ever accomplished.  Captain Bligh is of course is my other.  Another of my favorites is the story of Dave & Jaja Martin's arctic journey chronicled in their book, Into the Light.

The biggest thing I take away from all the books is that the more prepared you are, the better your journey will be.  I guess this should be obvious but so many of the polar expeditions left ill prepared and equipped, it's astonishing.  The thrill of leaving and the adventure ahead left many men in fates still unknown.

I'm lucky in that we have over two years to get our act together.  My list so far is outlined below, any additions or suggestions appreciated!  I'll go over each of these in separate posts to get as many eyes on them as possible so as not to miss anything.

Boat - Getting the best possible yacht within budget to complete the trip.
Navigation - Charts, Radar, GPS, AIS, Ice reports, Weather Reports.
Clothing - Foul weather gear, layers, gloves, boots, hats, goggles.
Sustainability - Heating, provisions, water making, fuel, sails.
Schooling - Home school activities for kids.
Science - Preparing for experiments and data recording while sailing.
Research - Being ready by learning from past voyages.
Communications - Regular tracking, voice, data, email and emergency.
Safety - Life raft, ditch bag, life jackets, survival suits, comms.
Backup - Parts, systems, etc.
Admin - Insurance, regulations, medical and visas.
Crew - Selection!

LJ

Two possible names and software dev

We've narrowed the new name down to Ice Monkey or Arctic Monkey.  I guess we're going to wait until we've purchased the actual boat and have spent some time on her before we make the final decision.

On the last post I told of purchasing the OpenROV kit.  I've now completed my software development environment setup.  It consists of Ubuntu 12.10, Eclipse IDE, the Arduino IDE, g++ and gambas for the kids. Most of my mods for the project will be C++ apps to control and read sensors.  I plan to add temp and photo sensors to record sea water temps and water clarity to the ROV.  The founders of OpenROV also have a sea water sampling module that would be fun to add.

Best,
LJ

Underwater searching

One of the most fun things we did while on our last sailing trip was to explore underwater.  Zetty and I are both have our PADI rescue diver certifications.  Our kids are fascinated with swimming and all things that go with it.  That said, I wondered how we could accomplish this while in the cold of the Arctic.  A little searching on the web and I think I've found the perfect solution.  A homemade ROV was my first thought but after looking at many designs, I knew that there was not enough time.  Then I stumbled upon the super cool OpenROV Project.  This looks like the perfect project for the kids and I to put together   We've already made a few projects from the www.makershed.com including our latest, Tiny Wanderer Complete Kit.  These kits are not terribly hard to build and its a good father daughter team exercise.  As the OpenROV project uses much of the same computing hardware, I thought it could be a good match.  I've ordered the kit and anxiously await its arrival.  I concur with the project's founder's that it could really bring underwater exploration to the masses. Who knows, maybe we'll be the ones to find Roald Amundsen's lost plane!

I'm back, staying in contact

OK, I'm back.  Skiing was great, ready to go again with the kids next week.

Most of the people we've told that we're going on a sailing trip asked, "Can we track you?"  On our last circumnavigation, we updated a website when we could.  It turns out that was few and far between.  It was costly, time consuming and difficult.  This time around, the Blue Planet Odyssey will have trackers in all the boats.  I've looked into a few and here's the list I've narrowed it down to:

1) DeLorme - inReach
2) Briartek - Cerberus Cyberlink
3) Spot - SPOT Connect
4) Iridium - Extreme 9575 or 9555

I'm still putting together yet another spreadsheet on costs, coverage, installation issues etc.  I'll post a link as soon as I'm done.

Boat search is going well, waiting for more information on a few select yachts.  Zetty is working hard on the home schooling and we've started to experiment on menu's in the pressure cooker that the kids will eat!

Cheer's,
LJ

Name change most likely

So after Zetty previewed the blog, she asked, "when did we decide to call a new boat, Chunk Monkey?"  OK, I may have jumped the gun on that one but we do both like Chunky Monkey ice cream.  The Shannon is named "Monkey's Orphan" after her father Fireball.  A Monkey's Orphan was a boy on board in the Royal Navy who played a fiddle to keep time for hauling etc.  Zetty's suggestion of "Ice Monkey" fit the bill and I like it too.  Soooo watch for the blog to change names in the future.

I'm putting together my "Boat Survey" spreadsheet which will compare all the boats we're looking at and their various features, equipment etc.  Hopefully this will give us a good comparison between them so we can come up with a logical choice.  All of them are going to need a little work to get ready for high lat sailing so we're trying to get going this summer if possible.

No posts for the next couple of days, on the sticks in VAIL until Monday!

The Crew

Today a little about the Morgan "Crew" that will be making the journey.  My wife, Zetty, and I have three children, Zoe (6), Leah (4) and Rose (1) .  As noted, the kids are pretty young now, which is why we are going to opt for the 2015 passage.  By then Zoe will be 9, Leah 6 1/2, and Rosie will be 4.  They should be able bodied sea-women by then!  They have two Opti's to practice their "long" distance sailing in between now and 2015.

Zoe and Lou (LJ)

I was born and raised in Oconomowoc, WI USA.  I started sailing when I was about 6 years old and have never looked back.  I've competed mainly in the I.L.Y.A scow classes, X, M-16,C,E and A during my career.  My father, Lou Sr., was a huge sailor, and many of our family vacations as kids landed us in the Caribbean on various charter yachts.  In 1986 my mother and father purchased a Nautor's Swan 43.  For the next 12 years we plied the Caribbean islands and then ventured across the Atlantic to the Med.  I was hooked on long distance sailing!  In 1997, my father decided to retire and fulfill his life long dream of circumnavigating.  He again went to Finland and bought a Swan 57RS for the trip.  That's a picture of her during our visit to Antarctica in 1999 in the blog background.  We started the Millennium Odyssey, (MO), in London and finished back in our home port of Falmouth Harbor, Antigua in 2000.  I met my wife on that trip and after returning home, before kids, we purchased a Shannon 43 Ketch to keep our cruising up on the Great Lakes.  All told, I think I must have about 60,000 ocean miles under my belt.  I am a member of the Royal Ocean Racing Club.  Our route on the MO took us around Cape Horn, to Antarctica and around Cape of Good Hope so we did a fair amount of high latitude sailing.  My wife and I think that was the best part of that whole trip and hence our decision for the Northwest Passage.

Leah and Zetty

Lisette, better known as Zetty, is from Lyndhurst, in the U.K.  She also grew up in a sailing family, more so than mine.  They spent many summers in Poole Harbor  sailing Cadet's, Wayfarer's and Red Fox's.  Zetty's father Paul Boot, was the founder of Red Fox Yachts.  When Zetty was eighteen, her parents reluctantly let her sail across the Atlantic as one of two crew on a 28ft boat and she was hooked.  She spent a summer as a Bosun's Mate on the Tall Ship Lord Nelson.  We met in London just before the start of the MO in '98.  She was crew aboard Happy Spirit, an Ocean 60, a boat owned by her friend Liz's father.  Zetty joined the Risque crew 4 months later.  Zetty currently campaigns her MC Scow here in Oconomowoc on Lac La Belle.

Rose

OK, we're in!

  

 I'm sending in our deposit for the Blue Planet Odyssey, (BPO), on Monday.  That means we'll have a space on the Northwest Passage Route for 2015.  Granted this will only happen if conditions permit, it looks likely given the current ice trend.  We have a lot of planning to do, everything from selling the old boat to finding a new one for the trip and possibly longer.  Our current plan is to start the BPO in Kristiansand, Norway in June of 2015 and finish in Hawaii by October.  Its going to be cold, windy and stormy but with the proper preparation and sailing smart, we should make it.

  In the following days, I'll be posting our list of things to do, statuses and various other tid bits for long distance cruising.  I'll also post some of the things I'll be doing slightly differently than our last cruise, the Millennium Odyssey (1998-2000).  We'll have crew pictures, boat pics and a few oldies just to have a laugh or three!

  I'll also be commenting on the how, why, what on the BPO and how it pertains to our participation.  Not everyone will agree but...

LJ

Blue Planet Odyssey