True Story written by Bob Stevenson
The Sextant and the Sails, Thirty-two Years Later
Ray Dvries, skipper and owner of the Newport 41 S.V. Esprit had sailed a successful Victoria to Maui race in July of 1982. Unfortunately the navigator had gotten ill during the race and had to be flown home. And, the assistant navigator had sustained some burns when the pressure cooker blew up during the race and he also was in the hospital.
Ray, knowing that I had some experience in celestial navigation, called me in Edmonds and explained his need for a navigator to bring the boat from Maui to Seattle. I had also been crew on Esprit in races on Puget Sound and the Swiftsure race so I knew the boat. Arrangements were made for me to be away from my job so my wife and two kids flew to Maui. I seem to remember that David and Linda Goodwin were already on Maui with a couple of their kids. So we had a day or two of exploring Lahaina Harbor environs and then I helped pack supplies and food aboard Esprit.
A guy names Bob was hanging around the harbor looking for boat passage to the U.S. of A. He said he owned a seafood restaurant in St. Louis so Ray thought this would be good to have a seafood cook aboard the boat on the “way home”. So Ray said to Bob, “cmon a long” Ray said later that if he had known that Bob had no sailing experience he would not have invited him to go along. As it turned out Bob was a very good cook and he could prepare tuna and mahi mahi in many delicious ways. Only one problem, Bob wanted to put salsa and hot sauce on everything so after a few days at sea Ray was asked by Bob, “where is the hot sauce and salsa”. Ray indicated that those supplies must have gone overboard in the high seas when we were recovering from blown out head sail. That was not true- Ray had tossed the stuff overboard. That sail, by the way, was patched up with sail thread and duct tape and lasted the rest of the way home. The hot sauce was never recovered.
Bob was fascinated with my navigation routines. I showed him how to take sights with the sextant and, after calculating position, how to plot it on the chart. I had a small navigation station and a $10 Casio wrist watch for marking time of day of the sextant readings. I also had a hand help Hewlett Packard computer which I had not used on the open sea. It came in handy after I had checked it against long hand calculations for two days. I could get “time ticks” from our single side band radio to calibrate my wrist watch daily. That with the sight reduction tables, nautical almanac and a chart of the north Pacific and my trusty sextant I was all set to plot our position at sea every day. On the aforesaid navigation table I had spread out the chart and some plotting tools. On a few occasions early in the voyage some of the crew found it convenient place to lay a piece of fried chicken or a sandwich. This activity upset the navigator and I had to explain that the chart and my tools are the only means by which we would find the Straights of Juan de Fuca. So henceforth they parked their food elsewhere. What I did not reveal to the crew or to the skipper was that for all practical purposes to sail home from Maui one sails north until the butter gets hard, then sail east and it is hard to miss the North American continent. Then one sails north along the coast until the con trails from the Vancouver B.C. Airport are in sight and if one cannot find the Straights then, one should not be out at sea.
One other problem about plotting the course of a sailing vessel, not only does the navigator plot the position at sea several times a day, but he also notes the heading and approximate speed of the boat, between plots. I had plotted our noon position one fine day and hit my bunk for a snooze. I woke up two or three hours later and noted that the diesel engine was running and we were motoring. A quick look at the sun told me we were not heading in a course that would take us where we want to go. I learned that the crew had spotted some green glass fishing floats off to the west, they had taken in the sails and were motoring around picking up glass floats- I still have one at home. I asked how long they had been motoring west and nobody had an answer. Nor did anyone know the course they had steered during that time. Well, that was a bit disconcerting but it was getting on toward time to take twilight sextant readings so I let the incident pass. Had a storm brewed up after the side trip and had I not been able to take sightings for a day or so, there would have been a big gap in the plots on the chart. A navigator always, with a SWAG- scientific wild ass guess-, estimates the position of the vessel from dead reckoning to help plot the next position with precision, so with a SWAG I was not in trouble.
Navigation was interesting to me as I read about it during my Sea Scout days in high school. Studying industrial forest engineering and surveying at the U of W I learned how to determine the true bearing of a line and celestial north with the use of a transit and almanac tables by observing the sun and Polaris at elongation. So it was an easy transition from the transit with a stable, level plane to a sextant with a view of the horizon, but no stable platform (the ships’ deck on a rolling sea).
Bob had become more than interested in navigation, he wanted to learn it. So I helped along the way and I must say learning it at sea is much better than in a classroom. I loaned him my book Commonsense Navigation and he had read some of it by the time we got to Seattle. Skipper Ray and others of us on the crew helped Bob learn how to rig and set sails and drive the boat. By the time we arrived in Seattle- we had had difficulties buying diesel fuel in the port in the Straights but that is a whole other story- Bob said, I want to get my own boat and sail around the world. I was slightly stunned at that announcement but I advised him to take the Commonsense book home and read it before head heads off around the world. I wrote a little inscription in the book, signed it and wished him good luck.
Bob did exactly what he wanted to do. He bought a boat and sailed around the world.
As the story goes on, in January of 2014 Bob had occasion to go through some of his stuff and he came across the Commonsense book that I had given him. He was inspired to contact me and began a crusade to get my phone number. I had moved a few times in the thirty two years that had passed and finally he talked with my neighbor by phone., How he found him I will never know, but my neighbor thought that call was a little strange so he did not give Bob my phone number but he took down Bob’s name and phone number, noted that Bob had said something about sailing and gave that information to me. I did not remember Bob’s last name so I thought this whole thing was a scam. After a few days of trying to think of the Bob’s I had sailed with, and there were many, I decided to call the number. Bob’s wife answered the phone and when I Identified myself as Bob Stevenson, she was silent. Then I told her I was a sailing friend of her Bob and I live in Edmonds. She immediately livened up and she said “oh yes, he wants to talk with you”.
Bob’s first words were “you and Ray changed my life”. He went on to say that he and his wife did in fact buy a sailboat, sailed around the world and he is now teaching celestial navigation at a U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary School. He had my little book with him that indicated I lived in Edmonds so he tracked me down. I attach a few recent photos of Bob where he lives in L.A., so I guess Ray and I did change his life.