Going Solo and it All Falls Apart – Ep. 79

Come along on a POV journey to single-handedly sail Soulianis off anchor. Since the engine wasn’t started, Kirk forgot to check on the dinghy painter—and it all goes downhill from there.

Normally we have our specific roles and routines; but the change of pace and lack of a second pair of eyes on the boat makes it easy get thrown off, and then things start to slip through the cracks. We quickly learn just how important it is to practice mixing up routines on board to avoid complacency, so when we do end up in a real dire situation, we can adapt quickly and efficiently.

Hope you enjoy!

Lauren & Kirk

FILMED: June 2019

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THE ABACO ISLANDS, POST-HURRICANE DORIAN:

This footage was filmed prior to the utter devastation wreaked by Hurricane Dorian in September 2019. Dorian hit the Abaco Islands as a category 5 hurricane, with sustained winds of 185 mph, flattening most structures and leaving 70,000 people homeless. They are still rebuilding — and will be for a long time.

If you’d like to help the Abacos, check out PERC https://www.percabaco.org/. This is a 503c organization which supports a number of Abaco-based charities and is tax-deductible for U.S. residents.

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SOCIALS + BLOG

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sailingsoulianis/

Kirk’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kirkhateswork/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sailingsoulianis/

Website: https://sailingsoulianis.com

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CAMERA GEAR

https://sailingsoulianis.com/shop/camera-gear

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MUSIC

Theme song: “Adventures” by A Himitsu — https://youtu.be/8BXNwnxaVQE

All others: https://sailingsoulianis.com/artlistio-music — Use this link to get 2 free months of Artlist!

We’re always looking for music! If you, or a friend, relative or acquaintance makes original music and would like to feature it on our channel, give us a shout at hello@sailingsoulianis.com.

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SUBTITLES

by REV: https://try.rev.com/H2dsg — Use this link to get $10 off your first order!

– [Kirk] Now officially into hurricane season, our time in The Bahamas is nearing its end. With our bow facing north for the first time in months, we make the most of the time we have left. We’d spent the last couple of weeks practicing sailing on and off anchor. But today I decided to try and take a stab at doing it solo.

– Hey.

– Are we going?

– [Kirk] Not yet. We have one reef in which I guess we’re leaving in for right now.

– [Lauren] Want me to get it out?

– [Kirk] No, it’s okay. We can pull it out while we’re sailing maybe. All right, now we’re off the bottom. There we go.

– Did you do it?

– Yep. I did it.

– [Lauren] Nice job.

– [Kirk] Thank you. Except for, you know what? Our dinghy wrapped around our prop.

– [Lauren] Oh no, around the prop? Are you sure?

– A-ha. Last night.

– Oh.

– [Kirk] I was like, why is that line under water? All right, and then just drop that. I don’t know if that will totally get rid of it. It might actually even make it worse, but. Nope, yep, the propeller’s just wrapped it up. Now we’re in a bad spot, okay.

– [Lauren] All right, well we’ve gotta tie Rahm up.

– [Kirk] And we need to stop sailing. Maybe just keep us on the right course for a second. That was dumb. Will you grab the boat hook? I think I might be able to get it undone. Okay.

– Got it?

– [Kirk] Yeah, take this. It’s not undone, but.

– [Lauren] Haha, nice work.

– [Kirk] All right, when we get back to the States, we’re buying a floating

– Floating line.

– [Kirk] thingy line, that was dumb. We should have checked the dinghy too before we left. We’ve never spun around like that at anchor. All right.

– [Lauren] Oh man. That would have put all of our sailing on the anchor skills to the true test.

– [Kirk] Absolutely. That’s why we do this. Aye! Rahm, you little rascal.

– [Lauren] Here you go.

– [Kirk] Thank you bud.

– [Lauren] Did you call me bud?

– [Kirk] Was gonna say bird and I was gonna say thank you love, and it came out bud.

– [Kirk] That was for Project Aticus, I guess. Sorry. Lauren and I work really well together as a team. We know our roles and our responsibilities and we check one another’s work. All right, what do you say, we get rid of that reef?

– [Lauren] Do you want me to do it?

– [Kirk] No, I can do it. We’re to the point where under normal circumstances, there’s not much that needs to be set on board to get underway. So unless we make it a point to swap roles, or in this case do it all solo, it can be easy to get too comfortable in our routine and lose sight of the bigger picture. And that’s when one small misstep can lead to a cascade of other failures.

– [Lauren] Do you want me to raise the halyard?

– [Kirk] Yeah, go ahead. Okay, hold up, something’s… Oh, I’m still tied. Can you bring it down? Okay. All right, now we’re ready. Okay that’s good. What’s the depth?

– [Lauren] Eleven.

– [Kirk] Okay. It’s so crazy how fast protocols can go out the window.

– Yeah?

– [Kirk] Our dinghy got stuck because we didn’t look. So we fixed the dinghy and then I go up there and I realize that splashing around near the bow, anchor I still hadn’t put it all the way away because it was still dragging through the water. Luckily I secured it high enough, so it wouldn’t bash into the hull. And then we go to take out the reef and I forget that somehow we still had one of the first reefs tied in. So many things to forget.

– Well good thing we decided to go sailing when there was eight knots of wind.

– [Kirk] Mm-hm. I tried to do it all myself.

– [Lauren] Yeah, that was a bit new. I might have caught a couple of those things.

– [Kirk] We lucked into a few good days of chill sailing with single digit breezes gently moving us along.

– [Lauren] All right, ready?

– [Kirk] What’s our wind speed right now?

– [Lauren] Seven.

– [Kirk] Okay here we go.

– [Lauren] Woo! ♪ Don’t ♪ ♪ Let me ♪ ♪ Don’t ♪ ♪ Let me down ♪ ♪ Don’t ♪ ♪ Let me ♪ ♪ Don’t ♪ ♪ Let me down ♪ ♪ Don’t ♪ ♪ Let me ♪ ♪ Don’t ♪ ♪ Let me down ♪ ♪ Don’t ♪ ♪ let me ♪ ♪ Don’t ♪ ♪ Let me down ♪

– [Kirk] Is it all the way down? ♪ Don’t ♪ ♪ Let me ♪ ♪ Down ♪

– Nothing like scaring the willies out of everybody in an anchorage. Kirk’s new favorite thing to do, I think.

– Yeah. All right, you’re up.

– [Kirk] You can’t see anything there, right?

– Cable?

– Yeah.

– No. Just swing to your right a little bit. Bottom. Do you wanna do 60 plus full bridle?

– [Kirk] Yeah sure.

– So our boat’s been in the water for just over three months now and we have lightly scrubbed the bottom I think, three times. Today, I’m going to actually drop the center board down ’cause we’re in an anchorage that’s deep enough. We haven’t been in an anchorage deep enough to do that in The Bahamas and see what that looks after, after three months. But after our first month in Marathon, we did have some barnacles growing, but we scraped them all off and we really haven’t had any barnacles growing since. All we’re getting is kind of this light film, kind of a little bit slimy. It’s a little bit red and purple in places, but it comes off super easily with a 3M scrub pad. Just to like be able to rub my hand across the bottom and not have a cloud of like death dust come off the bottom of the boat, like the old blue paint, the ablative. Just every time I get in the water and look at it, it makes me so happy to see. I’m super pumped about the Copper Coat, definitely would do it again. We spent the day on Man-O-War Cay first exploring town before heading over to the ocean. I read that most people on this island are all related.

– Oh yeah?

– Yeah.

– Almost everyone who lives here full time can trace their heritage back to the first few people that settled here. We met a local who told us that many of the Islanders for Man-O-War Cay go to Great Guana just to the north to find their spouses, and vice versa.

– [Kirk] Did I almost pull your bathing suit off?

– No.