I have a lot to write about, but little internet access, and little motivation to post… Jack and I flew to Denver, and drove across country as planned, and now I’m here in California, living on a friends boat near Berkeley. I’m being messed about with my boat transporter (Constellation is still in New York), and if this continues, the entire project is in genuine jeopardy. Some photos of our roadtrip to tide things over…

More here

I’m in love with the American landscape. As if I wasn’t already.

nick.

Happy New Year!

I’ve had a comment and quite a few emails asking what’s going on. Well, not a lot really… The project is still on, and I’m at home in Australia working, and scheming for the next leg. I’m still adamant about trucking the boat, and will do so sometime in April. We’ll go somewhere on the West coast of the US (obviously), most likely Berkeley because I have a couple of contacts in the area… I also like Ginsberg, and I hear he wrote a poem there. While my blogging has slowed down, the project hasn’t - So for anyone thinking I’ve just thrown the towel in, you’d be more than wrong… ! It also remains to be seen how I will get myself across the country, as the original idea of cycling may have changed slightly in recent weeks.

I continue to work with Bluemapia.com, which has been fantastic - If you’re a sailor, go there, sign up, and share your tips & info on your local sailing area. When not working with Bluemapia, I have the great fortune to be working on my own ideas. They involve the web, and sailing… And another project may involve helping someone else begin an enormous and seemingly impossible voyage. More on all of that some other time.

After Christmas (which involved no snow) I went on a small trip - Photos are below. My return ticket to New York is booked for the 19th of January, however, due to a lack of housing options, and the fact it’s much easier for me to survive here than in a foreign country in the dead of winter, it is more than likely I will stay another month or two. There is little I can do on Constellation right now, and she will probably not touch the water again until April or early May. Much work remains, and she’s in a state of disarray, however 2009 is set to be the year Constellation is more seaworthy than in any other time of her life!

More photos in the usual place.

Skandia week is coming up, and with any luck I might get to sail then… I may finally get to write about sailing again!

Nick

Wow, sorry for being so terrible on updates… I’ve been busy with a new job (yes, I have a job - More in another post!), a little traveling and more work on Constellation, as she continues to get revamped for the voyage ahead. While I haven’t been great on posts, I do upload photos and other things periodically - The frontpage always contains all updates related to my trip - Photos, twitter, blog etc.

Mari, who has been dedicating a lot of time and effort to help me over the past month, continues to assist, and Constellation is really coming together. We’ve even managed to build a new boom from a Catalina 30, that was lying in the yard in gross disrepair. With all manner of noisy tools, we cut two feet off the end, re-fashioned the end-boom roller fitting, and made various other modifications. With most of the new boom finished, we mulled over how it was actually going to connect the boat, at which point Mari disappeared to his computer and made an Autocad drawing of the stainless pieces we needed. He then emailed off to his friend Peter in another state, who had the pieces made and Fedex’d back - Genius! Thanks so much to Peter for helping out! If I hadn’t ended up being surrounded by engineers, I would have been left to fashion it Nick style, which no doubt would have involved lashing the boom to the mast with tin wire and electrical tape.

While Mari did beautiful things with hot air guns and soldering irons:

I pulled the starboard toe rail off, and re-bedded it in an attempt to stop the mysterious leaks I’m encountering. Constellation continues to look forlorn on land, but, of all the boats in the yard, she definitely looks like she’s sailed the furthest, and in my opinion, looks pretty cool with all that gear hanging off the stern (not including the fenders)!

My new job allows me to work from anywhere (perfect!), so I took the opportunity to visit Cape Cod in Massachusetts. I’m really falling in love with the North East of the USA… And I’m putting on weight as I sample as many New England Clam chowders as possible. I’ve even had lobster roll or two, in attempts to make up for overdosing on Ramen for the past year. I might grow a big bushy beard and start wearing flannel.

More photos in the usual place

The US media continues to attract my attention with its madness over the economy and the election. I remember how lucid and relative things felt, when I was somewhere about here. It’s places like that where you have happy existential moments, if you can imagine such a thing.

As to how Constellation will get to the Pacific, I still don’t really know. I do hope with my new job I will be able to save enough to truck as planned, and as the petrol prices seem to have plummeted of late, maybe it will become more affordable. I’ve recently heard rumours that boats have traveled overland via the Canadian railway, but I can’t really find any clear evidence or services. Is there anyone out there that knows something about this?

I’m very much looking forward to some deep offshore sailing with Constellation, and I really just need to get to San Francisco for an April/May 2009 departure. I now look at a map, and while we have a long way to go, sailing direct from San Francisco to the Marquesas, or even Fiji direct chops off a massive part of my voyage in a single stretch. If all goes to plan, I may very well be in Australian waters by this time next year. That may sound like a long time, but it isn’t - It’s just around the corner… Around this time last year, I was in France just about to do my first big offshore leg across the notorious Bay of Biscay, and I remember it like it was yesterday. Back then, I was terrified but adamant… Unsure of how I could keep things rolling. But we’ve come a long way since then, and now it’s all just a matter of more hard work, time, and good fortune.

Thanks everyone for your continuing support and good wishes - I continue to get emails every week from well wishers, and they never cease to amaze me!

nick

Several weeks ago, a small powerboat arrived in the marina, with its occupants holding up a picture of the article recently published in the Suffolk Times newspaper here on Long Island, asking for the ‘guy on the frontage’. That was me, I was found, and so there I met an incredibly lovely family who wanted to hear more about my voyage. As they left the dock, they exclaimed ‘you should come around for a BBQ!’.

A week later, they were back with a crazy idea: What if they were to throw a party, to raise money for Constellation’s trip across America? I thought they were joking. But, it was no joke, and so a stunning party was held at a gorgeous house on the shores of Greenport:

Trina, me, Carolyn & Joe

All sorts of people came, amazing food was laid out, money was raised, and I was amazed.

Not long ago I met someone whom I told about my trip, and about the generosity of people along the way. They looked at me, and said I must have such a different outlook on life, because so many people help me, and so many people are interested in what I’m doing. I’m not sure if my entire perception has changed, but a life where you’re regularly helped by strangers certainly changes your view of people in general. This party was no exception, and what a generous gesture - Thank you so much to the Ferrara family for reaching out to me, and to everyone who attended and chipped in.

At the party I also had the opportunity to announce a new addition to my travels: (Drum roll… !) As Constellation is trucked across America, I will follow by bicycle, riding from Long Island, to San Francisco. This new portion of the ‘voyage’ will turn my trip from Europe to Australia, into a wind & human powered expedition, making it unique among similar endeavours. I had hoped to start the bicycle leg of my trip in October, but as of today, I don’t think that’s possible. I still have money to make for the transportation of Constellation (among a dozen other things), as well as many logistical problems to solve with regards to repairs on the boat, and now also for cycling. I hope to ride across America spending one day a week working on Habitat for Humanity construction sites, as well as doing talks at schools in landlocked states about the sea. This all takes a great deal of planning and forethought, and so I suspect it will not be until spring that I’ll be able to depart.

With this addition of the trip, I now am in great need of cycling equipment - If anyone has any ideas, or things lying around they don’t use which you might think could be useful for a 3000mile cycle across the country, let me know!.

nick.

P.S Thanks to everyone who left really nice comments about the short film I clipped together.

I promised in my last post, I’d write from Vancouver… Yet I’m quickly running out of anything sailing related to write about, and so it took for the trip back to find any inspiration, or rather to stop and think (not that I really ever did think of anything sailing related to write about…But).

However, I’ve finally managed to make good on my promise to spend the money raised during my Atlantic crossing on purchasing a bridge in rural Cambodia. If you’re interested, visit my first post about the project to find more. Thank you so much to everyone who helped me, support someone else. I plan to continue my fundraising efforts on all solo passages over 1000nm - I just need to get back out to sea!

On the topic of fundraising, this Saturday is the day of a fundraising event to help me truck Constellation across America: Yes, that crazy plan is still on the cards. I’ll write all about it post-party, as well as provide more detail on what is actually going on with the idea.

So I went to Canada to be best man at a wedding, which was quite an experience… My duties successfully completed, I’ve made it all the way back to New York, via one of the longest routes possible. I must have easily completed my entire sailing mileage on a single round trip to Canada!

Arriving at Vancouver airport at 5am, I arrived back in New York by 11pm - Ok, so there is a time difference.. But only of three hours! (I should have sailed). Out of the airport I had the great fortune of the taxi getting a flat tire.

Picked up by another taxi, the voyage continued, and I write to you from Brooklyn… Where not a lot of sailing happens. There is a nice picture of a Veolia Oceans one-design (Constellation II?) on my desktop though, which is about as close to sailing I’ll be getting for awhile…

Next post to include video from my Atlantic crossing, as well as a report on the fundraising event!

nick.

When I met Rune Monstad in the Canary Islands, he had cycled from South America right up into Canada, before flying to Europe, and is now en route north through Africa, as part of his bicycle circumnavigation. We had a lot in common in our attitudes about what we were doing, and were also equally dogged about finishing what we’d started. However broke, however tired and however angry, we both talked about the incredible generosity we’d encountered along the way, both grateful and suprised at how people reached out in all manner of ways. Rune couldn’t stop talking about how good America had been to him, and right now, I couldn’t agree with him more.

Here at the Brewers Yacht Yard in Greenport, people are helping me left, right and centre to get Constellation seaworthy again. A furler is being installed, my sails are being converted and repaired by Doyle sails, there is talk of a Furuno radar, new standing rigging, and a replacement boom. As a result of a frontpage article in the Suffolk Times (viewable here), I regularly get referred to as ‘Nick’ from people I’ve never met in town, with the article spurring on numerous invitations for dinner, barbecues, offers of assistance on the boat, wine from Long Island wineries, and even a recording studio offering to do a recording, based on the premise of the article mentioning I had a rusty guitar!

If all that wasn’t enough, recently a family motored into the Marina to meet me, holding up the paper to passers by, asking where I was. After a brief meeting, they were back the following week with a proposal: What if a party was thrown to raise money to truck Constellation across America? I was speechless, and I think all I could muster was a ‘Are you kidding? Really?’ I was bowled over by the idea, and within a few days, invitations circulated, the party had a date, and Constellation and I may just get across this great continent as planned! I’d been depressed over the enormity of the scheme, it all be very well to have an idea, but a whole other problem to make it happen. The cost of trucking a 3.5 ton sail boat from New York to San Francisco is no small sum, and sailing back to the Caribbean and through the Panama Canal is also no small feat… The Northwest Passage may be ‘open’, but Constellation told me in a dream, she was no ice breaker, and while Cape Horn beckoned (ha!), I’ll save those latitudes for the aluminium expedition ketch I spend too much time thinking about. So this party nears the end of the month, and with it brings great excitement at the thought of getting closer to solving the age old problem of getting into the Pacific from the Atlantic.

If it seems this blog may have become slightly neglected since I arrived here, I must apologise, it probably has, yet only for good reasons: Life has been full throttle, traveling in and out of the city from Long Island, visiting friends, relatives, racing boats, and generally having the time of my life. I’ve already said that sailing north from the Caribbean was a really good decision, but I have to say it again: Sailing north from the Caribbean was a really good decision.

I mentioned some months ago that I was going to Vancouver for a wedding, and that time has come. I’m terrified of doing the Best Man Speech, which is by far scarier than doing a solo transatlantic… All I can say is, it’s lucky I bought more than one bottle of Mt Gay Rum from Barbados; I’ll have to take mouthfuls of the stuff prior to toasting the the newlyweds, balancing a fine line between doing the speech in a pirate voice and actually not embarrassing myself nor the groom.

I haven’t been doing a great deal of sailing recently, so I hope my land based adventures are enough to keep everyone interested. Below are some photos of a trip to upstate New York:

Bailing

My brother and I

Rock jumping

My brother & Tracy

Next post from latitude 49.25 longitude -123.13.

nick.