The Good Ship Ziska - Sail from Alaska to Washington
It's very difficult to put certain adventures into words, but here are a few that sum up this marvellous voyage for me - beautiful, wild, surreal, tough and freeing. In total, we sailed 1252 miles in 12 days from Ketchikan to Port Townsend, heading quite far offshore around the outside of Haida Gwaii and Vancouver Island to avoid some gale-force winds (spoiler alert: we dodged one gale, but hit another).
The good ship Ziska is a beautiful 38 foot gaff-rigged wooden sailboat. It's over 100 years old and has been completely rebuilt. I joined Ziska up in Ketchikan, Alaska, after the captain put out a call for crew to help sail the boat back home to Port Townsend after the Race to Alaska. While we were waiting to depart in Ketchikan, I started to hone my sailorly skills, learning how to self propel myself up the mast with rock-climbing gear (swinging around at 100 feet is terrifying, but also my favourite place to be on the boat!), how to tie reef knots in the sail and coil ropes neatly, how to needle repair the rigging so that it doesn't fray, and all sorts of other boat tasks. On a gaff-rigger we learned new line and sail names, but the basic principles of wind and sailing were still the same.
Each day that we got delayed, we felt that much more prepared for the journey ahead. During the last couple of days, I filled up the ship's water tanks, and my crew-mate Karolina stocked the ship with all sorts of delicious foods :)
The winds finally changed in our favour, and we received a generous tow out of the harbour from some friends on a neighbouring fishing vessel. There were only four of us crew, and we did watches in pairs - four hours on and four hours off around the clock - so for nearly two weeks we had no more than three and half hours of sleep at any one time. We were often up during each other's watches, especially when the weather got really rough, and we had to reef or take down sails.
There is good reason that this stretch of coastline is called the Graveyard of the Pacific. Many a boat has found themselves on a lee shore (that is, the wind blowing them mercilessly towards the rocks). But our stellar captain had a sixth sense for when the winds were going to change or pick up, and we'd often reef or take down a sail in the nick of time, just before heavier winds hit.
The good ship Ziska is a beautiful 38 foot gaff-rigged wooden sailboat. It's over 100 years old and has been completely rebuilt. I joined Ziska up in Ketchikan, Alaska, after the captain put out a call for crew to help sail the boat back home to Port Townsend after the Race to Alaska. While we were waiting to depart in Ketchikan, I started to hone my sailorly skills, learning how to self propel myself up the mast with rock-climbing gear (swinging around at 100 feet is terrifying, but also my favourite place to be on the boat!), how to tie reef knots in the sail and coil ropes neatly, how to needle repair the rigging so that it doesn't fray, and all sorts of other boat tasks. On a gaff-rigger we learned new line and sail names, but the basic principles of wind and sailing were still the same.
Each day that we got delayed, we felt that much more prepared for the journey ahead. During the last couple of days, I filled up the ship's water tanks, and my crew-mate Karolina stocked the ship with all sorts of delicious foods :)
The winds finally changed in our favour, and we received a generous tow out of the harbour from some friends on a neighbouring fishing vessel. There were only four of us crew, and we did watches in pairs - four hours on and four hours off around the clock - so for nearly two weeks we had no more than three and half hours of sleep at any one time. We were often up during each other's watches, especially when the weather got really rough, and we had to reef or take down sails.
There is good reason that this stretch of coastline is called the Graveyard of the Pacific. Many a boat has found themselves on a lee shore (that is, the wind blowing them mercilessly towards the rocks). But our stellar captain had a sixth sense for when the winds were going to change or pick up, and we'd often reef or take down a sail in the nick of time, just before heavier winds hit.
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