Modern Adventurer: Solo Around the Americas for Charity
Matt Rutherford is from a bygone age, an age of Shackleton, Cook and Scott. He is on a small 27 foot sailboat, and is circling the Americas – Atlantic, Northwest Passage, Alaska, the Pacific, the Horn, and now the Atlantic. He is doing it on the St. Brenden, a 27 foot (you read that right) Albin-Vega. Right now he is in the middle of the South Atlantic making his way home for Annapolis.
The scope of this journey cannot be overstated. It will go down as one of the great sea voyages and feats of seamanship upon completion. He will not touch land the entire voyage. His yacht has been accumulating water in the bilge and his pumps have failed – forcing him to use the most ancient of bailing methods, a can.
St. Brenden is the patron of sailors. If you have ever been in any sort of sea, on a small boat, you appreciate the feat Rutherford is attempting. Twenty seven feet. The angry sea is one of the most awe inspiring scenes on earth.
I’ve seen what 4 foot seas on the Chesapeake can do to a 30 foot yacht. I’ve been in the middle of the blue Atlantic 200 miles offshore in 35 knots with 44 feet of stiff blue water sailing equipment underneath me. There is a type of fear experienced at sea that one cannot on land. I don’t want to even imagine what Rutherford has faced in a 27 foot boat on this journey.
He is doing it all for CRAB – the Chesapeake Region Accessible Boating (CRAB), a nonprofit sailing program for people with disabilities. You can follow his trip in real time here, with occasional updates and stories to stagger the imagination.
I spent 2 months at sea in a 39-foot sailboat.. It was often harrowing, the boat was 12 feet longer than Rutherford’s and I had the company of 2 other people, one of which was an excellent and experienced sailor of small craft. I and the other person were good at following orders and performing assigned tasks. Often we all had to strapped in to avoid going overboard and we all understood there would be little chance of rescue if we went that way. You can’t know what even 6-foot seas can do to a small boat unless you’ve seen it for yourself.
I had been in the Navy and thought I was an old salt, and so seasickness wasn’t going to be problem. Eventually it wasn’t but the first bout of it was the like nothing anyone in the U.S. Navy has ever known. I wasn’t afraid I’d die; I was afraid I wouldn’t.
One problem Rutherford has is getting any sleep. I don’t understand how he has solved that problem but must have some device to wake him if something needs attention. Or maybe he is like my mates on the sailboat, and sleeps only a few minutes at a time.
Great point about seasickness. Until you have experienced genuine full bore sea sickness is, you cannot comprehend how all-consuming and debilitating it is.
including sleep, Rutherford is facing more issues than even other around the world sails. His polar bear plans, for one, through the Northwest passage. He considers himself almost home, having past the Horn, the Pacific and the NW passage. Of course that can be the most dangerous part of any voyage, when you consider youself almost home.
Sometimes humor helps with seasickness. Leaning over the rail with the dry heaves on a Fletcher class destroyer in 1963 a boatswain’s mate slapped me on the back and said, “Hey Willis, if something black and hairy comes up, grab it. It’s your asshole.”