Latitude 38 Interview - Mike Harker: Part 5

March 2008

Part 5 of 5

Courtesy Latitude 38 Magazine

38: There must have been some things that you didn’t like or that broke on the boat.

Harker: There were three little things. First, Hunter needs a better drain system for the shower. For an expensive boat, you shouldn’t have to get down on your hands and knees after every shower to make sure the pan drains completely. Second, they put two big drawers under the port settee that rob you of about 20 cubic feet of storage space, fall out when the boat heels and, to my mind, are a waste of wood and woodworking skills. Finally, in the forward head they have these cutesy little spotlights over the mirror for women to use when applying makeup. But they’re just below a hatch that you leave open from time to time, allowing a few drops of saltwater in. Anyway, the light fixtures aren’t stainless, and mine have already rusted through and broken apart.

38: That’s it after sailing around the world?

Harker: Yes. And for all I know, Hunter has already corrected these problems in the newer boats. But I have to admit, the shower drain thing really drove me nuts.

38: What about the construction of the hull and interior.

Harker: Structurally, I found the boat to be excellent. In rough weather you don’t hear any creaks or moans, she’s solid. Not a squeak. I was amazed. It wasn’t even a problem in Las Perlas, when a 20-ft drop in the tides grounded my boat for four hours.

38: Didn’t you carry a spare rudder?

Harker: (Laughter.) Yes, after the one broke on my last boat, I wasn’t going to be unprepared again. The new rudders are flexible, but bulletproof. Although pretty much identical to the rudder that broke on my last boat, the new ones are so much more robust that it takes two people to carry one. They now have a stainless shaft and internal stainless cage plus a layer of Kevlar. And now that I carry a spare, I’m confident I’ll never need a replacement rudder again. (Laughter.)

38: Are you careful about locking up your boat everywhere you go, and have you had any stuff stolen over the years?

Harker: I’ve never locked my boat, and in all this time I’ve only had one thing stolen - and that was just the other day in Antigua. While I was at Nelson’s Dockyard to get fuel, somebody stole the gas tank from my dinghy! Oh wait, there was another thing I had stolen right after doing a Baja Bash in ‘01. I finally had my boat back in Marina del Rey, and somebody clipped the cable to my collapsible bike and rode off.

38: Did you get another bike?

Harker: I sure did. For this trip I bought a West Marine Port Runner and, thanks to a coupon, got $100 off. I love that little bike. I bought the protective bag and have ridden it all over South Africa, Australia and Antigua.

38: Were there any issues about being alone?

Harker: Not really. I would listen in on the weather nets, although I would rarely talk on them. For example, when I was in the Galapagos, about 22 boats left the day before me and talked on the Southern Cross Net. I don’t talk much, just listen, but I must have sailed a lot faster, because I got to the Marquesas well before they did. I also stayed in touch with people via SailMail.

38: What about a sat phone?

Harker: I have an Iridium sat phone and bought 500 minutes for $500. In some places, such as South Africa, Australia, and Antigua, the $1/minute Iridium was the least expensive way to call home to the States. They kill you with roaming charges on cell phones. My Iridium always worked and, in fact, played a critical role in my most crucial repairs. For example, I talked for over 60 minutes to Balmar to get my backup alternator to work. The problem is that the back-up had a built-in regulator while the Yanmar has its own. The two regulators had to be sorted out, and we were eventually able to do that over the phone.

38: When is the circumnavigation finished?

Harker: I finished mine in Antigua about a week ago but, depending, on how I make my way back to Miami, the boat will finish her circumnavigation at either Matthew Town, Inagua, or Nassau in the Bahamas.

38: It’s a long sail around the world. Did you enjoy all of it?

Harker: There were a few times I did not. I got extremely frustrated in the Galapagos. The three times that I was totally becalmed and getting my brains rolled out by the swell were torture. And just outside of Antigua, about to finish my personal circumnavigation, I got hit with 40 knots of wind and a tremendous lightning storm. That was pretty scary.

38: But what about day to day?

Harker: Day to day, I really enjoyed it. When I woke up, I’d go, “Ah, here I am again. It sure beats being at home watching the Travel Channel.” I looked forward to each day as an opportunity to see and enjoy something new. And if I had a down day. I’d remember the six years that I was in a bed, unable to move. But I didn’t have to kick myself like that very often.

38: So after this fast circumnavigation can we assume you’ll have had your fill of sailing for awhile?

Harker: Not at all. After my boat is displayed by Hunter at the Miami Boat Show in February, the month of March is just for me. And I’ll be spending it cruising in the Bahamas. In April, my boat will be hauled to get checked over and I’ll be speaking at Strictly Sail Pacific in Oakland CA. From June to October, I’ll be doing presentations at yacht clubs or Hunter dealerships every two weeks all the way up the East Coast. My last one will be the Annapolis Boat Show in October. This November I’ll enter the Caribbean 1500 Rally from Virginia to Tortola in the British Virgins, and spend the winter in the Caribbean. That should be wonderful. In fact, I won’t have anything scheduled until Antigua Sailing Week at the end of April, and I can’t wait to get back to St. Barth.

38: That’s quite a schedule for a 60-year-old after a fast and mostly singlehanded circumnavigation. What then - lots of rest?

Harker: Oh no. After Antigua Sailing Week a year from April. I’ll head to the Azores and across the Atlantic. My main destination is Thailand but along the way, I very much want to visit Croatia and spend some time in Turkey and the Black Sea. But after going down the Red Sea and across the Indian Ocean to Thailand, I’ll continue on to Japan, where I’m sort of famous because I flew a hang-glider off Mt. Fuji many years ago. In Japan, they revere people even if they accomplished things many years before. Then I’ll sail across the North Pacific to California, and hang out in San Diego until the start of the Ha-Ha. That will be three years from now.

38: Do you think most people could do what you did?

Harker: Oh sure. You have many couples who are retiring in their 50s, and who have put the kids through college. They can not only sail around the world, but they can do it cheaply. Of course, they may not want to do it as fast as I did.

38: How much sailing experience do you think they need?

Harker: I didn’t know how to sail at all when I started with my boat in the Ha-Ha, but I’ve sailed 60,000 ocean miles now, almost all of them singlehanded, and I learned by doing. You are going to make some mistakes, just learn from them and try not to make those same mistakes again. I think anybody who knows the basics of sailing, is in good health, and has common sense could do the same thing I did. And by the way, legally I’m a paraplegic, so no excuses. Prepare well, watch the weather and go out and ‘Just Do It’!


TheSailingChannel thanks Latitude 38 Magazine for allowing us to republish this article and share it with our readers.

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Latitude 38 Interview - Mike Harker: Part 4

March 2008

Part 4 of 5

Courtesy Latitude 38 Magazine

38: What was Wanderlust 3‘s fuel consumption like?

Harker: My boat has the Yanmar 4JH four-cylinder with the new turbo and intercooler. I can go at normal cruising speed for almost two hours on a gallon of fuel. It’s a very fuel-efficient engine at 1,800 rpms, which is what I ran it at. Speaking of fuel, one of the great items on my boat - and I’m going to recommend that Hunter make it part of their Mariner Package - is the Fuel Filter Boss. This device allows you to switch between two fuel filters while the engine is running, plus it has a fuel pump which eliminates manual bleeding, and even features a light in the cockpit that warns if the filters are getting dirty.

Thanks to the Fuel Filter Boss, I didn’t get a drop of fuel in the bilge. When the unit indicates a filter is getting dirty, you temporarily switch to the other fuel routing, remove the old filter and drop in a new one - while the engine is running. That’s it. Changing filters was a real pain with my old boat, and I always spilled about a pint of diesel in the bilge. I hated that. The Fuel Filter Boss is great insurance for your engine because all you need to keep a diesel going is clean fuel. I also have a third filter for fuel transferred from the reserve 80 gallon tank to the main 150 gallon tank. Incidentally, Hunter’s normal fuel filters are 10-microns. I bought a 24-pack of 2-micron filters. They stop everything. I never had a fuel problem on my trip and, believe me, I got some dirty fuel in a couple of places.

38: Did you have a watermaker, and how did that work?

Harker: I have a 7-gallon per hour HRO, and it was perfect. I changed the filters five times during my trip, and changed the carbon filter once six months into it. But there wasn’t a hiccup or problem at all.

38: You hardly had anything go wrong?

Harker: There were really just two significant things, and both involved a chain of events. My boat has four 8D AGM 230 amp batteries, which is double the number of batteries and amps that Hunter puts in. So I had twice the battery capacity that the alternator was designed for. Normally, it wouldn’t make a difference, but I had two Danish models who sailed with me from Panama’s Perlas Islands to the Galapagos, so they needed a lot of power for their hair dryers and things. Plus, they used the microwave and other things doing lots of great cooking. Normally, this wouldn’t have been a problem, but my Fisher-Panda had a faulty fuel pump. I carry the F-P Offshore Repair Kit that included a new pump and fixed it myself, but not before burning up the engine alternator. With the girls using the hair dryer all the time, and my genset out, I was having to use the engine alternator a lot to keep the batteries charged. Before we got to the Galapagos, the engine alternator was fried trying to keep the batteries charged.

38: Didn’t you have a spare alternator?

Harker: No. But I do now. It’s a bigger 100-amp Balmar which, by the way, is now standard on all Hunter 49s. The regulators have been upgraded, too.

38: What was the other major problem?

Harker: Having left Cape Town, I was 1,000 miles from Africa and 1,000 miles from South America, when my high water alarm went off. There was a very unusual leak in the water pump housing of my Yanmar diesel that peed water all over the alternator. There was so much that my lower bilge pump couldn’t keep up, and the water got to the higher bilge pump, which automatically turns on an alarm. But because we were heeled over, the water had also gotten into the F-P genset’s motherboard before the alarm went off, so it was toast. As for the main engine’s alternator, it was caked with salt from having water sprayed all over it. Thanks again to a chain reaction, I had no way to charge my batteries for the second time! Well, I have a Honda portable generator that I used to keep the charge up on my engine start battery.

38: We made a big deal asking folks how they would have stopped the leak in your pump. How did you actually do it?

Harker: I coated a self-threading stainless steel screw with 3M 5200 to make it waterproof, and screwed it in the hole. It lasted just fine until I got back to Miami and Yanmar/Mastry had a chance to replace the entire pump housing.

38: What spares did you carry?

Harker: I had a spare and/or spare parts kit for almost everything. I had them for my Yanmar and Fisher-Panda genset, a spare freshwater pump, a spare bilge pump, a spare high water bilge pump and alarm - and, eventually, a spare alternator. I even had a plumbing spares kit because Hunter recommended I buy it. Other stuff they recommended were a spare link arm and U-joint for the steering, a spare Selden gooseneck fitting for the mast and other small parts.
I also got a spare roller fitting for the headboard of the mainsail - I’m terrible at the specific names of things - that I actually needed to put on yesterday. It pulled away from the mast while I was in the doldrums, but I was still able to make it here to St. Barth.

38: It’s a good thing that you didn’t have to go up the mast.

Harker: That’s not an issue, because I can’t go up the mast when alone. By the way, I had to change the masthead tricolor on my last boat twice, so for this one I bought a $700 LED tricolor. It wasn’t cheap, but I think it’s worth it. It’s called a Lopo-Light, and it includes the navigation lights and a five-mile anchor light. It uses less than one watt of power, but is twice as brilliant as the old-style lights, and you never have to change them. All the Volvo Race boats used them. Readers might be interested to learn that I don’t have a single incandescent light bulb on my boat. Everything is either low-power fluorescent or even lower-power LED.

38: You have solar panels. How much did they help?

Harker: I have three panels for a total 28 amps, and during the day they normally provide all the power I need to run everything and to top off the 900-amp bank of batteries. I have two freezers and two fridges, but I only use one of each. I typically used 20 amps an hour, depending somewhat on how much effort my autopilot was having to make. All my instruments and lights use very little power. This Hunter 49 is very well thought out in terms of energy use.

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Latitude 38 Interview - Mike Harker: Part 3

March 2008

Part 3 of 5

Courtesy Latitude 38 Magazine

38: Was any stop particularly expensive?

Harker: Tahiti would have been, but I bypassed it because I’d been there before and knew it would be expensive. But, no, I don’t consider any of the places I stopped to have been expensive.

"The circumanavigation cost
me almost nothing because
I’m a cheapo!"

38: Speaking of money, how much did this circumnavigation cost you?

Harker: Almost nothing because I’m a cheapo! (Laughter.) Plus, if you’re out at sea, where are you going to spend money? And I’m not a big spender in ports. If I’ve been out at sea for awhile, the first thing I’ll do in port is order a big salad, because you can’t keep the makings for salads fresh for very long on the ocean. So I’ll get a salad at a restaurant for my first couple of meals ashore, and then maybe a breakfast omelet. But after that, I’ll eat all my meals aboard my boat. If I’m in port for a while and want to socialize, I may go to a restaurant, but I’ll order just a cappuccino or something like that rather than a full meal. And I don’t drink alcohol which saves a lot. Right: Kayo Hollandaise in the San Blas Islands on the way to Panama

38: What do you eat when you’re at sea?

Harker: Everything I eat comes from Costco because, like I said, I’m a cheapo. (Laughter.) But Costco - which has a store in Panama, by the way - actually has the best canned chicken breast and you get eight cans of them for just $7. I’m also big on Kirkland and Star-Kist brands of tuna. I make lots of pasta dishes at sea. For example, I’ll do a chicken or tuna with noodles, or maybe a spaghetti carbonara, but I’ll always add a second portion of unflavored noodles. I do this to ‘stretch’ whatever I’m making from just a lunch or dinner to a lunch or dinner plus leftovers for a next meal. I probably eat chicken or tuna with noodles four times a week. And every morning I have Quaker Old-Fashioned Oats - from Costco, of course. But I mix in some dry muesli, plus dried cranberries or blueberries. When you add hot water, the berries, which come in three-pound bags from Costco, open right up and taste great. I also throw in a few almonds and walnuts I’ve bought in bulk containers, at you-know-where. (Laughter.) Diet is very important for good health. Even though I’m legally a paraplegic as a result of my hang gliding accident, before I started this trip, my doctor told me that I had the constitution of a 40-year-old, 20 years younger than my chronological age. My blood pressure is perfect, and my cholesterol is 150. Those are the kinds of numbers I had when I was on the rowing team in college.

38: How do you exercise on board?

Harker: Exercise, of course, is just as much a key component to good health as is diet. So besides all the exercise I get singlehanding the boat, I have a Mini-Stepper onboard that I use regularly while at sea, hanging onto the dodger for balance. In addition, I do push-ups and arched back pull-ups on the dodger. Push-ups and pull-ups are opposing exercises that are very good for you. My exercise goal is not to be muscular, but to be fit. It’s important for me to keep working the joints in my arms, legs, shoulders - everywhere. So I usually do about half an hour of exercise each morning, then shower up. Many times I’ll get my exercise in while boiling the water and otherwise preparing my oatmeal. Through diet and exercise, my goal has been to maintain the health of a person 20 years younger.

38: We’re surprised to see how luxurious your Hunter 49 is; Granite-like countertops, nice woodwork everywhere, shades for all the hatches and ports, and even mosquito screens for all the hatches. And that’s just scratching the surface.

Harker: Hunter offers different versions of the 49. The normal Sail-Away package comes in at under $300,000, and includes sails, instruments, and a long list of standard luxury items - plus a five-year warranty extension. Then there’s the Mariner-Package, which includes $33,000 worth of gear for just $21,000. That gear includes a Bose surround sound system, a 15-inch flat screen for the double berth forward, and a 26-inch flat screen in the salon - although I bought a 32-inch flat screen with built-in DVD to replace the 15-incher in the bow, and a 40-incher for the salon. I have to admit that I love movies. In fact, I have 2,000 movies aboard - none of them pirated. I can have the same movie playing at three places on my boat at the same time - the third being on my chartplotter in the cockpit. I can’t get sound on the chartplotter, though.

38: (Laughter.) You must be the only cruiser who doesn’t have a pirated movie.

Harker: My Hunter 49 has added extras from the options list. It has the deep keel, a 5 ft. taller mast and includes a bow thruster, an HRO watermaker, F-P genset, 3 solar panels and lots of other stuff too, and it goes for just under $400,000.

38: How are they selling?

Harker: Hunter tells me that they sold almost 80 of them in one year.

38: Your boat is loaded with extras. Any favorites?

Harker: My favorite thing on the boat, my buddy, is my Lewmar Mamba autopilot. This is a beefed-up version of the Raymarine autopilot motor, and mine was the first on any boat. I haven’t had a hiccup or squawk, and I do 90% of my sailing on autopilot. You might remember that I burned up three autopilot motors on my 466. Actually, the whole steering system is a Lewmar Mamba, which consists of gear boxes and rods. It works really well, and is all but maintenance free.

38: We actually have the same Mambo system on our catamaran and have been very pleased, too.

Harker: The heavy-duty autopilot motor and stronger U-joints in the steering system now come standard.

38: What other gear do you have aboard?

Harker: I added things for two reasons, 1) for safety or better sailing and 2) for comfort. The safety items include the Viking RescYou 8 SOLAS Liferaft, ICOM SSB &VHF radios with DSC and Pactor digital modem, a drogue and extra emergency gear, a Flex-O-Fold 3 blade prop and Interphase Forward-Looking Sonar. This really helps when entering shallows or reef areas. Absolutely essential are the RayMarine instruments and chart plotter with the Navionics world charts on CF memory cards for the E120. I also have Nobeltec World Charts on a DVD for the laptop and I carry two extra handheld GPSs, one reading the Navionics charts for a backup. Both electronic charts were right on.

The most modern safety feature I have on board is RayMarine’s AIS (Automatic Identification System) that receives signals from all ships larger than 200 tons. I had 24 ships on screen when traversing the Torres Straits and never got close enough to a ship to set off the alarm. AIS is a true life-saver on the open ocean. For comfort I added a custom Dodger/Bimini/Dingy Davit Cage that the Hunter stainless shop built for me, a Walker Bay RIB ‘Genesis’ dingy with a 20 hp and a blow-up dingy with a 4 hp, a Cobra kayak & a blow-up kayak and even the “Sea-Breathe” HUKA for underwater exploring.

38: Be straight with us, Mike, are you still claiming that you don’t really know how to sail?

Harker: Well, all I know about sail trim is what I learned from my hang gliding days. And all I know about navigation is that I point the arrow on my GPS to my destination and push GO/TO. Then I adjust sails and sit back and have the boat take me where I want to go. I’m sorry, but that’s how I sailed around the world. I’m not proud of it, but that’s how I did it.

38: We think there’s a little more to it than that, for example, you flew a gennaker, didn’t you?

Harker: I flew the gennaker from my old 466, but it blew out in strong winds near Vanuatu. But I also flew my new Parasailor2, which is a rather unique spinnaker from Germany that has a full-width opening about two-thirds of the way up, and an ‘air batten’ wing that helps keep it from collapsing. It’s a beautiful concept. It means you don’t have to sail as precise a course or, thanks to the inflatable wing, worry about the chute collapsing as much. Plus the elastic bands on a vented flap spill the wind when it starts blowing hard, so you have more or less the same pressure on the sail in 30 knots as you do in 12 knots. While crossing the Indian Ocean, I had my Parasailor2 up for more than a week without taking it down, and I flew it in the South Atlantic all the way across the Equator to the doldrums. It costs about 25% more than standard spinnakers, but I love mine and think it’s worth it. Oddly enough, you never see them in the States, but more than 40 boats carried them in the last Atlantic Rally for Cruisers.

38: What was typical weather for your trip?

Harker: Most of the time the wind was under 18 knots, and about 50% of that time it was 12 to 15 knots. It rarely blew under 12 knots, but when it did, it seemed to be very light for days on end. That happened three times, and was the least fun of all, as the boat rolled like crazy. Three days south of Indonesia in the Timor Sea was the worst of all. The water was like glass - in fact, it would have been perfect for the barefoot waterskiing that I did in my younger days.

38: How many hours did you put on the engine?

Harker: I’ve got 1,200 hours on the main engine, but some of those are only because my Fisher-Panda genset got water into it and stopped running. That meant I had to charge my batteries using the alternator on the engine until I fixed the gen.

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