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 2

March 2008

Part 2 of 5

Courtesy Latitude 38 Magazine

38: But be honest, is an 11-month circumnavigation a realisticgoal for most sailors?

Harker: Yes, it is, and even for singlehanders. With crew, it would have been an easy jaunt. The biggest factor is how much time people want to spend in places. It might sound as though I rushed around the world, and I certainly did move much faster than most cruisers, but it’s not like I didn’t stop at places. For instance, I spent nine weeks inAustralia - even though I'd only planned on spending three. Of course, that meant Ihad to race across the Indian Ocean. It turned out there wasnothing wrong with that, as I didn't find anywhere desirable to stop in the Indian Ocean on the way to South Africa. I spenttwo days at Christmas Island, two days at Cocos Island, andthree days on Mauritius - which was about one day too long. There's nothing in the Indian Ocean on the way to South Africaexcept a few islands with water and sand, and there's much more beautiful water and sand in the Bahamas. Right: Mike in Sydney Harbor

I also spent quite a bit of time in South Africa, which I loved. Here's why: I just happened to arrive in Durban at thesame time as the Clipper Around-The-World fleet. And it just so happened there were 14 front row slips, but just 13 Clipper entries. So an ambitious Hunter dealer arranged for my boat to be put in the 14th slip at the same time as the Clipper group. This apparently confused some of the thousands of people who showed up for the celebrations, because I was treated like a superstar! People thought that I was famous. (Laughter.) They had bands, big crowds, and it was a really big deal. Right: Welcome to South Africa with the 'Clippers' in Durban

Since my boat was in the front row, I was visited by many people, among them two families, each of which had 15-year-old sons. One was named Marx, and he was the South African Laser champion. The other was Pieter, and he’s about to do the Santa Cruz to Panama leg of the Clipper race with his mother. Anyway, about an hour after leaving my boat, both youngsters returned and sheepishly asked if they might sail with me. I told them I would take them if they could get approval from each of their mothers. When the mothers assented, the boys jumped up and down like crazy. Right: Pieter and Marx in Durban South Africa

The two youngsters sailed all the way to Cape Town, a distance of about 800 miles, with me. We were together for five weeks, as we had to stop all the time to avoid the famous storms that blow along the southeast coast of Africa. Most Latitude readers are probably aware that, in that part of the Indian Ocean, you get a storm lasting three days, then two days of lull. It happens like clockwork. You have two days of calm, then three days of gale-force winds - and I mean a real 50 knots of wind, not just 30 knots. Plus, the strong current flows in the opposite direction to the wind, so the seas become big, square, and horrendous. I don’t know what it’s like to be caught in those conditions because we managed to avoid them, but it would not be fun.

But having to stop all the time meant getting to visit all these great places like Knysna, or Port Elizabeth. My favorite was False Bay, the last one before rounding the Cape of Good Hope. I did a presentation at the local yacht club, then let the two boys sail my boat around the Cape. They were great kids.

38: Did their parents pay for them to sail with you?

Harker: No. My rule with crew is that they pay the expenses necessary to get to my boat and to return home but once on the boat, I pay for all the food and other expenses. I would never pay anyone to crew for me.

"I don't think I ever sailed

upwind - except for three

days off Cape Town."

38: How much of your circumnavigation was upwind?

Harker: (Long pause.) I'm thinking about it really hard, butI don't think I ever sailed upwind - other than three days nearCape Town. It would also have been upwind from Vanuatu to

Sydney but, when I got to Brisbane, I waited three days for thewind to change direction, then continued on with a fair wind. I don't sail with the wind on the nose because I don't like it. As I think back, the wind was always on my stem quarter,except for the Windward Passage between Cuba and Hispanola,when it was on my port beam. It usually blew on my port quarter, except in the South Atlantic, when it blew on thestarboard quarter. My boat was heeling to starboard for eight months, then to port for two months. (Laughter.) Right: Leaving Sydney with the new Parasailor

38: What was your worst weather?

Harker: I never had any really bad weather. The only roughstuff that I didn't wait out was 36 to 40 knots of wind between Samoa and Vanuatu, but it was coming from my stem quarter, so it wasn’t bad. The seas were big, however, maybe 18 to 20 feet. They’d been generated by 70-knot winds in the Southern Ocean. Some boats further south got dismasted, and some mariners were drowned down there. But Wanderlust 3 handled the conditions well with three reefs in the main and a staysail. We were doing about 9 knots, and the boat was loving it. Wanderlust 3 doesn’t heel as much as my 466 did, so it was quite comfortable. She’s also a dry boat because she has a bit of a hollow or concave in the bow that causes the water to shoot out to the side instead of up and over the deck. I had some waves crash onto the dodger of my 466, but that never happened with my Hunter 49.

38: What other differences have you noticed between thetwo boats?

Harker: The H-49 tracks better downwind and doesn'tyaw as much. She behaves like she has a long keel, yet sheturns on a dime. She also feels like a much bigger boat.

38: Was her larger size a problem?

Harker: Not at all. My 466 was actually only 44’6”, while my 49 is 49’11”. Plus, the new boat has a plumb bow and carries the waterline almost all the way aft, so she’s truly a much bigger and faster boat.

38: What did you consider to be a good day's run?

Harker: Wanderlust 3 had no problem sailing at 8.5 knotsfor hours on end, so I had many 24-hour runs in excess of200 miles. My best week was from Christmas Island to Cocos Island, during which time I covered 1,396 miles in seven days, or an average of just a hair under 200 miles per day. For a luxurious and relatively heavy boat being singlehanded by a guy who wasn’t racing, I thought that was pretty good. Right: Christmas Island

38: How did you get your weather info?

Harker: I got GRIB files via SailMail when atsea and, while on land, I used the U.S. Navyforecasts from fnmoc.navy.mil and Passageweather.com. The SailMail files come in black and white and are based on the color charts from the U.S. Navy. But the Navy has the best ocean weather info around. They are really good. Plus, they can provide you with a lot more information than just the surface winds and sea conditions.

38: Did you see many other single-handers?

Harker: It seemed that no matter where I went, I was introduced to “that other singlehander.” There was never more than one, but there was always one, and they were usually French. Three of them were women. One of them,Jeanne Socrates, had done the last Singlehanded TransPac in her 37-ft Najad Nereida. She was going around the world on a ‘fast’ circumnavigation too and having a great time. Interestingly, I’ve never met another singlehander on a boat larger than 40 feet. Most of them have older style boats, with long keels and lots of overhang. I don’t know, maybe it just means they couldn’t afford newer and more expensive boats, but they were having just as much fun and adventure as I was. Right: Cocos Keeling

38: Did you have any problems with any port officials?

Harker: No. But I always make an effort to present myself well, and I’m very courteous. I smile, I’m patient, and I’m never demanding. But above all, I put myself beneath the officials, letting them know that they are in charge. They love that! (Laughter.)

WATCH FOR PART III

Relaunch of Wanderlust 3 after minor repairs at
St. Augustine Marina Center in Florida.

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Latitude 38 Interview: Part 1

March 2008
Part 1 of 5

Courtesy Latitude 38 Magazine

Mike Harker
As a result of a horrible hang-gliding accident off Grenada decades ago that left him under water and unconscious, Mike Harker spent six years in a bed, all but unable to move, and being assured by doctors that he’d never walk again. Although he’s paralyzed from the top of his “butt bone” down - except for the insides of his thighs - he’s managed, through relentless effort, to resume a normal life. And, to make remarkable passages with his boats.Harker started sailing at 52 by entering the ‘00 Baja Ha-Ha, learning as he went along. The following year he singlehanded across the Atlantic, then sailed back across to Panama and the South Pacific. After returning to California, he had planned a circumnavigation that was, for reasons he’ll explain, delayed for more than a year. His goal, now that he’s 60, is to complete a 26,000-mile trip around the world in 11 months, sailing half the time and enjoying stops in ports the other half.

This interview was conducted in St. Barth when he had 1,000 miles left to go. By the time it was over; and. before this was published, he’d actually covered 27,800 miles in 10 months, three weeks - the greater distance a result of doing an unplanned additional 2,000 miles on the east coast of Australia just for the fun of it.

Harker’s worst scare of the trip? When he mistook some wicked hot sauce for ketchup at Cheeseburgers in Paradise in St. Barth. He was choking so badly and. in such genuine pain that we were seconds from summoning professional medical help before he began to recover. While making his circumnavigation, Harker’s home at Lake Arrowhead burned to the ground. He’ll not rebuild. When he’s through sailing - which isn’t going to be anytime soon, as you’ll soon learn - he’ll move into one of the units in his triplex on the water in Manhattan Beach.

Harker: Let me start off by saying that you’re the first person who speaks ‘American’ that I’ve talked to in over 10 months.

38: Cool. Well, tell us, how did this very rapid and mostly singlehanded circumnavigation come about?

Harker: As some readers might remember, I started sailing by doing the '00 Ha-Ha with a used Hunter 34 WanderLust. At the time, I knew absolutely nothing about sailing. After doing a singlehanded Baja Bash back to Southern California, I bought a new Hunter 466 in Miami. Although I intended to have crew, I ended up singlehanding Wanderlust II across the Atlantic. I then cruised the Med for 8 months, and that winter came back across the Atlantic and ultimately to French Polynesia via the Galapagos. Then, while on the way to Hawaii, the rudder broke. After getting a replacement rudder from Hunter, my plan was to sail back to San Francisco, do the Ha-Ha again, do the Puddle Jump to the South Pacific, then continue on to Australia and around the world.

But the folks at Hunter liked what I was doing. They invited me to their booth at the show in Miami and suggested that I trade my 466 in for one of their new H-49s - which wasn’t even completely designed at that point - and do my circumnavigation with one of those. They made me a hard-to-refuse offer, and had me come to the factory to get my ‘non-sailor’ input on the boat. Having accepted their offer, I had to postpone my circumnavigation for a year in order to sell my 466 and for them to finish designing and building the H-49. Right: New H-49 launch and rigging in St. Augustine Feb 2007

38: We've gotten to know you over the years, so we expect that you put that year of waiting to good use.

Harker: I went to Sea School in Fort Lauderdale to get my Captain’s license, then I went to school in Pensacola to get a Masters upgrade, and finally I went to Orange Coast College’s School of Sailing and Seamanship for my offshore and sailing endorsements. I now have all the certificates. Right: Looking down on 'WanderLust 3' from the new Selden mast

38: Were the classes helpful or did they basically teach you what you already knew?

Harker: There was a lot of stuff that I didn’t know, the classes were helpful. Among the most useful stuff I learned is a lot of sailing and nautical terminology that I wasn’t familiar with. You have to remember that I learned almost all my sailing in the Ha-Ha with German friends, and we only spoke German. And since I’ve singlehanded more than 90% ever since, I haven’t learned the English terms from subsequent crew.

38: So you mostly sail alone?

Harker: The only crew I’ve had for a long distance passage was from the Canaries to the Caribbean with my 466. I don’t think anyone has sailed more than a couple of hundred miles with me on my current boat. I only need crew for coastal waters where there is a lot of local traffic because, with someone else watching, I can safely go to sleep. Right: Sea Trial from Miami to Atlantis Marina in Nassau Bahamas

"I’m a guy who likes to move around,
and I discovered it was possible to
circumnavigate in 11 months."

38: What was the concept behind such a rapid circumnavigation?

Harker: While waiting for my boat to be done, I spent a lot of time planning a circumnavigation. I studied Jimmy Cornell's ‘World Cruising Routes’ for the best times to be in the places I wanted to pass through. The primary determinants of the best times are avoiding hurricane and tropical cyclone seasons. For example, you don’t want to leave Mexico for the South Pacific in the summer or fall, nor do you want to be crossing the Indian Ocean after October of any given year. I know that most cruisers typically take three to five years, but I’m a guy who likes to move along, so I found that the hurricane seasons would also allow me to do a circumnavigation in either 18 months or two years. But after doing some more studying, I realized that I could actually do it in just 11 months. Right: Alone to Matthew Town, Inagua

Cornell’s book was my bible. Not only did I spend a year planning my route with it, but I visited with him at the Annapolis Boat Show. In fact, I had two $5O/hour consultations with him about my route. When I showed my plan to him, he said, “I’ve never seen anyone with a plan like this, but it looks perfect!” Jimmy has been around the world something like 5 times and really knows his stuff. But don’t get him started talking, because he can go on and on. (Laughter.) 38: What were you figuring for an average speed or distance covered in a week? Right: The 'Windward Passage' between Cuba and Haiti

38: What were you figuring for an average speed or distance covered in a week?

Harker: The distance of the circumnavigation was about 26,000 miles, and there are 52 weeks in a year. I wanted to average 1,000 miles a week, so if I sailed at an average of 6.5 knots, I could be sailing half the time and resting or exploring ashore the other half of the time, and still make it around in 11 months. But as it turns out, I did nearly 2,000 more miles on the east coast of Australia for the fun of it.

38: But we all know about the inevitable breakdowns, new boat teething problems, and schedules going all to hell.

Harker: I don’t know what to tell you except that, as I’m here now talking to you, I’ve completed 26,900 miles of what will actually be a 28.000-mile circumnavigation, and that I’m currently just one week behind schedule. Had I wanted to, I could easily have been right on schedule.Right: The Errol Flynn Island in Port Antonio, Jamaica

38: That's pretty remarkable.

Harker: It’s not to say that I didn’t have delays or spend more time than I planned in some places. For example, I ended up spending three weeks in the Galapagos waiting for the people at customs in Quito, Ecuador, to release an alternator that I needed. I’m normally a very patient person, especially on boats, but that was the first time I got really frustrated. As a result, I had to make up three weeks crossing the Pacific. So while I did have delays, there was enough leeway in my schedule that I could make up for it.

WATCH FOR PART II.

Wanderlust3 up on-the-hard for new bottom paint, zincs, and rigging inspection. Selden wanted to inspect the mast after 28,000 miles of sailing in 11 months. This was the first H-49 fitted with Selden's Tall Mast and they wanted
to study the whole rig.

Mike Harker and Wanderlust3

Caribbean: Articles from Latitude 38 Magazine

Mike is safely moored in Miami getting ready for the Miami Boat Show starting later this week. Here's are a couple of articles courtesy Latitude 38 Magazine about Mike as he sailed through the Caribbean to Miami.

February 4, 2008 - Matthew Town, Great Inagua, Bahamas

Right... Mike, legally a paraplegic, unsnarls his chute off St. Barth about a week ago when he still had 1,100 miles to go in order to complete Wanderlust 3's circumnavigation. Photo Latitude / Richard
© 2008 Latitude 38 Publishing Co., Inc.

Mike Harker of Manhattan Beach reports that he completed his circumnavigation with his Hunter Mariner 49 Wanderlust 3 yesterday ( in the Bahamas. (He'd completed his personal circumnavigation earlier in Antigua.)

Harker had hoped to "make it around" in 11 months, but did better than that, taking just 10 months and 23 days. As you'll read in our interview with him in the March issue, it's something he says that anyone with common sense could do.

To put Harker's trip in context, he took just 10 days longer than did Sir Robin Knox-Johnston when he won the first singlehanded, non-stop, around the world race with his Colin Archer Suhaili in 1969.

Not to mix apples and oranges, Knox-Johnston went around Cape Horn and never used his engine for propulsion. Harker, on the other hand, went around via the Panama Canal, and on occasion did use his engine to move the boat. On the other hand, Harker luxuriated in port about half the time, while Knox-Johnston never stopped. In addition, Harker's Wanderlust 3 is the picture of luxury — five electric winches, microwave, two flat screen televisions, full electronics — to Sir Robin's ultra-basic boat.

My, how the world of ocean sailing has changed.

Harker's boat will be on display and available for sailing at the Miami Boat Show, which starts of February 15.

- latitude / rs


January 28, 2008 – St. Barth, French West Indies

Left... Having set his unusual Parasailor2 spinnaker off St. Barth, Harker and his Hunter Mariner 49 make tracks for the Sizzler at San Juan, Puerto Rico. Photo Latitude / Richard © 2008 Latitude 38 Publishing Co., Inc.

Early this morning we took off in our dink to photograph Mike Harker of the Manhattan Beach-based Hunter Mariner 49 Wanderlust 3, as he set his Parasailor2 spinnaker to leave St. Barth for San Juan and, ultimately, 1,100-mile distant Miami. When he reaches Miami, he'll have completed an 11-month circumnavigation with the boat, which still had the paint drying when he took off. Harker completed his personal circumnavigation last week in Antigua, as he'd already done the Antigua to Miami leg with Wanderlust II, his Hunter 466.

Right...Energized by fresh fruits and veggies - and even an extremely rare glass of wine - Mike yucks it up with Lili Wolfson, a true rocket scientist, who is two years into a 12-year circumnavigation with her husband Steve aboard their exquisite Texas-based Hans Christian 48 Liward. Photo Latitude / Richard
© 2008 Latitude 38 Publishing Co., Inc.

Harker will be stopping in San Juan on his way to Miami, because from his previous sailing adventures he knows there's a Sizzler right near the dock, and they've got an all-you-can-eat salad bar. The thing he missed most while sailing was fresh salads and veggies. In fact, we took him to La Gamelle restaurant the other night so he could savor a Rasta Salad, which included lots of delicious fresh mangos, avocados, tomatoes, lettuce and the like. He loved it. In fact, he loved it considerably more than the fresh fish platter at Le Select the day before. He'd mistaken some ultra-hot sauce for ketchup, and darn near died when a sauce splattered piece of fish got caught in his throat. He was in such bad shape we were two seconds from calling for a doctor when he started breathing again. Harker swears it was the worst injury he's suffered on the circumnavigation.

We've got a great new interview with Mike for the March issue of Latitude that we think you'll enjoy. Just for kicks, here are a couple of highlights:

38: How much did the circumnavigation cost you?

Mike: Besides the boat and gear, almost nothing. I'm a cheapo.

38: What were your three favorite stops?

Mike: The Galapagos Islands, the Whitsundays in Australia and St. Barth.

He loved the Galapagos for the wildlife, the Whitsundays for the great people, and St. Barth for, among other things, the beautiful women on the beach.

Left... Harker celebrated his circumnavigation with a sail aboard a 54-ft catamaran to Ile Fourchue, where he had probably his fifth glass of wine in 60 years. He's vowed to returned to the Caribbean for six months next winter.
Photo Latitude / Richard © 2008 Latitude 38 Publishing Co., Inc.

Having completed a rapid circumnavigation, you can imagine that Harker is ready to take a break from sailing. Er, not quite. He'll spend this summer giving presentations every other week at Hunter dealers or yacht clubs from Florida to Maine. Next winter he'll be back sailing around the Caribbean for six months. He'll follow that up with an Atlantic crossing to the Med, where he's looking particularly forward to Croatia, the Black Sea, and Turkey. Then he'll head down the Red Sea and across the Indian Ocean to Thailand. After a few months there, he'll work his way up to Japan, cross to California, and get ready for the '11 Ha-Ha.

If you don't think he'll do it, you don't know Mike — who, by the way, thanks to injuries received in a terrible hang-gliding accident many years ago, is legally classified as a parapalegic.

- latitude / rs

North Atlantic: Antigua to St. Barts

Just at sunset I left English Harbor and sailed along the east coast of Antigua towards St. Barts. I should arrive mid morning.

I will meet with Richard Spindler (Publisher Latitude 38 Magazine) and stay one night in Gustava.

I got my impeller pump replaced but could NOT fix the F-P generator nor do I have a reserve alternator. Hunter sent a reserve alternator on Thursday 'overnight' but it will not arrive until Sat and they don't deliver until Monday.

I left without a replacement alternator and hope my provisional repair and re-wire holds until I get into Miami. I have only the Balmar alternator on the Yanmar engine to charge batteries, but I am confident in my own repair and trust it will hold.

I will keep a running log each day.

Mike
S/V Wanderlust 3
BOTY