Songline’s Pacific serenade

If you trade needle and thread for a big bunch of bananas in the south Pacific, be ready to scape the black residue that drips from the clump from the floor of your dinghy. So goes one of the lessons learned by Fred Hiltner and Cinda Stanek during their 3 year and several thousand mile sailing adventure from Juneau to Polynesia and back.

Hiltner and Stanek started in Juneau and sailed down the west coast to Mexico. They left the coast of Mexico for the island chains and atolls of the Pacific. The first crossing took about 39 days. “Reef early, reef often was our motto” says Hiltner of their long passages. Squalls would regularly throw their 38 foot cutter rigged steel hull craft in the open waters of the Pacific. The ‘Songline’ carried Hiltner and Stanek, along with occaisonal crew such as Hiltner’s son Ian, safely across the expanse of the open ocean several times. “We finally decided on 7 hour watches” said Hiltner as he described the daily routine. “I had a regular circuit, where I would check the horizon, radar, rigging, radio, power and other systems during my watch”. The boat was rigged to single hand, just in case of emergency that laid one of them up or worse. There were also times when the Songline was completely becalmed in the doldrums of the equator. “It was kinda nice to just relax after working so hard on the hard sailing portions of the crossing” adds Stanek. The story of the Songline and her crew was the first of the sailor’s talks sponsored by the Southeast Alaska Sailing group. The wonderful slides and stories were a great way to start the new year and celebrate the emerging light in Juneau, which means that the sailing season is getting closer. The crowd was comfortably situated in the KTOO studios and enjoyed tales of open ocean cruising and the discovery of idyllic atolls. The atolls are eroded volcanic intrusions that create natural surf breaks in the island chains. Surrounded by a narrow rim, with most of the caldera submerged, they create an idyllic setting and safe harbor. Of great interest to the gathered crowd were the technical details of the sailing under varying conditions. Large breaking waves and the aforementioned squalls were the biggest challenges. Also, a torn mainsail required a refit with a new sail that had to be mailed in from Seattle. However, the running legs for the main didn’t fit the mast. Ten days underway toward Hawaii to outrun the typhoon season, Songline was forced to return to American Somoa to request a new sail and wait six months until the typhoons passed. Such are the ups and downs of cruising the vast Pacific. Ultimately, they returned to Juneau and were able to share the adventure with the eager group at the first SEAS event of the year.