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.

WATCH FOR PART IV OF V

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