The Figure 8 Voyage Is Underway
After being delayed from his original early-October departure date, Randall Reeves has sailed through the Golden Gate and begun the first-ever "Figure 8 Voyage," a solo circumnavigation which will take him from San Francisco, around Antarctica, then up across the Northwest Passage and back to the Bay.
As of yesterday, Reeves was 300 miles west of LA and making his way slowly but surely south, having fallen into a steady northwesterly breeze and running downwind. "I have to say that the departure day was one of the most difficult days that I’ve ever experienced," Reeves said in his first blog on the Figure 8 website. "Saying goodbye to my wife. Saying goodbye to friends. That was really tough, knowing that I’ll be gone for a full year. And to sail into such terrible weather — fog and very light winds once I got outside of the Golden Gate."
Reeves said that he slept well his first few nights at sea, after sleeping terribly in the weeks before his departure. Just two days before he was scheduled to leave in early October, Reeves removed the propeller, shaft and thrust bearing from Moli, his 41-ft aluminum expedition yacht. Once it was repaired and back in the water, Reeves continued to have problems with the drivetrain, which he called "ancient technology."
But the Bay Area native fixed the problem to his satisfaction, felt comfortable with his weather window, and pulled the trigger on a voyage that’s been a long time in the making. "I’d always wanted to do a really long trip like this since . . . forever, since reading about the 1968 Golden Globe race," Reeves told us during an April interview at KKMI aboard Moli.
"And the longer you dream, the more attenuated the dream becomes. I kind of lost track of it. And I’ve gotten my big cruise. I’d done my two years. How could I expect my wife to let me go again?" Reeves wondered, referring to his 2010, 12,000-mile trip to the South Pacific in his 31-ft Far East Mariner Murre.
"I’ve lived in the city most of my life, and I love it. But I really enjoy being able to explore the un-human world, where you wake up in the morning and there’s a vast herd of dolphins frothing in the water as far as you can see. That’s really thrilling for me. You still get that feeling when you’re out on the ocean. I could be in a place that nobody’s ever seen before."