We’d heard stories about Mike Mann, who at 22-years old sailed his 750-pound Montgomery 15 on a remarkable 38-day crossing from California to Hawaii, but specific details about his voyage were hard to come by. Then just recently we learned he’d written a book about the voyage, A Little Breeze to the West. Naturally we ordered copies for our SCA book store, but we also conducted the following interview.
What features of the Montgomery 15 made you believe such a small boat was suitable for a voyage this challenging?
I have to confess that my sailing experience was minimal and my knowledge of marine architecture was even less. I bought the boat from my good friend Marc Hightower who, at the time was Montgomery’s shop foreman. Marc assured me that it would be safe to sail to Catalina. After two years of sailing my Montgomery around Southern California I developed the skill and confidence that led me to believe that, Hey, maybe I can sail this thing to Hawaii.
We wonder if you considered the much larger and arguably safer Montgomery 17 at the time?
I knew the 17 was a proven boat and had been in production for many years before Montgomery decided to manufacture a smaller, 15-foot model. When Marc decided he needed a larger boat for more extended cruising, he offered the 15 to me at an attractive price. That is really how I ended up even buying the boat. I wasn’t a sailor yet and hadn’t even considered buying a boat. However, the Montgomery 15 became available at a price that I could afford.
We understand you read a lot of small-boat voyaging books in preparation for your own voyage. Which texts proved most valuable?
I was inspired by the adventures of Tinkerbelle by Robert Manry and Alone Against the Atlantic by Gerry Spiess; these sailors singlehanded 13 and 10-foot boats from the East Coast to England. I was amazed and challenged by their 3500 nautical mile adventures. The appendices in their books gave me the outline for preparing for my trip of only 2200 miles—a relative piece of cake.
Next was learning self-steering techniques for my little boat. Larger boats have wind-vanes or even autopilots. Marc showed me some basics and guided me to John Letcher’s book Self Steering. There were a lot of pictures and diagrams that I experimented with. In my book I tried to explain how I managed to self-steer on three points of sail: beating, broad reaching, and of course wing and wing down wind.
We know you made a number of modifications to the boat (adding a Styrofoam block to use up some cockpit volume, using M-17 rigging and rudder, locking the bottom washboard in place, etc.). In the end which of the modifications do you think were most worthwhile? Anything you’d do differently in terms of boat customization/preparation if you were going again in the same boat?
Again, I thought that my preparations were even more important that the voyage itself, that is why I tried to include all the modifications that I could remember in my book. By the time I set sail this was no stock, out-the-door Montgomery 15. Of course the most important improvement was setting up the twin jibs for the downwind leg of the voyage. I bought a set of headsails from Marc and had them cut to fit my boat, which included a set of reef points. The halyards and downhauls leading back to the cockpit allowed me to raise and lower the sails from standing inside the cabin or from the cockpit. The running backstays were a must or I could have lost the mast if caught in high winds.
It’s funny you should ask if I would do anything different. During the voyage I started dictating “Technical Reports” to myself (as if I were going to keep sailing) which really weren’t about improvements, but more about how well the existing improvements were working.
The one weak point that I should have addressed from the very start was reinforcing the cabin hatch slide. I beefed up the drop boards, but the track for the hatch coaming slide had a lot of play. When a wave rolled over the cabin, water was injected into the cabin through the loose slide. Not a great deal of water but I still got wet. One wave had actually knocked the hatch out of the slide and I almost lost it overboard.
An additional weak point was the drop centerboard. It had a little too much play and under certain conditions and motions, like the sway, yaw and roll, would cause the centerboard to bang inside the keel. Irritating at the least, but it also made me nervous that the pounding could cause damage to the keel—it didn’t.
You were about 800 miles out of Los Angeles on day 19, when you wrote: “I knew things were going to be long and arduous, dreary and boring, painstaking, depressing, beautiful—but I never should have underestimated time. Especially time alone. I am in the midst of a sea of solitude.” Did solitude prove to be the toughest part of the voyage?
The solitude is what worried my parents before my departure. They knew I could sail all day out in the harbor by myself, but for days on end without any contact at all? Yes, I could never have planned or prepared for what I was going to experience. As I wrote and recorded my daily activities and thoughts, I could tell that I was a little lonely. I didn’t miss TV or movies but I missed the human contact. I couldn’t let it get the best of me because I knew I had to stay focused on the tasks at hand. As the days went by, and the farther I sailed, I realized this was very serious business. One mistake could prove fatal. I tried not to think about the dangers but stayed focused on sailing, navigation, maintenance, housekeeping, food, etc.
We think our readers might be surprised to learn how much time you spent in the cabin versus the cockpit. I think in your book you mentioned being in the cabin about 90% of the time. Was it just more comfortable to be inside or was it a safety issue? Were you tethered when you were in the cockpit?
Yes, I never went out of the cabin without wearing my harness. I had just enough slack in my lanyard to make it to the bow and stern. In rough weather I would sleep with it on in case I had to dive out of the cabin in an emergency and might not take the time to strap in. Sitting just inside the cabin or lying down on the cushions in my V berth were much more comfortable than sitting outside exposed to the weather or on the hard fiberglass benches. The lanyard was thin enough so that I could close the hatch on it as it led outside.
We’ve heard of other solo sailors who after enough time alone began to have an awareness of various entities in the cockpit when they were below, and vice-versa. We wondered if anything like that might have contributed to the long periods you stayed below.
Another one of the books I had read was Alone Around the World by Josh Slocum. I was even a member of the Slocum Society back then. No, I did not have mysterious “pilots” guiding me in the night while I lay sick in my cabin. But I can see where with enough fatigue and or imagination someone alone for that length of time could start to hallucinate.
It sounded like one of your most common “heavy weather” tactics was to drop all sail and stream a warp from the transom. Can you tell us the specifics (size and length of warp, attached how, etc.) and how this worked for you? Did you employ any other heavy weather strategies and how did they work?
No other strategies. I read about using the warp for small boats instead of a sea anchor. Since I had 300 feet of 5/16 yacht braid anchor rode and 30 feet of ¼ inch anchor chain already on board this was all I needed so I didn’t have to carry any other gear. As it turned out, tying off the warp on one of the cleats on either side of the transom (depending on which direction the seas approached from) was the best approach for me. It kept me pointing in the right direction so I could assume that my course and distances (via sum log) were close enough for navigation.
When the going was good did you mostly fly twin headsails? Tell us about that arrangement.
Once I hit the trades there were only a few “good” days and after that the rough weather really set in. For safety, at night in high winds, I would just drop the headsails on the foredeck and lash them in place. I think there were some days where I just ran bare pole all day because it was too rough for any sail to be up.
Tell us about your self-steering setup.
Actually the easiest self-steering setup was running down wind with twin headsails. I would lash small blocks with lanyards to the cleats on the gunnels port and starboard, run the headsail sheets through these blocks and then bend to the over/under cleats on the rudder handle while adjusting the sheet tension so the sails had a good shape and orientation to the wind to keep the desired course. A small bungee bent to the gunnel cleat allowed for adjusting weather helm.
You used a sextant and dead reckoning. How much easier and less anxiety producing would navigation on the same trip be with GPS?
A trip like mine would be very difficult under any circumstances no matter how experienced the sailor or how much of the latest equipment could fit on board. However, if you have the power and a reliable GPS, I would go with the GPS. After 30 years at sea I realize I was really fortunate to make it to Hawaii.
Several times during storms you were knocked down while inside the cabin. It must have been terrifying to be, as you wrote, standing with your feet on the port side of the vessel looking down through the window like it was a glass bottom boat. Even with the hatches closed we assume you shipped a fair bit of water when this would happen.
I would say that was the most frightening time of the whole trip. As I mentioned earlier the companionway slide was not watertight. When the boat was knocked down I had a little sea water streaming in the slide as long as it was in the water. When I was able to right the boat (almost immediately—the Montgomery was pretty stable) the water stopped coming in and I had about five or six gallons of water to bail out with my built-in Whale Gusher pump.
Are small boats more capable than people realize?
Absolutely. The right small boat can be capable of traveling anywhere. I know Gerry Spiess sailed all the way from L.A. to Australia in his ten-foot Yankee Girl. Ten feet! Storage is the only limitation for extended travel. As long as the seas are not collapsing over the boat you can survive.
Was the weather you encountered, number of gales, etc. more or less typical for the time of year and route? We know you experienced some effects from Hurricane Daniel.
I used the advice of my friend Marc in deciding to set sail in early June. From what I learned, the North Pacific high pressure system moves north in the summer and so causes the NE trades to form into an established position blowing steadily from L.A. to Hawaii. I didn’t realize until many years later, when I seriously began writing the book, that some of the real rough weather I encountered was the leading edge of Hurricane Daniel. Hurricanes usually don’t start until late July or August. What would have happened if I was in the middle of one—who knows?
Is it easy for you to imagine significantly worse weather and things not having worked out as well, or do you think you and the boat could have coped with quite a bit more?
As I said over and over in the book, everything went according to plan. It was a miracle, granted, but I think all in all the boat preformed magnificently even with a novice in command.
You’ve had 30 years now to reflect on your voyage—do you look back on the decision to sail to Hawaii in a 15-foot boat and think it was foolish or excessively risky, or does it still seem reasonable?
I was young and adventurous. I wanted to explore and to do something no one else had achieved. Robin Graham sailed from L.A. to Hawaii at sixteen years of age, but in a 21-foot boat. Gerry Spiess holds the record, as far as I know, sailing from L.A. to Hawaii in a ten-foot boat. It wasn’t until after I graduated from the California Maritime Academy and shipped out on larger commercial vessels did I realize how much trouble I could have gotten into. There was no turning back. There was no one to call for help. No life raft to abandon to. No, the Little Breeze had to make it.
What are you up to these days? Do you still sail?
I am semi-retired from commercial shipping. I am working as an independent Marine Advisor for a major oil company. I still hold all my Coast Guard credentials, for now, and would like to ship out one more time—for fun—or do some yacht deliveries. I am pretty much open to new adventures.
My wife and I enjoy sailing San Francisco Bay; we usually rent a Cal 30 from the Presidio Yacht Club. One particularly memorable day sailing was during the Tall Ship Festival of Sail. With tall ships from around the globe, a beautiful blue California sky and perfect wind conditions, it was a fantastic day to be out on the water. •SCA•