Now Bering with Me

Mario Log: September 1st, 2025

Current ripped out of False Pass into the Bering, laying channel markers on their sides, straining at their chains. Storm winds sent a six-foot chop into our bow, pushing green water so often across the deck that it could have been midnight for all the good the windows were doing us.  This was the Bering we were warned about, the one we were told to be very afraid of.  As we pounded through into a howling storm that clearly beat us to the pass, all three of us were doing the exact same thing; we were laughing.

And, no, it wasn’t nervous laughter. The conditions weren’t fear-inducing.  We had to stay vigilant, of course.  All three of us searched the waves ahead and the RADAR for the next channel markers; we could still screw this up.  But the boat? Punching into 60-knot winds opposing a ripping current, Sarah-Sarah acted like a dog straining at its leash. It was as if the boat was smiling and saying,  “Is this all you got?”  We were laughing for the boat, not at the conditions.  In as harsh a seaway as I’ve ever experienced in my life, we were having fun.

One of the hardest things to convey to boaters who have no experience with an FPB is just how much better an FPB is at handling rough weather than …any other boat they might have experience on.  12-14’s on the stern?  Bring it on.  You want to throw them at the beam on an 8 second period?  OK, whatever. And punching into a head sea, while not something you are going to nap through, is not going to push the boat anywhere near its limits.  Shaped like a bullet at both ends, shallow draft, dynamically stabilized, an FPB is simply built different. 

After we anchored in False Pass, Scott started planning for how we were going to get across the Gulf to Kodiak and beyond.  Predict Wind was saying don’t leave yet.  Our weather router was telling us to wait.  The winds in the harbor were still gusting to forty and as the fishing fleet hung on their anchors the next day, we were weighing ours and headed out into the Pacific.  On the face of it, we must have looked like idiots.  Before I spent time on Sarah-Sarah, I would been one of the guys saying, “Will you look at these idiots?”   So how is it going now?  3-4s off the beam, 10 knots of wind from the same direction, and we’re handling some tough decisions like, ” what’s for dinner?”  If we would have stayed, we’d truly be stuck as another storm is climbing up into the pass and barreling in behind us.  It won’t catch us.  

Almost all boats are tougher than their crews.  Most sailboats have a righting moment and angles of vanishing stability that far exceed a humans ability take the same hit.  Sarah-Sarah, like all FPBs is equipped with restraint belts under every berth and every seat.  She is not so stable that you won’t get tossed out of your bunk in truly bad weather.  But that’s the point; FPB math is different for truly bad.  An FPB-64 rides like my couch at home in the same weather that would make a Nordhaven 62 cry for its mother.  The trick in managing risk on a vessel that is so forgiving at bad risk decisions is to remember that the boat is tougher than you are.  You cannot let the boats abilities cloud your judgment about your own.  We have a broader operating window than most vessels of even twice our size, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore clear margins of error.  We haven’t yet and we wont *.

Until the Bering Sea and the entrance to False Pass, the last 100 miles of our 1,125 mile run through the sea made new-famous by scenes from the Deadliest Catch, this 8,000 mile trip through infamous waters had been a complete milk-run by anyone’s estimation.  We crossed the Labrador Sea – it was a mill pond. Davis Strait was a kitten.  Baffin Bay across to the Northwest Passage?  We were bored, crossed the 75^th and went swimming.  Frankly, we were long overdue some green water over the bow.  This adventure was starting to look like a travel add in Condé Nast.  

We’re doing our best to keep any hubris in check and we’re taking every move of the vessel with all appropriate seriousness.  We are not going to be reckless with our own safety.  But if you’re thinking that seas and winds on your boat are the same thing as they are on an FPB …well …don’t make us laugh.

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• OK, the decision two weeks ago to head out into 5/10 ice in limited visibility was dumb, but in our defense, the FPB got us out of it.