Portions of this article first appeared in Cruising World Magazine
Open
Boat Adventure
Profile
by James Baldwin
One
With The Oceans
Argentine
adventurer Alberto Torroba crosses the Pacific by dugout sailing canoe
Ave Marina, the 15-foot dugout sailing
canoe which crossed the Pacific
Click images to enlarge
In
1990, Alberto Torroba sailed alone across the Pacific from Panama to the
Philippines. That’s remarkable enough. However, what made his voyage truly
amazing is that his boat was a 15-foot open dugout canoe made from a single
tree. Two years later, on a beach in a remote island of the Philippines, he
built a catamaran from plywood and bamboo, married a local girl from the island,
and continued his voyage to China. From the deck of our boat, Atom, we watched
as the 26-foot engineless catamaran tacked into Hong Kong’s Deep Water Bay and
anchored nearby. The next day we met 41-year-old Alberto and his new wife,
Rebecca Benocilla. They had just arrived from the then Portuguese colony of
Macau after an incredible passage of over 1,000 miles from the southern
Philippines and across the South China Sea, without navigational instruments -
not even a compass.
In
fact, Alberto’s boat was free from just about all the modern equipment
considered essential to long-distance passage making. There was no life raft,
certainly no radio, not even a receiver. There were no electric instruments; in
fact no electricity whatsoever. The boat had an interesting peddle/paddle system
installed forward between the hulls that served as “auxiliary power" for moving
about in calm harbors.
During
the next few months of early 1993, we became close friends with Alberto and
Rebecca. The tall, longhaired Alberto is one of the truly free spirits in this
world. He is not one to follow trends or take advice. He had spent his early
years working on his family’s sprawling ranch in Argentina. In his early
20’s, he turned his back on ranching to explore the world in small boats. Over
a period of several years he nearly circumnavigated South America in a variety
of open-decked sail-powered fishing boats and became highly skilled in handling
the vulnerable little vessels in all types of seas. He went on to cross the
South Pacific in a 24-foot engineless sloop, and later to round New Guinea in a
19-foot outrigger canoe.
His
quest to again cross the world’s widest ocean began when he walked into
Panama’s Darien jungle to find his boat. With the help of a native canoe
maker, he selected a single aspave tree, and shaped the trunk into a hull with a
slight keel carved into the bottom. He hung a rudder onto the stern and fitted a
mainsail and a tiny jib. He christened the boat Ave Marina (Spanish for “Sea Bird”).
Alberto
was forced to abandon his first attempt when extended calms and contrary currents in
the Gulf of Panama bedeviled him for 24 days. He paddled back to shore just as
he ran out of food and water. Undaunted, he waited for the steadier January
winds and set off again – 900 miles to the Galapagos Islands.
Track of Ave Marina across the
Pacific
To
navigate, he used methods similar to those employed by the ancient Polynesians
when they explored and settled the islands of the Pacific. With his knowledge of
the stars, winds and currents, and the habits of sea birds, he found his way
from island to island unaided (and unencumbered) by modern technology. After he’d lost his hand-held compass and sole chart of the Pacific overboard during
his first capsize, his only navigation tools were a bob line (a string with a
small lead weight on one end) to sight the stars, and a keen sense of
observation that few other sailors possess.
“The
way I calculate latitude,” he explained, “is to find a star whose zenith
passes directly over the island I’m heading for. All you need to know is the
latitude of your destination and the declination of the star. To measure the
angle of that star, I lie on my back on the floor of the boat looking at the sky
with one eye just below the lead of the bob line. The string will point to the
zenith. The bob line moves like a pendulum as the boat rolls, but after some
practice the error is usually less than half a degree, or 30 nautical miles.
“For
example, when the star Alnilam, which has a declination of 1 degree 12 minutes
south, was directly overhead I knew that I had crossed the equator. If I pointed
the bow of my canoe west and kept going on this latitude, sooner or later I
would hit the Galapagos.” This is exactly what happened 20 days after he left
Panama.
When
at sea, Alberto exists mostly on muesli (granola), coconuts, lemons and dried
fruit, and fish he catches and eats raw or sun dried. At least once, though, a
gnawing hunger drove him to eat the barnacles off the bottom of his canoe. His
water supply at the beginning of each passage consisted of 20 gallons in jugs. His working, living and sleeping
space was on a six-foot board laid in the bottom of the canoe. A plastic sheet
was rigged for protection from the sun, which he describes as “the major enemy
of the open boat”.
The
Galapagos was a point of no return as he noted in his journal:
“A
very old dream of mine is expected to be fulfilled. Nothing matters now but to
cross this ocean. There is no other way out of here. Neither the Peru Current
nor the southeast trade winds will permit me to turn back. Next stop is French
Polynesia, 3,000 miles away.”
In
moderate winds he could balance the boat to steer herself. At other times he
hand steered for long hours or simply let the boat drift while he rested.
Without any ballast he had to use his body weight to balance the canoe to
prevent capsizing. Nevertheless, disaster occurred a few days after leaving the
Galapagos when a jammed sail halyard in a rising wind caught him off balance.
His
journal recaptures the moment:
“Ave
Marina heeled until she was full of water and then slowly rolled over until she
was upside down. I was desperate to do something, but didn’t know what to do.
A couple of attempts at uprighting the boat ended with the boat capsizing on the
other side. All my dreams and possessions floated away under the feeble light of
a waning moon. Everything was gone. What remained was two cans of water, some
granola, and a fishing line.”
“When
I pulled out the mast the canoe would sit upright, but because the log canoe was still
fresh and green it lay with the gunwales nearly awash. I did not even have a
bucket to bail with. For hours I scooped water and always a breaking sea would
fill it full again. Exhausted, I lay in the water, just balancing the boat.
Everything seemed hopeless. So, I just waited and calmed myself.
“Later
I noticed that by balancing my weight carefully I could retard the interval of
when a wave would wash over the boat. I felt that by concentrating more on
balance than on bailing speed it might be possible. To make a bucket I was
forced to sacrifice one of the two remaining water jugs. All through the morning
I bailed and over and over again the boat filled. Eventually a calm moment came
and when the canoe was half empty I stood up and bailed with an enthusiasm I had
never experienced before. Finally dried out and sailing again my spirits soared.
“I
remembered that my original idea had been to cross the Pacific in an open canoe
but was afraid to do so. Now I had my empty canoe – as a primitive man. And I
laughed and shouted nonsense to the wind. I was happy. Happiness is not a
feeling that depends on success or failure. It is a movable thing that depends
on whether you are going uphill or downhill, regardless of where you are on the
hill.”
By
rationing water (supplemented with sips of salt water) and catching fish he was
able to keep going. Forty-one days later he made landfall at the fabled island
of Fatu Hiva in French Polynesia. As he continued his journey across the
Pacific, he called at numerous islands, to the general astonishment of the
natives. To see a white man appear from over the horizon in a canoe was an
almost unbelievable sight. In every case the local people befriended him and
took him into their homes for a meal and a few nights of undisturbed sleep.
Remarkably,
he always made landfall at the islands he was aiming for. When his guiding star
brought him to within 30 miles of an island he would then locate it by observing
clouds, the movements of sea birds and the subtle motion of reflected waves
bouncing back off islands. The average sailor is blind to these hidden waves.
There is no class you can take or anything anyone can tell you to be able to
learn it. The navigational equipment and the numerous comforts on our modern
yachts preclude us from crossing this barrier. These things are only learned and
understood after long hours of concentration by a person in an open boat whose
very survival depends on correctly interpreting nature’s signs. Those who fail
in nature’s harsh school will die.
Losing
his compass, Alberto found “had opened a new dimension in my mind.” He
relied foremost on the sun and stars to guide the way, but sometimes overcast
skies and shifting winds caused disorientation. “I remembered that animals and
migratory birds can sense magnetic poles. In one instance, when I had no other
means for finding direction, I closed my eyes and rotated my body slowly through
360 degrees again and again. Somehow I found that when facing a certain
direction I had a different feeling, a sort of calmness. Being in the Southern
Hemisphere, I took it as being south. I kept sailing to what I assumed was west
and when the sky finally cleared one night I found that I had been sailing
exactly west. Several times I tried this and it always worked. But it takes very
strong concentration.”
The
decisive test for Alberto’s navigation technique occurred when he left Bora
Bora for Suwarrow Atoll, 500 miles away. Suwarrow is small and remote, a mere
speck in the ocean. A few miles off course and he would miss it. After seven
days a star in the constellation of Capricorn indicated that he might be near
the island.
“The
next evening some frigate birds passed close by and I was sure they were on
their way home to Suwarrow. The frigate birds are the most reliable birds for
land finding. Very seldom will they venture more than 50 miles from land and if
they do you will only see one, not a group. Terns and boobies have a good
reputation for leading lost fishermen back to land, but I do not trust them. I
have seen them hundreds of miles from land, and in groups.
“The
main thing about birds is the way they fly. When a bird is fishing he will fly
erratically. You will understand very soon that he is not going anywhere. The
best time to watch is early in the morning or late in the evening. In the
morning a booby will be flying from one side to another, but always progressing
in a certain direction. If after that you see another one doing the same thing,
you can be virtually sure of it. A frigate bird flying high and straight in the
evening is going home.
“As
I was following these frigate birds, three terns flew by in a different direction
and I was doubtful. But it was about 20 frigates against three terns, so I
disregarded the terns. When I didn’t sight land when I expected to I also
noticed that the waves still had their regular shape indicating that I was
already passing the island some distance away. If I had been to windward of the
island I would have felt the interference of the waves bouncing back off the
island. I altered course to the southwest, unable to explain why, just that I
sensed the island was in that direction. And a few hours later Suwarrow appeared
directly off the bow.”
Coming ashore in the Philippines
Alberto
also had adventures ashore. In Vanuatu he moored his boat along a riverbank and
walked off alone into the mountains to learn what he could from the primitive
tribes “before progress puts them to work for a dollar and hour and the white
man’s alcohol erases their human dignity”.
Between
New Guinea and the Philippines a storm blew him over a hundred miles off course
into the North Pacific. He had no chart of this part of the sea but remembered
that Palau was in the general area. Since he was nearly out of food and water,
he knew he must try to reach land soon. One night he saw a fishing boat but they didn't see his signal – a candle in a coconut – and passed him by. The next day
he saw another boat, an Okinawan fishing boat, and signaled them by reflecting
the sun off a piece of tin. They saw his signal, gave him some food and water,
and pointed him in the direction of Palau, 50 miles away. We can only imagine
the incredulous looks of the fisherman as the canoe sailed confidently on its way.
While
he was in Palau a typhoon hit the island. After sheltering on shore, he went to
look for his boat the next day, but it was gone. Friends helped him search the
reefs and islands until they found Ave
Marina sitting on a beach, full of sand and water, but largely undamaged.
Arriving
next in the Philippines marked the end of the canoe voyage across the Pacific
and the beginning of new adventures. On the island of Masapelid, off Mindanao,
he met and married Rebecca Benocilla, the daughter of a local fisherman. He now
needed a larger boat to continue on to China with his wife. He also wanted to
try something different – a boat that would not depend on constantly shifting
his body weight to keep from capsizing. Here Alberto gave away his beloved Ave
Marina to a local Catholic missionary who used the canoe to carry supplies
to his mission on a nearby island. There is not likely to be a more courageous and blessed
canoe on the sea than Ave Marina.
CROSSING
THE SOUTH CHINA SEA
For
the passage through the islands of the Philippines and across the South China
Sea, Alberto built a 26-foot catamaran of his own design. The greater stability
and carrying capacity of two hulls would be a sharp contrast to the tipsy canoe.
There were no boat builders on Masapelid Island. Yet, with the help of a local
carpenter, he built the catamaran on the beach in six months. This was quite an
achievement considering the two men worked without electricity, using only hand
tools. They did almost all the work using a hand saw, a six-inch block plane and
a brace drill. By the time they had finished, they'd worn the blade on the
plane down to a sliver from countless sharpening on a stone. The catamaran was
constructed of Philippine red luan, ironwood, plywood and bamboo, with copper
nails and epoxy glue for fastenings. Total cost was just under US$1,500.
The
biggest problem in the construction process was cutting the ironwood for the
keelsons. Once he located the ironwood on another island, it took 10 men to lift
the 24-foot logs onto an outrigger boat, called a banca,
for transportation. During the first attempt the weight of the logs
overturned the banca and snapped off the outrigger. Then, the sheer
weight of the logs caused the boat to sink to the bottom, which took some time
and effort to raise. And that was just the beginning of the ordeal.
The
men then found that their saws could not cut the aptly named ironwood. Two
tree-cutters were recruited from Mindanao. Called gavaceros, these men specialize in working the laborious two-man
lumber saws used for cutting logs into planks. For hours they sawed and sawed,
and still made little progress with the tough ironwood. “Babalik kami bukas,”
they said (“We’ll be back tomorrow”). They were never heard from again.
Another man was called in. He had a brand-new high-powered chain saw and
proceeded to attack the logs with vigor. However, the sharp, ragged teeth of his
saw made little impression and he too vanished.
For
weeks the entire village closely followed the lack of progress as men scratched
their heads and offered advice. Finally, one day a man arrived with a worn out,
old chain saw slung over his shoulder. He asked if he could give the logs a try
and, to the amazement of Alberto and the skeptical villagers, he slowly but
surely cut the logs into shape. His method was to use an old blade with cutting
edges worn down and thinned by many years of sharpening. The rest of the
construction went more or less according to plan despite the inevitable
difficulties in finding boat building materials on the small undeveloped island group
For
a mainsail, a piece of canvas that in earlier days had seen service as a rice
drying mat was hoisted loose-footed onto the bamboo mast. Two jibs cut out of
plastic awning material completed the sail inventory. In calm waters Alberto can
lower the unusual paddle-wheel system and maneuver the boat by pedaling it like
a bicycle.
Because
of Alberto’s concern with deforestation, particularly in the Philippines, one
of his projects was to plant trees on the island. This was as much a gesture of
goodwill to the people of Masapelid who had welcomed him into their community. A
small income from his share of leased family land in Argentina helped pay for
this project as well as his low-budget boat building and ongoing travels.
When
the boat was completed, the couple left Masapelid to sail northwest over 500
miles through the Philippine Archipelago, stopping at several islands along the
way. A single-burner kerosene stove allowed them to prepare meals, mostly of
fish and rice, supplemented by fresh fruit and vegetables from the village
markets found on nearly each inhabited island in the group. Alberto found this
quite extravagant compared to the raw fish, coconuts and homemade granola that
he survived on during his solo canoe voyage.
From
the port of Vigan in northwest Luzon the couple sailed north until nearing the
Bashi channel south of Taiwan, which he identified by the east-west flow of the
shipping traffic. The next day, shifting winds and a low overcast sky caused him
to temporarily lose his sense of direction. For another day they drifted through
continuous thunderstorms and lightning.
After
the storms abated, still without a compass, he again had to rely on his acute
sense of observation and a large dose of intuition to find his way. The next day
it was the seabirds that put them back on course: “Boobies flying from west to
east in the morning showed me the general direction of Pratas Reef. In the
evening I sighted the birds flying to the southwest which told me I was passing
north of the reef. Once I sighted the coast of China it was just a matter of
sailing southwest along the coast until we reached Macau.” Though it sounds
simple enough, in practice it is exhausting work sailing along the China coast.
Visibility is often poor in rain and fog, there are numerous off-lying islands
and rocks around which to navigate, and there is always the danger of being run
down by ships and fishing boats.
Alberto and Rebecca aboard their 26-foot cat
in Hong Kong
After
leaving their boat safely tied up in Macau’s marine police basin, the Torrobas
left for a tour of China by train, bus and foot. Along the way, Alberto studied
the Mandarin language and searched for a place to learn the ancient forms of
Chinese healing. In Canton he found a school that was willing to accept
foreigners and he enrolled in a three-month intensive course including
acupuncture. Before going off to the school, the Torrobas sailed to Hong Kong,
where we first met them. Rebecca returned to the Philippines on another boat to
wait there for Alberto’s return.
Alberto later told us that he could relate easily to the lifestyle in mainland China. In comparison with the frantic pace in Hong Kong, he found the people “relaxed and more human”. When his studies were finished he returned to Hong Kong with his Chinese healing school diploma, a box of acupuncture needles, and an eagerness to practice his new healing skills. He was soon treating people from other boats in the anchorage with some success on various minor ailments. Regardless what some people may have thought of the efficacy of acupuncture, a man who believes in his ability to heal exudes an aura of confidence that can cure many ills.
 Alberto Torroba pedaling his catamaran in Hong Kong. |
 Alberto demonstrating the pedaling gear at a mooring in Hong Kong. |
Although
the catamaran has served him well, he was not completely satisfied with its
performance. His next project was to sail the cat back to the Philippines, where
he would build an unballasted 23-foot wood monohull sailboat, somewhat
resembling the larger traditional Chinese sampan fishing craft.
In
preparation for the expected cold and wet early-spring passage across the South
China Sea, he bought a used loose-fitting diver’s wet suit to wear over woolen
underwear. For navigation he planned to use a photocopy of a single chart of
Southeast Asia – nothing more. A compass he still considered superfluous.
The
greatest danger he faced on this trip was Pratas Reef, which lies directly on
the route to Luzon. Gale-force winds are always possible and currents in the
area are unpredictable and can be strong. Even in daylight, with good weather,
the reefs cannot be seen until you are nearly upon it. “If you watch and pay
attention you will never hit a reef,” Alberto told us. “Sailors who get
shipwrecked do so because of overconfidence in their navigation equipment, not
because of a lack of it.”
As
an analogy he recalled an earlier time in the Panamanian jungle. He and a dozen
or so men were carrying a log that was destined to be his canoe. All but one of the
bearers were wearing rubber boots. The procession came to an abrupt halt when
someone warned of a poisonous snake in the path ahead. The man who had seen the
snake was barefoot, the lone bootless hiker. His life had depended on seeing the
snake. It is a lesson Alberto has never forgotten.
Once
he was safely past Pratas Reef, he continued on for 650 miles, making good
progress in strong beam winds that required extra vigilance to prevent capsize,
until reaching the island of Palawan in the Philippines. A year later we heard
from Alberto when he arrived alone on his new unballasted sampan in Kota
Kinabalu, Borneo. The boat seemed to be working out well for him and he
continued to sail on through Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand before friends of
ours reported seeing him and his sampan in Sri Lanka a few years ago. Since
then, Alberto has rejoined Rebecca and last I heard they were living on the
family’s ranch in Argentina.
I
wonder how often he thinks of the sea and if he has plans to go out upon it
again. For Alberto, his boats are an extension of himself, tools for exploring
the world without and the world within. His life, as reckless as it seems to us,
is perhaps not unlike some of our own dreams in our unguarded moments.
Atom Voyages
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