This is the hardest blog entry we’ve ever had to write as evidenced by the fact that we are publishing it more than 2 months following our safe arrival in Mauritius. We will cut to the chase and simple say that as we were crossing the Indian Ocean our beautiful, funny and kind daughter, Kerrigan, lost her 2 year battle with breast cancer. Rather than recount all the details we will state the obvious — we are heartbroken and devastated — and share with you a slightly adapted version of the note written by Jill which we shared with our World ARC rally fleetmates after we arrived in Mauritius:
Hello fleet. We have some very sad news to share. We didn’t want to share it while we were all on the way to Mauritius because we didn’t want to cast a somber shadow over the passage. Our beautiful daughter, Kerrigan, passed away 5 days ago following a 2 year battle with breast cancer. Though we could not be there she was surrounded by her partner and her 2 adoring brothers, Tristan and Stefan, who dropped everything to be by her side. This was very sudden and unexpected. Kerrigan was diagnosed with advanced metastatic breast cancer in November 2023. We happened to be in the USA at the time for our annual visit because we had just finished the first half of our World ARC adventure. As you might imagine, we changed all of our plans and stayed with her in NYC for 4 months to help connect her to the best care and to make sure she was responding well to treatment. Though her cancer was advanced when diagnosed she was given an excellent prognosis because of all the new therapies available for her type of breast cancer, particularly, Enhertu. When we resumed our travels with the encouragement of Kerrigan and her oncologist she was responding incredibly well to treatment with significant reduction in her tumors. Unfortunately, as sometimes happens, she eventually stopped responding vigorously to Enhertu. This occurred in late July (2025) but her PET scans remained mixed (some continued improvement and some new growth) so her oncologist was not concerned. Still, her oncologist recommended Kerrigan for a new clinical trial which she began in early September. This trial showed success stabilizing patients, keeping the cancer from spreading further, until the next new breakthrough treatment became available.
After 3 weeks (early October) her oncologist called her a “super responder.” We all cried! Her prognosis remained good and we were making plans for her and her partner to join us in Brazil. But the blood work monitoring her liver function started to deteriorate. At the same time she had increasing pain in her hips and back. This combination of factors led to a hospital admission on October 10. Her doctors believed that the liver function results were the result of inflammation, a common side effect of her new treatment and they started her on steroids. They were not concerned and, initially, her liver function #s started to go down, confirming that inflammation was the culprit. Though her oncologist thought all was good I began to make plans to go home to help her through this time. We figured I would go back for a while, Zack would carry on with the boat and I would, hopefully, meet back up with him in South Africa. Two days later everything changed. Kerrigan’s liver function numbers started to skyrocket and they did a repeat CT scan. This time — just a week later — the scan showed aggressive tumor growth in her liver. Because of her decreased liver function she could no longer participate in the clinical trial and she could not go back on more traditional chemo therapy because her liver would not be able to handle the toxicity of the drugs. So she was discharged a few days later to home hospice. We were all (her oncologist included) in shock. Her oncologist told us that it was difficult to predict how much time Kerrigan had left but it was likely at least weeks. I already had my flight back scheduled. Now we had to make arrangements for Zack to fly back as well, leave the boat and find a crew to deliver our boat to Cape Town, South Africa. The original plan was for our older son, Tristan, to go out to NYC (Kerrigan lived in Brooklyn), followed by our son Stefan and then I would arrive. On Tuesday (October 14) I rethought that plan (mother’s intuition) and suggested to Stefan that he might want to get to NYC immediately, which he did. Both our boys arrived last Thursday morning (October 16) and spent the day with Kerrigan reminiscing. Then, in the early morning hours on Friday, her breathing became labored and soon she was gone. We both remain in shock and, as you might imagine, we are in an incredible amount of pain over not only losing our daughter but also not being there when she needed us. I fly out on October 24 and Zack will follow on October 26, after he meets with the delivery crew who will take our boat to Cape Town. Our plan is to stay in the States indefinitely and take things one day at a time. We may or may not rejoin the rally in Cape Town. We are looking forward to spending time with our sons and their families and, particularly, meeting our newest granddaughter, Marin (born on October 5). We know you will ask if there is anything you can do. Unfortunately, there is not. Just continue to find joy in life, big and small. Walking around with a black cloud over our heads will not bring Kerrigan back. We are determined to honor her by living life the way she did — with an abundance of kindness, purpose driven actions and very, very large. Kerrigan did nothing halfway or without gusto. We always said if she had a theme song it would be “Girls Just Want To Have Fun.” We hope she is dancing in heaven. 💔
After returning to the states we quickly realized that we could not go back to Che Figata. Sailing oceans requires physical and mental stamina. While we knew we could handle the physical rigor — nothing changed there — we also knew that we did not have the emotional reserves to handle the challenges of ocean crossings. What we needed was time with family, particularly our granddaughters, who excel at refilling our depleted tanks with high test joy. So we hired a crew to sail Che Figata from Cape Town to Annapolis, USA. That ends our circumnavigation — for now. Though people can certainly feel sorry for us that we lost our beloved daughter, no one should shed a tear that we ended our sailing journey 6 months early. Over the last 5 1/2 years living and sailing full time on Che Figata we have had more adventure — traveling the world and meeting some incredible people — than most people experience in a lifetime.
Rather than end here, we will include the blog entry we started writing before things went south with Kerrigan’s health. As we are sure recognize, the detailed blog posts we publish happen only because we write portions of each entry along the way to capture the moments. We will also pick up where we left off to share some bright spots — including acts of kindness from strangers that added light to our darkest days.
Here is the blog post in draft form complete with the blanks that were TBD (at the time) as well as some editorial comments:
Over the course of 15 days we successfully sailed the 2,350 to Mauritius, arriving at xxxx on October 21. It was one of our most challenging passages. As usual, that was not primarily driven by weather and wind conditions. Rather, there were two confounding forces that tested our resilience. The first was the usual suspect: boat drama. (In fairness, despite the above statement, the sailing conditions, in some cases, were the proximate cause of the boat drama). The second was a family health emergency involving our daughter. [Note: When we wrote this we thought that Kerrigan was having an inflammatory response to her new treatment.]. We will get into more detail on that below but, in short, Jill had to get back to the USA as soon as possible after arriving in Mauritius (which involved lots of planning while on passage) and the mood aboard Che Figata shifted as we grappled with our new reality. [Note: We were expecting that Jill would go back to be with our daughter and help her navigate this latest setback.]
But let’s start by talking about the sailing conditions because, even if they were not the main driver of the challenges faced, they are worth noting. We were crossing the Indian Ocean by sailboat after all. The Indian Ovean passage is known to be a difficult one for several reasons. First, wind speed can fluctuate dramatically in the Indian Ocean, from periods of no wind to strong gusts, which requires significant adaptability in your sail plan. Second, it is known for sudden squalls which can produce wind gusts and choppy seas. Finally, large swells generated by powerful, sustained storms in the Southern Ocean are commonplace. We saw waves between 8-12 feet throughout our passage. Unlike choppy, locally generated wind waves, these swells can travel for thousands of miles across the ocean and arrive at distant locations with great energy. All that said, overall, the Indian Ocean was kind to us. We experienced all of the above conditions — squalls, swells and fluctuating winds — but never to an extreme where we felt really challenged or frightened. We knew Che Figata could handle it and, once again, she proved that our confidence was not misplaced.
Of course, the harsh conditions, particularly the sudden squalls and wind gusts, can lead to equipment damage, and Che Figata was not immune. In the scheme of things, our condition driven boat drama was unfortunate but not catastrophic. We will summarize them for you below but also add that, ironically, our biggest drama was totally unrelated to the conditions we encountered. Our watermaker died. Kaput! Spoiler alert: with assistance via phone a friend and ChatGPT, we’re were able to identify the cause of the failure and the ever resourceful Captain Zack was able to bring our watermaker back to life. More on that below as well.
First on the hit parade is the equipment failures link to passage conditions. Two items fall in this category — the breaking of the torsion rope on our gennaker and the “relapse” of our prior temporary fix to our whisker pole. The torsion rope on our gennaker is a vertical, stiff line running up the front edge of the sail. It is the crucial, untwistable spine that lets you roll up this very big, unmanageable sail from the safety of our boat’s cockpit. As you may recall, our gennaker (“The Bee”) is a light wind headsail. We generally fly it until the wind or gusts reach 20 knots true wind (which means about 15 knots apparent wind). We were flying our gennaker on the 5th day of our passage. When Zack noticed the wind creeping up he decided to furl it. Unfortunately, just as he did that, we got hit with a strong wind gust, causing the gennaker to snap quickly with force and the torsion rope to break. Though we can execute temporary repairs to a tear in a sail (thanks to sail tape), we can’t replace the torsion rope. This highly technical line is not easily available (you need to get it from a sail maker) and has to be sewn in along the full length of the sail’s edge. The upshot was the early retirement of The Bee.
On the heels of the torsion rope mishap, we had a repeat whisker pole failure. As you may recall from our blog entry about our passage to Lombok, one of the dyneema loops at the outside of the pole had broken loose. These loops hold the guy lines that attach to the deck forward and aft of the whisker pole, helping to keep it steady. Zack was able to fix it in Lombok by replacing the broken loop with another dyneema line we had on board. To do this Zack threaded the new line though both the holes at the end of the pole and knotted the ends inside the pole to keep the line (now a loop) in place. Unfortunately the replacement dyneema was a little thinner than the original so with pressure on the loop from heavy winds the dyneema line pulled out notwithstanding the knot.
I’m sure after reading about our equipment failures many, if not all of you, wonder what rational person would sail across the ocean. It’s all part of the journey and though these failures can be frustrating there is a satisfaction derived from being self-reliant in the middle of the sea. But we do have to remind people that we don’t really consider what we are doing a vacation. It’s an adventure. We will say that being a part of a rally has been particularly helpful for 3 reasons. First, the fleet community is awesome and we have a group chat designated for “Boat Issues – Technical Discussion.” With the collective years of experience among the fleet crew there is always someone who’s had experience with any issue one of the fleet is experiencing. Second, it’s very reassuring. The best most experienced sailors are all having similar issues. We are not alone!
Finally, it puts your own issues in perspective. Just when you begin to lament another breakage or another sail out of commission (and maybe even start to feel sorry for yourself) you hear about a much worse issue faced by another boat. The one on this passage that really reinforced that was the boat that lost its autopilot while sailing down wind at 27 knots. On rare occasions these winds put too much pressure on the autopilot and it will go out. If there is no one at the helm when this happens (and usually no one is at the helm because there is no reason to have your hands in the wheel when the auto pilot is engaged) the boat will swing suddenly and wildly. And this is exactly what happened to that boat. The autopilot went down, which caused the boom to jib (switch over to the other side of the boat). This, in turn, caused cascading events which included a broken preventer (this in the line that is supposed to hold the boom in place and keep it from suddenly and violently jibing), a brake in the boom connection to the mast and one of the blocks securing the main sheet to be ripped off. Of course, this also caused the boat to heel over suddenly which caused chaos below deck. The important news was that no one was injured — when something like that happens crew can get knocked over or hit by an errant piece of equipment. 🙏 But reading about that occurrence is a reminder us to be thankful for what hasn’t happened.
Both of these boat dramas were relatively low level affairs. The failure that gave us the most angst is when our watermaker failed. Though we carry extra fresh water in jerrycans on our deck “just in case” and we try to keep our water tanks full by running the watermaker whenever we run the generator, we really rely on having a functioning watermaker, particularly on a 14/15 day passage. On day 3 our watermaker wouldn’t start. Zack did all of his usual tricks and nothing worked. Fortunately, over the course of our circumnavigation we’ve met some “wizards” who seem particularly gifted at troubleshooting and fixing issues. One of these people was Nafea who we met in Darwin when he worked in our engine and did some maintenance on our watermaker. So Nafea was the first person we thought of when we needed to phone a friend. With the support of Starlink and WhatsApp we placed a call to Nafea and he graciously answered it. Nafea helped Zack run a series of diagnostics which included running a voltage test that enabled us to identify that the root of our problem was that our watermaker’s variable frequency drive (VFD) died. In non technical terms, the VFD is the “brains” of our watermaker that communicates with critical components, like the high-pressure pump, telling it to start and begin the water making process. If the pump doesn’t engage the watermaker can’t start.
In order to fix our watermaker we needed to replace our VFD. Miraculously, we had a spare VFD on board! As captain Zack was preparing us for our circumnavigation in 2020 he spoke with a Spectra watermaker technician (Spectra isthe brand of our watermaker) in Newport, Rhode Island and asked him what spare watermaker parts we should we carry because they are critical components and a failure would be catastrophic. In other words, there would be no workaround or MacGyver move to effectuate a fix. Though expensive ($1,000+), he recommended that we have a spare VFD so Zack purchased it and stored it away. Over time he really forgot what it was for though he’d periodically ran across it while pulling out some other spare. When Nafea had him take off the casing that protected the existing VFD during the diagnostic process and Zack saw the distinctive red box he immediately realized that he had a one of those! Phew!
That was the good news but then we had to begin the process of executing the replacement. This was something Nafea couldn’t walk us through so we turned to our other go to: ChatGPT. With the help of our resourceful chatbot Zack artfully removed the existing VFD and attached the new one. This was tedious process involving the removal of 13 ever so tiny wires that had to be reattached in the same exact order — all while laying on his side in a boat rolling back and forth, starboard to port, port to starboard. As always, Zack was a hero and got our watermaker working again. The only misstep in the process was that the VFD contains a tiny computer chip that tells the watermaker what to do. Our chatbot instructed us to remove the chip from the old unit and place it in the new unit (a very difficult maneuver) to ensure appropriate programming. It turned out, however, that the fault in our existing VFD was due to a chip failure. We learned that because the new VFD with the old chip inserted did not work. When we re-consulted ChatGPT our chatbot said “Oops! If you purchased your new VFD from a certified Spectra technician the chip in the new unit was likely already programmed to the specifications of your watermaker and you should not replace that chip.” Great, now you tell us! Fortunately, though the chip replacement process is a delicate one, reinserting the chip that came with the new VFD did the trick and we had a working watermaker again. And it worked with gusto, producing more gallons of glorious desalinated water per gallon than ever. Cue the happy dance!
This is where we left off on the blog post and, though not as fresh 2+ months later, we will now fill in a few blanks that will complete the story of this passage. Here we go . . .
We thought that the substantial watermaker failure was sufficient and we really didn’t need any further angst (particularly because, by this time, we were grieving our daughter’s prognosis and then her death), but we had two additional boat dramas. First, during a routine engine check Zack discovered that one of the motor mounts that hold our engine in place had sheered off. We had this issue in Tonga and wrote copious amounts about it in our August 2, 2023 blog post entitled Our passage to and cruise around Tonga — July 6 through August 2, 2023 (subtitle: Circumnavigating on a sailboat is a little like that girl who had a curl in the middle of her forehead. When it is good it is very, very good and when it is bad it is horrid) so we will not re-describe the significance of the situation here. Suffice it to say that it’s bad. You can’t sail a boat across oceans — particularly not violent ones — with a broken motor mount. This was something that would have to be repaired on Mauritius so that the hired crew could deliver our boat to Cape Town. We then spent the better part of the remaining voyage sourcing a replacement mount, arranging for rush shipment to Mauritius and finding a qualified tradesman in Mauritius for installation. We were successful (thank you, Starlink, once again 🙏) but it was not a stress we needed. [Important editorial note: we figured out the cause of the motor mount failure: torque caused by a heavy custom high powered alternator we had installed on the engine. We had purchased a new, smaller, alternator to replace the one on steroids but we didn’t remove the old one entirely. We thought that merely disconnecting it would be sufficient. Wrong. We have now had the custom beefy alternator removed and sent to the alternator graveyard.]
And, because even that was not enough, we encountered the second boat drama: an engine failure. This occurred as we tried to start our engine upon our final approach to Mauritius. The poor girl really wanted to start for us but we heard that awful sound of the engine trying to turn over but not quite engaging: whrr… chuff… chuff… sputter—whrr. At first we thought we had a fuel supply issue but after exhausting all the usual diagnostics and workarounds we realized that fuel was not the problem. We then thought it was a transmission issue though we later learned that, thankfully, there was nothing wrong with the engine. The engine start failure was due to our malfunctioning prop which simply needed to be regreased. (This was great news!) Still, we had no engine and couldn’t get Che Figata into the Mauritius boat basin under sail. We would need a make arrangements for a tow.
The prospect of finding someone to tow us to the finish line in a foreign, French speaking island was daunting. (Jill’s French definitely improved as we crossed the Pacific Ocean but it was not that good!) We could contact the local coast guard — which we did — but they are not really equipped, nor do they possess the expertise, to safely tow our vessel. But then Jill had an idea. While she was sourcing tradesmen to execute various repairs in Mauritius (there is ALWAYS a repair list after a long passage) she ran across a guy by the name of Captain Emmanuel (Manu) Le Roy. He is the principal of CNOI (Chantier Naval de l’Ocean Indien), an outfit that that was certified by Yanmar to do repairs to their engines. Though he wasn’t able to help us with the repairs we were looking for when we originally reached out (we were just looking for someone to install a new oil pressure switch) he quickly identified a company that could do that repair and went the extra mile to contact them on our behalf. Because no good deed goes unpunished, Jill started contacting Manu for suggestions for all our repair needs. True to form, each time Manu made an appropriate introduction as well as a personal handoff to the identified tradesman. At this point he had no idea about the emotional pain we were experiencing — apparently he simply is one of those people who has kindness imbedded in his DNA (or is the product of good parenting, or both). It was only natural, therefore, that when we didn’t know where else to turn Jill thought of Manu. Upon hearing our plight he quickly offered his personal assistance: he would tow our boat himself. This was no easy feat. To do the tow he had to coordinate with the coast guard and get permission from local maritime authorities. The local authorities only wanted him to use some kind of licensed vessel. While he owned the vessel they recommended it was located on another part of the island and was not available at the time so he arranged to borrow someone else’s boat. And, finally, he had to give us instructions on how all of this would work which included getting volunteers among our fleetmates to lower their dinghies and motor out to us to help steer us to the entry of the basin and, since Manu could not enter the narrow basin with the tow boat, then guide us in the rest of the way. It is hard to describe the elation we felt having this “angel” look over us and handle the tow during what was one of the darkest moments in our lives. As we thanked Manu at the end of the phone call we had with him to work through the final logistics we finally shared our plight and immense gratitude. Specifically letting him know that Kerrigan had passed away and how much his act of kindness lifted our spirits in the wake of our grief from an unfathomable loss. In the end, Manu didn’t only tow our boat to the basin; he did it without any charge — not even to cover his expenses. And, on top of that, when his engineers were called in by the company we retained to replace the motor mount to assist with the process he didn’t charge for their time either. This unexpected moment of grace from a stranger enveloped us with a warmth that cut through the cold of our grief. It is a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid. Of course, our fleetmates coming out on mass in their dinghies to help us complete the journey into the basin was truly the proverbial sight for sore eyed. We used a picture of this dinghy brigade as our feature photo for this blog post.
And now we have come full circle. Jill helped Zack get the boat ready for the delivery crew as much as she could before her scheduled flight and then flew off to New York City. Zack followed 2 days later. After spending time with Kerrigan’s wife in Brooklyn we headed to Chicago where we are settling until our house in Michigan is renovated and ready for occupancy. That is likely to be about 9 – 12 months from now. In the meantime we will be busy — we will be making many trips to Michigan to see family and supervise construction, we will need to meet Che Figata in Annapolis to get her ready for sale (we always planned to sell her post our circumnavigation) and to move off most of our personal possessions from the floating condo that we called home since August 2020 and we plan to continue to spend a lot of time with family and dear friends who we need to lean on right now. We are not going to lie — our grief continues to come in waves, often with intensity, and we are not quite at the point where we can say that every day gets a little easier. That said, on a day to day basis we are doing okay. We are consciously choosing joy over despair and trying to give our sons and their families, particularly our 3 precious granddaughters, our best selves. They deserve no less.
Needless to say, this is not the end to this adventure we envisioned but it’s the one we have. But when one adventure ends another one unfolds and, as we said in our note to our fleetmates, we intend to celebrate our daughter by embracing life the way she did and living it to the fullest. Kerrigan, mom and dad want to make you proud! We love you and miss you. You will forever be in our hearts. Until we meet again!
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