Wave Studies: Sailing an Ocean with Max and Marjorie Mathews

Max Mathews has been an important presence in my life since 1964 when I first met him at Bell Telephone Laboratories. His guidance and help in launching the Music IV program at Stanford (Chafe and Chowning 2007; see also the program notes accompanying the 2008 Computer Music Journal DVD) and with my first research efforts in simulating moving sound sources and Doppler shift (Chowning 1971) were invaluable to me. But he has also been a close friend, and in this article I present an aspect of Max that has nothing to do with computer music. Rather, I bring to light one of Max Mathews's secondary passions—sailing, an activity in which he has teamed with Marjorie for decades and in which, with my family, we joined together to make an extended ocean voyage. Sailing a boat is a complicated business, requiring specialized skills and technical knowledge. Sailing a boat over long distances is complicated further by the fact that, in addition to keeping the boat in operating condition (and afloat!), survival depends upon knowing one's location—the art of navigation. It is celestial navigation especially that fascinates Max—it is an art that embraces a range of considerations, from trigonometry to astronomy, and which requires a kind of attention to detail and methodical habits of work that have led Max to such astonishing productivity in all of his endeavors.

Celestial navigation is dependent upon accurate measurements of celestial bodies, which in turn depend upon a relatively stable platform from which to measure. Understanding the effects of ocean waves on a moving boat—the Doppler effect in slow motion when compared to sound and light waves—became important in providing Max a platform having maximal stability. This is an account of how Max navigated an ocean and how we all learned to live with waves.

On 30 May 1989 I, together with my wife, our 3-year-old son, my 86-year-old father, his wife, and Max and Marjorie Mathews, departed San Francisco Bay for Hilo, Hawaii—2,447 miles distant (2,126 nautical miles), in a 44-foot cruising sailboat. My father was a mechanical engineer and shared with Max years of experience in the maintenance of boat machinery and systems, and my father's wife and Marjorie were experienced provisioners. We all had years of sailing experience in coastal cruising, but none crossing an ocean.

As there is no land between San Francisco and Hilo—and thus no place to stop—we had to keep the boat sailing continuously, with someone always at the helm. We stood watches as couples for reasons of safety and company. The duration of a watch was three or four hours, a mix that prevented a couple's watch from occurring at the same times through the 24-hour cycles.

The boat was equipped with a long-distance single-sideband radio and small radar. In the months before our trip, Max had learned and passed the requirements for an amateur radio license—mostly learning Morse code, as he is thoroughly grounded in radio theory. Having a long-distance radio allowed Max to maintain contact with a part of the world beyond our horizon—other ham operators on land and at sea. He maintained daily contact with a one-time Bell Labs colleague who had also retired to Stanford.

The radar included a rangefinder that allowed us to determine the distance and course of a ship on the horizon. From the bridge of a ship, we were unnoticed without a radio prompt. To a ship's radar, we looked much like a breaking wave in typical seas. In fact, we saw only two ships on the entire voyage. From the first, on 3 June, Max requested a fix that confirmed our position—and the accuracy of his navigation.

Ships follow the shipping lanes, which are the shortest distances between major ports. Once having crossed the shipping lanes, there is little probability of sighting another vessel. We, on the other hand, followed the winds, their predicted patterns based upon pilot charts that show the average wind force and...