That's around 7,000 kilometers or 4500 regular miles and the longest passage we've made. With no engine I guess we've had a taste of sailing as it was. Certainly the scenery hasn't changed!
We left St Helena an hour before sunset on Thursday, January 28. With the transmission topped up we knew we'd be able to get an hour or two out of it before it ran dry and that was plenty to get us out of the anchorage. As the light faded and we watched the twinkling lights of Jamestown receding we set the yankee and mizzen sails and settled down for an easy first night.
It takes a few days to get used to our routine at sea again. Very simply, we have a bite to eat at around 6:30 - 7 pm and then Sandy likes doing the first watch. I get to sleep around 8pm and if I haven't already woken, she wakes me somewhere between midnight and 1 am. It depends on when whatever movie she's watching ends!
I take it from then until she wakes up, usually around 7 am.
Of course this whole routine changes when we are dealing with rough weather and then we just do whatever needs doing and the most exhausted one gets to sleep first, even if only for a couple of hours before swapping over again. During the day we both try to get some catchup sleep at various times so we're ready for the night again. It works for us.
The next day the wind was light so I unfurled the main sail while Sandy was still asleep, or tried to. It jammed about a third of the way out. This was no ordinary jam. This was a monster. An extra fold of sail had tried to get through the housing slot making a tripple thickness and wedged solid. In trying to roll it back and forth to free it, the furling line doubled on itself forming a 'hockle' in the driver, a severe one. Either of these jams is bad enough, but both together was enough to consider detouring to Ascension Island, about a week away.
Of course by this time Sandy was up and we wrestled with it for hours. Eventually I broke the furling line trying to winch the hockle back out. That left the sail pleat to get rid of and it wasn't budging, and then the furling line to feed back onto the driver. The driver is notched to grab the line so it doesn't just slide through and that's precisely what we had to do, so not an easy fix.
We took a lunchtime break and were feeling pretty sorry for ourslves when I heard a sail flap. I looked up and the sail was flicking from side to side in the light breeze and unfurling! Where brute force couldn't, that flicking action had released the pleat. We shot out of the cockpit and grabbed the sail to stop it coming all the way out. We had one chance to use the unfurling sail to feed the furling line onto the turning driver. I trimmed it, taped it and fed it in and Sandy managed to get the end and work it through as the unfurling sail turned the driver.
It worked perfectly. I spent an hour on the deck splicing the line together again and by evening the mainsail was set and we were skipping along, well, as much as you can 'skip' with 8 knots of wind trying to move 30 tons.
And that was day one of a 3600 mile voyage relying on just sails!
The next couple of weeks we had generally light wind from the SE or SSE and following seas. The sailing was comfortable most of the time and we enjoyed being back on the ocean. There is something very special about the beauty of sunrises and sunsets and freedom we both love, so an extra bit of time at sea is hardly a problem. We had expected to average a bit over 100 miles per day but it was closer to 80.
By the end of the first week the generator was overheating. I'd hoped the repairs we did in St Helena would last the trip but the old problem was back. I changed the pump impeller even though it looked perfect, cleaned up contacts etc and it ran perfectly again, for a while. Without the genny we'd have to run the main engine to charge the batteries at night. It's a major waste of diesel, a bit like using a semi trailer to do grocery shopping.
Our other bit of excitement was a large cargo vessel that steamed towards us as if it hadn't seen us.We pick them up far out on our radar, and then get all their details on our AIS (Automatic Identification System) from about 8 miles out. We could see that 'Emerald Strait' was going to pass within .16 NM. Usually an overtaking vessel overtakes with at least 1 mile distance. When he was a mile behind us and hadn't altered course I called him to make sure he had seen us. He had and cheerfully altered his course a couple of degrees. We asked and found out our AIS wasn't transmitting, so after a couple of reboots we were back in business.
The days slipped by and we resigned ourselves to a long voyage. Sometimes we'd ghost along at a couple of knots wondering what the record for the longest time to get to Trinidad is. Apart from normal meals, Sandy baked fantastic homemade bread of every variety and got creative with pizzas, apple crumble, homemade chocolate and icecream, you name it!
A couple of weeks into the trip she caught a very respectable meter long Dorado, so we had a few fish dishes too.
Our next concern was noticing the main sail had slipped down its track a few inches. The halyard was still firmly held in the clutch so indications were that the halyard may have chafed and the remaining line holding by a thread or two. Trying to winch it back up could break it completely meaning we wouldn't be able to furl the sail and we'd have to wrestle the sail down. It would also mean no main sail for the rest of the voyage. That's major when all you've got is sails. But as it was it couldn't be furled either so we were stuck with mainsail out come what may.
We decided to leave the main sail fully out and handle any strong wind by reducing the heads'ls and mizzen. One of the benefits of a ketch is more sail options.
I figured that when we got to the doldrums we'd have windless days when we could try to winch the sail up a couple of inches without any wind pressure adding to the load on the halyard.
As we got closer to the equator we started getting a few squalls. They tend to be short lived but often have a major wind shift, at times very strong wind, and heavy rain. Sometimes we can avoid them but sometimes they are moving fast and there is no escape. The problem is, once we got near the equator we had to pass between the southern and norther hemisphere wind systems where there is very little wind. This is where if you have a motor you use it for a couple of hundred miles. We had to rely on currents and whatever light wind happened along.
Of course you have to have as much sail up as possible to inch along, but with no wind to fill them and even a moderate swell, the rocking of the boat makes the sails slap loudly as they flog from side to side. It really could cause insanity. We were living 'The Rhyme Of The Ancient Mariner' and we hadn't even shot an Albatross. Does a Dorado count? In fact the movement chafed a headsail sheet so badly I had to go up the ratlines to cut out the chafed section and rejoin the line.We even set the big blue rabbit sail (genakker) and counted ourselves lucky when it gave us 2.5 knots!
Near the equator and just north of it the squalls increased, but they had been a nuisance rather than dangerous. We handled them just fine even with 4 sails up. Our frustration was the wind shifts associated and at times we were doing 6 knots SW when we needed our heading of NW. Sometimes we dodged squalls all night with torrntial rains. Did you know it is possible to sleep in waterlogged bedding once it gets to body temperature and you're exhausted enough?
We were past the island of Fernando de Noronha and wondered if we'd ever get to the north coast of Brazil. We had days of squalls pushing us in circles, but every so often we'd get a sunny day and we could dry everything out. It was on one of those days that we saw a pod of small brown dolphins herding schools of fish. It was amazing and just what we needed to lift our spirits.
And then it happened. We'd had a day of windless drifting interspersed with squalls bringing torrential rain and moderate wind. With wind up to 20 knots we could run before it, turning every which way to keep it coming over the aft quarter. If it climbed higher than 20 the boat has a tendency to swing to a reach about 60 degrees off the wind. It's a strategy we'd been managing just fine. But of course when the squalls found they couldn't intimidate us, they brought out Goliath!
It was after dark when it struck and as the wind passed 20 knots we brought her round to a reach. And the wind kept building and we kept heeling. Suddenly we were hit by a gale force (35+ kts or 70 kph) gust and we could do nothing but hang on. We were heeled over so far I couldn't risk going to the low side of the cockpit to release the yankee from the winch. The chances of being flicked out of the cockpit were very real. Not only were we virtually on our beam ends, we were plunging through a huge sea like a stampeding herd of buffalo. Green seas were hurtling down the lee decks and we could see the pilothouse windows diving through the waves.
But this gust never let up. For 20 minutes or more, it felt like hours, we hung on as Wind Wanderer crashed through the seas on her side in a mad, panicked flight. Time and again I wondered if this is what it feels like just before she rolls over.
But she didn't. Our solid little ship would heel so far but no further. There was enough time to actually feel the point where she'd stop, and fight back a bit. Nowhere near soon enough! I could hear Sandy's tears flowing behind my back. This was way beyond pirate language. This was where pirates learn to pray.
When the wind started to ease we felt like we'd got a get out of jail free card. It was still blowing 30 knots and we felt like partying. I've no idea what it hit at its peak. Eventually it died down completely and we were back to 8 knots of wind and a rolling sea. Down below was a disaster. Lockers had burst open and contents were strewn across the boat. Things that had been tied down in the v berth and side cabin had broken free and tumbled to wherever they could. The carpet in the galley was saturated from water gushing down the butterfly hatch, and bilge water had found it's way into food lockers.
While Sandy did a basic straighten up below, just enough to be able to use the galley and get to a head, I was on squall watch. Then she stood watch while I put on a harness and went forward to take down the stays'l. We would normally have left that until morning but what if there were more squalls about? While out there I could see we'd lost a jerry can of water, an outboard motor fuel tank, and the sailbag for the rabbit sail. All had been tied down securely with stout lines but the force of the water snapped them.
When we started the main engine to charge the batteries in the early hours, it started overheating. We had heeled over so far that the raw water intake, which is so deep it's at the point where the hull becomes keel, had taken in air which had caused an airlock in the strainer. That was easily cleared and the engine was fine again, but it also gave us a clue for the generator overheating.
Sure enough, in rough seas when air is in the turbulence going down the hull, enough can get in to the generator plumbing to make an airlock and cause the overheating. Now I know to clear the plumbing of air, which means undoing a few pipes, and in 15 minutes we have a happy little generator again. This is actually quite a big deal because I don't know that our diesel tanks would have got us to Trinidad running the big engine for 4 hours daily. As it is now, we have plenty.
"Calm seas never made fine sailors" is an old seafaring adage, and obviously there was still a bit of fine tuning to do on us.
The next day we had more squalls and heavy rain and with a dark front looming at sunset we furled the yankee and reduced the mizzen to about 20%. With just the main, which was still unable to be furled, we handled the squalls well even though at times we were on a heading of 180 degrees. As the squalls with their unpredictable winds passed we were quick to return to our correct heading of 305 degrees.
But just in case we thought we had these squalls beaten, they had one last petulent sneak attack. A sudden wind shift mid squall caused the main to gybe violently. With the main sail back filled all the pressure was on the preventer rather than the sheet. While we were still manouver the boat to get the sail back to starboard, a gust hit that was too much for the preventer and its jam cleat shattered. The boom flew to the shrouds but stopped abruptly at the limit of the preventer line. It was so violent that the stainless steel hasp on the boom that the mainsheet and preventer shackle to, tore out one side and everything was held by the remaining 'hook', that was flexing.
Why do these things always happen at night?
Fortunately, from the front window of the doghouse I could feed a line to another hasp on the boom and down to the traveller. That took some of the pressure off the broken hasp for the rest of the night.
I was exhausted so Sandy took the watch to give me 3 hours sleep. The squalls had robbed us of our usual off watch sleep. Then we swapped and I waited until Sandy surfaced before tackling the repairs.
The day was windless, again, with a moderate swell, but it meant we could work.
It was sunny and with no squalls we got all the sodden bedding, cushions, towels etc onto lines strung up on the back deck. By evening they were dry.
Sandy tackled the massive clean up job below from our knockdown the previous night, and I mean massive. She basically had to clean out, clean, and repack every locker and storage area in the boat, plus clean the boat itself.
In the mean time I set about imobilizing the boom so I could do repairs without being knocked off the boat. I managed to remake the preventer using pulleys with a jam cleat plundered from the stays'l, got rid of the broken hasp and relocated all the working lines to the next hasp on the boom.With all that success I decided to tackle the scary issue of the mainsail's slip down it's track and the real possibility of breaking the halyard completely in the process. At least with windless conditions we'd be able to get the sail right down and stowed if we had to.
With careful timing to only winch as the sail lost all pressure for a moment passing from 'slap to slap', the fold above the clew slowly disappeared completely. Success!
The next few days were mainly sunny and the squalls relatively benign. We were starting to make progress again, from 25 miles in 24 hours up to 48! Our spirits recovered quite well too, but we were both feeling that maybe we were reaching the point where this was more a hard way to live than an adventure.
As if to confirm it, a day later we lost steering completely! Sandy was still asleep at sunrise when I noticed I was getting no change of heading when altering course with the autopilot. I switched it to 'standby' and took the helm. The wheel swung freely without effecting the rudder. This was not a good feeling but the most likely cause would be the hydraulic fluid level and that's an easy fix.
The top up didn't take much fluid, and didn't do a thing for the steering. I figured two little screws in the housing may be for bleeding so loosened the first one. Well, it was spring loaded and shot out like a rocket and instantly disappeared somewhere in the pedestal's mix of hydraulic hoses and wiring. We searched with torches and eventually figured it must have dropped through the opening at the bottom, which eventually drops through to the bilge, with many little spots a small screw hell bent on escape could hide.
The next few hours were spent trying to find any alternative bolts that could fit. A few came close but the thread was wrong. I pumped the bilge out but could find no trace of it.
Eventually, with all options exhausted and the prospect of having to try to use a huge emergency tiller we have lashed to the back deck, or use sails only to head for the Brazillian coast, or get rescued, we decided to try a long shot chance and empty a locker in the workshop. We'd then have to remove the shelves and open a little inspection flap that gives very little access to anything. But we did it and low and behold, caught up in some wires Sandy could just make out the little devil. We packed a towel in the bottom area so it couldn't drop through to the bilge and with her long, pickpockety fingers she eventually dislodged it and it dropped to the towel.
Hi 5's all round after a day of sweating frustration and fairly liberal use of pirate language. We got the screw back in place and had the satisfaction of hearing our trusty autopilot churning away trying to guide the boat, but the big barn door rudder was still swinging freely.
I went to the aft cabin, lifted the matress and hatches to the rudder itself. The problem was immediately obvious. The hydraulic ram that moves the rudder was completely detached from the steel mounting bracket attached to the hull.
So nice to know that our day had been spent working on hydraulics that didn't need it!
This time I had the bolts and nuts to do the repair. The tricky part was aligning it with the rudder moving, and not losing any fingers. Patience and timing won in the end.
I've checked the steering gear fairly regularly so I'm convinced this was damage caused when Wind Wanderer was struggling with our monster squall a few days earlier. The last shredded bolt must have taken a few days to go.
On day 29 we crossed the equator and started to benefit from the NE trades, still weak at this stage but at least we were managing 70-80 miles/day. The seas were big and lumpy and on the beam so life on board was uncomfortable. The wind was actually NNE so we were on a reach, compared to the SE trades on the aft quarter and following seas we'd enjoyed earlier.
This kind of sailing is hard on the rigging and on previous long passages chafe has been the enemy. Some time back when we couldn't furl the main, I lashed a back up line from the luff to the end of the boom. The last thing we need is a mainsail with its outhaul line chafed through, flogging wildly with no way to furl it and no chance to get it down in a squall.
Day 31 and the outhaul line chafed through. The back up line is bigger and stronger and took over its duties so well I left it in place for the rest of the trip. But the incident sent me on a hunt for other chafe disaster areas. The dinghy sits on davits off the transom and while we do our best to stop it moving, in these big, lumpy seas it does and if one of those lines let go we'd be dragging the dinghy with one end in the sea and a difficult recovery job on our hands.
It was awkward, but eventually we had back up lines in place and just as well. A week later the stern line went but the back up line held. The dinghy was hanging at a crazy angle but with the aid of a winch we got it more or less back in place.
As I'm typing we're 40 miles off the NE tip of Trinidad. The last few weeks we've had better sailing conditions. The NE trades have been steadier, the squalls less frequent and we've had a good current carrying us along the northern coast of South America. We passed the mouth of the Amazon River but were well out to sea. Without the engine we've had to give ourselves bigger margins. The last thing we need is for a storm to put us ashore among headhunters!
We're having to plan our approach here, aiming to sail the north coast of Trinidad at night so we can have a daytime entry through Bocas de Huevos, top up our transmission again and make our way into Chagauramas anchorage.
Yesterday we came storming up the coast so well we were going to get that NE point this morning rather than tonight, so we did a big dogleg to kill some time. Now the wind has died and we're struggling to do 3 knots! An engine would be handy.
Update! We couldn't make that NE tip in time for the overnight north coast run, so we hove to (kind of parking the boat on the ocean) about 10 miles south of the neighbouring island, Tobago.
At night the island is covered with lights from local communities. I hadn't thought about it but I guess I was expecting a few isolated communities, like the islands in the Pacific. The other surprise is the army of oil rigs. There must be over a hundred around Trinidad, mostly south of where we're going but we could see the nearest ones lit up at night.
Of course there's more shipping coming and going and on 2 occassions we called ships on channel 16 because they were on a collision course. British Ruby, a tanker doing 19 knots sounded startled but claimed they were aware of us. You could almost hear their tyres squeal on the ocean as they immediately altered course 20 degrees. They were probably texting! The other one wasn't going as fast and I think had seen us but felt like livening up his watch with a bit of playground bullying. He changed a few degrees once we called but still passed by closer than normal. Welcome back to civilization.
This has been a particularly long trip and in many ways a difficult one. At times we've felt this isn't fun anymore. But the last few weeks we've enjoyed our life at sea with magnificent starry nights and some good sailing. Now we're knocking on the door of the Caribbean again, having come full circle. There is much to look forward to, but our first priority is to get the boat repairs and bottom paint done.
As usual, we have mixed feelings about getting to our destination after a long voyage. We look forward to exploring a new country with its unique culture and buzz, but they have rules and tv and expectations and crime.
Oh well, if it was perfect everyone would be doing it.
Until next time...