Oh shit what have I done

These pictures we shot off the back of Screensaver as I waited for D day and my weather window

11/12  D day, had come, up at 4:00am and off just before 5:00am I snuck quietly out while the rest of the world was sleeping. I had mixed feelings about this passage and the significant personal challenge that now commences. Not only the passage was before me some personal difficulties lay in front of that when I get home that I wished I would not have to face.

As the water quietly slipped by and Screensaver gained speed a vibration was apparent that was not normal.Dr Smith: You should have checked those engine mounts you know everything comes lose you must stop…..   As I continued I knew this trip could involve a fair bit of motoring, as the window had light winds on both sides of a windy wet patch in the middle. It dawned on me the only thing that had happened between now an the other day was I had cleaned the prop, and I wondered whether perhaps in my hast I missed the back of blade and it was now unbalanced. With Dr Smith constant nagging I turned back, picked up the mooring again and went for an unplanned swim at around 6:00am. Sure enough the back of one blade still had the growth on it.

Setting of again after finishing the prop, all was well Screensaver hummed along as it usually did, With full sail up and my new GPS in and running I was off. The water was smooth,with about 2-3 knots of wind, and the sky was beginning to turn blue. Today would be a good day I could feel it in my bones. As pointed at a few markers the GPS did not make me feel warm and fuzzy, and it seemed that the GPS was effecting heading data adversely. A couple of quick tests didn’t help me feel good about it, although I validated its position off another GPS, it still didn’t seem right, though I could not put my finger on exactly what didn’t feel right. Shortly after I decided here and now is not the time for testing a GPS, so I stopped and put the old one back before heading through the reef.

Finlay we are outside the reef and New Caledonia slowly disappears behind me as Screen saver gets up to planned 6.3 knots and the iron horses are shut down. I ponder the days in front with reservations, but today was a good day with music up, more than my share of discords bellowed and the Dolphins soon left  as New Caledonia surprisingly disappeared in couple of hours .

 

By midday Screensaver was well settled and it was time for me to get into my regime. AIS was set, Radar proximity alarms  enabled and set to 20nm , the course was clear for the next 800nm,.. Dr Smith: 800nm are we really doing this what if……    Yep there are a few what if’s.  So I set my egg timer alarm to 1 hour and a waypoint alarm to 2 hours, so if i slept through the egg timer at least the waypoint alarm would wake me in two hours. This would be my sleep pattern for the next week. I would sleep outside where any new sounds, or conditions changes would hopefully wake me, plus I could open one eye and look at the chart plotter without moving. At the end of every hour I would getup and do visual checks, eat and drink etc.

Day 1 and Day 2 were a breeze in all aspects including the wind, but I knew this was to change, however I didn’t realize quite how much

The highest wind on the grib file (map above) was around 25-28 knots, but that translates to 28+5%+40% or 43 knots as still being within the forecasted wind. This was due mid morning so I decided to get breakfast over early around 6:00am, but Aeolus (god of the wind) had other ideas and also woke early. As my toast leapt from the bench to floor and Screensaver rigged for 40 knots in preparation raced up to 9 knots on her ear. Along with the wind came the rain pelting down adding to the roar of the wind the needles bouncing on the water the canvas and boat rang the bell that this was what I was in for and it was bigger than expected.

Scrambling for my wet weather gear Screensaver lurched sending me into the wall where I gave my knee a substantial bash and for a moment struggled to get past the pain and on my feet. The adrenaline kicked in and I was up had my wet weather gear on (more or less) and was now furling up the Jib. The off side Jib sheet got a bit much slack and in the flapping and furling process it managed to get tangled around the sheet. So now I needed to go up on the foredeck. The wind alarm is constantly on (indicating more than Gail force), with my life vest on and safety harness I slowly edge forward as screensaver dives into a few waves, the rain runs down my back, all the way into my shoes, and the water on the deck runs all over my feet. I managed  to untangle the Jib sheet and furl it up, to what is good for about 50-60 knots. This amounts to probably less material than you might find in nickers of someone who is weight loss challenged. The wind peaked just under 50 knots but remained between that and gale-force for the next 4-5 hours.

Soaking wet and getting cold I went back inside to change clean up the mess and try to get something to eat. It was good to get out of the soaking wet clothes all because the hood wasn’t right, the rain got inside. My toast went from the floor to my mouth but just when I thought phew that’s over Screensaver does 180 degree turn. What the F…. what now. Dr Smith we’ve broached, we are going to roll, we …. With no time to get wet weather gear on I rush outside disengage the autopilot and rip the wheel round so Screensaver points back where she should. Once again I’m wet thought the rain is backing off, but I don’t notice the rain my mind is on what ever just happened.

Back on course I ponder what caused that, why did the autopilot disengage is that what happened ? Getting cold and wet I engage the autopilot and head to wards downstairs. But before I can get there Screensaver does another 180 degree turn. Once again I grab the wheel and rip back around  so we are on course.

This time I push the autpilot button and watch. The wheel does not turn, but out the corner of my right eye I see the other wheel turning. Dr Smith Oh shit, Oh shit we shouldnt be here, what have you got us into this time, no rudder no steering where are we smack bang in the middle 400nm from anywhere, you couldn’t be any further away from help, the ones we love , and Mr Gucci didn’t want us dong this, the Gypsy wasn’t keen on it either now look at us, we aren’t going to ma….. Ok get a grip, clearly this wheel still works, but yep that ones spins and does nothing, and it seem neither does autopilot.

At this point never mind DR Smith I’m a little concerned my self, leaving  aside I’m still getting pissed on the wind is now just below gale-force I’m cold wet and I cant really leave the wheel.

I reduced the main sail so it was just enough to keep Screensaver going ,and not rolling to much, tied the wheel up, and went for another set of clothes. Wondering what had gone wrong and realizing to investigate that I would need to go outside the back of the boat and into the transom.

First things first was to let someone know where we are and that things aren’t quite right, and after convincing Dr Smith and myself we weren’t in any real immediate life threating danger. But I needed to know what was wrong as well.

I had made my own life lines as you may remember, and they were made explicitly to prevent me going out the back, and now I had to do just that. What’s more once out there I had to get inside the back transom and close the door behind me so the waves did not crash through the open door.

There are so many times when the boat turns up without its captain or crew , this was the first thing that came into my mind, even before Dr Smith had is mental aneurism of the whole thing. But with two life lines on I managed to get in there and close the door as we were tossed around as if I was a a cork inside a bottle.

Shortly after extracting myself I sent the following Sailmail so it was known things were not right.

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Hi
Starboard  Steering lost, Autopilot connected to starboard steering also lost no autopilot 80hrs to go at about 6.7

Steering box has an arm on it with a riveted tie rod end bolt on the arm, which then connects to the ruder
Stud in arm has sheared, and it was riveted so cant just put a bolt in it. This steering box has servo for auto pilot on the bottom, so therefore no bolt to connected steering box to Ruder

Looked at changing the steering box from port to starboard a pretty mammoth task in these conditions out back back open etc, Looked at moving servo from starboard to port steering box also no mean feet Also need to move electrical’s

At the moment hand steering seems only options on port helm which is all working.

Not looking for rescue. To communicate I must heave too, so comms will be limited
Will try to send update late

Im OK but cant stay up steering 80 hours in this fucking rain either

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This is a very substantial bolt and clearly this failure had occurred a long time ago probably during manufacture, and held on by less than 1/8 of its area.

Reluctantly  I eventual accepted this really wasn’t something my MacGyver talents could fix.

But neither could I stay awake and steer for the remaining 80 hours I had to go. I attempted to stop and gain some sleep which by now was overdue. I had thought that if I created some drag at the bow Screensaver would turn and face the seas so I dropped about 50 meters of anchor, with the purpose of slowing or providing some drag to bow and hoping this would turn Screensaver around . It did certainly reduce the drift speed but it did not turn her around, and she wallowed uncontrollably. With wheel tied and a very small amount of sail, ie less than square meter on both, Screensaver held a line and slowly crept forward at around 1 knot.

I had always used AUSrep Services directly for any major passages. These are the guys that actually control and managed all rescues within about 500nm in the pacific, and around 1200 miles out the other side of Australia in the Indian Ocean. Bundy shore station had contact them to let tem know things weren’t right, and to see if somehow they could drop  or get someone out to me to help. When I called up at my regular time  every man and his dog were there, from the Police through rescue, pilots  etc, poised ready to go. I said no I don’t want resecuring I’m not in any life threating position. They had already done there home work, and said they can not get back from there via helicopter, so we either divert a boat , of which there were two or we send a helicopter  who then must land on one of the boats, and we really don’t like sending a helicopter out when he cant get home. It was reassuring to know that they reckoned they could get me off in  about 4 hours  if I asked to be rescued. But interestingly the Police made the point we rescue people not boats, so it would have amounted to abandoning Screensaver. In life or death I guess that’s ok, but I must admit that wasn’t what I would have expected either. Much discussion was had and they remained on alert but did nothing as per my request.

Sleep was now a priority or I would make a mistake I was not in any real life danger  so I set all my alarms to there maximum, turned on some extra outside lights and went to bed.

Some 6 hours later it wasn’t raining a few showers , the wind was down to under 25 knots and Screensaver had travelled about 6 nm in a fairly straight line and in the right direction!!  I was very surprised, and wondered if I could expand on this.

Slowly edged out more sail bit by bit watching every last degree of course (COG) change until I got Screensaver up to 4 knots. After that she began to deviate and no longer could I get Screensaver to maintain any sort to of course if I added more sail. But what if I added engine power, yes it worked 5-6 knots and Screensaver seemed to hold her course, at least enough that I was going to hit Australia within a couple of hundred mile of where I wanted to be, and this meant I could still sleep, because the wheel was still tied.

But would it last and for how long. Well believe it or not nearly two full days, about 40 hours and with the wheel tied untouched she kept on going, and I was able to eat drink sleep, do all the things I needed too, just as thought I had my new best friend back.

I had originally intended to sail further south on the back of the stronger wind in the middle of the trip. Typically going with the stronger winds as long as they aren’t too strong would be fine. But with all of this I had not travelled as far south as I needed to in order to make Coffs Harbour, where authorities were expecting me to enter Australia.

All good things they come to end way too soon, and with 40 hours or about 2 days to go, the changing conditions made Screensaver sail all over the place as if she was badly drunk. After a few hours of trying to combat this I realized that it wasn’t going to work, and the best I could achieve was around 30 minutes every now and again.

As I neared the coast I knew it was more important than ever that I was alert as here would be more pleasure craft and worst of all fishing vessels without AIS and smaller, so that Radar may miss them.

I had around 30 hours to go and now the rain was triggering the Radar proximity alarms and in the end I had to shut them off. With a track setup on the plotter South Port seemed to be the likely landing point, as now I could head south any further. Bundy Shore Station contacted the authorities for me and let them know I was in a spot of bother, running low on fuel, very low and sleep. Rumours about yachts stopping in OZY that had not immediately checked in were  a major concern, but thanks to Bundy Shore station it would seem there is some leeway that can be negotiated in genuine conditions of partial distress.

After what seemed like an eternity the lights of OZY became  visible. AIS had detected that I was on a collision course with a cargo vessel some 20nm to my Starboard. I radio the vessel a number of times but it did not respond. I elected to alter course a few degrees to enlarge the 300m gap predicted by AIS, but it seemed the Cargo ship also had some attraction to Screensaver and mirrored the change. The result was now worse. Typically changes in course should be clear and definitive so that neither captain is unsure what an on coming vessel is doing. By now we are less than 5nm apart with a predicted passing line of less than 300meteres and he is doing 21 knots. Again I radio him by name and no response.

By now I’m pondering a 180 degree turn not knowing exactly how accurate AIS is on the passing distances and not wanting to make a mistake at the last minute. I make one last radio call, which included a number of expletives, my condition, what he can and cant do to himself and that clearly everyone will know what you have done after you run me over. As prepare to do a 180 degree turn, the words “maintain your coarse and speed I will pass behind you”  cam from the radio, with nothing else. As I watch AIS the gap diminishes, and then he changes course to pass behind, slowly the gap increases. Now convinced of his intent to go behind I crank up Screensavers horses into a gallop.

A few hours later I’m entering Southport, not the best timing as its almost low tide but the swell was down so all was well.

A few scotches and sleep,

 

Night all