The Slow Way Back
Aroha and her able crew are making steady but slow progress back but are being hampered by an uncomfortable swell and the wind persisting from the direction they are trying to head. At present they are having to sail more northerly than intended to avoid sailing directly into the wind. The good news is that the wind is forecast to begin to sweep around to a more south-westerly direction and, a few more degrees of latitude north, the wind should drop further to a comfortable 10-15 knots. This should allow Bryan to start bringing the boat round onto a more direct course.
Unfortunately, computer problems are hampering the sending and receiving of email and blog updates. This also means that Bryan cannot get the weather files updated so I am providing these remotely and sending SMS messages via the satellite phone.
It is a long trip back. We were surprised when in Chagos to learn that many of the ‘long term’ yachties tended to limit passages to a week or so. Depending on the destination it is usually possible to undertake hops between destinations to break up the long runs. In fact, our Kiwi friends Martha and Bryce spent several years getting from NZ to Chagos with the longest passage being just ten days. Maldives to UAE, on the other hand, is open water most of the way. The Indian Laccadive islands lie to the north of Maldives, but you need special permission to land here. Other than that it is a long wide-open stretch of water with nothing else in between
The biggest current challenge is that with an uncomfortable swell there is little that you can do to keep entertained. Reading, watching DVD’s etc can all make you feel quite ill, even if you have your sea legs.
11 September 2009
The past 24 hours has brought with it a few tales of frustration from the boat, that have ended up playing out into an amusing and somewhat comforting solution.
It started with an SMS to say that the roller furler had broken. This is the mechanism that allows the foresail to be brought in or out. With it broken, Aroha could only sail under the mainsail. Fine when motor sailing but less than satisfactory when under wind power. A temporary fix was found for this though and all sounded to be more settled. Wind direction was still working against the guys and the sea was still on the bumpy side but progress was being made.
When I got my regular evening satellite phone call from Bryan though, things had taken a downturn. The story as I got it was that they had encountered a rain squall and that somehow in the process this had knocked out the autopilot and chart plotter systems. The autopilot is one of my favourite toys on the boat. In fact, I would go so far as to say it falls out of the luxury category and into the ‘must-have’ bucket. The autopilot is like a sophisticated cruise control in a car. It takes control of the boat and effectively acts as another crew member – one who is constantly at the helm! It can maintain a course to steer, it can follow a set track, it can even adjust its course if the wind shifts direction. Ours is made by Raymarine and is affectionately called ‘Ray’, and legend has it that Ray lives under the cockpit floor and appreciates the occasional sacrifice of a sandwich or drink to keep him happy.
There is a story that a woman once sued a car manufacturer for her believing that once she set the cruise control on her camper van she could leave the steering wheel and go and make a cup of tea. She crashed, but claimed it was because the instructions were not clear! With ‘Ray’ you can actually make that cup of tea, though to be fair his eyesight is poor so doesn’t pick up on passing boats and ships so some human intervention is needed there.
Life without ‘Ray’ is not impossible but spending hour after hour helming is exhausting. When I spoke to Bryan he cried “we’re all going to have arms like Popeye!”. At this stage, he had already put a call into one of the Raymarine gurus in Dubai. The fault was actually reading data from the onboard course computer, this is the gizmo that feeds information between the chart plotter and the autopilot. Various things had been suggested, but communication was difficult – not only due to the sat phone line, but Kumar’s accent and his use of more technical terms were not moving things forward. Once I knew what was happening, I offered to take over speaking with the Raymarine guys and ultimately ended up heading to the home of another of the technicians at 8 pm – for a full ‘diagrams n all’ tutorial on possible fixes to the problem. The technician’s name was Lloyd. He is a great guy and I had met him when a previous repair some months back. There was a weather vane issue at the same time and he volunteered to go to the very top of the mast to install a replacement part, saving me from making what would have been for me a terrifying journey.
I spent about two hours at Lloyd’s home, a small room shared with his parents and his sister. He had downloaded various installation reports so I could see exactly what Bryan needed to do and provided cable so I would be able to describe exactly what was needed. Great stuff! In the midst of all this, his parents explained that they belonged to a church that believed miracles could be achieved through the power of prayer. They said they would pray for a miracle and that everything would be fine. Lloyd’s mum gave me some magazines that explained about the church, and I admit to thinking “oh my – here we go…” but it was comforting to know they had this faith and that even if a fraction of what they believed was true, then it had to be worth a go. I actually said “Let’s hope your prayers work, because otherwise I am airlifting Lloyd in by helicopter to the middle of the Indian Ocean”. The dad smiled serenely, looked at his son and said, “There won’t be any need for that.”
I woke this morning to the regular 6 am chirp of my text message from Bryan. It reads, “nice conditions, laundry day, all equipment working OK, touch wood…”. Bryan had traced the problem and repaired it, with Lloyd’s superb support from afar
Another small miracle occurred last night. I don’t know the full tale but is something to do with a mid-ocean rendezvous with the Indian Navy. Bryan has claimed that blog as his own.
13 September 2009
Bryan reports smooth sailing conditions, very little wind and a steady increase in air temperature; a good indication that he is getting closer to home. Dubai is over the worse of the summer heat but temperatures are still in the high 30s and humidity is 60 to 70 per cent on average. The temperature offshore should be lower but without much wind, it will seem hotter anyway.
The fix for the chart plotter and the autopilot are holding, so the guys are back on three hour watches during the night. The night they lost the autopilot they had to reduce the time between watches to 1 and a half hours to try and relieve the tedium of hand steering. At least now they should be getting a reasonable amount of sleep
Time to arrival is still unsure as they are still too far out to make a reliable prediction. In theory, the distance remaining can be done in about ten days but this can end up a couple of days faster or slower depending on the weather conditions. The good news is that they have managed to come to the west a few degrees. The wind patterns are showing a more west and southerly wind the further west they travel which will be a big help and boost to their speed.
During our telephone conversation yesterday, a fish was just being landed. Sounded like they were in the process of catching a tuna so reckon it is fish for dinner today.
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