Pink ‘n’ Blue

It’s hard to imagine that there is a downside to island hopping in Thailand on a sailing yacht, but the saying you don’t get something for nothing is true whatever your lifestyle.  Just like any home or vehicle, Aroha needs regular maintenance to keep her ship shape.  There is a never-ending list of boat jobs to be done, and many add themselves to the list as we go along.  We do have to call in the experts from time to time, but many of the jobs need us to tackle them head-on.

Some time ago we were introduced to the concept of pink jobs and blue jobs.   This is essentially the way to divide the jobs to be done between the two of us.  By definition, blue jobs tend to be the dirtier jobs to do with a harder graft involved, with the pink jobs generally being determined as somewhat more “pleasant”.  A few nights back, while at a particularly picturesque anchorage, a large motor cruiser pulled up for the night and anchored quite close to us.  We saw the uniformed crew busy with various tasks to entertain and feed the onboard guests plus all of the required boat jobs – anchoring and the like.  As is often the case when watching these big boats, we are reminded that we serve the role of both crew and onboard guests.  It got me thinking about just how many roles the two of us fulfil on board.

At the top of the pecking order is the Captain – an important role and held by the one who has overall responsibility for the safety and welfare of the boat and the crew. On Aroha, the Captain is none other than Captain Bryan.  He’s a fair and genial taskmaster, with decades of experience in sailing and in-depth knowledge of all things nautical. Just a smidgen down the pecking order is the First Mate, me of course.  I did chuckle when reading this very apt Google definition of the First Mate’s responsibilities.

“Second in command aboard the vessel and must be capable of assuming full command should the Captain become incapacitated. The Captain relies heavily on the First Mate to supervise and coordinate day-to-day activities of all members of the deck department, and to participate fully in those activities”.

Ship’s engineer is Bryan’s secondary role when he is not “incapacitated”. At times it seems as though there is no end to the jobs requiring the skills and knowledge of the Ship’s Engineer.  He has to be a master of the diesel engine.  It is surprising how much we use the diesel engine as our primary means of propulsion given we are a sailing boat.  The engine not only gets us from A to B in light winds (my favourite sailing conditions!) but also generates electricity for use in that propulsion and to store in our onboard service batteries.  Given the importance of the Diesel engine, otherwise known as “the Donkey”, both Bryan and I are highly attuned to the slightest change in sound emitting from the engine bay but it is Bryan who has a more intimate knowledge of how the thing actually works and, in general, what to do when it goes wrong!  Just a few weeks back I thought I had discovered some onboard porn when ejecting a CD from my old computer entitled “Suck squeeze bang blow”.  Turned out it was the RYA Diesel Engine Handbook.  At least if the diesel engine ever dies it is going to die happy! Less so for Bryan, who informs me that having his lips around a diesel fuel pipe and giving it a good blow is not so much fun.

The Ship’s Engineer role has grown over the years as more gizmos and gadgets have been added to Aroha’s technical livery.  Bryan has now developed a thorough knowledge and understanding of marine air conditioning and water makers to his skill set.  Not unlike the diesel engine, the first indication that something is not as it seems with both these bits of kit are when they “sound funny”.  Strange how the troubleshooting guides never include a section on the emission of dodgy sounds.

As with most aspects of our lives, an increasingly important aspect of living onboard is technology.  Chief IT & Electronics Engineer is a role held by me.  It is a somewhat frustrating role given the complexity of the technology involved.  I have lost count of the number of times I have googled “idiots guide to …” Over the past few weeks, we have had a particularly frustrating issue with the technology that controls the charging of our starter battery (the one that starts the engine) and the service batteries (the ones that supply the energy for all of our “house load”, lights, fridge, hob etc).  In the process of trying to work out what the issue is I ended up knee-deep in the physics of electrical conductivity and found myself watching Youtube videos on Ohm’s Law and Faraday’s Law of induction… I won’t bore you but do now realise why I dropped Physics aged 13.

Navigation is a crucial requirement and Chief Navigator is Bryan.  He is the one who will work out our next onward location taking account of depths, prevailing winds and onshore leisure facilities.  Depth calculations are an extremely important aspect of choosing where we anchor overnight.  We have 70 metres of chain attached to the anchor and typically follow the 4 to 1 ratio on how much chain we need to put out to be safe and comfortable overnight.  This means we try and avoid anchoring in depths over about 13 metres. Aroha needs 2m of water underneath her to take account of the keel so we try and avoid anchoring in anything less than 5 metres (once the tide has been taken into account).  As we anchor, it is my job to be at the bow controlling when the anchor goes in and I count out the metres of the chain being released (the Ship’s Captain very thoughtfully put different colour cable ties as markers for every ten metres to aid the Anchoring Wench in her job). Captain Bryan remains at the helm keeping our nose into the wind and then activates the anchor watch app with an audible alarm that will let us know if we start dragging during the night.

Between the two of us, we are thorough and diligent when anchoring to ensure we can rest easy.  That was until a few weeks back, some hours after we had anchored and, in the pitch black of night, something was unsettling Captain Bryan and caused him to recheck the tide calculations for the depth we were anchored in.  A sudden realisation dawned that we were much shallower than we realised and, in the early hours of the morning as the tide would be going out, we would have less water under us than Aroha’s 2-metre keel needed.  We then realised that, during a momentary power outage on the passage to the anchorage, our depth monitor had reset itself and changed from metres to feet without either of us noticing.  The power outage was one of the issues the Chief IT & Electronics Engineer had been trying to troubleshoot and hadn’t yet resolved – this, of course, will be noted in her upcoming probationary review! When we had anchored in 7.9 metres of water, we were in fact in 7.9 feet (2.4 metres).  The outgoing tide, due at 5 am in the morning, would have left us grounded.  Re-anchoring in the dark is no fun, but a necessity on this occasion.  Captain Bryan and First Mate Helen achieved this without too much drama, though it did take two attempts.  While chastising ourselves the following day for not picking up on the issue sooner, we did find the humour in the realisation that our 4 to 1 scope had, on this occasion, resulted in 16 to 1.  I had put out 40 metres of chain in 2.5 metres depth!

One critical role directly correlated to the health and well-being of the crew is Ship’s cook.  This is a shared role, but the bulk of culinary creations are down to me though Bryan has been known to take umbrage at the suggestion he is the sous-chef. To be fair, it is something I enjoy doing and, given our kitchen is just under 2 square metres (including the countertops!), I prefer to be the one in control of both the cooking and washing up.  Since I am not a morning person, as anyone who has been in my company before 10 am will testify, it is Bryan who is generally on breakfast duty.  He gets the coffee brewed and ready to go along with the cereals laid out for me to enjoy until I am feeling civil.

One thankless task, that of Galley Wench, requires the role holder to keep the boat clean, scrub the loo, make the bed, mop the floors and so on.  That’s one of mine too.  Thankfully we have a small space to keep clean, and the advantage is that our bathroom is so tiny that when you shower the loo gets a rinse anyway.  I do try and maintain a reasonable standard of hygiene on board and maintain my use of distinctly coloured cloths for the purpose of cleaning the sink versus wiping the loo.  Pink for the sink and blue for the loo.  A great way of remembering until you can’t get blue cloths.  The green ones I am currently using are really challenging the rhyming couplets! 

We are both eternally grateful that we have an onboard laundry fairy.  With no washing machine, and being in a hot climate, there is a never-ending supply of smalls needing a swill through.  The laundry fairy is highly efficient at keeping the laundry loads in check every few days, air drying in the warm breeze on the conveniently located drying rails on either side of Aroha, before folding neatly and returning to the allocated wardrobe spaces.  We are truly blessed!

One role that has been never-ending is that of Dinghy Maintenance manager.  Our Dinghy, Patches, performs the role of a taxi to get us to and from the boat and shore when we are at anchor.  He took quite a battering in India and has been almost constantly repaired since. Hence his name.  Bryan is responsible for Patches’ upkeep along with that of the accompanying outboard engine, a job which, thankfully, does not require quite as much sucking, banging, blowing or squeezing as the inboard one.

Our plumbing engineer is Bryan.  This includes the more glamorous tasks such as servicing the toilet flush and cleaning the shower pump, but also includes the essential management and maintenance of our onboard water maker.  Using reverse osmosis, we are able to turn seawater into the water we use for drinking, cooking and showering.  We are still working on the ability to turn it into wine.  We are likely to achieve that at the same point Bryan learns to walk on water so it could be a while.

Bryan is also acknowledged as Chief of Innovation and MacGyver’ed Solutions.  The boy really is a creative genius and often does his best work when under pressure.  Some of his best MacGyvering was the replacement of the one and only air-conditioning strainer lid that the Galley Wench was reckless enough to throw overboard whilst cleaning the strainer filter in India.  With barely enough time to roll his eyes, draw a deep brief and mutter a well-considered “oh, FFS!”, Mr Macgyver had improvised a perspex lid from our bathroom shelf.  His latest solutioning cerebral conquests had included creating an anchor chain rinsing device to solve the issue of muddy bottoms fouling the windlass, and the rewiring and relocation of the windlass handheld control when it started playing up.  It might now be located 9 metres away from the windlass, proving just a tad inconvenient when raising and lowering the anchor, but fixed the problem of me yelling “it’s not working” every time I tried to drop the anchor!

Hopefully, this summary of the key jobs and tasks on board dispels the myth that all we do is sit around in the sun all day drinking cocktails, reading books and generally do bugger all.  Though of course, should cocktails need to be made, that is definitely one of Bryan’s most important jobs and one that, quite frankly, he excels at. 

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