UTC/Local Time: Saturday 8/21 0100 UTC/Friday 8/20 1500 Tahiti Time
Latitude: 15 09.471 S
Longitude: 155 35.490 W
Course Over Ground:270 True 6 knots
Wind Direction: ENE, 18-20 knots
Sea Swell: 2.5-3 meters East
Sky: 50% cloud cover
Barometric Pressure: 1015
Update: Hydie out of Commission
We had an unwanted, exciting morning today. Last night just as it was getting dusk, we trimmed our sails to a triple reef and small jib. The skies from which the winds were blowing were clouding up with big uglies. We knew we were in for a squally night. Our Hydrovane, wind steering system, "Hydie" was set for a beam reach and she was dong an excellent job keeping us on course.
When the winds picked up to 30 knots, we were glad we had in the triple reef. Hydie maintained all through the night. The only time she needed some help was when a gust was also accompanied by a huge side roller, back winding our sails. The squall winds were a benefit to our course and speed. Often we were cruising between 7-9 knots. I had first watch and only had to deal with one big ugly squall around midnight. Russ had several through the course of the night with quite a bit of rain. The squalls weren't as bothersome as the big 6-9 foot rollers usually coming in quick succession of 3-7 in a row that come through about every 5 minutes rock the boat from toe rail to rail.
When this happens, the contents in all of the cupboards shift and thud from side to side, anything loose include the occupants are thrown from side to side, and the boat creaks and growns. We could hear Hydie bang against the bimini top trying to turn the boat back on course. All in all it was a pretty uncomfortable night.
An UH OH POP!
Just as I was waking up at 6:30, we heard an unusual "POP", and Hydie started to veer off the wind. A squall was just passing, and we finished off that passing squall with hand steering. Russ went out to check on Hydie and reported that we had a big problem. The hydrovane's main supporting strut is held on with huge upper and lower bolts that screw through the hull. The bottom bolt sheered off, leaving Hydie out of commission. The bottom part of the strut that holds the wind vane's rutter was torquing in the the agitated sea state and the speed of the boat. We were worried that the pressure just might snap the top bolt as well and we would lose the whole steering system overboard.
We turned on our mechanical autopilot steering system Ray so that he could hold course, and pulled in the jib to slow down our speed while we figured out what to do. The winds were blowing 25 knots, the sun was coming up and the skies behind us were starting to clear. Russ took off the vane's wing and stowed it away, then lashed the Hydrovane's strut to deck cleats with some line to try and give some stability to the strut and to capture it should the top bolt snap as well.
Yipes. That's the only solution?
The only solution to save the vane was for us to pull Hydie's rudder out of the water as soon as possible. This is not an easy task even in calm waters. To do this maneuver whenever we want to remove the rudder (usually while in port so it doesn't get barnacles built on it), we lower the dinghy in the water, Russ climbs down the swim ladder, unties the safety line we have on the rudder, takes out a cotter pin, ties on a rope, and then I pull the rudder up and out of the water using the rope to hoist it over the top rail and on to the fan tail stern deck.
After some discussion, we suited up in our work clothes. Russ tied his diving knife onto his life vest with a longer lanyard to cut the rudder's safety line, and wore a double harness, the one on his life vest and another which one was a simple line around his waist. There was no way we were lowering the dinghy in the water so he would have to squeeze himself between the dinghy and boat stern down the swim ladder. If his harness got wet and automatically inflated, there would be no way he could squeeze back through the dinghy and stern up the ladder. The secondary harness would allow him to take off his life vest and still have some protection. He would also use my harness to strap around the swim ladder so that he could lean out to free the rudder. I would secure myself by tying a line onto a cleat and onto my life vest.
We decided to turn on the engine and put it neutral just in case Russ fell overboard, and I had to quickly maneuver the boat into position. Turning on the engine first requires that Russ go into the engine room and open up the through hulls for exhaust and cooling water. It's not a simple key-in-the ignition process. We would keep the engine in neutral until the rudder was up and secured because any forward propulsion would put too much pressure on Hydie's dangling rudder. We temporarily turned off the auto pilot, and I brought the boat up into a fore reaching position. With as little sail as we had out, we knew the boat could not completely come about. Fore reaching is when the boat is almost into the wind, off by 15-20 degrees, and the rudder is hard over holding her in that position.
By fore reaching we were able to stop forward the motion of the boat and put the stern of the boat in a lee position. We would still have to watch for side rollers, but it would be far safer to work behind the boat if it weren't going anywhere. Now we were ready to retrieve Hydie's rudder. Russ tied one end of a rope to the port cleat. He would take the loose end and thread it through the rudder's handle, hand it back up to me, and I would secure the end of that line to the stern cleat on the starboard side. When Hydie's rudder was free from the strut, it could hang in the water on a roped triangle until I could pull it up.
The wind was still blowing 18-20 knots when Russ went down the ladder. When he was down on the bottom step, the stern of the boat was rising and falling enough where he was up to his thighs in the water. When the hull would rise out of the water, the engine exhaust would spew water into his face. Darn, we thought we had it all figured out. Goggles would have been nice. After about 3 attempts, Russ was able to thread the rope through the rudder's handle and hand it back up to me, and I secured it. He then took his knife and cut through the rudder's safety line. The whole time he is doing this work, he has his left arm hooked around the ladder and he is doing everything with just one hand as the boat continues to rise, fall, and rock from side to side. He has a commemorative bruise on his left arm and another knick on his head that trickled blood down his face while he worked.
The last step was to release the pin. He released the pin, but it didn't want to come out. He hammered it with his foot as much as he could, but he was going to have to lean way out and pull the last part of the pin through the hole to release the rudder. Just he was doing this a roller came through and he momentarily lost his grip swinging much farther away from the ladder than he intended. His eyes just about popped out of his head. Fortunately my harness that he had wrapped around the ladder and his back kept him from falling off.
With one last tug, the pin came off! The rudder was free. I hoisted the rudder up and over the rail and Russ got back on board. I am so grateful we left the swim ladder on the stern. When we installed the hydrovane, we had considered removing the ladder as it was in the same location that the hydrovane needed to be, but then decided to just move it to the side so we could still access the dinghy after it had been lowered into the water from the davits.
What a nerve racking experience. But it was well planned and executed, just like the space shuttle. :- And this was all before I had my morning coffee!
We got the rudder lashed down on deck. Back at the helm I tried to fall off the wind using just our triple reefed main, but Worrall Wind was quite comfortable staying where she was. Now that Hydie's rudder was off, I could use the engine for some forward propulsion, so I did. Within just a few minutes, we were back on course with main and jib, and Ray our autopilot whining about it.
The mechanical autopilot is not quiet. It has an irritating whine like a mutant mosquito on steroids every time it turns the wheel. Russ and I were back in the pilot house, having missed the 7:30 Eastern Polynesian Breakfast Net, but in time to catch the last of the 8:30 Eastern Poly Net to check in. We left the engine in neutral to charge up the batteries. Hydie uses wind power, Ray gobbles amps.
With our adrenalin still in high gear, we put it to good use cleaning up the boat and fixing other little projects until lunch time. The winds have calmed a bit, the seas are still rolly, and Russ is fast asleep outside sitting on the deck of the fan tail. Worrall Wind is cruising along between 5 and 6 knots. From the looks of the sky, it's going to be another squally night. Putting the boat in a trench in Fiji rather than taking her to New Zealand is looking better and better. Hydie will need some work, but other than that....
All is well on Worrall Wind.
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