Latitude: S 19 42.456
Longitude: W 171.21.108
Course Over Ground: 240
Wind Direction: SSE 18 knots
Sea Swell: 1-2 meters
Sky: 100% cloud cover
Update: I hated it when Russ says Uh OH!
Yesterday afternoon the wind, waves, and cloud cover increased. Grey skies, grey seas and occasional dribble melted into the blackness of the night. Neither of our watches was remarkable other than the fact that we knew we were going above our course line, and would make a sail correction in the morning. Our starboard, green running light stopped working, and we switched over to our mast tri-color. Ordinarily we try not to use this one as it takes too many amps, but we had the Honda switched on so it didn't really matter. So, fix the starboard running light got added to the short list.
After we had eaten breakfast this morning, I got my inclement weather gear on. It was still spitting rain. Both of us put on our gloves and life vests. The wind was blowing about 18 knots and the seas were 1-2 meters. It was time to go out, un-pole the jib from its beam and broad reach position, and pull more into the wind for our course correction. I was at the helm keeping on course and working the back lines while Russ went forward took down the pole, and adjusted rigging for the jib. We positioned the boat into the wind and had the sails set. We had one last thing to do and that was to re-adjust Hydie to her new wind angle after I got her on the right course.
Russ went behind me to adjust Hydie 2, and I heard a mild-mannered mumble "UH OH!"! UH OH translates into OH SH@#! in my boating vocabulary. "What's the matter!" I asked partially turning around as I was trying to keep one eye on our compass heading and the wind. The dinghy which usually fits snuggly under the solar panels had completely snapped from its bow cable and half of the back cable had broken off. So essentially the three of the 4 connections holding the dinghy out of the water had failed. Our Avon was dangling vertical by one cable. Her stern was high out of the water and her bow was bumping and dancing over the waves scooping in water. It's bottom side was facing us while the interior of the dinghy was facing way from us.
Not only was our dinghy dangling, but we had had all of our snorkel gear (masks, fins, snorkels) , 4 floating cushions, dinghy anchor, paddles, dive flag, and emergency hand pump in the dinghy. Time for a deep breath! Ok, it's not the end of the world if we lost all of that stuff. Let's concentrate on what to do. By this time, it is now starting to rain and the beam seas are splashing on our port side.
We had had a similar circumstance when Hydie's wind rudder blew a bolt last season between Suwarrow and Samoa, and we had to make a temporary repair by taking the rudder off and dismantling Hydie in high seas. Russ went into the engine room, opened up the exhaust valve and engine thru-hole and turned on the motor. We didn't really need the motor, but our plan was to bring WW into a heave-to position and it's nice to have the engine as a backup. On the other hand, it's not nice to deal with the exhaust when you are working on the back of the boat, but the benefit in the event of Russ going overboard and me executing a quick rescue with the engine running was higher than the risk of the fumes and sputter.
Once we had the boat in a heave-to position, into the wind with the jib back winded and the rudder hard over, the stern of our boat was now in the lee of the wind and most of the waves. She could basically float in this position with little or no attention from us while we concentrated on rescuing the dinghy. We secured Russ's harness onto a line and secured the line with some slack to a stern cleat so that he could climb down the back swim ladder (it's about a 10 foot drop down the stern from the fantail to the water) and grab the dinghy's painter so that she would be secure in at least two places.
Before Russ went down the ladder, he cranked down the dinghy's stern cable; the Avon was now floating on the water but still high enough that the water was not flooding through the plug hole in the stern. We always take the plug out so that if it does rain, the dinghy doesn't become too heavy and will drain out the rain water naturally. Once the dinghy was floating, we could see the interior of the dinghy. Surprise! All of our stuff (with the exception of two of our floating cushions) was still in the boat! Our snorkel gear was in a shallow box that had wedged itself under the cable bridle in the bow of the dinghy. Everything else had also slid to the bow and was wedged into place. Lucky! Lucky!
Russ descended the ladder while I payed out his harness line. The dinghy was alternately sliding away from the boat and snapping at the end of its cable then rebounding and slamming against the stern. The bow of the dinghy was pointed away. We were dragging the dinghy by its stern, and need to grab its bow line. I tied Russ down to the cleat so he wouldn't go flying off the swim ladder while I telescoped the boat pole and handed it down to him. After getting a sense of the rhythm, he was able to snag one of the sidelines of the dinghy and pull it forward enough to grab the painter.
We tied off the painter so the dinghy was now parallel with the stern. Russ was going to have to get into the dinghy pretty quickly, once I further lowered the stern cable so that he could push the plug into stern hole. Then we would completely disconnect the cable. I released his harness enough to give him the slack he needed, lowered the cable, and he climbed into the heaving dinghy. He got the plug into the hole and released the cable so now the dinghy was hanging on by her painter. Then he started to hand up piece by piece all of the stuff that was in the dinghy.
The first thing he handed up was the dinghy anchor and line. It was a mass of spaghetti that needed to be untangled, so that we could use this line as a secondary tie. (Does it ever seem like we as humans spend an inordinate amount of time untangling things?? lines, cords, necklaces, computer cables, Ipod earphones, hangers?) Anyway, try doing this in the rain and bucking seas. Bit by bit everything got handed up with the exception of the emergency pump. Russ pumped out the several gallons of water that the bow had scooped up while dangling. At one point, the boat seemed to be filling with water faster than Russ was pumping. I noticed the plug in the back had popped out and indeed the boat was filling with water.
We got as much water out of the boat as possible. We had two lines on the dinghy. It was time for Russ to come up. He suffered a little bump on his head and gash on his thumb. It may come to pass that the dinghy has to be cut free if the seas get too rough and she fills with water, but we'll tackle that if it happens. For right now, she is skimming along behind Worrall Wind with her painter and secondary line secured nine feet up on the fantail. This keeps her bow high out of the water. The Avon has lasted an incredible amount of years and has an able bodied backup waiting in the wings should we lose her. I am not sure why we didn't notice the dinghy dangle earlier when we first went out, unless it happened while we were actually out there adjusting the sails. Sometimes in the roar of the wind and sea, you can't hear everything as it happens. Given the fact that we had lost so little out of the dinghy, I can't imagine, it had been dangling long before we noticed it.
Worrall Wind is back on course, the sky is lightening up, the seas are calming down, and we are about 24 hours out from Vanuatu. We hope to make landfall tomorrow morning. Only one more night watch! Yeah!
So the expected, unexpected happened, and once again we faced the challenge and resolved the issue within an hour. We hope it's the only one this voyage.
All is well with the 2 Sail R's on Worrall Wind.
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