Well, the best laid plans... Shirley and I had wanted to cruise the Azores in 2020 but Covid scuppered that idea. Poor old Shadowmere was grounded - ashore for 3 years until May the 4th, 2022 when I returned with Nick Butler and John Henshaw to bring her home.
I had managed to visit her each year to check everything was ok, no cockroaches or mould! but the sprayhood shredded due to thread weakened by UV, the domestic batteries died of old age and I ended up needing new injectors in the engine. Other minor problems abounded of course but that is part of yachting!
I had to give a anticipated launch date each year despite covid and I had always given the date as May the fourth, this is easily remembered (by me) as it is Starwars Day. If you don't see why, ask a Starwars fan. I like memory aids and always book dentist appointments for 14:30 hours. (Tooth Hurty in the afternoon...) Age does diminish memory, now, what was I saying...
Shadowmere was booked to launch at the beginning of May and we planned around that date. I flew out on April 24th, Nick flew out on the 2nd May and John came out on May 6th.
The first three days of my visit had really bad weather, which was a surprise, but 2022 ended up with bad weather most of the month - the Azores high might have been over Iceland and the Icelandic lows came down to be over the Azores. This is actually close to the truth as there was a North Atlantic Oscillation happening as a weather event.
I got most things checked out though, I had meant to service the winches, I had written this down on one of my many "Things to do" lists. I lost the list though but was happy I could spin them around by hand. This proved to be a mistake as once under load they misbehaved, I belatedly recalled one winch gave trouble on my earlier voyage and it turned out that it had a damaged pawl. The other winches had the usual hardened grease laced with black volcanic dust.
The days before launch were enjoyable, at least when the weather was benign, most days after the first three were ok and Nick and I even managed a couple of swims in the bay. We walked up to the supermarkets each day, had a cheap coffee and Pastel de Nata and bought the heavier items to lug back to the boat. This invariably involved cases of beer or six packs of UHT milk. The beer and the milk lasted well, I was still using them a week after landing in Ireland. We also found a rather nice Portuguese red wine at 2.29 Euros a bottle. We ended up with 13 or 14 bottles on board and as I normally only allow one drink a day I thought these should last. As captain, I did relent and allow double rations so lunch underway involved a sandwich, beer and crisps and a choice of beer or wine with the evening meal. No drunks were harmed in the making of this voyage.
On dry land, I had tried to start the engine with the inlet water cooling pipe pushed into a barrel of fresh water and noticed the cooling water started flowing and then abruptly stopped. I phoned Adriano, the (very good) diesel mechanic who had fitted new injectors and ran the engine last. He came and fitted my spare impeller, he used gasket cement and we were unable to run things after fitting as it needed to harden. The old impeller had some tears in its fins but no missing rubber, it had been poorly fitted when the engine was built and had been rubbing on the cover plate.
Two days later we launched and the engine had the same problem, Adriano came back and sucked and puffed through various pipes, I did ask him if my exhaust elbow was ok (they can soot up) and was the heat exchanger blocked/gummed up. "No" he said " very clean exhaust and very forceful flow from the heat exchanger" he made vague reference to "airlock" but I am not sure what he did to clear the problem. A week later when the fault recurred I was most puzzled but did get to the bottom of it.
Anyway, we launched and got ourselves to the marina pontoon and set about bending on sails and filling water tanks, checking gas and generally getting ready for sea. John arrived on a Friday along with more foul weather but we had a rather nice meal in a nearby restaurant called "Pescador" - recommended by Nick's taxi driver. Of course there is no guarantee that the restaurant owner is not the taxi driver's brother, or cousin but I can personally recommend it. The three of us had good fish stews - the house special and an Azorean speciality. The next day we played the tourist and got buses to circumnavigate the island with stops in Biscoitus and Angra.
On Sunday, we properly finished provisioning the boat with food (apart from previously loaded beer, wine and milk) and finished getting ready for sea. I had been buying various tins of meat and these, along with the staple carbs of potatoes, rice, couscous, noodles and pasta in various guises would form the backbone of our diet, some fresh meat was also bought and some tinned vegetables as well as the sailors favourite of cabbages and onions - the only fresh produce that will last (more than a month). Azorean cheeses were available in rather large rounds and these lasted over the entire voyage (and then some) so all was good. I would have liked to have spam and corned beef on board but we could not find any.
On Monday we had an appointment with immigration (emigration?) at 10:30 and I also had to check out of the Marina. I completed paperwork with Paulo, the Marina Captiniere and then handed him a gift of the RCC Pilot book on the Atlantic Islands, he is featured on page 132 and described as being very helpful, which he is. A most kind man. He was tickled. Getting our passports stamped took all of 5 minutes and then we were free to leave. At 12:30 we departed under (working) engine and motored North for the next 20 hours.
I had downloaded 15 days of gribs at 3 hourly intervals - the weather is shown as a grid of wind arrows. These are accurate for 3 or 4 days and then indicative but I also had a good, if old, weatherfax machine on board that printed onto thermal paper and I could buy 50p weather forecasts for a single location using the satellite Garmin Inreach that Alan Doyle has lent me. The weatherfax proved invaluable.
The gribs; I showed these to John and Nick and outlined the strategy; go North for a day to get some wind, head East for 2 or 3 days before turning North to North-East. This avoided a string of depressions that were heading up the middle of the Atlantic and passing 3 or 4 hundred miles West of Ireland. By sailing East we could get into a more moderate wind stream to carry us up to the isles of Scilly. This proved a most prescient strategy as one of the lows deepened a few days later and became a rather severe storm, by then I was watching it carefully as it had winds near its centre in excess of force 12 (one forecast said 66 knots+). The weathercharts showed it deepening and becoming rather large so three days in to the voyage it was clear we could not totally avoid the depression, I was into damage limitation mode.
.jpg)
You measure the distance between isobars where you are and then place your dividers on the left hand axis at the correct latitude. The geostrophic wind is at 500m and surface winds will be 70% of this figure but will gust up to the geostrophic value. Not very easy to read but clearly 40 to 50 knots. (the point forecast for near the centre of the eye was 66 knots plus.
I had hoped to be a 100 miles more to the South but the winds made it easier to sail where we did.
Our final route had a couple of days of bad weather, we had a trough pass over us in a couple of hours one morning with force 8 for a while, we saw the seas build but it wasn't too bad. The next day the lower part of the depression passed over us.
We got solid force 9 gusting 10 with seas of 20 to 30 feet. Had we been further South as I had planned I think it would have been F8 gusting 9. The windy bit lasted a few hours and it was all over in 12, although we had winds of force 6 for a few days. I think the wind anemometer peaked at 49 knots but I suspect it stops at 50. Also it does under-read when winds are from the aft starboard quarter (green 150 to 180) since I fitted the LED combined Tricolour and Anchor light - it is a rather tall unit and shades the anemometer.
Storms do not last forever, after storm clouds come blue skies...
When the wind was at its worst it was nice and sunny which always helps. Nick was on watch when it hit and he loved surfing down the waves, in fact he requested an extra hour on the wheel he was having so much fun. I normally try to be rigorous about watch times as rested crew are vital but I relented. I wish I had photographed him but my phone was buried in a waterproof box in the emergency grab bag along with our passports, my credit cards and the satellite communicator.
We had about 4 feet of foot showing in the number 2 genny as a storm jib and the boat travelled at a sedate 6 knots unless you went looking for surf. Going downhill Nick managed 11.3 knots and I was delighted that Shadowmere just went in a straight line, easy to control with no worrying gripes. A magnificent lady. Later cross seas did cause lurches and rolls but this was only a problem down below, steering stayed straight and easy. The cockpit stayed dry.
Down below, moving about meant continually tensing muscles and using a lot of physical strength to hang on to the numerous and well placed handholds in the cabin. We did manage to read, cook, eat, pee, poo and sleep).
It is strange how leaving a boat alone for three years makes things break. I have mentioned the winches which I should have serviced. A catspaw of lines allowed winching and tying off the sheets in an effective way.
One of the pipes under the aft cabin sink leaked and made the water pump came on and dump the entire contents of the water tank into the bilges before we noticed. I had stored reserve water on board in 6L plastic bottles so with rationing we survived. No washing and dishes got polished with kitchen roll, we had a lot of toilet paper and kitchen roll on board.
One of the large tupperware boxes holding first aid had slid around on the cupboard shelf below the sink in the aft heads and this is what had dislodged a water pipe. Hidden consequences of storms!
The next casualty was the gas stove. It had a flame that was sometimes high, sometimes low and I thought if this stops working I would regret not having spam and corned beef on board as our diet might become tins of cold meat and water, bread and cheese. The next day the cooker stopped working. I had to go up to the bow and hang into the anchor locker to swap the gas regulator. Luckily I had a spare, I recall thinking I should keep a camping stove on board as an alternative way of cooking.
I have used and loved Triangia meths (spirit alcohol) cookers for camping. I bought my first one when I was 18 and my second twenty years later so our kids could cook on one each on hiking expeditions. They take up little space. Mine was taking up little space in my garage back home. Note: always have two of everything. Two is one and one is none should be the mantra when ocean cruising.
I had issues with both foresails, the reefing line on the drum of the first leading sail (the number 1) was too short and I had to crawl up to the bow one windy day and wind more line around the drum. This is tedious work that is exhausting. Well, the hanging on is exhausting and wetting. The number two had jammed when I first hoisted it and I had gone up the mast in the marina to unwrap the halyard that had rolled onto the forestay, 3 or 4 turns. This happens if the angle between the halyard and the forestay is not in the recommended 15 to 20 degrees. I wondered if we had not tightened the halyard enough. The next time it jammed was as a storm was approaching but we wound in it enough to act as a storm jib. A few days later, rather than go up the mast, we ended up winding the sail around and around the foil by hand and got it furled. We then used the number 1 for the rest of the voyage. I can improve the angle by lifting the clew up six inches with a small strop but the problem needs further examination.
A major potential problem was the engine not starting when we were 48 hours away from the Azores. I contemplated returning, I also contemplated heading for mainland Portugal or NW Spain a few times over the next few days. I was worried about charging batteries until I discovered that the new replacement solar panels were producing lots of charge, we did not need to run the engine over the next two weeks for charging, although we did not run the chartplotter.
In fact the GPS feeding the chartplotter was not working, I fixed this a few weeks later by ordering a new cable junction strip - the NMEA 2000 system uses fancy cables, terminators and special junctions "T" pieces. I recognised it as an RS422 communications system used in some CAN systems in cars and could have jury-rigged something up as I had been an RS422 "expert" in my professional career but that would have been a bit nerdish and wasn't needed. The VHF radio has its own GPS and we could read our latitude and longitude from it and use paper charts for our navigation. The chart plotter still showed AIS targets and actual charts, we could move the cursor to where the radio GPS said we were and get some tactical use out of it.
It is handy having a second GPS - two is one and one is none, always have two of everything. In fact the AIS has its own GPS too, and of course the three mobile phones and the satellite communicator all have their own GPSs. I also had a GPS puck that could plug into my laptop. So we had eight GPSs on board! I also have two sextants as well. Always good to have spares
Back to the engine. After the weather settled I crawled into the engine room and methodically went through the system. Water comes in from the hull fitting, through a seacock, up to a water strainer which has a transparent (sealed) lid. From there it goes to the impeller and from there across to the heat exchanger. The output pipe from the heat exchanger goes up to just under the deck where there is a wee grey plastic thing, I think it is an anti-syphon valve but it might have a different purpose in this installation. There is a spring loaded valve in it that allows air in if there is a vacuum or very low pressure in the pipes. At least I think that is what it does. The downward pipe from here goes to a T junction near the engine exhaust, one pipe of which has a half open valve; to adjust the percentage of water in each downstream pipe. Water goes into the exhaust and cools it, and the other pipe goes direct to the back of the boat, as does the cooled exhaust - there are two exits out the hull at the stern.
Water was not flowing. I removed a pipe from the outlet of the heat exchanger and briefly started the engine. Voluminous flow! this was a good thing... The next candidate for inspection was the wee grey plastic thing. I removed it, John the technician stripped and washed it and we found a tiny black spec of dirt (volcanic cinder?) that sometimes kept the valve partially open. Why this stopped the flow without flooding the engine compartment none of us knew. Perhaps water impellers can't pump uphill 4 feet unless some type of syphon assists the flow. (this is not an explanation anyone I have talked to actually believes so it is a bit if a mystery).
After a good clean and connecting it up the engine started perfectly with good water flow and has never faltered since. Note to self, clean it every year!
So there it is, a boat sitting doing nothing for three years has things go wrong. Carry spares, tools and miscellaneous bits of junk, duct tape and aralidite to allow jury rigging, and have a good Heath Robinson attitude. (The American version of Heath Robinson is called Rube Goldberg)
As to the journey, after the storm, the force sixes, the things breaking and getting fixed, the rest was uneventful. Storms never last and blue skies will return. We enjoyed many days of the 13 day passage it eventually took to get to Kinsale. It was a shock to the system to have to do coastal navigation when we finally arrived in Ireland. After nearly missing the entrance to Kinsale I downloaded charts and a Navionics app to my phone and resolved to repair the chartplotter.
Kinsale was a welcoming place, it, and like the rest of SW Ireland, has changed a lot in the last 40 years. Lovely wee cobbled streets, gift shops, cafes, restaurants and places serving Guinness, what's not to like.
Nick took his leave from John and I here, a bus to Cork airport linked into the airport to airport coaches and from Dublin airport to Belfast was straightforward. Public transport in Ireland works very well. All free for 65 year-olds too!
After a couple of days awaiting weather John and I headed East, we were boarded a few hours later by customs who inspected our passports, we had flown the Q-flag when entering Kinsale and reported our arrival to the harbourmaster and asked him to let customs know, he later said they were aware of our arrival and might or might not visit us. The customs guy was a very pleasant retired guarda officer and I showed him the white powder I had sprinkled throughout the food lockers. It's Boric Acid to kill cockroaches I told him, best to be upfront about these things. He did not taste it or sniff it up his nose to check.
Our next stop was Dunmore East were we waited another couple of days before heading around the corner to Wicklow, Howth and Ardglass were I considered the voyage complete. It was good that John had started the voyage and ended the voyage, even if the gap in the middle was 5 years. We had left Ardglass marina in June 2017 and here we were back in June 2022. I had mixed feelings of course, I will have a think about that and write an epilogue. For now we had to empty the boat and clean her, she was up for sale!
Looking back over the final journey it occurred to me that after leaving the Azores and getting good strong winds, Shadowmere wanted to come home.
She had picked up her skirts and ran and ran.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.