Notes from a nasty night at sea.
Marina El Cid, Mazatlan () to Isla Isabel (). Sunday January 9th, 2021
It started as an easy passage. We departed Marina El Cid in Mazatlan, bound for Isla Isabel at 3:05pm. We motored out of the channel, past the shoal, and then set our sails on a course of 172 degrees true for the first 60 nautical miles of a 95 nautical mile passage. The sea state was fair, a 3-4’ swell at a reasonable period. Our log wheel was frozen, no doubt due to an impromptu aquarium being established in the paddlewheel over the last month while we were on the dock, but the apparent wind was 12-14 knots from the starboard quarter and was very comfortable. Engines off at 3:45pm and we were travelling net zero once again.
Erin felt seasick from the beginning of the passage, so we worked around that trying to keep her out of the insides of the boat as much as possible while I took the first watch at the helm. I was also feeling fatigued, which I have been most days since catching what we assume was Omicron over the holidays. Erin and Ellie both tested negative on a self-test kit, but friends that we had spent Christmas Day with from another boat tested positive and we can only assume that we simply had a false negative. While Erin and I still both felt quite drained, we werer both effectively symptom free and beyond the 10-day isolation period, and we both felt ready to leave the safety/confines of the resort and move on to pastures new. We adopted a conservative sail plan to made sure everyone was feeling as comfortable as possible.
Until about 1:30am things were going great. The sea state had increased to 4-6’ but remained on the starboard quarter and was pushing us along quite nicely. We put the first reef in the main just after sunset, and settled in for the night. I slept from 7-9pm before taking over from Erin who tried in vain to fall asleep.
During my next watch I experimented with a ‘single-handing’ watch method. I set up my phone on the cockpit table with a mirror of our chartplotter on the screen showing our radar. I activated the radar and AIS (Automated Identification System[1]) collision alarms, and set my watch alarm to wake me every 15 minutes to do a complete scan of the horizon and check our instruments and sails. I lay on the cockpit sofa listening to a podcast and occasionally dosed off for a few minutes at a time. I was feeling comfortable, despite my general fatigue, and confident that I could let Erin rest for as much of the night watch as she needed without my alertness diminishing.
*As a side note, I think this may be a strategy that we could succesfully employ regularly in appropriate conditions during multi-day passages as the kids wake up at 6:30am full of beans, and we’ve both find it hard to get the rest we need during the day. Despite comments from other kid-free cruisers suggesting that it simply must be possible, I assume you that living aboard with a 4-1/2 year old and 3 year old, at least the particular pair we spawned, guarantees there is not such a thing as being ‘off-watch’ whilst on passage in the daytime. You are either on watch or on parenting duty.
I had read a great article by Jamie Gifford from Sailing Totem on visualizing disaster scenarios on the boat, and then making a mental plan for how to address them. His specific example was a loss of steering while under way due to a snapped steering cable. I had looked at our steering cables which are below our galley sink and familiarized myself with the chain drive for both the cable/wheel connection and the autohelm/wheel connection. I had not; however, completed the thorough inspection of the links on each chain as per Jamie’s suggestion…yet. It definitely was on the to-do list, but was probably right below picking the fluff out of my bellybutton and right above removing lego from the macerator (toilet) pumps.
*As another side note, Erin told me after the fact that she’d been thinking about this same article of Jamie’s throughout the night.
Back to 1:30am: I heard a bang and jumped up from the sofa to figure out what had just happened. In the 15 seconds or so it took me to do a 360 survey of the horizon and look at the sails, Skookum had turned about 90 degrees off course and was now head into the wind and broadside to the waves. I checked the autohelm and it was still on according to the display, I hit standby and took the wheel turning back to our planned heading, but the reefed mainsail sufficient power to bear away from the wind as it was resisted by the force of the waves. Erin got up and we started troubleshooting. I looked under the sink at the steering cables and chains and immediately saw that a link had failed in the auto-helm drive. That explained being off course, but not the apparent lack of manual steering.
Erin turned the wheel while I watched the steering cables under the sink. That part seemed to be functioning correctly. We then wondered if the rudders were compromised. Isla Isabel is known as the Galapagos of Mexico with very abundant marine life. There is also a fisherman’s camp on the island and we had a been warned that there were fish nets and long lines scattered at random in the water all around. These are normally very poorly marked, often with a plastic bottle and not light, so at night they are almost impossible to see and can wreak havoc on rudders and propellors. Our friends Dave and Pati on Milagros caught a fish net in a propellor one night while delivering a friends’ boat to La Paz last year, so we had planned this passage to not arrive near the island until after sunlight. It was very possible we had encountered one and that the pressure on the rudder had snapped the chain.
I opened both engine compartments and inspected the action of the rudder as Erin turned the wheel, all looked good. As if on cue, as a reminder of the cascade of disasters that can tke place when one thing goes wrong, the port engine compartment was swamped by a wave that broke over the stern of the hull when I was checking it, but thankfully the volume of water taken in was small and the bilge pump did its job. Next I started looking in the water for evidence of a net. I couldn’t see anything, although I wasn’t confident that I would be able to given the sea state and lack of moon. On that basis we were reluctant to turn on an engine so, on Erin’s wise suggested, we decided to partially unfurl the head sail to try and get some momentum, which would enable us to point the boat in the right direction. Thankfully, this worked and we quickly pivoted onto the correct heading and a much more comfortable sea state. We discussed the repair and decided that hand steering 40 nautical miles was preferrable to attempting a repair in these conditions; I ensured the broken chain was out of harm’s way before we resumed our passage.
Of course, it just so happened that this all took place just at the moment it was time to gybe the main sail so we could change our course to 131T for the final 40 nautical miles of the trip. Erin had built a preventer system for us in La Paz and it massively improves our downwind sailing capacity under mail sail. It effectively ties the main sail out and ‘prevents’ it from swinging back across the boat due to shift in wind, a wave or a steering miscalculation – an accidental ‘gybe’ (where it swings across the boat) can be one of the most dangerous things to occur on the boat, as the force of the sail and boom crossing the boat in that manner is enough to break boom or bring down the whole rig. We worked together to release the preventer, sheet in the main, move the traveller to centre on the boat before gybing, dropping the traveller on the starboard side and redeploying the preventer, all a foot at a time due to the conditions, and the fact Erin could not let go of the helm (the steering wheel) at all during this time without the boat wildly swinging off course. At this point whilst on the side-deck I spontaneously returned my dinner to the ocean, not an ideal moment to do this being far out of the cockpit and far enough from Erin in the dark that she couldn’t see me – she momentarily thought a walrus was singing to us from the sea. I’m pretty sure it was a dodgey bag of pre-mixed veggies that we’d bought the day and cooked for dinner. Despite being roasted for 45mins they were deemed not fit for Stu’s consumption, by Stu’s stomach.
The purge gave me a big adrenaline hit and released cramps in my stomach. I was feeling quite energized so Erin went down to try to get some more rest, she still hadn’t slept, and I would keep hand steering for as long as I was comfortable. It was time for some classic albums to get me through the long dark night, in order of appearance: Incubus, Make Yourself; Broken Social Scene, Hug of Thunder; The Frames, Fitzcarraldo; Bombay Bicycle Club, So Long, See You Tomorrow; and finally, Sigur Ros, Takk… 5 epic albums, with one 30 minute nap in the middle when Erin spelled me off, and we were nearly there.
As the sun rose we talked through what we did right, and what could have been better. We remarked on how quickly one bad event cascades, like the port engine bay taking on water while inspecting the rudder, and made a list of things we want to have on hand for such an event as this – a sea anchor stowed with rode in a forward locker to be deployed to hold us into the waves so that we can safely drift to make repairs; spare chain, link and breaker tool to be stored under the sink ready for action, rather than under the kids bed (who, of course, slept soundly through the whole affair); install a second preventer line so that we can control the movement of the boom at all times during a gybe.
As we rounded the corner of the bay at Isla Isabel we were greeted by humpback whales blowing their spouts as they fed along the coastline. We turned up into the wind to drop the main and nearly ran over a huge humpback right in the middle of the anchorage – it is SO good to get back to some Nature TV™
Then of course the kids woke up demanding breakfast, tv, stories, sugar, Christmas to come again tomorrow, and to see their best friends Rob and Sarah who were also out on the water last night and have their own stories of trials to tell. Demands 1 and 2 were granted as mom and dad were pooped and needed a nap. Skookum and Mapache are safely anchored beside each other ensuring that demand 6 will also be met after the adults have all had some sleep.
[1] AIS – we’re available on Marine Traffic
