11/05/2009, Newport, RI
Wow - I can only say that I was scared, beyond belief, for 80% of the trip that we just endured and I was very glad to have Ron on board with us. I had taken the Stugeron (Cinnarizine 15 mg) throughout the trip that was donated by Heather and Alan Uren and that was all that made the passage tolerable. I was not able to vomit and only nauseous when transitioning from a prone position to being upright. It was quite a different experience from the wobble-headed-ness that I experienced last year with Bonamine. We will have to order some Stugeron - Alan bought it over the Internet prior to leaving Canada. By the way, you cannot buy the TransDerm patches here in the USA either - those are available as OTC meds at home.
We learned a lot of lessons on this aborted passage to Bermuda - Mike has already written about those. For my part I had arranged the salon and galley much like we would have for an offshore passage at home - can you spell STUPID? We think we have found all of the apples and potatoes that flew around and Perry has now consumed the oatmeal cookies that launched themselves out of a tin with a tight-fitting lid. In retrospect I should have made up more sandwiches than the ones we ate on the way out of Newport Harbour. When any of us actually felt like eating it would have been a quick fix. I should also have hauled the vacuum flasks out from under the galley sink and made up a lot of tea and soup - duh, what was I thinking? I had roasted a chicken and sliced it the day before departure and was able to make some pseudo-homemade chicken soup twice, once with pasta and Knorr bouillon and the second time with potatoes, carrots and celery. Most of the time it was just too bouncy in the galley to do too much of anything.
We had water come inboard a number of times. Ron was on watch when we had a greenie over the side and had more than ankle-deep water in the cockpit until it drained out. We also had spray come into the salon a few times. We had water enter all of the low-profile solar powered ventilators when it washed over the decks - onto our bunk and into the vee-berth. Our bunk mattress had a sheet covering it so it is not too much the worse for wear. I had not taken the plastic off the new vee-berth mattress pieces, thank heavens, but some items that were directly under the ventilators were soaked and need to be laundered - a rolled up floor mat, two pillows and a spare sleeping bag. The lovely new upholstery in the salon came through unscathed with not even any salt stains and believe me there was no shortage of water in the cabin with the spray coming in the companionway and also with the three of us coming below in our dripping foulies. Surprisingly we had no water leakage into either of the hanging lockers - the locker in our cabin has been a problem in the past so it seems that the Creeping Crack Cure goopus that Mike has been dribbling into the suspect places has done its job. I was relieved to see that the clips fastening the cockpit splash cloths to the lifelines do actually come undone when smacked with a wave - all we have to do is refasten them. It is better than having the wave take out the cloths and the lifelines as well.
As I said above I was scared for most of the trip - I stood almost all of my watches but Mike did keep me company for some when the conditions were horrific. I was lucky that during two of my watches the conditions were quite benign with the wind never going above 15 knots; the guys were not as fortunate. The failure of the various pieces of rigging was sobering to say the least. I was below when that last front passed through and the noise of the wind generator was deafening. I was on my feet in a shot and poked my head out of the companionway to witness Mike struggling with the main sheet trying to get it under control. The piece of gear fastening the main sheet to the traveller failed once before on our first Halifax to St Pierre race and I felt that it was superior once he had it re-jigged - well we did have a lot of good sailing with it before this failure but I guess it's time was up. The main sail reefing then got stuck in the wind generator and things went from bad to worse. I was up on deck doing what I could to help and by then Ron was on deck as well. Ron hung on to Mike while Mike stretched up to slice the reefing line before the wind generator mast bent, or worse, pulled out of the deck. In the midst of this I did recall how substantial the backing plate was for the wind generator mast but I still had visions of the whole shebang pulling out. Did I mention that it was pitch dark, the wind was howling and we were being tossed about - nasty, nasty. I have a vague recollection of at one point rhyming off in my head the name of every deity I could remember, maybe even made up a few of my own, trying to cover all of the bases in begging for the wind and waves to lay down.
My absolute "favourite" is using the head when you are underway in these harsh conditions. Imagine being in a telephone booth-sized room that some giant creature has firmly clasped in its hand and is shaking it up, down and sideways, and every direction in between but never in a rhythm that you can get the hang of. Then, add to that the challenge of getting your foul weather gear off and yank down about four layers of warm underpinnings, do your business, and then reverse the process. This experience is responsible for a lot of the bumps and bruises that I am now sporting.
I do have two funny tales from in the middle of all of the drama. The first is an Al the cat story. In rough weather he is the luckiest of the crew in that his centre of gravity is closest to the ground. I watched him one evening thump down from his nest on our bunk. He worked his way slowly out to the salon with claws deployed and his legs splayed out to the sides making him even closer to the floor. He was able to figure out the best side of the cabin to travel on based on the heeling of the boat and made his way hugging the wall over to the stairs going down to the middle cabin; I figured he was making for his litter box in the vee-berth. Earlier in the day a dish of his cat kibble went flying and deposited bits of dry food everywhere. I noticed that Al stopped on the stair and was carefully eating the bits of food that were lining the edge of the stair. Remember that the boat was bouncing and shaking all of this time but Al was not to be distracted from any opportunity for a snack! The second is about Perry and me. I was sacked out on the bunk in our cabin, fully decked out in my foulies and boots for a bit of a rest and to reassure Perry. We were, without warning, whacked by a wave on our port side and I was airborne for long enough to move to the side by 10 inches or so - I thumped down on the floor of our cabin with the pillow still under my head and still covered up with a blanket. A split second later poor little Perry-dog landed on my tummy. Well, at that point I started to laugh like a loon and figured that I might just as well stay where I was for the remainder of my rest. I was safely wedged between the side of the bunk and the door to the cabin and couldn't move to the left or right. Perry heaved a sigh and went to sleep and I was eventually joined by Al until I was awakened for my next watch. It really must remember that our cabin floor is a good spot to have a rest if we are ever in such rough conditions again - God forbid.
Mike and I had a serious discussion at one point when Ron was on watch and we were both below - looking at options for the rest of the winter and what future trips would be like - one thing for sure is that we both realize that neither of us have any desire to make lengthy offshore crossings together again. He is now saying that he might do it in the company of a "couple of experienced gorillas" and I could fly to the destination. He also talked about looking into the cost of putting Nelleke on one of the large ships that transport yachts overseas. There are lots of possibilities for not stressing us or the boat.
When we finally got into Newport and were showered we made for The Black Pearl where Ron treated us to a great supper. We were not long out of our bunks after that. I am sure that Mike was asleep before his head even hit the pillow. It took me a bit longer to get comfortable and find a surface to comfortably sleep on that was not bruised too much.
I really regret that we were not able to make it to Bermuda and have the pleasure of Ron's wife, Pye, joining us for a brief vacation before Ron and Pye returned to Canada BUT we made the right decision to turn around and limp back to Newport. I hope that the rest of the rally fleet is making out better than we did.
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Comments [4]
11/05/2009, Newport, RI
Just a quick post to update everyone with the latest news on our repairs.
First, the sails are down and off with a sailmaker. We were quite lucky that we got one that would mot only come down to pick them up but had a slot in his schedule to work on them tomorrow. We may even get them back before the weekend, if not, then at least by Monday. I have figured out what was wrong with the headsail furling - again the fault lay with dumb old me. I had cut the too long wire lead from the head of the sail too short and there was too much jib halyard extending from the masthead block and the halyard would wrap around the headsail foil and jam. A simple fix and one that I can do, plus I am going to replace the wire with Amstel and raise the foot about ten inches. The other bibs and bobs are things that we can do over the next couple of days during the rainstorm that is scheduled to come over tomorrow.
We have spoken to the crew of Screech and they will be waiting the storm out in Portland Maine before continuing on. We are hoping that they'll get here by mid next week. It'll be great to see them again.
The marina has been most accommodating, but we'll probably have to be off the docks by next Wednesday. If so we'll look at the local yacht club to see if they have reciprocal relationship with RNSYS for a place to head on over to so we can wait for them.
More news tomorrow.
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11/05/2009, Newport, RI
Yep! I am writing this from the dock back in Newport rather than from any of the spots along the way or from the beaches in Bermuda. Why? Well that's quite a story. To put it in a nut shell we were severely gobsmacked by the weather!
Even before we left the harbour we had a problem with the headsail - it simply wouldn't unfurl. If I had a brain I would have put pack to port to sort it out and in hindsight that action alone probably would have saved us a lot of grief. The only excuse, if it is one, was I had was that I was so excited about getting underway that I thought that I would get it fixed in Bermuda. The result is that the headsail is the only sail on the boat that is usable.
The weather router suggested that we dogleg our approach to the Gulf Stream to get us moving south and waiting for the winds to change before we altered course to attempt to cross. As we were leaving the harbour we had absolutely no wind at all, so for the first several hours we were motoring with the sails flapping, then through the first night as we were heading for the dogleg waypoint the winds picked up from the NE and the seas began to build. By morning the supposed 20 kts winds were topping 30 and we were screaming along bouncing over 6-10' seas. It was quite unexpected and certainly not as forecast but it did give us a very fast ride on a beam reach. It was a significant confused sea and everyone aboard was seasick to some extent even with various medications being consumed. The only one who didn't talk to the whale on the porcelain telephone was me, but there were numerous times that I sure wish that I could. We had green water coming over the sides and at one point there was 6" of water in the cockpit, but it drained in seconds so at least we know the scuppers work well. We also have empirical evidence that the pilot house daylights can take the seas although the waves hitting them were not the maximum that the ocean is capable of. In fact we were making such good time that we had to heave to and wait for the winds to change over to the NW to let the Gulf Stream settle down before crossing, so we dropped the main and heaved to and went below for a bit of a rest. The unexpected part is that I think that we must have been in one of the side eddys because we were still moving south at about 2.5 kts and the water temperature had risen from 13 to 20 degrees. During the early night the sail lugs for the mizzen which we had left up as part of the heaving to process blew out so we had to take that sail down. That left us with one workable sail, and we were still 24 ours too early to cross the stream. Then I downloaded another forecast which showed that the weather Thursday night to Friday in the area on the rhumb line from the stream to Bermuda would be in excess of 40 kts! That would be just about the time that we had originally planned to arrive, but with the delay we had before starting the crossing that would put us right in the middle of the mess. We had a discussion and decided to scrub the voyage and head back. At 02h00 on Tuesday morning we reversed course and headed back to Newport.
We put the main up to steady us, relieve the work on the engine and get us moving and for all of Tuesday we had a great sail, easily making 6 to 7 knots and were looking forward to arriving in Newport the following morning. Then, just after I came on watch at 21h00 we got seriously surprise by a severe squall. I say surprised by the fact that it was dark and I couldn't see any clouds or anything approaching so the first inkling that I had was the wind generator going wild and then the boat went right over on its beam ends. I managed to disengage the auto helm in time and get us up into the wind but then the main was beating itself to death above us. The long and the short of it was that the reefing furling got jammed in the wind generator and I had to cut them loose and then the mainsheet tackle failed and we had to wrestle a jury rig into place. Just about then the squall passed but the winds had shifted to the north at about 25-30 kts so we were beating our way back to Newport with a main that we couldn't reef or adjust the sheets. Fun, eh?
I spent the following 30 hours on deck steering either manually when we had to or by the autohelm whenever we could to allow us to luff up whenever the winds got too strong. Then, as we were cresting a wave, another one coming from a different direction came up and smacked us at exactly the wrong moment and ripped the autohelm from its mounting. That meant all three of us on deck, or rather Ron steering, me down in the lazarette and Barb preparing equipment and handing it down to me as I made the repair. Geeze!
By the time we got to the gap between Block Island and Nantucket the winds had died right down and we had a couple of dolphin come to play under our bows by way of welcoming us home. We got the main down as we entered the Newport approaches and discovered that it wasn't unscathed from the squall and it would need repairs too. So, now the butcher's list reads: fix the furling on the headstay, get the mizzen repaired, and get the main repaired, fix the wind generator, plus assorted jobs below decks that Barb has found. I expect that we'll be in Newport for at least 4 days.
There are three things on the plus side, though. Peri finally on the boat and not on our bunk! Hurray, Peri; Barb has finally learned that everything needs to have a place to be stowed when we go to sea, or they'll be flying about all over the boat, and a table or shelf with edges simply doesn't cut it; and as well, this will give Mary Lou and Jay a chance to RV with us. I have decided that trips longer than 2 or 3 days are simply not for us any more, on Nelleke at least. The action of the sea in bad weather is just too hard on Barb's bad knees and I'm not 24 any more either. So, we will continue to head south, but only in 2 day jumps at most. Ron has been able to change his flight so at least I don't have that on my conscience, and in fact we are hoping that he'll stay with us as far as he can. We might be able to get to NYC for him to fly out of there, if we can get the sails repaired in time. That will be the deciding factor.
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