Technicals & Tomahawks
01 July 2012
Now where was I? Oh yes - catshit and live missiles. Let us start from the beginning.
A cruising boat is a fiendishly complicated piece of kit - not quite up there with a 747, but working on it. It manages to combine all the technical accoutrements of a vessel designed to transport itself across the high seas with all those found in a house. There are so many subsystems that it's almost inevitable that there will be at least one or two bits on the blink at any given time. Keeping it all in order is a constant, and usually doomed, battle against the laws of thermodynamics. In order to minimise the potential for disaster, I give all the seagoing and navigation bits a quick check-over a couple of days prior to leaving our winter berth.
So it was that, a couple of days before we intended to make our second attempt to leave, I switched on and waggled all the navigation gizmos. The chartplotter refused to get a GPS fix. Much poking with a multimeter later, supplemented by puzzled looks and riffling through instruction books, it became apparent that the GPS receiver (just two days off a year old) was what we scientists call knackered.
We were less than ecstatic. It was still blowing a hooley and the forecast weather window in two days time was only expected to last a short while before the next load of crap came rolling in from the west. This could put our leaving date back to the first week in June or later, and we were due to meet Chris in Kalamata on the twelfth.
I tried 'phoning the guy in Irakleon who had been so helpful previously, but couldn't get through so we hired a car the next day and shot off to Irakleon on spec. As luck would have it he was in. As luck wouldn't have it he had installed his last GPS receiver in a boat in Ag. Nik two days previously. As luck would have it, he said he could get one from Athens in less than 24 hours and, as luck would have it yet again, he was due to be in Ag. Nik the next day for another job. He said he'd bring the receiver along and fit it, which he did, leaving us 18 hours grace to get the boat ready and clear off.
At 4:45 the next morning, we drugged the cat to within an inch (25mm) of its life and got the boat ready for sea. I started the engine and switched on all the gizmos. The chartplotter refused to work at all. Not a bleep or a glimmer. Zilch. Nada.
This was starting to get beyond a joke.
Liz entered pout mode and started to put the boat back into harbour mode. I entered strop mode, stamped my feet and tried seeing if swearing at it could cajole it into working. This innovative technique proved ineffective.
Calming down and waving a meter at it did work though, showing that the problem was corroded terminals in the power supply. We cast off a mere 45 minutes behind schedule.
Trips to the anchorage at Nisos Dhia and thence on to Rethymnon proved uneventful, and we stayed at Rethymnon for three days to sit out the aforementioned yet another load of crap. Then we set off for the anchorage at Gramvoussa at the far western end of Crete.
We mentioned, did we not, that although the wind can, and does, come at you from all points of the compass the weather systems themselves invariably come in from the west. There was a cracker sitting out there right then, straddling Sardinia. This would take a few days to get to us and blow our socks off. At that moment, there was no wind at all where we were. This, however, did not stop our friendly little depression from sending in an advance guard.
Right, now pay attention.
In deep water, the speed of a wave = √gL/2∏ (*)
Glad I told you that? Thought you would be.
What it actually means is that the longer the wavelength, the faster the wave travels. That's why tsunamis travel so quickly, crossing oceans in a few hours. A storm generates waves of many different wavelengths, but the long wavelengths rush ahead, travelling much faster than the actual weather system generating them. So they arrive several days ahead of the nasty stuff. A sort of oceanographic "Woo oo - we're coming to get you!"
Which is what we had - a nasty big swell with no wind to fill the sails and stop the boat from throwing itself all over the place.
We were heading straight in to the swell and so were pitching up and down violently. Einstein took umbrage at this. She began by salivating and progressed to vomiting and crapping. Liz, seeing her about to demonstrate projectile vomiting over the saloon carpet, lifted her up to put her in her litter tray. Einstein repaid this concern by crapping down Liz's front and all over her feet. After a quick wipe down, Liz employed our new cosy cat bag, which we bought with this in mind. Einstein is zipped into the padded bag and suspended from Liz's shoulder so that Liz acts as a sort of hammock, minimising unpleasant motion. Einstein demonstrated her gratitude by crapping in the bag and then pissing in it, which soaked through the bag and into Liz's fleece, T shirt and trousers.
Fortunately, a change of course eased the motion and Einstein stood down from DEFCON 5 to DEFCON2. We hosed Liz down with a mix of neat bleach and Jeyes fluid and started to relax. It was not to last.
We were following the reciprocal of the route we had taken on coming to Crete and so, to be brutally honest, I hadn't given the charts the degree of attention that I really should have. We were slightly disconcerted by a distant boom followed by a high pitched whistle, and even more disconcerted by the sight of a high speed military launch closing fast on an interception course.
My General Operating Procedure with military vessels is to say 'hello' very politely and then do exactly what they tell me to. This turned out to be the correct course of action. They pulled alongside and asked if I was aware that we were slap bang in the middle of an operational NATO live missile firing range. I replied that I hadn't been, but I was more than willing to believe them, especially considering that boomy whizzy thing overhead. So that's what that funny dotted red line on the chart meant.
"Call Range Control on channel 12 and do exactly as they tell you." They said.
"Yes Sir. Very sorry Sir. Won't happen again Sir. Please don't blow me out of the water , Sir" I mumbled looking down at my boots.
I called Range Control and began a rambling grovel. I was interrupted, politely, but firmly.
"Good morning Birvidik. You will steer exactly 310 degrees, making the best speed you can, until you are met by the coastguard vessel. You will then follow them exactly as they guide you out of the range."
"Yes Sir. Very sorry Sir. Won't happen again Sir. Please don't blow me out of the water , Sir"
They then asked me if I knew the identity of the yacht eight miles behind me. Quick as a flash, I shopped them. "The yacht's name is Kiara, Sir. Dutch flag, Sir. They're doing it as well, Sir. It's not just me, Sir. It was their idea, Sir. Honest. They made me."
Hoping I'd diverted his ire (and fire) somewhat, I set the autopilot sensitivity to maximum (equivalent to 'does this dress make me look fat?') and punched in 310 degrees. Twenty minutes later we were met by the coastguard.
The guy on the aft deck waved his arms in that waggly movement that aeroplanes do to mean 'follow me' and it shot off at about 20 knots. Birvidik has a 90 horse power engine, but even so, the most we can make is about 8 ½ knots. At those revs we produce large quantities of smoke and I didn't want to give them the slightest suspicion that we were laying a smokescreen for nefarious purposes, God knows what they'd have thrown at us then, so we limped after them at about seven knots. Just before they disappeared over the horizon they turned round and picked us up at a more modest speed. We still had trouble keeping up.
Once he'd guided us out of the range to Cape Maleka (this always makes us snigger like schoolboys as 'Malaka' means 'wanker' in Greek) they peeled off and waved us on our way.
They must have reported back as the Greek Range Control Officer came back on channel 12.
"You are free to proceed Birvidik. Thankyou for your co-operation."
"My pleasure" I replied. "You're the guys with all the guns"
"That we are Sir" broke in a laconic American voice, "That we most certainly are."
In future I'm going to make sure I read the chart properly.
Until the next time.
(* For the sad gits that are interested:
Wave velocity in metres per second, where:
g = acceleration due to gravity (9.8 ms-2)
L = wavelength in metres )