Photo: The offshore oil fields of Brunei...

Diesel Bug...

We finally managed to leave Singapore much later than we originally planned. The end of the SW Monsoon was coming and with it our last real chance to sail the 700 miles to Miri in Sarawak, Borneo. We had the last of our several farewell parties aboard various liveaboard yachts with friends we'd probably never see again. Usual story... We're heading eastwards whilst everyone else is sailing with the prevailing winds westwards.

But maybe we were not too late. Leaving Raffles Marina, we were immediately blessed with good winds but it soon proved far too risky to make our way under sail through the myriad of shipping, islands and traffic separation zones to the south of Singapore so we stuck the engine on and flicked Freddie's switch. Marie dozed and I kept my eye open for a possible anchorage for the first night. We could begin the big stuff in the morning when we finally got rid of our hang overs...

Two Hundred miles out from Singapore and everything was going well. The SW Monsoon wind was still with us and blowing very nicely from astern. It was good not to be beating into the winds as usual. Then the wind suddenly dropped abruptly and we were drifting in a fairly benign sea, so we had no option but to stick the engine on again. Half an hour later the engine suddenly died...

Now it was panic! No wind and no engine! Now, my knowledge of mechanical beasts is not my strongest point but I know enough to at least get my big tool out. After scratching my head and trying hard to convince Marie I'm the mechanical god who can get an engine running using only a pair of women's nylons, I had to confess that, on this occasion, I was stuffed. But Marie then took over the situation in her own normal style. We had a cup of tea and waited for something to happen....

We found the fishing boat on the horizon, drifted slowly towards it with the genoa headsail grabbing what breeze it could and talked the Indonesians onboard in to lending us their engine mechanic, who promptly found the broken solenoid on the starter motor and got the engine started. We all laughed, slapped backs affectionately and they left us complete with a box of beer and coke. Not bad for a Muslim crew! Of course, I told Marie their engine mechanic had been lucky as it was only a matter of time before I'd have found the problem anyway. But it was soon obvious to us the problem was not alltogether fixed as we could get no real power or revs. And our problem was about to get very much worse...

The wind suddenly hit us in the middle of the night, it seemed, from nowhere. Marie was on watch and I heard her shout a warning. I ran on deck and she was already furling out the main sail to catch the wind. Together, we then let the headsail go full out and we were soon sailing at well over nine knots with the wind blowing from our port quarter. But the wind was bearing ever harder at over 30kts and we were soon reefing everything in again to get the sails under control. At 40kts we were reefed right down and digging the stay sail and even the tri sail out of the locker in readiness to hank on. It was a pitch black night but we were once again working very well together.

So we hung on for some fantastic and exhilarating sailing. The next five hundred miles flew but we worked exhaustingly hard for the next three days, always with the nagging thought that we still had no engine. There was no way we could safely enter Miri Marina with a lee shore entrance, a dangerous sea and an unreliable engine. The only option was to make for Labuan Harbour, which the charts indicated could be safely entered under sail, another 120 miles NE from Miri along the Brunei coast and through the offshore oilfields. We abandoned Miri only 2 miles from the entrance and changed course NE with well over 30kts of wind.

Fantastic! It was probably our best sailing of the year! We had to slow Sänna down with heavily reefed sails so that we could enter Labuan in early daylight. But we did it! We dropped anchor under sail with the Harbour Master warning us over the VHF that we were obstructing the local ferry. We arranged a tow with an Angel called Neil and we tied gingerly behind a harbour wall in the wonderful Port Labuan, Borneo.

Next day we found the diesel bug in the tank that had blocked our engine fuel intake. Well, Neil did...
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