Kaimusailing

Let's see now, where were we, it was the turn at Frying Pan Shoals. We could come up to a close reach in the now North wind. This was the gale that the gale warning warned about. It was a stiff breeze. The end of the shoal isn't very shoaly so there wasn't much relief to the building seas from the north.
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During the melee when the microburst hit, the dinghy was blown over the side and now was being towed alongside the starboard bow. There was too much going on to try to bring it aboard, plus it was full of water now and too heavy to lift. I was afraid the line would part and it would go bye bye. There wasn't a whole lot I could do about it.
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Another strange thing was the port forward bunk hatch was blown open by the high winds. Because there was green water over the bow, I assumed a lot of water made it below. I assumed correctly. It's hard to move around on any small boat in rough weather, it's no sin to crawl around on your hands and knees. Lurching from one place to another is normal and finding yourself way out of balance and falling on something happens too. I made it over to the hatch and closed it.
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A typical problem in Wharram's is that the forward hatches have to be very water tight, although the high bows are supposed to prevent green water over the bow, in high seas it doesn't work, and water gets into the bow which depresses the bow causing more water into the bow. Eventually the boat can swamp with all that water. On Kaimu I had truck hauling straps belted down on the forward hatches. The bunk hatches, a little further aft, are a different story. They have what is called Griffith hatch coamings. These deflect any water flowing on deck. The hatches themselves are about 4 square feet and heavy enough to stay closed on their own. Until now.
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I smelled what could only be electrical fire smoke and I was in the pilothouse where the electrical panel for the starboard hull is, so I shut all the breakers and went around to look, and smell. Just forward of the pilothouse is the galley with all its electrical stuff and in there was a hazy like a smoggy smoke. If salt water gets into your electrical system it can cause any kind of short circuit, ruin circuit boards, and corrode connectors.
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I climbed out of the galley onto the deck and could see a fire burning under the helmsman's seat. I ran over there and put it out. It was the Chinese solar charge controller that I sometimes used to charge the engine battery when the engine was not being used. It gets its charge from a pair of 15 watt solar panels that are loose and kept on top of the engine box cover.
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I was getting frazzled running around and literally putting fires out. The boat was sailing itself through tremendous seas. I tried to take a few pictures with the cell phone camera, but they never look as bad as they do in real life. The horizon looked odd as if there were hillocks or big haystacks out there. They were breaking waves that rolled over like a big ball of water. Closer to the boat the waves would come in walls of water and if they didn't break like surf we would just ride up the face of one and down into the trough of another. Sometimes they would break. Other times a blanket of spray would envelope the boat. I had never had green water over the pilothouse, but now I did.
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I was looking into the galley from the pilothouse. There is a little port there, maybe the idea was to pass food and drink to the pilothouse without having to go on deck. I could see the galley and I looked for any problems. I could also see into the bunk forward of the galley. There was a portlight laying on the bunk. What? I ran down into the galley and had a look into the bunk. The outboard portlight had been burst in by a big wave. All the bedding and mattress were fully soaked. The portlight had been torn off its hinges and the dogs that keep it closed were broken off. This was unbelievable. I had to do something, so I put the portlight back in position and used some dynema thin line to bind what was left of the mountings together. It would stay in place, but now if a wave hit it would force some water in around the edges.
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Here is a picture of a wave. It doesn't look like much but it was typical of the conditions. Some were bigger, but it wasn't possible to sit around with a camera waiting for a big one to hit.