Now BOTH the AIS and the auto-pilot are broken. Joy.
The AIS (which stands for Automatic Identification System) is
a pretty neat system that tracks other boats and plots them on your electronic
chart letting you know, for example, what speed and direction they are going
and how close they will come to you and when that will be so you know, without
a shadow of a doubt, that they are not on a collision course, or alternatively,
if they are, you know this too and so can take evasive action. It was a very
nice luxury to have, especially at night, and I miss it but can deal with not
having it.
Having the auto-pilot broken is another whole kettle of fish.
HS has a back-up auto-pilot system, which, when he hauled it
out was also broken and a back-up back-up system, a wind vane self-steering
mechanism, but when he tried to put that into service found it totally seized
up. He really did try to get one of the three auto-pilot systems going. He
spent a whole day out in the hot sun trying various things, pulling out more
tools and spare parts and swear words than I knew existed. It was not a fun
day. One of his good qualities is that he is very mechanically minded and can
fix anything. Almost anything I guess. He really did want to get one of the
auto pilots going and he failed.
Therefore we are now steering by hand.
I have four shifts on the wheel, 3-6 am, 9 am – noon, 3 – 6
pm, and 9 pm – midnight. HS is on the other four shifts. When on shift
hand-steering you are basically stuck, on the wheel, steering the boat, for the
duration of your shift so remember to go pee first, get a drink and any snacks
you may need, bring your sun glasses and sun block, because for three hours
straight you will be there working hard.
Hand steering this old 19 ton full keel boat is NOTHING like
steering a car. In a car you can pretty much hold the wheel straight and the
car goes straight. This is not like that. No no. You have to be continually
anticipating and correcting. You have to be hauling on the wheel almost
continually. And when I say hauling, I mean hauling. I cannot turn it with one
hand. I need two arms working hard. All the time. It takes both physical and
mental energy to keep the boat on course. If you pay attention, concentrate
that is, you can sort of, by hauling the wheel back and forth, keep her going
straight, but if you take a break for even a few seconds, to look up and see if
there is something ahead of you for example, she tends to get off course and
then, as if in some sort of nightmare skid, she is swerving further and further
out of control. And it is ruddy difficult to get her back in a straight line
when that happens, which, unfortunately, happens way too often.
In the four three hour shifts you are off you can eat, drink,
poop, shower, read, sleep, or whatever else you like, but when you are on shift
you are at the wheel steering the boat. The boat has an old bell, theoretically
used if sailing during thick fog, to be continuously rung so other boats know
you are there. We use it to announce that our shift will be up in five minutes
so the other person has a wee bit of time to wake up and get ready. It is
considerate to arrive on shift on time and take over the wheel promptly. After
three hours you are very ready for a break.
I try not to interrupt HS when he is off shift but last night
I did anyway. It was blowing hard out, a steady 20 knots, and raining buckets,
and there was something in front of me that I couldn’t identify. Its light had
been on the horizon directly in front of us for ages and it was, slowly,
getting both closer and bigger. I had thought at first it was a small fishing
boat going the same direction as us and had then considered that it might be a
big ship coming towards us but it didn’t seem to be either. (Small fishing
boats tend to go in odd circular paths as they lie out or collect up their nets
so they can be very unpredictable but they also tend to notice things like
sailboats and not crash into them. Big ships, on the other hand, tend to be
moving very fast in the direction they are going and might or might not see a
small sail-boat so if you are on a collision course with one of them it is
advisable to steer clear just in case.) It takes all my concentration and
effort, both physical and mental, to hand-steer in heavy weather at night, keeping
a keen eye on the compass and continually heaving the wheel back and forth to
keep going straight is literally all I can do (I am thinking that I will be
ready to take up any one of many wheelchair sports if we hand steer all the way
to Rio, I will have arms comparable to those of my sons!). And as I said, if
you even glance up for mere seconds, to see what it is in front of you, you
tend to get blown off course and then it is difficult annoying hard work to get
back on course. Eventually, as whatever it was in front of me loomed closer and
bigger, still straight ahead of us, I found I just didn’t have enough
concentration to watch the compass and this thing we were getting close to so I
picked up the boat hook and reached forward and rang the bell. HS, who must
have been sound asleep, got up, put on his rain jacket, and came out to see
what was up. ‘What’s that?’ he asked immediately, ‘It doesn’t look like a boat.
Is it moving?’ ‘My questions exactly.’ I answered. He got out the binoculars
and peered through the rain. We discussed if it was or wasn’t moving, how close
it was, how big it was, and if I should go port or starboard to avoid it.
Usually boats sport red and green lights that aid you in figuring out where
they are going but this had none. HS waited and waited and the thing ever so slowly
came closer and closer all the while getting bigger and bigger. ‘Ah,’ we said,
almost simultaneously, ‘oil rig!’ And so it was. Good thing we had decided to
avoid it as it was unlikely to avoid us! Once it had been identified it was a
lot less intimidating, I knew all I had to do was give it a wide berth and I
would be fine – it was not going to change direction like a fishing boat or
come at me with great speed like a ship. HS put the binoculars down, shook off
his rain jacket, and went back to bed. I stayed out in the wind and the rain, continued
on peering at the compass, heaving at the wheel, and counting the minutes till
my shift was over…
You see odd things at sea when you are sailing close to land.
In some ways it is more interesting than being in the middle of the ocean. Of
course many of these, just like the oil rigs, are only odd until explained.
Another night shift a very bright light appeared in front of me, lifted
straight up, up up up, and then just suddenly dimmed but kept on going up. I
thought at first it might be a flare because it was so bright and it went up so
fast, but couldn’t explain the little light that continued to go up. A
satellite launch? Now that would be exciting. Then there was a second one. And
a third. All right in front of me. Far away enough not to worry but what the
heck? Eventually I noticed that one of the little lights that continued going
straight up was flashing and then it was suddenly obvious. These were just
airplanes taking off. I was directly in line with an airport and the bright
lights were the planes landing lights, which they apparently also use for
take-off. Again, once explained, just another thing not to worry about hitting!
We continued to hand steer for several days as we went south.
I got a little better at it as time went on and my arms got stronger and
stronger but it didn’t get any more fun. I was so tired that both dolphins,
which used to fill me with joy, and squalls, which used to fill me with dread,
each got nothing more than a nod of the head as they joined us and then passed
on by. Nick, our first crew, had asked to hand steer and had been told NO. The
German girls too had expressed an interest and been turned down. I, however,
who had been all the while quite happy to have the auto-pilot working away so I
could spend my night shifts looking for shooting stars, who had had no real
interest at all in hand steering, am getting to do it 12 hours a day. Hmph.
Can
anyone remind me why, exactly, I wanted to do this?
