Because of a Broken Block

Friday the 13^th (is that a coincidence?)

Because of a Broken Block  AKA  A somewhat long and rambling explanation – with several asides – of why I jumped ship

The broken block (hanging at about eye-level in the main cockpit).

To start this story I am going to go back to September 7^th, the day we sailed from Copenhagen. (I apologize to those who have heard much of this already.) We left at noon to a crowd of well-wishers and started off without too many hitches but by dark the situation was a little less happy: 1) despite hours of work by Ida the clogged heads (toilets) had not been fixed and it was so choppy out that it wasn’t safe to lean off the edge of the boat so everyone who wanted to pee or puke had to do so in a bucket and then wash the bucket, 2) the nav computer, loaded with our charts (maps), had run out of power and neither the generator nor main engine were working so we were sailing blind, and, 3) very trivial in comparison, a boom vang block had broken.

The mast is the pole that sticks straight up and the boom is the pole that goes out horizontally from this and the boom vang is a line (rope) that attaches the boom to the bottom of the mast to hold the boom down and help control the shape of the sail because without it the pressure of the wind on the sail would lift the boom up and the sail would be less effective. Because of the amount of pressure the boom vang has a block (pulley) on it to make it easier to adjust.

OK. So, Lee and Aitor were on watch, the first night, and I was napping in the main salon when Lee descended all in a tizzy saying that the boom was going crazy. I came up to see what the problem was and quickly diagnosed it as a broken boom vang block. I tried to take the block off, but it was stuck, and tried to find a new one to put on, but couldn’t, and so made a quick fix by putting a shackle on the boom and leading the line through that to hold the boom at the correct height. The boom was back under control, Lee was happy, and I went back to napping.

At the first port we had four layover days. The broken block, complete with two bits of sharp metal, hangs at about eye level in the main cockpit near the hatch (door down to the salon). I tried to take it off so I could replace it. I squirted it with WD40. I used every tool up to and including a crowbar on it. But it was old and was just stuck. Eventually I asked Olve to take it off for me.

Olve had more important jobs, from my point of view, that needed attending to, like, for example, looking at the broken generator and seeing if there was any hope of fixing it, like sorting out the tool shed so that when things went wrong at sea the appropriate tools and parts could be found, like helping Ida solve the clogged head issue… But Olve had different priorities. He didn’t look at the generator, he didn’t sort the tools, he didn’t help Ida with the heads, he didn’t even take the broken block off, he sat in his cabin and played video games. For four days. (Ida worked her butt off, Aitor and I helped where we could, Lee had fled in terror, Olve was not stressed about anything.) 

After four days we left at 4 am and sailed across to Kiel, went through the locks, motored half way up the Kiel canal, and then stopped for the night. (Olve shocked me by taking the 6 pm to 6 am shift leaving Ida with 6 am to 6 pm shift.  I found this an uncharacteristically chivalrous move on his part, I mean, after all, who wants to be on duty at night? until it became obvious that his night duty included lying on deck listening to an ipod whereas the list of chores he gave her to do during the day was endless: sort through a foot high stack of paperwork, scrape the barnacles off the bottom of the dingy, swab the decks, finish fixing the toilets (as if!)) 

Olve and Ida consult a chart as we motor up the Kiel Canal along with a couple of ships.

Not much of note happened during the day except the main engine started making such obnoxious and likely noxious fumes that we all fled outdoors. In Renesburg, part way through the canal, where we stopped for the night, the previous owners of the boat stopped by and helped Ida trouble shoot what the fumes might be. They ruled out an exhaust leak and an overheating of something else, they managed to coat the entire interior of the salon with countless fiberglass fibers, but they didn’t get a good diagnosis of what was causing the problem.

The captain, Olve, stated that he wanted to leave at 4 am the next morning, finish the canal, and set out into the English Channel (which is notoriously wet and cold and windy). I checked the weather forecast and found that the wind was predicted to be blowing at 30 knots gusting to 60. Which is windy. And that it was going to be raining. (Of course.)

                 

At this point I stop and take stock. Our toilets are still not working. After installing new pumps it was ascertained that at least part of the problem was that the exit tube is completely blocked by meters of fossilized cement-like poop (which begs the question: where has everything we have been putting into this system lately gone?) and so this tube is currently opened up and hanging, full of strong acid, which occasionally fizzes out, along with bits of the decade old crap, onto the bathroom floor. Yesterday we accidentally closed the hatch to which this tube is attached, when we were turning the boat around, and almost doused Ida with this lovely mixture. I dread to think what would have happened if she hadn’t have simultaneously been on a 2 minute break. 

The toilet tube burping strong acid and old poop onto the bathroom floor.

The generator, which was broken when we started, has not been looked at. The new wind generators have been installed but not tested. The main engine is producing noxious fumes of undiagnosed origin. Boxes of unsorted tools remain on the desk in the main salon ready to fly as the boat heels. Large wooden shelves are sitting loose on the floor. In other words the boat is still a disaster zone. And, of course, the main mast boom vang block has not been fixed. A broken boom vang block is not in itself a critical piece of equipment on a boat. But to me it is symbolic of both the state of the boat and of the captain’s attitude. Is this how I want to sail?

Ida convinces Olve to wait for first light before leaving but it is too late.

I feel too old.

I don’t think that the boat is intrinsically unsafe. I do think that the captain is likely a good sailor. I know that he has had 7 years formal training in seamanship and that he also knows how to sail. When we initially rigged the gib and genoa on the wrong forestays and I pointed this out to him he quickly realized that I was correct and helped me switch them. This is important because it shows two very different things; he has good knowledge of sailing theory but he is not familiar, yet, with his boat.

The boat is a classic. She is not state-of-the-art. Her foresails, for example, clip on, they are not on roller furling. Most lines are not led back to the cock-pit. This means that if you had to reduce sail because the wind had come up it would not be a quick process. You would have to go up on deck to do it which would be very wet. And, though I labelled all of them, none of us, not even Olve, knows yet instinctively which line is which, which would slow the process even more. 

 We are now five days behind schedule and he is feeling pressured to make up time – so that the boat will be in Portugal on time to pick up the crew who have booked to join there – and so the boat will sail longer legs, skipping some previously scheduled stops, and will sail regardless of the weather. I have been in this situation before. I don’t like it.

If I were 20 I might really enjoy playing the ‘let’s-rush-out-to-sea-in-this-new-to-me-boat- and-see-what-will-break-next’ game.  But I am not.

At midnight I decide I don’t want to do this. I have been, as you may have noticed, wavering back and forth all along but apparently my indecisiveness has hit an all-time high.

            I think the boat is safe, a little under-prepared, perhaps, but in no way not sea-worthy. I think the captain is competent, a little lazy, but definitely adept as opposed to inept. (Did I mention all this?) But I also think that I am too old for this particular situation. The teething troubles this boat is currently having are better suited to someone younger or at least more flexible.

So I say goodbye to Ida, who understands, at least, my position.

And I jump ship.

Because of a broken block and all that it symbolizes.