Day 18 : Ascension to Azores

Monday April 4th 2022

Most of the time, watch keeping on Steely is a pretty tame affair. There’s rarely much in the way of sail trimming or reefing to do, certainly no steering or navigating, so it’s really just a case of keeping an eye on the horizon and the RADAR/AIS, and lots of book reading, or email/blog writing.

I can, and regularly do, spend an entire 4 hour watch sitting in one corner of the cockpit, never moving other than to make a cup of tea or refill the water bottle, and by the end of my watch have literally nothing to report to Jen when she comes on.

Yesterday’s afternoon watch was not one of those.

Despite the fact that the weather was the most pleasant of our entire 18 days so far, with flat seas, very moderate and steady winds, and beautiful sunshine, I’d go so far as to say it was the most eventful 4 hour watch I’ve ever had.

So much so, that I thought I’d lay out the events exactly as they happened:

1.00 pm - Not only is it time for my watch, it’s also my turn to make lunch. I reluctantly close my laptop where I’ve been watching yet another Game of Thrones episode, check in with Jen, and set about concocting a culinary delight with absolutely zero fresh food on board.

1.15 pm – Lunch is served. Provita Crackers with smoked salmon, Philadelphia cream cheese and pickled gherkins. I’d be pretty happy with that any time, never mind in the middle of the North Atlantic 2,000 miles into a passage. It’s also pretty easy to make when the boat’s on a lean (the crackers get laid out on a baking tray on top of the gimballed stove, so they don’t slide around all over the place).

1.30pm - Lunch over, Jen retires to the aft cabin to watch a movie. Perhaps because of the beautiful conditions I have a little more energy than usual, so I decide I’m going to use this watch to tackle a couple of jobs on my list.

1.35pm – Job #1 is to try and address the still leaking window in the galley. Our efforts in the earlier in the passage seemed to have slowed the leak down a lot, but in recent days it’s come back again, reinforcing our belief that these portlights are not the correct ones for the job. With some strong wind and big waves in our near future, I’d like to try and get a better seal. After some discussion over lunch with Jen, we decided that I’ll try and fit one of the storm covers we have for all our windows.

These 3/8 inch thick steel plates are designed to screw onto the inside of the window frame for every portlight on the boat, either to be fitted proactively in advance of a huge storm, or reactively in the case of a window being compromised in some way. They came with the boat, but when we had the new, opening portlights fitted during our refit, we needed to get the shipwrights to amend a couple of the cover plates, to accommodate the opening levers that these portlights have.

1.40pm – I dig around inside our safety locker, removing just about everything in there to find the cover plates. And of course, the correct one for the galley window is at the bottom of that pile. Those suckers are heavy! The plan is to cut out a rubber gasket and fit that between the cover plate and the window, and then screw it down tight. I decide to dry fit the cover plate first to make sure the plan is going to work before digging out the gasket making material

1.45pm – Damn, I’m such an idiot! For the one hundred and fifty-third time, I find myself wishing I knew then (during the refit) what I know now. Back then I was naïve to the ways of boat contractors, and just assumed since we were paying top dollar, they would be doing everything professionally. Ha-ha!

So I didn’t ever personally test that the new cover plates fabricated by the shipwrights fitted - I just assumed and trusted they did. What a fool. We would NEVER trust any contractor now on any job, without checking it ourselves first.

The plates do NOT fit. Not even close. They must have given the job to a junior, who had no idea what he was doing. But at least he wasn’t as dumb as me, paying for their time and never even checking the work. On something that is an important safety item on the boat. What a fool.

1.50pm – I disturb Jen from her movie to come and check that I’m not being an idiot and just failing to work out how to fit the cover plates, and she quickly ascertains that I’m not being THAT kind of idiot, at least.

I spend the next 5 minutes persuading Jen to let me at least tape up the inside seal of the windows. As well as suspecting it won’t make much difference, Jen’s reluctance stems from the fact that the heavy duty waterproof tape I intend to use will leave a huge amount of sticky residue that will take ages to clean off when we get the chance to fix the windows permanently. I don’t even try to convince her that it’s fine, as I’ll do it. We both know that won’t happen – or at least the job won’t be done to her satisfaction and she’ll need to redo it. We’ve long since learned to play to our strengths on the boat, and if it’s attention to detail with painstaking fiddly jobs, that’s going to be Jen, every time.

Dealing with the aftermath is the reason we’re not yet prepared to take the one drastic solution that we know WILL definitely work – creating an extra seal on the window using Sikaflex or Butyl Tape, both of which we have on board. That would definite stop the leak, but would be almost impossible to ever remove completely. Since the leak is still pretty slow, we’ll keep that option up our sleeve as a last resort if the leak gets worse.

2.10pm – I finish taping up the window, wincing as I apply the tape and see just how incredibly sticky it is, and knowing I’m going to be paying for this in terms of dealing with Jen’s justified grumblings when we get to the Azores. Ah well, at least I’ll have slowed the leak considerably in the meantime.

2.20pm - As I’m cleaning up, the DSC Alarm on our VHF starts blaring. Jen rushes out to the amin saloon to see what’s going on, just as I reach the VHF and cancel the alarm. On the screen it says “DSC Distress Call relay – Man Overboard”. I scroll through the message, but the position data is missing - just a row of dashes. There’s just the MMSI number of the device sending the alert. I use the VHF to send an acknowledgement message back that we’ve received the call, and listen out on Channel 16 for the broadcast that will surely follow.

2.25pm – There’s no subsequent broadcast, but 5 minutes later, the DSC Alarm goes off again, with the same message. Again there’s no position data, and again I send an acknowledgement. It’s pretty weird that there’s no position data, but it must be reasonably close to where we are, as the range for DSC is only as good as VHF – so probably not much more than 25 to 30 miles.

2.30pm – I go up on deck to scan the horizon just in case there’s a vessel nearby that we haven’t spotted, but there’s nothing to be seen.

2.35pm – The DSC alarm goes off AGAIN (as it indeed it continues to every 5 minutes for the next hour or more). I send ANOTHER acknowledgement, and then move onto my next job – window cleaning.

2.45pm – After 18 days at sea, our hard dodger windows are caked with salt – so thick you can barely see through them during the day, and definitely not at night.

Although I know it’s ultimately futile and the salt will come back as soon as the bigger waves return, I decide to take advantage of the pleasant conditions to go out on to the coachroof with a bucket of soapy water, a cloth and a squeegee.

I interrupt Jen again to tell her that I I don’t come back and see her in 10 minutes, I’ve fallen overboard and she needs to come and find me. She says she will, but I don’t get a great sense of confidence - she’s clearly still thinking about the tape residue shell be cleaning up in a few weeks. I resolve to hold on extra tight as I’m cleaning.

It’s a very satisfying job, and I return to the cockpit to check my handiwork and cancel the bloody DSC Alarm that is going off again.

2.50pm – I can’t stand it any more. That bloody alarm. I feel sure some unseen vessel nearby has set it off by mistake, and is unaware that their distress signal is being broadcast, and is in fact causing ME distress, by punctuating our peace and quiet every 5 minutes with the strident tones of the alarm.

I make a VHF broadcast on channel 16, figuring that even though we’re in the middle of nowhere and thus virtually no-one will hear this, if we’re receiving DSC then whichever vessel that its coming from IS in range.

“Securite, Securite, Securite. All Stations. All Stations. All Stations. This is Steel Sapphire, Steel Sapphire Steel Sapphire. We are picking up a DSC Emergency distress signal for a Man Overboard. The DSC signal is not broadcasting it’s location. Our position is 17 degrees north, 25 degrees west. If you are receiving this broadcast, please check all your devices to confirm if one has been inadvertently triggered. Securite Securite Securite. This is Steel Sapphire. Out.”

Unsurprisingly, we receive no reply.

2.58pm – I sit down in my usual spot in the cockpit, and grab my book.

3.00pm – FISH ON!! I call Jen, and dial a 70 degree course chance in to the autopilot on my way past so we slow down, as I rush to the back of the boat to apply the brake on the drag reel – the line is running out at an incredible rate. Just as I pick up the rod, the line goes slack – whatever it was, it’s got away. I bring in the line to see if it took the lure, but no, it’s still there. It obviously didn’t have the hook fully embedded. Ah well. I reset the line, and return to my book.

3.05pm – There’s the bloody DSC Alarm again. Grrrrr!! I cancel it again, and spend the next 15 minutes hunting through the manual for the radio to see if I can turn off the alarm (you can’t) or bar DSC calls from a specific MMSI number (nope).

3.20pm – I pick up my book again.

3.21pm – The chart plotter alarm goes off, with an AIS Man Overboard signal. And it’s right next to Steel Sapphire!!!

I cancel the siren, and jump up, looking around wildly, for a vessel, or someone in the water nearby. There’s nothing to be seen.

I look again at the plotter. Clearly this is the same MOB device as the DSC call, but now it has a position, otherwise it wouldn’t show up on the plotter. And that position really is right next to us. Less than 100m away. I look at the bearing to the signal – it’s directly behind us, but getting further away. A few seconds later, suddenly the signal is right on top of us again.

And just as suddenly, I realise what’s going on.

The signal is on board Steel Sapphire!! It only broadcasts every 15 seconds, so in between each broadcast, we sail further way from the location of the signal, and then when it updates, suddenly it’s right on top of us.

For the second time in this watch, I think about what a fool I am. It’s all blatantly obvious to me now.

The signal is coming from one of the MOB1 AIS devices that we have fitted to our lifejackets. They’re designed to trigger automatically when the life jacket inflates and sends a DSC signal to all vessels nearby by VHF, plus appear on all chart plotters.

Clearly, when I’d gone into the safety locker to find the cover plates for the leaking window, I’d pushed something on top of one of our life jackets, and somehow managed to trigger the device inside the jacket (without it inflating).

I grab Jen and explain what I think is happening. She opens up her lifejacket first, and sure enough, the MOB1 Device is armed, broadcasting (with a strobe light flashing) and the curled up antenna deploys as Jen opens up the jacket.

THAT’s why there was no position for the first hour of DSC calls – the antenna wasn’t deployed properly and it couldn’t get a good GPS fix on its position. Slowly over an hour or so, it had worked out even with its furled up antenna where it was, and finally alerted the chart plotter.

What a fool.

4.30pm For my penance, I have to learn how to switch off the device, rearm it, and pack it away in the lifejacket.t That process, involving lots of trial and error, takes more than an hour. But finally, it’s all back together again.

4.40pm – I pick up my book again.

4.50pm – Fish on!! I call Jen, dial in the autopilot change to slow the boat down again, and make my way to the back deck. I reel in the fish - a beautiful Dorado, but a tiny one – so small in fact that we decide to throw him back.

4.55pm – Fish on! Having thrown the tiddler back, I put the line out again. The rod isn’t even in it’s holder when the same fish (it MUST be, right) takes the lure again. I reel it in, but just before I land it, it bounces off the lure and away to freedom.

5.00pm My watch ends - it’s time for sundowners. Jen appears in the cockpit with a beer for me, and a glass of red wine for herself I’m exhausted – what an action packed 4 hours.

___

Day 18 Statistics:

Time on passage so far: 17 days, 21 hours
Distance covered in last 24 hours: 107 nm
Average Speed in last 24 hours: 4.5 knots

Official Length of intended Route when we set out: 3,480 nm
Current Projected Distance to Go according to chart plotter: 1,528 nm
Distance Sailed so Far: 2,091 nm
Total Projected Distance of Route: (2,091 + 1,528) 3,619 3,392 nm
Change in total projected distance in last 24 hours: +227 miles (I’ve updated our course with the avoiding action suggested by Predictwind to minimise the effects of the storm ahead)

Number of reefs (in and out) in Genoa in last 8 hours – 9 – it’s been a night of very variable winds – 5 knots to 25 knots, and they just won’t hang around for long.