Is Steely Flirting with Whales?

Day 5 : Azores to Ireland

Sunday, May 22nd 2022

The 5th day of our passage brought an interesting insight into the preceding day’s whale encounter.

We still don’t have a definitive answer as to what kind of whale it was (but thanks to all those who wrote with suggestions, the most common of which were Pilot Whale, Minke Whale or False Killer Whale).

But we do now think we understand why it was showing such interest in us. It turns out that Steely has been flirting with whales behind our backs!

(Warning : Long, slightly technical discussion ahead, but it does relate back to Steely’s inappropriate behaviour in the end – I promise).

When we made the repair to the steering in Horta, we were able to take it on a 150-mile test run, when we sailed to Sao Miguel. During that test sail, the new steering set-up largely passed – it was totally robust, much stronger than what we had before with no obvious points of potential failure, and the strange metal on metal clicking noises that our franken-nut temporary repair were emitting were thankfully gone. The new welds on the mounting platform of the reduction gearbox were also doing their job, and there was no longer any movement.

But, there was a sporadic new noise coming from the system. A low, faint, groaning noise, more of a vibration than a noise per se. We weren’t delighted with it, of course, but were not too alarmed either.

We traced it to the drag link arm between the tiller and the reduction gearbox, figured what we were hearing was metal on metal vibration, and speculated that where the newly machined pin went through the rose joint at the tiller arm end the metal just needed time to “lap” itself on the mating surfaces, to become a perfect fit.

Having said that, we couldn’t just leave it alone, so we took it apart while in Ponta Delgada and closely inspected the system. The new pin looked in perfect order, but we did find what potentially was another minor issue.

It looked like the rose joints themselves were no longer perfect circles – they had been pushed out of shape a bit by the movement in the system, either during our patched up temporary repair for close to 1,500 miles of sailing, or even just over the years by the issue that had caused the system to fail in the first place.

This meant that there was some additional movement between the rose joints and the pins, both on the tiller arm and the reduction gearbox ends, and that might also be the cause of the low vibration noise.

We decided it was going to be good enough to get us to Ireland and/or the UK, where we were already planning to take Steely to see the UK’s leading expert in our type of steering system for a general inspection and overhaul. We know he has stock of these rose joints and so will easily be able to replace them then, plus of course identify any other latent issues we might not have found.

So we put it all back together again, taking care to liberally grease the new pins and old rose joints in the hope that the lubrication might reduce or eliminate the noise.

And it did. To a point. There was silence from the system for our first 2 days on this passage, but slowly, the low groaning noise started to appear again, presumably as some of the grease worked its way out of the joints.

And so, inevitably (for it is the law on Steely that every passage must include taking the bed apart to inspect the steering), we took everything apart once more and had another close look, just to satisfy ourselves that there was no additional wear.

We also had another theory, which was that although the drag link could theoretically be fitted either way around (both ends are identical), perhaps the metal had a “memory” and there were tiny, imperceptible bends or changes to the shape of the rose joints at either end. If that was the case, and we had inadvertently put it back together the “wrong” way around when installing the new pin, that might also be the reason for there to be this vibration.

We went back to the photos and video we took when the system failed in the first place, and sure enough we could see that the drag link arm was indeed installed the opposite way from how it had been originally. Again, it should make no difference, but in the interests of trying everything, we figured it couldn’t hurt to turn it around.

This we did, and again applied more grease and put it back together again.

That was 2.5 days ago, and almost immediately we started the engine as we sailed into the expected calm patch. We discussed the fact that we wouldn’t be able to tell if the groaning noise appeared again for a few days over the din of the engine, but agreed that there really was nothing further we could do, that we were satisfied with the robustness of the steering overall and did not feel like a failure was imminent, and so monitoring the noise was not essential to our mental health.

The engine has been running ever since, until 2am today, when the winds finally returned.

And what beautiful conditions they are. 15 knots on the beam, and flat seas. We’ll have this wind direction all the way to Cork now, probably building to 20 -25 with 2 to 2.5m waves. Really great conditions for Steely, so we’re looking forward to the remaining three days of the passage.

In the meantime though, one thing was immediately evident once the engine was turned off.

The groaning, vibration noise had returned, if anything slightly louder, and slightly longer.

And, perhaps with yesterday’s whale encounter in mind, I finally realised what it sounded like.

The long, slow, mournful song of a whale.

I wish I could upload an audio file to this blog, as you’d agree immediately (I might try and do so after we reach Cork , for those who are interested).

But in my mind, there can be no doubt. Knowing how well sound travels through water, I am 100% convinced that the whale, passing by, heard Steely calling out to him, flirting if you will, with her beautiful, mournful, moaning song.

“Come here, handsome whale, buy me a drink, and I will show you a good time”, sang Steely.

And the excited whale, ducked and dived, and weaved his way around Steely’s appendages, showing off, and looking for Steely’s consent to move to second base.

“Ok, her belly is red, not white like mine, but such a large and buxom lady singing such beautiful songs, could only mean one thing – I’m in!”

So why wouldn’t this lovely lady stop for him. Why did she keep singing and luring him, but never actually stopped and gave him the opportunity to make beautiful whale babies?

After 45 minutes of flirting, he reached the inescapable conclusion – she was nothing more than a red-bellied tease, just like his father had warned him. And he skulked off, annoyed at having wasted his time, and chalked it up as just another one of those mysteries from the surface.

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Day 5 Statistics:

Time on passage so far: 4 days, 20 hours
Distance covered in last 24 hours: 136 nm
Average Speed in last 24 hours: 5.7 knots

Distance to go: 485 nm

Expected Air temperature drop today, according to PredictWind – 6 degrees. We’ve been averaging 18*C daytime temperature most days (which seems REALLY cold to us, we’re so soft after years in the tropics). But according to PredictWind, we can expect the maximum average daytime temperatures for the next three days to be just 12 degrees. Yikes!!!