14th March 07 (continued)
The day started with us motoring from Antigua to Sint Maarten across a glassy sea. At about lunchtime, the wind picked up and veered so we promptly raised all sail and knocked along nicely on a broad reach at about 5-6 knots. Eventually the wind came right around behind us so we took the jib in and carried on with mainsail only until the wind died again and we dropped the main and started the engine again.
During the whole day, the wind was very variable and later on it backed and gave us a broad reach. Since it was so fluky, we simply unrolled the headsail alongside the staysail and left the main firmly stowed. It was going to be dark soon and we did not want to be faffing about with the mainsail at night.
At 17:30 the wind picked up and we were barrelling along at 7.5 knots with full jib, staysail and the engine on tickover. Fliss echoed my thoughts by suggesting that the jib should be reefed a bit so we rolled a few turns in it and felt more comfortable even though the boat speed was unaffected.
Just after dark, a series of squalls came barrelling through and we turned on the radar to watch their progress. Funny how the ones that the radar picked up were all headed our way! The wind gradually increased until we decided to roll a few more turns on the headsail – to less than a third of its full size and we still managed to hit over 8 knots at times on a very close reach. Things were starting to get a bit boisterous but luckily, we had some respite for a time as we passed in the lee of St Barts where the seas flattened out a bit. Then it was back out into the open for the last 12 mile dash for Sint Maarten.
A larger boat was gaining slowly on us behind and just pipped us to the post as we entered the safety of Simson bay. It was a wooden ketch about 70 foot long called Norwind from Cowes built in 1939 – Looks like a sleek racing yacht of yesteryear (see Aussie Bloke below).
We arrived at 02:00 and, just as we were about to anchor, an unlit large RIB came roaring up and burned our eyeballs with a high intensity searchlight. There are a lot of super-yachts here and security seems tight!
Fliss….
A bit boisterous Pete! We spoke to yachtie here in St Maartan who said that in the St Barts anchorage he got up due to the wind speeds to check his anchor and was recording wind speeds of 30 knots so out at sea it really was quite windy. Pete tried to ease the situation by saying that it was a good force 4, where did I leave my banana boat?. It was a gruelling 8 hours of strong winds and lashing rain, thank god the seas were reasonable as the experience could have even more of an nightmare. We have experienced stronger winds but not for a long time.
Pete………
It MUST have been a force 4. The two sources of weather information that I downloaded told us it was only 15 knots of wind!
15th March 07 – The Saga continues……………or stops?
We needed to get into a large landlocked lagoon where the rigging specialist suggested it would be easier to work on the mast. So, we awoke at 08:00 so that we would be in time to slug some coffee and ready the boat to enter when the lifting bridge opened at 09:30.
Everything went smoothly but the anchorage here is very full and we nosed around for a short while before spotting a reasonable space. I had to swing Naz around in a tight circle to get the nose into wind before dropping the anchor and was just about to execute the manoeuvre when I noticed another yacht heading for the same spot. He was already aligned for it and so I took Naz close to one side of him to turn around his back end and go and search elsewhere.
We came to a slithering stop! Firmly aground on the shoals that I had already steered a wide berth of when coming into the lagoon! The reality was that I was too busy focusing on avoiding the other, much larger, boat that I did not have my eye on the depth-sounder. No matter how much I played the engine, we were well and truly aground with a mild list to leeward.
Scene 2 - Enter the cavalry!
Brian – English single hander on a 55 foot boat. He was on the yacht we were trying to avoid, apparently he draws the same depth as us and he had no problems.
Roxanne and Bill – American – Yacht as yet unknown
Larry – American – on the tri-maran that was quite happily sitting over the shallows that we were stuck on.
Ozzy Bloke (cameo part) – he was skipper of Norwind who was anchored less than 100 metres away.
So, Roxanne and Bill were first on the scene and offered to pull the nose sideways to deeper water with their 30hp outboard. We got a line to them and whilst I played the engine, they pulled hard sideways. Yes, some movement but we simply spun around a bit and stuck fast again. We had a few more attempts but failed to budge poor Naz.
Next, we got out our kedge anchor and a long line. Brian took the anchor out and dropped it and we used the windlass to grind ourselves free. The anchor failed to bite first time but on the second attempt it bit in hard. Great…….give a bit of grunt on the windlass and we are out of here! We took up the slack, applied a bit of tension, pulled hard and then the windlass gave in – completely. I hand-cranked it until the line was bar-taut and still no sign of movement
Brian suggested that he take a line from his boat that was now anchored just ahead of us and pull us forward with his engine. So, with Roxanne and Bill pushing our stern with their powerful dinghy, Fliss on our engine, Brian pulling with his and me hauling the anchor we HEAVED!
Nope!
Strategy #3 – lean the boat over so the keel lifts as the weight of the boat is taken by the side of the hull.
I produced another anchor and attached it to the longest line we have to the spinnaker halyard (coming from the top of the mast). Larry took it out as far as possible and dropped it and I winched hard to pull the mast towards the anchor. Unfortunately, with the mast being 60 feet above sea level, we did not have enough line to do the job and the anchor (heavy CQR variety) did not bite. So Larry agreed to haul on the line with his own powerful RIB (funny how the Americans have bigger and more powerful?). We tried the same configuration of all pulling and pushing at the same time.
Nope!
We had another Pow-Wow. I decided that more lean was required to un-stick the keel and so swung the boom out sideways. Aussie Bloke appeared and we tried the same configuration with me sitting on the end of the boom, Aussie Bloke hanging from the end of it, Larry pulling hard at the top of the mast, Roxanne and Bill pushing sideways from the stern, Brian pulling hard from his boat and Fliss giving some welly on the engine. Slowly, slowly, slowly, we moved and were suddenly free!!!!!
End of scene – Nearly
We retrieved, stowed or gave back all the kit that had been deployed whilst still attached by line to Brian. Very nice of him to let us hang on his boat for a while whilst we sorted ourselves out. Without a windlass motor, we had to hand crank the main anchor. We had never done this before and I showed Fliss the essentials of manually opening the clutch mechanism etc etc. I left the clutch free-spinning and ready to go and we dropped the line from Brian to go and find peace and solitude somewhere else. Just then, Fliss prepared the anchor in the usual way by canting it over the roller. With the clutch running free, the anchor barrelled over the side and dumped 15 meters of chain over the side. Did I mention that it had been pissing with rain for almost the whole two hours of this procedure? We were very close to other yachts and worried about the wind (yes, it was still very gusty) pushing us onto other boats. Eventually, Fliss nudged the boat so that I could hand-crank the anchor back in and we scuttled away, red faced, to our quiet corner.
Having got the windlass manual out and located the cut-out switch, we found there was no damage there – relief!! However, we have only just anti-fouled the bottom and we are now wondering whether there is any left on the keel since we have probably scuffed it all off on the gloopy goop to which we were well and truly stuck. Only a dive down and examination will tell and the lagoon here is too murky to contemplate this. We will wait until Panama and see what’s what…
Customs now completed, rigging man coming tomorrow morning, grey and drizzly here yet we must now go and find our saviours to thank them.
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