The Curmudgeon falters

     On our first full day in the Gulf, we made our “quota” of 125 miles.  So far, so good.

     The first thing to break was the auto-pilot, on the first night.  But, that wasn’t a big deal.  As mentioned earlier, focusing the mind on sailing the boat was good anti-seasickness medicine.  However, with the other crewmember always trying to rest, having to drive the boat single-handedly meant you couldn’t turn loose of the wheel for a second.   That made it tough if, say, you need to trim an out-of-reach sheet.

      The next thing to break was the traveler.  The traveler, for the uninitiated, is a “car” set abeam between a pair of blocks, onto which the mainsail sheet is attached.  It’s one of the primary mainsail controls, although it’s not critical.  Without it, our wind efficiency was somewhat affected.   It started failing on day #1, and gave up the spirit sometime on day #2. 

       Meanwhile, down below, mayhem was happening.  It seems that supplies and other items had not exactly been stowed away with the greatest of care.  With the boat sharply heeled over, every wave-induced shudder was shaking things out of lockers and cubby-holes, off tables, or wherever they had been carelessly stacked, and were now mostly rolling around on the floor.  (More on this later.)

      At around 2 o’clock Saturday morning, we had our first failure with more serious consequences.  I was at the helm; Terry was asleep.  Suddenly, the staysail halyard snapped.  The staysail is a foresail, smaller than the jib, hanked from a shorter, inner stay.  It is optimized for sailing upwind, especially in high winds, like we were doing just now. 

       We managed to wrestle down the crippled staysail and stow it (or so we thought).  Because it was night, Terry chose to just start up the diesel to compensate for the lost sail.  But a couple of hours later, the engine suddenly froze.  And the rudder.  But there was nothing we could do about it till we had some daylight, so we just drifted downwind under mainsail only till the sun came up.

       Come sunrise, we could clearly see what had happened:  the crippled staysail had somehow managed to fall overboard, entangling itself in the prop.  We were able to start the engine in neutral, verifying that at least the engine appeared to be Ok.  I grabbed the other end of the wayward sail and pulled, while Terry put the engine in reverse.  I felt it give.  One good yank, and it was free!  Engine and rudder were again operational!

       We deployed a partially-unfurled jib to compensate for the lost staysail.  It wasn’t as efficient, but it would have to do.  But, with both the lost staysail AND traveler, we could not sail upwind nearly as well.  And due to the time we spent drifting downwind in the dark, we were also a half-day behind schedule.

       Onward to Florida we sailed.

       We sailed past huge patches of floating Sargasso seaweed.  Terry said we needed to dodge the large patches as much as possible because they sometimes contained garbage that could foul up the boat.

       Terry had plotted our course as a straight rhomb line from Galveston to Tampa - no tacks.  But each hour, our actual track was drifting further and further off-course to the north, due to the un-cooperative wind.  And now we were headed for the islands bordering the SW edge of Terrebonne Bay.  We had to tack.   As we approached the shallow Louisiana coast, one could not help but notice that the water had turned the color of chocolate milk. 

      So we tacked and headed due south for several hours.  Once back out in the deeper Gulf, the water returned to its formerly pristine clear blue color.  But this additional tack put us even further behind schedule.  The odds of actually getting to Tampa in time for my flight home Thursday was getting slimmer and slimmer.  And there was no respite from the relentless headwinds and pounding waves.

      That night (Sunday), at about 3 a.m., almost exactly 24 hours from the last serious failure, I was again at the helm.  Suddenly, the steering froze up.  I had no control.  I yelled for Terry, who had been asleep down below in the cabin.  Terry stepped out of his bunk into 6 inches of water in the cabin.  We now have two simultaneous emergencies.  In the back of my mind I’m already thinking:  Coast Guard rescue!

       Reflecting back upon the whole affair, it seems that perhaps God had sent one of his angels to watch over us that night.  As mentioned before, we both generally did all our napping up in the cockpit.  But Terry had chosen to try and sleep in the cabin that night.  If he had not, it was unlikely we would have noticed the cabin filling up with water in the darkness.

       The water in the cabin was a filthy, disgusting concoction of salt, oil, grease, garbage, spilled containers of food, detergent, spices, seasonings, a hundred cans of food with all the labels washed off, hundreds of plastic bags, books and manuals, a ton of disintegrated paper and cardboard, plus cat litter, cat food, wires, cables, dishware, pots & pans, silverware, flashlights, batteries, rolls of paper towels, toilet paper, aluminum foil, and Lord only knows what else.  Swirling around in that deadly muck was a laptop computer, cell phones, assorted electronic devices, and my duffel bag and all my gear.

       We pulled out buckets and started bailing like our life depended on it.  Well, it did!  In my current physical shape, deprived of food and rest and sacked with horrible seasickness for three days, it took every ounce of willpower I had to not faint, as I scooped up buckets and handed them up the steps to Terry.

       Everything was going overboard now, including unopened canned goods and plastic bags.  I’m sure all those plastic bags probably destroyed much marine life, but when survival was at stake, this is not the time to be an environmentalist.

       We bailed for a couple of hours, again drifting downwind, with no steering control.  Eventually, we surmised that at least the water in the cabin was not getting any deeper.  Clearly, the bilge pump had failed, and Terry hypothesized that the water was coming from the packing gland (where the prop shaft goes thru the hull).  He said it was a known problem, but was manageable so long as the bilge pump still worked.

       It was crunch time.  “What are your plans?” I asked.

       “Morgan City, Louisiana” he replied.  “It’s the closest port.”

      “How?  We have no steering.”

      “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

      Come daylight, the first order of business was to diagnose what happened to the rudder.  We couldn’t see anything obvious looking down, so there was only one way:  send in a swimmer. 

      First we deployed a sea anchor.  A sea anchor is not a true “anchor” but rather just a water parachute, designed to hold the boat as steady as possible at sea.  Terry pulled out his mask, snorkel, harness, and the swim ladder, and tied onto a tether.  Into the ocean he went.  The water was clear, but the waves remained vicious.  I stood by with boat hook in hand. 

      When his head popped up, I asked “Well?”

      “Rudder looks Ok.  I don’t see anything.”

      He climbed aboard and we fired up the diesel.  Steering:  OK!!

      We never found out what had fouled the rudder.  Our best guess was that we entangled a net or a tarp or a rope or something.  Maybe it was something stuck in a Sargasso patch.  Evidently, when we deployed the sea anchor, it took enough pressure off the rudder so that whatever it was fell away on its own.  I think it was an angel that sent it.

      But we still had to head to safer waters to fix the bilge pump and clean up the mess below.  On into Atchafalaya Bay.  Destination: Morgan City. 

      “By the way”, I asked, “how was the water back there”?

      “Refreshing.”