Tony's UHURU – Ventura California to Brisbane Australia

[Tony B]

In the 3-½ years of sailing from California to Australia, we only encountered survival conditions on one occasion that but it lasted for three days. This was our sail from the Bay of Islands, New Zealand to Brisbane, Australia, via Norfolk Island. This course would put us on the periphery of the Tasman Sea, as opposed to going direct, so putting in a dogleg was the most prudent. We left at the appropriate time, in the spring (down under). In fact the New Caledonia to Auckland race was also going on. So there were lots of yachts sailing this area that time of the year. Little did we know, what was developing and neither did the meteorologists. It was going to be a choice of putting into practice one of four survival tactics, of “lying-a-hull”, “hove to”, “running before the seas” or a “sea drogue”.

Let me digress that our sea/weather problems were caused by was a very deep low with very little rain associated with it. The winds were 50-60 knots blowing for 2+ days period, which really isn’t that bad. But what was terrible was the fetch. This low was so large and intense that there was approximately a 1000 (one-thousand) mile fetch. With this kind of fetch, you can just imagine the seas/waves that were formed. Multiply the fetch, the strength of the wind and of course the duration and you have severe seas, as bad as a hurricane. Upon reaching our destination, we had heard of the racing yachts falling off 30 foot waves, breaking their bulkheads and what not, besides loss of crew. We were in the same thing, but further west.

The three photos show us at the very beginning of this weather with only the storm try. One really needs to make a decision before things get really bad; otherwise you jeopardize the well being of the crew and yacht. The close up of the tang bolt at the spreaders show what prevented us from doing a 360 degree roll over as the storm try hit the water and tang bolt bent, when the 20 foot breaking wave that broke to our starboard. The other photo is yours truly, bloodied up. Why we did not lose the mast, must be attributed to the new 316 stainless steel tang bolt and the beefed up chain plates that I added to the rigging in preparation for offshore passage-making and the tremendous mast support that was added. (In Geoff’s pictures, I see this has been removed). I believe rigging and mast-support is probably the weakest link with the preparing of any yacht for passage making. All you Ariel owners know that the cockpit coaming probably doesn’t rise more that 12 inches, if that, above the deck. Well, when we were knocked down, this portion above the deck was busted like a match. Water did this, as nothing else was around to hit it. This will attest to the force of the 20 foot breaking wave that greeted us.

After the first knockdown, I removed a toggle at deck level (I had two to each lower and upper shrouds) that help stabilized the mast. Running rigging was also used to help shore up the mast. Two other subsequent knockdowns, but on day two and day three occurred, but to a much lesser degree.

I had some previous experience with mast problems out at sea. About 4 years prior to my taking “Uhuru” offshore, my company, Ocean Voyages was hired by A-1 International Marine Recovery to “resteal” a Bayfield 32, “Paloma” for Wells Fargo Bank. This sailboat was located in Tahiti. By restealing, is meant to imply that the pharmacist and nurse that took out a loan to buy this new sailboat and outfit it, set sail and thusly defaulted on the payments. Upon arrival in Tahiti, we contacted the Gendarme (French police) with our paper work from Wells Fargo Bank. They put the crew in jail for a day and told them to be prepared to give us the yacht the next morning. There was only one problem here; they also gave them back their passports. We just knew they were going to sail away that night, so we put together a surveillance plan to keep an eye of the boat overnight. (I should have walked a dog, because I fell asleep and the boat was gone). We then chartered a private plane with some French immigration folks and Gendarmes, while a Navy frigate was also dispatched. We located the yacht about 20 miles south of Tahiti so we flapped our wings as a signal to the Navy frigate on where they were. The frigate caught up to “Paloma” in no time and with a few rounds of live ammunition across “Paloma’s” bow, the yacht was boarded and sailed back to Papette. (This episode is just the tip of the iceberg, so let’s move on). Let me fast forward here. We sailed the boat back to Marina del Rey, CA from Tahiti with a layover in Hilo, Hawaii. Well, it was our sail from Hawaii to California near the latitude of San Francisco (we had to sail this far north to get above the Pacific high), that I was climbing the mast as I do at least once a week to check for any problems with fittings and what not. (I love mast-steps and this is why I added them on “Uhuru”). Well, it was pretty windy out there and dusk was on the horizon and we were under headsail alone, due to the amount of wind. On this occasion when I got to the lower spreaders, guess what beat me down to the deck. Yep, the lower shrouds and I was like a fish on a pole. The tang bolt that was not stainless, like what I added on “Uhuru” fell to the deck. I called down to my crew to help secure the mast with the rigging and douse the headsail. We got that squared away and found a bolt we could improvise as a tang bolt. That was the easy part. Getting the lower shrouds up their in those kind of seas under motor was a task. One does a lot of jury-rigging at sea and we had lot of experience on this particular passage. Like replacing the head gasket with the cover of a nautical almanac. (For those of you that only know what a GPS is, a nautical almanac is a series of tables you use to find your latitude and longitude with a sextant).

Okay enough, now you have the reason why 316 stainless tang bolts must be used, why chain plates need to be modified and why I like mast steps.