The never ending story
Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Mon 11 Nov 2013 16:22
Monday 11th Nov
Nothing straightforward about this passage for sure!
Sunday was generally light wind which is not our best suit, but as soon as
we hoisted Flossie we set off at a pace, only to have to take her down again
in the unpredictable squalls. We found ourselves pulling away from Ruffian
generally which was not part of the plan as we had offered to stay with them
for the rest of the trip south. In the late afternoon, Ruffian called us and
the catamaran 'One Two' to tell us that their engine was pretty much shot
and after only two hours running was seriously overheating and pumping
seawater out through the top of the freshwater header/expansion tank and
filling the bilges. They said that they would just have to sail the whole
way come what may and felt that it was very unfair to expect us to stay with
them the whole way especially during the days of nil or very light winds
etc. We on Serafina came up with a compromise and we are going to use
conservative sail plans to ensure that we continue to sail 'sedately' on our
way, which means that Ruffian which is smaller, but fast in certain wind
conditions would probably not ever get left very far behind. We agreed a
daily email exchange at 1100 hours AST and assured them that if they needed
any assistance we would only be a few miles away and would immediately turn
round and be there.
'One Two' put their multi-talented crew member Tom on the radio. He had so
far today, caught a 45lb Wahoo, gutted it, filleted it and cooked some and
frozen the rest (nearly 20lbs of meat) but he was also a helicopter
mechanic! He chatted with Iain and Fiona on Ruffian about their problem and
also downloaded the engine manual via a sat phone (the engine on Ruffian is
25 years old...) and then came up with a solution involving routing sea
water through the entire cooling system as a get out of jail fix. But sadly
this involved some surgery and parts that Ruffian felt were beyond them and
had to thank him for his help, but returned to plan A which is to keep
sailing the whole way. 'One Two' have pressed on now, but we are pottering
along so as to not get too far away from Ruffian.
So we are currently sailing gently due south as suggested by the weather
team. I will not attempt to explain the current situation ahead and behind
us as it is making our heads spin as well, but there are a lot of troughs,
fronts and lows and in simple terms, we are not out of the woods by any
means, but can reasonably expect not to be dealing with anything much above
30 knots from here on. We still have 650 miles to run and are expecting
some very contrary wind directions at least one day with little or no wind
quite possibly, so we are not going to be arriving in the BVI much before
Sunday at the earliest as things stand.
Once again very many thanks to those sending us emails to relieve the
situation. We get and send emails once a day via a Sat phone at 1500 hours
UTC (which some of you might know better as GMT.)
Now the other news: We received the email below this morning giving us an
update on those less fortunate than ourselves. It is very sobering but thank
goodness everyone is OK.
Status of boats
crews are safe. 2 yachts dismasted, two vessels lost (crew fine), four or
five
lost rudders, and Braveheart had crew injury (broken arm/dislocated
shoulder) and came into Moorhead City. Crew of the abandoned vessels
Ahemsa 4 and Wings, were airlifted by USCG. Ahemsia 4 came here to our
home; Wings is coming in today, and may also come here. Zulu, Jammin lost
rudders but came in under tow or power. Like Dolphins dismasted, came in
under power. Nyana dismasted, motoring in. North wall gulfstream incident
was very very nasty.
saw your post and thought you would appreciate
update. joan
Like Dolphins is a Belgium Catamaran; Johann & Sonja entertained (in many
ways!) Sarah and I to drinks on board their boat on the last night and sang
Sarah a very rowdy Happy Birthday before we set off. They were sailing with
a friend, Peter and their dog, Luna. We are so sorry at all this ghastly
news, but its even worse when you know the lovely crew.