Tuamotos
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Sun 9 May 2010 20:35
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Sunday 9th May (my birthday!) 0915 1845
UTC
15:49.53S 145:07.18W
I am so sorry to hear that the UK has remained as
rudderless as it has been for the past couple of years and we still don't have a
competent government. Hung Parliament - personally, after we belatedly woke up
to the fact, through the expenses scandal that many of our politicians
and much of our govenment were - shall we say "bad value for money" -
(no we shall not, we shall say, criminally robbing us) I think we should have
hung a lot of our parliament then.
Yesterday despite having a red letter day (more
later) I heard by sat phone that many of those who swindled us through expenses
are no longer in parliament but will continue to live of our backs for the rest
of their days on a handsome pension. Where else would someone who has
defrauded the system and the people be then rewarded with a
handsome payment for the rest of their lives? Ah yes - I remember now -
the world of publicly listed banks and currupt African states. AaaaaGHH!!!
I think I will leave the country and go sailing round the world. Ah
yes - I already have so I can calm down
now. Breathe ............ in ........................out. OK calm
now.
Now, while some of you have humoured me by saying
you are loving the blogs we have had several requests for Trish to write more
frequently. I cant believe there are some of you out there who do not get all
they need from a round the world blog talking about sailing statistics,
wind angles, boat speeds and VMG topped up with a liberal helping of politics
and economics - what on earth is wrong with you! Anyway, ever the open minded
liberal I am doing my best to appeal to you all but for that stubborn minority
of you who insist on knowing even more about the scenery, wildlife and how
my wife feels sailing round the world, I have been heavily canvassing Trish
for two things - her to bake another of her banana cakes and for her to
write another blog. At the moment she is baking another banana cake. I will
try harder.
Anyway back to the sailing stats ...... left Niku
Hiva 0900 Thursday morning ........ arrived at waypoint off the south coast of
the atoll of Kauehi 510 miles away 52 hours and 55 minutes later including a
record breaking 24 hour run of 240 miles! I haven't worked out the average speed
yet because I know it doesn't interest you anymore but if I had it would say an
average of 9.6377953 knots. Wind angle 125deg true - average wind speed 16 - 18
knots.
Suffice to say we had un uneventful passage down,
and I only had to climb the mast once. On the Saturday morning while sailing
along at 9.5 knots in moderate seas and 18 knots of wind the mainsail started
"motoring" causing significant vibrations through the whole rig.
After studying it for a while I noticed one of our vertical carbon fibre
battens had broken and while remaining fixed in it's bottom location pocket, the
broken section had slid down past it and was slowly working its way out, and at
some point soon would drop like a spear from on high to the deck. Perhaps
causing some damage - (windows, hatches, sprayhood covers, heads! (human heads
not toilets)). Furling the sail all the way away, I concluded, was not a
good option as the protruding batten could foul up the furling set up,
inside the mast. Slowing down was not an option .... well you know the way
it is. Anyway after furling the sail into the mast to a point where the batten
was accessible from the mast where I would be hauled up. We organised Trish
to haul me up. Despite regularly claiming lack of ability, Trish has now sailed
(ok slept a lot too) over 16,000 miles and has more ability than she lets on, or
realises - so I had no fears in her hauling me up the mast.
The mission, while fraught with danger, was
accomplished successfully. I wore the crash helmet I have for the job, but
without complete body armour this job cannot be done without getting bumps and
bruises and grazes from being thrown around at height from sailing at
speed and not being able to control ones momentum in all directions at
once. The most difficult thing was preventing myself from being thrown forwards
round the front of the mast which I was several times.
We regularly consider one of the dangers of going
up the mast is that of falling to the deck. This could happen from your
partner on deck not preventing the halyard running out from the winch self
tailer or from the rope clutch not being closed. However on our boat and many
others at least there is a possibly greater risk from being hauled - up,
uncontrollably from a jammed on electric winch. If you think I am overstating
this I can tell you that about a month ago we had a very powerful primary
winch jam on. Luckily I could immediately reach the emergency cut out, which is
for all winches, next to that particular winch. However this cut out is 8 foot
away from the halyard winches used for going up the mast. An operator would
alternatively throw the line (all four turns ) off the winch and take your load
manually. In any event in the delay, there is considerable scope to be
uncontrollablly hauled up while being jammed in through a diagonal stay or under
a spreader. These are risks NOT to be underestimated and of course could be
fatal. When there are two available people at deck level I reccommended to
have one person manually tail the winch so that in the event of a winch jamming
on the tailing pressure can be immediately released.
Back to our passage. I think previously I stated
that due to our delayed departure time from Nuku Hiva we probably could not make
it into the atoll on the Saturday.
Arriving there is one thing but entering is
another.
An atoll is a coral crown along which there are
many motu (small islets) a few metres above sea level and "hoa" -
un-navigable channels to the open ocean from the interior of the lagoon. These
atolls are comprised of coral debris torn from the reef and deposited in motu
which then are very calcerous and have poor soil quality. The reef has been
created when the islands they once surrounded have sunk to the ocean floor
during the westward drift of the tectonic plate they are on, leaving only the
coral reef which had once colonised the island shore. Therefor the island is
diminished, in some cases like atolls it disappears and the space left inside
the reef is filled with the lagoon. In some island groups this has only
partially happened (Bora Bora) and on others this has not yet begun
(Marquesas). So they say anyway.........
Some atolls are reasonably small. Kuaehi is about
10 miles long by 7 wide and is medium size, some are over 40 miles long and
twenty wide. Almost all atolls will have one or two navigable passes some only a
few metres wide through which passes an enormous quantity of water in and out
with the influence of tide and other weather factors. These can cause flows up
to ten knots in some cases and very dangerous overfalls. It is generally
recommended to enter or leave at slack water which tends to be about an hour or
so after high or low water.
So entering an atoll is very often dependent on
tide - unless you are determined and have 200 HP. We charged through the outfall
running at 4 knots with "excitning" overfalls and very little room for manouvre.
About 200 metres outside the pass the depth was about 500 metres deep, (1/4 a
mile out the depths are in 1000's of metres) and the pass is about 11m deep
with a motu on either side of you. Interesting.
Though a few days have passed since leaving Nuku
Hiva we still laugh and smile all the time thinking about the amazing time we
had there and the wonderful people we met. We also learned how to cut down
banana trees, open green coconuts, crack the nuts, grind out the coconut squeeze
the milk out and how to use it for amazing curries! We collected and ate fruits
we never had before and learned to spearfish - more another time. We learned a
lot more too, and the experiences and memories of our times and
the people there will be with us for a long
time.
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