The Tortise and the Hare

I put my 2 cents of opinion into an event we were involved with on the NZ passage, because some context to land based reporting may be prudent. I trust all parties have weathered the associated lifestyle adjustments required. Our cruising is about self reliance, helping hands, a way of life, rather than a hurried destination list, we are the Tortoise, not the Hare.

We saw another beautiful new yacht smashed up in a yard in NSW, waiting for crushing, that begs the question why she was abandoned at sea?

Expensive modern yacht abandoned recently

With 27000nm under the belt, including the winter Cape and New Zealand waters, no one plans on being involved in a rescue. Despite the best preparations and training, outside help may well be required one day. So on that stormy night I realized some folks we never knew needed support or help.

At no time did the rescue authorities order/instruct us to help- on the contrary their professional voices were thoroughly calming.


Before responding to the rescue center:
1. I asked my wife if she could handle the extra effort - it was her final call, as we were already pretty well slogged out by then. She sat wedged in the companion way, closed up inside, watching the blue water and hearing the breakers & manning the radio - far more scary than my cockpit position - I love her dearly for that resilience in the tough times.
2. I factored in considerable drift and the sea state angle required to land upwind of the vessel (an assumption they would drift slower in the life-raft than in the vessel), it meant sailing our boat into some stiff seas.
3. We made it clear we could not do any "searching" or grid type traversing and needed a way-point.

I turned the yacht around at 3am, still bare poled and hove to again - sound simple, was not. At first light, set the yacht up to sail/motor to their last known position and after an hour communicated to Taupo Maritime I could make their position before nightfall - Note we had SSB radio, VHF and ability to charge batteries.
Our yacht is designed, built well, maintained adequately and we had already weathered similar storms, so had taken time to get to know limitations, both personnel and equipment. You can only get that knowledge through experience. Forums, clubhouse chats & books can inform you, but there is no substitute for reality.

What followed was an exhausting effort at the wheel, a lunchtime fly-by of the Noumea rescue jet and finally at sunset arrival within sight of SV Windigo. I had to hand steer, avoiding dumpers, surfing, climbing to windward and looking over both shoulders at the breakers.
VHF contact was made and then scheduled on the hour. Unfortunately after 11pm, I lost VHF positions, which resulted in extended deck time trying to get visual of the yacht in high seas (so we did not collide) - this was where the real dangers lay - night time, lack of sleep for multiple days and in close proximity to a vessel. The beneteau was getting a pounding and it's motion was horrendous - clearly not designed for those conditions. At about 4am the ship arrived and I asked the captain if he could continue watch on my behalf....I put the VHF and SSB volumes on full, set the alarm for first light and collapsed downstairs. The rest is covered by the media, but do not be fooled by the sea state, those pictures are taken in the direct lee of a big ship...we still had standing waves breaking on our deck that morning.

 http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/yachties-return-to-heroes-welcome-2012111917#axzz3UEK2XxPx

For some reason I was not given the drift rate of the SV Windigo, so took a few hunches of my own...dealing with two remarkably different hull designs and associated drifts - it turned out SV Windigo drifted downwind 34nm in the 18hr period. (Needless to say my logbook was a scrawl of vectors and Waypoints, as tiredness required everything to be written down.)

So by 10am it was all over, ....but 800nm still to sail, so we hoist sails, DBL clip on deck and pace ourselves for the next weather system. That evening when the NZ warship tried to find us... but I was hove to down stairs re-balancing that "sleep" equation.  By day 14 or so?? what ever it was, we were keen to be at anchor. There were two sharp fronts that hit us further south, where sleet, fatigue and sea states were worse than the low up north. We were kind of over this windward passage. It was a reminder of how rough oceans can become and how much sail change and adjustment you do with clocking weather systems. I heart-fully thank those that welcomed us in at Opua - all a bit overwhelming.

Re hand steering, well..that not overly correct, but my laziness meant it was easier to lash the helm, not something I wanted needed advertising. We sail our yacht across oceans, she is well built for that purpose. I think there are few yacht designs around today that allow for extended ocean sailing with the helm lashed.

 I deliberately limited use of the working auto-helm, to conserve battery power. There was a lot of floating pumice that could block the engine sea strainer in bouncy seas (I could and did run the engine to charge batteries, but just limited it). Also, we had cracked the glass of the solar panel, holed the selfsteering paddle and the wind gen had stopped working. Re damage, pretty minor in the scheme of things:

• A wind gen isolation switch was removed & cleaned  -15mins (should have been done earlier!!), 
• The wind-vane paddle epoxied & reinstalled in Opua. I didn't feel like getting it water logged and was too lazy to fill the 2" hole with epoxy at sea - could have everything was onboard. 
• I purchased a new solar panel and kick myself for not bringing our one inboard 6 hours earlier.

If engaging in independent activities, paid for out of your own pocket money, I suggest: an apprenticeship, depth of understanding and respect of the environment. Weigh your own inputs above the reliance on modern equipment, paid weather routers, sponsors agendas and electronics.