The Long Passage - Part 2

I managed to avoid heavy weather during this last passage, but there was still plenty of excitement along the way.

Engine Tribulations and Equipment Malfunctions 
There are lots of things that can go wrong on a boat and, short of a dismasting or a major leak of some sort, I had all of the big, scary ones happen on this passage: A fire, an engine breakdown, and a steering failure.  When you're a thousand mile from land, there is only one thing to do: fix the problem and keep sailing.  And thats exactly what I did.

Boats are filled with lots of complex systems that are under constant assault from the elements.  The majority of this passage was spent sailing into the wind which puts a lot more strain on everything (with the boat heeled over, crashing through the waves, deck awash, etc).

The Rascal valiantly lasted almost a week before the first thing went.  It was the middle of the night and I was stacking Zs, when all of a sudden I woke up.  My body can always seem to tell when I haven't woken up naturally, but its rare that my conscious mind can immediately identify what woke me.  The Rascal is constantly singing and dancing while we're on passage, with a hundred different clinks, clanks, and squeaks and a whole host of different shimmies, sways, and rocks.  Thus, when I first wake up, I've got to spend a few seconds listening for the tink that turned into a clang or feeling for the wiggle that has turned into a shake. 

On this occasion, it was pretty easy to figure out.  Instead of tipping to starboard, we were tipping to port, which is an odd change to have happen without me affecting it.  I climbed up into the cockpit and found that one of the windvane steering lines was totally slack.  The Rascal did the right thing by heaving-to when this happened (thanks to her traditional design with a bit of weather-helm) which stopped her in her tracks in a safe position.  The pulley had been making an odd squeaky noise for a couple thousand miles, but it was actually the lashings that held it to the boat that failed.  I laced some new ones in, and we were back on our way.

The second thing that went bad during the passage was a slow leak from several of the port-lights (windows) and hatches around the cabin.  The Rascal had been completely drenched with rain and sea water for more than a week at this point and it was no big surprise that some of it finally found its way in.  I managed to stem the flow with some butyl tape (something of an industrial version of silly putty that my mom was kind enough to bring down to Mexico with her), and the cabin stayed dry for the rest of the trip. 

About two weeks into the trip, I was laying down in my bunk reading when I tarted to notice an electrical smell in the air.  I was sitting right under the fan, and figured it was starting to heat up or something.  A couple of sniffs proved that this wasn't the source and I began snooting around a few other electronics that could've been the culprit, all to no avail.  Eventually I decided to lift the cover of the engine compartment, and smoke billowed out in my face.  I could see flames leaping up the left side of the engine and sparks flying into the insulation.

The Rascal is a very sturdily built ship and there aren't many things that could sink her. I'm pretty well convinced that even hitting an iceburg or a container wouldn't put a hole in her.  Losing steering would be really bad news, but I could jury rig something to send her in the right direction.  A dismasting would also be a big problem, but I've always got the engine, and I'm sure I could figure out how to rig a shorter mast sufficient to send me to my destination.  At least I've still got the security of the Rascal to protect me from the elements.  A FIRE, however, is a much bigger problem.  A fire very likely means abandoning ship and ending up in a life raft (if the fire hasn't already roasted it) and I'm left without much in the way of food, water, or shelter.  

When I saw those flames, I nearly shit myself.  My eyes got as big as dinner plates and I let out a frightened shout.  I immediately reached over and grabbed the fire extinguisher that is mounted above the stove and blasted the engine compartment with a ferocious stream of powdery extinguisher juice.  That was enough to quench the blaze, but something was still sparking away, so I turned my attention to the battery switches.  I wasn't sure why the fire had started, but I knew some sort of electrical issue was the cause, so I turned everything off at the main.  Next, I sent my brother a message so he would know something was going on in case a fire blazed back up.  After all of this was accomplished, I sat down on my bunk and realized I was trembling.  I was about a thousand miles from the nearest land, several days from any potential rescue, and decidedly shaken.  Luckily, however, the fire was out, I was safe and sound with plenty of food and water, and the Rascal didn't seem to have any critical damage.

The next morning as soon as it was light out, I started digging in to determine what caused the blaze.  The fire started on the bottom left side of the engine, which meant that I'd have to pull the alternator and my good friend the heat exchanger to get at the source.  It soon became evident that a leak had developed on the sea water side of the heat exchanger (which is impossible to see without taking everything apart) and it was very slowly dripping on the electrical leads to the starter.  It eventually shorted out, and because they're direct leads to the battery to get full juice for starting, there was no fuse to blow.  Thus, the cable (which is about the size of a hot dog  (but not as big as a Capri-corn-dog)) continued to short until it melted through its copper connector and half of the nut!  It looked like a camp fire dinner gone wrong.  

I didn't have any hot dog sized electrical connectors around, so I spliced some smaller cables and connectors on and reassembled it.  A slightly sketchy plan, but basically my only option if I want to use the engine at all.  Next, to avoid getting any more leakages or drops on the leads, I covered the starter with a couple of layers of sturdy clear plastic.  This is perhaps an even sketchier plan, but in the end it was very effective (I'm still alive and my starter still works).  Finally, I reassembled the heat exchanger (which was a big pain in the ass, requiring about five tries before everything lined up and held water), reinstalled the alternator, and tried to fire her up.  To my great surprise, she spun on the first twist and purred like a kitten!  Disaster averted!  

I checked everything several times for leaks and shorts and issues and got into the habit of cutting the battery main while I was sleeping (when I would be less likely to smell a fire before it got critical) and I was feeling pretty confident that everything was hunky-dory.  At this point I had found myself in the high-pressure area, with lots of calms and I was using the engine quite a bit.  One afternoon, I heard a buzzer and immediately cut the engine.  It was the high temperature alarm, which had gotten tripped when the heat exchanger decided to empty its freshwater into the bilge.  How thoughtful!  

I was faced with basically the same problem that I had in the Galapagos, the copper cooling lines didn't want to slide into the heat exchanger and seal off.  I decided that some sealant (which is actively discouraged in the shop manual) was my only chance at keeping them leak-free.  So I gooped 'em up, shoved 'em in, and gave them a few hours to cure.  I filled the system, and to my great joy, everything held water.  I ran the engine and all was well for a few hours until I heard the scream of the high temp alarm again.  I've gotten really severe headaches (migraines I suppose they'd be called) once every 2-3 years since I was in high school and as I cut the engine, one of these brain assaults began.  When it rains, it pours.  

I eventually slept the migraine off, and the next morning, I devised a new system to keep the heat exchanger from vibrating its lines out.  This new system used a couple of lengths of parachute cord, wrapped around the heat exchanger and various other things in the engine compartment to keep the lines pushed into the appropriate outlets.  As dubious as this spiderweb of support sounds, it was ultimately effective and I had no engine issues for the rest of the trip.

One night towards the end of the trip, I was awakened by an entirely new sound that the Rascal decided to add to her musical repertoire.  It was a clank that sounded like two bars of gold getting smacked together.  I had never heard her produce such a clank before and it had me very worried.  It only happened once every two or three minutes, so I wasn't sure, at first, what had woken me.  I figured it had to have come from the cockpit, so I hopped out through the companionway with a headlamp and waited for the clank.  When it finally came, it sounded like it was in the cabin.  I went back in the cabin and from in there, it sounded like it might've come from the kitchen sink area.  With my head in the kitchen sink, it sounded like it was surely coming from the vee berth.  From the vee berth, it sounded like it was emanating from the head, and from the head, it was definitely something in the engine compartment.  I spent the better part of an hour exploring and listening for the phantom clank and I never was able to isolate it.  In the morning, it was gone.  Hopefully the prospect of finding these mysterious gold bars will make me more likely to clean out the bilge in the future.  

As the wind was picking up after the dreaded calms, there were a few really gusty squalls that came through and had me scrambling to shorten sail and change heading. I noticed at one point that the tiller was pushed way over, and didn't think anything of it until the next day - I was on a close reach and its typical for the Rascal to have lots of weather helm.  As I was changing course, however, I noticed a lot of slop in the tiller, perhaps 30 degrees!  "That's odd," I said to myself, and as I crouched over to examine the tiller, I noticed a pair of forked cracks.  The bronze casting at the end of the tiller (that grabs onto the rudder shaft) was cracking in two places.  In addition, the key stock that keeps the tiller locked to the rudder seemed to have slipped down and was on the verge of falling out.

All of this had me pretty freaked out.  If that casting cracked all the way through, I'd have no way to steer the boat.  The problem wasn't critical yet, but in a storm, steering failure would (obviously) be a really big issue.  The weather was fairly settled, so I spent some time coming up with a variety of potential solutions.  My main concern was breaking the Hippocratic Oath of Boat Ownership (first, do no harm).  In other words, "don't make it worse while you're trying to fix it" (which I've been guilty of several times on the Rascal already).  

I decided there were four things I could do with varying degrees of risk and varying degrees of fixedness.  The first was shoving the keystock further up into the hole, and using little bits of stainless wire to take up the slop that had developed in the joint.  Low risk, but not totally fixing the problem.  This I decided to do immediately, because I knew it was unlikely to make things worse.  In fact, I sailed the boat like this for several days without problems.  The second option would be injecting metal-epoxy into the joint to totally solidify it, but I was unsure if this would also eventually crack and fail.  The third option was drilling a hole through the casting and rudder-stock shaft and through-bolting them together to remove all slop and make the keystock redundant.  I was a bit leery of drilling holes in anything, for the chance of weakening it beyond functionality.  The fourth option (if everything went to hell) was to rig a new rudder system with the fiberglass floor of the Little Rascal and the spinnaker pole.

After three or four days of sailing with the stainless wire and duct-tape jury fix, I got another calm and decided I ought to take it apart and figure out a better fix.  Once I got the casting off of the shaft, I realized that the shaft extended much further than I expected and that the keystock (and consequently the position of the casting) was in the wrong place entirely.  Whether this happened during assembly (before I bought the boat) or happened as I sailed along, I will never know.  It took some careful shimmying, a little adhesive, and a few more bits of stainless wire, but I finally got everything reassembled in its proper position and all of the slop in the joint was gone.  This fix seemed totally solid, and indeed, it lasted for the rest of the voyage.

What does a typical day look like? 
When I first left Mexico and started these longer passages, I decided to split up my day into four blocks of six hours each (midnight to 6am to noon to 6pm to midnight).  I generally send a location point to Porter at the start of each block and make notes about mileage and navigation to keep track of how much distance I'm covering and what my plans will be for the next block based on expected weather.  Having these blocks provides some nice structure to my day and breaks up the monotony of passagemaking nicely.  

I've always been an early-to-bed, early-to-rise sort of fellow, and I typically get up around 5 just as light begins to play along the horizon.  First I check the iPad to see what the boat has been doing while I slept.  Often times, the wind will have shifted or changed speed and I'll go up on deck to get the Rascal back on track.  Sometimes I'll stay up on deck and watch the sunrise if it looks promising and the weather isn't too fierce.  

Morning is my favorite part of the day, and breakfast is my favorite meal, so I typically cook something grand once the sun is up and shining.  Its tough to buy anything in single serving sizes, so oftentimes breakfast will be brunch and lunch as well.  Thus, I don't pigeon-hole myself into breakfasty things, though sometimes my breakfast-brunch-lunch will have a breakfasty flair.  For instance, Lit'l Smokie-fettuccine alfredo or bacon that I can use for breakfast sandwiches in the morning and BLTs in the afternoon.  I've got nobody to impress on the open ocean and I absolutely deplore doing dishes, so oftentimes I'll eat right out of the pan *gasp*.  

Once my belly is good and full, I typically curl back up in bed to do some reading or listen to a book on tape.  Sometime around mid-morning, I'll get an in-reach message from Porter (my brother) with a weather forecast. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about and planning around the weather. Each forecast is eagerly awaited and once I get it, I spend some time plotting out new courses, thinking about the implications of what sails I'll put up, and when I'll make certain maneuvers.  Sometimes I'll send a couple of messages back and forth with him to clarify, get news from home, or just shoot the shit.  Having some sort of contact with the outside world (even if it is only 160 characters at a time) makes a big difference and really helps to keep me grounded and happy (and sane?).  Porter spent a lot of time putting the forecasts together and it would've been a much harder passage without his help.  I'm lucky to have such an awesome brother.

Once I'm done with weather, I go back to reading, keeping an eye on my speed and direction every so often to make sure the Rascal is holding her heading.  I try and alternate between books I read for entertainment and books that I read for edification.  This has the benefit of keeping me from getting bored with something ‘too educational’, but also helps me avoid reading garbage all day.  At any given time, I'll be working on five or six different books of varying subjects and I'll switch between titles every hour or so.  This allows me to ration particularly good books so they last longer and it also means that I have time to digest subject matter from particularly dense books for a day before diving back into them.

I think it’s just the greatest thing that I can sit around reading all day if I want to.  I'm of the opinion that reading is a tremendous luxury and while I'm on land its rare that I ever set aside more than an hour for reading each day.  I love a good story, but I also try and use my reading time as a tool to learn new things.  During the course of this last passage, I've been able to read about Chilean history, wine cultivation and production, modern nutrition and food systems, the history of Cape Horn, a treatise on art, math, music & artificial intelligence, as well as the lives of a couple of different classic authors via their autobiographies.  It would've taken me years to read and digest that much knowledge if I was working a full time job.  In a way, its somewhat like being in school, except I've got no homework and all the classes I take interest me greatly.  

Thus, I spend the majority of my day with my head buried in a book, taking breaks to scan the horizon, do some writing, fix a quick snack, or engage in some navel-gazing.  And you can imagine after such a busy morning, afternoon naps are basically mandatory.  Sometimes I'll take two if I'm so inclined.  Dinner comes around 5 or 6 and typically I just snack on something, be it leftovers, summer sausage, crackers or perhaps some granola.  I tend to not do much drinking while I'm on passage, but I do enjoy the occasional glass of wine or cocktail while I'm taking in the sunset.

On an average day, I would guess I spend an hour and a half actually sailing (changing sails, adjusting the wind vane, trimming sails, etc), an hour navigating (planning around weather, monitoring position / speed, charting courses, etc), an hour cooking and eating, eight hours reading and writing, and three hours staring off across the ocean, watching a sunset or an interesting piece of weather drifting by.  Some days when the weather is on the move, I spend six or eight hours sailing and navigating.  Oftentimes wind shifts happen in the dead of night when I'd much rather be sleeping. In settled weather, there have been times when I don't make any adjustments to the sails for days.

The Capri-corn-dog
Last, but certainly not least, I bring you the glory that is the Capri-corn-dog.

I realized I would be crossing the Tropic of Capricorn a week or two after I arrived in the Galapagos and I knew immediately that I'd have to do something really special to commemorate the occasion.  The only suitable option would be a feast of boundless proportions.  After a couple of weeks at sea, my larder was substantially depleted and lukewarm, but I had summoned my reserves of willpower and had cheddar-wursts to spare.  Thus, the concept of the Capri-corn-dog was born.  

When you're crossing the Tropic of Capricorn without refrigeration, make sure you've got well sealed food-stuffs or they won't go the distance.  Johnsonville's finest cheddar-wursts kept nicely.  A grill would've been a nice tool to have, but when you're bouncing around at sea, its tough to grill, so I started by pan frying it over high heat to build a little char (and protect myself from the ravages of undercooked, possibly-spoiled sausages).  As for the "corn" portion of the Capri-corn-dog, some corn masa flour I had leftover from Mexico was just the thing for the job.  I mixed up a thick batter with water and plenty of seasonings.  I was planning to batter it by dipping, but the greasy surfaces of a freshly roasted cheddar-wurst are tough to adhere to, so I had to drizzle the batter instead, which worked beautifully.

There is, of course, only one thing to fry a Capri-corn-dog in, and thats leftover bacon grease.  Don't skimp in this department, and apply liberal amounts of chili powder and garlic salt to the outer crust.  

The finished product was a glorious golden brown, piping hot, with impressive heft.  I'll leave you to choose your condiment of choice, but I must say that BBQ sauce was a lovely accompaniment.  Delightful.  Plan to have a short siesta after you're done.

Puerto Montt
I've been having the time of my life in Chile so far and I'm planning to spend the next couple of weeks exploring around Puerto Montt and Puerto Varas before I start diving into the fjords to the south.  Stay tuned for a post with my first impressions of Chile in the next week or two.