12 Sep 06 - 16 Sep 06 - I hope I never experience this again

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12 Sep 06

We departed our mooring in the late morning (around 10.30) for refueling nearby. When we arrived we were turned away as the dept was too low at this time, despite we was told it should be ok at that time previously. Our plan was to continue directly over the Biscay same day, but that required a full fueltank.

We decided to try out one of the other marinas (there are 3 in La Coruna of which only one or two are marked on the charts), as it was said to have fueling capabilities. When we got there, we was once again turned away, as the fuel was red fuel... fishermen only.

With no options left, we had to stay another night, but this time decided to moore in the marina in the center of the town (Nautico). An ok marina with direct access to the town.

We spend the day and evening in the town, roaming around playing tourists.

13 Sep 06

The next morning we refueled totally 490 liters of which 60 liters were for the generator. The refueling quay is quite hopeless, mooring directly against stone walls with stone stairs carved in, which means that fendering is quite difficult (but extremely required) until the mooring lines have been set stabily. And getting a large vessel out from there without use of a bowthruster is almost impossible. We had to get help from people working in the marina who used a dingy to pull our bow out the right direction.

At 10:30 we headed out bearing 20 which is almost directly north. The waves were uncomfortable, but manageble and in the size of about 3 meters. The wind were mostly from North or North West and in the range of 5-8 m/s. According to the weather forecasts we could get our hands on, a low pressure in the atlantic were moving north over Scotland, and for our trip, the isobar lines were quite far from eachother on the weather charts, which means that there will be some wind, but nothing strong.

At about 16:15 we suddenly encountered a serious bad weather, with waves mounting to about 10 meters (which is in itself quite scary to see!). At the same time the wind picked up from the 5-8m/s to something quite harder which I (of good reasons) didnt get to measure.

The boat went over the top of a 10m wave, plummeting down the other side, bow first into the water. This made the boom loose its wind, and the moment we came up again, the wind angle to the sail in the boom had changed, which ment the boom got a very strong wind from the other side, therefore swinging the boom over quite heavily. This caused the block of the mainsail sheet to fail fatally, which ment the boom then was free to swing back again to the other side at full power.

The boom was ripped over completely at the place where the kickrod was attached, about 2/5 the length of the boom from the mast, and the kickrod was ripped apart near its attachment to the boom.

I was very scared that the stays of the mast, on the port side, had been damaged by the boom, which (due to us having the Genoa up at the time) quite possibly would have caused the mast to fail fatally, which in turn most likely would endanger the integrity of the hull (the mast would inevitably destroy parts of the hull coming down and lying partly out in the heavy seas). We all got our life wests on, preparing for the worst. At the time we were about 35nm north of La Coruna.

We all were quite frightened. I ordered Esmeralda and Katharina downstairs while I would examine the extent of the damage. The weather and sea was terrible at this time, and I didnt want to risc that any of them went overboard by accident.

Downstairs everything is falling down, including our navigation computer, which were splintered into several pieces (which later I fortunately could put together again). Esmeralda were trying to catch stuff and secure things downstairs the best she could.

I slowly moved forwards to the mast, gripping hold of anything that could I could hold on to. I had set the autopilot to keep the course, almost directly into the waves, as I didnt want to change the current course since the main sail was pressed into the wires by the wind, and thus kept the boom from moving further, possibly swinging over again which easily could throw me over board, or cripple me.

I had to try to stabilize the situation, so it wouldnt evolve further. That meant that the boom had to be tied in, the mainsail sheet rope had to be brought in as it was hanging outside the vessel, in the water, riscing to get into the prop, the mainsail had to be brought down and the Genoa rolled in. In addition I had to try to access the state of the stays, if there were a potential for the mast to fail fatally.

Tying in the boom was priority one. I firstly used one of the reefs in the main sail to tie in the boom to a secure place in the bottom of the mast. This hold the inner part of the boom in place, but the outer part were still in danger of moving around and hence had to be secured too.

For that purpose, the mainsail sheet rope was useful. It was anyway attached to the far end of the boom part, and was certainly strong enough to hold the boom in place. Only problem was that to tie it in, one had to move all the way to the bow of the ship. Crawling on my belly all the way out there, holding the rope in one hand, and something on the vessel to secure me with the other hand I found my self completely submerged under water on several occations. The bow simply went under water when it crashed into the next wave. I fortunately did manage to secure the rope on the port side mooring klamp in the front of Dimitris.

While out there I also tried to untackle the sheet lines for the Genoa. Since the Genoa had been allowed to fly freely while the situation was handled, the lines had made a serious Gordian knot (about 40cm in length, and 30cm in diameter where biggest), which had enough weight and force to possibly make cracks in the front cabins hatch, which also most likely would prove fatal if that compartment were completely filled with water.

The knot was too difficult to untangle sitting out there in the waves, so I decided to tie it into a secure place where it wouldnt make damage.

The mainsail had to be pulled down. Now that the boom had been secured, I could change the direction of the vessel so the wind would get out of the main sail, and after that I could pull it down and tie as well as possible at the time to the boom.

Next task was salvaging the Genoa. Esmeralda came up helping me holding a rope tight while I was winching it in.

At this point, the biggest danger was over, but the 10m waves and strong wind prevailed. I decided to stear around and try to head back to La Coruna or anyway the Spanish coast. I only had the magnetic compas to guide me. At first I held a course of about 220. I wanted to get to 180, but the direction of the waves made it dangerous as two rouge waves following eachother could capsize us. And as the mainsail wasnt secured completely (its hoist rope wasnt secured for one thing), I didnt want the wind to be able to get into it and pull it up again at some weird angle.

For about an hour I fought the waves on that course, and then decided to go course 110, which would mean we would get the waves in aft on an angle. The turn had to be timed with the waves. This fortunately proved successfully, and our trip became somewhat more comfortable (if anything can be called comfortable in that situation) with some more controlled rolls.

I knew we probably wouldnt get to La Coruna at that bearing, but that we at some point, would get to the Spanish coast.

About 21:00 we reached the Spanish coast, near De Carina, which is a small commercial port. About 22:30 we anchored in a sheltered area in the small bay.

We all hugged eachother and decided to get something to eat (premade Adobo... chicken with rice - reciepe may follow at some point :) ) and go to sleep.

14. Sep. 06

When we woke up, I went out to access damages and clean up. Esmeralda made breakfast and Katharina had a good long sleep.

The steel wires in both our Davits (the dingy cranes) had been damaged... one broke, the other soon to break). The dingy fortunately had been tied with extra rope so we didnt loose it. Our starboard side hand railing had some loose, but could easily be fixed.

It took me the best of an hour to untackle the Gordian knot in the bow, and then I started to look at securing the boom better and to make a closer visual inspection of the stays and to protect the stay that the boom was lying against better.

Although having been sheltered from the big waves, we were all the night hit by many swells, which caused Dimitris to roll uncomfortably (anyway for sleeping purposes), we decided early in the morning to move the boat further into the harbour.

Later we sailed into the harbour, attaching us at a private commercial quay. We attracted quite a number of visitors having a look at our boat and its broken boom. The purpose of the harbour visit was multiple, to refuel, as we had used more than the normal amount of fuel going back with the engine on full steam, to get on the internet to find an insurance claims form, and to possibly find repair options. One man on a car trip to the harbour with his son and dad, gave us great assistance. Unfortunately the only refuel option there was at the local gas station.... which meant carrying 10-20 x 20 liter oil containers.

As De Carina is a quite small village, there were no internet cafes or the like. Fortunately his wife worked in a place (probably some insurance company from what I could estimate) where they had internet access and they were kind enough to let me borrow it and to print out the claims form.

Some trickering around with the computer stuff I have on board made it possible for me to send an electronic fax with the insurance form filled out.

We had to leave the quay asap as it was a private one. On the way to the boat, the nice man asked me if he should call a truck that could deliver oil, and we agreed to him doing that. They were supposed to show up somewhere between 12:00 and 17:00. We went for anchorage again in the bay, scouting for the truck, but unfortunately never seeing or hearing anything to it.

We had to rethink our options. Directly trying to cross the Biscay again, now with crippled sails, didnt sound like a good idea, but staying around for ever wasnt an option either. We have to get back to DK to get the house cleaned up to the new owners. Thus we decided we would, anyway as a start, circumvent the Biscay, by sailing the Spanish north coast by motor, opionally assisted by the Cutter or Genoa sails. I hadnt planned with this option from start, and thus have no pilot books over these waters or the harbours here. I soon found out that refuel options on the North coast are quite scarse for private yachts this size.

Our neighbour boat, an englishman and his family of wife and 3 kids, got in touch with us, and we had a nice chat using the VHF. He offered to borrow us a pilot book over the south of the Biscay, which would be very helpful to us.

The englishman (Graham), his family and their great vessel Double Waters, were on course for the Caribean. We wish you all the best in your journey there, and a 1000 thanks for letting us borrow the pilot book.

Next morning we still had planned to stay at anchorage as the weather was still quite bad with heavy swells and rain and heavy winds coming in regularly. But a pilot boat woke us up by tapping on the hull, asking us and most other boats anchored there to get going, as a large ship was inbound and needed the space to manouver. We had already decided to follow the Spanish coast eastwards, and I made a quick choise and decided to head out and get going.

This trip was very tiresome. We hadnt had much to eat since we were woken up quite early by the pilot boat, and cooking something was not possible due to the heavy rolling due to the heavy swells.

We anchored in a river called Avrile. Its actually a commercial port, but we found a spot we could be in... until around 6am in the morning when I noticed that we had hit the sand ground with our rudder. Fast reaction to get the ship carefully of the ground using our anchor winch and the engine.

16. Sep. 06

We didnt want yet another day with no food, so I hovered around for some time in another part of the harbour where anchoring were not allowed, while Esmeralda cooked oatmeal for us.

Then we went out again, this time with a trip of only about 11nm planned, to the city of Gijon. Its a large city, but their marina is almost not deep enough for us. We got in and, although being extremely tired, had a look around in the city. We may stay here for another one or two days, depending on the weather forecasts.

Before we are going to leave, I plan to make a more exact calculation of just how much fuel we carry. We may be able to cross to La Rochelle in France or perhaps even to head north closer to Brest. It all depends on the exact amount of fuel we have.

Just for the record. We are all well and healthy appart for a cold caught when sailing the boat dripping wet for hours in the evening on the accident, a big toe missing a nail and a small toe, if not broken, then seriously hurt, a few bruises and a nasty experience richer.

 

Boom damage 1	Boom damage 2	Boom damage 3	Boom damage 4	Boom damage 5
Boom damage 6	Boom damage 7	Rough ride 1	Rough ride 2	Gijon 1
Gijon 2	Gijon 3