The wind carries us through the night giving us good speeds but when Mike gets us and we retrieve the first lot of daily e-mails, we receive the terrible news that Basia, one of the other Privilege yachts in the fleet, was hit by a freighter at dawn and has been dismasted.
The e-mail is from Graham on Eowyn who is just a few miles away from them and is headed in their direction to help. Apparently the hulls are intact and the crew are safe but the boat is floundering with the mast, stays and sails in the water.
Mike immediately gets in touch with Tucanon who is nearby and Destiny contacts Graham when he gets his mail. They both head over immediately – Basia will now desperately need more fuel to get to land and they can hand some over in jerry cans. Mike also makes the decision to head towards Basia. Even though we are 100 miles away we are downwind of them and by the time we reach them they might need more fuel. If not, we can just continue past.
Anna, stalwart that she is, gets to cutting the rig away from the boat, sustaining a broken toe as she does it. Thank goodness she is a doctor! Tucanon puts their dinghy down in the water and transfers the fuel to Basia. This will not have been an easy operation in sea like this. Being in the dinghy gives Bev, Moe and Mike (from Eowyn) the ability to look at the hull damage, some on the port bow caused by the actual collision, and some on the starboard side caused by the fallen rig. The hole in the bow is safe and nothing to worry about – on a Privilege, that area of the boat is totally foam filled, designed as a six-foot deep collision chamber and water cannot get inside the boat from there.
The crew on Basia discover, however, that there is a small amount of water coming in very slowly from the hole on the starboard side but they manage to plug it with some special putty which sets under water.
Once the mast and rigging is detached from the boat and they have their additional fuel on board, Basia continues her journey towards Grenada under motor with Tucanon and Eowyn sailing alongside as escorts, keeping in radio contact every three hours.
Listening to all this unfold on the SSB radio is terrifying. We have all had incidents on this circumnavigation where freighters, container ships or tankers have come too close when they have the power to manoeuvre and we do not yet they steadfastly stay on their course. Yes, they are huge and changing direction takes a while but they have systems on board that give them the ability to see ahead – radar, AIS etc. But we hear stories of ships that turn their radars off and don’t bother to switch them on unless they are hailed by another vessel. Some don’t bother to answer you when you call them to check that they have seen you.
In this instance, we hear that the ship involved in the collision initially responded to Basia’s mayday call but then switched their AIS system off – maybe as they realised that they were the cause of the collision?
I go for my morning sleep, amazed and guilty that with all this going on I actually manage to drop off but I need to be alert tonight so needs must and all that.
The day continues much as yesterday but with stronger wind and much bigger seas. The waves are huge but we go with most of them and it is only the odd rogue one which crashes into the cockpit. I do my human shield bit twice for the satellite phone. It’s only matter of time before a wave gets me. I’m sure Mike can’t wait!
Happy days!
Our position is: 02 deg 32 min N, 43 deg 45 min W
Distance so far: 23309 nautical miles
No comments:
Post a Comment