Our First Real Mishap

 8 27.958 N 64 25.260 W

Beata and I have had at least our fair share of technical issues, equipment failures and often costly greenhorn mistakes, but that is the cruising life and we knew to expect such things when we decided to undertake this adventure. Knock on wood, we have yet to drag anchor or kiss a reef! Recently, we did have our first real mishap. With hindsight, I would call the experience moderately hair raising and good practice for if and when things ever get really bad.

It was late in the day and we didn’t find an open mooring in Christmas Cove on Great Saint James located between St. Thomas and St. John (U.S. Virgin Islands), so we decided to just night sail to St. Croix. The forecast was for 17 knots on the beam and Christiansted Harbor is less than forty miles from there so that would likely put our arrival time in the middle of the night. Having already been to St. Croix a couple weeks earlier, we knew the entry to the harbor is a bit tricky and so the plan was to tack offshore until it got light enough in the morning to make our way in safely.

It ended up a touch friskier, blowing 25 knots with 6+’ seas. Generally, I take the helm in the evening until around 2am so Beata was in our berth for much of the trip. Not being in a hurry, we were triple reefed but still making good speed. While a tad sporty with the waves on the side, it was a more-or-less uneventful sail, although the autopilot did behave oddly taking longer than usual to correct course and there was an unfamiliar metallic grinding noise coming from Halley’s stern. I spent some time trying to track down the sound but never really pinpointed the cause. I put the autopilot’s behavior down to the sea conditions and the noise to the dinghy hoisting blocks straining as the boat was buffeted by the waves.

We were cruising along, approaching St. Croix, and I was thinking of waking Beata early as a little punishment for the decision to try for Christmas Cove so late in the day, which in turn had me up - unplanned and way past a decent bed time. However, I needed to make a tack away from the island because we were closing fast. I started to turn the wheel to port and found myself turning it and turning it waiting for the rudders to catch. After about the fifth complete turn of the wheel with no change in our heading, it dawned on me that we had suffered a total steering failure. Holy fuck, so that’s what that noise was! Now only a bit more than a mile out, the math was easy moving at 6 knots, 10 minutes until we had a much bigger problem.

OK, so I’m thinking slow the boat so I fired up the diesels and threw both engines into hard reverse. Now, diesels don’t like it rough and we make a point of gentling them into service. Well, that commotion was enough to bring Beata fully awake and she called up to me as to what was wrong. Needless to say, I informed her of our steering failure and requested her presence in the cockpit with some alacrity. Now, normally when I ask Beata to move quickly she tells me “no, I will not hurry, there is no reason to panic” as apparently she considers me somewhat high strung. I was relieved when she appeared on deck within seconds and we quickly got the sails furled and the boat stopped.

It could have been much worse, that's for sure. Halley has a very robust steering system, all thick steel rods and sturdy gear mechanisms. What had happened is that the main steering gearbox joining the two rudders had come off the bulkhead (wall) when the eight bolts snapped and the little bulkhead partly shattered (not sure in what order). The grinding noise was the rods and gearbox moving on the floor as the rudders flapped in the sea. Fortunately, the rudders stayed in a somewhat straight position which allowed us limited steerage using the two engines. We also broke out the emergency hand tiller, which takes some effort to manhandle, I can tell you, after a long night limping back to St. Thomas where help would be more readily available.

We, again, were fortunate in finding an excellent local fiberglass guy who very kindly effected repairs under trying circumstances on anchor in Charlotte Amalie Harbor, which is often quite bouncy. We spent a few extra weeks on St. Thomas. We got a new dinghy and doubled our water making capacity while we were at it. Halley is stronger than before and I now know how to disassemble and reassemble the steering system. We are discussing whether to sail into the Pacific or cross the Atlantic. Never again will I fail to track down a new noise!

Since Beata last posted, we had a great visit with friends from home and have sailed the most southern Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Spanish Virgin Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands. We are now briefly in the British Virgin Islands, which is absolutely gorgeous, but we need to make tracks in order to be in Grenada by June 1 for a bottom job and to get out of the hurricane zone. So tomorrow we sail for Saint Martin/St. Maarten. A little french food and groceries sounds good.