Passages, gales, thunderstorms, failed wind instruments, the boat’s taking on water, oh my…

Well it has been an exciting few days. After spending almost a week in Bonifacio – Corsica due to the weather (first named storm of the season Amelia), we finally saw a bit of a weather window to get out and toward Menorca/Mallorca. After fueling up on tuesday morning we set out of the protected bay and into the teeth of wicked waves (not that big, but close together so lots of up and down slamming). On the engines at full power we could make maybe 3 knots of speed into it. We did not have sails up, as we intended to get a little offshore first. After about 20 minutes of pounding, we figured it was not worth it, turned around and scuttled back into Bonifacio with our tails between our legs.
This time we just tied up on the side of the dock and started waiting again. We had no interest in trying to get moored against the cliff where we had been for the past few days with the wind whipping through there the way it was.
The next day we had try number two. Winds were down a little, and the waves seemed to be down as well. This time we hoisted the main sail while still in the protected bay, and that helped a lot. The waves were only half as bad as the day before, and with the sails up we were good, although struggling to go in the direction we wanted to go because of the wind direction. Maggie was helming for most of the day while I tinkered with things. It was a nice day, windy, but sunny & clear.
And then nightfall. Wind came up, changed direction (in the wrong direction for us). I tried to rest for the first few hours and then take over from Maggie. Sometime that night the wind instruments started going squirrely on us, and we were reduced to just looking at the wind vane on the top of the mast with a flashlight to get direction – but with the bright moonlight we could still see quite well and it was actually quite beautiful. We still had our speed guage, so at least we could see how fast we were going and our guage showing our boat direction. Because of the change in wind direction we were getting pushed south toward Sardinia instead of South-West to Menorca. About 3 in the morning the thunderstorms hit hard, and with the cloud cover hiding the moon it was pitch black. Maggie had been able to get a little rest before this, but now I needed her to spot storms on radar (inside the cabin) and guide me around them. The winds are just f’ing nuts near the storms! The wind would shift around, and it was very difficult to notice this except that the boat started doing weird shit because we were dead in the water and the rudders wouldn’t work. It was even hard to tell that we had stopped unless you shone the flashlight over the side and saw the water standing still there. The wind was super strong, and swinging around all the time so it was hard to know which way to turn – we did not even know how strong the winds were because the instruments were out. But at least the lightning strikes all around provided some light (ha ha). We spent the next 2 to 3 hours blindly dodging storms. Maggie took over again at 6 and I tried to rest.
We decided about 9am because the wind was pushing us South toward Sardinia that we would head toward an anchorage on the coast of Sardinia about 4 hours away. We were exhausted and needed to lick our wounds & rest. We arrived late in the day, and spent the rest of the afternoon drying stuff out and preparing for a morning departure to Menorca again, as the winds were predicted to change a bit in our favour. That afternoon I went up the mast again to see if there was anything I could do about the non-functioning wind instruments. Turns out not.
We left about 10am on a beautiful sunny (but windy) day to start the passage (again) for Menorca/Mallorca. Because of what we learned the first day, I rested all day in preparation for night watch while Maggie sailed. After dark I took over and the night watch was pretty good. I was on for 3 hours, the Maggie for a couple, and then Maggie was able to sleep for about 5 hours. The waves were not bad, and the wind was almost good (although still very strong – guessing here because, you know, no instruments).

• a technical aside: Heaving to is a way of putting the sails and rudders so that we more or less stand still. Using the wind as an anchor so to speak. Things get very still and quiet while heaved to, even though the wind is raging around us. We end up bobbing in the water like a cork. This will be relevant later in the story.

The next morning Maggie took over again and by early afternoon the wind and waves started getting kind of stupid again. Some of the waves we figure were almost 30 feet high. Our helm station is about 10feet above sea level, and we could often look up at the top of the waves approaching us. Waves were regularly coming over the bow & occasionally we would get waves coming over the top of the cabin. The bridgedeck of the hull was slamming, and at times it felt like the boat would break apart (this is actually a normal, but not nice, feature of sailing catamarans). About this time we noticed that there was a lot of water in our starboard hull! Crap, and we are 100 miles offshore! So a quick heave to to settle the boat down and start looking for the leak. I was pretty worried at first, but a quick check under the boat (looking over from the trampoline) showed that all was normal underneath. So we determined that water was coming in from some drains in the forward lockers (which also explains the soggy toilet paper stored near there). The drains are normally sealed against the hull, but I guess there was a gap. This is only a problem when the waves are slamming hard, which of course they were. But now we realized that our bilge pumps on the starboard side were not working! Frick! So I spent the next half hour while heaved to fixing bilge pumps, and rigging our shower drain pump as an emergency back-up bilge pump (never had to resort to that though). So with that panic dealt with, we got under way again and added ‘check the bilge every 15 minutes’ to the duties of the person on watch. Water is still coming in while under way, but it is manageable, just having to pump it out every hour or so. (for my mother – we were not in danger of sinking. The amount of water in the bilges amounted to 10 to 20 liters). The next time we are in a protected anchorage, I will go under the bridgedeck and seal the locker drains where they penetrate the outer hull.
As we get under way again, a quick check of the most current weather forecast shows that the winds are going to get worse! (like they weren’t already stupid) So we kept the sails on the second reef, and went on into the night. Winds increased to gale force on us, and the waves kept getting bigger (but at least they were well spaced out, so we just rode up and down with minimal slamming). That night thunderstorms joined us again. There were dozens of them. Fortunately they show up nicely on radar so we can avoid most of them. But they also develop very quickly and more than once they developed right on top of us and we were forced to heave to to ride them out and watch the lightning strikes nearby. Ended up putting most of the electronics into the oven just incase we were hit. While we were heaved to, we huddled in the cabin and watched the rain go by horizontally, illuminated by the lightning and tried to warm up. We had raingear on, but temperatures during the night would drop to about 13-15 degrees and our clothes underneath were damp. After a few minutes the storm passed over, and we got under way again. Dawn was still an eternity later and we spelled each other off every hour so we could warm up & rest a bit. Around 4:00am I was starting to hallucinate (I swear I saw kthulu on the horizon looking over the cliffs that were not there). Maggie took over, but by 5am couldn’t keep her eyes open! Neither one of us could keep our eyes open any more, so heave to again and both of us lay down and I slept for 2 and a half hours and let the boat drift. Maggie watched us bobbing in the huge waves and the lightening flashes. At daylight after a restful break, got up and saw that we had only drifted about a mile south east – that was a nice surprise. So under way again, towards Menorca – aiming for the port of Mahon. We were finally able to point the boat pretty much in the direction we needed to go. Waves were still freaking huge, but at least we could see them and no thunderstorms. We arrive late in the afternoon, and tied up at a Marina and more or less collapsed. We had enough energy to head out to try to find somewhere to buy a Spanish sim card for our phone. Ended up walking into the old town (very beautiful!!) for a couple of hours and found a really cool place where all the locals were hanging out and had tapas & sangria there. The sim card place was closed.. so we ended up buying a couple glasses of wine at a place across from where the boat was so we could use their wifi for a couple hours. Crawled into bed around 9pm that night… exhausted & slept through till about 9:00am when the crazy wind prompted us to check our lines & make sure the back of the boat wasn’t banging into the concrete wall.. had to tighten up some lines in the pouring rain!

So this was a really tough passage. Mainly because we had to head against the wind trying to get west out of the Mediteranean. But we are now in a “tramontana” – A strong NW-N-NE wind that arrives with little warning and can quickly reach gale force. Usually lasts 2-7 days. I think we actually found it a couple of days ago while on passage, but hopefully we are at the tail end of it…. Now that we are in Menorca, the prevailing winds should be more favorable to continue going west until we get close to Gibraltar – then it is more in to the wind again. Normally we would not push ourselves like this, but we have crew to pick up in Gibraltar in 11 days. But for the next day or so we are tied up at the Marina… Sundays everything is pretty much closed.. so tomorrow we will look for new weather instruments, groceries & a sim card… hopefully we will be able to continue west to Mallorca soon…

What we learned on this passage:

• The boat is tough. Really tough. I mean you may think that some other thing or person is tough, but thats nothing compared to a sailboat. The pounding she took, and the forces she endured are kind of freaky. And it is all just normal stuff for a sailboat. She is way way tougher than we are.
• it was a good thing that we prepared some meals beforehand… when you are in shit weather, you still need to eat. Preferably something hot.. but cooking is not an option. Being able to quickly microwave some pasta or chili made a big difference.
• we need to take turns resting while we can. Once weather gets stupid, we may not have a chance to.
• Heaving to & taking a break to rest is good
• We need new wind instruments… unreliable instruments that work sporatically is not good! When you don’t know how strong the wind is or what direction it is coming from. The only way we knew what the wind may have been was that we were fully reefed and a times still doing 7-8knots!! That’s pretty crazy & we’re sure we had gusts well over 45knots.
• we learned where our personal limits are… or at least what direction the are in!