The 'first'

28°07.36’N 15°25.16’W

8th May 2020

Would the guys make it to the islands with all these restrictions in place? Would the furler arrive after I badgered the agents to get it to the boat on time? Would we be allowed to leave? Is the boat in a safe enough condition to sail considering recent events?

They say that luck is where opportunity meets preparedness, I say that we will never move forward without collaborating, everyone is willing to help if presented with the right motivations. I received and installed the furler while my crew were in the taxi from the airport to the boat, against all odds we pulled together and got through the joblist on the day of their arrival, had a nice dinner and raised a glass to Far Out and our team of sailors.

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The first briefing. The first casting of the lines. Everything is now a first for Far Out and I. We slipped our windward stern line to make an independant departure, and on my call freed ourselves from the grips of the berth, sparking a clap and cheer between our crew of new faces.

Some curious joggers look on in wonder; 'we've only just been let out of our homes to stretch our legs and these guys are going sailing?!'.

After a quick pit stop to top up our fuel tanks we were on our way, what an eerie feeling to be gliding out of the ghostly marina in the midst of a lockdown, as though at any point a patrol boat would bear down on us and force us back in. Unhindered and with high spirits, we were pushed slowly out into the Atlantic by our trusty Perkins workhorse, destination Mediterranean Sea.

I stood at the wheel while the boys prepared the Jib to hoist on the newly refurbished furling headstay, not an easy feat on a boat we are tasked with discovering together by trial and error. After two hours of motoring into the wind we finally had a main and jib ready to fly, done in good time considering the circumstances. The guys had to come up with a new mainsheet block system to replace the old one that had the block twisting at a precarious angle, they had to change the badly set up jib halyard system, debate ways to protect the new sails from a botched fibreglass job on the boom, these among other tuning issues meant all eyes were trained on finding the best solutions to bring the boat up to sailing standard before we set sail. As I familiarised myself with the wheel, I could feel Far Out purring in gratification that she is being cared for by our seasoned crew.

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Finally we were set up to sail and shot straight for the rhumbline to Gibraltar. Once we were in our groove I asked Janos to take the wheel from me while I checked the limited displays at the electrical panel. Red flags were already flying in my mind as voltages and ampere discharge levels fluctuated at odd rates. I was accustomed to being on high alert as the one responsible for everyone aboard, but the conditions of my handover meant I was working in the dark, literally and figuratively. Somehow the feeling was compounded considering I was asking them to fling themselves into the Atlantic with me.

My first glance at the panel showed me that one of our two water tanks had already completely drained itself. Luckily the other tank was still full, so I first switched our draw from the previous one to the full one and before priming the pump I checked where the leak was. Thankfully it didn't take long to realise one of the jerry-rigged grey water pump priming valves was broken and always open though it looked as though it was closed. Not a big drama. I blocked the priming valve and the water pump was back up to pressure taking from our other tank.

Now to make water, a good opportunity to reenact the comical process of getting our watermaker running; Flush valve open, manual override to water maker pump, manual override to boost pump, quickly run to open sea inlet and close flush before you lose pressure, bleed the air from the top filter (spraying sea water all over the engine room), and hope for the best.. this system is going to get a serious overhaul in Palma. So, before doing this I kicked up the generator as the water maker only runs on 220V. Genny on, water maker chugging away, I emerged from the engine room quite sweaty, greeted by smiling faces and high spirits on deck, Dan had prepared a delicious chicken salad to fill our stomachs.

Five minutes in and the generator coughed, spluttered and died with a wheeze.

After Dan and I spent about 2 hours troubleshooting the generator issue, we concluded that the water flow must have been blocked up at the thru-hull with barnacles underwater. The generator had overheated and shut itself down, an opportunity note in my engineering logbook that there is no functioning temperature reading for the generator as the gauge read nil. We stopped the boat to jump in the water and start scraping at the thru-hull fitting responsible for feeding the cooling sea water to the genset. Not as easy as it sounds in swell and breeze, even drifting at two knots she is difficult to keep up with. This wasn’t our first rodeo; we tied a line on the bow cleat that spanned the length of the boat under water. Dan and I dance with the belly of the boat taking quick dips under the boat with our scrapers to get at the growth, using the opportunity to clean up the prop and shaft which were also overgrown and effecting performance. After a while we switched up with Vitto and Greg and chewed through the dirt.

The tactic certainly helped, but wasn't the issue. We took apart the heat exchanger, which happened to be completely blocked with old pieces of impellors and dirt that must have been there for years, constricting the flow of water. In the midst of the attempted repair we lost our autopilot to an electrical fault, I was worrie that morale would be hit hard by the fact that we were facing a week of hand steering and a boat devoid of fresh water, but everyone remained supportive and positive. We still had the boat, the issues were relatively minor, my faith in Far Out was never put into question, she is a juggernaut.

We decided to leave the fight for the day, safe to say it was somewhat defeating considering we had only left harbour that same morning. At 2100hrs, I called it in, hand steering for the night, no fresh water to be used and let's get on the watch system to settle into our new set up. Thankfully another delicious meal filled our tired stomachs.