Something Broke

So, before I get started, I want to reassure everyone that Mandy and I are fine and indeed are the very picture of health, and the boat is still more or less in one piece and somewhat floatable. We're in Shearwater, on the north BC coast, probably for a few days, but have very limited communications capability, so please don't try calling, and e-mail may be a while in being answered.

We lead into this unfortunate turn of events with the classic failure cascade: a number of small, inconsequential, seemingly unrelated things going wrong in sequence which compound one another into outright catastrophe.

In this case, it started with the transmission lever.

I had just dropped sails shortly after sunset, as we rode the dying winds into a narrow, protected inlet a few hours north of Bella Bella on the Central BC coast. As is our practice, I had started the engine prior to pulling the sails down, just to make sure that it DID start and to give it a little time to warm up before using it for anything. It ran fine, as it has been the whole trip.

However, when I pushed the gear shift lever into "forward" the whole thing broke right off in my hand; the screw connecting the lever to the bar going into the binnacle had sheered off even with the bar, leaving no purchase whatsoever to shift with. It had, however, gone into forward gear prior to breaking, so I had some headway; this, at least, was different from the scenario which sprang immediately into my mind, which is a cold nightmare based on the last time this happened, which didn't involve the lever breaking, but rather the cable snapping inside the binnacle, and didn't shift into gear at all, and didn't take place in a remote Canadian wilderness with clear navigable waters ahead, but rather mid-way beneath the open leaves of the Fremont Bridge. But that's another story.

At any rate, with steerageway from the prop and nothing in front of our mast, I wasn't too worried; I call for Mandy on deck and had her fiddle with the bar for a while, but neither she nor I could get purchase with any of our tools to lever it back into neutral, or to reverse, which we needed to properly set our anchor for the evening. My thinking at that point was that we would simply continue to motor into the anchorage, slowly, and pitch the anchor over at first without setting it; that would glue us in place at least for a while to work on a fix, and the cove we were in was extremely protected and safe enough to sit on an unset anchor for a while.

So; my next concern was that it was night, and the entrance was very narrow, and several rocks were noted prominently on the chart. I had already threaded my way past several, but I put Mandy on the bow to watch for any uncharted or misplaced boulders. The two prominently marked with asterisks on the chart were both at the starboard side of the channel, so I hugged the port side... failing to notice the less prominent color gradation (particularly with the dim lighting) to port which marked shoal waters.

Nonetheless, I had one eye on the depthsounder, and it didn't look suspicious; it was holding at around 7 feet, which isn't a lot of clearance for a boat which draws 5'5", but which was the controlling depth marked on the chart, and thus expected. So I was a little surprised when Mandy hollered back from the bow, "What depth are we at?"

The answer, provided seconds later as we ground up onto the rocks at one and a half knots, was "Not enough."

Here is where the failures began to compound; distracted by the transmission problem, we hadn't sufficiently heeded our course in the first place. And now aground, our first and best option, reversing immediately, was unavailable.

We grabbed the boat hook and ran forward to try to pole off. That didn't work. Next, we rigged our spare anchor at the stern and Mandy rowed it out a hundred yards astern, in clear water, so we could attempt to kedge off. Winching the anchor in instead simply cleared a vast channel of leafy green seaweed from the bottom, finding no purchase and returning a veritable salad as the anchor came back over the side. Next, Mandy simply rowed the line across the narrow channel and tied it to a sturdy tree instead, but by this time, we were listing badly on the falling tide and were hard, hard aground, and nothing was getting us off.

I had been concerned from the outset that our list was to starboard, as was the remaining open water of the channel, and that the tide was due to fall more than ten feet that night. If our keel stayed on the rock it was on, we risked tipping over entirely into the empty water to starboard. So, as I had Mandy off rowing about, I was freshening up our ditch bags: waterproof bags we had prepacked with some vital items, to which I added more flares, our handheld radio, batteries, food, flashlights, additional clothes... anything I could think of. And I got on the radio and put out a "Pan-Pan" call; a step below a Mayday, pan-pan is a request for non-urgent help, or for assistance which may be required to prevent a situation from becoming urgent.

I got an immediate response from Prince Rupert Coast Guard, who used their powerful transmitter to put out a marine assistance request for any nearby boats to come to our aid, and tasked the Bella Bella rescue crew to respond to our location. They were about forty minutes out and they were all the help I expected; this far north, it's unusual for anyone to be very nearby.

By the time the Coast Guard Zodiac showed up, it was clear that there was in fact a boulder to starboard which would prevent our overturning that night, and we were too hard aground for them to pull us off without significant damage at that point, if in fact they could get us off at all. After some discussion, we all agreed that we were secure for the night and that we would simply have to wait for high tide in the morning to refloat us, at which time we would try to kedge off again. Mandy hauled back all the ditch bags I had sent to shore with her, and tried to get to sleep in the V-berth.

I stayed up until 3AM, low tide, and hopped off to take a look around; my next big concern was that somehow the rudder was also hung up or damaged. It was not, however, and the only apparent damage was largely cosmetic scraping at the base of the keel. The hull/keel join we had patched when we hauled out and painted in April was still solid--no signs of stress whatsoever. I was feeling pretty optimistic after the walk-around; we were supported solidly and although morning high tide might not be enough to lift us off, there was another later in the afternoon which almost certainly would. I didn't have much doubt that we would be able to get ourselves free, and most likely continue directly with our trip. I went back aboard and curled up in the pocket formed by the 45 degree tilt of the starboard settee and tried to catch some sleep before an 0830 wake-up to catch the rising tide.

I instead woke around 6 with the insistent cold lapping of water at my lower back; the boat was flooded up to the level of the settee.

I hopped up and woke Mandy. After my inspection the night before, the water was a particularly rude shock: the hull hadn't appeared to have been breached at all. I had closed all the thru-hulls or plugged those in seemingly risky locations without valves in order to prevent water somehow entering them before we were floating upright again... I wasn't too worried about this, however, as nothing similar had happened at the geometries we had dropped at, and it seemed likely we would rise at the same angles. My immediate conclusion, then, was that the keel was somehow stuck and those seemingly safe thru-hulls were beneath the surface now and downflooding, or that something else had failed, possibly the rudder shaft as we came somewhat upright.

I broke out our manual pump and a bucket, and sent Mandy flying ashore with the drybags yet again. She also plugged the remaining thru-hulls; but the water level continued to increase. Worse luck, the starboard side was also where our electric bilge pumps emptied... they would be useless.

I got on the horn to Prince Rupert Coast Guard again and got an icy feeling in the pit of my stomach as I failed to raise them after three calls. I switched my battery selector to chain both banks to increase my transmit power, but with the mast tilted low and our antenna with it, coverage was bound to be bad. Finally, I managed to get a response, but it was very broken and I could only hope they were copying me better than I was them.

They came back after an interminable amount of pumping and bailing to announce that the Bella Bella boat was on its way back out again. Mandy came back aboard, and there was nothing for it but to bail at that point--the boat was too full of water even when we first noticed to easily find the source of the leak, and all we could do was try to keep upright until the Coast Guard, with their powerful gas-powered pumps, could arrive.

We did, and they did; but to everyone's surprise, the 80-litre per minute pump was able to only barely keep up with the flooding. A lot of water was coming in, and none of us could figure out from where. The Coast Guard crew hailed a Fisheries Patrol boat and had them pick up another pump and run it out... another half hour of agonizing bailing and intense concentration trying to figure out where the water was coming from. We would gain on it for a while, come more upright, then suddenly take on more and sink again. It was baffling.

Finally, with the second pump operating, we managed to get ahead of the flow and, clearly concerned, the Coasties rigged a towing harness and yanked us none to gently off the shoals.

I was feeling pretty good at getting off, with an apparent minimum of damage to the underbody, still thinking that the problem had been some sort of quirky downflooding from some thru-hull which should, now that we were off the rocks and upright, be above the waterline.

Then Mandy spotted the gaping hole in our starboard side.

We got some loose junk stuffed into it; the Coast Guard rescue specialist, a fellow named Paul who had also been out the night before, asked if we had a tarp, which we did, but then it wasn't clear how to rig it to patch the hull. I had some 5-minute, underwater setting epoxy aboard, for just this purpose, and we broke it out and cut a patch from the tarp... but then, stupidly, set it inside against the hull, where the pressure kept the epoxy from setting against the hull. We should have done it on the exterior, difficult as that might have been. But the epoxy was all gone and we were managing to keep the stream down to where one pump could manage it, and the Coasties, now past the point where they were bothering to pretend this was nothing outside their ordinary day or nothing to be overly concerned with, immediately got underway towing us back toward the boatyard at Shearwater; our only real hope, the closest travelift which could pull our hull clear of the water.

Another boat from nearby had appeared as we were being pulled off the rocks; Tesuji, a converted fishing smack owned by a fellow named Grant who was cruising nearby and heard the calls and decided to standby. This was a good call on his part; the Coast Guard had only an open Zodiac, their main station lifeboat having had an engine go down the day before, so he was able to take Mandy aboard and let her warm up as she began to get hypothermic.

It was raining to beat hell and the Coasties were motoring fast and the leaking increased as we left protected waters and started pounding through the ocean swells. I had my hands full trying to keep the hole plugged; and the single gas pump that was left aboard was no longer keeping up, and I was forced to run our own bilge pump to keep the water level down.

I'm not even sure how long the tow was; I just know it was depressing covering all the same ground I had sailed up the day before in reverse. I just shifted between checking the water level, patching the hole, watching the tow line, and checking the hand-held GPS.

The yard had the travel lift ready and in place by the time we got there and we drifted right in and they picked Insegrevious right up and finally, it was over.

What seems clear now is that when the boat settled to starboard in the night, there was some unseen prominence on the rock on which it impaled itself. Because it was hidden atop the rock, I didn't see it on my 3AM survey, and while I checked the locker that the gash (an ugly, unclean, splintered thing perhaps two feet in diameter; although the total opening is not that large) was in when trying to locate the leak, I concentrated on the thru-hull in that location, and missed the hole behind other floating junk. The reason we would get ahead and then suddenly take on more water was likely that the hole was mostly plugged by the rock that made it when we were flooded and heavy, and then came open as we pumped out and bouyancy lifted us off it.

Over, then, except that we have a lot of work ahead of us, and an uncertain future. We're in a cramped hotel room at the Shearwater Marina Resort right now; we had some food, got warmed up, and Mandy called the insurance agent. The people here are wonderful; from Grant, to Paul and Randy, the Coast Guardsmen who responded this morning, to Al the boatyard manager and Rick the "best fiberglass guy on the coast," everyone has been terrific to us. This morning, they're moving us up to a B&B with a hot tub, no less.

But it's quite a blow, nonetheless. I am happy that we are both safe, and that in the end the damage to the boat appears rather minimal--two feet is not a huge patch, and happily not much more than our clothes and tools were soaked... the electronics were largely spared by fate of location, and while the engine was partially immersed, I have reason to believe it was not significantly or permanently damaged. If it ever stops raining, the interior may even dry out someday.

I'm glad we were able to work together successfully and not give up, and to keep afloat long enough for help to arrive. I think Mandy probably though I as giving up any number of times through the night; but I rather thought of it as preparing to not give up on the next phase of the struggle. We never feared for our own safety. I was confident we could get easily ashore if she went down and that we had enough to survive with and to hail rescuers if need be, even if I had to hike over to the main channel to do so. At the same time, it was a roller coaster of being confident in our chances at keeping afloat, and then being certain we were going to have to pull ourselves ashore.

But the blow isn't what went well, it's that it happened at all. Of anyone I know, I am perhaps the most cognizant, and even over-cautious about those failure cascades that lead to these circumstances, and yet when faced with one, I was unable to break myself out of its clutches. If the events of the previous day, which I'll go into later, hadn't already suggested that I am a rank amateur who is clearly not cut out for this business of sailing, this would certainly have called my base competence into question. A lot of people have bad luck; very few of them sink their boats. And this wasn't bad luck, but bad judgement, which is certainly disappointing and perhaps unforgivable. Do we learn from such events? Perhaps, but there is certainly a limit on what one may learn compared to what damage one may comfortably tolerate to one's self, loved ones, and possessions.

I am not sure that I learned much new, at any rate, which is the real disappointment. While unquestionably an adventure, most of what I did wrong, I knew was wrong already. Yet I did it anyway; and risked myself and the girl I love the most, while not even consciously considering those risks.

At any rate, it's been a long couple of days. The boat is safe, we are safe, and tomorrow we'll face the butcher's bill and find out whether or not we may continue in such time as we have left.