Saturday 8 August 2009 -- Mayday!

22 nautical miles

Not my favourite experience to recall, but I must say the emergency services were excellent. I wish it had been an exercise rather than 'for real'. Here's the report to the Marine Accident Investigation Division of the Department of Merchant Shipping:

Incident relating to open boat Galini: a 16 ft Wayfarer. Saturday 8 August 2009.

Skipper: Richard - 4 years sailing experience, approx 1100 sea miles mostly in open boats in Cyprus waters. In 2009 studied for and passed RYA Day Skipper theory and practical.
Crew: Skipper, crew A and crew B all adults and crew C 11 year old son of crew A, who I have been teaching to sail during the summer of 2009. Crew A has diabetes and knowing him well understood this to be under control. Crew B was a friend of crew A and this was a day sail as a gift for crew B. All the crew were wearing 50N buoyancy aids appropriate for open boat sailing in inshore waters. I was also carrying a serrated safety knife on a lanyard attached to my buoyancy aid.

We left Larnaca Nautical Club at approx 10:00, two open boats Galini and Saga sailing to Cape Pyla and back. Both boats had marine band handheld radios and we were using channel 11 for inter-boat communication. Conditions were moderate and crew C helmed for most of the first 1.5 hour towards Capy Pyla. During this time I noticed a sluggishness in crew A that concerned me and I asked if he was OK. He tested his blood sugar which was very low and he then ate some fruit which he said would replenish his blood sugar.

I took over the helm as we approached Cape Pyla and in communication with Saga we decided to turn back and find somewhere to beach the boats and have lunch. We turned just after the Pyla 1, 2, 3 buoy line. There was further deterioration in the condition of crew A and so I placed him in the bottom of the boat where if he did pass out he would be safe. I looked at Romanzos as a safe haven but decided that getting in there with the sea state as it was would be unwise and then proceeded to Dhekelia Sailing Club, where I also knew there would be medical back up if needed. Crew A started to vomit, which I assumed just to be sea sickness, but later discovered was related to his diabetic condition and not sea sickness.

I tried to make contact with our partner boat, but was unable to. I later discovered they had a battery problem with their marine band handheld radio. We tacked back a couple of times and then ran into the Dhekelia Sailing Club bay, gybed and came round and picked up the tripping line. I got the crew on shore and crew ate lunch and in particular crew A recovered, he re-tested his blood sugar, which I was told was then OK.

The wind rose from Bft 4 to Bft 5 over lunch and I watched the wind gauge at the club, and also watched carefully a smaller Laser dinghy from Dhekelia Sailing Club go out. The conditions appeared to be very similar to those I have sailed in before, in particular the conditions of the previous Saturday. I therefore decided it was OK to sail back to Larnaca. Crew C and I reefed and prepared the boat for the sail back. As is my normal practice when the wind is more than Bft 3 I attached my marine band handheld to my body, so that if we get into difficulties the radio would be with me and not the boat.

The wind had moved to South-South-West, so we would have to sail close hauled into the wind the whole way. As we tacked back I had problems with crew B. Firstly wanting to relieve himself and then having problems understanding the basic instructions to change sides of the boat when we tacked. Repeatedly I was getting 'Where am I supposed to go?'

At approx 16:00 we were at our final or near final tack to get back to the Larnaca Sailing Club and as we tacked we caught a wave and went over, within a few seconds the boat went 180 degrees. In previous sailing experiences in Bft 5 with experienced or inexperienced crew even if we have taken water on board we have not capsized. Generally the Wayfarer has proved itself a very seaworthy boat.

I later heard from crew A that on this particular tack crew B had remained in his seat on the wrong side of the boat and had not changed sides at all. When we started to capsize because of the wave his extra weight on the wrong side of the boat and even then not moving his body exacerbated the problem and took us over to 180 degrees. Crew A grabbed crew B who was in danger of being trapped under the boat and dragged him free.

I have a 'masthead buoyancy' system as recommended by the RYA for open sea sailing and this should prevent or reduce the possibility of going 180 degrees. Because it appeared to have failed and bringing a boat back from 180 degrees can be difficult I tried to get assistance by first calling Larnaca Nautical Club on channel 16 and Dhekelia Sailing Club on channel 8. Neither responded. After a few minutes the masthead buoyancy did work bringing the boat to 90 degrees. I therefore tried to right the boat by climbing onto the hull/centreboat, but slipped and went under.

I realised that having been sailing for over 5 hours the entire crew were weary and that being in the water everyone was using up energy. Because of my concerns for crew A, and being unable to make contact with my partner boat or either sailing club I decided to make it a Mayday call: I was worried that if crew A did use up too much energy his blood sugar would drop and he would become unconscious, where a buoyancy aid would not help him. I therefore called Mayday on channel 16 and RCC answered almost immediately. The marine police arrived within approx 15 minutes and they rescued crew C [child], crew A [diabetic], crew B and finally me. They were very professional and very good.

Dhekelia Sailing Club then sent out their rescue boat and tried to right Galini, but in the conditions found they could not so towed her and beached her north of the Lordos Beach Hotel, where we later recovered her with the Larnaca Nautical Club rescue boat.

Things learnt from this event:
1) Inexperienced crew (crew B) who fail to follow simple instructions can become a significant liability in sea states that might otherwise be sail-able.
2) Masthead buoyancy did eventually bring the boat back to 90 degrees, but took a few minutes to do so. Had the crew been less weary then we might have been able to self-rescue.
3) The bright orange 40 litre balloon of the masthead buoyancy assisted the emergency services in locating the boat.
4) Having the marine band handheld radio attached to my body made it easy to call for assistance.

This is the Secumar Masthead Buoyancy unit inflated with a 30cm ruler alongside to show size.

It took a few minutes [difficult to estimate but probably between 3 and 5 minutes] to bring the boat to 90 degrees, which would have been too long had a crew member been entrapped below the boat inverted. However, the Wayfarer does have a significant air pocket when inverted.

This photo shows the masthead buoyancy unit deflated, also with a 30cm ruler, which shows it has little impact on the sailing ability of the boat.

There was very little water entered into the rear buoyancy tank of the Wayfarer - maybe half a litre - which showed the seal on the tank still to be good. I don't have test gear for this seal, so it was kind of a baptism by fire, but the Wayfarer did stay buoyant throughout.

The wind was Bft 5 for the afternoon and gusting, but pretty similar to normal wind conditions for Cyprus in August and very similar to the week before. I would have had to wait till approx 19:00 for the wind to drop below Bft 5 and I didn't have the masthead lighting with me.

Other non-safety related things we found out were: The 'dry box' was not as water tight as anticipated. Possibly the lid had not been screwed tight, but there was significant water ingest into the box [maybe half a litre again, but significant in a dry box!] which damaged and possibly destroyed my mobile phone. Strangely the matches also in the dry box were still dry! Probably the mobile phone should be in an AquaPac as well as in the dry box, which is what Tim does.

Because of untying the bucket to let crew B relieve himself [we went 'hove to' and he used the bucket as the sea conditions were not possible to go over the side], some items had not been re-secured to the bucket, eg camera in waterproof case, hand-bearing compass etc. These were all placed on the shelf under the foredeck, but I haven't found if they floated off or not.

We will have to get the outboard motor serviced/cleaned out as soon as possible as it was under water for quite a length of time.

1 August 2009 - Afternoon and night sailing

16 nautical miles

The intention had been for an afternoon sail leading into a night sail, since the wind looked good for that. In preparation for the night sail I had put in a few more waypoints on the GPS - about 7 cables off shore for the club, Cape Pila and Potamas. You don't really want shore based waypoints for night sailing! [A 'cable', by the way, is 1/10 nautical mile or 185 metres. Just as a piece of useless trivia, it is the length of a anchor cable on a British man-of-war... back in the days of sail.]

We [Tim, Mark, John and me] got down to the club at about 3pm since the wind should be picking up around then. John and I rigged my boat and Tim and Mark rigged Tim's. Tim wanted to modify the furling system for his genoa, which worked very well, and I wanted to check out my new night sailing navigation light.

There had been a long discussion on WIT [Wayfarer Institute of Technology] about what navigation lights were appropriate for sailing by night. The common understanding was that the ColRegs for sailing boats under 7 metres required very little - a torch to shine at the sail or passing ship or a lantern to be hoisted into the rigging.

Well... I had found this led 'anchor light' which had a visibility range of 2 nautical miles and was designed to be hoisted on a 6mm halyard. So I built a small cradle for it which allowed it to be hoisted above the main sail on the main halyard and would give all round visibility from above the top of the mast. It worked very well... much better than a lantern hung from a halyard would.

Anyhow... we started out... and just as we were starting out James, Neil and Paula arrived... I think to wave us off into the sunset, but they didn't get their boat out [we had invited them to join us].

Few cables distance and the first problem became obvious... the furling line was too taught and the genoa would not fully unfurl leaving it luffing most of the time and somewhat difficult to sail.

Then sudden graunching noise... 'What was that?' Neither John nor I could see what had happened... few cables further I realised that the boom clip for the kicking strap had slid along the boom and the main sail is now bloated and very over powered... at this point the wind is bft 5+ and gusting and sailing getting very difficult... though John liked the ducking and diving through waves.

The predicted wind had been Bft 3 dropping to Bft 2 at sunset, so you can see from the chart we got a lot more that that. With the main sail bloated and the genoa not fully extended we did end up with the gunwale under water at one point. But Galini always comes up laughing and enjoying the ride.

As we near the harbour a cruise liner leaves the port. Apparently the port will eventually be converted into a cruise terminal, so this is to be expected more and more I guess.

Eventually Tim calls me up on the radio. One of their pontoons is filling with water and not wanting to pitch pole the boat they head for the club. We follow suite. Channel 16 is full of a prolonged discussion between the Israeli navy and a ship about telexes that have or have not been sent by their ships agent. Why they have to carry this on over channel 16 beats me... just clutters up airspace for possibly emergency communication. They must be pumping out a lot of power to be coming in on our hand-held radios over the horizon. Sorry... that's my pet peeve... abusing channel 16 for unnecessary communications.

Back at the club we discuss reefing. Both Tim and I had considered it, but I was not sure about the nav light if I had reefed. Hmmm... that's a disadvantage to the system, reefed we would not have for'ard facing nav light.

We then pack the boats and wash the sails and Tim and Mark leave and John and I wait for the sails to dry. While they are drying we notice the wind has dropped now to about Bft 4. Whereas night sailing with an inexperienced crew in Bft 5 didn't appeal Bft 4 is much more manageable so we re-rig the boat and go out again.

In between I had also re-tensioned the standing rigging and Galini is sailing very much better. This is great fun sailing. We beat out towards the harbour/marina as there is a simply huge masted sailing yacht there we would quite like to see... well I would and I was helming! The wind direction had shifted somewhat and I was saling conservatively since the light was dropping.

Ooops... graunching noise again... hove too and sort it out. This time I really hope it's tight enough!

Watching the sun set over Larnaca from the water was simply beautiful. Hove to again and we turn on the new masthead light. Yes, bright light all round but not down on us to ruin our night vision. The moon is about 1/2 full and gives plenty of light to sail by and looks gorgeous reflecting off the water across the bay.

We tack up towards the marina, but the wind picks up as we clear the harbour wall and I turn and broad reach back towards the club. Also there was a very big ship arriving at the harbour and I didn't want to argue with that on my first night sail in Galini!

The wind is dropping a little more so I gybe and do an eastward broad reach out towards Cape Pila. There are no lights to steer by so I am using the compass. The compass has a light stick which goes in the front of it to illuminate it. Well... just about illuminate it, it was pretty difficult steering by this very dimly lit compass. Really using a hand bearing compass with chemical light stick is not adequate as a steering compass.

I turn back towards the club and a couple of tacks later and the wind has almost dropped to nothing, but we arrive back at the club.

Nickos is there with some guests so we find out how the Lasers have done at the competition in Limassol today. One of the young people came 6th out of 17, which is pretty respectable. With Nickos being about we can use the winch to pull Galini out of the water, which is much easier than using my 4x4 to do it.

What I need to find is a better way of securing the battery pack. I have two gel batteries in a waterproof box with terminals for the nav light. The problem is that it slips and slides all over the place under the foredeck. I thought about putting it just for'ard of the centreboard case. That would put the weight lower which would be better but it would get much wetter in that position. But maybe since the case is waterproof that doesn't matter.

Well... that's over and a very enjoyable sail. Will have to do this night sailing more often.

25 July 2009 - Run down to Meneou and back

16 nautical miles

The forecast was interesting. One forecast said winds from north/northwest in the morning dying off at mid-day to nothing in the afternoon and the other said at mid-day the winds would turn and be southerly. As it happened the second forecast was correct. This made for a very interesting sail. We had downwind runs and broad reaches down to Meneou and a broad reach and downwind run back to the club.

I was taking out friends of mine, Brian and Ruth with their son Oliver. John, a colleague, went with Tim in his trimaran. I had an extra 5 litres of fuel for the outboard so that had the former forecast been correct we could have motored back, towing Tim.

We all started out quite well, enjoying the sail, but the winds were low and because we were mostly running it was a bit difficult for new sailors to helm. Mind you I accidentally gybed a couple of times myself on runs. Tim had suggested a route closer to the shore to pick up the shore winds. It helped a little but meant we were gybing from broad reach to broad reach all the time. Not a bad exercise I guess, since its not something we do very often.

The motion of the boat was strange on these runs, rolling quite a bit in the very gentle swell, which is not the best for people liable to seasickness and sadly Ruth succumbed, and when we got to Meneou Brian and Ruth jumped ship and took a car back to Larnaca!

We sat down in Meneou and I had a frappe and Tim and John had english breakfast. The first english breakfast John had in his life and he was staggered at the sausage, bacon, two eggs, fried bread, toast and beans... he claims he will not need to eat for the rest of the day!

Then the wind turned. As we sat watching the flags dropped to no wind and then picked up 180 degrees from the original direction. A quick race out to Galini to move her buoy since she had swung round onto the beach. Good job Andreas was not watching, he would have been appalled since anchoring in the Day Skipper course is supposed to teach you not to get into that difficulty!

Finally its time to sail back. Oh no... now there are swimmers in the way, and a powerboat dropping people off... which means I do a somewhat inelegant take off from the beach and tear my swimming trunks in the process.

Oli and I sail back. It gets hotter and hotter. As we sail we eat all the lunches... I had brought lunch for John and we no longer had Brian and Ruth with us. Amazing what a 13 year old boy can eat. Well... actually we didn't quite manage to eat 5 lunches, but we had a pretty good try!

It gets hotter and hotter still, by now I am helming as we are on a downwind run. The suntan lotion I had put on my forehead [I had burnt it on Friday morning so was being extra careful] managed to melt and drip into my eyes. We have no towel on board. Boy, does suntan lotion in the eyes sting!

Goose-wing running most of the way back was a bit of a roll, roll, roll, ride, so it was a good thing Ruth did jump ship as she would not have enjoyed the sail back.

Tim calls up on the radio reckoning we should have a fast run back, but the GPS reckons about 2 hours. The GPS is correct!

I have bought Admiralty charts for the area now and so were following our route on the chart. Interesting to see how it correlates to being out there. There seem to be quite a lot of discrepancies with the charts for our area, I think I will have to log the changes. Anyhow... so can you work out how I put the GPS plot onto the chart? No, I didn't do it by hand.

19 July 09 - Off round the bay

22 nautical miles

The plan had been to take Henri and possibly his kids out for a sail around the bay. Today there were Optimist races taking place and so were rescue boats and Optimists everywhere. So we arrived at the club early (9:30) but found people already there... and Nikkos saying 'Tomorrow I switch off my mobile and sleep all day!'

We were getting ready to get out on the water and away from the madding crowds when Christos came over and asked if he could come too and the club were not allowing any club lasers out today. Yes, of course he was welcome.

We motored out, set the sails and headed off towards Dhekelia. None of the Dhekelia dinghies were out so sailed on towards Romanzos. Kiriakos suggested we should go there next weekend and have lunch there. Sounds like a good idea.

Just passing Romanzos a power boat comes out and asks us to help look for someone who has fallen in the water. We join the search. Apparently they are wearing a life-jacket. There are about a dozen boats out looking and eventually they do find the person alive. It appears to us that probably the person was being towed on an inflatable behind a power boat and that the power boat had only the driver on board. So when the person fell off they didn't notice and had no idea where they were! Not a great safety idea at all. We saw he power boats heading for the shore so presumed they had found the person... then one of them came back out to tell us that yes they had found the person alive.

We sailed on towards Cape Pila for a while then hove to and had lunch. We sailed back towards the eastern shore of the bay and the wind begins to pick up. Yes, that's spray over the camera lens!

Eventually I take the helm and we sail back towards the harbour. I plan to pass the club and then do a downwind run in to the club. See if we can get Galini surfing.

I expected to find all the optimists in by now as the waves are quite high, some out where we were about a metre high. But as we get to the club we see a whole regatta of optimists. I later find that closer inshore the conditions are easier... anyway we turn earlier and downwind goose-wing run towards the coast... up to about 8.6 knots surfing some waves.

Finally back in to the club, but find the furling line for the genoa has trapped and we cannot free it on the water. Great day sailing - enjoyable with both Henri and Christos.

14 July 09 - 3rd Lesson

Today I had Jacob starting as well as Josh and Marie. The club was using lots of the Optimists for training so used only two and kept swapping people. In some ways they liked the breaks, but meant they didn't keep at it.

So... for first lesson: tacking back and forth on beam reach. Second lesson: tacking back and forth on beam reach, close reach and close hauled. Third lesson: beam reach, tack close hauled, turn into run, tack back to beam reach [a triangle]. Fourth lesson (next week) add gybe and complete basic racing course.

10 July 09 - Second lesson

Second sailing lesson went much better. I now had idea what I was trying to do and simple started them off on the two original buoys and then got them tacking back and forth to three buoys: one 90 degrees to wind, one 60 degrees to wind and one 45 degrees to wind, so they would do beam reach, close reach and close hauled and feel the different angles to the wind for each tack.

7 July 09 - First sailing lesson

First sailing lesson for Marie and Josh in Optimists. James is also coming to help rig and advise.

Interesting experience.

I put my boat in the water with outboard rigged as saftey boat [I am not licensed to drive the club safety boat] and use it almost immediately when Josh capsizes!

I had set them off tacking back and forth between two buoys, quite a distance apart at 90 degrees to the wind. My mistake...

The buoys I had chosen were too far apart and they kept drifting too far into the swimming area. Then when they had problems I had to go sort them out in the swimming area.

Not a good idea.

Nikkos then suggests two much closer buoys, and although not as exciting is much easier for first lesson.

Closer in you can shout advice more easily and keep them learning better technique.

Standing in the water there is salt water all over the lens of the camera, which I try [unsuccessfully] to remove. Still, you get the general idea of Marie and Josh tacking back and forth.

They pick up technique and Nikkos suggests coming back tomorrow...

but I'm off to on a short trip tomorrow so will have to be Friday.

Nikkos is out by the safety boat doing leg exercises - he had an accident playing football and they operated a few weeks ago.


What I learnt was that teaching sailing you don't need voice exercises - you get enough of that anyway!