I spent much of the day doing what I came here for – namely nothing at all. I did run the generator to charge the batteries and make water, then did a load of laundry while the generator was running in order to charge the batteries to 100%; normally I only charge to about 90% capacity since the last 10% take disproportionately long but occasional the gel batteries want to be fully charged.
After the lunch break I went ashore to get my new dive computer from Octopus Diving as the old one had done it’s last dive and then I used my collapsible shopping cart to get some of the heavier provisioning elements.
Interesting late afternoon
In the late afternoon I went topside to look around a bit and saw a small laser-sized sailing dinghy with two kids swimming alongside it in the distance. After looking at the situation for a bit I thought something was wrong since they weren’t getting back on the dinghy, even though it’s sail was luffing. I opted to leave the snack (yoghurt) I was eating untouched and hopped into the dinghy in order to see if they might need some assistance, as nobody else in the anchorage seemed to notice. I’d gotten into the dinghy and started motoring towards them when I noticed a lady waving the international distress signal at me from a SunSail 362 sailboat called “Antinea” that was anchored quite a ways further out. At first I wasn’t sure if she was trying to wave me off or attract my attention. I then noticed the dinghy pulled halfway underneath the boat and realized that they’d caught their painter in the prop and motored towards them. On the way I realized that their boat had developed a noticeable list to port and concluded that they did indeed require assistance.
As I pulled up to the stern the lady who’d waved at me stated that they were taking on water and that their VHF calls had not been answered. I went aboard and below and saw that the water had, in part, reached the floorboards already and quick look in the aft cabin for the source of the leak didn’t show me anything obvious. We decided that the two aboard would use the bilge pump and buckets while I went back to my boat in order to call in the PAN PAN signal on the VHF and also see if I could round up assistance in the area and coordinate with the French authorities. At the same time another sailor arrived at the scene aboard his dinghy and started to assist while I zoomed back to my boat in order do my first PAN PAN call since my old boat lost it’s rudder at sea.
After calling PAN PAN on the VHF and establishing contact with the MRCC Fort de France another boat called in that they would send 4 people armed with buckets to the crippled vessel. I asked them to stop by my boat for my hand-held pump and extra buckets while I was on standby on CH73 with the MRCC. After they’d picked up the utensils I spoke with the MRCC and the decision was reached to see if the vessel was still taking on more water than could be bailed before sending out an emergency vessel with a gasoline-powered pump. I told them that we would dive on the boat and call them back with the current status within 10-15 minutes. I loaded my dive gear and some tools (in order to disconnect the raw-water intake on the boat and use that to suck out the inflow) onto the dinghy and took the handheld VHF back to Antinea.
By this time there were the two original crew, the 4 helpers that I’d seen plus another two skippers from other boats in the anchorage aboard. One had brought a 12v electric pump along and attached it to the battery bank (which the rising water level had threatened to flood). With all this assistance the immediate danger of sinking of was over and the concerted efforts had overcome the water coming into the vessel. The water level was sinking with all of the help aboard they were hard at work determining the source of the problem in order to temporarily plug the hole.
The cause was the P-bracket strut which had torn loose sideways, and they were plugging it from inside the boat and one of the helpers was using plastic grocery bags to plug it from the outside using a snorkel and mask. I donned my dive gear and then 2 of us (he was using my second regulator from the octopus), went to work from underneath the boat with a knife (the rounded dull kind used as a table knife) to push the plastic into the crack as one would with caulking. After working at this for a bit underwater the plastic was pushed in as far as we could and it was a solid mass. This, it turned out, had done a surprisingly good job of sealing the fissure along with the efforts from the inside of the boat and not much water was coming into the boat anymore.
We now spoke with MRCC Fort de France again and stated that we were making headway and that the boat was no longer in immediate danger of sinking and no pump was necessary, but that we still required assistance as the engine was inoperative (the vibration from the running engine caused water to enter, it later turned out that the engine was also broken from the mountings). As we had no working telephony aboard, we requested that MRCC contact SunSail for us and gave them the numbers on the contract and emergency contact sheet, but all of the numbers we had were either incorrect or there was no answer by SunSail at the other end. Another number, for SunSail in St. Barths, was found and I believe that the MRCC was able to contact the Manager of SunSail/Moorings in Oyster Pond via that number and within an hour a chase boat from Oyster Pond had arrived with the SunSail manager and a diver aboard.
By this time the 4 helpers from one boat had departed and the bilge pump was only running occasionally. There were the two charterers and just 3 others left aboard at this time and it soon became clear that SunSail concurred with all of us aboard that the boat could not move under it’s own power; the diver had some underwater epoxy but stated that he doubted it would adhere to the plastic jury-rigged fix but that removing said fix wouldn’t be a good idea at all. SunSail stated that they hoped to get a skipper on a replacement boat to come by the next morning in order to switch boats, but that Antinea would need to get hauled as quickly as possible in order to get repairs effected.
Since the situation was now under control by SunSail and a plan made, the rest of us decided that it was time to head back home (we’d missed happy hour despite having drunk the last 2 of Antinea’s beers while waiting for the chase boat to arrive) but we promised to monitor VHF channel 16 during the night in case something went wrong aboard Antinea and they should need further assistance. Once back aboard I thawed out 3 hot-dogs (using the microwave, which hadn’t seen much use except as a storage compartment for my coffee pads) and fired up the BBQ for a quick dinner. The LED lighting was perfect, allowing me to read a bit in the cockpit after dinner; the wind had died down and it would have been stuffy below decks.
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