Author: paulcollister

At last we have arrived, it took a few days longer than expected due to a very active monsoon season. The Malaysian and Thai official weather sites said we should keep off the sea until next Wednesday, however their forecasts are for the high seas, and looking at the GRIB files I get, which show the expected wind, it didn’t look that bad inshore. However when we left yesterday morning, and cleared the headland we where being tossed all over the place and only able to make about 2 knots into the wind and waves, we could have hoisted the sails, but there were squalls all along the horizon, so we just did a U-turn and had a quiet day on the boat back at anchor. Big squalls blew through all day making me feel better about our decision to stay
Here is a track of our movements at anchor, you can see from the scale we need a good 200ft around us, but we don’t get that luxury, boats pile in all around and if they don’t swing the same as us, then we get quite close.

So this morning we checked the weather, the Thai forecast was a bit less doom-laden, and the sun was shining. I also realised we don’t need to go to the south of the island which is where you have to check in, I could go to the north and then get a taxi down south with the boats papers and get us checked in. This is the job first thing tomorrow so we can get visas and custom clearance. This fact made it easier to plot a course, with the wind going from the west to more southerly we could make Ao Po Grand Marina in one tack, close hauled. Also I knew the weather was going to improve and the sea state calm as we entered into Ao Phang Nga bay, which protects us from the big waves coming in from the storms out in the Andaman sea. So if we could get out of Phi Phi ok then ‘Things can only get better’. And so it was. Track below Thanks to Marine traffic for the track, the points were generated by my iPhone sending AIS updates in, you can see the bit where the battery went flat 🙁  I did have the track on the Navionics app, but that keeps crashing and losing the track. Considering this is my main chart plotter, that’s a little concerning. However it’s not that accurate anyway, paper charts are rubbish here so I use google earth overlays in OpenCPN, along with Navionics and the chart in the cockpit plotter, which came with the boat. It’s important to keep a good lookout anyway.
So with a reef in the main, and 75% Yankee, and 99%Staysail up, we romped along close hauled making between 5 and 7 knots all the way, which for those of you who don’t sail, is quite fast for a big heavy boat like this. With each hour the sea calmed more and the sky got sunnier. No rain all the way until the last minute as we approached the marina. I had furled up the staysail, and we were on a reach heading N between the two islands you can see on the map belowThe gap isn’t big here, also a good chunk of the coast on the left island has a large construction, like a fish farm, or possible foundations for a new marina. Anyway a massive squall popped over the coast on our left, there was no warning and it was one of the worst I have seen, 0 – 35 knts in seconds, I had no time to reduce sail and I knew I was going to be overpowered with the main and the headsail out and the wind from behind I worried I would be driven into one of the two islands, a few seconds later I was drenched, and visibility dropped. I tried to run with the wind, but it was too much so I was able to spill some wind by steering up to the fish farm, letting the main flap a lot and that slowed me down enough to steer safely, then dropping back into the squall for a minute and then heading up again. I quite enjoyed it actually, it’s much more fun than back home, where if this sort of wind starts in the Irish sea, it could be like that and get worse for hours,maybe days, plus it’s usually bloody cold there. Here I knew this would be over in minutes so just had to make the most of it. Sure enough the whole show only lasted 5 minutes, before the wind dropped a lot, but the rain increased and I lost all visibility. This is where the binnacle compass comes into it’s own. I just steered 20 deg knowing that would get me clear of land. A few minutes later and it’s very calm. so we put the fenders out, brought a mooring line I had just setup back on board, started the engine, dropped the sails and into the marina.

This is a lovely spot, and now we have power I have been able to get my macbook charged back up, hence this blog post, although it took a while, the boat was tripping the marina supply, this is down to the second AC outlet circuit on the boat. I presume somewhere water got into the sockets, which wont be hard to find, but it’s worrying that water is getting in at all.

Kathy will no doubt write a much more interesting blog shortly. In the meantime here’s some pics.

 

Paul C

Thursday 13 th

Today we checked out with customs and immigration in Telaga harbour. All very easy. However Chris informed us that the swaged fitting on the headsail stay was the wrong size for the furling gear, we could wait a few weeks to get a new one sent out from the USA, or pick one up later in the year on our way through, or get one swaged locally later that day, which meant missing our departure. I went for the latter option, and as it turned out we were able to use the stay we had, with a modification to the furling gear. This still meant a delayed departure, so for one evening, we were illegals.
Also I found that the dinghy stayed inflated, except for the floor, which isn’t essential. I can have a go at gluing that myself. Still I do fancy a nice new, bigger dinghy.
Another nice thing, or sad, depending on how nostalgic you are, is that contracts and money changed hands today for Lady Stardust, so she has a new owner. He bought her on spec and hasn’t even seen her yet.

Friday 14th
So with all shiny new rigging, we left Telaga. The plan was to go west to the group of islands with Koh Lipe at the southernmost tip. However it was hard going, the south west monsoon was mostly from WNW, so we had to tack upwind, this is not this boats strongest point of sail, and after the second tack it was obvious we weren’t going to get far. I had a reef in the main and the headsail half furled and the staysail all out. Some of the squalls were quite strong, 20-25 knots, and 2-3 m waves. Also it was worse on one tack than the other. I think this is because the mast isn’t tuned yet, in fact I think it’s leaning to starboard, like the boat itself.
Somewhere along this journey Kathy shouted out that the Genoa (headsail/jib) was in the sea. This perplexed me, as it’s quite difficult to achieve this. I was hoping she meant the sheets, but a quick look and sure enough the staysail is in the water not on its furling gear. You can’t actually see the sail easily from the cockpit as it hides behind the mainsail when beating upwind. So up to the bow to investigate.
First I had to get the sail back onto boat, as I was hauling it onboard I remembered watching Dame Ellen MacArthur doing a similar operation on the TV, however she was in tears, and took all day. I had mine back on board in a few minutes. Mind you she was in the Antarctic doing 40 odd knots, and her sail was the size of a small cricket pitch, whereas I’m having a pleasant time in the tropics, with a hankerchief size of a staysail, even so….
Anyway, back on board I could see the head attachment had ripped off, and the sail split down the luff behind the luff rope for a couple of metres. The sail had then lowered itself down the furler, popped out the bottom and over the side. No point in worrying now, I grabbed some rope and lashed it down to the deck to worry about later. I don’t have any spare sails on this boat, unlike stardust that had 3 of everything. Still with the stress on the rig so far, I know everything has been tightened up. I also found out why the swim ladder was removed, or at least another reason, with it lifted up out of the water, the headsail sheets can catch it and rip it off it’s mount, which they tried to do several times.
Soon after this I gave up trying for Koh Lipe and swung her around to sail off the wind over to the Lee side of Koh Tarutao, this isn’t very far north of langkawi, but was going to have to do for the day, we were relieved to get into calm waters and found a lovely spot near a jetti to anchor.
Lost my cap at some point today, so went for my spare, got two spares so all is ok.
I’m not sure if I have been in the med too long without tides, or I have a terrible memory, but I was surprised at how much this boat doesn’t care about the wind. Or should I say, how she doesn’t like to lie at anchor to the wind, and the current flowing has a massive effect. Consequently, a lot of the time the anchor chain is running under the bow, and making hideous sounds as it grinds away at the bob stay. I now run a long bit of nylon rode to an anchor hook I lower over the anchor roller, this takes the strain from below the water line.

Saturday
We make an early departure for Liang, in the rain and squalls, I had hoped to go further today, perhaps to Koh Rok , but I decide to be less ambitious. Again heavy weather, but I spend the morning in the cockpit repairing the broken sail. I manage a reasonable repair, but the weather is to heavy to think of putting it back on the furling gear, and I don’t want my delicate stiching to be flapping like crazy in the wind. The plan is to keep a turn on the furler all the time so as not to stress my repair.
We arrive at Liang late afternoon, anchored off a lovely beach, but rolly and still getting hit by squalls, but anchor worked well. I paid a lot for this anchor, but already I’m pleased at how it sets first time and doesn’t seem to budge once it’s in.
Lost my cap at some point today, so went for my spare, got a spare so all is ok.
Sunday 16th
Up early, need to push on and find somewhere sheltered to mop up and get my staysail back on. I love this staysail in heavy weather, it’s quite powerful, and with it being close to the mast it doesn’t have such ability to destabilise the boat as the big Yankee headsail can. In fact the Yankee headsail is more like a high cut Genoa, I like that too, it’s very powerful but difficult to furl in a blow for me with my knackered shoulder.
So Kathy takes the helm as I raise the anchor, a bit blowy but ok, then out of nowhere , or rather from around the headland, comes a mini squall of 30 knot winds with pelting hard rain, I can see Kathy working hard at the wheel trying to keep the boat moving forward while I raise the anchor, but within seconds she is drenched through, not a great start to the day. I don’t remember ordering such weather.
Again tacking into the wind is hard, normally I would hope to tack when my target is on the beam, but no chance as things stand, plus we make lots of leeway. I understand this boat class has won racing trophies, would like to know how, perhaps when it’s tuned and new sails are on it will point better.
Now it’s Kathy’s turn to mention the other thing I’m not mad on hearing, that water is coming into the boat, the way she says it makes me a little worried, it seems to be getting in from under the bunk at the side.
A difficult place to work as the water tank takes up this space, but I suspect it’s probably the water tank that’s the culprit, so I taste the water and sure enough it’s fresh. So next I have to dismantle the woodwork that somebody has added over the tank to make extra storage, they did a bad job and it’s on my list to fix one day. Then I can see that the water level gauge sensor is leaking, as the water sloshes around in the tank it’s squirting out the side of the sensor mounting flange, no big deal, I tighten it a bit, but suspect the gasket is shot. It can wait, we have loads of water and a second tank anyway.
So two long tacks and we arrive in a bay protected by Koh lanta. We anchor in 3 metres of water some way from the shore of Koh Po, nice and calm here, but grey and little squalls still pass through, but they just keep everything nice and damp ?

Monday 17th
Up early, I get the repaired staysail onto the furler while it’s calm. Then off to Koh Phi Phi and guess what, the weather is awful again. Loads of squalls, 20-25 knots of wind and rough seas. I tack out on starboard, heading away from phi phi towards Koh Rok as that’s the best I can manage in the headwind, then after several hours, maybe 5, I tack and head for phi phi. It was so calm at the start I didn’t bother with the reef in the main I had had so far, I was curious if the main would point higher without the reef, I also got both the headsails out and was pleased my repair is holding out. Of course that was the cue for Poseidon and his mates to have a go, 30 knots of wind, and a building sea and boy was that fun, I wondered how far we would heel, I also wondered if every stage in the new rigging had been tested and inspected. I’m afraid it rather bothered Kathy, who worried about me shouting to take the helm while I tried to quickly reduce the sail area out there. It took about ten minutes but it was all back under control and we were belting along. So far we have been doing about 7 knots close hauled at best, but generally about 6. We had to travel nearly twice the distance the crow flies and ended up arriving in the dark, another first for me with this boat.
The bay at Phi Phi Don is sheltered from the sea, but not the wind, it’s very deep and near the shore at 12m depth it is coral all the way to the beach. The trick is to anchor in mud just after the coral which can only be seen in daylight. We found a shallow bit some way from the shore, near the middle of the bay where all the work boats here race up and down, but by now they had finished for the day, so we dropped the hook in 13m of water, put out 60m of chain and called it a day!
Along the way, the waves and gusts took their toll, both lifelines snapped, port and starboard, the port signal halyard snapped, some diesel spilled from a Jerry can and washed along the deck into the cockpit, only a tablespoon or two, but that’s enough to make a right stink. The anchor locker door in the v berth flew open and ripped itself off the hinges, and the oil lamp unscrewed itself from the spot above the sink and spread itself around the boat in bits. Thank goodness it had no oil in it.
Oh and I lost my cap in one of the squalls, hope they sell caps in Thailand.

Tuesday, wake to survey what is supposed to be the third most beautiful island in the world, not impressed. Rammed with day tripper boats and long tails, these are boats used as taxis and general work/fishing boats. They look like they have an auto engine mounted on the rear on a frame up in the air, with a prop shaft about 20ft long sticking out the back, the whole thing pivots and that’s how they steer, a bit like an alternate design for an outboard. Will post pictures later.
I could see we were lucky coming in as local boats have mooring for the day trippers they use when dropping them off to snorkel on the coral. These moorings consist of a length of polypropylene rope floating on the surface which they get with a boat hook and tie to. Presumably they go down to an old engine block or something just as heavy, anyway we may have motored past or over a few in the dark, that could have been fun. Later we popped ashore in the dinghy, which worked out well, the outboard was reluctant to start and stay running, but got into it after a while. It’s on my list to give it a service. It’s actually a very lovely place and we will come back and spend more time here.

Wednesday 19th
Tried to leave, but the sea was very rough and 10 knots of wind on the nose quickly became 20. After 40 minutes and not much distance, I turned her around and headed back.

This is a pain, the forecast from the Thai government service gives us 25-30 knt winds from the west with 3.5m seas, but other sources say this is only for offshore areas, and here it is 10-15 from the Sw which would be great. Anyway, it seems the gov forecast was more true when we went out. Also we have had some tremendous squalls blow through here in the anchorage, had to start the engine for fear of hitting other boats as every one swung in very different directions.

I’m not sure when things will improve, we may have to wait a few more days.

Will try to upload pictures later, but my MacBook has flat batteries and I haven’t got round to fixing up a charger on the boat yet, so it’s difficult to do from my iPad, will try some anyway.

Paul C

Just a quick update. We are in Thailand now, but yet to check in at our port of entry, which is Phuket. We are anchoring at various islands/rocks en route. It’s taking a long time to get there as we can’t sail at night, there are far to many unlit fishing boats and nets, and the weather is against us, so we do 25 mile hops each day. Now we are in Koh Phi Phi , Koh means Island, and phi is pronounced pee, better know as the location of the file “the beach” with some guy called Leandro de capricious starring.

We did plan to leave tomorrow for Phuket but I just saw a forecast on the navtex saying small boats should stay ashore! The forcast I was working to, based on grib data from the GFS model made it look like a nice passage. So I need to do more research.

No pictures as data or wifi is difficult here, but we took some great pictures the last few days.

The boat is working well, we have been in some quite heavy weather and I now have a lot of confidence in our new rigging which is holding the mast up, I also know how she handles in big 30+ knot gusts with full sail up, which is surprisingly well. But I don’t want to experience that again.

Had to deal with Kathy shouting the headsail is in the water and that water is coming into the boat during the big blows, but it all worked out fine in the end. Graphic details to follow ?

Paul C

Just a quick post, we had a few hiccups with the rigging, the eye for the bobstay was just a little to wide to go in the fitting on the boats stem, so had to be taken away and ground down a few thou. The staysail furling gear would not come apart easy to give access to the turnbuckle that needed to be loosened to get it down. The rigger used an angle grinder to cut through the turnbuckle in the end. I’m not sure he quite realised how much tension was in the rig because it split with a lot of force and the mast vibrated so strongly and a twang shook the boat, that down below Kathy thought someone had fallen off the mast!

So now we have everything except the forestay and the backstay done. This needs to be done in the morning and early, as I have checked us out of the harbour with the port police. this was remarkably easy, hats off to the Malaysian harbour master who handled the change of ownership, and change of boat name/registration very smoothly and quickly. Now I have an exit paper for Malaysia with my name and the boats name on it, the rest should be plain sailing (no pun intended). Just need to do customs and immigration. This is a great port to do it in, as I may well be the only customer they have tomorrow, it’s so sleepy here, I had worried I would need to go to Kuah and join all the ferry passengers in a long queue.
The only real shock was that you have to pay light dues for every day in the country. He said the last 3 days in Langkawi would cost 8MYR (about £1.50) but I also owed for the last 3 years since the previous owner had brought it here. I was thinking quick, 50p a day, 1000 days, £500 Crikey! I was very relieved when he told me the total came to 100MYR, or £20. I didn’t hang around for an explanation of the maths just handed over the money pronto.

So the blog may go quiet for a few days, I don’t know when we will reach Phuket, the plan is to sail there, so the wind needs to go more to the west, right now it’s either calm or mad squalls from the NW, not the best, but there’s plenty of islands to hide behind. If the rigging completes tomorrow, we will rush over to Koh Lipe, or Koh Tarutao, then Friday to Ko Lanta, or Koh Kok, then Saturday to Phi Phi, then Sunday or Monday into Phuket.  or something like that, there’s plenty of options available. However I don’t know how we will fair for wifi/3g coverage, and I have no way to charge the MacBook, so I guess Kathy can post to the facebook page where ever we get some 3g coverage.

Childish humour follows…

 

Paul C

This is the Telaga Marina, as viewed from the back of the boat, it’s actually very pleasant here, very quiet and sheltered.

 

The rigging has arrived and is laid out here on the finger, don’t ask how much it cost, but you can probably buy a house in Birkenhead for the same price; That’s more of a statement on the cheap houses in Birkenhead 😉

So I started the day by looking at the Autohelm, I measured voltages and determined a possible fault in the system, but that turned out to prove the point that if you are happiest fixing electrical faults, that’s where you will look, and possibly find problems, as I did. Fortunately before I got too carried away, I noticed the motor was turning, and not the cog attached to it. I was thinking CLUTCH_ENABLE signal not going low, but I should have been thinking, key in groove fallen out. Which I found under the motor. I popped the key back into the shaft, tightened things up and made a note to get some locktight and all was woking again.

Next onto the monitor wind steering system. I had a reply back from the manufacturer Scanmar, they are very good with their support. They pointed out that even an expert would have problems removing the bend in the strut and that they can ship me the parts I need, but that would cost about $600 + shipping. They explained I would need to remove the pendulum to make sure it was the bit that was sticking and that their wasn’t any other damage. I took the monitor off the boat and into the cockpit, then I dismantled it. The bent pendulum bit was actually working fine, it was just compressing another spindle which wasn’t turning. I called to Kathy, who duly brought me a large hammer and a very large hammer. Now some people think this is my style of engineering at it’s base level, but with a few strategic bashes, and a bit of jumping up and down on the bent strut, and the pendulum, everything was moving freely, in fact so freely I can’t see any reason why it wont work perfectly now.

Now just before we left Rebak, I had a look at another tashiba 40, who also has a monitor windvane, but his was gleaming, so bright, it could have your eye out. I was full of Monitor envy. So now seemed to be the best time to strike back, and Kathy helped me get our’s nice and shiny. I’m going to give it a final polish in Fiji or Bora Bora ;-), but it will do for now. Just needs connecting to the wheel and testing. Hopefully I can use it in our trip to Thailand.

I also took this as an opportunity to get the dinghy out to access the monitor. Sadly the repairs I had done to the dinghy don’t seem to keep it inflated. It could be new holes, but I suspect not. It’s not much better than when I put it in for repair a couple of months ago and it hasn’t been used yet. Everyone tells me it wont last anyway and it has to be made of Hyperlon to survive in the tropics. Looks like I need to buy a new dinghy, which is OK, I can get something fast in Thailand.

Tomorrow the rest of the rigging to goes up, then a big shop for the next 2 weeks travelling, and a few shopping chores, like photocopying passports for the authorities we have to deal with in the ports, and also a trip to the moneychanger to buy some Bhat (Thai money), paying for stuff in sterling is costing me more everyday thanks to brexit. Fortunately I have a few $ I can use until sterling recovers, if ever.

Paul C.

Arrived safely in Telaga, strong headwind NNW kept us under 4 knts for the 90 minutes that we took to get here. Rigging got here an hour before us and we have been given a berth, but only for 3 days, so must start on the rigging tomorrow.

I’m sure Kathy will put pictures up, but for now here are a few, oh nearly forgot, I tried the autohelm and it didn’t work. It’s not even trying to drive the wheel, hopefully something simple.

Paul C

It’s Sunday afternoon, we had planned to leave at lunchtime, but the fact that the rigging still hasn’t arrived, the marina here is cheaper than Telaga, and that we had some quite fierce squalls blow through earlier, tipping the boat some way at its berth, that we have decided to stay another day. It’s quite wet and overcast so I am doing some route planning for Thailand today.

I spent time yesterday running ropes to the windvane steering, this is a monitor windvane, that will steer us everywhere over the next few years. It works with little effort, uses no fuel or electricity and understands the quirks of the wind at least, if not better, than most humans. Sadly it’s broken. I’m wondering when I will stop finding broken things on this boat. The pendulum arm at the bottom is bent, reading the manual, this is not uncommon as it can easily be bent by reversing into a high pontoon or being hit astern by another boat. It’s only slightly bent, but enough to stop the whole thing working, Everything looks ok, and moves the right way, but the curve on the pendulum means there is too much friction for the windvane part to turn the auxiliary servo rudder. This mechanism has to be almost friction free to work in light winds. I’m waiting to find out if the manufacturer thinks it can be repaired or needs to have the arm replaced.
We loved the Hydrovane on Stardust so much we called her Harriot, because she looked elegant and started with H. The mechanical electrical autopilot was called Simon, as it worked well with its maker ‘Simon Simrad’.
On Sister midnight we pondered on what to name the electrical auto pilot. It’s not very sophisticated, but sturdy and reliable. old fashioned but got a few years left in it, so we went for Captain Mainwaring. when thinking of the companion Monitor windvane, which is more elegant, quite clever we thought perhaps Uncle Arthur. For those reading who are confused, you should watch any episode of Dad’s Army for a better understanding.

I made this video of a 3-4ft thing, lizard? having his morning beach stroll earlier

Paul C

 

 

We did a bit more exploring of the forest here yesterday, keeping mostly to well worn paths, to be fair. We came across another large building,could have been a hotel or a mansion house, but now being taken over by the jungle. I would love to know the history of this place. I’d also like to see the books, how do you make this place make money when everything has to be ferried in and out on little boats?

This island is very alive, it’s teaming with creatures, monkeys come down to rummage through the bins, and the beaches are literally like moving surfaces comprised of sand coloured crabs, snails, and lots of other little creepy things. I made a little video below to make my point!

Soon we are checking out of Malaysia, and I went rummaging through the stacks of boat papers last night to see if I could find our entry papers into Malaysia, which I did. I’m hoping I have everything I need to depart now. Some ‘tea money’ might be needed to cover the name change of the boat.
While doing this I made a note of the locations I have port clearances for, along with marina bills and spare parts etc, I have pieced together the Itinerary the boat took from Hawaii to Malaysia under the previous owner, Toshi’s command. There are some gaps, but basically it’s as shown below covering the last ten years.

This morning I found out that even though the rigging delivery is scheduled for Friday, they won’t deliver on Friday, prayer day, so who knows!
We went ashore and got provisions for a few more days here. Still I’m enjoying the chance to do some studying on google maps and overlaying them on the chart plotter, can be very useful in remote areas where the official charts can be out by a few miles. Tomorrow I’m going to get the monitor wind vane steering kit out and see how it all goes together. That should be fun.

Paul C.

 

Well the rigging got delayed in China en route here, then more delays in KL, so we have had to just rough it out here at the Rebak resort. Latest is that the rigging will arrive on Friday and we hope to get it rigged, or at least started on Saturday. So I expect checking out of Malaysia on Monday is the best we can hope for.

I took some pictures of the channel into the marina today, you can see how welcoming it becomes as you travel along the little channel after taking a bit of a bashing at sea, not that we did really.

We have had a few walks around the island and spotted monkeys, and lots of this big beaked bird. Need to find out what it is. I think it likes a pint of Guinness maybe?

I climber into the forest a bit, would love to explore more, but within a few minutes things are eating you. should have deet’d up.

One of the tasks I have been working on is the Nav systems and integrating the boats electronics, using a thing called signalK, it’s a modern way of getting everything talking to each other. I’m very pleased with how it’s going. The screen shot above is from my laptop, it’s a program called openCPN which is a very fancy navigation prog. I have it reading the boats data over wifi and displaying on screen, that’s us in the middle with the white dot in the centre. it’s also collecting the AIS data and you can see one boat passing within 3 miles of us, it’s drawn a line of CPA (Closest point of approach). The GRIB weather data is also drawn on the display, but the scale is wrong right now as I downloaded a data set for the whole of SE Asia and the ref points are bigger than I’m zoomed on this sample. I’m just looking at downloading google maps to add into the mix, then it will be very smart.

Time to go and cool down in the pool now, I’m only poolside for the wifi, honest

 

Paul C.

 

 

I had a few titles going through my mind, like “Not my finest hour” or “How Embarrassing” , but on hearing snippets of Kathy’s forthcoming blog, I thought I should get in first, damage limitation being the main aim.
We are currently in Rebak Marina, which is a luxury resort on a private secluded island just off to the north west of the Main Langkawi Island,
It’s a short 2 hour hop from our last port at Kuah town, but due to unforeseen circumstances I managed to make that a little bit longer and a lot more interesting on Friday when we left.

As you can see above we had a double berth at Kuah, so there was an empty space for a boat to fit in on our starboard side. This meant we didn’t need to worry about being pushed onto anyone when we left. So at 10:00 AM we decided to depart, Kathy was on the helm ready to slowly reverse us out, ready to use the bow thruster if needed.
The wind was quite strong now, about 20-25 knots and blowing onto the port quarter of the boat, pushing us away from the pontoon, so a quick reverse and then the bow would blow down in the direction of the exit and away we would go. In theory…
With just a single bow line, and a stern line I let go of the stern line, the boat stayed still and I walked to the bow line and started to un-cleat it. Now the drama starts. Kathy is shouting “Get on the boat Paul” in quite an agitated way, I’m used to this, she doesn’t appreciate just how nimble my ancient frame is, and how I like to jump on at the last minute, but as her cries got louder I looked back and sure enough, the stern was heading of to Rebak on its own, at quite a rate of knots. I re-cleated the bow line and walked back to the stern, sure enough, there was no way I was going to be able to get on. I asked her to throw me the stern line, but when she held up the line, it was obvious it would never reach the pontoon finger. So I walked around the other side of the berth, onto the other spare finger to stop the stern having a big bump when it got there.
By this point Kathy was quite agitated, she has a fear of being on the boat drifting off without me, then she thought we were going to smash ourselves on the other finger. It was all getting a bit much for her, and her cries of despair had alerted our neighbours to the predicament I had created.
No panic, I can handle an audience, usually, after all this isn’t the first time I have messed up mooring or leaving, after all we just needed to pull the stern back and try again, but maybe not let go of the stern line so quickly next time. So I got Kathy to walk to the bow where there was a nice length of rope, pass it to me, I uncoiled it passed the end to Kathy, and instructed her to go back to the stern and tie it on somewhere. This was harder than I expected, Kathy had the gist of it, but didn’t understand that anywhere would do, any cleat or winch would do, but she tried to feed it through the hawse which was full of a big fat (short) mooring line, I was walking back to the end of the pontoon finger with the rest of the line looking at Kathy and giving instructions as to where to tie the line, and just as she got the line around the cleat everything changed. Suddenly I couldn’t see anything, my hearing was odd, my body felt strange, for a split second I was very confused, then it dawned on me I was under water, a few split seconds later I realised the pontoon finger must have shrunk since I last looked, and I had walked right off the end as Kathy was cleating. Part of me found this hilarious, then horror, but a quick pat of my pockets, and Hallelujah, I didn’t have my iPhone on me. Then I remembered how bloody difficult it can be getting back onto the pontoon. The underneath is generally covered in razor sharp barnacles. The Malaysians aren’t the hottest on safety ladders, and my first attempt showed me I couldn’t pull my own weight up. Then a stroke of genius, I still had hold of the mooring line, so I swam to the cleat, cleated Kathy off and used the line to stand on, thereby getting ashore and bringing the boat a bit closer. I did think of trying to pass this off as standard practice for the situation, but looking at the onlookers realised that wouldn’t work. Best just act like this is normal Paul I thought.
So back ashore, I started to pull the boat back over, our neighbour came to help me and joked that he thought I must have jumped in to cool down! that was generous of him, but I felt an idiot. I made idle chat with him, then once we had the boat back I let go of the stern line, he did the same for the bow and off we popped without further issue. We completely forgot to boat hook my cap as we motored past it on the way out of the marina. That was my favourite cap too.
So that should have been enough drama for the day, but no, more was to follow.
As we left the marina we had to cross the entrance to the ferry jetty, at certain times, this gets very busy, and this was one of those times, ferries were queuing up and approaching at different angles, we were motoring though this area just fine when I thought I had better check the engine temperature, as due to the recent problems and the air lock I was a bit concerned. When I looked it appeared to be way too hot and rising. This is bad news. I told Kathy to throttle back, and as soon as we cleared the ferries I stopped the engine, hauled up the staysail, and told Kathy to steer us ahead through the anchorage.
Kathy hadn’t quite seen the funny side of the days activities yet, and was perplexed at the latest development. I wasn’t too concerned as there was 20 knots of wind so we could sail anywhere, I did wonder how you get the mainsail up in 20 knts with no engine to get your nose into the wind. I went below to look at the engine, I had hoped that opening the water filler cap would reveal the air lock had cleared and I could top it up and that would be that, however the water level was fine. Water was exiting the exhaust just fine, I was confused. But no matter Kathy was now shouting that she couldn’t steer and we were going to hit the fuel barge, which to be fair is a lot scarier close up than from shore.
I showed Kathy how we could tack around the anchorage with just the staysail, but she wasn’t a lot happier, some of the gusts now were getting quite big. She continued to steer us around while I scratched my head, opened the air bleed valve on the engine and crawled around the rear of the engine to see if there was anything obvious where the pipes went to the water heater. but everything seemed fine.
So after an hour of prating around, we re-started the engine, and put up the mainsail, with the engine just at tick over, we made course for Rebak.
The engine wasn’t overheating now at idle. Due to the wind direction, which was basically coming from Rebak, we had to tack all the way there, I had one reef in the main, and just the staysail. The genoa might have been better, but I need some more practice in tacking with the Genoa, it’s so big it often has to be manhandled around the inner headsail stay, and under the current circumstances I thought better of it. We also had the problem that it was a Friday today and the Marina office at Rebak shuts early so they can go to Friday prayers, so we were no pushing it to get there on time.
I was now loving this bit, the gusts were pushing us over at times and at one point the rail was just in the water, yet the boat felt very safe, It seemed she would heel so far then be really stiff and heel no more, and there was not much issue with weather helm either.
Looking at the chart plotter, which Kathy had programmed up the night before, I could see some very strategic tacks we could make through the small islands/rocks around us and save a few minutes, definitely worth a try if we were racing, but in each case we would be just half a mile from lee shores , rocky ones at that, so again, I didn’t think it worth it.

For the last tack I pumped up the engine a bit, just to give us a few more degrees and we made the entrance to the marina with about 3 minutes to spare.
We arrived out of the pounding Andaman sea int a tranquil lagoon, and Kathy seemed most relieved, in fact I’m not sure she will want to leave here.
On checking the engine, the air lock had now worked it’s way through and I was able to replace the missing coolant, and as a bonus, the water pipe wasn’t leaking and the oil scavenger connection wasn’t leaking either, so the sump tray was completely dry and clean.
We did have a good laugh about events later, Kathy had thought I had jumped in to swim over to save her, that would have been very gallant of me 😉

Yesterday she spent the day at the poolside reading, I spent the afternoon doing computer / techie things on the boat with a thing called SignalK and openCPN which was great fun. I also found out how much more I can achieve without the internet to help me. I deliberately didn’t buy any internet access for the boat just to see how we get on. We have it at the pool for emergencies 😉 but I found not being able to follow interesting tangents, made me reach my goal much quicker. More on that in a subsequent techie post.

I look forward to seeing Kathy’s take on the events of the day

Paul C.