The Offer

I decided that if I was going to go back, I would have to fix the Hydrovane properly, and according to the makers, the best solution was an “A” bracket – with two flanges to be attached to the transom instead of one, thus spreading the load – but it needed to be sent from the UK. In any event, a new owner would need that bracket anyway so I ordered and paid for it.

On Sapphire the A Bracket will be uppermost

I also phoned Jason, the guy who had done heaps of work on Sapphire before I left Australia in 2009, and he gave me the address of a supplier of quality 316 stainless bolts, so I could take some with me if I decided to return. Finally I booked my tickets but departure was still a week away and Sapphire was still on the market – I still had options.

And then, literally on the eve of my departure from Sydney for New Zealand and Papeete I received an email from the Broker : she had found a buyer and he was prepared to pay my asking price : this was news I had been wanting to hear a few weeks back but now, having  convinced myself she wasn’t going to sell soon and that I needed to return to rescue Sapphire from the Boatyard this news confused me completely. The buyer needed time to get a loan so I hastily  emailed back to say I would need a non refundable deposit in 48 hours as I would have to cancel all my flights and then lose the window of opportunity I had to restart my sailing adventure should the buyer not be able to raise the money. The Broker emailed back almost immediately and agreed to my demand.

So Sapphire was going to sell after all.

The Last Photo of Sapphire

I hardly slept that night. I wondered why  I had been made to wait till I reached the point of finally deciding I didn’t want her to sell before I was offered what I had been wanting for weeks before? I refuse to believe in a God or in Destiny but sometimes it feels as if ‘something” has you in its sights, is playing with your emotions and your  sanity, for some cruel purpose. But what?  I remembered that entire day in 2011 when I was bashing into wind and waves at 1 knot, drenched from head to toe heading in to Rurutu where all I thought about was getting off the boat and forgetting about her. I imagined how I would persuade someone, anyone, to take her off my hands the moment I stepped ashore and in my head I devised irresistible arguments against any objections that might be raised. I remembered those days returning to Raiatea after the bolts broke when I was hanging on the words of the broker who had said Sapphire would sell in  a day – it was exactly what I wanted. Sailing just seemed like a pointless struggle against things I had absolutely no control over and it was lonely and exhausting and I was sick of it and needed to get a life. In fact the boat was preventing me from having a life, it was like a millstone around my neck. I would get to Raiatea, the Boat would sell and I would be free. I could return to Australia or New Zealand, get work, get somewhere permanent to live, get all my stuff out of from where it had been stored the last few years and stop living out of a tiny suitcase, sleeping in a new bed every few days or weeks, and maybe even find a soul mate.

So here I was finally on the very edge of making all this possible – but instead of being excited, I was suddenly not so sure any more.

Observations and News

Art in the Orange Hospital

After leaving the boat I did the rounds of family and friends in New Zealand and Australia then signed up for a weeks work at Orange a small inland city in New South Wales, Australia. The hospital is brand new and quite a marvel of design and modernity, with wide clean corridors decorated with original artworks, computers screens in every room, the latest equipment in abundant supply and everything running efficiently and smoothly . A place like that must be  tremendously reassuring to the sick and the injured, but for women having babies, most of whom are perfectly healthy..- well I cant help wondering   how reassuring it can be when you feel fine and believe youre in perfect health to walk into a sterile room full of high tech equipment, a computer, a device for babies to be resuscitated on that must have cost more than an expensive modern car and  a bed that resembles something from a Space Shuttle?  

One of several Operating Rooms at Orange Hospital

I couldnt help being disappointed to note how many women were seriously overweight, how many smoked, and how many werent planning to breastfeed their babies. One woman swore repeatedly at me and demanded to see a doctor who knew what he was doing, when I wouldn't induce her labour a month early because she was sick of having to take painkillers for her back pain. 

And then the Olympics started. I heard the cost to the UK was 14 Billion pounds, and not withstanding the brilliant performances by Mr Bean, and by James Bond and the Queen this seemed an outrageous expense. At times I wished I had never been to Ethiopia, or at least could just forget about it - it seemed I couldn't enjoy living in the modern world anymore. Life in the "West" seemed to be characterized by extremes of excess and by a paradoxical lack of appreciation of how abundant it  is.

Images of Motta

Ethiopia

I emailed Raiatea : Not a single person had enquired about Sapphire. I felt quite depressed about everything, about work, about the Boat, and about what I was going to do for the next three months till I returned to Darwin.  I re-read on my Kindle the story of Webb Chiles battle to sail solo round the world on his yacht "Egregious", the one he had to bale tons of water out of every day to keep it afloat. Eventually he succeeded and he became the first American to sail solo round the world via Cape Horn. Its a terrific read, and it reminded me how extraordinary it is just to be out there.....

By now my shoulder was completely normal again. I had two months with nothing to do and an unsold boat in French Polynesia that only needed a couple of bolts to be completely sea-worthy.

Images of Polynesia

I started to wonder if maybe I could go back...

Chinese water torture

Yes I shall miss this place!

Sapphire came out of the water yesterday as planned, and has a bright shiny “A Vendre” (For Sale) sign tied to the pulpit. Alongside her is another yacht with the same sign on it, but its been there so long the sign has faded to be almost invisible and the yacht itself has also obviously deteriorated dreadfully under the withering tropical sun, to now be virtually a wreck – her sails are in shreds, the halyards and sheets and lifelines all loose and rotten, the fittings rusted and doubtless unuseable, paint and varnish long gone to expose grey cracked and buckled timbers underneath, a once proud boat now a corpse.

This is the fate that I dread will be Sapphires, and I have stressed to the Agent that a sale is much more important to me than the Price. If someone makes an offer I will most likely accept it immediately no matter how low.

The workers at the Carenage were naturally surprised to see me back, and commiserated with me at my misfortune. But the most surprising thing I learned was from the guy who had done the work on Sapphire, which included work on the Hydrovane bolts. As previously noted on the Blog, they have been loosening and in need of tightening at intervals since they were first installed in Sydney 4 years ago, and to try to prevent it from continuing to happen, in Raiatea we put a second nut onto each of them, a locking nut. But we also replaced the Bolts themselves with new ones, and as Sapphire was being lifted dripping from the sea, I was told quite casually that this sort of thing happens because those Chinese bolts are such poor quality! I could hardly believe my ears! And he went on to say that its hard around here to get anything other than these poor quality Chinese ones!

The Bolt that snapped

It was too late to feel anger or shock or even disbelief. I just shook my head in dismay.

Later I remembered reading about a scandal involving Rocna anchors, of which I had two. Some owners complained the shafts were bending and were defective, and it turned out a batch had been made in China and the specifications had been ignored, and low quality steel used instead. I hadn’t thought to ask if the bolts were top quality – if I had known, I might have decided not to have them replaced but it seemed sensible to do so at the time.

This episode highlights for me the difference between the sort of sailor I am, and what I think of as a “Real” sailor. For me sailing in its purest form is about finding some sort of unity between a man and a yacht and the ocean. The yacht, to be perfect, is a thing of beauty and grace but is reduced as much as possible to the barest elements that will make it slide across that interface between wind and water – a hull, sails, a place of shelter for the sailor, and not much more. Nowdays of course yachts have a whole lot more than that – “Bathrooms” with hot and cold water , bow thrusters, touch screen GPS navigation systems, satellite TV, motors that have to be run all the time, refrigeration, and more.. Catamarans are increasingly popular in large part because the motion of the sea is largely obliterated by their huge width – and I noticed when sailing in one earlier this year that they all have a roof over the cockpit so its impossible to see the sails. How can a sailor not need to see the sail or feel the motion of the sea?

Magic!

The sailor, to be perfect, knows everything knowable about his boat, himself and the sea. He doesn’t see the ocean as an enemy to be defeated, or a friend for that matter but a force that can be reckoned with. He can read the sea and the sky in the day and at night, use a sextant and a chart to navigate, he is self sufficient, a navigator and explorer and adventurer…..and I of course am almost none of these! But that is the dream one aspires to. …

All I was really planning to say was that if I had been more of a “Real” sailor, I might have known about Chinese Bolts, and the differing types of steel, and about the tremendous forces those Hydrovane Bolts are under, and maybe I would still be out there right now under the vast night sky, sailing the Pacific…

Wanted : New Owner



Feeling sorry for myself!

That Bolt was the last straw. To be honest I had struggled to get my head around the chaos I found in the boat when I came here in May, and when I sailed from Bora Bora my mind was in a fragile state. I felt nervous and anxious and could barely eat for the first two days. I remembered a video I made of myself in the middle of the Tasman sea, and looking at it again I had seen a really confident and positive sailor, and I wished I could feel that kind of energy again. I set off hoping that as the days went by and things went well, my confidence would return and in fact by the morning of the day when the Bolt failed and I was only about 250 miles from Suwarrow, I indeed experienced brief moments of  excitement as I started to believe it was going to work out after all. When the Bolt broke I was shattered; I felt like a person walking across ice that was supposed to be thick to find it suddenly cracking all round and creating a fear that at any moment it might all give way, feeling frozen to the spot and not knowing which direction to move in..Were the other bolts about to break and the Hydrovane disappear into the depths? Or was the transom about to be torn open  by the Hydrovane swinging round on its last remaining attachemnts, or perhpas it would twist around further and damage the rudder?  The headsail was poled out in 22 knots and the boat was trying to keep sailing downwind but the  Hydrovane rudder was sticking out sideways like a swing keel - what was going to happen next?  The nearest land was about 400 miles away - south west to Rarotonga or east to Raiatea. Its  not easy now, with hindsight to see what would justify  feeling that becasue a single bolt had snapped all hell was about to break loose – after all everything else HAD been going well – but we are not purely rational beings at the best of times, and less so when facing a challenge.

At the same moment that the  Hydrovane was disabled  so was my dream of continuing west alone, to Suwarrow and Tonga and Fiji as I had been planning , either then or at some later date after the Boat had been fixed up again . I felt I had taken on the challenge, given it a good go and failed, and I simply didn’t want to try yet again to do it. I had returned to Lord Howe Island with gear failure, overcome my disappointment and set off again and succeeded. I had returned to NZ with gear failure, overcome my disappointment and set off again and succeeded, but this time I just didn’t want to.  I was fed up with things going wrong, things needing repairs, being let down by my own ignorance , feeling nervous and worried all the time – this was supposed to be challenging but not something that felt like a burden, almost a compulsion rather than something motivated by a sense of adventure and excitement..

Even though for the entire 6 days it took me to get back to Raiatea I was convinced that I would put Sapphire up for sale as soon as I got back, I also realized that once back my perspective would probably change again, and all the arguments against selling her would suddenly have new authority so I have waited a few days to make sure that this what I really wanted to do.

I remembered a book I once read about resolving relationship difficulties called “Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay”, addressing the common dilemma in which someone trying to work out what to do with a difficult relationship seems to end up with lists of equal size in the Reasons to Go and Reasons to Stay columns.  The book suggested various tests which could be applied to break the deadlock – and for me and Sapphire the test I eventually applied was a question : would I regret moving on from Sapphire ? – and the answer was no.



Anchored in Bora Bora Lagoon

The reality was that I had enjoyed owning this yacht immensely, and had a huge collection of happy and wonderful memories of everything I had ever done on her, right from the very beginning when I was learning to sail, to day sailing on Sydney harbour and the nearby New South Wales coast, to crossing the Tasman and the south Pacific to French Polynesia and even to my latest jaunt out into the Pacific again, and back. But Sapphire was becoming a burden to me, because now I realized I couldn’t leave her idle for months at a time and expect to find things as before. Indeed the inevitable result of  a continuation of this pattern of long lay overs and  brief spells of sailing would be gradual deterioration in her condition and probably more failures breakages and disablements of various systems on board, increased risk for me, more anxiety and less pleasure. Sailing and owning Sapphire would become a kind of burden rather than a joy. I am disappointed that I never got to Suwarrow or to Niue, Tonga and Fiji as planned but I am satisfied that I made a reasonable attempt at getting there, but it was not to be. It is sometimes said that youre more likerly to regret the things you didnt do than the things you did, but I would modify it slightly and say the things you regret might be the things you didnt even try to do, succeeding not being as important as giving it a go. Or maybe I am just rationalising and trying to justify my own failurre of nerve. In any case, Sapphire  needs a new owner.

So I am going to try and sell her here, and I hope sell her soon while she is still in great shape. I would be happy knowing a keen young sailor bought her and planned to make good use of her sailing these amazing waters or going further afield. I dread the thought of her languishing here for months as mold and corrosion and damp gradually reassert themselves.

I have emailed the Hydrovane people and received useful advice and suggestions in regard to what may have caused those bolts to loosen and to break – I think the whole transom flexes when under pressure from the Hydrovane when it is working hard and this resulted in loosening of the bolts and the when that was made impossible by having a second locking nut applied to each bolt, there was eventual metal fatique and failure. I am going to suggest fiberglass reinforcement of the transom before reattachment of the Hydrovane. Sapphire will then be fully ready to go sailing again with a lucky new owner.

My fascination with the sea and with yachts and sailing is undiminished, and will continue to be a passion. I would not rule out owning a yacht again one day, and certainly I’ll go sailing again somehow. In the meantime however I will return to work in Australia, and later in the year to Ethiopia, and next year for some of the time at least will be working with MSF – Medcin sans Frontieres  (Doctors without Borders)  I will be free to have holidays other than sailing ones for a while, - such as the south of France for example-but now without Sapphire as a home I might have to start looking for one on land somewhere.. The Next Beginning?

Getting Back



Hydrovane mounting twsited off

 

Hydrovane twisted sideways and back, stabilised with ropes

 

Evening on a calm sea

 

The amazing Ocean and the Sky

Looked at as a day on the water, yesterday was quite fantastic, and I enjoyed it. The weather was perfect, the sea was benign, the wind stayed in the right quarter and strengthened just enough to get Sapphire sailing as well as she can – about 6.5 knots most of the afternoon in 14 to 16 knot winds - and we made it safely back to port.. 60 miles in 12 hours is about as good as Ive ever done on Sapphire, though I was obsessive about my left hand driving the whole day as I wanted to arrive and negotiate the passage through the reef before sunset, a challenge that had appeared out of reach early in the day.



Approaching Raiatea

In fact we reached the waypoint on my handheld GPS with half an hour to spare – but the waypoint was set a mile or two offshore, so by the time I got to the Pass the sun had set. Inexplicably, at that crucial moment – well probably because I was fumbling about in the half dark – the backlighting on the Handheld went off and I couldn’t read the screen except by turning on the cockpit light and holding the GPS on an angle so I could see it at least dimly, but other than that there were no dramas as I followed the leading lights through and then motored very cautiously up the channel to once again tie up at Marina Apooiti, at about 7pm. Hopping ashore to tie off the ground started rolling all over the place. I thought I would be elated but instead felt deflated more than anything else, to think I had spent 10 hard days alone at sea, successfully dealt with what had seemed to me at the time a serious problem but after 1000 miles here I was back at Square One.. I was too tired to eat. so I drank some water and went to sleep on the cabin sole, and I slept well!

Today, after my coffee and Nurofen Plus tablets, I shall tidy up the boat and head in to town to declare my return to Customs and get money from the bank. Tomorrow the Broker is coming back..



Maupiti to Port



A Problem with Wind

For most of yesterday there wasnt a cloud in the sky. other than a rim of white so close to the horizon it was barely visible, Rge sea state was good for sailing but the wind remained light though stll from a favourable direction.. Inevitably the self steering was patchy and we ended up hove to a number of times before I realized I needed to do the steering myself. Which I did. All day. And kept the boat speed around 4 to 5 knots till early evening when the wind speed increased just enough for the boat to stay balanced and steer herself once again, It was 6,30 and I decided t go and sleep straight away having had little the night before but after a while lying down resting my right shoulder began to ache and burn and really hurt. Before long I could barely lift my arm to take my glasses off so I swallowed some Nurofen plus tablets and tried again to sleep.. Now the wind was dropping again so I went back to the cockpit dragging my useless right arm along, and recommenced steering with my left arm....In the end the Nurofen kicked in and so did the wind and I managed some broken sleep overnight with numerous interruptions to deal with the annoyingly changeable light winds. I thought numerous times it was dying a slow and agonizing death but that would be even worse than what its doing now as then there would be no option, apart from just sitting here, other than motoring and continuous left hand driving.

So theres about 60 miles left, which could see us back late today. In fact while writing this the sky has lightened and I have just seen the jagged outline of Isle Maupiti, 15 miles away off the post bow, and beyond that like a tiny finger-nail sticking over the horizon, the unmistakable silhouette of Bora Bora. The wind is picking up again so Sapphire is self steering but later I shall take over, hopefully to make lanfall possible in daylight, about 12 hours from now. But next a strong coffee and two tablets should help get me through the day. Of course instil the fat lady sings, the show isnt over.

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Happy Monday

Yesterday went well. The wind stayed SSE or thereabouts and around 14 knots, occasionally more sometimes less and we sailed at around 6 knots most of the time on a low swell with not much chop, my first landmark being Motu One ( pronouned Motu "On-eh') a sometimes inhabited tiny atoll with no passages through the reef for anything other than dinghies or canoes. The atoll is also known as Bellingshausen. No Google here so cant tell you what thats about! The sky was mostly cloudless.

Ive been learning about the amazing ability of yachts to sail themselves, once youve worked out the correct balance of sail and helm. Such is the cunning of yacht design, once correctly balanced out one simply locks off the helm and sits back for the ride, much as one does with whichever self steering gear you may already have, such as the now non-functional Hydrovane precariously and unattractively still attached at a bizarre angle to the stern of Sapphire. I had heard and read about this self steering capacity of yachts before but somehow imagined it would require close monitoring and adjustment, that the vessel would gradually wander off track and need to be corrected quite frequently - in fact Sapphire would track along and require no assistance for many hours at a time, bringing herself back to course if there was a deviation. I did discover however that if the wind fluctuated too much, the balance that worked at one strength wouldnt be so good at another and then adjustment would need to be made but as long as the wind and sea state were reasonably constant adjustments werent needed. I also discovered nevertheless that a Helmsperson isn't entirely superfluous as when I took over the helm, for the pleasure of sailing, I noticed average speed improved and the time calculated by my handheld GPS to reach Raiatea improved by up to 12 hours.

So that was how I amused myself yesterday as we continued on a direct course to Raiatea, and I even managed to do a little reading. AT about 9pm Motu One was 15nm in front and I was tired, I wanted to sleep but knew I should stay awake till we had cleared the atoll, which on the present course we were going to miss by only 3 or 4 miles round midnight. In retrospect I probably should have watched and waited but I was worried about falling asleep - and there are many sad stories of solo yachties falling asleep and coming to grief - such as Jean Socrates who beached her yacht within a days sail of completing a circumnavigation - so decided to tack away and gain more space, which I did , and then tacked back again to continue on course. However, in the dark getting the sails rebalanced and the helm just so seemed to be impossible and I spent the rest of the night popping up and down trying to get it right and trying desperately to get some sleep.

So this morning I am tired, and I seem to have pulled a muscle in my shoulder but all is well and the wind and sea are as yesterday so I am hoping for another good days sailing. In the last 24 hours we have closed the gap by nearly 100 miles, and right now the GPS says theres 148 left. Two more days I suppose...Right now my position is 16 degrees 4 South, 154.03 West.

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