Yachting World - July 2018

84

PRACTICAL

concern. Obviously a man overboard situation

was the worst scenario and, unfortunately,

even the AIS MOB devices on all our lifejackets

wouldn’t be any help without power to run our

VHF system. To mitigate such a huge risk, I

started wearing my lifejacket and personal

locator beacon all the time, routinely clipping

myself on at night and during daylight when out

of the cockpit to work at the mast or the bow.

Being unable to use any radio (except a

handheld VHF) our only way to send a distress

message would be through our satellite phone.

To conserve its batteries, we decided to use

it only once a day to download emails with

weather forecasts and other notifications from

the ARC rally control team.

With no navigation lights, radar or AIS,

collision avoidance was another significant

safety issue. The risk of heavy weather was also

a concern: in an approaching squall we wouldn’t

be able to quickly reef the main because we had

an electric winch on the halyard.

For these last two points we had no real

workaround, only a commitment as a team to be

100% focused all the time when on watch and to

put our trust in each other.

More minor challenges included having no

sailing instruments to track wind direction and

speed, but we quickly improved our ability to

feel the wind. We had no electronic plotter, but

did have a small handheld GPS powered by

standard AAA batteries which, combined with

a good compass and detailed charts, saw us

safely navigate across the Atlantic. We also had

no autopilot, but an old-fashioned wind vane

helped steer all the way to the Caribbean.

Life in the dark

With no fridge, we had to hurry to consume all

the fresh perishable food and move on to the

preserved stores.

Without lights our head torches covered

basic needs, allowing us to prepare a warm

coffee at night as much as double check the

sails or rig during night watches.

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recharge them. We left the engine running for

a few hours but made no progress on charging,

so tried the portable generator. Slowly we

got some power back into the batteries, and

realised that the engine alternator was not

working properly.

For two days we attempted different repairs,

using the generator to produce the power to

re-start the diesel engine for testing. During

our tests we discovered that the power system

had not been implemented as designed: the

starting battery was not isolated from the other

six house batteries, and all of them were part of

the same circuit. So the charging problem was

also impacting our engine starting system.

With only two small 4lt tanks of petrol on

board and a minimum of two hours required

to recharge the batteries, using the generator

was not a viable option to produce power for

the entire crossing. It could only be used from

time to time – to avoid letting the batteries

experience damaging multiple deep discharge

cycles in a row (due to the solar panel), or to

start the diesel engine in a distress situation.

After a long discussion we decided to keep

going with our transatlantic, despite not having

any power, and began putting in place all the

workarounds that became our new routine.

Not being able to start the engine immediately

to complete a recovery manoeuvre was our main

Left: the crew hand

steered and used a wind

vane after power failure

left them without an

autopilot

Right: no navigation

lights, radar or AIS

put a big emphasis on

mutual crew trust

Typically 40-50ft yachts at sea will

use 140-250Ah a day, although

this depends a lot on refrigeration,

watermaker and autopilot use.