Back in San Blas… *whew*…

After a productive almost two weeks in Cartagena, Andiamo is back in its friendly confines of San Blas. Somehow, we managed to complete all the objectives we had planned while we were in Cartagena, and then some. We even managed to fill up Andiamo for the trip back with a cool group of people. But it wasn’t without its trials and tribulations though.

We had decided that we were going to make a stop in Baru on the way out of Cartagena. Since that’s such a short trip, I opted to not raise the dinghy and put it on deck. Towing it to Baru’ should be just fine. That would prove to be a fatal mistake. Well, ok not fatal, but bad nonetheless.

The winds were pretty strong, more than 20 knots coming from the northeast. This was going to make the sail to Baru’ a nice, fast broad reach sail. I figured we’d make it to Baru’ in less than two hours. Things were going along nicely. Until that is, a wave swamped the dinghy. It filled with water and became essentially a ton of bricks, grinding it to a complete stop.  This resulted in the tow line snapping. Not good.

At the time, Andiamo was blasting well over 8 knots under sail. My first action was to turn the boat into the wind to slow it down, then heave-to (this is when you flip the jib around the mast to the other side of the boat, so it behaves more or less like a brake). After I hove-to, I turned the boat off the wind a little to give it some speed so we can work our way back to the dinghy.

The problem was the conditions. The waves were big, over 8 feet and sloppy, and the winds were gusting to as high as 30 knots. It made things very rough for the boat and to get close enough to the dinghy to recover it. We managed to get as close as 100 feet or so to it before realizing that there was no way to hook back on to the dinghy. This was because the eyes were all broken off. This just added to the complications and the difficulty.

I decided that saving the dinghy wasn’t worth the risk. It was a cheap used dinghy, and I figured I’d be risking more than what it was worth to try to save it, especially in those conditions.  About the same time, a wave hit Andiamo on the aft starboard quarter, spinning the stern around across the wind. This caused a dreaded jibe. Which is never a good thing. The boom swung across the deck in the wind with a force that made me sure something was going to break. And boy, was I right. The mainsheet traveler car buckled and split clean in two. This caused the mainsheet line to flail out of control. It didn’t help that the wind was heavy and gusting.

The mainsail was now out of control. It was flailing madly and the boom was just banging around in the wind. I had to act fast and get a new line secured onto the shackle that was once attached to the traveler.  I got a spare line, and headed out to the deck to get the line. One of the passengers, Nas, helped me get the boombrake secured on, and proceeded to pull in the boom by using it. Once I got close enough, I managed to get the new line tied on to the shackle. Now it was just a matter of getting the line on a winch and bringing it in to get the boom and main back under control. In my hurry to get the line fed into the cockpit, I routed it under the dodger, but not under the traveler shaft. Once Karen started turning the winch, the line started putting tension on the dodger. Since the dodger is just made of canvas and vinyl, it gave way to one side, ripping open the dodger window. It wasn’t pretty.

I decided that it was more important to save the boom and the main than the dodger, so we kept things as is. But I added a secondary line in case the first line gave way. Once everything was secured, Andiamo was able to continue sailing almost normally, to everyone’s relief. We got back on course to Baru’, and made it there well before dark, anchoring safely in the protected bay. Thanks to everyone’s teamwork and ability to follow instructions, (most of the passengers had never even been on a sailboat before) , we made it through the crazy calamity.

Once safely anchored in Baru’, I jury-rigged a line that replaced the traveler car, and we made a makeshift patch for the hole in the dodger. By morning, we were on the way to San Blas on what was to be an exhilarating sail. More of the same conditions, 20+ knot winds almost the whole time. High but following seas. The next day, by noon, we were in San Blas.

Since then, I’ve managed to get everything fixed. Amazingly, within a day. The traveler car was repaired by Arturo, a machine-shop guy here in Panama City that I’ve used on previous occasions. And the dodger was miraculously fixed in an afternoon by a canvas guy named Odilio who has a shop in Veracruz, about 20 minutes out of Panama City. Which is great news, because on the 22nd, the trips start up again! 😛