Category: Equipment

Recently we mentioned that the first nicht anchored off Fatu Hiva we sat outside on anchor watch. Gertrud sent us a message saying “What is anchor watch? If the anchor is holding? And what do you do if it isn’t?”

Traditionally while at sea you have your “watch” when you are on duty. On land you would talk about your shift. While at anchor the watch system continued. The person on watch ensured that the anchor held on the seabed and the vessel stayed where it should be. He also ensured that neighbouring vessels kept their distance.

Normally when we anchor we check that the anchor is holding by pulling back on it with full motor revs. In these warm waters we also swim over and look at it. After that we let an app on our phone “keep watch”.

Sometimes the anchor doesn’t hold when we dig it in because of rock, coral or seaweed (but with our Rocna anchor, that doesn’t happen often.) Then we have to lift it and try again. Once, in the Caribbean the anchor lost its grip after a day. That was strange and not something we want to happen while off cycling. Normally we ask the neighbours to keep an eye on Artemis and ensure she stays put.

As I write this squalls are blowing the boat from side to side but with the Rocna anchor dug in to sand and thirty meters of chain out, we are going to sleep well.

We are now over 3000 kilometers away from the nearest continent – North America – and over 2000 kilometers from the nearest habitation – Easter Island. When the International Space Station passes overhead, the astronauts on board are our closest neighbours. We are “somewhat remote” and really don’t want anything bad to happen.

If we were to fall overboard, the one person remaining on board would need to stow the sails, start the engine and come back to look for our tiny head in between the swell. And calling for help is not an option out here. That is why we only leave the cockpit clipped in to a safety line.

Our lifejackets are clipped to strops and they are attached to jackstays that run from the cockpit to the bow. You can reach everything while firmly attached to the boat. Of course the lines jam and of course they are in the way but that is better than a last swim.

Each day we find dead flying fish on deck who have landed on the boat and got stuck. Yesterday we found a really unlucky example. It had got its wing jammed under the jackstay and was therefore “safely” attached to the boat. A great place for us; a bad place for “Biggles”.

The perfect cruiser’s dinghy packs up really small and can be stowed away for passages. At the same time it should be stable in use and capable of carrying people and cargo safely and relatively dryly.

Our inflatable Avon fulfils the first specification perfectly. It takes a little time to install the wooden slat floor and rowing seat then blow it up and just as long to reverse the process but it stows in the aft locker. Unfortunately it fails on the safe and dry requirement. If we use it to go up wind against waves of any size, the only suitable apparel is bathing clothes and everything we take needs to be extremely well packed. More than once it turned over in the wind and once set the outboard under water. When we visit another boat, we need to remove the motor and hang it on their boat if we want to relax.

In the Caribbean the Avon was ripped directly next to a seam. Four attempts by us to repair it all failed and when we found an expert in Panama, he could only solve the problem by lifting part of the seam and glueing under it. His repair worked but we needed a more reliable tender.

The selection of small dinghys in Panama is not huge but with the help of Sheila (an American lady rebuliding her boat at Port Linton) we bought an AB dinghy with a fiberglass bottom. This is safe and stable but impossible to stow any where but between the mast and inner forestay. Sailing is, of course, a series of compromises so we have now developed a way of doing that. Once we have the AB dinghy in the water she is great fun. We bought her just before Annalena and Daniel arrived and “test drove” extensively in the San Blas Islands. In the Las Perlas archipeligo we completely filled her with water when a breaker swamped us just off the beach but, even full of water and sand, she can be rowed home.

With the dinghy, we received a free dinghy chap (a material cover to protect the dinghy from sun and rubbing). It was for a different size and type of dinghy and had no holes for the carrying handles or anything but did come with a bag of “blue bits” to sew as protection around any holes. Luckily we have a Heidi on board and she and her sewing machine can do anything. After hours and days of hard work, perspiration and many many broken needles, we had a cover that fitted and a matching bag to stow items while in transit.

Another sailor told us he had been quoted one thousand US dollars for such a dinghy chap and Heidi now says she fully understands why they cost so much. She doesn’t plan a production series.

A boat is freedom. Freedom to go where you want, when you want. With Artemis full of food and a fair wind, we can travel far away from civilisation and visit otherwise unreachable places. But you need water. Until now we have filled our tank where ever we have found a supply and, in the worst case, bought bottles. But the logistics detract from the enjoyment and, as we head out in to the Pacific, good drinking water will become a scarce commodity.

So we have invested in a small Katadyn 40E water maker. This magic device takes fifty liters from the surrounding sea and five ampere hours of electricity with which, through the miracle of reverse osmosis, it produces five liters of drinkable fresh water. We use about ten liters a day so in two hours we can produce all we need for that day.

This is one of the smallest devices used on boats but it has the advantage that we can power it from wind and solar power. It also fits nicely in our “bathroom” which is now the “water works”. We bought this model as every one wrote that it “just works”. Andi Blenk installed one this year and his positive feedback convinced us to invest.

Unfortunately our system didn’t “just work” as it had been incorrectly assembled in the factory. We needed many emails, lots of tests, much frustration and hundreds of extra dollars before we tasted our first fresh water but now it works and it was worth it.

We use a pre-pump to take sea water from the ocean and pass it through a sieve and two pre-filters. The standard system uses one filter but this way we can run it in silty anchorages. The filtered water enters the Katadyn and is then compressed and forced through a membrane which removes most of the salt leaving less than 200 parts per million which is far less than we can taste.

Another piece of freedom!

Boats have marine toilets. They look a lot like the toilets you are used to on land but work a little differently. You don’t just press a button and empty a days drinking water down the drain. Instead you pump a lever which sucks sea water out of the ocean and uses that to wash everything clean. At the same time the pump empties the contents out of the bowl. There is a switch with which you decide if you would like to empty straight in to the ocean – the preferred solution out at sea – or in to a holding tank on-board – when in a harbour or a bay. The contents of the tank can later be pumped out once you are back out in the middle of nowhere.

A great system that is flexible and reliable – until it breaks. The first indication we had that something was amiss was when it became harder to work the pump to empty the bowl. Shortly thereafter the pump to empty the tank began to sound as if it was working harder and then stopped working.

I was pretty sure the problem was a blockage in the outlet pipes as this is a “standard” problem on most boats that occurs every couple of years. I disconnected the outlet from the tank pump and was rewarded with a spume of dirty looking slurry. After that is was “just” a case of bending myself in to the hot, tiny space in front of the toilet, dismantling all the other pipes, beating them on the dock to break the calcium build up, washing them through and re-assembling. Really important was to assure that absolutely everything was very tight as most of the piping is below sea level and a break could lead to a sunken boat. Four hours later, and with Heidi’s help to feed hoses through tight spaces, everything was working again.

Once I had showered off the sweat and the all pervading smell of slurry, I was happy that everything was working. I drew a plan of the system so I would know how everything works next time and searched the Internet for some way to avoid the problem. Unfortunately the expert opinion seems to be that it is just a part of boat ownership so learn to like it.

“I wish I had a set of tools like Heidi and Neill!”

How often have we heard this from tradesman that we have had on board? They work on boats all day but arrive with a motley assortment of tools and when they need “something special” they need to go back to the workshop to find it. Or – they borrow ours 🙂

Before we left we bought a set of Bosch power tools and they have definitely been one of our best investments.

We charge the two 12 Volt batteries up using the excess power that we generate with wind and sun and most of the time they are plugged in to the torch and vacuum cleaner both of which get used all the time. Vacuuming up dirt is so much better than redistributing it with a brush and a good torch is vital for looking in to the dark corners or searching for Artemis in the night with the dinghy.

We also have two drills, one of which can also be used as a power screw driver, and a reciprocating tool which we can use to saw woods, plastics or metal and use as a sander. Very useful when maintaining a boat with so much wood work.

After sixteen months of use, the power tools are still paying for themselves every day and hopefully will continue to impress tradesman all over the world.