Terror on the Sea: Adrift in the Abyss!

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FLOAT PLAN:

VESSEL NAME: COSMIC DEBRIS

NUMBER OF CREW: TWO

DEPARTURE: SAN CARLOS, SON. DEC 14, 2023

DESTINATION: LA CRUZ HUANACAXTLE

DISTANCE: APPROXIMATELY 600 NAUTICAL MILES

ROUTE: APPROXIMATELY 160° SSE TO A POINT 15 NM WEST OF ISLA LOBOS, THEN AN APPROXIMATE HEADING OF 142° SE TO PUNTA MITA, TURNING TO 90° E AND ENDING IN LA CRUZ HUANACAXTLE

ETA: 6-8 DAYS

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It was 12:55 in the afternoon when we raised anchor and motored out of Bahia San Carlos. John and Margaret on SV Cahoots lead the way in the distance. Their plan was to head over to the Baja and then go south on that side of the sea.

They wanted shelter from the northerly winds that were expected to come up overnight. Our plan was to stay a little closer to the mainland side of the Sea of Cortez because the wind forecast was showing less wind for that side.

We were planning a single passage to La Cruz because our daughter was flying into Puerta Vallarta in three weeks. We wanted to be there ahead of her in order to give ourselves time to prepare her quarters and get to know the area a little.
It was a very quiet sail through the afternoon. The seas were mostly calm with a little roll to them as we lazily wandered into day number two.

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Dec 14/2023, 06:35

Position: 26° 49.727N 110° 38.982W
Heading: 170° T
Wind: NW 14 Kn T
Point of Sail: Dead Down Wind
Seas: Rolly

The tidal flow had been in our favour all night. With both the wind and the seas ushering us along, we made pretty good time.


We were in a twelve-hour tidal cycle, which meant we had roughly twelve hours of favourable tides, and that would be followed by twelve hours of opposing tides. When the tide changed in the morning, it set the tide against us and against the wind. There was an obvious difference in sea state when that tidal change happened, but the autopilot was handling it well, and it wasn’t too uncomfortable. 


We had set a line out with a big green hoochie on our new fishing rod that we had just picked up at a boater’s swap meet in San Carlos. We soon hooked into a small Dorado. We threw it back in hopes for something a bit larger. After a few more hours of sailing, just in time to make it onto the dinner menu, and right when the wind piped up from fifteen to twenty-five knots, we hooked into a nice-sized Dorado. It was a bit hard to pull in because of the speed we were going, but definitely worth it.

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Dec 14/2023, 18:00

Position: 26° 18.030N 110° 02.171W
Wind: NW, 18-23 Kn
SOG: 5+ Kn
Seas: 2+ Metres
Heading: 162° T

After midnight, the wind began to grow in strength. We were reefed right down with two reefs in the mains’l and just a small triangle of the genoa poking out. With the seas still in an ebb tide and growing larger all the time, comfort was getting harder to achieve.

As the sky lightened in the east and with fatigue from a challenging night setting in, we began to see gusts into the mid to high twenties. When the tidal flow finished its hundred and eighty-degree turn, comfort was a fading memory. 


The autopilot was working hard, and in our tired states we were happy to rely upon it, secure in the knowledge that the system had recently been upgraded.


The sky lightened on an unfamiliar sea. On this day, the normal relief that daylight brings at the end of a night watch was not to be. This was not the same sea that we watched fade into darkness the night before. This sea was angry. The waves were large, steep, and exploding like salty volcanoes all around us. Pushing us this way and that, making one feel like a schoolyard victim of a dozen bullies, pushing and screaming names.


The autopilot was starting to lose control, making me take the helm and put us back in line with the waves as best I could. The idea of following the rhumb line was gone; the goal now was to keep the boat upright.

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Dec 15/2023, 06:40

Position: 25° 20.973N 109° 39.089W
Wind: NW, 25 Kn T
SOG: 5 Kn
Seas: 2-3 Metres

The sea state was forecast to be at least two meters. It looked to me to be pretty accurate, but there were some irregular sets of three waves coming frequently, which were much larger and at an odd angle to the rest. Our estimate of those waves was three meters if the regular ones were two meters.


It was shortly after sunrise, (06:40) when I decided to do my morning update on social media. Wendi was already below in the cabin cleaning up the seawater that was coming through the leaky chainplates, so I asked her to go to the aft cabin and turn on the Starlink system. 


At that moment, we were sailing in the area offshore of Topolobampo, thirty miles from shore. 
When she returned from the aft cabin, she told me she discovered some oil spilled on the cabin sole.


As she was speaking, the autopilot began losing control again, so I took over the helm. Suddenly, I could feel that there was something wrong and knew instinctively that the hydraulic system had failed. I checked the hydraulic oil in the helm pump, and there was nothing on the dipstick.


I went down to the aft cabin to find the leak. I got down on my hands and knees to try to see which compartment beneath the bed the oil was coming from. 
With no control over the helm, the boat was pitching and rocking violently in the waves. The sails were heavily reefed but still deployed.


I skated across the oil-soaked cabin sole on my hands and knees, propelled by a roll of the boat, and slammed head first into the door of a cabinet on the port side. 
”Fuck,” I yelled. First things first!. We had to heave to! 


Wendi was on a mission to find our spare litre of hydraulic fluid. I needed to get the bed lifted up to gain access to the rudder post in order to rig an emergency tiller so that we could get hove to, and I needed to do it before we got knocked down.

Conclusion to follow…

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SAILING INFIDEL: Def. An unbeliever, heathen, pagan, heretic, agnostic, atheist, non-theist, freethinker, libertine, dissenter, or nonconformist of the sailing variety