agility @ sea

Tim & Jer

We had Roni and Sven working on the boat all day Tuesday and Wednesday
fixing multiple issues with their lovely blend of humor and hard work.
Sven had the delightful opportunity of hanging out on the top of the
mast for over an hour Wednesday. I actually took a nap while he was up
there and was shocked when I woke up and there he still was! It’s
really tough to be in the bosun’s chair at the top of a mast in big
swells and wind. Sven was working with his hands so had to grip the
mast with his legs to maintain balance and get what needed to be done,
done. They did a great job and we feel comfortable with our systems
right now. Wed afternoon left us all feeling a lot of relief accompanied
by residual exhaustion. Not that I did anything, but, well, whatever, I
was still really tired.

We went out for a late dinner to say goodbye to our dear friends. Food
was good, service slow and we were all yawning by the time we left the
restaurant full of a ton of great food.

Tim and I launched off in the dinghy and onto the boat with surprising
grace in large seas. The anchorage has been brutal and it’s very
difficult to get back on the boat from the dinghy. We were feeling
happy and tired. I was surprised at the amount of things in disarray
inside Agility and mentioned to Tim that there must have been major wind
or swells because things were a mess. Then I went to sleep – was so
tired. I hear Tim telling me to get up, we have a problem, and I go out
and the front part of our boat is destroyed. Bow sprit torn off (damage
between both anchor rollers), anchor roller crushed (see picture of port
and starboard anchor roller), all sorts of serious damage that a
neighboring sailboat or fishing boat couldn’t cause. It was so weird.
We finally realized that the large cargo ship that had been anchored a
quarter mile out must have run into our boat during it’s departure. We
secured the broken bow sprit and removed the anchor bridal. Upon
inspecting the anchor rope we saw that it was worn through about 50% in
all 3 strands but luckily had not worn completely through on any strand.
My guess is that the starboard bow of the cargo ship was some distance
past our starboard bow and upwind of us. It was then blown down on top
of Agilty and the rode pulled tight under the bow. The bow of Agility
then acted as a floating dock holding the pressure of the bow of the
massive cargo ship. The two other sailboats close by said that this
lasted about 10 minutes and made a ton of racket. I could see from my
anchor alarm that Agility was about 30 yards closer to the anchor for a
period of time and that’s what first alerted me to something being
wrong. We brought up the anchor to inspect and re-anchored with less
scope knowing that we were not at risk of floating downwind into a reef.

We got back into the dingy and motored over to the adjacent boats, Kama
& Micasona to see if they heard anything, but all were asleep so we
tried to do the same. In the morning they both told us that the big
cargo ship ran into us and was banging against our bow for at least 10
minutes and didn’t do anything about it. I’m told that they cleared out
from the port captain but didn’t say anything except that they were
headed to Valpairso. The damage was pretty extensive and made us both
sick and numb, feeling a great sense of loss.

Of course, Roni and Sven came to the rescue and were back out assessing
and repairing damage in the morning. We are sea worthy, phew. The bow
roller on the port side was crushed and the carbon fiber bow sprit was
ripped off the cross beam. Man that’s one strong crossbeam to withstand
so much force and not fatigue anywhere. The spinnaker halyard snapped,
the cross beam and bows scraped up all along the front and the jib now
has a lovely blue stripe on the sacrificial cloth to constantly remind
us of how the side of the cargo ship (Danstar, Captain Patricio Montecinos Pinochet, MMSI 725001123 of the Danvi Ship Lines LTD) was 20 feet above our deck pounding down an poor Agilty. The most troubling to me at least is that after all the damage the captain of the cargo ship did nothing.

Thankfully, the anchor line didn’t wear through completely or we would
have been on a coral reef and would have probably lost Agility.

We leave tomorrow or Sunday depending on weather for Gambier. We are
demoralized and will be limping a bit. We’re both feeling a sense of
loss and sadness. Perhaps tomorrow we will feel grateful but for now
mostly angry about the callous disregard for property and safety by the
captain of Danstar in the middle of the Pacific Ocean two thousand
miles away from the mainland.