Having sailed a post-charter
boat from USVI to
Annapolis, I learned about some of the things that you might not expect to fail.
1.
Sails that have been used in high UV areas might be fine if they continue in the playground, but may fail in rougher conditions. In our case the
Genoa blew up and wrapped around the top of the
mast. This required sending a brave crewman up to the top of the
mast, swinging a 20 foot
arc in
offshore seas, to cut the debris away. Dangerous!
2.
Steering blocks need to be inspected! In our case, the
aluminum blocks disintegrated
offshore, which meant that for several days, we took our shift UNDER the stern bunk, in the
bilge, with an
emergency tiller, a
compass and a barf bucket. When the seas calmed a bit, we got something jury rigged so that we could steer from the
cockpit again.
3.
FUEL,
FUEL, FUEL - Despite having several
water sep filters on hand, the bad fuel continued to clog them (as noted above). 5 days in, in the doldrums, we had no
propulsion for a couple of days.
4.
WATER - Inspect every fitting, clamp and hose on the water system with an eye toward ensuring you never get a leak. We
lost a key Tee fitting and drained our freshwater
tanks into the
bilge about halfway through. We subsisted on
Rum,
beer and 10 recycled "box o wine" skins of water that someone had thought to bring along....
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