Broken mast

After 3 weeks staying far from the sea and discovering the beauties of Peru, our boat was waiting for us while getting a new antifouling at a shipyard in Marina Casa di Campo in the Dominican Republic. 

Marina Casa di Campo is a very specific place. It is an artificial village with villas, sports places, shopping area, restaurants area and marina for rich people. Two things need to be made clear. Marina works here rather as a private parking for boats of those who have villa here. And by rich we mean people like Jeff Bazos, wife of Venezuelan president or French owner of media and TV channels. So you see various American families or Latin Americans living their dream here.

It has 2 sides of a coin as usual. On one hand the marina is really beautiful, clean, safe, with great services comparable with Europe or States. Everywhere are electric karts that take you around. The whole village is built in between a huge golf course. You have a horse ranch, beach, theatre, any kind of sport, etc. No need to leave this “Truman show” world.

It is also the only marina with shipyard to have a crane big enough to take our boat off the water and clean the hull and give new antifouling.

We arrived here on Wednesday evening. We took the advantage of many great restaurants and went for a dinner. Then we went to our boat in the shipyard and fell asleep like babies. 

As we could not get a berth not even for one night in the marina we had to leave the other day. Weather conditions were good, wind between 15-21kn. So we did basic shopping for 4 to 5 days sail, checked out with Armada, paid for the antifouling and set on the journey. 

The ultimate goal was to transfer the boat to Martinique, where we would leave it at the Amel shipyard for potential buyer, who was by the way confirmed.

BIG BIG BIG learning we did. Until the boat arrives somewhere, do not plan anything. We were about to learn this soon.

We sailed day and night in quite a good conditions - wind about 20 knots, mostly sunny with clouds here and there, waves about 2 meters. Me and Hugo did not feel that well. Obviously our sea legs disappeared during our stay in Peru. I got my standard medication (Scopodamine patch) but it did not work at all this time either. But that was still normal.

2nd day of the sail around 1pm we were about 100 nm from the coast of Dominicana. We were having fun in the cockpit listening to some audio books. Our sails were reefed to avoid too sharp angle. Easy sail.

IN LESS THAN A SECOND EVERYTHING CHANGED.

We heard “rup” and “BUM” and suddenly we saw the mast is bent in about 5 meters height from the deck. The remaining 16 meters are in water next to the boat. The boom fall on the starboard deck. 

F**k. F**k. F**k. What the hell!

The boat stopped moving immediately. The mast acted as a big break taking into the water both genoa and stay sail. 

Ocean waves all around. No boat anywhere.

Our kids probably saw our scared and surprised faces. Hugo started to cry as he got scared too. Adina did not say a word. She was just looking at us.

In few seconds we got back into a shape. 

First, is the boat sinking? No. Ok. 

Second, are we all ok? No one got injured. Ok.

Third, we need time to survey and think. Ok. Send the kids into the saloon. 

So we asked kids to go down, stay there together and take care of each other. Also we calmed them that we would solve it and bring them back to the ground safe. 

Here I have to say, Adinka and Hugo managed all amazing. While we were working on the deck to make the boat movable until the late evening they let us do the work, did not ask anything from us, did not disturb us. This way they helped us a lot and in a way they forced us to stay calm, solve it, save us. Our little team.

So, fourth, kids are safe in the saloon, so now what shall we do?
What shall we do? F**k. F**k. F**k.

Suddenly my seasickness was gone :) We put life jackets on and went around the boat to see the damages and see if anything else cannot fall further.

Thanks to Amel construction the boat has solid cockpit. So first we managed to lift the boom on the cockpit roof and we secured its position with ropes tied to both sides of the boat. That helped to stabilise the remaining standing mast torso.

In such situation it would be the best to cut off the fallen part of the mast. But this was not a Hollywood movie. Climb 5 meters in 2 meters waves when you have no possibility to tie yourself to anything. This was not the solution. 

So we let the mast in the water for the moment and moved to another big problem. Our front sails were in the water - genoa and stay sail. They were spread between the nose of the boat and the top of the mast which was however 2-4 meters deep in the water.

First, we tried to pull it up. We already knew it was a loss of time. Once sails get wet, they get so heavy that you have no chance to pull them up.

Michal said, we have to cut them off. Our beautiful sails? Imagine you take your favourite coat and you just tear it apart. It hurts. But we would not move a finger ahead as they acted as an anchor.

Yet, to cut the sails off the boat was the only solution. So we cut the sails in the front. Once we did that they immediately were taken by the current and were now floating at the end on the boat and behind it. We again tried to pull up at least one of them on the deck. We used winches to get higher power but no way. It was heavy like hell.

In the meantime the fallen mast was hitting boat while making terrible noise every time a wave passed us. And waves are coming all the time, right. So the fallen mast was hitting constantly the hull of the boat. After check luckily it seemed it was hitting the boat only above the sea level. So even if it would make a hole into the boat, we should be safe.

We tried to tie the fallen part of the mast to the boat, so it is again more stable.

We cut off several stainless steel lines that were of no use. 

Learning number two.

The bigger angle grinder (flexa) you can have on your boat, the better. And saw to cut iron. Hammer. These 3 things saved us.

We knew we were not able to do anything with the broken mast. We have already tried to lift it back to the boat but it was too heavy. Just so you can imagine, the full mast is about 1 ton. Who can lift this on benchpress….

We got back to the sails in the water. We have to cut them in the water, Michal said. I said WHAT? YOU WANT TO GO INTO THE WATER? In the middle of the sea? In 2 meters waves? With an open knife? Where anything can hit you? F**k. F**k. F**k.

But he was right. He had to go there.

He took the harness for climbing up the mast. We tied a solid rope to it so I could hold him and help him if needed. He took a snorkel and a mask, opened his knife which he tied to his hand and jumped into the salty hell.

This was one of the worst moments for me. I was looking at him constantly, eye to eye check, loosening and tying the rope to make sure he has manoeuvre space but not too much.

The sails were pretty deep. It was very difficult to breath. The waves were coming from behind throwing Michal on the back of the boat, on the steering and on the broken mast. 

He did a great job. He managed to cut the stay sail. It was taken by the sea immediately. Genoa was impossible. (And yes. I thought about this - we collect plastic bottles on the beach to clean it and then we sent huge sail into the sea. If we could we would do it differently. But when you are in a life saving mode, you act differently. So I can only hope it will not harm any animal :( )

Finally Michal got out of the water. He had bruises everywhere.

What did I think besides enormous relief? Another of his 9 cat lives gone. But he is here alive. 

Then we checked around the boat that no ropes, wires, sails, stainless steel lines are around propeller or steering. It seemed safe. So Michal started the engine. 

We were moving 1,5 knots :/ We would probably swim faster.

The remaining sail and the broken mast kept slowing us tremendously.

Shortly we realised the genoa was gone too. Michal cut most of it under water, but not all. Somehow it got loose and sink or float away. Then we got to 2,5 knots speed. Hurray.

Also we created a small sail on the remaining standing mast which helped us as well.

The only but BIG trouble remained the broken mast. It was a bit like a ticking bomb. Every wave the fallen part of the mast acted like a swing - it was pulling out the remaining mast that was still connected to the boat and then hitting the side of the boat. The strikes were terrible. The boat was shaking itself every few seconds. 

Also as we lost mast, we lost radar. We could not monitor boats around us. Our VHF did not work. Our mast lights that are switched on for the night sail were gone. And we knew we were in the area with quite heavy traffic including tanker ships. The night was coming.

At 3 pm through Iridium Go satellite phone we contacted special service we paid exactly for this purposes - an assistant who contacted coast guards. We wanted some tugboat to tow us to the coast. 

We had two options - US/Puerto Rico or Dominican coast guards. 

The Dominicans said straight away, they leave us to the US. After 6 hours messaging with US coast guard, they said that they cannot come with the boat, because their radar is not working. They can come for us with a helicopter but they would sink the boat. ???? Well, the boat is not sinking. So we refused and kept this as a plan C or D.

We used our contact in the shipyard. They were super helpful and organised a commercial vessel that would come for us. We agreed the price. When the captain took the fuel and was about to go for us we got message that Dominican Armada banned him to help us. So he had to go back. F**k. F**k. F**k.

So we reached again Dominican coast guard, which were BTW the closest to us.

It was around 6pm. Their response was that it is almost night, weather is not good so they will not come.

Ahhh. We were so desperate.

We were night and day sail from the coast.

We knew we had to help ourselves. 

We knew we had to survive the night.

There were little things that helped us to get through the night. First we had emergency antenna for Atlantic crossing exactly meant for this purposes. So we installed it. Thanks to this Michal was able to announce through VHF every hour that we are there, with bad light, bad manoeuvrability and most probably not visible on other boats’ radars.

Second, we had Carlos, manager from the Casa di Campo shipyard who was checking marine traffic in our area and was writing us if he saw any boat getting closer.

When it got dark, I put kids to bed and stayed with them. No one was hungry. We all were stressed and too tired.

Michal kept tying the banging mast. The twitches were terrible. We were scared it can damage the boat more. Remaining mast was getting dis-balanced and loose more and more. It could fall anytime now. If it would fall on the same side as the broken mast, the boat would probably lean too much on one side. That would be a huge issue.

We agreed we need to get it down too. We did not know how though.

But we had to try.

So just in case, we prepared one grab bag with food, water, lights, etc. and one with our personal things, passports, laptops. I packed one T shirt and one shorts for everyone in case it all would go really bad and we would have to abandon the boat in a rescue island.

Once this was all prepared we started to cut off lines that hold the remaining mast. We did it exactly in the right time. In few seconds the mast torso fall down - on the correct side, starboard, of the boat. We were lucky. It acted like a leverage. It lifted the broken part in the water up and we were free to motor faster. We were going 4kn!

The sun started to rise. We were getting closer to the coast, to an island that would hide us from the big waves and thus lessen the twitches.

In 7 hours we arrived at the marina which we left 2 days ago. It was Friday afternoon.

We arrived in a state that we could not enter the marina. We had mast from both sides of the boat so we could not simply get any closer to a pier.

We had to wait until Monday when the shipyard let us in and with crane they lift up the mast.

What a relief to be few meters from the coast.

Who cares the anchorage was shitty with waves from passing motor boats and that for two more days we had to listen to the banging mast. 

We took our dingy and went ashore.

On the ground I realised my knees were shaking still.

But we have made it, as a team, as a family. 

What else?

Workers at shipyard cut the must in several pieces and put it back on the boat.

The boat needs to be motored to St.Maarten, the closest place from here where we can load it into a container and send to La Rochelle for repairs.

We are the only Amel that witnessed such damage. Such things however happen and it is no ones fault. 

We still love Amel. The boat is so well built it took us into the safety. We knew if it would not be Amel, we most probably are not here anymore.

But the travel game is over for now, baby.

Our home is calling.

Can’t wait to hug you all!

P.S. We had to write this to put up with the experience. Travel journals are about to come next! Have no fear :)