Easter Island drama

Easter Island May 1998

The very real possibility of losing the boat, and who knows what else, was present in all our minds.

We were enroute from Galapagos to Easter Island. Our engine had broken down about 300 miles out from Academy Bay. We had had a couple of days of rather heavy weather, with drenching water crashing over the boat. Every few days we tried to start it, and we read and reread every word in the manuals and how to books. The best advice we seemed to find was: be ready to get out your check book. It had been a difficult passage because of having no engine. We rely on this for our water maker, refrigeration and the bulk of battery charging. We do carry a solar panel and a wind generator, but there were a lot of windless, overcast days with little charging. We were down to sailing with no navigation lights at night, and using our radio as little as possible in order to conserve power. Also water was an issue. We carry 130 gallons and, after our engine fiasco, had discovered that 40 gallons of that water was contaminated with salt. We had talked to someone on the ham radio net that said Easter Island had some very good mechanics. So that is where we headed.

Easter Island is steeped in mystery. 2200 miles from Chile, it is volcanic, grassy, and at least in the El Nino year we were there, very green. There is some debate as to where the original settlers came from, the more accepted belief being that they sailed from Polynesia. One fascinating thing that these earlier inhabitants left behind are the Easter Island statues. These are huge, weighing in at up to 50 tons and towering 40 ft high. There are places were they are scattered over the hillside, and others where they are lined up like sentries, facing sternly out to sea to ward off evil spirits. We heard and read of many legends about why and how these statues were carved, and how these huge things were transported around the island. After several gales, some very difficult sailing, and some days of being completely becalmed, we were anxious to see them.... and to find a mechanic. We had come roughly 2000 miles from the Galapagos – almost all of it without an engine and some of the comforts and securities it brings, and we were looking forward to dropping the hook.

There is no all weather anchorage at Easter Island. And, the weather was quite bad when we arrived. The port captain told us that the tiny harbor had no room for us, and was unsafe for us to enter, even by dinghy, and to seek shelter on the lee side of the island at Hutuiti, which we did, going thankfully to bed. After 21 days at sea we were ready for a whole night’s sleep, but it was not to be. During the night we were awoken to a building chop. The wind had swung 180 degrees and was starting to build. Time to get out. We called all hands on deck, and sailed off the anchor in 10 knots of wind, and hove to off the island for the night, once again watch on watch.

Next morning we sailed Margarita in close to shore, assembled and launched Ieuan in considerable swell and Neill and Douglas headed in to see if they could get to town and find a mechanic. The girls and I stayed hove to off the bay for the morning, sailing slowly back and forth in 20 knots, waiting for the radio call to go in and pick them up. After some considerable adventures ashore the boys came back with a smartly dressed mechanic, looking uncomfortable and totally out of place in Ieuan, trying to keep his bag of tools dry. He had a good look at the engine, got rather seasick and by evening had to be taken ashore completely green. Oh well, another night with southerlies continuing, we headed around for Anakena, an anchorage on the other side of the island, to find some shelter. This anchorage is very beautiful, with a beach, lovely soft green hills, and a huge stone platform, with a row of statues looking solemnly out to sea. The new morning brought calm weather, and after anchoring once again, we all five went ashore wandered among the statues, went for short walks up the hills, and lay down in the sun on some soft grass. We got hold of the port captain on the radio and asked him to arrange for some mechanics to come out to us. There is no bus service on the island and we were a long way from town. Darkness came with no sign of our friends. Life was feeling difficult. No harbor, the port captain had told us it was still unsafe to come in the main harbor, we had not managed to obtain any more freshwater, and only limited food. And no engine help. Suddenly we saw flashing headlights ashore, more mechanics had arrived. They came aboard very confident of their skill and scornful of our earlier help and our hearts lifted. They took turns bleeding the fuel system, and with diesel fumes permeating the boat and a small swell starting to come in, they were feeling more and more green. At last, defeated, Neill took them back ashore, with two of the three as sick as dogs. We ate a dispirited meal and, exhausted, we debated what to do next – 9PM and the wind was only 5 knots, although it was onshore. Totally exhausted, we mistakenly decided to go to sleep and keep an eye out.

I woke some time around midnight to hear it raining, and got up and checked the instruments. Oh, oh 13 knots. I sat and watched a while and felt a building chop and wind increasing to 15. I woke Neill – Time to go. Couldn’t the weather gods give us one nights sleep? It felt unfair. This time the wind did not give us much time. Already it was 20 knots and the chop was building fast, all coming straight in to our small, rocky anchorage. We woke Bronwen and Douglas, suited up and headed on deck. At this point we had 3-4 foot waves and the bow was doing a fair bit of pitching. Bronwen and I went forward to try to haul in the anchor chain. Because we had no engine we tried using the hand crank, but with the bow pitching heavily, progress was impossible. So, using the windlass and limited battery power, as Neill and Douglas tacked the boat back and forth across the anchor chain to take the pressure off the windlass, we tried to sail off the anchor. In the rain and the wind and the dark communicating back and forth was difficult, and with the bow rearing up and down several feet with the waves, releasing and hooking on the snubber was difficult. Slowly we gained about 20 feet. But then, with a badly timed snubber release on my part, and an extra large pitch the windlass shaft bent with a horrible noise, and the chain started running out furiously. What an awful feeling. Somehow I managed to get the snubber back on before all the chain ran out, but we were now in a worse position than when we started. And the wind was now at 25 knots.

With the anchor windlass now totally useless, the next plan was to try to winch in the anchor chain, using the snubber and the jib sheet (18mm line) and windlass. I was using two lines to work on the anchor chain, one with a snubber and one with a knot, and Bronwen was holding the flashlight and flaking the chain out on the deck. In my hurry and panic, she caught me not resnubbing with the backup line before calling back to the cockpit to ease so we could bring the winch snubber forward. That clear-headedness saved us who knows what grief. It was good to have her there with me thinking things through. Douglas was on the side deck slowly winching in the line and relaying communications backward while Neill tacked back and forth and, snubbing and resnubbing, we started making progress forward - until the jib sheet, which was bar tight, parted with a deafening crack and flew back and hit Douglas in the stomach. He screamed and collapsed in the cockpit. One down. And the chain started running free again. Things were not going well. Emma, then age eight, was still in her bunk, no doubt pretty terrified, hearing our desperate screams and cries. The rain was driving sideways, and the wind had ratcheted up another five knots. This was not any place to be.

Neill, always able to think clearly when things really fall apart, decided that this was not working, and our option then was to get rid of our anchor – stop trying to bring it aboard. He went below to unfasten the end of the chain while I took over the wheel to try and make up some of our lost progress out of the cove. The very real possibility of losing the boat, and who knows what else, was present in all our minds. We would not be the first to do so here.

With the chain freed and with a marker float tied on the end Neill went to the bow, and at the end of our shorter tack, set the chain free. Now, without that hindrance, could we sail Margarita out of the constricted rocky cove in thirty knots with 4-5 foot seas. We tacked back over towards the rocks. At this point we noticed a flashlight wildly waving on the shore, illuminating the rocks. An unknown friend seemed to be trying to warn us of the dangers. We had basically one shot, if we failed to tack the boat, without the anchor, there would be no second chance. And being able to tack without the taut chain to pull the bow over was not a given – heavily reefed as she was, and in steep, choppy waves. I watched the depth sounder, leaving it as long as possible to try to get the boat speed up. 2 knots and 25 feet, 3 knots and 20 feet, 3 1/2 knots and 15… when we saw 12 feet I yelled “we’ve got to go- tacking” and pulled the wheel over hard, and we all watched breathless as she came up in to the wind…hovered and slowed as the pitching waves knocked the speed down, but slowly she came through the wind and fell off to the other side. We were free—a longer tack now with plenty of time to build some boat speed and momentum for our last tack to safety. Out of the cove at last we collapsed speechless, spent, with nothing to say as we each reflected how close we had come to disaster.

We sailed around the back of the island once more and bore off several hours through the rest of the night in a full fledged gale – now 40 knots. But we felt relief, knowing this was something we could all handle. After that we decided that we would never anchor again until we got the engine fixed. And so we continued our three hour watch schedule, all the way from here, to Pitcairn, and on to Papeete, for a total of 54 days. It felt so much safer that way.