New Zealand Readiness

After an unplanned extra week in the UK trying to sort out my house that was trashed by the tenant, I survived the 2 day flight from the UK over to Auckland via Heathrow and Hong Kong by the grace of a good book, good documentaries and lots of free gin and tonics.

I arrived in Auckland two days before my official “joining day” so I could try to get over some jet lag and catch up with an old friend from my time at Oxford University (Rene). I flew in at 0700hrs local time and Rene picked me up from the airport. She insisted that I stay awake for the entire day and marched me through some of the best sights in Auckland. I was really pleased that she helped me to immediately getting into the new time zone and it was great walking through one of the parks and art museum. We walked up Mount Eden which is one of the volcanoes that rises out of the city of Auckland. From the top you can see other volcanoes rising up like green sea mounts through the grey blanket of the city that stretches from coast to coast. In the evening, we went to see a local Church perform a musical version of “A Christmas Carol” at the theatre in the heart of Auckland's CBD. It was very cleverly produced, with amazing dancers and singers and the only time my jet lag overtook me and I started doing the “nodding-dog” routine was in the moments of darkness between scenes. 

Auckland CBD from Mount Eden

 The next day Rene had to work, but this gave me time to organise the gym equipment that I had posted ahead of me and I got on a local bus with a step machine in one hand and a mini cycling machine in the other and headed to the ship. It was great to see the Lord Nelson again and hugging all the crew I remembered just how much they have become my family.

Before I walked back, I spend 3 ½ hours at the nearby maritime museum where I learned all about Maori boat building, the immigration of early settlers and the science behind the America's Cup boats. The highlight was definitely the exhibition on Sir Peter Blake who had coached the New Zealand sailing team to win and defend the Americas Cup and who went on to become a Pioneer in Environmental and Marine Conservation.

I joined Nelly the next day where I was immediately thrown into the chaos that always occurs during maintenance periods on board. We were incredibly busy in the engineering department. Lots of outside contractors were on board doing big jobs such as changing the fuel lines on the two main engines, renewing the main engine computer control system, fixing the AC unit etc. In the midst of all this there is the routine stuff, minor faults and maintenance jobs that we have to keep chipping away at. This included dealing with a massive hydraulic fuel leak from the forward Capstan that occurred when we had to shift the ship to a nearby mooring. The Capstan is a large winch used to pull in mooring lines and we have three on board, one forward and two aft. When we were tying back up alongside it starting spraying out hydraulic oil all over the deck and I heard a yell off “get the spill get to the fore peak” and legged it in their direction to deal with the damage. It turned out that we had to take the capstan apart and send it to a specialist hydraulics company to stop the leak....not a quick job when the hydraulic lines and painted fast onto the metal Capstan and the the Capstan itself weighs a tonne! 

View along Auckland coast during one of my morning runs

 The voyage crew for STW 6 (Sail The World 6- the voyage around the Southern Ocean to Ushuaia) eventually joined and the next day the enormous food stores order arrived so that it took all of the crew most of the afternoon to get it all on board and stowed away. This stores order included a load of soft drinks that I had to sequester into one of the unused black water tanks under the bar. This involved opening the hatch in the floor of the bar, sliding down into the space, climbing over a pipe to the starboard side, wrenching open the metal hatch to the tank and climbing inside the 2 foot by 1.5 foot opening into the dark tank space so I could pull bags full of drink cans in on top of me and store them “neatly” in the tank....Hot, heavy work, made easier by the grace of the lovely Nelly team.

That night I was lucky enough to meet up with another long lost Kiwi friend who I lived with when I was 18 years old! It was great to catch up over a beer and give a mini tour around Nelly....It gives me comfort to know that even if I haven't seen someone for 11 years, I can still meet up with them and put the worlds to right as if my teenage years were just yesterday! 

Looking back towards the ship and Auckland CBD, 5 miles into a morning run

 In the mean time, the parts that we need to mend the back stay still hadn't arrived. This was a major problem and was the only thing stopping us from leaving Auckland. The back stay is the wire that supports the mast, so we can't sail without it- especially not in weather that we are expecting to see in the Southern Ocean when we get close to Cape Horn. We were all constantly hoping that this equipment was going to turn up, but delay after delay kept occurring and every morning meeting turned into ground hog day as the Captain explained that we would have to remain in Auckland for “one more night” whilst we waited on the back stay....Night mare. However, we were all trying to make the most of being in Auckland and the freedom that comes from being alongside. I enjoyed my ~10 mile morning runs along the coast, night time photography sessions with Marcin (the 2^nd mate) and the nice coffee and sushi bars that could be enjoyed in the evenings. 

Accompanying the second mate (Marcin) on a night filming session

My mother has an expression “just put today down to experience” that basically means: OK, so today lots of things have gone wrong and you've done lots of stupid stuff, but hopefully you have learnt something from it. On Thursday 19^th December, I had one of these days. The morning started like every morning alongside in Auckland. After my morning run and breakfast, we had the morning meeting and I did the daily engineering rounds along with some other fairly routine work (fuel transfer, light switches, fixing leaky radiators etc.). I then climbed onto the galley roof to sort out the fan vent into the hot galley which had been incorrectly installed. This ended up costing me a whole load of skin off my finger as I fought to get the metal sheets into the metal slots....Ouch. The Chief had to leave the ship for most of the afternoon to get parts so I was left with a massive work list that I slowly made my way through. However it seemed that every time I started something, I had to stop for some reason or another, or the job ended up being much more involved that I had anticipated.

For example, one of the jobs was testing the water tight doors. These are big steel doors that you close and open by pumping a hydraulic lever (which is pretty tiring when you have to pump it shut and pump it open). I did the two forward doors before I was reminded that some people were trying to rest after their night watches so I moved to the aft door between the mates cabin and the aft section of the ship and gave the sleeping cook a heart attack as he leapt upstairs thinking it was a fire alarm! (Sorry cookie!)....So I gave up after three doors. I then started to dissemble the holder for the chart room lift remote to find that someone had bent the bolt so I had to hack saw it off in two places before I could take it to the workshop where I discovered that it was going to be a much longer job requiring hack sawing lots of old metal and doing some sort of finishing on it.

In the mean time the Chief returned with the new lamp parts so I started to prepare to climb to the top of the fore mast to replace the broken port side mast head lamp with a new LED lamp. I knew that this would involve; cutting wire, breaking up the old lamp holder, wiring in the new LED lamp and attaching it to the lamp holder so I packed a tool bag full of all the stuff I needed and attached it to my harness along with a radio. However, half way up the mast I realised that the wind had picked up, my fore arms were already hurting from pumping the water tight doors and I was feeling really off balance from my anaemia (fairly standard monthly thing) and the heavy tool bag on my back. This dropped my confidence and made the process a lot slower, but I still managed to get right to the top of the mast where I was faced with the damaged light. To have my head at the height of the masthead light I had one foot in the tiny rope ladder (which tapers off into a size only just big enough for one foot at this height) and one of my arms wrapped around the top of a back stay wire to keep me secure.....This left me with little balance and only one hand for wiring.....Hmmm. I had to give up and climbed back down feeling pretty annoyed that I'd wasted all that time climbing with nothing to show for it but (more) sore arms.

On climbing down I was reminded that I did actually have spare lamps on board so I should have just changed the lamp even if I couldn't replace the whole light for an LED system...Arghh. So, I started to prep to go back up when I remembered that it was my turn to clean the PC (permanent crew) heads (toilets). I did a deep clean on one and had bleached the second one when I walked back in to find the top had blown off the Solway valve at the back of the head so that sea water was gushing up out of the system. I tried to stem the flow with my hands but only succeeded in getting completely soaked, so I legged it outside to grab a wrench to operate the local shut off valve. I ran passed the Medical Purser who looked slightly concerned to see me running past with a massive wrench dripping with sea water. I couldn't hold the water back at the same time as trying to wrench open the access to the local shut off valve so I went back outside again and asked the Bosun to help. She tried to stem the flow whilst I again tried to open the access for the shut off valve and failed- getting wetter by the second. Instead I chose to run around the ship desperately trying to remember where the main Sanny sea water pump shut off valve was....I knew that I saw it every day but completely blanked on where it was (old age creeping in I fear!) I found the Mate and he joined me in rushing around trying to locate the valve until the Chief appeared about 5 minutes later and pointed to the little switch in a hatch that I open every single morning as part of rounds....Arghh! I returned to the heads to find a line of people bailing out with buckets. Incredible! If nothing else, this little exercise illustrates the amazing Nelly team where everybody is always willing to help and we are never too far away from a bucket! Also, I will never forget where that seawater pump shut-off switch is again!

As the evening drew in, I completed the repair on the heads and collapsed in my cabin for 30minutes with a glass of wine. I couldn't believe how exhausted I was! I had vaguely planned to do a 20 mile run after work, but I could barely stand up let alone get up to marathon pace! I managed a little walk down to the shops for some more supplies and to play the piano in the Seafarers Mission, but that was it! ….So much for the glamour of the sea hey?!

That night, the deck department worked late getting the back stay up so that we could leave and start on our epic journey.

We left Auckland on a beautiful sunny morning with clear blue skies and the water as flat as a mill pond. It was great to be on the move again with the wind playing in the rigging. To leave the berth we have to deploy our little boat “the Dotty boat” so that we can leave a mooring party on the show to release the lines when Nelly slips off. The Dotty boat then picks up the mooring party from the shore, comes alongside Nelly and the mooring party climb up the rope ladder. The Dotty boat is then winched on board and swung onto the galley roof where it is stowed. However, this time there was a problem with the winch so the mate, second mate and team of bosun's mates stayed on the roof to try and sort it out.

The next moment a large bang was heard and the Dotty boat had swung vertically on the winch so that her bow was nearly touching the surface of the water and her stern was up at the top of the winch. The Captain called for engines stopped (which I did immediately) and made sure that no-one was hurt. Everything had been completely safe so everything was fine and nothing was even scratched. However, looking back off Nelly's stern the Captain noticed a little red plastic square bobbing off in the distance- a petrol can had fallen out of the boat and was floating in the water.

We treated this as a man-over -board drill and turned Nelly around to retrieve the object whilst the Dotty boat was again lowered into the water. The Captain took Nelly within a few meters of the petrol can and the Dotty boat crew did the rest- a very successful “rescue”!

As well as the man-over-board drill, there are a number of other drills that we have to perform each voyage to ensure that the permanent crew all remain sure of our roles and that the voyage crew know what they need to do in an emergency. One of these is an evacuation drill. We had done one of these alongside in Auckland where we got all the voyage crew to dress in their warm kit and don their immersion suits (as they would in the Southern Ocean in the event of an abandonment). We did another on our second day at sea and I was really impressed with how quickly the crew were able to be ready in all their gear.

It was nice to get back into the “at sea” routine and I managed to start working down my ridiculously long job list. This included finishing manually pumping close and open the remaining 3 water tight doors. Everything worked well and I finished off by making sure all of the moving parts were greased and good to go. The next day the voyage crew had one of their “happy hours” (when they spend an hour cleaning the ship from top to bottom) and one of the over-enthusiastic cleaners decided to clean off all the grease from the water tight doors and proudly announced to me that he had “cleaned off all my mess from the doors”....D'Oh. Actually he was very sweet and it was very funny, but it did mean that I had to spend some time re-greasing all the doors.

Now I am at sea I have started my “deep ocean” phase of my MDS (Marathon des Sables) training which includes stepping on a mini step machine that I brought myself to use in the engine room. I have positioned it on the “Mezzaine level” so that it is stuck on the grating about the port main engine between the main engine exhaust and the boiler. I try to use it every morning and every afternoon before dinner and I sneak into the engine room in my gym kit with my ipod head phones stuck underneath my big green ear defenders and try to balance as the ship rolls from one side to the other and pitches up and down with each passing wave. It's usually around 30 degrees centigrade in the engine room so I soon have sweet pouring down my face and I probably look like a complete idiot....But what's new?

Training for the MDS in the Engine Room

On the third day at sea I managed to step on my little stepping machine for 2hrs 15mins in one day and I was amazed at how much I was sweating- to the point that I felt quite sick of dehydration by the time I got off.....although the cork screw motion of the ship probably didn't help that much either :-S It was a reasonably rough day at sea which made it pretty difficult to balance on the stepper so I had to hold onto the rail on the mezzaine part of the engine room and step with my back and knees constantly slightly bent to take the impact of the large waves and sideways rolls.

We spend three days sailing to Napier so that the Voyage Crew could test out their sea legs and so we could have Christmas day berthed. For me it was particularly enjoyable being in Napier as I was able to get some last minute runs in past beautiful Kiwi fishing villages and along the beautiful volcanic beaches.

View across the wetlands during a morning run in Napier, New Zealand

We had a wonderful Christmas and we made sure that although we couldn't “deck any halls with boughs of Holly” we “'Hollied' the deck with boughs of joy!”. We had carol singing on the fore deck, midnight cake making in the Galley, bucks fizz on Christmas morning with our salmon and scrambled eggs breakfast and Cookie Dave produced an amazing 3 course Christmas dinner for all 47 people on board. Brilliant! There was a lovely atmosphere on board and although we all thought of our loved ones back home, I was grateful for being able to spend Christmas day with the crew who have become my extended family and best friends.

After a last inspection by customs, we cast off for the Chatham Islands on boxing day, where we stopped for 24hours We were obviously quite a sight as we came alongside in strong winds and half of the population (of 200 people) came down to see us. I spent the morning up the top of the main mast changing the rigging light then I joined most of the rest of the crew who had invaded the local hotel to use the wifi! 

Tonight, myself and the Chief Engineer will be doing a BBQ on the quayside which is always good fun for all involved. We hope to be able to stay alongside until tomorrow morning but this berth is quite weather dependent, so if the wind gets up too much, we might have to leave in the night and take to an anchorage.  I'm hoping to be able to do a morning run here before around 6 weeks at sea so fingers crossed the wind is kind tonight and we stay alongside! 

We will have the 32^nd of December (yes, the 32^nd) at sea as we cross the International Date line and work an extra day in 2013 before celebrating the New Year on the other side of the line. When we slip our berth here, it will be for the last time for 6 weeks as we strike out for Argentina via the Southern Ocean, Cape Horn and the Beagle Channel. It will be a tough crossing for everyone (and the ship) so please think of us in the coming weeks as we rock and roll through the Southern Ocean in our tall ship.

Please keep me training as we sail on into the New Year and donate at: www.justgiving.co.uk/Tam-at-sea

See you in 2014!