“Genny is smoking” does not describe the good looking girl at the end of the Bar

Fremantle to Adelaide, Australia

In order to release the suspense left by my last blog, I can happily report that we managed to start the main engines! On top of this, we even managed to simulate a semblance of order by the time we pulled away from our Fremantle berth at 1000hrs on Monday 19^th August. It was a beautiful sunny day and all the voyage crew were out on deck waving goodbye to friends who were standing on the dock to see them off. The Chief Engineer (Marco) was kind enough to make me a coffee whilst I dashed up and down the stairs at his command to set the engines up for a long run (as there was minimal wind and not enough for sailing).

  

We have a lovely voyage crew mostly made up of Brits and Ozzies but with occasional American thrown in for good luck. We have four “Wheelies” (wheelchair users) on board as well as a few “Wobblies” (people who walk with crutches/sticks/walker etc.), a couple of blind people and a couple of deaf people as well as a whole host of other bods ranging from 16-78 years of age. Its great working with such a diverse group of people and it makes chatting at the ship’s bar a real pleasure!

As we sailed out of the (relative) shelter of the harbour, the swells started building and we were sailing in a direction that meant that the sea and wind were “up the chuff” (i.e. pushing from behind us). This makes Nelly roll like a pig and before long we had some green looking voyage crew. The next morning I walked across the deck for breakfast and had to step over lots of bodies who were tentatively sucking at pieces of dry toast!

My friend "Charlie" with his cheeky smile in the engine room

We had an entire day where I was almost entirely devoted to cleaning out our two grey water tanks using the ships “Charlie” (vacuum cleaner, see picture)….Not quite poo, but distinctly more smelly! Grey water is the water that drains from showers and sinks (as supposed to the black water that drains from the heads (toilets)). Although the job was smelly and minging and generally horrible- seeing Charlie’s smiley face always makes me happy…..Is that really sad?

However, this experience (once again) taught me that “Charlie”,” Tam” and “ladder” are three words that should never appear in a sentence together. 

Scene:

• Tam at bottom of ladder hovering out the scum at the bottom of the grey water tank.
• Charlie at the top of the ladder slowly filling up.
• Swell causes Charlie to fall down the ladder.
• Tam gets covered in grey water…..Lovely!

The sail to Albany saw us rounded the second of the great horns in Nelly’s “Sail the World” campaign: Cape Leeuwin. I wasn’t on board for her rounding the Cape of Good Hope, but I will be on to round Cape Horn in December. It was a lovely sail into Albany harbour as we had to alter course to avoid hitting a couple of Southern Right Whales that were swimming in the middle of the shipping channel. There are some beautiful islands around this part of Australia and I allowed myself to image running along the coastal paths.

Southern Right Whales in the channel entering Albany, South Australia

As we settled in Albany I went down into the engine room to change over generators so that we were using the Port genny instead of the Starboard genny. This is a standard procedure and involves:

1.       Initial check of the incoming genny

2.       Turn on incoming genny

3.       Check incoming genny and let it warm up

4.       Put incoming genny “on the board” and take the outgoing genny off (meaning that the new genny is now taking the load of the ship’s electrical needs)

5.       Allow outgoing genny to cool down and turn it off

6.       Final check of new genny

It was at number 6 that I noticed the smoke pluming out of the Port genny! I quickly turned the STBD genny back on and onto the board and turned the PT genny off and reported to the Chief. What had happened was that a fuel line had gone and leaked fuel onto the lagging on the exhaust which had heated up and started smoking. …..It was a near miss, but no damage was done (apart from a bit of smoke in the engine and no one was hurt. The only annoyance was that I spent the afternoon looking for spare parts and we had to work in a smokey engine room for a bit. As the Chief said, we didn’t even learn anything from it- it just illustrated how important all the checks are!

The fun continued on the way out from Albany where we responded to a bilge alarm only to find the engine room full of water! A rusty pipe connection had gone and thus allowed water to gush out of the refrigeration system. No major issue…Although it did take me the best part of the next day to suck all the water out of the bilge! :-S

 

Sailing into a new day on the way from Albany to Adelaide

I then spent 5 days lying in my cabin in the dark feeling rubbish. Somehow I managed to get a raging eye infection (in both eyes) that left me seriously visually impaired and feeling generally ill and weak. I feel awful for the extra work that this has put on Marco and the rest of the crew! Walking around the ship without being able to see anything has demonstrated to me just how well the Lord Nelson is set up for blind people. If someone as clumsy as me can navigate from my cabin (at the stern of the vessel) to the upper mess without tripping or falling down a ladder then it’s quite an achievement! Hurray for the Jubilee Sailing Trust (JST)!

Unfortunately, my week acting like a mushroom (being kept in the dark) has meant that I haven’t done any running training in preparation for the Marathon des Sables which I’m going to be running to raise money for the JST! Whilst I realise that getting my eyes properly treated in Adelaide hospital should be higher on my “worry list”, I’ve had a lot of time lying in the dark imagining running in the Sahara desert and listening to the audiobook of Rosie Pope’s “Run around the world” which has been a constant source of inspiration in the dark. I am slowly realising just how difficult it is going to be doing enough training and preparation before the Marathon des Sables in April…..Does working in an engine room full of smoke count as heat training for the Sahara?

www.justgiving.com/Tam-at-sea

Lord Nelson's naked bottom and poo pipes- Dry dock and Maintenance in Fremantle, Western Australia

I joined the SV Lord Nelson (Nelly) when she was in dry dock in a BAE yard in Fremantle (near Perth, Australia). Seeing her naked hull for the first time I couldn’t help thinking that she looked a little vulnerable and exposed. Dry dock was busy and made busier when some of the BAE yard workers sandblasted a couple of holes in the bow of the ship so that, standing in the fo'c’sle heads you could see a 2 foot diameter circle of daylight on either side. I was just glad that we had found the weakness in the hull in dry dock and not when we were bumping into ice in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica!

SV Lord Nelson (Nelly) in Dry Dock in Fremantle, Western Australia

Each day started at 0530hrs when we woke and drove to the yard in full PPE to turn on the breakers and the water pump. The days ended at around 1800hrs although some days were disrupted when they painted the hull with anti-foul paint (which is poisonous). Dry dock work included; changing pumps, rebuilding sewage pipework, removing poo filled 4” diameter metal pipes from the fo'c’sle to allow the hole in the hull to be repaired etc.

On the final dry dock day we all started a little and BAE workers also came on board as we all rushed around doing our respective last minute work and pre-departure checks. The engineering department was particularly busy with checks before we entered the water. Hull integrity is a major part of the engineering remit and we had had a lot of work done on many of the valves that connect the sea to the inside of the ship! We scattered volunteers in all areas of the bilge where we had done work so that they were ready to let us know immediately if any leaks occurred. The ship was moved onto the platform and slowly lowered into the water…..We had leaks in every single compartment!...Nightmare! Needless to say there was a lot of frantic activity and onlookers watched Nelly go into the water, come back out of the water and go back into the water a couple of times before everything was sealed and we had engines on and were floating. We moved onto the next door berth for a few hours to wait for the pilot and after a 10minute lunch we all set about to work again so that we worked straight through until the pilot came and we sailed into Fremantle. We arrived, exhausted, at 1900hrs and had just started to close the ship down for the evening when the harbour staff informed us that we would had to move again! ….An hour and a half later and we were finally able to take some rest in our bar! It was a long day of hard work, but the prospect of a lie in for a 0830hrs breakfast kept spirits high throughout.

Between the dry dock and the first two days alongside in Freo, I was mostly climbing underneath and between the tanks in the forward pump room measuring up new pipes to connect the black water pump and the black water tanks….Yes, I was making new poo pipes. This was made particularly difficult by: the small spaces involved in the forward pump room, the large (and reasonably heavy) blue piping and the high that I kept getting off the glue! We were restricted to using the outside male toilets during dry dock and had to use “porta-potties” and nearby public toilets until I finished the piping. However, I eventually got it all connected and was rewarded by hugs from most of the volunteers! To top off my day I was allocated as NOB (duty officer), which meant that I couldn’t drink and had to spend the evening locking up and checking the ship.

The next day ended up being just as long; morning NOB duties, rounds, finishing off the blue poo pipe, cleaning and re-commissioning the sewage plant and removing the cooler from one of the engines. The only rest bite was a surprise lunch time visit from an engineering buddy which gave me an excuse to get off the ship for 30mins and have good coffee and a chat with a friend. (Once again proving that it is the small things in life that keep us all happy and sane). 

Blue poo pipes!!!!

The poo theme continued with the fo’csle poo pipes taking up a couple of days, bleaching and re-painting the sewage plant taking up a couple of days and a broken black water pump taking up another. I also spent a couple of days where my primary task was prepping both of the foc’sle heads which involved sitting on the stern platform in the pouring rain, scrubbing the toilets with a wire brush and grinder….living the dream. The “pooey jobs” were interspersed with other jobs such as taking on 1400 litres of fuel (bunkering), doing daily rounds, maintaining the fire fighting gear and generally running around like a blue arsed fly trying to assist the Chief engineer and the volunteer maintainers. 

On another night I enjoyed an incredibly random visit from a friend I hadn’t seen for over eleven years! We had nearly met up on a number of occasions in random cities over the world- between my offshore work and her work in mining we were rarely in our respective native countries (UK and New Zealand) so it seemed appropriate that we met up in the neutral land of Australia! Working internationally is great, but it does make keeping up with friends/sports clubs/volunteer work etc. extremely difficult.

We “finished” maintenance (as much as maintenance is ever finished) with a two day visit from an MCA surveyor. He inspected the ship to check that it would be safe for us to sail to Antarctica and carried out the annual audit of our safety management system. This meant that we carried out a fire drill and evacuation drill and (for an added challenge) he covered up the face mask of me and my fellow fire fighter (Jim, the Bosun) so we had to feel our way down the ladder and around into the passageway to fight the (simulated) fire. Once we retreated from the fire location we had to hastily remove our fire fighting kit and don our immersion suits (also known as the “telly tubby outfits”). Three of the volunteer maintainers were asked to pretend that they were wheel chair users so that we could prove that, as a ship, we are able to get our disabled crew to safety too. The MCA surveyor stressed the challenges that we will face sailing in Antarctic Waters and highlighted a number of ways that we could adapt our current practices in order to work in this harsh environment.  

I’ve been pretty good (ish) at waking up early to go for a run in the mornings and I’ve even found a nice beach that I can run along to try and get some dune training in for the MdS! It’s really hard work especially when my day job is quite physically demanding too. However, I’m running for a good cause (JST) and it’s going to be an amazing experience! (http://www.justgiving.com/Tam-at-Sea)

We finished maintenance with an extremely long day trying to finish up everything that needing getting ready for the next voyage crew to arrive. Of course nothing ever goes to plan and lots of extra things (including tasks that the MCA surveyor needed us to carry out) kept adding to the mayhem. On top of this, the two main engines decided that they didn’t want to turn on! So I shall leave you with the cliff hanger where it is 2030hrs and there are four very hungry and tired engineers (including the engine specialist and the technical manager) standing at the top of the staircase discussing the next actions required to work out why the engines won’t start and how to rectify the problem in time to sail out for the next voyage to Adelaide…..

…TO BE CONTINUED

Standing on the wall whilst trying to have a dry shower- Tall Ship Race Aarhus (Denmark) to Helsinki (Finland)

At the start of the race

The city of Aarhus had certainly pulled out all the stops to entertain the crews when over 100 tall ships and yachts sailed into the harbour. I signed onto my ship (SV Tenacious) just in time to enjoy the crew party where I embarrassed myself by dancing salsa with the bosun and various members of the Mexican Navy.

The tall ships races are organised by Sail Training International and see over 100 sailing ships racing in different areas of the world each year. There are different classes of ship ranging from class A which describes all the square riggers with a length of over 40m (such as SV Tenacious) to modern rigged yachts (with a water line length over 9.14m).

The next day the new voyage crew arrived on board and carried out a number of drills including an abandonment drill and a “first actions” fire drill. This basically means that myself and the bosun had to don our fire PPE (personal protective equipment) and BA (breathing apparatus) sets and be “prepared to fight a fire”. This was the first time I had donned the kit in real time so I managed to pull both spare BA sets off the shelf in my hurry to don my kit….whoops!

Overtaking on day 1

Part of my job is to be “on bells” every other night which means that if any alarms go off in the night they sound in my cabin for two minutes before going into general alarm. To prevent it from going into general alarm (which wakes up the entire ship) I have to accept the alarm in the machinery control room (MCR) which involves clambering out of my bunk, running about 150m (including two flights of stairs) and passing through 5 doors without waking up anybody else…..all in under  two minutes! 

If I’m “on bells” I’m the on-call engineer which, on this night meant that I was woken up at 0405hrs to turn on the engines as we needed more speed. In a slightly masochistic way, this is actually one of my favourite parts of the job as I feel particularly useful and being on call reminds me of being on the RNLI lifeboat in Aberdeen, UK.

The third day and night produced really heavy seas and high winds gusting up to 40 knots in some areas and we raced along at over 11knots. In the morning The Captain announced that one of the older tall ships (a Norwegian vessel built in 1898 called “Wyvern”) sank in the early hours of the morning. Initially the report stated that no lives were lost, but during the course of the day we understood the whole tragedy. The Wyvern started taking on water and a nearby tall ship (“The Wilde Swan”) came to stand by to offer assistance. All 10 crew from Viva were winched up by helicopter when it was decided that the ship was lost whilst crew of The Wilde Swan managed to get a couple of salvage pumps to run. Three of The Wilde Swan crew volunteered to go onto the Viva and try to pump her out. They only got one pump working but managed to pump out the forward part of the ship. Unfortunately the aft section was still heavy with seawater so the ship suddenly up ended and sank bow upwards. Two of The Wilde Swan volunteers managed to jump free of the sinking ship, but the third crew member became caught in the rigging when the ship suddenly up ended and started sinking and was lost. The news hit home the dangers of tall ship sailing and we can only pray for the poor soul lost at sea.

As a sail training vessel we take calculated risks and the Captain was quick to state that the risk is part of the training as we all have to come together to ensure safety through team work. However, I think the following announcement of forecasted heavier seas and stronger winds was consequently taken a little more seriously.

We have been extremely busy in the engineering department during the heavy seas as we are having issues with both the sewage plant and the freezer. On top of this, we have to turn the main engines on (in neutral) every four hours in order to lubricate the propeller shafts (as the propellers are spinning in the water due to the high ship speed and the lubrication is only produced by the action of the engine). Working is made difficult by the strong winds and heavy seas as the deck is currently angled at around 40° to port and we are pitching an additional 40° forward and back. Over 60% of the voyage crew are seasick which is making sail handling a little light handed (but at least it means there is always second helpings at meal times!) 

We remained in heavy seas and at a ridiculous angle for a few days so that both voyage and permanent crew started to feel the strain. (It is hard work when you constantly have to walk at an angle and have to rugby tackle doors open!) One of these nights I was on bells and the noise of the sails, sea and wind and the uncomfortable tack angle (that meant I was in a constant battle with my lee cloth- the piece of material that is rigged up to stop me from falling out of bed) did not allow me any sleep.  So, at 0200hrs I gave up and went to turn the engines so that by the time I did get to sleep it was well past 0300hrs. I awoke at the usual time and immediately sorted out the engines. However, I was shocked to see the unimpressed face of the Chief Engineer….Apparently I had slept right through an alarm at 0330hrs! Apart from the fact that it is my job to respond to the alarms, I was very worried as they are safety critical! However, I think it was a culmination of bunged up sinuses from a cold and lack of sleep….I still owed the Chief a beer and the Captain a massive apology though!

As punishment, I had to spend the entire morning in the forward pump room stuck behind one of the fresh water tanks, changing the element in the calorifier (which had earthed during the night and set off the alarm)…..This was less than uncomfortable given the amount that the ship’s bow was banging against the waves! The rest of the day was spent problem solving the freezer with the Chief (who had, by then, forgiven me slightly). 

After another day that started off at an angle of 40° to starboard (making getting out of bed more of an effort than usual) the wind completely dropped off so that, by the evening, we were barely making any way at all. We could only hope that the other vessels were facing the same issues, although, the first ship (a modern rigged yacht) crossed the finish that morning. 

Changing a light bulb at the top of the foremast

I spent the next day mostly doing plumbing; creating new piping for the freezer plant. On top of that I completed the usual daily maintenance, rounds, sucked out some of the bilges and reacted to little bits and bobs as they occurred including changing a light bulb (at the top of the foremast). It turned into a beautiful sunny day and we could see one other tall ship on the horizon as well as the island “Gotland”….I love my job!

I was on duty again that night so I drank a ridiculous amount of coca cola and ate lots of sugar and kept my fingers crossed that I would hear any alarms (as well as getting up at 0300hrs to turn the engines as usual).  

One of the main difficulties that we had during the trip was a serious water shortage problem. We had the amount of water that would usually last one day, with at least three days sailing ahead of us….. Our fresh water is held in five tanks, but there is no separation, so we have one load of fresh water that has to last us for food, drinking water, shower, laundry and washing etc. The voyage crew were really good and conserved water wherever possible, but it was still really tight and we nearly had to enforce a complete shower ban to make sure we had enough to drink and cook with. The lack of water was especially difficult for the engineering department when we had really dirty jobs and were unable to wash up properly. One day I took apart the plumbing that connects the oily bilge tank to the oily water separator and cleaned out the blockage. This involved getting covered in smelly, dirty, oily water and at the end of the day I had to put a tiny amount of water on me and cover myself with soap before wiping myself down with a (subsequently very dirty) towel….The joys of living at sea! 

After another period of heavy seas and high winds we all (once again) endured standing on the walls (due to the angle of the ship) and worked hard so that we finished the race in 6^th position in class and 33rd overall! On top of that but we finished with the freezer working (thanks to my superior plumbing skills), the bilge pump back on line and all systems go!   

All that was left was to continue to conserve water (most of our voyage crew carried this out by drinking beer instead of water) and elbowing our way into Helsinki harbour amidst 100 other tall ships and yachts! 

Next stop….Freemantle, Australia.

Making the most of time "onshore" - a young girls dream of Vietnam

Of course one of the advantages of being a professional seafarer is the time onshore when I’m not working… 

I must have been around 16 years old when I created a “list of things to do before I’m 30” because, at the time, I clearly believed that you had somehow “passed your prime” at 30….hmmm. The list mostly describes trekking routes and countries that I wanted to visit but it also included experiences such as “seeing the Pope at the Vatican on Christmas day” and “getting a dog”. (For your information I achieved the former in 2002 but it looks like I’m going to fail at the latter). I took stock at the age of 25 when I discovered that I had achieved most of my list and I spent a couple of years feeling pretty happy with myself…..Then I started adding to my list. It appears that the more I travel and experience, the further I want to travel and the more I want to experience!   

One of the non-movers on my list was the high priority entry of “visiting Vietnam”. The reason I had never done it was three fold: 

1)      Lack of money when I had time 

      2)      Lack of time when I had money 

      3)      I wanted to “do it right” (refer to reasons 1 and 2)

So, when I thought I was going to be on a ship working off Vietnam I took a leap of faith and booked a trip….Naturally, I left the company before the ship went to Vietnam *sigh*

So, last month I spent the most wonderful three weeks in Vietnam. I started in Hanoi where I met up with an old University friend and visited Halong Bay. We spent a magical night floating on a boat between seamounts that rose majestically out of the water, under a sky glowing with stars where all we could hear was the sound of the animals on the nearby mounts and the occasional plop of the fishermen’s nets. I realise the irony of spending time on a boat when on holiday, but I make much more sense on a boat!

I then met up with a group and we cycled around 70km every day to travel from Hanoi down to Ho Chi Minh. The cycling was tough (very tough on some days- e.g. 15km up a 10% incline!!!) but it was worth it to be part of the scenery and to have the blessing of space and tranquility that cycling allows. We travelled through paddy fields, tiny Vietnamese villages, over mountain passes, along the coast and around various temples and palaces. Cycling through the villages was brilliant as the children would always come running out to wave at us and shout “hello” and try to slap our hands as we passed. These moments where usually closely followed by Water Buffalo altercations- Vietnamese Water Buffalo become more agitated further South and find joy in splashing me with muddy water as they run in front of my bicycle! 

Cycling down highway 1 was a bit of a dichotomy in landscape, but the atmosphere it created knowing what happened there and with that famous picture fresh in my mind made it a hard road to cycle on without being in constant prayer for the children of the war.

The day after we arrived in Ho Chi Minh I took a tour to the Mekong River Delta. Here we explored some of the islands and enjoyed various different traditional boats and canoes (yes, I was back on the water!) It was incredible paddling up the small tributaries between the islands as you got a real sense of how awful it must have been for the soldiers and fighters (on both sides). The rain here can be torrential and this creates natural booby traps in the mud on the islands and must have made fighting both physically and psychologically exhausting. Add to this the fact that the tributaries wind and bend back on themselves and are covered with high grasses so that you could never be sure which direction you are travelling. It was really humbling to experience it.

If anyone is considering travelling to Vietnam, then just go! The country is beautiful, the people are really friendly and the culture and history is just awe inspiring. 

Tamsin Smith 01-07-2013