Fixing sailboats at sea
Sailing over 4500NM across the pacific ocean and for a month in Greece on broken boats.
To begin my travels I tried to sail to Europe from NZ.
I found a crew of 3 looking for a hitchhiker on Facebook and flew to meet them in a tiny island South of Tahiti.
From there we took shifts and hand-sailed 4500+ Nautical miles day and night over 42 days - against the wind - to Easter island, where I left to fly to Chile.
The boat had been serviced in Tubuai, Tahiti by criminals that left the boat in dangerous condition - something we only discovered in the middle of the ocean.
During the voyage we:
Re-tensioned a bent mast using a luggage scale and ruler to measure tension on cables.
Replaced screws that were falling out of the mast and caused a sail carriage to break. The boom also almost fell off!
Repaired ancient sails that were falling apart while using them, re-rigged a lot of the boat.
Plugged up leaks all around the boat.
What I learned:
How to
hand sail and handle/control, change sails on and repair and service a 40ft boat day and night in sometimes rough conditions thousands of kilometres from land.
get along with a small and sometimes difficult crew in very cramped conditions for over a month while sleep deprived.
navigate oceans, islands, and predict weather.
stay resilient when you are sailing backwards for days at a time because of weather and broken equipment.
stay safe at sea and during rough weather. (Sometimes 4M+ swells, sometimes 2M waves, 50kt+ winds)
A few months later, I was invited to join the people I had met in Berlin on a month-long sailing voyage in Greece.
This involved more of the same - repairing, servicing and re-building parts of the boat before putting it in the water.
The boat was also in constant flux (falling apart) while sailing and thus the trip was half holiday and half repairs.