COMING OUT

Kitty van Hagen

(Kitty and Simon are circumnavigating - slowly - aboard their 45ft Duet.)

Coming out around the world! Duet is not easily laid on dry land. No, in common with all fast ladies she is happiest when dashing across the oceans of the world. Resting at anchor is fine, but when the barnacles get beyond our reach, or the weed too dense around her topsides and the antifouling has almost disappeared, then she must be taken out of the water and placed ashore.

So where is the problem? Surely a good, around-the-world-especially-designed-for-us, cruising yacht should be able to dry out at any time, any place, anywhere? The problem is her keel. Not for us the long straight number which takes the ground like a lady born to it, nor is it deep but flat on the bottom and no, there is no way that 'legs' would be of any use either. Duet's legs are indeed long, but that has nothing to do with propping her up once out of the water. She draws 2m and has a fin with a bomb-shaped bulb with wings. There is no way that the wings can be weight-bearing as they would distort. Therefore coming out of the water can present problems unless we have access to a hoist of some sort.

In Trinidad there was Peaks yard. This was by far the easiest haul-out we have ever experienced. The travel-lift there is a gigantic hoist which regularly plucks superyachts from the water as though they were toys in a bath. A 45ft yacht presented no problem. The hoist was so large that we didn't even have to remove the forestay. A bevy of lads dived under the hull to check that the slings were in the correct position, a whistle blew and, like Venus, Duet arose from the water. She was then deposited onto a long truck which trundled her to the allocated space ashore where, with the use of hydraulics, she was moved into the awaiting cradle and suspended until she was chocked off. That was all. The whole manoeuvre took about one hour. I can't remember the cost but I don't suppose it was that cheap. It was a smoothly operated job and we had no worries that our beloved home was going to fall over. The yard was spotlessly clean and constantly sprayed with water to keep the dust down. The downside was that they did a dreadful job of antifouling, so we had to come out of the water again much sooner than planned.

From Trinidad we sailed a long, long way before we could again take to the land, this time in Hawaii. Here was a small hoist and a wheezing tractor, which meant that we had to remove not just one forestay but both. This is not as easy a job as it sounds. Slack off the backstay, pull out the cotter (split) pins and there you are. First of all the two roller headsails have to be removed, folded and stowed. Then the outer stay is slacked off followed by the inner one, the attachment point for which is in a well below deck level (so that the drum is protected and the sail sets as low down the stay as possible). This is not a cutter rig, but two forestays parallel to each other. The outer stay takes the No.1 lightweight genoa which is either fully out or in and can also be poled out. The inner takes the working genoa, which can be rolled down to a small area. This one is the deck-sweeper, and with its attachment points below deck level is tricky to remove. We managed with a number of curses. Actually replacing it was far more difficult, as Simon had to pull down on the stay while I got my hands down the hole to link it all together. Our shore stay in Hawaii was rather costly as far as I can remember. It was also the dirtiest yard we have ever been in.

From Hawaii we fled to the North - Alaska and British Columbia - but it was on Vancouver Island that we decided to leave our moving home for the winter whilst we returned to Europe to catch up with family and friends. Coming out was again on our minds, as there was no way we wanted to leave our aluminium home in a marina. We travelled around and looked at the various options, and Simon talked to the yard managers as we also needed a bit of work done on our fair lady while we were away. The majority of the yard facilities had some kind of a rail with a sledge and pulley affair. We didn't fancy this - the keel, you know. Eventually we came across Canoe Cove, which had a small hoist and also seemed very capable of carrying out the work we wanted. It was a small and friendly yard who did excellent work on the boat at a very reasonable cost. Of course the forestays had to be removed, but this time around we knew how so it took us a lot less time. The only downside was that it was very cold working on the boat in March. We sailed away - fabulous antifouling so we slipped along at speed - and it wasn't until we reached San Francisco that we were again in need of a hoist. This time it was because the rudder bearings were grunting and grinding and there seemed to be rather too much play in the rudder stock for comfort, so a check on the rudder seemed appropriate.

Would you believe that it was difficult to find a berth in a marina for a 45ft yacht? It was also virtually impossible to store her ashore for any length of time. With the aid of friends we did find a yard, but again the hoist was barely large enough. It was never going to be particularly easy, as this time we had to have the boat lifted high enough to drop the rudder, a massive 2m barn door. However the very creative yard manager - of Dutch origins, Simon was happy to discover - decided that if we were to back into the hoist and be lifted out stern first we would not have to remove the forestays at all. This also meant that the hoist could lift us high enough off the ground to drop the rudder. At one stage I think I suggested it might be quicker to dig a pit beneath her, but this was not deemed practical. A good idea mind you. All went fairly smoothly, the bearing on the rudder stock was replaced, and she was back in the water within about three days. We enjoyed a trouble free sail down to Mexico, and then yet again Duet had to take to the land.

This time, 2001, we decided that the Mexican summer heat was not for us. It was unbelievably hot, a dry, dusty, desert heat that didn't cool off during the night. Frequently the wind blew hard off the mountains, but instead of cooling it was the breath of a hair dryer on full heat in your face. For various reasons we elected to put her ashore in La Paz. There was no hoist, just a sledge and a pulley. "No problem!" we were assured, "this we have done many times". Simon explained the problem with the keel and Carlos shrugged, "I fix the blocks myself, no problem".

The entrance to the slip was narrow, the depth shallow and the wind strong. A team of lads were on hand to take our lines and to hold us in position whilst Carlos dived into the water to fix the chocks under the keel. It took several attempts to wedge blocks of wood under the bulb so that Duet's weight was on the blocks and the bulb and not the wing tips. Not an easy job to do underwater. Several times he thought he had it right and the hydraulic arms on the sledge were fixed in place. Carlos then would peer underwater and no, it was not quite to his satisfaction, and he'd have another go. Eventually he was happy, and with a jerk and a shudder Duet was slowly towed up the ramp, four hours after we first entered the slip. They took the utmost care to make perfectly sure that she was stable, and we were impressed with the thoroughness of Carlos and the lad who operated the truck. The ramp, which formed part of a trolley, was then slowly rolled into the slot where she was to rest, stands erected around her to take the load and voilà - she was safe on dry land.

Safe was only relative, really. The dry storage area looked perfectly okay to inexperienced eyes, but we learned that the area is sand over rock and in some places mostly sand, and could become unstable if there should be torrential rains which washed serious amounts of the sand away. Of course this type of rain only ever occurs if there is a hurricane, which is rare in La Paz. Looking around our neighbours ashore we were stunned by their carelessness. We noticed several yachts which not only still had their sails bent on but also dinghies in the davits. Of course that year, 2001, Murphy's law prevailed and La Paz was hit by a hurricane. A cascade of twenty yachts crashed to the ground, but fortunately Duet was not amongst them. It seemed that where she stood the ground was solid, as quantities of sand was washed away from under the supports of several of the yachts that did fall. A narrow escape in La Paz.

We crossed the Pacific in 2002 and had absolutely no intention of coming out again until we reached New Zealand. Father Murphy had other plans. We were motoring slowly out of the harbour of Bora-Bora in the Society Islands of French Polynesia when there was an appalling judder and a shudder. A quick dive over the stern showed that one of the three blades of our propeller was missing. That put paid of our plans to visit various islands and atolls en route, but that's cruising for you. Fortunately we can e-mail from onboard and a new Gori folding propeller was ordered from Denmark. (Incidentally the prop took five days to reach Auckland and three weeks to get to Tonga!)

Under the swaying branches of a mango tree, sandwiched between a bar and a boat shed, was an ancient and rusty railway track. An antique engine and winch lay at the head of this track. It looked as though its use-by date had long ago expired. A 25ft fishing boat had been cranked up the slip, and even a boat that small looked too big for the equipment. John, who ran the yard, assured us that it would be possible to get Duet out of the water and that they had handled yachts her size before. As this was the only way we were going to be able to replace the propeller we had no alternative. It was with much trepidation that we were manoeuvred into position.

The 'sledge' was a rickety affair, with the supports clamped loosely on the edges. The four supports that would act as a cradle for Duet were uprights with rusty metal plates. On a newer or more modern piece of equipment these plates would have been padded, but these were just bare metal so we had to wedge pieces of wood between them and the hull. This was even trickier than it sounds. No sooner had I managed to get one support steady forward than the blocks on the aft one would fall out. In the meantime, several boys were under the water trying to fit more blocks under the keel, not made any easier by the muddy water. It was hot, frustrating, and clouds of mosquitoes added to the irritation.

As soon as the boys declared that the chocks under the keel were in place the signal was given to the winchman. The winch coughed into life and, with a belch of smoke, began the slow process of raising Duet from the water. As the water ceased to support her the weight was transferred to the keel. We held our breath as she lurched to one side and the chocks fell out from under the supports either side of her hull. She didn't fall over, but our stomachs lurched in sympathy. The winch line was released and she slid slowly back into the water. No harm done!

The whole laborious process began all over again. Three more attempts, and each time either the hull supports fell out or there were not enough blocks under the keel and she was in danger of sitting on the rudder. We began to think we'd never achieve it, but finally everything held and Duet was cranked up the track. There she sat, dripping, under the mango tree. Whilst Simon and I removed and replaced the propeller, John scrubbed her bottom and applied what antifouling we had left. As dusk fell Duet was ready to slide back into the water.

That was without doubt the most nerve-wracking coming out to date. At the moment (January 2003) Duet is afloat in a marina in Auckland, but in a month's time she will be coming out again...

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