I have previously alluded to the
fact that there is another woman in Mel’s life. Her name is Passages.
I call Passages Mel’s mistress as
he spends so much time and energy fixing her, cleaning her and attending to her
every need. Passages is a very obliging
mistress as she does exactly as he says, no backchat or questions asked. He is
continually spending a considerable amount of money on her; a wife could get
rather jealous!
I know it is essential for Mel to
devote so much time, energy and money on Passages, as she is our moving home.
Our safety and lives depend on her, so I thought I would let you know a little
more about Mel’s mistress.
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| Photo taken by Mira on Fata Morgana. |
Passages is an Island Packet – a
type of yacht that many people refer to as the “Cadillac” of ocean sailing
yachts. She is 40 feet long – well in actual fact with the bow sprit, she is
41ft 6inches or 12,65m. (The bow sprit is what I sometimes refer to as the “Titanic
bit”, you know when Leo and Kate did their “thing” at the front of the boat in
the film)
She weighs 10.3 tonnes/22800
pounds – empty (She is rather heavy). She has a full keel which makes manoeuvring
her in very tight spots like marina’s quite an issue and because of her weight
and the full keel, she is not very fast. She is what many would refer to as
“slow and steady”.
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| Master Cabin |
Her other sails are a genoa which
is 130% Sobstad roller furling sail. This is the sail that really drives
Passages forward and it is a HUGE sail.
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| Main Saloon |
Passages is a very heavy boat so
she needs winds of 12+ knots to make her move efficiently. She is, after all,
an ocean going vessel.
When we don’t want her to move,
we put down her main anchor which is a 66lb claw anchor. She also has a
secondary anchor which we have needed when we lost our main anchor leaving the
BVI’s. This anchor is a 35lb Delta. Passages also has a stern anchor which is a
20lb Danforth. There are times when you need to use a stern (back) anchor, but
as yet we have not used it although we could have in some situations when the
wind and the tide have pushed us in all different and opposing directions.
To bring the anchor up we have an
anchor Windlass which is a Lofrans Tigres 1500watt. There are many sailors out
there that don’t have a windlass. They bring up the anchor manually. You often
hear them cranking up the anchor – it does seem to take forever but like most
things on a boat you have to always have a back-up in case the electrics fail.
We try hard not to use the engine,
but because Passages is a heavy yacht she does not turn very easily without
lots of wind, unlike some boats like cats that are much lighter to manoeuvre.
We put the engine on when we are about to enter an anchorage and there are
other boats around.
Passages, as mentioned before, is
our moving house which means she has to have all the necessary equipment needed
for us to live comfortably, for example power, water, sanitation,
communications, living quarters, kitchen/galley and a vehicle to get from the
boat to land.
Passages also has a 400watt Air-X
wind generator which is useful particularly at night when there is lots of wind
and on some passages between places as the wind generator keeps the auto pilot
going. On-board Passages there is also a 2kW portable Honda Generator which we
have not needed to use since installing the new two 325watt solar panels.
Passages has a 170 gallon (U.S.)
fresh water tank. She also has a 12V Spectra Santa Cruz water maker which has
two feed pumps. Since having added the two bigger solar panels, we have been
able to be a bit more liberal with our use of water, as we can now make water
almost every day when the solar panels have reached absorption level which is
usually around 11-12h00. When the two water maker pumps are working we can make
14 gallons (U.S.) per hour otherwise if we only use one of the feed pumps we
make approximately 8 gallons (U.S.) per hour.
We only make water when we are in
clean anchorages and after testing the water using a TDS meter.
Passages has two heads –
toilets/showers. One is at the bow of the boat off the main cabin which is our
room and the other is on the port side opposite the galley/kitchen as you come
down the walk way/companion way. If you close one of its doors it could be like
a bathroom en-suite for the aft/back cabin.
Passages has a 35 gallon (U.S.)
holding tank with each head/toilet having a head that flushes manually. I would
love the heads to be electric as it is one luxury from home I have missed, to
be able to just push a button to flush the loo.
When we have to clear the holding
tank we use the macerator pump – it is a Jabsco unit. It grinds up the holding
tanks contents into an extremely fine watery substance that just disappears
into the sea. There are no floaters!
A bit of useless information –
there are 21 holes/outlets in Passages hull (8 below the waterline and 13 above
the waterline). One would think that a boat should not have ANY holes in its
hull but….
Here is a table showing you where
the hole is and the reason for the hole:
Hole/Outlet
|
Quantity
|
Reason
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Both Heads
|
2
|
Direct discharge to the sea or via the macerator
|
Sinks/Hand Basins
|
3
|
Water to drain out of the sink(galley) or hand
basins(Heads/Bathrooms)
|
Air conditioner/anchor wash
|
2
|
Inlet and outlet for the air conditioner cooling
water or water for washing the anchor chain
|
Refrigeration cooling water
|
2
|
Inlet and outlet of cooling water for the
refrigeration unit
|
Water maker
|
2
|
Inlet of sea water feed and outlet of the brine
from the water maker
|
Engine raw water and Heads supply
|
2
|
Inlet and outlet of the engines cooling water and
inlet for flushing the heads
|
Icebox drain
|
1
|
Outlet from the icebox or refrigeration
compartments
|
Shower sump drain
|
1
|
Waste water from the showers collect in a sump,
before being pumped overboard
|
Bilge pump outlet
|
2
|
There is an automatic bilge pump and a manual
bilge pump, each with its own outlet
|
Cockpit scuppers
|
2
|
These are the drains in the cockpit, in case
water washes into the cockpit
|
Depth sounder
|
1
|
The depth sounder is adjusted to read the water
below the keel
|
Speed sensor
|
1
|
The speed sensor consists of a paddle wheel that
is rotated by the water moving over the keel
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Communications and safety on-board
any sailing vessel is of extreme importance. On Passages there is an ICOM
IC-M710 SSB/HF radio for long distance communication and for sending or
receiving emails, receiving weather data/faxes, etc. She also has a Standard
Horizon GX3000s VHF radio for line-of-sight communications and a Vesper Marine
GX850 AIS (Automatic Identification System) transponder for monitoring
commercial traffic and other vessels that have transponders.
The Navigational equipment
on-board consists of a Chart plotter, Radar, Autopilot, Wind Speed/Direction
and Depth sounder. All are Raymarine units. Passages also has a comprehensive
set of paper charts, in case of an electronic failure. Our laptops also have
electronic copies of the paper charts and there are several handheld GPS units
available for linking to the laptops.
Passages has the required safety
equipment – an EPIRB which is only used in emergencies. On our life jackets, we
each have a personal AIS system. This is IF one of us should go overboard, the
other would activate the MOB (Man Overboard) on the Chart plotter and the
person who has gone overboard activates their personal AIS The chart plotter
and the AIS system assists the person on board to locate the MOB.
Passages also has all the
required flares (day/night/hand held flares), a six man life raft, a grab bag with
copies of all our important documents, some cash, water, food – all the
requirements for a grab bag if we need to use the life raft and leave Passages
in the middle of the ocean which is something we DO NOT intend having to do!
Passages also has a smoke
detector and CO2 detector on board.
Passages’ limo or taxi, as we
often refer to our dinghy, is a Caribe 10,3 RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) with a
Yamaha 15HP 2 stroke outboard motor. It also has two oars which we have used on
occasions instead of using the motor. The dinghy also has a seat in it for
Mel’s No.1 woman in his life to sit on. Before we had the seat, I would have to
sit on the side of the dinghy and when Mel wanted to put on some speed so we
could get onto a plane, I would often feel as if I was about to fall into the
water head first, plus I would always get wet!! Now with the seat I feel a
little safer although I still get wet!
In the Galley/kitchen, Passages
has a Princess x3 gas burner Stove and Oven and a Glacier Bay Fridge/Freezer
which takes up lots of power.
There is also a small TV and DVD
player on board Passages, although we have hardly used them this year.
Mel’s mistress, is a very
comfortable boat – she has all that one requires on a yacht although a dish
washer and washing machine would be handy at times, but
fortunately/unfortunately, there is no space let alone the power consumption
that those appliances would consume.
I have come to realise and I have
to live with the fact (because there is not much I can do about it), that Mel’s
mistress is now an integral part of his life who requires a lot of TLC and
money!
At least, as Mel’s No.1 woman in
his life, I know his mistress intimately and I know her name….. her name is
Passages.
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| Passages in Portsmith Dominica photo taken by Mira on Fata Morgana |
