Newbie Sails Into A Storm With Family Aboard

your first real sale is supposed to be what dreams are made of you've sunk your life savings into a boat spent years fixing her up and it's finally time for that payoff sail into the sunset but our first passage was not quite that first we lost the autopilot then we misjudged the weather and sailed into a storm it's a whole lot worse than we thought then we had a major radio fail radio and then at night I almost crashed into the back of our buddy boat in the morning the port engine mounts broke so we lost an engine and an hour later the other engine stopped working because I may have ran over something but before we get into it let me give you a quick Life update we are this close from moving aboard and starting to cruise full-time over the past few months we've been selling off everything in the house and fixing all the things the kids have broken over the past 10 years why do they need to draw on everything we've been prepping the boat fixing the engines and somehow we have to fit everything left in our 2500 ft house into a couple of cabins and storage lockers it's been crazy but we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel back to our Maiden passage it was me Mary and two of our four kids those those two right there actually we just finished a year in the Boatyard and we just splashed the boat back into the water 2 days earlier our Boatyard neighbors were about to sail across Panama and they invited us to Buddy boat the problem was we didn't really know how to sail at the time we had done a short sea trial to make sure the repairs that we' done held together and I got a crash course on all the basics of sailing so the gray is the water right kidding I know I know oh my God but I hadn't even docked the boat by myself one time but the bigger problem was we needed to bring this boat from Panama all the way back to Texas which is like a 2 we sale and we couldn't afford to pay a captain $10,000 to do it so we had to learn somehow I'm not one to back down from a challenge so when my buddy Colin asked hey bro you want to come to bcus with us I was like for sure dude we're in but any chance you can let me borrow one of your crew just to have an extra hand you know enter Jamie Jamie aka the big fella first mate on parlay Revival we probably it up and we definitely wouldn't have made it without him so they were leaving from Shelter Bay and we were leaving from Linton Bay and our goal was to get to bcus deloro 30 hours this way but first we had to meet somewhere in the middle of the ocean the problem is neither of us had AIS which is a tracking beacon on your boat that broadcasts your location so other ships can see you and not crash neither of us had radar either you have a radar NOP no radar so basically we were just winging it they go this way we go that way and after about 6 hours we would meet somewhere over here all right this is actually happening we had gone from watching sailing YouTube from the couch to sailing on our own boat but I was too nervous to enjoy it Jamie pulled us out of the marina and just like that we were sailing the best part was I finally had the family with [Music] me from the beginning we were having issues with the autopilot it would work for an hour but then it would give out and start alarming now autopilot on a boat is nothing like on a Tesla all it's supposed to do is hold a heading so you don't have to pull on the steering wheel the whole time because it gets tiring really fast we could get it working again by running downstairs and resetting the whole navigation system like this a bit annoying but not too big of a deal now finding each other in the middle of the ocean was supposed to be the hardest part of this trip but by late afternoon we actually spotted them right at the Horizon Jamie saw them [Music] first I see nothing I don't know how he sees anything nothing oh I see it I see just like a shadow of a mast so apparently they had seen us way earlier and were chasing us as we pulled away we had turned the engines on to charge the batteries because our battery batter are trash it runs the autopilot for a few hours and then there's no more juice so we're running the engine so it can charge keep our autopilot going this meant we were motor sailing which means we're sailing with the motors on which makes us a couple of knots faster so for hours they were trying to catch up as we were pulling away so we want to go that way but we're coming straight into the window the just to try catch up to him a little bit we just thought they were taking their time you know eventually they had to go Full Throttle on both engines as a Las ditch effort to catch us before it got dark none of which I knew at the time so you're probably wondering why they didn't just radio us to slow [Music] down well we may or may not have had our radio on or on the right channel every time we turn get close to today to see if they're okay or make some sort of communication cu the radio's off turn into like Dam C I could have swore it was on here's one of their crew trying to Signal us pointing at the radio I just thought he was waving at me out of the pure joy of finding us in the middle of the ocean but apparently they had been getting extremely frustrated that we weren't responding quite frustrating merry merry marry I don't think this is a very good idea flying this drone while we're sailing it's quite windy and it's a really expensive drone that his brother gave him Landing a drone on a boat is one of the most difficult parts of making boat videos you can't not get the epic shots but every time it flies there's basically a 10% chance that you'll never see that drone again taking off is easy you just throw it into the air but landing you got to time the vertical movement of the Waves plus the constantly changing boat speed your instinct is just like reach up and grab it but if you overshoot even slightly your fingers get sliced up by the props oh my God and if you wait too long then the boat shifts and it [Music] crashes yeah we did it we did it we didn't lose the Drone I missed it the first time around it went through the shroud and The Mask almost hit Jamie in the face between boat work and moving out of the house and the four kids we're spread so thin right now and coffee alone is not cutting it so for the past 2 weeks I've been taking this mental performance shot called Magic mind and it actually works when I drink a bunch of coffee I'm definitely less tired but I also get that annoying amped up feeling you know magic mine has 12 natural ingredients that improve focus while reducing stress one of them is eleanine which extends your body's absorption of caffeine and reduces cortisol yes I actually researched it it's literally a caffeine hack that keeps me alert for longer and cuts out the Jitters so I hide my stash up there because the kids are obsessed with the tiny bottles if you're looking for a mental boost and a bit more energy you have to try these shots they're awesome and it actually works the only downside is it's not cheap but use code David sheet2 for a huge discount they have a 100 day refund policy no questions asked and you'll really support this channel if you check them out so just as it starts to get dark they finally catch up to us and I'm thinking okay it's smooth sailing from this point on we just worry about P coming up behind us yep we just uh put in a reef because it's night time and control hang on something happens to p and they're going to turn up wind they're going to hit us and we still have no idea that they had been gunning the engines trying to catch us they were screaming something but we couldn't quite make it out and radio on 72 I told you 69 we just trying to make sure you're oh yeah yeah they should be fast guys I've been taking you for hours trying to see if you're okay you keep running away from us Channel 69 lights on yeah I'm trying to fix the nav lights right now no nav lights so we just have the anchor laid on and the autopilot keeps cutting in and out so that's why we're all over the shop batteries are bad man so we got to run the engine if you got an engine running you should be able to keep up with us yeah all right we'll follow you okay standing M Channel 69 that's a 6 and then a nine 69 Jamie's favorite number 69 I Pat 69 lesson learned radio needs to be on and on the right [Music] [Music] channel are the kids down they are down but they're still awake and it's already like midnight we try to get them down around 9 or 10 because that's the only time we have alone otherwise they're all up in our space anyways they're down life Pro tip don't have four kids like two is plenty all right so that beeping you're hearing that's actually the autopilot failing so it tries to hold and then if the wind or the waves or whatever pushes it off course then it'll start beeping and tell you hey take over cuz it'll start swerving and it started happening more and more late into the evening it was like every 10 minutes we'd have to do the whole reset thing and eventually it just would stop working all together so that means we were hand steering at 2:30 in the morning they come downstairs and they're like Mary we need your help and they're like the autopilot is out we need to hand steer but we're so tired and hand steering is like the most annoying thing to do you're like holding this and you're just like rocking the waves just putting you to sleep this is my first time steering ever and they say that's parlay in front of us you see that tiny little light just follow that so that's the Stern Light it's like a Flicker and you have no idea how close or far you are to it so jam is sleeping here on the bench next to me David's up there and I'm just like this glued and I'm like this and so the boat if you move it slightly to the left or to the right it just goes or this way or that way anyway Jamie every little bit he'd wake up and say Mary you're off course like God dang how does he know that it took a little while but I got the hang of it it was so tiring Mary wakes me up I'm like taking this seriously now I'm like Captain okay I'm like boom I'm steering both hands on the wheel 11 and whatever 10 and 2 and focused I'm watching that Stern Light but then I feel like it's getting too far away and I'm terrified that parlay is going to leave and then we just have nothing to follow I'm just going to turn on the engines a little bit and then Jamie's like oh you probably shouldn't do that you're going to get us too close but then Jamie goes downstairs and I'm like I'm just going to do it a little bit just so I can catch up I'm just driving and steering I'm in a days right and out of nowhere it was like a Ghost Ship appearing out of the fog and I'm like oh and I swerve everything moves really slowly on a boat so you're swerve but it's like really slow and then once it goes then it goes like too far and so I almost crash into the back of our buddy boat so mistake number whatever this one is don't follow too close to the boat in front of you we thought it would be another 14 hours to Bo just smooth sailing but that's actually when the real problem started happening oh my God it's crazy out there it's this is crazy me the kids woke up to this huge storm going on outside Jamie and David are upstairs soaking wet we've got a sick one here two times last night and this morning she's not feeling well one of our engines are broken not the engine itself the two mounts that the engine sits on have separated from the rubber so it's shifted off about an inch we can't use the port engine what is that smell and I remember just standing right here looking down at the engine watching it run and I could see it shifting with each wave as it went up it would rock up this way as we were cresting a wave and then fall back down as we went down the other side of the wave I was like is that normal and at that point the Sail Drive was the only thing holding the engine in place so I screamed up to Jamie P engine off one engine it's not the end of the world except an hour into running that starboard engine we hear this huge bang and then everything shuts off and it's complete silence which is a Eerie feeling in the middle of the ocean we immediately try to start it back up but nothing happens it's completely stuck in gear and I can't get it out and of course I come check the engine and everything looks fine I can't see anything weird I'm wiggling against the shifter trying to like pop it into neutral while Jamie is up there wiggling the throttle nothing happens and then Jamie's like we probably ran over something so I'm ready to just jump in and take a look because we're just floating at this point but Jamie's like whoa whoa whoa you should tie a line to yourself so you don't just float away instantly I see the same dock line that I have tied around me wrapped up around our propeller we put our own line is it yeah we caught a line This rope is like an inch thick I'm holding the prop and trying to turn it it's totally stuck I'm literally down there like upside down with my feet against the bottom of the hole just like cranking as hard as I can and the prop would not even budge the wind blew our forward dock line which was coiled on the deck up onto the trampoline and down through the trampoline and as the water was hitting it it was pulling it and pulling it all the way back into this prop eventually Mary gets me a box cutter and I'm like down there trying to like saw away at it but the tip won't reach in far enough I can get like a couple of strands and I can peel it away but 15 minutes in I'm literally making no progress Jamie hops in with this huge horror film kitchen knife and he's sawing away at it he can't get it to do anything we're taking turns coming up for a breath and then the other guy would go down we make this snorkel out of some tubing but we're going too deep but there's too much pressure and the hose collap es the hull is like smashing down on our head you're spending so much energy you can only breath hold for like 20 seconds before you run out of air he's having to go up and down cuz he can't breathe I think we need some scuba gear at this point I would have quit if not for Jamie we just weren't making any progress but he just kept on going back down there so I had to keep on trying this is probably the biggest lesson that I learned on this passage you know sailing is not just about the technical stuff of like how to trim sails when to Reef what RPMs you run the engines it's about having the experience to know what to do when everything goes wrong these don't really work all right I got the technique down I got to brace my Pion on this ladder and then I got a much better grip so we spent another hour trying to cut away at little strands healing it away with our fingers we're exhausted all of a sudden Jam's able to shift the propeller just ever so slightly backwards and that's when we were able to pop it out of gear I think we did it Jamie actually loosened it we're spinning it backwards now he was able to loosen the prop we're unwinding some of this there's a tiny bit left that's stuck in there I'm going to use pliers and then I went back down and I started cranking on the line again I was able to pull a bit more out and as I pulled it out I was able to cut some more and then all of a sudden it was completely free all right let's good I cannot believe we did it Sail Drive is probably effed he fires the engine up and it just comes to life and we go from zero engines to one unfortunately that huge shock of going from like 2 2400 RPMs down to zero in an instant did some more damage that we didn't figure out until later lesson learn no dock lines on [Music] Deck we were making really good time hitting 8 knots motor sailing but then it started to storm again pouring we're going to drop the main squall's coming through you want me into the wind you're supposed to see the wind coming and get the sails down before it hits but this Squall came out of nowhere then it got rough really rough and things started sliding around why I thought I would need a bunch of backup batteries that don't even fit our boat I'll never know in the middle of it all Mary yells up the water faucet stopped working it was one thing after another and then the starboard engine got stuck in gear again then lift the engine just make sure you don't hear anything right away I could see the engine levitating off the mounts then dropping back down just like on the other side this motor mount is as well the drivetrain stopped so hard when it caught the line that it must have shook the engine and broke the mounts with both engines broken and the sails down we actually started drifting back backwards because there was a three knot current coming from bcus deloro if we didn't figure something out we'd have to turn around and head back the whole lot worse than we thought yeah we lost both engines starboard side is stuck in gear we got no water now and the autopilot is completely screwed up not to mention our Compass isn't working Colin's too far out of range to hear our radio calls so we're on our own we got to figure this out I locked let me show you I got to point at you I locked it I got an idea I can strap down the mouth give me 10 minutes engine off and then I got this luckily we have these massive zip ties I'm going to see if I can zip tie the engine mounts back together Shi at about a centimeter starboard if we were on land I'd order a set of these then back out these bolts jack up the engines and do a quick swap but out here zip ties baby they're the marine version of duct tape and can be used to fix anything first we have to realign the engines we'll be a to go forward these guys are raed at 200 lb each they should have plenty of holding power to keep the engines from bouncing around use a pair of pliers to pull them tight and then some garden shears to clip the ends repeat until you run out of zip ties and we're back in business it's holding it's working dude it's working once we got the engines working again it was pretty smooth sailing considering everything go we enjoyed some homemade pancakes and a couple of refreshing energy drinks a pot of dolphins even escorted us into the evening and then we rolled into bcus Del Toro around midnight which brings us to mistake number 57 never come into an Anchorage at night because you can't see anything all right Mary you're on the spotlight W you're going to shine it up and away from the boat If It Shines on the boat it's going to Blind us this is what we were seeing at night and this is what it looked like the next morning I did bring a lot of charts though we did that right all right we've got all of our charts out the bow house charts on open CPN we got Navionics we got a backup Navionics we've got a really horrible CH plotter and Jamie had been here before so he helped us avoid all the major hazards like this huge pirate ship we saw the next [Music] day no the anchor wi list didn't work at first but I just forgot the starboard engine needs to be on right I think that's it Anchor's dug in we're good and we made it and we found parlay right there did you see how close that airplane [Music] was [Music] yeah what a crazy passage and what an amazing night at anchor let's go do a debrief with parlay how'd you sleep good morning we made it [Music] yay how was that stle you get say sick how many times you throw up zero that's right because you're a sailor don't hold back at all I want the complete truth really yeah no I'll spare you from the hourong debrief but the gist of it was we made so many mistakes and have so much to learn and radio on but I did one thing right and that was having Jamie come along and now I'll leave you with some wisdom from the big man himself yeah the big thing was I've never had kids on board that's what keeps you going probably killed dad but I didn't want to kill the kids subscribe I knew that we never going to die well that's good to hear [Music]

Channel: David Shih

Views: 63,313

Keywords: sailing around the world, sailing family, boat life, alternative lifestyle, sailing yacht, hurricane sailing, sailing nahoa, sailing parlay revival, sailing family catamaran, sailing into a storm, cruising, ocean, panama, bocas del toro panama, linton bay marina

Id: j3IaDB_iIq0

Length: 22min 50sec (1370 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 09 2024