Arkyla - L2D11: Sh*t happens at sea. Again.

Once more the sea gods fart in our general direction as they test our metal, this time in the form of a rudder emergency. Retiring to the aft master cabin at dark, I experienced every sailor’s worst nightmare… hearing a new, and decidedly nefarious , noise from the transom void. Closer inspection revealed a rudder post that had dropped 10mm and was making freestyle moves like an Australian Olympic breakdancer. A small, but concerning, trickle from the rudder gland adds further excitement to proceedings.

If we had an ‘all stations’ klaxon, now would have been the time to employ it. Lifejackets were donned, emergency bilge pumps broken out, and grab bags pre-positioned. Time now to Magyver the sh*t out of the situation; dousing the end of the misplaced rudder post with WD40 surprisingly had no effect, so we set too with the emergency tiller, a block of wood, and duck tape… success - of a sort - and at least enough to temper the immediate worry beads. We further shortened sail to two handkerchiefs of twin headsails to lessen the stresses on the boat but, perversely, continue apace at 8 knots and still pick off a few more of the fleet… clearly Arkyla wants to get to a safe home!

At first light we broke out the power tools and looked for hidden boards to sacrifice for a more elegant solution… so elegant we even considered adding a lick of varnish! 730 nm remain… anyone want to place odds if we get there?

It’s been a tough old crossing so far for Arkyla and crew. The damage tally stands at 1x parasailor ripped to shreds, one hydrogenerator circuitry fried, replacement hydrogenerator ’mechanical fuse’ broken, 2 snatch blocks exploded, one spinnaker guy chafed through, loss of instrument integration into chart plotters, and a suspected broken finger! BOAT… broken or about to!