Collision at Sea: How the Crew of SV Mussulo 40 Saved Their Sailboat After a High-Speed Whale Encounter"

 Dear friends, colleagues, sailors and followers of Mussulo 40:

 

I owe you a report  of the events of our whale accident.

 

On the 13th of July, at 4:30 pm returning in the Horta/Açores- Sables d’Olonne/France regatta, at 17 knt of speed (high for a sailboat), while changing watch (shift)  inside the cabin we heard a huge bang and a small impact! I spoke to Guga, it was the mast that fell... He left immediately and said it wasn't the mast. I went to the bow from the inside and a flood of water coming in; meanwhile Guga told me that we were hit by something very high because it had hit the side of the hull but also the guardrail (structure with steel wires on the edge of the sailboat, about 1 meter above the hole in the hull).

 

With the water in the front compartment already knee-deep, batteries covered in water, we divided the tasks and Guga prepared the abandonment material – liferaft, grab bag, thermal insulation clothing and EPIRB (emergency position indicator), I installed the emergency suction pump. This pump consists of a water aspirator that normally delivers 200 liters per minute and has a long tube that can be placed outside the cabin and boat (Fig 3) and the electrical wires are connected directly to the batteries. However, Guga had already prepared the abandonment and removed the headsail to reduce the speed and impact on the waves and consequently reduce the entry of water. All this had a positive result and the water began to be expelled with greater speed than it entered and to go down in the front compartments.

 

Engine running to produce power and maintain instruments, autopilot and aspiration pump the situation was under control!!!

 

We headed towards La Coruña which was 150 NM (300 Km approx.) sea with high waves, very strong wind of 30-38 Knts, only with mainsail on the second reef and even so doing 7-8 Knts. The current situation did not require activate the EPIRB, we just communicated our situation to the race management and asked them to notify the coast guard services that we could open the “distress” signal (SOS) at any time.

 

The boat was relatively dry, just bumps in various parts of the boat that we were supporting due to the batteries that were under water. The joy was short-lived because the suction pump stopped... I found out later that they had sold me a used and old pump in the Azores despite having paid for a new one!!! We decided to connect the engine's water pump to the suction hose, but the flow rate was too small and the bow started to fill up with water again. We had the idea of turning on the “ballast” pump, but this has a very high pressure and the connections we had were not adequate and, despite having helped, it was not enough. In view of this, I remembered that I had bought a small/medium pump (75 liters per minute). We redid the connections of the suction tube and the electrical wires. We hoped that the water coming out was greater than the water coming in... The situation was critical because the bow was already, once again, completely flooded but little by little that water was running out. Once again, the situation is under control, the engine is running to charge the batteries and we continue towards La Coruna.

 

  A couple of hours later, we began to hear a variation in engine speed, clear symptoms of fuel failure. Soon we thought of a fuel filter and, gradually, the engine lost rotation until it stopped. Bad situation, because we needed the engine to charge batteries and consequently sustain the pump, autopilot, AIS, navigation lights, etc. we changed the filters, with all the difficulty of doing this at night, with lots of waves and wind, difficulty removing the air from the system, etc. We couldn't get the engine running anymore as that would require starting several times and draining the engine battery and I wanted to keep the batteries charged. We are therefore in the following situation:

- 100 NM from Coruña;

- pump sucking enough to drain the water;

- boat walking 7-8 Knt with mainsail only, on the second reef, with good heading towards La Coruña;

- batteries with good charge but no option to charge them.

 

I put out an alert asking for batteries, but only one ship answered  and said they didn't have 12 volt batteries.

 

I opted to sleep until dawn and recover my energies, then turn off all the instruments and steer. This saved energy and dedicated all the batteries only to the suction pump. At dawn, we took control of the boat and opened the genoa, increasing our speed enormously while at the same time taking in more water. Managing this water inlet well with just the Navionics on the cell phone controlled by Guga so that we have the most direct direction possible. We arrived in Coruna without an engine 

and with the batteries at 11.4 volts

 

Very well received at Marina Coruna, we spoke with Chuny (known in Brazil for having been a crew member of Brasil 1) who is the owner and manager of the Marina. And we thought it would lift the boat and still have time to do FASTNET. Unfortunately time was very short and the boat will stay here in La Coruna to be prepared for the TGV at the end of October (Havre-Martinique).

thanks for everybody that help us….

Jose