It's 4am utc and the bright and starry night is being broken by dawn in the north east. We have come a long way south where hours of darkness have become, once again, a part of the daily cycle. We have timed our arrival at the 40W longitude to coincide with dawn as we are now closing the east Greenland coast and in the realm of icebergs. The radar is set to spot them but as yet there's no ice, no land and no boats to be seen.
Throughout the night there has been a confusion of emails, sms's and attempted voice calls from Greenland Rescue and Joint Arctic Command. I had been dutifully reporting our progress every 6 hours through the GREENPOS system and had done so at 20:00 so I was alarmed to see a scramble of communications suggesting a "missed report" and implying that a rescue was to be launched imminently if they did not receive an update! I hurriedly replied to all calls to make sure that expensive reconnaissance flights weren't launched as we are all fine and well in our little, mid ocean cocoon.
Fine and well apart from Sally that is. She had fallen in the cockpit and bruised her ribs whilst safely docked in Iceland. The pain had been getting better but now is grimacing as she moves carefully about the cabin. She thinks she wrenched the old injury the night before last when we had a little drama on board. So now she is back to square one and a box of paracetamol.
The drama was minor in the scheme of things but a good illustration of how quickly things can change. Shimshal had carried us through some hilly seas and, half way into our 600 mile passage, we were emerging into lighter winds and smoother seas. At last Sally's seasickness was beginning to abate and we were gliding gently south west into the embers of the setting sun. Most of the crew had settled in their bunks and Heather, vigilant as ever, was on watch. I was awakened from a sound sleep by her report that the steering wasn't working!
I wasn't appropriately clad for the middle of the Denmark Strait but was quickly on deck and at the wheel whilst below everyone was scurrying for their oilskins and arctic wear.
To my relief the rudder hadn't fallen off but it quickly became apparent that the autohelm had given up on its long battle with quartering seas. I reset it but no go. By now everyone was dressed and at action stations. Sally, now in her arctic baby grow, took the wheel. Heather and Tim were in their oilies and reporting for duty. All keen to avoid hand steering the remaining 1,300 miles to Aasiaat!
As it happens Tim's well worn, greying overalls would have been more appropriate attire as he slid down into the port lazarette to confirm my suspicion that the bolt connecting steering motor to rudder had sheared. Out of SHIMSHAL's copious supply of spares I quickly found a likely replacement but nothing on board is that simple. To remove the severed bolt we had first to uncouple the steering wires which is no easy task in a rolling boat a long way from land.
Even without his overalls on Tim rose quickly to the challenge. I assembled a concoction of washers to make the new bolt fit whilst Heather acted as the ever attentive relay between man in the locker and man in the stores. Sally, at the wheel, sailed the boat silently on into the night but now obviously grimacing with every unguarded movement.
Within 2 hours our well oiled team had done their work. Tim emerged from the locker stinking of WD40 which I had sprayed earlier on the various steering pulleys to silence their squeaks and groans. The job was done, power steering had been restored, the cockpit emptied and the lazarette re-stowed.
Drama over Shimshal sailed on her way as if nothing had happened. Tim's overalls had escaped the WD40 smears but, even without his beloved costume , Nuclear Electric had used his cunning and dexterity to swiftly resolved an inconvenience that, un-fixed, would have gone on to haunt us on those cold Arctic nights. Meanwhile I made a mental note to buy more M10 bolts of various lengths!