Activities up to 14 October

I had an email from a business friend – Owen Embling, saying he thought the photos on the blog were great, so I wanted to mention that Diane takes all the photos, and does the first edit, then we sit together and decide what photos to put on the blog. These are generally the same photos as get published in Pacific Motor Yacht magazine with our regular articles.
Turkey is a wonderful country, and we in NZ could learn a lot from the Turks. People smile and laugh a lot, and are courteous to each other – and to visitors. You never see “threatening-looking” people or drunken idiots around, and people go about their daily business without fear of being mugged or bothered. Although the driving is atrocious, there is no road rage or people giving the fingers etc, everything is just taken in good humour. Yes NZ could learn a lot. One negative though is the considerable litter everywhere (similar in Greece), they are not as “green”, as we are in NZ.
While in Gerence Koyu we received a gale warning of Force 7 NE winds. Weather patterns and forecasts are very important when you’re living on a boat, so we monitor the weather in four different ways;
- by what we can see happening “Mark 1 eyeball”
- listening to Greek and Turkish VHF English weather bulletins
- on the internet – checking four main sites
- by Navtex – which receives text messages put out by Coast Radio Stations (we get about 20 per day).
We decided to head back to Eskifoca where there is good shelter from the wind, no swell coming into the bay, and plenty of room. We anchored in 7m with 50m of chain out, but the gale was both short-lived and mild with the strongest gusts around 33kn. Of course the wind would have been much stronger in open waters. This was more like what in NZ we call a “strong wind warning”, issued when gusts are likely to exceed 33kn. An actual gale on the Beaufort Scale requires mean winds in the range 34-47kn, bearing in mind gusts can be around 40% greater than the mean wind speed. At those levels “mean” is the right word!
It is always a bit daunting in gales anchored during night time; the wind seems to howl more, and you obviously can’t see what’s happening so easily. Envoy has good ground tackle – a 40kg Delta anchor with 120m of 9.5mm BBB chain, and very rarely drags, but we do need to be cautious of major wind direction shifts, and we’ve seen these happen during gales. We always set the audible Anchor Alarm on the GPS at 0.03NM, which is 55m. For non-boaties this means if Envoy moves more than 55m from where we anchored, the alarm sounds. In strong winds anchored boats do move around a bit, and if we set the alarm the next step down at 0.02NM, or 37m, it goes off too frequently. We can’t easily hear the alarm in our cabin below, so we bought a Philips baby monitor, and we put the transmitter (the baby end) near the GPS, and the receiver alongside our bed. This works really well, and saves me getting up several times during the night to check that all is OK. However in severe conditions (40 knots+), or in the rare case we are close to other boats in strong winds I doze up in the Pilothouse, where I can keep an eye on the situation.
Estifoca is an ancient town, founded around 600BC by Phocaeans, and now a quaint village. I already mentioned this is where the Commandos have their training centre. Naturally Estifoca has a castle, and this one was originally built by the Byzantines, and subsequently maintained by Genoese, then Ottoman Turks.
We left Estifoca on 10th and cruised back to Ildir. We had arranged to go into the Dalyan Harbour for a few days while we picked up Amy, but on arrival there were told there was no room (despite a booking). So we stayed at Ildir.
In a couple of days I’ll do a post about Amy’s visit and Steve & Jane’s visit, including a gale on the night Steve & Jane arrived – when Envoy did drift!
Technical: Again nothing much to report, so I’m going to talk about bilges.
This won’t interest everyone, in fact probably no one!
All leaking liquids end up in a boat’s bilges. This includes:
1. Seawater - from the Lugger prop shaft stuffing box (intentional), from the Yanmar “dripless” prop shaft, and from any leaks in seacocks, through hulls, sea water hoses, the bow thruster or stabilizer seals. Also in heavy sea conditions a little spray can end up in the bilges.
2. Fresh water – from the Fridge/Freezer compressor (intentional), from the Aircon compressors (intentional although rarely used), from any leaking fresh water tanks, hoses or hose connections, or from an engine cooling system. Note – if there is a leak from the fresh water plumbing system we can tell as the fresh water pump will operate to maintain pressure, if an engine cooling system is leaking we can tell from daily checks of water levels. Also when it rains very heavily some rainwater ends up in the bilge.
3. Sewage – from the toilets, holding tanks, hoses or hose connections if they leaked (not happened so far)
4. Oil – any leakage from the three engines, two gearboxes, windlass, or watermaker
5. Hydraulic fluid – any leakage from the steering system or stabilizers (not happened so far)
6. Fuel – if a fuel tank or hose or connection were to leak (not happened so far)
Envoy has five bilge compartments, one forward - housing the bow thruster and various sea water pumps, one in the aft section of the Guest Cabin, one under the main Lugger engine, one aft of the engine, and one further aft again under the prop shaft. They are connected by a limber hole running the length of the vessel, and water will eventually make its way to the deepest bilge – aft of the engine.
In 2007 Envoy had a “wet bilge system”, and always had about 100mm of water in the bilges, which we pumped out daily to keep the level constant. This was mostly due to seawater coming in the Lugger prop shaft gland as intended. But the problem was you could never tell if the water in the bilge was sea or fresh water, whether it was supposed to be there or not, or the source of the water.
This year we’ve gone to a “dry bilge system”; we’re using containers to collect the water from the prop shafts and the Aircon, and the Fridge/Freezer compressor so the bilges are always dry, and this means if you see water or other fluid in there you know there is some issue. All the bilges have an old towel in them so I can tell if there is any leakage into that particular bilge. I check the bilges daily at anchor, and hourly under way, and if there is water there (which is very rare) I can check if it’s fresh or salt, and much more easily resolve any problem. Also this keeps the three bilge pump inlets free of contamination, and makes it easier to see any thing that drops into the bilge, like a nut or bolt (often an early portent of a pending problem).
So to give a practical example, a few nights ago we heard the fresh water pump activate for a few seconds several times. As no taps had been left dripping this indicates a fresh water leak. When I did my engine room check I found about 2mm of water in the bilge aft of the engine. A taste test found it was fresh – that’s a good start, and it tied in with the fresh water pump running. Going to the forward bilge I found the towel in the bilge was wet – so the leak is into there. I check all hoses in the area, and found a slightly loose hose clamp on the supply to the Guest sink. Tighten it, observe and check, and now all OK.