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| Fried antenna |
July 5, 2012
Portobelo (Panama)
Why have I been so silent for so long? For one, we don’t have Internet on board (at least, not until tomorrow when we’re getting a long-awaited Digicel MiFi hotspot router) and the local Internet-cum-packpackers-cum-cruisers bar is not very conducive to intellectual work. But mostly, we needed to wrap our heads around the event that tossed us like palm tree fronds in a hurricane. That was three weeks ago already, but we’re still trying to come to grips with it: The Strike!
June 13, 2012– Swimming Pool anchorage, Eastern Holandese, San Blas Islands (Panama) 0700 – The storm is raging. Lightening and thunder rolling from Panama’s hills have turned our world into an all-night disco. But suddenly the strikes are lighting the sky with more frequency, closer and closer: 5 seconds; 3 seconds; 1 second. I jump out of bed, throw a bikini and a shirt on and run to the hallway. CRAAKKKK… lightning and thunder all at once, right above us. I jerk and yelp with the deafening dry sound. JP stirs out of bed and smells the air. No smoke, no burn, no telltale of anything. “That was close!” he mumbles, while padding to the galley to make his coffee. Meanwhile, the storm is abating and I get on with my morning chores, starting with sweeping the aft deck. What’s with the shards of fiberglass on the deck, anyways? More shards on the port-side deck, and something coiled, like the inside of an antenna… Oh No! I lift up my gaze to our 16’ VHF antenna: peeled like a banana! “We’ve been hit!” I yell to JP. And thus starts our nightmare.
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| San Blas, Swimming Pool anchorage |
John Deere to the Rescue.
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| Nothing stops the JD team! |
Within 24 hours, a rescue plan is in place. Within 48 hours, a panga appears on the horizon, carrying the best technicians Panama had to offer: Engineer Ruben Compton (Service Director) and Abdiel Rivas (Technical Chief.) It didn’t matter that their plane from Panama City to Nargana in the San Blas had been delayed 3 hours; it didn’t matter that they had to endure a 40-minute crossing on an open water taxi from Nargana to the Eastern Hollandese; and it didn’t matter that they had had nothing to eat or drink since dawn and it was now 1530. What mattered was that they only had 2 hours left in the day to fix our problem before nightfall.
And to work they went, running up and down the engine rooms, thinking hard and fast, ripping gauges here, replacing dials there, working miracles with what was left of our circuits, testing water and oil pumps, finally running both engines smoothly and feeling confident that we would make it safely back to Portobelo, some 70 miles away. Ruben and Abdiel left us as the sun was setting, with a care package of chips, soda and beer, and our gratitude.
Engine Room Monkeys
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| James picks his lobster |
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| James and Sekah traveled 1 1/2 hour by panga to find us |
Well, “cruise” may not be the proper term since we stayed at anchor the entire time, un-willing to take risks. But there are worse places to be stuck at.
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| Sekah's manners :) |
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| Yoga on deck (photo: James Dufour) |
The “Swimming Pool” is one of the prettiest anchorages in the San Blas, and we delighted in a week of diving, hunting, snorkeling, kayaking, yoga on the beach or on Domino’s foredeck, and just visiting with friends and family.
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| Mermaid Sekah (photo James Dufour) |
When it was time to leave, James took over the port engine, Sekah the starboard one, while I manned the anchor and JP yelled orders from the helm: “Starboard, forward 2 seconds,” “Port, reverse 1 second,” “Both Neutral,” etc… With proper foresight from our captain and quick response from our engine monkeys, we made it safely out of the anchorage and into Portobelo where we dropped our 150-lb Raya into 50 feet of water, added 200’ of ½” chain plus 30’ of rode for good measure. And we’ve been here for a week, just about finished with the diagnostics and coming up with a game plan.
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| Manual throttles |
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| James steers the old fashion way: manual, GPS, paper chart and compass. |
What Went Wrong? Since we have this very sophisticated marine lightning protection system, what went wrong? We are still trying to determine the cause(s) of this major damage and are in intense communication with Prof. Ewen Thomson from Marine Lightning Protection.
- What was the main cause? Our 16’ VHF antenna on port side was taller than our top lightning rod, definitely out of the “umbrella” created by the lightning protection system. The 8’ VHF antenna on starboard side, under the umbrella, was not touched, and that VHF radio still functions. Oversized antenna? Was that the major mistake?
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| Ready to dive into the engine room! |
- Some cruisers, electrical specialists and the John Payne’s “Motorboat Electrical and Electronics Manual” question the interconnection between the lightning protection system and the general grounding system. What is the right connection? Did we make a mistake there?
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| "Starboard, forward, 2 seconds!" |
- Does anchorage matter? Unlike the other boats that were anchored at a distance from all the small islands, we were the closest boat to Bug Island. According to long-time cruiser John on “Honu Kai,” islands attract lightning strikes. Just look at the forest of burnt coconut trunks sticking up like porcupine quills, and you get an idea of historical lightning activity. When an island looks like a porcupine, stay away! We had no idea. Was that another mistake?
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| Tropical wave coming into the Eastern Holandese (photo: James Dufour) |
What Went Right? A direct hit is devastating. The energy dispersed is enormous. We still think that our lightning protection system did what it was supposed to do: conduct and disperse the energy without blowing up the boat or setting it on fire. We are alive, the boat did not burn nor sink. Other cruisers hit by lightning talk of blown-up laptops, phones, handheld radios, but none of our non-connected equipment got damaged. So the Faradey cage concept worked. We still believe in Ewen Thomson’s system and are ready to test it again! Ewen and JP are now reviewing the event in detail to figure out what happened and we'll keep you posted as details come through.
What now? More time with the John Deere guys, getting all new equipment from Furuno, a new inverter, replace all the Imtra dimmers, autopilot, remote anchor control, all navigation lights, and whatever else pops up, blows out, or harbors gremlins. We are in Portobelo for the long haul, but there are worse places to be at… like, the office?
Keep on cruisin’… till next time…
dominomarie
