Under the title "Meu goes Caribbean", the club ship of the Lübeck Yacht Club, a Comfortina 38, set off from Travemünde at the beginning of August. The annual chain cruise was to be much more ambitious this year to mark the club's 125th anniversary. Clara Weimer completed her nautical studies this spring and is the skipper of the "Mwu" for the 14-month trip. The crew changes approximately every fortnight.
The news of the whale attack has been the subject of several national media reports since the weekend. Here, Clara Weimer describes the orca attack and its consequences:
"On 2 September, the third leg began in Brest with Hannah Gerlach, Bosse Fahrenkrog, Jonas Gerlach, Kjell Stauch and Clara Weimer. On Sunday afternoon we set sail for Galicia. We hadn't yet decided exactly which harbour we wanted to sail to. We arrived on the coast of Galicia on Wednesday morning and headed south along the coast with the 2nd reef and genoa 3. We had just decided on the harbour of Fisterra and were in good spirits because we only had about 15 nautical miles to go. Bosse was at the helm and suddenly the steering wheel was snatched out of his hand. We looked at each other a bit confused and didn't know what it was at first, and then shortly afterwards an orca appeared and that's when we knew. That was at 13:20. After the second blow to the rudder, we could no longer steer to port, which is why we made a pan-pan call. The emergency call was answered directly by the local MRCC. They then sent out a boat, which was on site after about an hour.
In the meantime, we started the engine at sea, but unfortunately we could only sail in circles due to the damaged rudder blade. As the noises from the steering column sounded really bad, we thought that the mechanics inside the column had been damaged and we could therefore no longer steer. We then fitted the emergency tiller, which in retrospect didn't really help, as the rudder stock was bent 90 degrees by the Orcas and so we had no steering effect even with the emergency tiller. While we were fitting the emergency tiller, we observed the bilges below deck and soon realised that water was getting in. Due to the high leverage, cracks had appeared in the hull around the rudder stock, allowing the water to get inside the ship. We tried to seal it with Leak Hero, but could only reduce it, if at all. When we tried to pump it out, the pump lever of the bilge pump broke, which is why we had to pump it outboard in the traditional way with the bailer. We had to pump about 30 litres of water every 20 to 30 minutes.
When towing towards the harbour, the lifeboat asked us to deploy our drift anchor for more course stability, as we were being towed from diagonally astern in waves of 1.5 to 2 metres. Unfortunately, the lines of the drift anchor broke three times during deployment, which was a somewhat sobering realisation for us.
When we arrived at the harbour, we discovered that the harbour we had been promised, with supposedly all the facilities to repair a rudder, was more of a lively but small fishing village. Fortunately, it does have a travel lift! After being greeted by a very nice and extremely helpful harbour master, who also spoke English, our plan was to lift the 'Meu' out of the water as quickly as possible. But unfortunately the travel lift was still occupied. We were told that we could be craned in one or two days. Fortunately, the other ship could be moved to a trestle so that we could start craning at 20:00. As we were no longer able to steer ourselves, other nice sailors towed us out of the harbour with their dinghy and manoeuvred us into the straps. Unfortunately, the travel lift went on strike and they were unable to take us ashore. Fortunately, we were already so far out of the water by then that we didn't have to bail and were able to sleep through the night.
There was a lot to organise and clarify over the next two days. We received active support from Lübeck, which meant that we were able to find a shipyard in no time at all to take a look at the damage on Friday morning. The next day, we received the quote straight away, which was approved by the insurance company a few hours later, meaning that the repairs could start on Monday.
Now the damaged hull around the rudder stock is being repaired and a new rudder is being built. Hopefully we can continue our journey in two and a half weeks. Then we'll head straight to Madeira with a new crew, but hopefully without any new orca contact."
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