Light in a pinch

In emergency lighting situations, more light is always better

- JOHN KETTLEWELL

Routes from Florida to the Bahamas are as short as 50 miles, but they all involve crossing the Gulf Stream and hopefully arriving during daylight hours and early enough to clear Customs. For most sailors, this means an evening or night departure with an overnight sail, which is what we were doing when voyaging from Palm Beach to West End, Grand Bahama. Unfortunately, one of our steering cable ends broke off in the middle of the Stream, with a stiff wind blowing and a lumpy sea — in the pitch dark.

I had a sick feeling while hanging upside down below the steering box, peering at the loose cable end by the dim light of a flashlight. Then I noticed that the steering chain the cable was attached to had come off the sprocket of the wheel! Major surgery on our steering system would be required in order to be able to get going again. Luckily, our catamaran was able to sort of heave-to by going to a triple-reefed main and a rolled-up jib, holding us at a slight angle to the seas.

Our custom cat had an unusual steering box attached to the cabin bulkhead that required removal of the wheel, then backing out lots of screws, just to see what was going on. Needless to say, this would be a time-consuming job requiring plenty of light to see what I was doing. At first, I started out with a small flashlight held in my mouth, which is often useful for small jobs but not for long-term work. I tried various headlamps that slipped off my head as I hung upside down. In the end, the best technique was for my wife to hold a more powerful flashlight pointed at where I was working on the many difficult-to-remove screws.