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Wild Iris - log Day 4. Danger Danger High Voltage. Wed 8th November



"Wild Iris, Wild Iris, this is Dongfeng Kantan 1, Dongfeng Kantan 1. We are a research vessel towing an 8nm long high voltage cable. You are on collision course with us." Our tranquil spinnaker run under a moonlit night had just been shattered!

"All crew on deck, all crew on deck, to prepare for a possible immediate gybe". (Thankfully Wild Iris' crew had done one spini gybe early the previous day, but otherwise it was the first time the spinnaker had been flown aboard Wild Iris and the pole rigging something that Heath Robinson would have been proud of!)

Earlier, we had been been happily sailing along with Luna as company and overheard their conversations with DK1... They were intending to pass ahead. We needed Dongfeng to alter course to leeward if we were to clear and avoid what looked like a certain collision! Even if we performed a perfect gybe we were just going to sail straight over the 8nm HV cable... which the Dongfeng Kantan radio operator was at pains to explain was "very dangerous!" However, if Luna were to clear ahead, then it would be impossible for Dongfeng Kantan to alter her course to avoid both of us! After a serious amount of radio traffic in which we explained how we were "restricted in our ability to manoeuvre" because we were "a sailing yacht flying a spinnaker"... the DK radio operator was having none of it!... he just expected us to get our engines on and get out of his way. He was not altering course! We had no option... we put the engine on and motored as fast as we could to windward, streaming the
spini as best we could attempting to get to get out of the way of the 8nm High Voltage obstruction!

However, after 10 minutes we got new instructions from Dongfeng Kantan 1!.... we were still on collision course and, unknown to us, Luna had agreed with DK that they would gybe. We now had to gybe also. Engine off. New crisis. A night time gybe with very limited time and a need to walk the crew through all the moves! Thankfully the wind had dropped to 8kts and the gybe went like clockwork. Main centrelined and kite flown on the sheets while pole solutions were reconfigured!

But how would we know where the end of DK1's obstruction lay?... There was no marker or rear guard boat. The DK1 radio operator declined to say how to identify the end of his towing array. After some hasty chart calculations to estimate clearing distances and angles we carried on away from our destination for an hour to allow enough time to clear DK1's 8nm HV array, before we gybed back. The now super practised Wild Iris 4 man crew performing like a well honed 8 man race team!

Calm eventually descended aboard Wild Iris as we continued on our spini run towards the finish. With our 8nm detour off track we were now the most easterly yacht. We would see no more vessels all day. Luna occasionally appearing to windward of our track on AIS just to show there was life... and a boat to catch... otherwise it was flying fish for company!

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