ROUGH SAIL ESCAPING THE REEFS
3 March 2023 · 20 min · 110K views · Fiji
Sailboat heeling sharply through breaking waves under storm sky
What this video covers
Barry Perrins, sailing solo in Fiji, attempts to exit a reef system after being trapped for over a week by repeated engine trouble and bad weather.5:11 Departing a small village anchorage with the engine running and a partial mainsail up as backup, he encounters three squalls in three miles while threading through the reefs.1:43 Wind, tide, and current combine against him; he makes only 2.8 knots.3:07 A tablet running a chart-plotter app stops responding when rain hits the touchscreen through its protective case, leaving him navigating blind in rough conditions.4:17 He nearly goes aground with five metres of water suddenly dropping under him.7:38 After breaking through the reef, he turns back because open water to the west would put him on a lee shore — an island resort offers a mooring instead.9:11 He supplements the mooring with his anchor touching the bottom as a drag alarm, distrusting the mooring's holding.11:27 After waiting out further squalls, he departs on a calmer morning, sails overnight past a large fishing fleet in pitch black, and arrives at Musket Cove on Viti Levu's western side at dawn.14:29 The reef entrance markers don't match the chart; he resolves the confusion by identifying the correct port and starboard markers, which are much farther apart than expected.18:15 Wet touchscreens on chart-plotter tablets are a critical single-point failure in heavy rain.
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