Limping to Cocos Keeling

Good evening all!

It has been a wild couple of days here. Zac has been busily preparing for his arrival in Cocos Keeling. Sunday afternoon he had a long list of chores that he was hoping to handle including cleaning up and organizing, sorting out his anchor and chain, gathering his paperwork, entering his waypoints into the spare GPS etc. Sunday night at about midnight Intrepid came off of a wave and Zac awoke to a loud cracking sound. He ran up to see what the noise could have been and found his tiller cracked in two. The boat headed up into the wind and rode the swells while he tried to figure out how on earth to repair the thing in the dark and, did I mention that it was raining?
After a few hours of trying different fixes, he found that screwing four hose clamps around the tiller would hold it pretty well. He was able to strap it back into the Tiller Pilot and get back under way. We spoke several times during the day. He was checking off his list and was going to have another look at the engine before having a nap last we spoke.
This morning I got a call from Zac early. I thought that maybe he was excited about his arrival at Cocos Keeling and couldn't sleep. He had been sleeping when he was awakened by a loud crashing sound and the boat slamming around. He ran up to see what was going on and saw that the tiller had come off of the Tiller Pilot causing an accidental jibe. This is when the direction of the boat is changed so that the wind switches to the other side of the boat. This can be a violent motion and causes the boom to crash to the other side of the boat. I'm not clear why Zac didn't have his preventer hooked up but I suppose he didn't feel he was in any danger of jibing under his current pointof sail. I cannot imagine what he thought as he looked and saw that his boom had completely broken in two! The boom is the metal bar that extends from the mast to hold down the bottom part of the sail. He wasn't in that much wind at the time (about 15 knots). He figures that the boom was weak because of age and an accumulation of wear and tear from heavy use.
He was still moving along at about 6 knots with the mainsail sagging. He managed to pull everything in and secure the boom and at last conversation was moving along at between 5-6 knots under genoa alone. He had made contact with Cocos Keeling Customs who were alerted to his condition and would be on standby if he needed any help. The plan at this point is for him to sail into the bay and drop the anchor as soon as he is in the lee of Direction Island. Hopefully the tides, currents and wind will be in his favor and he will have no problems. It is a risky move due to the reefs on either side of the channel.
He is still in excellent spirits considering everything and hopeful of finding a welder on the island. Of all the stops that Laurence has gone to meet Zac, this one would have been the most needed but he did not plan to go out having been to Darwin so recently. In fact, no one is going out due to the expense!

Perhaps the mysterious Indonesian fishing boat was successful in tossing their evil spirits onto Intrepid. But we don't fear because He who is in us is stronger than he who is in the world!
I expect a call from Zac sometime tonight to let us know how his arrival went. I will post again if it isn't too late.

On my knees,
Mom Sunderland

PS At 10:45 this evening Zac called to say that his motor miraculously started (and I do mean miraculously!) and he motored all the way to the anchorage! He is sitting in paradise as I type!