How A Convoy Should Work

Here starts the convoy. This is a formation devised by Lo Brust, the rally organiser, to safeguard the boats as we began our journey through ‘Pirate Alley’ Although still in ‘safe’ waters Lo wanted us to get used to the formation as it was difficult to sustain, as we were to find out.



Lo led three groups of boats, one group half a mile to his port quarter (behind on the left), one to his starboard quarter (behind on the right) and the third group a mile directly behind his stern. As we progressed to more dangerous waters the group closed in, and at night it moved out.



Francesca and Marco on 'Easy And Free'




Each group was lead by a boat armed with an AIS transceiver and a flashing light mounted at the back of the boat. Each light was a unique colour, making each lead boat more identifiable at night. The AIS enabled Lo to monitor the lead boat of each group (and vice versa) as this technology allows one to measure distances and bearings between vessels carrying said equipment.







Sadly the group ‘leaders’ were elected by default as only four boats in the rally had AIS transceivers, one of which was Esper. I can tell you now that given the choice I would have ditched the AIS overboard in order to relinquish any responsibility that we inherited as a group leader. If there was one fault with Lo’s strategy it was that he had not prepared us for this responsibility, a responsibility we had no desire to take on and one that we certainly had not signed up to the rally for. If I can be arsed I will write more about this later but the mere thought of the following two weeks of convoy brings on flashing lights and a sick feeling in my stomach. All you need to know for now is that the lead boats had a hard time maintaining a straight course whilst following Lo, and the following boats had a hard time maintaining a straight course whilst following the lead boats. Everyone thought they did it best and everyone thought everyone else was crap. There was a lot of blaming and bitching and after over 500 miles of it each and every rally participant was knackered and sick of the sight of each other!








The first part of the convoy’s progress was hampered by ‘Cobble’ who blew something big and important in his engine and had to be towed by ‘Anthea’ 210 miles, all the way to Aden in Yemen! After 100 miles of towing into head winds and choppy seas ‘Anthea’ needed a break, which is why we anchored on the boarder to Djibouti in another ‘restricted area’.



'Cobble' under full sail, not being towed



You can guess who woke us up early next morning requesting us to leave immediately!




How a convoy should look according to AIS. They probably have a military escort to be fair!



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9 thoughts on “How A Convoy Should Work”

  1. Harry, unbeknown to us until we reached Oman, the British Navy and other coalition warships had been monitoring our progress since the Suez Canal! In fact all the boats on the rally were well known to them as they had tracked us on AIS and VHF. Better that they know our exact location in order to monitor our route.

  2. connie Lockwood

    As challenging as it was for each of you, I admire everyone for “swallowing it” and doing your best to comply as well as you could. I hope some day you may realize that it was worth more than you thought at the time because of all of the inconveniences you experienced. THANKS for sharing your information Jamie; it makes it much clearer for the rest of us landlubbers! Enjoy the rest of your travels and continue to be safe – together and apart! 😉

  3. I would have thought that running the AIS is just advertising your position to people including pirates. The bad guys have VHF, AIS and sat phones.
    What is your reasoning?
    Fair wind and safe passage
    Regards
    Harry
    Malua

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