HIGH WATER

Maintaining what you hope to never need

Janice Anne Wheeler Jan 25

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I was kneeling, sanding years off and life into teak flooring so abused it barely even resembled that beautiful wood, when something pierced my whole consciousness. The sound was not only heard but felt; waves penetrated my very soul and pure urgency denoted it as something one never, ever, wants to hear. I flinched, memories flooded.

I sat back when the noise stopped, able to remember exactly when I asked about that particular device due to the impact of the answer. All of STEADFAST was new to me the day I found myself climbing up her then-foreign rope ladder to stand on a deck farther above the water than any of my small realm of vessels had taken me, surrounded by more complicated rigging than I had ever seen.

At the time I lived aboard a cozy Tartan sailboat which, while known for quality, have certain ordinary similarities with many mid-size cruising vessels of the 1980s. She was thirty-seven feet long and nine wide with far, far less than half of our living space, but I had gotten used to her, no ladder required, one mast, no intimidation. Fifty-six-foot soon-to-be STEADFAST was comparatively vast, raising so many questions that cold May morning in 2021 that I couldn’t voice them all, but I clearly recall asking about the orange light mounted just behind the Mizzen (smaller, aft) mast in the pilot house.

“That’s the high water alarm;” was the casual reply to my inquiry. Such a modern piece of equipment was starkly out of place on a wooden vessel built nearly a century ago. My eyes narrowed, taking in that piece of information like the desert mountain climber I used to be. “She needs a high water alarm?” I persisted, voice up an octave, knowing I was rowing up a creek I didn’t belong on. “Well, they’re not required,” was tossed over a shoulder as he walked away, “but probably a good idea.” Hmmmm.

Today’s wind chill sits at a princely fourteen (-10C) so we’ve moved to inside projects which happen to entail reinvigorating bilge pumps and changing out old, inefficient hoses for higher quality models, no small feat, and weaving the cold, rigid, uncooperative new ones through small spaces in our low-ceilinged engine room. “It’s lots easier in the summer,” he tells me and I nod, tugging absentmindedly at my long underwear bottoms whose elastic has recently, utterly, failed.

Throughout the morning the high water message split the air randomly as rewiring and reconfiguration continued below me. If activated for more than a second, the startling amber and white flashing light came to life, too, as it should. It isn’t the proximity that made it so piercing, although the source happened to be right above my curving back; it was the concept. Alarms are, after all, meant to startle, to inspire action, reaction, adrenaline and fear.

If you hear that alarm out on the sea you should, first and foremost, be frightened, even if that’s not the word you want to use. It’s telling you that something is very, very wrong.

Those alarms and pumps maintain their vigil even when the main battery power is cut off, and they should. The two wires connected to that key safety device are integral to STEADFAST’s complex systems, some of which you never, ever want to need.

After an hour of jumping just barely out of my skin each time it went off, the Sailor approached me gingerly with a not-sure-how-to-broach-this-subject look. “I think we should add a shut-off switch,” he said, pausing for my reaction. A shut-off switch for the high water alarm would mean that you got the message, can’t fix the problem, and that the water level will (probably) never again go down. All that most certainly adds up to the fact, among others, you don’t want to listen to the alarm anymore. “Well,” I said, in what I thought was my most practical, pragmatic, calm voice even though my stomach did a tiny somersault, “It might as well be reachable from up here in case we can’t even get down into the engine room.”

That would surely mean all was lost. We gazed at each other silently.

He installed the switch and in keeping with the theme of the day, inquired, “Did we find the handle to the manual bilge pump?” I had relocated it during my floor sanding, never having thought all that much about the fact that neither of us knew exactly where it was. Needing that particular tool would mean all four electric bilge pumps have either failed with the power system or aren’t pumping fast enough (10,200 gallons, 38,600 liters per hour) to keep our dear vessel afloat, so we then would coerce open the ancient bronze cap on the manual one and pump away, probably with considerable force after decades of neglect. All this while assumably thinking straight regardless of the incessant screaming of the high water alarm. Thus, our prior decision in regard to quelling that potential distraction is explained.

Meanwhile, someone (yours truly) would be designated to pull out the ditch bag and try to collect the list of things to add to that bag if it’s actually being used for its only, dire purpose (our electronics, documentation, wallets, battery packs, water jugs and fresh food). PFD’s, flotation devices and whatever else we may have time and the clarity to think of can also be slung into our hard-bottom inflatable dinghy, which serves as our life raft. The Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) is a worldwide universal communicator which is immersion or manually activated; ours is attached to, (appropriately perhaps), the rear gallows above deck level. Every two years I confirm with the U.S. government that if they receive a signal from that particular beacon, it’s us and we’re in serious trouble. The protocol is to take it with you if that is in any way possible; does little good to transmit from the bottom of the sea.

So, it suddenly seemed pertinent to ensure that we had our safety plan in order. Which is weird. And reality-checking. There’s a certain relief to making sure all that intricate, redundant equipment is working as it should even though we’ve been on the hard, hard ground (actually mostly oyster shells) of Cambridge Harbor, Maryland for, well, too long.

When you’re on a boat, walking away is not an option.

That reality is why stories of boats sinking strike an inner chord of fear—and why there are so many metaphors and sayings about sinking ships. I certainly never want to tell one. It’s hard to imagine and this is the lightest approach I could come up with when describing such a true crisis.

Everyone is in far more danger traveling in a car than on a boat. There are 2,842,528 vessels registered with the universal maritime location system (AIS) and somewhere around 336,000 underway as I type this publication, according to Marine Traffic. The tremendous majority of vessels sink (69-80%)* while tied to a dock or mooring and largely due to lack of maintenance and/or Mother Nature’s wrath. It’s always sad for me to see someone’s dream become a neglected nightmare.

This week’s publication didn’t start out as this conversation, but as always they evolve and hopefully intrigue, giving you insight to how my life differs from your own. ~J

I’ve actually listened, heart in my throat, to a boat going down and the subsequent rescue of those aboard just a few miles away. I told the story here:

THREE SOULS IN THE WATER Janice Anne Wheeler   ·   March 27, 2024 Read full story

There is a tremendous amount of safety equipment and gear that you desperately hope you’ll never use. If you’re interested, the following is a list of what our ditch bag always contains:

Fifteen hand held flares, 12 gauge flare gun and six flares, signal mirror, orange square which is the universal indicator of help as seen from above, two whistles, compass, desalination hand pump machine, (one gallon per hour), ten MRE military issue meals, 12 energy bars, 12 granola bars, 24 Propel packets for electrolytes, sunblock spf 50, two hats, two microfiber towels, gold reflective blanket used for sun shade or warmth, bonine, fishing line and hooks, lighter, matches, extensive first aid kit, water bottles, cleaning wipes, filet knife, multitool, two small drybags, two long sleeve shirts, cheap sunglasses, 20 yards of small gauge rigging line, two flashlights with batteries, solar charger with ports, shammy towels, small fleece blanket, and a few other odds and ends that I’ve tossed in over time. What else would you include?

Thanks for reading SPARRING WITH MOTHER NATURE. Such an occasion as we discussed preparing for here today is, of course, the ultimate SPAR.

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REFERENCE:

Circumstances of US vessels sinking per BOAT US (link)

Marine Traffic International Vessel Tracking (free public service)

© 2026 Janice Anne Wheeler
Living aboard Sailing Yacht STEADFAST again soon!
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