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Gulf Craft abroad July-August 2011 ORIENT EXPRESS SINGAPORE TO PHUKET PART I When watching the rain drive against your window with the vigour of a force eight behind it in the UK, it doesn’t take long to make a decision to a question on a phone call that asks; “Hey Mik, can you drive a new Majesty 88ft from Singapore to Thailand for us?” My instant decision and favourable reply probably took less than one second… 38
July-August 2011 Gulf Craft abroad …The plan was to take the boat from the Singapore Yacht Show, motor north through Malaysia and deliver it to Phuket, Thailand for an event being held there by the local dealer, Tony Nixey of Go Boating. We had company along the way in the shape of another Majesty 56ft doing the same 800-mile trip. These two new boats had been lifted off a container ship and moved into the show, which still had a day to run when I arrived. Being sneaky, I blended in with the potential customers looking over them and ran some pre-sailing checks: fluid levels in engines, generators and steering system, the operation of winches, electronics, and safe stowage of any boxes, table lamps, ornaments and pictures. This is a normal part of a delivery Skipper’s job. If you look for trouble before it happens, most times you can avoid it. Then finally, using the chart plotter plus some old-fashioned paper charts to double check, we planned the route North and entered our waypoints. Singapore paperwork is a bit of a minefield, especially as our boats were Dubai registered, but an agent smoothed complications and, after a few hours, clearance was received. Clearing Singapore Port involves holding position around a small island about two miles off. With a strong ebb tide flowing and a proliferation of signs stating ‘No anchoring!’ this was a tricky proposition. In their own time, the Port Authority boat arrived and reached up with a large butterfly net to collect our paperwork, passports and licences and about 30 minutes later, with all necessary stamping and processing completed, the net was proffered once again and we were wished bon voyage. The area all around Singapore is incredibly busy with ships coming at you from every direction, so the first couple of hours were spent playing ‘dodgem cars’with the fleet of freighters, tankers, barges and bulk carriers heading for port. In this part of the world, there are also many towing operations to contend with. Tugs pull huge barges, cranes, and rigs with sometimes as much as 300m between the tug and its tow. Great care is needed to avoid crossing a submerged towline. Grateful not to be navigating these hazards at night, after a couple of fraught hours we cleared the traffic and stepped up to a comfortable cruising speed of 26-knots at 2200 rpm. Our Majesty 88ft was fitted with twin C32 Caterpillar V12 engines of 1,800hp each and with full tanks her top speed measured 27.9 knots. She also sported a full electronics package from Raytheon with the latest touch screen technology for radar, plotter and sonar with integrated GPS. The standard twin Caterpillar 50Kw genera- THE PROSPECT OF RIDING THE ANCHOR OFF ONE OF THE WORLD'S MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLANDS IS NO HARDSHIP 39
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