Lautan Megah is anchored off Pulau Pisang directly below Island Aid headquarters in Padang. The 2,500nm delivery voyage has given us great confidence in this fine little ship. Weather conditions throughout Indonesia have been some of the worst in living memory with 30kn + winds and very large seas for almost the entire period. We were motoring directly into the wind and seas and our wind speed indicator was often showing over 40 knots over the deck. We were delayed several times on the last leg by "unplanned events". 

Our ships tender's towing eye snapped off the north coast of Java in very heavy seas. One of the emergency tow lines then parted within seconds and the tender was spun round stern first and towed under before we could reduce speed. Our crew managed to attach the tow lines again but we could not right the boat because the fuel tank in the keel and the under floor compartment forward were keeping her afloat inverted. We towed the tender inverted for 5 hrs to a small island off Jepara. After waiting over an hour for rain squalls to clear, we anchored in the dark in the lee of the island. The following morning we arranged for a local fishing boat to tow the tender to the beach where we pumped her dry. There was no serious damage and we flushed out the outboard and it has run well every since.

Off Pakis, just East of Jakarta our main engine died and we anchored to change filters. We cleaned the day tank to remove sludge and flushed out all fuel lines and strainers. Air locks kept us busy all night with shut downs every 20 minutes. We anchored close to Pakis and called Bp Muhadi out from Jakarta to help. Together we cleaned and checked every part of the fuel system and Muhadi checked our injectors and compression and ensured us that the engine was in good condition and that he was convinced that we had an airlock problem or fuel blockage.

We resumed our trip and had no problems all night but in the morning we had several shut downs just off Banten. A police patrol boat ordered us to anchor to check our paperwork and Bas and I worked on the engine while we waited. We finally found a crack in the cover of our rpm cable that was letting air into our primer pump and compounding problems caused by air trapped in the fuel plumbing. We reversed the impeller in the priming pump, adjusted the by-pass valve and sealed up the rpm cable. This solved the problem.

24 hrs latter we were back at sea and passing through the Sunda Straits. As we turned the South West tip of Sumatra the weather moderated and the sun broke through the clouds. The remainder of the delivery was easy going with light winds and calm seas.