Atlantic 5

Day 14 – 09.01.09 Friday GPS ~95nm. N15 49.39 W50 13.74

As ‘TweetSister’ told me, the last miles are the longest and hardest. I have become obsessed with VMG or Velocity Made Good and can’t stand seeing all my speed being in the right direction. Whats the use of doing 10kn (as if) if they are in the wrong direction!
For example, I worked it out that if I am 30 degrees off of my rhumb line it will ‘cost’ me about 150nm. That’s another day! Therefore, I seem to spend a large portion of the day staring at the GPS and mumbling calculations to myself.

Being my own worst nightmare, it all had to come to a conclusion. I had been tweaking the sail trim and the Hydrovane to go lower and lower and we were almost dead down wind (gulp!). The VMG was well up there and we were romping home. I had been carefully watching it for over an hour before leaving the helm unattended (in Heidi we trust) and going below.

Laying there snoozing and BANG!, followed by a slow wallowing feeling as the boat comes to a standstill. Rushing on deck, I’m greeted with the mainsail backed hard against the creaking preventer line, we’ve gybed. It’s now blowing about 20kn (at least the mainsail is reefed!). A quick look at the cleat in the far corner of the cockpit before I commit and put myself in the firing line of the mainsheet traveler (cockpit mounted) and boom. The sail and traveler are both out to port.

Safely across and behind the helm, if anything gives now at least its only the mast or boom that’s coming down. It’s up to weather with the wheel to bring her nose right up to the wind while I slowly ease the preventer and everything (including me) creaks with relief as I haul in the 10nm of mainsheet (6 to 1) like a demented lunatic. Crises over! All very dramatic, but gybes scare the hell out of me…

Being head to wind and soon to be dark, I pop the 3rd reef in and carry on my merry way, about 30 degrees off the wind! The VMG was ‘winking’ at me all night!

Remember the ‘pretty white’ bird I saw circling the boat a few days ago? Well he’s been back, a few times actually. I have seen him most days since and I’m sure it’s the same bird. The last time was right in the middle of a squall and I could swear he comes by to check I’m ok. Maybe he’s stalking me? Anyway, where does he (and the other little brown birds – terns?) sleep?

Speaking of wildlife, I haven’t had any flying fish on deck for about 4 nights, maybe because the moon has been bright and they can see where they are flying? I hate going up to try and get them back in the water before they die (despite their brains being all over the cockpit – they fly quite fast), especially when it means getting out of bed!

I haven’t seen a single Dolphin, or any other fins for that matter. Even ships have vanished since the Open 60 on Day 8.


Day 15 – 10.01.09 Saturday GPS ~95nm. N15 57.36 W52 16.60

Today I am a new man, its amazing what a good nights sleep does for you. I awoke around 0700 (still dark) to the sound of ‘clicks’ over the VHF. I always leave it on channel 16 and turned up loud as I figure this will be called if I ‘meet’ another vessel while asleep. Anyway, sure enough from on deck I could see a ship (looked commercial) about 2-3nm away. More worrying was the fact that my VHF radio was constantly transmitting.

I am guessing the ship tried to call me but I am effectively ‘jamming’ the channel (Its supposed to stop automatically in the event of a stck PTT button). I turned off the ships radio and got out the handheld, all was quiet. Short story, it turned out to be the remote mic terminal I have in the cockpit has corroded causing a short circuit. I disconnected the remote terminal and no more problems. I had removed the actual mic some time ago as it was giving us problems. I wonder if it’s under warranty? In fact the main ships GPS plotter has also started playing up and ‘freezing’ the display. Typical, own things for a year and they start dying.

Another sleep then up again at 1000, the sun is just on the horizon. Special K for breakfast as all my cereal has now run out. I am raiding Lindsey’s old supplies. If that runs out I think Daz still has some old ‘squirrel food’ in the bottom of the cupboard.

Fancying something better for a second breakfast, I decide on a ‘cooked’. Unfortunately, all (15) my eggs have gone bad. I cracked a few but they were ‘watery’ and smelt a bit weird. Dates were for mid December so not surprising I guess. I finally settle on fried chorizo type sausages, boiled potatoes (no chips remember!) and beans. Three bloody pans! At least there is still some left for tonight as well.

The evening began (just after 2100) with me sitting in the cockpit listening to music, digesting my seconds of sausages etc and admiring the most amazing full moon I have ever seen. It was literally like an early morning sun it was so bright. The boats wake was lit up like some Godly path to the horizon.

Around 0100 the boat starts to round up and go off course wind with the increasing
wind which were forecast to reach ~25kn by 0600 in the morning. Genoa, pole all away and sailing quite deep on the 3rd reef we were back underway. In the moonlight you could see the clouds ‘scudding’ past as the weather started to deteriorate.

Just after 0300 the boat started to round up again and I took the helm . We were flying along at over 8kn as the squall started. It was actually quite fun having the appropriate amount of canvas up for a change. Then it kicked up a gear and things began to feel different. The noise through the rigging was horrific and the boat started to accelerate rapidly . Looking across, the sea had been blown completely flat as if it had been ‘ironed’ of all its creases. I am sure it was raining, but it may have been the top surface layer of water that was being ‘swept’ like dust from the sea through the air. I remember acknowledging 32kn on the gauge and telling myself aloud, ‘don’t worry about the direction, just don’t gybe us!’

The next thing we were hit with a gust that felt like a solid ‘wall of wind’. I saw the wind gauge spin a full 360 degrees, and with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach prepared for the gybe to end all gybes as I lost complete control of the boat. The needle settled with the wind on the beam.

I don’t think we gybed, mainly because I still had a mast! I think I threw the wheel to weather at the last moments mainly because I couldn’t think of anything else at that instant. There I was in that familiar scenario, boom straining against the preventer. Wheel over, preventer eased mainsheet in tight – just like we practiced!

A deep sigh of relief and then the adrenaline hit me like ‘a hit from the bong!’ and I couldn’t stop shaking. I now actually had some time to ‘admire’ the storm around me. I have been in a few F8s and one F9 (Day Skipper), but never seen such raw power as this. The whole top layer of water was flowing under the boat like a river in flood, if you went over, you would be gone in seconds I’m guessing. It’s only because I’m lucky to have a boat like Doris who will point around 30 degreees off the wind on just the mainsail or scrap of headsail with the wheel to weather that I could afford to take the scene in.

The wind had now eased to around 30kn and the waves passing under us were getting bigger by the minute. Plan ‘A’ of waiting it out were quickly turning to plan ‘B’, run with the wind due west! I tried to be cheeky and run with the mainsail still pinned in but I just got spun round to the opposite tack. I could have eased it out I guess but I didn’t want anything to do with a mainsail in those conditions that wasn’t in tight! I had to either stay put or get the mainsail down. On with the engine, unless I could get her luffing the mainsail would not be coming down without broken battens. Slowly increasing the throttle until her nose started to lift, I went forward and clipped into the 3rd reef, just as we went into ‘free fall’ off the top of the next wave – wow! That was scary! The (poor) mainsail looked like a dogs dinner by the time I had finished with it all tied up in bunches to the boom, at least it wasn’t going anywhere.

Hydrovane set for a few degrees off downwind, barely 1000revs on the engine and we’re making a smooth 5kn+. I had a short spell of euphoria as I sat back and we went in the right direction – west!,

In the meantime, the winds had dropped to around 25kn but the seas were still growing, very confused, steep and breaking. Not the biggest seas I’ve been out in but definitely the most dangerous.

I had a scrap of genoa up to dampen the boats movement and to give us some drive. Around 0500 I turned the engine off as the batteries were topped up and the genoa was providing motion. I set the Hydrovane to take the waves off the rear quarter and over sheeted the sail so that when a wave picked us up we rounded up over the crest instead of taking ‘the drop’ and surfing out of control. I was still standing at the wheel and I don’t mind admitting I was pretty scared as my shoulders were pumped solid from steering and I couldn’t keep my eyes open, I was completely shattered.

Not wanting to be far from the wheel incase we caught a wave I wasn’t willing to go below and I wanted to keep the washboard in place incase we got ‘pooped’. In the end I clipped in and fell asleep on the cockpit floor like a tramp outside an off license door waiting for opening time. I managed to steal an hour’s sleep before being woken up by torrential rain as we were hit by the last squall, luckily not much wind this time. I stayed curled up on the floor – I love my Musto & Dubarrys!

I couldn’t wait for sunrise (much like the tramp I guess). The classic, ‘If he makes it through the night, he’ll pull through!’. It was around this time that the whole Single Handing ‘thing’ really hit me. Mid Atlantic, its you and only you, that has to face what’s dealt. Nobody to assist or advise or ‘take the wheel for a second’, complete self reliance. I coped and dealt with it. You always wonder if you will cope when your test comes, I guess that’s part of why we’re out here in the first place and I’m sure there will be much worse weather to come, but this time I coped.

Sitting on that floor and looking across at the black seas in the moonlight, I thought of the horror of what it must be like to be so ‘beaten’ that you have to resort to pulling that pin on the EPIRB or even worse taking to a life raft. I hope I’m never ever in that situation.

Anyway, you’re reading this and all is fine. Don’t worry mum – I’m still alive.

Last night I think I earned my right to be called a ‘Single Hander’ and of that alone I’m proud. Not to mention getting me some ‘Red Trousers’ when (IF – superstition!) I make landfall in a few days time.