Dancing Out of Cape Town
After a great 14 days in Cape Town, it’s time to get back racing. We had a short walk into the V & A waterfront for our teams to meet for a procession back to the boats. We’ve been greeted by a Zulu dance troupe that gave us a tremendous send-off. Even grabbing yours truly into the centre to complete a dance with them. Not too sure how it looked, but don’t think I’ll be entering The Zulu version of “Strictly Come Dancing” any time soon!
Once all the festivities have been completed, a slow procession wound its way back along the V&A waterfront to our boats. We go through the same leaving procedures as we do for every race start with the 1st boat, Warrant, slipping lines at 12.00 local time, and we’re soon out in Table Top bay preparing for our parade of sail. But blimey it’s really windy out here, no waves to talk about so a very flat sea state, but gusting up to 40 knots, so for the 1st time, we have no sails up for the parade of sail!
Once all the MOB procedures are completed, we get ready for race start, slightly delayed by 45 minutes because of the problems caused by the wind, and we’re off again, this time to Fremantle, near Perth, Australia, approx 4,700 nautical miles.
Thrown Right Back Into the Race
We cross the line with the pack, probably 4th or 5th and head for the 1st “Virtual mark”, so called because it’s just a coordinate on the chart, that we must pass to starboard. As we get close to the wind shadow from Table Top mountain, the wind dies. I mean, it’s completely bonkers, 40 knots of wind one minute, then nothing the next. We are drifting, meters away from each other, and eventually, we catch a small breeze from a completely different direction and get away from the fleet round the mark and head for open water and the 2nd virtual mark. We start to move out of the mountain’s wind shadow and notice, most of the fleet are below the 1st mark and are trying to get back to it, with no wind. Only three boats seem to have made it, Seattle, ourselves and Washington DC. It’s time to get a lead on the rest before they pick up the wind. We head to a second virtual mark and chase down Seattle. We need to pass them on our port side before heading south. It didn’t take long to catch and pass, but we are too overpowered, with 2 reefs in the main, a stay sail and our Yankee 3 flying, meaning we’re healing right over with the starboard deck awash with seawater. We need to reduce some of our sail area. We started the race with two reefs in the main sail (This is when we can basically reduce the size of the sail by dropping the main sail down. It’s a bit more complicated than that, and maybe I can do a blog on the process at a later time) and we’re now going for a third reef, 1st time we’ve done that in the race so far. However, we’re still overpowered, so we drop the Yankee 3, leaving the stay sail and the boat starts to calm down, helming becomes much easier and there is not as much water flying down the starboard deck.
I’m now off watch, time for bed, but we’ve already got significant sea sickness on the boat. So, ear plugs in, eye mask on and get some sleep.
We’ve been woken up at 21.30 for our next watch, and it’s fairly obvious that the majority of out-watch won’t be doing much, as they’ve either got their heads stuck in a sick bag or looking like they will anytime soon. As I’ve explained in a few Blogs, sea sickness can be a really debilitating problem, and a few people just can’t function. But the best cure is to get up on deck and get stuff done. But by the time we’re up on deck, only 3 of us are in a position to sail the boat. We need a helm and a watch helm to start with, so there’s nothing else to do but helm the boat. We take it in turns for 45 minutes each to helm the boat and then rotate. The wind has unfortunately started to drop a little, and with only 3 active crew, it’s not possible to add any more sail, especially in the dark. So rather frustratingly, Seattle and many of the fleet have caught up with us as we finish our watch with Seattle in the lead.
I’ve managed to get a few more hours sleep and awoken at 05.30 for our 06.00 watch to no breakfast! Just as I get suited up in my dry suit, which is not for the faint-hearted in these conditions, Tony G, who’s supposed to be on mother watch, is holding on to a sick bag and looking a bit worse for wear, announces that he was struggling and not in a position to carry out his mothering duties. Bugger, I’m down as standby mother, so off with the dry suit and help Andy from the other watch to start preparing a late breakfast, not what I had planned for today. But it’s another 1st for me, and Tony’s best place is definitely not down below. The good news is the previous watch have shaken out a reef during their watch and have been catching Seattle, the bad news, a number of other boats have overtaken us during the night. The fleet has bunched as the wind has dropped. We’ve now put up our Yankee 1 running south, looking for low-pressure winds. We suspect we may hit a wind hole before. It’s a bit like when the safety car comes out in a formula 1 race, it’s a leveller and the fleet will bunch again.
We’ve caught up with Washington DC as a large pod of whales appear. As we get closer to them, they give us a cheeky call on the VHF, to bear away so as not to hit the whales. We did laugh! Needless to say, we went straight past them and continued south, but with the pod of whales as a backdrop, it made it all the more special.
After having to stand in as Mother yesterday, today has been my first full watch day of this race with night sailing. No moon makes for stunning star gazing. Never ceases to amaze me. Loads of shooting stars and a stack of star link satellites moving around the globe. The sea state is remarkably flat with around 20 knots of wind, which makes for easy helming and a good time to get the new crew up to speed.
The majority of the fleet are heading south of the rhumb line to get into the low-pressure systems below 40 degrees latitude, and sailing lower will also make for a shorter route into Australia. I would say that we are still being conservative with our sail plan as some of our crew find their sea legs and start to perk up a bit.
Last night was the darkest night I’ve sailed on any leg so far. No moon, full cloud cover with a following sea and gusting 30 knots. Sailing at around 120 degrees wind angle at night is bloody difficult. You know there’s a wave coming, but you can’t see it, really difficult to stop the sail from flogging, and we all know what happens when we flog the sails! Yes, we damage them!
So, no surprise that when we inspect our Yankee 1, it has a couple of holes in it from the hanks rubbing on the sail. So, we drop our Yankee 1, throw up our Yankee 2 and pack away the Yankee 1 for repair tomorrow. A busy shift and time for bed, a few minutes later “all hands-on deck”. Bloody hell, I’ve only been in bed for a couple of hours, what’s happening – for a fleeting moment we had become a trawler. I’m not sure what the racing committee would make of it, but a huge discarded fishing meet some 30 metres long had snagged our keel, but as the team were getting dressed and up on deck and some sharp helming from Gavin, we missed a bullet as it slid off the keel and floated away. That could have taken hours to cut away! After all the commotion, some more holes were found in our Yankee 2, so that’s now been pulled down for repair on deck by the “on watch” team. Time to go back to bed, but no! “Bob, the gas isn’t working properly”. “Bugger”, next job, swapping gas bottles and regulators at the back of the boat in 30 knots of wind. All good, I’m a hero, the guys can now have a cuppa. But I’m bloody soaked, and I slope off to bed to catch the last hour of sleep before I’m back on deck for watch.
Into the Southern Ocean
As we travel further South & East towards Australia, the waves are getting bigger and stronger, but it’s the cold that’s causing the biggest issues. With the bigger waves comes more water over the decks, I mean significant amounts, which I’ve not experienced before. A lot of side impact with 7m waves breaking over you and with the cold winds, you get chilled to the bone. The dry suit is working well and my fisherman’s gloves, very kindly loaned to me by Nigel from the previous leg, are a godsend. We’ve now got into rotating crew through the watch to get below decks for half an hour. But the cold and wet is making the watches drag.
Back on mother watch again, this time it is my proper turn, shared with Anna. Breakfast is very simple, but we make pizza and minestrone spicy soup for lunch, we’re now the most southern Pizza Hut, and we make a Thai green chicken curry with rice for tea. Anna makes some bread ready for breakfast, then it’s off to bed for a prolonged rest. I always find being on mother watch sorts out your head and tummy out with ref to sea sickness as you are down in the heat. Although it was cold at 05.00 this morning, for most of the day, cooking, cleaning, making coffee and repeat. I’ll be back on again in 7 days. Back to sailing the boat tomorrow.
I sometimes have to pinch myself as to be so lucky and privileged to be out here. Whilst the scenery is the same every day, it’s different! The waves, the wind, the clouds are constantly changing and when you’re living a normal life on land you don’t notice the changes around you so much. Living in it 24/7 you feel the changes hour by hour, and it has a massive impact on the way we sail the boat. Constantly changing our sail pattern, but this leg has been the hardest yet, mainly due to the cold and wet. As we finish the week, we’re in the mix, playing the long game. We’re approx 5th, but it’s difficult to tell exactly. All sails intact, all the crew are fit and well and ready for the 2nd half of the race. Some big winds are waiting for us.