Xinmei (above) at the helm, surfing down wave after wave (below)
After we escaped the cold and the snow just outside Qingdao and the wind finally picked up, we were treated to some of the most enjoyable sailing of the race: surfing downwind.
When sailing downwind, the apparent wind across the deck of the boat is much less (since you're going with the wind) and this makes for a far more comfortable point of sail than the wet blasts of spray we'd been enduring when pounding into the waves as we approached Qingdao. It was still cold, but so much more bearable.
A video on surfing at this point in the race
The downside to this is that under spinnaker with the boom swung out wide, the boat is potentially liable to far greater forces unexpectedly. Perhaps a sudden gust of wind into the spinnaker might lay a boat literally on it's side (called a 'broach') or it's always possible for the boom to strike the water when a wave from the side rolls the boat a bit more than it had been heeling.
I happened to catch the exact moment such a boom strike occurred in the video below. You'll hear the helmsman shout 'well done' one second after it happened, congratulating the person controlling the vang (which stabilizes the boom vertically) for appropriately dumping the tension controlling it immediately, saving the boom (and perhaps the boat itself) from serious damage.
Though the general conditions were far more enjoyable than what we'd been experiencing for some time, there's an added work load and generally heightened level of stress that makes the exchange almost even. When sailing upwind, at any given point there's only one person truly working: the helmsman. Everyone else is there to attend to whatever needs might happen here and there (trim this sail, adjust that line, drop one headsail and replace it with a larger or smaller one, etc.). Time on deck for everyone but the helmsman (which we rotate generally every 30 minutes) is as relaxing as the conditions allow.
With a spinnaker, however, there are five continuous jobs going on: 1. helmsman (very stressful requiring a fair amount of experience and not a job we allow many of the leggers who haven't been on the boat that long); 2. Shotgun (standing beside the helmsman controlling the mainsheet, ready to dump it at a moment's notice if the boat seems to be broaching, and also there to take the wheel if a wave crashing down the deck or from behind knocks the helmsman off the wheel...if it hasn't already knocked the person at Shotgun as well); 3. Spinnaker trim (standing at the mast, manually holding tension in the spinnaker sheet with a permanent fixation upwards on the spinnaker, calling 'ease' or 'trim' to the trimmers the second the spinnaker seems anything but very happy); 4. Trim Grinder (standing at the 'coffee grinder', the two handled winch--think of bicycle pedals at chest height, powering our strongest winch, which is what it takes to control a spinnaker); 5. Trim Easer (kneeled at the winch drum itself, ready to ease out the spinnaker sheet as the the trimmer deems necessary.
Though it's often thrilling to be flying along under a billowing spinnaker, it's not a relaxing time at all. In our 25 days between Qingdao and Hawaii, we spent perhaps two-thirds of that under spinnaker. In the end, the long term effects this stress applied to our boats came to light.
It was perhaps one week out that we'd heard Western Australia had lost their half their mast. The fitting on a cap shroud (the cable going from one side of the middle of the boat to the top of the mast and back down to the other side) had failed and in a flash an 80 feet length of reinforced aluminum as big around as a fit man's waist bent into a 40 foot upside-down 'V.'
This is a catastrophic failure of rigging that shocked the entire fleet. When you feel the pounding these boats take day after day, it's amazing they hold together at all but when something like this actually happens, it's such a shock. No one was hurt and the crew quickly took to fashioning what remained of their mast into something they could use to sail with a jury-rig to the island of Midway, site of the famous WWII naval battle and about halfway between Japan and Hawaii. There they could refine what work they'd done, take on as much fuel as they could, and then motor and/or sail (with what's left of the mainsail on what's left of their mast) to Hawaii where a new mast was being flown in.
With sobered minds the rest of us continued.
Around 900 miles short of Hawaii (having covered more than 4000 to that point), the headwinds returned and once again we were subject to the pounding and heeling type of sailing we'd been so happy to leave behind. One minute the spray is falling short of you near the mast, the next it's covering the length of the boat.
After three days of this, only making 120 or so miles a day as we tacked back and forth into the wind (compared to the 240 per day we'd been covering when sailing downwind), we got the alarming news that Durban had completely lost it's mast.
With two boats now suffering such a severe rigging failure, the race had been terminated with each boat placing in the race in whatever position it held overall at that point. We were in fourth and, as it turns out, about two hours away from passing the boat in third. They had been approaching a reef and had been forced to tack away from Hawaii to clear it. Had the race been terminated three hours later, we would have placed third and had our first 'podium finish.'
In the grand scheme of things, few of us gave that much thought. The seriousness of the situation took precedence and we all felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude that no one had been hurt (a miracle in itself when you think of all the snapping steel cables involved--as thick as a man's little finger--as well as the tumbling mass of aluminum involved when a boat our size loses it's mast).
Most boats were directed to motor directly to Hawaii. A group of three of us were directed to rendezvous with Durban to escort them in to Hawaii, available to offer fuel, food, and moral support.
We spent the night hove-to (sails set in contradicting settings to make a boat sit motionless in the water) so that Durban could stabilize what was left of their rig and motor up to a rendezvous point. At around 1:00 p.m. they radioed that they had us in sight but it was another 45 minutes before I was the first to finally spot them, having climbed all five steps at the base of the mast to do so. Back down on the deck, it was not until they approached to within a few hundred yards that we could consistently spot them in between the waves.
It was astounding how small, frail, and invisible they looked without the towering mast we see on other boats from miles away. I couldn’t tell what I felt strongest; elation at their safety and happy spirits or heartbroken at the sight of the the short remnant of ripped and twisted aluminium that formerly was their mast, now bound to the deck along with the boom.
We compete with each other, yes, but any boat is like family to us, both in terms of its crew and the hull itself. Whenever we step on another boat, there’s often an eerie feeling of being at home but not at home. Everything’s mostly the same, save a book or two we might not have on our Uniquely Singapore.
To view Durban in its condition, then, was almost as painful as if it were our own boat. Durban erected what looks like a broomstick for a mast and has their South Africa flag proudly flying from it. From the smiles and happy waves they gave us right away (along with passing over a flarebox of goodies to thank us for the rendezvous), you’d never think anyone on Durban was anything but pleased with the adventure. The Durban team was so gracious in defeat I felt embarrassed that we had no gift prepared to hand right back. We assured them that we’d pass something over once the wind and waves settled down a bit. They had enough fuel, as best they could tell, so we simply set into motoring towards Hawaii , us leading, them following, competitors but team mates, too.
The headwinds picked up and the swell grew, requiring more power from our engines to make any headway towards Hawaii. After two days of motoring near each other, it became evident that Durban didn't have enough fuel to make it to Hawaii. We and the other two boats escorting her took turns moving in to pass fuel over, as shown in the video below.
A few trying days later we made it to Waikiki Harbor in Oahu, just down the coast from Pearl Harbor. We'd given Durban so much fuel that we had only about twenty minutes worth ourselves when we docked in Hawaii. Other boats had been poised to pass us fuel if needed.
We moored stern to bow with New York with poor, stricken Durban rafted on New York's port side.
Durban's skipper Ricky is a friend of mine I'd met one year before the race began. When each of us crew members were being allotted to the fleet of ten boats last June, the only preference I stated was that, if possible, I'd rather be on either Ricky's or Mark's boat. I was placed with Mark.
At sea after our rendezvous, I'd only been able to cast a wave to him now and then. Once in Hawaii, Durban docked a bit before we did so Ricky ambled on board as we secured our lines. He sat down next to where I stood (with a bit of heaviness in his movement, I thought I noticed) and asked me how our sail had gone.
"You're kidding, right?" I exclaimed. "Good grief, Ricky! Tell me about it all!"
And so he did, calmly as if describing a meal he'd cooked. To be the skipper responsible for 16 lives a thousand miles from anything and suddenly find that your mast (not to mention your sails, too) are now dragging alongside you doing their best to punch a hole in your boat, being held in place by robust stainless steel cables...excepting the one that snapped and caused the problem...well, I just couldn't even begin to imagine what it would be like to bear that burden. I just felt so relieved to be sitting there talking about it all so calmly.
It broke my heart to look at her, Durban, but her crew (which, beyond Ricky, includes two of my closest friends in the race) sure seem up to the task, physically and emotionally.
It's hard to say if I would have been, had that been my boat. This leg has been the most difficult for me emotionally and spiritually. In a marathon, this might equate to the 20 mile point when most runners 'hit the wall.' I knew this point would come and from the start had been drawing that marathon parallel in my mind, neglecting to take into account that, for me, that point in a marathon might mean perhaps a bit more than 40 minutes more hard work to the finish. Here, I've got three more months yet to work through.
Once the remaining eight boats were inspected and decisions were made about what to replace fleet-wide to ensure the safety of all the crew and all boats, it was announced that we'd be here in Hawaii nine days longer than planned.
If there was anywhere on earth I'd rather be nine days longer than planned, it would be here. Christina and I had been planning three crammed days together on Oahu, the race's port of call but an island neither of us has much interest in. When the delay was announced, we immediately left to fly the 100 miles over to Maui, her home, where we've now got a leisurely twelve days to slowly enjoy the depth of each other, this jewel of an island, and the goodness of life.
This race has never been about me and what I'll 'accomplish' by doing it. It's about life, living, and the beauty of the earth. If you could only see the things I've seen.
Most of all, it's about the people I love, be they with me or merely holding me in their thoughts around the world. Writing to Christina from the boat just short of Qingdao, I described the cold and the wet and how hard I struggled to endure it. She had responded:
Know that, in an alternate universe, I'm awaiting your arrival in China with a hot aromatic bath drawn and a massage table layered with soft warm blankets, ready to clear away all aspects of stress collected within your sacred temple.
That thought (and the love behind it) has carried me through so many miles and so many difficult days. It was that mental image I relied on to finish the race to China, that image I swam through while collapsed on the shower stall floor those first few hours in Qingdao, and that image I continued to lean on under the emotional duress of what the other equipment failures around us implied about our own boat and safety as we sailed, drove, pounded, and eventually motored our way towards Hawaii.
Now, finally, that alternate universe is my/our reality...along with sparkling waterfalls, warm crystal clear pools and, best of all, the goodness of a true friend.
