It’s been almost ten months since we began this voyage around the world by crossing the Atlantic twice; first east-to-west to Brazil (to avoid the widest part of the doldrums off the western coast of Africa) and secondly west-to-east down to the southern tip of Africa. On this race, our 13th of 14, we crossed the Atlantic a third and last time. After a few frigid days of beating into the prevailing winds, we reached the area just off the southern tip of New Foundland known as the Grand Banks (site of “The Perfect Storm”).
We found no storm at all. We were essentially becalmed.
Normally, working at the bow equates to getting soaked in sea water. In those days of low winds, however, the bow remained completely dry. As we crept towards the southern tip of New Foundland, we had a new hazard to deal with: icebergs.
We established a 24 hour a day Iceberg Watch, requiring someone to be stationed at the bow 24 hours a day, scanning the horizon. At night or if fog was present (as it most often was), someone was also deployed down to the Nav Station to monitor the radar screen for any icebergs detectable.
Drifting along in the low winds, occasionally we’ve dropped to only a knot of speed, if that. Frustrating as that might have been in regards to reaching Cork, it nevertheless gave me many magical moments to savor, particularly during night Iceberg Watches. Sitting or even standing on the pulpit, leaning against the forestay, I would feel as if I was hovering a few meters above the glassy water. Before me I saw nothing but a horizonless curve of pearlescent dark gray sea water ghosting beneath my feet. Ahead, the sea merged seamlessly into a fuzzy dirty white overcast above.Trusting in the security of my safety strap, I’d grasp the forestay with one hand and lean out over the water, feeling like a square rigger’s figurehead. At night it was easy to imagine being at the nose of a spaceship moving through the emptiness of space since there was the enjoyably disorienting lack of a clear horizon and no sound but the quietest of tinkling of the small bow wake below.
At that point we had only two weeks left in the entire circumnavigation, having spent 40 weeks in getting that far. It’s been great but I am ready to move on. Still, moments such as those iceberg watches on crisp nights under a featureless sky and above a whispering sea are some of the things I've treasured in this last year.
After being lulled into a frustrating boredom by the calm seas we initially found, we were to discover we still had two Atlantic storms with which to contend.
The first I’ll write about later, in whatever epilogue I compose once we finish in Liverpool. The second, the lessor of the two, came on slowly in the afternoon of June 25th, when the skies turned gray and the water a slate green color.
When I came on watch at 8:00 p.m. that night, the previous crew had just replaced the mid-weight spinnaker for the heavy weight. The winds were rising and a challenging night was anticipated. It wasn't long before the winds were 30kts or so with gusts up to 35kts, sometimes more. The waves were building and rocking the boat so drastically that it was hard to keep the spinnaker inflated. By the time 10:00 p.m. rolled around and it was approaching my turn to helm, I sat in the snakepit, holding the line controlling the vang with only three turns of it wrapped around the central halyard winch.
The main sheet controls the angle of the boom and, therefore, the angle of the sail (essentially a wing) in relation to the wind. The vang (sometimes called the kicker) is a block and tackle between the base of the mast and the bottom of the boom. When the wind pressure is high on the sail, it wants to pull the boom upwards and form the sail into half a funnel, allowing the wind to dump out of it's trailing edge. The vang resists this motion and keeps the sail shaped more like a wing.
When a boat is threatened with being unexpectedly overpowered by a gust, the quickest way to respond is to release the vang, allowing the sail to curl and loose all it’s power. The second but less effective response is to ease the main sheet, allowing the mainsail to swing out to a less aggressive angle to the wind. Returning to the wing analogy, easing the main would be a bird changing the angle of its wings. Easing the vang would be as if a bird folded its wings.
In certain circumstances (such as that Wednesday night) someone holds the line leading to the vang with only a few turns on the winch, creating just enough friction for a moderate grip to hold it fast. All it takes, then, to dump the vang is to release one’s grip. Someone also stands 'Shotgun,' i.e., by the mainsheet with it also down to three turns on a winch.
Sitting at the vang that night, awaiting my turn to helm, I looked back and was relieved to find Skipper Mark on the helm. Mark never takes the helm except when it’s absolutely necessary. Despite the level of confidence I’ve gained in helming over these last ten months at sea, I wasn’t too keen on taking the helm that night in those conditions.
My watch leader Koh Kok Siong had already spent quite some time on shotgun so I volunteered to relieve him. I moved into the central position in the photo below, poised to release the mainsheet at a moment’s notice.
We were doint 13-15kts in this wind and occasionally surfing down waves a 19 kts. It was exhilarating and we knew we were making great gains on other boats not in this storm, but the drain on the crew and, more importantly, Mark at the helm was severe.
Standing next to Mark with the mainsheet in my hands, I volunteered, “So basically we’re going to fly the kite until you need sleep, right?” He had a short moment to chuckle before muttering an expletive as a wave rolled us so hard to the left that the kite was back winded and began to collapse against the wrap net.
Still muttering obscenities under his breath, Mark fought to maneuver the boat so as to gently re-inflate the spinnaker. If it re-inflates too quickly, it will pop open like the apartment building-sized parachute that it truly is (see the photos in the previous blog entry) and impose huge forces on the lines, halyards, and shackles controlling it. Perhaps a month ago a sudden re-inflation of the kite in similar conditions snapped the metal shank of shackle as thick as my ring finger as easily as if it had been a piece of chalk, setting one corner of the spinnaker free and necessitating an immediate emergency drop of the spinnaker in the worst of conditions.
This is what we were trying to avoid that Wednesday night.
Finally at 11:00 p.m. Mark could take no more. “Prepare to drop the kite,” he shouted over the wind. “It’s too hard to control.” To me he volunteered in a lower voice, “My arms are about to fall off.”
To be safe, we woke the oncoming watch a bit early to have more manpower available. For 30 more minutes, then, Mark still had to fight to control the spinnaker while everyone set up for the what was anticipated to be a brutal effort. As we prepared for the drop, a gust came through and added extra pressure to the sails. The boat, already heeled at a 30 degree angle, leaned harder and harder to port.
Mark shouted, “VANG!!” but nothing happened. Whomever was on the vang (I’ve never learned who it was, it being too dark and I too busy in the aftermath of that moment to see) had somehow gotten the line tangled in something and the mainsail remained fully powered. At the same moment, the urgency of the need being obvious, I’d released the mainsheet fully and let the boom swing out completely towards the water, it almost striking the waves since we were heeled over so far at this point. This helped slow the increasing heel of the boat but it didn’t stop it.
Mark was screaming now in a high pitched voice, “DUMP THE VANG! GET THE FUCKING VANG OFF THE WINCH!”
We were being threatened with a broach; when the boat's heeling to one side becomes so severe that the rudder is pulled up out of the water on the other side and the helm loses all ability to control the boat. Once this happens, the spinnaker will first lay the boat flat onto the downwind side then, with no rudder or keel resisting it, spin the boat in a flash close to 180 degrees to the point upwind where the spinnaker will now completely re-inflate backwards, popping the boat violently upright with the spinnaker tangled in the shouds and spinnaker pole and, most likely, ripped to shreds.
In time (just in time) the vang was released and the boat eased up a bit. The gust died and the boat recovered a bit more. I started the process of grinding the mainsheet back in.
It was only a few minutes later that everyone one was in place for the spinnaker drop and we brought it down. I had moved into the cockpit to join the other three who were pulling it down into the companionway. After it was successfully below decks and no longer a threat to anyone or anything, I asked Mark if I should go back to shotgun, go forward and help with the tidy up of all the lines on the foredeck, or go below and help fold the kite.
“Actually,” he said, “take the helm.”
With no headsails up and nothing more than the main eased out to the shrouds, we were still doing 9 kts. When I took the wheel, Mark slumped down to take a seat by the mainsheet winch, too exhausted to move any further for the moment.
Ahead of us, in the dark under the dim glow of the deck light, the rest of the crew moved about the deck tidying up the spinnaker lines, guys, sheets, and halyards. We were setting up to hoist the Yankee 2 to be poled out "Wing and Wing" as a replacement for the dropped kite. In the heavy rain and air thick with mist, everyone's bright red foul weather gear with day-glo yellow hoods were only moving mounds of dull red with dim white tops to Mark and I back at the helm. Their muffled voices reached us over the wind noise, some rising with directions, some acknowledging, some offering requests, and some moving around silently getting done what needed to be done without any direction at all. No one voice dominated. The group worked fluidly as a team.
I pointed out that representation of teamwork to Mark, adding that witnessing those moments during such challenging times were the times I felt best about being on this boat.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” he said, heaving another exhausted sigh.
I wish I had a picture to offer of the moment, for my own memory's sake if nothing else, but in the rain at night in a heaving sea, none would have been possible. Those moments really aren’t about how they look, however. They’re about how they feel…how they feel to all of us.
Those kinds of moments, be they the thrill of dropping a spinnaker in a storm or quiet Iceberg Watches at night on the very tip of the pulpit on a calm sea...those kinds of moments are the things I’ll miss the most in the times that follow the end of this race.
Standing at the helm while the rest of the crew worked, as we closed in on Cork still three days away, I thought to myself that perhaps, after all, we did deserve to look a bit heroic in some video footage now and then.
