Atlantic Adventure
Page 7
I picked up Radio Gander and heard a weather forecast from them. That night I had a good contact with London, and arranged to call every day at 0900 GMT and 2130 GMT. New York would listen in so that as I got nearer the end of the passage, instructions about meeting me could be given. I felt a new man when I turned in that night: I had had a pounding, and life seemed rotten, but we had sailed 69½ miles since noon.
I felt that I should have to put the skates on to overcome the way in which the storm had mucked me up, but Gipsy was going really well over the Grand Banks. There was a curious incident during the night. I woke suddenly in the dark and went on deck. It was foggy as well as dark, and I saw a large steamer looming right across my bows. I put my helm hard down to come up into the wind to pass ahead of her, but she seemed to be moving in the same direction, so I turned downwind. Then it seemed that I would hit her amidships, so I turned back upwind, so that I could swim along with her if she was moving. She foghorned then, and I realized that she was a fishing steamer, and not moving at all. So I cleared her all right. Why did I wake up? Some instinct must have wakened me, like the instinct that warns an animal of danger. Perhaps after many days alone this instinct in man is sharpened.
My hands were so cold that I found it difficult to hold a pen, so I had a petit déjeuner of hot grog and a biscuit. I heard a blast from another fishing boat astern, and soon afterwards crossed the bows of a trawler 100 yards away. I was below and they hooted, which brought me on deck, but I did not need to alter course. I had the big genoa boomed out with the working jib on the other side and the mainsail set. Gipsy Moth was doing around 6 knots. I felt much improved by having a big wash and a shave. Fog was more or less continuous all day, with visibility varying from about three-quarters of a mile to a quarter of a mile. I managed to get two observations of the sun with the bubble sextant, and the shots all tallied amazingly: I think this must have been a pure fluke, because it is impossible to keep bubble and sun together at sea. Nevertheless, the plotted result agreed with a late sun shot with the ordinary sextant to within eight minutes of arc: I would say that ten minutes’accuracy was as good as one could hope for.
It was a gentle night, with a light fog, and a smooth sea, and we had some wonderful sailing—the kind a sailor always dreams of. After the Atlantic, which seems such a ruthless, hard, kind of ocean, the Banks were like coming home. Morning saw the wind a few degrees forward of the beam and I had the working jib, on a pole out to windward, drawing well. The sea was as smooth as the Solent, and the mysterious Grand Banks were covered with calm gliding water which gurgled and rumbled along the hull. I was then about 78 miles from the longitude of Cape Spear, and about 1,067 miles from New York.
I had a good lunch, with garlic and Danish Blue cheese, preceded by a glass of Mackeson. While I was in the middle of lunch there was a loud bang, and I found that the grommet at the clew of the working jib, holding it to the spinnaker pole, had parted. No harm was done, however, and the trouble was soon remedied. And I had no need to reset the jib, as the wind freshened and the genoa was enough. Gipsy Moth was doing 6½ knots.
In the afternoon I got a good sun shot which suggested that we had been given a lift of some 13 miles by the Labrador current. That night we crossed the longitude of Cape Spear, and I felt the real romance of the passage stealing in at last. It seemed to take twenty-four days to shed the materialism of ordinary living.
In the small hours of Monday, June 25th, I got up thinking that we were becalmed, but I found the yacht still moving. A Mother Carey’s chick was struggling on the main boom; evidently it had flown into the mainsail. I gathered it into the palm of my hand and presently deposited it on some nylon sail tie stops which were leaped in a corner of the cockpit. It was a quaint little bird, with feet rather like a bat’s, with three toes, webbed with a membrane. It had a very curved beak, like a toy parrot’s, and a white band across its back where the tail starts. It stirred me to the heart, and after sitting still in the cockpit for a bit, it recovered itself and flew away.
I hated the banging and slatting of the calm, but I left the mainsail up because we kept ghosting along: we did 5 miles in three hours, not record-breaking, but better than nothing. Around nine a.m. I had some coffee in the saloon and made up a second pair of sheets for the jib. That day I could hear the mainland broadcasting promises of very little wind, but I was well offshore and I hoped to find a better wind where I was. But the gentle wind was jolly nice—one could have one’s stout and Danish Blue in the cockpit. It meant a lot of work, though, changing sails all day and trying to take advantage of any zephyr that came along. I saw a fine school of porpoise, some of them leaping 10 feet out of the water: I supposed that they were playing. A fishing boat, number 15, came up to me during the afternoon. It was rather amusing the way it went ahead of me, and then turned off in a direction which I made out to be Boston. It was rather as if they thought that I was on the wrong track and they were showing me the right way to go. I still had 948 miles to go to make New York, and only six days to do it in if I was to get there in the thirty days I had set myself. Only a miracle could let me do it, but I felt, ‘Never mind; that is the way life goes, and it is great run.’
We came on the wind again, so I handed the genoa and set the working jib with the staysail, but after a bit the wind freed a bit. It was dropping calm, anyway, so I let the sails stay as they were. The night brought drizzle and more fog, but it stayed calm, and in the light breeze it was clear that the cutter rig was what suited the yacht best. I was glad that I had left the jib and the staysail as they were though it had seemed quite wrong at the time.
I put my clock back four hours because I began to feel like a delinquent getting up at ten in the morning—really, six a.m.—and having lunch at five-thirty in the evening.
I managed to get some more charge into the batteries, but when I tested a cell—the one I always tested—the reading had not gone up at all, although the other cells had gone up to 1·140. I couldn’t explain this. There seemed a lot of witch-doctory about those batteries. Calls from London came through very strongly, although the batteries were so low, and London could hear me well.
My noon position next day, June 26th, showed that we had made good 108 miles since yesterday, which left me 840 more to reach New York. The wind fell off, but I set my ghoster and we still went along at between 2 and 3 knots. In the evening we seemed totally becalmed, and in desperation I decided to turn in and go to sleep. I awoke just before three a.m. to a real shemozzle: instead of the wind coming in a nice little zephyr from the south, it was coming in a really hearty breeze from NNW. I had only one sheet on the ghoster, which I had to get in before doing anything else. It was all over the foredeck and I trod on it all the time, slipping at every step. I had my torch, but, oh, for a light I could see by without having to hold it with my chin! I tidied things up on the foredeck and then I had to tackle the mainsail. I had left it loose ready for the zephyr I had been expecting, and in the wind that came it was flapping madly. In trying to get it up it jammed on the lower shrouds, and I had to come up on the wind before I could free it. However, at last I managed to get it up properly.
To add to those troubles I wasn’t feeling too good because I had eaten a rather indigestible supper. I couldn’t bear to waste the tomatoes, which were rather past their freshness, but had survived the trip, so I had fried them up and eaten them, but the result was not too good.
Such little things apart, everything was fine. Gone was the calm with its frustrating hard work of trying to humour and coax Gipsy Moth into some movement. We now had a very pleasant reaching breeze, and Gipsy Moth was slipping along at nearly 7 knots. My course took me about 35 miles south of Sable Island, but it remained well out of sight. The temperature was 52 degrees, and I supposed that meant that I was in an off-shoot of the Gulf Stream, but with the north in the wind, the weather seemed very cold. During the morning a Russian fishing vessel overtook me; maybe she thought that Miranda was some secret weapon! She tooted, w
hich brought me up on deck. She was apparently off to New York. The sun was very hazy indeed through the mist, but I got some sun shots and worked out a position. Gipsy Moth was beginning to go really fast, but she was throwing her weight about and roaring as she did so. I took in the staysail and rolled two reefs in the main. The yacht’s speed stayed the same, but she went about things more quietly. Miranda gave a bit of trouble, and seemed unable to hold the course. I oiled the rudder stock and decided to give it some more oil daily. I had a good talk to John Fairhall and the BBC, but there seemed something wrong with my starboard aerial; it seemed to have no power in it.
7. In the Gulf Stream
I turned in early that night, June 27th, being pretty sure that I would be called out soon. I was right, for the wind backed somewhat and increased, and just before midnight I had to reef the mainsail, and take in the staysail. We had a mad ride, reaching into the dark, with apparently acres of white water from the bows, and waves sliding past fast. I think we were doing 10 knots—faster than at any other time of the voyage. The sea was moderate, except for occasional combers which tried to roll the boat over, or slewed her stern or bows round. The mast and sails and gear could have taken the strain, I thought, though perhaps not the sails, so to be on the safe side I reefed. I feared for Miranda, who was the weak link. It was a magnificent sail, and tremendously exhilarating. After watching and enjoying things for a bit, I turned in again, and awoke about six a.m. to find the sun streaming into the cabin out of a clear sky. It was marvellous after that rather rocky night, what I call a real Bermudan day. There was a pale blue sky, with a dark blue sea, and some dark yellow pieces of seaweed floating past now and then. Everything was lovely, and there was still quite a breeze blowing. It was not exactly the wind I wanted, for it was mainly from the west, and my best course could be only SW. by S., which was 30-35 degrees off the course which I wanted for New York. I kept hoping that the wind would back into the SW., so that I could change tack and lie closer to the way I wanted to go. I knew that Sheila was due to fly to New York in a day or two and I wanted to be there to meet her, though I didn’t expect that I should quite be able to make it.
But the wind stayed westerly and more or less dead on the nose, so I hardened up everything and Gipsy drove hard on the wind, still moving at between 6 and 7 knots. I didn’t want to get too deep into the Gulf Stream, so I hoped more than ever that the wind would soon back to the SW. On inspecting the foredeck I found to my horror that the jib halliard was over the lee crosstrees. I gave full marks to Sparlight who made the mast and to John Tilingworth who designed the rigging for the way in which everything had stood the strain if the halliard had been like that during our rough ride in the night.
I tested the radio batteries and they didn’t seem to have any charge in them at all, although they were still prepared to work. I managed to charge them for an hour and twenty-five minutes, and I suppose the engine put some charge in them, but I could not see any difference in the readings.
My noon position put me 42° 15' N., 61 ° 47' W., which made my distance to the Nantucket Light Vessel 360 miles, with another 198 miles to get from there to New York, 558 miles in all. It was such a lovely day that after a glass of Mackeson and some cheese and garlic in the cockpit, I went to sleep where I sat. When I woke up I made a private note for myself that I must prepare to lay off garlic soon because New York was getting so near.
A few minutes before six that evening I did another plot of my position and found that we were 30 miles nearer to New York than we had been at noon, which brought down the distance to 528 miles. I had a good transmission to John Fairhall in London that evening, and at his request transmitted on four megacycles for five minutes to the United States; I found it rather uncanny, not knowing if I had been heard or not. Two west-going steamers overtook us. Gipsy Moth was still going well, though when I was down below in the cabin I had a curious feeling, as if she were stalled and stationary. I decided that this was perhaps due to the effect of the particular wave formation round her hull at that moment. When I turned in that night there was a clear sky with bright stars, and the wind seemed to be falling off a bit.
The next day, June 29th, brought rather poor sailing, but it was a wonderful day. I sorted out my new swimming trunks, and they were the only thing I wore all day. I had a sluice down in the cockpit in Gulf Stream water—the temperature of the water was 64 degrees. I felt very sorry for people in London.
It really was absolutely superb out there, although I feared that we were very much in the Gulf Stream. There was hardly a cloud in the sky, and I was able to dry out all my gear, and to get on with doing my housework in the best of conditions. Before I left England I had had some bread baked for me by a vegetarian restaurant called the Vega, and I dug out a loaf, which I found in almost perfect condition. I had some nice cherry jam with it, and beautifully fresh butter: it had all kept admirably. I had a look round at my stores, and I thought that if I was to use them up I should probably have to take a turn round Cape Horn. I had so many things that Sheila had laid in for me that I could not possibly eat through them all. It seemed a rather sad predicament.
For six hours or so we were more or less becalmed, although Gipsy Moth still seemed to manage somehow to ghost through the water. I had another wash in the cockpit, which cheered me up a bit because the water seemed much colder, and I thought that we might be edging a bit out of the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is marvellously warm, but there was one thing against it—it was setting me back 7 or 8 miles towards Europe every day. My noon position that day showed that I had made 95 miles from noon on the day before. I felt that I was damned lucky to have done this through the hours of calm we had had.
Throughout the afternoon I trimmed sails and made little changes here and there to try to get a bit more speed out of the yacht. I touched up the jib and hardened the sheet a very little, and I also hardened in the main a very little. The water temperature in the afternoon was again 64 degrees. I got some more sun shots and went over the figures. According to my latest sun shot it appeared to me that we had had a Gulf Stream drift of 7½ miles ENE., since six-thirty that morning, which meant about 0-85 knot against us all the time. I felt that I must get out of it. I had another good transmission to London, and tried again to woo New York Radio. I tried for seven minutes, but got no reply, and since I had no battery juice to spare I switched off. Around seven o’clock that evening I was puzzled, and rather bothered to meet some sea coming in from the west, which slowed down the boat. I freed the sheets and headed off the wind to try to cope with it. I knew that we were climbing up the continental shelf, so to speak, but we were not over any special canyon, and I couldn’t make out what was causing the sea. At last it dawned on me—of course, it was the usual Gulf Stream pobble. I kept on taking the temperature of the water, and at nine-fifteen found that it was down to 62 degrees. This did not seem to mean much.
At midnight it was so calm that the sails were not even slatting, and I could see the planet Jupiter reflected in the surface of the sea. All the stars were visible, though none was particularly bright. To my astonishment at one a.m. the speedometer read 3·5 knots. I couldn’t believe my eyes, but on looking over the side I could see that we were in fact ghosting through the water. I thought the speedometer must be off colour, for I reckoned that our speed was about 11 knots; that would have been quite marvellous enough in scarcely any wind at all. I thought of easing the sheets and heading a bit more off what wind there was, but I decided that it would be a shame to disturb a trim which was achieving such results. I wanted to keep an eye on the speedometer on the counter, but I couldn’t read it very well from the cockpit because there were some drops of water on the glass face, and these reflected back the light from my torch. So I got out a 10-foot bamboo, and with a bit of cloth on the end made it into a wiper for wiping the face of the speedometer; it worked well. Still intrigued by the speedometer, I turned out again at two o’clock to have another look at it, and to see if I could check th
e results. I did manage to work out our position, and I found that Gipsy Moth had in fact done 21⁄3 nautical miles in the hour. She was going much faster then, and audibly sailing. The speedometer then read 5¼ knots. The mean of the two readings at the beginning and end of the hour gave 4½ knots, but Gipsy had actually done 21⁄3 nautical miles over the hour. I decided to make a graph for the instrument to correct its readings at these lower speeds.
I came to the conclusion that Gipsy’s ghosting ability was improved by the fact that I was sailing alone, and had no crew. If a boat has once started moving she will go on ghosting along in a fantastic way, provided that you keep very still. If you fill the boat up with a crew and they all go stamping all over the place they will stop it. I decided to help Gipsy by going to sleep.
At seven o’clock that morning, June 30th, the temperature of the water was down to 60 degrees. The barometer had fallen a very little, but it was another fine and sunny summer’s day. There was a zephyr coming from the SW., which was a bit more what I wanted, although it wasn’t very much. I lifted the mainsail on the mast to take up whatever slack there might have been, and played on the sheets, but this brought no apparent change in speed. I got a sun shot just after eight a. m. and found that we had lost another 6 miles to the Gulf Stream. I found that I was just 81 miles ESE. from my position during the 1960 race. Then, it had taken me four and a half days to make New York; I hoped that it wouldn’t take so long this time. I heard a radio broadcast from New York, which promised an east wind, and I decided to set the big genoa to be ready for it if it came, but I had breakfast first, for I thought that there might very probably be no need for the big sail, anyway. After breakfast I decided that it might be useful, so I did set it. The speedometer seemed to have gone off the air—I hoped not from taking umbrage after my remarks about it! It was very hot working in only my Jantzen swimming trunks, with my safety belt, and I burned my back a bit in the sun. A little wind did get up, but it was still from the SW. I boomed out the working jib to its full length to port and had nearly full sail set—1,111 square feet.