The Romantic Challenge

by Francis Chichester

  By noon on 15 March Point X was to the south-east, nearly in the eye of the wind, with Gipsy Moth hard on the wind heading east, about 240 miles from the 40th meridian. The port tack to the south would be a little more favourable but I wanted rather to arrive north of Point X, from where Gipsy Moth would be on the southerly heading of the speed run and would be getting trimmed up for it. It was interesting how the hydrographers differ; the American pilot chart shows for this area averages of nearly the same amount of wind from every octant of the compass rose, whereas the British routeing chart shows wind from every point on the eastern half but either very little or a negligible amount from the western half. I usually go by the British chart nowadays, because it gives more details than the American charts. But let me pay tribute to that great American, Lieutenant Maury, USN, who conceived the idea of these wonderfully useful charts, and to the United States Hydrographic Office for collecting data for their charts for a hundred years longer than we have. It is always much easier to climb on a pioneer’s back.

  Shortly after noon I got ready a bag of tools, shackles, cordage, and so on to have a go at the jumper stays, but then a wide belt of rain squalls started going through. The stays were flailing about like cats-o’-nine-tails with a bottlescrew at the end of each, periodically twining together, but I had waited this long and was not going up in that sort of weather unless I had to.

  In one squall I rigged the rain-catching gadget I had devised to the boom of the mizen, but it only rained for about a minute and was blowing so hard that with the heel the boom was sloping down to the water and all the water ran down it instead of towards the mast where I had planned to catch it. There was too much wind to top up the boom end and make the water run inboard. Once I got to the Doldrums at the Equator, there would be plenty of heavy rain with no wind—but 1,600 miles was a long way to go for a drink.

  I noted at midnight that Gipsy Moth had sailed 3,540 miles since leaving Bluff, mostly on the wind, and 10,924 miles since leaving Plymouth. Also that the wind was back again at 22 knots and that it had that persistent whining note which says ‘Take care, for I am a lot stronger than I seem to be!’

  On the morning of 16 March, conditions for the ascent of Mt. Mast were about as good as I could expect. ‘I reckon to drop the mizen stays’l, bowse down the main stays’l boom and the mizen boom to leeward, after sheeting them as hard as I can. Then I shall gybe and head up into the wind. With the sails aback Gipsy Moth should do little more than creep ahead, the pitching should be damped and the mast will be heeled a few degrees so that the ratlines are to windward, to make it easier for me balancing on top of them to work on the jumper stays. “Us’ll zee loike”, as the Devon lads used to say.’

  When I got into position at the weather crosstree, I thought for a minute that I should have to climb down again. I had left the long broom handle on the deck attached to a long cord, of which I took one end up to the ratlines with me. I needed the pole to get one of the stays free; it had spiralled itself in and out around the two stays’l stays above and was out of reach. When I tried to haul the broom handle up, it had caught one end under the furled tops’l on deck. I tugged and tugged but could not get it free. The cord was attached near one end of the pole and it was the short pole-end above my clovehitch which was caught up. In the end I pulled so hard that I up-ended the long piece of pole on the other side of the knot and it came away. When I did get the jumper stay free it lashed round the other side of the mast and the bottlescrew at the end of it flew back and hit me on the cheek. Luckily it was not a serious blow. Once, while I was using both hands to make a loop out of the bottom end of one of the jumper stay wires, and using a racking seizing to bind the two parts of wire together, I got a scare which made my blood feel hot round my heart. Gipsy Moth suddenly pitched, jerking the mast forward and trying to catapult me away. I had my legs round the mast with my ankles locked together. Fortunately they stood the strain and I regained my balance.

  I was lucky to be working at the crosstrees where I could sit astride one of them. If the job had been higher up I would have had to stand with a foot in a kind of stirrup step on one side of the mast, and the other in a similar step two feet higher on the other side. So most of my weight would have been on the ball of one foot and I could not have lasted out anything like the time it took me to do the job, one hour and thirteen minutes.

  To me it always seems much higher up a mast than it is. Perhaps this is because I fear any height if it is possible to fall from it. I never had this fear strongly before my flying crash in Japan in 1931. Sitting astride the crosstree, my head was only 34ft above the sea, yet it felt like three times that height. The sun was shining in a clear sky and the deck laid out below on the vast expanse of ultramarine ocean was a fine sight. But what interested me most and greatly surprised me was the size of the pale yellow patches of Sargasso weed lying flat on the surface. These weed ‘ponds’were far bigger than I had ever imagined from the deck where I suppose they appeared foreshortened. Some were as big as two tennis courts joined together.

  For once, everything went well with this job and I could not find any damage to the tops’l track on the lee side of the mast. I was left without jumper struts, but when I came down I voted for a walloping brandy, sour and hot, as a treat for breakfast; I really enjoyed it.

  At 1900 on 16 March Gipsy Moth was three hours from the 40th meridian and the turn south for the run down to the Equator. Gipsy Moth, ambling eastwards against wind and current from Crooked Island to 26˚30’N 39˚51’ W, had logged 2,213.3 miles in fifteen days and eleven minutes, averaging 147.5 mpd, and had made good 1,890.5 miles in a fix-to-fix straight line, averaging 125.6 mpd.

  I was excited, uneasy, reluctant. I had grown used to my holiday plug to windward and suddenly I had to turn at right-angles and charge down the middle of the ocean for 1,600 miles as fast as Gipsy Moth would go. It would be a joy to get a free wind as I sailed south, though that would not be until the wind backed from the present south-east to east or north-east. Surely that must be soon, or had Aeolus not heard that this was a northeast Trade Wind zone and not a south-east one?

  7. The Equator Dart

  I tacked to the south at 2212 on 16 March. My new adventure was on.

  By noon of the 17th Gipsy Moth was plugging into a 20-knot wind. It was rough on deck forward with a lot of sea and spray coming aboard. According to the American pilot chart this was the edge of the Trade Wind belt and I imagined that the squalls of the past few days were turbulence created by the mixing of two different zones of air, but I was hoping for some milder weather before reaching the 20th parallel.

  1800: ‘There is still fairly rough weather about. A dirty big squall is just passing some miles astern and another passed ahead some time ago. I expect to catch another sooner or later.

  ‘I am running the motors to charge the batteries, which are badly down. There was a heavy drain on current with the R/T session and I used a lot more with spreader lights and so on during a squall in the night. However, I am anxiously watching the inclinometer which measures the angle of heel, because I fear that too much heel will prevent the oil from circulating and the bearings will seize up. This happened with my charging motor in 1962. Occasionally Gipsy Moth slips upright and I hope that is sufficient to circulate the oil.’

  At midnight a hefty squall with 40-knot gusts went through. I woke up just before it and noticed the heading had backed to SE. The wind started to freshen up so I reckoned a squall was on the way and got into a hard-weather suit to be ready for it. I had to use the tiller tackles to turn off the wind when Gipsy Moth would not answer the helm and for about a quarter of an hour we ran off south-west before the blast. Later, the wind dropped and freed, and had I been enthusiastic I would have set bigger sails, but I was content to hold to the south-east heading through the night and gain some valuable easting. I thought I would just pop up and hoist the mizen stays’l, but I left it down and the wind soon swung back to set Gipsy Moth close-hauled again, headi
ng south, in a wind 27 knots from ESE.

  If I stuck to my heading Gipsy Moth would take too much of a pounding, and if I payed off as I had just done, it would result in my being 60 miles downwind or west of the 40th meridian by the time I reached the starting line the next day. That I could ill afford, so I decided to hold on for an hour in the hope of it easing. That would cost 2.6 miles of leeway. The bigger worry was that my scheme would be euchred if the wind persisted from this direction. I thought the best tactics were to pinch up as much as tolerable for the present and then turn off the wind enough to increase the speed to the minimum needed for 200mpd. As it was Gipsy Moth was doing 7 knots. The wind was coming out of a fine, sunny sky, so I thought it was the true Trade Wind and would not now ease off. The direction, south of east, did worry me, but I could not believe that the wind would not back two and possibly four points to ENE during the next 200 miles.

  I went to sleep about 1900 and, apart from the hourly stirrings to know that all was well, slept till half past midnight, when I found the weather fine and mild, with a nice breeze. Going to sleep soon after nightfall is quite a good move for the singlehander because he is nearly always up for a good chunk of the night, either on deckwork or crises, and it makes half-past two in the morning seem a good time to have dinner!

  After noon the next day, the 19th, the wind veered instead of backing and the time came when Gipsy Moth was headed to the west of south with a south-easterly breeze. As she had not got up racing speed I felt this was squandering hard-gained easting so I tacked to the eastwards. The more easting I got the better; in fact, I had been regretting that I had not held on for another 500 miles when I was at 27˚N. That would have given me more scope to sail between south and south-west on the speed run without running into South America or making it difficult to get another speed run on the way back from the Equator. After tacking I found it pleasant to be heading east again, with the westering sun streaming into the cabin through the companion. I had been headed east for so long that I had had a twinge of regret, like homesickness, at leaving the old route.

  It was incredible how clumsy I had been all that day. It seemed to take an age to change jibs. At every step something got hitched up somewhere. To crown the non-performance, after I had bagged the No. 2 jib, dropped it down the hold, and hauled the No. 1 bag forward, when I opened the bag and pulled the jib out to start hanking it on, it was the same No. 2 jib that I had just bagged with such an effort—and made of heavy, stiff Terylene, very difficult to get into its bag. The bag I had dumped in the hold was the one I had just pulled out of it. That was the sort of clueless boob I made at every step.

  I suddenly realized that I could not stand on deck without hanging on; also that I had lost my balance. This was a serious matter and a big worry. My legs felt as if I had just got out of hospital after being bedridden for a month. Whenever I had a job to do on deck, unless I had one hand free for a hold, I had to arrange so that a leg was bearing against something; otherwise I lost my balance. The loss of balance I accepted; it started with my big fall on the deck of Gipsy Moth IV in 1966. After I had improved it with exercises, I then slipped and had another fall on the Cornish coast, shooting about ten feet down a rockface and hitting the very same place on my left leg when I landed on the rock below.

  I did some leg exercises and it was at once obvious that they were badly needed. I could not swing my left leg forward and back without the sale of the foot scraping the floor. I could not bend the foot upwards at all at the ankle and I hadn’t enough strength in the left foot to move the toes in a circle, bending the foot at the ankle. I decided that I would have to exercise seriously several times a day until I got back to normal. It may seem absurd that a singlehander racing a 57ft, 29-ton yacht across the Atlantic could not have enough exercise, but it must be that only certain muscles are used in working the ship; other muscles and tendons are never needed and by nature’s relentless law, what is not used wastes away.

  At midnight Gipsy Moth was becalmed in a heavy shower of rain and I was hard at it rain-catching for a couple of hours. I had the mizen sailcover attached underneath the mizen boom, and the rain ran off the sail on to the boom and from there into the sail-cover. Near the mast end of the boom I funnelled it down into a bucket in the cockpit. From that I syphoned it into a 20-litre jerrican which I hauled forward to the tank at the fore end of the main cabin, there syphoning it out of the jerrican into the tank. At the end of the shower there were 14 gallons in the tank.

  At noon on the 20th Gipsy Moth was becalmed and the day’s run had been negligible, 73 miles sailed, due to the calms and ghosty airs. But at 1400 a breeze came in from the north by east. I rigged the pole out to port, boomed out the 300 and by nine o’clock that evening Gipsy Moth was doing over 8 knots, but 10˚ off the required track of my speed run. To make good 200mpd when 10˚ off track, a yacht must average 8.46 knots; 20˚ off track, 8.86 knots; and 30˚ off track, 9.6 knots, to equal 8.3 knots on the direct heading to the target.

  Sunday 21 March, 1015: ‘Gipsy Moth’s sailing speed has averaged 7.75 knots since the four-star fix at 1815 last evening. 7.75 knots sailed would amount to 14 miles short of the 200mpd rate, but the fix-to-fix would be even less. So I guess this lot is not for the speed run unless I am desperate for mileage at the other end to make up 1,000. The Trade Wind belt in which I can expect enough wind is only about 1,200 miles thick at the best, and if I put off starting until well inside it I may run out of distance. I shall not be able to make up the 1,000 from the Doldrums at the other end where 4 or 5 knots is good going. The best thing is to keep the run to now up my sleeve for emergency at the Equator end.…

  At noon on the 21st the fix-to-fix run was only 148 miles, the position 17˚50’N 38˚34½’W. The wind kept on veering until the heading was 25˚W of S. It was very light, 6 knots, and useless for racing. I could not see any sense in squandering valuable easting so I decided to drop the boom sail and turn into the wind. Gipsy Moth then headed nearly south-east. I felt depressed. She was already 130 miles into the 1,200-mile wind belt. Every mile of southing reduced the length of run possible. Though headed south-east she was still making southing. I had got myself into a bad position—what was best to do? It was no good squatting on the north edge waiting for a change. I might wait weeks, months; the Trade Winds plan their tactics months in advance. I could start across the belt south-westwards to get a longer run in the good wind belt, but it would almost certainly spoil the chance of a fast run north later.

  At five o’clock the next morning the wind had punched up in strength and Gipsy Moth’s sailing speed was up to 8-5 knots. This hope in hell of keeping it up for five days on her then heading of 90˚–95˚ off the relative wind, the only hope would be to bear away enough to set Big Brother instead of the 300 jib.

  At 1835: ‘I feel thoroughly punctured. This scheme has deflated suddenly today without a bang. I expect to abandon the run south tomorrow. I felt certain that today would be a 200-miler or very close to it. As Gipsy Moth only sailed 1.7 miles short of the 200 today and any current should be across the heading and not against it, it looks as if the log is over-reading. However, on further thought I believe there must have been an eddy against Gipsy Moth today. Putting that aside, the fact is that I have made a failure of to day’s run in the middle of the Trade Wind belt and now have only 750 miles left before reaching the Equator and the Doldrums. It is worse than that because there is a strong likelihood of running into the Doldrums or light airs some way north of the Equator. I cannot slant off south-west to get a longer run because that would ruin the chance of a run north and also I would expect great difficulty in getting away from the South American coast if I ended up too near it.…’

  Wednesday 24 March, 0900: ‘There is something unsatisfying and unpleasing about not sticking to one’s original plan and I fear I must do that even if it dishes a chance of a fast run. Besides, there is a feeling of romance or something—perhaps adventure—about sailing down to the Line.

  ‘I
had to ease the jib sheet because the mast has more bend to leeward at the top than I like. Gipsy Moth is going well. Now I would like some breakfast—after my leg and feet exercises of course. Their lamentable weakness has improved already, also my balance.’

  At noon on the 24th the fix-to-fix run was 202.5 miles and the distance sailed by the log 212.1. The R/T link with England that evening was terrible. I could hardly hear an intelligible sentence. I don’t think that anything I wanted to say got through except maybe that I was sticking to my original plan and should be at the Line in three days. When the R/T does not work properly, it is an awful tyrant. I was sweating and dry-mouthed and my side was hurting where the lurching of the yacht caused the belt holding me into the seat to bite into my side, while the edge of the chart table cut into my ribs and I got cramp trying to keep in a position where I could listen, talk, and work the set.

  But I soon cheered up and at 0245 on the 25th I recorded that I was again ‘reclining in my berth like a Pasha, sipping a tin of, nay, a saucepan half full of, delicious pea soup. This is after setting the poor old tops’l which gets so abused but it is doing an excellent job at present. The speed I reached for the latest period is up 1/3 of a knot compared with the last period before setting the sail, 9.2 against 8.9 knots.’

  At noon on the 25th the fix-to-fix run was 189 miles. This was most disappointing because Gipsy Moth had logged 214.28 miles and had been registering over 9 knots since six o’clock that morning, right through to noon. The total point-to-point run of the past three days, from 22 to 25 March, was only 569.5 miles, an average of 189.8 miles per day. The position at noon was 6˚00’N 37˚50’W.