The Romantic Challenge

by Francis Chichester

  Gipsy Moth was going well with a relative wind of from 13 to 20 knots on the beam. The speedometer was registering 9 knots frequently. It looked promising for a good day’s run, but at 2045: ‘I have been wrestling with the tops’l for about an hour. Something is preventing it from being hoisted fully to the masthead. Unfortunately I cannot see by torchlight what this is. I tried all the tricks I could think of to shake it free of the obstruction but, whatever that was, it was not to be budged. The odd thing is that the tops’l goes up and down easily and freely to that same point where it always sticks. However, it seems to be pulling well though not fully hoisted and of course there is less heeling moment, the lower it is.’ In daylight I could not see anything wrong with the tops’l halyard or track on the aft side of the mast. However, the sail was doing well where it was so I decided not to hurry to investigate further. Obviously something was jamming somewhere and I suspected that the tops’l halyard might have jumped off the sheave in the masthead.

  At 1409 on 1 April the fix-to-fix run for the past twenty-four hours was 207 miles, distance logged 204.6, position 03˚55½’ N 37˚14’W. This was decidedly encouraging for the first day because I knew that Gipsy Moth ought to be able to put up a greater speed as she worked her way into the core of the Trade Wind zone.

  I changed the No. 2 jib for Big Brother, boomed out, which started pushing the boat’s head to leeward. I wished I could have countered this by hoisting the tops’l to the masthead. I had several tries, and the tops’l went up like a bird, but it always stuck at the same place. In the end I fitted the big windvane. I was not going to get any sleep otherwise unless I put up the smaller jib for the big runner or something drastic like that. Every time Gipsy Moth griped up to windward until the wind was forward of the beam, the poled-out runner came aback, the tops’l thrashed, the speed dropped and I had to wake up, grab the safety control line to the tiller and pull hard. Even though I could do this from my bunk I still had to wake up. Similarly when she payed off downwind. As she approached the dead downwind heading the booms clanked, the sails flogged to and fro and the speed dropped to 7 knots. ‘I had hoped to dodge fitting that vane before daytime because of feeling tired at the end of a long busy yesterday. It was not three hours since I was first woken up by steering trouble. How could I have used all that time for merely changing a wind-vane? To start with I was not going out there dopey with sleep so I made a big mug of tea with big lumps of Nicaraguan sugar brick in it. Also I did my leg and feet exercises which I was too tired to do before turning in at 8 p.m. I bet this sounds pansy but it was really worth while before tackling that acrobatic job. Then I had to service the big vane before rigging it; it needed two holes bored to take cord ties, and four other short lengths of cord attached; also a short strip of white tape sticking astride the leading edge to identify that in the dark. Finally, fitting it was a tricky job when perched astride the pulpit so as to have both hands free, bouncing up and down at the end of the stern with the vane, which is designed to catch the wind, needing great care in handling to avoid having it blown away out of one’s hands. There were eight cords to unfasten on the one in position and of course the vane was on the jiggle the whole time, working the tiller, and the darkness did not help. The cockpit light shone somewhat weakly on one side of the vane but the other, like the moon’s backside, was in darkness. I used one of those little handbag torches held between my teeth to see at the back of the vane. However, it was really worth while. Peace followed with a steady enough heading and much better speed. Incidentally, I blessed Tony Morris who made these vanes to my requirement (he makes the whole gear) for all the trouble he took.’

  The second day’s straight line run was 212 miles, but I had been unable to get a good fix due to the sun in transit passing so close to dead overhead. The distance sailed was 203.6 miles, the position 05˚26½’N 40˚26’W. I now had high hopes of an exceptionally good five-day run, but at 1409 the following afternoon the day’s run fix-to-fix was 193.5, the distance sailed 192.2 miles, the position 05˚33’N 43˚40’W. The gloomy truth was driven home to me; winds of 16, 17, 18 knots were just not strong enough to get the speeds I wanted. Another 3–5 knots wind speed would just have done the trick, assuming that the gear would, stand it—and I soon had the answer to that.

  Sunday 4 April, 0400: ‘It was at about 9.50 p.m. that the big crack sounded. The boom had bust in half with the big runner attached.…I am getting to know the drill for this schemozzle now. I was scared of that boom, though. The two halves were still attached by a small piece of the metal and they formed a sharp V with the point of the V downward and outboard of the boat.’

  When I got below after nearly three hours of hard concentration and continuous deckwork, I could not keep awake while writing the log so turned in for a short sleep. Then I reviewed the situation. I had turned downwind at midnight to make everything as easy as possible when tackling Part One of the pole-bust mêlée. That and the slower speed through losing the big runner must have cost at least 10 miles in fix-to-fix distance made good. I could set-to right away to rig the other pole but I thought it was dangerous and an unjustifiable risk in the dark, even with the help from the spreader lights, to get the damaged pole down from the mast at one end and lower the other end successfully to the deck. The outboard end was sticking up nearly vertically in the air near the side of the deck and guyed in position. As soon as I slacked off the guys it would be tricky work lowering it, then working it backwards and forwards until the two halves were safely separated so that they could be stowed and lashed on deck. Squalls were going through one after the other, usually laying Gipsy Moth well over to leeward during the first blast, with a consequent steeply tilted deck. The seamanlike procedure was to wait three hours till daylight before tackling the job. Then of course there would be the other pole to work across the deck, rig, guy, and top up.

  Up to the last entry before the pole-bust Gipsy Moth had averaged a steady speed of 7.7 knots that day. What was so tan-talizing was that the wind had strengthened considerably after the pole-bust and indeed it was probably a first gust after the wind had speeded up which caused the pole to collapse. If the pole had lasted out for the remainder of that day I felt sure that Gipsy Moth would have well exceeded 200 miles for the day’s run. But, as it was now, the fourth day’s run was going to be well short of 200 and the first three days had only totalled 612.5 miles, which would be further reduced when the straight line distance between the starting and finishing fixes was computed.

  If the fifth and final day’s run was a good one, at, say, 210 miles, that would still only make the total for the five-day stretch a bare 1,000 miles. A thousand in five days was not what I was after; I had hoped to get it up to 1,100 to make a proper job of the 200mpd breakthrough. There hadn’t been a hope of this on the way down to the Equator, and on the second run it was impossible without a lot more wind than I had had, though Gipsy Moth could have exceeded the rate right enough had the gear stood up to it. I nearly said it was an impossible target with Gipsy Moth V, but of course few things are impossible. I ought not to make excuses; someone else with the same tools would have succeeded. But I was interested in the technical cause of the failure; I think that the reason lay in the breakage and collapse of gear. Gipsy Moth seemed determined not to exceed a certain speed and would do everything she could to avoid doing so. She would go up to her ‘theoretical maximum’of 9.282 knots but she jibbed at going above it, with the result that it was practically impossible to average that speed.

  For example, there were only two occasions during the 4,000-mile run when she averaged that speed for more than a few minutes. Both ended with a boom breaking. There were other gear failures when I was pushing her hard and there were two periods when I was pushing her so hard that I feared for the main mast. The pole with its terrific compression load was bulging the mast out to leeward in a way which looked to me to put it on the edge of collapse. The other time was when there was an ominous bend right at the masthead. The scientific reaso
n for the difficulty in holding the theoretical maximum speed over a period is shown by the way the sea was level with the counter, that is the deck at the stern, and seething there so as to make a flat continuation of the deck and the water when Gipsy Moth was hard pressed. This was caused by the crest of the bow wave which she had made forward, which left the hull fitting exactly into the trough of her own wave. Gigantic thrust was needed from the sails to get her to climb out of that trough.

  Looking back at the speed attempt which had just come to an abrupt halt, it was extraordinary how I had been bedevilled by calculations. Morning, noon and evening these had gone on all through the four days. It seemed as if I never got a straightforward fix and I was always working away like a fanatic to overcome the difficulties. The sky clouded over or it rained heavily just before the morning and evening twilight which meant that I could not use the stars. I cannot describe the oppressing and depressing effect of those damned black squalls coming through in endless succession with the sky being mostly invisible day and night; the muggy heat, the deluges of rain. Once or twice I got a measly fix from Venus and Jupiter because I could see them in daylight after the overcast had cleared; or I got a fix from Venus and the sun, but that would be of poor quality and reliability because they were too close together. Then there was the trouble caused by the sun being dead overhead. I would be crawling precariously round the deck with sextant, stopwatch and notebook in hand, trying to decide which side of the boat the sun was. I daresay it sounds as if I am joking, but I believe the difficulty would be understood by someone marking with a pencil a point on the ceiling of a room crowded with jostling people and then trying to make another pencil point on the floor exactly vertically below the first. It is funny that I should have come up against navigation difficulties because navigation has always been my big interest. The hours I spent trying to get results could have been profitably spent in nursing the sailing, getting more speed by endless tending of sails and general trimming. Another effect of all the hours of tedious calculations which I had to make was that I became prone to blunders which had to be detected and which in turn caused further hours of brain twisting.

  As I had expected, the fix-to-fix run at 1409 on 4 April, the fourth day of the speed run, was only 185 miles. The distance sailed was 195.5. This ought to have been less than the run made good if there had been a favourable current. The position was 06˚41’N 46˚32’ W.

  It was not until the late afternoon that I finished tidying up the deck, recovering the two pole halves without accident and getting them safely on to the deck where I lashed them down, recovering all the guys, blocks, outhaul and so on. The only casualty apart from the pole and a sail which was getting pinker every time it went under the ship’s bottom, was a Swedish snaphook which I had to cut from the end of the guy to allow the guy to pass through a block and then away under water. It had been preventing the sail from going completely under. I had not been able to haul the sail in on the other side of the keel because of this guy and the outhaul and the sheet. I let fly both the sheet and the outhaul and later, because they were still attached to the sail, recovered them from the ocean.

  ‘I fear this schemozzle has mucked up the day’s run and maybe the whole speed run. I was lucky finishing the deckwork just before a big fella rainsquall arrived. As soon as it is through I must go and hoist more sails. The mizen stays’l is still down, also the tops’l, but there has been too much wind for them.’ At 1830: ‘Again no hope of a star fix. The sky is completely overcast. It must surely be a rainy season down here though I have never heard of there being one.’ The next morning, 0545: ‘No star fix again. Not a star or planet to be seen and also rain has now started so that there is no hope for this morning. However, there will be no trouble about a sun fix today if it is visible because Gipsy Moth has now overshot it in latitude, being near 9˚N while the sun will be 6˚N at the time of observing.’ At 1409: ‘Fix-to-fix run for the twenty-four hours, 188 miles. Position 8˚58’N 48˚30’W.’

  Tuesday 6 April, 0930: ‘Thank the Lord it is a fine day.’

  8. The Homing Run

  It was a stirring thought, a quickening feeling, that Gipsy Moth was heading for home, sailing full and bye to a fresh ENE Trade Wind. I remember that when I changed the heading on 4 April after the pole-bust, Gipsy Moth seemed to spring to life like a spaniel when its owner turns for home after a long walk. And Lord! was I grateful to be shot of the endless calculating and brain-twisting about the speed run and the position fixing needed for it. My last two sums were to work out the distance along the Great Circle between the starting and finishing positions of the five-day run. The answer: 930 miles. Then I repeated the process for the first three days before the pole-bust. To my surprise the answer was 601 miles for daily fix-to-fix runs totalling 612.5, so that at least I did 200mpd for those three days, which was some consolation.

  Were I anywhere else in the world I would have said that the sea was extremely rough, but because I was in the Trade Wind belt I pretended that it was fine weather water. I felt slightly seasick and had to be very careful where I moved. On the morning of the 7th, for instance, I was shaving and had braced myself against the edge of the basin sideboard to keep from being pitched into the mirror. Suddenly I was thrown backwards into the door of the heads. It was not bolted, flew open, and landed me in the passageway on the other side of it. Sailing like this Gipsy Moth could keep going fast in spite of the rough seas; and the fix-to-fix runs for the three days were 188, 182 and 189.6 miles. My tactics were to follow the clipper practice of sailing full and bye through the Trade Wind belt to the 300-500 mile stretch of variable winds in order to reach the westerlies as soon as possible and then have a favourable wind for the run to the Channel.

  In my narrative log for 8 April I wrote: ‘Today has been a lovely one, the most delightful of the voyage I think. Contrast is probably the key to it. After weeks of never wanting to emerge from below because of the foul weather, strong winds or rough seas sweeping the deck, today was sunny with a blue sky and a nice breeze and a sudden change from throwabout seas to something that certainly splashes aboard now and then but allows one to stand up down below. After I had finished the navigation at 3 p.m., I mixed a Squire’s Gin and bitter lemon and sat in the cockpit in the sun to drink it. Then I wanted to settle down at ease with my head on a cushion, but as soon as I did so I dropped off to sleep, my muscles let go and my bottom slid between the seats into the well of the cockpit.

  ‘I scouted round and found a splendid pitch on the side deck beside the cabin top, sheltered from wind and in the full westering sun’s rays. It was not very wide and my behind overlapped the edge of the deck about 1½ft above the water, between two of the mizen shrouds which kept me from rolling overboard. I watched the bow ploughing white water and cascading it in an arch to the side. The swish and rush of the water swirling past soon put me to sleep. When I was half-awake I felt a little vulnerable and drew my hand inboard in case a shark took a fancy to it. And I wondered what I would do if the tentacle of a giant squid began feeling my leg. I thought it would be an awkward situation and that probably a girl would better know how to deal with that. When I woke I lay basking with the warm sun on my skin and daydreaming. How stupid to be always trying to do things. What wonderful thrills, excitements, longings, desires and, of course, successes to be had as often as you like by daydreaming. As I said, contrast is the key to these delights; suddenly I had no commitments, worries, frustrations, and my feelings opened like a flower on a sunny spring morning.

  ‘I have an idea why Tarantula has not appeared for some weeks. I feared that his number was up, and that he had been trapped and drowned by a surge of bilgewater; but surely if he was able to survive my attempts to assassinate him he was too cunning in survival to be caught like that. Today he suddenly appeared from under a plastic bowl in which I keep the butter and cream cheese cool by constantly evaporating water from cloths draped round them. I thought he looked a bit small and timid and that his wits were
not up to standard. In fact I could easily have kyboshed him under the bowl, whereas before he used to scuttle, to flee like the wind into some unassailable bolt-hole, like the space under the chest of drawers and above the cabin sole. He had shrunk. He was no longer the bold, truculent buccaneer. What was wrong? I wondered if he was saying to himself, ‘But yes, I have no bananas.’ Then tonight I think I began to get a clue to the situation. I am dashed if a little’un didn’t appear on my chart in the pool of light shining down from the electric bulb in the ceiling. Into this arena of light advanced to my amazement a little replica of Tarantula. It took short, dancing steps into the light centre, raised its claws to defend or attack, then finding no enemy danced round in a circle. It backed and it advanced. It really was a dance and I watched spellbound. Undoubtedly this was Son of Tarantula. I had to get on with my chart work and after watching him for a while I reluctantly but with great care shooed him off to the side of the chart table. He seemed petulant or hurt at being disturbed. But where was Dad? Then the stem truth dawned on me; the smaller size, the softer personality, earlier today. Of course, that was not Tarantula I had been looking at at all; it was Wife of Tarantula. The question now is, ‘Where is Pa?’ Is this one of the species of which the female eats the male after mating? It is very sinister. I could not bear the thought of Tarantula, after escaping my attempt to assassinate him, being devoured while mating with his soft-mannered, demure little madam, who looked as if she would be more at home in a boudoir than in an ocean racing yacht. Incidentally, they must be living it up in a big way, because when I was rooting for some onions, a cloud of fruit flies shot out of the onion net where one or two onions had started to grow and had rotted in the process with a high stink. I never saw Tarantula again and he left a lingering touch of nostalgia behind him.