The other British entry was also only 25 feet in length, a Laurent Giles-designed Vertue, Cardinal Vertue. Vertues were already renowned for their seaworthiness, and if in reality they were no more seaworthy that the lighter, simpler Folkboats, they we certainly more ‘sea kindly’. Sailing her was Dr David Lewis, 43 years old, already an experienced solo yachtsman and one interested in the medical side of loneliness and endurance, of which he had already written a paper. Blondie’s race was for him as much an exercise in psychological self-experiment, a chance to be his own guinea pig, as it was a dash for glory to New York. He was a bit too cerebral for Francis’s taste, not being a traditional man’s man; Francis suspected he would come plum last. In fact he finished third.
All four competiors on board Gipsy Moth before the off at Plymouth
On the night before the race these four musketeers were joined by a 40-year-old Central Casting Frenchman, Jean Lecombe, on board an 18-foot bathtub with sails, Cap Horn. Little did anyone at Millbay Dock realise that he was to be the opening salvo in the French domination of endurance ocean racing that was to come. He was due to leave three days late, after his radio was fitted and supplies brought on board; he was sure he would catch the others up soon enough.
Which route to New York would each one take? The race instructions were deceptively simple: ‘Leave the Melampus Buoy to starboard and thence by any route to the Ambrose Light Vessel, New York.’ Francis’s time studying pilot weather charts in the RORC library had been inconclusive: there was no summer trade wind route sailing west across the Atlantic, only the weighing up of least worst options. His natural inclination was to aim for the shortest route, the Great Circle route, and react to whatever uncertainties the weather gods threw at him. The Great Circle route may well be the shortest but it has its own demons: it passes through the landmasses of Newfoundland and Cape Race, and the fog off the former and ice floes off the latter. To give the fog and ice too much respect by running south of them would take the yachtsmen out of the favourable Labrador current and into the foul Gulf Stream, running there at about 2 knots against them.
Blondie and Val let their yachts make the decision for them. The disadvantage of Jester’s junk sail was her reluctance to sail into the wind: equally, she fairly flew along with the wind astern of her. Blondie aimed to sail north to pick up the seasonal North Atlantic depression and use the resulting easterly wind at the top of it to slingshot him towards New York. (Winds travel anticlockwise around a low-pressure area and clockwise around high pressure – that is, in the Northern Hemisphere, the reverse being true south of the Equator).
Val’s plan was to use Eira’s enhanced sail area to pick up another seasonal weather system, the Azores High, to do the same further south. He forsook the fogs and icebergs in exchange for warmer climes in which to enjoy his Live-Long, if nothing else. Like Francis, Dr Lewis was planning the try his luck with the Great Circle route and take it from there. Jean Lecombe claimed, with the usual shrug, that he was more or less just setting off towards America and hoping for the best. But the reality was that all were guessing and gambling which way the Atlantic winds would blow for the next month; only in New York could the winner take the credit for being the wisest man, for knowing all along.
And so on 11 June 1960 at 12.00 GMT, off they set into a pure headwind and a choppy sea. Grey clouds lurked above. For the first three days the weather was rough, with gales and no respite in which to rest, let alone sleep properly. For the four yachtsmen it was their baptism by sea water.
Now we don’t know exactly when Francis realised that Gipsy Moth III was totally unsuitable for single-handed racing, but I suspect it must have been with Plymouth still on his starboard quarter [aft flank], in other words still in sight. It was hardly her fault; she had been built as a bigger and better version of Gipsy Moth II, to take part in the RORC coastal races, with a crew of three – or four on the longer races. To race cross the Atlantic she should have had six crew working the watches. Francis had only ever sailed her alone, in calm weather, and had no idea of the trials and effort involved in handling the racing rig and Miranda in rough, tough weather. This is how it soon looked to Francis:
As I drew away from the land the wind freshened and the seas got rougher, and I was soon wet through with sea water and sweat reefing the mainsail. The difficulty was to get the sail to roll easily on the boom without someone at the aft end to haul out the creases and folds.
For the first three days, the weather was rough with gales. Heavy seas burst on the deck, and I reckoned that it took thirty seconds after a sea had broken on deck before the water finished running out of the lee scuppers.
I envied my rivals the comparative ease with which they would be able to change the smaller sails of their boats. In rough water my bigger boat should be better off, but I was losing too much valuable time over my sail changing. It took me up to one and a half hours to hoist the mainsail and to reef it in rough water. I know it sounds inefficient, but my 18-foot main boom was a brute to handle when reefing.
I had to balance on the counter and slacken off the main sheet to the boom with one hand, while I hauled on the topping lift with the other hand to raise the boom. Meanwhile, it would be swinging to and fro, and I had to avoid being knocked out by it. While hoisting the mainsail, I could not head into wind for fear of the yacht’s tacking herself, and causing further chaos. As a result, the slides would jam in the track, the sail would foul the lee runner, and the battens would hook up behind the shroud as I tried to hoist the sail. All this time the boat would be rolling to drive one mad, and bucking.
With heavy rain falling, and wave crests sluicing me, I would feel desperate until I got into the right mood, and told myself, ‘Don’t hurry! Take your time! You are bound to get it done in the end.’
Once, after all this, I had just got the mainsail to the top of the mast when the flogging of the leech started one of the battens out of its pocket. So I had hurriedly to lower the sail and, after saving the batten, go through the whole procedure again. At the end of this unpleasant three days I was only 186 miles south-west of Plymouth.
For non-sailing readers, Francis’s problem was this: a sailing boat heading into wind needs to have her sails balanced if she is to steer a steady course. A yacht’s sails work in much the same way as an aircraft’s wings, by using the air passing over them to create a lifting effect. The mainsail is the powerhouse sail and if not drawn in enough will not ‘bite’ into the wind – hence the old adage ‘a flappy sail is not a happy sail’ – but if drawn in too tightly will overreact by trying to steer the yacht into the wind, the so-called ‘weather helm’. The foresail’s job is partly to encourage the air to flow enthusiastically over the mainsail and partly to create lift of its own. If left to flap it will not be working either and if drawn in too tightly it will offer too flat a face to the wind, catch too much of it and the yacht will be steered away from the wind, the so-called ‘lee helm’. When they are both trimmed to complement each other, the yacht will be balanced.
So, having set the sails to balance the yacht, she should in theory carry on in a straight line without any steering needed. In practice it is very hard to achieve the perfect balance for more than a few minutes at a time except in flat water. At this stage the self-steering can be set to maintain the correct course and, as long as the wind doesn’t change direction, the boat will crack along nicely on that course for ever. But the wind will change direction and to maintain the original course the foresail, the mainsail and the self-steering device must now be adjusted. On a fully crewed yacht, no problem: one person for each task, all done together, nice cup of tea, thank you very much. Now throw in a typical complication. The wind doesn’t just change direction, it blows up a bit too, and a bit too much for all the sails already up. The crew needs to reduce the sails, to reef. Naturally this means rebalancing the foresail and mainsail and re-adjusting the self steering. Again no great drama with a crew, happens all the time, just takes a little longer.
/> Then Francis had an additional complication: Gipsy Moth III didn’t have one foresail but two, so his adjustments would normally require a crew of four, if racing. Trying to do it all alone became somewhat fraught in choppy weather but when he hit his first serious Atlantic howler two weeks into the race:
I ran into big trouble on 25 June. The wind had backed steadily during the night. I retrimmed the sails and Miranda before starting to prepare the twin headsails for running.
It took me two and a quarter hours to get the twins rigged, and drawing on the right heading. I thought this was good going, because it was only the second time I had run with twins since the yacht was built, and there was a lot to do.
On every trip from cockpit to foredeck I had to transfer the snaphook of my lifeline four times. I had to unlash the two spinnaker booms from the deck. Then each of them, 14 feet long and 18 inches in girth, had to be hooked to the gooseneck 7 feet up the mast at one end, and to a strop at the clew [aft lower end] of the sail at the other end; then hoisted up by a topping lift, while two guys from the middle of the pole down to the deck kept it from swinging fore or aft.
The tiller had to be freshly adjusted after each sail was hoisted, because the sailing balance was then changed. When both headsails were drawing, it took me a quarter of an hour for the final adjustment to the self-steering gear.
What he doesn’t mention is that he was doing all this in the dark, with breaking seas soaking him through and Gipsy Moth III wallowing around and not under control. Then, two hours later:
I had been below for two hours after setting the twin headsails, when I noticed by the tell-tale compass attached to the cabin table that the course was erratic.
I found that the clamp which locked Miranda to the tiller was slipping, and I knelt on the counter [flat area at stern] to begin fixing it. The boat was yawing to one side or the other, and each time one of the sails would crack with a loud report.
I turned round and grabbed the tiller. We were going at a great pace, and the following seas would pick up the stern and slew it hard to one side. The yacht would start broaching-to with one headsail aback, promising serious trouble ahead if I did not check it.
I could not leave the tiller, and wondered what I should do. Fortunately I became so sleepy that I could not keep my eyes open, and realised that I must get the sails down.
I thought hard for some time before making up my mind how to tackle the job. At a favourable moment I made a rush for the foredeck, after slacking off one sheet from the cockpit to let the spinnaker pole forward, and to decrease the area of sail offered to the wind.
As soon as I stepped on the deck I realised that I was in for big trouble. I found a 60 mph wind, which I had not noticed in the shelter of the cockpit with the yacht bowling downwind. My sleepiness had been partly to blame, but the storm was blowing up fast.
When I slacked away the halyard, the bellied-out sail flapped madly from side to side. The noise was terrific, and the boat began slewing wildly to port while the great genoa bellied out and flogged at the other sail with ponderous heavy blows. I was scared that the forestays would be carried away.
I rushed back to the tiller and put the yacht back on course, and then forward again to grab some of the genoa in my arms and pass a sail tie round it to decrease the area.
Next, I slacked away the halyard to let the lower half of the genoa drop into the sea, while I struggled with the spinnaker pole on that side.
I had more trouble with the jib, because I could not get the sail clew free from the spinnaker pole; the sail was like a crazy giant out of control. In the end I twisted the foot of the sail round and round at the deck, and finally I got control.
It was dangerous work, and I was grateful and relieved to find myself whole in limb and unsmashed at the end of it.
I realised that I had a serious storm on my hands. I spent five and a quarter hours on deck without a break, working hard.
After lashing down the spinnaker poles, I next started on Miranda, which was already breaking up. The topping lift had parted, letting the spanker drop, and the halyard of the little topsail had gone.
I could easily have got into a flap; it was now blowing great guns, and I had to stand on the stern pulpit while I worked with my hands at full stretch above my head at the wet ropes jammed tight. Miranda’s mast was 14 feet high, and free to rotate with the wind.
I was standing with stays and wires all round me, and could have been swept off the pulpit horribly easily if the wind had suddenly changed direction.
I told myself that it would be much worse if I had iced-up ropes to deal with; not to fuss; and to get on with the job. There seemed fifty jobs to do, but I did them all in time.
I lowered the mainsail boom to the deck, and treble-lashed it there. It was only after I had finished that I became aware of the appalling uproar, with a high-pitched wind was now 80 mph.
By the time I got below at 4 o’clock in the afternoon I was still able to cook myself a breakfast, a fry-up of potatoes, onions and three eggs. I reckoned that the wind was now 80 mph. I went to sleep reading Shakespeare’s Tempest.
At 8.30 in the evening, I woke to find the sea getting up, and the ship taking an awful pounding. Some seas, like bombs exploding, made the ship jump and shake; she was lying beam-on to the blast, which was from the north-north-east and was moving pretty fast, about 3 knots.
I knew that I must try to slow her down, so I dressed in my wet oilskins.
First, I tried to head her into wind, but no matter where I set the tiller she refused to lie other than broadside to the wind.
I had a big outer motor tyre for a sea anchor, and I shackled this on to the anchor chain, paying out 10 fathoms of chain over the stern; I also paid out 20 fathoms of 2½-inch warp [heavier rope] over the stern. It did not seem to make the least difference to the speed.
I put the wind speed now at 100 mph. The noise was terrifying, and it seemed impossible that any small ship could survive. I told myself not to be weak – what was a 90 or 100-mile wind to a man on Everest?
As night came on I tried to sleep, but waiting in the dark, for the next crash made me tense, and I kept on bracing myself against being thrown out of the bunk.
I was afraid; there was nothing I could do, and I think that the noise, the incredible din, was the chief cause of fear. The high-pitched shriek from the rigging was terrifying and uncanny.
Two hours before midnight I came to think that we were headed into the eye of the storm. I dressed reluctantly, feeling dry in the mouth whenever I started to do anything, but better as soon as I began to do it.
With difficulty, I climbed out into the cockpit. It took strength to hold the rudder full on, but slowly the ship jibbed round. She seemed easier on the east-south-east tack.
When I went below again I could not help laughing; all the same books, clothes, cushions and papers were back on the floor.
I dozed, but could not sleep. I lay tense and rigid, waiting for the next sea to hit. Nothing mattered to me now except survival.
My main fear was that one of the spinnaker poles would break loose and hole the hull. I found that by shining a torch through the cabin ports I could see the poles where they lay on the deck, and I was relieved to find the lashings still holding.
Some of the waves were breaking clear over the ship; one filled the ventilator and shot a jet into the cabin, but everything in it was already wet.
I jibbed round on to the west-north-west heading. I reckoned that the wind had dropped to 80 mph, but the seas were rougher and would be rougher still later on. The angle of heel indicator came up against the stop at 55 degrees, and I watched it do so time after time.
It was difficult to stand up or to move about the cabin, but the queer thing was that the Aladdin heater went on burning steadily throughout; it just did not seem to care a damn for any storm, and was a great comfort.
All night the ship ploughed ahead at 2 to 3 knots, towing the sea anchor and the warp. Next morning the w
ind had dropped. It was still Force 9 but I went on deck relaxed and grateful to be alive.
The wind was still north-north-east. The turbulent, impressive seas, like mountainous white-capped country, rode down on to the ship. The waves were not regular. Looking down from a crest to the trough below, I estimated the height at about 25 feet.
With the wind abated, I could now hear the striker seas coming. There would be a lull as the ship was deep in the trough, and I would hear the sizzling sound from the comber before it struck.
I wondered if I could set a spitfire jib [tiny, heavy cloth jib for storm use] aback to ease the deadly rolling, which made it dangerous to move about below.
Well, admirably heroic, of course, but also – I can’t help but feel – all rather necessary. We learn from Blondie’s account that he rode out the storm, assuming it was the same one, by simply double reefing his single sail from his cockpit and going below – presumably to catch up on all those old New Yorkers. Not a drop of water was on his oilskins, if indeed he used oilskins. We also learn that by the end of the storm they were more or less equally in the lead, albeit with Blondie several hundred miles to the north of Francis.
(If I sound a bit disdainful of Francis’s heroics it’s only because I’m writing these words on my own yacht, Vasco da Gama, currently cruising in the Sea of Corinth. Vasco da Gama is a more or less a full size Jester, at 40 feet a foot longer than Gipsy Moth III and 15 feet longer than Jester. Whereas Jester had one unstayed mast [so no wires from mast to deck] and one sail, we have two of each; whereas Jester had one junk-style sail, we have two windsurfer-style sails; and whereas Jester’s sail could be controlled by one halyard [sail hauling up rope] to pull it up, one sheet [sail pulling in rope] to pull it in and two reefing lines [sail partial lowering ropes] to shorten the sail area, we double up on these. The only reason to double up on Jester’s rig is size: a single sail big enough to power a 40-footer would be unmanageable, therefore all single-sail boats over 35 feet have two sails and masts, so are ketches. I can’t claim to have been in a Force 10 Atlantic gale like Gipsy Moth III but my wife Gillian and I have been in many lesser gales, including a particularly bad-tempered Force 8 in the Bay of Biscay. At no time have we had to leave the cockpit to double-reef the sails, and in the Biscay gale to lower the mizzen sail completely. Like Blondie, we stayed dry and calm – if weary and tense – throughout.)
Never Fear Page 23
