Gipsy Moth Circles the World

by Francis Chichester

  It rained pretty consistently, with visibility down to a mile or so, and with no chance of a sight to check direction. But I reckoned that I was giving Beauchene Island a wide enough berth. That afternoon I figured that I must have passed over the edge of the Burdwood Bank (minimum depth 25 fathoms). The yacht had a rough time of it, with several waves breaking on her, and big, sweeping troughs with the waves. After this rough patch, the sea was comparatively smooth, with no considerable troughs. Later, after studying my dead reckoning I figured that we must have been on the edge of the bank around noon, and then sailed along the edge until we left it. That would tally exactly with the sea’s suddenly becoming flatter and milder.

  I was now headed out into the South Atlantic on a northeasterly course. My track was roughly parallel with the coast of South America and about 850 miles off it. Abeam to starboard was the island of South Georgia, 500 miles away. After that there was a big wide open space ahead in the South Atlantic for 1,600 miles, when I was due to pass Ilha da Trinidade, leaving it 500 miles to port. It was a great relief not to have to worry about running on to lee coasts in stormy weather; also I had a feeling of peace on getting away from the Horn area which had seemed decidedly overcrowded. I could relax.

  I turned in early, and spent seven and a half hours in my bunk—a good sleep, but bad for navigation. I was awakened by that irresistible arouser, cramp, and got up just before 5 a.m. The barometer kept on falling and I logged that I wished I were well to the north in case it meant a big storm. The US Pilot Chart showed that there was not a considerable drop in gale percentage until I was north of 45 ° S. Between 50 and 45 ° S, 12 per cent of the winds recorded there were gales compared with 9 per cent in the lee of the Falklands and 26 per cent off the Horn. I reckoned, however, that I must be getting some protection from the Falklands, about 80 miles to windward.

  Instead of a storm, the weather cleared up during the morning (March 23), and I had all plain sail set again, for the first time for ages. The wind had become a gentle breeze of about 14 knots, the sun shone, the sea was blue, and the barometer began to rise. I was heartened to go on deck to set the mizzen without adding any deck clothes, but this was a mistake, for that gentle wind was biting cold, even through my thick woollen sweater.

  That day ended with a lovely starry night, a nearly full moon, and not a cloud in the sky. I turned in trying to think when I last saw such a sky, and couldn’t remember one on the whole of this passage. Alas, my joyous looking forward to a sunny, quiet sail went awry. I went to sleep pondering about bringing out my big genoa to keep the yacht going in light airs, and woke to a northwesterly gale. I had to strip all sail off the yacht, except the working jib. The sun was shining, though, which was heartening. But it was bitterly cold, and my hands got so cold that I had difficulty in writing up my log.

  On coming below after taking in sail I hung my deck trousers, soaked with spray, just inside the companion, where I thought that the water running off them would make less mess than in the cabin. Unfortunately, a souser wave overran the boat, and the bit that came through the hatch emptied straight into my trousers. You just can’t do right in rough weather.

  The sea that day (March 24) gave me a good pounding but it was not a high, or steep sea. Nor did the barometer drop a great deal. I figured that I was on the north-east quarter of a depression going through. By afternoon the wind had lost that roaring whistle which tells you that it is too strong for peace of mind, and changed to a sort of low, moaning roar. The sea remained very rough, and I waited until evening before setting the genoa staysail. I had a good supper of two Caroni rums, hot, two onions fried with a tin of baked beans, and a tin of pineapple. After supper I felt that more sail was needed, and my conscience told me that I ought to set the main. But I was reluctant to tackle it after my good supper, and wondered if the mizzen would do until dawn. Setting that would be only a tenth of the effort of hoisting the main. In the end, the mizzen seemed the job, and it changed the yacht’s tempo at once. She began scuttling instead of lurching. After the gale it was a lovely moonlit night, and it was thrilling to be on deck in the moonlight with the lively sea, and the boat going well.

  I put my thoughts into a radio message that night:

  “At last,” I reported, “I feel as though I am waking from a nightmare of sailing through that Southern Ocean. There is something nightmarishly frightening about those big breaking seas and screaming wind. They give a feeling of helplessness before their irresistible, remorseless power rolling down on top of one, and it all has ten times the impact when alone. Till yesterday I still felt I was in the wind shadow of the Horn. It was still wet, cold and grey and the wind still blowing hard. The seas were not so threatening but I shall be glad to get north of 50° S. without another big blow.”

  The off-course alarm shook me out of a heavy sleep at six o’clock next morning. I turned it off but cramp made me get up. It was a fine dawn, but very cold. I altered course downwind. Really I could have done with a poled-out jib, but the wind as I was going was near gybing point, so I left things as they were and waited for the gybe.

  Doing my navigation that morning (March 25) I found that I had crossed the parallel of 5O° S about midnight. The clipper captains, especially of the California clippers, considered this point very important, and always compared their times round the Horn from 50° S to 50 ° S. I crossed the 50th parallel west of the Horn in the Pacific at zero hours on March 12, and crossed it in the Atlantic at zero hours on March 25. That made thirteen days.

  My mileage tally for the week that saw me round the Horn was 1,106½, an average of 1,58 miles a day, or 6.58 knots. This was the fifth week in succession that Gipsy Moth had sailed over 1,000 miles in the week; 5,230½ miles in 35 days, an average of 149.4 miles per day. These distances, of course, are run over straight lines between noon positions, and do not include tacks or digressions.

  Apparently it was not as smooth aboard her as it appeared. A Reuter staff man, Michael Hayes, was aboard and recorded the following (published in a special issue of Football Monthly). “As I stood on the pitching and tossing deck of the Royal Navy Ice Patrol ship H.M.S. Protector 400 yards off, the sight was awesome. The translucent, bottle-green seas were moving mountains and valleys of water, rearing, rolling and subsiding with a fearful brute force. The 50-mile an hour wind slashed at the waves, slicing off foaming white crests and sending icy spume flying. Lead-grey clouds, blotting out the weak sun on the horizon, rolled across the sky, so low that it seemed I could reach up and touch them. The thermometer said the temperature was 43° F, but the numbing wind cut through my lined, Antarctic clothing like a knife, and salt spray swelled up and crashed against the face with stinging fury.”

  Back to Text

  This was the aircraft, a Piper Apache, in which Murray Sayle of the Sunday Times, Clifford Luton and Peter Beggin of the BBC came out to look for Gipsy Moth. It was piloted by Captain Rodolfo Fuenzalida, formerly of the Chilean Air Force. Murray Sayle wrote in The Times of March 21: “The flight out to find and photograph him at the most dangerous point of his voyage was a magnificent and terrifying experience. I flew from Puerto Williams, the tiny Chilean naval base which is the southernmost inhabited spot in the Americas. “As my aircraft rose to find a cleft in the mountains of Hoste Island, the biggest of the Horn group, I was confronted with a superb sight. Green glaciers tumbling from the high snow-blanketed Darwin ranges into the Southern Ocean. As I flew by Cape Horn Island, its grey pyramid could be seen lashed by heavy seas and rimmed by breaking seas which appeared from time to time through the driving rain. “South of the Horn the waves were driving eastward in long ridges of white and grey-green. Overhead were black driving clouds driven by the gale and a mile or two ahead the clouds were joined to the sea by rain in a black, impenetrable barrier towards the south and the pole. “I picked up H.M.S. Protector first, wallowing in the heavy seas as she kept company with the yacht. Then I picked out the salt grimed hull of Gipsy Moth lurching forward as the seas passed un
der her. My Chilean pilot, Captain Rodolfo Fuenzalida, gamely took us down to 60 ft where spume torn from the seas lashed across the aircraft’s windscreen. But I had time to pick out Chichester in his cockpit, apparently nonchalantly preparing for his change of course and the long voyage home. “When my pilot waggled his wings in salute we were rewarded by a wave of greeting. ‘Muy hombre,’ said the pilot, which I freely translate as ‘What a man’. “On the flight home we had severe turbulence as we threaded our way back through the mountains, and we lost an engine over the Strait of Magellan. It was a flight I am not too anxious to repeat, but the sight of Gipsy Moth ploughing bravely through this wilderness of rain and sea was well worth it.”

  Back to Text

  Clements, in A Gypsy of the Horn, writes: “A winter’s gale on a lee shore is a nerve-racking experience. Not so a Cape Horn sea. One merely triumphs in the exhibition of such stupendous power and sublimity. Death itself would be a small thing in such surroundings.” I think that things like this must be written in peace and security, weeks after actually experiencing Cape Horn seas.

  Back to Text

  15. Into the Broad Atlantic

  I was now clear of the Falkland Islands, and sailing along the Clipper Way into the middle of the broad South Atlantic. Nothing can have changed much there for millions of years, and there was a strange, stirring attraction in being alone with the primeval life of the earth.

  On Sunday, March 26, I logged: “Hot news! At noon today I passed halfway!” I had sailed 7,673 miles from Sydney, and the distance along the Clipper Way to Plymouth was 7,634 miles by my measurement. I started plotting the different sailing routes up the two Atlantics recommended by the Admiralty’s Ocean Passages of the World for March, April and May.

  My son Giles, who is a bit of a wag, sent me a message through Buenos Aires radio: “Well done, but don’t relax.” I also got some questions from a girl reporter working for the Sunday Times, such as: “What did you eat on your first meal after rounding the Horn?” To this I replied by radio:

  “Strongly urge you stop questioning and interviewing me which poisons the romantic attraction of this voyage. I am beginning to dread transmitting nights, and I fear losing my enthusiasm for worthwhile dispatches. Maybe this is because I have been alone for 58 days; I do not feel the same as I would if leading an office life. I have my hands full driving this boat efficiently and maintaining the gear in good order. Difficult radio communication is a great strain anyway. Interviewing makes it intolerable. I do not want to hurt your feelings but hope you can sympathise with my state of mind.”

  I was in a patch of light airs and badly needed my big genoa, which was still locked up in the forecabin by the strong backs I had put on the forehatch. At daybreak on Monday, March 27, there seemed a chance of a breeze, so I decided to tackle the job of dragging the big sail right through the boat and getting it on deck. No sooner had I done this than the breeze freshened to 15 knots, and came ahead, so somewhat reluctantly I halted the genoa operation and had breakfast instead. But in the middle of breakfast I could bear it no longer. The breeze was light again, the morning fine, with a smooth sea, so I interrupted breakfast, went back on deck and finished setting the big sail. And what a difference it made! I kept it up all day, but at nightfall the breeze quickened, and I dropped it. On the wind, in any strength of breeze, Gipsy Moth did better without it.

  I had a busy time sorting out charts for the Atlantic, and was sorry to find that I had no Pilot Chart for the North Atlantic1 Besides giving the average winds and weather for each route, these charts are crammed with interesting information. I missed the Pilot Chart, but it is difficult at the start of a long voyage not to forget something. Although I should be sailing mostly in April, I decided to follow the March sailing route up the South Atlantic recommended in Ocean Passages of the World. It would take me 700 miles farther to the east than the April route, but I judged it more suitable for a small boat.

  On Tuesday morning, March 28, I started getting out of my bunk at 03.00 but fell asleep again for two hours. It was a trying day. Gipsy Moth jibbed at sailing a certain heading on the wind, and it happened to be a most valuable heading for windward work. I spent hours trying to induce her to keep to it. This was Gipsy Moth’s No. 2 vice making itself painfully felt. When a degree or more of heel made her ride off to leeward, as soon as she got into the attitude of sailing on her leeward bilge, she shot off like a salmon, and went suddenly quiet with it. In the end I gave up trying to coax her to sail close to the wind, and after she had slid off to leeward once again I left her there, and just enjoyed the speed and quietness.

  To make up for these frustrations, I stood myself a notable lunch—I think it was the one I had enjoyed most on the passage. Here is the menu:

  A clove of garlic, with a hunk of Gruyère cheese and a glass of Whitbread; a tin of Australian peas, a tin of salmon, and three potatoes in their jackets with plenty of butter; a tin of pears.

  Hundreds of prions skimmed and flirted round the boat while I lunched, and when I dumped my bucket of scraps every one of them dropped out of the sky to see what he could get.

  There was a thin layer of fog that night, with the moon looking fuzzy through it, but dawn brought a marvellous day. There was a light blue sky with very little cloud; the sea smooth and sparkling in the sun, and a straight horizon. I had not seen a day like it for a long time. I took advantage of it to check the index mirror of the sextant. That index mirror was deteriorating fast, where the quicksilver was peeling off at the back due to months of sea-water sousings. I took advantage, too, of the stable boat to check the steering compass with a sun azimuth. I saw some well-defined “mare’s tails” (high, filmy cirrus clouds), which are said to forecast a big wind.

  By the afternoon I was headed by a Force 6 north-easter. As the sea got rougher, Gipsy Moth pounded and slammed badly. She bucked a large bottle of coffee powder into the air; it landed on the galley where the bottle smashed. I did not notice it for a time among the medley of crashes, and the fine coffee powder made a beastly mess. Wind and sea were increasing fast, and I kept on stripping off one sail after the other, until I had only the storm jib and storm staysail set. At 17.00 I turned across wind on to NW by W to ease the pounding. It steadily got worse, until at 20.20 I reckoned I must spare the boat, so turned downwind and ran before the gale. I felt seasick, and maybe this made it easier for me to turn downwind, but it was most disheartening to be sliding backwards towards the Horn at 6 knots. My hope was that the NE gale would veer to the south and thus finally bring me back on to my right heading. This was what always happened in the South Pacific with the small lows passing through.

  I got an uneasy sleep for about an hour and a half, then found to my astonhisment that the wind had backed to north instead of veering! This turned my previously bad heading of south-west into a shocker of south-south-west. So I dressed, and gybed on to east by south, and kept to that heading, which slowly improved as the wind backed to north-west, until by morning my heading was east-north-east. I was then able to set some more sail. However, the boat still got a drastic thrashing. I got a sea down my neck after I had finished all the sail changes and was still dry. I was trying to adjust the cowl of the Aladdin stove chimney, so that it would exhaust the fumes instead of letting them blow-into the cabin. I was making a long arm over the top of the companion-way with no oilskins on when a broadsider caught me fair and square. Twice Gipsy Moth dropped off the crest of a wave coming from abeam, and landed with a terrific crash.

  Next morning (March 30) I felt as feeble again as on the passage out. I thought it must be connected with the gale, the movement, being shut in, lying down too long, and nervous strain, but later I wondered if it was due to the fumes from the stove being driven in by the gale.

  It was grim out there. I had hoped to be clear of the Forties, but I seemed stuck, although the borderline was only 111 miles north. At 09.00 that day (Thursday) I was within sight of the spot I left at noon on Wednesday. I had sailed 115 mil
es, but my dead reckoning plot showed I had closed a complete circle. I thought of Slocum running before a gale for three days off Tierra de Fuego—in that time I should be halfway back to the Horn.

  Perhaps the Forties were giving me a farewell souvenir, grim, with a lumpy, confused swell from the north-west, and a breaking sea overriding it. Periodically a breaker on top of a swell peak picked up Gipsy Moth and dropped her in the trough on her side, with a terrific crash. I was on deck once when this happened, and the boat seemed to be in the air before she dropped. The din and rattle of things below when the boat hit the water made one wonder how the hull could survive such treatment.

  March 30 was my shortest day’s run, 15½ miles noon to noon.

  That evening I had a really bad fall. I was standing on the weather deck, and, due to the heel of the boat, well up above the waterline. I was reaching up as high as I could to attach the aerial lead-in from the terminal through the cabin top to the backstay, when a sudden gust of wind hit my body such a blow that my grasp of the backstay was torn away, and I was flung in a heap to the bottom of the far side of the cockpit. I stayed motionless where I landed, wondering if my leg was broken. I relaxed everything while I wondered. For about a minute I made no movement at all, and then slowly uncurled myself. To my astonishment—and infinite relief—nothing seemed broken. I think it was absolutely providential that I had broken no bone.