Gipsy Moth Circles the World

by Francis Chichester

  Picking myself up and collecting my wits, I carried on with my radio work, and had a bad contact with Buenos Aires. When at last I finished the radio session I found that Gipsy Moth was 40 ° off course: the port side tiller line of 1½-inch braided Terylene had snapped. I tied the two ends together, and felt lucky that nothing worse had happened. (In Sydney, it was reckoned that the load on these tiller lines before the keel was modified was up to 4 tons.)

  Gipsy Moth was now on a broad reach, and I hoped for some sleep. My ribs and ankle hurt from the fall, and I felt utterly fagged out. I wrote in my log: “I must go easily until I have recovered from yesterday’s gale and feel full of life again. To arrive is the big objective; to sail fast is much less important, but of course one wants to do it.”

  How quickly things change at sea—for the better as well as for the worse. March 31 brought a lovely morning, sun, and a sparkling sea, full of playful porpoises. It was quite warm. I left off my long woollen underfugs, but it was still hot working the sails. I was immensely happy and relieved to find that all my aches had gone by the time I got up. During the night I had had some difficulty in moving my ribs and ankle, and feared a bad stiffening. In the afternoon I was able to sit on the foredeck to sew up a seam of the genoa staysail, which had given way.

  I sailed out of the Forties that evening. They may not roar in the lee of South America as they do on the other side of it, but it was a great event to get away from them. I had been sailing in or near the Forties nearly round the globe, for I was now only 2,400 miles from South Africa where I first entered them. To be candid, I think that anyone who sails a yacht in the Forties is a fool—but I knew that before I started. On the other hand, it was one of life’s great experiences, and I would feel unsatisfied if I had not done it. I tried to celebrate the event with a bottle of Veuve Cliquot, but it was a flop drinking by myself.

  After that everything seemed to change, as if the 40th parallel had been a magic wand. I forgot that I had ever needed heat in the cabin, and looked for light clothes. The night was wonderful, with a cloudless sky, and the stars so bright that I thought half of them were planets. I could read my steering compass by the half moon. (But I still felt that the stars were upside down—I was so used to looking at them in the northern hemisphere.)

  Things were looking up in the climate line. I saw something like a transparent, iridescent ribbon reflecting light, right at the end of the counter. It was a fish, the first flying fish of the South Atlantic, about 7 inches long. I went to the cabin to get a cloth to hold it, but when I got back it had slipped through the scupper and gone.

  I was now in the 1,200-mile-wide belt of variable winds, lying between the westerlies south of the 40th parallel, and the SE Trade Winds north of the 20th parallel. The wind was variable not only in direction, but in speed, and I was constantly setting or taking in sail. Gipsy Moth needed precisely the exact area of sail, no more and no less, for every set of conditions, and she wanted a different suit of sails for every strength and direction of the wind. It was trying work. By April 7 I was about half way through the variables, but they gave me a rough time. For three days I was headed by a gale, and twice I had to run south or south-west because of rough seas. I crossed the 30th parallel one day, and found myself south of it again the next. Between gales the wind never stopped varying, and I was tired out with trimming and changing sails. There were rain squalls, too, and some of these squalls had a fierce gale blast in them, which struck without warning, and laid the sails nearly flat before I could get out of my bunk. I fixed up some gear which I could work from my bunk to turn the boat downwind in an emergency.

  At one time I seemed to be sailing through a flock of little cyclones. The wind would work right round the compass from south through east to north-west. It usually jumped round from NW to south, and if I was below it would put all the sails aback, with the wind on the wrong side of them, before I could reach the cockpit. Then I would have to wear the ship round tediously the other way until the sails picked up the wind again on the right side. A lot of squalls discharged such heavy rain that it seemed they must have emptied everything they had. I rigged my rain collector, because I had only 4 gallons left in my 40-gallon tank. The water came in so fast that I did not notice that the tank was full, and was happily filling the boat as well! The first water off the sail was brackish to taste, but I did not want to waste it, so washed four shirts and a pair of pyjamas. I soon regretted my enthusiasm because there was no hope of drying them.

  At midnight on April 7 I found myself running back towards the Horn at 8 knots. Yet there was nothing else I could do, for it was the very devil if I turned Gipsy Moth across the wind. I did my best to be philosophical, and went to sleep, feeling the better for it when I woke. The wind was still blowing at Force 7-8, but there was some blue showing in the high, clouded sky, and I felt that the sea should ease soon. I was surprised at the heat, and felt like taking off my shirt at breakfast. The water was lukewarm, too. This was better than being cold. I logged: “Decidedly this is not too bad a situation. I think I am playing the spoilt child at not being able to sail fast.”

  In the middle of the next night (April 8) I went out into the cockpit to adjust the tiller with nothing on—I mean bare skinned, to save putting on oilskins. I did not feel cold in the wind, which shows how hot it was. Later that morning, I searched the foredeck optimistically for flying fish for breakfast, which was silly, because the big seas coming aboard would wash off anything. A lovely snowy white tropical bird with a long white tail like a single plume flew over and round above the boat.

  I made up my salad beds that day. These “beds” were most valuable in giving me fresh greenstuff, but I had to resow them often. I began by sowing on flannel, but I found that soft paper did very well, and this was a good discovery, because combing out the old roots from the flannel to use it again was quite a chore.

  The next job was to empty the forepeak of water, a task which I tackled at midnight on April 8-9, when I could not get to sleep. The watertight bulkhead there, of course, was a comforting safeguard, but—equally of course—it kept in any water which happened to leak in until it could be siphoned out. I led a long pipe, about 8 feet long, into the forepeak, and then bent down with my head on the cabin floor and sucked the end of the pipe until the water began to run through. As soon as I stopped sucking, the water stopped running. I worked for over an hour trying to get the water running freely, but it wouldn’t respond. I concluded that there must be something wrong with the pipe, either something stuck in it, or a small leak. So I rigged an entirely fresh pipe and immediately it worked well. There was a lot of water in the forepeak and I was glad to get rid of it. I was rewarded for these midnight efforts by two small flying fish for breakfast.

  April 11 was Sheila’s birthday, and because of this I had made arrangements on my last radio contact with Buenos Aires to call direct to GCN4 in London, hoping that I should be able to get through with a message for her. London was 4,700 miles away, on a direct Great Circle bearing. That was an immense distance for the 75-watt transmitter of my Marconi Kestrel, but I could hear the London operator loud and clear, and got my own message through. I took a message from Sheila, that she was thinking of me on her birthday, and telling me that she and Giles were dining with Edward and Belinda Montagu that night (their wedding anniversary being on the same day). I was delighted to reestablish R/T contact with London, and logged: “This is a credit to the GPO and Marconi.” I would have sent a longer message, but Gipsy Moth went aback in the middle of things, and as I didn’t like to leave the self-steering gear locked to the tiller in such conditions, I signed off.

  Another memorable event on Sheila’s birthday was that I completed my circumnavigation of the globe, crossing my outward bound track at 21.45. This was a great thrill, because I had tried to go round the world in my seaplane in 1931, and failed. When outward bound, I was at the spot where the tracks crossed at 08.14 on October 3, so that the circumnavigation had taken me 190 days
13½ hours, or 6 months, 8 days, 13½ hours. This was just over half the time (5 days more than half-time) taken by Vito Dumas in the previous record time for a singlehanded circumnavigation— one year and seven days. In each case, of course, the elapsed time included time spent at ports on the way. Vito Dumas, in setting up his record, took just about half the time of any former singlehanded voyage round the world. So in halving his time, I could feel an honest satisfaction2

  But oh, those Horse Latitudes!†My log is full of exasperated jottings:

  “One could easily go barmy in these Horse Latitudes. As soon as I get below to log a retrim, the wind has changed the heading completely, say by 60°, and I have to start again.”

  “Is there a plan by the genie of the Horse Latitudes to keep me short of sleep? I have only to get into my bunk and drop off, for something to happen which requires urgent attention. Now Gipsy Moth is aback again. How in Hades does she do it?”

  “One needs a rubber brain. The cockpit wind direction indicator reads 20° higher than the one at my bunk on the port tack.”

  I had been plugging into the wind for the best part of 1,000 miles, and I longed to pick up the SE Trades. Still, it was wonderful to sit in the sun and the spray on the foredeck, and I even tried to sing! It seemed roasting hot to go below after being on deck.

  According to the US Pilot Chart, on April 12 I was 300 miles south of the limit of the SE Trade Wind belt. But the Admiralty Chart (No. 2202 A) was more encouraging, putting the average southern limit of the SE Trades as only 60 miles from where I was. I felt, “It should not be long now,” and stood myself a drink. It was a greatly satisfying feeling to be driving north at last, but Lord, it was uncomfortable! With a 30° heel the bashing and the rocking were indescribable, and the moment Gipsy Moth heeled a little more she would suddenly develop lee helm, and gallop off at 8 knots, 40 ° farther off the wind. Whenever she did that she took some getting back, and often it would mean starting the whole battle of sail trim all over again.

  The night of April 12 was truly lovely, bringing a bright Venus in the arc of a sickle moon lying on its back. All the stars in heaven seemed to be out. The bright stars made paths of reflected light on the smooth sea. Never before have I seen paths of reflected light on the sea from stars; from planets, yes, but not from stars. Later, as an extra treat, the wind backed enough for me to free the heading 10 °. It was amazing what a difference that made to comfort, but my worry always was that if I gave Gipsy Moth 10 ° she was liable to take 40 °.

  April 13 was a big day, with a haircut and shave (though I feared that my Bond Street haircutter would not have been impressed). I was becalmed again, but I had now passed the average southern limit (according to the Admiralty) of the SE Trades, and I was excited by the hope that the next wind would be the South-East Trade Wind. Apart from the wind, conditions were perfect. The sun on my skin at dawn was delightful, and there was no need of any clothes for sail changing at night—I wore only shoes, a cap and a lifeline. I took advantage of the easy sailing to sort out stores and to clean up mildew.

  At 21.15 that night I logged:

  “Here she comes, I reckon. I gybed, and presently some bubbles could be seen moving on the glassy surface. We were moving to a SE wind! Now the speedometer is reading—I think we are off! This calls for a celebration; I suppose one of those Australian champagnes—may I survive it!”

  Alas, next noon I had to record: “My SE Trade has been a proper fizzle out. Most of the movement this morning has been due to a north-west or west wind.” I had a visitor that morning, a 6-foot shark which swam around near the boat. It had very wide-spanning lateral fins, and I wondered if it might have been a big dogfish. I was so hot that I poured buckets of water over myself on deck. I had a job of work to do in repairing the compass light—the electrical connections and plugs were eaten away in several places. It surprises me that builders do not supply fittings to stand up to sea water; it does not seem anything like as difficult as making a camera to work under water, and that has been successfully done.

  Gipsy Moth was in a contrary mood, and every time I left her alone for a while she headed off west and started sailing well. If she couldn’t get there by bearing away, she did it by going aback. She was like a naughty puppy, heading off westwards whenever I looked the other way.

  I gave up trying to mend the compass light. I had no soldering iron or blowlamp, and with the boat jigging about I could not fix the wire to the bulb holder of the lamp. I decided that it would be more sensible to hang an inspection lamp above the compass when I wanted to use it.

  On April 15 it looked as if I was in the Trade Wind at last, after several disappointing false starts. That night I saw the Plough constellation for the first time on the voyage home, and it gave me a thrill.

  Next day Gipsy Moth passed the 10,000-mile mark from Sydney. I wrote:

  “I ought to be cock-a-hoop, but instead I feel a little desperate, apprehensive and homesick. I still have 5,200 miles to go [5,500 had I known it], so I have only done two-thirds of the passage. Such hundreds of things can go wrong in such a distance. I seem to have been a long time away from home, and home seems a long time away. This is only weakness, of course. Between whiles I am having a thrilling sail. The crescent moon is dead ahead looking in through the cabin window at me.”

  On April 18 I wrote:

  “I feel just damned lazy, and enjoying the sail. Also enjoying a rest and leisure. What bliss to be in the cockpit with the sun and warm breeze on one’s skin, just watching the sea, and the sky, and the sails, and meditating! There are stacks of things waiting to be done, but I don’t want to do anything until I am forced to. A quarter moon is staring at me through the cabin skylight. I am sorry that I am halfway through the South-East Trades in three days: I could do with a fortnight of this life. I used two lots of young soya bean shoots for salad today, and cooked the remainder which had grown to 6 inches. I am sorry to say that, cooked, they were too tough to eat.”

  Putting my laziness into writing must have shamed me, for three hours later I added to the log:

  “Since my last entry I have fixed the camera shutter which was

  not working; fixed the fresh water pump which was jamming; filled five bottles with paraffin; filled the Primus filler tins with meths from a new tin; made up a new graph sheet for the chronometer and watch corrections; retrimmed for near calm three times; and drunk two very welcome pink gins.”

  I had a wonderful four-course breakfast next morning. The sea gave me a flying fish, and I added to the menu grapefruit, fried potatoes and scrambled eggs, and three slices of wholemeal bread with honey and marmalade. That day was my idea of blissful sailing. I did not wish to leave the cockpit, but felt that I could stay there for hours, musing on the past and the future while the warm air flowed over my skin and the sun filled it with life. Gipsy Moth sailed at a good speed, and there were no major shemozzles. Sure, it was hot in the noon sun, but a few bucketfuls of the ocean were delightful. In the afternoon I started clearing out the fruit and vegetable lockers. Surprisingly, there were few bad pieces; so far only one or two grapefruit, oranges and lemons. There was only one bad potato, but what a mess and stink it made! I was astonished that the potatoes in contact with it had not gone rotten too. These really were first-class potatoes, such as one never seems able to buy in England nowadays.

  Going barefooted that afternoon I got a piece of glass stuck into my heel. It was a fragment from Gipsy Moth’s big knock down in the Tasman Sea. It must have worked loose from clothes or woodwork high up, and fallen on the cabin floor. I was constantly coming across bits lodged in strange places.

  On April 21 I lost the South-East Trades and entered the Doldrums. I was in a west-going current, flowing due west at between ½ and 2 knots. This current splits on the north-east bulge of South America, half flowing down the coast to Buenos Aires, and half flowing up the coast to the West Indies.

  It was disappointing to have only had five good days’sailing out of the South
-East Trades. But Gipsy Moth reeled off 818 miles in those five days, a daily average of 163½ miles.

  In the evening I listened again to Giles’s selection of music on the recorder. That was the first time I had done so on the passage—the last time I played it was when I reached the Roaring Forties on the way out. Then it made me so sad and homesick that I never played it again until now. Homeward bound, it was quite a different thing.

  My second day’s run in the Doldrums was only 83 miles—for two days I had been only ghosting along for most of the time. Those two miserable runs spoilt my chance of a good week’s tally. I had been hoping for 1,150 miles, but instead made only 1,004.

  On Sunday, April 23, I wanted to bake some bread, but there was a huge blue-black monster of a rain squall ahead. I waited to see what the brute would do. It seemed to pass from north, to north-west, to west, to south, and then came down on me from the south. Rain started, just as I had the yeast to rise. The squall had circled Gipsy Moth to the west until it was due south again, when I thought it was safe and popped the bread in the oven. Immediately, the squall moved north, and seemed to pounce on Gipsy Moth like a cat on a mouse. It brought wind, and the skies emptied. I was forced to close the hatch and the companion to keep out the deluge. The heat, with the Primus going full blast, was terrific. It had been 87° in the coolest part of the cabin before I even lit the stove. However, I got my bread.

  Later I found a British Admiralty version of this Pilot Chart which was excellent in spite of being for the wrong month, June.

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  I must point out, however, that I had a great advantage over Vito Dumas through being equipped with a self-steering device. When mine broke up, my speed on the wind dropped, and on the last 2,758 miles to Sydney without the self-steering gear I averaged 102 miles per day compared with 142 miles per day before that. His Lehg II was much smaller than Gipsy Moth IV, but, in my opinion, there was not much advantage to me in this because I think that, whereas his boat was too small, mine was too large. I am sure Gipsy Moth and I were better fitted out; on the other hand some people might think he had an advantage in being younger (as he was born a year before I was, he must have been 42 when he circumnavigated). I am not sure this was all advantage. The saying is that comparisons are odious. I must say that I think Dumas was a great sailor, and that I find his book, Alone through the Roaring Forties, just as delightful to read now as it was before I started this voyage.