Alone Across the Atlantic

by Francis Chichester

  We sailed last night 86 miles in 12 hours 15 minutes – just over 7 knots average. Wonderful sailing! This is what I came for. But how seldom does one get it especially on the wind. Now the wind is a good deal easier and I must shake out the reefs and retrim. Out damned lethargy!

  Bong! Gipsy M has learnt how to unseat a cup of tea at last. She pig-jumps to port and while the swinging table is still swinging she pig-jumps to starboard. It’s an old bronco trick for throwing a rider, changing direction of a buck while still in the air. Mind you, she waits till I have a spoon in the cup which just does the trick for her. I think she is annoyed because I ticked-off Miranda. She tried the same trick again while I was mopping up the coffee and pitched an open, nearly full, pot of runny honey into my berth among the blankets. But I was too smart for her and though it fell on its side I fielded it before a drop of honey passed the edge.

  During the night I suddenly realized what the movement was like which I was trying to describe, a fast horse going over rough ground strewn with fallen timber. Anyone who has ridden a lot will know what I mean, the rising upthrust like the beginning of a buck as the horse flies the log and the wobbly quivery swerve as she avoids something.

  Avaunt the prattle! To toil! To toil! To toil!

  1055 hrs. I figure someone on this boat has a sense of humour and not of the best kind either. When I went below after finishing the unreefing of the main, the riding-light was lying, resting you might say, right in the middle of the blankets on my berth. The lamp must now be pretty well empty of paraffin, which has soaked my blankets. Why I mentioned sense of humour is that it was exactly on the spot where the pot of liquid honey landed a short while before and which I fielded before the honey flowed out. I must have some garlic for lunch to counter the smell of paraffin.

  1600 hrs. Fog. Not thick but still fog and reducing the visibility to say a quarter-mile. My route goes through an area of 10% probability of fog, drawn from thousands of observations, which is 1,600 miles wide from E. to W. and 40% probability for an area several hundred miles wide centred on the Grand Banks south-east of Newfoundland. But that area does not start for 1,000 miles west of here. Of course there is always a chance of fog anywhere. I hate the stuff though I must admit I’ve had quite a lot of exciting adventures due to it while flying.

  This afternoon after a sleep I achieved a shave. It wasn’t very good; there are several patches unharvested. One needs to be a balancing acrobat to shave, although the boat now seems quiet. One trouble was to keep the water in the basin. Not that the spillage mattered; the whole interior of the boat looks as if it had been in a shower of light rain. What puzzles me is where it comes from. I even found water inside a big tin of Nivea which had been shut in the heads cupboard.

  I’m excited to see how much the yacht does in the 24 hours starting from 2000 hrs. last night when I set the genoa. So far at 1625 hrs. the log is reading 456 which means 133 miles since 2015 last night with nearly four hours to go. A week of this pace would do me a lot of good.

  I must have another shot at a radio beacon fix. I couldn’t get any beacon this morning due to interference or background noise. I don’t think it was the set because I picked up the BBC Light wavelength quite clearly. Tomorrow I must dig out the sextant. An astro fix is quicker than a radio one and much more accurate but I always put off using a sextant as long as possible, because of the different acts involved in taking and reducing a sight.

  I shall never forget my humiliation and loss of face when on my first Royal Ocean Racing Club’s race, crewing in the club’s hell ship Griffin I, after being continuously seasick for thirty hours, I forgot to allow for the semi-diameter of the sun and we turned up at the Casquets off Alderney instead of at Guernsey.

  But first I must light the good Aladdin stove. The fog makes the air damp and chilly.

  17 June. 0909 hrs. What a ride we had last night! Holy smoke! Was it rough going! I confess I was apprehensive and anxious. The set-up was this: thick fog, or thick enough on a black night, 75-yard to 50-yard visibility, plenty of wind and a rough sea.

  At 1900 hrs. a steamer passed me, foghorning at intervals. I replied with two toots of my little mouth horn at short intervals to show I was under sail on the port tack. I judge it was a big fast liner though I saw nothing whatever of it. Fast, because I was doing 7 knots and it still passed very quickly; big because its horn seemed very high; a liner because – no, I can’t say why, just a fancy perhaps.

  I felt a bit queasy, but dined off new potatoes and an onion with some mango chutney; nothing else and I think it was the right food. I took two Sea-legs.

  At dusk I lit the powerful Tilley light and planted it on the counter where it must show up the sails, sharply, and we charged into the night. It got rougher and I wondered if I ought to change to a smaller jib. However, I turned in and began sleeping heavily. Yet I don’t think I slept more than ten minutes at a time between 2330 and 0125.

  Rough going! It certainly was. The table woke me most often. It is built like a book hung by the spine and with lead instead of page edges. The two covers are the flaps which open up and are jammed horizontal when required. As the boat lurched one of the flaps would be left behind as the table swung. Sometimes the lurch to one side would be countered almost immediately by a lurch to the other side, very fast like a whip cracking. The table flap still swinging one way would be met by the table coming back and would give a mighty crack.

  As it got rougher the yacht seemed to climb a wave, rush up it and pig-jump off the crest, landing with a terrific splash. The noise was appalling down below and one marvels at the strength of the boat. That’s fair enough but the jumps made the table jump up in the sockets on which it pivots and land with an unholy din.

  I kept on waking and feeling scared that the gear would not stand the strain, mast and sails principally. The build of a yacht simply amazes me. She was heeled 30° generally but with a good lurch heeled over to 50 °. Imposed on that strain was the pig-jumping, leaping into a trough or being struck by a wave, now from one side and next from the other.

  I was vacillating; several times I started out of the berth to change down the genoa. I pictured myself mastless. Then I’d tell myself the yacht was designed for this ocean sailing. (Another fog horn, 1008. A slow one toot: it passed well away to starboard. I could hear the horn plainly from the cabin long before I could hear it from the deck.)

  Off I’d go to sleep only to be woken a few minutes later by another crack. Seeing a sea land on the inner side of the genoa worried me. It is cut low at the foot which curves round nearly down to deck level for 21 feet. The power of a sea bursting on this from the weather side must be very great. I was not worried about it dipping in the sea, which it frequently did, because that only pushed it in against the wind.

  I kept on thinking of Sheila who said my chief trouble in this race would be carrying too much sail too long. On the other hand the yacht was sailing magnificently, really racing, the seas rushing past. I hated to slow her down. Finally at 0125 after a heavy sea came aboard I got up and dressed fully for foredeck work. I would change down the jib.

  I put on oilskin trousers, long coat, sea-stopping towel scarf, cap, knife, spanner, torch (all three around my neck) and safety-belt ready for the fray. When I got into the cockpit she was sailing as well as she ever could and I hated to reduce sail. I stood and waited for the next sea but we must have sailed out of a rough patch just as I came on deck. From then on it was just fine sailing. I pumped up the Tilley, returned to my bunk and slept soundly till woken by a calm at 0530.

  So ended a sail that I feel may be hard for me to beat single-handed: 220 miles from 2015 of the 15th to 0530 of the 17th; 33 hours, 15 minutes at 6·6 knots.

  Now to work. (1) I must rig an aerial and try to contact some of my pals of the transatlantic flight. (2) I’ve lost two battens out of the mainsail and ought to lower it to replace with makeshift ones. I’m afraid otherwise the incessant flapping, almost vibration, of the mainsail leach will star
t the stitching there. (3) I must have a good look at all the vane gear, for chafe or strain.

  That was another worry I had last night. When the yacht lurched, the rudder, which has 10 square feet of surface, would crash to one side pulling the wind vane violently with it. This is an unfair strain and I see that several of the wire stays of the vane have stretched or pulled their splicing. On the other hand it may be a good thing to have plenty of play in the vane for just that snatching by the rudder. Maybe I ought to feed in lengths of shock-cord to the tiller-lines. Then I must work up the DR position and get the sextant ready in the hope of sun and horizon being visible.

  18th June. 1350 hrs. If anyone lacks interest, exercise or excitement or suffers in any way from boredom this is the answer. The only thing to mar it is the radio. I got the aerial rigged yesterday morning and have been listening in at stipulated moments since then. I heard a clipper of Pan Am calling the race yachts once but he did not hear my reply. With a range of 100 miles or so it is very difficult to make contact with a 500-m.p.h. plane somewhere over the Atlantic.

  1433 hrs. Sorry, I was overpowered by sleep. I listened in at 1400 and called up the clipper as requested but no reply.

  I found to my astonishment that yesterday was Friday, and that I would have been out a week and I know Sheila and Chris Brasher were expecting news from me by today. I tried calling up any steamer within sound-range but no answer. I think it is just not in the cards for me to get through a report of my position. Apart from the radio worry and a bad little accident which occurred this morning and which I will come to presently I wouldn’t swap places with anyone in the world.

  Yesterday was fine with plenty of fog. Occasionally the fog cleared and twice it lifted enough to show a horizon and the sun visible through the mist. I took advantage of these two clearings to get sextant shots at the sun, so at last got a fix. I had had none since the radio fix of two days before.

  Fog, fog, fog wreathing over the waves and the long ocean swell. (I only realized what a long swell there was when it temporarily cleared.) The radio beacon went out of range on the 15th, three days ago. The sun fix put me at 50 ° 10’ N. 16 ° W. at 1815. I was glad to find this was only a few miles from the dead reckoning position worked up from the start six days ago. One would expect this when racing with a crew of good helmsmen but after all one can’t ask Miranda what course she has been steering when one wakes up after several hours’sleep.

  All day we kept going on the right course at speeds varying from 3½ to 6¼ knots. The wind gradually backed until at 2135, when I retrimmed the sails and Miranda, it had backed to south. I slept till 2330 when I got up and lit Tilley. I woke again at 0130 and found the boat becalmed and the sails slatting.

  I topped up Miranda’s spanker so that she should not bash into the backstay. I hardened in the main sheet to keep the main boom from banging from side to side, and, feeling guilty, crept back to my berth. Racing with a crew one would tend the sails all the time to take advantage of the faintest breeze. I was too sleepy to care.

  At 0535 I awoke to find a light breeze. Gipsy M was hove-to headed north-east and fore-reaching slowly with the genoa aback. It took me quite a while to get the sails and wind vane trimmed. With the wind aft of the beam it is quite a tricky setting. I wasn’t helped by the racing-flag being fouled again so that I could not see how the wind was at the masthead.

  Then came my little bit of woe. Trying to shake the flag clear it came away from the burgee staff. I saw something fall in a fluttering heap into the sea like a collapsed blue pigeon. When I thought of all the loving care and craftsmanship put into making it by Sheila, my heart sank. She thought she had used better and more durable stuff, nylon-fortified; but always it seemed to be catching up in the masthead and did not fly so lightly as bunting does. It was already much frayed by the gale.

  I sadly brought out the RORC burgee and hoisted that. The flag accident made me miss a listening period at 0630 for a BOAC plane. The wind was steadily backing and was now SE. with the result that I could not head better than 240°, which was 50° off the desired course. Pointing any closer to the required course would mean tangling Miranda’s boom with the end of the main boom. Where would I be without Miranda? I must set twin spinnakers.

  That was a big job especially as I had not done it before. I never got a chance to practise the operation. So I decided to have breakfast first. I laid a good foundation for the morning’s work with a fry-up of potatoes and eggs – only two this morning – followed by the usual toast and coffee. It took me 1¾ hours to think out and get the gear ready and to boom out the genoa (already set).

  Handling the 14-foot spinnaker boom requires careful forethought when attaching it to a 400-square-foot sail drawing well. I had to splice up two strops to attach the spinnaker booms to the tacks of the sails. Then I had to lower and furl the main sail. In the process the main boom flew out abeam. Something had carried away – dreaded sight for a racing sailor. But it turned out to be only a shackle at the boom-end carrying one of the blocks for the main sheet tackle. I nobbled the boom with a rope-end thrown over it and bowsed it down before any damage was done.

  So far I only had one of the twins set. But setting the other from scratch was much easier. I clipped the second spinnaker boom to the clew of the sail before hoisting the sail and brought the boom up with the sail, a trick of Tom Worth’s which I had read about.

  Now they are both set and looking like a giant white sting ray hanging from the sky. The total area of the twins is 600 square feet. The setting of the genoa was definitely tricky; because of the size and length of the sail, the boom must be right aft against the shroud or else there is too much belly in the sail and it is apt to wallop the air in a drunken manner.

  Robert Clark said I wouldn’t be able to take it in again and he has more experience than almost any other yachtsman bar perhaps Olin and Rod Stevens of the USA and John Illingworth. I hope the wind does not get up stormy before I put his words to the test. However ‘forewarned’ etc. and I must think up some way of smothering it when I want to hand it.

  1530 hrs. The old sting ray – giant manta really – hanging by his sting to the mast is still drawing fine. Quietly the log ticked off 6 nautical miles during the past hour. We roll considerably but sailors don’t care as long as they’re on the way. It was wonderful this morning working up in the stem with the scrunch of the bows shearing through the water, the soothing gurgle of the bow waves, the deep clear colour of the water.

  I suppose I ought to go and repair the main boom ready in case it is needed suddenly for a wind shift. But I’m not going to; I’m going to have another sleep.

  By the way, when I looked at the log it read 698 miles. Considering it wasn’t set for six hours at the start and was out of action for an unknown length of time when fouled by the yacht going round in circles one night while I was sleeping, and considering the gales and squalls at the start … the head winds, the fact that I missed a lot of chances through lack of skill the first few days, I say, considering all this, we are not doing too badly.

  2310 hrs. I’m usually very thorough about washing-up. At least that’s my view. My wife for some reason quite beyond me thinks entirely the opposite. The point is that I overlooked washing up my glass so the only sensible thing to do with it, considering the need for saving fuel, is, instead of heating up another lot of wash-up water, to fill it with whisky and water and sit down for a chatter.

  One has heard it said that people who live alone talk to themselves. As I have been talking aloud today I wondered if the saying was true. I think it is wrong. One is not talking to oneself but thinking aloud. If I could sing I would, but I can’t. If I try to sing the note of a bird for example something is emitted which would appear to resemble the moan of a rhinoceros with acute indigestion.

  Time after time I have tried to call up a ship or an aircraft and have listened in in case anyone should be calling us. Not that it matters to me failing to make contact; the radio mars the serenity o
f an adventure like this. But having a radio telephone aboard, I worry that Sheila and my friends will worry if they hear nothing of me. I don’t think Sheila would, really, because she has such faith in me and even if something went wrong she would regard it as destined and decreed rather than worry lest it could have been prevented.

  I must change position. Countering the rolling and bracing myself to avoid being pitched off my seat is making my back ache. An additional cushion behind and feet against the opposite settee should make it easier.

  I got pitched across the cabin while lighting a lamp and knocked my whisky over. You might think I would fill it again, but I put the bottle away so I won’t. That’s the only drawback to running with twins set and no mainsail to steady the roll. She rolls pretty fast from side to side and its a bit tricky if you have your hands full or are caught off balance. I hit my chest against something exactly where I had the big blow the other day. It was really painful for a while. Before that, it has hurt me if I cough and gets very stiff while I’m asleep. I certainly gave it a good dent the other day.

  Sitting in the cabin I can hear the bow waves form as if breaking and then rush along the hull, gurgling and seething. It is delightful running. This is the first real run I’ve had in Gipsy Moth since she was built. None of that chilly wind and spray that you get when on the wind. All day I have left her alone except to retrim the helm and Miranda. Since I set the twins she has quietly gone ahead with no fuss or noise averaging 6 knots; she has knocked off 54 miles in the nine hours. I suppose she would do 8 to 9 knots with the spinnaker (850 square feet) and the mainsail (380 square feet) but I could not leave the helm with a spinnaker set and the gain for a few hours’steering would be lost in setting and handing it every time.

  I had to leave the helm. There is a lot to do besides helmsmanship. This afternoon I fitted a new shackle to the main boom sheet tackle and tautened up both the fore and aft lower shrouds on both sides – a lengthy job fiddling with the split pins which I wanted to save, having no replacements.