At 2030 hrs. I donned my wet kit again and tried to slow the boat down. She seemed to be getting an awful bashing from the seas. I got out a big motor tyre and shackled it onto the anchor chain, paying out 10 fathoms of this, which is5⁄16-inch link, over the stern. I also paid out 20 fathoms of 2½-inch warp over the stern.
I filled a tin with oil and, puncturing the tin, hung it over the side amidships in a piece of canvas. I concluded it was not the slightest use, the engine oil was too thick and we were moving too fast. The anchor chain left a white wake as it cut through the water at about 3 knots. I put the wind now at 100 m.p.h.
The noise was unbelievable and made me wonder how anything could stand up to the wind. However, I informed my ignorant self quite sharply that that was nonsense. What about the chaps climbing Everest, what was a 90-or 100-mile wind to them?
At 2200 I worked out that we were headed into the eye of the storm. I dressed very reluctantly and climbed out with difficulty into the cockpit. I found I had a dry mouth when I started to do anything, but felt better when I did it.
With full rudder held in with some strength she slowly gybed round. She seemed to take the seas a shade easier on this tack.
I couldn’t help laughing when I went below again. All the same books, cushions, clothes back all over the floor and the same papers. I kept on gathering things up but after every manoeuvre there they all were back again.
I dozed but could not sleep. Waiting for the next comber made me tense. I have not been in a wind like this at sea since I was in a typhoon on the China Sea – in a steamer. It seemed impossible that a small boat could survive. Of course it sounds much worse below, especially the seas landing on top of the cabin.
I found I could see the spinnaker poles with a torch through the cabin ports and was relieved to find them both still lashed down. I dreaded having to chase around after one of these to secure it in the dark. Reason told me that far less-strong boats than this survived such storms.
I realized as soon as I got below that I had made a bad blunder in working out that the SE. tack would take me away from the storm centre. The other NW. one would. But the boat seemed better off on this tack and I let it ride. After all, I wanted a boat after the storm; what did a few miles away from New York matter?
But at 0400 hrs. (two o’clock local time) I could not bear being on the wrong tack any longer, got up and changed over. The gear seemed intact as far as I could see except for some of the dodger lashings which had parted. How those dodgers stand up to it is a miracle. Some seas were breaking right over the boat. One filled the patent ventilator and shot a jet into the cabin, but everything there was wet already.
I brought in Old Faithful, the riding light, filled and lit it and rigged it in the stern as usual. It seemed completely unperturbed. An amazing lamp. Another amazing thing is the Aladdin wick-stove which I have had going all the storm. A great comfort with everything wet. It doesn’t seem to care a damn.
The heel indicator registers up to 55 ° and I see it come up against the stop while it is difficult to stand up or move about the cabin; but Aladdin cares for none of these things. The wind had abated, and I estimated it at only 80 m.p.h. I expect big seas later and it is those which count.
We jogged along towing the sea anchor and warp at about 2–3 knots all night, right on course.
At eleven o’clock in the morning I emerged once more to survey the scene. The wind had dropped but was a good Force 8 or 9 as I was well aware when I climbed on the stern pulpit to make temporary repairs to Miranda. It was only seeing her spanker boom caught up in the backstay which brought me out of my hermit’s cabin. I lashed the spanker to the gaff as far up as I could reach standing on the pulpit and working with one hand stretched fully up. The gaff gooseneck bolt has gone which may cause me some trouble.
The only damage other than to Miranda that I could find was a life rail stanchion anchoring a dodger which had been torn loose where bolted to the bulwark … wonderful! (Later I found that actually five stanchions had the bolts fastening them to the bulwark snapped and one had carried away part of the fairly heavy bulwark.)
I pumped 117 strokes, due to an after-peak hatch being open. I suppose it must have been sucked open by a sea coming aboard. I was astonished not to find a lot more water as a result and concluded it had not been open for long.
The wind was NNE. The seas were turbulent, very impressive like mountainous country modelled in white-capped water. There were no regular waves. Looking down from a crest to the trough below I judged the height to be 25 feet. Now the wind is so much less, I can often hear a ‘striker’sea coming. There is a lull in the wind, presumably when we are deep in the trough, then the boat mounts sideways and I can hear a sizzling from the comber. If it does not strike the boat the boat seems to shoot over the crest and land a heavy belly-whopper in the trough below.
I wonder if a storm jib set aback would ease this deadly rolling. It is quite dangerous trying to move in the cabin; it is very difficult not to get caught off balance and thrown across. I must start thinking how to mend Miranda.
I hope those other poor devils have not been caught in this. I’m sure it would be much worse in a smaller boat. But one might be only 200 miles away and completely miss an intense little storm like this.
Personally I am fagged to the bone. A cup of tea may infuse a bit of tannin to my jaded spirit.
Sheila is due to sail today; I say she won’t be put off by lack of news and the bad weather if she hears of it. She is one of spirit and not to be deterred.
Poor old Miranda, she looks like a knitting-bag which the cat has got loose in, with fag-ends of cordage and parted halliards flying loose … the sail tie flapping like chocolate-box ribbon, otherwise a forlorn skeleton.
2045 hrs. BST. Whacko! I thought we had settled down to a new start. It seemed so calm, when, just as I started to write, a sea broke over the whole boat. We have made a modest new start – by 1915 hrs. I had No. 3 jib set and drawing – no mainsail. It is still blowing pretty hard, Force 6. I have trimmed the rudder so that she is keeping herself more or less on course.
Miranda is out of action and even if it fell to light airs I wouldn’t set a mainsail tonight. Miranda is my first consideration, she needs brains to put her right again and I can’t afford to tire myself popping up every few minutes during the night to retrim a main and jib. With jib only I think she will amble along all night.
A good job you can’t smell what’s going on in the mid-Atlantic; I’m having my favourite aperitif, gruyere cheese and garlic, lashings of it. But I am being driven crazy by the rolling. I put one foot on the chart table to steady up while I cleaned the potatoes; the boat promptly rolled with a snap right over the other way and the saucepanful of water and potatoes went over the cabin sole.
I should be really in the soup without Miranda – so I did some preliminary work on her before setting the jib.
I unrigged the spanker boom completely. Then I fitted a bolt to the gaff gooseneck to replace the one lost. (Oh, God! this rolling; it is a wonder it doesn’t break one’s neck, it is so snappy.) I removed the stranded and parted halliards and studied how to replace the one out at the end of the gaff for the topsail. The only way to reach the sheave 14 feet above the deck, was to stand on the end of the topped-up main boom and that really needs some calm. However, I hope to devise some way round the difficulty during the night. The same problem with the sheave …
27th June. The above seems to have petered out. Something called me out I suppose. Today has been a very nice change of weather. Sun and calm. Racing yachtsmen may take umbrage at my welcoming a calm but I loved it. Especially as I had to repair Miranda before proceeding; pretty well a whole day’s work. I only hope my rivals have had the same delightful calm themselves for a day; I wish them weeks of calm!!
It is a great pleasure from where I am sitting here tonight to be able to watch Miranda back on the job again and the ship ambling along with that queer wobble of her stern and the water
guggling along the hull.
Miranda needed some attention. I started at 0900 hrs. BST and have only knocked off for dinner, which I have just finished at 2325 hrs., 14½ hours later. I won’t go into details, she needed a lot – new halliards, a topping lift etc. The fact that I have been on the job all day, gives an idea.
The rolling was really nasty snap-back stuff – it was very difficult to stand on the deck and even sitting on it, one was slid suddenly from one side to the other. There was one hilarious scene which must have made the fishes laugh – Miranda is 14 feet tall from the deck and very slender with it. I wanted to reach the top to reeve the new topping lift. I climbed up in my best monkey style. You know how Miranda works, the vane sails make the whole mast rotate in its socket or sleeve and two arms at the bottom or foot have lines which pull the tiller one way or another according to how the vane weathercocks.
I should add that the rolling has been really maddening, due to the sea left by the storm. As soon as I got up aloft the first roll swung the whole thing round 180° due to my weight. I hung on pretty tight. I waited for it to come back; instead, the roll back sent me right round. The next roll occurred just right and spun me again and in about 15 seconds. I was spinning round like a scared dormouse clinging to a spinning top.
As a matter of fact I wasn’t worried about myself, after my first astonishment. I only regretted I couldn’t see it because I thought it must look the most comical turn. But I was scared stiff for Miranda. She was not built and stressed for a load like this. If her mast snapped, it might take me a week to repair it. I got out of my perch as soon as I could, having to catch the pulpit with a leg dropped down as I spun round.
Another silly thing occurred … I was cleaning Miranda’s clamp, after refitting it, with paraffin and spilt some on the rubberized deck. This gave me unbelievable trouble; it made the deck so slippery that I just could not stand on the deck in my deck boots. This was maddening, because I wanted to work on that exact spot all day. I washed it with soap solution and water. Then I tried a French detergent with more water. Then I sluiced it with several buckets of water but none of this made the slightest difference. I just could not stand on it. Finally I took my boots off and worked in bare feet.
It’s nice to be on our way again, even if only with a modest little breeze. That storm cost me more than two whole days. But perhaps I should not grumble, no, it is just as nice to be a starter again.
I now find that four stanchions had their through-bolts snapped, one or two others have their angle pieces bent and the fastening started. I guess I was lucky to get off so lightly.
I can’t find another burgee to replace the one blown to bits, with nothing left of it. The odd thing is that a pair of underpants which I had optimistically put out to dry on the cabin top, securing them by buttoning them round a handrail were still there next morning quite undamaged. (They still are because the drying time today was not long enough to dry them out.)
I do wish I knew if my rivals got caught by that storm and if so how they got on. I believe it was only a small diameter tornado type perhaps only 100 miles wide and another boat quite near could be having a nice fine day.
I took two sun sights today but have been too busy to work them out. They are there in case I don’t get any more. A nasty wind, a dense bank of fog came up this afternoon and I began shutting the hatches and taking things below but after dropping two huge raindrops on me the fog bank cleared off again.
I don’t know how far we sailed last night, I haven’t worked it out. I was determined to get a good sleep. I knew we could be going twice as fast with more sail, but I felt tired right through. I am sure I was right to get a rest and start afresh rather than struggle for the extra few knots at the price of remaining tired.
I had a good lesson today in how much time a clear head can save. I had been trying to get a block to the peak of Miranda’s gaff to replace the halliard there which carried away. It is impossible to reach it, even by climbing the mast. I tried for about an hour to drop a strop with a block attached over the top of the gaff using a boathook. The boathook is 12 feet long and substantial. With the mad rolling and being unable to stand on the most needed patch of deck, I began to take a very poor view of the whole enterprise. I retired for lunch (a very substantial one) and another idea turned up without the least pang.
I made two loops about 18 inches apart at the end of a length of rope and attached a weight to the end loop. I stuck the boathook in the other loop and dropped the weighted loop over the gaff collecting it the other side with the boathook and bringing it down. It was so easy that I felt a dolt to have spent so long so angrily trying the other way.
Time to turn in. Oh, I’ll have a look to see what we did do last night – 29 miles, not to be sniffed at ambling along with only No. 3 jib, so as to give its owner a big zizz.
28th June. 0515 hrs. Miranda got me out of my cosy berth at 0315 hrs. The course had deteriorated to 240 ° and the boat was beginning to make heavy weather of it. How I hate that change from good sleep to nasty toil.
It was a black night with a heavy drizzle turning into rain now and then. It was my fault, not Miranda’s. She had slipped again but when I took over I spent ¾ hours working hard to try and trim. As soon as the boat came up or ran off 30 ° she developed a really tough weather or lee helm as the case might be. This occurred at the point where the vane arms have least leverage, just when most was needed. In the end I found – I suppose you will laugh, it will seem so simple and obvious to you – that both main and genoa were sheeted in much too hard for a broad reach. When I freed them appropriately the helm became quite docile. Miranda has had no trouble with it since.
I feel depressed. At 1000 hrs. today I shall be 17 days out and will be lucky if I find we are half-way. (I have not worked up a position for several days; must try to find time today.) To crack a 30-day passage would need 1,500 miles in 13 days, an average of 116 per day which I fear is too much for me. The time and effort lost in frequent sail-changing slows me up. A big boat like this (for single-handed work) pays off with steady weather. Otherwise I reckon the small boat with its small sails has the advantage.
I considered one gale must be allowed for but I’ve had the luck to strike more than the average. I remember how Robert Clark, describing a race across the Atlantic in Joliette, Freddy Morgan’s boat of Robert’s design about the same size as Gipsy Moth, said they only reefed three times, once in anticipation of a squall which did not arrive. And I think he had his genoa set for 85% of the time. Of course I know that is going the other way – west to east when the prevailing wind and current are both with you. I’m just trying to make my point of how much you need luck for a fast race.
0540 hrs. Still as black as pitch; I suppose dawn won’t be till 0615 or 0630 in this longitude.
Thank you for letting me air my little moan. I’ll try for another packet of sleep. I really ought to begin sleeping more by day because I expect I shall have to be on watch all night in US coastal waters.
I wish I could think up a way of getting a time signal. I haven’t had one for days. I can’t hear any British stations and none of the WWV wavelengths are on my R/T set or Heron-homer set. I must start listening to USA broadcasts at random but if there is a special time-giving station (WWV is the Bureau of Standards) which sends out time signals continually on about twelve different wavelengths why should any broadcasting station do the same? Who could imagine an old navigator like me could be such a dolt as to be caught without means of getting one of the wavelengths of WWV?
I’ll manage. I can always get a latitude at noon and will just have to run down it in old sailing whaler style. Only of course you do really need a look-out to make a proper job of that method.
1700 BST. Woe is with us once again. While some of us suck the savours of delight eating Danish blue cheese on gingernuts – a very advanced taste this, reached by few as yet – woe is waiting round the corner. My hat, the most comfortable of the type, be it Homburg or Stetson,
I have ever had, personally selected for me by the proprietor of one of the world’s best hat-shops (Scotts of Piccadilly)… words fail me till I have made the tea. Ah, that’s better … well, I specially placed a hook for this hat in the safest snuggest place I could think of: just round behind the bulkhead of the forepeak. I thought it was the one place where nothing could crush it. Just now I looked at it to find it covered with mildew.
I take a gloomy view of everything today. Grey seas, grey skies, fog, drizzle.
I spent a good part of the morning bringing my navigation up to date. It is a fascinating art or craft, I suppose for the same reason that detective stories fascinate otherwise reasonable people. Finding the clues and deducing a certainty out of a lot of possibilities, probabilities or even improbabilities. You can’t be sure of any of the information you get, yet you solve the problem by deductive intuition.
This morning I worked up my dead reckoning from the 19th to yesterday the 27th. I allowed for the speed we were moving forward when broadside on to the hurricane – strength of wind and the amount we were being pushed sideways through the water by that wind at the same time. This may sound rather a puff of boloney but it was quite easy really – I merely noted the angle which the anchor chain of my sea anchor was making with the fore-aft line of the ship.
This DR is quite a job really … for instance on the day of the 24th-25th June there were fourteen changes of course logged with the distance sailed on each course. Each course has to have the appropriate correction for magnetic variation which is 24° here and compass deviation which is another 4 ° on those headings.
For easy plotting I had a fine instrument (I think it was a war-time issue to Coastal Command) which is simply a transparent sheet with the compass degrees around the edge which rotates over a piece of squared paper. One can plot the 14 courses and distances on this in a minute or two. Unfortunately it shot across the cabin in the hurly-burly and was smashed but a piece of it survived big enough for me to get my answers with a bit of mental jugglery.
Alone Across the Atlantic Page 10
