At last I realized I had a strong wind on my hands, that it was already Force 7, and increasing. I tried to reef the main. I had trouble to turn the handle which operates the worm and pinion gear. I did not like to use the strong arm because of the breakages of the same gear on other boats which I knew had occurred through forcing it.
I started checking the main sheet to pay off the main boom. As soon as I relieved the wind pressure on the mainsail the ship fairly shot into the night like a scalded cat. I thought that if I let all the wind out of it, I must be able to roll the boom easily. We went faster than ever.
It really was sport, exhilarating, tearing through the black night with the bow-waves boiling white in the light of Tilley hanging in the stern. I went on paying off the boom until the whole mainsail was just flat and undulating. We just went faster still. I would say we were doing 10 knots.
When I went forward to the mast I saw a fantastic sight. A huge black giant in the sky ahead – most eerie – as if I had rubbed Aladdin’s lamp and its Djinn or Genie had appeared from nowhere. The truth was we had sailed into a patch of light fog and the powerful white light from Tilley in the stern had cast my huge shadow onto the fog-patch ahead as I walked up the deck to the mast.
Finally I realized I just could not handle reefing with the sail set without undue risk to the reefing gear so I lowered the whole sail and gathered the madly slatting mess of sail by armfuls out of the night and tied it a little at a time to subdue it. We were still going about 5 knots with only No. 2 jib set, so I put the mainsail out of mind for the night.
I finally got back to sleep about eight in the morning and slept till eleven but it isn’t enough and I’m exhausted again today.
The truth is that I have badly boobed in my expectations for this race. I never expected to have to change sails every hour or so much of the time. I thought the wind would hold steady out in the ocean for days at a time and that the chief drawback with a big boat was the difficulty of handling the sails if caught in a squall. No, I never anticipated this sail changing every hour or two.
2230 hrs. BST. If this wouldn’t give you the willies, whatever would. Rain, fog, gale squalls, capricious, nasty and very forceful seas, grey skies, grey seas with white horses. Everything wet. And then people have the nerve to run down British Isles weather. I wouldn’t mind, I think, if we could only go straight to our objective but as usual all day we have not been able to head closer than 50 ° from where I want to go.
In one way it is rather amazing to achieve 50° with only a jib set. Well, it is nothing to complain of compared with Slocum’s sailing through the Magellan Strait, for several months held up by incessant gales from where he wanted to head. On the other hand he was not racing and racing makes one impatient.
I wonder if you can read this? You must be a wizard if you can. This reminds me of when I used to be immensely proud that I could roll a cigarette with one hand while cantering (in New Zealand, where they never used to gallop or trot their horses in the back country). But that is not much more difficult than writing in a bucking, pig-jumping, twisting bronco of a yacht.
We are under jib only because a sudden gale-force squall made me lower the main and it has stayed down since. We are averaging 4½ knots with the jib and I reckon it is not worth trying to get another half a knot or possibly a knot by setting a trysail considering the immense effort involved. Effort is in short supply and tonight owes me a sleep.
I have one bit of good news. A Canadian station on my R/T set. It was a surprise after the silence of the mid-Atlantic. It was CBC – St. John’s, Newfoundland, and I got a sort of time signal, thank goodness. The announcer said ‘It will be so and so in five seconds’ time’, and I took his word for it. According to that my reckoning is 28 seconds out which means that my sextant sight yesterday puts us 7’ of longitude farther west than I had calculated.
It is a very fine watch considering the hard conditions it has to work in at present. Herbert Swift, a friend of my rival David Lewis, obtained it for me and practically gave it to me. He is a radio ham, who had one of the earliest amateur licences.
What I need now is to find a station broadcasting ice reports. I’m only 300 miles off the June 8th ice limit. I don’t like ice for a yacht; it’s probably because I’ve never had any experience of it at sea. The point is that the closer I can go to Cape Race the more favourable the Labrador current I can pick up compared with the adverse Gulf Stream-North Atlantic current farther south.
At present I’m aiming for 45 ° N. 50° W. as a turning point. That will shave the June 8th ice area. But if the ice patrols had found the ice area had receded I could cut a corner. On the other hand if more has come down from Greenland, etc. and I don’t know about it I might regret it. I don’t suppose there are as many ice floes as ships anyway.
The gale has eased. I must go and re-hoist the mainsail. It is really reprehensible meteorological tactics just when I have started serious evening drinking.
I shall think before acting. We have done 53½ miles since noon and half that time under jib only so there are strong winds about.
2nd July. 1100 hrs. BST (or 7.30 St John’s, Newfoundland). We are sailing again, thank God. If, last night, you guessed I was not very sound in moral fibre, you guessed right. At 0300 hrs. I decided not to hoist the mainsail although conditions were good. I released Miranda, tacked to the SSW., set the tiller as well as I could and packed up. ‘She’s yours for the night,’ I told Gipsy Moth. And I think she took my word for it because several times in my half sleep I heard her turn round in a tight circle like a pup trying to catch its tail. The log only showed 9 miles during the night so I suppose she can’t have gone far in the wrong direction even if she went nowhere in the right one.
I struggled out of my blankets at 0800 hrs. but I could have done with another twelve hours’sleep. I need bags of it, oceans of it and quiet restful stuff, not waking every thirty minutes to the explosion of a sea landing on the cabin top or the feel of something wrong with the sails or wind or trim.
I made some coffee before going on deck this time, but I had a bad start because I let myself be thrown across the cabin with serious detriment to my coccyx (Latin for tail), the first part of my anatomy to hit the other side of the cabin, but that is repairable whereas my Thermos is not. It not only fragmented itself but did it all over the cabin sole, where I had to spend ten minutes trying to sweep it up. At least the same cabin sole has now had a sweep-up, which I doubt if otherwise it would have got this voyage.
We are sailing very well indeed under No. 2 jib and main with the first reef rolled up. But I fear it is too good to be true. While breakfasting the wind has already veered 25 ° and not only are we once again headed 50 ° off our desired course but this veering usually seems to forerun a blow-up. Thick fog, visibility 75 yards, heavy rain showers, grey, grey, grey. Shall I ever arrive, tacking eternally like this? Oh, for a week’s wind free enough to sail full and bye; it would put me right into New York, just seven days of it.
This morning I tallied up my paraffin store. I had fifty-nine bottles to start with and have used 31. How long is this trip going to be yet? I never expected to need so much in midsummer. But the Aladdin stove is on now, everything is damp in the ship if not wet. And then there is Tilley, who uses a lot of paraffin (a bottle a night), but I don’t want to cut her down. That glaring bright white light in the stern is a great comfort to me and most helpful if I am reefing or doing deck work. I can ease up a bit on the galley Primus and can use candles, of which I have plenty, instead of cabin lamps.
I may get put on the mat by the Board of Trade for using the Tilley but it is a practical light for a yacht. It shows up the sails well and of course a sailing vessel has right of way. over all powered vessels; it must show up miles away.
My navigation lights and masthead light are all out of action, but the red and green lights must be hard to see more than 300 yards away in a yacht at the best of times, besides which, owing to the pitching and yawing,
they must be very puzzling to a steamer ahead which does spot them. Finally one of them is usually blanketed completely by a headsail when heeled.
The re-baked bread is a great success, tastes fresher and better than when new. My son, Giles, brought down eight loaves to Plymouth from London from the Mayfair bakery which I consider makes some of the best wholemeal bread I have tasted.
You may be surprised when I tell you what is the greatest success among the foods on board – I mean the solids – Bircher Benner’s Muesli. Sheila brought down from London six packets already made up. It only needs some water, a grated raw apple, some lemon juice and a dessert spoon of Mr Fortnum’s honey to make the most delicious breakfast. I never get tired of it. Incidentally I find I am only eating two meals a day instead of three at present.
Blast! it sounds like another squall starting.
1500 hrs. I suppose one of the greatest pleasures is simply getting over difficulties. I feel this is an incredibly naïve remark that will make you laugh comically or sardonically or in some such super-civilized manner. Go ahead then, laugh! It sifts down to just this; I feel as pleased as a cocker spaniel patted on the back that I lowered my main sail in that gale-force squall, furled it so as to leave the bottom 100 square feet loose for reefing, then found it was blowing too hard to reef even the lowered sail and finally set the trysail instead. What is the point of my story? Well, frankly, I dreaded having to go out and reef that hulking great brute of a sail in another gale. Then I dreaded all the planning and messing about and hard unpleasant tricky work of setting the trysail. But it all went smoothly. Finally I came down to a cabin nicely warmed by that magician Aladdin and I found that life is extremely good. So then I said why was it good? And there we come to the conclusion I started with: the great pleasure I had got from getting over the difficulties.
10. July 3rd to 7th
Newfoundland Time for Best Scotch – Over Flemish Cap –
Concerned with Ice – Warmer – Fishing on the Grand Banks
– The Vision of an Island – Whales The Tactical Dilemma of
Ice – What the ‘Pilot’Says … – Another Gale – In a Beam
Current – Cape Race Radio Beacon – R/T Conversation in a
Dream – 2,464 Miles – 500 Miles for Tacking – The Meridian
of Cape Spear – Man and his Fate – First Dinner in America
3rd July. I took to the bottle (best Scotch) 0915 hrs. Newfoundland time, one of the earliest starts for me. I’m afraid it weakens the story by saying this is 1245 hrs. of my time. As soon as I fished out the bottle the weather lightened a bit as if to admit: ‘This is a fellow not to be trifled with; is it any use our continuing with this muck of weather we dole out on the Grand Banks if he merely starts drinking whisky at breakfast time in retaliation?’
I had got out early this morning, lowered the trysail and hoisted the mainsail. Besides the usual fog it was pouring down a sub-tropical deluge. When I raised my arms above my head to shackle on the halliard to the head of the mainsail, the water just poured up my sleeve.
I wouldn’t mind so much getting wet if I could get dry again. But almost no piece of clothing or bedding has dried the past three weeks except for a few bits one afternoon. Water seems to penetrate everywhere in the boat.
This morning I suddenly caught sight of a dry patch on the cabin sole and was astonished and delighted until I found that it was part of a potato-sack protruding from a locker which looked like a few dry floor-boards.
All is not gloom; I had a wonderful sleep last night thanks to the trysail. I felt it wouldn’t matter if there was another storm with that rig. It gets the ship through the water quietly too. I was amazed on hoisting it how the slamming and banging of the bows and the slatting of the jib eased at once. She quietly presses on too.
Yesterday’s run was 102½ miles and the main was up only two hours of the period. Of course there has been plenty of wind; the run the day before was 95½ miles and No. 2 jib was the only sail set for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. I think that is surprising because we were hard on the wind all the time.
Gosh! It’s cold. I must just pop out to see if there is any ice about.… Well, I wouldn’t see it if there was because of the fog. What a place! Actually we are over Flemish Cap, an outlying shoal east of the Grand Banks. This morning, to continue my reasons for taking to drink, my fingers not only went all sodden white with the water but were so numb with cold that it was difficult to unscrew the shackles. And this is midsummer.
I wonder if the announcer of CBN station CBC St John’s, Newfoundland would be amused if he knew how I have been hanging on his words. He said finally: ‘In twenty seconds it will be 9.15.’ I rushed to my navigation watch to check it. But was the announcer looking at his watch, the station clock, or what? I feel he would not say ‘twenty seconds’unless he was giving accurate time.
You must be astonished that an old hand navigator should be caught out with no means of getting a time signal. My only excuse is that the R/T set was not fitted till the afternoon before the race started and it had never occurred to me that it would not cover one of the ten or so frequencies on which WWV broadcast time signals the whole day long. I shall get by.
Having got the accurate time the next step is to use it. I fear there will be no chance of a sun sight today. The sun might show hazy in the fog overhead, but there will be no horizon to use as a datum with the fog on the sea surface. I got a snap-shot yesterday which gave me a valuable latitude and another single shot the day before which when combined with the latitude gave me something of a position indication.
But my big concern at the moment is ice. I have a chart before me as I write, on which I have plotted the ice area given for June 8th. What does ‘A’do now? I am now headed for this area 60 miles away, and if we keep as we are now we shall run into it 60 miles north of its south-east corner.
I have been hoping for the south wind forecast for the Grand Banks yesterday by my announcer friend. With a south wind I could have made good a heading of southwest which would have cut across the corner of the ice area. I was delighted on waking to find the wind had gone round to the south. This was most cheering. But as soon as I went below for breakfast the wind veered again and put us back on our old heading. Maybe this ice area has shrunk since June 8th though the accumulated data shows it does not change much from June to July normally.
If only I could find out? I don’t want to head off south for a day to avoid a danger which does not exist. Last night at midnight and at 0400 hrs. I tried to call up one of the ocean stations as the Atlantic weather ships now call themselves, but with no reply. What would you do in these circumstances?
I think the problem has nearly solved itself. The wind has veered further and we are now headed 330 °, which is too much to the north. I wouldn’t mind cutting a corner, even a big corner of this ice area but I don’t think it is sensible to charge right into the middle of it. I will go and tack.
2120 hrs. BST. (1750 hrs. Newfoundland time.) It is good of you to let me prattle to you. I look forward to it and also it is very dietetic; it enables me to drink plenty of fresh lemon juice which I have been many times told is so important for mariners and everyone else. Also I find it improves the whisky I take the lemon in.
Talking of whisky, whenever I’m next in a quandary, I must have whisky for breakfast. Here was I this morning full of woe and misery. As soon as the magic spirit had percolated to my farthest capillaries, what happened? I went up to tack and within an hour the fog had disappeared, the sun came out, I got some sun shots, unreefed the main and changed to the genoa, was becalmed and lowered the main because of the awful banging of sail and boom and it became hot.
I had put on a thick flannel shirt on top of my cotton one and a pair of woollen underpants and I had to strip off hurriedly, it was suddenly so intensely hot. I suppose this was an eddy of the Gulf Stream air invading the cold air of the Labrador current. Later I got the time signal from the Ottawa observatory, and more sun
shots to make a sun-fix. Incidentally the St John’s announcer was spot on with his times. So now all I want is a good sailing wind for ten days and no more unpleasantness.
My next objective is Sable Island, the dreaded banana-shaped island of sand which is supposed to have caused countless wrecks. It seems to be uninhabited except for the lighthouse keeper. A bare low-lying sand-spit. The wrecks were partly due to the difficulty of seeing it at all but mostly because of the variable currents near by. It is in the sort of no-man’s land between the Gulf Stream moving 12 to 24 miles a day eastwards and the Labrador current flowing 10 miles a day westward. The boundary varies and a ship is liable to think itself in one when it is in the other.
If I can work a passage between Sable Island and Nova Scotia I shall be sure of the Labrador current. The difference whether one is in the one current or the other totals 25 miles a day on the average and that is five hours sailing a day. I’ve been plugging against the current all the way across the Atlantic and long to be in a favourable stream.
It is very tantalizing that this ice area prevents one from joining the west-going current sooner. However, with luck, in three days I shall get into a negative beam-on current followed soon after by a favourable one. But this Labrador stream does entail fog. It has already returned here. And it may persist for another 800 miles. It does seem a long way, the log reads 2,054 miles tonight and still there is at a rough guess 1,300 miles to do. And at the moment we are nearly becalmed. I must look out my fishing-tackle. If this is the world’s most famous fishing-ground fresh fish for breakfast
is a possibility.
4th July. 0930 hrs. St. John’s Newfoundland time. I have changed my clocks at last; it became too bizarre having daylight past midnight and waking up in the dark at 0800 hrs. Speaking of time, I was trying in the middle of the night to call an ocean weather station ship and while passing the switch through the channel labelled Boston, I suddenly got a WWV signal loud and clear. The USA Bureau of Standards sending out their twenty-four-hours-a-day time signal. I tried again this morning but not a sound. I suppose it was reflected off the heaviside layer during the night.
Alone Across the Atlantic Page 12
