Alone Across the Atlantic

by Francis Chichester

  I’m afraid this has aroused one of the bees in my bonnet. I once gave a talk at the Institute of Navigation that Met. forecasting should be abolished for the good of aviation. Briefly the theme was: (1) only a proportion of forecasts are correct. It may be a big proportion like 75% but the point is it is not 100%. (2) If the bad forecast is wrong you have perhaps missed an opportunity to do something … fly, sail, or what-you-will which otherwise you would have done carefree. (3) If a good forecast goes wrong you may be very much worse off, dangerously so, than without one because you go unprepared for bad weather.

  However, I had better not be smug too soon. It is only 1140 and though Force 2 still prevails, a sudden change to Force 6 would still hand the laugh to the Met. Service this time.

  Chris Brasher last night asked me one or two questions I was not keen to answer. I had plenty of time to think about a reply because I think the aerial touches the sail when on the starboard tack and the transmission is too bad to hear then. But when I tacked this morning I thought up a reply and tried to call up Cape Race.

  I need not have worried because I could get no reply at all. The set is only supposed to have a range of 50 miles by day and this was 110 miles away.

  I was sorry in a way because I had at last concocted a reply which I approved. Here it is: (He asked details of the damage to Gipsy Moth in the storm and my ETA, New York.) ‘Thanks. Breakage of stanchion fastenings was unimportant but damage to steering vane was serious and inaccessible except to monkey. Took on role of monkey for several hours. Result success and thirsty monkey. For ETA supply accurate weather forecast, but try nineteenth.’

  I mentioned Old Faithful just now. I must tell you a little about him. Have you ever had trouble with riding lights, by the way? Previously I had a most complicated one which took a long time to take apart in order to light and after all the tedious operation a good snatch at the anchor chain and a snubbing of the stem put the damn thing out in a twink.

  Old Faithful, which John Tyrrell supplied with the boat is the most simple-looking lantern and I laughed when I first lit it. The little flame whickered away inside its glass cage, the most delicate little weakling and in fact if I took it out to adjust the wick anything but the slowest movement of the hand put it out immediately. Yet it whickered its way through that storm with no trouble at all. It only needs about an eggcupful of paraffin a night compared with the whole bottle which Tilley demands.

  Well, I must set about my chores. Noon; day’s run 114. This is not bad really considering we were only ambling the whole time. Is it the tortoise-hare affair or due to the owner being asleep for half the period? We have only done more than 114 in the day’s run on seven days this voyage. It is extraordinary to me because this boat should easily average 5½ knots, which amounts to 132 miles. A calm of two hours, a very modest ration per day, would necessitate that the average speed for the remaining twenty-two hours should increase to 6 knots. This takes some doing in a small boat, especially if there is any sea running. Why we ambled so well yesterday is due to the calm sea, I expect.

  Total logged 2,677.

  1930 hrs. Don’t laugh! The Met. man nearly had me on toast. The wind got up to Force 5 about 1400 hrs. I changed down the genoa and it was fascinating how the ship ceased to bury her bows in the seas with the lesser foresail. Also the thumping and slamming eased, the mainsail was drawing much better whereas before it was nearly empty like a flag about to wave. Lastly, the speed went up from 4·9 knots to 61⁄3 knots with the smaller sail area.

  The wind was increasing and I felt sure I should be called out again as soon as I started lunch and I made a resolution to have no reefing nonsense but to switch straight away to the trysail. However it has calmed down again. Do you think the Met. man carried the day? He influenced all my actions from the time of his broadcast yesterday. His wind was not so serious. Force 5 instead of 6 and arriving p.m. instead of a.m.

  The sea looks glacier blue and I felt sure it must be ice-bred water, but the temperature is 56°, which I would have thought too high. I must look up in the Pilot to see what it says about it.

  I picked up Sable Island beacon this afternoon 200 miles ahead. Sable Island has always been rather a thrilling, ominous island for me.

  I cannot find anything conclusive about the Labrador current temperature. The Pilot remarks the extraordinary change of temperature when the Labrador meets the Gulf Stream and says ‘a change from 54° to 32° F. has been recorded in less than a ship’s length.’ Ah, here is something – ‘On the Arctic side of the Cold Wall the colour is olive or bottle green, on the Gulf Stream side it is indigo blue.’ I think my glacier water blue cannot be Gulf Stream indigo.

  I am trying to pick up fresh broadcasting stations to give me the weather ahead. I consider my moral fibre has had a bad bruising from what I have had to listen to on various local broadcasting stations. Having no programme I have had to bear many hours of 1950 vintage crooning and 1940 jazz not to mention the advertisements in order to wait for a weather forecast and time signal. How the announcers who seem to have attractive personalities stand up to it all day is interesting. I suppose they become impervious to it.

  I hope I shall pick up Halifax tomorrow as I think they make a feature of weather information. Please don’t get me wrong; I like to know what the actual weather is all round.

  2215 hrs. The wind has freed us! Backed to the south and put us on a broad reach. It is most exhilarating after being on the wind. Bash! Bash! Bash! Always pinching to head as near the objective as possible – tedious, hard, noisy sailing right across the Atlantic. The sea is moderate enough and Gipsy Moth is fairly scuttling along. ‘I’m in a hurry’she is saying, ‘let me go!’ The gear at the end of the main boom makes a snaffley, clinky sound like the bridle and bit of a horse.

  Standing on the stern, rigging Old Faithful the riding light, it was like standing at the end of a train, the glacier blue flood seemed to be swirling past so fast. We have done 24½ miles the past 3½ hours at 7 knots or 8 m.p. h., it is lovely sailing. As I ate my four kippers and four potatoes with four glasses of whisky I thought how lucky I was and wished 4,000 people could be enjoying a supper as much.

  10th July. 1045 hrs. Really, I could easily believe that someone stood behind me and watched what I was writing so as to have a big laugh at me. I had scarcely finished my last sentence last night when I went on deck and after a good look round did something I very rarely do – put on all my oilskins, boots, sou-wester – all the works, and waited.

  Horrible-looking dense black things hung in the sky in several places. They were like palls of dense black oily smoke which have risen widely apart and spread leisurely in the sky. I thought they were violent squalls and was surprised when we shot under the first one, going now at express speed, without anything happening.

  Dazzling white sheet lightning appeared ahead and away to the north. We were going as fast as we could and I sat in the cockpit not wanting to cut short this lovely sail. However, with a full load of wind already in the sails a sudden additional squall might mean breakages. I loosed off a post-prandial sigh and went forward to the mast to down the main.

  One takes a much rosier view from the security and part shelter of the cockpit. At the mast I had to hold on hard to stand both against the wind and against the water from a lot of sea which was coming across the foredeck. However, the job was easy enough and the only damage was a wooden batten snapped in three parts by the flogging main as it was coming down.

  I topped up Miranda and lit Tilley to lend a light of cheer and compete with the lightning. There was not much else I could do, so when each deluge, which sounded like big hail stones, hitting the deck, started I slid off below. After watching for two hours I took off my oilskins and lay down in my clothes. But it was difficult to rest because of the racket not from the storms because I scarcely heard the thunder above the row in the ship, everything clashing and banging as she rolled, with seas from all directions thumping the ship.

  I found
the moon shining in at 0350 and went up to rehoist the main in spite of having resolved not to do anything of the sort till dawn. But I found a huge storm ahead, in spite of a patch of clear sky around the moon so I returned to roost. Then of course I did sleep, overslept the dawn and did not resurface till 0630.

  Although it was disappointing to lose all those hours (eight hours) of fast sailing, it was not a total loss because in the period we went 38 miles under the jib only; an average speed of knots. And in the right direction too, except for a few wanderings off in the storms. Once for example we headed off 60° to east of north for a few minutes to return to 315 ° in due course.

  When I changed tacks after breakfast this morning and went up on deck two hours later I found we had only done 4 knots with a full mainsail set. I then checked the main sheet, which put up the log reading from 4· 2 to 4·6 knots, then I resheeted the jib, which I had sheeted too far aft (dull-wit) and hardened it a lot afterwards. This put up the reading from 4·6 to 5·6 knots.

  That’s where a yacht properly raced with a good crew would gain enormously. A good helmsman would size all that up in a few seconds whereas I lost two hours of the extra speed. The same applies to the thunderstorms last night. With a crew you could raise and lower your main as often as you like. In fact I don’t suppose I would have lowered it until forced to.

  It makes all the difference to have a good man at the helm who can luff up in a squall and let the foredeck hands lower the sail easily. In the same way it is no trouble hoisting the main with a helmsman to luff up at a sign, thus taking the load off the slides and easing the pressure of the sail against the mast or shrouds. Single-handed it is too risky to try because an unwanted tack at that moment causes horrible confusion.

  Later – Tut! tut! tut! this is not my clever day. I interrupted this to go and get my local noon latitude. I have given up trying to know an accurate time for longitude but am keen to get the noon shot when time is not a critical factor. It is nice and sunny out though the sea is getting roughish. I stood with one foot on the seat each side of the cockpit and balanced myself with my middle against the hatch. I was sighting the sun above the sail and the horizon beneath it. I thought it quite safe there for a few minutes in ordinary clothes. I caught a sea which dashed right into the cockpit and soused me to the skin, jersey, shirt, trousers, also the sextant, watch and notebook.

  I decided that the only thing to do with the sextant was to put it under the fresh-water tap and thoroughly hose it with fresh water. Well, I must get weaving, work out the sun sight and get some radio beacon bearings with the Heron-Homer. Thank heavens that is working perfectly to date.

  I’m back in the old situation, wind dead in the eye from New York. Both tacks make me unhappy. This southerly one is the better but it means passing close south of Sable Island instead of 50 miles north of it as I intended. Therefore I must navigate seriously. I hope that island I dread is not hypnotizing me like a snake drawing me to it. All the ships wrecked on it, as far as I can make out, have thought themselves well away to the east of it. There is apparently a very powerful current setting westwards onto it at times.

  1930 hrs. Do you think one of the leprechauns they left in the yacht when they built her at Arklow, Eire, has taken a dislike to me and is trying to stop me from reaching New York? This afternoon it blew up to Force 6 and, more important to me, with a very windy sky, torn-up cirrus or mare’s tails in an otherwise fine sunny setting. It was too much for the poor mainsail so I lowered it and hoisted the trysail. That’s all very well if only I could point to New York. With the sea running, rough enough to make it hard to stand in the cabin, and the strong wind, as usual right in my eye looking towards New York, I can’t get the boat to point better than 55° off on either tack.

  I changed tacks again and am now headed to pass Sable Island on the mainland side. At least I should have 10 miles a day current to help. I suppose instead of grousing about today I ought to be grateful for a good day’s sailing yesterday when the run was 131 miles in the right direction.

  11th July. 1845 hrs. It has been a noisy afternoon with terrific slams from the seas. Gipsy Moth ought to have been a ski jumper; she rushes up the side of a wave and takes off at the top. Her favourite trick is to sidle up and as she takes off at the crest she goes over with a quick flick onto her side before she crashes down the other side of the wave.

  Its odd about this solo sailing, one jogs along for hours, perhaps days – how shall I put it – feeling quite secure and then suddenly a vague apprehension creeps in and blights your peace of mind like mildew. At the moment I am charging towards the Nova Scotia coast and a bearing I took of the Sable Island radio beacon put me 24 miles farther east than my dead reckoning worked up for 2¼ days.

  A latitude I got from a sun sight puts the northing of the DR as correct. It just made me wonder what I would do if I were asleep in my berth thinking a coast 24 miles ahead when in fact it wasn’t. I consider the Sable Island beacon is correct and if we continue on this present heading I shall expect to see Cranberry Isle light abeam at four o’clock tomorrow morning (if I’m awake, which I doubt).

  I have just looked at the chart and find it is only visible twelve miles away and I expect we shall be twenty miles south of it. The last bit of land I saw was the Eddystone Rock and light house if you can call that land.

  I keep on digressing. I wanted to tell you about that 24-mile discrepancy in the DR. As it is downwind-upwind I would think that either the current is checked by a steady sou-wester blowing against it for days on end – 2¼ days at 10 miles a day makes up the 24 miles – or what I think is more likely, that each tack against the wind is less good in the average than I assess it at.

  For hours at a time especially at night I do not look at the steering compass and assess the average heading by what I see before and after going below. The tell-tale is not compensated or swung and is up to 15° out on some headings.

  I had a wonderful sleep last night due to the trysail, which, after much havering I left set for the night. With that sail set Gipsy Moth steals quietly through the night and I never have a qualm.

  I kept it set all morning when I would not normally, while I renewed the topping lift tackle of the main boom. The rope was stretched thin and would not have lasted much longer. Also I thought one of the blocks was not man enough for the heavy strain so I renewed that. The shock-cord preventer had parted so I renewed that at the same time. This all took a lot of time with the splicing and whipping and rigging.

  When at last I did hoist the main we went slower than with the trysail and with a most infernal banging and slamming, taking a lot of water aboard. After lunch I lowered the main and rolled in two reefs but I think I spent a good hour messing about with the trim of the sails, the tiller-lines and Miranda before the ship settled down to a nice speed, sails asleep instead of drumming, and the seas that came aboard reduced to a reasonable size. There is no doubt the rig with the mainsail set enables the ship to point much closer to the wind than with the trysail.

  12th July. 0845 hrs. Do you suffer from lack of adventure? If so, try closing the Nova Scotian shore after dark, not certain where you are, and run into dense fog, visibility 50 yards, laced with rain and plenty of wind.

  When I left off talking to you last night, it all seemed so simple. I only had to carry on till I got a fix from one of the coastal lighthouses. And I felt my luck was in because at dinner (herring roes lightly fried in butter with new potatoes – at least they were new a while ago), Gipsy Moth did one of her fancy bronco bucks.

  The swinging table is amazing. I can leave things such as a jug of water on it for a day but of course it cannot swing more than, I should say, 60 ° because then the swinging part hits the two feet or legs on which the table is built.

  Gipsy M’s little antic brought the table hard up against its central supports. I always sit to the side of the table because otherwise my knees would prevent its swinging to the full. The impact of table against its support jumped a bottle
of whisky off the table up into the air where it somersaulted and started falling to the cabin sole neck downwards. I caught it on the way down before it hit the cabin sole. That’s why I thought my luck was in.

  At 2215 hrs. we were enveloped in thick fog. I had dined pretty well and was looking forward to a good sleep before starting to keep a look-out for the land. Let’s face it, charging into fog stuffed with a coast as rough as North Brittany is no joke.

  I went over my navigation again and made out that I had 20 miles clear of land. Therefore I could carry on for two hours and have a much-needed sleep for that period. I lay down and dropped off to sleep.

  The whole outfit began behaving like a thwarted spoilt boy. The jib began a thunderous drumming, the mainsail flapped, Gipsy M. jumped and bucked, pitched and rolled, and every time I dozed off a big sea crashed on the foredeck or against the hull and woke me, the wind set up a beastly high-pitched whine in the rigging; even Miranda was flapping wildly.

  I wanted to keep on that heading because it was far nearer the heading required than the other tack would be. Also the forecaster had promised a southerly later and if I could only hold on till that came, I should hardly lose any distance as I must do if I tacked and ran south for the night.

  But the rest of the ship’s company was not having any such thing and at half-past midnight I could not stand the bedlam any longer, gave up trying to sleep, dressed, lit Tilley for the stern and tacked ship away from the land. On this other tack everything seemed to quieten down. I went below and slept hard till six o’clock.

  When I came to plot the night’s doings on the chart I found I had made a most stupid blunder the night before in my plotting. There were two charts on the chart table. The top one on which I was plotting had its left-hand margin turned down to make it fit on the chart table. The edge of the chart below was showing on the left and I had measured my distance off the coast from the latitude scale which was less than half the scale on the chart below, thinking it belonged to the chart above. (This was all by candle light.) Therefore instead of being 20 miles from land I must have been only 8 off and when I tacked only 3. Therefore, had I gone into a deep sleep for two hours I might have had a rude awakening.