Sleep deprived doesn’t come close. I’m utterly knackered, beaten and bruised. Physically my body is aching and I have a host of small injuries too great in number to count. My hands are slowly but surely just falling to pieces before my very eyes and I now have pressure sores to add to the list from sitting on the high side of the boat. Mentally the last 4 weeks has been so far removed from almost anything I’ve done before; we have spent time barely moving for hours and hours on end as well as time in excess of 1000 miles from the nearest help if anything major were to happen onboard. But this is ocean racing after all, and its everything I imagined and more. Call me a glutton for punishment but I want more of this. For now though the story starts as we leave La Rochelle early on the morning of 22nd September.It was an early 7 o’clock start full of mixed emotions. We had had a good, if somewhat busy, stopover in La Rochelle but most of us were now keen to get going. After such a good run down to France and having heard stories galore about the ferocity of the Bay of Biscay, we had all been coming to terms in our own minds with what we were about to undertake. The folklore winds failed to materialise however and we found ourselves crossing the start line for race 2 with all ten boats in the fleet doing less than half a knot of boat speed at best. In fact it was such light winds that some boats pointed back towards the town of La Rochelle in an effort to find some more wind. We were lucky enough to be joined for the start by the boat Joshua, sailed by Bernard Montessier in the very first solo non-stop circumnavigation race featuring non other than Sir Robin Knox Johnson and Donald Crowhurst. It was a shame that we could not have had a more exciting start for such an esteemed follower.
Still, onboard Jamaica Lightning bolt we had a good start and found ourselves in second place for the first half a day of the race. Within 48 hours however it was a different story and a tactical error meant that we began to fall back down the fleet as we left Biscay – we were one of the last boats to start flying a spinnaker, a decision in hindsight which we lament as it would have meant a lot less catching up heading towards the Canary islands.
After a slow few days we began to settle in to our watch systems again and the winds gradually began to build. It wasn’t long before we were well and truly into the North East trade winds with the Canaries in our sights but by this point we were lying in 10th place. It would be lying if I said the role of bringing up the back of the fleet did not have an effect on morale. We were however buoyed by the undeterred spirit of our skipper who still had faith that we were competitive – it was after all a 5000 mile race and there was a long long way to go.
So the Canaries was the first of a number of tactical decisions to be made that would ultimately lead, not that we know at this stage, to us building a significant lead over the trailing group of boats. Due to us still being far down the pack at this point, we made the decision not to go for the scoring gate on the South West side of the islands, instead hugging the west coast of Africa, avoiding as well any wind shadow from the islands. Careful consideration of the weather routing information meant we avoided falling into a big wind whole and suffered only an 18hr period of being becalmed. By shifting sails around below deck, sitting on the leeward side of our Jamaican Lightning Bolt and using water from the high side tanks we were able to induce just enough heel in the boat to keep us moving slowly but surely past the islands. Needless to say it was a welcome relief when the trade winds began to reappear and I was further boosted by a short lived phone signal allowing me to call Lisa.And so our daily mileage slowly began to creep back up to over 200 miles a day which kept us extremely competitive, and on several occasions the quickest boat in the fleet. 10th, 9th, 8th and then 7th. Slowly but surely we were creeping up the fleet.
From here it was an 800 mile drag race to the Cape Verde islands where good sail trim, correct sail plan and meticulous helming would keep us very much in contention and start our serious assault on a podium position. By this stage the boat was hitting good speeds again and feeling well powered up, so all of our weight distribution was shifted again to the high side to keep the boat flatter. By the time we reached Cape Verde we were only 17° North of the equator (having started at 53°!!) and so work below deck, whether it was spinnaker packing, sail repair, or motherwatch duties was so hot it inevitably left us exhausted and sweating profusely with the disparaging thought that it was only set to get hotter and hotter.
And so slowly the first leg began to roll on and on and before we knew it we had been at sea for 2 weeks. We were getting used to the midnight and 4 o’clock wake up calls and sleeping during the day became easy as the conditions continued to provide us with idyllic sailing. We had spotted our fair share of dolphin and a whale or two by this stage and it was a welcome feeling knowing that we are not alone out here – it is the first time for many of us that we have spent so long offshore not in sight of land. Our most frequent visitors however were flying fish that have an amazing ability to glide gracefully along the ocean’s surface during the day keeping well away from predators, but are dumbly attracted the lights of our boat at night. The deck is inevitably covered with them in the morning having followed a hilarious night or two where people were hit by them landing. It was only a matter of time and sure enough I was hit flush between the eyes (literally it could not have caught me squarer if I had had a bullseye painted on my face) to everyone’s amusement, and I spent the next hour or so trying to wash the scales and stench off my face. Little did I know this was not to be my last encounter and the following night a particularly determined kipper flew perfectly through the forward hatch as I was sleeping and slapped full on into the side of my bunk. Waking up not knowing what had happened, the smell soon cut through me like smelling salts and following a few curses I launched the offender back to the night time ocean.
It was not long however until we had our first bit of drama! We were flying our medium weight spinnaker during the off-watch and snap – the snapshackle at the end of the guy rope had snapped on our pole and it was a race to get the spinnaker dropped before it ripped and became a much bigger problem for us! Fortunately the on-watch were very on the ball and many of us from down below grabbed life jackets to help out as well. We checked the medium weight for rips, packed it up and had the heavy weight up in no time, minimising the time sailing without a full downwind sail plan.
So, when all had returned to normal, it was now time to start concentrating on our strategy for the Doldrums. They were sitting roughly around 9° North of the equator and our GRIB weather files that we were getting through were changing every day, making route planning through this notorious part of the leg extremely difficult. Squall watch and radar checks became a regular feature of life on board as getting caught with the spinnaker up as a 60 knot squall approached would only result in a bad broach, the mast in the water and god knows what damage to equipment. So after a few days/nights being slightly tense at what the outcome might be, it with a wry smile on my face that I can say my first crossing through the doldrums was not nearly as bad as it could have been – indeed we had virtually no period of time where there wasn’t atleast some breeze blowing us further and further South. We were part of the top 5 group that had a quick crossing through. We were ecstatic to see in fact that one of our Scheduled Position Reports (or skeds as they are known on board) showed us in second place for a while in a race within the race with Cape Breton Island and Spirit of Australia. Our ‘every 6-hour’ reports became more and more important to us all each time they came in, to the point now where virtually everyone on board races to crowd round the navigation station to see where we are positioned and our gain or loss to the other boats around us. Its become an obsession that will no doubt stick all the way round the world, especially when the racing is as close as it has been this leg.
Our next major milestone was the equator, where we had a boat party and made all our toasts to Neptune. It was the first time in a few weeks that we’d had any alcohol so the dram of whisky we had had some interesting effects on most crew!By this stage the fleet had divided into two clear groups, with H&H, Singapore, Qingdao, Edinburgh and California falling further and further back every hour as the doldrums were a lot less forgiving. It was at this stage that the leadgin group got to over 500 miles ahead of the nearest trailing boat.
By this stage of the crossing. It was so hot that sleep had become virtually impossible – indeed it took so much effort just to get into my bunk on the high side when the boat was crashing along through the waves that it was sometimes best to stick to dosing in the saloon area and conserving energy. Having now had a proper nights sleep in Rio, I’ve only just realised how tired I’ve become!
Over the next few days we passed over the point where we were closer to South America than Africa and our winds had progressively switched round to the South East as predicted. It was the first time in over two weeks that we had seen the yankee and staysail headsails, having been lucky enough to fly one of our 3 spinnakers almost non-stop up to this point. So our focus changed again from down wind sailing and trimming to working on shaping our headsails upwind to get maximum speed down towards Rio. Our race position was however not helped by the strop snapping again on the end of the guy rope just before we dropped the spinnaker. Fortunately after a little while wrestling the sail it was dropped without any major dramas.
It was not long before we found ourselves match racing with Cape Breton Island and Spirit of Australia for the two remaining podium positions. After so many thousand miles of sailing it was unusual to say the least for them to both be in visible range on a number of occasions. It was tense and not uncommon for people on the off watch to get up in the middle of the night during their precious hours of sleeping to check our sched results!
As we continued on our approach to Rio, not only was the weather just not playing into our favour, but the strop on the end of the guy failed for a third time. We thought that this would be the end of our podium challenge since we were now nearly 30 miles behind Cape Breton with only 150 to go. Despite our anti-wrap net we wrapped our spinnaker badly round the inner forestay and there was a real struggle to unwrap it. Several hours later there was no real damage to the spinnaker but we had lost major miles to our competitors. It was a real shame to think that having come so far and spent so much time in the top three that we would now finish outside the podium places..
Within 120 miles of Rio there was a huge barrier of no wind between the leading fleet and the finish line. Race organisers decided at this point to shorten the course however it was still not enough to stop us all becoming becalmed at some point. We were therefore left to rue our loss for a little while longer as we bobbed at a very slow rate of knots towards Rio. It seems the race would finish just as it had begun 4 weeks earler in La Rochelle. It was however due to a combination of hard work and also genuinely not giving up until the fat lady has sung that we took over 40 miles out of Cape Breton Island over the last 24 hours. We were all so elated to have finished leg 1 of the race in 3rd place!!!
What a spectacular sight Rio is after so long away from land and I am sure its going to be a great stopover. For now though there is plenty of maintenance work to be done on the boat and then sleep. Hopefully, the first of a few long deep sleeps to feel fully recovered before leg 2. There’ll be more from Rio in a few days.
A beaten but not broken Pete, congratulations to Team Finland and Spirit of Australia.
Posts
