A Very Busy Morning Watch
I got out of my bunk at 6 am well before the 6:15 wake-up call. I climbed two steps up the companionway ladder to peek at the weather. Blue skies and WIND. Yay!
Breakfast was a small bowl of leftover chili con carne and a few slices of orange and apple.
When my watch got up on deck at 7 am there were a few white caps — proof of about 15 knots of wind.
Our giant white Code 1 spinnaker was still up and pulling us forward at a brisk 12 - 15 knots but this was near the top end of its wind speed range. Light winds call for big sails made from lightweight cloth. Stronger winds will tear those sails so we swap to progressively smaller sails made from heavier cloths. And that lays out the basic plot for four hours of gorgeous sailing crescendo.
Both Ryan our Skipper and Charlie our AQP (“Additional Qualified Person” - a.k.a. First Mate) were on deck. Bekezela’s big Code 1 was clearly visible about four miles behind us. Perseverance was a few miles ahead off to starboard.
The first order of business was to swap to the heavier Code 2 spinnaker as wind speed was exceeding the upper limit of the Code 1 with a danger of possibly tearing it.
It took about 15 minutes to prepare the Code 2 for hoisting (getting it up on deck out of its bag) and about twenty minutes of the actual change while we were “headless” - shuffling along under mainsail only at about 7 knots. It was a good hoist and when the ties snapped the kite ballooned open with a satisfying pop and our speed quickly increased back into the mid-teens.
Bekezela was still behind us but they had closed the gap to about two miles. That’s the cost of us going headless for twenty minutes during the change. But no matter.
Wind speed continued to build quickly into the twenties with gusts into the low thirties. This is what they call champagne sailing. Blue skies, white tops on all the waves. Spume lathering up the crests and blowing into the troughs between waves. There’s a constant rush of water as we push through the waves. Everybody is smiling and we can’t suppress some enthusiastic “woohoo” when we occasionally surf for five or ten seconds when we manage to catch one of the bigger waves just right.
The next time we looked behind us Bekezela had dropped far behind. They must have dropped their Code 1 spinnaker and perhaps had trouble hoisting a smaller spinnaker.
But just as we were getting used to grinning Charlie called forward from the helm station that winds were now in the upper twenties (knots), so it was time to swap down to our smallest spinnaker, the Code 3. That went less smoothly. I was sent to the cabin top as part of the three-person team that bear hugs the Code 2 as we pull it through the narrow “letterbox” gap between the “foot” of the mainsail (aka its bottom edge) and the top of the boom.
In light wind this procedure is straightforward. We “hug” the 30-50 foot width of slippery sail cloth into a thin sausage to prevent the wind from catching and re-inflating it. That’s how it went an hour earlier when I bear-hugged the Code 1.
In thirty-five knots of wind, it is a crazy tug-of-war. This morning the wind got the better of us and dragged all three of us across the cabin top. Ryan called for two more bodies and that helped but it was still just back and forth. We hug and pull together on the count of “two-six-heave!”, and gain a few feet pulling the sail through the letterbox slot and towards the main hatch to drop it down into the galley. But then a gust would catch it and pull back out. After three or four minutes it was not looking good for our team. My strength was gone, me and the others were gasping for breath.
But the sail had to be brought in. If not the wind would carry it away, then for the remaining 10,000 or so miles of racing from here to the Finish Line we’d be missing one of our key sails. Like losing one of the gears on a race car it would kill our performance. So losing it was just not an option.
But I was out of energy. Legs, arms, and all the body in between were just totally spent. Ryan shouted at me “Robert, stop falling down”. Yeah, if only. (“Falling down” in this case is best imagined as what happens in a tug-of-war when your team is getting routed by a sudden pull from the opponents - in our case 35 knots of wind. I kept trying but I was useless.
A few minutes later Ryan (skipper) sent me back to the cockpit. Humbled. Pop goes my ego. But forget about it - I didn’t sign up for this to boost my ego.
Ryan then joined the action and that turned the struggle in our favour. Finally with more and more people joining the effort we got the Code 2 spinnaker stuffed below deck into the walkways around the galley. It was on top of the Code 1 spinnaker which we had taken down only an hour before.
Now it was time to hoist the Code 3, our smallest spinnaker. My job in this was the spinnaker sheet. “Sheets” are the lines attached to the trailing corner of a sail to pull it in or let it out. I was holding the sheet connected to the newly hoisted Code 3 spinnaker. The line was wrapped four times around the six-inch winch drum — the friction allows me to hold the thousands of pounds of pull when the wind fills the spinnaker.
It was sunny and fabulous. With wind in the high twenties gusting into the high thirties we surfed easily and fast. As waves came up from behind and lifted our stern the helm (in this case Charlie, our AQP) turned us down the face of the wave, and wheee! we’re off. I think our best surf in this session touched 23 knots and lasted about half a minute.
Surfing a sailboat is magical FUN. Kind of like the log ride at an amusement park where a dozen people cheer as the log crashes through the water throwing up walls of splashing water on either side. Same same. Except that the splashing and whooping lasts longer. And then a minute or two later it happens again. And again.
(So there it is folks, I like ocean racing because it is basically a long long ride. In cold water.)
I should add that it takes a certain amount of skill to catch the waves just right so that you surf. Also, these are big waves, around 10 - 15 feet from trough to crest, so there’s a risk that if it catches the boat at the wrong angle it spins you sideways to the wave face which is also sideways to the wind and if you don’t manage to turn the boat back downwind you may broach. And that’s a whole lot of nasty wet mayhem that often breaks stuff and injures people. So NOT fun.
But two hours of surfing was all we got out of our Code 3 spinnaker this morning. I was below when it happened. I was part of the packing team sent down below deck to scrunch up and re-wool the Code 1 and Code 2 spinnakers that we had hoisted and dropped earlier in the day when the winds were lighter. (The walkways surrounding the galley and main living area were piled three feet deep with soggy sailcloth. Our job was to sort out what was what, check for tears, and then roll the cloth into tidy sausages tied up with wool that would be ready to be hoisted whenever needed.)
But then the boat heeled over sharply for a few seconds. We all looked at each other with an implied “uh oh”. It came back upright quite abruptly then lay flat and everything was calm. “All hands on deck” came the shouts from on deck. Something wrong with the spinnaker. My first guess was that the tack line had accidentally tripped and detached the track.
I was among the first to rush forward and look up. No spinnaker in sight anywhere. Oh, wait. Up at the top of the mast, there was a small white handkerchief of sailcloth streaming back from the masthead like a pennant. The kite has split into two pieces along a horizontal seam near its top. So nine-tenths of the sail had fallen into the water next to us. It was still attached to the boat by the sheets (that I had been holding earlier.)
So it just remained for us to haul it back on board. We winched in as much as possible then about twelve of us lined up on the railing and pulled. Bit by bit it came out of the water.
By this time we were exhausted and wet with sweat from inside out. But we still had two urgent efforts ahead of us: We needed to hoist Charlie up the mast to retrieve the torn top of our Code 3 and pull down its halyard.
So four of us got on the coffee grinders and sent him up as quickly as possible. The conditions were still lively with winds gusting into the 40s and big waves with white spume covering everything. Exciting stuff. And full marks to Charlie for courage and skill - going up a 30-meter mast in those conditions is not for the faint of heart (nor for the weak of muscle and skill).
The next task was to hoist the Yankee 1 headsail. So us four grinders were back in action furiously spinning our arms in forced unison. “Yankee halyard made!” Then flick the selector over to the other primary to grind in the sheet as fast as possible until “Hold!”
Then we went below to sort the mess of torn and dropped spinnakers. Code 3 was stuffed ignominiously into its bag in the sail locker. We piled our Code 1 into the corridor leading to the forward toilet. This left the Code 2 covering the rest of the floor around the galley and in the sleeping quarters.
Then it was 1 pm and my watch was over. Time for lunch and into my bunk. The next watch could take care of packing the Code 2 and Code 1.
******
May 10 update
29°16.006'N 121°32.270'W about 300 miles West of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula
We started our Ocean Sprint about seven hours ago. I was at the helm. Cloudy skies, flat seas, and light winds of 7-11 knots. Code 1 big spinnaker up and sailing around 110 - 120 degrees to the apparent wind. Nice sailing. Not thrilling like surfing a few days ago but still magical.
The objective in the Ocean Sprint is to have the shortest elapsed time as we sail South between the latitudes of 30 degrees North and 25 degrees North. The navigational game here is that the rhumb line to the Race Finish in Panama would take us on a South Westerly heading of around 130 degrees which is about 350 miles between the two latitudes. But the shortest distance for the ocean sprint would be to go due south 180 degrees which is only 300 miles. So it’s a trade-off whether to go all out due South to win the sprint, but perhaps at the cost of losing points on the overall race. It depends on the wind and how the competitors are positioned. So as of right now, I think our strategy is sort of a middle option that allows us to adjust either more South or more East depending on how things look later tonight.
A final note about the weather. It has been cold since Seattle. Midlayers, full foulies, and sea boots. Finally today after lunch the sun popped out and the weather changed. One by one we’re shedding out layers. Sea boots are shucked off and laid flat to dry out.