Race 3 - Day 17
Crew Diary - Cape Town, South Africa to Albany, Australia
17 November
No complacency. Always vigilant. Braced for the storm. We've been prepared as we have ever been, sail change at last light, storm jib up and three reefs in the mainsail. We dropped the stay sail this morning too. Our frittata prepared the day before await us in the oven.
The weather GRIB files play the bright red contours of the storm undeterred through the little icon of our boat, bloating in size and richness. The darker the red, the higher the winds.
Everything sounds so much worse below deck, exaggerated by the echo chamber that sits in the hull of our boat. Waves dive into the boat, not as a splash but with full force, sweeping crew to the lowest side, feet in pools of sea. Below deck, the clarity of transmission makes one expect water to gurgle down at any moment. Each flogging rope has its own frequency making it audibly identifiable yet muffled by the wind up on deck. A creaking rope is a violent knock, a tapping jack stay is a tap dance below.
Half anticipation, half dread was in the highly humid and damp air below deck, hovering around the wet lockers, contorting bodies getting into dry suits, the smack of rubber seals against skin, a daisy chain of crew helping the other get their industrial water proof zips over the shoulder and across our bodies. Light shines down below from the companion way as eager eyes assess the weather and we psych ourselves into the arena that is our deck, vulnerable to waves at the first exposure from the hatch. Clip on before you're out, hand out, fishing for one lane on the jack stay for on-coming traffic.
Digital instruments down, water logged. Eye on the horizon and flurry of waves, glancing down below at the rapidly swirling compass in a tea dance on its own, mechanical in nature, reliable as ever so. Fresh on the helm, if it could get any worse, rain is added to the mix. Despite our storm experience at the end of Leg 2, this storm is different. We've travelled two weeks deep for this wet and wavy Southern gravy that we are merely a bag of dried mixed vegetables as condiments inevitably shrivelling up through soaking.
Fortunately, crew are cool as cucumbers and calm as clams. We have learnt the ways of storms and waves, with increasing immunity to whatever the weather situation. Challenging norms as hot drink orders are taken and chocolate brought on deck. I'm fed some while on the helm in our biggest storm yet and all is okay. Just another day in the Southern Ocean.
Tzen