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Log Updates
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It's all too much. We haven't seen any sign of life or humans
for what seems like about a month - since just after the
Doug, since we were lifted earlier, I think we are now passing as
close to Henry as we will get, at 129 miles to the North East. I have been out
to wave and say G'day and when we are both awake early tomorrow we'll send him
some goodies. We'll be a bit further away, but we have to do it in daylight.
And now it's tomorrow - At 2734 S 2340 W 04/0715, with the sun just breaking
the horizon, we sent a little boat full of goodies towards Henry. It had two
jelly snakes, a red one and a yellow one, from
And today's fix: DB: 111, 8333, GPS 117, 45/65. We are heading
south east to try to stay with the northerly airflow for as long as possible
and - with a bit of luck - ride it round as it backs to the west. Wood is being
touched and fingers are crossed. And Pete is making bacon and eggs. Life could
be worse - I'm glad we missed the front. If we get lucky, those that follow
will have moved below us by the time they get across to us. We intend to stay
at about 34 S until we get almost across, and then we will assess the best
latitude to run.
Where do I start? How do I keep this going for another 65 days?
First - today had that element of magic that blasts away the awfulness of the last
couple of weeks with radiance and warmth - bright, dampish sunshine, the old
barge a clothes horse for every mouldy sock and festering shirt, for wet
weather gear and the boot ferals, for, indeed, those delicate parts of the
anatomy that tend themselves to fester when unable to hang out - as it were.
I'm wearing dry party gear pants as I write - we need to wear them because the
cockpit at night drips with Poseidon's version of dew - similar to an English
country version but in spades. The unimaginable bliss of dry party gear!
And the wind today - started from the east and backed all the
way round to the north east and lifted us so that we are now pointing at our
waypoint south of
And we've been astonished, amazed, confounded, gobsmacked even,
and in my own case a bit scared by the response to the YM and YW articles. So
many of you have written to us and said nice things, told us about yourselves -
thank you all. It seems that we have blown a few sparkles across some dusty
dreams and perhaps ruffled some memories. I don't think I can respond to you
all - I'm sorry, but there just isn't the capacity on this link, but I'll do my
best to do so generally. Some specifics - Marcus, a standard Berrimilla
breakfast, when we have the goodies, is a bacon sandwich, preferably on lightly
fried bread, with lots of tabasco assisted on its way by a liberal
Consultation. It works for lunch, dinner, night time snack or any old time
really. Daily food this far out tends to be anything from a can or packet that
goes with rice, pasta, cous cous and TVP (textured vegetable protein to you)
and boosted by curry paste and more tabasco. I think your customers would
depart in droves. But my all time favourite is lightly fried bread spread with
Frank Coopers Oxord Thick Cut Marmelade. Beyond belief wonderful. Breadmaking
is tricky when the Vogons are around - armpit flavoured and flat is the usual
outcome - if they have really departed for a day or two, I might give it a go.
Pete does the daily cooking for our one hot meal and I love him dearly for
doing so. I'd generally settle for a can of beans with a spoon.
Paul R in
bodies' theme, tonight is one of those gigazillion starry nights
- the Southern Cross is out there at last, Venus is magnificent with its huge
reflected trail, Mars is a red beacon and the Milky Way is just as I described
it once before, like a dolphin's phosphorescent trail across the universe. I
think Douglas Adams said it better, though.
And on themes, Baldy (Simon? I hope not Helene) you might be
interested to delve way back into the logs - I think before
interesting replies, including one from a friend, also a B747
driver, but with Qantas, who took one from - I think -
sun were fascinating. Up there over the Canadian wastes must be
similar - I've done
Bring on the goat - this is getting to be too long.
Jeremy - a roller jib would have been really nice - I just
couldn't afford one, nor justify it. Fitting one would have required at least
one new sail plus putting a luff tape on all the others or taking the furler
and its foil off for the race. As for passing the time with Mozart, I seem to
be completely incapable of listening to music or, often, even sleeping when the
boat is talking to me. My mind will not allow anything to come in over the top,
so I tend to get weary and stress with the boat when the weather deteriorates.
It's an incapacity that has saved our bacon bigtime on a couple of occasions,
but the time goes very slowly when it gets nasty outside.
Bill W, your Tribal Consultation seems to have worked - fair
seas are here, at least for the time being. And thanks for your favourite bit
of log. If we get enough of them, we might do a separate section of the log for
them. You asked about whether isolation sharpens the focus - I really don't
know. I have almost forgotten my own home address, for instance, and as for PIN
numbers, I hope I've got them all written down somewhere. On the other hand,
looking at the night sky at this level of isolation tends to fix one in the
universe as an infinitesimally small, insignificant,impermanent and instantly
transient flea upon the heffalumpian rump. And sharing it with Leroy was an
experience that both awed and inspired. I suppose that having to face the
consequences of ones decisions and planning is also somewhat confronting and
perhaps requires a reassessment of ones self confidence. The interest that this
log has generated is also confronting. Why me and why is this twaddle important
to so many people? Answer, I think, is that it is immediate and available but
not really important - the trick is not to believe in or get swamped by ones
own brand of hype! And, I guess, to keep churning it out in the hope that it
will continue to be interesting. That's the hard bit. The Man Who Ruled the
Universe had nothing to say and said it with no particular panache and self
doubt is my natural preference too.
I've been dredging my slushpot of a brain for the origin of the
flea metaphor which I have felt the need to acknowledge. I think it came from a
book called 'A woman's place is on top' about a women's team climbing
Annapurna. I don't remember the author's name, but she was the expedition
leader. The flea came from one of her team, perhaps called Alison, who died on
the mountain and is probably still there. So it is a reminder of her as well.
She used it to describe what they looked like up there on the immense curving
slope that is one side of Annapurna and I was hooked. Its a good book too -
well worth a read -and I seem to remember a documentary.
The wonderful people at sailmail (or at least their computer)
will get cross with me if I keep sending these long ones, so can it, Alex.
[Ed: there was some earlier discussion on the Franklin
Expedition. This link
is to a paper written about it – thanks Isabella]
DB: 131, 8092, GPS 133 46/64
05/1230 I've been hand steering the assy for the last 3 hours or
so - wind still backing but unsettled and fluky around 15 knots. Heading for
our waypoint at 3730 S 2000 E south of Cape Town, the gateway to the Indian
Ocean, about 2 weeks away at this speed. And roughly half way. The schedule has
slipped - half way in days is Oct 14 so we will be several days late at Cape
Town.
Until today, I have seen nothing floating in the water - today
there's been a stream of flotsam, starting with a 20 ltr oil drum followed by
indeterminate bits and pieces - perhaps a ship dumping garbage or the result of
a storm further south.
Henry's little boat should be getting close to him by now if it
managed to stay afloat. We were more or less upwind of him when we sent it off
yesterday.
And we have a big black Petrel for occasional company. It zig zags
along our wake, mostly in a graceful glide along the troughs but flapping
itself around the zigs and zags and then going off into wide circles around us,
mostly out of sight. Nice to have it there. Need some sleep. This wont go until
this evening so might add to it later.
05/1530 Pete is frying garlic - MMMMM!- the assy is up and the
wind has stabilised, so the autohelm is in charge. We are making water and I've
learned that there is almost a certain chance of a USB crash if I try to
transmit with the desalinator running (HF getting into the circuits somewhere -
can hear it on the radio) and the autohelm will trip as well so no chance of
this going out for a few hours.
05/1800 The wind has dropped almost out. Very long, flat rolling
swell from the east, perhaps 3 metres, 300 metre wavelength. I think that perhaps we should have headed
further south - got the compromise a bit wrong and we'll have to motor down
there.
Two Old Farts and a Spaceman...
The Berrimilla shirt signed by Dr Leroy Chiao, the Commander of
the NASA ISS 10 Mission, and Pete and me will be auctioned on Lord Howe Island
after the Lord Howe Race at the end of this month. The proceeds will be treated
as a tax deductible donation to Canteen, an Australian organisation that looks
after teenagers who have cancer. Berrimilla crews and the Lord Howe Race
organisers have traditionally supported CanTeen. Here is the story of the
shirt, for those who might have just found the website:
This shirt commemorates an unusual meeting of people, ideas and
technology. Peter Crozier and I set off around the world from Hobart via Cape
Horn in January 2005 after finishing the 2004 Sydney - Hobart race in
Berrimilla. The plan was to sail to England, do the Fastnet race and sail back
to Sydney in time to start in the 2005 Sydney - Hobart. In an idle moment about
half way across the Southern Ocean, I speculated that we were probably the most
isolated humans on the planet and that the crew of the International Space
Station were our nearest neighbours for a few minutes each day as they passed
somewhere overhead at about 350 km.
Ably assisted by my ground control crew, emails were sent and
one thing led to another - NASA contacted the Commander of the ISS 10 Mission,
Dr Leroy Chiao, PhD, one of NASA's most experienced astronauts, who had been
flying in the ISS with his Russian colleague, Cosmonaut Salizhan Sharapov,
since October 2004. Dr Chiao said he would like to speak to us and our first
conversation was by telephone from Port Stanley in the Falklands. We agreed
that it would be fun to try to spot each other as Berrimilla sailed on up the
Atlantic, communicating via the ISS IP phone and our satellite phone. We had a
number of conversations and tries at signalling the ISS with white parachute
rocket flares and a big signalling lamp but, sadly, we were unable to crack
exactly the right set of circumstances so Leroy never saw us. We saw the ISS
twice, first north east of Montevideo and again further north. The ISS 10 crew
landed in Kazakhstan on April 25 and we reached Falmouth on June 3rd.
During our conversations, we had agreed to try to meet. Leroy
and his wife Karen were in Scotland in June talking to schoolkids and on June
18th, they flew down to Newquay and we collected them in our tiny and decrepit
French car and had a splendid day checking out the local Cornish brewers in
Falmouth. The most surprising twist and a real pleasure was that Leroy had also
spoken to the author, John le Carre, from the ISS and the next day us two old
geezers drove NASA's favourite Astronaut and his wife to lunch at the le
Carre's house in the ancient banger. An extraordinary meeting.
The logo on the shirt was designed in England by my sister
Isabella and mass produced in Australia by Team Fenwick. It shows the
intersection of Berrimilla's track up
the Atlantic with an ISS orbit at the point where we first saw it off
Montevideo as we sailed into a huge storm. The shirt is signed by Leroy Chiao,
Peter Crozier and myself and it was signed at the le Carre's house on June 19th
2005.
End of story. Quote from Allan Fenwick:
On another note the Shirt is being framed as we speak with a
short version of your note and I think a photo of the two old farts and a spaceman.
With all your new fans in the UK. they may like to bid for the shirt...
If anyone out there would like to bid for the shirt, please send
an email to Allan Fenwick - alfen@aapt.net.au - and he will make sure it
reaches the auction.
A splinter of new moon has just dropped from behind a cloud and
is setting almost directly below Venus - two melded reflected trails on the
water, both about the same brightness. Awesome...
DB: 116, 7970 gps 118 47/63 and just holding the breeze.
Now 06/1215 and I've been out there hand steering the assy for 3
hours - gorgeous sailing, averaging about 5.5 kts, sunshine, water 18 degrees.
We're down out of the Trades and back in the swirls where the two airmasses,
warm in the north, cooler to the south, skirmish for dominance and send their
successions of local changes rushing past us. We are trying to stay with a band
of breeze that I think is maintained by two little highs, one in the north and
one to the south west and we're trying to get as far east and south as possible
before the high to the SW develops, so that we can use the front of it to
continue to move us, on the other tack, towards the barn door at Cape Town.
I've been developing this update as I sat up there daydreaming.
First, another mind picture. Most of you will remember the Sydney Olympic logo
- a brilliant conceptual design based, I think, on the swirling patterns
created by the female gymnasts during their ribbon routines on the mat. The logo
used a rainbow swirl that traced the outline of the Sydney Opera House and it
is still around everywhere. I saw that pattern in the sky this morning -
imagine two sets of radiating spokes, like two gigantic bicycle wheels
suspended just over the horizon so that they overlap by more that their radius.
Airbrush out the rims - we don't need them. The top layer is the radiating
pattern in the gossamer wispy dusting of ice crystals right out at the edge of
the atmosphere and the lower layer, at an angle to the upper, is the pattern in
the lower, thicker layer of striated cloud, probably again ice, but 10,000 feet
at least lower. The two patterns interacted and for a blissful moment, there
was that logo, right across the sky, but in grey and blue. Wooohooo! Now there's
fluffy cumulus blotting out most of the sky.
Secondly, hand steering - I'm a sailing dinosaur with no right
to pontificate or prescribe, so take this at face value. I've never driven one
of the big, modern, exotic planing hulls that today's kids grow up with, but I
did cut my teeth in planing dinghies. Berrimilla has a heavy, slow,
displacement hull that only planes when the boat is tumbling down a wave front
out of control - sort of, eh, Gordo?, and the rules may be quite different
although the principle doesn't change. Moving the rudder causes drag and costs
speed in both types of hull. I've watched lots of people steering lots of
different boats - some saw the helm from side to side and keep the sails filled
and the boat on course, others seem to have that uncanny knack of anticipation
and of 'influencing' the helm so that the sails stay filled and the boat
maintains course with minimal movement of the rudder. I would be prepared to
bet that the average speeds maintained by the 'influencers' are better than the
lumberjacks. Anyway, that's what I was playing at up there for three hours -
anticipation and just thinking the boat through the water. It's great fun and
good practice. Obviously, different sets of conditions require modifications to
the technique, but they don't shift the principle.
Thirdly, Hilary checked out the flea for me. Seems I got the
context right but not the detail. The book was 'Annapurna, a woman's place' by
Arlene Blum and the author of the metaphor was Alison Chadwick, who died with
Vera Watson out on the mountain. She spoke the words on the documentary, which
we must have seen on TV because I can now remember the image of her face as she
spoke, with the huge slope of the mountain in the background. I remember it
particularly because, as a marathon runner, I try to fit distances into known
spaces, if that makes sense - for instance, a kilometre is Farm Cove or Hickson
Rd, 6k is the Corporate Cup course, 14k
is the City to Surf and so on. It helps me to grind out the distance in increments
when I'm running. I thought about that huge curve of Annapurna, perhaps 2 miles
of it, and elevated to about 45 degrees and I fitted it mentally across Sydney
Harbour from the Opera House to beyond Bradleys Head almost to Sow and Pigs,
and I could see instantly what they had to achieve and why they looked like
fleas on the elephant's backside. Anyway, hats off to Alison and Vera and
thanks for an enduring image. May they rest in peace up there.
DB: 135, 7843 gps 138 48/62. A hard day's work, mostly hand
steered, with a difficult sail change during the night. We're back in 30+ kts
from the north and look like keeping it for another day. Hardly dare hope at
this stage, but it's just possible we may have snuck across far enough to make
use of the front of the high when it arrives around Sunday. It's a bit wild and
woolly but we are pointing at the barn door at Cape Town for the time being.
For those who can read between the lines, it will be apparent
that we are pushing the boat and ourselves as fast and as far as the limit of
our collective stamina will allow. If we miss that start line on Boxing Day, it
won't be because we have shirked on the job. Last night's sail change was from
the #1 to the #4 plus two reefs in the main. Really hard work, in driving ran.
But we were lucky - the real wind hit us mid-change so we got the numbers right
- we were fumbling around for the #2 when the first gust hit us. Would have
been most frustrating to have just got it up and peeled off the party
gear...
Jerry H! Well scupper me dingbats! I was wondering who might
emerge after those articles. Is there anyone else out there who sailed in the
1961 Fastnet apart from PeterB? I was on Leopard with John Stocker, Bill
Anderson and sadly, my degenerate memory has lost the others. We pulled out
after the storm, (I too thought that night would never end) from the wrong side
of the Scillies, and left the boat at Helford so that John, who was the
Commander at Dartmouth, could get back to work. That unfinished race was one of
the reasons for this little jolly. Jerry. I'll write to you separately but good
to hear from you. We haven't seen the YW article, although we did get a sneak
preview of the one in Yachting Monthly and the unedited originals of both are,
as far as I know, on the website [ed: sorry, no they are not. We only have PDF versions and those are 10mb
in size, so just not feasible to put them up!] .
Chris P. thanks for favourite bit - one for the Mad Boggers! And
good luck with the mods to Poitrel. The plan for us is time dependent. We want
to finish a proper five Cape circumnavigation if possible, which means rounding
SE Cape and going up to the Iron Pot to finish the job. If we then have time,
we will clear customs and stay for a couple or so days. However, if we are
short of time, we'll go via Bass Strait and complete the circ. at Gabo and sail
direct to Sydney to make the start. But all that is still two months away.
Seems an age from out here, believe me!
If anyone would like a photo of Berri and the Old Farts in the
Solent after the start of the Fastnet, by the world renowned photographers Beken & Sons of Cowes, Jeanne will have
the sample sheet in due course and we might put it on the website so that
anyone who wants one can order direct. We haven't seen it, but the photos will
show us with the assy up and quite a few boats behind us in the later starts.
If you are in the UK, Beken will have it filed under Berrimilla, sail no 371. I
don't know whether they use a website for proofs and orders [ed: website
link above, however I couldn’t find any Berri shots online].
Abeam Port Macquarie and Lord Howe Island. I think, on my
earlier guess that the round trip would be around 31k miles, we are three
quarters of the way around. A Celebratory Consultation is occurring - this note
is being pecked out one fingered as the other hand clutches G&T and tries
to keep the rest of the body in equilibrium as the world gyrates around itself.
But wooohooo in lower case - progress of a sort. We have 1850 miles to go to
the barn door and then about 6000 to Tasmania.
Pete has been reading out some of his journal entries from some
of the hairier times on the way out. Great stuff! Wait till you read the bit
about the Montevideo storm when we lost the liferaft. I think that The Book
that everyone is banging on about may
become an edited version of these logs interspersed with Pete's journal
and some of your emails. Possibly even in three columns. Seems to me that would
work and would be radically different from the usual cruise narrative. We could
add photos, plus a cd of movies etc and the GPS log of the track, which would
show every sailchange as a blip and some of the hairy stuff in all its snaky
detail. Could even print the track as column 4? Would you buy it? Would you
give it to your kids to read? Better still, would you set it as an HSC text?? I
think the difficulty for us is to decide what we want it to be and who we want
it to speak to. We could, for instance, easily extract the technical stuff for
the sailors but what's then the point? I think the whole thing together has an
integrity of its own.
Brian and Jen - racking the congealed remains of the brain to
remember what bits you might have - some bent stanchions, perhaps? The
congealed remains boggle.
now 07/2130 and another brilliant night. We still have last
night's rig - #4 and 2 reefs but but the 4 is now poled out, the moon and Venus
glorious on our starboard quarter and the Cross on our starboard beam. Both
where they ought to be, at last - we are pointing almost for home. Yeeehaaa.
Just for variety - we've had a little wooohooo already. And we are starting to
tick off the longitudes faster than the latitudes - another good sign. This
getting down the Atlantic bit is like qualifying to run the Boston marathon -
huge amount of work around the traps, then once qualified, the real work
starts. But heartbreak hill is a doddle compared to this one.
On stuff-ups and rolling hitches.
If you are the sort of sailor who never makes mistakes, checks
everything twice, always hooks on the kite the right way round - a golden
haired favourite of every skipper - read no further. If, like me, you get
things wrong bigtime every now and again, there may be something in this for
you. Stuff-ups usually start with simple mistakes that compound to the point,
sometimes, when they can become dangerous.
I have just been there. We were poled out on the port tack. It's
a black night now with cloud covering the moon. An hour ago, I pulled in a new
grib file and decided that we need to keep our options open and head further
south. Pete snoring happily, as he mostly is when I'm writing to you. I
assessed the situation and decide that I could just take the pole off and gybe
the main and we'd sail in the right direction. I was wrong and, having got the
pole off, done the gybe and discovered how wrong I was, I had a bit of a
handful to sort out. Basically, we needed the pole set up on the other side and
I had no easy way of doing it by that time. I set up the boat to sail off the
wind on the starboard tack with the preventer on and went forward to rig the
pole on the other side. No problem so far. Think - check sheets etc - so rerun
the starboard jib sheet through the outer block and hoist the pole. Set the
boat up downwind and gybe the jib. It came across ok but the jockey pole had
been stowed over the top of the downhaul. Not a showstopper but a nuisance
needing to be fixed. Set up the new sheet and grind it on and discover that I
have made basic error in rerunning the sheet, so that it is through two cars
and around the lifelines. Sheet by this time like a metal bar pulling the boat
along at six knots in heavy rolling sea and bending the lifelines. Way beyond
any simple fix by hand. What to do - undoing the gybe seemed the obvious fix,
but another 20 minutes work redoing all that I'd just undone.
Enter the rolling hitch - a wonderful knot that most sailors
never use and can't tie. It is a very simple three turn knot that you tie with
a second line around a rope under tension, (or a pole or a bar), and the second
line locks onto the first when you tighten it and can then can be used to
substitute for the first from the point of attachment.
So there I was - jib sheet under tension and I had to get the
tension off the end of it so that I could sort the mess and keep the sail
working. I tied a rolling hitch around the sheet forward of my little bit of
spaghetti using a short length of 6mm spectra and led the spectra back to a
halyard winch and tightened it. It took up the strain and started to pull the
boat along and I was able to unravel the now free tail of the sheet, put it
back through the correct block and grind it onto its own winch before releasing
the spectra strop. Cosy, but you gotta know how to tie a rolling hitch. In the
dark. First time. Go practise, if you are planning to come this way - it could
get you out of serious trouble. The standard stuff up when it comes in useful
is when you get a jammed riding turn around a winch. Teach it to your kids.
DB: 114, 7739 gps 132 (all over the ocean yesterday!) 49/61
A PS to my last about
rolling hitches. If you haven't got a convenient halyard winch and your two lee
winches are loaded and tensioned, do not despair. Leave the knife in its sheath and take the
secondary line around behind the winch that doesn't need unjamming and up to
one of the weather winches. The loaded leeward winch acts as a temporary
turning block and it works fine. Alternatively, if you have one, a snatch block
off an aft mooring cleat works well. And a rolling hitch works best if the
secondary line (the one you make the hitch with) is thinner than the primary,
so that it bites into the primary and holds better.
Spowie, g'day. Was wondering if you were still out there
following us. It was your lesson on rolling hitches - remember? - that gave me
the clue and I've never forgotten and I've used one several times since instead
of a knife.
One for Marcus - Berrimilla coffee - make a thick paste in a mug
with drinking chocolate or cocoa (my preference), caster sugar and milk,
vigorously stirred so that it is a bit aerated and pour a strong black coffee
into it. Stir gently. Not for every day but noice for a sticky treat - good
English boarding school recipe, just like fried bread and marmalade.
It's gone all soft, damp and drizzly out there - typical
convergence zone conditions. My breath now has condensation in it so we're getting
there! I think we are just hanging into the dying edge of the breeze in front
of the high. If we can hold on to it - unlikely - we'll keep going south
towards the steady westerlies at the top of the roaring forties. We need to get
down below 35S. Might see Tristan da Cunha on the way, although I hope we
manage to stay out of sight to the north east.
Our black Petrel is still with us and today it has been joined
by three others and a little black and white Storm Petrel - after the
albatross, I think my favourite bird. I wonder if they are the same group that
were with us a week or so ago. If so, how do they do it? I'm sure we haven't
seen them for days and here they are again. They are flying an extending quad
helix pattern along our wake - always clockwise, and sometimes almost around
the front of the boat but they always seem to turn away just before going
around the bow. The little Storm Petrel does its own thing - flolloping along,
sometimes gliding, twisting and turning and seeming sometimes to float
motionless inches above the water.
08/1615
Making bread - warm sunshine again, slimline breeze but it's
still there. Bread almost made and the cloud and rain squalls are moving in
again. Have just cut swathes of barnacles away from the starboard quarter,
which has been underwater almost all the way from Falmouth.
DB: 114, 7625 GPS 122, 50/60 and south of Sydney. Very soon to
be passing Wollongong and any Berri crewmember will know that that is a signal
for riotous behaviour. And after that we will almost immediately be south of
Africa and of the vast majority of all y'all. There are a few of you in
Melbourne, some in Tasmania and at the bottom end of South America and the
Falklands and a sprinkling in Dunedin. But that's it. Big week. I will stick my
neck out and guess that we may just have managed to keep our fingernails hooked
into the weather pattern that will get us down into the westerlies - tomorrow
will tell. If we've cracked it, it will have been quite an achievement. We have
been pushing ourselves and Berri all the way almost from Trinidad to hold on to
it and by watching the grib and a bit of intuition, we just might be there.
BIG transition is happening. Overnight, the ocean has turned
from blue to grey. The seabirds have been joined by some much bigger southern
ocean type birds - long thin wings, two metre span at least, lots of anhedral
and they glide - and do they glide! The swells are now approaching the small
warehouse variety - not yet steep and breaking but half mast height from trough
to crest and wavelength about 100 metres. Some nasty potential there. The
temperature has dropped - water now 13 degrees and it feels cold - and there is
the clammy grip of cold damp air on exposed skin. We've been digging out
thermals and gloves and sleeping bags. And the mungies don't want to germinate
- too cold or them perhaps. I will start the next lot with warm water.
At the moment it looks as if we will pass about 100 miles north
of Tristan da Cunha. Who was T d C? An opportunity wasted perhaps, but then so
was the Beagle Channel, the Antarctic Peninsula, Madeira and all the rest. Next
time! And then there will be the Crozets and the Kerguelen Islands in mid
Indian Ocean but I hope we will be well north of them.
Will try to send this before propagation window closes.
Time for a stocktake. Two old farts at the bottom end of the
South Atlantic in their battered old boat with 60 days yet to go or, if my
memory and mental arithmetic can cope, with 60 days out of a likely 236 odd
sailing days and the end far from in sight and how are we doing? This is
starting to look like a list and I doubt you want lists with the coffee and
croissants - we're not going to run out of food or water - we make about 4
ltrs/day - and we seem to be healthy, altho I'm wasting away - muscles like
larded string - and given the capacity of my decrepit metabolism to regenerate
them, it's going to be as interesting as watching stalactites grow when I get
home and start running again. Tedious.
If we eventually finish the job, it will have been an unusually
long circumnavigation because of the leg from St Paul Rocks to the Fastnet and
back to the equator - say an extra 7000 miles. Had we turned for home at St
Paul, we would have been there by now.
So here we are, abeam Wollongong and as riotous as our medicine
chest would allow, with Cape Agulhas only 24 miles to the south but still
nearly 1700 miles away. I have always believed that the Cape of Good Hope was
the southern tip of Africa. It isn't - have a look if you thought so too. And
this is where the real work starts - a quarter of the journey to go and the
need to gather the resources and dole them out to cover the rest of the
enterprise. I'm certainly feeling the strain - it's been a long bash and I
can't wait, at one level, for it to be over. At another, it will be a bit
devastating. This is 30k in a marathon, which isn't really even close to half
way in effort and stain.
Wendy P, we opened the tin of chocolates today - wow! And
thanks. We got the timing right - there's one each per day to Tasmania. And
your supply of The Doctor is sustaining us too.
To the Starlings and all the Boggers - We should have a Boggers
Bash in the new year, perhaps at my house in Sydney, and you can bring along
copies of all the records you have of your boats and we will see whether we can
get a book together. Jenny, perhaps you could circulate the idea? I don't have
the list any more, or most of the addresses.
And, on the subject of Books - if Pete and I ever get around to
the book of this enterprise, it won't be the same without some quotations from
your emails. It might save us a lot of hassle if those of you who have written
to us would be kind enough to write to Stephen at berri@berrimilla.com saying
whether you would be happy to allow us to use your emails and Gust book entries
(or preventing us from doing so)in a book, together with any instructions about
acknowledging your copyright or maintaining your anonymity. We will chase
anyone who we want to quote if we don't hear from you.
Birds. Lots of them - mostly black with white beaks and a white
ring around their eyes and faces. There were a lot of them around the Falklands
and perhaps Tristan da Cunha has them too. But best of all, two albatrosses -
medium sized, about 3 metre span and different varieties. These guys fly - fast
- with their bodies almost brushing the surface - they seem to be locked there,
about 3-4 cm above, with their wings extending slightly downwards towards the
water with a bit of curve so that they reach the surface about two thirds of
the way towards the tips and then flatten out like a big squashed omega so that
they just don't touch. Breathtaking to watch them especially when they blast in
towards the boat and then twitch a section of leading edge and bank upwards and
away with almost no visible movement. All you see as they come in is a tiny
circle of face exactly like a smiley and a razor thin wing line extending away
from it and curving down to the water. I think the clockwise pattern from
yesterday is because they fly their circuits into wind at the boat end - will
check on the other tack. And they don't bother to go round the bows because
real fishing boats don't throw stuff off the front.
We are abeam Cape Agulhas, so about to go south of Africa. Dark
night, cloudy, but the moon has just broken into a gap, amidst towering black
and white silhouetted clouds. Venus was there fro a few minutes but now
covered. Wind variable around 20 kts from the WSW, big swells. We are heading
as far south as we can get before the 13th, when the grib predicts the next
front, also from the SW but with 25+ knots, meaning 40 - 50 if our experience
means anything. We'll just ride it out - it wont be around for long - and hope
that what is behind it still allows us to head east.
The satphone will be on from here. If anyone does want to speak
to us, we will only answer the third ring -
so call, let it ring, hang up, call, hang up and call again and we will
answer as long as we are not on deck doing a sail change. Don't leave messages
- we will not get them and it costs both of us money.
As I hit that last full stop, the wind came in at 35+kts and I
had to leap out and ease everything and run the boat downwind at 8 to 9 knots
with the stern wave rolling up over the quarter and phosphorescence firing off
everywhere. Spectacular. And poor Pete had to get up from his nice warm bunk
and we did a wet and bouncy change from the 2 to the 4 and a second reef. Ans,
as usual, we're back to 20 knots. I'll try to send this before I jump into bed.
DB:130, 7495 GPS 138 51/59. The numbers are just beginning to
stack. Scene two of Act 5 of the Drama has begun.
South of Africa, girt by sea, beset by natural forces, steeped
in compromise and apparently bedevilled by cliche -what do we do now? Strategy for scene two of this leg requires
us to get down into the top of the Roaring Forties, the permanent westerly
airstream that blows around the world between about 40 and 60 South. This band
of westerlies carries a series of quite to very intense low pressure systems -
rotating clockwise - each with an associated front. North of it are the high
pressure systems, rotating anti-clockwise, one of which we have been dodging
for the last week.
Tactically from here, we must judge where lies the best latitude
to ride the next front in a couple of days and at the same time put us far
enough south to stay below the following high and in the top of the westerlies.
We are looking for the best compromise between getting bashed by the nasties in
the front and getting far enough south to keep doing the business. We need to
be under the high and just in the top of the lows. Looking at the last grib, I
think we will level off at about 3630 south and ride the front then reassess
whether we go further down when it has passed. I think we will probably have
to.
Glorious, once in a lifetime sailing - bright sunshine, fluffy low
level Cu., flat blue sky, grey luminescent sea between the blacker patches of
cloud shadow, huge SW swells with little sparkling whitecaps all over them but
no big rolly ones - yet! - and 30 kts just fwd of the beam truckin' 6's and
7's. Berri with #4 and 2 reefs, almost vertical, but rolling a bit off the tops
of the swells. Same pack of seabirds all around. Wooohooo. We are due to get
the front this arve or eve with quite a bit more wind. Present plan is to drop
the main when we see the first signs behind us, pole out the 5 and the storm
jib and set the trisail sheeted on hard amidships. Will be interesting - watch
this space.
G'day to all the new Gusts - Ian from Chatham, best of luck and
do look us up when you get to Oz.
Jerry H - tried to email you but it bounced - will have another
go.
Thanks to those of you who have given us permission to use your
emails for The Book. And to those who have sent in shirt bids.
Marcus - thanks for thinking of us - I hope you offer your
customers a Consultative Draught with their Berrimilla sandos! Perhaps you
could organise them to put in a collective bid for the shirt - we will get it
to you if they win it.
From Isabella: Portuguese nav Tristao da Cunha discovered TdC on
his way to Cape of GH in 1506. It was impossible to land. The first settler to
arrive on the island was Captain Jonathan Lambert - who landed in 1811. I
expect lots of people have told you that.
Tristao was a bit out of his way down there! And we're almost
exactly 500 years behind him. Malcom, you were right, of course. I debated the
point myself but decided that as the head muscle is the only one getting any
exercise, it might be better to work down metaphorically from there, so went
for 'tites rather than 'mites.
Is - sadly, the Cake of Good Hope is no longer available for
naming. Final processing took place about a week ago and very nice it was. For
your dental tape dye ties, a reef knot tied with long tails and use the tails
to tie a rolling hitch at each end of the reef knot to lock it and prevent slip
- usually works. Gives nice tight small knot. Fisherman's bend needs a solid
loop, as in fishook, so no go. Else a standard granny loop with double or
treble sheet bend through it? Have fun kiddo!
Fenwick - what do you want? Why are you being so nice to us?
Have you forgotten the art of invective? Or just getting sillier?
It started to pack in, so on the principle of reef deep, reef early,
we set the storm jib and trisail and now we're in full orange dayglo party
splendour in a glowing grey green ocean with wind lines, froth, sparkling
sunlight from the spray and those big warehouses just beginning to roll white
from their tops. Storm jib and tri is such an easy rig - centre of pressure
well down, tiny area of sail but fully balanced so Berri sails more or less
where we point her rather than sideways to leeward. We've got 35 - 45 at the
moment, W wind just aft of the beam to get us as far south as possible and
making 5+ knots with minimal effort. Just a mini howl from the rig. We will
pass within 50 miles or so of TdC so may even
see it. Probably go closest at night.
We've just passed Tristan da Cunha 80 miles to the SE. The wind
has dropped from 40+ to 20+ and we're just rolling around in the residual
swell. I mean rolling with attitude - have you ever tried putting on a sock one
handed whilst the vehicle is in motion? Hornswogglingly difficult. Still storm
jib and tri - will probably leave till morning when there should be a lot less
wind and we will be just ahead of the following high - I hope far enough down
to get the benefit of the westerly flow off its base. We'll see. Then the wind
will back to the north and, with a bit of luck, we'll be on the slide to the
barn door south of Cape Agulhas. The barn door is about 4 degrees wide - about
240 miles - between 38 and 42 south and we must pick the spot to pass through -
same principle, we must be under the high and just in the top of the lows.
There may be a particularly rough bit to the SE of Africa where the Agulhas
current flowing down the east coast meets the westerly flow across the bottom
of the world.
Now that we can 'see' Tasmania, I will change the contents of
the Daily Bull. I will continue to give you the previous day's run and instead
of my estimated distance to SE Cape (7495 this morning),I will give you the
rhumb line distance taken from the SoB software - as I write, 7295, so my daily
estimates were reasonable. As a matter of interest, the rhumb line distance to
the Fastnet from here is 5248 miles but we have sailed about 6200 miles to get
here, snaking down the Atlantic. All you
ace predictors can get out your calculators and try and beat my estimate (made
as we left Falmouth) of Dec 11th at the Iron Pot (at the mouth of the Derwent
River 11 miles south of Hobart for the geographically challenged) or Gabo (SE
corner of OZ mainland)if we go via Bass Strait. Half way on the Dec 11th
schedule is on Friday 14th, and we will be pretty close on distance to go as
well. It's still do-able. We'd better have another prize for the closest
predicted ETA - perhaps Berrimilla's round the world kettle or some other
artefact? Not very exciting. Another signed shirt? Suggestions please.
Trudi or Martin, if you're still out there - how is your single
hander getting on? We haven't been able to pick up your network or the
Patagonian Cruise net (on 8164, not a ham net) based in Ushuaia so propagation
is still bad. Sailmail works for us here through Africa and Chile but nowhere
else.
[ed: more fame!....]
Alex & Pete,
As you passed the volcanic island of
Tristao da Cunha yesterday, news of your voyage hit the headlines of the
"Tristan Times", the local online newspaper: http://www.tristantimes.com/
The Island's volcano last blew its top in the early 1960's.
Barry Duncan.
And
Alex, Pete, Stephen, and Mal,
link to the double page TIMES
article if you haven't seen it: Times Online
Laura x
It has been a long slow night. At these longitudes, I get two
fully dark three hour watches, from 2100-midnight and 0300-0600. It is now 0500
and I've got another hour to go. We don't have enough batteries for me to read
with my headlight for 6 hours every night, nor anything like enough books. I
can do crosswords with intermittent light and darkness for thinking. On the
better nights, I can sit in the cockpit and enjoy the stars and the
phosphorescence and the moon and sometimes dolphins and the clamourous boot
ferals - and even commune with the Examiner if she's around. On nights like
tonight, though, the time passes very slowly. It is still blowing 20+, the
warehouses have subsided to about half their early size but the boat is still
rolling heavily and it's cold and damp in the cockpit. We're tooling along
through the moguls at between 2 and 5 knots under storm jib and tri - we could
carry more but better now to wait until daylight and the next watch change. So
the day's run will be unimpressive. I don't think we have managed to get quite
far enough south to put us under the high cell due here tomorrow/late today so
we might be a bit short of wind tonight and through tomorrow. The barn door is
1500 miles ahead still, so there will be a lot of changes on the way. I think
we will need to be at or below 40 S by the time we get there. The pace should
start to improve once we get down to 40.
DB 114, 7225 GPS 122 52/58
Back to the 2 and a reef. Fingers crossed that we will be able
to stay below the high today and pick up the northerlies behind it tomoz. New
birds - I remember these from the Falklands too - black tops, with white
dalmatian splodges in a line from wingtip to wingtip - spectacular!
A dissertation on the VoA:
I have been observing an interesting indicator of our local
ambient temperature. I have a tube of ointment - a Very Special Unguent for
fingertip application to certain delicate sphinctorially located and
unmentionable portions of the nethers. It is necessary to Confer - never
Consult! - with this VSU quite frequently and I have observed that its
consistency changes noticeably with temperature. In the tropics, it frolics
from its tube like warm honey, but down here it takes a massive squeeze to
shift it at all and it only appears with great reluctance. Perhaps, therefore,
there is an opportunity for a broad thermometric table based on the changes in
the VoA - not (definitely not!) the Voice of America, but the Viscosity of
Anusol.
For the kids in 5/6, that's a fancy name for special bum
ointment that I hope you won't need - ever! We do a lot of sitting out here.
Perhaps I should include a VoA reading in the daily bull. (Runny, squeezy,
extra squeezy, uber squeezy, go away?)
More birds - a flock of about a thousand wheeling and swirling
all around us and dolphins playing underneath. The birds are pigeon sized and
not unlike rather fine winged pigeons. And - wonderful to behold - a solitary
albatross gliding and curving amongst them and making them all seem so busy and
officious and even graceless. Malcom, it's definitely Albatross ground effect
and yes, the Russians did build a series of aircraft that used it.
And we had a recalcitrant winch - usual problem- salt in the works and gummed up pawls- but
however careful I was before we left I must have swapped my double
(metric/imperial) allen key kit for the single metric one and the winches of
course are imperial. So I found a non standard, therefore softer allen key
amongst all the backup junk, dug out the instrument files - Thanks Les, if you
are reading this! - and we filed down the key and it worked. Filled the pawl
case with wd40 as I'm not prepared to take the whole thing apart out here
unless absolutely necessary - and it works. Wooohooo,
And we're having an early consultation with Dr Gordon to
celebrate.
Hi Maggie - a bit early for the crows nest, but the right idea.
I'll come and do a lunchtime gig if you like when we get back.
Austin C - will do - maybe around Feb next year.
Bill and Joan - you're obviously golfers - my spies tell me
there was a 20 kt headwind for the marathon - just like I remember most of my
13 or so of them! You'd better gear up for the coming home party.
Peter C thanks for permission, David, yes, I'd heard that they
had found the bow section of the Mary Rose - must go and see it next time.
Barry - thanks for tristan link - tell them if you can that my
mum drove a lot of them to church on Sundays when they were evacuated to
Calshot in 1961. There was a Willie Repetto?
Wow! that G&T had some attitude.
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