by David Salter
Watch systems
In my view, three hours is the maximum any reasonably fit person can be expected to stand watch during the cold and sensory deprivation of night, yet four-hour watches are still common and some skippers demand up to six. This may yield impressive performance levels during the first evening while adrenalin is still pumping, but any early gains are usually then lost over the succeeding days once fatigue inevitably sets in.
In stable conditions even quite large racing yachts can be sailed safely by three people on deck (I’m discounting the ultra-competitive who insist on sitting every available ounce of weight on the windward rail). If there’s a spare body once the boat is properly set up, organise an informal ‘spell’ roster within your watch so that everyone can enjoy a bonus hour or so off below. Everyone should stay in all their gear, but additional sleep grabbed on the cabin sole or even just a quiet cuppa while resting at the bottom of the companionway can yield priceless extra energy when it’s most needed.
Warm & cuddly
Elementary physics tells us that heat and energy are two forms of the same thing. Energy, in turn, is the vital ingredient of concentration. Any crew that loses concentration at sea is prone to making errors and misjudgements. Those lapses are often magnified under the pressures of racing at night. It follows that maintaining adequate body warmth is crucial.
It’s safe practice to always err on the side of over-dressing, and clothe yourself in logical layers. In the awkward confines of a yacht it’s much easier to shed unwanted garments than – once you’re shivering – to find an extra jumper in darkness and then struggle into it. The body loses a huge proportion of its heat through the head and hands. As soon as the night air begins to take on that characteristic crispness, make sure you have a woollen beanie that covers your ears (or a balaclava), and bring some genuinely windproof gloves with you as you come on watch. Stuff them in your jacket pockets if you don’t need them straight away. It won’t be long before you’re glad you have them.
Food for thought
There’s an almost irresistible temptation on the first night of any race to delay serving dinner. Everyone is still charged up with the excitement of the start and anticipating the heroics ahead. Most crew – particularly the newcomers – will declare they’re ‘not hungry yet’ and don’t want to eat until much later. That’s a major mistake. Experienced watch captains don’t offer this choice because they understand that the sooner everyone falls into regular feeding routines the better. (It’s also unfair to the cook.)
A hot breakfast and evening meal are essential during the colder months, but the activity of cooking, serving, eating, recovering the bowls and washing-up can be seriously disruptive. They distract the crew from their primary task of sailing the boat as fast as it will go. Major meals should be served in two brisk, back-to-back sittings at the fixed change-of-watch times (say 1800 and 0600) while everyone is up. That way there will always be enough bodies available with hands free to keep the boat racing. The new watch can eat before they go up; the outgoing watch should only have their meal once the fresh crew are established on deck and have taken control.
During the night ensure that plenty of quick-energy snack food is within easy reach. A stout waterproof container in the cockpit stocked with favourite ‘munchies’ can extend concentration by hours. Chocolate bars, sweet biscuits, nuts, jelly snakes – in fact anything rich in sugar, glucose and protein.
Be prepared
It may seem like stating the obvious, but make sure that from the moment you come on deck at night you are truly alert, equipped and ready to stand your full watch. Yachts have a nasty habit of slowing down and wandering off course during changeovers.
Don’t tumble through the companionway still wriggling into your safety harness and clenching one glove in your teeth. Genuine preparedness is a state of mind. It helps set a ‘switched on’ tone for the next few hours of racing. Winning crews are rarely found scrabbling about in the darkness for a misplaced strobe light or EPIRB. Football players don’t wander off the field after the kickoff in search of their left boot. And remember to water the horses in the warmth and safety below – before climbing into your wet-weather gear!
Mutual consideration
Distance ocean racing is certainly not a sport for the delicate or faint-hearted, but that doesn’t mean there’s no need to keep the comfort and wellbeing of your crewmates in mind. Exhaustion is felt most keenly at night. Tolerance begins to fray. Even relatively simple routines such as taking a reef in the mainsail will tend to be slower because of safety concerns and restricted visibility. This is not the time for an impatient helmsman or watch captain to start bellowing at the crew from the cockpit.
Remember, too, that an hour or two of deep, uninterrupted sleep is truly precious to the mob who’ve just crawled into their racks after a tough watch. It doesn’t help their mood if you impulsively decide that this will be a good moment to fire up the motor to charge the batteries. Nor should you be banging locker doors open and shut in a protracted search for some trivial object, or waving a bright torch around in the darkened cabin. Try to conduct cockpit conversations at reasonable volume. Hunt down and fix any on-deck squeaks and rattles that could be irritating your mates below. Genuine consideration begins with imagining yourself as part of the other watch.
AND NOW THE FUN STUFF …
Target for tonight
As the late Chairman Mao said, even the greatest journey begins with one small step. The surest way of keeping yourself and the crew motivated at night is to set targets. Can we do 25 miles between midnight and 0300? Can we hold nine knots or more for a minute? Can we lift our average VMG (velocity made good) – that is, consistently sail the boat closer to the wind without sacrificing speed? Can we make Crowdy Head before the next change of watch?
Sustaining that competitive impulse is always easier if the lights of another yacht are visible ahead. ‘OK, guys, let’s catch those bastards!’ is the familiar war-cry for everyone to refocus their efforts and start racking tired brains for any trick that might squeeze a tad more speed out of the old girl. The physical strain of a night headsail change is so much easier to bear if that effort is rewarded by confirmation that your rival’s stern light is getting closer. And the satisfaction of being able to tell the new watch that we’ve now ‘blown away’ some boat that was behind us when they went below is delicious beyond words. ‘OK, we’ve shown you slack bastards how it’s done. Now we expect you to reel in that other bloke up there! See you in three hours.’
Night for day
Inexperienced racing crews unconsciously tend to take their foot off the pedal at night. It’s a natural instinct to sail more conservatively when vision is restricted. But aircraft pilots don’t throttle back after sunset, so there’s no good reason not to keep pushing your boat just as hard at midnight as you were at noon. (After all, the hull, rig and crew haven’t changed.)
The key person in maintaining that aggressive approach at night is whoever’s on the helm. They must resist joining in idle cockpit chatter and keep their minds centred on the job of holding the yacht on the fastest possible track. Just like an aircraft pilot, the helmsman should strive to fully exploit the flow of information coming from their instruments. Keep your eyes flicking in a regular circuit from the sails to the ‘clocks’ displaying boat speed, apparent wind strength and wind angle, and then back to the sails. The numbers will soon tell you what’s working – and what isn’t. The moment you feel your concentration waver to any substantial degree, surrender the helm to someone whose eyes and mind are fresher. Driving for any more than an hour at night can be hugely demanding.
Trim, trim, trim
In most coastal races the breeze will tend to soften at night as the land mass cools down. This puts heightened emphasis on wringing maximum momentum from the sails. Don’t accept that boatspeed has to drop simply because true wind strength is trending down. One of the inexhaustible challenges of ocean racing is the search for that pe
rfect balance between your rig and the conditions.
Think of the sails as an engine. Are we tuned for optimal power? Shine a torch up the headsail and main luffs at regular intervals. Do we need more or less halyard? Try some ease on the Cunningham? Check the telltales. Are they streaming properly? Headsail in or out? Could we adjust the sheeting angle? Let down some traveller? Rig a reaching block? Tighten the leech cord? Maybe we should change up to the #2 genoa? Let’s get it on deck straight away, ready to hoist. If the spinnaker is up, don’t just ‘set and forget’. Keep trimming the sheet as if you were doing a short harbour race. Check the pole angle and height. Sure, this is all much harder at night – but do you want to win or don’t you?
Guess for success
The most important person on any boat during darkness is the guesser, and not only because most of us would prefer to stay off the bricks. Navigation is absolutely essential to tactics and performance at night. Deprived of our normal daytime visual cues we rely almost entirely on the navigator for directions and feedback. Listen carefully, have faith in their judgement, and do what they say without dissent or second-guessing.
The navigator, in turn, needs to be clear, precise and confident. Every crewmember should know the exact preferred heading and the allowable degrees of variation. Don’t be bashful about digging the guesser out of their rack if there’s the slightest doubt. Confusion costs miles. Raw data off the GPS doesn’t usually mean much to the average sailor, so a prudent navigator will demonstrate his chosen track on the chart to the leader of each new night watch. They should also brief the watch captain on the anticipated rate and direction of any current, the weather forecast, and any potential navigational hazards that lie ahead. This also helps sustain concentration by involving everyone in the fun of evolving race tactics.
Morale
Spirits can plummet at night. Time crawls. Cold and boredom will make it easy to fall into long periods of semi-comatose silence and inactivity. A dispirited crew is likely to delay a crucial reef or sail change and neglect trim. Someone has to break this downwards spiral by getting busy. Make an energetic show of checking the masthead light. Tell an outrageous old yarn or go below and make everyone a bracing mug of hot coffee. If whoever’s driving has lost the groove get them off the helm promptly, but with good humour. Heavy hints about ‘Maybe it’s time for your little rest, grandpa?’ usually work. Humour without malice can be a tremendous motivator.
But the best thing about nights at sea is that no matter how slow or miserable they might be, eventually the darkness comes to an end. The reward for a diligent crew greeting the cheering warmth of dawn is the sight of rivals who were ahead at sunset now languishing in your wake. It almost makes that breakfast of soggy leftovers from last night’s dinner bearable.
It was an uneventful and routine performance, but you
have elevated us to the stature of heroes.
Captain John Illingworth, after winning the first Sydney–Hobart race, 1945
FOR MOST AUSTRALIANS, ocean racing equals the Sydney to Hobart race. Mention you sail offshore to any new acquaintance and it invariably provokes a question/response sequence that’s familiar to everyone in the yachting community.
‘Have you done the Sydney to Hobart race?’
‘Sure, lots of times.’
‘Were you in that really bad one, you know, the one where people got killed?’
‘You mean 1998.’
‘Gee, was it really that long ago?’
‘Yes, it’s a while back now, and I’m glad to say that I didn’t go south that year. Still sail with a lot of blokes who did, though.’
The conversation then usually dwindles away into the usual mythconceptions and half-hearted remarks about the cost of yachts, seasickness and the incomprehensible appeal of pursuing a sport in which discomfort is guaranteed and death remains a distinct possibility.
‘Oh well, we enjoy it.’
‘Better you than me, mate! But what boat do you sail on? We’ll watch out for you next Boxing Day.’
It’s hardly surprising that the Sydney–Hobart is the only offshore event to occupy a permanent place in the public mind. The race is a genuine blue-water classic, has been contested for more than 60 years and attracts enormous media attention. (The sheer size and spectacle of the race gives it legitimate news value, but that annual burst of concentrated print and television coverage is also partly motivated by the lack of any other major sporting events in Australia during the week around Christmas.) Nevertheless, the Sydney– Hobart is truly the Melbourne Cup of yachting – a once-every-year festival that generates huge (if short-term) interest among a public that normally wouldn’t give the sport a second’s thought. And, like the Melbourne Cup, it has – at least until the advent of the 30-knot super-maxis – been an event for stayers, not sprinters.
So what’s it really like? Terrific, and terrible. A splendid rite of sailing passage, and a passage of splendid privation and pain. No offshore yachtie considers themselves to have earned a permanent place in the sport until they’ve completed at least one trip south, yet many never return for a second helping. The regular Sydney– Hobart sailors scoff at these ‘oncers’, but secretly we well understand their decision. Only one in six races is ever an easy ride all the way, and the seventh is usually an absolute shocker. But that’s not to say that the 25-race veterans – the ‘Hobart Heroes’ with their names on the wall at the Cruising Yacht Club in Sydney – are all grizzled old masochists who bash to windward in a pair of tattered King Gee shorts and a torn rugby jersey. In truth, they are often the quiet philosophers of the sport – even-tempered, stoic, deeply experienced and prudent. I did my first Hobart in 1965 and continue to be grateful to all the codgers who’ve taught me so much about this race over the years. They are the custodians of a cherished tradition that may soon be totally swamped by commercialism. But that’s not an issue to canvass here.
A sensible Sydney–Hobart campaign begins many months before Boxing Day. The core of the crew who will be going south should first put in plenty of miles together, including a few overnight sails. To qualify, at least half the crew is now required to have completed a major offshore race or equivalent passage. The boat itself must have ‘substantially’ completed a qualifying race of not less than 150 nautical miles within six months of the Sydney–Hobart start. Notwithstanding these requirements imposed by the organising authority, it’s simple good seamanship to test out the boat and crew well before the race. Many fine flat-water sailors only discover they’re not really cut out for offshore work too late – somewhere off Jervis Bay.
Preparing the boat itself is a long, meticulous process. More than 150 separate items need to be checked off to satisfy the safety audit alone. Have the flares passed their expiry date? Does our hatch-locking system comply with the new regulations? Have we got enough tethers and harnesses? In addition there’s a stack of paperwork to prepare and submit, ranging from the Life Raft Inspection Certificate and Verification of Stability documents to signed crew declaration forms and a piece of paper confirming that the boat’s EPIRB (Electronic Position Indicating Radio Beacon) is operational. And you aren’t going anywhere without first lodging the $500 entry fee.
But it’s the practical preparation that consumes most of a crew’s pre-race time. Hauling out all the sails, inspecting them for damage and organising the inevitable repairs. Ensuring that the navigational instruments are working properly and have been accurately calibrated. Sending someone up the mast to conduct a thorough check of the rig. Servicing the winches and lubricating every moving part on deck. Assembling the charts required for the passage and return delivery. Conducting the mandatory HF radio signal-strength test with Race Control (and checking that the battery of your backup hand-held VHF radio is fully charged). Topping up the fuel, water and gas. Buying the provisions for at least five days and pre-cooking the frozen meals that will sustain the crew through the race. Phoning each crewmember on Christmas Eve to check they’re still coming –
and to urge their wives and girlfriends not to send them down to the boat clutching a cubic metre of home-made fruit cake. We’ve got quite enough food, thanks all the same …
Few boats greet the Boxing Day dawn with everything neatly stowed and no jobs left to do. A last-minute scramble of some kind seems almost compulsory, but wise skippers leave the dock as soon as good manners allow. It quickly settles down a tense crew to be out on the water and free of their final shore-bound concerns. Race rules require every yacht, before the start, to show officials on the committee boat their storm jib and trysail hoisted and properly sheeted. This can be a tiresome chore (particularly repacking those sails), but it’s a good way of ensuring that the crew remember where the storm sails are kept, and how to set them.
The minutes tick down to 1300 and the overhead roar of media helicopters begins to build. Many crew grab a quick, simple lunch during this last half hour – ham, cheese and salad rolls is a favourite – so they’ll be free to work during the afternoon without the distraction of a growling stomach. This is also the traditional time for everyone to swap handshakes and wish each other good luck for the trip.
‘Have a great one, mate.’
‘Thanks, you too.’
‘Ten minutes!’ and things are getting serious. Engines off now, everyone is under sail power. The big boats start their aggressive jostling for the favoured end of the starting line. The noise is now deafening and it’s sometimes difficult to even hear the countdown and final gun. ‘We’re racing!’
Only the largest boats at the front of the fleet ever get a truly clean start in the Sydney–Hobart. For the rest of us there are so many other boats disturbing our air, and so much wash from spectator craft, that it’s usually a struggle to crank the yacht up to even a reasonable speed. This gets particularly frustrating in light weather or when the fleet has to tack up Sydney Harbour to clear the Heads. First-time yachts with hyped-up crews dash about in all directions, and sometimes, regrettably, the red mist of competitive frenzy descends.