The Romantic Challenge

by Francis Chichester

  I dropped the No. 1 jib at 1415. It took me a longish time to stow it in the special envelope-bag made to wrap round the sail on the stem so that the sail could be kept permanently hanked on the topmast stay. The object was to save bagging the sail, an exercise which can use up a lot of energy in a singlehander when it is a heavy stiff sail and seas are washing over the stem in a high wind. The foredeck sailcoat was one of Robert Clark’s ideas but I had been toying with it myself for a long time and thoroughly approved of it in theory. In practice it turned out to be only troublesome, and in the end damaging. It was troublesome working the sail into the envelope so that the cover flaps could be secured round it. This had to be done thoroughly so that neither wind nor water could get in and force the cover open. The damage came later. However, I logged at that time: ‘I think it may be a good thing when I get to know it.’ It was very wet on deck, in the lashing rain; but the sea felt warm as it splashed in my face.

  Rather than disturb the chick, I set to with the dinghy bailer to scoop into a bucket the bilge-water now running over the cabin floor with a horrid swishing noise, carrying it precariously through the boat to the cockpit. I was working my passage through the boat with my seventh bucketful when pandemonium broke out on deck! The mizen stays’l was flapping madly; something had bust. The din and the shaking of the boat under my feet and my hands was terrific. My heart sank; I thought it was the end of the sail. When I had donned my hard-weather gear and harness and sallied forth, it was not as bad as I had feared; the shackle holding the clew of the sail to the end of the boom had gone, and the sail, being loose-footed, was then free to flap as wildly as it liked. It still had one shackle in the clew thimble and was beating the boat with that I could only see one small tear in the sail and a batten pocket starting to break away.

  I could in fact have left the bilgewater to the pump because I found the chick had moved into the cabin. When I got below, again after attending to the mizen he seemed quite happy. I hoped he would not occupy my bunk; but I saw him eyeing it.

  By 1710 the barometer had dropped 2.5 millibars in just over two hours. With a new shackle fitted to the mizen stays’l and a handy-billy with one end anchored at the mizen mast, I was able to pull the foot of the mizen out enough to join the clew to the end of the boom and then hoist the sail. At the end of it all I was wet through again, but this time with sweat. I put the Mother Carey’s Chicken on my hand in the cockpit and held it up facing into wind in the hope that it would take off. But it only fluttered down to the cockpit sole.

  There was a lull in the wind but the barometer was down another 2 millibars in 31⁄3 hours, and the sky looked horrible at nightfall. I thought that Gipsy Moth was in the centre of a small depression and that she would hit the other side of it soon.

  An hour after midnight the barometer was down another 2 millibars, and on looking into the cockpit I was astonished to find the heading had swung back from 240˚ to 130˚. The wind had suddenly backed to east and increased to 30 knots again. When I went on deck to drop the mizen I was surprised to find no chick in the cockpit. I searched thoroughly with a torch because I did not want to squash him. I hoped he would be all right and had flown away, for I had been afraid he was going to die. The large light-weather vane on the self-steering gear was taking an awful hiding so I decided I must change it for the smaller one. This proved a complicated and difficult job. It was a dark night and I could only attach the side facing away from the yacht by feel. Sometimes the stem flicked in the air and it was a strange experience to be high in the air looking down on a big sea passing under me thirty feet below.

  Two hours later—at 3 a.m. according to the log—I had to take down the stays’l, the last sail I then had set. Gipsy Moth had been crashing through the night at 9 knots under it alone, out of control of the self-steering gear. I could hardly keep from being thrown out of my bunk. Gipsy Moth was fine, but there comes a limit to what anything will stand, and it looked as if more and worse was to follow. It seemed like—it was—what I would expect on the outskirts of a hurricane. The wind pressed my clothes to my body and my vision was limited because the peak of my cap was being blown hard against my nose. I saw great sheets of spray in the air, scattered like giant bucketfuls of water. The ordinary spray burst as if it were smoke from a cannon. The stays’l was like an enraged animal, and I could not work the hanks right down to the boom because the wind pressed so hard on the foot that, with the clew being secured to the other end of the pole, I could not overcome the wind which pressed the sail out into a taut curve. This was not important except that the untidy stowage meant more windage which in turn produced more movement. If only the boat could have stayed unmoving, the force of the blows from the waves would have been that much less. I was soon soaked; the wind blew the water up under my oilskin smock top, even though I had fastened it tightly round my waist. When I returned to the cockpit I spent what seemed a long time trying to coax Gipsy Moth to head downwind under her bare poles; but an extra fierce blast of wind with a slueing wave would start her broaching-to across wind, and the self-steering could not prevent it. Broadside on seemed to be the natural stance for her racing lines and nothing less than a man at the helm would keep her headed elsewhere. I reckon the natural stance of a boat is the safest anyway, but in this case it was much less pleasant.

  By 0400 on the 28th the barometer had risen a few millibars and with it the wind increased, registering up to 60 knots. At about ten a big wave came aboard and there was a great crashing of crockery and gear as Gipsy Moth was flung viciously on to her side. I felt lucky that I had been forced back into my bunk and not flung out of it. As Gipsy Moth righted herself I clambered out, but I could not see any serious damage except for the spinnaker pole housed on the port side of the deck, which had been well and truly kyboshed by the waves. It had a big kink in it which from below I reckoned to be about 150˚.

  There was a lot of water in the cabin, most of which I thought had come in under the companion hatch cover. I only hoped that the fastenings of the after-peak hatches had held and that the hasps of the bins under the cockpit seats in which I kept so much of my emergency deck gear had kept the lids closed down. The upper life-line was sagging, apparently pulled down in one place, and I thought it must be where the end of the kinked pole had tangled with the foredeck net. ‘The wind has eased,’ I logged. ‘I have not noticed it much over 50 knots lately. More important, it has not got the same savage shriek. I have often noticed the difference between two winds of the same speed. One may have a powerful, urgent, impatient note. The other, of the same speed, will not. It is some extra quality which I have never heard or read about. Anyone might wonder at my lying in my bunk instead of being on deck soaked to the skin as I was after dropping the main stays’l, but I must work up my log to deduce where Gipsy Moth has gotten to; and this is the only place in the yacht where I can do it at present.’

  At 1900 I logged that I had headed Gipsy Moth dead downwind a number of times by using tackles to the tiller, hoping that self-steering would be able to control her from there; but each time it was a failure; and watching in the cockpit, it was easy to see why. A big wave would creep up on Gipsy Moth and break right under her counter, picking up the stem and carrying it round as easily as a dog carrying a bone, leaving it there so that Gipsy Moth was broadside to the wind and the self-steering was unable to get her back on course unaided. I thought of hoisting a reefed main stays’l but in the end voted against it because the wind was still up to 60 knots. So I hauled out my brand new storm jib from the forepeak, trying hard not to let any water into the open hatch. After reeving the tops’l sheets through snatchblocks which I rigged to the big deck eyes amidships, the storm jib sheeted and set beautifully and peace reigned. Gipsy Moth ambled quietly down the moaning wind at 6 knots, rolling pretty drastically and with a big comber striking ever few minutes. ‘Those waves—I was on the foredeck when one broke there, and I marvelled at it. It was as if a giant snowplough were forcing up a great seething, boiling cur
ve of surf on each side to the height of my eye-level, about 12ft up.’

  My 25ft spinnaker boom was a sorry sight. It had been on the deck in its usual stowage position with the gooseneck snap-hooked to a big deck eye in the angle between the side deck and the side of the doghouse. The other end of the boom lay in a curved chock on the deck forward of the mast. Now it was broken like a cardboard cylinder, with two big kinks in a 10ft length of it. If a wave could do that to a strong pole, I could not help wondering what would have happened to me if I had been standing there. Would my safety harness have survived, or would the hook have pulled out? Even small waves cross the deck with a rush; when I had been sitting on the deck completing the furling of the tops’l, a wave caught me and swished me right over to the side of the boat, where my legs were in the water under the bottom life-line. No harm was done, but it reminded me forcibly of the importance of always being well attached by one’s life-harness.

  I presumed that the wave which bent the spinnaker pole had also damaged the stem pulpit. All its stanchions had been pushed over to starboard and the upper rail on the port side was now pressing against the forestay. This had done some good because that stay had been slack, waiting for me to tauten it; now the pulpit rail had done the job for me. I think the damage came from the big jib being still hanked on and enveloped in the sailcoat. I ought to have realized that the pressure of a rogue wave on its bulk would be great enough to cause some damage. This was one important lesson which I learned: never to leave a sail hanked on if there was a chance of stormy weather. But I must have had a surprised and pained look on my face while handling the sail at the stem when my foot suddenly shot down over the side of the boat. The sail was not lying on the deck at all, but was suspended outboard because of the shift of the pulpit. There was a lesson in that as well.

  But there was another much more important lesson staring me in the face and I failed, badly failed, to benefit from it; the spinnaker boom I wanted for my purposes ought to have stood up to that wave. It was not strong enough and I should have taken steps at Bissau before the 4,000 mile speed run to have it strengthened, not just repaired. Even a bamboo pole fitted inside the alloy tube could have made a world of difference to my ambitions.

  Alas, there was one more tragedy to face in my tour of inspection. I saw a little black head sticking up through the duck-boards covering the cockpit floor, its beak lifted to heaven as if appealing for help. My little Mother Carey’s Chicken had not left during the night as I had hoped but must have sought safety under the heavy mahogany framework of slats. I had searched the cockpit carefully for him but never thought that the little bird could have squeezed into the tiny space under the boards. What it could not know is that when the cockpit is flooded by a wave breaking aboard, the duckboards float, and all the fathoms of ropes, sheet ends and gear lying there get swilled under the boards in a tangle. As the water drains away through the drain-holes, the boards settle down, sometimes out of place and overlapping at the joints. This must have happened and the little chick was crushed when the boards settled down. Or had it already happened, and was the little fellow already dead when I was looking for him? I felt responsible for his death and it made me sad.

  ‘31 December,’ I wrote in my log. ‘Is there any way that I can gybe more quickly and efficiently? I designed my running gear so that it would be safe for a singlehander to handle if a gale blew up or if the heading got out of control and the running sail came aback, and also so that one person could hoist the sail without accidents to gear in any conditions.’ The spinnaker used in ocean racing I consider an unseamanlike sail, even with a full crew aboard. It is quite usual, or at least seems to be, for it or some of its gear to break up within two or three hours of the sail being set. It makes me shudder to think of what a singlehander would have to deal with if he had a big spinnaker set and his yacht broached-to in a gale squall while he was asleep.

  My own scheme of booming out to windward a running sail hanked on to the topmast stay is an operation I divide into two parts. First I rig the pole and manoeuvre it into position by means of three ropes—a fore and an aft guy and a topping-lift. Having rigged the pole I then hank on the sail, attach a sheet which I lead in the usual way to the cockpit winch, then attach a line to the clew of the sail and lead this line to the outboard end of the pole, thence to the mast end of the pole and thence again down to the deck. This line is used to haul out the clew to the end of the pole. Then the sail is hoisted in the ordinary way. If a suitable jib is being used on the lee side when reaching or on the wind, only the one sail, the runner, need be hoisted in order to have a running rig. To rig the pole and hoist the running sail is no longer or more difficult an operation than the standard setting of a spinnaker on an ocean racing yacht. ‘However,’ I went on in my log, ‘when a shift of wind demands a gybe, it takes me at present on my own between 1½ and 2 hours of pretty intensive activity, brain as well as body. The pole has to be unshipped, unrigged and housed on the deck. Another pole has to be rigged on the other side of the yacht. The running sail has to be dropped on the starboard side, but the jib has to be dropped on the port side and shifted over to the starboard side. The big runner has to be hanked on afresh on the port side, re-sheeted and outhauled again. At present I cannot see how to improve on this except possibly by having a jib exactly the same size and shape as the big running sail; then it would not be necessary to transfer the jib from one side to the other, or the running sail. The drawback of this arrangement would be that a jib as big as the running sail would be too big for sailing to wind-ward in a breeze and it would have to be changed down to a smaller jib if that happened.’

  I was now badly handicapped by having only one pole left, which necessitated moving it from one side of the deck to the other during a gybe. Even the smaller, 22ft pole was undoubtedly an awkward customer for one person to handle on his own in a seaway.

  On 1 January I wrote: ‘Here is wishing folk happiness in 1971! I get the impression from the news, the newspapers, and the radio that last year folk were letting life go by without enjoying it; were wrapped up in discontent with their lot. I wish this year they may be always looking for happiness and the joy of living.’ Sailing singlehanded gives one a very detached view of the human condition!

  I watched two more gybes step by step to see if I could improve the performance; but all I could see was that having only one pole caused a big hold-up. With two poles both could be kept rigged and at the ready.

  At 2000, at 23˚30’N 19˚30’W, I thought that Gipsy Moth had sailed into the real Trade Wind zone. ‘The wind has a more pressing sound about it, though only two or three knots faster,’ I noted. ‘I don’t suppose I have a hope, a faintest chance, of knocking off 4,000 miles in 20 days. Gipsy Moth is in the Trade Wind belt tonight, I reckon; she has 2,360sq. ft of sail set and is only making 6 to 7 knots. However, succeed or fail, I think it is a great lark, the idea, and I am looking forward to a grand sail.’

  On 4 January I made a gybe in the early hours of the morning which went without a hitch and I was back in my bunk after only forty minutes for raising or dropping 1,860sq.ft of sail and trimming the sheets and vangs. ‘If I can get my other pole repaired—and I believe I could if necessary get it done locally by straightening it out, cutting it at the kinks, and stuffing it closely fitted with a length of bamboo pole—I reckon I can speed up the rigging of running gear to cut the time of the operation from hours to minutes. The pole I unshipped last night for gybing is lying on the deck ready rigged and could be in place, footed to the mast and swung outboard, in 10 minutes. In one way I would like to take a month to reach Bissau so as to get my spinnaker drill really snappy. Perhaps I shall if this wind continues!’

  Once when Gipsy Moth woke me with her old trick of coming up in the wind out of control in a squall, I dropped the mizen. Gipsy Moth’s pull sideways on the hull was aft of the rudder even though the tops’l was sheeted forward of the rudder. I was sorry at having to drop the sail and turn so as to put the wi
nd 25˚ aft of the beam, because Gipsy Moth had been tearing along with the speed I wanted. Could I think of any solution to her tricks not requiring less sail? At 0530 I altered course a little so as to be nearly wind abeam when the breeze freshened. I wanted to see if the self-steering gear had control without the mizen and whether coming up closer to the wind bettered the speed, but it looked as though the mizen was necessary to get the speed I wanted; or else I must pay off downwind and pole out. That night I led the running ends of the tiller tackles right through the companion to my bunk with the idea of controlling runaway slues from my bunk. It worked well and saved me from having to get out of the bunk, but I had to wake up several times to use the bunk controls. I thought a boomed sail would have helped. When awake I could hear a ‘striker’ slueing breaker coming from some way off and some time in advance. Big ones came with a roar, apparently bringing their own individual gusts with them.

  By 5 January I was only a few hundred miles from the starting point of my cross-Atlantic race against the clock and keeping a good lookout for the heavy steamer traffic which closes Cape Vert on its way to and from Western Europe and the Mediterranean and the West African and Cape trade routes, traffic which has increased considerably since the closure of the Suez Canal. There were other dangers. ‘I was hit by a flying fish when I stepped into the cockpit’, I wrote indignantly in my log at midnight, ‘and it certainly startled me in the dark. Then when I looked along the side deck with a torch, a squid glared at me with huge circular eyes. No bouillabaisse though, because when I looked later he had gone.’ But my cheerfulness left me when I worked out the next noon position. A day’s run of 205.5 miles seemed just tolerable enough, though I would need a greater excess over 200 miles on good days to make up for the bad ones, calms, storms, and all. But the distance made good in a straight line between sun fixes was only 187.5 miles, a drop of 18 miles below the distance sailed.