The Romantic Challenge

by Francis Chichester

  This time it seemed much easier to hobble the pole without getting clocked by it; I seemed to be getting to know the drill. Then I had to recover the big runner from under the keel. I thought hard before acting. Although Gipsy Moth’s speed was drastically reduced she was still going at more than 7 knots. First I let the sheets fly through the sheaves at the side of the cockpit and when they were streaming free alongside the hull, clear of the keel, the rudder and the self-steering skeg, the sail stood under the keel to the lee side. I then recovered the sail and the sheets by hauling the sail in at the foredeck. It was virtually undamaged, although streaked with anti-fouling paint.

  The next entry in the log at 0830 was short but sweet: ‘Reckon I could make a pole up by lashing together the two ends of the two poles. One piece is 15ft and the other long end 18ft long. These would give a 22ft pole with an overlap of lift. By God! I’ll give it a try. But first some breakfast.’

  Ninth day’s run to noon fix Thursday 21 January 1971.

  Position: 16˚40’N 42˚43’W.

  Distance fix-to-fix: 193.5 miles.

  Calculated distance to finish: 2,408.5 miles.

  Days remaining: 11.

  So in spite of the collapse of my last pole before midnight, Gipsy Moth had knocked out 193.5 miles between noon fixes. Up to an hour before midnight she had been over 9 knots for five and a half hours and had averaged 8.6 knots from noon to then. After that she averaged 7.7 knots sailing speed, or 185mpd until the next noon. The wind had actually strengthened so the accident had so far cost not less than 13 miles.

  At 1700: ‘Hard work to get everything done. Gybe necessary for the wind having veered to 110˚. So long since Gipsy Moth was on the other gybe that much sorting of vang tails, sheets, sheet-horse slides, etc. needed. Booms pretty well ready for lashing up now.’

  I had had to think carefully how best to do the repair, and I had turned for help to the invaluable Admiralty Manual of Seamanship. It sounds so easy just to lash two poles together. The difficulty is that the very heavy compression load ought to pass straight down the centre of the pole to its seating on the mast, otherwise the pole will start to bend and then bust out to the side. So a repair of two poles lashed together must aim to prevent that bend. And if you can solve that, another difficulty is that the poles must be lashed in such a way that they do not start scissoring.

  I had searched out a dozen lengths of cordage most suitable as to thickness, strength and non-stretch quality. It was surprisingly difficult to locate enough pieces just right for the job. I chocked up the boom lengths so that they would not roll on the deck, then hunted out a length of anti-skid strip, which is like coarse sandpaper 3in wide used to prevent slipping on wet skylight glass. I passed two turns of this round each broken pole end, hoping the friction would help prevent the poles from moving against each other, and then lashed one of my boathooks into the little valley between the poles on one side and on the other side a length of plastic pipe about 1¼in in diameter. I hoped these would check the scissoring. A number of rack-seizings at intervals, figure-of-eight bindings with a dozen or so turns seized together, were the only kind of lashings to stand a chance of success.

  An hour before midnight I decided to stop work and sleep; I was getting clumsy and terribly slow. I had been at the job for thirteen hours non-stop except for sailing the boat, navigating and eating. It was disappointing; I had hoped to have a boom up that night. Two hours after midnight the log read: ‘Getting up to work on the boom, which is badly needed.’

  The next entry, at 0515: ‘Finished off the boom. Will it work? Changed No. 1 jib over to the starboard stay but ran, into trouble. The starboard halyard had been in use with the big runner at the time of the crack-up and was hopelessly fouled aloft at the masthead. I could not see by the torchlight what was the matter; so meanwhile borrowed the starboard pole topping-lift for re-hoisting the jib. The heading had fallen off to W by S. This made me think that I should have to gybe again soon; which, combined with the fact that I was now fagged out and my balance bad, decided me to flop down for some sleep until daylight could show me what the halyard trouble was.’

  0800: ‘The heading is now 40˚ off the required course (to the southwards) so I must gybe again and transfer the jib back to the port stay. My fingertips are so sore after the boom repairing that it hurts to use them.’ But at 1050 I could write: ‘Do-it-yourself boom up at long last with big runner attached. Seems O.K. but pretty heavy and clumsy to handle.’ And at 1125, with great relief: ‘Pole still looks O.K. Set mizen to balance leeward turning movement of big runner. Now for breakfast. Now and then (after a drama or such like) I have brandy for breakfast; this is one of the occasions.’

  Tenth day’s run to noon fix Friday 22 January 1971.

  Position: 16˚15½’N 45˚03½’W.

  Distance fix-to-fix: 138 miles.

  Calculated distance to finish: 2,272.5 miles.

  Days remaining: 10.

  Good news, bad news! This fix-to-fix run of only 138 miles for 155 miles sailed was a depressing setback because the total of the five previous fix-to-fix runs had been 1,006.5 miles in spite of the first pole-break during the fifth day. With the second pole breaking there had been no running sail up for twenty-three hours of the tenth day. The wind had eased as well, and the sailing speed had averaged less than 6.5 knots; the day’s run had been knocked to hell.

  In the afternoon I changed the self-steering vanes, rigging the very big one. It was a difficult job working on the end of the counter while sailing almost dead downwind with a swell overriding the ocean. I had rigged two more backstays to the top of the vane at its after corner to strengthen it, and to complete a busy day I had at five o’clock a good talk with Frank Page of The Observer and then with Kevin Ruane of the BBC Foreign News Desk. I reckon they must both be good men at their jobs, simply judging by the way they drew me out, making me feel keen to tell them what they asked for.

  Before midnight I woke to find myself sitting head on arm at the saloon table, halfway through eating a treacle sponge pudding. I wrote: ‘Was I in a heavy sleep! Somehow oppressive with lurky, ominous, mastering kind of dreams. I cannot set any more sail than now, unless possibly to set the 600 runner as a genoa in place of the jib which is 90sq.ft smaller; but that would be foolish because the jib is a really good driving sail. So the rig stands at the 640 runner, the 510 jib, the mizen and two stays’ls, 750, and the tops’l 370, which I make in total 2,270sq.ft of sail. Gipsy Moth is sliding quietly through the water at 8 to 9 knots and sighing with enjoyment as one of the waves—small at present—lifts her a little and rustles her along. The big runner when I set it to the new made-up pole has a romantic look, pinkish with here and there mottled red, due to its strange adventure in another element under the bottom of the boat.’

  Eleventh day’s run to noon fix Saturday 23 January 1971.

  Position: 16˚47’N 48˚13’W.

  Distance fix-to-fix: 185.5 miles.

  Calculated distance to finish: 2,093.25 miles.

  Days remaining: 9.

  So now Gipsy Moth would have to make daily fix-to-fix runs of 232.6 miles for the remaining nine days of the 20-day target. It was a depressing prospect. The wind had eased too; at one time it was down to 6 knots. I got fed up with ambling along and altered course 200 to windward for more speed, but it meant that I was driving too far north of the track I wanted to follow.

  ‘I am getting worried about the wind. First, of course, that it is not strong enough to give me a chance for my project, secondly that it keeps in the east and is driving Gipsy Moth continually north of the course. The farther north Gipsy Moth is driven the more southerly will the heading have to be later in order to reach Nicaragua. Worst of all, this heading if continued too long will push me out of the Trade Wind belt. Already I feel I would have stronger wind if farther south. The present heading is 31.5˚ off course. If the wind has not backed by tomorrow I must set to and gybe first thing. The actual wind is half a point N of E, almost exactly the r
eciprocal of the course required so that one gybe is as good as another. Gybing is a lousy job though because I must not only unrig the pole and re-rig it to port, but must drop both the No. 1 jib and the big runner, unbank them and transfer them to the other stay before re-hoisting.’

  I wanted to sleep and not eat supper, so I turned in at half-past eight. But I only had a couple of hours before a small squall overpowered the self-steering gear and began pushing Gipsy Moth’s head to wind. Fortunately I had rigged a new tackle to the tiller which would be easier to work from my bunk; the lead-ins from the cockpit were now better placed so that there was less friction and the hard pull needed at the bunk was reduced. I was anxious not to have Gipsy Moth come up to the wind and put the running sail aback because of the strain on the mended pole, but after twice using the tackle from my bunk to bring Gipsy Moth’s head back on course, I gave in and went on deck to drop the tops’l.

  At 0520: ‘I had nightmares of Christopher Doll being aboard and chasing me with a cine camera to film the pole drama. I was wildly racking my brain how to hide from him and find some hide-out where I could sleep. In the end I woke fully because of hideous boom clankings, and I imagined the worst had happened, only to find that the spliced boom was apparently staunch and unmoved by the rough treatment.

  ‘I am sure I need to gybe and search for better winds farther south, but I cannot bear to do it because at present Gipsy Moth is only 10˚ off her required course. I keep on saying this and have been steadily pushed farther and farther north as a result. Oh! for a north-easter instead of the continued easterly wind. I can hear a poor, silly flying fish beating the cabin top with its tail; but should one feel sorry for these fish which are fierce, merciless hunters in their own place?’

  Twelfth day’s run to noon fix Sunday 24 January 1971.

  Position: 16˚591⁄3’N 51˚42½’W.

  Distance fix-to-fix: 201.3 miles.

  Calculated distance to finish: 1,894.5 miles.

  Days remaining: 8.

  The speed had improved although the wind speed was still low, down to 8 knots at one time in the past twenty-four hours. After noon it perked up to between 12 and 16 knots.

  I was trying to assess the tactical situation. On her present heading, Gipsy Moth was only 8.5˚ off course to the northward. A gybe to the other side of the wind would have her pointing some hundreds of miles south of Trinidad to British Guiana, and so it was just not on except in desperation. The best thing to do might be to pray for the wind to back. What was so tantalizing was that a north-east wind was a 50-60 per cent expectation in this area of the Atlantic, whereas easterly winds from which I was suffering were to be expected for only 35 per cent of the time. I wished I were 150 miles to the south where I had planned to be; there the wind expectation was even more favourable—75 per cent northeasterly. However, it was no good moaning about what might have been; I had got to wriggle out of this situation the best way I could.

  In spite of the lighter winds, the speed rose to 9 knots for a short period in the evening. Squally rain showers were passing through and I had to be on the alert because there was a bit of a to-do with each one, and I had always to be ready to drop the tops’l in a hurry. At 1920, at the end of the 9-knot period, I decided to drop the tops’l without waiting for the next crisis. There was enough in these rain squirts to make the heel uncomfortable, but my chief concern was to avoid risking or overtaxing the mended boom. The powerful compression load it had to bear, even in fair weather, was shown by the difficulty in out-hauling the clew of Big Brother to the end of the boom, even when using a tackle with double sheave-blocks on the outhaul. With the tops’l down there was comparative peace but the speed dropped a knot.

  By the evening I had had only one normal meal during the day—breakfast. However, that was a proper blow-out: wheat germ and Muesli with an orange squeezed into it plus some lemon juice plus raisins and grated nuts, followed by about 10 02 of potato fried with two eggs, plus two cuts of my newly baked 100 per cent wholemeal loaf with honey and marmalade, and a banana and coffee to top up. Otherwise I had had only four bananas in the morning and, after the evening radio session, a salad sandwich made from a cut of the new loaf, buttered and Barmened, with a layer of mustard from the garden, grated carrot, garlic and raisins; also another cut of the loaf with cherry jam and two cuts of the Christmas cake with its delicious marzipan coating, given me by the makers in Plymouth. I didn’t want another meal but I did want some sleep.

  An hour and a half later, at nine o’clock, I woke to such bangings on deck that I was convinced the boom repair had come apart; I rushed up, but as soon as I was in the cockpit the row stopped and I could see that the boom was quite unmoved. What caused the noise I could not think, because I could see nothing wrong anywhere. Once in the cockpit, I could not leave it. The balmy air flowing over my naked body was deliciously cooling after the heat of the cabin. The diamond-bright stars were set in a black sky. Occasionally I shrank from the side of the cockpit when a wave broke over the counter and boiled alongside, but nothing came over the coaming while I was there, and I gave myself over to the romantic pleasure of sliding fast through the seas into the night in my slim, powerful craft.

  An hour after midnight I tried to coax the self-steering gear to hold a better course more downwind, but the speed was cut down at once. It was tantalizing to have the wind astern if Gipsy Moth was headed for San Juan—tantalizing, because it was so pleasant and comfortable to sail, but the devil for speed.

  At 0750: ‘I was lying on my berth writing up the log when there was a tremendous bang, followed by the usual flapping and flogging. I was out on deck p. d.q. with no time for any clothes or safety harness. It was not the boom at all; that was banging against the topmast forestay but apparently still quite staunch. It was the metal clew ring of the big runner sail which had collapsed and let the sail fly out forward like a giant flag. I dealt with the situation, the only difficulty being to muzzle the flogging sail with only one hand while holding the halyard downhaul with the other. If I had let go of the halyard, the sail would have come down with a run and Gipsy Moth would have sailed over it again. That damn sail is already pink with anti-fouling paint. It was an hour before I had the big runner hobbled, dropped and bagged, and the tops’l hoisted again. Then I rigged the pole rest on the stem pulpit (it needed the vice to straighten the locking-pin which had been bent in the previous pole-break), and dropped the pole to inspect it. The repair job, however, looked absolutely unshaken and unmoved and I decided not to touch it. Feel feeble, will have small breakfast.’

  That was the first of the day’s troubles. What had happened was that a large sector of the big stainless steel clew ring, about3⁄8in thick and 4in across, of which a piece was sewn into the corner of the sail, had broken clean away. The break released the sheet and the outhaul bowlines which let the sail fly. I had to drop the outboard end of the boom on to the pulpit in order to recover the end of the outhaul. This was when the second schemozzle of the day occurred. One of the broken boom ends had a jagged point protruding beyond the diameter of the pole where the metal sides had been crunched together when the boom collapsed in a V and I had afterwards broken it in two. The boom was resting on the stem pulpit at one end and secured to the lug on the mast at the other end. While I was crawling under it, doubled up, I hooked this razor sharp jag into my scalp. Blood seemed to be everywhere; some running across my spectacles put one eye out of action, and decks, ropes and all were showered with it. When I got below I could not see what had happened because I could not get into a position in front of one of the mirrors where the light was strong enough to see by if I held another mirror in my hand above my head. Then I could not find any disinfectant except iodine, which I believe is out of fashion and anyway hurts like hell. Then I couldn’t find a suitable piece of plaster for the top of my head. When at last I did find a piece in Sheila’s first-aid drawer, I had trouble manipulating it, and could not see where to put it, because as soon as I took away the wad of pap
er I was using to staunch the flow, there was such a mess that I could not see where the wound was. In the end I used the more positive but surprisingly effective method of feeling for the cut with a finger and placing

  the plaster on by touch.

  Thirteenth day’s run to noon fix Monday 25 January 1971.

  Position: 17˚12’N 54˚50’W.

  Distance fix-to-fix: 180 miles.

  Calculated distance to finish: 1,71875 miles.

  Days remaining: 7.

  I bagged the clewless Big Brother and set the 600 instead. Then I worked out the position and the run from the sun sights. I felt thoroughly depressed; the fix-to-fix run of 180 miles was bad enough, but also I was worrying about driving into an impossible situation where the winds would grow progressively lighter and more variable the farther north I sailed. I must gybe at any cost. This meant a big operation and I had only an hour and a half before I had to call up the BBC. I had made a bad blunder in not gybing when the big runner blew out and I had had the pole down on the deck. I had been convinced then that I ought to gybe but I had acted instead on mathematics and reasoning which had made me re-rig the boom on the same side as before. I dropped the 600 runner, dropped the pole and unshipped it completely on the starboard side, dropped the No. 1 jib and gybed. The gybe was a pretty good botch-up. Gipsy Moth had been so long on the other tack that sheets, ropes and vangtails had been overlaid or tangled with other ropes.

  I was just getting these sorted out when, glancing up at the self-steering gear, I saw what I took to be a big shark following close astern. I hopped on to the counter. It was no shark, but it looked like a 30ft sea-serpent or sea-snake twisting sinuously from side to side, too deep in the water to see clearly. I went to the end of the counter and then noticed a yellowish object two-thirds of the way along it. Those might be horns sticking out from it. Was it a mine? No, not big enough. I thought it might be a collapsed met balloon with a container caught up in it. Anyway, whatever it might be, it was hooked up on the rudder and cutting the speed in half. It must be got away. I sorted out and rigged my grapnel but Gipsy Moth had too much way on her for the grapnel to go down; it was swept astern by the slipstream. I must stop the boat, but with this rig Gipsy Moth cannot be stopped simply by putting her aback. The three boom sails keep her moving. I thought the best thing I could do was to drop all the sails and stop dead. I dropped the mizen stays’l and the tops’l, but then thought I could manage by leaving the mizen and main stays’l up if I came hard to the wind. This slowed Gipsy Moth down enough for the grapnel to sink in the water and I hooked the ‘thing’. It was a big-meshed net of heavy, coarse netting. I began hauling it in and was astonished to find that the object half way along it was a turtle, hopelessly entangled. He was heavy and I had to tug and heave to get him aboard. Finally I worked the net heave-by-heave up and over the life-line until I could grab the turtle and haul him over too. He was an attractive pale brown, weighed some 40 or 50lb, and was very handsome. I was astonished to find he was alive. Since he could not have drifted against the Equatorial Current in the net, he must have come from Africa, 2,300 miles away, and could have been in that net for a year. (Later, I found that the net, 60ft long, was indeed made in Africa.) He never would have got free because each leg and his neck were through different meshes of the net. He looked like being a handful if I cut him free so I decided to photograph him first. To keep him from being awkward and perhaps damaging something, I turned him over on his back. Then I cut him loose. He evidently could not recognize a fairy godfather when he saw one because he at once snapped at me.