In the middle of lunch (at 6.30 p.m.) the wind began to veer considerably, so I dressed up again and gybed. The gybe was needed and it was better to do it before dark, which was just falling. The result was good, giving the heading required and a knot extra speed, though to be fair I think the extra knot was due to increased wind speed. The true wind now was from nearly west, speed 17 knots. I ought to have worked out the true wind sooner and gybed earlier instead of eating. Barometer 1,016.5, a drop of 5.5mb in the past twenty-three hours. This was a steady drop, indicating a weather change on the way.
The log entry for 0330 on the 4th reads: ‘With the wind piping up and in the upper 30s at times, Gipsy Moth was beginning to run wild. Chiefly due to the old pal, the tops’l. So I hoicked myself out of my very comfortable sleeping-bag and dropped the tops’l. I also dropped the mizen stays’l to give the wind a better run into the big jib forward of the mizen stays’l. This also allowed the mizen to be squared off more with more effectiveness.…However, the barometer is dropping steadily and the wind rising, so there may be too much of it presently. The barometer is 1,012, down 4.5mb in seven and a half hours.’ This was an average drop of 0.6mb per hour. I expected the wind to freshen but it was nothing to worry about.
An hour later: ‘The true wind is 216˚, SW by S, 25 knots. Gipsy Moth is running before it so the relative wind is only 18 knots. Sailing speed 7¾ knots. I had to change the big vane to the smaller one. The big fella was bending over below the horizontal and I think this was reversing the effect because Gipsy Moth put in one or two noisy gybes. The noise came from the mizen. I had it vanged down so fortunately it could not come right across, otherwise there might have been breakage. Now I want to gybe but am pondering on dropping the mizen first. The barometer has dropped a millibar in half-an-hour. Although the wind is not very much yet, the sea is getting up and the riding pretty rough. I think it would be much easier for the self-steering gear without the mizen. A nuisance because it is a cow to muzzle, that mizen.’
0550: ‘Dropped and furled the mizen—quite easily in spite of my criticism of it. Gipsy Moth is under good control now, though rolling uncomfortably. Two or three seas boiled over on to the stern, but I hope they go with a front passing through. I hope the Met set-up is much like last night and that the weather will ease presently in the same way. But I don’t really believe it will because the barometer is now dropping pretty fast; 1.5 millibars in fifty-six minutes speaks to me of a gale or worse. Anyway it is daylight and the sun shone for a minute or two which was cheering, but it looks pretty grey and murky now. I had one small casualty in the night’s operations: I lost my favourite little torch; it slipped out of my mouth while I was changing the windvanes. It was most valuable for such jobs, enabling me to see the blacked-out side of the vane while using both hands to fasten it. Now I think some soup before something else cries out to be dealt with. This is the third night out of four since leaving Horta that I have been done out of most of my sleep.—There’s a big sea just come aboard; I suppose I must fit a washboard or two in the companion. I don’t want a sea down below.
0831: ‘I was having a zizz after a bowl of pea soup and was woken by a squall. The windspeed instrument showed over 40 knots, which with Gipsy Moth’s 10 + knots—I had the log on the double scale which only reads to 10 knots—meant Gipsy Moth was bouncing along with a wind of at least 50 knots. The rigging had a relentless tone, not a screech or a scream but a tone sounding powerful and irresistible. The important point for me was that Gipsy Moth was going too fast in a rough sea, slueing, twisting and rolling. I had to act or breakages would occur. I felt awful, roused out after what seemed only minutes of sleep. I felt weary to the marrow. However, that big jib had to come down. It turned out an easy job. The jib made a shattering, ear-hurting din as I lowered it, but din wasn’t going to hurt, as long as the jib didn’t flog itself into pieces. The foot and bunt of the sail went into the sea and I hoped Gipsy Moth wouldn’t overlay it with the keel as she bored and heeled when a wave pushed the stem; but when I returned to the stem after securing and hardening the halyard fall at the mast, the sail was docilely lying on deck against the sail net along the stem lifelines. A wave must have obligingly dumped it there for me. I didn’t even get splashed until I returned to the cockpit after bagging the sail and stowing it in the fore-peak, when a wave washed my legs. I think, and hope, it was only a squall causing the hurroush, but the barometer had just dropped 3.5 millibars in the past two and a half hours, 1.4mb per hour. I have only three more actions left me now, that I can think of at the moment:
1.
Reef the remaining sail, the main stays’l. I had a row of reefing eyes added to it for that purpose.
2.
Set the storm-jib which is about half the size of the reefed stays’l but needs two blocks for sheeting inboard; or
3.
A smaller vane. My No. 2 vane is doing excellently at present and I hope it will be all right.
As far as the foresail is concerned, I have to have something forward whatever is blowing, otherwise Gipsy Moth won’t steer downwind, but broaches and lies broadside on to the waves which is a bad position. The true wind is now 241˚, 48 knots. Well, breakfast seems a good idea. Thank heaven I’m not feeling seasick. I think I will skip my exercises this morning though. I feel weary and I did have a lot of exercise in the past nine hours even if the wrong sort.’
1155: ‘Baro. 1002.3; down 1.6mb in one hour and 26 minutes. True wind 254˚, 45 knots. Gipsy Moth is sailing at 8 knots under the one sail, the main stays’l. A lot of spray is flying along horizontally with sundry swishes of water into the cockpit. I fear this is getting worse and I am debating whether to rig the storm-jib.’
1445: ‘I dropped the main stays’l after rigging the storm-jib, which required quite a lot of jobs doing for it; such as, finding a shackle for its tack and shifting the mizen stays’l vang to make way for a snatchblock to lead the storm-jib sheet along the deck to the cockpit. It was blowing hard and raining hard and there were batches of big seas which made it all rather a long job. In the end it did not seem to have slowed down the speed at all. I noticed 9 knots on the dial just now but I suppose it might have been worse if I had left the bigger stays’l because the wind is now gusting up to 57 knots. My next worry is the windvane; will it hold out or ought I to change it for a yet smaller one. I have an R/T session due tonight and I notice that the mizen topping-lift is around the top insulator on the backstay aerial again. As the mizen is down and furled on the boom, the topping-lift is holding the boom, and I shall be unable to free the backstay unless I drop the boom right onto the deck. A snorter sea has just filled the cockpit and the water is pouring into the cabin under the washboard, but there is nothing I can do about it for the moment. The drains in the cockpit are small and the cockpit big. I think the drain is blocked or partially so. I suppose I had better don my armour again and go and bale it out. What a chore and a bore. Later; O. K., it has drained off. The duckboards are jammed above the floor with general confusion of sheets etc., but that can soon be cleared up. I’m for a wee snooze.’
1742: ‘The wind vane bust in two and hell was let loose as Gipsy Moth headed across wind. I put on my stormwear at once and hunted for another vane. I got the old vane disentangled and off but needed to turn downwind to fit another one. I could not get Gipsy Moth to point downwind using fixed tiller lines. In the end I fixed it. All I worry about at present is that I was thrown across the cockpit and landed on my kidney against a wooden edge. It hurts like hell although I rubbed it well with arnica. Having only one kidney I am concerned. If that one is bust I shall be poorly placed in an hour or two’s time.’
I figured that if the kidney had been bust, the body might not be affected for several hours though I would have had it when the blow occurred. For four hours I waited fearfully and then joy surged back that I had escaped. Other troubles dwindled by comparison. It continued horribly painful whenever I made the slightest movement.
‘The cabin
is getting into a rubbish heap as waves throw the boat one side or the other and anything loose flies through the air. Water is coming over the floor and I must bale some out. I let the mizen down on to the stern deck to try and free the topping-lift, but it was quite impossible because of the wind. One good thing, the barometer which dropped 2 millibars between 11.55 a.m. and 2.0 p. m., has practically stopped dropping since then; but even if it starts rising now I reckon it will be a long job, this storm, and the worst is usually just after the barometer starts to rise. What I do not understand is having all this dirt with such a high barometer, which I consider 1,000mb to be. The true wind was 278˚, 57 knots. Gipsy Moth was doing 9 knots downwind. The rough DR since noon yesterday was 200 miles, less, say, 10 per cent = 180 miles in a direction 45˚, which placed Gipsy Moth at 43˚N23½˚W. The sea was an impressive sight. The flying spray from the whipped off wave crests made a carpet 6-1 oft deep covering the ocean as far as one could see, like a layer of ragged sea-mist.’
2026: ‘The baro, has gone up 5.5mb in the past two and three quarter hours. It is hellish on deck. I did several jobs. Rigged a snatch-block to port for the storm-jib sheet. This enabled me to bring the clew of the storm-jib nearer amidships which would decrease the speed a little. (I was hit then, my hand, while writing, by a tin flying over from the other side of the boat.) Also I slacked away the boom of the main stays’l because its topping-lift was chafing against one of the storm-jib sheets. I rigged a light in the port shrouds, but I doubt if it will be any good on a night like this. I doubt if visibility is more than half-a-mile. Below, I baled out four bucketfuls of oily water under the cabin sole. I don’t think there is any more I can do and I shall turn in. It is a good thing to get some rest if possible so as to have some ginger in case of emergency. I have not seen the wind indicator go over 60 knots but there are some very hefty gusts.’
The next narrative log entry in the main log was not until 9 May, five days later, at an hour before midnight. The 2026 entry in my log of 4 May was also the last entry in the navigation section until 0640 the next morning, the 5th, when I noted the rough position for putting out an SOS; but that was only half a line of figures. It was not till 1500 on 5 May that I again wrote log narrative, and then it was in a notebook which I could use while lying in my bunk.
Exactly what happened and when is hazy in my mind. For one thing my sense of time went completely haywire. It seemed an age between some of the events which later proved to be only hours. Before midnight I was lying on my back on my bunk, tensely braced against the starboard side next to the engine casing. Presently I slept. I was woken when Gipsy Moth was struck by a wild wave which nearly threw me out of the bunk. I lay still for a few seconds and then decided that the leeboard would not keep me from being thrown out. I must get out and fasten a rope somehow from above to underneath the bunk. I had just got out to do this when the first big knockdown occurred. I felt the boat start to hurtle, grabbed the handhold and held on like a fanatic. Stuff from the galley shelves flew across the cabin to the chart table. I thought, ‘Christ! What luck; thirty seconds earlier I would have been still in the bunk and thrown across the cabin over the engine casing.’
I left things where they landed; it wasn’t any good putting them back. I fixed a rope from the handhold above to the lug near the head of the bunk. Also I unfastened the galley belt and anchored it to the handhold farther aft. I got back into the bunk and lay trying to sleep but I was too tense. I don’t know how long it was before I decided the speed was dangerously fast; the speedometer read 12 knots at times with only the little storm-jib set. Gipsy Moth was taking a terrific pounding. I thought I must be using the wrong tactics in running downwind. Every yacht behaves differently in a storm. Maybe I ought to head her into the wind to take the way off her. I got out to go and lash the helm down a-lee. As I stood beside my bunk putting on hard weather clothes, Gipsy Moth was thrown again. As I began to leave the floor, I grabbed the rope or strap and hung on with all my strength. ‘God!’ I thought, ‘this is no good.’ I felt desperate. ‘What can I do?’ This knockdown was more violent than the first; I expected it to be. I went into the cockpit, disengaged the windvane and lashed the helm hard down to a winch at the lee side of the cockpit. Gipsy Moth refused to head up to wind and would only lie beam on to wind and seas, and she was still doing 4 or 5 knots. I told myself it was better not to go forward and drop the storm-jib, that I might need it to control the boat. The truth was I shirked going forward to work the foredeck. Violent seas were breaking across. I was not sure what was best to do and, just out of my bunk, took the easiest course. I decided to leave her as she was until daylight.
I went below and lay on my bunk in oilskin trousers and sea-boots. Suddenly I had a premonition. The seas were far worse. Anything would happen and it was only a matter of how long before it did. That rope and strap would never hold me in with a worse knockdown. I was lying there like a trapped animal. God! How weary I was. What could I do? I got out to put on my life-harness and hook it to the steel beam above the bunk. It might keep me from being thrown more than two, or three feet. I was scarcely on my feet before the third and biggest knockdown occurred. I was aware of terrific forces and had a lonely feeling as if I was being hurled into space, lost to the world, a feeling I have known in earthquakes.
I was pinned against the cabin roof looking down, as if from a dream-like height, at the frames in the bilge, stripped of all the floorboards. My back was against the roof and my thigh against the mizen mast where it passes through. I was lying on the cabin roof and the boat was above me. I had a spasm of fear that it was going to fall on top of me. Then I was only curious to know what was going to happen. I had flashing images of the mast torn off and tearing open the deck to let the boat go down like lead. I was tumbling from the ceiling. I was seeing badly. I remember putting up my hand and noting that my spectacles had been knocked half off; I remember pushing them back and being surprised that they had survived. I think all this occurred while I was tumbling. Then I was lying partly on the piece of floor beside my bunk. I began to lose consciousness and made an effort to flop into the bunk before I passed out. Things went distant and unreal but I recovered.
My impression was that Gipsy Moth had been hurled with terrific force off the crest of a wave into the trough ahead. The first thing I did was to look at the mizen mast beside me; it was still there. It looked all right, but I could see that the engine casing had moved and I feared that either the engine had moved on its bed or that the mizen mast had bent. Everything movable on the port side of the boat had been catapulted across to starboard and I could see a shambles. Below the chart table, debris was feet deep; broken plates, bottles, food, fruit—as if a cartload of rubbish had been tipped there. The light, however, was still on; a marvel on a black night of storm. How long would it last if the batteries had been upside down? There was a light in the main cabin. I did not remember having one there. It was the light at the head of Giles’s bunk, switched on by the impact.
It had happened at two minutes to midnight. The clock had stopped when hit by a bottle. Hundreds of fragments of the bottle were stuck into the woodwork as if embedded there for ornament. The clock was at the top of the cabin doghouse between two windows. If the bottle had struck and smashed the window water would have been cascading in.
I must look to see what the damage was. I could hear above the din of the storm heavier regular thumps and bangs. Something had broken adrift on deck. I scrambled over the debris in the main cabin, going forward to look at the main mast where it passed through deck. The deck appeared intact and the mast all right up to it. I worked my way aft, hopefully switching on the mast spreader lights and wading through the heaped-up debris beside the companion. The hatch would not open and I had a nasty clutch of panic that I was shut in below. My side and thigh were so painful that I was feeble. I got myself into a better position on the companion steps where I could use both hands to tug at the hatch end. It opened a crack. I worked it open; but still feare
d that I could not get out. The hood with its steel frame was crushed down on top of the hatch and at first it seemed as if there was not enough clearance to slide the washboards up out of their grooves and away. It was only fear; I worked the top board up and free and it was easier to get the second one out of its grooves, making a gap big enough to squeeze through. In the cockpit I trod on a rubbish dump of duckboards, entwined with ropes. At the time it did not strike me as amazing that they were still there. Both masts were still standing. Both spreader lights were on. What astonished me more than anything was to see both paraffin lamps hanging still alight in the mizen shrouds. The lifelines were sagging, but all else appeared more or less secure. I felt a surge of great relief. I had had enough worry with broken booms to dread a broken-off metal mast bashing the hull in a storm. I looked for the storm-jib; all that remained were a lot of streamers up the forestay, flogging with loud cracks and bangs. Pieces of the mizen stays’l had been broken out from the ties holding it furled to the boom and were banging about. The sail was already torn and I shut my mind to it. Then I was amazed to see the self-steering windvane waggling normally. It was agonizing to move about because of my thigh and the pain in the small of my back.
The Romantic Challenge Page 20