Solitaire Spirit: Three Times Around the World Single-Handed

by Les Powles

  I was on my bunk with nose stuck in a book, enjoying one of the better days and thinking I might wander on deck for a noon sight, when I heard the most horrible sound as if we were in the middle of a herd of groaning, pregnant elephants. Ye gods, I thought, the nearest elephant should be 2,000 miles away. I threw the book to one side and dashed on deck to find a few 20-ton whales making improper advances. We were in the middle of a school of these magnificent creatures, some so close that I could have jumped on their backs for a free ride. I rushed below for a camera and managed a couple of shots as they departed.

  In the eighth week we logged 627 miles, 5,384 miles in 56 days. We had fallen below our 100 miles a day. The Cape of Good Hope lay ESE, 2,220 miles away. The ninth week started well when the winds went round to the north-east. For the first time in weeks we had a free wind blowing at three to four and came onto a broad reach with the poor old number two genoa and a full main. We glided along without the old smashing and banging. Then the sheet broke and the genoa flew free. However, I soon had it repaired and we continued on lazily. Further south, a shirt joined the shorts I had been wearing during the day. At night I no longer lay on top of my sleeping bag but climbed inside for warmth.

  On September 9th we celebrated two full calendar months at sea. Back home they would be making ready for an English winter while we sailed into a South African spring. I became more of a crew than skipper, following quietly whispered commands as I soothed Solitaire’s occasional displeasures, taking the strain from her weak body. ‘I’m hard pressed,’ she would complain and I would reduce sail. ‘You’re driving me too hard.’ I would ease the self-steering so she could take the waves on her quarter.

  The ship’s log grew repetitive: grey sky – grey sea – grey skipper. Breaking into choppy seas, I really am sick, sick, sick of it. But repetition breeds over-confidence and stupidity. Returning from changing a headsail one stormy night I put the kettle on for tea and reached down to remove my safety harness – it wasn’t there!

  At the end of our ninth week at sea we recorded a distance of 776 miles, but the tenth was far worse, with only 646 miles to show for it. I’m sure the slow progress was mainly my own fault, although the pilot charts did not help too much. Tristan da Cunha now lay 550 miles south of us. The South African high-pressure area with the light winds and calms was still to port. Solitaire had started to sweep in a gentle curve to the south-east to pass well under the Cape of Good Hope.

  It’s a mistake that many people make in life: you see your target and head straight for it. I should have used my golfing experience and made a dog’s leg of it, heading further south towards Tristan, perhaps entering the Roaring Forties before turning south and making for Australia. If it was a mistake to take the direct route it was one I could live with. Many better-qualified yachtsmen had made the same mistake in this area. The pilot charts proved unreliable: instead of skirting the high-pressure area we must have sailed into its outer fringes of calms. Well, as Gracie Fields used to sing, every cloud has its silver lining. The silver in our present cloud was that the calms allowed us to do more work sorting things out.

  During my tenth week at sea I started to use words in the ship’s log that would have been unusual on our first round-the-world voyage – ‘nerves’ and ‘depression’:

  Engine: Run for one hour, diesel and water containers stowed.

  Food and water: Should have enough food to reach New Zealand, a quarter of water used.

  Temperature: Now 70°F (90° on the equator), so am wearing sweater in early mornings, and really need sleeping bag at night.

  Antifouling: A few goose barnacles, seems to be working well.

  Solitaire: In better shape than when she left England apart from number two genoa.

  Crew: Has moments of deep depression, worrying about Solitaire’s gear and sailing under jury-rig. Although Cape Town is 1,500 miles away and hoped to make it in 70 days, so far we have been lucky and I have no reason to complain of our progress. So why do I feel so depressed?

  The end of her tenth week brought new records for Solitaire: on her first voyage her longest time at sea had been 69 days, the greatest distance travelled around 6,000 miles. These had now increased to 70 days and 6,614 miles; not an earth-shattering achievement, but for the speck moving across the oceans it was important. We were sailing into the unknown with new problems that would have to be overcome. Somehow Solitaire had to survive the gales of the Southern Ocean, somehow round Cape Horn. If at that stage I had been asked my main concern I would have answered that it was my own part in the voyage, not Solitaire’s. The urge to round Cape Horn was as strong as ever and nothing would stop me, but I could not understand my mental condition. Unless I could sort myself out I was likely to end the voyage in some form of mental straitjacket.

  A long-distance sailor on his own must be many things: captain, cook, navigator and doctor but, most important of all, he must be able to understand himself and recognise his own limitations, mental and physical. It sounds easy, but people living ashore pay psychiatrists thousands of pounds a year to understand themselves, despite having family and friends with whom to discuss their problems. Solitaire and I were cut off from the outside world. We had no transmitter with which to make the odd call, ‘I say, old boy, I wonder if you could help me? I’m in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and I’ve gone off my rocker.’

  When I left England everything seemed so straightforward. I would sail around the world for my own satisfaction and would survive for my own love of life, the desire to see family, friends and England again. To make the voyage I would be prepared for tiredness, cold, hunger and long periods of fear. On my first voyage I had been frightened only for short periods, mostly during the Brazilian episode. I believed I could stand this type of fear for five months or so but I felt it would not attack me until I reached the Southern Ocean. But after crossing the Equator and beating into seas that normally would have given little concern I became frightened, my nerves rubbed raw for no apparent reason. At one stage I thought I knew why: some of Chichester’s descriptions of the conditions I could expect were so vivid that I put down the book vowing not to read it again until we were safely home.

  Solitaire’s rigging might not survive a capsize, but all who had made this voyage had suffered at least one. What then?

  I bitterly resented my lost year thanks to the sail manufacturer and the unjust outcome of the court case. That I felt so apprehensive so early in the voyage proved that, at heart, I was not brave. At sea I would turn anything I could to my advantage, not an unusual trait. It’s surprising how after spending their lives without a God, many become aware of Him when in need. I used friends: ‘What would Rome or Rex do in this situation?’ Others had survived, why shouldn’t I? Ah, well, time would tell.

  Each day brought danger nearer. In the eleventh week we logged 470 miles, six more than the previous week, in the same old mixture of calms and gales. The worst started on Friday, September 19th, when we ran with screaming winds, under working jib only while rogue breaking waves slammed into Solitaire ripping one of the heavy canvas spray dodgers in half. What worried me was that I was over-reacting to conditions we had been through a dozen times before. On my first voyage I had been unconcerned, indeed would have listened to the wave’s onrush with interest, putting aside my book for a few moments to hold onto the bunk, awaited the impact, then continue reading. If I was reacting in comparatively safe conditions, how would I cope with real danger when it came?

  I spent two days repairing the torn dodger. On September 22nd I recorded our longitude as 00°15´E, in other words we were 15 miles east of Greenwich. Once past that date line the working of our navigation would alter. And September 23rd was the anniversary of my Brazilian adventure when I had started to think about a second voyage around the world. This time I would make the correct adjustments when using navigation figures. As yet I had no desire to contemplate a third voyage!

  By the end of our eleventh week we had sailed 7,084 miles.
As I reported in the log:

  We had rode one gale during the week and were becalmed for its last 12 hours. New Zealand will take forever at this rate. Plenty of sea birds about from small petrels to aircraft-sized albatrosses. Visits from my dolphins after staying away for two weeks. Nice to have my friends back. I have been photographing my fellow travellers with Rome’s camera. Still managing to read a good deal. Thank goodness I enjoy books so much. Long days in these conditions would seem endless if you could not lose yourself in other times and places. I’m reading one of Annegret’s books called Hawaii by James A Michener. Have hardly put it down for three days. Antifouling still working well apart from barnacles on the rudder, propeller and a few on the topsides. More than satisfied.

  The twelfth week started with Cape Town 720 miles to the east, a good week’s sail to safety, steaks, hot baths and warm beds. We could be tempted only under jury-rig. Once past Cape Agulhas I could open Rome’s second parcel. I planned to round the Cape 300 miles south of Africa for two reasons: to keep well below the west-flowing 5-knot Agulhas Current, and to avoid the 90 fathoms continental shelf. The seas, 12,000 deep beyond the shelf, would be kinder. The problem in sailing so low was that my charts ran out at 37°S. I covered the extra 180 miles by sticking an odd piece of paper to the chart and pencilling the lines of longitude and latitude onto that. Solitaire was about to round her first objective on a scrap of writing paper.

  The week was wet and miserable, navigation made difficult by heavy rain clouds. The winds played tricks. Were the pilot charts chuckling quietly, having suggested winds from the north to southwest Force 5 to 6? Any of these would have been acceptable but Solitaire had to battle against winds on her nose – from the south. The odd day we had stern winds brought our first thick fog. At least we knew that no other ship would be within a couple of hundred miles of us, ghosts of lost square riggers excepted, for only a pig-headed fool would venture so far south.

  It was fitting that the thirteenth week should be the worst I had ever spent at sea, the week I thought I had lost Solitaire, the week that I lost my affection for England. Since leaving home I had been bitter, frightened and depressed. The bitterness I could understand but not the time I was taking to get over it. The court case had upset me deeply. Weren’t the upper classes, the lords of the manor, supposed to look after the peasants? I could picture Solitaire beating up the English Channel, her red ensign streaming in the wind, with a certain pride in completing the long haul. But after 90 days at sea the picture had started to fade.

  And this was the day the storm started.

  Chapter Seven

  Screams in the Rigging

  South Atlantic – Indian Ocean

  September – October 1980

  Thursday, September 30th. Our noon sight showed we were about to enter the Roaring Forties, 250 miles below South Africa on latitude 39°S. The morning winds, around Force 4, came from the north and were cold despite my heavy sweater, foul weather gear and sea boots. It was not just the cold that had made me put on the full gear: the day before one of the water containers had burst and soaked both my sleeping bags so that the only way I could sleep on them now was by wearing oilskins.

  I had been forced to stop using the old number two genoa a week before as we had been getting the odd gust that would have ripped it in half. We were reaching under working jib and main with one reef, which had gone in when I had started to feel uneasy. Although, cold apart, it seemed a perfect sailing day with a few scattered clouds in an otherwise clear winter sky. A swell started to build up and the hairs at the base of my neck began to stand on end. During the afternoon wind strength remained constant but the sky turned from blue to black in less than two hours as though coats of film, one atop the other, had finally turned sea and sky to jet. There were no breaking waves but the swell increased until the sea rollercoastered.

  Normally I would have taken down the main but for weeks I had been over-reacting. Was I at it again? The only headsail strong enough for these waters was the working jib, which meant I would have to keep the main up for as long as possible or the voyage would last for ever. Apart from running out of food we would be too late this year to round Cape Horn safely.

  If we were to have any chance of maintaining schedule the old rules of the game would have to go by the board, starting with the first and oldest: reef or reduce sails as soon as you think about it. That afternoon I was trying to read Hawaii, so uneasily that I found I was scanning the same line again and again. Although Solitaire carried no wind speed indicator I know that during our first voyage outside Cape Town we survived winds in excess of 100 miles an hour (as later reported by ships damaged in the area). I know what they sound like in the rigging, what effect flying spray has on bare flesh. This storm did not frighten me as it lasted only a few hours and the waves had little time to build up. My main fear was being run down by a tanker.

  When the storm struck – without warning – it was with the force of one of these tankers. This was an assassin’s bullet hitting before the victim heard the sound of the rifle. You’re alive, you’re dead, you’re upright, you’re on your side. There’s a whisper in the rigging, then it screams. A panic-stricken dash to the deck to find the mast nearly in the water. Both spray dodgers have gone. The self-steering wind vane is pushed fully over and is vibrating against its stop. Sails are filling with the sea, their seams about to split. Both sheets are released; for a moment part of the boom and main disappear over the side and God knows what’s happening to the headsail because I’m blinded by wind and spray.

  I clawed my way to the mast and tugged on the main’s luff but the bloody thing would not come down. The pressure on the sail was jamming the slides. Finally I succeeded in lowering it. I should have returned to the cockpit and pulled back the boom inside Solitaire’s guard-rails but if I didn’t do something about the headsail I’d lose it. Quickly I lashed part of the main to the boom, nothing below me but white broken water. Once the jib was safely down I could return to the cockpit and retrieve the boom dangling in the sea. I tied a rope onto the wind vane and around my waist. When I released it from the self-steering unit it tried to take off like a rocket, bearing me with it. I promptly had second thoughts and in the end managed to take it below, where I wrapped it in a protective blanket.

  Now I could think about my own needs. Luckily I had been wearing my wet weather gear on deck, the first time I had ever sat around with sea boots on. As I like to feel Solitaire moving under my bare feet, wearing sea boots is like going to bed with a woman wearing boxing gloves. I had had no time to put a towel around my neck so my shirt and sweater were saturated and as I realised this my teeth began to chatter. Then the risks I had taken without a safety harness dawned on me and the chattering increased in tempo.

  Tea would have tasted like ambrosia, but first I had to fit a shock-cord onto the self-steering rudder to prevent it banging back and forth, and I needed to retrieve the 30ft of line on the log. One spray dodger was again ripped in half, the other hung over the side, held by a few odd ties. Both had to be removed and stowed. At that stage I was merely thinking of just another stormy night at sea. I would put extra lashings on the sails and rubber dinghy, pump out the bilges, then settle down for a night’s sleep lying a-hull.

  When the storm started I was confident that Solitaire and I had all the answers. After all, hadn’t we faced every situation, every type of wind, every type of sea? All sails were down. It would be hours before the seas built up and became dangerous. Lord, what poor misguided fools we are!

  Without knowing it, everything I had done so far had been wrong. I was working to rules from the first voyage, rules which said that, provided everything was secured and there was a good depth of water, storms were nothing to worry about. There had been exceptions of course, when the storm brought fierce lightning, which I hated, or we lay off a lee shore or in a shipping lane. Then I would prefer to be sitting in front of a roaring fire, a dog at my feet, contemplating a stroll to the local for a p
int with the lads. The rules from our first voyage were as outdated as trying to fight an atomic war with conkers.

  I was starting to suspect even the preparation for the voyage. Money, or its shortage, decided what we could or could not take with us, apart from my wet weather gear, which was the best I could find, being the type used by Rome on his Whitbread round-the-world voyage. It seemed to have everything I wanted: the jacket heavily quilted for warmth; the double-lined trousers had substantial plastic zips, which in turn were protected by flaps. The trouser tops fitted snugly under armpits and the jacket had a built-in harness on to which the safety line clipped. The outfit cost around £150, it was money well spent. The first problem showed up when I tried to wear sea boots, which I normally don only when close to English waters. Even at night, although my feet would be cold, I felt no pain and certainly had no frostbite worries. In the old days in emergencies I would dash on deck naked apart from the safety harness. Now when I was needed there in a hurry, I first had to tuck my long trousers into my socks, pull on the outer trousers, put on sea boots, then work the trousers back over the boots, tightening the tapes. The linings slowed down the drill.

  I hit another snag trying to get back on deck – I could not get through the hatch! In storms I would lock myself below and wait for a lull, then slide back the hatch cover, remove the top board, step out and replace them. It was fairly easy provided you were not wearing padded jackets. After leaving England I had fitted two bolts to the top board to prevent its loss during a capsize. To clip on my safety line I had to lean over the boards to reach the U-bolt. It made me feel sick. Solitaire’s movements were so violent and the winds so strong that I had to keep my back to them. So powerful was the spray that I feared for my sight.