Day 16 – Monday 20 January.
By Grant Chapman.
We spent a good part of the morning moving along at a decent clip of 7-8 knots in winds gusting up to 18 knots, the helmsman’s partner clutching the spinnaker sheet and releasing the tension intermittently with each gust to depower the big bag while the helmsman bore off to put the wind directly behind us and avoid a broach. Things seemed to be going swimmingly as we were eating up the miles. And then the wind suddenly died. There was no warning like a gradual drop-off in wind speed, clear skies or flat seas. One moment we were on a bearing for Rio and the next we were bobbing about on unforgiving waves like a cork with no steerage, the sails flogging back and forth as the swell briefly created its own wind in the sails as the boat rocked on all axes. Twice we managed to do a complete 360, our fishing lines getting horribly tangled with each other. We were in the dreaded doldrums. We knew it was likely to happen at some stage but had all secretly been hoping that we would avoid them. We also knew that it would be very frustrating for everyone but like so many things in life it is all very well trying to reason things we don’t like away but when you are stuck with the reality of the situation it chips away at your sanity and gradually erodes your sense of humour. It also didn’t help that the sun was scorching hot as even though we usually rigged the tarpaulin over the cockpit to provide much welcome shade, without any breeze the heat became stifling. Our spirits were lifted with the arrival of a freshly baked loaf of beer bread on the lunch table, accompanied by tuna mayonnaise, all of which got wolfed down like we hadn’t eaten for days. Sitting round the lunch table we resolved that we would take up with the race organizers the possibility of allowing the cruising class to do some motoring. The catamarans were permitted to motor through the doldrums as they had agreed en bloc to motor, whereas the cruising class hadn’t enjoyed such unanimity. Things had changed though as there were only 4 of us left in the cruising class after so many boats were forced to abandon the race with damage after the first two days. We would see what the next day brought and e-mail the race organizers our request if conditions didn’t improve.
It started raining in the early afternoon and most of the crew took the opportunity to have a fresh water shower. Interestingly it also became quite chilly, even though there was still no breeze. We collected two cooking pots of water that had collected in the stack pack (the canvas bag on the boom into which the mainsail is zipped up into when the boat is not in use at the marina). Marcus found a female crab on the stern of the boat while he was washing, it’s underside carapace full of babies.
Our daily position report put us back in third place after the Race Committee advised us that they had mixed up our and Vulcan’s handicaps. Although we were lying in 5th place in our class, just ahead of Jacaranda of Carrick, our handicap put us in 3rd place. We thought it likely that all of the yachts were experiencing the same wind conditions as us judging by where they were located and looking at the latest GRIB file that we had downloaded.
In the late afternoon the wind mercilessly picked up somewhat and we managed to start sailing on our desired course again at about 4 knots, which we very grateful for. Moving forward through the swell also allowed everyone the chance to get some reasonable shuteye when they came off watch as the motion of the boat being buffeted this way and that by the swell with no forward motion proved very uncomfortable and almost impossible to sleep through. Two fairly bright lights were discernable on the horizon off our port beam which we assumed were large ships considering how quickly they both moved ahead of us before disappearing from view.
Marcus with crab