Trough
Vega
Hugh and Annie
Sun 3 Jun 2018 21:32
As usual at this stage of a long passage we both have feelings of homesickness. If ever you wonder how much you might miss your family, friends and life back home if you were away from them try sailing around the world. Even better, hit bad weather in the middle of an ocean, sleep badly, deal with boat problems and suddenly Blighty doesn’t seem such a bad place after all!
On this passage so many boats were keen to leave NZ and head north that we all followed the herd and took what looked liked being a good weather window. This after a big low pressure system had passed over NZ. What we hadn’t appreciated was the significance of the low pressure trough, with its associated warm front, passing across our track roughly half way between NZ and Fiji/Tonga. On a weather map a trough, or in our case, long north south oriented valley of low pressure air, doesn’t look terribly significant unless you really understand your isobars and wind directions. Air from higher pressure feeds into a trough from each side so that we had strong north easterly wind as the trough approached, torrential rain and strong wind along the warm front running down the east side of the trough, and now north westerly wind after the trough passed through. At one point we had 40kts of wind and big seas.
For us this is the longest period of bad weather we have sailed through but, to be fair, for seasoned campaigners it probably wasn’t that big a deal. Ahead of its arrival I had been worried about our forward lower shrouds being too loose. Seeing your leeward shrouds wobble around every time the boat slams into a wave gives some sailors (i.e. me) the heeby geebies. It means that the mast is flexing and whilst this may be fine for the mast, it surely cannot be good for the shroud and its fitting to be continually relieved of it’s tension only to have it thumped back on as the mast straightens again. So, armed with a big screwdriver and a pair of pliers, I set to and tightened the offending shrouds. It seems to have worked! As a result, instead of worrying that the rig was going to fall down at any moment, I was actually reassured during the worst of the weather by how well Vega was handling things and keeping us safe and dry. Well, almost, because we discovered that every time a wave came across the bow, water came straight through the front hatch soaking the bedding and everything else in the front cabin. It is like having your home broken into and no longer feeling it is the safe impregnable cocoon that is your respite from the outside world. However, the application of silicon sealant into the rubber seal around the hatch rim completely cured the leak. Or possibly because I had also found a line from the dinghy around the outer rim of the hatch that may have been preventing the cover from closing properly. One momentous consequence of the bad weather was that, for the first time ever, we had three reefs in the mainsail. Furthermore I had hanked the hitherto unused storm jib onto the inner forestay, ready to be hoisted if required. It was, and after some heroic deck-work to get it set up which involved crawling forward to the mast and foredeck and getting drenched as the waves broke over Vega, our smallest available combination of sails - fully reefed mainsail and storm jib - saw us safely through a long day and night.
There are boats out here with worse problems than ours. One has a leaking stern gland that they have managed to control to the extent that their bilge pump can keep pace with the inflow. One had lost the use of both plotter and autopilot and had broken windvane steering gear and had to steer by hand and navigate by ipad. The autopilot and plotter have now been repaired with the help of advice given over the radio. You may have to be pretty resourceful at times!
Coming through such an experience gives rise to the homesickness which is, of course, a yearning for the safety and familiarity of people and places. It gives rise to intense feelings of pleasure at the thought of, say, coffee and a sandwich in John Lewis with Annie, walking familiar streets in Bristol, supper with friends, being with grandchildren Isla and Rohan. It is, in the Stoic way, possible to derive real pleasure and a joy of living from seemingly small daily events.
Being content, even deriving great joy, from small things in life is a blessing. It is also a danger however. Those who seek wealth and power know this because they exploit it to their advantage. It is how 10% of the UK population has 44% of the national wealth. It is why those who control our outdated and unfair institutions are so reluctant for change and why people generally are so passive about this. It can also lead to indifference to the plight of those less fortunate. Although people like me who fret about these things but are powerless to do anything about it should not give up and accept the status quo, we must also not lose sight of the fact that the small things in life really are the most important.
Last night we had the most wonderful, gentle upwind sailing across a smooth sea. The starboard navigation light of yacht Hakuna Matata twinkled on the horizon seven miles behind us. This morning, despite a forecast suggesting we will need to motor for up to four days, we can maintain passage speed by sailing and Annie and I are enjoying breakfast in the cockpit in the warm early morning sun. Sailing has its simple pleasures also!