Need a lift?
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Wed 15 Dec 2010 17:08
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December 16th 0020 Local 1620 UTC December
15th
00:32.55S 106:10.60E
Check the latitude guys! We are about to cross
the equator for the second time on our circumnavigation! We should cross in
about four hours or so. That will take us out of the southern hemisphere but not
out of the ITC. The ITC (Inter Tropical Confluence) or ITCZ (Inter Tropical
Convergence Zone) as it is also called is the confluence of northerly and
southerly weather systems. In the Atlantic it is known as the Doldrums and is an
area between the SE Trades and NE Trades. The Doldrums were known for driving
people mad! Apparently the ITC has the same effect!
This passage has had only a few things to commend
it. One was the radio calls from poor Bernard so excited to talk to someone
after 46 days alone at sea. Another is the return of the lunatics on the VHF at
noght. They were last heard off the coast of Africa when they made animal
noises, and some played out sexual scenes while others exchanged expletives
through the night over VHF. For a couple of nights recently they have been
allowed in charge of their ships radios again. This time pathetically and
hilariously at the same time some body has been groaning out full blown orgasms
from start to finish through the black lumpy weather of night. For real! I
think they are real orgasms - Trish said they were fake ............
?
Today out of frustration I tried a new trick.
Sailing upsquall!. We have sailed up wind, up tide, up current, up river even
"up sun" however "up squall" is a new trick! Here's how you play the game.
As we are beating into the weather normally either tack would do but today
finally we had one favoured tack. The squalls are attacking us from up wind and
therefor we are generally heading straight into them. They have been so intense
that all sail goes away and we motor into the - gingerly. In the Atlantic they
were coming from behind our quarter so we could harden up in front of them build
the pressure and then fly off downwind off the face of them. Here we needed a
new tactic.
So having established the feel of them, what to do
is approach them on favoured tack if there is one. Timing is critical otherwise
you will be writing your insurers about how your mast just fell down without
warning! So using the radar judge how long and till the squall would hit
and how much time is required to sail across the front of it without it
devouring you. Sums done, throw the boat into the less favoured tack across the
front of the squall. As the pressure starts to build reduce the sail a little if
you have got it right (a lot and quickly if you have got it wrong!) As the
pressure builds not only are go going to start accelerating you will then start
to get a "lift" which will of course help your VMG (you wil get home quicker for
the non sailors). This is a blast and you can ease away if you have over cooked
it or keep hardening up to it if you can handle it. Just check the attached
picture where yo can clearly see my track (and the squall in purple as it had
now passed through) where I took a 90 degree "lift" out of this squall, I
started about 5 knots on starboard in 13 knots of wind. At the peak across the
face of it I was doing 9 knots in 23 knots of wind and and finished laying
our course and back at 5 knots on port tack. I have to say at one or two points
when I had a raging river of white water above my leeward side deck that I
thought I had over cooked it. The look on Trish's face persuaded me to ease away
though. What an absolute blast - and we still have out mast and boom and have
dramatically improved the distance we have covered for the day.
I was confident about the boom because my jury rig
is more sound that the original set up! I have attached a photo for
you, of which I only said a little in a previous blog. However the
explosive bang which this part failed with was very dramatic. No doubt
if anyody had been hit by the boom downwind they would be somewhere else
for Christmas. Trying to get a strop round the flailing boom was no mean
feat. I know you will think the strop looks a bit untidy and it is true I
didn't have time to whip the ends of the rope which I used. But when I explain
hopefully you will overlook this tardy bit of seamanship....
After the u-bolt snapped the boom was flailing
wildly. Now the photo may not show this, but the boom is of a section that
is significantly larger than many a boat's mast section. I was like a
sparring parner for the Great Ali trying to avoid a fatal blow, but still trying
to reign in the boom. It could not be physically held in the wind with the
remaining section of mainsheet. You will notice from the photo that the sheared
stainless stell u-bolt is protruding dangerously where it was trying to give me,
at best a full frontal labotomy or more likely, carve a trench along the top of
my head. Now that would not be very nice for Christmas would it? So I don't want
to hear another word about whether my strop should be neater and have the
ends whipped or not - if you don't mind.
Now don't mention a word to the HSE please I have
recurring nightmares about them waiting at the steps of the aircraft when I
get back to the UK - to lock me up "for my own good"
That's all for tonight folks, now please don,t have
nightmares.
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