Neither the High road nor the Low road.
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Tue 13 Sep 2011 08:34
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Tuesday 13th September 0730 UTC 0830
BST
28:13.67S 011:40.81E
Wind Speed 8 knots South, COG 305 Deg True, SOG 6
knots
Most of yesterday I glided along as if on air
skates. I sailed a beam to close reach and in 6 - 8 knots of boat speed was
........... between 6 and 8 knots depending exactly on the wind angle. This is
an excellent performance and was very welcome after the frustrating night
before.
As night drew in and I got my third night of
lasagne inside me, the full moon shone above Africa lighting up an exit path for
me to Namibia 200 miles on my right if I had chosen. For enjoying such
blissfull conditions I was rewarded with an extremely frustrating
night.
Yesterday at the time of writing the blog I had
hoped that I had just hooked onto the Southerly edge of the South Atlantic
high. Anyway it turned out not to be and after the beautiful reaching conditions
off the edge of what turned out to be the North of the passing low I was
deposited right off the end of the escalator into ..... well neither one thing
or another! Neither the Low road nor the High road. The doldrum like conditions
only served to deny me much sleep, provide much sail and rig chafing frustration
and posted a very strong message as to what I may expect in the horse
latitudes.
Now I know I said I was going to take my foot of
the throttle a little on this trip but spending a night between 2 and 5
knots with everything slopping around is a bit of a joke. The lightest of airs
were swinging around through 180 degrees. I find it difficult enough not to sail
Rhiann Marie to her optimum but I can't really tolerate the light conditions at
all. I am forced to constantly tweak and try to squeeze the best out of the
conditions I have been provided with. Grrrr! Very frustrating.
This morning again just before daylight the wind
steadied a little and built for a time to 10 knots but has now settled into
the south at about 8 knots. Not great but al least steady and I am making over 6
knots boat speed. I hope now that I have crossed over from the end of the low to
the beginning of the high. The forecast always looked flukey for me until from
Sunday till the end of Tuesday. (Just hit 6.6 knots there in 8.2 knots of
breeze!)
I was thinking of fishing today but I am not sure a
lure would not provide a drogue effect and slow me
down!
Current position is about two hundred miles off the
Namibian coast. The sun is already high in sky which has about 30% cloud cover.
Almost three miles below me is a disused submarine cable lying in 4,500 metres
of brine, which has now increased in temperature to 18 Deg. Outside temperature
is still I would estimate round about 16 - 17 deg but the breeze is very chill.
There has been very little shipping and thos that I have seen are following a
line inside me (between me and Africa) and are now mostly about 10 miles away.
No fishing boats have been spotted since the first day.
Though at home I was very focussed on business and
had little time to spend thinking about this trip a few events towards the end
of my time at home and my departure from Capetown focussed my mind on the risks
and challenges at hand. I was reading a book called "Halsey's Typhoon". This is
an account of an American fleet caught out in a Typhoon near the
Philipines during the second world war. Destroyers were actuall rolled and sunk
and over 800 men were lost. The accounts of the conditions were sobering to say
the least. Reading about seas which simply ripped superstructure on these
warships apart was nothing less than terrifying.
On the way out to Capetown I read of the sudden
capsize of the 100 foot yacht Rambler when she lost her keel just off the
Fastnet Rock, a place I sailed to alone only a few years ago. What was
particularly concerning about this event for me was that 1) the liferafts could
not be gotten out from there deck positions once the boat inverted and they
tried to inflate (Rhiann Marie's life raft is transom mounted - so should
float free in such a catastrophic event) 2) that five people who were thrown
into the water right beside the boat could not swim back to the boat and drifted
away (they were fortunately later picked up alive) and 3) perhaps most
worryingly of all that several boats passed by within 400 or 500 metres from an
upturned 100 foot yacht and did not see it - the conditions were not even
bad! The message for me once again is you do not end up in the water. If a 100
foot yacht can be missed what chance is there of finding a person.
The third thing that helped serve as a reminder not
to be complacent was the story told to me by the young sailor working with
the rigger who was doing some work on Rhiann Marie for me in Capetown. He
described how when on a race from Rio Janeiro to Capetown and some 200
miles off Tristan da Cunha their yacht sunk. As usual there is a series of
events acting together which culminated in this event. They suffered a technical
problem and could no longer receive weather information. An unexpected storm
came down on them and they battled with winds which peaked at 70 mph.
The next day with the rig apparently having been fatally damaged the mast
came down. They tried cutting everything away with bolt cutters but could not
get the rigging cut away quickly enough before the mast holed the yacht and she
sunk. Fortunately they did get into their liferaft and were picked up by a ship
two days later.
If I don't talk to you later I hope that by
tomorrow I will be in the South Atlantic high pressure system and the SE
trades.
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