michael's round the world adventure

 
 
Well, we’ve made it – a little late – to Geraldton, Western Australia, and what a great feeling it is to be here. The last few days we have been sailing into the wind, resulting in much more harsh living conditions on board, with the boat heeling at up to 35 degrees, and slamming into the waves with considerable force. Sleep has been hard to come by, and the most simple tasks down below have taken on an extra degree of difficulty. It has been a pretty steady week in terms of boat speed though. The majority of the time, aside from the odd lull, we have been doing 10 miles every hour, which is pretty successful for upwind sailing. It sometimes feels faster than the average downwind speeds – 15 or 16 knots – we were achieving in the Southern Ocean! We have also had the opportunity to get up the rig to make safe (using a combination of black tack and various tapes) the pin which caused the damage to our heavy and light weight spinnakers. We have since flown the medium weight spinnaker without issue, and will be implementing a more permanent repair when we get to Australia.

It has felt odd hearing the news of all the other boats finishing the race while we were still out making best speed to Geraldton. The reports coming back to us of a fabulous welcome there made us want to get there even quicker, so we continued to push hard. We were aware in advance that we would be retiring at the finish as a result of the damage we caused to Hull & Humber on the start line, but there was a lot of pride at stake. Having taken almost a full day less to complete the crossing than the rest of the fleet, I think we have succeeded in that to a certain extent.

Reflecting on this leg, I think all on board would agree that the Southern Ocean was not as unkind to us as we had expected. The seas were slighter, and the winds lighter. Still, there was some excellent sailing to be had – the highlight for me being surfing down waves with the wind behind us and the spinnaker up, at over 20 knots. It’s not something many will experience, and something that I will always remember.

It has been very tough, particularly with the knowledge that we were not to be competitive in this race. The mood on board has been pretty upbeat, but that has always been in the back of our minds. Certainly for me, it feels like I have let people back home down, and it’s not a feeling that I like – and certainly not one that I intend to repeat. It’s time now to put this leg behind us, and get ready for the tactical battle up to Singapore. We have the boat and the crew to do well, we need to start getting the results consistently to back that up, and to give our faithful supporters back home something to be proud of!

For now though, we will be kept busy for the next couple of days sanding and painting the underside of the boat – she was lifted out this evening. We will have a few days off over Christmas, and then back to work to have the boat all ready before New Year! Believe it or not, this is my first Christmas away from my family, and it will be very strange not being home. I was lucky enough to see my parents in Cape Town, which was great, but I will still miss seeing them at Christmas, as well as my sisters, brother-in-law, and especially my wonderful nieces Niamh, Aisling and Amelia, and my goddaughter Lynne.

As I’m unlikely to be able to get in touch with everybody over the Christmas period, I’ll take this opportunity to wish family and friends a very happy Christmas, and a great New Year!

Slan agus beannacht!

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Post Title. 12/13/2009
 
What a difference a pin makes! 11th December 2009.

Just over a week of sailing in the Southern Ocean, and this infamous body
of water has managed to take its’ toll on our sail wardrobe, despite a
lesser sea state than I expected.

We officially entered the Southern Ocean last Friday, with a nice bit of
swell to surf off, but nothing like reports we’ve all heard of what it can
be like. We had some issues within a couple of days with piston hanks –
which hold the headsails onto the forestay, one of the cables that
supports the mast – coming lose, and had to drop the sail for a straight
forward repair to those.

Due to somewhat variable swell angles – we had waves coming from both
behind and the side of the boat, which makes things a bit unstable – we
didn’t fly the spinnakers too much during this period, opting instead for
a poled-out headsail on our downwind route. This setup actually gave us
some pretty good performance – hitting a maximum of 25.6 knots surfing
down a wave during a particularly interesting squall, complete with
hailstones… Doesn’t sound like much, but it feels really fast in a 30
tonne boat, and was the fastest in the fleet at the time. Since then, our
good friends on Hull & Humber (now fully repaired following our run in…)
clocked a top speed of 28.4 knots, making them the fastest boat in race so
far. Perhaps we shed some weight for them?

We celebrated Richie’s birthday on Tuesday, with cake and champagne. Two
bottles this time between the 16 of us on board – maybe we shouldn’t have
been driving after that! Nice to have a bit of a distraction from the
serious business of sailing the boat fast.

The last couple of days have not been great for us unfortunately. First
our heavyweight spinnaker, and today the lightweight, have been ripped to
such an extent that we cannot repair them on board. Only when the second
spinnaker, the lightweight, ripped in exactly the same place as the first
did it become clear that there was a problem. Richie headed up the rig,
and after some inspection found a split pin which was sticking out of the
rigging. The source of the tears, it is likely that it was dislodged when
the rig was worked on in the course of repairs following the start line
incident in Cape Town. Rig checks in the meantime had not spotted the
issue, and it is a frustrating lesson for us all to learn. A Christmas of
sewing the sails back together in Geraldton awaits…

On the positive, we are now just 1650 nautical miles from Geraldton, and
are making good progress towards our objective – once more running on a
poled  out headsail. We’re all looking forward to the break, and have
already been discussing the Christmas dinner options. A full on roast, or
a barbeque on the beach?! Decisions, decisions…

Slan agus beannacht.
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We’ve been on our way now from Cape Town to Geraldton, Western
Australia, for one week, and progress is good so far. We are catching up
with the rest of the fleet, with our target to arrive in Geraldton at
the same time or before the backmarkers at least!

So last Thursday, the 26th of November, we got on our way after some
great work by the maintenance team and the team at Action Yachting in
Cape Town to get the boat back in action and ready to race. Initial
sailing was upwind, heading south to get into the trade winds. Little
progress towards our objective, but really some positional sailing which
pays off later in the race. There were a few spates of illness in the
first couple of days, but fortunately nothing serious and we seem to be
over all that now. It was also quite difficult to get back into the
watch system after a full two weeks off – the longest break we’ve had so
far!

We are heading east now, down at about 39 degrees south, just 15 miles
from the official start of the Southern Ocean. We are in some nice
breeze just here, so we plan to stick around here for the time being,
and probably get down further south at some point in the next 3,500
miles! It has gotten really cold down here, with full mid layer kit
required underneath the outer layer of oilskins, particularly at night.
Winds are up at about 20-25 knots, but we’ve not really had too much of
the infamous Southern Ocean swell as yet – that is all to come…

We have had our new medium weight spinnaker up, although only for 20
minutes… Glad to report it looks fine – the medium weight has the
Clipper and CORK branding on it, and the sound of a crisp new spinnaker
is still unbeatable! Not necessarily worth four race points, but it’s
nice to have it all the same… We have had the heavy weight up a lot
more, and have been getting some nice speeds with that – up to about 18
knots so far. There is more yet to come, we hope!

There have been a couple of challenges already, just one week in. Due to
some damage to one of the spinnaker pole “butt hoists”, the parts on the
mast that hold onto the pole, we can only have one pole up at a time for
this leg, which means gybing the spinnaker is a lot more difficult. We
have to carry out a “dip pole” gybe, lifting the pole up the mast, and
dipping the outboard end to get it past the inner forestay, then
changing over all the lines – uphaul, downhaul, and guy – before
resetting the pole on the other side of the boat. A complicated
manoeuvre while still attempting to keep the boat going and battling the
small swells of around 2-3 metres.

Gusts and squalls have also been interesting, with one this morning
resulting in a dramatic round up, with the boom in the water and the
boat heeled over as the helm – unfortunately in this instance me – tried
to regain control after a very sudden increase in wind strength. I saw
it coming far too late, just seconds before it hit. A lesson to exercise
increased vigilance, if ever there was one.

Anyway, we continue to catch the fleet, our nearest target being
California. We made 100 miles on them in the last two days, and keeping
up that sort of pace should get us into Geraldton on the same day as
them at least, which would be a satisfying result for us given the way
the race started! We shall see. I know that this week will certainly be
an interesting one though, with building wind and seas. I look forward
to providing the next update, hopefully with more good news on progress
towards our goal. Australia for Christmas – not a bad thing to be aiming
for!

Slan agus beannacht.
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