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Follow my wallow - for the sailors. We've all sat in the oily
swell in the Channel or the Solent or off Sydney Heads or wherever with no
wind, the kite or the headsail and the main slatting and banging and tearing
out their cringles and thought we were particularly unlucky. So we were, but
it's all relative. Next time it happens to you, and a ship passes, imagine that
the waves are as big as the ship and about 100 to 150 metres apart, with the
swell you are sitting in applied across the top. And there you are, trying to
keep the boat moving with nowt on the wind indicator. Now THAT's wallow. It is
all happening right here - the wind dropped out as predicted as the high
arrived and we rolled around, as above. Then a whisper - up to 8 kt, but hard
to tell because of the roll - bit the bullet and rigged the pole and tried to
hand steer downwind - much banging and crashing but tiny progress - a speed
reading on the log - .75, 1.2....eventually cracking 4 kts in about 10 kts of
ephemeral breeze and the electric autohelm is driving as I write. Still a crash
or two as the main goes inside out and takes the boom with it but progress.
This note will be even more disjointed than usual because I have to keep
leaping up on deck to tweak the autohelm.
G'day to all the new Gusts and readers. It seems we have hit the
news. We can't get the internet or read the papers here so all we know is what
Stephen is able to send us via Sailmail - he sends us your emails pasted into a
single download and gives us the gust entries when he can. We get 10 minutes
per day connect time over the Sailmail link, so it is all very compressed and
the whole website has to be run within this constraint. Up till now, I have tried
to acknowledge you all individually but this may be a bit difficult for a few
days until the rush fades. Please forgive me if you don't get a mention.
Small concern - we seem to be using our methylated spirit rather
faster that at any previous time - time for a stocktake in the morning - we may
need to conserve, so no more bread or pasta, for instance. Poo! But it hasn't
happened yet. I wonder if Pete is secretly drinking the stuff - poor lad's not
blue with cold when he staggers in after a dismal night watch - perhaps it's a
metho stain.
Our ephemeral zephyr has gone and we're back in megawallow.
Gotta go.
Much tweaking later - just managing forward progress in about
5-8kts - takes a bit of concentration. Now overcast - Mars, I think, visible
thro tiny gap. Real southern ocean phosphorescence again - Berri leaving smoky
trail snaking through the water, turbine a bright blob as it stirs the dinos on
the end if its line 40 metres behind.
Chris - love your poem, not at all fussed by the cost effective
use of the singular! One sailor, like an unknown warrior, can represent us all.
[ed: will seek permission to publish]
I've been thumpingly chastised by my sister for going public
about her dental floss fetish - she's in denial, but everyone has known for years
that she sneaks out at night and fossicks in the neighbours' dustbins for those
curly knotty bits of used floss that she then obsessively ties together to re-use. We're a strange lot. In fact, she
uses rolls of the stuff to achieve spectacular effects by tie-dyeing silk and
other material. I think her website is at www.isabellawhitworth.co.uk
if you don't believe me. I want her to do a spinnaker for Berri, but she hasn't
collected enough floss yet. Maybe all y'all could send her yours... Perhaps I
shouldn't joke - there's bound to be someone out there that doesn't do irony.
If that's what this is.
DB:99, 7108, gps 105 - much as expected. Its getting quite cold
- to labour the joke just once, VOAI mega-squeezy.
Malcom - found the islands at 7730E - almost exactly half way
across - any chance you could do the research for us - would be nice to talk to
them? Callsign and frequency and time if poss - ship and shore stn.
Pete not a closet metho freak - we found a hidden stash so we'll
survive. Much relief - shows the problems of stowage in a small boat and then
remembering later.
Will send and do another later - fingers too cold for more.
The next few days will, I think, be wet and windy. There seems
to be a tight low forming behind the high we are sitting under and tomorrow the
wind will veer to the north west and north and increase over the next two days.
Not the best bit of a southern ocean low to be in front of but it doesn't look
too fierce at the moment. We will be nicely in the top of it and we will go for
the 5 and the trisail or perhaps 3 reefs at the first sign of nastiness and hoon
along as fast as it will carry us generally eastwards. I hope. Just pottering
twin poled in a zephyr awaiting todays Con with the good Dr Gordon in 45
minutes. Pigeon like birds all departed - now have a couple of biggish brown
guys flying formation around us and a much more round winged bird, about a
metre span, brownish with white strip diagonally at outer end of top of wings.
This guy keeps trying to land on the masthead and getting itself in a twist -
it has been trying several different versions of finals but there's nowhere up
there for it to put its feet.
Mal, thanks for the ISS pass details - I think we might still be
under the low by Friday and we wont get to see it even though we should be well
to the east in line for a nice high one. Poo! Do you know when the ISS 11 crew
are due to land? And who is on ISS 12?
Jeff F., thanks for your good wishes. I'm pleased to be able to
report that your erstwhile colleagues seem to have the same opinion of yachties
as you do - they've all managed to avoid us so far.
Mark R, please tell your wife to ignore us old farts and to
follow her dreams - out here is not as bad as it seems and, VoA
notwithstanding, I wouldn't have missed it for all those tea bags. Just
watching the birds and the dolphins yesterday was better than a bus trip to
work.
We are approaching the Greenwich meridian for my fourth time
this year, after standing astride the official Meridian marker outside
Flamsteed's house at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and a couple of times
en route to Malta and back from LHR, which don't really count. We crossed 180
degrees at about 40 S at the Antipodes Islands east of NZ back in February
almost directly opposite our likely crossing in a couple of days. The
milestones are piling up - good feeling.
Baldy D, I think I may have sent you on a bit of a wild goose
chase - apologies if so, but I have a feeling we did not post Brian's story
about his Qantas flight over Antarctica talking about the various sunrises he
saw because we couldn't contact him for permission, but Brian, if you are
reading this, and it's ok with you, could you please let Stephen know at
berri@berrimilla.com that is's ok to post it. Baldy is a BA 747 jockey who
flies over the Canadian Arctic. Thanks. Stephen I think it was before NZ -
don't remember exactly.
[Ed: here tis
]
Hi Al,
I've been following your
adventures with great interest and thanking my lucky stars it's you and not me
out there. Huge admiration on my part...! The CSIRO wiz was talking thru
his bum re your course and heading; you are obviously on an accurate
course with your GPS. However, I agree with him about where and
when the sun rises, as I worked it out on a Buenos Aires to Auckland leg I
flew at this time of the year a couple of years back. We took off at
2200, in the dark, and headed about 190 past Cape Horn to 60S, then turned
right and followed 60S to stay out of the Westerly at 35000 feet. Then at
about 150W steered northwest up to Auckland. What happened sunwise was
this; as we got down to 60S, the sun appeared to the South. (At our
altitude, we were looking at it 'beneath' the globe) The sun then
remained on our port side till we turned Northwest some hours later, when it
disappeared and we were in darkness again. About two hours after that, we
had the normal slow sunrise behind us in the East. All this caused some alarm
among the sisterhood down the back of the aeroplane. ("Darrel, I TOLD you
that Captain Maher couldn't be trusted. We're all going to DIE because of
him....") I"m sure the foregoing has been of absolutely no use
to you atall, but I thought I'd tell you anyway. Keep up the good
work and don't talk to any strange icebergs. All the best, Brian
and M.C.
PeterB - further to bird description - they have darker wingtips
on top and a diagonal dark band on each wing top from mid leading edge back
inwards to wing root at the body, undersides of wing leading edges dark,
otherwise white. Lovely to look at - soft greyish brown and crisp white.
We now have a copy of the Times article. That Ed Gorman must
have a mind like mine, poor bastard. My deepest sympathy. But it's going to be
a hard act to follow. How the hell am I going to be able to go on churning out
this codswallop for another two months in imitation of myself? Can't be done.
But We Shall Overcome - just have to forget I read it. And who wrote that Big
Wave headline? Groan. Could'a been me. Thanks Ed.
I'm amazed by the number of people who have stuck up their hands
after my VoA gig and said that they have the same affliction - we must be a
nation of silent sufferers - takes me back to the Titan Uranus episodes way
back in this log - in fact I use the stuff as a prophylactic rather than a
remedy - it keeps the working parts meshing smoothly, so to speak, as I go
about my daily tasks and helps to retain my sense of humour. Groan again. Chris
P, I'm right there with you...How could the bastards know?? But thanks
everyone, for sharing your experiences and favourite remedies. I have them all
in my little black book for future reference.
G'day to all the new Gusts and correspondents - again. I'm
perilously close to my Sailmail connection limit, so won't list you all, but
thanks for your good wishes and for your comments on what we are doing. So many
people out there dream about this - it's uncanny. Martin, thanks for your
thoughts re book - I'm still trying to work out how to do it. And Peter D,
likewise. Paul R. is it ok if we post your calculation suggestion? Hope you
enjoy your little drift and the mud bath.
Still pottering along waiting for the change. Cold overcast
night, occasional moon and indeterminate stars in the gaps, long rolling swell,
flat grey reflections, the poled out headies silhouetted as darker shapes
hardening the gloom, their edges sometimes caught by the masthead light. Tiller
lines squeaking - it's so quiet I can hear them - and the water rustling past
and gently stirring the barnacles. Ampair whirring away in spasmodic activity.
It has a different note when it is charging from when just idling.
Compressed our garbage today into big plastic bag and then into
supermarket tray. We're doing well - there's only a very small cube of it, now
lashed on deck instead of festering in the lazarette.
Ladies and gents - we have just really turned left. We are
running along roughly the 38th parallel-
a significant boundary further north as well. A Consultation is
occurring and then I need some sleep. Will do DB update later. Tasmania, here
we come. Keep them fingers crossed for us and get out the calculators.
WOOOOHOOOO!
DB:117, 6954 gps 123, 54/56
About a week to the barn door.
Reading Ed's article has rattled the marbles a bit. I've been
trying to pin down what it was that started all this and I think it may have
been as far back as the day my parents gave me Joshua Slocum's book to read. I
must have been about 10, but that book as it were lit the candle and set a
standard for what is possible and that standard underpins this venture as well.
When I first had the idea, long before I met Pete and perhaps as far back as
the 1977 Hobart, it was a fantasy but with definite attitude. I can remember it
sitting out there as a sort of whimsical dare that I used to play with and I
think some decisions since then have been influenced by the harder edge of that
fantasy. The Sydney -Rio start in Jacqui was one of these and there's always been
that unfinished 1961 Fastnet out there stage left. When it became possible for
me to buy a boat this size, I had a tiny budget. I was looking for a seaworthy
go-anywhere boat at the right price, but with the 50th Sydney-Hobart race in
the front of my mind rather that a jaunt across the ocean to play at Fastnets.
But always, down there lurking in the subconscious was old Joshua, putting
tintacks in front of my bare feet to send me generally in this direction. For
instance, I had decided that an S&S 34 was the way to go, but the S&S
tag meant that they were all - I thought - significantly overpriced for what
was on offer. Berrimilla eventually cost me a bit over half the lower end
S&S's and has proved to be at least their equal. When this project finally
surfaced as an idea with some substance, the boat was there and was partly
prepared. Thanks Joshua. I did one longish two handed trip in 1994, from Eden
to Sydney with Flop and we may have talked about it then, but it was when Pete
and I two handed Berrimilla back from Hobart in January 2000 that the idea
really eased into the frame. Even then, it needed a lot of other lucky breaks,
like a modest redundancy cheque and tolerant families, but here we are. And -
most astonishingly of all, there you all are.
Ed says I'm an unabashed traditionalist. Sounds a bit wooden
headed to me. I don't think so, unless that means that I try not to repeat past
mistakes - mine or other peoples'. Berrimilla may be a traditional boat but
she's full of some very non traditional gear - this laptop, for instance. And
while I'm now a bit too decrepit to do it myself, I applaud those who push the
envelope with courage and stamina and persistence - Ellen MacArthur and Pete
Goss and Kay Cottee, the many French men and women and all the others. But
these people take calculated risks in sponsored boats that are designed for the
purpose - mostly anyway. As an aside, who remembers the photo of one of the
single handers' boats floating upside down somewhere south of here with its
keel still on and him sitting on the upturned hull waiting for rescue? Well, at
least the keel stayed on, which I suppose earns some brownie points, but that
lesson has been learned the hard way because people do push the edge. At the
same time it is possible to have a great deal of respect for the early pioneers
like Columbus and the later Corinthians like Slocum, who do this sort of thing
without engines, radios, watermakers or any of the modern goodies, and often do
it without seeking the coverage that we have been lucky enough to have been
given. A Frenchman did it quite recently, I think, and wrote a book about it,
but no-one knew he was out here and there's a single hander from Slovenia
toiling along behind us as I write, doing it very hard indeed.
On the other hand, I would think very carefully and take a lot
of care picking my crew before I would set off for Hobart in a boat that was
engineered for going round the buoys and short inshore races followed by an
evening in the bar. Not the same exercise at all. Pounding to windward in 45
knots across Bass Strait in one of those is not my idea of common sense - the
boat ought to be able to protect the crew rather than the other way around, so
it needs a special crew. Furthermore, it can put other people at risk, in rescue
helicopters and lifeboats, so I would have to be prepared to go for the nearest
bolt hole before or at least as soon as the conditions deteriorated. Today it
is no longer seen to be wimpish to pull out of long races and that has to be a
change for the better. Anyway, that may be a Luddite viewpoint, but I don't
think it is wooden headed.
The sheer wonder of all this has just poked me firmly in the
eye. Here we are in our little plastic bathtub home with all its talky toys,
barrelling across the South Atlantic towards the barn door south of Africa. I
have just written to a couple of teachers and their classes in Sydney about
Turner's paintings and my daughter's higher school certificate art project, which
included a copy of a Turner painting on an old kitchen door. One of those
teachers may just possibly be a descendant of Henry Knight's father. There's an
inspirational sunrise going on in front of us and the moon set an hour or so
ago directly astern - a great glowing orange ball behind some wispy cloud. And
tonight, if we get lucky, we should be able to wave once again to the
International Space Station as it passes overhead. And, most gobsmackerooningly
of all, I can report it to all y'all in purple prose. To misquote myself -
sorry Ed! - Scupper me Dingbats All Over! Isn't technology wonderful? I can
feel a Consultation and a bacon sando coming on. Time to wake Pete. Ed G. If
you are still reading this, send us your email address and we'll give you exclusives
on VoAI and the like.
DB 148, 6803. gps 150 55/55 HALf WAY on the Dec 11 sked.
Wooohooo. And we've sailed at least 6520 miles by the GPS so close on distance
too.
Small challenge, courtesy Paul Reid in a mudhole on Pulau Tiga:
I've noticed you have a penchant for meaningless calculations.
The horizontal distance traveled is all well and good, but have you estimated
your vertical distance traveled? i.e. the total of average wave height x
frequency for each day, and how does your height travelled relate to the height
above the earth of the ISS? Maybe another prize competition for the nearest
estimate!! (Sounds ok to me - any takers??)
(5/6 at Belmore South - can you find Pulau Tiga? You will need a
really good atlas and then you can plot it on Google Earth, below)
And a toy for when Steve is up in the mountains and you aren't
getting these, also from Paul:
Something to look forward to when you two finally stop moving is
a website called Google Earth. Good fun for armchair circumnavigators. It's a
3D globe where you can pinpoint the exact location of Berrimilla (or anything
else) by lat/long and scroll around, pan up and down, zoom in & out and do
all sorts of wonderful things. You can fly down the Hoover Dam, or the Grand
Canyon, I was able to plot and insert a pushpin at your position north of TdC
(Top Dead Centre?) and pan down to the island in 3D to see 'you' come over the
horizon. Oh and of course, major cities are visible in high definition. I can
see my brother-in-laws car parked outside his house in Hong-Kong.
"Who'd sail in the tropics?" Thanks Paul.
Sitrep: 1530hrs 14 Oct 2005 UTC 3831S 00227W Ref 441
Another discourse on heavy weather sailing for the ocean
sailors. We have just dropped from the #4 and two reefs to the storm jib and
trisail. Setting the trisail is a major dockyard job in Berrimilla, yet it
ought to be - really must be - one of the easiest sails to set. It is always
set when things are getting bad, the boat is often moving quite violently, the
wind tends to be at the shriek stage and there's water flying everywhere. In
Berri, both of us have to get up to the mast to drop the main, still in its
track, loosely tie it and then drop it out of its track and lash it properly.
Then we have to feed the trisail halyard tape slugs into the track followed by
the sail, run the sheets (which is often quite difficult) and then haul it up
and trim it. Ludicrous when you think about it - that lot is the last project
you would want to undertake as things get nasty. This time we set it really
early in expectation that things will get worse - the correct way to do it.
So what's the answer? The best one I have seen was a set up on a
boat in Hobart - Gerry Fitzgerald has photos if he's out there - where the
trisail has a separate track going right down to the deck and the sail is
permanently rigged in this track, snugged down under a cover at deck level when
not needed. Dead easy to set - just drop the main and lash it and haul up the
tri. There isn't room to do this on Berri and probably on a lot of other boats
- we can't get another track on to the mast and there isn't anywhere to stow
the sail at deck level - at least, there isn't now. A compromise would be a
gate in the track above the level of the lowered main so that the tri can be
fed into it without taking the main out of the track. I tried to get this done
in Falmouth but the rigger ran out if time and we opted to go without. Big
mistake.
So there it is. The trisail is a get you out of trouble sail -
very effective if used properly - and it must be ruthlessly easy to get it up
or you will delay putting it up until it is too late, as we did a couple of times
approaching and leaving Cape Horn. Bad Karma.
Having said all of which, we are now snug and happy having
dropped from a rather dizzy and stressful 7+ knots in a nasty beam sea to a
positively Bishoplike 4 - 5. Noice. Consultation with Dr Gordon in 90 minutes
and it's a special half way milestone Con. Sadly, it's 100% overcast and yet
again we're not going to see the ISS go over - it is not an easy one to crack.
And someone tried to phone us at about 0930 UTC this morning.
The first two rings came in then we lost the satellite signal - actually, the
coax aerial cable pulled out of its socket - they don't make these toys for
boats, sorry. I fixed it and there was a single ring about 10 minutes later. If
something does go wrong, always have another go in say fifteen minutes.
DB: 120, 6663 gps 127, 56/54 and isn't that a nice ratio?
Pete has been messing with the entrails and other grot amongst
the boot ferals and has asked me to post his ETA at SE Cape so: Da-Daah! intro
with fanfare on Aida trumpets - he reckons 1700 on December 5th. I do so hope
he's right! That's about 139 miles per day. Certainly possible down here. Are
there any challengers out there - we have 1700, Dec 5 and Dec 11 (say midday)
on the table.
Trisail discourse part 2: Having got the thing up - all nice and
colourful - and the hatch closed and the boat snug and warm and the wind noise
muted and the water still rushing past
the hull - you can sleep. And - having slept, the wind noise still muted and
the water still rushing past, but the conditions having improved significantly,
the temptation is to leave it up a bit longer (while you contemplate the feel
of wet party gear and wet socks against nice warm dry skin), rather than having
to reverse the dockyard job to get it off and reset the main. No problem if you
are cruising - a couple of knots off the top for half a day doesn't amount to
much. If you are racing, you've lost it right there. We went well in the
Fastnet because we sailed the boat metre by metre all the way around and it
paid off, especially at the end when it would have been really easy to have
stayed down with the #1 instead of setting the assy across the bay from
Mevagissey.
For the nautically challenged, my apologies - a trisail is a
tiny storm sail that is set on the mast instead of the mainsail (the big one at
the back). It has two sheets or controlling lines and it is not set on the boom
so it has a loose foot and can be tweaked all over the place if needed. Berrimilla's
is dayglo orange and white - mostly today they are all dayglo in orange or
pink. As an ex aviator who has spent quite a lot of time in helicopters looking
for people and wreckage in the water, I can confirm that those two colours are
the easiest to see against a frothy grey background. The sail is about as big
as half a king size bed sheet cut diagonally. The full mainsail, by comparison,
is about 12 metres by 3.5, with a curved trailing edge. When the wind
increases, it can be reefed or made smaller, three times, each time reducing
the bit that is left by about a quarter and the bit that is left after the
third reef is about twice as big as the trisail. I hope that's not too
technical.
As I write, we are 34 miles west of the Greenwich meridian so we
should cross in about 6 hours. We crossed the equator at 2617 W, or nearly 1600
miles west - that's a long diversion to stay in favourable winds but essential.
The great circle from Greenwich to Cape Agulhas just about follows the
meridian, so it's a long way around. And another meaningless statistic - at
3911S in about 17 miles, we will be south of Wilson's Promontory, the
southernmost point of mainland Oz, so at least in theory, we will be as far
south as we need to go to get back to Sydney.
I've just started to read Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth
(the paperback Virago edition, 1978), a special favourite, which I've been
carefully saving until things started to get really hard. I found it on a shelf
for book swapping in the marina laundry in Lymington and feel guilty that I
took it without leaving anything in return. All Berrimilla's outward books went
to a charity shop in Falmouth. It's the second time I have read it, the first
being inspired by the BBC TV series based on it about 20 years ago. There's a
line in it that I remember from the first time in which she says (p. 20) '...a
family's estimate of its intrinsic importance is not always associated with
qualifications which immediately convert the outsider to the same view'. Austen
or Wilde couldn't have said it better. This echoes, for me, something I was
trying to say in an earlier note, about not getting hooked on my own hype and
there's aother mirror somewhere reflecting Douglas Adams' Man Who Ruled the
Universe, whose lack of any passionate conviction except perhaps to self doubt
was his chief qualification. Having read Ed's
article, it seems to me that I can go on churning out this stuff only as
long as I can see no intrinsic value in it except that which each individual
one of you chooses to instil into it. As soon as I cross that line, I've lost
the plot and you should drag in Pelagia's goat immediately. But then, perhaps
this rather self indulgent bleat is exactly what should be fed to the goat and
appropriately reduced to its proper state. Stuffed if I know.
We are about to cross the Greenwich meridian. Big milestone but
we are still 900 miles from the barn door and the Indian Ocean. It's bleak,
blue-grey, wild, with misty rain, it's cold and the 30kt wind is playing its
muted howl in the rig. Halyards banging against the mast. Berri is rolling and
gyrating along at about 6kt under tri and #4 and I've just been up into the
cockpit to have a quick squizz. Mistake! I took a risk and didn't put on the
party gear, having not heard a greenie for some time and, of course, temerity
got it's just reward. I just managed to duck under the dodger and avoid most of
it but I'm wet and cross with myself. Greenies, incidentally, are seldom really
green - they mostly arrive as about a carload of horizontally crashing white
water. It's an expression indicating more or less solid water arriving as a
moving wall. I'm now sitting wedged at the nav table on the port side and I can
look across out of the starboard window and see sky - no texture, no form, just
translucent light. I know the boat is rolling, but can't tell which way except
by the movement of the Cone of Silence, the heavy plastic curtain now
permanently down to keep water off the electronics and the sky teeters up there
for an age and suddenly there is angry grey water and rushing froth as Berri
shoves aside tons of south Atlantic. And then more sky. And so the day goes on!
I've just tried to send a lot of stuff which has banked up -
seems the Africa sailmail station has gone to sleep - and had another USB crash
with attendant blue screen of death ......desperately desperately frustrating
and every time it happens I lose about
ten miles of recorded GPS track and forty two of the last remaining hairs on my
head. Only about another hundred of them to go - hairs and crashes - before we get home.
10 minutes and yet another crash later, we've crossed Greenwich
but missed it on the SoB record because of the crash. I wish I could convey to
you the level of impotent fury this rouses in me - Why does it happen? What can
I do to stop it? And the awful tension each time I recover it through the
destroyed active desktop and all the rest because it isn't consistent and I
never know whether it will actually recover. Anyway, we crossed Greenwich for
the first time ever in Berrimilla at 15/16.48.53 and the Easterly numbers are
climbing. I'd like to send you a wooohooo but I'm too angry. Yet I know that
the thing isn't doing it to me intentionally and I just have to live with it.
So bloody well woooohooo!
DB: 131, 6515, GPS 137, 57/53 or 57/47 on Pete's ETA. Will stick
to mine for consistency.
A huge G'day to all y'all who have jumped on since the Times
article - Big G, Colin, Peter J, Vince, Ian, Pikey - and everyone else - your
emails and Gust book entries inspiring and sustaining - please keep them
coming.
This has to be a short one - I've used up my connect time with
some very slow downloads - would everyone please use the berri@berrimilla.com
address from here - Simon & Caro too please. Were having big trouble getting ok sailmail
via Africa stn so may be off air occasionally. May also have to turnoff
satphone - crappy motorola aerial fittings not made for boats.
Trisail, part three - we've had it up for about 3 days now and
it seems to do more that its fair share of balancing the boat and moving it
forward. It is happily balancing the #4 with the wind just aft of the beam at
the mo. I think I've worked out why - the sail is sheeted through the spinnaker
turning blocks which I have attached to the mooring cleats on each quarter so
it is a small force acting through a very long lever (as opposed to the main,
which is a huge force, but acting through a short lever at the traveller on the
coachroof). And it acts low down and doesn't stress the rig.
[ed: disappointing news I am afraid. It seems that the marvellous sailmail.com
system has not had much use in the African region past 3 or 4 months and so is
not as reliable as in other parts of the world.
They are working on it. Berri is only getting communications randomly
and in small chunks, so updates will be sparse for a while. This flows on to the editing and sending of emails
and gust book entries to Berri.
Unfortunately the alternative means of communications, SatcommC and the
satphone are horrendously expensive, so will be used very sparingly. However, dont let that stop you emailing or
gusting the boys the (sail)mail will get through, and they thrive on it!]
The roaring forties are doing their thing. Barometer has dropped
12 mb in 18 hours, mostly in last 12. We've got a gusty 35 - 40 kt NW with very
nasty quartering sea that occasionally - quite often - catches Berri unawares
and throws her 60 degrees around and everything slats for a bit till Kevvo gets
his wind back and sorts it out. Disconcerting though. Storm Jib and tri and
going too fast most of the time. Will go up and ease the tri to see whether it
helps. Into party gear. ... Now done - still in full PG - tri eased so that
forward half flat against shrouds and only small aft corner curling back and
pulling. Seems to have helped tho wind has dropped too - short lull between
squalls. Wish I could have filmed the scene - spreader lights on, orange storm
jib quivering under the load, tri taut and rigid, big steam trains of waves
roaring in from std qtr with tops breaking and luminous from spreader lights -
sometimes crashing against the side and exploding into flying diamonds of solid
spray three metres high across the whole front half of the boat - sometimes
just sliding underneath pussy cat like - Berri slewing and pitching violently
with each one, storm jib occasionally stalling and shaking. Wonderful sight and
experience, but always that grab of fear as the violence unleashes. So have
made a cup of tea with 2 T bags - strong enough so, as the Scots say, ye could
trot a mouse on it.
Lots more to tell you about - the wriggle,shimmy and slide can
perhaps wait - have contacted Justice, who runs the Maputo sailmail station and we are conducting
tests for his aerials and reception. A good thing - gives me something to do
and will leave something behind for those that follow. The sail mail people
have been wonderfully helpful the whole way around - more on this later too,
but thanks guys.
We are also trying to establish contact with Juri, the single
hander from Slovenia, 800 miles astern heading for Cape Town. So far no go.
DB 118, 6366 gps 124 58/52
Not pleasant out here. We've been bare poling in 45+ -nothing
serious except for savage short breaking seas -had to slow right down. Now have
storm jib back up - 35kt. We've been cooped up inside for over three days - wet
nasty 'orrible. No real prospect of let up either. I've just spent my sleeping
watch dismantling half the inside stowage to get at the two earth fittings for
the radio at Justice's suggestion - cleaned them but seems to have made no
difference. Just cant raise Africa and we don't know why. And the usb as
crashed 8 times so far while I've been trying to talk to him so I'm not a happy
little black duck. If I cant get Chile later, this may never get sent. Seabirds
everywhere in the storm - big black petrels, I think, and an albatross to
soothe my battered psyche. Now have to wait till 0930 to try to talk to Juri in
his boat Lunatic, 800 miles astern. He sounds a bit like us.
Wriggle, shimmy and glide - people ask us how we live in our
little bus shelter. I sleep in the port (left) bunk - in which it is physically
impossible to sleep straight or comfortable because the chain plate (big metal
strip that ties the mast to the keel under the shrouds) goes down through the
middle of it at about shin level. I've got an el cheapo sleeping bag - zipped
across the foot and up one side and on top of it I have a dayglo orange sea rug
- a sort of marine doona. I've just put the sleeping bag into its bivvy bag
because everything is now wet - either soaked or damp - unless it has been
protected. Quite tricky to get into all that. Getting out is harder because
it's always snug and warm and party gear is not snug and warm. I sleep in my
day top of two layers of thermals, plus a pair of fleece pants which live
inside the sleeping bag when not in use. I keep my norwegian knitted boot feral
comforters between the bag and the searug when not in use to try to dry them
out. I have got used to the chummy pond and the noisy chatter of the ferals as
they breed and fester. So the wriggle - hook thumbs into elastic waist of pants
behind hips, raise mid section on heels and shoulders and wriggle bott out from
elastic. Shimmy fleece pants down to ankles
and remove, put in bag beside now rapidly cooling rump and untangle
woolly overalls and glide first one raised leg, then the other into overalls,
shimmy waist bit of overalls over hips and wriggle bott into place. All this in
supine position. Slide norwegian comforters over feet - easy if both are
dry...and execute exquisitely timed luuurch upwards or the grab rail. Contact
made, right leg over the lee cloth and pole. pull body into approx vertical
stance and again, time the move from there to somewhere convenient to wedge
self and pee bucket - and so the watch gets under way.
Simon asked about the boat - there's lots of stuff on the
website including photos - you have to dig a bit - and Pete composed a paean on
Brolgas which is in the logs somewhere. [ed: I will dig around and put some
links here
soon]
This one's a catch up - Gerry glad you're back - send us some
short bursts. Doug, thanks for offer of access to Henry K material - yes please
- maybe Belmore South kids would be interested too, especially if there is a
relationship.
For
Belmore South - good to have you back on the job. Have you found Pulau Tiga?
I think it is very small. Pulau is the Indonesian and Malaysian word for
'Island'. When you do find it, I would like a report on how it looks on Google
Earth please!
Adrian, we were very lucky and we didn't break anything
important near Cape Horn, but we did lose our liferaft in a big storm near
Montevideo just after leaving the Falkland Islands. It was hit by a huge wave
and the lashings broke. The liferaft had a gas bottle and it inflated and was
pulled along behind the boat until it filled with water and the painter (the
line attaching it to Berrimilla) broke under the strain. It was too heavy and
there was too much wind and rough water for us to get it back again. The
liferaft had a number on it like a car registration, so that the rescue
authorities know which boat it belongs to. Luckily, we have a satellite phone,
so I was able to call the Australian Maritime Safety Authority in Canberra to
tell them that we had lost the raft so if anyone found it and reported it they
would know that we were ok. I don't know whether anyone did. Perhaps it is
still drifting towards Uruguay!.
Fatima, there's a long list of our 'rations' - our food stores -
on the website. Most of it is canned - meat, vegies, fruit - or dried, like
soup, dried fruit, pasta and rice and specially prepared dried meals in plastic
packs - just add water and heat! Dried food is ok as long as we can carry or
make enough water to cook it and we have a water maker that I told you about in
another answer. We also take as much fresh fruit, eggs, vegetables and bacon as
we think we can eat before it goes bad. We still have some eggs and some bacon
and some garlic left. And we always have lots of chocolate.
Fenwick - you can be quite erudite at times! I think your last
should be set in lights on the website somewhere!
Mal - thanks for ISS passes but I doubt whether we will see the
sun, let alone the ISS for the next 50 days or so. Very gloomy thought. How
goes Wildfire?
Huge thank you yet again to everyone who has signed on and sent
us encouraging and often very personal messages. We are stuck in a long
timewarp out here and it is enormously sustaining when things ain't going so
good to get your thoughts and good wishes and to share your dreams. When we get
back, it would be fantastic if we could somehow keep this going and get your
continuing stories - so many of you are clearly on the way to doing interesting
things. Any suggestions? And we are avidly looking forward to meeting as many
of you as possible.
I think we may have made some progress in contacting the African
sailmail station - I've now just got to cope with USB crashes. The sailmail
people are great. I think I told you that we are trying to contact the single
hander behind us - so far no luck, but we know he's there and wants to talk to
us because he is talking on a ham radio net.
Everything is damp, cold, clammy and dismal - so we had a
special Consultation with Dave G's bottle of Bundy this morning. Thanks Dave -
just what we needed, especially me after a dreadfully frustrating headbang of a
morning. Not a good day so far - I've had 40 minutes sleep since 0300. Just grinding
out the miles and the numbers and hoping that we can keep transmitting. I can't
afford to use the SatComC again - it's heaps too expensive for this sort of
volume. Just had another go at SM Africa after a reasonable send last time and
once again back in oblivion. I don't know what's going on - we've been able to
talk to everyone else and can still get Chile when propagation allows.
[ed: feast then famine.
Just as the sailmail problems were sorted we have a huge problem. Read on
.] disaster. generator has failed -
prob. bearings. no spare. have approx 80 ltrs usable diesel + v. limited
sunlight for solar. will assess over 48 hours - meantime hf only for grib. will
send 1 short satcom update daily. power 4 watermaker + instruments only..
diversion capetown not feasible within orig project - may aim for fremantle..
will report in next 12 hours. bummer. love to all.
[ed: as you can see, we are down to satcom transmissions
only. Very expensive, so unless someone
knows someone who knows someone who can get some sponsorship for the satcom we
are stuffed. Sorry all]
1. divert to c.town 4 new generator would add at least 12 days
to journey snd slmost certainly kill any chance of making start line.
2. continue, in strict conserve mode and aim for fremantle to
refuel. we are about 42 days from freo and should have enough fuel to charge
battery daily and supplement with solar when available.
a 5 cape circ would still - just - be possible if we make good
time, start line certainly possible via bass st. no choice really. we will have
to assess our power consumption, fuel etc over next few days. meantime, 1
satcom update daily - steve, pse suggest best time for you so that we can
collect short mail call at same time. use satcom 4 time being - will assess hf
as we go.
pse check whether jg getting these.
from damp wet cold gloom to brilliant, sparkling almost full
moon. cold. poled, 1 + 2, just moving.
ampair still putting in some wigglies but too slow to assess fully. sounds as
if bearings dry and about to collapse. serves me right for single point of
failure - altho we do have some backup. we'll see. may be a bit short on whimsy
for a few days. malcom, any chance of diesel from french? pete grad unsw 1969
bsc dip ed.
[Ed: Don Price asked a fair and reasonable question about the
power issue. My response explains it a
bit more:
The laptop and HF transmission gear
consume much wattage. The Satcom is a
handheld unit and hence quite low power consumption. The generator kept input comfortably in front
of output, but with lousy sunshine for the solar panels and limited diesel for
the motor, the output required o run laptop and HF will kill the batteries pretty
quickly. Priority has to be given to the
nav and running gear, so Satcom it is.
Satcomm cost is about 1c per
character! It adds up awfully quickly.
[ed: decision is to head for Fremantle the sun is currently
shining]
DB: 91 gps 101 6294 (SECape) 5292 (Freo) Yesterday and the
preceeding few days were pretty awful, especially yesterday, for radio and
generator reasons as well as general convergence slime. Today, we have bright
sparkling sunshine, thousands of birds again, mostly a variant of the ones near
TdC but some bigger beautifully patterned guys - all soft greys and flecked
bands - plus the black topsided guys with the white splodges - these are magnificent
in the sunlight - the white parts glisten and reflect.
We have the solar panel feeding the battery so I'm going to risk
that and ask for the next grib as well. Will send one whenever we can, else
shorties by satcom.
I will try to keep sending these - they may be written over more
than one day so perhaps even more disjointed and ungrammatical than usual. Date
stamp is start time.
Have just cranked up the Satcom again - French Indian Ocean
forecasts for Ile Amsterdam, Crozet and Kerguelen (Area ACK) are comprehensive
and they give the area co-ordinates so they are usable without an area chart.
Eureka!. They are sent from Reunion. May be able to get away without grib even.
Rain and snow forecast for WH and CH Crozet! - I don't know what WH and CH mean
but it looks a bit rugged over there - We will pass through Am South and Crozet
in about three weeks. Find the thermals!
We now have a nice little spider's nest of dental floss to help
Isabella wrap a spinnaker - I think it will need about 95 kilometres of the
stuff!
Taking advantage of sunshine to dry out boat, esp. festering sox
from boot feral lairs - I've been wondering whether each colony has developed a
different set of pheromones - trouble is, can't tell sox apart in dark and so
can't control experiment. Also, pong so intense, might be difficult to detect
subtle differences in sexual come-ons without specially evolved nose. I keep
the sox in bed with me to try to dry them out, so may even evolve nose.
We're in huge swells - big ship sized, short wavelength, coming
in from the SW. No appreciable wind waves on top, so can see whole vast sloping
expanse and deep valley across to next crest as we go up the sides. Something
big going on down there somewhere!
I have a list of sailmail stations in the propagation engine in
Airmail. Ther are in order of distance - it goes Africa, Chile, Red Sea,
Belgium, Panama, Firefly NSW (@6054
miles) followed by 10 others. Big milestone when we get our first connection
with them - the station is run by Penta Comstat.
Have just pulled in latest grib - 2 v nasty looking lows behind
us - calm patch in the middle. Making most of interlude. Still reading Vera
Brittain - marvellous book - when I think of myself at 23, inarticulate,
completely uninterested in learning, no perception of myself as a living human
being, more a conforming and frightened actor in a sea of other peoples'
expectations, Brittain's letters and ideas and sheer scholarship - as a woman
in 1915! - seem so absolutely awe inspiring - and her ability to express her
feelings to her fiance in the awful times that surrounded them - her lingering
love and their despair as he left for France - evocative, heroic, inspiring and
ultimately sustaining. I remember her as an old lady in the front line of ban
the bomb marches. I also remember my great Aunt, of about the same age and background but without
the ambition or scholarship, who,I think, may have lived through the same
experience - when she died, we found similar letters and military insignia. She
never married or ever talked about those times.
We're making water as fast as we can to build a reserve in case
we can't make more each day. Solar panel sustaining watermaker and battery
level. Just. We will not be so lucky with sunshine in the next few days.
Will try to send this...
Interim report. We've had a good day's sunshine, made water,
collected a grib and Steve's mailcall over sailmail and the generator is still
putting in some charge. We don't know how much because the Xantrex monitor died
and we haven't been able to resurrect it. Every day it goes on working is a
day's fuel saved. It looks as if there is some really nasty weather behind us,
so there's that flutter of trepidation clutching my inners. It's moving very
fast - perhaps at 40 kt, so will go through fast and the next one will arrive.
The grib says 40 and that generally means a lot more.
Mark A and John G, both in Perth, thanks for offers of help - we
will stay in touch on that one but I like Mark's suggestion that we go to Port
Geographe instead of Freo. Mark, I don't think I have pilotage details for PG
and it's not on the level of CMap that is currently loaded, so perhaps you
could give me a set of coordinates please. I have Busselton and surrounding
lights etc. If we do call in, we will have to clear customs, refuel, restock
the medicine chest and move right on out - same day if possible. We will not
repair the generator, (they need specialised facilities) but if anyone over
there has a second hand Ampair 100 going for a song, we'd be very interested.
I had intended to continue my salutes to people who have helped
us - starting a few weeks ago with Brian Shilland. Perhaps one a week till we
get over there - this one is to Kevin Fleming, who I have never met but who has
become a friend over sailmail, email, the phone and by snailmail.
So,to all the cruisers and short handed racers out there looking
for self steering gear and Brian and Jen in Dunedin and those like them whose
dream it is to follow us and to anyone who cares about customer service as it
should be, please join us in a salute to Kevin Fleming. Kevin's wind vane self
steering unit, affectionately known as Kevvo, has performed superbly so far,
through the worst storms and the nastiest seas that I ever hope to see. Not
surprising when you consider that Kevin has been down in the southern ocean
crash testing his own gear and he listens to his customers and actually
modifies things that don't work perfectly. Kevvo's bearings got a bit worn on
the way over and we had had some trivial problems aligning steering lines that
are boat specific rather than built into the unit and I wrote and asked Kevin
for a set of spares. Kevin not only agreed instantly to put one together, but
also made modified versions of some of the fittings and sent it all to the UK
free of charge - entirely at his own expense. Astonishing in 2005 on its own
but he also included some Australian cash to cover the cost of a qualified
engineer fitting the bearings properly. It was waiting for us when we got
there, everything fitted properly and the mods are working away out there
behind me as I write. Beat that if you can!
Onya Kevin. Great gear and an unbelievable service. You can find
him at info@flemingselfsteer.com and his factory is near Adelaide. See if you
can make it to the coming home party. Kevin - we owe you a Considerable
Consultative thanks.
[ed: by popular demand, and without any coercion, if anyone wants
to put a few cents into the Berri Tin, then please
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