A Two Snicker Day
'Tim, Tim, are you awake?' It was 01:30, I wasn't, but things change. 'The jib's twisted, can you come and see?' An offer I couldn't refuse. The jib was indeed twisted at the clew, but that was the least of our problems - the main sail was fully out with 40 knots of wind on the stern, screaming along at 9-10 knots, surfing and cork screwing, largely out of control. We furled the jib with the pole in situ, but couldn't reef the main with the strong wind and 3-4 metre seas breaking around us - so we held on tight for an hour till the storm died down, we survived.
Our daily average had been increasing from 131 miles on Day 1 through to 175 miles, our record, after 10 days or so. In retrospect, I think we were starting to get greedy - thinking that 175 miles should be the norm and that flying the spinnaker could/ should be done in stronger winds then we were used to (20 knots was my maximum wind speed for spinnaker flying).
The following morning, the spinnaker was hoisted in 15-20 knots of wind and became so twisted that we dropped it and spent the next 2 hours unravelling the mess. We raised it again at 14:00, it flew beautifully for a couple of hours, then the wind increased to 35 knots in a moment. 'All hands on deck!' was the cry, I was reaching out to let loose the spinnaker sheet when the halyard broke with a loud bang (at the mast head block I think) and the sail hit the water. It took 2 hours to get it back on board, all four of us sweating and straining - some lifting, some trying to keep it from wrapping itself around the keel, rudder or prop. That was the end of spinnaker flying this ARC for us.
After we had recovered, fortified with numerous glasses of barley water, we had convinced ourselves the spinnaker was repairable - thoughts turned to the weather and tactics for the night. 15-20 knots E-ENE occasionally 25 knot gusts, we settled on one reef in the main and full genoa poled out, we had become more conservative over the past 18 hours!
'Tim, Tim, are you awake?' It was 0100. 'The wind has picked up, you better come - bring your waterproofs'. I stuck my head out of the hatch to be greeted by 50 knots of wind with driving horizontal rain and my 2 crew huddled behind the helm. The jib had been furled but, again, it was impossible to reef further the main - the wind and seas were too big. We were hurtling along at 10-12 knots completely out of control. We passed another yacht sensibly flying a storm jib doing 3 knots, he must have wondered who those lunatics were roaring past! All four of us were hunkered down now, deep in our thoughts - like the monkeys: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, think no evil. We said nothing, we could hear nothing except the wind and rain for the two hour period of the storm - 50 knots gusting to 61 knots. I ate two snicker bars for comfort.
I enquired the next day of the SSB net controller 'Could you find out what the weather forecast has been smoking the last couple of days, and could we have some delivered to Kittiwake'. I don't think my humour transmits well on 4 MHz.
Tim Luker, 10th December 2009