Part 5, Sailing Las Palmas, Spain – Santa Maria, Cape Verde.

Nov. 16^th 2010

Cockpit view of the boat - you should feel the heeling to starboard side here..:)

Last night had really been a nightmare with the breaking of the main sail and the beam which had torn itself off place.
It was just one hour of sleep away. Thanks to Gunnar I at least got an hour sleep. He was suppose to wake me up at 06.00 but had shown mercy after the hardships of the night so now it was 07.00 which of course put more pressure on his shoulders and option for rest.

We were suffering from lack of sleep. My body felt heavy and was hurting here and there. My brain was working overtime and showed a whole row of red lamps blinking on the “body-status-dashboard” declaring state of emergency which was probably why I didn’t feel too good.
I took a few deep breaths, got a smile on my face (HEY we were still alive!), went up in the cockpit and pronounced the sailors greeting: “AHOY!”. The captain replied and I could see how tired he also was in the dawn of the day. 

I took over the steering while he started checking our GPS position. The suggested heading was now around 210 degrees to arrive at our target. But pushed by some waves or concentration loss, the boat would quickly turn down to 180 degrees or less. In that position we were much more exposed as she would have more of the port side towards the hungry waves with the big white teeth.
A few times it felt like we were close to being knocked down – rolled over by these giant waves. However no one had eaten us at this stage – they “just” shook us up on their passing and then kept on rolling out in the horizon almost as if they had to hurry up and conquer something else out there… leaving us with a wet and salty cockpit.

The boat did also share all it’s suffering with us. I heard it through all the creaking noises going on like she was telling all sorts of different stories and crying out for help with her voice in ship language.
Apart from the “surround sound weeping” she was also showing her “bleeding” main sail with the hole, which was now growing! The poor lady was injured indeed. A swan with a big white broken wing.

Unfortunately the weather did not show any indications of changes. The waves reaching 6 meters were clearly our main stressing obstacle. How long time could they keep on? When would it peak and get better? And more important, how long could we keep up and handle this unexpected challenge?
 
The situation was frustrating. It had now been going on for several days and the waves seemed even stronger than before. The whole situation combined with lack of sleep, lack of water and food (didn’t feel like), a screaming boat with water in the cockpit and now the broken sail on top of it really wore the whole team spirit down. The current set up didn’t look to prosperous.

 I had caught myself thinking and looking at the yellow bag in the cockpit. It was the emergency bag which was THE THING to remember in the disastrous event of abandoning the ship. It featured different distress signals - equipment to make aware of ourselves for eventual passing ships or rescue service. In addition this not-to-forget-bag had water, food, medicine, sunscreen, etc. - to keep us alive a period of time.

The dinghy attached to the deck would be the first option to jump in and I was trying to recall which were the points where it actual was fastened. Second option was a Danish Viking lifeboat that would release itself automatically in case of the boat going down… The thoughts I kept to myself.

But I was not the only one having these kinds of thoughts. The lady onboard suddenly said: “I think we should call SOS!”. This at once made the yelling of the boat, the rolling of the waves with big teeth and the wind blowing in the broken sail stop. Our own inexplicable private “Bermuda triangle” interruption, made it all stand still - there was silence within the three crewmembers.

Could it be – were we in the necessary level of distress that entitled us send out SOS forcing nearby ships (if any) and whichever rescue team in the area to initiate everything in their power to safe our lives. I guess just being in doubt leaves you with a feeling that you do not need rescue. But on the other hand it would be too late to wait until the water started covering our bodies…

I broke the silence which brought back all the elements. They continued to yell, roll and blow and I had to raise my voice to drown them: “we are under pressure for sure, but we are not in a life threatening situation...”, which is the term when calling SOS.
We had to mobilize spirit again. After all we were still sailing, had food, water and the boat was not taking in serious amounts of water. It was “just” rough. Very rough. But the fact that we discussed it clearly indicated the seriousness of the situation.   

It was now 10.00 hours and the main sail was a wreck. It was not doing us much good. I made a plan with Gunnar. He would start the engine and go with the wind straight in the back to take out force of the broken sail and I would try to pull it down. The mission could be impossible if there still would be power of the wind in the sails or if it was tangled around something up there in the 15 meter high mast. It also involved that I had to crawl up to the mast on deck and at all times keep in balance according to the waves. That was the risk included. Both Sheilah and Gunnar didn’t like it so I never felt any pressure to do it. But we had to do something to gain more control and once I was by the mast I would hook the lifeline around it… Only few seconds before and after really exposed me to the great Neptune.  

I got up there and slowly, small pieces at a time, came down but it didn’t matter. I had the whole day and each pull was a small success. When it was all down I sat down to fasten the sail to the beam. The heeling of the boat made me slide a bit on deck and I could spot the concern in Sheilah’s eyes. A moment later I was back in the cockpit in “security” and was met by applaus from my two team colleagues. It sure felt good but it had been exhausting and I all of a sudden discovered that I was totally sweaty.
 
So in the next step we rolled out the front sail - about 50% of it - turned off the engine and we were sailing properly again with no flapping of a broken sail. It was wonderful and made the spirit instantly climb back to a more comfortable level.

Yeah! Properly sailing again - main sail down and front sail up. Solar panels that supplied all our electricity in the lower part of the image.

But it was nothing in comparison to the record high boost the spirit thermometer experienced half an hour later; out of the blue a group of dolphins decided to pay us a visit, jumping with the boat on starboard side – right next to us! We were all so excited and tried to catch them on our cameras. They must have been sent from heaven. Smiles were back on our faces and SOS was fortunately far away again.

Look at something in the left side of the photo. Sorry, its bloody difficult to catch the lovely dolphins on camera... or maybe am I just to slow on the trigger;)

At 11.00 hours I went down to my cabin. Next shift was just one hour away and even though I this night again got way too little sleep (all together three hours) I was not able to sleep. A headache was starting to build up so I drank some water and tried to relax closing my eyes and taking some deep breaths.
I enjoyed the moment - it felt good. Even with all the sounds of the elements constantly going on I had found a sense of peace.

On my shift from 12.00 – 15.00 the highest waves were probably around 4-5 meters. I wished that they would keep on getting smaller. We rolled out more of the front sail, so we now had approximately 2/3 of it out to carry the boat ahead in the wind (12 m/s). The captain checked our GPS position and we were now exactly half way; 435 nautical miles to go - point of no return!
Well to be honest that point had actually been a long time ago. There was no way we could turn around having head wind, going against the current and the waves and only one sail operational. Anyway why should we turn around – we were on our way to Santa Maria in Cape Verde no matter what!
…or at least almost no matter what and only with permission of King Neptune:)  

 In my restitution hours in the afternoon I tried to rest a bit, drink some more water and had some noodles to fight the headache still showing its face now and then.

By 18.00 hours I was up steering again and the wind was now much harder. Only around sunset everything calmed down but I was fooled. It would later prove to be a pattern. 

Watching the magic sunsets (and sunrises) every day is priceless...

Half an hour after the sunset, soldiers of Neptune were back hunting me again.
At some moments we were accelerating to a fury speed of 6 knots which I thought with just 2/3 of the front sail out was pretty wild. I could feel the strength of the wind in the sail and I started to get a little nervous. Could it keep up with the mighty power of the wind? We somehow were counting on the front sail now the main sail was out of the game.
So when Captain came up at 21.00 hours I was very eager to pull some of the front sail in again to get rid of several square meters and relive it from some of the pressure. We rolled it in and when 1/3 of the sail was left I stopped and flashed my torch towards the sail. I was stunned to a level of speechlessness. What my eyes saw could not be true…

A hole in the sail! Not again. A triangular hole in the lower part of the front sail. I served the news to the Captain with a “as far as I can see”. He reacted by telling the dark night the whole vocabulary of bad Swedish 4-letter words. At this stage they needed to fly out of their imprisonment... Out in the wind who immediately consumed them.  

We were somewhere just to the left of Africa (lower righ)
The prognoses of waves stated max height of 3 meters... we "ran into" twice the size!

Our nightshifts were becoming an unpleasant habit of holes in the sails! We did not need any more challenges but had no choice. The wind pressure on the sail must have been too powerful or pulling our sails in these wind conditions was not meant to be. Either way it was too late to be wise about that. We had to continue and we had enough speed to navigate her. That was the positive element we had to stick to.

Before I found myself in my cabin I had to get up again. That’s at least how I felt it when hearing that miserable sound of the whistle twice again..  I probably got two hours of sleep.
Now I was back on my shift in the cockpit again. It was midnight – and another dark night accompanied by the rough black waves passing by and a half moon which seemed to show the way out in the horizon for these “hunting animals”. It was a scenario I as sailor felt comfort in.  Waves, wind and hole in the sail. Nothing else? Standard procedure then.

…But soon I was hit.

I found myself poisoned by a virus. My eyes had started closing without any orders from headquarters! The virus aimed for overruling and disconnecting the main “keep eyes open” orders in various mad attempts – a true act of terror. Once the eyes mechanism was infiltrated and brought down to a complete shut, the virus tried to seal the closure. This could be fatal. An unexpected closure for a minute could force a total shut down of the whole system!
As soon as I realized the invasion was in progress I became a true restless soul. A moment with no-activity and I would catch my eyes closing. I had to actively fight it so while steering I had to stand, sit, zip water, melt chocolate on the tongue, sing and talk constantly to keep that nasty virus of my eyes. Disgusting shit that bug!

Only remedy is sleep but I did not have that option before 03.00. When my wristwatch showed exactly 02.57 I blew the characteristic two times in the whistle to be released from my duties and what seemed to be an endless fight against the sleep virus. Soon I would not be able to stand it anymore.  But now it was time to finally kill it!

Cabin – bed – dreamland – sleep – here I come; Sleeping is sooooooo wonderful. Almost three hours - GROOVY!!!

I hope you have enjoyed the journey so far…?
Please stay alert for new challenges and pleasures in Part 6.