Crew Blog

The Snake Pit

14 April 2008

Many of you reading this may know exactly what the snake pit is, but others may wonder what it is, where it is or even why we should need to keep snakes on a Clipper 68. In fact the term refers to a small cockpit situated just behind the mast measuring 1.5m wide, 1m long and 0.75m deep. In front, between it and the mast, are 3 winches with 9 rope clutches leading to them and there is another winch on each side.  All the controls lines from the mast are led to the pit, including the 3 mainsail reefing lines, the outhaul, the vang, 2 downhauls as well as 7 halyards - in all 17 ropes lead into the snake pit.  When it is tidy all these ropes are neatly coiled and held in rope hooks but after any sail change or alteration the floor is littered with uncoiled rope and I believe this appearance is where the name comes from especially if the ropes are swirling about in water.

Some crew members love working in the pit, it is the centre of all sail change operations but does not require brute strength; rather it needs clear thinking and the ability to plan ahead and direct operations, it also requires a person who likes to leave things neat and tidy on completion.

After 48 hours of steady E winds in which we remained close hauled on starboard tack, the pit remained quiet but we were then faced with light and variable conditions. The snake pit had been busy that morning, we lowered, then raised the stay sail and then lowered it again, then hoisted the heavy weight spinnaker, lowered the yankee1, then replaced the spinnaker with the light weight one. Our bow pointed toward Santa Cruz but there was a tricky area of high pressure to negotiate en route and how well we get through this was likely to determine the outcome of the race.

Those of you reading this will already know that we did get caught in the wind hole and although we are now making great progress there is a lot of work to do.  So as usual we are giving it 200 per cent effort and enjoying ourselves as well…looks like we will have to charm those snakes in that pit to bring us some good luck!

Colin Boyd.