Crew Blog

Salt encrusted and eggs for breakfast

06 February 2008

A few nights ago I came on watch at 4:00 am to the beautiful sight of Venus, Jupiter, and the moon all clustered together. Below the equator, it was an oddly pleasing feeling to look up and know absolutely nothing about what I saw, as if I was in a distant galaxy. 

Now that we’re 15 degree north of the equator, however, I’m coming back into the star fields that I know. 

I went on the helm at 6:00, using one hand to wipe away the salt encrusted around my face and ears from the soaking we all took during an earlier headsail change. Only minutes later a squall formed around us and the winds picked up as a light rain began to fall.  This will take care of the salt on my face, I thought, content to be cleaned in rainwater. 

We knew, however, that any rain around here is bound to come down hard so, while I remained at the helm, squinting in the increasingly heavy downfall, the others scurried to put in the 1st reef.  They hadn’t finished by the time the rain fell hard, so hard that even though I had my hood up, I couldn’t keep it from drizzling down my coat into my chest.

I felt cold for the first time in six weeks, but it felt good. With my hands occupied on the wheel, I could only bite the top of my oilie’s collar to stop as much of it going down as I could.

The boat heeled steeply as we pounded through the agitated waves, the deck a blur of bouncing raindrops. Ignoring our course, I concentrated on pinching enough into our close-hauled point of sail to keep the heel of the boat under control.

Just as we finished putting in the reef, the rain and wind suddenly stopped altogether and we found ourselves in an utterly quiet and windless sea, windex spinning erratically at the top of the mast and absolutely zero boat speed.  A few miles behind us, Hull and Humber saw our plight and steered around the wind hole we’d stumbled into.  In a matter of minutes we dropped from third overall to fourth. By the time the wind came back, New York, who had been well back at fifth, was now right on our tail.

Later in the day, New York pulled tacked away.  About an hour later we both tacked towards each other and New York, on the starboard tack, had the right of way. Who would ever have believed that, this far into the race, right of way rules would come into play?  We were forced to give way and ducked behind New York’s transom.  We spent the morning dueling with them gaining a slightly higher line, then losing it.  In the end, they bore off once more and somehow lost miles to us before the day was out, giving us fourth once again. 

Sometimes this race is about solitude and competitors we can only imagine somewhere over the horizon.  And sometimes you could hit them with some of the eggs we’ve got left in the galley. 

Our watch contemplated doing so but decided they’d be better put to use in one last serving of scrambled eggs and toast tomorrow morning.

Timothy Ettridge