Race 12 - Day 12
Crew Diary - Race 12 Day 12: New York to Derry-Londonderry
08 July
Often, in the gaps between the serious sailing business, we have time to chat amongst ourselves, whilst waiting for the next missive to be issued from the powers that be. You'd think that this would offer us the opportunity to explore the innermost feelings of our pirate peers, discuss the meaning of life, the universe and everything or come up with a valid solution for the global economic crisis. Nope. We are more likely to have a quick round of 'would you rather?' (a game where you must choose from the most odious of choices issued by the adjudicator – and these decisions are never taken lightly), or 'snog, marry or shoot' (similar to the above).
This morning's topic was 'where would you be and what would you be doing if you weren't here right now?' As this conversation took place at 0255 on a soggy Friday morning, most of the answers centred on beds with duvets and fluffy pillows and cats – all things that are sadly missing from our current 'normal'.
This particular chat lasted a surprisingly long time as we each took turns to reminisce on the luxury of flat, comfortable, uninterrupted snoozing. It happened to then turn to the sister topic of lying on our sofas with duvets and fluffy pillows and cats – with the additional entertainment of the choices of a film or three. Ahhh, the nostalgia that we feel for those precious moments of having nothing to do and all day to do it.
So, although I'm sure it has been done a million times before, as no two days are ever the same at sea – I thought I'd write about what we've been up to for the last 24 hours.
My day started at 1132 when I was happily in the middle of a dream where my boat buddy Mike Brien and I were on a driving holiday in Corfu in the 1950s. It's an odd choice for a dream, but we were in a red mini cooper and the sun was shining and I had a paper map on my knee as we barrelled around the island having a fine old time. He then woke me up with our least favourite words “Half hour until watch” into a bouncy reality where it was chilly and there was condensation dripping on my head. My confusion at the alarming turn my dream had taken was quickly overtaken by the dawning realisation of reality. I blinked and lay there for a moment, demoting Mike Brien from his standing as my favourite person on the boat for his crimes against my slumber. I then took a breath and barrel-rolled out of my top bunk into the clammy wrapping of my still-wet foulies and boots. Three jackets and beanie hat donned, head torch slung around my neck, life jacket on and 4 minutes later I was ready to venture on deck for our 0000-0400 watch.
Just as I was considering making a nice cup of tea to console myself, I was sent down to the nav station to check how far we were from the ocean sprint start. With 17 miles to go, the next hour passed in a series of trimming, grinding and generally doing everything we could to eek a little more speed from the boat in mostly the right direction. Every now and then, I popped back down to the nav – a process that involves climbing over carelessly slung foulies, boots and crocs in the pitched over corridor – not to mention the fridge, a coolbox and a trail of snack wrappers that Westy leaves lying about the place like a diabetic Hansel and Gretel that I pick up and put in the bin daily. I guess finding his empty confectionery wraps is a bit like playing that Pokemon game, only somewhat less rewarding. On one of my trips below, I noticed that the watermaker was still on – so I beckoned Prashant to help me shift a sail that was on the floor, lifted the floorboard, grabbed a teaspoon (most useful tool on the boat) and levered the tank cap open to check how full it was. We talk about missing showers onboard, but the fountain of iced water that sprayed me in the face was a surprising rinsing to receive. However, it did make a change from the rain and salt water we were being rinsed with on deck and gave me a strong sense that the tank was indeed full. Watermaker off, compass heading checked with the helm and log done.
By this time, we were nearing the start of the sprint, so I woke GT to check the course, popped the kettle on, made him a strong coffee and clambered back up on deck and headed back to helm. Getting from one end of the boat to the other involves a strategy of keeping your tether clipped on at all times, while navigating through and around your crewmates, lines and winches before the final frontier of caterpillering under the traveller. The traveller is a barrier about 12 inches off the deck that one must go under when we are sailing downwind. We each have a particular style of manoeuvre – GT achieved a knee-slide/limbo action this afternoon that hushed the pit as we stared in awe.
It was my turn to drive the boat for a bit, so I climbed behind the wheel. It was a pitch-black night, we were flying the Code 2 spinnaker, trying to keep a fine to beam reach and the sea was somewhat frisky. Fun. And then it started to rain hard. Of course it did.
Driving is alarmingly like exercise, so I was both regretting the warm layers I had on and yearning for the waterproof ones I didn't. I set my Garmin watch to track our average speed (because Jerry and I are in fierce competition for best speeds on our watch with the dizzying prize of who gets the first piece of chocolate from the block), gritted my teeth and tried to remember to breathe as much as possible. Nell, our amazing medic has told me that she learned at med school that breathing is 'quite important'. We got some decent speeds and Prashant did a sterling job on the trim, saving the spinnaker twice from certain collapse as we careered along some surfs – this shifts the apparent wind forward rapidly, meaning the grinders have to go hard to keep the pressure in the sails and my pride intact. Sort of.
After an hour of a little swerving and a lot of swearing (sorry Mum!) at the annoying cross-chop, I came off the helm and lay down for a solid 16 second recovery period, before remembering that I was on heads cleaning duty. We do this on every watch as sharing two heads between 16-20 people can be manky at best. A quick shimmy with much anti-bac later, I woke up the other watch with the joyous weather report/clothing recommendation of 'splashy, chilly, rainy', put the kettle on for them, put a line in the logbook and went back on deck for the last 20 minutes of trimming. Often, watch change is a chance for lingering for a chat with your crewmates, but today there was no such nonsense and I was down and in my sleeping bag by 0407. Mike and I are bunk buddies and share a sleeping bag as we are too lazy for the roll/swap effort. So, it was still warm and he had cleverly arranged our entire collection of fleece blankets and snuggly things along the lee wall, so his status as my favourite person on the boat was soundly restored and I left for the land of blissful unconsciousness.
At 0700 I got rudely awoken to reality once more and promptly went back into a deep, deep, sleep. At 0727 I got woken up again, levered myself begrudgingly out of the warmth, shovelled some scrambled eggs into my face, got dressed and was back reporting for our 0800 six hour watch bleary-eyed and yet again longing for a nice cup of tea... Instead, I got back on the helm and drove for an hour in the murky morning. And then it started to rain hard. Obviously.
By the third hour of our watch, the wind was backing making it hard to maintain our preferred course under spinnaker. Our true wind angle was high, meaning that the kite was ground so far in we could no longer see the luff from the wheel. This makes driving tricky, especially when you have no point of reference for direction and the waves kick you around like a deranged donkey. You fight the swell and if you don't hold the boat down, it rounds up wildly putting you right on the edge of broaching. For those uninitiated among you, this is not a good thing.
GT made the call to drop the spinnaker and hoist the white sails. With only 8 winches to play with in the pit, there ensued a dance of grinding, jamming and the infamous 'hitchy hitchy' where you use a length of dyneema to bear the weight of a line to transfer the load to a different position. We are fairly short-handed on this leg, so we were all leaping about like lunatics trying to get everything sorted in minimum time to maintain boat speed while we were still sprinting for a precious 3 points. A few of the crew went below to re-popper and pack the spinnaker and the rest of us had a splashy time of it on the bow rerunning lines in preparation for the next sail change, reorganising the pit, picking up Westy's sweet wrappers and generally getting things tidy and tickety boo for the oncoming watch.
At 1400 we descended for lunch, snacks, other snacks and then brushed teeth, baby wiped salt encrusted faces, moisturised calloused hands and were back into bunks by 1450 for another delicious bout of snoozing.
1900 saw another wake up (this is savage, isn't it?!), dinner and back up on deck. This time, we were greeted with a clear sky and the news that we had just finished the ocean sprint. Fingers crossed for a good result. We were still under white sails and sailing to a wind angle, so things were fairly quiet in the pit.
Lyndsay and I have taken the opportunity to come below, make a studious stock-take on our watch snack cubby. We have reorganised it into an order of 'things we want to eat first' (after all, life is short) and liberated a hence-undiscovered block of organic dark chocolate that I had the genius to buy from wholefoods all those days ago in New York. Lyndsay made me a nice cup of tea and crafted a batch of chocolate brownies – Mike Brien's status as my favourite person on the boat is now seriously under threat. I have found a stash of dried mango that I will make a compote with on our next watch to go with the coconut porridge – I have a day of cheffing to look forward to tomorrow.
It's now 1152, so time for me to get some shut eye before our next 0330 wake up.
And so, it goes. Life onboard is simple, but time passes so quickly we are trying to make the most of it. I can hear the oncoming watch just got doused by a monster wave on deck, so I hope they realise they'll miss that fun when it's gone... I think I'll make the most of the warm dryness down here and just stay put a little longer.