Race 6 - Day 11
Crew Diary - Race 6 Day 11: Hobart to Whitsundays
16 January
Day 8
You may have had any the news about what happened to Qingdao and so are a bit annoyed that you have been deprived of your daily update from the Skipper or the crew on this thrilling race of Leg 4, or you have heard the news, and so you understand why you have not had any updates. We really do not know as we have had no communications with the outside world since day 9 when the mast was struck by lightning and we lost all of our electronics and most of the other electrics on the boat. More of which later.
In my last correspondence from the front on Day 5 I told you about the ‘Sydney Southern Buster’ (SSB) and how that hit and how we coped, so this is an update since then. As the SSB left us to wreck havoc with the other unsuspecting crews,we sorted ourselves out and carried on through the rest of that evening night and the following two days. By that I mean back to the same routine of dealing with N/NW winds into which we were beating and smashing into waves that either made our teeth judder or swept walls of water across the deck. A typical sail routine was as follows: put in 2 reefs then go to reef 3, one tack, change Yankee 2 to Yankee 3, flake the dropped sail and send it below, then within a further two hours shake out the reefs and raise the code 2. No sooner had that gone up than it came down and was replaced by the Yankee 2 which was then in turn replaced by the code 3. From there, we went through a Yankee sail evolution sequence from 3 to 2, then to 1 and finally to a full main with Yankee 3 and a staysail all done whilst the equivalent of sitting on a roller-coaster ride in the dark whilst someone was continuously hosing us down with water. As you can imagine this is very physically demanding and no sooner does a watch come off, everyone heads straight to their bunk to sleep – unless there is spinnaker to be wooled. Every time a code (spinnaker) is dropped it has to be taken below deck, sorted out drawn back into lines and then tied together with strips of wool every half meter. Unfortunately, conditions below deck are uncomfortably hot with stifling heat and high humidity so everyone is bathed in sweat whilst working or as soon as they get into bed.
Day 9
Whilst the weather during the day had been mainly cloudy with breaks of sunshine, we had another storm forecast for the evening. We watched as the storm clouds built and the cloud formation similar to the previous one started to grow but whereas that went from a dark cloud on the horizon to us being engulfed in under 2 minutes, this one was taking ages and we had more than enough time to prepared the boat and ourselves. Except the storm never actually happened. The sky all around us was lit up by lightning in the clouds, some of which was very bright and very close and at times as mesmerising like watching fireworks but without the accompanying Oohs and Ahhs. However, the actual storm seemed to be passing behind us.
No sooner did we think the whole thing was an anti-climax, we saw lightning bolts going to ground in the far distance and getting closer. Then, out of nowhere, a bolt hit the mast with a deafening crack. The boat was silhouetted against the horizon, and we all felt the shudder as the bolt surged through the boat, Those touching anything metal felt the charge going though them like touching the escalator in a department store while the skipper on the helm got a shock - that would have been much worse had it not been for the heavy insulation. We looked to the top of the mast and saw a little fire which quickly went out but we knew that meant everything electronics up there was fried. Then almost like watching something out of a ballet, a charged piece of spectre cam floating gracefully down on our port side which we all watched in total silence. The first thing thereafter was to establish that everyone was OK and then determine the extent of the damage. A check revealed we had no electronics, no VHF, no generator, no lights down below and no AIS. [NB: The Clipper Race Office was immediately made aware of this issue and constantly monitored the progress of Qingdao to the Whitsundays.]
Down below was total darkness so we all had to wear our head torches which made us all look like minions scampering about. There is also an eeriness about getting out of your bunk to go on watch and seeing only terminator-like creatures in the gloom with their one red eye searching you out. The back panel on the console in the Nav station revealed that all the wires inside were fried and welded together but we managed to free the laptop built in to the console by cutting it out with the rig cutters and use that combined with GPOS on people's watches to navigate. Slowly we managed to get some power and services back.
Day 10
By the morning of day 10, the sea had calmed and the wind was moving behind us - assuming our navigation was correct and we were still going in the right direction that is. It must have been right as in the evening the wind, rain and lightning returned bringing our second SSB (Sydney Southerly Buster) of the race. The winds picked up in the same way it had a few days before but the big difference here is is we had more time. The first SSB came in so quickly we had 1m 40 seconds from the time we saw the cloud forming to the storm hitting whereas this time we watched it building for hours. Also, the skipper was on deck so we did not have to go and wake him in a British-Spanish-Mexican prescribed manner he did or did not like (personally I still rather like the apparently new Clipper Race protocol of grabbing him by the shoulders and shouting at him but this is more difficult when he is on the helm and we are tethered on and on the other side of the traveller).
Being prepared helped. We had three reefs in the mainsail and just the staysail up when the wind hit. It seemed even higher than last time which we estimated to be around 50 knots and the boat was now moving at 12 knots. The rain was also heavier and coming at us sideways with droplets that stung when they hit you. Our watch (Even Watch) had got the fun each of the last three days and now felt we needed to share it with the odd lot in the spirit of team building. So we did. Just as we handed over the watch the rain intensified and they got absolutely soaked. That said, they stuck to their task and sailed a perfect course downwind in these conditions until it left us and moved North to hunt out new prey .
Day 11
The wind was now S/SE and so we could start to move with the kites up. This is the way Qingdao moves best. We had no idea where the other boats were until later that day when we suddenly saw a couple of sails behind us and east of us. Actually, we were surprised to see anyone behind us. In our true inimitable style we therefore contrived to give them all a chance to catch up by constantly wrapping kits and screwing up evolutions. Despite that we stayed in front and did so to the very end.
As we approached Airlie Beach we had no idea where we stood in the fleet or what time it was. Lots of people had these expensive watches with GPS that promised to tell them not only where in the world they were to a couple of metres, but also what the time was in that exact spot. Except they all told a different time and we had a spread of 3 hours to 1 hour ahead of Sydney to 2 hours behind. Consequently, when we arrived and the Clipper Race team asked us what we wanted to know first – i.e. where we had come in the fleet - they were a little surprised that our first question was actually what time it was. Imagine our relief to find out that the time was actually 2 hours behind Sydney and thus the bars were still open. |t was also nice to know that despite everything that had befallen us we still were fifth.