Well I think you can safely say that I got what I signed up for on this leg! The storms came and they were huge. However, let me start at the beginning. The race start. Geraldton was a small town but like so many places Scotsmen come out of the woodwork when the purple beastie sails in! It seems wherever you are you can find someone in a kilt who plays the bagpipes, and Geraldton was no exception except they found 6 piper and a drummer!
At race start I was lucky enough to be helming round the two marker buoys near the coast in front of the marina, it was like dinghy sailing, tacking for position and racing close to the other boats. Unfortunately that's where the similarity ends, tacking one of these huge boats is slightly more complicated to say the least and much to my dismay some of our new crew members were not up to speed with the drill! I called the tack to cut in front of Yorkshire and Qingdao which would have given us a mid fleet position but as I shouted "ready to tack" the person bringing the back stay back was too slow and instead of turning in front of the oncoming boats and making them bear away I had to bear away myself and go behind them so very frustrating. The last mark was a gybe right in front of the crowd on the breakwater (most importantly Mandy), we were in 10th position but thankfully the gybe was brilliant and apparently the crowd were impressed and gave us a huge cheer to send us on our way.
At the start of day two the storms hit and for the next two weeks we had mega strong winds or full storms almost constantly. This was exactly what I had signed up for, the waves were huge, literally the size of houses and breaking on the top like you see those huge rollers on the beach. The boat performed amazingly, a wave would come from the side and you would see it coming and think it was going to absolutely swamp us but the boat would just ride up the side of it, wobble a bit and then slide down the other side. Incredible.
As we say on board..There's no such thing as bad weather just an inappropriate sail plan.....and for 16 hours we most certainly were inappropriate! The foresail halyard (the rope holding the sail up) broke and we had to take the foresail down. If you have no foresail you are unable to put reefs in the mainsail to make it smaller and reduce the size for the strong winds. The wind was blowing 50 knots (force 10) and much too windy to put up another foresail so unable to reef the main we sailed for 16 hours with a full mainsail. In these conditions the boat is really difficult to handle and it rounds up into the wind. On one of our 4 hour shifts during this period it took 2 of us to steer the boat, Keith on the wheel and every time it rounded up there was me hanging on and trying to force the wheel back. All this in the howling wind with huge waves breaking over you. Looking back it was great but I can still remember we were very grateful to finish our shift and pass the wrestling on to someone else.
I cannot begin to explain the sea state in the storms, it was like something you see on the films but worse. As I said before the waves were massive but in between the waves the sea was all surf and froth with spray being taken off the tops of the waves and blown into the air. Sometimes we had torrential rain, sometimes hail storms, thunder and lightening, we got so so wet.
On a different day we were up at the front changing the head sail to a smaller one. This involves carrying the sail from the sleeping area below, through the saloon, up the steps near the wheel and then the length of the boat to the front, quite an exercise in stormy weather, as you heave the sail along the deck the boat is pitching and rolling. The sail which is up has to be lowered and unhanked off the forestay and the new one attached. Paul Rayner is the person on our watch who usually hanks the sail on as he is the tallest, I was number 2 feeding the sail to him and Czaba was behind me feeding more sail forward. The sea was massive and we were pitching up and down with waves crashing over the bow. Then suddenly we were airbourne, my feet were 6 feet off the deck and I was freefalling towards the deck, an unbelievable feeling. Fortunately for for me (unfortunately for Czaba) my landing was cushioned by the sail and Czaba (his is ok, I weigh less than I did!). I staggered to my feet and looked for Paul who had been standing on the front rail, he was nowhere to be seen! I reached around the front of the sail and felt his life jacket and managed to haul him back onto the boat. We gave each other a pat and just burst out laughing, more out of shock than anything else I think.
A few minutes later a huge wave broke over us and with a loud bang my life jacket inflated automatically causing more hilarity, just another day at the office as Gordon would say.
As those of you following the Race Viewer will know we won the speed trial and were fastest between two imaginary lines on the chart. This was great for morale, it's the only thing we've ever won! I can't actually say we were really trying, it was just during one of the massive storms and we were hanging on for dear life.
We travelled very fast along the south coast of Australia and as a fleet we were making good progress, in fact the arrival window was brought forward. However this was a false hope as we when we reached NZ it all went wrong. More storms but this time wind in the wrong direction. It got very hairy and morale was low as we had made so much time up only to loose it all in the last 250 miles. The wind was right on the nose and we were crashing and banging through the waves, living conditions were very difficult, sleep was impossible and we were all just so desperate to get there. Getting dressed was such a trial too and as I said to my crew mate Alex you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy. Having been to the award ceremony last night the local harbour master said that they had not experienced storms like that for many years so I think we were just unlucky.
At one point in the race we were 5th but a bad decision to go out to sea off the East Cape and the fact that we broke reef line number 3 on the mainsail and ripped the staysail along a seam meant that we were unable to sail at the correct angle to the wind and we dropped to 8th. Arrival at port was 3 or 4am and 5am by the time we tied up on the pontoon, a very chilly Mum and Dad were there to greet us which was lovely. A quick beer (5am!) and then off to the hotel for breakfast and a shower before we went back to the boat for 9.30 to start the jobs.
The stopover was a whole week with 2 full days off (poor Mandy, the only stopover she hasn't been to and we get time off!!!) I had a great time with Mum and Dad, on Wednesday we went to Hamilton to visit my very good friend Fiona and her husband Scott and children Islay and Faye. they live in a beautiful rural location and have a wonderful eco house, a well tended garden and a veg plot, not to mention two jersey cows, chickens and a dog! Fiona has visited us many times at home so it was lovely to see where she lives and have a home cooked meal and wine with them all.
Thursday we went to Rotorua to see the mud pools and sulphur volcanic geothermal fields. We had a helicopter flight up around the volacno and the 5 lakes before landing at Hells Gate, a very active (smelly) geothermal park. It was deserted apart from us and the pilot so we had a lovely walk around and then back in the helicopter to be flown down to the lakeside landing area. An amazing experience and one which we were so glad we had done.
So tomorrow (Sunday 4th December) we are off again, a short trip (I hope) to the Gold Coast where the boat will be lifetd out and antifouled. Mandy, Penny, James, Jean and Keith are visiting at various times so I am really looking forward to that.
Enjoy the Christmas preparations and think of me trying to cook a full christmas dinner for 12 on two rings with the cooker at 45 degrees, not sure when to put the turkey in, what do you think?
Thanks everyone for your support, for your cards and emails, it means so much to me to know you are thinking of me.
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