Gipsy Moth Circles the World Read online

  I was woken by the boom banging and the sails slatting in a calm, with Gipsy Moth headed nearly east. There were tropical showers drifting about, an overcast sky, and a glassy look about the sea surface. But it looked finer ahead. My leg started hurting me again, and I wondered, did I sprain it, or pull the old strain, hauling on the halliards during the night? I comforted myself by thinking that perhaps it was due simply to the champagne.

  I felt no inclination to put away my glad rags of the previous night, but it had to be done, so I tidied up. Then I decided to bake some bread, made the dough and got the Primus under the oven going. It was not all that successful, for a series of squalls followed the calm, and perhaps the yeast jibbed at so much movement. I did the actual baking job at a mean angle of heel of 30°.

  My noon position (6° N, 23 ° 45' W) on September 18 put me within 6 miles of exactly the same Great Circle distance from Plymouth as is Newport, Rhode Island. In the 1964 Single-handed Transatlantic Race it took me 30 days to cover this distance, and now it had taken 22 days. That was a good thought, in spite of the squally, uneven weather. But I was still in the Doldrums and there was no sign of the tropical rain showers coming to an end. They could be seen in every direction. It was very tedious, the endless changing of the helm and trim before and after each squall. I was up and down to the deck all day, as each squall went through, like a damned jack-in-the-box. Of course it was the pounding and bashing in a rough sea which I had to worry about; I didn’t think that wind would damage the gear. I was feeling the physical strain of the incessant changing of sails at intervals throughout the day and night and cursed having a boat so much bigger than I had wished for, which was causing me the extra labour.

  That night I found a Mother Carey’s Chicken (Wilson’s stormy petrel) on the deck and moved it to a more comfortable berth on the weather side where it was more level than down on the lee side and the bird had more to hold on to. It felt woolly, and was a game chick, always good for an attempted peck. It flew off the deck in the end but seemed unhappy. A flying fish landed near me as I was working on the foredeck.

  On September 19 I was headed by a southerly wind, and I was only able to make good a track of ESE. I could have done a little better on the other tack, but I preferred to make easting in preparation for being pushed westwards by the South-East Trade Wind which I was due to reach at any moment.

  Early in the morning of September 20 I decided to tack and, after I had finished the tack, I spent half an hour trimming the sails and the self-steering gear. Gipsy Moth was hard on the wind to a 22-knot breeze. I was having a lot of trouble trying to keep her headed close to the wind. Gipsy Moth was pounding severely, and every now and then a succession of three or four waves would knock her head closer to windward until she ended up pointing dead into wind, and stopped. At 10.40 that morning I reckoned that I had sailed into the South-East Trade Wind belt at last. I set a 300-foot jib in place of the storm jib. I complained in the log:

  “I must be very feeble as it seems such a big effort; also I find it a great disadvantage having completely lost balance control in my feet. Anyway, enough for the ship for a while and now a turn for the Inner Man. A lovely fine day, blue and white; what a wonderful change.”

  In the evening I set the mainsail in place of the trysail for the South-East Trade Wind. It was a lovely evening, and lovely sailing. Gipsy Moth was now on the wind doing 5½ knots, and headed south by west. It was now that I experienced one of the big setbacks of the voyage.

  Let me explain the situation. From where I was then at 4° N and 21° W the old clipper way curved slightly westward down through the South Atlantic to Ilha da Trinidade from where the curve changed gently to the south-east, passing close to Tristan da Cunha Island to reach the Greenwich Meridian at 40 ° S. The distance along this route from where I was to where the clipper way passed south of the Cape of Good Hope was roughly 5,000 miles or 7.14 knots for 700 hours. The first 1,500 miles of this clipper way passed through the South-East Trade Wind belt. South-east was the direction of the Cape so both the clippers and Gipsy Moth would be hard on the wind for at least the first 1,500 miles. I had felt quite sure that this was one point of sailing on which Gipsy Moth would excel, and I had checked that she would sail nearly as close to the wind as a Twelve Metre in a 30–knot wind in the comparatively smooth water of the Solent. I had based my plans for a 100-day attempt on sailing much closer to the wind in this belt than the clippers could have done. In other words I had planned to cut the corner and save no less than 800 miles on the way down to the Cape. I trimmed up the ship carefully to sail as close as possible to the south-east wind. The wind had dropped to a gentle and ideal breeze and the sea had moderated. The waves were now quite small—ripples, I felt like calling them—but I found that they made Gipsy Moth hobbyhorse in such a way that three waves in succession would each knock ¾ knot off the speed. The first wave would cut the speed down from 5½ knots to 4¾, the second to 4 knots and the third to 3¼ knots. If there was a fourth or fourth and fifth they would bring the yacht up head to wind and it would stop dead. The only way of avoiding this with the self-steering gear in control was to head off the wind another 20°. This meant that I could not sail any closer to the wind than the clippers, and the plan that I had set so much store on collapsed in ruins. This hobbyhorsing was the first of Gipsy Moth’s nasty tricks that I was to suffer from on the voyage.

  It was a tiresome and trying period of the voyage. If I kept Gipsy Moth going fast on the wind, she slammed damnably into the seas, which worried me for the safety of her hull. Yet I had to keep going as fast as I could if I was not to fall hopelessly behind the clippers. I could make no good radio contacts, and I had trouble trying to charge the batteries. I could not get a good charge into them. At night I was troubled by cramp in my legs which would hit me after I had been asleep about two hours, and would let go only if I stood up. This meant that I never got more than about two hours’sleep at a time. It was hot, and I sweated profusely; I wondered if my body might be losing too much salt. I decided to drink half a glassful of seawater a day to put back salt.

  On the morning of September 21 I awoke to find the ship headed east with all the sails aback. While I was asleep hobby horsing must have brought the ship’s head up into the wind, and after she had stopped she must have fallen back on the other tack. I released the main boom so as to let the mainsail come over completely and slowly wore the ship round downwind back on to her course. At noon I saw a tanker, the last ship I was to see for two months. This was at 2 ° 19’ N, 21° 43’ W. She was the African Neptune. She turned and followed me, and came close up to leeward. I am always apprehensive when a steamer comes near the yacht in the open sea. If she comes up to windward of the boat she takes all the wind away and the yacht loses control. The ship drifts slowly downwind, and the rolling yacht is liable to damage her crosstrees and rigging against the side of the ship, as happened to David Lewis in the 1960 Singlehanded Transatlantic Race. However, the African Neptune was well navigated and I need not have worried. The captain asked me if there was anything he could help me with by way of luxuries, etc., which I thought nice and kind of him. At the time I was trying to make the bilge pump in the cockpit work, and I had the pieces scattered around. On seeing the ship approach I went below to dig out my “number” GAKK, a hoist of flags; also a signalling lamp, and a loud hailer. I tried speaking to them with the signalling lamp but they took no notice of that. After the steamer had disappeared in the distance I tackled the bilge pump again. There was a lot of bilge water due to seas washing over the deck and swilling down the navel pipe, where the anchor chain emerges at the deck. I feared that I should have to dip the bilge water out with a bucket if I could not repair the pump. In the end I discovered the trouble, which was that one of the rubber flap valves in the bilge pump was not fitting properly. I fixed this up, and the pump worked. Puffed up with my success, I then had a go at the beer keg. It was terrible in that heat to think of all the beer in the keg lying inaccessib
le. I looked for an air-lock or a kink in the pipe down to the keg in the keel but could find nothing wrong there. I came to the conclusion that the CO2 cylinder had leaked and there was no pressure to force the beer up.

  That evening I logged:

  “What I cannot understand is why I almost never have an appetite. Here it is 9 p.m. and 1½ hours after clark, and I don’t feel the least hungry. I had only two slices of wholemeal with trimmings for breakfast, one slice and one Ryvita with dates and cheese for lunch. Nothing for tea.”

  I crossed the Line on September 22. That was fascinating. I went up to try for some sun shots at local noon, and first I was looking for the sun’s reflection in the mirror of my sextant to the southward, as usual. I was amazed to find it in the north-east, then realised that I had overtaken the sun, sailing southward, and that it would pass to the northward of me. I started “shooting”. As the sun passed the meridian I had to swirl round as fast as I could—one minute I was facing north-east, and it seemed only seconds later that I was facing north-west. It is very difficult shooting in these conditions, because the way of telling if you are measuring to the sea vertically in line with the sun is to swing the sextant gently, like a pendulum, until you find the direction in which the height of the sun above the horizon is least. This pendulum sweep moves the sun’s image in a flat arc above the horizon, and you must decide where the sun’s image “kisses” the horizon.

  For some days I had been having a private race with the sun which was on its way south for the northern winter. I won by the narrow margin of 22 miles because the sub-solar point—the point vertically beneath the sun on the earth’s surface—was 22 miles north of the Equator at noon that day. I stowed away my North Atlantic charts and fished out a set for the South Atlantic. It was a thrill changing from one ocean to another.

  Navigating with the sun passing nearly overhead it was wise to get some star sights as well, and fortunately I had a fine, starry night. I was wondering what was the bright star near Canopus, when I noticed it moving! How awesome those satellites are—I mean, the thought that man has put them up there! I think it is the star-like brightness which is most impressive.

  It was now that Gipsy Moth’s second vicious habit began to take effect. Now and then when the wind eased I would log that I was having some lovely sailing, but alas a few minutes or hours later there was sure to be a complaint about the difficulty of keeping Gipsy Moth to her heading. The log is littered with entries such as, “Gipsy Moth keeps on edging up to the wind and slowing up then”, “I feel she is too much heeled, labouring and pinned down”, “The self-steering could not settle down and keep to a heading: too much weather helm”, “I see she is sailing too free now; I must have another go at her, drat it!”, “I could not stand the violent slamming which built up when the wind increased above 20 knots and the 40° heel is pretty excessive”, “I think the vane must be slipping in some of the big bumps”, “Gipsy Moth is sailing 65 ° off the true wind.” (She ought to have been sailing within 50° of the true wind at the most.)

  From now on, except when the wind dropped and the sea moderated, I had an almost endless struggle trying to keep Gipsy Moth to a heading close-hauled. I thought at the time that it was due to the self-steering gear being unable to hold the tiller. Eventually, however, I discovered the trouble. I was standing on the deck one day looking forward, when the wind increased suddenly in a puff from 20 knots to 25 knots. The boat heeled over more, and to my astonishment I saw the bows slide over the water downwind about 30°. It was like a knife spreading butter, sliding over a piece of bread. What had plagued and puzzled me became quite clear; there was a critical angle of heel for the boat. If the hull came a degree or two more upright it would start griping up to windward and slowing up. If, however, the hull heeled over a degree or two more than this critical angle, the forepart of the boat slid off to leeward, the boat lying more on its side had quite different sailing characteristics, and would romp off at great speed on a heading 30° downwind. On this heading Gipsy Moth went at racing speed, but of course this was unfortunate if the heading I wanted was 30° different. When I did discover this trick, it explained something else which had puzzled me. Normally, when sailing hard on the wind if you want to ease off 5 or 10°, the drill is to slack the mainsail sheet, and the heading will at once ease off a few degrees downwind. With Gipsy Moth IV it was necessary to do exactly the opposite; to head a few degrees away from the wind it was necessary to harden in the sails! What happened was that this changed the angle of heel, and she would romp off downwind at a great pace.

  On September 23 I lunched off my first crop of cress grown on the premises, and very good it was, too, with Barmene, some mayonnaise, a little garlic and some raisins. I was determined to grow some more cress, but was worried by the appalling lethargy which seemed to swamp me. Anything that required remembering and doing twice daily (watering cress, for instance) seemed a burden. It was hot, too hot to stay on deck long during the heat of the day, and pretty hot below—83 ° at 5 p.m. It would have been nice below if I could have opened the skylights, but spray showered in at once. Added to all this, I found it a treble burden to do anything at all at a constant angle of heel between 20 and 30 °. I refreshed myself by pouring buckets of seawater over me in the cockpit.

  I could not stand the violent slamming which built up when the wind increased above 20 knots, and the 40° angle of heel was excessive. But I told myself that I had got to get used to this, for these South-East Trades are no zephyrs.

  I decided to sort out my fruit, to remove anything that had gone bad. I found that I still had seven oranges, twelve apples, thirteen lemons and about a dozen grapefruit (but I forgot to count the grapefruit). Very little had gone bad. The fruits were in good nets, each piece wrapped in its own bit of tissue paper.

  I tried, and failed, to call up Cape Town. The Cape Town operator said that he could hear me at Strength Two, and I could hear him faintly at times, but then a woman started a very loud strident talk, which drowned everything.

  There were good moments too, though. The night of September 23-24 was lovely, and I felt that I could stay in the cockpit all night. Gipsy Moth was sailing beautifully, making 6 2/ 3 knots. The moon’s shadow was a perfect curve on the well-setting mainsail, and the water was smoothish, which meant little slamming. I reckoned that we should be on the wind for another 1,250 miles.

  I had a triumph in getting my old electric clock to go again. I first had this clock in Gipsy Moth II in 1957, and it wintered each year in my bedroom at home. But it had stopped going. I turned the pressurised silicone spray into the regulating hole at the back and gave the works full blast. That started it again, and I hoped that it might have a new lease of life. I thought of Joshua Slocum and his one-handed clock which he boiled in oil.

  September 24 was the end of my fourth week at sea. I had sailed 3,887 miles at an average speed of 138.6 miles per day. I broke my usual rule of not drinking until evening. It was a maddening day of setting and resetting sails and I could not get Gipsy Moth to hold the course I wanted. In the end in disgust I left her to it, and went below to have a late lunch, or early tea, of a gin and lime and my last bit but one of the Scottish Cheddar, some of the best cheese I have ever come across. I finished the fresh butter. I had kept the English brand till last, and none of it ever went rancid, which I thought pretty amazing in the tropics.

  I had more trouble with the self-steering. The tiller line stranded, and I fitted a new one with some difficulty—it was like trying to control a half-broken horse without a bridle. I tinkered with the corner block, trying to improve the lead, but the difficulty was that as soon as I got on to the end of the counter Gipsy Moth would first try to shake me off, bucking to shake my teeth loose, then she would bring herself up into the wind until I had to make a rush for the tiller to avoid getting aback or in irons. I tallowed the tiller lines where they were chafing most, and wished I had thought of this before. I tried again to contact Cape Town by radio, but again a powerf
ul woman’s voice on the Cape Town frequency blotted out everything.

  On Sunday, September 25, I was woken suddenly by the table clock capsizing on my belly. This stirred me into getting to work. Gipsy Moth was lying quietly, and although there were some heavy black clouds about, they were only a few. I unreefed the mainsail, and set the genoa staysail in place of the smaller one. Then I tackled a job that I’d been dodging for some time—the eggs.

  I could not stand it any longer; either the cause of that stink would have to go overboard, or I should. So I turned out the box, and found sundry smashed ones, which had reached a nearly audible state of putridity. I was worried about my eggs. The beeswax coating which a friend had proposed for some of them seemed a big failure; the yolks were stuck to the shell inside, and some of the eggs had black spots, which I took for mildew, inside. However, I had an omelette from what I could get out of two, and it seemed pretty fair. The trouble with eggs is that one’s imagination makes one feel sick at the suggestion of a bad egg, though it may be quite hale and hearty in fact. I tidied up the box, throwing out all broken or obviously bad ones, and hoped for the best.

  The wind at this time seemed to blow up to Force 6 or so every night; I noticed that the barometer would drop two or three millibars in the afternoon, and then rise again after dark. On that Sunday night it blew up in the usual way, and I wondered if my full rig would ride it out. The going became “slammy” with a wind increase from 20 to 24 knots, but I decided that this was due to a black cloud passing overhead, and that the blow would not last long. It was a pity to disarrange the rig if it could be avoided. So I left things as they were, and all was well. The change in temperature as we sailed south was noticeable, and I began sleeping under a woollen blanket.