What a tough two days: upwind sailing, turbulent seas and a second round bout of sea sickness! But I’m still here standing, perhaps only because we have had a no-wind calm day. Picking up my last entry from Saturday, by the time we had moved on 24 hours the wind speed was really picking up, consistently over 13 knots and on occasion topping 20 knots.
The seas were choppy and rough and this coupled with the swell made for much tougher sailing conditions. The main challenge is really keeping one’s balance when the yacht is heeling steeply. I was down to put on a life jacket with the safety line fairly early on as I was concerned about slipping and doing christ knows what to myself! Lia followed my example but I was surprised to see no one else do the same.
Anyway, we chugged along fairly merrily towards the evening but here things were to get just a bit tougher. My second night watch was from 5am to 8am and as soon as I roused from my slumber – sleeping is no easy task when the seas are rolling so heavily - I knew I was going to have problems with sea sickness. On deck it wasn’t long before I was being sick again, hanging on for dear life on the low side of the yacht and heaving the previous evening’s chili over the side of the boat. Clearly I do not have the constitution for sailing in such small boats as this - I had rarely been ill on a tallship and indeed sea sickness was not one of my concerns ahead of this trip. But it has been for the last 10 days I can tell you!! We carried on sailing, or should I say the rest of my watch did, and I clung on literally, continuing to be sick and glumly accepting the regular drenching the Atlantic ocean was giving us all as the waves crashed over the bow! Happy days.
Come 8am it was watch over and four hours respite beckoned. I headed straight for my bed, trying and partially succeeding in sleeping for two hours despite the damp conditions. Getting up again mid-morning I thought the worst might have passed but I was soon being sick again, stuck in a frustratingly monotonous 30 minute cycle. Under heavy advice from the crew I took the helm to see if a combination of concentration and horizon focus could do the trick – it worked to a degree, but I think in only slightly extending the gaps between each vomit! I couldn’t quite believe I was helming a yacht upwind across the Atlantic in average 15 knot wind speeds feeling as bad as I was at times. In the end our watch came to a close and I spent the rest of the afternoon adopting my preferred approach to recovering – lying down on deck, sun hat and shades with my eyes closed to the bouncing horizon! This combined with a night off watches and much calmer seas have left me feeling considerably better today!
On to more pleasant issues and our position in the race. The last update Jacko had was pretty positive in that we are lying in the top three places in our racing category and more importantly are very well placed in terms of sailing tactics. We have been sailing in light winds today but this is expected to pick up over night with the expectation that it won’t be too long before we pick up the famous trade winds, the north-easterlies which should power us all the way to St Lucia. The long range weather forecast indicates that we should have them through to next Monday so fingers crossed. This will be downwind sailing with the spinnaker set and a different kind of motion from the upwind variety – more surfing off several meter high swells. I’m just hoping that my constitution can cope with that as I think it will be fabulous.
When you compare our sailing conditions, current and expected, with our competitors it is clear to see why we are well placed: those yachts having opted for the northerly route are currently sailing upwind into 25 knot winds – “punishment” was how this was described! When I wondered outloud how I would have fared in such conditions, Jacko said that in all likeliness I would have been emergency evacuated given that those conditions are expected to last through until the end of the weekend!! Let’s hit those trade winds and surf to the finish which as I write this is 1728 nautical miles away, but in perfect timing Jacko just used the navigation equipment to give Linda an updated ETA and it looks like December 11 at 9h50am on the basis of doing 7.5 knots average…we need to pick up the pace again as we’re currently meandering along at 1.5!!
Anyway, today has been a pleasant off day, clothes have been washed, cabins have been cleaned up, I have packed non essentials away as I found they went flying in our cabin in the rough sea conditions, and a shower and shave has been had so I feel part of the human race again. This is quite a trip, ranging from fantastic helming moments to feeling pretty low with sea sickness. A roller-coaster ride if ever I have been on one! More to follow, mal de mer permitting…
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