Terrible Storm #3
06 July 2014 | Passage from NZ to Fiji
July 6
In the early hours of the morning, who should show up on our chart plotter but that bête noir, #7 Koshin-Maru, approaching us again! Jim VHF calls them repeatedly, doggedly until someone finally answers, someone who in an Asian accent can only say one English word: "OK!" "OK, OK!" At least they appear to know we are near.
By 09:00 we're north of the 30th meridian - yay! We're hoping that means better weather, and NE tradewinds. We get < 10 knots all day but great sunshine improves morale. At times it's even too calm to sail, and Sonsie rolls about uncomfortably in big 2.5 metre swells. We're far enough south that it's still cool, still foulweather gear territory.
July 7
At 03:00 the winds pick up to 20 knots. We're on 2nd reefed main and genoa. By 10:00 they're blowing a decent 25 so we put in the 3rd reef, furl the genoa and fly the staysail. The waves are still high, 2-3metre, and occasionally bang against the hull noisily. By 15:00, winds are gusting 35; nothing unmanageable. We are heading 280° T westwards through the Front. We are thoroughly under the impression that this will be it for a couple of hours until the Front blows through, so fail to douse the main in time - again! By nightfall winds are gusting 40, but all we can do is ease out the main. It gets ever more hellish. By 21:00 winds are steadily blowing 50 to 60 knots. Unbelievably, here we are again, stuck with too much canvas in a major blow! Reader, I bet we sound foolish to have been caught out a second time! We'd had high hopes that we would be across it by 23:00. How badly wrong we were.
July 8 - The third terrible storm
We sail westwards through the Front, Storm No. 3, at a wicked pace. The wind is screaming 60-70+ knots. Our speed is increasing along with it, over 11 knots down waves - far too fast. Sonsie is galloping, tobogganing, slamming, smashing through the seas. It's nothing short of terrifying. Say we hit something? Get hit wrong by a wave? It could all go belly up in a hurry. All of a sudden there's a strange change in motion; Jim twigs first - it's Wendy, she'd broken one of her two steering lines, tho' we didn't know that then. We worried whether the paddle had fallen off, and whether we'd lose it altogether. There was nothing we could do in the conditions, which were horrific. Fortunately the designer of the boat knew exactly what conditions an offshore boat might face and built a strong boat accordingly. It is a relief to have a boat that is sound - one that will take care of us, even when we fail to take care of her.
As we fall off the wind Jim quickly pops up the companionway hatch to uncleat the mainsail. It slumps down the mast. He tightens the main sheet as best he can to prevent the boom from crashing about. Catching sight of the sea takes our breath away; it is grey and furious, its surface an angry blow of wispy white foam and spume. We're both shaky. I climb out past him, tethered, to grab both the staysail furling line and the autohelm remote. We want to be able to furl the headsail if possible, and as Wendy is off-duty, be able to steer from the safety of the cabin. Heart-crushingly, disappointingly, the remote control now fails to work! We have no way to safely steer the boat. We are at the mercy of wind and staysail.
Sonsie, under control of the staysail, charges along in a southwesterly direction in howling, whipping winds, slamming and shuddering along at a furious pace, all the while getting smacked and broadsided by heavyweight waves. The terror of it all can hardly be expressed. We've no way to keep any sort of look out, but Jim has the good sense to regularly do a traffic advisory on VHF16 to any ships that might be in our vicinity. We broadcast into the dark stormy night the advice to Beware! Stay clear of the sailing vessel Sonsie which is charging about on her own account and might be barrelling past you at any moment! Fortunately, this area of the ocean appears to be a lonely one. If #7 Koshin-Maru is out there, they deserve to be torpedoed.
Jim also uses the HF to call NZ Taupo Maritime Radio to report our position.
We are both heartily stormsick. On and on it goes, without end. We thought we'd be through this Front by 23:00! For hours the wind doesn't once drop below 40. The rigging is groaning and thrumming, the main halyard is clanking on the mast, the boom is jerking, the plastic cockpit windows are flapping, the hull is getting pounded, the wind is shrieking unrelentingly at 50-70 knots. Some water splashes in through the companionway from another wave in the cockpit.
We're stunned, we feel like we are being beaten up, pounded. There is no option but to ride it out. We sit side by side on the nav station seat, it being the most stable place in a bucking, wild bronco of a sailboat.
July 9 - Spat out and on our way
We remind ourselves of our safety motto: Crew, Craft, Mission. We know we need to take care of ourselves by sleeping but rest is achingly hard come by. We agree we must eat a bowl of cereal before heading out at first light to do what we can to regain control, repair damage. Our goal is to get Sonsie to port safely; our mission is to problem solve our way to that end.
The storm drums on; surely it must end soon, surely we will eventually be out of this horrific Front? It's lasts hours longer than we ever imagined it would.
As Sonsie shudders along through it all, Isabel blurts out that she never, ever wants to do another passage. Such is the emotional toll of this storm!
We hold hands under the red light of the nav station while the wind ceaselessly holds us in its thrall. Light takes a long time arriving. We eat in the dark at 06:30, a tasteless bowl of cereal. We start pulling on our foul weather gear, but all of a sudden Isabel insists we can't go out yet, we must lie down again to rest until 07:00. It will be light by then. From the portholes we see great streaks of lightning against a backdrop of filthy black clouds. Just before 7, the wind picks up, sounds even more furious. It's careening around us and whipping up past 70 knots! It's insane! We stand looking at each other, not understanding. Surely it will abate, the wind will let up?
The ship's clock strikes 07:00. The wind makes a final, howling, swooshing sound as it whips around us and is gone. Just like that, just as we are opening the hatch and climbing up the companionway, it's quiet. It's gone. All of a sudden we find ourselves in a perfectly clear, cheerfully sunny, blue patch of sky. A wall of surly grey clouds lies off to our right-hand side, to the northeast of us. We have been spat out of the system, like an indigestible bit of gristle. There's the gentlest of breezes, a mere 15 knots. All of a sudden we are changing tack: instead of dousing sails we're raising them, in order to harness that 15 knots, every last breath of it, to get out of there, get away from that Front. It's a new day.
It's a day of recovery, rest, food, tea; a day of jubilation, celebration, relief. Thanks to God, we survived!
[Photo courtesy of Monsters in Film and Literature http://monstersfilmandlit.wordpress.com/2013/11/30/gothic-terror-in-anne-bannermans-the-mermaid/]