SHTP stories - July 7th, encounter of the third kind

Later in the day, a massive set of clouds occupy the sky. They are not the friendly evaporation clouds that I have had for the past few days. The forecast didn't say anything about rain, maybe that's a very local anomaly.

A few black clouds carry rain water and it starts to drizzle so I put on my lightest foul weather jacket.

I protect the cabin while getting some ventilation. Note that the boat is doing a nice 7.8 knots.

and I protect my legs with the one person tent which looks like a sleeping bag. It is waterproof, or at least water resistant and it saves me putting on heavy and hot foul weather pants. I will have a wet butt for most of the nights starting from today though. So much so that I will start to count the days I go to sleep DRY.

Remember that the first few nights were wet and I slept on the floor to keep my bunk dry.

Then it was light and I slept on deck - and I did stay dry.

Then I will have squalls, drizzles or curtains of rain and I will go down...mostly wet!

I always look around, mechanically, as keeping a watch is a reflex, even though the VHF and AIS is on 100% of the time. We are required by race documents to monitor channel 16 at all times.

And to my surprise I see a SAIL!!!! At the exact same time an intership DSC call makes my VHF sound an alarm. I pick up the VHF mic and hail the sailing vessel who is most likely trying to call me and ask for identification, while giving Elise's name.

The other vessel is Elizabeth-Ann, the Westsail 32. Wow - what are the odds for two SHTP competitors to meet close to the halfway point, one week sail from everywhere.

Super super low. it is a big ocean and for a small boat like that, the horizon is 1 mile. For a ship, it would be more like 6 miles. (I set my AIS at 10 miles for the trip)

I don't know Gary but we start a conversation on VHF.

Gary: 'oh yeah, Elise. Nathalie. I think that I can see your tiny spinnaker'

(I feel offended for Elise - granted, the Express 27 does have a fractional rig and small spinnakers for their size compared to say an Olson 30, but this is a full size spinnaker and Elise is proudly sailing a real chute, not a 'tiny spinnaker' - we're not a 470 here...)

Me: 'actually, it is a full size kite, and yes I have had a spinnaker up since this morning. I have had some power issues so I hand steer a bit more than I had planned to. How has been your race so far?'

Gary 'very well, it was really rough the first few days though.'

Me: 'this is a real coincidence. The odds of us meeting are really low'

Gary 'yes, this is very cool though. Actually I have a question. I have never seen a squall, is this a squall?'

Me 'I am not sure, the wind is still fairly light, so I am not seeing a 10 to 15 knots increase compared to what I had before ending up underneath the heavy cloud cover, and I am not seeing a shift in direction either. Maybe it is just a little rain?'

Gary 'Makes sense'

I head up 15 degrees to meet Gary. We are so close - it is a magical and rare moment which I want to live fully. I won't be dropping sails or heave-to, but I feel like we should be able to see each other and speak without VHF help to really 'meet'. Observing Gary, it looks like Elizabeth-Ann is falling off a bit to cross Elise's new path. The wind has increased a bit and I am basically power reaching now, so sometimes it is a bit hard to keep the kite full, or I have to fall off when a gust hits. No big deal, we should still be able to sail within talking distance of each other.

Meanwhile, we continue to chat on the VHF. Small talk. Warm talk.

Once we are within voice distance from each other, we continue the conversation from one deck to the other.

I want to say something witty, like 'starboard!' asking for rights, but then I remember that I am on port tack so that wouldn't work. I can't think of anything smart to say.

Me 'I took some pictures of you, I will give them to you after the finish'
Gary 'I took a video of you coming over, I will also give it to you after the finish'

We are both standing at the back of our boats and waving at each other. Elizabeth-Ann has a poled out genoa and is sailing quite deep. The boat has a much higher rating than Elise, which means that it is a lot slower. For Elise to cross the path of that boat means that Elise is not doing well (and/or the Westsail is doing amazingly well, turned out it was both). In the position reports, I was mainly paying attention to my division and the top boats in the fleets. I will check the Westsail from now on.

Gary sailed a fantastic race.

Our paths diverge as we are on opposite tack. We will continue to speak on the VHF for a little while until Gary states that his dinner is ready. Thus far, I have eaten everything 'as is', and only warmed up water for one cup of tea. Before today, it was because I couldn't be bothered. My mind was elsewhere. Now it is because I consider this overhead. I am racing and any minute I am not spending trimming or helming should be spent eating, drinking, sleeping or planning the race. Turns out, it is tough to do but more on that later.

I take more pics of the Westsail, sailing away into a clear sky and I remain a few minutes enchanted by the encounter. I wonder what it will look like on the tracker. (by the way, I still checked in every day to do a 'I am alive and well' signal but the tracker sends a position report every hour regardless)

I then go back to focusing on the race. It has stopped drizzling.

The wind lightens up for a little while but another massive big black cloud meets Elise. Immediately, the wind increases and Elise surges forward. At the same time, a wall of rain falls on me and I am totally soaked in no time.

I focus on the kite. It is only early evening. I try the autopilot as this is more wind than I have had thus far with the kite but it has trouble keeping up. The swell is a bit confused too. The boat is now doing 8+ knots BASE speed and has acceleration/surf to 12 or so knots. The wind speed increases further and it is time to put the boat into night mode which requires me to go down below.

It was never a problem thus far as the autopilot could handle the spinnaker but tonight it is a bit much for it. I also worry about breaking the NKE autopilot which would most likely leave me with only a light air pilot (and for the next three to four days, I will not see light air at all). I take a few minutes to 'plan'. The boat will have a tendency to round up so I will steer a little further down than the current course and then jump below to first put up the masthead lights, the most critical item - second I'll pick up my headlamp. That way if I need to look at the compass, I can do it with the lamp. The instruments light up automatically so that's cool. 

I also need food for my dinner and early part of the night. There is enough water in the cockpit.

I start executing my plan having rehearsed outloud the steps 'masthead, lamp, food'. I have time to do the masthead when I feel a familiar motion that usually lead to a round down. I hadn't studied the wave pattern enough and there is one wave in an opposite direction which instead of pushing the boat to weather, push it to leeward! I run back into the cockpit (note that I can remain clipped in all the way to the nav table, so that didn't slow me down at all), push 'stop' on the AP and take the tiller. I manage to avert the mini disaster.

Only trouble is that I have only accomplished one third of my mission. This time, I study carefully the wave pattern and wait for the right moment to execute the rest of my plan which goes on without any problem. I already had my foul weather gear which is also my night gear at this point as the temperature has increased a lot, so I don't need to pick up any other gear down below. I am all set.

The wind increases further, the boat is now surfing at up to 14 knots. This is absolutely exhilarating. It requires a bit more concentration but the more the boat accelerate, the less load there is on the sail as the wind speed doesn't increase but true wind speed - boat speed == apparent wind which is the wind that the sails are seeing. So that wind decreases as boat speed increases. In some cases, the boat can go so fast that the sails cannot be kept full because the boat outruns the wind!

This has lasted for several hours now, the rain is on and off but not drizzle anymore when it does rain. The swell has formed and the surf is more pronounced. However, the seas are confused. There is not one dominant swell in one direction which had been my experience during pac cup 2008. Maybe I am not in the trades yet.

The boat and spinnaker require attention with the surf as the apparent wind keeps changing. I can minimize that by overtrimming the spinnaker a bit and by putting the pole a little forward (which reduces efficiency when the breeze is aft, but keeps the kite full when the breeze goes forward). I also twing in the sheet as there are waves that push the boat far to leeward and moves the whole kite to the leeward side. If I sheet in too hard, I choke the sail and reduce boat speed so I'd rather use the twin to reduce lateral movement of the sail. This works like a charm. It is also a depowering move and it makes steering easier. I can steer the boat with two fingers. Amazing design.

The power of the waves and of the spinnaker pulling the boat is amazing. I can't help smiling and talking to Elise about her performance.

'Yay girl! 15 knots! Way to go, now we have a 19 knot record to beat so let's keep working at this'

We only topped 15 knots that night so the record is yet unbroken. My personal record is 17 knots. Average speed is great though.

Racing requires mental concentration and I am starting to feel really tired. My meal was wet as I was biting into it. I look behind me and the black cloud still occupies the entire horizon. Actually the boat is engulfed in that cloud. I remember Skip's writeup (I will think of Skip every single day during that race) to try to avoid squalls. I am not quite sure where I would have gone to avoid the cloud now...I have no idea what the wind speed is but I would guess about 25 knots. Tough to tell with the surf as the apparent wind is all screwed up.

I look at my watch. It is 2am. The kite has been up for 16 hours and since about 7pm, I have been racing hard with higher wind speed. No wonder I am tired! 

I am not looking forward to putting up the twin sail but after regular tries at the autopilot, I have to accept that it doesn't work for more than a few minutes. The main problem is the swell pushes the boat in all directions and the autopilot cannot recover. It cannot also work the sheets of the sail. So sleeping requires me to take the kite down. As I am racing I hate this move. I reason that given that I have a top of the range autopilot, it is likely that my competition will have a similar situation IF they have the same conditions which is completely uncertain. In any case, I must sleep so I don't really have a choice. 

I worry that my dropping the kite will be difficult since I am tired. I eat a bit of candies to have a push of energy and drink half a bottle of water before taking it down. I run every line religiously and check it twice, particularly the guy and the halyard, the two lines that I will be releasing to collapse the spinnaker and remove the force it represents. I will use the sheet to bring the sail in. Singlehanded, and unless I am in the Bay and in light air, I usually douse the spinnaker in the companionway. The advantage is that I am close to the helm, close to all the lines, I can actually dump the sail below (I don't open the forward hatch in the ocean) AND, particularly in my case, since I can't hoist the twin sails while the kite is up (as going forward to remove the net right now given my AP difficulties would be difficult), I can blanket the kite behind the main to kill the sail while I grab the foot.

I time the douse during a surf (the sail will have less power in it). Off goes the guy, I gather the foot of the sail, reach for the halyard which is on the same side as the side the sail goes down on and release it. Nearly a perfect douse. The tip of the sail touched the water. Not my best work but everything went down without any incident.

I stuff the sail below after unclipping all the lines, clipping the sheet and guy together with the halyard so I can sheet it forward to whichever side I want it. I need the halyard for the second pole. It is my twin sail second pole topping lift. I have rigged a second downhaul.

I walk forward (always clipped in, and I have two clips so I can clip onto the new line without having to unclip from the previous line). Pretty rough now that the main only is up but the AP can manage with a high gain. I unclip the net and I roll it and attach it at the base of the mast, still attached to its tack so I can easily put it back up. I check the lines of the twin sails and I get ready to hoist it.

As it is now seriously blowing, the twin sails flogs like crazy on both sides. I have cleated the sheets but I can't cleat them tight as otherwise I wouldn't be able to hoist the sail. I usually hoist it from forward as I can then put the poles in. This time I have to return to the cockpit, hoist the sail, tighten the leeward sheet and then walk forward again to set up the pole on the windward side. I get whipped by the windward sheet. I set up the pole when I notice that in my haste to hoist the sail I have fouled the spinnaker halyard with the jib halyard. I can fix this by just moving around the spin halyard which I need to do in order to set the pole. It is still raining (it will keep raining until after daylight), it is dark and I am exhausted.

I put the pole back in the sleeve, open the clutch to lower the twin sail, bungee it down at the foredeck, go below and collapse on the wet spinnaker (it got rained on)

I set my timer for 45 minutes. When it wakes me, it is still raining, more drizzly now. I put on my foul weather jacket and I go forward to set up the twin sail.  I needed the rest. Given the conditions, it takes me forever to get everything set up, probably some 20+ minutes. Appalling performance! 

With a headsail, the boat is a lot more stable and it is easier for the autopilot to steer. I pray that the AP stays with me the entire race...We are still surfing at 10-12 knots on fully formed waves now even with the twin sail which makes me very happy. Base speed is more like 7 knots though, and some waves, we just aren't surfing anymore because the twin sails just lacks this couple of extra knots to allow the boat to catch them.

I check the batteries. I have enough for several hours of sleep. Putting the kite up for so long basically allowed Mr Fusion to charge up one battery nearly completely. I probably have 10 hours worth of driving in these conditions in there. 

Fantastic because I can't stay awake for one more second. I set the timer for 60 minutes but I will sleep through it completely and wake up after daylight to the same drizzle...I didn't take the time to do my evening fix.

Happy as a clam, Elise did well and we are sprinting toward Hawaii.