10 January 2018

All is now well, and repairs are nearly complete; JP is up the mast completing the final bits. We are sailing up past Sydney and, possibly due to the recent extremes of heat there, we watched the most incredible electric storms last night. I’ve never experienced the breadth, extent and ongoing nature of the lightening – some forked, but mainly massive sheets, seemingly the whole sky at times. I’ve been coaching new helms, and was working with Claire to cope with rougher, confused seas and variable winds. Massively challenging as the night got darker and darker, with bigger and brighter flashes of lightening.

We had full main, staysail and our biggest Yankee up, appropriate for current conditions, but then it got too much, so Phil took over as he is much more experienced. In retrospect, these factors should have been a clue as we knew the wind was due to shift South. Suddenly it did. From 15kts to gusts of 60 to 80kts and a wind shift of 160 degrees! We broached and were pinned virtually flat on the water on our left hand side. We managed to ease the main and the Yankee so the boat rose up, only to have a chinese gybe and the boat immediately went down on its right side, hove to. This time we were completely pinned flat on the water, with the mast touching the sea, and half the cockpit under water. The wind was blowing us sideways at 3-4kts. I hate to think what it felt like down below. Most of us had been clipped on with short tethers on the high side, but this was now the low side, so lots had to fight to move to the new high side.

Can you picture the helming stations? I was now ‘stood’ on the side of the right hand helming station ‘lying’ across the deck and holding onto the bottom of the left hand wheel steering the bottom keeping her hove to. However, I was actually standing upright. Many others were in a similar situation with a 5m cliff to climb to get to the high side. Andy managed to work with the pit crew to drop the mainsail into its 3rd reef (smallest size) and drop the Yankee as far as possible without putting anybody onto the fore deck. This meant standing on the side of the cockpit, and reaching up to use winches that are now level with their shoulders!

Now safe and in control, we sat for about an hour until the storm abated. All I had to do was hold the wheel hard over to keep the boat hove to. At that point we could complete the reefing, drop the Yankee and set sail conservatively with fully reefed main and staysail, planning to check the rig and sort stuff at first light.

It sounds horrendous, but in the moment everyone on deck calmly got on with what was required under Andy’s clear direction. Probably not so easy for those down below who could only be passengers and trust those on deck. I found out later that Andy had been down, told them to put on foulies and prepare to abandon ship. However, when we returned to a normal angle, they did an amazing job of clearing up what must have been carnage down below, as many of the food lockers had emptied across the galley.

This happens rarely, and is very localised. We had had someone watching the radar for squalls, and they were tracking one two miles away. Apparently the screen just filled with squall a couple of miles across as our squall formed on us! The other watch is on this morning, so should have us back sailing, probably under spinnaker, by the time we come on watch at 4.

4 days later we had similar conditions, so whilst almost becalmed, we dropped the Yankee, fully reefed the main, and set the boat on a suitable course, even though we had no wind at the time – bizarre, perhaps. However, Dare to Lead were only around 7 miles south of us and we could watch them on our navigation system. Sure enough, as the southerly buster hit them, their speed increased from 2 knots to 14 and they charged off. We put out boat on the same heading and round 5 minutes later were storming along at almost 14 knots! A wild and exhilarating ride that lasted for around an hour before the winds abated.