Solitaire Spirit: Three Times Around the World Single-Handed (28 page)

On Tuesday, October 7th, we had been in the storm for nearly a week and
Solitaire
wallowed in high, breaking seas. However, there were a few gaps in the clouds and I managed to log our position, 40°42´S, 23°55´E – 42 miles into the Roaring Forties, 360 miles below Cape Agulhas. The winds had backed from north to west and now before
Solitaire
stretched the Indian Ocean, a pencil mark showing that we had rounded our first Cape.

For some days the thought of opening Rome's second parcel had tantalised me, not just for the goodies inside but for the friendship it represented. Its opening would record another milestone on our journey. I would not cheat, no matter how much I wanted to look inside, because that would mean I was giving way, and as that was not on I spent the day on my bunk with the present, looking at it, touching it. In the afternoon I managed to get a further sight,
which proved that we were indeed well past the Cape. So I opened the parcel and used its contents for a special meal, finishing with two squares from a block of chocolate. The card enclosed I pinned above my chart table, the start of a new practice. Henceforward each card or letter stayed on show until replaced by a new one, whereupon the old went into the ship's log.

Our thirteenth week at sea had proved to be our worst.
Solitaire
had been in conditions I would have said no ship, let alone a yacht, could survive. Looking at the chart
Solitaire
had been in the worst possible position when the storm started, with hurricane force winds from the north whose speed increased as they swept down the western coast of South Africa. Off the Cape of Good Hope they would hit the Agulhas Current moving at up to 5 knots in a contrary direction.
Solitaire
had been lying in a massive east-flowing swell when the storm reached her. I can't see what more ingredients could have been added to make a storm worse.

Our survival inspired confidence that we really were going to make the voyage non-stop, that we had learned from my mistakes. The old book of rules for sailing a yacht around the world had been ripped to shreds and tossed over the side, old loyalties being replaced by new. The depression I had felt since leaving home I could at least understand.
Solitaire
and I were not making this voyage with the help of England, but in spite of its laws and bureaucracy.

Week 13 ended with our easing into the Indian Ocean. Our latitude dropped to 40°S, on the very edge of the Roaring Forties, the log showing that we had covered 8,099 miles with no major damage. The log for Thursday, October 9th, read: ‘Three calendar months at sea. A good day, in fact one of the best.'

We continued to work our way slowly north, trying to find calmer conditions so that I could work on the motor, dry out
Solitaire
and take a deep breath before the next stage of our voyage.

Indian Ocean – Cape Horn

October 1980 – February 1981

Our prayers for calmer seas must have been a bit too strong since we spent the day with virtually no wind in a temperature shooting up to the mid-70s.
Solitaire
rolled, half asleep, her decks decorated by carpets, sleeping bags and wet weather gear. Our spirits went through the roof when, having replaced the sump oil, the motor burst into life. I ran it for an hour, then turned off the engine water intake and allowed it to tick over for a minute to clear the seawater from the block and exhaust pipe. I felt that most of the water had found its way into the cylinders not through the seacock but because the exhaust pipe had not been drained.

All in all it was a red-letter day. One great pleasure at sea is listening to music. The BBC and American Overseas Services play a few hours a day. However, once you are within a few hundred miles of a coast you can pick up local stations. I now had the South African Capital station flooding some old favourites into
Solitaire
. That night another special dinner. I baked bread and covered the crusts with pâté from Rome's parcel, finishing off the menu with sliced onions. They had lasted for three months and I now had only two left, the last of my fresh vegetables.

I lay on top of a dry sleeping bag, wearing dry trousers topped by a dry shirt and sweater, listening to music from another world!
We had retreated from the Roaring Forties and were now 84 miles beyond their reach. Tomorrow, refreshed and rested, we would drop south again not to do battle but to assuage the sea's anger. Never again would
Solitaire
lie helpless without sails or self-steering.

The next cape was Cape Leeuwin on the west coast of Australia, 4,500 miles away. Above latitude 40° the chart indicated westerlies (over our stern) around Force 5 to 6, with seventeen per cent gales indicated. Below 40° gales went up to twenty per cent, although it was not this that decided my sailing above the Roaring Forties; it was that the extreme limit for icebergs during October/November was just below this latitude. I already had experience of sailing in cold seas rounding the Cape of Good Hope and was not keen to repeat that misery.

The man who made the chart must have smuggled it out of a sewer or the Houses of Parliament; had I completely reversed his wild claims for the next 2,000 miles they would have been closer to being right. The projected stern winds of Force 5 to 6 came on our nose, gusting 3 to 4. No calm periods for this area were indicated, yet at least once a week we spent a day bouncing up and down in a 30ft swell completely devoid of wind. The game the charts were about to play started with an innocent log entry:

Grand morning, warm 60°F, clear blue sky. Light winds from the east (the way we want to go). Smashing music still from South Africa and making the most of it before it fades. Some sail repair work this morning. Reading Annegret's book from the parcel, James Michener's
The Source.
Winds increased to Force 4. Full main and working jib. Would use number two genoa but must save it for later. Now for spam and tomatoes from the parcel, bread from yesterday.

Next day a short entry read: ‘No sights. Back to beating into steep seas. High wind squalls. Two reefs in the mainsail. Grey sky, raining.' And for week after week that's how it continued. Winds increased to gale force and always from the direction in which we were trying to point.
Solitaire
sailed under grey skies, through drizzle and breaking seas. Now and again she would find a smooth
patch of ocean and gather speed only to drop off the top of the next wave, mast and rigging a-shudder.

For days I was unable to get a sun sight. The winds were pushing us north, but with all the Indian Ocean to play in there was no danger from bad navigation. Lack of progress was the main worry. Despite my shortage of sails I had expected to make 100–120 miles a day in following winds, whereas our best run was 80 miles and that not in the right direction. I dared not go too far north as, apart from extending the distance, we could lose a helping current.

Fear was not part of the reason. The waves that came towards us were normal, if high marching; the only problem was dropping down the other side as they went through. We started with full main and working jib heading ENE against a wind from ESE! After three or four days it would increase from Force 3 to 4, which caused us to reef. On the sixth day it would veer for a few hours, and when in the perfect direction for us it would drop altogether, leaving us becalmed in a confused sea. Then, surprise, surprise, it would hit us as a gale from the north-east! Although angry and confused, the seas had no time to attack
Solitaire
in force.

We have three reef points on the mainsail, the third of which I do not use as it turns the canvas into a minute trysail. The slab reefing boom has only two reefing ropes through the boom, so if you want to put in a third reef point you have to release and use one of the other ropes, and standing on deck at night in a gale is not the right time to attempt this operation. Having been caught out once, whenever we became becalmed I would put in the third reef and nine times out of ten it paid off. The self-steering with its small wind vane was always in use and
Solitaire
was happy pointing into waves. The odd one might push over her nose, causing seas to break over her deck, but few entered her cockpit. The temperature was back in the sixties and the cabin, if damp with so much rain, fog and drizzle, was not unbearable. And I no longer had to wear sea boots.

I was back to reading my books and baking bread every third day. Wet weather gear was unnecessary apart from when I went on
deck. Most of the time I lay on my bunk, a sleeping bag covering my legs. For hours I would look out of the main hatch watching a variety of sea birds: soaring albatrosses, with their 10ft wing-span, I could enjoy all day. Despite my moans and groans I was satisfied with the voyage so far. I would have liked the wind to have been from over our stern, and I wished we had more sails, and more food... but we were progressing slowly. Life could have been worse.

Week 14 passed like the hands of a faulty clock:
Solitaire
trying to reach 12 o'clock while winds from 2 o'clock meant we could only make 11 o'clock. The hands stuck for four days with winds gusting between Force 3 and 6, then they moved slowly to 6 o'clock and over our stern. Just as
Solitaire
was about to say, ‘Thank-you-very-much', they died, leaving us bouncing around in a confused sea after a run of 556 miles. We would curse their sense of humour, to which they would reply angrily from 10 o'clock with racing clouds and screaming breath.

In week 15, time passed by like the seas cascading down our decks. The course adjustment on the self-steering broke, and was mended while the clock ticked on. On Friday, October 17th, its fingers registered our hundredth day at sea.

Week 16 saw 565 miles logged and on Friday, October 24th, the heart that ticked away the seconds of my life celebrated its 55th birthday – sometimes faint, sometimes strong, now it beat with
Solitaire
's. It slowed and raced and would stop with hers.

Some 1,200 miles from South Africa, in winds gusting up to Force 7, the south-easterlies pushed us further and further north.
Solitaire
, a lonely speck 360 miles above the Roaring Forties, forced her way to Australia, trying to edge back south to pass under its west coast. It was time for Rome's third parcel and I prepared a special dinner on a dancing stove, eating it with a birthday card propped on my knee, dreaming of those at home.

In week 17 we passed the 10,000 miles mark, with 746 miles logged, the best for some time. For a few days the winds behaved as the charts indicated, gusting Force 6 to 7 from the west, showing how badly I needed a big headsail. I had the double-reefed mainsail
up as long as I could, but when strong stern winds arrived they overrode the self-steering luffing
Solitaire
off course into them.

We slipped back to 517 miles in week 18, often becalmed, and the winds, when they came, were more from the west. I started to appreciate the height of the Southern Ocean swell. I had regretted not having a new number two genoa but from now on there would be few days when its absence would not be mentioned in the log as we passed our fourth month at sea.

Then I discovered our first crop of goose-barnacles under the stern and found pimples on our white-painted topsides, doubly annoying because I had spent good money I could ill afford repainting
Solitaire
. I could have saved time and labour by buying more sails or food instead. We sailed 200 miles north of the small, uninhabited Amsterdam Islands, which lie just above the Roaring Forties, although I had intended to sail below them. The south-easterlies decided otherwise. Australia was now 1,800 miles away and we started to pick up their broadcasts. On Monday, November 10th, I heard that Ronald Reagan was the new US President. More importantly I found we had used half of the 80 gallons of water with which I had set out.

In week 19 we clocked 746 miles, surpassing the 120-mile mark in a couple of days. For the most part the winds obeyed the charts and came from astern, which meant we could pick our course, so I started to slip south to pass under Cape Leeuwin. The end of the week saw us just 150 miles above latitude 40° where I changed our first gas bottle, which meant we had two left. One worry, now that I was down to my last spinner, were the albatrosses chasing it, trying to take a bite. I threw them some stale bread, which they spat out, screeching that I had tried to poison them, and went back to spinner chasing. The last thing I really wanted was to drive them away, as they were one of my main sources of entertainment. Cape Leeuwin was now some 800 miles away. It was time for another parcel.

As I had no chart of Australia I thought I should do something about it, especially after Rome's concern about my lack of navigational
aids when I left England. I had said it was something to worry about tomorrow and tomorrow was now today. So I used the chart of the Indian Ocean, changing the figures of longitude to suit Australia, plotting all the main D/F stations and joining them up to make the coastline. If week 19 was good, week 20 was bad. At the end of it we had been at sea for 140 days, logged 12,616 miles since leaving England and were just about to drop under Australia's western coast. But it was the week in which I found that we had used up more than half of our flour and that 45 of our 80 gallons of water had gone (although I tried catching water off the mainsail in one downpour with some success). All the good books had been read but I started to re-read them for the second time around; what with my marriages and voyages it was something I was making a habit of.