Noel, the owner and skipper, left no stone unturned in ensuring that St Jude was as safe and well prepared as any boat could be. This included having the boat and mast out, all rigging checked, keel checked, all instruments rechecked, new halyards (the ropes that hoist the sails), new jibs, re anti-fouled, satellite link upgraded as well as all the "normal" maintenance on the boat. The skipper requires everyone to hold a current sea survival course certification (which means you must have done the course within the last 3 years) and Mick our safety officer, had done a superb job ensuring that we had gone through all our safety drills. These drills covered reefing (reducing the size of the mainsail when the wind becomes too strong), hoisting storm sails, practising man over board drills and going through the routines for what seemed to be every potential emergency. On top of all this a huge amount of work had been done by the skipper and various members of the crew from setting up and running all the navigation, pre-preparing all meals so that everything could be heated up or eaten easily, checking sails, calibrating instruments, ensuring the raft of race paperwork was done, preparing the boat for its Category 1 Ocean Race safety audit and attending all the mandatory race briefings. There had been teleconferences, informal and formal meetings through the year - the man hours invested was very significant.
In the final few days run up to the race the forecast showed that we were probably going to be in for a tough race. No less than three southerly fronts were forecast to hit the fleet and there looked to be a high pressure system off the Tasmanian east coast that was likely to mean "holes" of no wind which would make life tricky. Southerly winds off the east cost of NSW and Tasmania area are almost always caused by low pressure or cold fronts and invariably mean very strong winds and much cooler temperatures. The last few years of Hobart races have been marked by generally variable or more benign weather. The last race where there had been strong wind on the nose (meaning the boat has to be sailed into the wind which is much harder than sailing with the wind behind or on the side) was 2004. So it was not unexpected that this year conditions would be tougher given that they had been overdue for a few years.
So Boxing Day morning and race day dawned. Like last year the sky was grey and by the time Lenka and I got to CYCA, the host yacht club and home of St Jude, it was raining. Lenks headed off pretty soon after as the weather was so miserable. We did our final setting up of the boat, ticked off the final checklists, had the mandatory glass of pre race champagne and pep talk from Noel, said our goodbyes and cast off from the dock. It's always a bit of a relief to get out of the marina, start the 628 nautical miles of banter with boys, have a sandwich, settle the nerves, get the storm sails up to show the start boat and get their nod that we were on for the race. The harbour is always amazing - crowds along the foreshores, spectator boats and several helicopters buzzing the fleet. Time quickly ran down to the 1pm start. There are two start lines to accommodate all the boats. The first line has fewer bigger boats and the second the rest of the fleet. We were on the second line and so in with the crush of 60 or so boats circling and jockeying to get the best start possible. We managed to get a clean start and headed off up the harbour to the heads. As we got to the clearing mark between the heads of Sydney harbour Noel turned the boat south and we hoisted the spinnaker. It was good to get out of the harbour and offshore without any prangs - now for the next 626 miles!
The first few hours of the race south were champagne sailing. We had the spinnaker up, the breeze was light to moderate and the sun finally came out. We enjoyed it as much as we could because we knew that the first of the southerly "busters" was due early evening and after that things were likely to be very different. We got some hot food going and had the first of our dinners. We were lucky enough to have Paul an ex-chef who pre-prepared a bunch of great meals which went into chinese take away type foil tins with paper tops. Chuck them in the little gas oven on board and hey presto 45 minutes later we had a delicious meal. We had been running down the coast under spinnaker and the breeze had steadily being dialling from the north round to the east so the call came to take down the big spinnaker and put up a normal jib and take a more south easterly course. The southerly was now due and we could see the clouds heralding the front heading up the coast towards us. As we got closer the front looked more and more spectacular. The clouds had formed into the classic low long cigar shapes of an offshore southerly (see below picture). We sailed on in a lightish breeze knowing that there would be a complete change of conditions as the front came on. We sailed on and on coming under the sinister cloud front in the early evening. It was quite eerie - we were under very low grey white clouds, the sea was calm and the wind started to drop and back and veer by huge degrees. We could see other yachts sailing on completely different tacks to us but on the same course within the space of a mile. Then the southerly hit us. The breeze went from around 10 to 15 knots to over 30 knots with a huge blast. The crew swung into action and got 2 reefs in the mainsail, dropping the number 1 jib and changing to the much smaller number 4 sail. Big rain squalls blasted us at the same time and the sea state quickly built. Within an hour as night fell we were bashing through the 30 knot southerly in rough seas. We had gone into our two watch system with 4 men on each watch. Each watch lasted 4 hours. My watch ran from 5pm to 9pm then off watch until 1am then back on from 1am until 5am then back on at 9am and so on. During the first night we tried to get what sleep we could off watch but it's always difficult and even more so when the boat is heeled right over and falling off waves with huge crashes. Still the boat was pretty snugged down and we were trucking along pretty happy with everything.
As we headed into day two during the morning the breeze moderated slightly and as the morning went on the sun came out. We were pretty much on the rhumb line (the imaginary line which is the shortest straight line course from Sydney to Hobart) and going well. Montague island came into sight and we sailed between the island and the shore. The breeze started to build quickly again as we sailed past the island. This was the second southerly front that had been forecast. In went the second reef again and we changed to the number 5 jib - our smallest. The wind came up quickly and was much stronger than the first southerly - high 30 and mid 40 knots with the highest that I saw being 46 knots. This was the strongest wind that I have sailed in. At that wind strength the sea spray is blowing horizontal so hard that you can't look into the wind without your face and eyes getting blasted. It feels like a salt water fire hose is being played on you. The helmsman had to wear ski goggles and the crew on the rail sat in a bedraggled line - every so often a wave would sweep along the deck and wash through everyone. But it was a beautiful day - very sunny and a clear sky - and very exhilarating. The boat was fine, the rotating helmsmen (they did 2 hour shifts as anything more was too tiring) were doing a great job balancing speed and trying to preserve the boat - not letting St Jude fly off the back of waves too hard. There was one moment of light relief at some point in the blow. Jason was performing his daily ablution when the boat hit a big wave and he was thrown head first off the dunny, his head went straight into the toilet door, the door came off its hinges and Jason went flying into the boat, trousers round ankles. He had to be be disentangled from the door and general melee by Noel and fortunately no serious damage was done.
At the six hourly radio skeds (where all boats have to radio in their positions to race control) we heard that more and more boats were retiring. Sail damage, steering damage, broken mast, engine problems (engine is regularly run to charge the batteries for the radio and lights) were all causes. We kept sailing south and headed into another long uncomfortable night in a rough sea with the boat slamming over the waves. I didn't make it out of my drysuit that night - it was too hard to manoeuvre below and I wanted to stay dry and as warm as possible. I crashed out on the saloon berth under the spinnakers and woke up to water dripping on my head from the wet weather gear hung up and swinging from the saloon cabin roof.
The third day found us in the Bass Strait. The wind had a abated into the twenty knot range and had swung to the west. This meant were weren't so hard on the breeze, the boat was going faster and the motion was a bit kinder. As the day went on the wind continued to track around until it was coming from the north west. We could get our spinnaker back up and really crank up the pace. We got the A2 spinnaker up and the breeze built to 20 knots - close to the top of the range for that sail before it risks blowing up. We changed to the A4 spinnaker - smaller and more suited to near dead downwind sailing - this kite can cope with up to 30 knots. The breeze continued to build and reached 30 knots. The boat was flying along doing 12 to 16 knots - water spraying up from the bow - huge fun and the miles really started to click by. But as the breeze built we were faced with a tough call. We were right at the top of the range of the spinnaker - if we pushed on we risked blowing out the sail with still a big chunk of the race to go. It was a difficult decision - keep the pace up and keep going dead south but risk blowing the sail up or change to a smaller sail (called a jib top) which could definitely handle the wind strength but which wasn't so powerful and which meant we had to sail more towards the south west towards Tasmania - a worse course angle. The wind strength kept phasing up and down and then started to consistently push into the low 30 knot range. The difficult call was made - get rid of the spinnaker. The jib top went up and we started to track back towards Tasmania.
The fourth day saw us off the coast of Tasmania and the dreaded holes in the wind appeared. The breeze dropped right out to only 3 or 4 knots and the crew worked hard to keep the boat moving. We finally escaped the hole and for the majority of the day we ended up sailing into a south westerly which slowing started to build again. A few hours after night fall the third strong southerly of the race arrived and the mainsail had to be reefed again and back up went the small jib. The last night was like the first and second - rough but also much colder - the water temperature was down to around 14 degrees - a big difference to the 20 or so degrees off the New South Wales coast. Through the night our course directed us on to Tasman Island. We finally saw the faint light of Tasman lighthouse and as we sailed on through the darkness it steadily blinked away at us as we pounded onwards. As morning dawned we came up to Tasman Island, rounded it and headed into a very cold and breezy Storm Bay. Storm Bay is the huge inlet which sits to the south of Hobart and Tasmania - the mouth of the River Derwent is at the north west of the Bay. We crossed the Bay and reached the Iron Pot lighthouse which marks the mouth of the Derwent and the final miles up the river to Hobart and the finish line. We got to the Iron Pot around around 10 am and started up the Derwent.
We were starting to feel warmer and could feel that the end of the race and cold beers were only a few hours away. I was sitting on the rail chatting to Mish when suddenly someone shouted "man overboard" and the boat swung around. Paul who had been working on the leeward side of the boat had slipped and gone overboard. Although the conditions were near perfect - light breeze, flat river water and good light, it was a horrible feeling to see one of the crew bobbing in the water. We recovered him very quickly and without any use of the engine which would have disqualified us. We had the spinnaker up for the final few miles run down the river to Hobart, then a last agonising mile of the breeze dying out and other boats catching up to us before we got a few puffs and managed to get back ahead of them and across the finish line.
The first beers at the Customs House Hotel tasted so good. We had a great New Year. The race was made very special by the fact that the real Jude, Noel's wife, came down to Hobart and for the first time saw the boat and christened her.
What a race! The yacht and the crew were definitely tested. We came 27th over the line out of 60 finishers (18 yachts retired) and 35th on IRC handicap corrected time. St Jude always soaked up everything that was thrown at it and the crew did a great job. It was an exhausting, challenging but fantastic experience. The crew are an excellent bunch and I am very grateful to Noel our skipper for giving us all the opportunity to sail with him on the great St Jude.
1 comment:
Hi Jules, this sounds like a lot of fun. A great account... good for you. Best wishes - Mark (Daniel)
Post a Comment