Dipping in and out of the Southern Ocean

The weather has been typically autumn like the last few days: greyt
skies, low hanging clouds, rain and it has been too warm for the winter
coat and too cold for the summer jacket. The wind has been changing a
lot: it turned from the nose to the back, went up and then down and then
fluky and then the same again. This is caused by a low pressure system
which is passing south of us. The sailing has nonethe less been
fantastic because despite the changes in strengtth the wind has not
dropped below 15 knots. Close hauled sailing is still one of my
favourites especially when we truck through the waves with 11 knots and
the seas are gentle. The additonal headsail makes it very powerfull
sailing and steady and easy to drive.
Been up the mast again (not too high) to do a small repair on the sails
and up the spinaker pole to do the "bow duty" of attaching our tripping
line. I am feeling more and more comfy swinging on the halyards. It is a
great sight looking down from the spinaker pole and mast.
Oh shit! A whale just kicked our rudder! Skip is checking for damage
now. It was a really weird bang I hope we are OK and that the whale is
OK too. We have seen several small groups of whales in our vicinity and
some have been really close but not this close just yet. Hitting whales
is our worst nightmare. Skip just came back: rudder damage :-(.
Let's see how we deal with this blow... 

slowly moving south east

We are now officially in the Southern ocean. The one sailors call the
southern ocean that is. Apparantly there is a difference in opinion
between sailors and scientists where the southern ocean starts. I like
the other name for the place we are in now which is the Roaring Forties.
Our current position is 40 deg 26 min south anbd 38 deg 18min East, 385
miles north of Marion Island which ios part of the Prince Edward
islands, 3770 miles to AAustralia...
The last few days have been fantastic sailing. Down wind in 30 plus
knots of wind (force 8)no spinaker up but with a poled out headsail:
foolproof. I managed top do some aerobatics in the climbing harness the
last few days: I found myself at the end of the spinaker pole in the
dark, some 4m above the sea looking over my shoulder at the boat as I
was tripping the spinaker off the pole to takle it down due to increased
windspeeds. A great place to be because while you trip the kite the rest
of the crew have to take it in and oput it down below and noone has time
to let you come down on the deck. So I could really relax (as far as
that goes) and look at how the crew work on deck while I was watching it
from a distance. A great feeling. The other acrobatic trick was dangling
on the leeward side in 30 knots of wind attaching a second shgeet to our
yankee. It was quite a trick to reach there without losing touch of the
boat and getting back down without spinning round the shrouds. This
definitely beats the best deals and biggest projects I have done :-)
While we were in big winds I had the absolute best surf so far: 21.1
knots of boat speed with 35 tonnes is absolutely exhilarating. I could
not help it and a big YIHAAA escaped from my mouth: what a sensation! My
lungs almost hurt with exitement! This is a better cure than any anti
depressant in the world.
Last night we had our first draw backs: a massive windhole! In 6 hours
we lost 30 miles and our second place became a very tight 4th with
Singapore right behind us. It was a beautiful night though but cold.
I thought at some point that I was seeing martians: there was a
strange red light hovering above the boat. Really strange. Turned out
to be a bird that was lit up by our port tricolor light. It tried for
about ten minutes to land on the top of our mast: without succes. The
sunrise this morning was fantastic. We were surrounded by low hanging
clouds and because the waves had calmned down the birds (yet another
kind has joined the group, a small grey one) cicle the boat quite
closely, including the albatrosses that have been with us again for
several days. These birds are really magnificent. The size of flying
turkeys but absolutely stunning.
Life is great in the Southern Ocean!

25 November

Day 1 at sea was a fairly windy one. After the start we continued to
sail along the Cape peninsula and in the early morning of the next day
the lighthouse of Cape of Good Hope dissappeared behind the horizon. One
more famous Cape rounded. The wind really picked up and we had two heavy
days. I went without sleep for at least 36 hours and only managed to
get some physical rest. My bunk this leg is all the way forward 3m from
the bow and this is the place where the boat moves the most. I was
airborne about 5 times during the first two days as we dropped off steep
waves and the boat was rolling and heaving so much that I thought I
would slide over my leeclotyh and land on the other side of the boat.
Unfortunately I had a very similar fall as I made my way to my bunk and
just as I was moving my hand for more grip a wave knocked the boat and
I flew to the low side off the boat and fell into someone else's bunk.
He was in it! No injuries luckily. The heavy seas did take their toll
and many were seasick and the rest was exhausted. Things have improved
thankfully and all are better rested now that the seas have calmed down.
Last night was very eventfull. We had to change head sails and in the
process nearly both sails went over the side. Winds were up and it was
the first time we changed from 1 to 2 in heavy winds. I was on bow again
and learned loads. At some point I was holding the sail down on deck by
just lying on top of it and it occurred to me that it was the middle of
the night, I was on board a 68 footer with n18 others having the time of
my life! Usually I am too busy to realise that I am actually sailing
around the world. Good to realise that it is so fantastic!
This morning another eventfull watch: wind was shifting all over the
place as we entered fog and then got hit by a thunderstorm, rain and
then fog again with some sunshine. Gybe, tack, gybe, our track on the
chartplotter looks hilarious! Now all is very quiet and sunny though
still foggy. All a bit weird as thunderstorms usually do not occur in
these latitudes and sun is supposed to chase away fog. Let's wait and
see what else is waiting for us. 

Capetown to Geralton

We are already 3 days at sea and again this leg the first days were
tough. The start in Table bay was a fantastic experience which started
with a salute to Bertie Reed when leaving the Waterfront. Bertie was a
legendary South African sailor and his buste was revealed upon our
departure. Then in the leeway of the Table Mountain we had a formation
sail in gorgeous sunshine and surrounded by playfull seals and yachts nd
spectator boats. Then it was time for the start. The start was in the
front of the CApe flats and there was no leeway from Table mountain. We
had 20 knots of breeze. We had a reefed mainsail and hoisted our yankee
a minute before the start. I was on bow. My first race as bow and what a
baptisme of fire. We rounded the top mark as first boat and managed to
scare Jamaica off, who were inside us but didn't think they could make
the mark. Great close quarters sailing and quite spectacular in the
windy conditions. We rounded two more marks and just after the last mark
we were in the leeway of Table mountain again. The wind dropped
dramattically from 24 and we changed to yankee 1. Australia in the
mean time had pulled up beside us. Then the wind dropped completely so
all headsails went down and the windseeker came up (that was sailchange
2). When we were doing thjis we managed to be so quick that when the
wind picked up slightly we pulled away fast from Australia. We quickly
changed to a lightweight spinaker and  picked up enough speed to
pull away further and further. In the distance however the end of
the leeway of table mountain was looming and before we hit the
funneling effect we had to change back to windseeker because the
wind had changed direction and then we made the amazing swap from
windseeker to yankee 3 (our smallest headsail). This was just in
time and 3.5 hours after the start. My first race as bow was a
baptoisme of fire with 5 sailchanges! It was great fun. I had however
not realised what drama s unfolded before the start or on the first
beat. Two boats went back to the marina for extensive repairs and are
now suffering days of delay...

Cape Town

So we are now safely mored at the Royal Cape Town Yacht Club. Second
place coming all the way from 7th is a great result and we are all
pleased. I celebrated with a shower. The last miles to the finish line
have been trying. Every gybe we did landed us in windshift making our
new tack the wrong one, very frustrating! Eventually during the
afternoon the wind stabilised and we managed to get on to a straight
line to CT. When the wind dropped we swapped our heavy weight spinaker
for the medium weight monster to make some miles on Singapore who were 6
miles behind us at that time. But as always the race isn't over 'till
it's over: the outboard end of our spinaker pole failed dramatically and
we we only just managed to get our sail in safely and avoid a drama. We
quickly swapped poles, repacked the heavy weight and put it back up. The
remaining 30 miles to CT passed without any drama. We reached CT in the
dark and had a nice view of table mountain, Liion's head and Green
Point. The crew of Cork who came in first were waiting for us on the
jetty  which was a warm reception and the beer tasted great! The shower
was the highlight though. Deep clean tomorrow but now we are savouring
the delightys of a non-moving boat, shore power and lack of leecloths.
Night night.

nearly there‏

130nm East of Cape Town
It is all very exiting, frustrating, exhausting, thrilling, physically
painfull and hugely entertaining: we are in close battle with Singapore
now for about 36 hours. They came into sight day before yesterday and we
managed to stay close to each other with us overtaking them slowly but
surely. They were upwind (North) of us trying to keep the speed up and I
don't know what made them do it but they finally gybed and positioned
themselves so badly that we ended up in the best possible place for a
good defense: between them and the finish line. We managed to extend our
lead and after they and then we gybed back they were behind us on our
track. Kat in 't bakkie (sorry, no english translation for this). We
have kept our eyes on them physically and through our radar to make sure
we knew when they gybed, what sails they were carrying etcetera. Somehow
the attention slipped when we hoisted our spinaker and had to sail a
slightly higher course. They disappeared from the horizon and I managed
only after 10 minutes watching the raradr to find their reflection on
the screen. Damn, they sailed lower than us and managed to squeeze out
of our (not so) stranglehold: school boy error. Subsequently they
managed to report wrong positions for the hoursto follow and did not
show up on the radar anymore. Confusion and frustration on our boat:
where are they, are the overtaking? At 6 the real position came in and
it appears they are still south and downwind from us but 9 miles further
from Cape Town. What a relief but we need to stay focussed.
we had a few very close encounter with whales the yesterday. One crossed
our bow 30m ahead of us. When doing 15 knots through the water that is
very close. The second encounter was with a whale that surfaced 15m from
the boat and I was very afraid it might not dive deep enoiugh to evade
our rudder. There is not much you can in these situations which makes it
quite hairy. Besides that I would not want to hit a whale and cause
wounds. We are guests in their universe, after all.
The strong winds we have had the last couple of days were great but also
quite draining. The boat keeps moving violently and the noise from deck
from the moving mast, the creaking running rigging, the waves coming
over, the winches turning, the shouting when in manouvres etc make it
hard to sleep. Moving around the boat takes extra effort and the helming
sessions and wetness all contribute to bodily wear. Small wounds start
infecting because they do not dry out and muscles ache because steering
is far more intense and tough: the pressure on the rudder is bigger, the
reaction peed is higher, your wet life jacket and heavy foulies press
down on your shoulders.
During a lighter spell yesterday a teammate unravelled my matted hair.
It has not seen a shampoo nor a brush since Rio and has only been rinsed
by rain or salt water when waves came over. During our first two days at
sea it could knotted up so badly I did not dare brush it anymore. Then
it got too cold to wash it and then I got to the "it's only so many days
left before we reach Cape Town" stage and I didn't bother anymore. It
sounds awfull but it really isn't that bad. It does not smell (!?!) to
my surprise or maybe my standards have dropped. Anyway a nice shower and
a decent night's sleep would be very welcome now but first we need that
second place on the finish line.

035o50.9'S 001o22.1'W

035o50.9'S 001o22.1'W After a two day spell of strong cold southwesterly
winds at gale force, cold and partly therefore sleepless nights (I
should have worn my beanie in bed sooner!) this morning we hiot the
lighter winds between two frontal systems. It was incredible how quickly
the wind died and how it gradually changed direction from southwesterly
to northwesterly. The temperature difference between the two wind
directions is amazing. The last night and day were very cold and sitting
around doing nothing is not very helpfull. The cold has a big impact on
how quickly you can think and act. Everything took ages to do and there
were many small mistakes in things that normally go perfectly well
without thinking. It is clear that keeping warm is good for the boat
speed. Yesterday we heard the news that another boat had a man
overboard. They have successfully recovered the guy and he seemed fine.
Not a nice thought though floating around in a hostile ocean all alone
surrounded by walls of water.
The seascape is magnificent when the waves are building. When on topof a
big one the views are astounding: high peaks with foamy crests as far as
the eye can see. Like being on top of the world. I remain amazed at the
fact that no matter how high the wave is the boat just bobs along,
climbing the sides of the waves to the top and sliding off the back end,
effortlessly. That is not true of course we are working our butts off to
keep the boat going as fast as possible, but still it is the wind
and water that is driving us.
Today's highlight was few hours helming the boat with our massive
oversized medium weight spinaker up in good pressure. It was fantastic
feeling the pressure and driving the bioat in the right track. The best
was when we lost all our instruments and took the compass out to
recoinnect the displays. After about 15 minutes without any instruments
and only the old fashioned windex in the top of the mast I was bang on
course. One silent proud moment for myself :-)
We are now waiting for the wind to pick up to 35-40 knots for a three
to four day run to Capetown. I am ready, number three of the fleet is in
sight, so gogogo for a podium place in Capetown!

800 miles East of Capetown

I am exhausted but still cannot sleep. The much awaited gale force winds
have hit us  and we have gone through almost our entire sail wardrobe.
From medium weight spinaker yesterday afternoon to heavy weight early
evening, yankee two, one reef and then two reefs then only staysail and
two reefs and yankee 3 up and now poled out: all within 18 hours. The
seas have been building and the wind has reached up to 50 knots which is
force ten.
I have been driving in the darkest night ever: no moon,heavy clouds and
rain.  It was like a  rollercoaster ride in the dark with just the wheel
and a set of screens to look at. No way of orientating myself except
the compass rose and the windinstruments. No way of anticipating
the waves because I could simply not see them. The instuments started
failing just as we started hitting 40 knots of wind... then the compass
light sarted flickering and then went dark. So we quickly mounted a
headtorch and continued on our way. Very demanding helming and after 2.5
hours I was ready for bed. But...I couldn't sleep: caffeine, adrenaline
and a building storm outside kept me awake in my warm sleeping bag.
After 4 hours of loungeing back on deck for another 6 hours of physical
punishment :-) The seas are enormous and waves up to 10 meters rise up
around us. This morning three knocked us down. Luckily we were all
unhurt and actually managed to laugh about it everytime it happened.
There just isn't much you can do. They rise up very steeply in the coner
of your eye, lightblue thundering crests and they just jump on you,
flooding the cockpit, throwing everybody around and pushing the boat
away like a piece of driftwood. Our spreaders didn't touch the water so
they were not too bad, but our poo teammate down below who was preparing
lunch didn't really appreciate the devastating effect it had on the
contents of her cooking pots. Lunch was great though!
We are all truly enjoying the rough weather and high seas and the
incredible sensation of speed you can even have on our slow 30+ tonnes.
Sometimes the boat humms like a planeing dinghy and she even seems to
take off a bit, judging by the soft thumping as her bottom hits wavelets
underneath her. We are on the hunt for a podium place. We got number
three last night by a mile and are closing in on number two in the
fleet. Our Nemensis has dropped further behind us so if all goes well we
will be leading the overall standings when we arrive in Capetown. 

6 November: Fresh

We are now just about 100 miles north west of Tristan da Cunha and we
have truly arrived in the South Atlantic. The wind is south westerly and
about force 6 gusting to force 8 and the swell is building gradually.
With the sun out during the day it is absolutely gorgeous. At night it
is fresh! I was cold on deck after 4 hours and was wearing just enough
to last me the entire watch including 1.5 hours of intensive helming .
then the sleeping bag wasn't set up yet for the crisp temperatures so I
was cold in them too. Just finished the 2-6 watch and my butt is nearly
freezing. Time to take the midlayer out of the bag and wear it! Spirit's
are up again and with a short antibiotic treatment my swolen lips may
heal a bit too. Loving it all!!!! :-)

3 November: Team Finland no points

It has been a very variable 36 hours on board. Not only the wind but
also the atmosphere in the goup is variable. Not sure why I think
everybody seems grumpy or maybe it is just me. Not enough food and
the fact that it all sort of tastes the same and contains beans
(again...) and pork sausage definitely does not help me. Obviously
food lessons from the first leg have not been learnt, which is a
shame... Attempts today to put some smiles on faces during happy hour
with two tracks from my "seriously happy" album failed partially. Maybe
it is because we are not in the lead? I don't care much about that; as
long as we get better every day. It is hard though for me to stay
motivated and keep everybody and myself alert on boat trim, changes in
the wind speed and direction if everybody seems distracted by little
annoyances and think they are more important than sailing fast. It is
easy to join! Guess it confirms to me that I am very sensitive to the
atmosphere in the group.
Enough about that because there is so much beauty and excitement (if you
like tweeking sails and driving a sailboat) around this 68 foot
universe (and someone just made me a nice cup of tea). In the last 36
hours we have seen the most amazing changes in weather. From grey
overcast and moist air and North Westerly breeze the wind slowly but
surely went almost full circle around us. We had beautiful shorts and
T-shirt sailing yesterday with spinaker up and 20 knots in the back.
Overnight we gybed and changed spinaker for yankee one, all on the same
course. In the whole process we got caught in a windhole and lost our
chances for a point in the scoring gate to our Irish drinking brother
and sisters. No harm done our nemesis is still 150nm behind us in a car
park. With the wind pirouetteing around us like a prima ballerina we
have to  be absolutely switched on not to miss the small changes and
potential miles progress. Very busy with trim, trim, trim!
As the wind turned southerly we had to swap our shorts for woollen long
johns. This morning felt like a glorious crisp autumn morning. Fresh air
clear skies, sunshine, but with hats and foulies on. Amazing how rapidly
things can change. Three new types of birds have joined the boat and we
now have at least 15 following us. Two albatrosses though a small
variety, petrels and booby's (?) and some other birds are with us day
and night and they barely flap their wings. Very distracting and a
highlight everytime I see them. Today we also met a a big turtle and
yesterday we passed our first whale since Rio.
The GRIB files look very confused so more challenging times ahead. We
have just tacked and are heading further South hopefully towards more
pressure.

Start and South Atlantic

The start in Rio was a slight disappointment: low clouds and rain made
for a less spectacular or say boring departure from Rio. We could just
as well have left in the night instead of 3 in the afternoon. The
regular formation sail had to do without Team Finland as our gascable
broke and it was being fixed by the technician who came on board by rib
and had teh thing fixed before the start. The start was delayed several
times due to changes in the wind  direction. These changes were
accompanied by lower clouds and the sugarloaf was the last bit of
scenery hidden from us. We started and raced around the loaf towards
Copacabana beach and then around a mark out to sea. After the wind that
came with the rain in went quiet and we got slightly stuck under the
steep walls of the sugarloaf. Eventually we managed to pass the last
mark as 7th as we headed out to sea. After a quiet start the wind soon
picked up and there was no way of gently getting accustomed to being at
sea again: force 5 on the nose and proper steep waves to bash into. Our
sealegs had vanished despite all teh caiparinha's and the restless
berth. Half the crew remembered seasicknes from their training sessions
and I wasn't 100% either (no vomitting tthankfully but slightly
selfconcience). This was not really a problem because with so many out
of action there was plenty of distraction. Changing headsails in the
dark was a nice one. It took 4 people to take the sail down and three to
put the new one up on the forestay. I was airborne several times and
luckily managed to land safely in the soft sails as opposed to the hard
deck. Beginners luck? The amount of water coming over was also very
impressive. We have not yet been washed across the deck but were getting
close. In case you are worried now: we are clipped on and wearing life
jackets. Quite an experience and very tiring. Because of teh lck of
manpower the watches were twice as long and the breaks half as short.
Maye that led to the fact that when the weather calmed down to almost no
wind at all and we were experiencing the doldrums all over, I was
feeling  a bit low. Lack of energy and spirit were the main problems.
Maybe a bit of a dip in the immune system. I am fighting a sun induced
cold sore (koortslip) now for more than 10 days and the fact that it
keeps coming back and is rather painfull does not make me ver happy.
And... we got parked up in a windhole once on my watch and that is not
helping either. The next day hoever we learnt that our biggest
competitor got stuck even worse than us did make me feel slightly better
;-) They had been sailing on our tail for almost a day  and got closer
and closer which was quite exiting. Then we decided to break away an put
a kite up and head south. They followed us for a couple of hours and in
a windshift decided to drop teh kite and move further North. We lost
them in a raincloud which left us without wind, but them without even
less wind as we found out later.
The ocean is again a beautifull place even without the expected big
waves and strong westerly breeze. Two birds keep us company and show up
regularly. It is great to see them skim the tops of waves and dip into
the wave valleys to come up into sight after a few seconds. It must be
great to be one of them for a few hours...