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November 13th, 2009 – At Sea, 12 11N, 059 15W
by Herb McCormick
Last spring, as Ocean Watch was undergoing a stem-to-stern refit at the Seaview East boatyard in Ballard, Washington, Paul LaRussa, who with our own Dave Logan was spearheading the project, took out a black Sharpie and a roll of blue tape and began to scribble. His was a two-part message, written on two small sections of tape, which he affixed to the trim above the low hard dodger covering the forward end of Ocean Watch’s cockpit.
LaRussa and just about everyone else who came aboard nearly knocked themselves silly on numerous occasions when their skull inadvertently rendezvoused with the structure on their trips below decks, so the wry, ironic note addressed a couple of matters; it served as a warning, yes, but it also acknowledged the fact that no one ever truly enjoyed the full Ocean Watch experience until they rendered themselves more or less unconscious on the hard teak plank. Here is what the note said:
ALL ARE WELCOME TO
HIT HEAD HERE
Several months later, the top strip of tape has long since vanished, but the lower invitation exists to this day. And today, as Ocean Watch continued to thrash to weather on the voyage south towards Brazil, it occurred to me that “Hit Head Here” was not only a literal expression, it also served as an apt description for the figurative pickle and predicament the crew finds itself in on their current journey towards the Southern Hemisphere.
After all, everyone’s heard the old joke about the guy who whacks himself in the noggin with a hammer. Why would one do this? Because, of course, it feels so good when he stops.
Let me explain. Today, Ocean Watch was heading almost due south and was a mere 90 miles from the island of Tobago. That would be wonderful if we were going to Tobago. The problem is, we need to get around the wide shoulder of Brazil, which juts prominently to the east in the South Atlantic Ocean. Standing between this rather elusive goal and us are the southeast trade winds, directly, as sailors say, “on the nose.” Getting around Brazil, then, at the present moment at least, is almost exactly like “hitting your head here.”
On the voyage Around the Americas, the crew of Ocean Watch has already sailed to their most western point, in the distant Aleutian Islands, as well as the northern terminus of their travels, in the Northwest Passage. The outer coast of Brazil will be the easternmost of their ramblings, that is, when and if they ever get there.
One doesn’t really understand how vast the nation of Brazil is until they try to sail around it. We all thought Alaska was pretty darn grand – heck, it took us a full six weeks to put the Alaskan coastline in our wake – but the great northern state has nothing on Brazil. Have a look at an Atlas or a globe and you’ll see what we mean. Yet the sheer girth of Brazil isn’t as much of an issue as those aforementioned prevailing winds; taken together, however, they present a formidable obstacle.
Hit head here, indeed.
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| With 12 to 16 knots of breeze, Dave Logan knows it’s only a matter of time before his cracks his cranium on the low hard dodger. |
A series of practical matters muddy the already unclear waters. If all goes well, and we use our diesel engine in its most efficient mode – that is, assisted by sail power at all times, what is known as motor sailing – Ocean Watch has a range of about a thousand miles. Our next proposed port of call is Fernando de Noronha, a Brazilian archipelago about two thousand nautical miles away. A math wizard I’m not, but even I understand the basic conundrum presented in this equation. So, obviously, we need to make many miles under pure sail alone on this leg of the adventure. However, sailing upwind, with the attendant tacking angles taken into account, adds many miles to the passage. The issues become more complicated, not less.
So, today has been a day of hitting our collective cranium here, there and everywhere. The wind rises, we drop a little sail to sail the highest, most direct course possible. The wind dies, and we press on more sail for speed and efficiency. Of course, the wind has been up and down, and fairly shifty, all day long. Plus, careful readers will remember it’s hot down here. As in: nuclear hot. Furthermore, we have a little bit of a current running with us, adding anywhere from half to three-quarters of a knot of boat speed. This is good. However, the current is opposed to the easterly winds, which is promoting a rather lumpy, uncomfortable seaway. This is bad.
Hit head here. Hit head here. Hit head here.
Sometime earlier today – Friday the 13th, of course – we sailed out of the Caribbean Sea and back into the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic, to put it rather mildly, has not been especially favorable to us on our southbound movements. I mentioned that to skipper Mark Schrader this afternoon, and he replied, “The Atlantic, blech, pretty unkind…” or words to that effect. He expounded on the topic in greater detail in the latest edition of his personal log:
“More of the same. We’re close reaching in 12 to 16 knots of true breeze, sometimes sliding and sometimes plowing our way through a jumbled up three to four foot sea. Larger swells occasionally lift OW a little higher than the rest but they don’t seem to be driven with a purpose or increasing in frequency.
“We keep hoping for a little northerly shift of the easterly winds but the wide area weather forecast shows no change through Sunday. The sloppy sea means we can’t sail any closer to the wind than about 50° and maintain a reasonable boat speed – reasonable being anything from 5 to 6.5 knots. So, right now if our destination was Cayenne in French Guyana rather than Fernando de Noronha then we’d be doing very well. It’s not. As we get closer to the equator and the eastern ‘bulge’ of Brazil the typical winds should veer toward the south. Until then this may be one very long and hot beat to windward.”
Anyway, I was feeling pretty put upon by the whole affair late this afternoon, typing in a 90-degree cabin, when the call came up from on deck: “Dolphins!” They were, as usual, exquisite, but one in particular was otherworldly, the Michael Jordan of dolphins, arcing high out of the water in leaps and bounds the likes of which I’d never seen before.
So, I’ll stop complaining. I’d trade a few blows to the brain for that incomparable image any day of the week, any month of the year.
- Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
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