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November 23rd, 2009 – At Sea, 04 45N, 049 39W
by Mark Schrader and Herb McCormick
In the wee hours of this morning, as Ocean Watch was being tossed hither and fro in the maw of a 35-knot squall, my watch-mate Jen Price, who is sailing this first South American leg along with her husband, Rick Fleischman, peered over the side and said, “What’s that white in the water? Phosphorescence?”
Nope, not phosphorescence. Those were the galloping white horses.
I don’t know who to attribute for the name, am not sure when or how it was first uttered, nor can I even say exactly what it means. In sailing, there are just terms that fit: When you see a picture of a yacht creaming downwind, sending up a big, frothy, white bow wave, that boat is said to be sailing “with a bone in its teeth,” and the description couldn’t be more accurate.
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| Galloping white horses – though the phrase invokes images of grandeur and gallantry, in truth, the galloping horses are a pain in the hindquarters. |
All through last evening and early this morning, we saw a lot of the galloping white horses, the streaming patches of white water – all the more distinctive, and eye-catching, on a black, squally night; under a black, featureless sky; over endlessly black expanses of sea – emanating from the quarter waves at the stern as the boat pitches and postures through the ocean. Though the phrase invokes images of grandeur and gallantry, in truth, the galloping horses are a royal pain in the hindquarters.
When skipper Mark Schrader laid out his plan to sail Around the Americas, I took one look at the proposed route and, at four or five very particular junctures, felt slightly seasick just gazing at the map. One was the Gulf of Alaska, another the Bering Strait. The former had some rattling moments, while we waltzed through the latter practically Scot-free. Then there was Peel Sound, in the Northwest Passage, a notorious choke point for summer sea ice. We had to wait a while for Peel to open up, and it gave us a couple of very challenging days, but our luck held there, too.
Then there was the northern coastline of Brazil, where the continent juts well out into the Atlantic Ocean like an old boxer leading with his chin. The trade winds, currents and geography are just all wrong, and when you throw in such oceanic obstacles as the doldrums and the equator, what you wind up with is a long, wide piece of water that’s best left to others.
And that’s where we are now.
The night was wild, made more so by the fact that others, unbelievably, were out there with us. All night long, first one light, then another, would dot the horizon, and it was nearly impossible to tell which way they were headed, and why they were headed there.
“You’d have to be crazy to be out here in a small boat on a night like this,” said first mate Dave Logan, ironically, ignoring the obvious.
The wind was one thing, the squalls another, but the real problem is the current, the relentless, opposing current. When you’re making 6 or 8 knots through the water, but only 3 or 4 towards your destination, “fun” is not the operative word to describe the sensation. Everyone has heard of the old saying, “One step forward and two steps back.” That’s what sailing the Brazilian coast is like.
Or, to put it another way, last night the horses were out of the meadow, but they were running hard in the wrong direction.
Now, here’s skipper Mark Schrader’s update and insights into the same conundrum.
Sailing Brazilian Waters and Important Links for Tracking Ocean Watch
by Captain Mark Schrader
The weather conditions today make us really appreciate what we had yesterday. The change is remarkable. Yesterday the water was a beautiful blue/green, the sea fairly gentle, the sky full of puffy little happy clouds and the wind direction favorable. During the night line squalls along with isolated larger squalls, moved in and everything changed.
We’re fortunate to have a very good Raymarine 48-mile radar on Ocean
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| To skipper Mark Schrader, a whole night and morning of squalls makes the seas look confused and unfriendly – uncomfortable might be a better word, since it is. |
Watch that not only ‘picks up’ boats, ships and sometimes an airplane but also rain and heavy cloud formations. These ‘echoes’ are highlighted in yellow on the black screen. Last night we watched while an all black screen changed quickly to one showing long yellow lines (hence line squall) and larger yellow blotches. The radar tracked the targets as they steadily moved closer to us and the isolated squall grew very quickly to a 20+ mile wide disturbance. As we move south through the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), also known as the doldrums, this kind of unsettled weather is typical of the equatorial region. Generally speaking, when a squall approaches the wind increases (up to 40 knots, so far) and blows hard for 15 minutes or so and then lots of wind-driven rain covers the area. As it passes over the wind decreases, sometimes to zero, the rain eventually stops and there you are – sitting in a dark, windless and very rough patch of water. Then it’s the Lugger engine to the rescue as we usually power up and drive ourselves along until the wind fills in or the next squall happens. A whole night and morning of this activity and the sea really does look confused and unfriendly – uncomfortable might be a better word, since it is.
Right now we have eight knots of true wind coming from the southeast. We would like to sail southeast so a compromise has been reached. We’ll sail east for awhile, then south for awhile and will do this until the wind decides to cooperate. It could be a long day. The good news in this is a slight respite from the high temperatures. The thermometer dropped a few degrees during the night and we actually went hunting for our jackets.
Our destination is now Natal, Brazil, rather than Fortaleza. Natal is about 250 nautical miles south of Fortaleza and is ‘around the corner’, meaning on the south or downhill side of Brazil’s eastern most point. The equatorial current splits as it hits this point, some of it going north (adverse) and some going south. We’ll fight this current until the point but once around, it will be favorable for most of the way to Punta del Este, Uruguay. The Sailing Directions for the East Coast of South America caution ships about the current and waves around Fortaleza but when Marco Rossi, a friend of Rick Fleischman’s (he helped write the small boat cruising guide for this coast), wrote the following we decided to give Fortaleza a pass:
“I sailed that area and you’ll have it very tough until you turn the corner for Natal. Close to Fortaleza, the winds, waves and currents are even stronger and not funny in the least – so trust me and get out of there.”
Thanks for the advice Marco, we do and we will.
On another important matter, our shoreside port coordinator, Bryan Reeves, sent the following helpful information regarding tracking Ocean Watch on the Internet:
If you haven’t found it already, I highly recommend visiting the iBoatTrack website to track Ocean Watch. Much better than the Google-based tool on the ATA site. Includes a handy distance tool. Here is the link:
http://charthorizon.com/m/cz/map?vessels=Ocean_Watch&history=Around_the_Americas_2009&v_scope=recent
Linked from that page is a “voyage report” which includes lots of interesting statistics (including speed averages from past legs):
http://charthorizon.com/cruiser/report?vessels=Ocean_Watch&history=Around_the_Americas_2009
Thanks Bryan. Afternoon squalls are once again surrounding us and lighting up the radar so it looks like this pattern will continue through the night. That’s it for today.
- Mark Schrader and Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
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