January 6, 2010 – At Sea, 40º 22’S, 056º 56’W
By Herb McCormick
Less than twelve hours after leaving Mar del Plata, Argentina, bound for the Falkland/Malvinas Islands, the southwester really kicked in and slapped us upside our silly heads. I came to the complete realization that things were going sideways in a big stinking hurry while sandwiched between skipper Mark Schrader and fellow crew David Thoreson on the pitching, heaving deck of Ocean Watch as the three of us straddled the boom and tied in the third reef point in the mainsail.
It was pretty sporty out.
At that precise moment, David turned to me, and with what I can only describe as a slightly maniacal, rather disturbing grin, said simply, “Welcome to the Roaring Forties.”
Ah yes, the Roaring Forties. Ironically enough, we were still about twenty-miles shy of 40º S. But as the old saying goes, it was close enough for government work.
Today, the crew of Ocean Watch continued south into the teeth of the fabled Roaring Forties, that 600 nautical-mile band of latitude between 40º S and 50º S in the Southern Hemisphere where tightly wound fronts of low pressure roll endlessly on like stampeding herds, spinning the seas into frothy mayhem and leaving the sailors tossed upon them hanging on for dear life.
Ladies and gentlemen, your Roaring Forties!
It’s not like we didn’t know they were coming.
Only yesterday, chatting with the great French sailor Christophe Auguin on a sunny Mar del Plata morning, we learned that just two day before he’d been swathed in fleece and foul-weather gear as he sailed north from the coast of Chile…winterish weather in the Roaring Forties. Also, we’d been tracking the forecast for days, and it was abundantly clear that our course towards the Falklands would intercept with an approaching cold front sometime late Tuesday afternoon or evening. As much as we hoped otherwise, there’d be no way around it.
Still, the first few hours out of Mar del Plata brought delightful sailing, with bright sunshine and a following breeze. But just before six p.m. local time, the sky to the west darkened and we took the opportunity to shorten our mainsail down to the second reef. We didn’t have to wait long before the dramatic, clearly defined, cigar-shaped front was upon us. It was a dozen shades of gray, swirling and alive, beautiful and awesome, scary and imposing.
Welcome to the Roaring Forties.
For a few hours, it was benign enough, but just before midnight, the wind began to whistle and shriek. I was in my cabin, wide awake, when David’s mug appeared at the door: “Mark and I are going to throw in the third reef. Want to run the cockpit?”
I was hoping you’d ask.
It was the beginning of a very, very long night.
The wind instruments aboard Ocean Watch provide wind strengths not only in true and apparent measurements, but also according to the Beaufort Scale, so named for Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort of the Royal Navy, who in 1808 devised a system to grade wind strengths on a scale of Force 1-12 (though it was later extended to Force 17, an apocalyptic event only seen in James Cameron movies). Beaufort’s scale, based largely on visual sightings, was originally conceived to help frigate sailing masters determine how much canvas they could carry. Last night, Ocean Watch sailed into a solid Force 8 gale (winds of 34-40 knots), flirting at times with Force 9 “strong gale” territory (41-47 knots, the top gust we registered).
Here’s what a Force 8 gale looks like in Beaufort Scale terms: “Moderately high waves, longer (periods), edges of crests begin to break into spindrift. Well marked streaks of foam.” And Force 9: “High waves, dense streams of foam. Crests begin to topple, tumble and roll over. Spray may affect visibility.”
Luckily, it was dark out. Then, after a while, inevitably and sadly, it wasn’t.
As always in these matters, dawn was a double-edged sword. Yes, we’d made it though the night without breaking anything, including ourselves. But now, we could actually see what the heck was going on. In fact, the skies had cleared and were blue and sunny – a fair-weather gale – putting everything into sharp focus. And frankly, Sir Beaufort seemed understated.
Then, to top it off, at one point I drew a deep breath, looked at my watchmate, Dave Logan, and said, “I smell smoke.” Logan, of course, is our engineer, and as you might imagine, this comment had the desired effect: It was like I’d struck him with a cattle prod. Luckily, it took only a moment to discover the power adapter for the 12-volt drink cooler in the cockpit – a fitting that looks and works exactly like a car’s cigarette lighter – had been walloped by a wave and shorted out. In the grand scheme of things, it was hardly grand.
There was to all this, in those brief philosophical moments that somehow come forth when frayed nerves are exposed to the raw power of nature, a wild yet serene beauty to the scene: the wayward seas, the piercing light, the striking blue sky (this was what you call a fair-weather gale), the unflappable albatross. And as Wednesday progressed, the breeze settled into the 20-knot range and the seas subsided somewhat. We’d weathered the worst of it.
So, yes, it was a miserable night in the South Atlantic. It’s what you don’t ever want to see and what you came to see, pieces of the whole. It was our first – and surely not our last – taste of the Roaring Forties.
- Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
