Part 1: UK to the Azores

Part 1: UK to the Azores

© Copyright Peter R. Clutterbuck

June 3rd dawned grey, rainy and windy, heralding a typical Atlantic day’s sailing. We checked and rechecked the hundreds of items on our punchlist, then we were pushed to the start area to join the other 69 starters, including 4 racing trimarans - the biggest turnout ever for an AZAB.

The tris represented the fastest offshore boats in Britain, and included: Severalles Challenge, co-skippered by John Chaundy, winner of Three Peaks and class winner in Round Britain, with a Singlehanded Transatlantic Race behind her as well; Shockwave, another Three Peaks winner and recordholder; Mollymawk, at 40 ft the same rating as Spirit, previously as “MTC”, winner and recordholder in both Singlehanded and Doublehanded Transatlantics; and Fiery Cross, veteran of many Round Britains and Transatlantics.

For Spirit it was to be her first ocean race. Last year was her first season, and we won the main event of the year for the multihulls (Nab Tower race), plus the Doublehanded Round the Island, in which we also broke the record. In the monohulls, the favourite was Mark Gatehouse, sailing Queen Anne’s Battery, formerly BOC winner Credit Agricole. Mark had been forced to retire from the last BOC. Mark had also won the last Falmouth-Azores Race in a Formula 40 cat. On the return leg, he was sunk by whales whilst in the lead. We were to learn how Mark must have felt.
Sailing with me was Brian Thompson, in my view Britain’s top offshore multihull sailor. He has done 5 Transatlantics, including the Singlehanded Race in which he won his class, and took Severalles to a dramatic second place overall behind the 60 ft tri Lakota in the last Round Britain. I first met Brian whilst sailing on Lakota last summer. He then sailed on Lakota to break three of the 12 internationally recognised speed records; and later delivered her to California and a record win in the Transpac, in place of a planned Route du Rhum in Severalles, which was abandoned after being rammed and dismasted by a French trawler at an impact speed of 22 knots during the qualifier. Brian struck me as an enormously capable sailor: competitive and athletic with a calm disposition.

Sir Robin Knox-Johnson, Yachtsman of the Year, fired the cannon on Pendennis Castle, discharging flame and smoke reportedly from condoms full of gasoline erupting from its six inch bore. Sir Robin holds the Jules Verne Trophy, and I had sailed briefly on Enza last year, which gave me some good ideas for Spirit, one of which contributed to being able to save the boat from destruction on the return leg.

We won the start, and hot on our heels was Severalles Challenge. We throttled up to 22 knots in the fresh nor’westerly with two reefs in the main. 1250 miles to go. In the Channel chop, the top of the Proctor rotating wing mast was bending and pumping alarmingly, as the head of the main was below the hounds and not stabilising the mast. We furled the genoa and set the staysail, which was better for the mast but allowed Severalles to close the gap. We bore off as a grey dusk fell to lose them in the Channel. Little did we know that the boat would never be seen again. I wore my white water canoeing hard hat and visor, which was much better than Whitbread style ski goggles or motorcycle goggles in sheets of spray hitting us at 25 knots. Below, we could not sleep in our two hour off watches for two days due to the loud banging and crashing. We found that if we focused on de-stressing rather than sleeping, we got some fatigue recovery.

Past Ushant on the tip of France, the weatherfaxes indicated a veer, and next day we were able to set our small fractional kite. That evening we dared to set the big Doyle 1700 sq ft 3/4 oz masthead asymmetric spinnaker, an immensely powerful sail which soon had us back over 20 knots on the GPS. The night was absolutely black under thick cloud, and I was always looking for low spots in the phosphorescent white horses to break through, as the waves were only travelling at 15 knots. The lee hull was shrouded in a huge plume of phosphorescent spray. I could follow the lines on deck by tapping them, causing them to sparkle. Then I noticed something very strange: vertical green shafts of light rather like the loom of a lighthouse, but close by. When a huge phosphorescent shape dived under the boat, I realised that the shafts were phosphorescent whale spouts as they breathed. Rather eerie.

We put in a day’s run of 320 miles point to point, and reached the half way mark at 49 hours, hoping to complete the race in under 4 days, thus knocking two days off the record. By this time we were very wet in spite of wearing drysuit tops under our oilskins, and replacing wet thermals daily. The whole boat was wet below. It was too bouncy to cook, and we survived on snack bars and fruit juice, preferring to drive the boat rather than use the autopilots. The wind came aft and the noise below was a loud swish rather than crash-bang, and we could get some sleep.
At dawn on the 6th, we narrowly escaped disaster. We were broad reaching with full main and genoa at 15-20 knots in 8-10 foot seas in a Force 6. The main was hauled out on the preventer, the genoa on a barberhauler. Brian was on the foredeck untangling the furler line, which had come loose due to Allen screws breaking free of their Loktite seal in the Profurl. Suddenly, I came over a wave, and there below was a line of orange buoys connected by a cable. A fishing boat, the only vessel we saw in four days, was a mile off, flashing a red light, and shining a searchlight at us. The wire would take off our daggerboard and rudder like a guillotine. “Gybing”, I yelled at Brian, but he couldn’t hear me, and carried on working. I gybed over all standing and came beam onto the wind, heeling alarmingly at 30 degrees, two hulls out of the water, with the boom high up in the sky. “I think we’re going over” I yelled. “Not sure” said Brian. “Maybe... maybe not... nothing we can do anyway”. We got away with it, and gybed back. The fishing boat was pounding away into the big seas towards the end of the drift net.

One night Brian put up the 1.5 oz in a Force 6, but shot down a big wave and buried all three hulls. “Not good”, I said, “Have you ever pitchpoled?”. “No” said Brian, “but there’s always a first time”. “Well this is pitchpole country”. “Agreed”, and we got it off. Next morning, I was having great fun driving the lee bow under at 18 knots when Brian surfaced “You’re crazy”, he said, “You’re going to pitchpole this thing”. We were even.

We had been keeping well high of the course to keep clear of the notorious Cape Finisterre, and the “Coast of Death”, where there were strong northerly gales between the Atlantic high and the Spanish low funnelling past the high Cordillera. Now we were clear of this effect, we started looking for more wind, and homing in the on the closest isobars. We switched between the two kites as the wind went back and forth between Force 4 and 5, getting up to 22 knots on the big swells coming off the Finisterre gale.

There was a loud bang, and the boat shuddered, as the big Doyle masthead kite dropped a few feet. Something had blown off the top of the mast. Brian awoke from a deep sleep, and tried to get the spinnaker down, but it was jammed solid. I hauled him up the shroud, whereupon he got wrapped around it ten times in the big seas. He was getting badly beaten up, but when I loosened then halyard, he couldn’t slide down. An interesting situation for me, with a crew stuck 50 feet up, and our main chute also stuck up 66 feet there.

Brian spun round a few times and dropped down. We snuffed the chute, and Brian went up the mast, tying the chute to the mast in several places. The U bolt at the masthead had sheared off and the spinnaker halyard jammed where the cover had stripped in the exit block. This was a major blow, with lighter following winds now, and no capability to set our light air sails. We had visions of Severalles and the rest of the fleet catching us.

The options were to repair the U-bolt, rely on the smaller sails, or set the big sails from the hounds. The first option was out due to the wild motion at the top of the mast, even a simple shackled up jury system. The second meant we’d lose a day in the race, so we set the big kite, dragging along in the water, but we only lost a knot.

Another problem arose - we were out of electric power. There had been not a glimpse of the sun in the four days since the start, so no solar power from our two panels. The following wind did not power our small wind generator fast enough, and the Tanaka generator, which put out 20 amps from a 15lb machine, had run hot and unreliably. Now we were out of fuel, and had to sail without much of our electronics. It was time to reach the finish.

On our last day at sea, the sun came out, we cooked our one and only meal of the race, and we saw the cloud over Sao Miguel island. Porpoises played amongst the hulls, and while I was up on the bow filming them, Brian told me “You missed the ones back here with the beach balls” However, it was to take 18 hours to finish in the lee of this high volcanic island. Lots of boats came out to greet us, with TV crews, press photographers, and race officials. Our single sideband had not been operational, so we didn’t know how we’d placed, and asked the Club Naval on the VHF. “You are the first” was the reply. Then horror struck as Brian said “Get me the binoculars. Looks like Severalles ahead - they’ve gone round the west side of the island and have some wind” “How sure are you” I asked. “95%. The main is her shape, and she’s doing ten knots upwind”. However, a few minutes later he said “Panic over, its a cruising cat”.

At the dock we were greeted with champagne and a radio interview. We had broken the record. We also learned that Severalles had pitchpoled 100 miles off Finisterre and was lost. John Chaundy and Dick Skipworth were recovered by helicopter 3 hours after setting off the EPIRB, but for Brian it was a sad moment as he’d spent so much time on Severalles. The first boats started arriving the following night, thus ensuring that we had won on corrected time as well.