Waiting for the sun
“The sky is grey, with swathes of black clouds, the sea is almost black as well.”
I said these last days in the Southern Ocean would be challenging and so far the experience has been incredibly intense. It's a full on experience that has every part of me working hard. There is no respite and at the moment Cape Horn doesn't seem to be getting any closer with each new routing that I plot.
Right now it is just starting to get dark, this the only definition in the sky today. The daylight hours have been of uniform grey for the full 18 hours of daytime. This heavy oppressive sky adds to the atmosphere of menace that has been hanging over this part of the Southern Ocean for the last couple of days. It is a deeply unsettling place to be right now, there is not one sign of comfort or good times. Every feeling I have with every sense in my body tells me to be alert, this is not a place to relax. The sky is grey, with swathes of black clouds, the sea is almost black as well, save for the white crests and the foaming spume that streaks from the top of the waves. There are still albatross circling the boat but they even seem to have lost their colour. Above the noise of the boat I can hear the wind, or sometimes its hail or rain beating down on the coachroof and always the roar of the ocean underneath.
I think it's blowing 40 knots. It's hard to tell but I would be surprised if it was less. The seas are still building but I think the waves are around 6m at the moment, though I am surprised by how short the wave length is, I was expecting longer. When Medallia picks up one of these waves we head off surfing at 22 knots and all I can feel is raw power. I can feel the power of the ocean under the boat. In some ways it feels different to when I am really pushing hard in lighter conditions. These surfs are driven by the ocean, not by me. The noise is a deep rumble and the vibrations come straight through the hull, into my bones. I am feeling every part of this.
Medallia is hard work in these conditions especially without the wind information. To check the sails, and do any trimming requires a trip on deck out into the elements. I am trying to do this every couple of hours at least. The main concern is that my course is downwind VMG so I need to steer Medallia as far downwind as the sail plan will let me. This means that I can't really sleep for long at all as the pilot is steering on compass mode and if there is a slight shift in the wind Medallia could crash gybe. I have the pilot remote in my hand permanently and am making small course alterations depending on what Apparent wind angle I can see on the instruments below and what the mainsail looks like through the window in the coach roof. I am managing with 10 minute dozes, walking just the right side of my red line very focussed on just keeping it all together to get through this bit of breeze. I am hoping to gybe and for the wind to drop in the next 12 hours which should allow me to sail Medallia on a less risky angle and so get some proper sleep for a while.
I can't say that sailing at the moment is fun. It's hugely demanding, it's stressful and I am asking a lot of myself both mentally and physically. Do I wish I wasn't here? Well that is a difficult question. I don't think anyone would say that this kind of sailing is something you enjoy, but it in the context of being on an IMOCA in week nine of the Vendee Globe Race and with 1400 miles to go to Cape Horn then I am exactly where I want to be and remain both happy and honoured to be part of this race. But to be candid, I cannot wait for this particular weather system to be over and I would really like to see the sun again at some point.
