Force of Nature by Robin Knox-Johnston

Author:Robin Knox-Johnston [Knox-Johnston, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141889733
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-04-08T00:00:00+00:00

7. The Southern Ocean

As Mike and Alex headed towards Cape Town, the wind where I was began to back to the north-east and I was able to make some good headway towards the south. But I was soon faced with a difficult decision.

I needed to get further south and into the stronger westerly winds, but to do this I had to get the spinnaker up. Normally this would have posed no problem whatsoever. But the unreliability of the autopilots put me off. If they failed when I was flying 350 square metres of spinnaker, the results could be serious for me and the boat. I took what I thought was the safe option and stowed the kite away.

These attempts at self-preservation were in vain, though admittedly the results were not exactly serious. As I was stumbling about on deck that night, the mainsail swung across just as my bare foot landed on the main sheet, which tightened like a winched cable and ripped the nail off my left big toe.

From the amount of blood that spurted out around the deck, it was as if my leg had been completely severed. It was a mess, and it soon became clear that the nail had to be completely removed. I snipped it away with a pair of wire cutters – the next best thing to clippers – then cleaned the wound with whisky and bandaged it up. It did not hurt so much as create an inconvenience, but it healed well and soon ceased to be a concern.

I have been lucky with illness or injury at sea over the years. When I started out on Suhaili in 1967, I was suffering a severe attack of jaundice. I felt terrible. My skin was waxy and yellow and my eyes and urine were both yellow, but there wasn’t much I could do apart from rest and drink plenty of fluids. I did not go to a doctor as I knew the only cure was rest, and I needed to get away. It flushed itself out after a couple of weeks and I was fine. This time, I also started out with a handicap – on the way to Bilbao before the start of the race, I fractured my coccyx when I lost my footing in the cockpit and fell down hard. It was the first time ever in my life I had broken a bone – which is remarkable, considering some of my activities over the years – but again, it was fine after a month or so.

After a month at sea I was at 30 degrees south, still 600 miles from the Southern Ocean. I saw Tristran da Cunha on the charts a couple of days later, though it was 55 miles away so there was no chance of a sighting. This was the fourth time I had passed the island and still I have yet to set eyes on it. Like St Helena and Ascension Island, Tristan da Cunha, said to be

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