To the Ice and Beyond: Sailing Solo Across 32 Oceans and Seaways by Graeme Kendall

Author:Graeme Kendall [Kendall, Graeme]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780473353261
Publisher: Mary Egan Publishing
Published: 2016-08-21T20:00:00+00:00

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Then came a time when I knew in my bones the wind was dropping, although it seemed to take a long time. Ever so slowly it would ease off, only to come back again in force. But after some time the sliver of blue sky got larger and the wind eased and I lived to tell the tale.

The only damage I could find was that the sun and spray cover in the cockpit was a little torn, although it could be easily repaired with tape. And there were a few frayed nerves. An experience like that is physically exhausting, even though there was quite a bit of time when I wasn’t doing much. I had no sails up. I had the wheel tied over to one side on lock and I just had to stand there letting it happen, eating food that I didn’t have to cook or prepare such as biscuits or chocolate, and drinking water.

I was a bit disappointed I’d got into that situation by not holding back. Chances were that if I’d not kept going as fast I had, trying to beat Harvey, it would have just passed in front of me. I had been given advice to slow up, but I’d felt that with that tailwind I was going fast enough to sail through and would beat it. But then while it turned out to be prudent advice that I should hold back, the people back home didn’t know exactly where the storm was, or where I was either.

My mistake came from not having a weather map on board at that particular time, because as it turned out, the tailwind was the other part of the storm. It moves in a circular motion and I was getting a tailwind then had sailed through the centre of it and encountered the headwind, which was more intense but luckily didn’t last as long.

But as the wind died away I mostly felt relief that it hadn’t lasted too long. I was glad it was over, and I was happy in the knowledge that the boat had passed its first real test. I knew now what it could stand. That was good knowledge to have once I was facing the Bering Sea because although the seas would be bigger there, the wind would not be as strong and I now knew the boat was able to handle what was dished out there.

I got everything tidied up. I put things away – lifejackets and wet-weather gear, my grab bag which had been all ready to go. Re-packed the life raft, re-packed the ladder. I’d had everything tied down below so that if I rolled over things wouldn’t fly around, so I tidied all that up and got it back to normal. The sun came out and the boat dried out and we were back on the journey again.

If you’re going to sail around the world, if you’re going to cover 28,000 miles and be at sea for 190 days, chances are something’s going to give you a hurry-up.

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