A World of My Own by Robin Knox-Johnston

Author:Robin Knox-Johnston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2004-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Otago to the Horn

November 21st, 1968–January 8th, 1969

(Day 160–Day 209)

For the next nine days I failed to keep my diary. To start with I was tired and when not sailing the boat, I slept to get over the exertions and excitement of passing New Zealand. As I became fresher, I started to sort out the incredible tangle of warp and sea anchor. This job took me three days in all and twice during this time I had to put out the warp again because of gales, which did not make things any easier. Normally with a rope tangle, you look for the key and then it is usually a simple matter to sort things out. But no key was obvious, and to lay the whole thing out was impossible as there just was not room on deck for it. The warp was 720 feet long and the sea anchor warp was 80 feet long with a tripping line of another 100 feet, all of which had enthusiastically joined in the fun.

My experience with sea anchors is limited to this one occasion, but I would never use a tripping line again. It’s meant to pull the cone, which acts as a brake, round so that it no longer has a grip on the water and can be pulled in ‘streamlined’, but in fact, even if you keep it well clear of the sea anchor hawser, the sea anchor twists and the tripping line snarls up with it. I think the answer is to sail up to the sea anchor when you want to get it in, or just heave the boat up to it if you are feeling muscular. All lifeboats on ships are equipped with sea anchors complete with tripping lines; these may have been all right when seamen had sailing and small boat experience, but one does not get it much these days, and I think a long warp is the answer. It’s much easier to handle and it ‘gives’ more, which puts less strain on the boat. Of course you will drift farther but if you are coming down onto a lee shore you should try to sail off it anyway.

We were about 47° South when we took our departure from New Zealand. I had now to decide what course to take for the Horn. Ideally, of course, one would steer straight for it, but there was a complication here in the form of icebergs. The mean northern limit is roughly 45° South, and I did not dare go south of this. In the days of sail, even with a full complement of lookouts, icebergs were still a big risk, but I could not possibly keep watch the whole time and I felt the risk was not worth taking, even if it meant a faster passage. There would be no chance of survival if Suhaili hit ice. Even if I took to the life-raft I would perish before we drifted to land, and that was assuming we would find land.

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