It is the morning of our first full
day at sea and HS is supposed to be on watch but something went wrong with the
fridge motor cooling water intake and he is down in the bowels of the ship
under the floor below the table fixing it. I have handed him tool after tool
and he has surfaced once or twice to rummage in obscure cupboards for extra
parts. Nick is sleeping. ‘Do you want me to take over your watch?’ I ask HS,
knowing that the answer will be yes. It is so I do. Right then of course the
wind starts to go up. It has been a very gentle steady 8 knots so we have lots
of sail out. I watch the wind speed rise, 10, 12, 18, 20 knots and higher. I
know that the sails will have to be reefed, NOW, and that I do not feel
competent to do it all on my own the very first time in winds that are picking
up so very quickly. I peek at HS but he is busy down below floor level and so I
wake up Nick and ask for his help. The wind is 24 knots and still rising. Nick
is amazing, ‘Let’s reef!’ he says and together we go out into what is all of a
sudden heavy cold beating rain, the kind that feels like shards of ice are
being driven into you. The waves are suddenly steeper and the wind is whipping
the tops off them as they crash in spectacular whitecaps. ‘Stay in the cockpit,’
Nick advises, ‘and hang on!’ This is good advice. The boat is charging up one
side of the waves and racing back down the other tipping this way and that,
seriously overpowered. We fuss with the lines, neither of us having reefed this
particular boat before, and within minutes we are soaked to the skin but have a
LOT less sail out. Nick and I both glance at the wind speed gauge. 32 knots and
still climbing! Wow! We stand there for a moment assessing the sails, do a 360
scan for other boats since we are outside anyway, though the rain is so heavy
that there is practically no visibility, and then retreat, dripping, back in
through the hatchway to the interior of the boat. It was good fun and great
teamwork. We are both pleased with ourselves. Ten minutes later HS finishes his
chore and comes to see what’s up. ‘Why is the boat speed down?’ he asks, ‘Why
are you both so wet?’ We look at the instrumentation. What? Only 8 knots of
wind again? Unbelievable. The squall apparently blew itself out as fast as it
blew in. We both go back outside and let out the sails again. Hmph. And, all
day, it has carried on like that. Gentle winds, barely enough to sail, with
squall after squall coming through each one bringing whipping winds and beating
rain for fifteen minutes or so then moving on by leaving little trace that it had
ever been there. The sky has been grey all day, dark grey near the rain
squalls, and even this evening shows no signs of any letting up. After supper
HS is on shift again. It will be Nick’s turn after that. And I hope, I really
hope, that by 4 am when I do my second solo night shift, that the line of
squalls will have passed by and gone to wherever it is they go and I will have
only the gentle 8 knots winds to contend with. Because, let’s be honest here, I
do not want to deal with 32 knot winds and driving rain all by myself in the
pitch dark. Not on my second night shift. Likely not ever!
Later… I pull myself out of bed at
3:50 am, pee, and report for duty. ‘Ooh, wind speed has just started picking
up,’ Nick grins at me, ‘looks like you are just in time for another squall.’
Still half asleep I look at him with pleading eyes and he knows exactly what I
am saying but I get no mercy. ‘It’s your shift,’ he says, ‘out you go!’
