Cape Town to Melbourne Wks 5 and 6: John Ridgway Save the Albatross Voyage 2003-4
Created | Updated May 13, 2006
The Voyage Story by John Ridgway
Date: 22 November 2003
We are 2,648 miles west of Melbourne Course: 072 T. It’s very rough now, with a NW gale Force 10-11 (48-63 knots), 100% cloud cover and poor visibilty. At least the surface sea temperature is still rising at 9.6 C.
We’re running under only a scrap of much-rolled staysail before large breaking waves and there’s a cross swell to add to the confusion.
Feeling pretty queasy so there’s not a lot to say really. Well, here’s three points -
1. 40 years since Kennedy assassination.
2. England won Rugby World Cup.
3. The weather has got even worse in this part of the Southern Ocean.
Only the third of these events directly affects us right now.
It is a very trying time for everyone. The sea has a sort of white skin on it. It'll be good if it doesn't last too long, like this.
I did see an Antarctic Skua today. I think that will do…… I’m going to lie down.
Date: 23 November 2003
This is Day 121 since we left Ardmore and we are up on 47S now and 87'E. That’s just 2,500 miles west of Melbourne if we took the direct Great Circle route but we won’t go so far South and will therefore have to sail further.
Down to WSW severe gale Force 9 with 100% cloud cover but it’s very rough and we’re still running with just the staysail much-rolled before large breaking waves and cross swell. There are a few birds around, at noon we had an Antarctic Skua, 2 x Sooty Petrels, 2 x Pintados, >10 White Chinnned Petrels, >25 Prions.
The night was particularly bad, as we have only one of two light bulbs working in the steering compass so it’s a bit difficult to steer in the dark….
Mountainous seas and cross-seas at dawn. Conditions same all day. These trips are really an endless set of hurdles to jump.
Three particular hurdles ahead appear rather tall just now:
1. Illness in Nick's family is causing major concern.
2. The Fischer Panda Generator is not working. With the wind and towing generators already down, we are now left with only the inefficient alternator on the diesel-drinking main engine to charge the batteries. Without electricity, furling the mainsail and navigation become rather tricky. And Communication with the outside world ceases altogether.
3. Our belated arrival in Melbourne is going to coincide with the annual Birds Australia Conference in Canberra, so they are unable to help us raise awareness to the plight of the Wandering Albatross, which having come all this way is a very real pity. However there are so many people already helping us in Australia I'm sure we'll be OK at the Sandringham Yacht club.
Because I'm so slow in bending my rickety knees, whenever a rogue wave bangs over the side to hit me at the wheel, the wall of silver and green swings me across the cockpit on the end of the jackstay, crashing my old rib cage into the leeward winch.
After ten times in a day I do occasionally feel nearer seventy than sixty.
But then the old Wandering Albatross comes swinging up out of the marble green.…oooh! What a sight.
Date: 24 November 2003
It’s rough out here. We’re reaching across a big sea.
The grim weather keeps up all day and the gale strengthened in the evening.
Trevor came up with another poem:
“I’ve letters here!” the postman calls,
“For Mr. Gale and Mr. Squalls,
And Mr. Frost and Mr. Snow –
And Messrs Sleet and Hail and Blow.
I’ve mail for Berg and Storm and Grey.
And here’s some post for Wilde, I’d say.”
“I’ll take those Lad”, our Skipper says,
(As ever, proud and haughty).
“I know where those blighters live –
It’s in the Roaring forties.”
We made a determined leap at hurdle (2) today: the Panda generator. It has run about 150 times since we left Udo, the great German engineer, in Cape Town. He’d set it to run for 12 minute sessions, thus keeping the batteries topped-up to give Nick maximum voltage for his transmissions.
It has worked faultlessly for a month under dreadful conditions. Inside its white fibreglass container, it has swung violently on its own suspension, whenever a wave pushed the boat on its side. The day before yesterday it failed to start and Gloom fell on the camp.
“Mechanical things occur gradually, electrical things occur instantly!” said Nick, quoting his old Melbourne chum, Nev.
Working methodically, Nick located the problem in the area of the Starter motor. Prodding about with his voltmeter, he looked like a Doctor with a stethoscope. I defined parts of the body for him, from photographs in the poorly translated Fischer Panda Manual.
It all came down to three relays, rectangular plugs on the aft side of the Kubota diesel. Nick took each one out and tapped it with the back of his knife. "What page of the Manual is that then?" I said, smiling across the saloon at Igor.
But it started. Nick's face lit up like sunshine. "Good old Nev, he taught me that - a sticky relay!"
Good old Nick!
Gales continued throughout.
Date: 25 November 2003
Bird sightings at noon: 1 x Grey-headed Albatross, 1 x Prions, 4 x White-chinned Petrels.
The wind fell away at last and when MC and I crawled up into the doghouse at 0600 it was raining steadily from a leaden sky. And it kept this up for the whole four hours of our Watch, culminating for Marie Christine at the wheel, in a torrential 60-knot squall, which coated the sea like icing sugar. By the end of this, our ten-year-old oilskins weighed a sodden ton.
After weeks of these conditions I’ve got to admit the old fogies are feeling the strain. Trendy definitions like 'repetitive stress' trip off the tongue. In my case I have a torn tongue now the filling is all gone from the lower left eye-tooth and the jangly half tooth scrapes the tongue at every syllable (Oh! Come off it, it's not that bad - but what would a swollen gangrenous tongue be like 1,000 miles short of Melbourne?). The main complaint is pins and needles in wrists and fingers, caused by battling with the wheel. Trevor has suffered this in silence for some weeks and MC has chilblains on her fingers as well. Blimey!
Anyway, we're bumbling along. What are a few weeks in a life time? If we can all leave everything we touch a little better than we found it, we will prevail. Otherwise its back to gazing into the abyss of self pity.
There are no jet trails in the sky down here, no ships, no flotsam or jetsam. A few very occasional clumps of kelp wrung from the islands, now a 1,000 miles astern, are all we have to remind us of the existence of anything else on this planet but endless sea.
The bad weather hasn't helped the inevitable anti-climax after the dramas of Marion, Crozet and Kerguelen Islands, with all the excitement of the chase: satellite searches, abortive RV’s, meeting the French and certainly not least the hazardous navigation round the islands through fog and tempest.
But there is a world out there and it's teeming with 6,000 million people. It's only too easy out here, to focus on our own narrow problems. No doubt Birds Australia is short of resources to meet all the demands for the support of native Australian species, never mind take on the Albatross, a bird nobody ever sees nowadays, in this age of air travel. No hard feelings, we’re just arriving at a bad time.
Date: 26 November 2003
I’m trying to ginger us up a bit, so I posted up a notice, urging everyone to realise we’re engaged in a war of attrition out here and success depends on morale.
“We need to leave everything better than we find it - not just leave the little things to someone else:
The Heads, the floors, the brasses, the cockpit floors, the snack cupboard, the Galley draining board, the sink, the coiling of sheets and the prevention of chafe. Please don't take oilskins and seaboots into the Saloon, it dumps saltwater over the engine beneath. If the previous 10,000 people had done this, we'd have no motor - what a pickle!
Take a look in the mirror. Are we a Superman or even a super man?
On some Whitbread Race boats they worked 4 watches: 3 on deck, one on cooking and cleaning - on this boat we have Marie Christine, please help her all you can.
JR
(El Hypo Critter)”
"The youth of today they've no pride,
Grooming and manners have taken a slide.
It's long hair and skinheads have buggered this game,
That mutt Igor and his friends,
They're to blame.
But I guess I'm wastin' my breath on you sonny!"
(with apologies to John Williams, and his 1988 song about an Australian hairdresser)
Very lucky to have such a grand crew. The hand steering is taking it out of us. Surely no boat will ever have gone slower from Kerguelen to Melbourne. They say Albatrosses never land on the water but with us they fly ahead a few hundred yards and land; then they have tea party, chittering and rubbing beaks while they wait for us to creep by. Humans should try more of this, instead of bombing themselves out of existence.
At least the water temperature is up to 10C.
Date: 27 November 2003
Hello. Like me, You may have thought I was sinking over the past couple of days. But I do seem to have made another come back. Which is handy.
A front came through at 0700. In heavy rain, I went forward and gybed the sails while MC steered the boat and hoped I wouldn't get washed away (I think). We’re sagging a little south of the track for Melbourne, so we’ll have to head a bit north.
When eventually the sky did clear to a Scottish Spring day, all sunny and bright, the price was a falling wind.
At last, messages are coming in again, by Satellite phone and by email, through both the Sailmail and the Iridium systems. And it's very encouraging for me to know someone is reading this guff I’m pumping out each day.
We've just cleared the 2,000 mile hurdle to Melbourne. Everyone’s bearing up well, silently nursing sore wrists and forearms. Being alone at the wheel, with four Wandering Albatrosses swinging along by my side, is a constant thrill of Perfection. It brings back childhood memories of Perfect Solitude. Living by the Thames near Windsor: fly fishing for silver Dace, in a clear gravel run between gently waving weed beds, with the cooing sound of wood pigeons drifting across the river in the early morning. Perfection, how seldom, how fleeting. Why destroy what little there is?
For these four great birds, we are probably the only show in town for many hundreds of miles. They swing in so close, do I look like a sandwich? I remember a fellow falling overboard in the 1977/8 Whitbread Race. When he came on the radio that night, he told us how, as he’d watched the boat drawing further and further away, the birds had landed all around. He was in no doubt, the birds had come to eat him...
Date: 28 November 2003
We’re into another gale. Quentin saw a white-chinned petrel flying upside down. At the moment, it's all I can do to keep the boat on course, with me woolly hat slipping over my eyes. The Wandering Albatrosses still come rolling down the sky to see us each day.
Thing is - it was never meant to be like this. It is the relentless 24 hour a day hand steering which is wearing us down.
Message from Tomoko in Melbourne. She needs to return to Japan, to nurse her very sick Father. And she needs Nick at home to look after their two daughters, Erica and Mariko.
Date: 29 November 2003
Bundling down wind in the early dawn rain, with just the staysail up. The sea is very confused. It’s as if we’re on a broad, shallow, fast flowing river with the waves running all around us. The boat has been difficult to control in the dark particularly in the frequent squalls.
At noon we are only 790 nautical miles SSW of Perth, Australia, and Trevor and Quentin are busy planning their route home for Christmas. The Saloon is festooned with Quentin's khaki shirts, sun-hat and shorts; our own tropical stuff is packed away in remote locations in waterproof bags.
The wind eased during the day and the mainsail was unfurled once more. But with the Panda failing again (is it the sea-water cooling impellor?) it’s likely we will lose all electric power and this will prevent us from furling the sail back into the mast.
Date: 30 November 2003
1,577 nm WSW of Melbourne. We are on a broad reach over a light to moderate sea. The barometric pressure is high at 1023 and a warmer sea 12 C. And there are a few birds about: 1x Black-browed Albatross, 2 x juvenile Black-browed Albatross, 1 x Wandering Albatross, 2xGrey Petrels, 1xSooty Petrel and 1x White chinned Petrel.
We are unable to solve Panda/Kubota overheating problem. Therefore we are abandoning Panda/Kubota until we get to their Melbourne agent who becomes vital to the Project.
All electric power is now generated by the 75 amp/hr alternator on our faithful Mercedes main engine which has done it all before. Accordingly we have cut all electric demand to the absolute minimum: GPS and sending this Log. The old boat going very well…. The Albatrosses are with us.
Date: 1 December 2003
We thought it was bad yesterday, when the Panda broke down. But at least we didn't know what would happen today!
A maxim throughout my adult life has been some teaching I once heard on an old black and white army training film: "More soldiers are killed, returning from a patrol to enemy lines, than are ever killed going out". It's surprising what ground you can make up, over the piece, if you always finish five yards after the line.
Well, today we allowed ourselves to lose focus and we were diverted to problems elsewhere. Bang! Smack on the snout, there it was, we had walked straight into the ambush!
The mainsail is now split along horizontal seams at the leech, that’s the trailing edge, high up near the peak or top of the sail. We’ve rolled it away into the mast to await specialist treatment in Melbourne; at least it saves on electricity. Now we are really limping.
Focus on ‘attention to detail’: eyes aloft, dogged persistence. Cruel sea.
Message from Nick’s father-in-law in Japan: “Nick mustn’t give up his voyage round the world for the Albatross, just because I am sick!”
Date: 2 December 2003
Reaching slowly across a light sea under four small sails: full No. 2 Yankee, full Staysail, full Mizen Staysail and full Mizen sail.
After the Sunday Panda and the Monday Mainsail, comes damage to the Tuesday Mizen Staysail: it's a triangular light weather sail rigged back between the foot of the mainmast and the top of the Mizen mast, with the third corner sheeted off the end of the Mizen boom.
Using the halyard for speed, Nick set off for the sky with customary zeal. But the top of his head ran straight onto the first step on the Mizen mast. The claret spouted and the heartless crew drew their cameras. And while I squeaked my timeless battlecry "Keep the blood off the sails", eager First-Aiders glinted metal all around him.
Coming off Watch at 2000, I spotted Nick and Igor, the previous Watch, in the Saloon; still slumped on the port bench seat, Nick's bandaged head glowing white in the gathering darkness.
"We're the sick parade!" they muttered.
"Next!" I called, looking at Igor, who sat nearest, "What's your problem Sunshine?"
"I got suckerlogical problems" the sunny Peruvian sighed, his fingers split with the cold.
Well, poor Nick has had his three disasters in three days, so he should be alright now.
All in all a good day's progress as we slant northeast toward the 40th parallel, with four sails set: the glories of having two masts to hang them from. I hope the old Albatross appreciates the show; actually he's showing signs of heading south for cooler climes, where even real men wear gloves.
Date: 3 December 2003
Now only 400 miles south of Albany in West Australia, we have settled down to the new rig. Optimists say it's better than the mainsail and flapping headsails. We managed 155 miles noon to noon through the water and now we fret about taking a too northerly course, which might land us in an airless Great Australian Bight. So we gybed in late afternoon, heading just a little south of east.
The seabirds are not as numerous up here. But today I did see something I've not seen in a lifetime of looking: a Storm Petrel resting on the surface of the water.
These little chaps, they often appear to walk on the water, are much smaller than the other birds. There are never many of them in one place but unlike other species they are always there, all the way around the world from north to south and east to west. Just here, they come closer to the boat than I've ever known, we think they are Wilson's storm Petrel and Black Billed Storm Petrel. But the Albatrosses are now less numerous, there’s just not enough wind for them.
1,100 miles ahead lies Melbourne, where there’s a bit of a controversy about a certain restaurant in the city which has just bought all the Patagonian Toothfish, confiscated from the recent Uruguayan pirate boat. Is this a good thing? Perhaps the money goes towards defraying the cost of the chase. Or should the whole catch have been destroyed?
Surely we have done all the roadwork on this Leg of the voyage. Now we're down to the speedball and light skipping: we are getting ready to continue our campaign to prevent the needless slaughter of the Albatross once we reach land.
Date: 4 December 2003
Quietly running across a calm sea under the same four sails and it’s another big day for Nick, the human crane.
At dawn I noticed small tears in the Mizen Staysail where it occasionally flaps against the backstay bridle (that’s a steel plate with sharp split pins, halfway up the main backstay, where it splits to pass around the mizen mast). So we dropped the sail and MC, who once spent 24hrs sewing the split mainsail off Cape Horn, got to work with needle and Spinnaker tape.
As a result of his various worries, Nick has fined down a couple of stone since he came aboard the Save the Albatross Voyage. And now, by combining his enormous reach with an enhanced power to weight ratio, he makes a perfect Spiderman. With foot-long feet clenched bravely in the mizen mast steps, he unfolded like the wings of an Albatross, stretching his skeletal frame across the void to wrap the distant bridle with mutton cloth padding overlaid with black gaffer tape. This was a stunning knee-trembler, which only Nick could have managed and we must hope he doesn't plump up over Christmas.
With the fine panels of red white and blue mizen staysail aloft once more, we continued our 2 knot progress through this great high pressure system. And at 1900 the fourth digit fell from the blinking GPS screen in the doghouse: only 999 miles to Melbourne.
The occasional Wandering Albatross flies past, sometimes she answers my call. Often she'll land up ahead and watch us sail by. Then a younger bird may join her for a chat (or is it a feed) on the water. Slowly they'll bob astern. After a bit of nap, they'll rejoin us, effortlessly circling the boat, gliding so low, their wing-tips kiss the water as they swing in and out of the dazzling silver foot-high swells.
Friday 5 December 2003
Day 133 of the Voyage and Day 43 of this Leg. And we are completely becalmed, maybe for quite a while too, looking at the weatherfax.
In a way, I'm sorry we have to stop anywhere at all. This is the third time I've been around the world in this boat and I'm beginning to get back into the rythm of the 203-day non-stop circumnavigation which Andy Briggs and I sailed 20 years ago.
"Reel in, reel out", I would think then. One awake, one asleep, each left to his own devices: the decisions reached over those 7 lonely months of reflection have resulted in the most rewarding period of my life so far.
Ahead lies a forest of shopping malls and another burst of modern ("Oh you must have a mobile!") high-speed living. I don't expect to make any worthwhile decisions. But hopefully we shall do something for the poor old Albatross.
Coming on Watch at 18.30 we were making 2.5 knots towards Cape Otway, 940 mile away. We were in a sort of oil patch, the ripples falling back on themselves rather than break the surface tension.
Birds gathered and a dozen porpoises or dolphins appeared around us, while a couple of black three-foot long seals/sea lions began stitching the waves with delight. Swimming White Chinned Petrels dived beneath the surface for a few seconds before bursting up with a silver fish or some pink thing wriggling in its beak. Big Albatrosses plumped down beside them, eager to join in; then the playful porpoises would break up the party, amid squawks of irritation from the birds. At 65, I'd rather be out here with them. Sad old guffer!
