The Virtual Reinhard
Created | Updated Jan 17, 2008
How did it happen that two landlubber computer programmers, on contract in the far corners of the world, decided to exchange their perfectly good if somewhat hectic lifestyles for the uncertainties and trials of bluewater cruising?
This is the tale of the how. The why you can figure out for yourselves.
Going Coastal
Apart from the occasional fair-weather foray outside of the heads, we had still yet to sail upon the open sea. The main reason for this was that we had decided not to go until we had an absolute minimum of quite expensive cruising safety equipment. I had made up a couple of wall-posters with lists of equipment and prices, and, crayon in hand, juggled almost daily, rethinking and prioritising them within our monthly budget.
The last essential item was a pair of jackstays. This became a real sticking-point. Jackstays are safety lines that run all the way along the deck from bow to stern. The idea is that whenever you leave the cockpit, you clip your safety harness to the stay and you then get freedom of movement while remaining attached to the boat.
The jackstay obviously needs to be strong and well-made, since it is supposed to save your life if you get washed overboard. They're not an off-the-shelf product, though; they need to be tailored to each individual boat. Australia is, unfortunately and in line with many other western countries, becoming increasingly litigious, and we found it very hard to find any company that would make them up for us for fear of legal action if the stay should fail. The general consensus was a shaking of heads and tutting, and 'we used to make them all the time, but...'.
Eventually, however, we met up with a rigger who was prepared to take the risk. He made us a beautiful set which fitted perfectly, and we were ready to go cruising.
New Year: Pittwater to Swansea Bridge
We had about a week encompassing Christmas and New Year (2007). Theoretically, we could in this time sail all the way up the Australian coast from our home mooring in Pittwater, New South Wales, up to the next state, Queensland. However, we fully expected the weather to throw in a few spanners, and in any case we wanted to enjoy the scenery and see what there was to see, so we decided to head for the next available deep-water anchorage, Lake Macquarie, and take it from there.
The week started with rough weather, so we pottered around for a few days inside Pittwater, trying out some new anchorages and practicing single-handed sailing.
When the weather finally improved, and the forecast swells dropped below two metres, it caught us by surprise with only half a tank of fuel. We had intended to leave at dawn, but even though we anchored overnight outside the fuel station, we still had to wait for it to open in the morning, and so we didn't actually clear the heads until ten. However, it was blowing around twenty knots and we figured that we should be able to make good speed.
How refreshingly naiive. We had not factored in the fact that we were heading North East into a North Easterly wind, across a South Easterly swell. A yacht cannot sail directly into wind; it has to tack (zig-zag) from side to side. This substantially increases the distance that you need to travel in order to get from A to B.
The swell was also a real pain. Usually swell follows the wind, so that you are travelling in more or less the same direction as the waves. On this particular day, the swell was crossing the path of the wind, making the waves steep and confused, so we spent a lot of our time climbing up waves and then falling off the top to crash into the trough, before the climb up out to the next one.
A yacht accelerates only slowly; when your speed is continually being scrubbed off in every trough, it's hard to build up any momentum and, as the boat wiggles over the waves, it is hard to keep the sails at anything like the correct angle to the wind to provide motive power.
And finally, we were sailing close-hauled.
A note here for the uninitiated about 'points of sail'. If you are standing at the helm and the wind is coming from behind your shoulder (known as 'broad reach' or 'running', depending on exactly where it is coming from), the hull sits flat on the water and the sails need little attention. It is possible to leave the wheel unattended for short periods and nothing bad will probably happen; more sensibly, you could turn on the autopilot and sit down and relax.
Sailing with the wind coming from the front ('close reach', 'close hauled') is more exciting; essentially you are flying a small aircraft sideways across the water, always threatening either to stall or to dive. The sails need constant trimming, the deck is heeled over at up to 30 degrees, and you are quite likely to get wet from spray and even broaching waves. In these conditions, the autopilot simply doesn't respond fast enough and human control is essential.
All points of sail are equally valid and will get you to where you want to go. Some are faster or more efficient than others; in a pottering-about or racing situation you just take whatever wind there is and deal with it.
Cruising books, on the other hand, always talk about how important it is to make sure that the wind is behind you. Now we really understood why. When you're just messing about in sheltered waters, you can always change direction and go somewhere else when it gets uncomfortable; in a racing situation, you only have to hold on until the next buoy. However, out to sea, you are travelling in the same direction for hours, days, weeks; the choice between fighting the wind and waves every minute of the time, and just relaxing and letting the autopilot sort it out, quickly becomes a no-brainer.
