Wed 3 July 13: The queasiness after the storm
Tom writes on 2 July: We left St John’s yesterday and have sped northwards on what seems like not much more than a tablecloth’s worth of sail. The tail end of the final depression we were hoping to avoid has provided plenty of power, at one stage peaking at 35 knots – gale force 8. The waves have behaved much the same, throwing us this way and that and towering over the boat.
By far the worst moment for the crew, though, was just after the winds died down a bit. Without much power, the boat just bobs about without any sense of purpose on waves which are still almost as violent as during the height of the gale. Peter has demonstrated his finely-honed suffering skills by managing not only to keep up his watches while being almost constantly sick but somehow smiling and keeping up conversation during the process. Clive has also been affected but demonstrated years of practice at sea by managing to avoid making any mess at all. So far I’ve been spared, but I expect that it’s only a matter of time…
We skimmed the edge of the Grand Banks early this morning and got the distinct impression that it’s a very bad place to be a fish. Densely-packed trawlers as far as the eye could see made steering a bit hazardous too: most fishing boats restrain from using the automatic VHF positioning system (which announces your position, speed and course to nearby shipping over radio), trail nets up to 2 miles behind them, change course unpredictably, always have the right of way and have occasionally been known to play games with yachts – a bit of a challenge for us green sailors!
On the plus side, the sun is shining, the sea is now trawler-free, some dolphins decided to play near the boat a couple of hours ago and we’re making great progress towards Greenland, albeit a few degrees off our initial course due to the wind direction.
Fri 5 July 13: Day 5 in the Labrador Sea
Clive writes: Is there such a thing as a “good” sailing wind in the Labrador Sea? We’re beginning to doubt it. In the past 5 days we have had 2 deep depressions track over us bringing us far more wind than we would have liked, interspersed with periods of almost complete calm (wind not sea!!) where there has been no option but to motor because the residual chop from the previous gale just shakes what little wind there is out of the sails.
Although the worst of yesterday’s depression blew through to the north of us, we still had an uncomfortable day beating into 25-30 knots of wind and only managing to get within 45 degrees of the course we need – for most of the day we were pointing at Scotland not Greenland! Today there is less than 5 knots of true wind and we are rolling our way northwards in a slow stomach churning swell.
This pattern looks set to continue with another 36 hours of little or no wind before the next gale blows through on Sunday. The only difference is that this time we should hit the leading edge of the depression and get gale force southerly winds, as opposed to hitting the trailing edge and getting the northerlies we have suffered so far.
However, none of us signed up for this trip to enjoy “comfortable” sailing conditions – if we had wanted that we could have stayed in the Med! Somehow this “lure of the north” that kept the likes of sailor/mountaineers like Tillman, Ker and Shepton coming back to Greenland year after year is exerting its strange effect on us. Whether we will ever repeat the experience the number of times they have done remains to be seen. At the moment if you took a straw poll then answers might tend towards the “never again” end of the spectrum, but then a short memory is an essential prerequisite for offshore sailing in these latitudes – I’m sure once we catch sight of those first mountains and glaciers on the Greenland coast then the discomforts of the past few days will seem but a dim and distant memory!
Running before the storm
Looks wet out there …
Sat 6 July 13: An exciting overnight watch
A mercifully peaceful past 24 hours in which we even managed to cook our first proper supper at sea and sit down together to eat it – it may have only been spaghetti and pesto but after 4 days of snacking on hot soups and biscuits it certainly tasted good! We now have gentle easterly winds for the next 24 hours before the next depression comes in on Sunday afternoon bringing with it gale force southerly winds – so whilst those at home in UK are watching Andy Murray do battle in the Wimbledon final we will be having a different sort of fight on our hands! The fight will be made all the more complicated because we should be reasonably close to the Greenland coast by then, and being upwind of a craggy shoreline smattered with grounded icebergs isn’t the best place to weather a gale.
Between two storms on the Labrador Sea – Peter on watch, 6 July
Before this unexpected good wind set in, we had a rather heavy night. A short gale turned the Labrador Sea from the consistency of bad school custard to that of giant meatball stew and sent more than a few big waves crashing over the cockpit and whichever poor unfortunate happened to be on watch. It was the kind of scene I’d expected of the trip but had somehow managed to avoid – darkness stretching out in all directions, howling winds, the boat lurching and crashing through waves which gave you a shot of adrenaline every time you look at them, a bit like looking up at a piece of rock that you know could go badly wrong. Remarkably resilient though, these boat things. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen the lee rail disappear under the foam and thought, ‘Surely this time we’ll just keep on rolling!’, but each time the Cosmic Dancer rights herself and plunges on. I’ve certainly been very glad of my lifejacket while clinging to the wheel with the boat at 30 degrees to the horizontal (Cheers Spinlock)!
We’ve now been out of sight of land for 5 days and 4 days out of sight of other shipping, 2 hours on and 4 hours off, then repeat. It will certainly be something of a relief when we do eventually make landfall in Greenland! If the long term forecasts are correct then we should have a fairly clear run up the west Greenland coast after this next gale – fingers are firmly crossed on board.
Tom at the helm
Mon 8 July 13: Hove to
Clive writes: 7 days at sea and 3 full blown gales in that time – are we just unlucky or is this really turning into a bad summer?!! In the past 24 hours we have taken a real hammering. Yesterday afternoon the wind went from 10 knots to 30+ knots in as many minutes and hasn’t let up since. However, it is the seas that have done the real damage. Although not unduly high by gale standards, they have been unremittingly chaotic, making steering all but impossible. It has been more like getting caught in a tidal race rather than the open rolling seas one would expect 100 miles offshore.
Despite being reefed down to a staysail and 3 deep reefs in the main, we suffered a knock down early on in the gale. We dropped the main and made some progress under staysail alone, but when the staysail blew out, it became clear that continuing into the night wouldn’t be an option. Shortly after midnight we hoisted the storm jib and hove to.
We remain hove to and are waiting for the winds and seas to moderate before continuing towards Nuuk. With the exception of the blown out sail, we don’t appear to have suffered any major damage, although living conditions down below are “damp” (to put it mildly!) All on board are remarkably cheerful and are using the time hove to to catch up on some much needed sleep. The forecast is promising us a break later this morning – let’s hope it’s right and for the moment we’re trying to ignore gale number 4 which is already starting to show on the forecasts for later in the week. But hopefully we’ll be tucked up alongside somewhere before that one hits!
Tues 9 July 13: A Labrador Sea Gale – a personal perspective by Peter
We’re currently on course for Nuuk, our first port of call in Greenland, after spending 24 hours in a massive gale! Yesterday afternoon (Sunday) we were hit by 35 knots and more of wind from the south-east. Initially the plan was to run before the gale as it was pushing us the way we wanted to go – north. But this proved to be easier said than done! The thirty five knots of wind were less of a problem than the heavy following sea – huge waves bearing down on us from behind. The helmsman had to hold the boat square onto these in order to avoid being hit side-on and swamped. At the helm you would feel each wave catch the stern, lifting it up so that the front of the boat seemed to slope away downwards – then it would roll on underneath the boat, often breaking into a crest of foam on either side, until we were surfing down it at anything up 13 knots, wrestling with the helm to keep the boat straight. And then the wave would outpace us, sweeping on into another great trough of sea, while we fell back into slack water and waited for the next one to hit!
As the waves were all over the place, coming from slightly different directions, and the boat also had to be kept at the correct angle to the wind, steering was extremely taxing… Early on, I had just taken over the helm from Tom when we were hit slantwise by two monster waves. The first knocked us down into a massive broach, practically capsizing the boat in time for the second to crash over the top of us. This left me dangling sideways from the steering wheel as my lifejacket inflated from the onrush of water (good to know the automatic inflation system works!) while Tom clung onto the handrail in the cockpit trying to remember whether his lifejacket was done up or not… The boat righted itself promptly however, thanks to the enormous lump of lead on the keel, and I scrambled back to the helm while Tom and Clive started frantically pumping out all the water that had gone down inside the boat among the electrics, charts etc… Nothing seems terminally damaged however!
Shortly afterwards we dropped the mainsail and went on under the staysail (jib) alone, which was rather more manageable. As night approached, however, the somewhat aged staysail ripped itself apart in the gusts. Clive and Angela rigged the storm jib and made the decision to heave to – i.e. stop – for the night. We went to sleep in a somewhat damp condition, while one person remained on watch to keep a lookout for icebergs to windward. We stayed hove to, drifting gently northwest with the storm, until about midday today (Monday), when the wind and sea calmed down enough for us to start sailing towards Nuuk. We are making gradual progress and hope to reach Greenland finally in around 24 hours!
“It may be time for the storm sails”
Peter takes a break
Tues 9 July 13: Dodging the icebergs
Clive writes: A lot has changed in the last 24 hours. Gone (for the moment at least!!) are the gales, to be replaced by almost no wind and a drop in sea temperature from 6.0 C to 1.5 C. With the drop in sea temperature has come a thick all pervasive fog and our first icebergs. The first of these bergs was just visible through the mist, but as the visibility has dropped they are now no more than glowing red dots on the radar, looking innocuous enough on the screen, but something to be dodged at all costs.
Our watch keeping routines have changed accordingly. No longer are we able to work a 1 in 3, 2 hours on 4 hours off, routine with the skipper on permanent call. Instead we have switched to working 1 in 2, with one person on deck and one down below manning the radar continuously whilst the other 2 sleep.
However, a break is in sight, even if only figuratively, not literally! The GPS is telling us that after 1023 miles and 195 hours at sea, we should make our landfall in 45 nautical miles time, a little over 8 hours motoring at our current speed. This will leave us another 30 miles to run as we thread our way through the Narsaq passage inside the hundreds of off lying islands to Nuuk. We’re not quite sure yet whether we will make it by closing time, but either way there is a bottle carefully tucked away down below waiting to be broken out when the moment comes!!
Approaching Nuuk
Whale boats in Nuuk
Made it to Nuuk!
Holiday in Nuuk
Peter writes on Friday 12 July: Nuuk, the largest town and administrative capital of Greenland, is a curious place: a load of brightly-coloured chalets and apartment blocks stuck on top of what looks like a barren Scottish mountainside. There is a large crowded harbour smelling strongly of fish (or possibly whale, seal etc.) Fishing and seal hunting seem to be popular activities here – see photo!
Car Boot Seal
We are currently moored alongside a German yacht, the Polaris – last night the skipper Michael gave us some crucial details about anchorages etc further north along the Greenland coast. He ought to know as he has been sailing in Greenland for the last four years! (Check out some of his photos at http://polaris-sail.blogspot.com/)
Yesterday was our first day of proper sunny weather for quite some time – a good opportunity to dry out our stuff which had got somewhat damp after nine days at sea. Today has been entirely the opposite – driving rain and high winds, as the latest in a long series of storms passes through from Baffin Island out into the Atlantic. We’re hoping it will be over by this evening and we’ll be set to leave for Ilulissat, where we are to meet Ian and Jacob. They should be arriving there this evening so they will have a few days to get supplies – and then we can set off north towards the climbing!
Oxford Greenland Expedition 2013 