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JESSE MARTIN
LIONHEART 09
I AM moving well, doing 120-130 nautical miles a day. At this rate I should pass the Cape of Good Hope about Thursday, but the forecast shows there might be nasty weather around then so I have been advised to stick to 40 degrees south. That is low enough from the shallow Agulhas that kicks up the waves and high enough to minimise strong winds. Earlier this week some of my electrics stopped working. When I tried to put on a Bob Dylan CD and it wouldn't start, I decided enough was enough and got into repairing the loose connections. I pulled out the switchboard and re-connected about eight or nine wires that looked as if they were on the way out, as well as the ones that had ceased to work. I was glad when finally the speakers kicked into life "..owing in the wind". Several days later, I was sticking my head out of the cabin when I heard a bird squawking. I turned toward the bow and there was a big albatross struggling to free itself from the safety lines. Panicked, he tumbled into the water and swam away, taking flight when he built up enough momentum. He must have tried landing on the boat and slipped. It was a side of an albatross I had never seen before. Usually they are so graceful as they soar up and over the waves with their huge wingspan clipping the surface of the water. They definitely rule the air out here. I was almost as impressed yesterday, when counting a new box of matches, to find there were exactly 50, just as it says on the packet. Amazing! I feel sorry for the poor bloke whose job it is to count them, though. Jessica, Lisa, Courtney and Steven from Taylors Lakes Primary School asked if I ever face a situation that I don't think I can fix. There have been times when I've thought: "I wonder how this situation is going to turn out." Especially when I removed the furler from the forestay while in the tropics. It got stuck and there were all these problems, but there wasn't much I could do about it except keep going. If I were at home with other people around, then I may very well have just given up, claiming it was impossible. But out here you can't afford to do that. However much you don't like a situation, you have to take it by the horns. It is probably one of the more important things I've learnt from the trip. Last night the wind was blowing 15-20 knots and things were going well, until all of a sudden a horrible grinding noise started. I flicked on the deck light and rushed outside. The noise was coming from the wind generator, so I rushed down below again and switched on the electric brake to stop it from rotating. The noise slowed down as the spinning stopped, but it was too dark to see what the problem was and none of my torches was working. I had to wait until daylight to see what I was facing. Thankfully it was only a couple of broken blades, possibly from an ugly collision with a bird, that could be replaced. I was concerned at the time because I rely on the huge amount of power it generates to operate all my electrics. In the higher latitudes I could live without the solar panels, but not the wind generator. Best of all it is non-polluting. In the US, clean wind energy is cheaper than coal. What fantastic news! Non-polluting cars that run on hydrogen are due for release in 2006. Come on politicians, this is the way of the future. The technology is there. What are we waiting for?
10.08.99
WELL, this is the last major milestone until home - South Africa and the Cape of Good Hope. It is also a bit of a danger zone in that the pressure systems get squeezed under the land mass and combined with the Agulhas current, which is reported at running at two to five knots, can build the seas into quite a dangerous state. It is very exciting because I have just now moved on to a new chart that has the coast of Western Australia on it. Finally I can see home (in a way). Winds got up to 55 knots during the night and had five knockdowns. Three of them were five minutes after each other (rogues I think) and were very hard, shuddering the boat. One of them I was standing up and swung staying vertical as it went over. I saw the nav table open up which means we went past just horizontal. My guess would be about 120 degrees over. Lost a drogue when the rope broke, one solar panel ripped off, pulpit (forward rail around bow) totally bent to starboard and the lifelines all slack. The stove won't start meaning I can't dry anything, and the sleeping bag was drenched and all of the bedding. I was pretty scared at the time and am annoyed now because there is another front (not meant to be as bad) coming tomorrow. At least it is not cold. I've been told that some people have been thinking if I don't get back by my birthday in two weeks, I'll miss the record. Basically the situation is that in seven weeks on October 6, I'll be 18 years and 41 days old - the same age as David Dicks when he returned home. Who knows what's going to happen and how long I'll take. However, I do plan to complete the trip unassisted. I've decided that I'm not going to be pressured into going faster than I feel comfortable with. In my opinion the record isn't all that important. When the day comes and the trip is over, I'll be taking away something very personal and 10 times more valuable than a record. That's what I'll be content with.
17.08.99
AT the start of last week I encountered the worst weather to date. For four days I had front after front pass over with the wind not dropping below 25 knots except on one occasion for a few brief hours. With the wind blowing straight from South Africa, the temperature was quite pleasant, and on the first night I stood outside willing a few clouds with bolt lighting to keep their distance. I couldn't help thinking of the song by Enya called Storms in Africa. It was during the third day that the wind started to increase. Instead of 25-40 knots, it was 40-50 knots and with no sails up, Lionheart kept getting thrown around. I was having to hand-steer and it was getting dark. It would be dangerous to stay outside in the dark without any warning of large waves, but the wind vane couldn't handle the steering alone. Then the line towing the drogue broke and made the decision for me. I stopped Lionheart by turning her into the wind and lay a hull carrying no sail. It was a bit wet down below, so I undressed and climbed into my bunk to try and get some sleep. I was woken by what seemed like a bucket of water aimed directly at me. I flicked the light as Lionheart came up from a knockdown. I searched for a broken porthole which I assumed was the reason for so much water but they were all intact. I was dumbfounded. I flicked the switch on the electric bilge pump, then the second wave hit. This time I saw where the water was coming from. It was spurting in through the small crack from the companionway slide. The stove was upside down on the ground leaking methylated spirits into a stew of pencils, books, pots and pans and food on the floor. I was worried for the mast. Two knockdowns in five minutes, what else was to come? I threw everything into the front of the boat where it would do least damage if we went over again and took a look at the wind instrument - 50-55 knots!
There was not much I could do except wait for it to blow over. I got out of my soaking thermals and cringed as I pulled a soaking sleeping bag over my goosebumped skin. And so continued the worst night of my life.
By morning Lionheart had been knocked down five times and the wind had only let up a little. The knockdowns had bent the 2.5cm diameter steel rails of the solar panel frame even more and the starboard panel had been torn completely off. Most annoying of all was the stove, which wouldn't work. It took me another day before it was up and running so I could start the long process of drying. Since then I've slowly been getting away from the land mass which is to blame for tampering with the pressure systems.
Hopefully, the Indian Ocean will be a bit kinder.
24.08.99
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