Through the Storm

Who knew that we were headed into a four day gale? We checked the weather files before leaving, just like we always do. The weather was unstable, to be sure, and both Kay and I thought that we should let the weather firm up. It was the first time that I had ever seen the wind arrows crossing each other on the map. But, if anything, it looked like it was going to be really light wind and we were ready to get going so we pushed on to Suwarrow. After so many crossings the seven hundred mile span that stretched in front of us seemed like nothing and we went out with a good rig and all the safety checks that Brett normally does before a long passage but I did not prepare like I normally do. I did not make a ton of prepared meals since it looked like it was going to be a cake walk out there.

The first day out we had nice wind that pushed us along at a steady pace. The wind was coming out of the South-East, just far enough off of dead-down-wind to make it good sailing. We were making good time and it seemed to be shaping up into a really nice sail. If this was the light wind that the weather files had been forecasting then we were all for it. There were nine boats out with us on the run to Suwarrow and we were entertaining ourselves by talking on the radio, telling jokes and keeping each other company with silly banter. We all knew each other and were exchanging weather information, one of the boats was even paying for a weather router and he had forecasted light wind as well. At night the wind died down and we crawled along at two to three knots, many of the boats turned on their motors but us and Little Wing stayed in the back of the pack and sailed.

By the second day of the crossing we were getting some radically different weather than was predicted. The wind started to howl and the waves were slowly building. Brett heard the gale coming as the boats that had motored out in front of us the previous night were slapped with thirty knot gusts, when the gale finally reached us Brett had Fearless trimmed perfectly for the big wind and we scooted along with a triple reefed main and just the storm jib out. We were still going six to eight knots, even on our lightest sail combination. Every time we checked the weather it seemed it would be getting better within the next twelve hours. It never did. Island Time called their weather router and he thought we were in ten knots when we were getting blown along at thirty five to forty five. They fired him.

We considered our options and it seemed that we might not be able to make the pass into Suwarrow if the swell kept up. We considered our one and only other option: keep sailing to Pago Pago in American Samoa. Another five hundred miles did not seem like a short hop. It was impossible to cook below, I had my monthly visitor and the timing could not have been worse. I got sea sick and the misery seemed to spread throughout my body like a virus. I was unprepared for bad weather, I was feeling ill and I had to continue on. I had no choice.

On Brett’s watch I came up to keep him company for a short spell and as I sat in the companion way and chatted him up I saw a big wave crash and break on our stern quarter. I had just enough time to say “Holy Crap!” Then the stern was pushed up by the breaking wave and our starboard rail was underwater. Water flowed over the back of the seat and filled the cockpit before Fearless righted herself. Brett had pulled the cockpit cushions and stowed them below and put the storm board into the companionway. He kept insisting that I close all the windows. It smelled like a shoe bellow deck. I had grumbled with his concerns but I did not fight it, safety first and all that. He was right. In the end his erring on the side of safety has saved us having some drenched and possibly ruined cushions and water flowing below through open hatches. The cockpit drained out almost instantly and the one casualty of our slap on the hind quarter was our log book which got drenched and was useless for the rest of the passage. On the radio we were heard that Argonaut had been knocked down and had sustained light damage to their cockpit enclosure and lost some pillows. We heard that Elusive had an accidental jibe and had broken their goose neck. We talked to Blue Planes Drifter and found out that they were worried about their dinghy. They had left her on the davits for the hop to Suwarrow and if they were hit by a wave and the dinghy filled with water it would probably break free. We were not the only ones who had gotten complacent. Towering wave after towering wave loomed up behind us and we continued to rise to the top and coast over them. Knowing that other boats were having such a hard time was putting a real spin on the situation. The waves and the sound of the howling wind began to take their toll. It was hard to move around the boat and you had to hang on with every step. Sitting on watch meant clutching the sides of the chair while the boat was rocked beneath us and tried to throw us out. We were both exhausted.

Little Wing had some problems with their SSB radio before leaving Bora Bora so we were keeping in touch with them and making sure that we always had their position. It is a twenty eight foot boat but she has a huge bow sprit and a large sail area. Craig and Kay are both excellent sailors so they were chugging along and keeping up with boats that had a huge waterline advantage. But despite the fact that we were trying to slow down so that we would not arrive in the middle of the night we still were going too fast for her and at some point we lost radio contact with them. I could hear them on the radio but they could not hear us. We had some conversations with Little Wing with Blue Planes Drifter acting as a relay since they were in the middle of the fleet but it was slow going and we just kept in touch with email twice a day to make sure they were okay. It was only a few short hours after we were out of radio contact with them that I heard Blue Planes give them a call on the radio and followed the conversation to another channel. Kay calmly informed Tiffany on Blue Planes that this was not a good time to talk as she had to go back to channel 16 and put out a Pan Pan, this is a short had way of saying I’m in deep shit and I need to let all the boats in my area know it so that they can offer assistance. It is one step below a mayday, which means I am sinking and my life is in jeopardy.

I sat there at the nav station numb and tired. They were probably a little more than thirty miles behind us and the wind was following and bringing twenty foot seas with it. It was not really an option to turn around. But we were very concerned and I hung on the radio chatter like a lifeline as I waiting for news. The fleet re-arranged itself. Macy hung back and stayed behind them. Argonaut stayed close. We were going as slowly as we could and we were still putting miles between ourselves and Little Wing but they had boats nearby so we kept going and just kept an ear to the radio. Don’t want to make a stupid move and put Fearless in jeopardy as well. One boat in the fleet with troubles in enough. I could sometimes get little bits and pieces of them talking, scraps of conversations that were not meant for me. I didn’t relay any more since their hands were full and all I could provide was useless chatter. No need to talk to someone who could not help, someone who was too far ahead. Helpless and sad I waited to hear the full story. They were alive and they were not hurt but the mast was bent, they were motoring in a wounded sailboat and they had to be spent. I was spent and I had not been in a knockdown, I imagined the worst and the waves that slammed relentlessly behind us took on an ominous color and shape. Two knockdowns and one forced jibe that caused damage in our little fleet of nine boats. My body was tensed for action but all I could do was hold on as we were tossed around and stare down the following sea.

Brett discovered that our aft starboard bed had gotten wet in our little slap. Apparently there had been a hole in the locker that had been submerged and the water had leaked into the headliner. When we arrived to our way point we were still a few hours from daylight and Brett fired up the engine in reverse to stop our forward momentum. Its not good sailing and its not sexy but it worked and we stayed put for the night until we had enough daylight to enter the pass. The South-East swell was now taking us on the side, thank goodness it had laid down a little bit in the night.

When we put down the anchor we got to putting the boat away and cleaning her up. I waited for Little Wing to get into radio range, we made it through the pass at seven in the morning and we watched as the other boats limped into the anchorage. Finally we got hailed by Little Wing and they were on their way in. Craig had been hand steering the boat for the last twenty hours without sleep. Their wind vane had been damaged in the knockdown and the autopilot had been sheered off. He was tired and told us he was making bad decisions. He needed help coming through the pass, more damage was not an acceptable risk and there were coral heads in the pass that may not be where they were marked on the chart. With no questions we told them we would meet them in the pass and bring them in, all they had to do was follow us. Everyone was following the conversations on the radio, everyone wanted to help. We got offers from other boats that had been there longer to go out and meet Little Wing but all I could think was that I wanted to see them with my own eyes as soon as possible. We had been unable to assist during their struggle through the storm and I wanted to be there for them.

We were running on adrenaline and had not rested when they were approaching the pass but we both hopped in the dinghy and went out to the pass. We knew that there was a submerged coral head that they needed to give a wide berth but as we led them into the pass we realized that things looked a lot different from the lower perspective of the dinghy and we really had no idea where we were. Change of plans: we zoomed over to Little Wing and Brett boarded the boat and steered them in while I stayed in the dinghy and motored ahead. As soon as we got their anchor down we had a drink on Little Wing and I offered to make them dinner. I was sure they had not had a good meal and it was the least I could do.

So there we were in the most remote anchorage that we were going to come upon during our trip and our friends had a bent mast and where essentially crippled. There was no way to sail with a bent mast and it was making dangerous creaking sounds. The plan was to build a tripod support structure at the bent section of the mast. Brett helped on Little Wing while I washed all our laundry by hand. The mattress needed to be brought on deck to dry, the comforter and cover needed to be washed out to remove the salt water. It was three days of continuous laundry as Brett assisted Little Wing and all the boats in the harbor lent whatever support that they could to the effort. There is no way to get parts out here in Suwarrow. There are minimal inhabitants on the island: John and his wife Veronica and their children are the caretakers and the supply boat comes by once every six months. We were going to have to make due with what we had on hand. Everyone was very generous with their spares but in the end the boat that made the biggest difference was Trace n’ Jay: they gave their whisker pole to the cause and not only did they not ask for compensation they refused it when it was offered. It is times like these that you get to see the true generosity of spirit that is alive in the cruising community. I have never seen so many people be so helpful and band together to help one another.

It was not long before we had the tripod set up and had a good weather window to leave. It was a real shame since Suwarrow is the most remote anchorage we will see in our entire trip and we had no time to really enjoy it but the weather window was good and who knows when we would get another one. We arranged with Little Wing that we would stay with them for the passage from Suwarrow to Pago Pago, essentially we were their safety net in case anything in the rig failed and things went wrong. We jokingly referred to ourselves as the “hospital ship.”

Little Wing was able to motor and use the storm jib and the tri sail to give her a little extra push. She was capable of motoring at 4.8 knots and the sails gave her a knot and a half of push. So as the wind shifted, died down, built back up, gusted, etc. we tried to maintain a pace with a motoring vessel. It seemed near impossible. We changed sail constantly, bringing in sail and then reefing and then putting it all out in light wind. It seemed that every time we changed sail the wind changed with us and we were changing again. And through it all the waves stayed down and the wind stayed under twenty knots. We entertained each other on the radio and we made it through the longest week of my life. By the end of the passage we were spent, this had been more exhausting than the gale. Little Wing had been hearing the drone of the motor for the entire time and had to yell to be heard over its roar. We stayed within sight of them for the entire passage and for that I am very proud, it was the most technical sailing I have done.

We arrived a Pago Pago at one in the morning. With our nerves frayed and the wind building we spoke to some of the people who were in the anchorage. They let us know that it was crowded with bad holding. It would not be a wise move to try to enter at night and so we held off shore and waited until daybreak to make our landfall. Brett and I attempted to heave-to and it was a disaster. The reefing lines had fallen off of the halyard and as we attempted to get her into her second reef in the pitch black something kept going wrong. Our nerves were so frayed that we were fighting like cats and dogs and the boat was rolling unpredictably underneath us. With nothing going right Brett got sick and threw up over the side of the boat. I felt so bad for him that we stopped fighting and I let him go below. As Fearless refused to heave to I sat in the cockpit and felt just about as dejected as I have ever felt when at the helm. Fearless kept tacking through the heave to and then we were sailing. Why did it have to be so difficult to stop this boat? I sat holding the wheel and anticipating the tack, it seemed there was nothing I could do and I was tired, but Brett was sea sick and I needed to let him rest it off. I kept reminding myself that Little Wing’s situation was worse than mine and I should get over it. As the tears of frustration crept down my cheeks I let the boat have her way and tack back and forth through the heave to. Finally I got a hold of myself and I decided to be proactive. I changed the sail plan and although we were still making 2.5 knots we were at least not tacking back and forth and the boat was under control. The wind was building and we were all really bummed to have arrived so close to the middle of the night. Could it get much worse?

I had the boat situated and had given Brett an extra two hours of sleep. I went below and Brett took over. Just then Craig hailed us, the tripod rig on Little Wing was making strange noises and it was not going to work for her to be hove to. We were going to have to make forward progress. We stripped all the sail down and ran with the wind on bare poles. With not a stitch of sail flying Fearless was making 4.5 knots. We were going slow enough that we would make landfall in daylight.

We have been in Pago Pago for almost three weeks now. The harbor is disgusting and we are downwind from the tuna packing plant. The smell is noxious. We have taken the opportunity to get some mail sent to us and have upgraded and cared for Fearless, we have done tons of laundry and it is great to be in an American territory. The shopping here is very reasonable and are a far cry from the crazy prices of French Polynesia. The people here are very friendly and very patriotic. It makes me proud to be an American when these people have such a positive view of our country. Once you get out of the harbor the coast line is stunning and the island has that remote island feeling that is so deeply contrasted with the industrial harbor that we are anchored in. It is almost time to move on. Little Wing has been having trouble getting their mast shipped and if they do not get their mast here soon they will have to end their journey here. It is a real shame and I am sad to think that we may continue without them, we have gotten really close and it will not be the same without them sharing our journey.

I have learned that I need to be more prepared for the crossings and that it is very important for me to take everything very seriously. It is the difference of five minutes that can put you in harms way, the wayward gust or odd wave coming out of the wrong direction. All it takes is one accident, one slip and things can go terribly wrong. Only one moment of bravado stands between a conservative sail trim and disaster. I keep reflecting on my gut feeling that I wanted to stay in Bora Bora until the weather firmed up. Was that because I was having such a fun time? Or was it because I sensed that it was going to get bad out there? I will never know but I am determined to listen to my feelings more carefully and make my voice heard if I have doubts about leaving in uncertain weather. I know that I will never leave an anchorage again without prepared meals so that we can be well fed. So, as has been the case so far, Fearless has come through unscathed and her crew have learned valuable lessons that will keep her safer in the future. That was the biggest weather that we have seen so far and although I was never afraid for us I was certainly put on notice. I hope to remember these lessons and heed them as we continue South to the beautiful anchorages of Tonga. I am ready to get back in the water and swim.