Day 19, March 25 - More Ice and Change of Plan

The comet turned out to be a spectacular sight. With the binoculars I could see green light above it. It was under the constellation Orion and slowly disappeared below the NW horizon.

Right on cue the wind dropped to insignificance just before 1800 and I ran the engine for two hour just as I had planned. When I stopped the engine the sea was dead calm and the masthead unit was reporting less than 1 kt of wind. By then we were 18 miles NE of the iceberg so I hit the sack with the alarm set to wake me up at midnight, when the wind was due.

I woke up at midnight and then at 2 AM to find that the forecast wind had not appeared. I woke again at 6 AM for the early session with Graham to find a weak wind of 9 kts from the north, possibly enough to keep the sail full in the calm sea.

My prospects for wind are very good for at least 2 days beginning at around noon today, all thanks to a powerful high to the north and to west of me that is working its way toward the east.

I told Graham that I projected my track of yesterday before I altered course from E to the NE to avoid the iceberg, and I would have passed 0.7 miles to its north. However, because it too was too was moving, in the 3 hours that it would have taken me to reach it at the slow speed I was making, it would have drifted NE 1.2 miles. That would have put the iceberg perilously close to my track. I have been blessed with a strong heart but I wonder how it would have held up had I stuck my head out into the cockpit to do something and seen a mass of ice gliding quietly next to the boat. Graham told me that the weather service monitors ice from satellites and was reporting nothing in the area, and that they will look for the iceberg from space, probably from a NOAA satellite. A few minutes later I saw the iceberg off my port quarter with the naked eye no doubt because the weather was clear and the rising sun was at a good angle. Through binoculars I recognized its shape, so there was no doubt in my mind that it was the same one. Radar was not picking it up. I had last seen it on radar at 18.5 miles away. This morning it was perhaps 20 miles away. From yesterday's experience I think that I can rely on detecting an iceberg of that size at 15 miles.

The batteries were at a disappointing 12.6V this morning, even though I ran the engine a total of 3 hours yesterday. Much as I value the radar for safety, I must use it selectively, doing spot checks as circumstances dictate, rather than using it continuously. Regarding the guard zone that I set up, after shutting down the engine last night and starting to drift, the radar started picking up all sort of sea clutter that kept setting off the alarm. I know how to deal with sea clutter, and that will have to be another dimension of management of the radar when I have an active guard zone. Anyway, I'll run the engine for another hour today before the wind starts up.

After the engine run I rolled out the jib which got us moving at 3.3 kts to E from a weak northerly wind.

I am pleased to report that the chronic cough with which I sailed out of Cape Town has completely disappeared, even in this chilly and damp air. My lungs seem to thrive with sea air, bland food, and no booze.

It pays to keep a lookout. At 9 AM I spotted a broad sheet of ice off my port bow. It was low in the water, flat and smooth. The fact that I could see it told me that it could not be more that 5 or 6 miles away. The radar could not see it. There was no doubt in my mind that it was big enough to damage a boat making way. My heading would take me to the south of it but I expected the wind to back to the W so I altered course to leave it to starboard. Then I saw a line of clouds heading my way. I decided to raise the mainsail to gain speed and reduce the leeward drift of the boat which was not a bad idea but I made a big mistake in not rolling in most of the jib. The squall hit me and I had to let the mainsail drop while I frantically tried to roll in the jib. It was a hard effort, hard on me and hard on the sail and rigging. The flaying sheet kept striking the dodger window in it is only because the window is new and supple that it survived the impacts. I had allowed the ice downwind of me to cloud my judgment.

By then I had made the strategic decision to head north an get out of these dangerous waters. It was simply too risky to sail day after day with the ice threat. I decided to head north to above latitude 40S. Each mile to the north would decrease the risk and we should be safe above 40S. This would without a doubt affect my arrival date in Fremantle. Up to now, my primary objective had been speed, and although I had not said much about it, I figured that I had a good shot at making Fremantle before the end of April. But now my primary objective was safety, and the change in strategy would cost me probably more than a week - 2 or 3 days to get to 40S, and an unknown penalty for sailing close to the Indian Ocean high. But that didn't matter. What mattered was that regardless of what happened I would know that I had done my best for the safety of the boat and her crew.

I reported the situation to Graham at the lunch time session and he was very concerned - I could hear it in his voice, He said that he has never heard of ice at this latitude and that is has generally been in the 50-55S band. He agreed that my heading north is a good move and looking at the weather he didn't think that I'd lose much wind in the short term. I told Graham that until I got further north I would heave to at night and he agreed with that tactic. (He actually seemed relieved.) It will mean passing up the benefits of some wonderful winds in the next 2 days but so be it. In the meantime, the regime will be to scan the horizon every 20 minutes when sailing during the day. No more naps or reading or Spanish lessons for a while.

I spent most of the afternoon sitting at the companionway looking through the spray dodger windows. Because the dodger is new the windows are very clear and I could see very well. Nevertheless it got cold so I put on the heavy US Navy wool sweater, which made a total of 3 wool sweaters that I was wearing - 4, if you included the Icebreaker. I also wore gloves and of course my wool beanie. It was a good wind and we moved well, 6.5-7 kts slightly to the east of North. Unfortunately we got in only about 4 hours of sailing because nightfall is a 3PM UTC. Nevertheless we managed to make it to 42S20 before I was forced to stop sailing. I was sorely tempted to take a chance and sail all night, which would have put me at 41S before the coming noon, but that would have been irresponsible.

Heaving to went well. I put the boat into the wind and lashed the wheel, then went to the foredeck to pull down the madly flogging staysail. Being on my knees attending to the sail was a bit like riding a wild bronco, with the bow pitching and rolling with lots of water coming over the bow. But once the sail was down the boat settled down a bit and soon I was back in the cockpit attending to the Monitor (to restrain the water paddle from being slung from side to side all night), then to the mainsail.

The mainsail was easy to deal with: use the mainsheet to bring in the boom, then use the traveler to swing the boom as far to the weather (upwind) side as possible. Then it was time for the crucial assessment: the angle of the hull to the oncoming waves. I had feared that the 3rd reef would bring the center of force of the sail too far forward to force boat to point into the wind, but I need not have worried. The result was amazing. For the first time since I have owned the boat, after more that 4 years of sailing around the world, through too many gales and storms, for the first time ever, the boat was hove to properly, at an angle of 45 degrees or less to the oncoming waves.

The only fly in that ointment was that the wind surges were pushing the boat NNE at up to 3 kts at times, though normally it was well below 2.5 kts. This did not auger well for the possibility that there might be ice in my path but I didn't know what other measure that I could take other than to either deploy the parachute anchor (which brings on big complications) or use the engine to do some back tracking. No, I had done what I could and would hope for the best.

Once there was nothing left to do with the boat I went forward and found the "heaving to" bottle of rum. It had been a cold afternoon outside, the framework of my little world had been altered by the ice, and, well, we were hove to, which is why I had brought the rum.

I had high hopes for the coming day. Dawn would be at 0200 UTC, and I hoped to start sailing at about 0300. That would give me 12 hours of sailing in the daylight. At 0600 the wind was predicted to be at 25 kts from the SSW, and for noon it was a similar story. I would have to sail as much downwind as possible, so my plan was to drop the mainsail and set sail with the jib, which would pull us along all day. The Monitor likes this configuration because the boat is being pulled rather than pushed and is easier to steer. With luck I would make a full degree (60 minutes, which equals 60 miles) tomorrow, and perhaps even more. That would put me in the vicinity of 41S and make me much more comfortable about the perils of ice.

But for now the cabin was warm, dry, cozy, I was about to have a second snort of rum, and dinner and a movie were not far behind.

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