Vendee
Globe update
Thursday, Dec 30, 2004
From: 48 19S, 156 49E @ 0100 UT.
Edge of the Tasman
It is late Thursday
night locally here, on the south edge of the Tasman Sea. Only about
an hour ago I finished an interview with the Vendee media center
in Paris, and had a good chat.
There was lot to talk
about as everyone wanted to know why I took a rather sharp hitch
to the north last night, in addition to getting some more news on
the disastrous effects of the tsunami waves in the far east. What
a sobering reminder of the enormous power of the sea and how much
more research is needed, so that some warning is possible before
such terrible effects on life.
Regarding our much less
dramatic efforts at sea, I have been battling to stay in front of
a ridge of high pressure that would park us for some time if we
get caught. The options have been limited, either very far south
towards the icebergs or the more northerly route we are taking.
Right now we right on the edge of the ridge, just barely staying
in the wind. That is why we jibed to the north for a few hours last
night, which worked quite well. If we can hold on, hopefully we
can pass under New Zealand without getting swallowed by the high.
If we get stuck then there will be headwinds afterwards, so the
going will be very slow.
Behind us, Conrad on
Hellomoto is flying with good winds while we try to keep crawling
along. But that is the way it goes. He is also apparently willing
to sail a very daring course right through the area of icebergs
south of New Zealand at 51/52 degrees latitude. I wish him luck.
We have been getting
a few emails asking how I made it up to the radar tower a few days
ago to rig control lines. It was a rather complicated affair, and
I wound up writing it down for our friend Rich Jones in Portland,
Oregon. So, you might as well get the story too.....
Ok, here goes:
I took a spare spin
sheet and ran it around behind the radar tower. One end I hooked
to the masthead halyard. Then the other end ran outboard of the
runners, forward to the mast, then back (outboard of the runners
again) and hooked the 3 ends together. That is, both ends of the
spin sheet and the MH halyard. The spin sheet was basically a loop
running around the tower and up to the mast, with the halyard hooked
to spot in the loop. Make sense?
Ok. So then I pulled
the loop in a circle to pull the MH halyard back to the tower, and
raised the MH halyard to pull the loop up to near the top of the
tower. So, one side of the loop went around the tower just under
the radar and up to the halyard/sheet joint a couple feet about
the radar. From there the other end of the sheet goes up to the
mast where it was tied off tight. The end looping around the back
of the tower also went up to the mast and was tied off. So now I
have these two lines running back to the tower with the 'upper'
one held up by the MH halyard. They both go around the windward
side of the runners.
Then, I hooked myself
(in a climbing harness) to the upper genniker halyard (the next
halyard down the rig from the MH spin halyard), set up at a predetermined
height that woud just reach the the tower if could pull myself back
there, on the upper of the two lines running aft. In order not to
go flying off to leeward, when I hooked the genniker halyard to
the harness I trapped the upper line of the loop aft in the connection
of the halyard to me. So I was suspended about 3 ft above the deck
at the mast, dangling from the genniker halyard but hooked onto
the line running aft.
Lying roughly horizontal,
I pull/slide my way aft to the runners. I stop there, about 8ft
in the air, to size things up. I had to go back once to readjust
the genniker halyard height. On the final go, I pull my way back
to the tower on the line. But there is a lot of slop in the system
as the tower is bending, and the halyard that I'm on wants to pull
forward, etc, etc. So it takes a lot of force to get the last few
feet. At the tower I had to loop my legs around the side stays and
hang on with all my might and I could still barely reach the top
of the dome. The last bit I just sort of had to force my way aft
& up to feed a spectra webbing/Velcro strop through a space
in our new carbon wind wand bracket on top of the tower. Then I
tied small spectra lines to the strop, let them dangle, and got
the heck out of there. I was too tired to tape up the mechanical
actuator arm so it is still hanging off to the side a bit. I was
at the tower maybe 20 minutes trying to get the strop over the top
and through, and I still have bruises inside my legs from the side
stays.
It's working! |
After I got down I had
to mess around for an hour with a boathook (now it was dark), standing
on top of our stainless antenna railing on the back of the boat
to get the strings to run correctly over the edges of the radar
dome so the strings would work.
What fun. But in the
end:
Yesterday and today
I had a couple of more sessions with the rudder boot, and hopefully
that's over but now guarantees. I also discovered that the primary
autopilot ram had managed to loosen the bolts to its mounting bracket
and was sliding about a half inch either way when moving the tiller.
The bolts had been worked pretty good but they didn't break when
I cranked them down tight. Let's hope they stay that way.
Right now we are starting
to beat into a constantly changing southeasterly, but are staying
in the wind. But I need to go adjust the sails again, so bye for
now!
Bruce Schwab, Skipper
USA 05/Ocean Planet
Web: www.bruceschwab.com
Education: www.oceanplanet.org
Email: bruce@bruceschwab.com
Phone: 843-670-6582
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