We continue our fast passage across the Atlantic today,
tracking just south of the greater circle route, with another 24 hour run of
over 200 miles. All is well on board
with everyone settled into the watch system and the routines of offshore
sailing; and then we had a minor drama.
I was down below answering emails when I was called up on
deck. Sitting on the aft deck, Fatty had noticed a large red object being
dragged just behind the boat, and a few metres further behind, something white
being pulled along behind it. We
guessed that this was a fishing net that had got wrapped around the propeller
and my first thought was that I would have to dive under the boat to cut it
free. Now, at this stage we were making nine knots through a moderate sea four
miles deep, in 15 knots of wind and a big swell running from the north so you
can imagine that it wasn’t perfect conditions for a swim.
Before doing anything we wanted to understand better how
badly the net was entangled so I attached my GoPro waterproof camera to a boat
hook, and suitably attached to the boat with a harness I stood on the bathing
platform and pushed the camera down under the water behind the boat. Despite having slowed the boat down it was hard to keep the camera immersed in the foaming wake but when I downloaded the
video to my laptop we could clearly see the problem. A rope attached to the net had somehow become
wrapped around the bottom of the rudder and thankfully it seemed that all we
had to do was to unhook it and it would fall away. However the bottom of the
rudder is about 2.5 metres under the surface of the sea and I realised that a
swim may be necessary after all; but first we had to slow Juno down.
Many of you will recognise the term ‘Heaving-to’, an ancient
technique for holding a yacht almost stationary at sea using just the sails. To
do this we tack the boat as usual but leave the headsail sheeted on the wrong
side, preventing the boat from fully completing the tack. The mainsail tries to
push the bows into the wind and the backed headsail blows the bows off. The
knack is to get these two forces in balance and hold the boat with its bows
just off the wind, making a knot or so of leeway as the wind pushes the boat
sideways. So we hove to – and it worked beautifully. The boat stopped, everything went very quiet
and still; it was hard to believe that only moments earlier we had been
thundering along at nine knots. In the
calm that ensued we were able to take a closer look at the fishing net; only we
couldn’t see it, because by stopping the boat the pressure on the rope had
reduced and the whole fishy mess had dropped off and disappeared into he depths
of the ocean. We used the GoPro again to
take another video, this time showing that the rudder was free of the obstacle
and we were soon able to get Juno back up to speed and on course.
Today we crossed the tropic of Cancer, still making good
progress but tomorrow the forecast is for lighter airs as the wind veers to the
north east and we consider a gybe south on Sunday. We put our clocks back one
hour today as we crossed the 25-degree meridian so dawn should break earlier
tomorrow. The sunrises in the East have
been quite apocalyptic, with shards of light piercing the soft grey pastel
clouds, spreading wider across the distant horizon until the sun rises high and
bleaches out the vivid colours of dawn.