No easy way for Aviva

by Dee Caffari on 21 Apr 2006 You would imagine with the sun shining and the water being so warm and blue that this section of the journey would be easier than the rest. Unfortunately, being in the Atlantic doesn't always mean easy sailing, ask any sailors. It is notorious for changeable weather and you have to stay with it to get the best progress.

A shining example of that happened in the early hours of this morning. It began at about 03:00hrs. We had a band of cloud overhead and the wind changed direction by 60 degrees. Unable to stay north of west, I gybed which, takes about fifteen minutes now I have had some practice and I have a set routine in place. Almost five minutes after I had finished the ordeal the breeze freshened, so I changed from the Code 0 to headsails. Once that was complete the breeze went for a wander again and made the other gybe more preferable. So once again we gybed.

This shifting wind continued and in the space of two hours I had gybed four times. I was very tired as I was yet to get any real sleep. The course and the wind settled and I tried to sleep, even for a few minutes. I struggled to get comfortable as my exertion had made me hot again and below had a severe lack of air circulating. After wandering around for a while trying different places out.

I found my bunk to be the coolest place as it is in the saloon under one of the hatches. I lay down and slept for forty minutes. It felt so good I managed another half hour before I had to go and change sails again back to the Code 0. The last time I slept in my bunk was when I was southbound in the Atlantic near the beginning of the voyage, so it felt pretty good to be doing it again.

Once the sun had risen, we needed to gybe again. This was earlier than expected but the course we were making on the new gybe was definitely the way to go. I managed another winch service before I ran out of shade as the deck heated up to allow you to fry an egg on it. I looked to the horizon and there was not a cloud to be seen. The sky was a brilliant blue, completely uninterrupted. There was not even a bird to be seen, come to think of it I haven't seen any bird life for a couple of days now.

My route from here will take me quite close to Ascension Island so maybe the bird life and marine life will increase again once we are nearer to land. It would be cool to see land as the last land I saw were the islands lying off the south of the South Island of New Zealand and that was ages ago.

Again, hot and bothered, I wandered around to find a comfortable and relatively cool place to sit. The breeze had gone light but we were making a good heading. Eventually I found sitting on my beanbag at the bottom of the companionway steps to be the most comfortable. I made a cup of tea and sat down, next thing I knew, it was thirty minutes later. I was that tired; I slept without having to try. That felt great!

As I write this now tonight the generator is on and that always adds to the heat below deck, so I will have another few hours before that turns off and we can hope for things to cool down enough for some sleep.

Dee & Aviva

LATEST REPORT FROM LOGISTICS DIRECTOR, ALISTAIR HACKETT:

Wednesday 19 April 2006, 13:00

Logistics Director Alistair Hackett looks back at the different approaches to sailing Dee has employed to keep Aviva going during a tough voyage

During Dee and Aviva's epic trip around the world both of them have encountered conditions that are rarely seen by individuals and yachts. The constant struggle to keep everything going during the trip to date has been immense and it is an amazing credit to both Dee, the yacht and the equipment onboard that so far things have gone as well as they have. However with Dee now on the 'homeward' leg, albeit that she still has several thousand miles to go, it is interesting to assess the three ways in which she has needed to sail the yacht during the three main sectors of the voyage.

Atlantic learning curve

Dee has commented herself that she had spent very little time alone before and even less time sailing by herself. This meant that the first sector of the trip, sailing down the Atlantic, was a huge learning curve. She had to learn how Aviva handled under the autopilot system and also how the new sails changed the sailing characteristics of the yacht’s performance. Dee was very used to the way a Challenge 72 yacht handles with the option of using 6 different headsails in different combinations, but for the Aviva Challenge she would only have the choice of two on the Harken Furling systems.

Of course, the other big thing to learn about was the reacher and asymmetric spinnaker, both of which set on the new bowsprit. Those of us responsible for the equipment that goes onboard the Challenge yachts had always felt that a reaching type sail would give an increase in performance and the initial trials had shown this to be the case, but Dee had to prove all this on the ocean.

The whole learning curve was intense and at times fraught. Dee set a very quick pace at the start and was clearly pushing hard but this first stage ended up being dominated by the technical problems with the autopilots on the final approach to Cape Horn. In some respect the biggest thing this taught everyone, especially Dee, was how alone she was and how this trip would not only be a test of the different sailing skills she has but a test of many other skills as well.

The Southern Ocean

With the technical problems sorted the Southern Ocean loomed around the corner. Aviva would be the 50th Challenge yacht to be sailing across the Southern Ocean and the third single-handed, but we were all totally surprised at what the Southern Ocean threw at Dee. She had to spend most of the trip around the bottom of the globe 'hanging on' as she encountered some of the worst weather we have ever seen. The Challenge yachts are designed to sail in the most inhospitable parts of the world’s oceans but it will always be a test of will to get a yacht through the weather systems that roll around the bottom of the world with no landmass to stop them.

Dee adapted well to the conditions but had to develop different techniques to do most tasks onboard. Things taken for granted like tacking and reefing had to be done in different ways which all affected the way in which Aviva could be sailed. With the depressions moving so fast in the Southern Ocean Dee would quite often have to prepare the sail plan in advance simply because she knew she wouldn't be able to change the sail plan in time once the weather hit and would run the risk of damage.

The late, great, famous round-the-world yachtsman Sir Peter Blake once said during one of his races that 'You have to go into the Southern Ocean knowing that you will come out the other side because there is nothing there, no ships, no vapour trails – nothing.' With this in mind Dee had to be conservative in the way in which she sailed Aviva in the Southern Ocean so that her and the yacht would come out the other side. As we all saw from the photographs as she passed the Cape of Good Hope Dee achieved the goal.

Back in the Atlantic

Aviva is now on the last leg of her mammoth journey and this will be the first time that Dee can confidently push that little bit harder. It will be on this leg that the downwind sails (the asymmetric spinnaker, the reacher and 3 conventional spinnakers) can be used to their full potential in the knowledge that home is not that far away. She also has the advantage of extensive experience in how to sail the 42-tonne yacht by herself.

It is, however, vital that the euphoria of the last leg home does not overtake good seamanship, which is fundamental in getting Dee through this last stage. A serious failure in some component now could still end the dream that Dee is so close to fulfilling. Dee will approach this last push to get home in the same way she has the others but she must not let the 'big push' get in the way o