Whale drops in - literally - on solo sailor

by Lindsay Wright on 15 Apr 2007 Lindsay Wright purchased Loose Goose to sail in the 2007 Taranaki Daily News Shorthanded Trans Tasman Yacht Race.

He never made the start line, here is his reprinted story.......

It took a fair bit of work to wrap my head around sailing a multihull.

After spending a lifetime racing keel boats, from Harmonic 24's to maxiboats, cruising in my own yacht and skippering small ships; Loose Goose, a Newick Val 31, felt awfully flimsy.and they turn over, don't they?

I'd been shopping for a boat to win the 2007 Taranaki Daily News Shorthanded Tasman Yacht Race and when Loose Goose, a saucy little Dick Newick designed trimaran came on the market, she seemed like the boat to do the job and teach me how to sail a multihull in the process. I wasn't along to participate in the race, I wanted to win and Loose Goose was the boat to do it.

During the test sail, in 30 knots of nor' easter on Auckland Harbour, Loose Goose put on an exhilarating performance, picking up the Sunday afternoon armada of inbound Gulf cruisers like they were sailing backwards, but she showed the effects of long months of neglect on a mooring and proved very difficult to tack.

Nevertheless I felt Loose Goose was the boat to tackle the Tasman Race and possibly even look at the six days eight hour record for the 1250 nautical mile course set by another trimaran, Bullfrog Sunblock, in 1986.

I checked with Loose Goose's builder and was satisfied with her plywood, epoxy and carbon fibre construction. I bought the boat and, over the next six months; hauled her out at Okahu Bay in Auckland, replaced the standing
rigging, removed and rebuilt the rudder and steering gear, rewired the interior and completed a myriad of small fitting out jobs.

The more I got to know the boat's construction, the more my confidence grew and I began keeping an eye on weather patterns for the right window to sail Loose Goose on the 520 mile coastal passage home to Port Taranaki.

Finally, in early January, the time looked opportune. The sea area Brett forecast predicted a few days of sou' westerlies veering nor' easterly. The southerlies would get me up the north east coast and, hopefully, the northerlies would kick in for the trip from Cape Reinga to Port Taranaki.

The reality was a bit different though. After several hours motorsailing in light head winds, with the 15 horsepower Mercury outboard providing most of the propulsion, I wafted into Taurikura Bay, near Whangarei Heads. Next morning a kindly local lady drove me to the nearest petrol station where I topped up my tote tanks with petrol.

Once around Bream Head, inside Mauitaha Island, a south westerly land breeze kicked in. Loose Goose skipped across the sparkling sea, whipped past a couple of northbound keelers.

Loose Goose's previous owner had difficulty tacking but I soon found, with the centerboard down, I could easily tack her by slowly bring her into the wind, dumping the mainsheet, tacking the jib and re-sheeting the mainsail once she was sailing full and bye on the new tack. The Raytheon tillerpilot's tacking function did it automatically through 100 degrees and, what had been a chore, became quite fun.

One long tack offshore took me north of the Poor Knights and the opposite tack brought me back to Cape Brett just after dusk where another localised south westerly whisked me across the entrance to the bay of Islands.

Another two tacks, gently dozing in the cockpit while we lolloped offshore, placed Loose Goose at the north end of Great Exhibition bay by daybreak. As I tacked back to clear North Cape, the south westerly arrived and lifted Loose Goose until I was on a course to clear the cape by half a mile or so. With the fresh breeze just forward of the beam and the GPS speed readout hovering around 13.5 knots, we whisked past the cape. Exhilirating multihull sailing, flat and fast with sheets of sparkling spray carving away from the leeward float.

Loose Goose covered the 22 miles from North Cape to Cape Reinga in about one hour 45 minutes but west of Cape Reinga there was a steep and lumpy sea to accompany the breeze so I let Loose Goose have her head, close hauled and pounding westward past the cape.

I was starting to understand that Loose Goose was lightly built, but she was also perfectly engineered to cope with the stresses which the sea put on her three fine and easily driven hull forms. I crawled around, shining a torch into the wind decks and checking the chain plates, looking for signs of movement or breakage while she pounded into the seas.

Several of the accounts I'd read about multihull races cited crews having to ease off due to damaged fairing on the leading edge of their wing decks and I began to see why. The fine ends of the amas (outriggers) slid into the seas until the buoyancy from the wing deck took over and popped them to the surface to do it all again.

Just on dusk the breeze eased away to nothing and left a lumpy sea so I furled the Goose's jib and stowed her heavy, fully roached main, turned the tricolour masthead light on, cooked a meal and went to bed.

Next day was more of the same - no wind but with a much eased swell. I motored south for a few hours before the north easterly began to kick in and the Goose got back into her stride under reacher and full main. Soon it was up to the 15 knots that had been forecast so I dropped the reacher and went to jib and main. By dusk it was blowing a good 25 knots and the Goose was in full flight, averaging 12 - 15 knots under double reefed main and storm jib.

The automatic pilot was struggling to helm the little trimaran as she soared down the wave fronts and skipped across the tumbling seas, so I took the tiller and kept her going hard all night, singing at the top of my voice to keep myself awake.

Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Simon and Garfunkel (it's an age thing.) all got a fair old hiding as the little trimaran soared through the night; sprinting across the wave faces and skipping through the tumbled water that was left when they crumpled. This is ocean sailing at it's best, exhilaration aboard a 9m surfboard.

Daylight, slowly creeping over New Zealand somewhere away to the east, brought no easing in the conditions so I dropped the mainsail and lashed it to the boom. With the little storm jib drawing away on the inner forestay, the Goose was left loafing along at a comfortable five or six knots, so I slipped the tiller pilot back on and went below to cook bacon and eggs for breakfast and lie down for a snooze.

There's not many more satisfying experiences that lying down to nod off in a good boat at sea after a night on deck with scores of hard won miles under the keelsons. The Goose rose and fell rhythmically with the seas, cruising towards Port Taranaki about 150 miles away and I began to work out when I could expect to see Mount Taranaki's conical peak pierce the horizon.

Lying asleep in my wet weather gear, I was woken by a loud crack sometime around midday. 'Bugger,' I thought, 'there must have been a wind change and the jib's gybed. This was followed by a stronger expletive, as I swung my boots out of bed and into knee deep water.

I waded across the cabin sole and swung the hatch open, leapt into a cockpit also awash with water and from there to the deck.

Lying, with his massive head at right angles to the Goose's starboard hull, was a big bull humpback whale; the wart like knobs on his head just clear of the water. Straight away I knew what had caused the sudden ingress of water and the thought that maybe he'd come back to finish me off flashed through my head.

I took a few steps and grabbed hold of the starboard aft shroud and stood staring down at the huge head, while waves lapped across it and short, gentle breaths whooshed from his blowhole.

For a trance-like few seconds, or maybe minutes, the whale and I were immobile. I thought I heard a rattle of staccato clicks from him but can't be sure, bu