Musandam faces 50+ knot winds (100+ km/h) in treacherous Cook Strait

by Oman Sail media on 5 Feb 2009
52 knots, or Force 10 on the Beaufort scale - conditions that translate into a simple word: 'storm'! Caught almost by surprise after hundreds of miles spent under a glorious sunshine and fair winds, the crew aboard Musandam found themselves lowering the sails in a hurry just off Wellington, and had to run without any canvas (bare poles) in order to withstand the fierce gust!

With that force of wind, the simple fact of crossing the trampoline between the central hull and the float is a struggle, and one can only do it on all fours, fingers clenching the net. Fortunately, Musandam had clear waters before her bows and could escape without having to worry about altering her course - a real stroke of luck in such a narrow passage.

Charlie's log, Tuesday 3 February: 'The passage through the Strait as we headed further and further south the wind started to funnel though between the north and south island reaching a steady 35kts at time - with just 3 reefs in the mainsail and no headsail we were in a safe mode, we sailed on past the entrance to Wellington before reaching a point 3nm SW of 'Windy Point' - the name should have given it away, 35, 40, 43, 47, 50, 52 kts of wind screaming though the rigging, and getting pummled on deck with spray, whiped off the sea's surface and hurled into our wet weather gear. So we scrambled to get the main down and sail under bear poles dead downwind (luckily out to sea). We continued like this and the wind dropped to 30 kts again then 25, and we kept heading SE towards Cape Palliser.'

Prior to that shaky episode, Musandam had enjoyed unexpectedly pleasant conditions - we take a look back at the week preceding their Cook Strait passage.

Had the men aboard Musandam secretly signed up for a pleasant cruise in the Southern Ocean, managing to secure a 'sunny conditions guaranteed' option through a very special travel agency? Looking at the emails sent from the boat at the beginning of last week, one could certainly have gotten that impression... As Charlie wrote last Wednesday, 'It's hard to believe that this is the Southern Ocean, we are 44 degrees south and the temperature on deck is 14 degrees celsius and here at the chart table it's 20 degrees.' Having spent just over 20 days at sea, the international crew had a comfortable 570-mile lead over the 80 days pace boat and was making great progress under the sun towards the southern tip of Tasmania, skipper Loik Gallon enjoying his sessions at the helm - surfing on majestic waves and making the most of the trimaran's speed potential.

On Thursday (day 22 - January 29), Musandam found herself some 750 miles south of Adelaide (capital of the state of South Australia), sailing at the heart of the Roaring 40s and still blessed with glorious sunshine - 'Looking at the satellite pictures that download automatically on board', explained Charlie, ' there is a corridor around 170 nautical miles wide and we have just been sailing down it, clear skies, nice wind, great direction'. Yet the tactical gybe to head towards the Cook Strait was occupying the thoughts of the strategists on board, and the anticipated windshift to the SW was expected to provide the opportunity for a change of course... which incidentally meant getting out of that perfect corridor and moving into more disturbed conditions, complete with squalls, temperature drop and slightly deteriorating sea state. It would have taken more to really affect the crew's morale, and in one of his typical contemplative emails, Charlie perfectly summed up the joys of being at sea:

'There are so few things you do for this long without having to do normal day to day stuff, shopping, putting the rubbish out, fill the car up with fuel, paying bills all the things that are going on every day in normal life that we just don't have to do. Yet we do go shopping - I open a new food bag and put it into the storage bags (our kitchen cupboards), we do put the rubbish out - we tie up the rubbish bag and take it to the sail locker for storage, we do fill the car up every 5 days or so - I fill the generator's fuel tank from the main tank, it's just that it's all here to hand. So sorry for everyone that is doing the normal things in life today, especially those people who are doing it for us, we will be back to reality really soon, just let us indulge ourselves a while longer'.

If day 23 was declared 'good food day' onboard Musandam, with chicken Paella and goulasch, the most notable event did not occur around the dinner table but below the surface, as Thierry spotted a whale close to the boat. Fortunately, this one was vigilant enough not to get hit by the trimaran's appendages (daggerboards or rudder blades), which happen to be quite noisy and can act as a warning signal (though it does not always work, as the incident of week 3 that led to the replacement of the port rudder proved). On the tactical front, as the evolution of barometer observations showed, it was time to gybe in order to escape the high pressures and associated weak winds that were getting closer and closer: back on an easterly heading, the crew was now contemplating their Tasman Sea crossing, the last relatively short segment (less than 1000 miles) before the long Pacific Ocean stretch towards the infamous Cape Horn.

But first things first - Cook Strait was the next landmark, potentially a treacherous one given the risks of strong headwinds, a major hurdle in a 'race against the clock' context! Musandam's journey is about setting a reference time on the Muscat - Muscat round-the-world course, and every single mile gained counts, doesn't it Charlie? 'We have the 80 day pace boat plotted and now for sure we are 3 days ahead of schedule, in 3 days time the 80 day pace boat will pass the point where we are now. This is good news, this is important to us onboard as we are here to set a great new record time for the course Muscat to Muscat, which others in the future will try to beat - we want to set them a stern challenge.'

For the moment, the only competitor on the race course was a stubborn high pressure system, moving fast and catching up with the trimaran, which meant that the guys onboard needed to push hard in order to stay out of its reach. A wet ride for the helmsman and his associate in charge of the mainsheet traveller, that can be compared to the 'brakes': easing off allows to keep the speed under control, a rather tricky and crucial part of the game when seas get rough and all the boat wants to do is stay above the 25-knots barrier! On day 26 (Monday February 2), the frantic phase was over and lighter winds prevailed on the approach to Cook Strait, cape Farewell (northern tip of New Zealand's south island) being just over 100 miles away. but the crew was in for a good shake up!
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On the map... Cook Strait. Named after the most famous of all British explorers, who first sailed through it in 1770, this stretch of water separating the North and South Islands of New Zealand is 12.5 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point. The Maoris, who called the Strait 'Raukawa', used to send young men across it in canoes, eyes covered, as part of an initiation rite. and a local story passed on from generation to generation has it that a brave Maori swimmer conquered the Strait in 1831. Wellington, the capital of the country, lies on the south-western tip of North Island, and is known as 'Windy Wellington' due to its position in the Roaring 40s, with statistics showing that it blows over 40 knots for at least 40 days a year.

Geographical coordinates: 41° 18' S, 174° 48' E (Wellington).

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