The Story asked for LONG
I had just completed a delivery from Auckland, New Zealand to Tongatapu Tonga. The delivery passage had gone very well, a little of the usual bad weather coming out of New Zealand, but not too bad. While I was making the delivery trip, Melissa was back in Auckland provisioning Pneuma, our 1973 Ericson 39.
We were coming out of New Zealand, Auckland to be specific. We had been watching the weather carefully, waiting for a low to follow, so that we had the greatest chance of some wind to sail with, and the longest weather window. New Zealand to anywhere or anywhere to New Zealand can really be a buster; the weather window is generally only five days and on a 40 footer it takes you about eight days to get there from Tonga. The winds are either blowing like stink or not at all.
With the delivery and our heading out I had been watching the weather fax for over 3 months at this point. Our conversations with professional weather forecasters and the like were down to a first name basis. The weather that close to the south pole changes fast, and you have to keep an eye on it. We waited for a big low to go through, hoping to leave just after the edge of the low passed over and catch some wind headed to Tonga.
A big low came over, and we waited for it to pass. All the while everyone pro and not was talking about how this was a great low to follow. Seemed that way to me too, and as one professional weather forecaster put it; “They never go backwards, and there is not another on the chart even”. So we headed out.
The seas were rough, what you would expect after a low had just gone over, but there was some wind, and we were sailing along making an easy 6 knots, feeling pretty good about leaving NZ and looking forward to Tonga. We left within 24 hours either way of about 10 other boats that we knew of.
About a day and a half out the seas started getting really big, and the wind started picking up something fierce. The seas were running at about 20-25 feet, not breaking, they looked a lot like a really well done meringue, M thinks more like severely abused whipped cream, but either way you should get an image. The wind is starting to pick up, the weather fax has nothing new to say, but we know that something bad is happening. A good look around tells us that the low is headed “backwards”, and that we are going to get blasted! This portion is uncomfortable, we keep getting faxes, with no good data on them, keep listening to weather forecasts out of NZ which are saying nothing new… The voice on the radio is telling us that it is blowing 20 at our locations with a 10 foot swell….Don’t I wish…..
The wind pipes up to somewhere above 65 knots at this point, don’t know how much, cause the anemometer ends at 65 knots, looks like the needle is pegged. Tapping on it does nothing, not good. We are triple reefed with only the double reefed sta-sil up, making time in the direction that we want to go. The wind is blowing out of NZ, and mostly off the port quarter at this point. As the wind increases further, we drop the sta-sail. Both M and I are quite nervous. The seas are still confused, and pointy, but not breaking; everything is uncomfortable, but not horrid…..
M is watch and I head below. If it gets any worse, I am going to need a reserve of sleep to draw on. The windvane is steering, and the boat is making about 3 knots toward Tonga. Before I go down we start going through our options, and decide that we should keep on toward Tonga, the farther North we get the better the weather gets, and we have no idea how long this low is going to keep going backwards. The situation is uncomfortable, but boat and crew are doing well at this point, although M has been seasick for about 12 hours.
Just about 1500 I get hit in the head with Bowditch, 1962 edition, one of the good editions because it has all the tables, all the small boat handling stuff in it, but man is it ever heavy………. As a matter of fact all of the books from the port side have hit some part of my body, as I am sleeping on the starboard settee….. Loud noises are everywhere, and I call to M. No answer……..Shit, this is not good…… I stand up on the berth, slip on my foul weather jacket and PFD/Tether and head to the cockpit. The boat is in an upright condition again somewhere during the getting the jacket on part of the scenario.
About the time that I open the hatch, M has disconnected the wind vane and is steering. It is still blowing like stink, and she is yelling “Get UP HERE”. Inside of 5 minutes the lumpy seas have lined up and started breaking one right after the other. Using the second spreader on the mast as a gauge, I guess the seas are now above 45 feet and lined up like huge soldiers, but they are still working out their marching orders and shift a little. The noise at this point is beyond our ability to yell to one another, the stinging of the spray on our faces makes us turn our heads every time it hits us. Even though the waves are all lined up now and breaking, there is not a good timing between them, there is no rhythm to them. There is no way to steer in this for very long. M is doing a great job of it, for the moment heading down them at an angle, classic textbook storm condition stuff.
I get the parachute anchor out of the cockpit locker. Just as I do we get a big push from a wave breaking under us, and a slew from the wind at the same time, we turn sideways to the waves. Another wave picks us up, breaks with us on it sideways to the crest, and we are knocked down. The mast is parallel to the surface of the water, oh shit… About then another wave breaks on the side of Pneuma. The crash is deafening, the cockpit is full of water, I start thinking liferaft survival thoughts…… This isn’t going to be good. I am thinking “There is no way that the side of a boat can take that and not be holed”. I am standing on top of Melissa’s chest on the starboard side of the cockpit.. I apologize for this, she says “It’s ok you don’t weigh much when you are floating”….. We still are more than waist deep in water in the cockpit, or is it the ocean at this point? I can’t tell you which. We start to come up, the mast and spreaders leave the ocean. I open the companionway expecting to see that the port side of the boat has a huge hole in it….. Nope, a really quick glance says that there is no damage except that the deadlights on the port side are acting like sprinklers spewing water around their edges into the interior of the boat; they are still there though, still holding out the ocean. The boat rights itself….. M grabs the wheel again… I grab the parachute sea anchor bag, rip open the bag, and throw it overboard. Total time knocked down the second time….about eternity plus 2 minutes…..
The sea anchor chain pays out of the cockpit, the rode next, and then it all comes taut home. The bow of the boat spins around and heads into the waves, and we go from chaos to the bow rising and falling with the waves. The sea anchor is a thing of amazement to watch. It is out there a good distance, something like 200 feet. I keep waiting for more waves to break on the foredeck, but they don’t….We drop the main, and hoist a riding sail up the backstay…. We stop sailing on the sea anchor…. We go below, I make several pan pan calls on the radio, no response on VHF. Make a note to send out pan pans every 20 minutes so if there are any other fools out here they might not run us over. We lay down in the berths with our foulies on. M asks; “Are you afraid”? I answer; “Not at all, just take some time and go to sleep”. M says; “Me either”. We both know the other person is lying, but in that lie we are somehow both comforted. The boat is a mess, there is stuff everywhere, mostly books. Good books getting wet on the floor….. After it abates, 48 hours later, we affect jury repairs to the traveler, the deadlights, and the bow roller.. Later we will manage to dry almost all of the books and charts out…. But that is another story…. As is getting the sea anchor back onto the boat….
There were 2 boats lost within a few miles of where we were, another abandoned, it’s crew rescued, and two more towed back into New Zealand by the authorities after it was all over. Last I heard about 5 others motored against the seas and wind after the worst of it was over to repairs in Opua. Once we were in Tonga some Germans out in the same storm showed me the hole in their cockpit from where a breaking wave had smashed through the fiberglass, it wasn’t light glasswork or poor construction either. We dried out our books, our carpet, our charts, our spirits, in Tongatopu and had a great season. Our respect for Pneuma, our amazing Ericson 39 continued to grow.
