Their First Big Storm

Woke up this morning to this very long email from Alan dated July 11th, describing the storm they had just passed through.  Possibly it is the storm Paul mentioned in yesterdays post; he could see by comparing uGRIB with SPOT that the EYE and that big storm were headed away from each other.  But he  had no idea where the storm was relative to their position the previous day.  We were not sure how bad their encounter with it might have been. uGrib indicated plenty of 40 mph winds.


Alan's Report:

That's what I would call it. We've been through smaller squalls and heavy downpours before but nothing that I would call a "real storm" until now. It was around 3pm on July 10th, 2010 and we were 2 days out from Fiji headed for the island of Tanna in Vanuatu with about 300 Nm to go when...

We were watching a movie in the cockpit with a light wind from behind and making around 4 knots with the main and #1 headsail wing on wing. We could see a rain shower approaching from the East and soon it was drizzling and down went the computer into the cabin. Will and I also retreated into the cabin and Adam and Amanda were left on deck for their watch. The drizzle turned into a downpour and the wind built to a little over 10 knots accompanied by a sudden shift to the North. We were used to this by now since the smaller rain squalls we had encountered had all come with shifts usually to the north. We were now blasting along at 8knots and up with full sails boring down on a course of SSW. Will and I shut and dogged down all the hatches and pretty soon came the call from on deck, "Lets drop the jib." Will and I donned our foul weather gear and harnesses and came up on deck. Almost instantly we were soaked.

The Jib was set out with the whisker pole to starboard which meant that we couldn't turn from a course of dead down wind until it was dropped. Usually we would do this by jibing the mainsail (which was on port) over to "blanket" the jib and relieve the pressure of the wind so that the pole could be removed and then the sail lowered or jibed or whatever was called for. In this case we were hesitant to jibe the main due to the strength of the wind as this can be a hairy maneuver. The real problem was that we assumed this would be a passing shower like we had experienced before and we waited too long to shorten sail. We could see the back end of the squall on radar and decided to wait a little longer and see if the wind shifted or died down a little. It didn't so we enacted plan B which was to drop the headsail without removing the spinnaker pole first. We'd never tried this before but it seemed do-able so with Will at the bow ready to bunch up the sail and I at the mast lowering the halyard we gave it a go. Will managed to pull the sail in as it was lowered and kept it out of the water and as soon as most of it was under control, I unpinned the whisker pole and secured it on deck. Mission accomplished. With the jib down, we were able to turn to starboard and get back on a westward course. About 30 min later, the wind and rain subsided and we continued along this way for the next hour or so.

It was now my watch and it was raining. We were on course with just a full mainsail up making 7 knots or better. (In hindsight we waited too long to reef here too) Another rain line came up from behind accompanied with another shift, more rain, and more wind. It was like nothing I had ever seen before (and no, this isn't the storm yet). Screaming along doing 8 knots or better with rain so thick you couldn't see in any direction for more than a couple of boat lengths. There was so much rain it seemed to beat the choppy waves down into smooth rollers. It was getting darker by the minute and I called down for a reef in the main. Will and Adam clamored up from below and 10 minutes later the boat felt much better with the first reef point in the mainsail. The wind subsided gradually during my watch but the rain was more or less a constant. By the time I passed the watch off to Will at 8pm the sky had mostly broken and some start were even visible. Little did we know that the real test was yet to come.

It was now around 8:30pm and although Will had just started his watch, everyone down below was as close to being fast asleep as you can get in a rolling boat. I was awoken by the sound of the wind generator first. It's usual whirring and typical vibration that we have all become accustomed to was stronger than ever and out of curiosity I leaned over to check the amperage output on our power meter. The highest I saw it hit was 32amps. If you don't have experience with small wind generators then just trust me that that was a lot. The boat was vibrating in an odd way and having lived on the boat for almost 8 months it was easy to be aware of any "abnormal sounds" and they usually wake you right up from a dead sleep. Our wind generator is designed to "brake" itself when the wind is too strong (50knots or more according to the manual) or when the battery voltage indicates that the batteries are full. I could hear the wind gen braking which was normal but the sound that came next wasn't. A loud screeching sort of noise like a cross between a blender and a dying helicopter could be heard from up top and within moments Will called down for us. Adam roused me out of bed, "Were gonna drop the main and put up the storm jib, and by the way what is that noise?" We threw on our jackets and harnesses and Adam was first out of the hatch. He called down to me, "It's the wind gen, just turn it off." The wind gen has a manual brake feature which I engaged with the flip of a switch but it was obviously not working as the noise just continued as loud as ever. The entire time we worked on deck the sound of the screeching wind generator was with us. At times I was afraid the blades would shatter and be thrown down onto us but there was little we could do about it at the time.

Once on deck the realness of the situation was upon us. There was more wind and more rain than I have ever before seen from a boat. With the single reefed main, we had too much canvas up and a quick inspection of the main revealed that it had already blown out. There was now a two and a half foot vertical tear just forward of the second reef pennant that had probably happened just moments ago. Will was fighting the helm and Adam clipped in and started pulling the rest of the mainsail down from the mast. I clipped in and followed on the port side wrestling the main around the boom and strapping it down. I continued to get the boat "right" by helping Will to lower the bimini and coil and unfoul sheets and halyards and stowing unnecessary items from the cockpit. Adam came up with the storm jib and began hanking it on. I was tempted to go below for the anemometer to measure the wind speed but I was obviously needed on deck and anyway, I'm not sure it would have survived the rain. Everything takes an exponentially longer amount of time in higher wind and the rain felt like we were being shot with tiny bb gun pellets. Every step and movement on the slippery deck is one that could end in a slip over the rail or into a sharp cleat or the corner of a winch drum. Of course you don't think about that in the moment, you just do whatever needs doing. Adam called that he was ready from the bow but voice communication was pretty much useless unless you were talking into the person's ear. The wind drowned out everything but the whistling of the rigging and the spray onto the deck. We hoisted the storm jib and hardened the sheets. The boats motion calmed, the apparent wind was reduced, and we were "running" with the storm.

We regrouped back in the cockpit with the boat now under control and hauling butt downwind on a port tack. Will took a look at the chart plotter. We were headed EAST! We got set to jibe and after a quick WHOMP of the storm jib we were on course again making good speed. Just then the chart plotter took a turn for the worst. Our best guess is that it decided that it was tired so it shut itself off. We could awaken it but only for a few minutes at a time. We unplugged it and sent it down below to dry off.

The wind was beginning to subside a little and with Will steering by compass alone Adam and I, soaked to the bone, retreated to the cabin leaving Will to finish out his watch. I had a restless night listening to the wind and battling the books and cloths that I shared my bunk with. A leaky window right above the quarter berth certainly didn't help. I was already awake at 5am when my watch started and I came on deck to find that most of the wind had subsided and the mizzen sail had been set in the night. We were making little progress and mostly just rolling at the mercy of the confused chop. At sunrise, I traded out the storm jib for the #3 headsail and by 8am when Will came up on deck, we had blue skies and a light southerly wind. We set the double reefed main and #1 headsail and started drying out. We had survived our first "real storm."

In daylight, the casualties of the night were reviewed: The mainsail, torn below the second reef point is still usable in the double reefed configuration. Adam opened up the chart plotter and discovered that it leaked through a small hatch where the electronic chart chip is inserted. Efforts to repair it have failed so far. With no chartplotter, our radar and AIS capability is down too. Our next best piece of gear is Will's iphone which he equipped with detailed charts of the pacific before coming on the trip. Without the iphone we would be without charts for the island of Tanna and forced to change our destination to Port Vila further North which we have paper charts for. The wind generator seems to be working normally this morning so far which is a relief. We suspect that the terrible noise we heard could have been the emergency brake feature but I doubt that we saw 50knots at any point but who knows. After getting the storm jib up we turned on our steaming light to help illuminate the sail for the helmsman and to make us more visible but that too died in the night possibly due to all the rain.

All in all, we were very lucky that wind and rain and not giant waves were all that we faced. The swell and chop was relatively flat through it all. No one was injured and we made it through unscathed and in good spirits. Today we are making good progress under #1 headsail, double reefed main, and mizzen and with the wind dying, we turned on the motor around 2pm to keep up our pace. We have mostly blue skies with scattered clouds, the sun has dried our all of our soggy gear and a large pot of pasta has restored our energy. Nothing worth having ever comes easily and we hope the island of Tanna is good as they say it is.

Alan