Postscript on Les

Pete has the signed copy of Les Powles' book at home and says that he built his boat himself. It was certainly rugged and even more agricultural than Berri. No sponsors, no packdrill. He also heard that Les did set off for Australia after we met him and got into trouble in the Bay of Biscay. He was eventually found and guided into harbour somewhere and wrote a heartfelt letter to one of the yachting mags apologising for putting so many people to so much trouble and admitting that perhaps he was getting too old for that kind of thing. He must be in his eighties. Sad to hear, but Onya Les! Respect from those who understand.

Trivia: Ferals - great excitement amongst the Boot colonies, now evolved through many generations both in the boat and in Jeremy's shed where they would certainly have added new genetic material - there were signs the other day that socks and boots were to be deployed but cries of disappointment when the TPS gear came out (Thermal Protection Survival, Carol. google Guy Cotten) but what they don't know is that the TPS suits will rapidly develop interesting colonies of their own - even more humid and hothouse.

Albatrosses - we were visited by our first big one, a Southern Royal and there have been several Yellow Noses hanging around. Also lots of dark petrels - I think White Chinned, Kerguelen and Soft Plumage but not easy to differentiate. Jill, they park on the water - even the Albatrosses - and talk amongst themselves and then catch us up or just do their own thing - they tend to ignore ships but I think some of them are used to fishing boats and a free feed so they hang around us.

Things that work: M&Ms and the South African version of a Mars bar, called Bar One, in very similar wrapper but has more toffee and less creamy stuff. Still a massive sugar hit. Feeling smugly nauseous.

Anne and Jim, Juddy, Jeremy and Adrie, Fiona, Gerry & Donna, the RANSA mob, Paul & Pauline, the Chain Locker crew, Jeanne and Nereida, HNY all y'all and thanks for your good wishes.

Back in wallow mode but should not last - I think we'll pottle down to 40S soonish and work the systems as much as Berri's geriatric pace will allow. Kergers, here we come.

Westerlies!

Position 0630 2nd 3845 02932 trip 128 DMG 118 and we're poddling along with the full small headsail poled out, no main. Conservative but it looked modestly hairy earlier and it was time for the breakfast con and this report. We have put 3 reefs in the main so it's a piecrust to get it up if it stays soft. TGS soft today, WSW backing NW then a front and SW for another day. All good.

In the last post, I was having idle thoughts about 'assistance' in the context of circumnavigations. Most 'unassisted' circumnavigators today are supported by a small army of routers, meteorologists, motivators, sleep pattern experts, medical advisors, talk you through changing a channel on the radio experts and all the rest. Not too many true Corinthians still around but I was reminded of Les Powles who we met in Lymington 5 years ago. He's the only true Corinthian I've ever met,
the only man I've heard of in recent times who in my opinion has done it all on his own and he's done it three times in an old battered boat under extreme conditions, no radio and no intention of seeking help. He had almost no money and he did it all without telling anyone although he did write a book (great title as well - 'Two Hands Open' I think, as in surrendering to the indifference of the sea)to try to make some money for repairs. I think he was made yachtsman of the year after someone found out about the second one and he nearly died of starvation on the third. When we met him in Lymington he was planning his 4th. Daft old fart. I don't know whether he actually set off but I'm inclined to doubt it - he seemed to have lost the enthusiasm for it and I'm not surprised. But a real nice guy and a true successor to Slocum and Dumas. Buy his book if you can find it. Send him money if you can find him.

Carol G - Kerguelen has very interesting history - discovered by French explorer Kerguelen who went home and made some exaggerated claims, was sent back to finish the job, wimped out and was gaoled on return for various interesting reasons and was then freed by the revolutionary committee as a victim of the aristocracy. He was one of the lucky ones. The islands were visited by Cook a few years later, same spot as Kerguelen's ship's boat landed, then succession of expeditions including Ross and Crozier in Erebus & Terror in 1840 before joining Franklin for NW Passage disaster and whaling, coal mining attempt, sheep farming etc. Now has French scientific base and satellite tracking station. As part of the history, if you can get it, there's a book by Raymond Rallier du Baty called '15000 miles in a ketch' which is, I think, the English translation of his French original called 'Aventure sur Kerguelen' or something similar. Written in 1909ish. Long out of print. Heard about it in Cape Town and have read more in the stuff Doug sent me. The SW peninsula of Kerguelen is named after him.

Val and Jill - glad you like this stuff - makes it all worth while somehow. I hope that we will not need to call in to Freo on the way home but you will certainly know if we do - come and visit the boat. Several Berri crew members from times past live close to you. You can put comments on the blog at the end of each post but you can only send us emails via the berriilla2@gmail address and they get forwarded to us - this is to keep spammers away from our radio inbox.

Deb and Andrew - HNY to you too! Make sure you anchor that rock properly - I want to be able to find it again. The bastards allowed NZ to drift last time we were over there and we had to start a square search. The secret was to listen for sheep bleating in the night.

Latest Position: New Year's Day 2010

Posted by I & G in the UK.

2010 and reminiscences part 2

Position for NYD 0630 3736 02736 trip 103 DMG 96 - getting there! We need some 130 mile days to catch up but just a bit too far north still.

Following on from the last one - to have got this far has been thanks to the help and support of lots of people many of whom have just jumped aboard when they have seen we needed help - Leif Hagen, Dave Boisseau, Pat Hahn, Cory Dimitruk, Peter Semotiuk, Felix and Manuel, Udo, Dave Carne, Gordy, Jeremy Burnett and many many more. Thanks! Then there have been the regulars, headbanging for us day after day - Steve Jackson, Malcolm Robinson, Speedy, Steve Withnall, for help way beyond the call of duty, Thanks! plus John Witchard, Simon Blundell, John Blundell, Marc Robinson, suppliers of technology and always on hand with advice. The RORC team, Janet and Ian in particular, Crosshaven RNLI, Peter Bruce - the NASA people, Leroy Chiao whose name should be writ in diamonds, Pascal Lee the great mapmaker, Carla Guzzardo, Keith Cowing and the Everest Dag - the whole lot of you out there reading this stuff and talking to us, kicking the Iridium tin and all, without whom this would not have been remotely possible. Lists are so dicey! I'm sure there are many more who should be included and my apologies. There were Yacht Clubs, met people, the Patagonian Cruise net, Falkland islanders, Malcom for sea surface altimetry when we needed it and I'll keep remembering more and more.

Plus a very special personal thank you to Corrie McQueen who jumped aboard at the last minute for the drag up the Pacific and the NW Passage and Kimbra Lindus who came too and both of whom suffered my moods during some of the really tricky bits.

And our extended families, Izz'n 'G and the rest, for putting up with all this nonsense.

The notion of an unasssisted circumnavigation is an interesting one! Were all of you not there? We did the boat bit but not in any sense without assistance. Thanks everyone, especially those who are not listed but were there when we needed you.

And we ain't home yet so please all of you stick around.

Reminiscence

The first dawn of 2010 - velvet grey, drizzle, lumpy sea, soft dying breeze and the shadows of birds. Water running off the boom and trying its best to go on down my neck.

10 years ago, Pete and I, and Yahya, Caro, JG and Gordon were holed up in Skeleton Bay on the east coast of Tasmania sheltering from the weather, drying out the boat and getting some sleep before finishing the race. We drank some rum and slept through the arrival of Y2K. I had a badly broken face from a meeting with the highfield lever earlier in the race and we were all hung over when we departed at dawn. We finished the race around 0300 on Jan 2 with no-one awake in Constitution Dock except some backpackers who shared their fish and chips with us.

And that's really where all this silly gallivanting began. I could not get the face sorted in Hobart over the NY holiday and there was a big southerly blowing so on Jan 4th Pete and I had an eerie last supper at John Sutherland's in our wet weather gear and John put us on the boat and we sailed down the Derwent at night and out past Tasman Island into the guts of the southerly and roared up the coast past the derelict and abandoned Innkeeper which we passed some time in the second night and we got back to Sydney in record time. Then the cranio-maxillary surgeon opened up my face and filled it with chicken wire and screws and I've been a bit lopsided and daft ever since but we had realised that we could handle Berri double handed with no difficulty and this thing took some ethereal shape.

And here we are, 10 years later, a few more Hobarts, a million lists, a couple of Fastnets, Cape Horn, the North West Passage, the International Space Station, Baton Rouge and one and three quarter circumnavigations on the score card. If we make it back to Sydney, we will have achieved at least a couple of firsts and made a lot of interesting friends.

HNY everyone!

Happy New Year all y'all. We have decided to celebrate in stages. Sydney/Melbourne NY has just passed - quick sip of Dr G's potion and out to put in a reef so while you lot were carousing at the fireworks, we were at work. Next will be Freo (Hi JG and S! Kimbra, I know you are in Hobart - just dug out the tea cosy you made for me in Nome - nice warm ears!) then Cape Town, then our own at midnight UTC, then perhaps Houston and then Nome to close off the day.

Heading east, at last, in what should be a steady 15 - 20 for a day or so.

Katherine C - HNY, happy new boat! Will be an interesting way to learn - go fer it! Text to our satphone doesn't seem to work but you can always call us - it will go into voicemail before we can get to it but don't leave a messsage, (I can't collect it anyway - forgotten the password) just keep ringing back till someone answers. Call costs depend on telstra but not cheap.
Val and Jill - amazed and humbled - what do you two do when you aren't reading our nonsense and where are you? I wonder how many others picked us up from the macca gigs.
Sue - I think we get the message, and thanks. No need for any more, just enjoy the Amazon and take care! Have pink post-it notes in front of me as I write. Pinkaraj still being a fairy on the mast.

Last one for 2009

Position 0630 31st 3716 02535 trip 93 DMG 92! Yay! But now in wallow and drift mode again.
Last position report for 2009 and tonight is the blue moon...

The word I wanted a few days ago was troposphere. Thanks Sue.

Have just started reading Doug's extracts from the early explorers' logs and diaries about Kerguelen - the islands and the man. I had no idea there had been so many French aristocrats down here looking for the great south land. Dagelet's paper to the French academy is in French and there are some term that I don't know but he was an interesting man - and thoroughly disillusioned with Kerguelen, his Commander in Chief. Amongst many other observations, Dagelet climbed Table Mountain with a mercury barometer to try to measure its height, noting the difference between the sea level and summit readings - not an easy day's outing! And he noted the phosphorescence around Ile Kerguelen and observed that it was not as brilliant as in the tropics. Captain Clerke of the Discovery, with Cook also in Cape Town, noted the fierce south east winds, so full of sand as to render their observatory instruments useless within minutes. Plus ca change! We still have the stuff everywhere.

Huge flocks of smallish birds - I think they are Prions which are very difficult to identify accurately but my best guess is Antarctic Prions. They fly around us for a bit in big swirls and disappear - just ignoring us completely.

Gordy - tks for msg - recalcitrant of me should have said Hi earlier.

Bottom to top

It really does seem that we may have escaped the clutches of the Agulhas Tongue. And its gullet. Tracking more or less south @ 5 knots having crossed the edge of the main shelf and just north of a big trench - spectacular (ocean!)bottom features on the chart - the bottom of the trench is at about 6700 metres below the surface and 60 miles or so north is a peak or seamount rising to 1800 metres, so a 5000 metre drop. And more of the same all around. Not sure but I think the highest peak base to apex in the world is the island of Hawaii which, taken from the ocean floor is much higher than Chomolungma - but then if you measure from the floor of the Mariana Trench to the top of Chomolungma you get a really big number - roughly 12+ 9 = 21000 metres. A vertical half marathon. All ballpark and idle nonsense because I'm conscious of the fact that I'm beginning to repeat myself in these bursts of baloney.
The plan: keep going south and east till we reach 3730 - 3800S and then turn left and follow the latitude across to within range of the 900 mile dive to Kerguelen, by which time we should have a feel for the conditions and Berri's state of mind to say nothing of the geriatrics in charge. This is really easy, pleasant sailing at the mo - almost makes up for the last week. I seem to remember that once clear of Africa, the lows tend to move south and if I'm right, we can move with them.

Things that work - our Airbreeze wind generator. Nice gear but with a design fault (in my opinion) for the marine version that makes it almost impossible to adjust. There's a tiny screw on the side that adjusts voltage cut in and cut out settings via a potentiometer but it's so tiny and the adjustments so fine and the device so high above the deck that it's pot luck what you get. It ought not be necessary to adjust of course, but in our case and I'm sure lots of others', murphy strikes. A big knob or better still having the adjustment screw set up in the on/off switch box inside the boat - far less dangerous (no need to cling to the tripod on tiptoes on the pushpit bars unable to focus on the screw at arms length in reading glasses and can't even see it without) and more effective. I shall write to them when we get home.

Doug - just about to get into your envelope of Kerguelen goodies - had lots of prelim looks but no serious reads yet.
Malcom, I still have a MMSI for Dufresne in the VHF. Any chance you could try to get us a phone number for someone in charge of the anchorage - even M.le Maire soi-meme? CT was so busy I never got near a French official. Tks.

Morning quickie, rather late.

0745 position Dec 30th 3609 02430 trip 74 DMG 38 - very slow but we do seem to be moving.

I think yesterday's position should have read 3533 02406, not 3633...sorry.

Thought we'd never get clear of Agulhas and we're not out yet but looking just a bit promising.

Sue - Pinkaraj has always been a bit experimental and enjoyed the experience. A favour please as you seem to be doing it anyway - over the next couple of weeks, could you please monitor the pattern of lows passing Kerguelen and give me a rough interval and the trend in windspeed at 49 south? Not too much detail needed. Tks.

Richard P at Fastnet - separate note follows but if you are reading this, thanks and could you please just send the annual premium from the quote - use the direct sailmail address if you still have it, else berrimilla2 - many thanks.

Latest Position

This Latest Position incorporates Alex's correction for 29.12.09 and
is posted by I & G in the UK.

Close encounter

We are south of the main shipping channel around southern Africa but in the direct path of ships sailing between Asia and South America. Last night we received AIS data from a Santos bound cargo ship that shall remain nameless but who appeared to be heading straight for us at a range of about 15 miles. No luck calling on channel 16 - perhaps out of range in those seas. So I sent him a direct call on the DSC system (it's a bit like a mobile phone system between ships) and received an automatic acknowledgement but no VHF call on the designated channel as protocol requires. I tried calling him, no response so made a couple more DSC attempts but this time with no acknowledgement - instant thought bugger, he's switched it off because the noise was annoying him.

Tried again at about 8 miles on ch 16 and - phew! - he answered. Gave him our position, told him restricted in ability to manoeuvre and he said he could see our port nav light. I told him to pass whichever side was easiest for him. The AIS was giving closest point of approach of about 20 metres and he did not appear to alter course, 10 minutes to go. Pete went into the cockpit in party gear with our powerful lantern and I got the engine ready to start. Still no alteration, called him again and said he appeared to be heading straight for us. OK, he said, I can see you...We started the engine at about a mile and got out of there. I looked at the plot later and I think he would have missed us by about 300 metres - fine in calm waters and good visibility and ok for him last night with radar and other gizmology, but very scary for us in the conditions - it's really difficult to get the perspective right at night and when you can only see eachother when you are on top of a wave and have anyway very little steerage way, almost impossible to judge with that degree of accuracy. And a 250 metre long ship is a non-trivial object.

The wind has abated to a mere 25 knots and the seas have subsided a bit. We are right over the edge of the shelf and heading SE under reefed main and full headsail being set norh still by the current. I would really really like to be clear of this bit of ocean - easy to see why the early Portuguese sailors hated it too.

Latest Position

Posted by I & G in the UK.

This morning's mid con quickie

Position 0630 29th 3633 02406 trip 66 DMG 42
Depressing night. I think the most ornery bit of ocean I've ever been in - sea utterly confused, big, maybe 4 metre wind waves over big SW swells breaking from all sides, current setting north - north!- it even confused the instruments to the extent that the only way to set the boat up was the old primitive wind on the cheek. It still works!

Scary tho ultimately safe near meeting with big cargo ship during the night. More later.

'orrible and hindifferent...

Steves x 2, thanks for msgs. Last time we saw Leopard was off Lands End on her way to Plymouth and line honours in the Fastnet. At that stage she was about 240 miles ahead of us and we had about 280 to go. Sigh!

Two weary old geezers out here. Blowing 35+ and big waves but nowhere near as savage as the last one. We are in deeper water for a start and the wind has been steady rather that blasting through in 50 knot squalls. Having said which, massive wave just hit and broke over starboard side. I think we both wish we did not still have nearly 6000 miles to go. It's been pretty relentless. Even the Cape Town stop was full on and no real break. Time for the old fart's dither - why is the floor moving? Sailing? Are we really sailing? - how interesting! - now where did I put my glasses and my cup of tea...

Almost as soon as I had written that paragraph - imaginary glasses and cup of tea dashed from my quivering old hand by - yep - a 50 knot rain squall. Had to leg it outside and roll in all but last couple of feet of headsail - I wish I could find the words to write about the power and the sheer bloody indifference of these conditions - predominant SW swell - big but not huge, great planes of grey breaking water, dull reflection of cloud covered moonlight, Berri, all seven tons or so of her, just tossed around as if she were weightless, water often knee deep across the decks and filling the cockpit. And the noise - wind roaring and howling in the rig, water crashing and thumping against the hull and with a sustained deep rasp like a truck tipping gravel, boring across the decks. And this is just a little one - hardly even a severe gale and no way a storm. The severity of it all is the Agulhas effect - cold wind against warm current shortening, steepening and hollowing the wind waves superimposed on the swell over a steeply shelving sea bottom. I really think I'd rather be somewhere else - anyone for Scylla? Can I tempt you to a little whirl with Charybdis perhaps? Roll up! Roll up!

I think I have written about this before - the anticipation, the waiting, the curdling knowledge that it really can happen to us after our 2 rolls, the rather corrosive anxiety that goes with it all gets worse the more you do, the more experience you have. Well, it does for me anyway.

We are thinking hard about Kerguelen. The decision will evolve, but it's still a bit too early to write it off - after all, we nearly got there last time.

Just had a near miss with a cargo ship. AIS saved the day - more tomoz.

Thanks for all your messages and imagingesIz. Keep em coming please.

Latest Position

Posted by I & G in the UK.

Remember you can enlarge these images by double-clicking on them

Cape Town departure photos

Photos of Berri leaving Cape Town, with thanks to Jeanne of "Nereida" RCYC. Their website is www.svnereida.com .

Once more...

Position 0645 28th 3547 02256, trip 50, DMG 29 - lots of crashing around for not a lot of gain but way better than nothing. Now back in the beginning of the next system and tooling along eastwards with just the jib unrolled at about 3.5 knots (would be more without the Agulhas current setting us back). Looks like a line of frontal cloud to the west. TGS (The GRIB Says...) that this one will be milder, at least this far north, than the last one. Here's hoping! Cross 'em please.

Almost permanent company of albatrosses and petrels and I forgot to mention the most exquisite tiny storm petrel in the gale a couple of days ago - 20 second glimpse but possibly European or Wilsons. I think the smallest I have ever seen. Wonderful example of adaptation to apparently overwhelmingly adverse conditions and these birds only seem to appear when it is seriously pearshaped. Where do they go?

I assume the drag race to Hobart is now over and the press have gone home but my brief look at a grib indicated the possibility of a little boats' race. Hope so!

There's a problem with one of the servers in the Africa sailmail station which sometimes delays these posts - don't fuss if you don't get one as regularly as usual. If it gets really bad, I will revert to Iridium.

Things near yet distant...

Middle watch - brilliant sky with black silhouetted fluffies. Yesterday a day of torpid indolence in a butter churn. For most of the day there was just enough wind to fill the twin poled headsails, the stretched and much repaired Love and War staysail and the shiny new red one now hanked to the replaced outer forestay. Now there isn't and we are bare poled again but for the opposite reason.

In most bits of ocean, when the wind dies, the sea subsides. I have to report that that ain't the case here - almost 36 hours after the wind dropped from the stratospheric to the merely (and here the three neurones went on strike in an alzheimeric reminder - I can't remember the single word for the lower atmosphere...) we've been in a violent steep wind wave over SW swell that seems to have only marginally subsided. The butter churn that is our little fibreglass home is still in busy, though no longer vicious corkscrew mode.

And the water temperature is 31 degrees and feels like a tepid bath. And we are on the eastern edge of the Agulhas bank where the sea bottom dives from 200 to 5000 metres. Abandoned oil drilling well heads everywhere, but submerged way down. The Agulhas current has real attitude and, like the East Australian current, cannot be ignored. Here's the warning from the chart:

Information: ORIENTATION: 237 DEG
CURRENT VELOCITY: 1KN
CURRENT IN RESTRICTED WATERS
CURRENTS WESTWARD OF LONGITUDE 24DEGE, THE AGULHAS CURRENT CONTINUES IN A GENERALLY WESTERLY DIRECTION, SPREADING OUT OVER THE AGULHAS BANK AND WEAKENING TO A RATE OF 0,5 TO 1 KNOT. THE NORTHERN EDGE OF THIS CURRENT HAS A TENDENCY TO SET TOWARDS THE LAND. THIS DEFLECTION, INCREASING DURING AND AFTER GALES, CONSTITUTES A DANGEROUS ELEMENT IN THE NAVIGATION OF THIS STRETCH OF COAST. AN INSHORE COUNTER-CURRENT, SETTING EASTWARDS AND GENERALLY FOLLOWING THE TREND OF THE COAST, MAY OFTEN BE EXPERIENCED BETWEEN 1 TO 6 MILES OFFSHORE. THERE ARE ALSO REPORTS OF AN INDRAUGHT, STRONGEST BETWEEN JANUARY AND APRIL, BEING EXPERIENCED EASTWARDS OF CAPE AGULHAS. FULLER DETAILS APPEAR IN SAILING DIRECTIONS.

We are parked at 3550 02245 with the engine idling to give us the pooptillionth of a knot necessary to provide steerage way and keep Berri from going round in gut knotting circles. From the gorblimey to the sublime and back again - 'The GRIB says' there should be another 25 knot + blow starting soon. We are now far enough north, I hope, to miss the worst of its effect. It will be noice to get clear of Africa!

Small Update from UK

I've just spoken to Alex on the satphone. There appear to have been
some odd delays in the way Berri e mails have been sending out, hence
the double entry for today. All is OK and although Berri is rolling
about all over the place, it is now very much calmer out there. So
much so that a Consultation was in progress involving Dr Gordon and
his helpful sidekick Herr Schweppes. From Iz in UK.

Quick position report

Position 0700 27th 3608 02159 trip 100, DMG 43 - lots of effort for not much gain. Wind now down to 12 kts, twin poled with red sail on hanks and small furler. Trickling along in the right direction. Still very lumpy - Berri dry inside. When we get clear of Africa, we'll have a better idea of what we can achieve.

More later