Day 11

Plan B was Pallisier Bay. This was going backward, but was safely away from the ferries. It was a beam reach away, so I didn't need to raise the jib. I made the call at 22:11 on wednesday, but Pallisier was a ways away. And when I got there, at 0115, instead of some modicum of shelter, it way much windier. I don't have a wind instrument, so I can't sail for sure how much, but I don't feel ashamed to say 45 knots. Hove to, i didn't drift slowly backwards, but sideways, at two knots. I was being blown back across the bay, towards the land at the other side, at a rate that I would hitting it early in the morning. I needed to be drifting out to sea.

Plan C was already out, that was to sail all the way to the south island and then I'd need to work to windward into that in the dark.

Plan D was the sea anchor. I hadn't gotten it ready, because I wasn't expecting to use it. (now, it's obvious that it's something I should always have ready) I hadn't actually used it before, so I didn't know what it would behave like. I had prepared some extra strong tie points for it, though. The instructions said to use some 8 feet of 10mm chain, to weigh it down, and at least 3 boat lengths of 14mm low strength polyester line. I had a 5 meter chain handy, and considered getting out the hacksaw, but that would take ages and more chain would probably not hurt. The rope I planned to use was the two spinnaker sheets tied together, each of those was roughly 3 boat lengths, so if I needed more I could put it out. I didn't measure it, but it was pretty thick. And a drawer full of shackles and stuff. I used two shackles attaching the sea anchor to the chain, getting them really tight with the spanner, and also seizing them with wire so they could not work loose. At the other end I needed to attach the rope to the chain. Best would be to splice in a thimble, but I didn't have a large thimble on hand, or the tools to splice braided polyester, nor the time to do so. Tying directly to a shackle was a bit of a worry because the rope would go around a fairly tight radius, less than it's diameter, which makes it weaker.

I tried to remember some rock climber knots - I remember my brother talking about some sort of double bowline to two anchor points... After trying a few variations, I found one that seemed solid. Tie a bowline to the first shackle, then with the tail, go around the second, then another rabbit-out-the-hole-around-the-tree-back-in-the-hole.

If this didn't work, I would have to ask myself "what would Bernard Moitessier do"

Once the sea anchor was ready, I needed to get a bit further out to deploy it. It might be very difficult to pull it back in, during these conditions, so I'd better get it right the first time. This time, I did go forward and lash the jib down. I don't know that the wind won't get stronger, but I did know that I'd need it again.

I lowered the main, and lashed it to the boom. This put me in a condition known as "lying a-hull" it means just taking all sail down and letting the boat drift. The heavy weather sailing literature doesn't recommend this technique, as the boat is likely to turn side on to the waves, that makes it more vulnerable to capsize.
But as I realized, it was necessary to use this as a transition to the sea anchor. Then I tried to "run under bare poles" this is sailing down wind, without using any sails. The wind was so strong, that just the wind blowing against the bundled up sail meant I couldn't turn down wind. I had to let the boom out to get it to turn down.

I "sailed" out a bit further, and ran though everything about how I would deploy the sea anchor in my head. I didn't want to make a mistake. I wrapped the rope on the starboard winch, dropped the sea anchor and chain overboard, and eased out the rope. I was expecting the pull to be much stonger, but it did keep the stern up into the waves, and reduced my speed to one to two knots, faster than ideal, but okay. Importantly, now I wasn't drifting towards any hazards but safely out to sea. The time was 0238.

My plan was now to get inside a warm sleeping bag. But to my horror, everything was wet. For a sailor, the concept "wet" is a broad spectrum, and with many names for positions on it. Something could be literally under water. Or it could be slightly damp. One bag was fairly wet, and I was grateful the other was only slightly damp. The clothes I was wearing were also quite damp. Most of the mattresses were sopping wet, at the bottom, and if lay on them the wet would come up to the surface.

It turns out I had a few deck leaks, that weren't really a problem in normal sailing, like a tiny bit of water might come through here, I had intended to fix them, but it was one of those things that I didn't quite get around to. What I know now, however, is that in a gale, water will find ways into the boat, that you can't yet imagine. I huddled on the one dry section of mattress, in my damp sleeping bag. I was cold, but not shivering. The sea anchor mostly kept the motion of the boat tolerable. Everything inside the boat clinked into each other while it moved. Noises that would normally make it annoyingly impossible to sleep, but that don't really matter when you are really exhausted.

The cold didn't help, but I must have slept a bit, because I was woken by the 0530 weather forecast coming on the radio. The forecast was N30, easing to N15 in the afternoon, then that dying out and becoming S15 over night, then that dying away and becoming N again the next day. The wind had eased quite a bit, and seemed like I could certainly get sailing again.