All Piss and Wind (21 page)

Up went the favourite masthead asymmetric spinnaker the crew calls ‘Big Blue'. The sudden surge of power translated into an immediate 15 knots of boatspeed. For the next four hours we threw in gybe after gybe, scooting zigzag up the coast towards the loom of Macquarie Light. Langman was now driving his boat skiff-style, feeling for the fastest groove under the kite. I was surprised at how neatly the big boat responded to the helm at speed. We soon passed
Brindabella
but the newly upgraded
Nicorette
was proving tougher prey. Off Bondi at dawn the gap was no more than 400 metres. It would all come down to a tacking duel to the finish in Rushcutters Bay. We dropped the spinnaker early and cut inside
Nicorette
as Sean hardened up beneath Hornby Light. For once, the notoriously patchy breeze at South Head held and we managed to pinch another 100 metres. Race on!

Two big, thoroughbred yachts crossing tacks at 0600 on an empty Sydney Harbour is exciting stuff. We gambled on better pressure up the western shore and were delighted when a timely lift on starboard tack forced Ludde Ingvall, driving
Nicorette
, to duck our stern. We knew we had them when we heard that telltale groan of hurriedly eased sheets. Clear ahead! But our euphoria was short-lived. Out of the mist and rain emerged a giant freighter leaving port – and
steaming straight for us. Commercial traffic has undisputed right of way. Which side to go? Where's Ludde? Bugger! Ready about!

You know the rest. The ship not only pinned us on the wrong tack but stole all our breeze as she took an eternity to pass by. Sean threw the wheel away in disgust. We'd gambled and lost.
Nicorette
slipped away and crossed the line 51 seconds ahead. Our traditional runners-up call of ‘Nice race, fellas!' drifted across the water. But everyone on
Grundig
was having the same thought: they got us this time, but the only race that really counts starts on Boxing Day …

So, how did sailing
Grundig
compare with my regular rides on more ‘wholesome' yachts? After the race Sean and I repaired to a local café to swap opinions over a mountain of high-cholesterol breakfast. Langman owns a wide variety of boats but line honours in the Sydney–Hobart means everything to him. It's the only major ocean race on the east coast he hasn't already won. He's seeking performance levels that simply cannot be delivered by conventional yachts sailed in a restrained way. For my part, I was happy to agree that crewing on
Grundig
had been a treat – genuinely exhilarating over the short distance, in moderate conditions. But a long-haul passage race through extended foul weather might be another matter altogether.

Typically, Sean boiled his position down into a simple, absolute statement. ‘Mate, it's all about righting moment and horsepower.'

My counter-argument rested on a familiar notion: there's no right or wrong, good or bad – just two different approaches. We don't all have to accept the Devil's trade-off between strength and speed. It's still possible to go racing in heavier, more conservative yachts that sail to windward with confidence and comfort.

Grundig
's skipper acknowledged that position but was far from convinced. ‘We just want to get there first.'

And perhaps that was our most fundamental point of departure. I want to get there too – but have some relaxation and fun along the way.

T
HERE'S A SHOP-WORN
old saying in the offshore racing community that ‘races are won and lost at night'. Not true. They're mainly lost. A few boats seem able to maintain their pace through the hours of darkness while the rest of us go backwards. There can be nothing quite so dispiriting as a morning position sked on the radio confirming that a rival who was abeam at dusk is now miles ahead and over the horizon. The key to understanding this problem of underperformance at night is to first accept one simple fact: the boat doesn't slow down, it's the crew.

On relatively short-passage races such as Sydney–Coffs Harbour or Brisbane–Gladstone there isn't sufficient time for humans to fully adjust their normal circadian land rhythms to the high-rotation cycle of standing short watches at sea. For the first 48 hours or so we still tend to extract more value from sleep at night, and find it draining to get up and do heavy physical work at odd hours. The inevitable result is fatigue and a loss of ‘edge'. Helmsmen tend to
drift off course while crews slip into a conservative, lazy frame of mind. They'll delay an overdue headsail change or persist with a ‘losing' tack. For no good reason, the competitive urge to find that extra tenth of a knot often seems to dwindle with the fading light.

Some of this effect is unavoidable, but there are many aspects of night-racing technique that are useful to review before any yacht is to be driven hard through the hours of darkness. Remember that even in high summer more than a third of a long race will be sailed at night. The same general principles apply to cruising passages. Cruising boats may be sailed far less aggressively than in their trophy-hunting mode, but few crews like to spend any more time getting home than necessary. The following pointers to efficient sailing at night fall roughly within two broad areas: crew care, and sailing skills. Both are equally important. Keep them in balance and, with a bit of sailor's luck, you should arrive in good shape, and up with the leaders.

FIRST, THE HOUSEKEEPING ISSUES …

Watch systems

In my view, three hours is the maximum any reasonably fit person can be expected to stand watch during the cold and sensory deprivation of night, yet four-hour watches are still common and some skippers demand up to six. This may yield impressive performance levels during the first evening while adrenalin is still pumping, but any early gains are usually then lost over the succeeding days once fatigue inevitably sets in.

In stable conditions even quite large racing yachts can be sailed safely by three people on deck (I'm discounting the ultra-competitive who insist on sitting every available ounce of weight on the windward rail). If there's a spare body once the boat is properly set up, organise an informal ‘spell' roster within your watch so that everyone can enjoy a bonus hour or so off below. Everyone should
stay in all their gear, but additional sleep grabbed on the cabin sole or even just a quiet cuppa while resting at the bottom of the companionway can yield priceless extra energy when it's most needed.

Warm & cuddly

Elementary physics tells us that heat and energy are two forms of the same thing. Energy, in turn, is the vital ingredient of concentration. Any crew that loses concentration at sea is prone to making errors and misjudgements. Those lapses are often magnified under the pressures of racing at night. It follows that maintaining adequate body warmth is crucial.

It's safe practice to always err on the side of over-dressing, and clothe yourself in logical layers. In the awkward confines of a yacht it's much easier to shed unwanted garments than – once you're shivering – to find an extra jumper in darkness and then struggle into it. The body loses a huge proportion of its heat through the head and hands. As soon as the night air begins to take on that characteristic crispness, make sure you have a woollen beanie that covers your ears (or a balaclava), and bring some genuinely windproof gloves with you as you come on watch. Stuff them in your jacket pockets if you don't need them straight away. It won't be long before you're glad you have them.

Food for thought

There's an almost irresistible temptation on the first night of any race to delay serving dinner. Everyone is still charged up with the excitement of the start and anticipating the heroics ahead. Most crew – particularly the newcomers – will declare they're ‘not hungry yet' and don't want to eat until much later. That's a major mistake. Experienced watch captains don't offer this choice because they understand that the sooner everyone falls into regular feeding routines the better. (It's also unfair to the cook.)

A hot breakfast and evening meal are essential during the colder
months, but the activity of cooking, serving, eating, recovering the bowls and washing-up can be seriously disruptive. They distract the crew from their primary task of sailing the boat as fast as it will go. Major meals should be served in two brisk, back-to-back sittings at the fixed change-of-watch times (say 1800 and 0600) while everyone is up. That way there will always be enough bodies available with hands free to keep the boat racing. The new watch can eat before they go up; the outgoing watch should only have their meal once the fresh crew are established on deck and have taken control.

During the night ensure that plenty of quick-energy snack food is within easy reach. A stout waterproof container in the cockpit stocked with favourite ‘munchies' can extend concentration by hours. Chocolate bars, sweet biscuits, nuts, jelly snakes – in fact anything rich in sugar, glucose and protein.

Be prepared

It may seem like stating the obvious, but make sure that from the moment you come on deck at night you are truly alert, equipped and ready to stand your full watch. Yachts have a nasty habit of slowing down and wandering off course during changeovers.

Don't tumble through the companionway still wriggling into your safety harness and clenching one glove in your teeth. Genuine preparedness is a state of mind. It helps set a ‘switched on' tone for the next few hours of racing. Winning crews are rarely found scrabbling about in the darkness for a misplaced strobe light or EPIRB. Football players don't wander off the field after the kickoff in search of their left boot. And remember to water the horses in the warmth and safety below – before climbing into your wet-weather gear!

Mutual consideration

Distance ocean racing is certainly not a sport for the delicate or faint-hearted, but that doesn't mean there's no need to keep the comfort and wellbeing of your crewmates in mind. Exhaustion is
felt most keenly at night. Tolerance begins to fray. Even relatively simple routines such as taking a reef in the mainsail will tend to be slower because of safety concerns and restricted visibility. This is not the time for an impatient helmsman or watch captain to start bellowing at the crew from the cockpit.

Remember, too, that an hour or two of deep, uninterrupted sleep is truly precious to the mob who've just crawled into their racks after a tough watch. It doesn't help their mood if you impulsively decide that this will be a good moment to fire up the motor to charge the batteries. Nor should you be banging locker doors open and shut in a protracted search for some trivial object, or waving a bright torch around in the darkened cabin. Try to conduct cockpit conversations at reasonable volume. Hunt down and fix any on-deck squeaks and rattles that could be irritating your mates below. Genuine consideration begins with imagining yourself as part of the other watch.

AND NOW THE FUN STUFF …

Target for tonight

As the late Chairman Mao said, even the greatest journey begins with one small step. The surest way of keeping yourself and the crew motivated at night is to set targets. Can we do 25 miles between midnight and 0300? Can we hold nine knots or more for a minute? Can we lift our average VMG (velocity made good) – that is, consistently sail the boat closer to the wind without sacrificing speed? Can we make Crowdy Head before the next change of watch?

Sustaining that competitive impulse is always easier if the lights of another yacht are visible ahead. ‘OK, guys, let's catch those bastards!' is the familiar war-cry for everyone to refocus their efforts and start racking tired brains for any trick that might squeeze a tad more speed out of the old girl. The physical strain of
a night headsail change is so much easier to bear if that effort is rewarded by confirmation that your rival's stern light is getting closer. And the satisfaction of being able to tell the new watch that we've now ‘blown away' some boat that was behind us when they went below is delicious beyond words. ‘OK, we've shown you slack bastards how it's done. Now we expect you to reel in that other bloke up there! See you in three hours.'

Night for day

Inexperienced racing crews unconsciously tend to take their foot off the pedal at night. It's a natural instinct to sail more conservatively when vision is restricted. But aircraft pilots don't throttle back after sunset, so there's no good reason not to keep pushing your boat just as hard at midnight as you were at noon. (After all, the hull, rig and crew haven't changed.)

The key person in maintaining that aggressive approach at night is whoever's on the helm. They must resist joining in idle cockpit chatter and keep their minds centred on the job of holding the yacht on the fastest possible track. Just like an aircraft pilot, the helmsman should strive to fully exploit the flow of information coming from their instruments. Keep your eyes flicking in a regular circuit from the sails to the ‘clocks' displaying boat speed, apparent wind strength and wind angle, and then back to the sails. The numbers will soon tell you what's working – and what isn't. The moment you feel your concentration waver to any substantial degree, surrender the helm to someone whose eyes and mind are fresher. Driving for any more than an hour at night can be hugely demanding.

Trim, trim, trim

In most coastal races the breeze will tend to soften at night as the land mass cools down. This puts heightened emphasis on wringing maximum momentum from the sails. Don't accept that boatspeed has to drop simply because true wind strength is trending down.
One of the inexhaustible challenges of ocean racing is the search for that perfect balance between your rig and the conditions.

Think of the sails as an engine. Are we tuned for optimal power? Shine a torch up the headsail and main luffs at regular intervals. Do we need more or less halyard? Try some ease on the Cunningham? Check the telltales. Are they streaming properly? Headsail in or out? Could we adjust the sheeting angle? Let down some traveller? Rig a reaching block? Tighten the leech cord? Maybe we should change up to the #2 genoa? Let's get it on deck straight away, ready to hoist. If the spinnaker is up, don't just ‘set and forget'. Keep trimming the sheet as if you were doing a short harbour race. Check the pole angle and height. Sure, this is all much harder at night – but do you want to win or don't you?

Guess for success

The most important person on any boat during darkness is the guesser, and not only because most of us would prefer to stay off the bricks. Navigation is absolutely essential to tactics and performance at night. Deprived of our normal daytime visual cues we rely almost entirely on the navigator for directions and feedback. Listen carefully, have faith in their judgement, and do what they say without dissent or second-guessing.

The navigator, in turn, needs to be clear, precise and confident. Every crewmember should know the exact preferred heading and the allowable degrees of variation. Don't be bashful about digging the guesser out of their rack if there's the slightest doubt. Confusion costs miles. Raw data off the GPS doesn't usually mean much to the average sailor, so a prudent navigator will demonstrate his chosen track on the chart to the leader of each new night watch. They should also brief the watch captain on the anticipated rate and direction of any current, the weather forecast, and any potential navigational hazards that lie ahead. This also helps sustain concentration by involving everyone in the fun of evolving race tactics.

Morale

Spirits can plummet at night. Time crawls. Cold and boredom will make it easy to fall into long periods of semi-comatose silence and inactivity. A dispirited crew is likely to delay a crucial reef or sail change and neglect trim. Someone has to break this downwards spiral by getting busy. Make an energetic show of checking the masthead light. Tell an outrageous old yarn or go below and make everyone a bracing mug of hot coffee. If whoever's driving has lost the groove get them off the helm promptly, but with good humour. Heavy hints about ‘Maybe it's time for your little rest, grandpa?' usually work. Humour without malice can be a tremendous motivator.

But the best thing about nights at sea is that no matter how slow or miserable they might be, eventually the darkness comes to an end. The reward for a diligent crew greeting the cheering warmth of dawn is the sight of rivals who were ahead at sunset now languishing in your wake. It almost makes that breakfast of soggy leftovers from last night's dinner bearable.