20.12.2005
'Aviva makes dramatic involuntary 360 turn in difficult conditions!'
In brief:
- Dee temporarily loses control and performs an involuntary 360 degree turn. Stanchions bent and skipper "a little shaken" but no major damage
- From no knots to thirty knots; unpredictable winds keep Dee busy
- Long list of preparations for the Southern Ocean underway
- Dee reports a much happier outlook after psychological low last week
"From my darkest moments last week to now seems as if time has moved very quickly."
Dee has been busy this weekend. Unpredictable shifting winds have ranged from almost non-existent to 30 knots in a matter of minutes. She temporarily lost control of the yacht and a 'huge wall of black cloud' doused her with a cold downpour.
At the end of her first month at sea, Dee is in good spirits. On Monday she reported that she and Aviva have covered 5500 miles, and lie 700 miles from the point where Brazil gives way to Paraguay on the South American coastline.
On Saturday, Personal Coach Harry Spedding wrote about the, "epiphany regarding her personal time and attitude management," saying that although she has had a difficult week emotionally, as she gets more sleep the vicious circle of exhaustion and inefficiency is gradually broken. Unsurprisingly, Harry points out the importance of sleep management as she makes her way south. She is tackling a list of technical jobs to prepare Aviva for the Southern Ocean, but she must also prepare herself.
This is easier said than done, though, when you have to perform every single task to run a 72ft racing yacht on its way to the most hostile waters on the planet. Sir Chay Blyth - the first man to sail the wrong way round the world and inspiration behind the Aviva Challenge - pointed out that Dee has not been fortunate enough to enjoy the traditional conditions associated with her position.
"There are lots of stories about the excellent sailing in the Trade Winds," wrote Sir Chay. "Stories of hardly touching the sails for days on end as the weather and wind stay almost constant. Not so for Dee I'm afraid!"
On Saturday, Weather Specialist Mike Broughton said: "It has been a tricky three days for Dee as she has been negotiating her way through a complex trough line just to the east of Rio de Janeiro. Remarkably it is the first time she has appreciably slowed since the start line off the Lizard in Cornwall. Even the doldrums resulted in slowing for only a few hours and apart from that Dee has generally averaged over 200 miles a day - which is a great pace for the type of boat she is sailing."
Mike added that he was impressed with Dee's 150 miles of progress on Friday considering she was sailing through, "a band of chaos!"
Saturday brought a clear sky to replace the cloud cover that characterised last week and a steady increase in the sea state to a "rock and roll environment" climaxed with quite a drama. Dee was servicing the index halyard winch and the movement of Aviva started to concern her. Just as she began work on another winch, "the boat screwed to windward on a wave and as the autopilot fought for control the boat headed off deep down wind on the back of the wave and carried on."
She jumped on the wheel to try and regain control but the sails had already gybed (turned through the wind). "I had to go with it, so we turned a full 360 degrees until the sails were on the right side again and we were heading in the right direction. I looked around and the reindexs of the winch and the service box were scattered across the grating above the gas locker."
To make matters worse, the preventer line that holds the boom in place had bent two stanchions, adding another repair job to her long list of indextenance and checks. "I was a little shaken up from this," said Dee, "so I drove for a while until I had calmed down and then reset the autopilot."
The yacht sustained no major damage, but the motion from the waves which made life "stressful" probably reminded her of the uncomfortable conditions she will face in the New Year after rounding Cape Horn.
The breeze built through the night and on Sunday morning she had three reefs in the indexsail and some of the headsails furled away in 30 knots. By lunchtime the wind had disappeared, leaving Aviva barely making a knot of boat speed. The frustrating conditions continued all day while Dee busied herself with further technical jobs before yet another rapid change of conditions.
Just as the daylight faded, cold rain fell hard on Aviva and the wind built to 30 knots once again, but minutes after Dee had made the necessary adjustments to the sails the wind died. At midnight, she was on deck watching the anemometer at the top of the mast rotating in 4 knots of wind. She was not making good speed, and was not even pointing in the right direction, but testament to her attitude of treating the voyage as a marathon, she allowed herself the opportunity to appreciate the natural beauty of the ocean around her.
Quick Links
Read Dee's first hand account of Aviva's pirouette on the back of a wave!
See an example of the information sent to Dee by weather specialist Mike Broughton:
Read Sir Chay Blyth's first commentary on Dee's progress (scroll down the page to view):
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