2005. How to cope when the hurricane is chasing you

Welcome to the special section “GdV 5th Years.” We are introducing you, day by day, An article from the archives of the Journal of Sailing, starting in 1975. A word of advice, get in the habit of starting your day with the most exciting sailing stories-it will be like being on a boat even if you are ashore.

Four against Alex

Taken from the 2005 Journal of Sailing, Year 31, No. 9, October, pp. 104-109.

The story of an ocean crossing made with the right boat but in the wrong season, from Miami to Livorno. A lesson in seamanship, useful for all who sail, to get by when you find yourself in an “impossible” situation, chased by a hurricane.

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A Swan 55 “chased” by a hurricane in the Atlantic. It ended well, thanks to the skill of a young crew and a bit of luck. Here is the story of an ocean crossing made with the right boat in the wrong hurricane season. The author is approached by an Italian shipowner to transfer Old Peasant, a Swan 55. from Miami to Livorno. On July 23, 2004, the author of the piece with his three fellow adventurers (Carla, Carlo and Beau) set sail from the Florida metropolis.

Throughout the week prior to departure, the Miami skies had not promised anything good. Something in the air was changing: currents of warm, humid air were systematically passing through the city and then moving toward the sea. After all, hurricane season was upon us, and we therefore had to hurry to leave. Mindful of the teachings of more experienced sailors than myself, I decide to go up north to look for the edges of the low pressures and thus put us in a position to have some wind that was always bearing. The first week we find weak winds from the northeast and sail upwind tightly to the north with the goal of reaching the 1st parallel, all without autopilot. It’s the first of August: we pass Cape Hatteras, a fateful place according to American enthusiasts due to the fact that many boats have sunk there. The fatality is that it is from here that the “adventure” in adventure begins. The squalls above us intensify by the hour: we decide to reduce canvas and take two hands to the mainsail, at the bow we keep yankee and foresail. The sky is strange, it seems charged with energy. The clouds begin to circulate counterclockwise, darkening and flaming red but it is neither sunrise nor sunset. The air cools and the boat responds well. We proceed for the rest of the day in an easterly direction. During the night the wind picks up: 25 knots N-NW arrive with a swell 10° below the beam. It flies and a strange wave also rises. Not the kind you usually encounter in the ocean but short and fairly high, in multiple bangs.

The sun disappears

We are sailing at 12 knots with a boat that weighs 22 tons. I am happy because maybe we have stopped suffering in anticyclonic flats and now it is all life. Baloney: the first rule at sea is never to rejoice too much in the good and in equal measure not to get down in the bad weather. At 6:30 a.m. the sun does not rise, or rather the clouds do not let a single ray of it through. For six days we will never see it. Four to five miles ahead of us I observe a cumulonimbus system and think of the usual low-pressure storm: with our mainsail reefed we get into it and suddenly the wind we had for 120° turns on the bow and rotates very fast on the other tack. So I find myself with yankee and foresail on my neck. You can imagine the mainsail. We foil the headsails and I pull the mainsail to the center: I put in the stern, close the yankee, barley and take another hand. In the meantime the wind has picked up to 40-45 knots but I have a great crew who manage to trim the boat in 20 minutes. It starts to rain and the wind settles to 40 knots. We are upwind wide and the boat swerves under gusts. But it holds. I go below deck and sadly notice that the dunnage is floating: water is coming in from the bow skylight and several other places on the deck. I don’t turn on the electric bilge pump because the batteries are almost at water level, I start roughing it with the manual one. So for 36 hours then we silicon everything we can. At night we sense that we are getting into something not very pleasant.

An indescribable scenery

At one point, a flash of lightning illuminates the horizon for 10 miles: the scenery is indescribable, I only remember that I felt lost in a very small spot and that three seconds after the flash, thunder breaks through so violently that it sways the mast. The wind increases in intensity to 30 knots. It keeps spinning like a top: we have to follow it being careful not to make a mistake lest we end up in a squall. The sea begins to foam, thunder rumbles, and after half an hour of spinning we settle to the beam. In an instant, like one of those slaps you don’t know where they’re coming from but you feel them, there’s 60 knots. Carla unwraps and lets go the whole mainsail, which goes crashing into the rigging: the sea is an immense white foam. She looks at me and asks if I can make it at the helm. I reply that I do what I can, for a moment I don’t feel the wheel anymore: it is perhaps at that instant that the Gps (but we’ll see later) marks 32.3 knots of speed max. We are completely at the mercy, I think, of a tropical storm. Carlo and Beau, who were asleep, jump off deck in a hurry-we can’t take the mainsail completely off because we are aft and then I don’t feel like sending anyone to the mast-the 65-knot gusts, full of water, will smash your face in. We continue in this hallucination for 20 minutes, at some point I realize that by being so silent we are moving with the system and, fortunately, I turn my head to the south: for a split second I see a window of blue sky. I make the decision in agreement with my companions and we head south. L’Old Peasant rises and falls like the boat I used to see at the amusement park as a child, the wind gives up a bit and “settles” on 50 knots. We move forward thanks to the fantastic boat we have, the system getting cranky every time we are there to get out of it. Another 24 hours of this delirium and then we are out: we are at the 38th parallel, I see the sun again. And it is beautiful: never loved the sun so much, we lick our wounds. We keep taking in a lot of water: there will always be one person in turn who will rough it with the hand pump, but we’re out and it’s wonderful.

In the eye of the storm

We don’t have time to rejoice too much: a phone call to our satellite tells us that we have 48 hours ahead of a hurricane named Alex. Incredulous we look at each other, there are no words: only silence. A silence that encapsulates the fears of tiny humans in the face of inexorable doom, and yet we must try to escape one of nature’s most terrible manifestations. The meteorologists, who will follow us daily from that moment on, tell us that NOAA, the U.S. weather agency, has estimated Alex ‘s course at 45-50° and that he currently has a speed of 18 knots, so we decide on a southeast course. In bad luck, there is one good fortune: there are 35 knots from the north, a perfect wind for Old Peasant to express its qualities to the fullest. I put on all the sail we can and the boat begins to fly at 16 knots of speed: in 24 hours we cover 300 miles, while Alex, encountering that system we left behind, accelerates to 40 knots but inland will estimate 120. The sea gets bigger: now they are really oceanic waves: walls of 9-10 meters of water lift our stern and we have to glide diagonally to avoid ending up in the “cable” that would cause us to thread our bow dangerously into the previous wave. Not enough. the engine abandons us. No more electricity on board, we sail without instruments and keep the little electric reserve to turn on the Gps once a day to take stock and console ourselves a bit. Fortunately, we have an oil lamp that gives us light for 10 days, we take the usual shifts but no sleep.

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An excellent crew

We feel that we are crossing the hurricane because the waves are increasing again and the wind is getting up to 45 knots. For the remaining 48 hours I didn’t look back at those walls of water, I was only thinking about keeping the boat moving. But I was not alone: Beau, a 15-year-old boy, took 360-degree awareness of his maturity: Carlo turned out to be a great wingman for me, always ready with his quick and precise glance: Carla, with her great experience, was able to instill the serenity we all needed. The hurricane finally crosses us 380 miles from its center: suddenly it seems that everything is over, we continue toward the Azores without being able to use the Gps anymore, since by now the batteries are completely dead. But our fantastic compass makes us miss the archipelago by only 30 miles…. When we spot the island of Graziosa we feel, I don’t know why, almost at home, although in truth the real one is more than 1,500 miles away. Alex spared us, probably, but we were good too.

by Matteo Gervasoni

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