All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.Day after day, day after day,
From The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1834.
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Posted by Graham Cox
Week One of Leg Two ended with the fleet slowing down as they approached the doldrums NE of the Galapagos Islands. By the middle of the week, the boat icons on the YB Tracker looked like they had been fired by a scatter gun, or perhaps a paint-ball machine. Carried at times by currents that were stronger than the fickle breezes, some boats looked like they were heading back to Panama, a few to Hawaii, and still others to China. Jasmine Harrison reported that NUMBATOU had drifted back 20 miles one night, and had been totally becalmed for more than 28 hours.
Then a short-lived breeze would fill someone’s sails, and the next update would show them hustling along at 2-3 knots in the right direction. All the while, the SE tradewinds, which had been blowing firmly just below the Galapagos, were retreating towards 5°S, widening the belt of doldrums the MGR fleet had to cross.
While in the doldrums, Aussie Dan, on IMMORTAL GAME, posted the following: ‘Getting through to the tradewinds is going to be a big challenge! On the bright side, I’ve seen all kinds of whales, sharks, fish, birds and turtles already, and last night it was so calm that it seemed like I was on top of a bed of stars which were reflecting off of the night sky. Will need to keep looking at all the positives over the coming days and weeks ahead!’
By 4 April, things had improved a little. Renaud, leading the pack on CAPUCINETTE, was steadily close-reaching SW, with Pilar and PETER PUNK nipping at his heels. By the morning of 5 April, CAPUCINETTE was well south of the Galapagos Islands, almost at 4°S, heading SW at 4.8 knots. To their north, Aussie Dan was hammering along aboard IMMORTAL GAME, sailing at 4.1 knots, while Keri Harris and ORIGAMI were drifting south behind him at 2.1 knots. CanaDan, further east, was managing 3.2 knots aboard LITTLE BEA.
North of Keri, to the east of San Cristobel Island, Ertan Beskardes seemed almost becalmed for a while on TREKKA, while a bit further east, Eric Marsh on SUNBEAR was managing 2.4 knots. To the east of Eric, Adam Waugh’s LITTLE WREN was sailing at 3.4 knots. NE of them, Jasmine and NUMBATOU were making 2.6 knots. Jakub Ziemkiewicz, on BIBI, was sailing at 3.5 knots, and Josh Kali, on SKOOKUM, at 2.5 knots. At least they were all pointing in the right direction!
Gary Swindail, on QUESTION 2, was the only breakaway boat, choosing to sail north of the Galapagos Islands. For a while, he was the fastest boat in the fleet, averaging 5 knots with the aid of a favourable current, and briefly wore the crown, but only because he is closer to the rhumb line, which is misleading on this leg. Because of the vast areas of calms west of the Galapagos Islands, you cannot sail the rhumb line on this leg.
He still has a lot of southing to make before he finds the tradewinds, and it looks like there are significant calm areas ahead of him. By 7 April, QUESTION 2 had slowed to less than two knots, and the current was carrying the boat NW. For Gary, the Marquesas must seem a very long way away at this stage. Unfortunately, he missed his fortnightly call this week, so we can only guess at his frustration and hopeful intentions.
Christian Sauer, on ARGO, chose to sail between San Cristobel and Santa Cruz Islands. The Galapagos Archipelago is a protected area, and vessels may not approach closer to land than 12 nautical miles (nm), unless they have a permit to do so, and must have AIS units that are switched on for tracking when within 40nm. However, Christian eventually decided to declare a medical emergency, after receiving advice about a serious skin infection, and went into Puerto Ayora, on the island of Santa Cruz.
Upon arrival, he was escorted to the hospital and back to his boat after treatment, since he did not have the relevant clearance to stay. However, he was lucky to meet a German-speaking local who was friends with the harbourmaster, and they stretched his permit by a day, which allowed him to bring his batteries – flattened by extensive ship-to-shore communications – back up to 50% charge. By the morning of 7 April, he was back at sea and heading SW at 4 knots, chasing the leaders.
He reported enjoying the passage from Panama to the Galapagos, especially at night, when the temperature was cooler. There were frequent thunderstorms, but not a lot of wind in the squalls, so he did not have to change sails a lot. One night, there were several dolphins frolicking around ARGO, leaving fantastic trails of bioluminescence in the water. He says he has the feeling that the water in the Pacific is ‘softer’ than it was in the Atlantic. At any rate, ARGO seems to move through the ocean with more ease.
His greatest concern now is that the antibiotics he has been prescribed will clear up the skin infections that have been plaguing him, and in the meantime will need to cope with the resultant discomfort and pain caused by working the boat. It hurts to put pressure on the affected areas, which include his fingers and knees. As he says, one tends to use one’s knees rather a lot on these 580s, bracing yourself in the cockpit, kneeling on the deck, etc. It is inevitable that his condition will negatively impact his sailing performance.
All the yachts that are at sea, apart from QUESTION 2, are now over the equator and in the Southern Hemisphere, with Josh Kali on SKOOKUM last over the line. The joker of the MGR pack, Jakub Ziemkiewicz, sent a message to say that BIBI lost the wind three cables before crossing into the Southern Hemisphere, and had to fight for every inch to get across. A passing squall eventually pushed BIBI over the line.
He said it was an emotional moment, witnessed by his Sitran bear and the bear’s girlfriend, a doll called Monica. Neptune came aboard in the disguise of a cormorant, who presided over the ceremony sitting on the solar panel. Henceforth, Jakub is now officially known as Anarhichas Lupus (a very ugly fish), a name chosen for him by his daughter. Watch out for the hilarious video footage he sent to race headquarters, and which will be posted on YouTube soon.
If Jakub had been in boisterous spirits when crossing the equator, he was soon brought down abruptly. On 7 April, not long after the fleet escaped the doldrums, he sent race headquarters a message to say that his Windpilot servo-pendulum self-steering gear had broken, and he had it in the cockpit to attempt repairs. He appears to be continuing under his electric auto-pilot for now.
Aussie Dan is now known as Eggplant Aussie Dan, after a notorious photo was posted on the internet of a naked Dan on deck, watching the boat sail across the equator. There has been some discussion by followers about the size of the eggplant motif used to cover his modesty. On the same note, Josh Kali, on SKOOKUM, posted an equator crossing photo of himself wearing a pair of underpants on his head. If he is not careful, MGR followers might nickname him Bumface Josh.
Aussie Dan later added: ‘King Neptune was kind to me for the equator crossing, however we were met the next day with a light headwind, and a current that was making it difficult to make way. Had to work hard to keep going forward. Probably did around 30 tacks through the day and night, but at least I had some mates keeping me company – ha ha (birds). Nice light winds on the beam atm, making around 3.5 to 4.5 knots over the ground. Hoping this stays for a while.’
Jasmine’s mother posted: ‘Jasmine has crossed the Equator! Surprisingly, there was no line in the sea, and hopefully the offering of some very precious chocolate rations to Neptune will help appease him and allow Jasmine to now make great progress in the Southern Ocean trade winds to the next stop, the Marquesas Islands. The Doldrums have been challenging – yesterday the current sent her nearly 20 miles north, all the boats were ‘dancing’ on the tracker, so it’s a huge relief that she’s made progress south now. Yesterday, whilst completing deck and equipment checks, she came across a very tiny, tired bird using NUMBATOU as a refuge. Jasmine tried feeding it, but after a good rest it managed to fly off.’
0n the morning of 5 April, Keri Harris was south of the Galapagos Islands, at around 1° 45’S latitude. ORIGAMI was sailing along at 2.9 knots on a flat sea. Directly south of ORIGAMI, Aussie Dan was hammering along, with IMMORTAL GAME sailing at 4.1 knots, while Canada Dan’s LITTLE BEA, further east, was managing 3.2 knots. North of Keri, east of San Cristobel Island, Ertan Beskardes seemed almost becalmed on TREKKA, while, a bit further east, Eric Marsh, on SUNBEAR, was managing 2.4 knots. To the east of Eric, Adam Waugh, on LITTLE WREN, was sailing at 3.4 knots. NE of them, Jasmine Harrison’s NUMBATOU was making 2.6 knots, Jakub Ziemkiewicz on BIBI, 3.5 knots, and Josh Kali, on SKOOKUM, 2.5 knots. At least they were all pointing in the right direction!
During Keri’s fortnightly call from ORIGAMI on 7 April, he ruminated that he could have taken the northern route – sailed west in the NE trades, which are blowing strongly this year, well north of the Galapagos Islands, before dropping down into the SE trades at around 150°W. Now that would have been a spectacular breakaway, which may or may not have paid off.
Perseverance, however, has produced dividends, and he may soon be contesting the lead again. He is a determined racer, as his failed attempt at mast climbing several days ago showed (he shinnied back down before the boat capsized). There was no way he was going to stop the boat while retrieving his spinnaker halyard (racing!). Luckily, he was able to fish it down eventually. The resultant video, however, made for entertaining viewing. Being a trained naval architect meant that he knew exactly what he was doing.
He mentioned that he’d already been up to the spreaders, which were showing signs of stress at the roots again. This time he put some shims in, consisting of Antiguan and Canadian coins, before taping them in place. He also had to adjust the outboard ends of the spreaders, which had become uneven in height, putting a differential load on the shrouds.
For a while, once the wind kicked in, he was close reaching under A7 and full main in 18 knots of apparent wind, but had gone up to the A3 at the time of his call, after the wind dropped off a little. He was happy to get moving again, but had loved the doldrums, with its spectacular cloud formations, sunsets, sunrises, and endless lightning shows at night. He regularly posts video footage of spectacular cloud formations, sunsets, etc. His artist’s eye is constantly enthralled by the beauty around him.
He also loved the tactical game of keeping the boat moving, sailing at wide angles in the fickle airs, focussing more on speed through the water than DTF, tacking and tacking again, as the wind shifted and VMG dictated. He would not use his outboard motor, as he thought it took the fun out of it, and wished the rules did not permit it, so he could go head-to-head with his competitors under sail alone.
His rebuilt South Atlantic windvane has been doing most of the steering on this leg, with occasional spells under autopilot and hand-steering. This frees him up to get out of the sun and do some reading. He lost most of his audiobooks when ORIGAMI was swamped approaching Colon, but now that he has Starlink, he has been able to download material from the internet, not to mention chatting with family and friends when time permits.
Another reason for staying out of the sun is that he has been using around 4L of water a day, rather than the 3L planned for, and would like to drink even more. The temperatures are now starting to drop, however, and he is confident he can husband his supply.
When CanaDan called, he said that LITTLE BEA had been sailing in an increasing breeze for the previous three days. He had sailed about 90 miles over the last 24 hours, saying it was probably his best day since Leg Two started. He’d had his A3 up all day, along with the single-reefed mainsail, but had changed down to the A7 before making his call, as a squall was approaching. He was just ghosting along, however, as there was not much wind in the squall. As soon as his phone call was over, he planned to rehoist the A3. Before the squall robbed LITTLE BEA of the wind, it had been blowing a steady 10 knots.
Dan found the passage through the doldrums challenging, both physically and mentally. After needing a tow from Christian to save LITTLE BEA from drifting onto rocks and being wrecked, shortly after leaving Balboa, his Iridium Go unit failed, as did his masthead wind-indicator. He managed to borrow another Iridium unit from Adam Waugh, who was nearby on LITTLE WREN. The sea was so calm that they were able to come alongside safely to make the transfer. Under the rules of race, Dan will be penalized for the tow and the gift, but they were both seamanlike and sensible decisions.
He has been careful with water consumption, sticking to his planned 3.5 to 4L a day, including water for cooking, and feels he has plenty to see him through to the Marquesas. He has been eating well, cooking two meals a day, and reading lots of books, including Robin Knox Johnson’s sailing classic, A WORLD OF MY OWN. That’s a story to make sailing from Panama to the Marquesas Islands seem like a walk in the park, even in a 19ft plywood box.
He is also well-rested, and had just spent six hours straight in his bunk, after sleeping through his alarms. Usually, he gets up once an hour at night, and catches up on sleep during the day, but the heat, and keeping an extra-careful watch while close to the Galapagos Islands, had taken its toll.
Adam, who was a little further north, was sailing in a southerly wind that had a bit of west in it. He did not think it was the trades yet, though it was certainly an improvement over the previous days. He was trying to get more southing in, but wind conditions were forcing him to sail further west than he’d prefer.
He had not minded the doldrums, at least when there was enough wind to keep the boat sailing. On a few occasions, when he lost steerage way and drifted in circles, it was a little frustrating. It was also very hot, averaging 41℃ during the day. Luckily, he had a sunshade made in Panama, that hoists on the topping life and is tied down to the rails, allowing him to spend most of the day in the cockpit.
He was worried about water consumption in the early days of this passage, but has managed to reduce his intake. He has used 30L so far, 10 of which were in the first days. He has 120L left, and assuming the passage takes another 3-4 weeks, is confident he has enough. He is eating three meals a day, though they are generally quite small, so food is also not an issue.
The boat is in good shape, apart from almost losing a clevis pin from one of the furlers, which luckily wasn’t being used at the time. The autopilot has also burnt out, so he is relying solely on his South Atlantic windvane. Luckily, it is working well, especially after the unit’s manufacturer gave him advice about fine-tuning it while he was in Panama. Adam is not a fan of hand-steering. LITTLE WREN has largely been sailing with the wind forward of the beam, on the port tack, since leaving Panama, conditions that suit windvanes perfectly, but he is confident it will handle broad-reaching in the tradewinds.
He says he was luckier than some in the doldrums, and had very few squalls that required sail changes. He did have one day of heavy rain, and managed to have a couple of nice, freshwater showers. Usually, he is quite happy to shower by throwing buckets of seawater over his head.
He has not seen a lot of wildlife since being visited by that whale early in the passage, but saw two large Albatross, with their distinctive yellow beaks, in Galapagos waters. Usually a Southern Ocean bird, the albatross, like other cold-water species found in the Galapagos, gets enticed north by the cold, nutrient-rich Humboldt Current that flows up from the Southern Ocean.
Eric Marsh, on SUNBEAR, mentioned that the doldrums had been rather tedious, but they did allow him to collect a lot of water. He started out with 150L, but found he was going through it a bit too quickly, due to the heat. He does not sleep a lot, maybe 4-5 hours a day, which means he tends to eat and drink more. His method of collecting rainwater was to lower the mainsail about 300mm or so, and let the resultant fold in the sailcloth act as a gutter. Unfortunately, he drank some rainwater that was a bit too salty, and ended up with stomach cramps for a day. The rest of the water, once the salt had been sluiced off the sail, was sweet.
He was sailing to windward when he called, making good about 4-5 knots, and the South Atlantic windvane was handing the boat well. In very light airs, he uses his Simrad autopilot, which has worked well so far. He does not use it in fresh winds, or if it is raining heavily.
He had been trying, unsuccessfully, to catch a fish in Galapagos waters, trying out various lures. He cut up a silver food packet to decorate the lure, and after trailing it astern for a while, found five 1.5-2m reef sharks following him. One of the smaller ones had a go at the lure, and flattened out the barbs, to his annoyance. It was his best lure.
He was beginning to wish he had a greater variety of food aboard, including more tins of fish, etc, though he does have plenty of dried food and other protein sources. Unfortunately, much of it does not inspire him, and he is trying to conserve the best stuff, due to the difficulty of restocking along the way. The fresh food is long gone. He wishes he had bought more eggs, too.
He had some difficulty winning clear of Isla Española, the last little island at the southern end of the Galapagos Archipelago, with the wind dying at dusk and the current sweeping him towards shore. He’d been a bit too close to start with, only 6nm off, rather than the 12nm that Ecuador demands.
But now he was pushing hard to the SW, trying to get down to where Renaud is. He mentioned that they were all flying their A3s as much as possible, and that there was not much difference in boat-speed, but the cannier ones like Renaud always seemed to find the favourable currents that gave them an edge. Eric discovered this the hard way earlier in this passage, when he strayed too far north, lost the current, and watched the rest of the fleet sail past him.
Ertan reported that TREKKA had been sailing with reefed main and A5 since clearing the Galapagos, but he had gone down to the A7 earlier in the day. He had just switched to the jib (and reefed mainsail), in order to be comfortable while making his phone call, and found TREKKA was still sailing at almost 5 knots. The wind was blowing about 15 knots, though it was lighter at times. Ertan is the quintessential cruiser, but somehow always manages to stay in the middle of the fleet. He was in 5th position on the morning of 8 April.
He is trying to go a bit further south, keeping an eye on Keri’s position, and planning to turn west when Keri does. He is having some difficulty getting south as quickly as he’d like, though, as hardening up on the wind was causing too much slamming. After all, gentlemen don’t go to windward, according to legend, and Ertan is the perfect gentleman.
He is delighted to be back under command of the Hydrovane after too much time using his autopilot in the doldrums. A short video he forwarded after his call showed TREKKA creaming along over a beautifully-flat sea, with the Hydrovane’s tiller barely moving, and the boat perfectly balanced. It looked like one of those ideal days when you could stay at sea forever.
In his videos, Ertan looks totally relaxed. He is having a lot of fun, and thoroughly enjoying being able to talk to family and friends via Starlink. He also listens to podcasts frequently, and downloads stuff from Amazon and Netflix. For Ertan, this is first and foremost a pleasure cruise.
The boat is in good shape, apart from some defective hardware, including his broken main hatch, and rope clutches that keep slipping. Using heavier lines in the clutches did not help, and he will fly in replacements to Nuka Hiva. He ruefully admires how clever Keri was to outfit ORIGAMI entirely with top-shelf Harken gear.
Ertan is one of the minority of MGR skippers who collected rainwater in the doldrums, filling all his containers, and a bucket from which he drank for a couple of days – his water capacity is now back to 100%. Like Eric, he collects it off the mainsail. He also has lots of food, including some potatoes and onions, lots of tinned and dried foods, and some in packets.
His single regret is that he only caught one small fish in Galapagos waters, and would dearly love to catch another. He loves eating fish raw, but if he has more than he can eat immediately, fries it in olive oil to preserve it for a while. He is looking forward to trying the famous poisson cru, raw fish marinated in lime juice and coconut milk, that is the national dish of Tahiti.
By the morning of 8 April, Renaud had found the SE tradewinds, and CAPUCINETTE was streaking west along the fifth parallel of latitude at 5.7 knots, stretching out his lead over the rest of the fleet. He was closely followed by Aussie Dan on IMMORTAL GAME, Keri Harris on ORIGAMI, and Pilar Pasanau on PETER PUNK, in that order.
Keri has staged an amazing comeback after leaving Balboa 12 hours behind the fleet. Whether any of them can catch Renaud is anyone’s guess, but he will be looking over his shoulder all the way to the Marquesas, in between cooking up his usual feasts. Although there looks to be a bit of a hole in the tradewinds further west, it is looking like this might be yet another fast passage for the MGR fleet, at least for the frontrunners.
Image shows Christian Sauer and ARGO becalmed in the doldrums NE of the Galapagos Islands.
