Chapter 10 — Oborea in the Trade Winds

It is two thousand seven hundred miles to Barbados from the Canary Islands. If you are lucky the whole distance may be sailed in the trade winds, but often the northern edge of the trades drifts south, so that it is first necessary to head south west to about twenty degrees latitude before heading for your destination. I left Hierro heading south-southeast close hauled into south west winds with occasional rain squalls. Three jet fighters hurled out of one of these squalls at masthead altitude to bid me adieu, and during the night the lights of Hierro faded out astern. The second day brought absolutely perfect sailing weather; sunny blue skies, moderate winds and smooth seas. The only trouble was that the wind was still out of the south west—I was on a collision course with Africa. That night I saw what was to be my last ship for nineteen days. By day three the wind started to veer and I followed it around less than one hundred miles from Africa until I could finally lay the course, but it was not until the fourth day that the wind went abaft the beam and I could be considered really in the trades. Watch keeping on Oborea is basic. No matter how many are aboard the day is divided into four hour watches. At the end of each watch the log reading, course, wind speed and direction, sea and sky conditions, barometer reading and temperature are entered in the log and the dead reckoning plot is brought up to date. With the Autohelm 3000 doing all the work, keeping watch in between just means having a careful look around the horizon and checking the sky and sails every ten or fifteen minutes. Sailing alone I have three different modes of operation. When weather conditions are settled and I am far from shipping lanes (as in this trade wind passage) I sleep in full four hour stretches. When weather conditions are more variable or there is a slight chance of encountering shipping I set the alarm to wake me every hour. With practise it is possible to get up, check around the horizon, check the sails and fall right back into full sleep in about five minutes. Crossing busy shipping lanes it is necessary to enter mode three and just stay awake. In the first two weeks I had the constant warm winds on the quarter, and the swells forever rising up astern to pass and disappear to the west, but where were the blue skies with the little cotton wool trade wind clouds and the sparkling blue seas that make up so much of cruising literature? Most of the time I was experiencing a thin high overcast and a constant succession of cumulus rain clouds. Under this the seas were grey. Some of the shortcomings of Oborea's standard rig for a trade wind passage became evident at this time. I was sailing with the main squared out as far as it would go, with a preventer leading forward from the boom end and a headsail boomed out to windward with the whisker pole, and, if the wind was far enough on the quarter, a second headsail would be set to leeward. I found three disadvantages with this setup. If it became necessary to reef (the trade winds are not that constant in force) the steps were:     1— drop the second headsail     2— take down the whisker pole and sheet the first headsail to leeward     3— undo the preventer     4— disengage the Autohelm and round up to bring the wind forward of the beam After the reef is tied in all these steps have to be reversed to bring Oborea back on course. About twenty minutes work when single handed. A gybe (the trade winds are not that constant in direction either) involves much of the above plus hardening in the mainsheet and the old lee runner and slackening off the new lee runner. The last big disadvantage is that the rig is directionally unstable. The main can be let out only so far before it bears on the topmast shrouds, and the angle of the poled-out headsail cannot be changed much without changing the length of the pole. Viewed from above the sails form an open "V" with the apex forward. If a swell causes the boat to take a sheer to one side, one of the sails becomes squarer to the wind increasing the swing. By the time the Autohelm has cranked on enough rudder to correct she will start to swing the other way. If swells were particularly awkward I often had to reduce sail just to give the Autohelm a sporting chance. I estimate this increased the passage length by at least a day. Now consider an alternative: the twin headsail rig as used by John Bellenger on Pyxis to cross the Atlantic and the Pacific. The two headsails (they do not have to be matched) are tacked down close to the foot of the mast. This allows the sail and its pole to swing as a unit, like a door, anywhere from the topmast shroud to the forestay. The sails can be set up in a flat "V" with the apex aft which is dynamically stable. The sails can be raised, reefed or lowered with the wind aft, and there is no such thing as a gybe. Not a great deal of sea life in this part of the ocean. No whales or dolphins, and just the very occasional shearwater or petrel. I had one interesting visitor about half way across—a locust from Africa! Apparently every year a few get blown across the ocean to the Caribbean and I found this one resting on the jib sheet. When I disturbed it flew on toward Barbados, fortunately without discovering my alfalfa sprouts. By the third week I finally got the blue skies and fluffy trade wind clouds I had been looking for. Schools of flying fish skittered and swooped away from the bow, and each morning I would find several on deck—some big enough for the pan. Higher in the sky a few tropicbirds and boobies flapped by. In conditions like that I felt I could continue for ever, suspended in my own little world between sea and sky (Did you know that once out of sight of land the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Ontario are exactly the same size?) but the noon positions were creeping toward my destination. The Cape Verde Islands were no longer the closest land, neither were Brazil nor French Guiana (they both had been for a while) I was closest to Barbados, straight ahead. Navigation on Oborea was also basic. A morning sun sight at about eight was advanced and crossed with a noon latitude on a plotting sheet and this noon position was transferred to the big chart of the Atlantic. Sights were worked out using the Nautical Almanac and a Texas Instruments programmable calculator (Honest Ed's $17.95). Every few weeks I did a sight using the HO 229 tables so that I would not forget how. At noon on day nineteen I was about one hundred and thirty miles from Barbados and that evening I did a round of five star sights to fix my position exactly and I was happily surprised to find they all crossed within a couple of miles. Next morning at about eight thirty the hills in the north part of the island appeared out of the haze low on the starboard bow. A couple of hours later I got a fix from the east point of the island and the prominent radome above the airport. I was right on course following the thirteenth parallel which passes two miles south of the island. The land got greener as I approached and soon the resort hotels, the palm trees and the golden beaches became visible. Colourful Hobie cats and sailboards flickered through the swells. This was civilization, time to wear clothes and start relating to people again. It was with mixed emotions that I rounded Needham Point into Carlisle Bay, anticipation at entering my first Caribbean island, and sadness that the passage was over. At an hour after noon, twenty days out from the Canary Islands I sailed into the international anchorage off Bridgetown. In the steady trades my worst day's run had been one hundred and eighteen miles, my best, one hundred and sixty eight.