PACIFIC SOLO

SINGLE-HANDED ADVENTURER WEBB CHILES OUTRUNS A SOUTH PACIFIC STORM AS HE SAILS BETWEEN THE US AND NEW ZEALAND

- WEBB CHILES

As soon as I opened the companionway I knew we had up too much sail. Gannet, my ultra-light Moore 24, is a thin and often permeable membrane, but the wind was much stronger than I’d realised down below. Gale force. Gannet was being overwhelmed.

I hesitated only a moment before deciding to let the main halyard go and continue under furled jib alone. Running backstays were installed in Honolulu for just that purpose. The windward one was already in place, as it usually is on passages when I expect the wind to be on the same side of the boat for an extended period.

The fully battened main slid down the Tides Marine track. I grabbed a line from a cockpit sheet bag, crawled the few feet to the mast and, hanging on with one hand as 12 to 15ft waves crashed over us, crudely lashed the sail to the boom. Back in the cockpit, I felt that even the remaining scrap of jib was too much and furled it down to T-shirt size.

My last tiller pilot had died the night before, so Gannet was sailing on a close reach with the tiller tied down. The first tiller pilot had lasted four thousand miles. In the last 2,400 miles five had failed, including one that had been repaired and failed twice. But they’d lasted long enough to make it possible that we’d make Opua, New Zealand, this day after what had been a three-act passage from Neiafu, Tonga.

The first act was fine sailing with Gannet covering half the 1,200 miles between ports in four days.

Act two was nearly incredible as we sailed through a high-pressure system. For three days Gannet made only 60 to 70 miles a day, but she did so in zero apparent wind. The days were sunny. The ocean flat and glassy. We might have been in a perfect anchorage except that the water was miles deep.